Trade-off rescuers lives for the Utah Miners???

Some of the press can be completely stupid sometimes, and in his latest Washington Times column, Thomas Sowell proves that point by suggesting that there was no point in rescuing the trapped miners in Utah.

A whole nation following the tragedy of a Utah mine cave-in was struck by the further tragedy of another cave-in at the same mine, killing men who had gone underground to try to rescue the miners trapped there.

The second tragedy was avoidable — but only if we were willing to talk about human life in terms of tradeoffs. But our society has become too squeamish to do so.

He then tries to justify his callousness by resoundingly condemning any thought that it might be compassion.

Tradeoffs are inescapable in every aspect of life. But anyone who talks about tradeoffs when life is at stake is likely to be denounced as lacking compassion, if not cruel. Squeamishness is too often confused with humanity, but the consequence of squeamishness can be needless suffering and needless deaths

Thomas Sowell, how can you know what compassion is, if you have none? How can you write that, utterly condemning every fireman, policeman, doctor, coastguard and every other member of the emergency and medical services for whom compassion is not an option, it's a way of life.

The only thing that was needless here, was your inane rantings about a tragedy. Rantings, which will cause more hurt and suffering to the families of those who have died in that mine. Sometimes, just sometimes, for the greater good of the human race, it is better that views like yours, Thomas, are not published, thereby not causing further unnecessary and needless suffering, the very thing you claim to want to save people from.

Thomas Sowell's column is worthy of nothing but a nomination on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann's Worst Person In The World segment. Heck, it could even win it.

From the 22nd Amendment, to Hilary-bashing!

It strikes me just how afraid the conservative/republican movement in the USA is of Hilary Clinton, when I read this commentary from David E Marion at the conservative Washington Times.

Basically, the 22nd Amendment is the one that prohibits any President from being in office for more than 2 terms of office. David E Marion uses this idea to suggest that Hilary Clinton's candidacy may be in violation of the spirit of the amendment, even if it isn't literally in violation of it.

Now, David E Marion is not your average political pundit, he's a college professor of Political Science, so he has some decent grounding, but the trouble is, his article has the definite pro-republican/anti-democrat undercurrent that Fox News and the rest of the conservative media love.

For instance, in one paragraph he says...

"... In all fairness, the wisdom of limiting presidents to two terms is open to debate. Ronald Reagan, among a group that has included Bill Clinton, believed there was much practical wisdom in Alexander Hamilton's assertion in the Federalist Papers that unlimited terms advance the cause of both effective and accountable government. But the important fact as we look ahead to 2008 is that the Hamiltonian side lost the debate on the 22nd Amendment. What won out was the argument that the benefits of institutionalizing change and curbing excessive ambition in the executive department outweigh whatever undesirable consequences Hamilton might have conjured up."

Note the positive spin is in Reagan's favour, more than Clinton's. How can we know whether a third Reagan term wouldn't have been more damaging to both the US and the Republicans than the Bush 41 term turned out to be.

The article raises some good points, but all spoiled by the definite pro-republican stance, and the opportunity to take a seemingly desperate constitutional pot-shot at Hilary Clinton, which quite frankly, would legally hold about as much water as a tea-strainer!