About
Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral.
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The Crows Nest
Would Early Primaries Allow More Donations?
Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot believes that candidates will benefit if primaries and caucuses get pushed into 2007. A loophole in campaign finance regulation appears to allow an extra $2,300 per donor for candidates if those elections are held this year. Be sure to check out Jim's analysis, and the surprising candidate that may benefit the most.
When Tom Met Jeralyn
One of the interesting aspects of politics is finding out that opponents are people, too. Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft met Rep. Tom Tancredo backstage at NBC's studios, and found him more likable than she had anticipated. Perhaps it was their mutual interest in Dog, The Bounty Hunter ...
Joe Lieberman A Right-Wing Nut?
That's what CAIR says, according to Joe Kaufman. He has a link to a CAIR official's blog post that calls Lieberman, along with John Bolton, former CIA director James Woolsey, and the Heritage Foundation's Peter Brookes as "extremists". Affad Shaikh also calls Dick Cheney a "fat bastard of a liar," apparently not meant as a pop-culture reference to the Austin Powers movies. (via Let Freedom Ring)
Broadband Homelessness
The Japanese have made homelessness more efficient, and more Net-friendly, too. Their Internet cafés have become homeless shelters for the struggling manual-labor sector. The problem has grown into such a problem that government intervention will shortly become a political priority.
Found My Law Firm
Power Line links twice to this story regarding an attorney at Faegre & Benson who refused to become a victim and helped capture a very dangerous man. Keith Radtke is a partner in the firm as is Power Line's John Hinderaker. Radtke is listed in satisfactory condition after getting shot in the back, but that didn't keep him from locking up his attacker in a wrestling grip until police could arrive. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of man I'd want as my counsel ....
Don't Click That YouTube E-mail
The latest in spam seems to be redirections from YouTube links in e-mail to IP addresses without domain names. They attempt to entice people by making it seem that they have been inadvertently YouTubed. I'm sure most people can see through this scam, but just in case, you've been warned ....
Rick Moran Escapes The Floods
Rick Moran has kept us up to date on his travails along the Algonquin River. Yesterday, the police showed up to get him evacuated before the river flooded his home -- but today, Rick finds that a minor miracle has taken place, and that his house survives ... at least for now. Keep Rick in your prayers, and keep checking in at Right Wing Nut House for updates.
Rule 1: Drag The Corpse On Over First
If I've learned anything in four years of blogging, don't try to be out in front of the death rumors, especially with the villains of the world. Saddam died a hundred deaths before we caught him alive in his spider hole, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi almost as many before his demise last year. Osama may or may not be alive, but everyone's avoided speculating on his fate for a while now. Maybe Val at Babalu Blog will get luckier with his "Castro Is Dead" story. We all hope so. I'll wait for the announcement ....
Hobbs Choice
Volunteer Voters is holding its annual "Best of Nashville" on-line polls, and one of the categories is for the best political writer. Our friend Bill Hobbs, now posting at Newsbusters, and he'd like his on-line fans to cast their votes. Drop by and put one in for Bill if you get a chance!
Murtha Getting Backlogged On Apologies
Gary Gross of Let Freedom Ring sees another case collapsing on the Haditha charges. He's called for Murtha to apologize earlier, and adds another reason to the tally.
No Such Thing As 'Moderate' Islam?
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan told a television interviewer that he finds the label "moderate Islam" offensive. Shrink Wrapped has a lot more on this, but at least in the same interview Erdogan acknowledged that "radical Islam" exists, and that it's been a catastrophe. Be sure to read the whole post.
MS-NBC Gets Punk'd
Power Line has a great post on a lack of journalistic effort on the part of MS-NBC. In covering the Michael Vick story, they reported on what they thought was Al Sharpton's website proclaiming Vick's innocence. I guess Alex Johnson and two other MS-NBC reporters couldn't bother to read the title bar of the site, which proudly proclaims it as a "parody site".
New Instapundit Podcast On Pharmaceuticals
I just caught this e-mail from Glenn Reynolds about his new podcast with Richard Epstein, the author of Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but the topic is important enough to make sure I carve out time for it tomorrow. Get their first and tell me what I'm missing ....
Fed Trying A 'Stealth Easing'?
The Federal Reserve seems to have conducted a quiet campaign to steady markets that started spinning out of control, according to King Banaian at SCSU Scholars. He thinks that the Fed has conducted a "stealth easing". Be sure to read his explanation and follow his lnks.
A Shameless Bit Of Sel-Promotion
Gateway Pundit and Val at Babalu Blog note a crass PR move by Hugo Chavez. Venezuela has responded to Peru's eathquake disaster with food shipments -- and with Hugo's smiling picture on the cans. He also uses the tuna-can label to undermine President Garcia of Peru, who narrowly defeated Chavez' pal Ollanto Humalla, whom the labels extol for his "solidarity" with Chavez.
Tacky beyond belief.
Comments (4)
Posted by Lew | June 28, 2007 8:33 AM
Congress actually accepting responsibility for its own decisions??? Puleeze!
Wait! Wait! The sky is suddenly full of flying pigs!
Unless they can find a way to look good on camera doing it, there is no way! None! Zero! Zilch! Nada!
Gotta go now, just ran out of exclamation points!
Posted by Hal Davitt | June 28, 2007 8:58 AM
Without "no bid" contracts the Feds, especially DOD and a few others, couldn't do their job. No bids shouldn't be abused, and should be put out for bid as soon as possible, of course.
The DOD audits rather well on various contracts, even those from bids. And when putting a contract out for bid can take a year or more (what with protests, revisions, and more), and the job has got to be done tomorrow, you go no-bid or extend an exisitng contract , which is close to the same thing.
I know,"no bid" sounds bad, and often is. It makes a good WaPo headline. But it needs more detail to decide good or bad.
Posted by smagar | June 28, 2007 10:07 AM
I'm a consultant....yes, an evil defense contractor. Let me say a few words in defense of no-bid contracts.
1) No-bids allow you to stand up operations quickly. Wasn't DHS trying to get up and running as fast as it could, for some pretty good reasons? Namely, that it was created because 9/11 showed us that our country wasn't really secure? Hence, the need for DHS in the first place.
2) No-bids aren't forever. EVERY contract I've ever worked on isn't let for a four-or-five year period. No, it's let for four or five ONE-year periods, running consecutively. If the contractor doesn't perform, he's out, within a year. Try getting rid of underperforming government employees that fast.
3) Another point on no-bids not being forever. Eventually, contracts run out. If you let out the initial contract for a particular function/mission as no-bid (to get the job up-and-running or back-on-track), then you can open up future contracts to full competition.
4) "Many of the jobs Booz Allen filled should never have gone outside the agency in the first place, according to the Post's Robert O'Harrow. "
Excuse me, but when it was first created, DHS per se was a series of empty offices, no? Its actual workforce was (and still is) spread out amongst twenty-plus government agencies, who probably weren't that ready to give up their prized people or job functions.
Case in point: the creation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), in 1996. NIMA was created to centralize US government imagery analyis/production assets, which were then scattered amongst a bunch of agencies. Many of the US government's best imagery analysts were in the CIA...and there they wanted to stay! The CIA agreed, and NIMA eventually had to hire lots more people to replace the CIA imagery analysts that simply refused to move! No one at Langley really CARED what the President or the executive branch wanted...and for the most part, Langley got its way. I'll bet that much of this same attitude is now percolating through DEA, ATF and other agencies who aren't too happy about being part of the new DHS.
I'll bet that, in many cases, the fastest way for DHS to get something done was to bring in contractors to do it. And, again, DHS could eventually transition those functions to in-agency personnel after DHS finished organizing itself and moving its manpower assets to the workplaces it wanted them to be at.
As a contractor, I'm used to being bashed by government workers for being oh-so-greedy. That's OK---when you hire contractors, they WORK! You can't say that for lots of career govvies---believe me.
Food for thought...
Posted by smagar | June 28, 2007 10:12 AM
I'm a consultant....yes, an evil defense contractor. Let me say a few words in defense of no-bid contracts.
1) No-bids allow you to stand up operations quickly. Wasn't DHS trying to get up and running as fast as it could, for some pretty good reasons? Namely, that it was created because 9/11 showed us that our country wasn't really secure? Hence, the need for DHS in the first place.
2) No-bids aren't forever. EVERY contract I've ever worked on isn't let for a four-or-five year period. No, it's let for four or five ONE-year periods, running consecutively. If the contractor doesn't perform, he's out, within a year. Try getting rid of underperforming government employees that fast.
3) Another point on no-bids not being forever. Eventually, contracts run out. If you let out the initial contract for a particular function/mission as no-bid (to get the job up-and-running or back-on-track), then you can open up future contracts to full competition.
4) "Many of the jobs Booz Allen filled should never have gone outside the agency in the first place, according to the Post's Robert O'Harrow. "
Excuse me, but when it was first created, DHS per se was a series of empty offices, no? Its actual workforce was (and still is) spread out amongst twenty-plus government agencies, who probably weren't that ready to give up their prized people or job functions.
Case in point: the creation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), in 1996. NIMA was created to centralize US government imagery analyis/production assets, which were then scattered amongst a bunch of agencies. Many of the US government's best imagery analysts were in the CIA...and there they wanted to stay! The CIA agreed, and NIMA eventually had to hire lots more people to replace the CIA imagery analysts that simply refused to move! No one at Langley really CARED what the President or the executive branch wanted...and for the most part, Langley got its way. I'll bet that much of this same attitude is now percolating through DEA, ATF and other agencies who aren't too happy about being part of the new DHS.
I'll bet that, in many cases, the fastest way for DHS to get something done was to bring in contractors to do it. And, again, DHS could eventually transition those functions to in-agency personnel after DHS finished organizing itself and moving its manpower assets to the workplaces it wanted them to be at.
As a contractor, I'm used to being bashed by government workers for being oh-so-greedy. That's OK---when you hire contractors, they WORK! You can't say that for lots of career govvies---believe me.
Food for thought...