As Russia annexes Crimea, Ron Paul, writing in USA Today, shows why it is difficult to take him and other hard libertarians seriously when it comes to foreign policy:

Residents of Crimea voted over the weekend on whether they would remain an autonomous region of Ukraine or join the Russian Federation. In so doing, they joined a number of countries and regions — including recently Scotland, Catalonia and Venice — that are seeking to secede from what they view as unresponsive or oppressive governments.

These latter three are proceeding without much notice, while the overwhelming Crimea vote to secede from Ukraine has incensed U.S. and European Union officials, and has led NATO closer to conflict with Russia than since the height of the Cold War.

What’s the big deal? Opponents of the Crimea vote like to point to the illegality of the referendum. But self-determination is a centerpiece of international law. Article I of the United Nations Charter points out clearly that the purpose of the U.N. is to “develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”

A paean to “self-determination” is a bit rich, don’t you think, Dr. Paul, in light of these facts from?

Officially, the joining-Russia option on the ballot attracted a healthy 97 percent support from the 83 percent of registered voters in Crimea who made it to the polls. The most repeated tidbit was the voter turnout in Sevastopol, long a pro-Russian bastion, where a reported 123 percent of registered voters are said to have cast ballots.

Admire the Crimean “get out the vote” machine! Even Barack Obama is envious! More:

Ukrainian news reports said that all one needed to vote was a passport, and it didn’t have to be a Ukrainian one. One reporter from Kiev showed his Russian passport and was handed a ballot and allowed to vote. This raised questions in Kiev if perhaps the Russian soldiers and Russian paramilitary occupying the area since late February had been allowed to cast votes.

It also raised eyebrows, because while an estimated 58 percent of the Crimean population is known to be ethnic Russian and very pro-Russia, the remaining 42 percent are not thought to be similarly smitten. Ukrainian opinion polls over the last decade have consistently shown Crimea to be more pro-Russian and in favor of secession than any other region of Ukraine, but previous polls had shown consistently that those favoring splitting from Ukraine and joining Russia numbered about 40 percent.

Hmmm. Polls run 40 percent in favor, then the military moves in, and then polls run 97 percent in favor. Paul’s only response to this is:

Critics point to the Russian “occupation” of Crimea as evidence that no fair vote could have taken place. Where were these people when an election held in an Iraq occupied by U.S. troops was called a “triumph of democracy”?

Accusing others of hypocrisy is all well and good, but it is not an argument. Does occupation taint a vote or not, Dr. Paul? Does it depend on whether the occupation is by the U.S. (bad) or Russia (A-OK)?

Paul may be right that we have no business doing anything about this, and I am willing to listen to the Paulite arguments that the U.S. Constitution “does not allow the U.S. government to overthrow governments overseas or send a billion dollars to bail out Ukraine and its international creditors.” But if that’s the argument, stick to that argument. Say “what Russia is doing is wrong, but the U.S. can’t correct every wrong in the world.” Don’t tell us how Russia’s annexation of Crimea is the inevitable result of “self-determination.” That’s just foolish.

Love your economic positions though!

Fred Phelps is about to die.

I have changed from a person who, not too many years ago, would have said: “Where’s the funeral so we can picket it?” to someone who just feels sad that someone would have dedicated his life to causing such misery.

I certainly don’t condemn anyone who wants to grab a “God Hates Fred Phelps” sign and camp outside his hospice facility waiting for directions to the funeral. I don’t share the feeling. To paraphrase Sam Kinison, I UNDERSTAND IT! But I don’t share it.

P.S. Politico wants you to know 10 facts about Fred Phelps. I won’t link those people, but if you Google it, you’ll see they think it’s important that he “represented African-American clients in civil rights cases” or that “was admitted to West Point” or that “The United States Supreme Court ruled in his favor.” Yeah, yeah, Politico. Big whoop.

If anyone has a “God Hates Politico” sign, hand it over. I’m ready to picket.

Tim Rutten, cut by the Los Angeles Times, is now spewing his nonsense at the Daily Breeze, the South Bay paper that many read as alternative to the nonsense put out by the Dog Trainer. Fact-checking was never Rutten’s strong suit, and it looks like he slipped one by the editors:

Think California’s recent rain storms solved the state’s water crisis?

Well, they didn’t, and to understand why, you have to go beyond the uncertainties of our state’s climate and into our unique — often confounding — economic and political history.

When American astronauts stood on the moon and looked back toward Earth, there were only two works of man that they could glimpse with the naked eye: One was the Great Wall of China and the other was the California Aqueduct.

Really?

It’s certainly news to NASA that you can see the Great Wall of China from the moon:

It has become a space-based myth. The Great Wall of China, frequently billed as the only man-made object visible from space, generally isn’t, at least to the unaided eye in low Earth orbit. It certainly isn’t visible from the Moon.

If you can’t see the Great Wall from low Earth orbit (around 100-1240 miles) it’s going to be a little tricky to see it from about 239,000 miles.

The theory that the wall could be seen from the Moon dates back to at least 1938. It was repeated and grew until astronauts landed on the lunar surface.

“The only thing you can see from the Moon is a beautiful sphere, mostly white, some blue and patches of yellow, and every once in a while some green vegetation,” said Alan Bean, Apollo 12 astronaut. “No man-made object is visible at this scale.”

But what does NASA know, compared to the great knowledge of Timothy Rutten?

Bean ain’t the only astronaut to say this. Here is Neil Armstrong:

AMBROSE: I wanted to ask, I have heard or read somewhere that there are only two man-made objects on Earth that can be seen from the Moon, and that one of these is the Chinese [Great] Wall and the other is the Fort Peck Dam [Montana]. [I wonder if some Montana governor said that! -- Patterico]

ARMSTRONG: I would challenge both. We could see continents, could see Greenland. It stands out, just like it does on the globe in your library, all white. Antarctica we couldn’t see because there were clouds over Antarctica. Africa was quite visible, and we could see sun glint off a lake. It might have been Lake Chad. I’m not certain which lake it was, but we could catch that reflection, sun reflection…. But I do not believe that, at least with my eyes, there would be any man-made object that I could see. I have not yet found somebody who has told me they’ve seen the Wall of China from Earth orbit. I’m not going to say there aren’t people, but I personally haven’t talked tothem. I’ve asked various people, particularly Shuttle guys, that have been many orbits around China in the daytime, and the ones I’ve talked to didn’t see it.

I’m beating this into the ground, but it’s fun. Here is Dr. Karl at ABC Science:

It’s claimed that you can see the Great Wall of China from the Moon.

That’s one big claim, but let’s take this apart brick by brick.

. . . .

Many other authors, publicists for travel agencies and even the drunk guy down at the pub kept on repeating this story. But is it true?

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, said about the Great Wall of China, “It is not visible from lunar distance”. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, his co-pilot said, “you have a hard time even seeing continents.”

So we can’t see the Great Wall from the Moon, which is about 400,000 km away. But could you see it from the Space Shuttle? It flies in Low Earth Orbit, 300-530 kilometres up.

The astronaut William Pogue, who flew in space on Skylab 4, was able to see the Great Wall, but only with binoculars, and with lots of practice.

(Tim Rutten, for purposes of this blog post, is “the drunk guy down at the pub.”)

As for the notion that the California Aqueduct is visible from space, well . . . as best as I can tell, the sources for that preposterous notion include Andy Warhol, renowned for his deep knowledge of astronomy and physics, and Pat Brown (who was so proud of his pet project that he predicted it would join the Great Wall of China as one of only two manmade objects that could be seen from the Moon!) (Except, didn’t we just show that, um . . .?).

C’mon, Rutten. Even the drunk guy down at the pub could recognize that for the puffery it is.

Thanks to JVW, who has demanded a correction. Here’s hoping the Daily Breeze is more conscientious about facts than the L.A. Times was. I’d like to think so, but . . . they’re publishing Tim Rutten, aren’t they?

The L.A. Times has fired a writer, ostensibly for a combination of extreme sloppiness in a front page story, combined with a rather severe ethical breach. (H/t “Former Conservative.”) First, the extraordinary sloppiness completely undermining a front-page article:

A front-page article in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 7, 2013, was incorrect in reporting that Occidental College failed to disclose 27 alleged sexual assaults that occurred in 2012.

The article (“College shelved more assault reports”) dealt with Occidental’s obligations under the federal Clery Act, which requires schools to publish statistics annually on reported crime on or near campus.

Occidental representatives approached The Times early this month to seek a correction. Documents reviewed by The Times this week show that the 27 incidents did not fall under the law’s disclosure requirements for a variety of reasons.

Some were not sexual assaults as defined by the Clery Act. Rather, they involved sexual harassment, inappropriate text messages or other conduct not covered by the act. Other alleged incidents were not reported because they occurred off-campus, beyond the boundaries that Occidental determined were covered by the act. Some occurred in 2011, and the college accounted for them that year.

Subsequent Times articles published Dec. 20 in the LATExtra section and Jan. 23 in Section A repeated the original error regarding the alleged underreporting of sexual assaults.

The Times regrets the errors in the articles.

That’s the sloppiness. Here’s the ethical breach: Felch failed to tell employers that he was sleeping with a source:

Separately, as they began looking into the complaint, Times editors learned from the author of the articles, staff writer Jason Felch, that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with someone who was a source for the Dec. 7 story and others Felch had written about Occidental’s handling of sexual assault allegations. Felch acknowledged that after the relationship ended, he continued to use the person as a source for future articles.

Times Editor Davan Maharaj dismissed Felch on Friday. Maharaj said the inappropriate relationship with a source and the failure to disclose it earlier constituted “a professional lapse of the kind that no news organization can tolerate.”

He added: “Our credibility depends on our being a neutral, unbiased source of information — in appearance as well as in fact.”

If the name “Jason Felch” rings a bell: it should. Felch, along with Maura Dolan, authored a series of misleading articles about DNA in the L.A. Times. I contacted a statistics expert who said Felch and Dolan had mischaracterized the mathematical argument — a distortion that lay at the very heart of the front-page articles. I summarized all this in my L.A. Times Year in Review for 2008:

DISTORTIONS IN THE EDITORS’ JIHAD AGAINST DNA EVIDENCE

All year, the paper’s editors have been engaged in a holy war against the use of DNA in criminal cases. It started in May, when the newspaper ran an article about statistical probability in cold hit DNA cases, and it was immediately clear that some of the assertions didn’t make sense.

The editors don’t seem to like DNA when it’s used to convict.

For one thing, the article seemed to assert that larger databases made cold hits less reliable, when it would seem that the opposite would be true — at least in cases where the search revealed only one hit. A statistics professor named David Kaye agreed with me on that point. In addition, he told me, the article had falsely portrayed an anti-prosecution view of the statistical question as the consensus view — when, in fact, there is a competing view more favored by peer-reviewed articles. (The author of the L.A. Times article wrote me to claim that he had acknowledged there is a lack of unanimity of opinion, but the article didn’t clearly express this.)

But the biggest error was a flat-out statistical misstatement in the article. Professor Eugene Volokh outlined the problem. I drafted a letter to the article’s authors, and ultimately sent this e-mail about the misstatement. Then I noticed yet another error in the article, again having less to do with the math, and more to do with how the math was expressed in English. Of the three errors I identified, the paper corrected only a trivial arithmetical error, leaving the more significant misstatements standing.

The editors denied they’d made a misstatement, even though they admitted that it would be wrong to make a different statement that my readers overwhelmingly agreed was identical.

Although editors denied that they had described the statistics incorrectly, they did start describing them correctly — which I took as a silent concession that I was right.

But true vindication came when a statistics expert — one whom the paper had previously quoted as an expert — claimed in a scholarly article that the paper had “mischaracterized” the statistic that I had complained about. I once again wrote the Readers’ Representative, citing the expert’s opinion. She didn’t give me the courtesy of a reply.

A second DNA kerfuffle began when the paper ran a front-page story portraying certain matches in an Arizona database as shocking. Why, the paper suggested, the results defied the laws of statistics! Only on the back pages were readers told that most of the matches “were to be expected statistically.” One of the authors of “Freakonomics” later pronounced himself surprised that the matches were largely to be expected; apparently, like many readers, he had been misled by the article’s initial spin.

A local jury freed a clearly guilty man accused of rape; the foreman was heard expressing concerns about the case based on “recent controversies” about DNA — a clear reference to the L.A. Times‘s misleading series of articles.

In discussing a technique called familial searching, the paper did its usual shtick with DNA: it played up phantom privacy concerns, and buried the fact that the technique has been used to free wrongly convicted individuals.

Follow the links. The stories I criticized were by the now-fired Jason Felch, along with Maura Dolan. You’ll see that in some of the posts I actually exchanged emails with Felch in which he frustratingly and repeatedly failed, somehow, to see how he was misleading readers. The errors were serial distortions, many of which remained uncorrected after I notified the paper about them.

Felch now joins Chuck Philips as an L.A. Times reporter whom I repeatedly chastised for regularly misreporting the facts, who was later fired for journalistic malfeasance. Maybe the editors should try listening to critics for a change, rather than dismissing them out of hand. They might save themselves some embarrassment that way . . .

P.S. I think it’s interesting that Felch and the L.A. Times don’t seem to agree on whether he was sleeping with the source while using her as a source. Felch has issued a self-serving statement which says, among other things:

In late December, I began an inappropriate relationship with a confidential source that lasted several weeks. When the relationship began, I stopped relying upon the person as a source. None of the subsequent articles published in the LA Times relied upon the source.

Weeks ago, I voluntarily disclosed the relationship to my editors and cooperated with their investigation. On Friday, I was fired for creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. I accept full responsibility for what I did and regret the damage it has done to my family and my colleagues at one of the nation’s great newspapers.

Contrast the bolded language with the L.A. Times correction:

Felch acknowledged that after the relationship ended, he continued to use the person as a source for future articles.

Somebody is not telling the truth.

Once again, this should not have come as a shock to the editors. But somehow, it always does.

As I have done every March 17 since I started this blog, I am wishing my Dad a Happy Birthday.

(In fact, I’ve done it so long, I’m running out of places to put the links to past examples!)

He would have been 89 today. On goes the Shamrock bow tie.

In other news, my brother Kerry has the official release of his new book tomorrow, but it is already available for purchase at Amazon. The title is Shadow of the Flag (I see they’re out of stock, so consider it a pre-order.) Some of you may have enjoyed Kerry’s first book: Buried Lie. That one — which is a great story that deserves to be made into a movie, by the way — featured Nazi zombies. It will be interesting to see how Kerry tops that.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

[Guest post by Dana]

As March is National Women’s History month, it’s no surprise that a new Hollywood-infused campaign with women and girls’ supposed best interest at heart, has debuted. The campaign, as you probably know by now, is called Ban Bossy. It’s being spearheaded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg would like you to refrain from using the word, especially with regard to the fairer sex.

In Sandberg’s words,

“I was called bossy when I was in ninth grade. My teacher took my best friend Mindy aside and she said, ‘You shouldn’t be friends with Sheryl. She’s bossy.’ And that hurt.”

(And yet, in spite of that, Sandberg grew up to be the COO of Facebook).

She continues,

“We call girls bossy on the playground. We call them too aggressive or other B-words in the workplace. They’re bossy as little girls, and then they’re aggressive, political, shrill, too ambitious as women.”

Few would disagree that women in places of power still struggle against stereotyping, and too often do not garner the same level of respect as their counterparts.

That tired, flaccid paragon of modern women, Cosmopolitan refers to it as the ABC’s of the office: “Aggressive, assertive, angry. Bossy, brusque, bitch. Cold, calculating, careerist.” And while that may be how some view this, not all female bosses see it that way nor do they see banning a gender neutral word as the solution.

So, how do we to fix the problem? Well, according to the campaign, ban the word bossy. Stigmatize it and those who use it. Shield women from its hurtful edge while granting them victimhood status. We’ve come a long way, baby. Not so much, really. When the solution to the assumed negative impact experienced from being called bossy is to be bossy telling others what words they should and should not say, well that is not progress. And squelching another’s speech is no solution at all.

Another option, albeit crazy, is to face the problem head-on. Encourage women to push back, stand up, and lean in as they embrace their inner-bossiness. Instead of the powerful and successful women involved in the campaign scolding us for using the word bossy, let’s have them remind us of how they met with success in spite of the word bossy. Clearly, it didn’t hold them back.

And although she does not appear in the campaign video, it might be especially instructive to hear from Tina Fey, actress/comedian and author of the autobiographical bestseller, Bossypants, whose book flap reads in part, You’re nobody until somebody calls you bossy.

– Dana

I have not read much about this, but wanted to provide a forum for your thoughts, questions, and conspiracy theories.

[Guest post by Dana]

During this year’s CPAC, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul briefly discussed the priority (or lack thereof) of social issues in the upcoming elections. As they are the two potential presidential candidates that generate the most buzz these days, it’s interesting to look at a side-by-side comparison. Right now, there isn’t a lot of daylight between them, however, while acknowledging that messages and platforms will have to be honed and articulated, this is where they currently stand. Social issues and their place of importance in a national election have not only been a consistent source of contention between commenters here at Patterico’s, but stirs heated debate throughout the right at large.

While at CPAC, Ted Cruz was asked if he thought the GOP should take social issues out of the conversation in the upcoming elections.

The man many consider a likely GOP presidential candidate in 2016 said, “I don’t think the politicians get to decide what the people care about.”

Cruz said he doesn’t think anything is off the table, but, he cautioned, there are important problems to address first.

On the home front, he said it is imperative that the country get back on its feet economically.

And looking overseas, Cruz said America must reclaim its standing in the world.

In the impromptu press conference, Cruz took only two questions.

He criticized President Obama’s handling of the Ukraine crisis and America’s loss of prestige in the world.

Cruz also said he was just as concerned about the president’s failed economic agenda. The country is facing such a crisis, he said, it needs to change course both at home and abroad, and soon.

Rand Paul addressed similar questions:

There was a consensus among young people at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference that the GOP needs to get out of social issues. Do you agree?

I think it’s partly that. But I also think young people are very concerned with privacy. I think most young people’s lives revolve around their cellphones. They communicate with their parents by cellphone even when they’re in the house. And I think they are horrified by the idea of the government searching their records and being in possession of their records when they’ve not been suspected of a crime.

Right. But it seems what they’re saying is that the Republican Party should stay out of issues like gay marriage.

I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues. The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues.

–Dana

[Guest post by JD]

Obama vows to veto legislation that codifies a waiver he has already granted. Dems whip vote in opposition to policy Obama has already implemented. Obama shuts down government to keep policy intact, then subsequently waives policy for political reasons.

This is the world we are living in.

—JD

Obama dropped the bomb that you and I both knew was coming in an interview with WebMD (via Grabien.com):

What we have said is, for example, if you’re in the middle of life-saving treatment with a particular doctor, then we will work to make sure that you can keep, uh, that treatment, and not shift. But for the average person, many folks who don’t who don’t have health insurance initially, um, you know, they’re gonna have to make some choices, and, they might end up having to switch doctors, in part because they’re saving money. But that’s true, you know, if, if, your employer suddenly decides: we think this network’s gonna give a better deal, we think this is gonna help keep premiums lower, uh, you gotta use this doctor as opposed to that one, or this hospital as opposed to that one. Uh, the good news is, in most states, people have more than one option. And, you know, what they’ll find, I think is that their doctor, or network, or hospital that’s conveniently located is probably in one of those networks. Now, you may find out that that network’s more expensive than another network. And then you’ve gotta make a choice in terms of what’s right for your family. Do you want to save on cost, or do you want to save on convenience?

It’s a pretty far cry from “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

First, no matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it.

The new version is basically: “If you like your doctor, you can keep him . . . if you want to pay more.” We have heard that before from Zeke Emanuel. Now we’re hearing it from Obama.

Will Big Media pick up on this? It’s a big story, so I would assume the answer is no.