Rocket Man Blog

Are the actions of Janklow and Kennedy comparable?

StMack over at Hold the Mayo calls upon Representative Bill Janklow (Republican - South Dakota) to resign from Congress because he ran a stop sign and killed a motorcyclist. Janklow has been charged with manslaughter in the second degree, a class-four felony in South Dakota, but he has not yet been convicted of any crime.

StMack goes on to compare the death caused by Janklow with the death caused by Edward Kennedy in 1969. From what I have read, Janklow is probably guilty of careless driving, but it was not inevitable that his actions would result in the death of another human being. On the other hand, it was obviously inevitable to any reasonable person that Kennedy’s actions in 1969 would result in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. This difference in inevitability makes any comparison between what Kennedy did in 1969 and what Janklow did in 2003 useless. It is like comparing apples and spacecraft.

Everybody who has driven a vehicle has probably done something stupid that could have resulted in the death of another person. Fortunately for the vast majority of us, it has never happened. Janklow was not so fortunate. I think Janklow should stay in Congress for now, but if he is found criminally negligent in the death of the motorcyclist he should resign.

Kennedy should have been convicted of manslaughter in the death on Mary Jo Kopechne, but a court did not find him criminally negligent in the death. However, his actions were so morally negligent that he should have been forced out of office by the Senate as a whole or by the voters of Massachusetts. It says a lot about the Democratic Party that Kennedy is still in office after all these years.

Update: StMack responds. See the comments to his response for my rebuttal.

Rising from the ashes

24 tons of steel that once held up the World Trade Center will be melted down and used to form the bow of the USS New York, which is a new class of ship: the Amphibious Transport Dock - LPD.

On Tuesday, workers from the Amite Foundry and Machine Inc. will melt down 24 tons of steel that once formed the shell of the World Trade Center, and begin the process of resurrecting it, in a manner of speaking.

At 2,850 degrees Fahrenheit, the steel will soften. From a 50-ton capacity ladle, the melted steel will be poured into a sand mold containing an imprint for the bow-stem casting for the Navy's next LPD San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, being built by Northrup Grumman Ship Systems.

I can think of no better use for this steel than to resurrect it as a weapon in the war on terror. In a way, the World Trade Center will rise from the ashes like a phoenix and start fighting back.

Giving people what they want

Fox News has been one of the few success stories in the mainstream media lately. Its viewership continues to increase because they fill a gaping hole that exists in the rest of the mainstream media. A non-liberal presentation of the news. As recent numbers show, Fox is continuing to attract new viewers, while the rest of the left-liberal cable news channels continue to lose them.

Fox News Channel was the only cable news service in August to grow in viewership from a year ago, gaining 20% in primetime and 29% across the entire day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

By comparison, CNN fell by 9% in primetime and total day, while MSNBC lost 21% in primetime and 11% for the day. Headline News and CNBC also suffered losses greater than 20% compared with August 2002. It marked the 28th consecutive month that Fox led the news channel pack.

If the rest of the mainstream media cared more about attracting new viewers than they do with advancing their liberal agenda, at least one major news network would follow Fox's lead and start giving people what they want. If one of ABC, CBS or NBC news were to hire a non-liberal news anchor (he/she wouldn't even have to be a conservative, just non-liberal), they would differentiate themselves from the other two networks and almost certainly increase their viewership in relation to them.

But the management of ABC, CBS and NBC news do not seem concerned with increasing their viewership. If I were a stockholder in any of these companies I would be outraged that they were passing up such an obvious way to make more money.