Right Makes Right!

Hello! READ A BOOK media!

2006-10-04T17:39:00.000-05:00

Stephen Spruiell on Mark Foley & Media on National Review Online has it right. I'm so sick and tired of the media not distinguishing from the admittedly creepy and wierd but NOT sexual emails that Foley sent pages and that the leadership knew about and did something about and the sick twisted and evil Instant Messages that they found out about last week. Doesn't the AP have at least one person who knows the difference? Hastert didn't know about the im's - how could he? They disappear into the ether when you log off, unlike emails which last forever. To save an IM actually takes a little effort (or so I remember - I haven't IM'd in forever - I go old school and use the "phone"). Which begs the question - who had these, and why haven't they released them before now. Shouldn't a predator like Foley been removed immediately by whoever had these and not when it was politically best for the Democrats?

Day by Day

2006-09-29T07:37:00.000-05:00

You may not realize it, but we have a "funnies" section at the bottom of the site featuring "Day by Day" a great political strip. Anyway, today's is great, so check it out. You can also go to the Day by Day site and back track to today if you are reading this after the strip has changed.

Hello, media, he's the POPE

2006-09-17T07:38:00.000-05:00

This stuff always cracks me up :Pope statement not enough: Muslim Brotherhood��International News��Reuters.com. First off, the moral equivalency between the POPE and the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD is lunacy, but second of all, do the MSM folks realize that the Pope CAN'T apologize, because he can't admit he did anything wrong. HE'S INFALLIBLE! HE'S THE POPE! It's sort of a definition thing, guys. This is like them taking a poll and saying "65% of Americans think you should have lesbian priests, why not change to that?"

I'm not catholic, but you have to give them credit for standing firm in the face of a gale of conformity.

About time!

2006-09-17T07:35:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is, the first Dem I've seen to blast the Bush snuff film, Death of a President: Sen. Hillary Clinton blasts Bush assassination film.

Now just wait for the left wing bloggers to annihilate her for it.

I'm a bad blogger

2006-09-16T13:40:00.000-05:00

I can admit it - I am a terrible blogger, having violated one of the cardinal rules, which is to post something fairly often. I hope to start up with regular posts again, I've just been very busy with "real life". Hope to have something new up soon.

RMR

The turning of the tide

2006-08-24T07:21:00.000-05:00

This article - Steele gaining blacks' support highlights one of the problems that I see with the current media coverage of the fall election - they are telling the story based on old assumptions. They act like this will be 1994, that "all the same indicators are there".

Pardon me, but did they catch all of these "obvious indicators" the first time? I don't remember that - they called it a "temper tantrum" (Peter Jennings said that) and a fluke. 12 years later it's an obvious thing that everyone saw coming. 12 years ago, the contract with America didn't matter because noone really knew what it said - now the Dem's have to have one and there are articles written about it.

This trend of Republican African American candidates is a big story that people will start to look back at this first decade of the 21st century and say that's when it started. The problem for the Dem's is that there is no way to go for them with African Americans but down - how do you go up from 90%. And the fact is, all the ideas for moving minorities forward in our economy, etc. are on the Republican side. From Welfare Reform to Educational options to Empowerment zones in the inner city, like or not, we at least have a plan. The Welfare reform plan was even tried and it worked liked crazy - and had to be passed three times to get Clinton to sign it (now he takes credit for it of course).

The Democrat ideas are to complain and spend more on keeping minorities in poverty. Republicans are pushing programs for minorities to own their own homes - Dems are building new and prettier housing projects "now with yoga!". I think that many African Americans are waking up to realize that the Dem's shouldn't own their vote - the civil rights era is over and now they want to know that their kids are in good schools and that their 401k is going to be ok.

Watch out, Dem's. You might have to actually EARN the African American vote pretty soon.

Gee, I wish I had written this...

2006-08-12T08:15:00.000-05:00

Andrew C. McCarthy on War on National Review Online

David

Justice and the Yates Jury

2006-08-01T11:16:00.000-05:00

In RealClearPolitics - Articles - Yates Jury is Wrong Mark Davis displays a stunning lack of knowledge about mental illness and the Yates case in particular. The jury did not have to "magically know how coherent she was when she methodically drowned her five beautiful children on June 20, 2001", they had the advantage of medical testimony to show what state she was in. They did not have to judge from her current state (properly medicated) to know how she was then - unmedicated.

Everybody around her at the time KNEW she was very ill. Why else would her husband feel the need to have someone with her at all times (an effort that failed the day she killed the children)? Why else had she been hospitalized? She was only out of the hospital because her insurance had run out - not because she was well. No, if ever there was a case of 'not guilty by reason of insanity', this was it.

There is much to blame in this case - The husband for having more children with a woman he knew was ill and agreeing to home school them. The hospital and her doctors for putting her out when there was no question that she was not well and probably dangerous. But that does not justify convicting her of crimes which she committed while insane.

The great injustice here is not the verdict, but the fact that Harris County taxpayers had to shell out who knows how much money to prosecute (twice) a case that should never have come to trial in the first place. A "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea could have been had at the outset.

David

Marine more than Moore's lies

2006-07-09T09:22:00.000-05:00

Came across this today: Marine recruiter in 'Fahrenheit' mourned - Yahoo! News. I had heard this man's story before, but never so well told. This is yet another example of how Mikey Moore's lies and half-truths affect real live people, many of them heroes.

Surprisingly the man who quit after one day working at GM and then made a movie about how being "laid off" affected him also portrayed a real American hero as a cynical Marine recruiter out to exploit poor kids. The photo at the left shows the truth - the caring soldier giving candy to poor Iraqi children.

Read the article - it's a fitting tribute to a great Marine. The Michael Moore stuff is blessedly only a small part of the tribute to this great American.

Clueless media

2006-07-05T08:38:00.000-05:00

I'm reading John Stossel's latest tome this week ( and memorizing ANOTHER opera...help!) wherein he laments reporters complete ignorance of much about economics, education, etc. (among alot of other stuff - great book that covers ALOT of stuff). Here's a great example of someone missing the point.

In the article Our enemies aren't drinking lattes - Los Angeles Times, Max Boot describes the many amenities that our soldiers have on the battlefields defending freedom - some have air conditioned dorms! TV's! Access to a swimming pool! and...wait for it....LATTES! duh duh DUUUUUUUH!. His complaint is that our forces are putting too much into logistics and that troops are endangered -

"No one would begrudge a few conveniences to those who have volunteered to defend us. But the military's logistics feats come with a high price tag that goes far beyond the $7.7 billion we spend every month on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. troops in those countries consume 882,000 liters of water and 2.4 million gallons of fuel every day, plus tons of other supplies that have to be transported across dangerous war zones. Centcom has more than 3,000 trucks delivering supplies and another 2,400 moving fuel - each one a target that has to be protected."

The dumb reporter has missed the point - that's 5,400 trucks, almost half moving stuff that EXPLODES, that work every day in the war effort and they almost NEVER get hit. Even if one a day were hit, that would still be a very small percentage out of 5400 and not that many get hit. Sure, it's dangerous and great men and women get killed, but think of how many attacks you heard about last week - now multiply 7 by 5400 and you'll find out how "vulnerable" our supply lines are - not very. The award for most ridiculous line from the article - "How many men died for you to get that latte?" My bet is: zero.

Maybe Big Submarine (Max BOOT, get it? ...never mind) doesn't realize it, but deserts are HOT, and there's not alot of entertainment in Muslim countries for Americans. Our folks need every comfort we can provide them for what they do - honestly, after hearing how crappy our soldier's lot is for so long from the MSM, I found the story, though anecdotal (another article altogether) to be encouraging.

The death of even one soldier is a high price tag - but at the same time that's the cost one weighs when going to war, a choice that should never be easy. But reporters should realize that a million Americans have now served in Iraq, and about 2500 out of a million of them were killed. That doesn't sound like we're losing - that sounds like our men and women are doing one hell of a job. True our enemies aren't drinking Latte's - they're starving in dwindling numbers of hideouts while our magnigicent warriors kick back with a Cafe Vanilla Frappucino. That may bug mister Submarine, but I think that's just fine.

The New York Times at War With America

2006-06-26T09:14:00.000-05:00

This title says it all - The New York Times at War With America - what the heck are these people doing? I agree with an irate Pete King I saw yesterday - these folks should be at least investigated by the Justice Dept. and possibly prosecuted for violations of espionage and release of classified materials laws. I mean, if we go after Karl Rove for releasing stuff that wasn't even classified...you made this bed, guys, time to lie in it.

Even their interesting article on Star Trek on June 18 can't save them.

It's time to storm the barricades at the NYT - they are actually starting to risk people's lives with their agenda.

Where's the outrage?

2006-06-14T09:08:00.000-05:00

One memory from my trip to Florida the last few weeks was a bumper sticker that said "If you aren't outraged you're not paying attention". Heh. Anyway, I came across a very clever piece at NRO (read it here) that makes an interesting point about outrage:

Where is the protest of "CARS"? If ignoring global warming is the equivalent to ignoring the holocaust (as Gore frequently claims), where is the outrage at the film that glorifies internal combustion to the CHIIIIILDREN, no less? Better yet, why not protest NASCAR?

Where's the outrage?

BRAVE PREZ BESTS MEDIA KNOW-IT-ALLS

2006-06-14T08:57:00.000-05:00

I hardly ever ape the actual title of the article I reference, but I just like this one: BRAVE PREZ BESTS MEDIA KNOW-IT-ALLS By RALPH PETERS - New York Post Online Edition: Postopinion.

It looks like the tide has turned for the Pres in the media. Here's hoping a now-not-distracted Karl Rove can keep it that way.

Anyway, back from liberal operatic exile in Florida, folks. But they were nice libs, so I had a really great experience singing with a great cast in a great show.

On to November!

The phone number flap

2006-05-17T08:54:00.000-05:00

The numbers you dial on your phone are NOT private, and the police or the NSA can get them by just asking. Says who? Why the US Supreme Court, of course, in 1979! See U.S. Supreme Court SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)

David

Good News?

2006-05-15T08:59:00.000-05:00

Is there such a thing? Apparently so, as you can read in Bill Crawford on Iraq on National Review Online. I wonder why none of this ever makes World News Tonight? Maybe their computers are down?

Kinsley on double standards

2006-05-06T08:08:00.000-05:00

Kinsley in this article - The press's constitutional double standards. By Michael�Kinsley - gives us an example of a liberal writing a thoughtful comment. And I'm not saying this because I happen to agree with most of what he says. Kinsley is making a plea for intellectual consistency from the press - worth a read.

Zarqawi a wienie?

2006-05-04T17:52:00.000-05:00

As you can read in this article: US says zooming in on Zarqawi - Yahoo! News:

"[U.S. military spokesman Major-General Rick Lynch] showed brief clips from what he said was an unedited copy of a video Zarqawi released last week, showing the al Qaeda leader wearing American running shoes, struggling to handle a machine gun and handing the weapon to one of his aides, who appears to fumble with it as he grabs the gun's hot muzzle.

In the version Zarqawi posted on the Internet and that aired on television, Zarqawi is seen poring over maps, receiving battle reports and firing bursts from an automatic weapon in a video in which he warned of more attacks.

But at his weekly media briefing, Lynch mocked Zarqawi for wearing sneakers and suggested he was unable to fire a weapon.

'What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed you: wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun, ... a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapons system."

Wow. I think that's funny - "Hey, Akbar, how do you work this thing?" Zarqawi apparently is more Colonel Klink than an evil military mastermind. Here's hoping this gets the same play as last week's Zarqawi info-mercial. Fat chance.

I'm strangely reminded of John Kerry's posed Vietnam "he-man" films. Did you know he served in Vietnam?

Off the beaten path

2006-05-02T17:06:00.000-05:00

I know we don't really do this here, but

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS SUPERMAN RETURNS TRAILER!!!

Holy. Crap. That. Looks. Awesome.

Gasoline and Milk

2006-05-02T10:54:00.000-05:00

Think about what is required to get a gallon of milk to your refrigerator. An animal (a cow) grazes around on grass. Twice a day she gets hooked up to a milking machine. The milk she produces gets stored in a chilled holding tank until it is picked up by a truck. The truck takes it to a processing plant (probably not many miles away) where the milk is stirred briskly (homogenized) and heated (pasteurized) and placed in a plastic jug. The jugs are transported (again usually only a few miles) to your store where they are kept in a refigerator until you buy them.

On the other hand, think about what is required to get a gallon of gas in your tank. Crude oil (which had to be discovered and a well drilled) is pumped from the ground, collected in a tank and transported through a pipeline to a port. It is loaded on a tanker and moved perhaps half way around the world to another port. The crude is then off loaded from the tanker and sent through another pipeline to a refinery where through a series of mystical, dirty and dangerous processes it is reduced in volume by a factor of 10 or so and refined into gasoline. A number of carefully selected additives (manufactured by other complex processes) are added and the gasoline is made ready for one of a number of potential geographic market areas. It is then transported again either by truck or pipeline, usually a long distance, to a terminal where it is loaded into trucks and delivered to a gas station. At the station it is stored in a carefully monitored tank until you put it in your car via an expensive pump loaded with vapor recovery technology and an electronic link to a credit card processor.

So how come the average price of a gallon of fresh milk is about $3.25 and the price of a gallon of gas is about $2.90?

See Retail Milk Prices.

David

White House responds to Biden's dumb plan

2006-05-01T16:00:00.000-05:00

The White House responded today to Senator Biden's recent monument to sleep-inducing ignorance - Balkanize Iraq (White House rebuffs Iraqi autonomous regions idea - Yahoo! News).

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration remained committed to a unified Iraq."A partition government with regional security forces and a weak central government, as you are referencing, is something that no Iraqi leader has proposed and that the Iraqi people have not supported," he said.

Following the quoted statement, McClellan went on to say "I also feel the Biden is yet again treading into territory where he has little to offer, that is the realm of actual policy being made. I mean, like when he says....(thud)....zzzzz"

Fortunately, tall White House correspondent David Gregory was able to catch McClellan before he struck the floor.

Senator blamed for mass narcolepsy

2006-05-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

Americans were shocked across the nation that Sen. Joe Biden had caused a mass attack of sudden sleepiness with his latest announcement (Sen. Biden: Iraq should be divided into 3 regions - Yahoo! News).

"I happened to be sitting at my desk when I happened to read the Senator's statement," said Rob Swartz, a junior analyst at Charles Schwab, "What I found most boring was the Senator's assertion that.....(thud)....zzzz"

Swartz' reaction is apparently typical, as many found that even the recollection of the Senator's statement to cause immediate unconsciousness.

"It's just that, you know, he doesn't have anything even remotely interesting to say, like when he says....(thud)....zzzzz," said Florita Hernandez, a patent attorney from Washington, D.C.

"I'm just glad that the radio stations still refuse to play clips of him," said Brad James, a truck driver from Trenton, NJ. "I mean, if I was heading down the road and heard the Senator start to talk about Iraq....(thud).....zzzz."

Fortunately, most americans are smart enough to not even read most stories involving the Senator. Most are shocked that a noted plagiarist would not steal something more interesting.

Like the time that the senator....

(thud)

zzzzzz.

All together now...

2006-04-28T12:29:00.000-05:00

Let's all hold hands and Say It With Me: Supply and Demand. This great article by Krauthammer hits the truth of the matter. A combination of the energy consumption climate, government policy, and American behavior has created a situation in which 1) Demand is up and 2) Supply is down. Despite all the cynical posturing in D.C. we have to address both of these issues in order to fix the problem, or we'll be back here in ten years talking about $6 gas. We need to address demand as we can, but supply is the better bet - domestic drilling, importing ethanol, evening out gas standards, and improving refining capacity. Hmmm...3 out of 4 of those were in the President's energy policy 6 YEARS AGO and would have prevented alot of this.

It's THEIR FAULT!!!

2006-04-27T07:05:00.000-05:00

As the wondrous Ann Coulter says in IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PUMP - Yahoo! News, Dems are hiliarious to complain about gas prices. We've been saying - "Don't come up with forty different formulations, it will raise the price!", and "Let us drill in Alaska to get more oil to lower the price!", and "We need to build more refining capacity or prices will rise!" for just about forever, while the Dem's have spent years trying to raise the gas tax. One can only hope that America has paid attention.

PS Sorry for the hiatus - I was singing in two operas!

More good news

2006-04-01T16:29:00.000-06:00

You'll have to dig deep to find stories like - CORRECT: U.S. stocks close down on day, up on quarter - MarketWatch

Stocks had the best quarter since the 20th century already this year. That silence you hear is the mainstream partisan media.

Can I get a witness?

2006-03-14T19:17:00.000-06:00

With recent stories like stocks hitting the highest levels in five years or a quarter of a million new jobs in February one has to wonder where the heck the friggin "the economy is going well" stories are in the MSM. Consumer spending went up almost a full percent in January, for example, and manufacturing is steaming along as well (read it here). It's time to ask why this good news isn't getting reported. Bad economic news sure seemed like something worthy of the front page, didn't it.

I don't think I am being idealistic to expect the press to report the news, am I? The New York Times had a positive story...on page three...of the business section. Are you kidding me?

The economy is good, MSM - REPORT IT!