08.31.09
Yessir, that Washington Post is one unbiased source of information
Compare and contrast its coverage of an actual downturn in the unemployment rate in 2004 with its reportage on an increase in the unemployment rate this month.
08.03.09
Not much on which to hang an indictment of the free market
This morning I came across the latest NYT column by Paul Krugman on Real Clear Politics. (I’m starting to get annoyed with Real Clear Politics. I understand that the premise of their daily lineup of columns and editorials is designed to be a cross-section of thought on current issues, as in, “We’re just sayin’ this is the spectrum of what’s out there,” so maybe my problem is annoyance at the mediocrity of so much of what passes for substantive thought on matters of public policy. Seems like lately the daily lineup is getting a bit skewed toward the likes of Krugman, E.J. Dionne, the Center for American Progress and the like.) The column’s overall theme was that Wall Street needs a good beat-down, but he hinges the whole thing on this high-frequency trading phenomenon. I smelled a red herring.
So it was with heightened interest that I then came across Marginal Revolution’s take on high-frequency trading. Upshot: It doesn’t seem to be among the top 100 ethical problems to be found in the world of finance.
(If you’re really interested in Krugman’s piece, Marginal Revolution links to it.)
07.18.09
Walter Cronkite, R.I.P.
I may have some observations and reflections to fold into various streams of thought as time goes on, but for now, I think Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media, and the various people he quotes, sums up my initial response.
06.16.09
Ignorance and self-righteousness
That’s what has the sycophantic MSM blinded to the actual significances of the two very different elections in the Muslim world – Lebanon and Iran. Even after the events of the past two days, there are still those who get all wet in the britches over TCM’s Cairo speech.
And here’s a question that needs a wider asking. The great Mark Steyn was the one who first posed it. How come no leader from “the Muslim world” ever gives a major address to the “Christian world?” Oh, don’t the Americas and Europe constitute a Christian world? Kind of points out that the term “Muslim world” has political as well as religious significance, doesn’t it?
03.08.09
The chin-stroker versus the clear thinker
Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters reports on next week’s Newsweek cover story. It’s David Frum’s assessment that Rush is bad for conservatism and the GOP. Read Sheppard. He makes several excellent points, and I won’t duplicate them here.
A few thoughts of my own on the matter:
1.) The cover graphic, let alone the fact that Newsweek has made an opinion piece its cover story, makes it clear that Newsweek is no longer an objective journalistic organ. In fact, it might be well-advised to merge with The New Republic since it occupies pretty much the same ideological terrain. The two magazines could thus each increase their market share and shore up their sagging circulation and finances.
2.) We’re seeing this pattern a lot lately. The MSM appointing itself the arbiter of who is a “legitimate,” “reasonable,” “seasoned” conservative and who is a fire-breathing yay-hoo.
3.) Frum gets a little overheated in his inventory of Rush’s personal flaws. Physical bulk, tangled marital life, cigars, private plane. It’s like he’s relishing the opportunity to tear into him in a high-profile venue.
4.) Rush’s shortcomings don’t diminish the fact that he’s unfailingly correct on matters of economics, foreign policy and culture.
5.) I will go on record conceding that little aspects of Rush’s style unnerve me. The “wherever I am is where it’s happening” schtick wears thin. And I know what he’s doing when he talks about his private jet and his Palm Beach mansion and the whole “It’s-been-years-since-I-went-to-a-movie-theater-I-screen-movies-privately-at-home” line. He’s trying to convey the incredible opportunity this country offers every one of its citizens. Still, it sometimes comes across as solipcistic. I’m told he’s actually a very humble, gracious guy in his personal ineractions, but there’s obviously some reason why three women have decided to end their marriages to him.
6.) David Frum is not really very conservative anymore.
02.05.09
These people live in some alternative universe
My recent post “Sam has no idea how to diagnose us” dealt with Sam Tanenhaus’s New Republic piece on his delusion that conservatism was dead. (More accurately, it was a heads-up to read Roger Kimball’s reaction to it at Pajamas Media.)
Along comes further evidence that these effete East Coast smarty-pants sycophants to the Freedom Haters truly have no idea how things operate beyond the Boston-NYC-Washington corridor. Michael Hirsch at Newsweek now offers his prescription for how TCM can reagain control of the “stimulus” debate. He says that said debate has become, as he views it, mired in a “decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending.” As if these were incidental matters, barely consequential, tiny roadblocks on the way to the realization of The Anointed One’s grand vision for rescuing America from this recession.
My God, what kind of wild drug is Hirsch ingesting these days? Has he not seen the lists, available everywhere, of all the unaffordable, unadvisable and just plain silly measures in the bill? How about six billion for university buidlings? Or $380 million for the Women, Children and Infants program? $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”? $145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits? $83 billion for the Earned Income Tax Credit? $600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids? $850 million to Amtrak? $2 billion for renewable energy research? And that’s only eight examples from the list of fifty posted on NRO’s home page today.
Hirsch perhaps hasn’t seen the Congressional Budget Office’s report that this monstrosity would be harmful to the US economy in the long term. Or the latest poll numbers showing that public support for it has sunk to 37 percent.
If conservatives will just muster all the clarity of vision and ferocity of resolve they can, it will be easy to give this whole FHer house of cards – the majority in government, the lapdog MSM, the arts-and-entertainment world, the education fiefdom – a gentle poke and see it collapse. These people are like the Wicked Witch of the West, who, because she was made of nothing but brown sugar, melted at the slightest moistening. To use a more historical example, the whole FHer infrastucture is more like the Ceaucescu regime in Romania, or the Mussolini regime in Italy. Or, to use a domestic analogy, it is like a violently addictive family member whose bluff can be called. In each case – most definitely including the TCM / Pelosi / Hirsch / Tanenhaus stronghold, a little standing up to them by normal people armed with a grip on reality could be their instant undoing. We’ve seen eveidence that this is possible over the last week. This is no time to let up.
01.31.09
Reading Time magazine will rot your brain – today’s edition
Time calls Pubs “truculent” and tries to put the word in Michael Steele’s mouth. Also, in their coverage of Lt. Gov. Steele’s assuming of the RNC chairmanship, not a word from an actual conservative about the excitement this generates. Also – and this is no surprise – does not tell the lefty origins of the “magic Negro” phrase but rather tries to trace it back to Rush.
Henry and Claire are rolling in their graves.
10.01.08
Who the hell was asleep at the switch when this selection was made?
Gwen Ifill, the moderator of Thursday’s VP debate, is hardly an objective journalist.
04.19.08
“Obscenity of the year” is an accurate characterization
An Investors Business Daily editorial on the faux-Iwo Jima Time cover.
02.22.08
What being a Reasonable Gentleman will get you
The non-story in the New York Times about the lobbyist from a decade ago who was hanging around John McCain comes mere days after that paper had “endorsed” him as its favorite Republican candidate. It’s quite obvious now that that “endorsement” was all about softening him up for the kill. Pinch, Keller and the rest of the NYT’s gang of Freedom-Haters no more want to see McCain elected President than they do Duncan Hunter.
This whole episode points up a central truth we hammer home here at BN every chance we get: “reaching out” and “crossing the aisle” is an open invitation to have your entrails clawed out.
There is only one way to relate to Freedom-Haters: defeat them. They have no interest in us other than silencing us.
It’s not encouraging to see this nation’s only hope for not becoming a socialist dictatorship respond by saying he was “disappointed.” Senator, if that’s the best you can do, you’re in for a lot more “disappointment” on the way to your defeat and this nation’s ruin.
10.21.07
You have to know that one particular fire is put out so you can deal with the others
Ralph Peters has an excellent column today about the MSM’s ignoring of the recent good news coming out of Iraq.
Think about this. One of the major theaters in the current global war is coming to a successful resolution, and no major news outlet will say so.
I feel good about the direction things are going in Iraq, but this willful blind eye on the part of our culture here at home has me concerned for the road ahead. Without an informed populace, mistaken perceptions of reality will wind up guiding our thinking – and voting. There’s still an arduous road ahead. Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming to Pakistan was met with an al-Qaeda attack that killed over 130 and injured hundreds more. Iran is headed full-steam towards a nuclear weapon. I could go on. The point is that if no one tells the American public that Iraq is getting its act together and is no longer the mess it was even earlier this year, a we-don’t-need-any-more-quagmires mindset will prevail when other fronts in this struggle still require our vigilance and keen wits.
08.22.07
Hugh and company have me thinkin’
Two thought-provoking posts – one from Dean Barnett and one from Hugh – at Hugh Hewitt’s blog this evening. Respectively, they deal with the lastest blow to The New Republic’s stature as one of America’s premier opinion journals, and the battle between Apple’s itunes and Rhapsody for the older demographic.
These subjects are disparate and shouldn’t be treated in the same post. Plus, I’m beat after a long day. It’s 12:30 now. Prep for the semester’s first blues-history lecture. A Jazz from Bloomingtom board meeting. Shopping for and installing new multimedia software for the new laptop. Some administrative stuff for Mrs. Q’s salon.
Let me say this to get my – and your – thought processes started. With regard to TNR and in particular this Scott Beauchamp debacle and editor Franklin Foer’s handling of it, it’s of a piece with the whole east-coast, journalism-is-a-sacred-calling / the-establishment-must-always-be-regarded-sceptically-except-when-it-is-us mentality that we see in examples such as Newsweek’s recent cover story on the supposed minority of the scientific community that’s sceptical of global-warming claims. Hugely agenda driven. Big-time issues with”powerful corporations.” And so on. As I say, I will properly deal with this in a post dedicated to this matter.
With regard to the HH post about Apple and Viacom vying for the over-40 demographic, let me start with this, and, of course, I’ll get into it in proper depth soon: Maybe I look like some kind of way-off-the-radar-screen blip to industry trend-watchers and even cultural-observation pundits, but I take my music seriously. I don’t mean just as some kind of it’s-all-about-me consumer with little earplugs glued to the sides of my head and tastes that grow more persnickety by the day. No. I take music’s role in the development and heritage of our culture – any culture – so seriously that I think abandoning the field of what downloadable music is going to be made available in cyberspace to a bunch of twits who think American music started with Depeche Mode or Jewel or what the f— ever is dangerous for national security reasons.
As I say, it’s late. I hope it doesn’t take too long to get back to each of these subjects in the detail they deserve.
07.23.07
Elitist condesension does no one any favors
It was most interesting to come upon this Myron Magnet piece in City Journal after my four days at Indiana Black Expo. Magnet is one of the most rigourous and clear-eyed observers of the upheavals in American society in the last fifty years, and here he applies that scrutiny to the question of why we have the simultaneous phenomena of an expanding black middle class and a huge black prison population. It’s long, but I invite anyone who starts into it to read the whole thing before drawing any conclusions. And if anyone feels the need to get the same message from someone of another pigmentation, may I suggest the works of John McWhorter or Shelby Steele.
04.18.07
MSM gotcha makes a mess of two more lives and careers (as well as the cause of Islamic democracy)
02.02.07
If the Washington Post has any sense of decency
Why did they hire William Arkin in the first place? As their national-security guy, no less. They had to know about his background with The Insititute for Policy Studies, Greenpeace and other such outfits. But after this column, they’ll surely can him, won’t they?
