Archive for the ‘Innernets’ Category

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Does “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” Need a Subplot About Female Ninjas?

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Tom Schlegel, Taki’s Magazine, “Feminist Delusions About Children’s Fairytales.”

Feminist sensibilities have brought us heroines such as Samantha on Sex and the City: materialistic, self-obsessed, defined by work and, oh yes, someone who abandons a man to find a more experienced male model.

The argument goes something like this: Women are seeking out divorce in record numbers because there isn’t enough husband material with Fabio hair, a noble steed, and a return address that simply says THE CASTLE.

Stories are the best way to teach. Even the transvestite hookers on Sex and the City understand that.

I’ll take Sleeping Beauty any day. At the end of her story she knows that our behavior has good and bad consequences that affect the people around us.
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The Little Mermaid taught us we need to sacrifice for the one we love. The problem here isn’t the fairytale’s message. No, the trick is in teaching our daughters how to recognize good men from bad ones.

Thankfully we have Little Red Riding Hood, who shows us that sometimes the sweetest tongue is also the sharpest.

By the way—that schlub you’re about to divorce could be the real Prince Charming. Just so happens he’s prematurely bald, allergic to horses, and castles are out of his price range.

Posted in Flogs | No Comments »

“Femisogynists”

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Fellow Right Wing News contributor Lori Ziganto from Snark & Boobs guests on Smart Girl Nation. They take on the people who call themselves “feminists” who actually hate women. The result is awesomesauce.

Download MP3

“I’m tired of having them say they speak for us when they absolutely do not.”

“They seem to not like womanhood as a whole.”

At about 8:00, the comment that is being discussed about checking under skirts, is by Tennessee State Rep. Janis Baird Sontany: “You have to lift their skirts to find out if they are women. You sure can’t find out by how they vote!” Niiiiiiiice. So apparently all the chicks are supposed to vote the same way or else there’s something wrong with ’em and you need to look under their skirts.

4. That it isn’t really about empowering women to choose things. Whenever feminism brings women a choice, feminism wants women to make the choice a certain way, so it isn’t really bringing them the choice.

From my list of things people say about feminists (which feminists could prove wrong every hour of every day if they chose to…but they don’t).

Posted in Flogs | 1 Comment »

What They Say About Feminists

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Consider it a public service. I notice in the last few years that feminists have become so outspoken, so rugged, so courageous, so capable and so tough, that they’re now scared to death to sustain a conversation with a non-feminist for any length of time. And by that, I mean someone outside of their militant movement, not someone who seeks to repeal womens’ suffrage. They have very passionate opinions about the issues of the day, but if you talk with them about it you quickly realize they’ve only been discussing them with other militant feminists.

It’s like they’ve been living inside a circle as it has been constricting.

The tragedy of it is, when you talk about the broad definition of “feminist,” most women qualify for that, or want to, and they should. These are the women who say: Yes, I am ready to really count, I am ready to embrace the responsibility that comes with being important. I refuse to raise my daughter to be a second-class citizen. That is supposed to be the goal. But in the twenty-first century, that isn’t really what feminism is anymore. Lately it seems in order to be a “proper” feminist, you have to subscribe to and promote a victimology. Individuals cannot meet up with challenges and simply overcome them; that is far too simple. There has to be a villain somewhere. And the villain can only be vanquished by a collective, not by an individual. The movement must be nourished, it must grow, and then we’ll all get what we want when we show numbers and our anger.

The feminists who have become strident and militant, however, have trouble understanding how their precious “movement” could ever be seen in a hostile light. They’re blind to it, because they’ve been living in a bubble in which nobody’s allowed to ever acknowledge it. They have not been policing their own.

And so they must reckon with the following dozen things people say. Of course they may choose not to; they can persist in the “If You Don’t Agree With Us About Everything You Must Think Women Are Property So Fooey On You.” They have that choice. But if they go that route, this yawning divide between hostile, brittle, extremist militant feminists, and everybody else, will just become wider and deeper.

Here is what establishment feminists have a chance to disprove, if they try. People outside the movement say:

1. That it will abandon women as soon as defending them would get in the way of promoting a progressive agenda; “feminists” proved this when they defended Bill Clinton. The movement’s credibility suffered an injury during that time, from which it has never fully recovered.
2. That it’s just another ploy to get democrats elected. Some entitlement program will be proposed, and “since women are always stuck with the kids” it’s supposed to become an “issue affecting women.” Of course, when it comes to “the environment” they don’t even bother to come up with a justification. Instead, “environmental issues” become “womens’ issues” as well, as if men don’t have to live in the environment.
3. That it has very little to do with a more important role for women; it’s really about greater power and prestige without the associated responsibility. It is an organized process of collective bargaining, to make it more profitable for women to get married, have kids, and get divorced. And so over time it does not make women more respected. It does not invigorate womens’ intellect because it does nothing to challenge it. Women must go above feminism if they want to make themselves more rugged, intelligent, capable and esteemed.
4. That it isn’t really about empowering women to choose things. Whenever feminism brings women a choice, feminism wants women to make the choice a certain way, so it isn’t really bringing them the choice.
5. That abortion is quite a profitable industry — in fact, it’s about as male-dominated as any other — and feminism is in bed with it. People who call it “pro-abortion” rather than “pro-choice” are, for the most part, absolutely right.
6. That they aren’t very curious about ideas, not very well-read. They hang out with other feminists. They frequently fall prey to False Consensus effect, and are very often taken by surprise with what non-feminists really think. Mosts feminists will find this list shocking and waste no time and saying so.
7. That it fails to promote individuality because it fails to encourage logical discourse. They do not argue logically. If a feminist disapproves of something, usually her reaction will be to rally other feminists around her and they’ll all help each other to ridicule and deplore it. Invariably, that will be the feminist reaction to this list.
8. That they are interested in complaining, not about learning. All feminists step forward, now anybody who hasn’t learned to drive a stick shift step back. There won’t be many left.
9. That it’s hostile and negative. Women earn scorn from “feminists” when they do something nice for a man, place importance in a man, say something nice about a man, dress up for a man.
10. That it has a lot of scope creep to it but it doesn’t want to be called out on it. Their two favorite issues actually would diminish the role of women in our society — gay marriage and abortion-on-demand — and if you utter a peep of protest, suddenly all they want to talk about is how they want to give women the right to vote, as if we were still living in 1910.
Women Are Not For Decoration11. It is divisive. It has to be; when you’re protesting that Congress is 80 percent male, or whatever it is, you’re saying it’s impossible for someone in Congress to represent constituents of another gender. Without that baseline premise their argument falls flat, and with it, they have to be placing men and women in two separate societies.
12. That it is rude. It associates itself with jokes about female body parts. It encourages young ladies to behave in ways that will repel male attention when they’re in their twenties (and bring it when they’re about eight).

I think what’s been going on for the last generation or so is this: Someone will occupy a position of great influence within an organization of militant feminism, and at some point this person will have to retire; of the candidates available to fill the vacancy, the more “energetic” candidate will prevail, which generally means the more hostile one. And so across the decades, the movement pickles. The people inside it cannot see it, and they end up mystified as to why their movement is losing sympathy with the broader populace.

Most of the feminists I’ve talked to who are really enthused about crusading under the banner of that “F” word, are filled with admiration for Hillary Clinton and scorn for Sarah Palin. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever. They cannot explain why this is. Of course, they know the reason and I know the reason too.

But if you were to bring me to a space alien who was interested in our culture, and feminism, and he was able to understand all the concepts that were really relevant but was entirely ignorant of recent events, and Republicans-and-democrats…I wouldn’t be able to explain it to that space alien. You wouldn’t either. Not without a word-for-word explanation involving that Item #2 — which, of course, would tick off the militant feminists.

And then if they could hear that conversation, they’d lose no time at all in invoking Item #7. It would become very noisy.

And so the word is losing meaning. It has a broad definition and a very narrow one. The narrow definition of “feminist” is becoming acrid and vituperative. It has been marinading in victimology, and in victimology you always have to have a bad guy behind every problem. Bad things cannot simply happen, nor can they be solved without lots and lots of drama. The persons who have been living in this world, I’m afraid, are becoming useless to others and to themselves. Their efforts are not compatible with their stated goals.

The problem is even more pronounced with men. Men can be feminists; men can be both kinds of feminist. Men without a progressive bone in their whole bodies can get plum-tuckered-out of dating dim, helpless women and become hungry for someone more worthy, responsible and competent. And men can also become self-loathing. They can sign onto the Sally Field nonsense and codswallop about “If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any G*****mned wars in the first place.” It’s a real puzzle for a fella when he meets a woman who says something like “I’m a feminist, are you a feminist too?” That could mean just about anything.

Maybe it’s time for a different word.

Posted in Flogs | 4 Comments »

Women on Top?

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Chris Wysocki has an excellent round-up of our post-modern feminists lately going batshit-crazy. This is useful right now, because this week a whole lot has been happening at once and you need to be looking in a lot of directions to see how nutty it all is.

The people who call themselves “feminists” are filled with hate, looney-tunes, and they’re acting that way. There is very little unusual about this, in & of itself. What’s different about this week is that their grip on sanity has so weakened that they cannot even act to preserve their precious movement. This is why I call them, not “feminists,” but “the people who call themselves ‘feminists’.”

Treated Like ChildrenLet’s just be refreshingly blunt: This is not a pro-woman movement. It’s just another gimmick to get liberal democrats into office and to keep them there.

ReelGirl is pretty pissed about me pointing this out. She insists that “Morgan seems unable to listen to logic” but this reveals a failure to keep track of her own argument, because any discourse that ensues from “Keep mean girls out of office” is going to be inherently illogical. If logic is your lodestar, then what’s up with this business of adjudicating meanness? It’s just a way to change the subject. We can’t afford sound policies, we can’t afford logic or common sense, we have to keep the mean people out of office.

I pointed out that if the message is “We cannot afford to consider replacing Barbara Boxer because her challenger is a meanie-cow,” it doesn’t resonate much because Sen. Boxer is a very poor archetype of nice-ness. And that’s being charitable.

You guessed it. I’m on the attack now. I’m a sinister, shadowy, menacing remnant of the patriarchy…and the feminists are recoiling, like a 1950’s housewife climbing up atop a chair to escape a mouse. Eek!

How do you get more thin-skinned than that. Seriously. Try to envision a way. You can’t. This is a movement to empower women?

After winding up my vacation with my girlfriend, who is properly deferential to my masculine will on matters where she knows she should be, although she’s quite strong willed and anything but a wallflower, we headed back into town (the man driving of course), and pulled into Hooters for a big ol’ mess of hot wings. We briefly reflected on this Internet dust-up, and how the owner of the flog is threatening to ban me. It was then I realized something:

I have been arguing with left-wing twits on some kind of networking computer system for twenty-four years now. To my knowledge, I have yet to be banned from anything.

It’s not that I see getting banned as a badge of honor, but a quarter century without having it happen certainly doesn’t command any bragging rights. My God, all the mental instability I’ve seen out there in all that time. Someone should have banned me by now. If this is where my cherry gets popped, I’d say it’s way overdue.

ReelGirl doesn’t seem too interested in dialogue; flog-posters typically are not. I point out the many inconsistencies with what’s been said, and they go away and I figure I’ve killed the whole conversation. And then a whole day later someone comes back and tut-tuts me, demands to know of my military service record or embarks on some other similar tangent.

If they do it again I’m gonna go all Cartman, and tell them to get their fat asses back in the kitchen & make me a pie. If you don’t see why, go back and read Wysocki’s piece from top to bottom. Republican women are pulling off exactly the kind of revolution feminists say they want, and far from celebrating or throwing a ticker tape parade, they’re crying in their Ben & Jerry’s.

Like I said. It’s just another ploy to elect democrats. It’s been reduced to that and nothing more for a very long time now; every now and then we get a stark reminder of it, and it’s up to us to decide whether to pay attention to it or not. We just got another reminder.

P12Update: Forgot to make a note of it. Everything said from their side on that site, is pure garbage. Every single speck. But there is something revealing and notable in what one of ’em said…others have commented on it before. The graphic that has been in the sidebar on & off for quite awhile now, and has been a constant fixture since the year began. Wonder Woman, side profile, in an action pose, slightly altered to look like Sarah Palin. This brings down thundering disapproval because it is a testament to my “shallow thinking.”

Purest bile, purest nonsense — because if my politics were more in line with theirs and I used exactly the same graphic, the graphic would “reveal” entirely different things. I know it, they know it, everybody knows it, they know everybody (who cares) knows this.

Ever watch a Justice League cartoon? Wonder Woman never really has been just-another-super-heroine, has she. She can’t be, because she was endowed by her mother with the powers of all the Greek gods, including love and wisdom. She negotiates before she fights, but once she’s started fighting she’s all-in, and she’s in it to win it. She does not need any experts to tell her whose ass to kick, she figures it out. She’s a natural leader, possessing both power and judgment. When the other members of the JLA are quarreling like little kids, she’ll put a stop to it. She possesses perhaps the greatest potential, out of all of them, to come up with the most constructive resolution to whatever the problem is. She may even surpass Superman in this respect.

This is not a justification for Heather or for ReelGirl to be reading. They don’t need it. Like I said: They’d see this aspect immediately, on their own, if only my political leanings resembled theirs. (Of course, to make that happen, the reference would have to be to someone besides Palin…but still.)

But I lean right and they lean left. So all that matters is Wonder Woman’s flowing hair, her generous heaving bosom, her succulent bare thighs, and her curvy, sensuous, beautiful star-spangled rear end. Things I personally hadn’t ever even noticed before, myself.

ReelGirl spoke of logic. They’re not really using it over there. They’re “thinking” with their emotions, and this is precisely the trouble into which one gets. You look at things, and before you see what’s really there, you see what you want to see. Your God-given powers of managing your own senses to interact with your environment, naturally deteriorate. Notice that your intellect is not diminished in this way; it simply becomes irrelevant, because you’re only going through the motions of taking information in and not really doing it.

Update: Fellow Right Wing News contributor Kerrie Heretic comments on the nationwide sweep:

Also, as you skim through the Wysocki piece, don’t miss the link to Blogsister Cassy’s spot, she does a very nice job of capturing the widespread psychosis.

We really need to make a record of this and see to it it’s preserved in our long-term collective memory. It’s important. “Feminists” are saddened, shocked, appalled, disappointed…as women on the conservative side are making an historic advancement. Whatever they have in mind for a vision of what’s supposed to happen in our society, this is not it.

Their agenda, agree with it or not, is hidden because it must be. They cannot be trusted.

Update 4/13/10: Lori Ziganto’s post at David Horowitz’s blog contained a graphic I could not resist swiping.

Got a feeling it’s going to come in handy. Again and again.

Posted in About Me and My Blog, Flogs | 1 Comment »

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XLII

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Nice Lookin' LadyOur dear blogger friend Irish Cicero has made a list of bloggers that “humble” him. It must have been through a clerical error of some kind, but we made the cut. Actually we’re in the Number One slot.

There are twenty-three blogs in that list, most of which, in our humble opinion make us look like dog barf. Not that this takes much. We’re just a guy. A guy who brings absolutely nothing to the table at all, other than a mediocre writing ability and a determination to think like a grown-up. You know…I see this thing, this thing must mean that thing, and because I infer that thing, I’m going to do this other thing and not some other stupid thing.

It used to be a requirement for survival. Now it’s a lost art.

This is enough to put us at the top of such a list? As we pointed out there, we hope not; we hope the ordering was random.

Cicero, we’re thinking of you tonight as we drain off the current box o’ suds. Here’s mud in yer eye pal. And thanks for the undeserved attention.

Posted in My Blogger Friends | 5 Comments »

Buy Some Extra Rounds

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

We think of them as friends, and we have high confidence that we are right in doing so. Their happiness is ours. Join us in lifting a tall cold one for them.

I Think Therefore I Err has a fifth blogoversary. Congratulations, and we look forward to five more from you.

Buck Jr. is stateside. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And welcome home.

Cassy’s own hero is making an honest woman outta her. So tack another one onto the list of reasons why he’s a better man than I am. In response to the question that was specifically asked, my answer is that a real woman drops the maiden name. But on that front, Cassy has nothing left to prove. You two are both lucky and doing alright.

Enough talking. Hoist ’em!

Posted in My Blogger Friends | 7 Comments »

Gerard Picks on Charles Johnson — Again

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

He’s a man on a mission. “Must drive stake into heart. Dismember body. Expose to sunlight. Stir ashes into dung. Shoot resulting mixture into the sun. Must. Must.” What inspires him to tread so close to the precipice, beyond which one becomes precisely what one seeks to defeat?

Bullshit like this…

Follow the link. You know you want to see the Pink Hitler.

Me, I’m one of the supporters of this effort. Like I said, “if this is an unhealthy addiction…I’m a willing enabler and want to be one.”

Posted in My Blogger Friends | 4 Comments »

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXXIX

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

…but The Blog That Nobody Reads got a prominent mention last week, in Webloggin’s farewell post.

Webloggin was the byproduct of an earlier blog called Threshold-55. Three years, a bit of burnout followed by a 6 month layoff and then this beautiful site. We had many blogging members come and go. The Machete of Truth whom I miss dearly, Big Dog, Teri O’Brien, House of Eratosthenes, Republic of Biloxi, Jodi 210, The Otto Show (now a group blog called The Inside Straight), The Right Wing Cafe, Right Girl (aka Girl on the Right), Faultline USA, Bookworm Room, Right Truth, Okie on the Lam, Soccer Dad, The Absurd Report and The Intolerant Fox.

I can’t even begin to thank each of these blogs and their respective owners for contributing the finest conservative commentary I have ever read. You have been an inspiration!
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Please don’t think that the left has won one here. In fact quite the opposite is true. Webloggin is redundant in nature and it has simply outlived it’s usefulness. I am the acting Watcher at Watcher of Weasels and this has become my central focus in the blogging world outside of Newsbusters. Many of the Webloggin members also blog over at WoW so I urge you readers to follow us there.

As of this week I will begin redirecting readers to Watcher of Weasels and hope you pass on the word. You have all been kind to me and the other Webloggin members and you have my utmost gratitude.

Happy trails, Trip. Thanks for hosting us during those three years before we moved onto our own domain here…and see you at the WoW.

Also, as some of you know, yesterday we managed to snag a HotLaunch, meaning we somehow earned a prominent mention at HotAir and it sent our SiteMeter stats spinning all wonky. We’ve already seen I dunno how many new accounts set up for commenting, so we’ll probably get some new friends out of this. That’s always a good thing. Take off your coats and stay awhile, ladies and gents. Besides, it’s cold and wet out there tonight, and you weren’t thinking of getting back on that highway anyhow.

What brought ’em in? Our post yesterday about a NewsBusters article — drawing our attention to a couple of wrinkly old hippy ladies who were acting like sixteen-year-olds…fulfilling most, if not all, of the things I’ve been noticing about the Palin bashers for awhile. In the space of a few minutes, they managed to hit all the high points. At least ten, maybe more, out of the 25.

There are many these bitter people running around. Most of them have rights and responsibilities on par with those of normal people…and while they’re acting all concerned that “we live in a country where [Palin’s accomplishments are] possible,” it seems to escape their notice that a lot of other people are pretty concerned, legitimately, about them. The ignorance they represent, and the hate. It doesn’t even have that much to do with politics, or liberalism, or Barack Obama. We’ve already managed to find out a few things about what’s taking place here, but it’s still something that requires further inspection. There’s something there that has gone undetected for awhile. Something living underground, predatory, slithering, toxic.

We won’t root it out. People have a right to be prejudiced. But we’ll probably learn a lot of helpful things about it over the next couple of years.

Posted in About Me and My Blog, My Blogger Friends | 5 Comments »

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXXVIII

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

A few days ago I got in trouble with a whole lot of my male readers on the subject of chicks. And so I’m glad, today, to see my point of view defended by…a chick. And not just any chick, but Blogsister Daphne.

We all know when a good-looking woman crosses our path, our eyes turn, we can’t help ourselves. Humans enjoy physical beauty. Classically beautiful women have two things in common; a shapely figure and attractive faces. It has always been so. Playboy didn’t define beauty, it merely showcased the finer lights of my sex in a more blatantly prurient vein.

Big bottomed girls, fair redheads sprinkled with freckles, golden brown brunettes, lean boyish frames, overflowing busts and tawny eyed blondes all find admirers in the wide arena of men. Taste is subjective, sexual heat is particular. Acknowledging the platinum standard of female beauty doesn’t denigrate or negate women who failed to benefit from a great combination of DNA nor does it demean the men who fall in love or deep passion with a woman who swims in circles well outside that ancient ideal.

I still maintain my own careless editing motivated many to take my words out of context. Many among my critics were offering the critique that man-to-man-to-man, the ideal of beauty will naturally change. I agree with this, and it seems Daphne does too.

But I’ll certainly go along with the idea that there is a predilection. And that it is frequently misrepresented and mis-perceived. Rare is the man who’d prefer the physique of Keira Knightly, contrasted against Marilyn Monroe. My point was that Vox Populi was perfectly on-target: If you spend your lifetime preferring a certain look, it is highly unlikely some “Rules”-reading bimbo will come along sporting a completely different look, and cause you to stop in your tracks and go “Whoa!” You’ll probably end up marrying someone within your ideal of beauty.

Daphne’s point is well taken too, though. There is taste; there is the magnetism. One is subjective, the other is far less so.

Posted in Is It Really a Man's World?, My Blogger Friends | 4 Comments »

Cut This Story!

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

So one of the reasons that blogs are supplanting newspapers in the role of telling the public what’s going wrong, perhaps the strongest reason, is that they enjoy a certain freedom with format?

It’s an interesting thought.

ne reason seekers of news are abandoning print newspapers for the Internet has nothing directly to do with technology. It’s that newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory.

Take, for example, the lead story in The New York Times on Sunday, November 8, 2009, headlined “Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House.” There is nothing special about this article. November 8 is just the day I happened to need an example for this column. And there it was. The 1,456-word report begins:

Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.

Fewer than half the words in this opening sentence are devoted to saying what happened. If someone saw you reading the paper and asked, “So what’s going on?,” you would not likely begin by saying that President Obama had won a hard-fought victory. You would say, “The House passed health-care reform last night.” And maybe, “It was a close vote.” And just possibly, “There was a kerfuffle about abortion.” You would not likely refer to “a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system,” as if your friend was unaware that health-care reform was going on. Nor would you feel the need to inform your friend first thing that unnamed Democrats were bragging about what a big deal this is—an unsurprising development if ever there was one.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM | No Comments »

Morgan’s Purse-Dog

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Webutante was wondering over at Gerard’s place what we look like, so we went looking through our own pages for something old in which our Buddha-sized gut didn’t show. We finally settled on this one which is slightly modified…

I did that one a very long time ago, and if I recall correctly I zoomed way in and sucked in the stomach by about three or four pixels. Digital liposuction; wouldn’t help nowadays. Everything else is genuine though. If memory serves.

Gerard wasn’t satisfied though, and thought it might be realistic to add something back in.

Mmm, yeah. Don’t think that’s gonna happen.

Posted in About Me and My Blog, My Blogger Friends | 5 Comments »

How to Cover Obama’s Double-Homicide

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

John Hawkins printed up a list of the Top 40 Quotes From 2009, and we got a trackback out of it because we came up with #11. For grins, we decided to skim through it top to bottom, and we realized we completely missed out on this eight-month-old Onion article.

Sadly, it remains just as relevant today as it was then.

Media Having Trouble Finding Right Angle On Obama’s Double-Homicide

More than a week after President Barack Obama’s cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime.

“I know there’s a story in there somewhere,” said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama’s home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8. “Right now though, it’s probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in. After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation.”

Added Meacham, “It’s not so cut and dried.”

Since the killings took place, reporters across the country have struggled to come up with an appropriate take on the ruthless crime, with some wondering whether it warrants front-page coverage, and others questioning its relevance in a fast-changing media landscape.

“What exactly is the news hook here?” asked Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the CBS Evening News. “Is this an upbeat human-interest story about a ‘day in the life’ of a bloodthirsty president who likes to kill people? Or is it more of an examination of how Obama’s unusual upbringing in Hawaii helped to shape the way he would one day viciously butcher two helpless citizens in their own home?”

“Or maybe the story is just that murder is cool now,” Kaplan continued. “I don’t know. There are a million different angles on this one.”

So far, the president’s double-homicide has not been covered by any major news outlets. The only two mentions of the heinous tragedy have been a 100-word blurb on the Associated Press wire and an obituary on page E7 of this week’s edition of the Lake County Examiner.

Since this one was printed up, the Obama administration has specifically fingered Fox News as “not a real news organization.” The Onion piece reports — prophesies — why this might be. Some bit of fact emerges that is unflattering to the administration, and Fox News comes out and actually reports it. I mean, hey, what in the world is up with that? What responsible news organization would do such a thing?

Posted in About Me and My Blog, Blogs vs. MSM, Obamamania | No Comments »

Memo For File CVI

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

I am so glad I begin every day by clicking open American Digest, as opposed to plucking the paper “digest” off my front porch. Thomas Jefferson said “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers” and I wish I knew how exactly our third President arrived at this — only because it must be a great story. I have no choice but to agree; so I’m going to do what I wish he did. I’m going to put down in writing exactly why I think what he came to think. Which means: I’m going to write down today, why I agree with Jefferson today.

Gerard has a couple of good ones this morning: Jennifer Rubin’s inventory of what exactly is in the health care bill as it’s being debated right now; and Zombie’s twenty-two reasons why the very concept should be repugnant and deeply offensive to all of us, and rejected in any form whatsoever.

Rubin:

Really, what’s left after they take out the public option and the Medicare buy-in? A GOP leadership aide put it this way: “$500 billion in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in tax increases, raises premiums, raises costs, onerous regulations, individual mandates, employer mandate, and expensive subsidies.” So what’s not to like? Well, just about everything. Perhaps, in a moment of clarity, everyone will go home, think this through clearly, and come back with a list of a few discrete reforms that will have bipartisan support. Then they can declare victory. Makes too much sense. Instead the Democratic leadership seems hell-bent on coming up with the umpteenth version of ObamaCare no matter how unpopular it may be with the public and making vulnerable members walk the plank. Seems crazy, huh? It is.

ZombieTime:

What I don’t like about the very concept of universal health care is that it compels me to become my brother’s keeper and insert myself into the moral decisions of his life. I’d rather grant each person maximum freedom. I’d prefer to let people make whatever choices they want, however stupid or dangerous I may deem those choices to be. Just so long as you take responsibility for your actions, and you reap the consequences and pay for them yourself — hey, be as foolish or hedonistic or selfish or thoughtless as you like. Not my business.

But if the bill for your foolishness shows up in the form of higher taxes on me, then I unwillingly start to care what you do. And, trust me on this, you don’t want me turning my heartless judgmental eye on your foolish lifestyle. Because I’d have no qualms criticizing half the stuff you do.

Do you want that? No. Do I want that? No. And that’s the point. Instituting a single-payer universal health-care system, or even a watered-down version as the government is now proposing, compels me to become a meddlesome busybody in your personal choices. [emphasis in original]

But the definitive, must-go-to piece on this turdpie of a bill, as of yesterday, is Byron York’s tattle-tale job that was on the innerwebs, and featured on the radios all day long — rightfully so. Maybe you got that out of your newspaper, but I didn’t get it out of mine…and you’ll see in some of the paragraphs below later on, I shouldn’t go looking for it there. You m-u-s-t read this, all the way through, and right now…

[T]he margin of opposition [to this turkey] seems to be growing, not diminishing. And yet Democrats seem determined to defy public opinion. Why?

I put the question to a Democratic strategist who asked to remain anonymous…

You have to look at the issue from three different Democratic perspectives: the House of Representatives, the White House and the Senate.

“In the House, the view of [California Rep. Henry] Waxman and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi is that we’ve waited two generations to get health care passed, and the 20 or 40 members of Congress who are going to lose their seats as a result are transitional players at best,” he said. “This is something the party has wanted since Franklin Roosevelt.” In this view, losses are just the price of doing something great and historic.

“At the White House, the picture is slightly different,” he continued. “Their view is, ‘We’re all in on this, totally committed, and we don’t have to run for re-election next year. There will never be a better time to do it than now.'”

“And in the Senate, they look at the most vulnerable Democrats — like [Christopher] Dodd and [Majority Leader Harry] Reid — and say those vulnerabilities will probably not change whether health care reform passes or fails. So in that view, if they pass reform, Democrats will lose the same number of seats they were going to lose before.”
:
[H]e compared congressional Democrats with robbers who have passed the point of no return in deciding to hold up a bank. Whatever they do, they’re guilty of something. “They’re in the bank, they’ve got their guns out. They can run outside with no money, or they can stick it out, go through the gunfight, and get away with the money.”

Sacramento Bee, my local paper, has done some things right and some things wrong. Yesterday, they chose to revert to their common form as a hard-left hippy-dippy Pravda snotrag. Do it just like they taught ya in journalism school, class — lead with the tearjerker human interest story, and then round the bend from there into a festering stewpot of statistical bullshit just like we always do…

Insurance cost for small businesses could ride on Congress’ action

L.D. Schmidt is a working man who arrives, in sickness and in health, at his small midtown Sacramento electronics shop to repair audio equipment.

Schmidt lacks health insurance, and hopes that the health care overhaul being debated in Congress will get him affordable coverage without driving up his costs of doing business.

Schmidt’s shop is among the tens of thousands of mom-and-pop firms scattered across America, enterprises whose proprietors often can’t even afford health insurance for themselves, let alone their workers.

“I just have to keep coming back to work, unless I get so sick and just can’t get out of bed,” said Schmidt…His only employee, a 20-year-old who was kicked off his parents’ health plan last year, is paid minimum wage and can’t afford to buy his own health coverage.

About three in 10 of the state’s self-employed don’t have health insurance, and nearly 43 percent of those working in the state’s smallest firms – those that employ fewer than 10 people – are uninsured, according to the annual Health Care Almanac produced by the California HealthCare Foundation.

Nearly two in five of the state’s 7 million uninsured are either self-employed or work for some of California’s smallest companies, the foundation reported.

I don’t like bashing The Bee, and I don’t relish doing it this time. But this is so sad. Can’t get any sadder. Bee Editor Melanie Sill, predictable as a sunrise, is going to bitch some more about the financial problems of the print journalism industry as a whole and SacBee in particular…every…single…weekend. If only the funny-papers were kept in my Sunday edition with all the reliability of the Sill dirges.

And yet all these journalists have dedicated their entire lives to the mind-expanding task of keeping abreast with what’s going on, for a living. Which is supposed to mean all day every day, right? Well what the hell are they doing. Should I even ask what they’re doing. No, I should not. The pattern has been set, and long ago. It is the constant wailing of the left-wing caffeine-infused human-yip-dog stress-puppy. Obviously, for them it comes down to just the latest tome of “Oh dear, we’re waiting for Congress to ACT!! and we are so SCREWED!! if they don’t!!” Can’t you just see the little rat-tail lashing about, neurotically. Every edition that rolls off the press, further blurs the line between reporting and barking.

Go back to Rubin’s piece to see what exactly it is they’re writing about. Do they know? Do they care? I see the lights are on but is anybody home?

Congress’ clear and obvious failing as servants of this republic over which they seek to rule…it doesn’t even merit a mention. And L.D. Schmidt? In the print edition (downstairs, in the passenger seat of my car, as I write this) the story is emblazoned with a 32-point-type quote from the business owner, that thing about “I just have to keep coming back to work, unless I get so sick and just can’t get out of bed,” See, if you look at it through the glass of a news stand, you think he’s got Lymphoma, or Narcolepsy, or Dr. House’s leg cyst that might shoot up into his brain at any second…at least chronic depression? Something. But if you actually read the story you see the guy’s just a worry-wart. Wants absolute, complete security, in the form of free health insurance from the federal government. God only knows what the guy is doing running his own business. Maybe he doesn’t have any choice because Obama’s made hiring so impractical and expensive, he can’t get hold of an income any other way. One thing you can take to the bank: If I ever make it a project to do some profiles on local entrepreneurial spirit and what I admire about these folks, I probably will not spend much time interviewing L. D. Schmidt. I got my start with small businesses. I grew up in a small-business town. I know something about how they live their lives, how they see the world, what they want to do in it, and what they want to get out of the doing.

Complete security, all risk eliminated, safe & secure as if you’re bobbing in amniotic fluid in your momma’s tummy — that doesn’t really have much to do with it.

But the real story here is not Schmidt…who comes off as being much more concerned, moment to moment, with risk than with opportunities, and has a perfect right to go through life this way if that’s his choice…but rather, The Bee. They are a tragedy. They are almost a villain. What the public really needs to know about what is going on, is so spectacularly distant from what they chose to report. If you understand the big picture, you realize you need to be hoping for this disaster to be derailed. By something. By anything. And this has an effect on what kind of news you need to consume. What question is first and foremost on your mind as you begin every day. How are our supposed “representatives” doing in their latest effort to screw us over. Conversely, of course, if you’re ignorant and think it’s all about “how will they take care of us,” that has an effect on what kind of questions you’re asking, as well…

And that, Ms. Sill, is why people are flocking to the innerwebs rather than reading your paper. You can’t blame it all on technology. It’s got to do with mindsets and world views. Your reporters are just plain lazy and incurious, and this has a deleterious effect on the product you’re selling every day. The fact of the matter is, if you read only the newspapers you’re missing quite a lot. Jefferson was — and is — correct. Your job, ultimately, is to prevent that from being the case. Maybe your goal should be to improve on this, do better at it from here-on-out, than you have up until now. That would be my suggestion.

On this horrible legislation itself, and what Congress should do about it? Anchoress nailed it. “GO HOME. Drop what you are doing, right now, and go home. Put the 2000 page healthcare bill that you haven’t read into the trash can as you turn out the lights and head for the airport…give America a break from your freakish certainties, your falsities, frailties and your folly. Turn off your blackberries and stay off the television and try to find whatever scraps of humanity still remain buried beneath the crust of stinking, corrupt ambition you’ve allowed to grow on you.”

These are no longer our servants. They are usurpers. That’s the real story.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM, Universal Healthcare | 4 Comments »

Barack Hussein Bush

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Barack Hussein BushMan, I’ll bet the anti-war zealots are really pissed.

I’m talking about Barry’s Nobel speech. Blogger friend Buck sent me an offline, curious about my thoughts, noting that Sarah Palin liked it more-or-less just fine. (We are, newcomers can tell from the artwork, decidedly in her camp; our New Mexico friend sees something wrong with the safety net, and at this late hour is opting to remain in the burning building.) “Caribou Barbie” includes, it should be noted, a caveat in her positive remarks:

But while blowing a kiss, Palin also took a jab, suggesting Obama study the actions of his predecessor as he navigates two wars abroad. “By the way, I’d like to see President Obama follow more closely in the footsteps of George Bush and his passion for keeping the homeland safe,” she said.

So naturally Buck wanted to know my reaction. Well, I played a round of Obama Speech Bingo with it last night. I didn’t count the word “my” as a “me,” and mostly because of this, by the time I made it to the end we were seven squares away from a total blackout. Pretty good speech. Bingo here, bingo there, bingo everywhere…

And by the time we were done — as is subtly indicated by iOwnTheWorld (hat tip to American Digest), as well as by Tundra Princess, it reads an awful lot like something the Crawford Village Idiot would say. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

I wonder how this happens?

Well as a general rule, when a committed politician starts talking common sense it’s only because he’s been backed into a corner and is left with no other alternative. Michael Moore didn’t like Obama’s decision on Afghanistan…that logic used by the filmmaker is the logic used by an eight-year-old, wanting to get something and not getting it…”It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around.” Bit it signals big trouble for the O-man. A quote attributed apocryphally to LBJ is “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” If Obama’s losing Moore, He’s losing all the tie-dyed anti-war Haight-Ashbury crackpots.

Why is He backed into a corner? Because He’s got a real job now, one that demands real decisions. The unicorns will have to leave the Oval Office now, and head on out to the marshmallow sparkly pastures where they belong so real-world decisions can be made.

For those who don’t understand what I’m talking about, the President’s speech provides most of what’s missing. Palin, once again, is right: It truly is a good speech — if He means what He says.

More trouble for Sort-of-God: Blogger friend Rick brings us a report that more people than ever would prefer to go back and undo the 2008 revolution:

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that’s somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country’s difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore…

BarracudaWhich means the whole “Obama will take us in the right direction again” was never anything more than a brain fart…a “I’m just tired of real-world decision-making”…an “I wanna vacation.” And since we live in a three-dimensional universe of cause-and-effect, the appeal of the dalliance has come-n-gone. Time to wake up. Time to do some real-world living.

Except in the meantime, during our slumber we seem to have sworn the sandman into our nation’s highest office. Oopsie.

Real life continues to play out like the finest Palin-in-2012 commercial money could possibly buy. The contest, still three years off, is being set up rather neatly and I think this is a healthy thing. Workhorses versus unicorns. Understanding and stating what needs to be done, versus dissembling and equivocating. A woman with all the right enemies versus a guy with all the wrong friends. Wife and mother, versus false prophet. A governor who left ’em wanting more, versus a President who’s gonna hang around three more years like a bad smell whether we want Him or not. “You betcha” versus “uh, uh, um, er, uh.”

Even Buck is seeing some redeeming qualities in the Barracuda:

Comment of the Day…
… over at Lex’s place, on the subject of Miss Alaska, her recent editorial in the WaPo, and Leftie reax to same:

OldT6Flyer
December 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm · Reply

The best thing about Sarah Palin is the every time she speaks the reaction from the left is so over the top that any rational person has to say: “What could possibly be that interesting?” and proceeds to tune into the Sarah Palin channel which, even if she’s not totally your cup of tea, comes across as a reasonable sort, especially in comparison to her tormentors, who are found writhing in the corner, foaming at the mouth, and generally making asses of themselves. As a bonus the so called “women’s movement” groups get exposed as, not all that interested in promoting women at all seeing how their silence at the obvious attacks on a leading WOMAN go strangely unanswered.

So no matter what you might think of Sarah Palin you’ve just got to love the apoplexy she causes on the left. If she didn’t exist somebody would need to invent her for the cause.

Yup. What Ol’ T-6 Flyer said. It’s well-known in certain circles that I’m a Palin skeptic even though I haven’t posted a whole helluva lot on the subject here in the home space. Which is by way of saying I’ve engaged a lot on the subject of La Palin in comments on other folks’ blogs. I’ve yet to drink the Arctic Princess’ Kool-Aid and I truly believe it’s way too damned early to be talking about 2012 presidential candidates. But… two things: (a) I simply LOVE the way she makes the Lefties go completely bonkers and (b) I totally enjoy crossing swords with zealots of any persuasion. And who knows? I might jump on the Palin bandwagon if she keeps on making sense and causing coronaries on the Left. Especially the latter.

What’s it all mean? Nothing more or less than what I’ve been saying for years.

People — call this liberalism, or call it something else — live in “Candyland,” where no tough decisions are ever necessary, when they feel like they can afford to live there. When all their food is slaughtered or grown and harvested and cleaned and sanitized and inspected and shrink-wrapped and delivered to their doorsteps.

Someone still has to grow that food. Which means truck in some fertilizer, the necessity of which might not be appreciated by those who merely consume the food. Shoot some predators, poison some predators, round up the predator-bodies, plow, irrigate, clean and maintain the farming equipment, clean and maintain the equipment that cleans & maintains the farming equipment…

Just because our daily wants and needs are met without too much fuss & bother from us, doesn’t mean we live in a snow globe. Things have to get done in order to make our lofty, comfortable existence possible. It doesn’t matter one bit whether we understand this necessity or not.

Twits like Michael Moore are like images in paintings, passing judgment on the brush strokes being used to bring them into “existence.” It’s all fine and good that he’s got opinions about stuff. But your mere dependence on these things is not a qualification for you to speak about the necessity of doing them, or lack of necessity. It’s something of a disqualification, if anything. If your existence depends on things getting done, and you yourself can’t see past these links-in-the-chain so you understand how these things are important, it means you’re spoiled and you can’t be relied-on to take inventory of all the staples required for your day-to-day being.

Image Credit: Mike Ely.

Posted in Deranged Leftists, Iraq and WoT Stuff, Justification for Invasion, My Blogger Friends, Obamamania | 3 Comments »

Hardball Bigotry

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

These people are nuts. And this stuff they’re peddling — it’s just plain sick. What in the hell is the matter with Chris Matthews? And who in the world is launching these fusillades against Fox News, and ignoring him?

Just have a look at some of this nonsense. And I’m using “nonsense” as a euphemism for something else.

NORAH O`DONNELL, NBC CORRESPONDENT: They have a connection with her, and I think it`s an emotional connection. A lot of the people I spoke with today were unable to articulate exactly why they supported Sarah Palin…But she`s about to arrive any minute, and there`s a stage out front where she`s going to take to that stage and make remarks, almost like a mini-campaign rally.

MATTHEWS: Well, they look like a white crowd to me. Let`s go back to Joan Walsh. Not that there`s anything wrong with it, but it is pretty monochromatic up there.

Joan, no surprise in terms of the ethnic nature of the people showing up. Nothing wrong with that. But it is a fact. Let me go to this intramural — the nastiness — and I want to get back to Norah on this, Norah covered the campaign and — the nastiness of this, the attacks on you might call them the “little people,” Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, in the campaign. Here`s somebody who was governor of a state taking whacks in a published book, her only book, trashing little people, and at the same time, she`s looking out for little…

Here`s her quote. By the way, here is McCain defending his people. “There`s been a lot of dust flying around in the last few days, and I just wanted to mention that I have the highest regard for Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace and the rest of the team, and I appreciate all the hard work and everything they did to help the campaign.”

So he`s pushing back, Joan.

JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM: Yes. You know, he was trying to stay out of it, Chris, for a few days. He was saying nice things about her. But when she insults his team like that — and you know, I — there are questions about who`s right, but they strenuously deny it, and other reporters who were around also deny her version of things. So, I think that there are a couple of whopping lies, as well as just a mean-spiritedness that doesn`t serve her well.

It`s why she will never be president. She is a very divisive, mean- spirited person. She is fighting down with her 19-year-old ex-future-son- in-law, who should really be ignored, if anything.

So, you know, I think you see a side of Sarah Palin — Norah is right. People who love her love her. But the general public doesn`t trust her and sees this kind of mean girl persona that she`s never grown out of.

Norah did great reporting, by the way. I was watching when she interviewed these people who were wrong about TARP and who just started babbling about she will defend the Constitution, as though Obama won’t.

MATTHEWS: Right.
:
MATTHEWS: … on “Sean Hannity” last night.

I think there is a tribal aspect to this thing, in other words, white vs. other people. I think she is very smart about this. Here she is on the issue of — of what happened down at Fort Hood, obviously, an ethnic issue, as many people see it.

WALSH: Right.

MATTHEWS: She sees it that way. Here she is going at him.

This mindset is plenty worthy of an expose all by itself. I can just see it now…”Coming up next: A political phenomenon grips the fears and passions of the nation. Guilty white liberals who see every issue in terms of white-versus-not-white. What drives them? What motivates them?”

I’d love to see health care reform presented in this way. Gather up a couple hundred communists who are chomping at the bit for government to take over health care, with all their sob stories, and gravely intone: “These people feel an emotional connection, they feel like they have been, in one way or another, beaten-up on…I was struck by the meanness of this, the nastiness of this…whopping lies, mean-spiritedness of this…”

What this is, is a liberal effort to take control of the “water cooler” conversation. People see this rot, and if they happen to like Sarah Palin — or even if they don’t, but they’re just part of the growing majority who think Obama needs to be stopped — the thought that comes into their heads is, “My God, the people I work with are going to see me the way they see the white racist knuckle-draggers in this video.” And they become chilled. They shut up.

It’s part of a deliberate strategy.

Meanwhile — none of the issues presented here are white-versus-not-white. Not a single one. Matthews, O’Donnell and Walsh are bringing that into it. If they are honest in their remarks, and I think they are, then that means they are sick and weak to the point of being incapable of making a logical decision about anything, because they get distracted and drift off into irrelevancies that determine the final outcome for them with regard to what they’re deciding. And then, like little kids, they seek validation for what they’ve decided, in the form of agreement toward/from others. “Oh you are so right, Chris, you are SO right.”

We’re looking at why blogs became popular in the first decade of this century. It’s not a matter of instant communication or high technology or even any kind of wonderful job the bloggers are doing. It’s a matter of trust. When you don’t trust anybody you want to get as many perspectives on what’s going on as you possibly can. The days of “Listen To Uncle Walter For An Hour And Consider Yourself Well-Informed” are long gone. And these guilty-white-liberal-racist-holier-than-thou airheads are what made it happen.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM, Poisoning Individuality and Reason, VPILF | 3 Comments »

That Magazine Photo

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

One more Sarah Palin thing, because something has to be said about Newsweek.

I was going to blog about the Runner’s World spread, but that was the weekend that Palin resigned from the governorship of Alaska. Her fitness regimen ended up not making the cut. Anyway, Newsweek somehow selected one of the pictures for the November 23 cover. Probably for purely commercial reasons, not to reflect a party bias.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like SarahAlthough I do find it rather incredible to think they’d make a similar decision about a democrat.

Palin herself has a problem with it. Darn, there goes that fantasy of her attending her own inauguration ceremony in a Supergirl costume. From her Facebook page:

The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness – a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context.

– Sarah Palin

I see the objection. It isn’t against her being shown as casual, or come-hither, or bookish or leggy. It has to do with what is appropriate in what setting.

It also has to do with relocating things. Newsweek, it seems, didn’t have permission to use this. Palin posed for the picture “among friends,” one might say. Kinda. Her comments for Runner’s World were entirely apolitical (hilariously, a couple of readers objected anyway since they didn’t subscribe for “that political stuff”). Newsweek placed the picture before a decidedly more hostile audience.

What’s the message here? That if Palin is President, she’ll spend all her time jogging and posing for pictures? I can certainly see more than a few Newsweek readers picking that up…the ones who are inclined to. Which is probably most of ’em. Still and all, the thought makes me chuckle. The nightmare of having a President who spends all the President’s time posing for pictures. Oh heavens to Betsy. Perish the thought. What’s that like?

Dr. Melissa Clouthier adds:

After this post got fed to Twitter, I got into an argument with a leftist feminist there about this cover. She brought up Hillary Clinton. She believes that Sarah Palin did this to herself by posing for Runners World. What serious politician or man would pose for that sort of cover?

What serious newsweekly would put a degrading picture, say of Obama frolicking in the surf or Bil and Hill dancing in the sand for the camera, on the cover of a magazine? Only conservative politicians need worry about being portrayed as trivial and sexy (Sarah), mean and old (McCain), mean (Cheney), mean and stupid (GWB). A Democrat gets gravitas-portraying treatment.

Always.

And that’s why conservatives view the press as biased. They don’t even attempt, even feebly, to hide it anymore.

Well said.

Another Black Conservative has an interesting thought:

I am beginning to think that I was right when I said that the Oprah interview humanized Palin. It is going to be much harder to disrespect Palin like the left did before without pissing off new people. Perhaps this book tour and all the interviews on the lamesteam media will produce a Sarah Palin 2.0. It will be interesting to see Palin’s approval ratings after the book tour.

Neptunus Lex, perhaps committing an infraction of protocol, audibly notices the elephant in the room:

[O]ne only has to look here, where Newsweek greets Palin’s newly published memoir with a provocative photo from a running journal and asks “How do you solve a problem like Sarah,” a header that literally begs the question, while demonstrating both political and gender bias and undoubtedly souring the faces of envious, shrewish, muumu wearing, lemon-eating scolds across the country. [emphasis mine]

Yep, there it is. That was undeniably the effect of it; and I’m pretty sure there was a fair strength of effort in that direction as well.

There certainly is some resentment there. And looking really good in running shorts while being a 45-year-old mother of five, probably has a lot to do with it.

However, it must be said — lately, winning elections seems to have a lot to do with figuring out who you can write off, not who you should go chasing for their vote. Case in point, Barack Obama doesn’t seem to care one bit what He has to do to get my vote. He doesn’t and He shouldn’t. I, and millions like me, have been gutterballed. It seems to be working out very well for Him.

Sarah Palin should do the same. Women who dislike her because she’s good looking, aren’t ever, ever, ever gonna like her.

And hey. Let’s be completely frank about things. If you’re answering polls saying Hillary is qualified to be President, and Palin is not — whatever the bee is that is up your butt, I do not want you deciding anything. Let me repeat that: Anything. I do not want you taking my customer service calls, I do not want you making my coffee, I do not want you running a leaf blower on the sidewalk an hour before I go walking on it. You have just-plain-poor decision-making abilities. Stay home.

Regarding Sarah’s comment. She would have been ahead-of-the-game keeping her mouth shut. Just let everyone argue about the magazine cover; maybe make it privately known that she disapproves of it, to sort of nudge the national conversation off in the direction of the permission Newsweek gained to use the photo, or lack thereof.

Good-lookin’ women showing their legs when they run for President? Hey…if you don’t know whether I’m for-or-against, you must not have been reading this space very long. Not saying I don’t see where she’s coming from, because I do. Yes, it’s sexist. But sometimes a subtle critique can be much more effective.

Anyway: Why so much attention riveted on the photo? Check out those headlines:

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?

She’s Bad News for the GOP — And For Everybody Else, Too

Good grief. You see my point. The photo, inappropriate as it is, is nuthin’. Nuthin’. Melissa’s right. They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.

Update 11/19/08: Ah hah…as I figured.

What on earth was Sarah Palin thinking when she posed in a pair of teeny-tiny gym shorts for a photograph that ended up on the cover of Newsweek — a cover she has called “sexist”? Perhaps she was thinking that her image would only appear in the magazine she was posing for, Runner’s World, and nowhere else, at least not for months and months. If so, she had good reason — since, as DailyFinance has learned, the photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek.

That photographer, Brian Adams, could not immediately be reached, and his agent, Kelly Price, declined to comment, saying, “I keep all of my clients’ business private.” But a spokeswoman for Runner’s World confirms that Adams’s contract contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication — meaning until August 2010. “Runner’s World did not provide Newsweek with its cover image,” the spokeswoman said. “It was provided to Newsweek by the photographer’s stock agency, without Runner’s World’s knowledge or permission.” The spokeswoman declined to say whether Runner’s World intends to respond to Adams’s breach of contract with legal action.

Update: The resident conservative of NPR, which I guess would be like the tallest building in North Dakota, doesn’t like Palin. And he’s found some exceptionally silly reasons…that’s the only adjective that seems to apply after a fair amount of this…

The rap on Palin is that she’s too shallow and inexperienced for the presidency — a conclusion that early Palin supporters like me came to during the 2008 campaign. Alas, for conservatives in search of a champion, there’s nothing in Going Rogue to challenge that conclusion. It’s like this: Palin spends seven pages dishing about her appearance on Saturday Night Live, but just over one page discussing her national security views.
:
This is the Republican Party’s great populist hope?

Sarah Palin is selling a personality, not a platform. That’s not dumb. She’s doing the best she can with what she has to work with. She quotes her father’s line upon her resignation this summer as Alaska’s governor: “Sarah’s not retreating, she’s reloading.” On evidence of this book, Sarah Palin is charging toward 2012 shooting blanks.

Palin’s selling a personality and not a platform.

Consistently since 1992, people have been getting elected on personalities and not platforms. Most notably in the election just passed. But we should hang it all on Palin like she’s in the process of inventing it. She’s not to be taken seriously unless she’s the only contender running on platform. And not even then. Like I said: “Silly” is the only word that applies.

Doctor Zero has a different take:

Newsweek advertised its cover story on the release of Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” by asking, “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?” This headline was informed by the same journalistic standards that led the Washington Post to publish a book review by someone who admits she didn’t read the book – and then prompted MSNBC to invite this person on the air as an expert on the book she didn’t read. Newsweek apparently couldn’t be bothered to watch “The Sound of Music” all the way through, because Maria is the hero of the piece. The nuns singing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” are singing about suppressing the very spirit that will help Maria save her family from totalitarian oppression. Considering Palin’s indestructible good cheer, if she runs for office again, I wouldn’t be surprised if she used “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” as a campaign song… and thanked Newsweek for the suggestion.
:
The careless, sloppy disdain of the Left’s reaction to “Going Rogue” is almost as strong an argument for Palin’s politics as anything contained within its pages. The absolute lack of care and competence from the government that ran up a $12 trillion national debt is astonishing. Months of dithering over Afghanistan strategy, with American troops under fire, ends with a painfully unqualified Commander-in-Chief wailing that he wants a new set of options…
:
The argument over whether Sarah Palin is “qualified” for the presidency is the opposite of the question conservatives should be asking. What we need to know is whether any other aspiring candidate has the essential qualifications Palin brings to the table. [emphasis mine]

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” as a campaign song. I like it.

Sarah Palin is indeed a conundrum. A prevailing viewpoint is a powerful thing, and a durable thing too. It can survive its own internal contradictions, if it has some — for quite awhile. And our current prevailing viewpoint does have some.

It goes like this: Sarah Palin is to be summarily disqualified because she is a contender in a contest of personality, not quite so much of platform or position. BUT — right after she’s been so dismissed, and you address our current Commander in Chief, you shouldn’t be so bold as to ask Him any heady questions about platform-or-position, and most certainly not about how He came to a certain decision about a certain thing…instead, you should compliment Him on the gracious and dignified lilt to His voice. In sum: He gets to compete on appealing aspects to His personality, at the expense of any debate on substance. Palin is to be dropped from the running for any hint that she’s about to enjoy the same advantage, even if it isn’t at her instigation.

This is an unworkable contradiction, one that becomes less comfortable with repeated exposure, for all consciousnesses save for the most intellectually flaccid. If this is a vital underpinning for Palin’s still-considerable disapproval rating, and it is our impression that it is, don’t look for the disapproval rating to remain where it is for too long.

Update: Victor Davis Hanson has some interesting things to add:

[M]any conservative elites imagine that a Harvard Kennedy School degree is superior to multifaceted knowledge of .357 Magnums, chain-sawing, skinning game, and fishing, they will judge her only in terms of a traditional cursus honorum—spiced up with invective about creationism and Christian fundamentalism. (I have some experience with such snobbishness: when I used to speak before hostile university audiences, I was often introduced along these lines: “Mr. Hanson is a raisin farmer from Fresno State of Jerry Tarkanian fame.” [and therefore, presto, must be an idiot].)
:
If Sarah Palin thinks FDR was President in 1929, or that he could speak on non-existent TV, she is through; if Biden says that, it’s “just old Joe again.” If Obama does not know the first thing about our most prestigious medals, the language of Austria, or diplomatic protocol about presidential bowing, it’s because he is deliberately trying to be cool; if Palin did the same, she’s a buffoon hockey mom. That is the way it is, and her supporters should accept it, deal with, and overcome it.

Ridicule can be a powerful weapon. And how difficult would it be to deploy?

Liberal snobs and conservative snobs are wondering aloud about some kind of threat…some unstated threat…some avenue by which our nation will meet harm due to a President Palin’s cluelessness and lack of intellectual depth.

In the very same week in which the hysterics begin, Kalid Shiekh Mohammed is being brought to New York City to face trial and enjoy the same privileges and guarantees an American citizen would enjoy in civilian court. Because the “intellectually deep” folks in charge think that’s just a swell idea.

Priorities, snobs. Priorities. Maybe if some of you spent some time working for a living, you’d be organizing them better.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM, VPILF | 30 Comments »

Nidal Hasan Headline Roundup

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Iowahawk.

With a grateful hat tip to Westsound Modern.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM | No Comments »

Newspaper Circulations, Last Two Decades

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Click thumbnail to view much larger, and read article.

Hat tip to FrankJ.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM | No Comments »

What’s an “Acorn”?

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Michael Savage occasionally is heard to make the charge that we aren’t nearly as free in this country as they are in Iraq. This one-minute clip, which has become truly an “Everyone else is blogging it, I might as well do it too” moment, is part of one larger issue that compels me to take that charge seriously.

Lots of snarky comments in reply to this; my favorite (from somewhere) was “That’s okay Grandpa, we’ll go get our news from somewhere else.”

Well, John Stewart has a thing or two to say about this, and his words may surprise you (hat tip to Rick)…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Healthcare Protests

I’m just lovin’ that thing at the end. Of all the things Stewart’s lampooning, that “competitive spirit” between liberals and Fox and non-Fox news organizations, needs lampooning the most. “Ah HAH! It’s a seed, not a nut!”

Yeah, an acorn is a seed, and don’t worry about where your tax dollars are going. Traffic report next, followed by weather. Investigate Acorn…by all means…but once that’s done, in all seriousness, let us not forget about the bigger problem. As we’ve been told about it and forgotten about it oh so many times before.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” — Thomas Jefferson.

Update: AllahPundit comments on the investigation about to get underway. Hope you weren’t looking for any encouragement here:

I can’t do better than Karl’s summary so I’m going to steal it: “A Soros hack, an SEIU thug, someone who pleaded to lying to the FBI, and a Kennedy.” All that’s missing are a few pimps and prostitutes for “technical expertise.” Hardest-hitting internal investigation evah:

In a press release, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis says, that as “a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees,” the group will immediately stop accepting anyone into ACORN office for service programs, will conduct in-service training of staff, and begin an audit “to review all of the systems and processes called into question by the videos,” to be conducted by the group’s Independent Advisory Council.

The Council includes many prominent Democrats, including the man who helped President Obama Transition Team, John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Andrew Stern, International President of the Service Employees International Union; and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.

What an amazing coincidence! That’s exactly the list of names I had in mind, of the wise and principled public servants I was hoping would be leading this thing up! They’re my go-to guys, absolutely! I have them on speed-dial! Before Super Friends! “Help me, Podesta, Kennedy, SEIU and Cisneros!” I shout it out almost reflexively, anytime I see some kind of mess that needs to be cleaned up and disinfected.

Yeah, of course I’m being sarcastic. Rather sad that some folks need to be told that.

How’s that hope and change working out for you?

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM | 1 Comment »

Media Malpractice

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Jeffrey Lord, writing in The American Spectator. And quoting Tom Brokaw:

[O]ne of the things I’ve been saying to audiences is this question comes up a lot, and a lot of people will repeat back to me and take it as face value something that they read on the Internet. And my line to them is you have to vet information. You have to test it the same way you do when you buy an automobile or when you go and buy a new flat-screen television. You read the Consumer Reports, you have an idea of what it’s worth and what the lasting value of it is. You have to do the same thing with information because there is so much disinformation out there that it’s frightening, frankly, in a free society that depends on information to make informed decisions.

From what I understand, this is after the Van Jones thing although it’s before the ACORN thing (the former is mentioned alongside the interview, the latter is not).

Lord then, pretending to write a letter to Brokaw, launches into a dizzying array of historic chunks of “disinformation” that turned out to be quite true — but we didn’t know it at the time because the old-guard media was busy protecting us from ourselves, tossing us bromides about Jackie Kennedy’s pink hat.

Lord closes his imaginary letter with:

The investigation of Mr. Jones — a government official no less — is but one example of the competition your colleagues now must face every minute of every day. The investigation into the corruption in ACORN is still one more. So too with the Bush National Guard story. Not to mention the real details of the President’s health care plans. The response to Mark Levin’s book — and the importance of that response, in spite of a virtual blackout from your peers — is, in its quite distinctive fashion, yet another.

In truth? Either you really don’t get all this — or you do, and simply can’t bring yourself to admit the fact. Much less do anything about it.

What do I think? I think you’re a really smart guy, and so are your colleagues.

Which is exactly what troubles.

Thanks for your time.

What the Van Jones and ACORN things have to do with each other, I notice, is not just a rogue underground media, but also video. In that setting, what exactly is it Mr. Brokaw means by “disinformation”? Does he mean the video tells us stories about Jones and ACORN that are accurate this time ’round, but we’re getting into a bad habit with starting to trust these guys standing around in back alleys selling us news from mysterious pockets in their overcoats?

Or does he mean the video was somehow taken out of context, telling us tall tales that are not true?

Wonder what Brokaw had to say about that spate of Michael Moore movies just a few years back.

I’m not much for conspiracy theories, but speaking for myself, if someone’s paying me a livelihood to do something I really don’t give a rat’s ass what their political leanings are when I get done telling them what I’ve been paid to tell them. The way these guys act, it’s like they have some job on the side; like they aren’t really being paid to bring us information. It’s like they’re being paid to keep it away from us.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM | No Comments »

“Hide the Ball”

Monday, September 14th, 2009

John Nolte, writing in Big Hollywood (hat tip to Rick):

In recent days and weeks three major news stories have broke here online, at Fox News or the Washington Times; everywhere but the mainstream media. Worse still, as the stories unfolded, the media willfully ignored them until, much to their embarrassment, they were forced to give grudging coverage only after official action — in the form of a resignation (Van Jones), reassignment (the NEA) or dismissal (ACORN) — occurred that could no longer be ignored.

Mainstream news outlets have been caught off guard before, but they used to play catch up. Today they play “hide the ball.”

It’s a problem decades in the making.

If you spend those decades bringing people information, there’s no problem. But the mainstream media hasn’t really been doing that; they’ve been instead spending those years stopping anyone from talking about this-or-that, by refusing to run the story. When an alternative form of media comes up that runs these stories you don’t want talked-about, then, what do you do? That’s the problem.

Deciding to run this, and not-run that, has been the one refuge of corrupt editorialist thought and action. It is all entirely subjective. We saw this with the Chandra Levy thing eight years ago, as Dan Rather came under scrutiny for his refusal to discuss the story — he started coming up with all kinds of reasons to avoid it, illustrating plainly that the talent he was showing was one honed from years and years of the same tortured argument. One cannot help but wonder about all the things we weren’t told in the twentieth century, pre-blogs and pre-innerwebs.

But it’s entirely a matter of personal discretion and taste. If you want democrats to win and Republicans to lose, you can green-light this and red-light that all day long all month long…and when people come to question you about it you can just toss up your silly arguments like Dan Rather did. Some may not like it, but the arguments will, in their own way, be legit.

So now it’s a different world. We’re watching a whole species of dinosaur grapple with a brand new climate, and lumber onward toward extinction. Some days the dinosaur does something smart that helps to postpone the inevitable. Some days the dinosaur does something unforgivably dumb.

What Nolte’s writing about, here, is the latter of those two.

Fascinating stuff. Everyone loves to watch a train wreck.

Posted in Blogs vs. MSM | 2 Comments »

“Is Morgan Freeberg Slipping?”

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Some folks stopping by to read The Blog That Nobody Reads, might be toying with starting one of their own, and are now engaged in that frenzied gathering of bits of evidence of the benefits & liabilities of doing so.

If in doubt, I think you should proceed…but if you are feeling queasy about the liabilities and feeling less than confident about your comprehension of what they are, I suppose you could take note of things like this —

And as much of a tragedy as I think it might be when someone decides to bite down on a thought that (agree or disagree) is well-thought-out and worthy of being expressed, I would have to agree: If you’re not prepared for the experience of seeing your name up in lights like that, you probably shouldn’t get started.

Smitty’s gripes — make what sense out of them as you can — are linked behind the pic. And I must ‘fess up: I’ll be needing to hear from you about it, if you can spare a moment or two. I’m not sure I see what the beef is…

Sitting on a couch in your undies typing shit about stuff through the innerw Blogging. It ain’t for the timid.

Posted in About Me and My Blog, My Blogger Friends | 7 Comments »

What We Need, is All Obama, All the Time

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

I don’t know where Van der Leun gets this artwork, I really don’t. Wish I did. I’d like to have a large tee shirt made of the above. No caption, no comment. Just let the viewers make of it what they will.

Our blogger friend is having some fun resorting to sarcasm (I think), having determined it is the only method available to deal with a certain mindset, said mindset currently writing under the name of Phil Plait. If Gerard is not being sarcastic, perhaps then he could explain the mindset to me because I’m completely freaking lost as I try to follow it.

It goes like this: The one thing we need, is to hear what President Obama has to say.

Seems perfectly reasonable, until you stop to ponder the fundamentals upon which it rests, namely:

The one thing we’re missing, is that we have not yet availed ourselves of an opportunity to hear what Obama has to say.

Which means…

After an unprecedented two-year-long presidential campaign, during which an unprecedented 700 million dollars was spent getting messages to us about what Barack Obama thought about things, after the assemblage of the winningest campaign team in all of United States electoral history, and with an equally unprecedented accumulation of “tech-savvy” computer talent and a boss-man just so loaded with charisma that birds sing and unicorns hump when He walks by, two autobiographies from a guy who hadn’t really done much of anything when He wrote them, “hardball” moderators getting tingles up their legs when He speaks, and then after He’s elected, about the only thing He’s managed to do in eight months besides spend record-setting amounts of borrowed money is to give speech after speech after speech after speech after speech — it’s almost like He doesn’t know how to do anything else, ya know? — you know why we still suck so much? The number one reason? The one thing that, if fixed, would set everything all straight? The one thing that would defeat the Sith and bring balance to The Force?

We gotta give Barry a fair hearing. He hasn’t had one just yet.

If you think I had fun jotting that one down (I did, actually, thanks for asking), wait’ll you see Gerard’s turn at bat. At the sarcasm-bat. I think. That’s a sign that a master is at work ever there was one — I honestly can’t tell.

Phil, I imagine, would still say that the sanctity of the Presidency trumps all unless your first name begins with a G.

But even if that is not the case, I think those that oppose the president speaking to the children have gotten it all wrong. (Yes, I have changed my position on this.) Upon reflecting on Phil’s position and others here as well, I have changed my mind.

I have come to realize that what is deeply wrong with this country is that so far we have not heard and seen enough of President Obama.

I now think we need to see more. Much more. We need to have a morning message from the President every day on all cable news channel. Indeed, we need to have it broadcast on all TV channels, especially ESPN and other places where citizens dodge their need to know the truth. We need to see his message in the lead in to Good Morning America and Fox and Friends both without fear or favoritism.

Weather Channel too.

We need to have Barack Obama’s message, whatever it might be on whatever day, delivered to all of us on the front page of whatever newspaper we are still reading.

We need to have it as the lead-in to NPR’s Morning Edition. We need to have his message replace the bumper music at the top of Rush Limbaugh’s show.

In short, we cannot have enough of listening to the President tell us what he’s thinking and what the right way to think about what he’s thinking is.

We need to hear his words and see his face every day. Every single day.

I am in ernest about this. I will even pay higher taxes to make this so. We need, in the most urgent and important way, to see and him him All. The. Time.

I hope the address to Congress and a grateful nation is only the beginning of this program of all Obama all the time.

Here’s a non-partisan wish I think we can all support…or we all should be able to support it. Can’t wait to drop it into a conversation in which nobody knows what my politics are.

I hope your chosen deities see fit to endow President Obama with the wisdom to enact some policies that work so amazingly well, it doesn’t matter how much exposure He gets.

Because watching that Adams-apple bob up and down in a liberals’ throat while his face turns red, is fun.

One thing that might be less fun — especially if you live at 1600 Pennsylvania and your initials are B.O. — would be to read Victor Davis Hanson’s ideas on the dilemma. The dilemma defined above. How come it is, that having had a greater opportunity to get His word-in-edgewise than arguably any homo sapiens that has ever walked the ground, ever, living or dead, within recorded history or before…Barry still requires another shot at it? How come the godlike Svengali who has so much to teach all the rest of us about communication skills and getting messages across, just can’t seem to get ‘er done when it counts?

When Obama said he would be fiscally prudent, we got near $2 trillion deficits. When he said the debt would grow to $7 trillion over his tenure, you should nearly double that estimate. When he said Bush shredded the Constitution, he adopted most of the Bush plan from rendition to tribunals. When he said that he wished to move on, we got investigations of the CIA and the previous administration. When he said we’d have all combat brigades out by March 2008, we knew we could not. When he said anything about health care — it would save money, would not alter private plans, would not go to illegal aliens, etc — we already assumed all that was mendacious. When he says anything, we know now that it is either not true or will not be true or at best will only be partially true.

Character matters?? Oh no! Sounds like something boring your parents might’ve said!

Well, hopefully Hanson is wrong. Hopefully Mister Wonderful doesn’t have to start telling the truth…and He is just one speech away from achieving this message-communicating excellence which is supposed to come so naturally to Him, with His gifts and talent and all. And then, once we get our heads pulled out of our butts and finally absorb what Mister-Amazing-Communicator-Guy has been trying to tell us for three years now…life…will be amazing…and wonderful…

Any day now.

Or, VDH might have a point. Respect, genuine respect, the kind of respect that comes from trust — means something. It means something now, because it always did. Quantity is powerless to make up for quality. Oh dear, what a scary thought.

Posted in My Blogger Friends, Obamamania | 4 Comments »

Speaking of Centrists…

Monday, September 7th, 2009

…that being a reference to the previous post…

…our friend down in New Mexico who frequently takes issue with us about our extremist positions, versus his middle-of-the-road ones. He had an opportunity to expound at length on how he thinks people should spend Labor Day. He had, count ’em, one-two-three perfectly decent opportunities to disagree with us about things.

And he ended up three-for-three. We, with our extremist viewpoints, could have authored every single word he wrote. Especially these:

I will resist the temptation to turn this post into an anti-union screed, and said temptation is strong indeed, Gentle Reader. But let me just say this about that… I’m of the opinion that labor unions are the root of all most evil in our post-industrial society. I’ll grant you labor unions have a glorious history and were responsible for righting numerous wrongs in the early 20th century. But like the buggy whip, their time has passed. What we get from our unions today are things like “card check” —a decidedly UN-American renunciation of free elections in the workplace— and outright political intimidation. I’m not seeing much good in that… and neither are most other Americans, as Ed Morrissey notes in this Hot Air post. But let us not digress further; I’m sure you get my point.

I have redacted much there, because our friend down south places much in the clamshells () and as I’ve said before, I consider parenthetical material to be entirely expendable. But within the clamshells and outside of ’em, there is much linky goodness peppered throughout Buck’s Labor Day post, and it’s all well worth reading. Go read it all, every single word. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Nevertheless, this “centrist” thing brings up a concern that weighs somewhat heavily on my mind whenever our so-called “moderate” acquaintance takes issue with our “extremist” ramblings. We are, in recent years, strangely unified on our definitions…extremist…moderate…fringe-kook…centrist. There is very little disagreement lately on what opinion falls into what category. And this unification does not work along lines of common sense. This, in my mind, is a bad thing. It is almost a public mental health issue. Something just shy of a crisis.

I don’t like the way “centrist” is defined lately.

Let us say we do something that common sense, as well as history itself, counsels as being reprehensibly unwise. Passing gas into a campfire — after painting one’s hind end with gasoline. Kidnapping baby bear cubs in line-of-sight of their mothers. Telling Hells’ Angels riders something like “Hey, are you faggots going to move your fucking bikes so I can park here?” Flesh out that list of mine in whatever manner most effectively entertains you…

…it seems to me that lately, what defines a “centrist” is the following: We’ve done this stupid thing, whatever it is, ten times. It’s put us in the emergency ward ten times. Let’s go for an eleventh, just for the hell of it!

The guy who says “Let’s not, and say we did” is characterized as the extremist.

Am I right or am I right? We’re tinkering around with the idea of passing nationalized health care — which hasn’t been written into a unified body of legislation yet, let alone passed through committee. Every time some “conservative firebrand” comes up with a word of caution for us…think of Sarah Palin’s “death panels”…we are cautioned that this is a “falsehood,” that it is “bearing false witness,” that it is an “urban legend.” And that she is an “extremist.” But primarily, that the stuff she’s saying is not true.

Of course it isn’t! The legislation hasn’t been written yet. But if you want to go by the history of other countries that have this kind of health care plan in place, what she said is absolutely one hundred percent true. Death panels, death courts, death quorums, death committees, call ’em what you will. It’s bureaucrats deciding who’s gonna live and who’s gonna die…and “death panel” is just as good a name as any.

My point is not that what Palin said, in the final analysis, is true. Although it is.

My point is that her comments have been characterized as extremist in nature, and those who contradict her have been characterized as moderates. In a sane universe, it would be the other way around. The evidence is overwhelmingly on her side. I say again: overwhelmingly. Start, if it suits your druthers, with all the countries that have instituted nationalized health care plans, similar or identical to the one we are now considering — who are now rejecting those plans, or in some other way regretting them. They have bureaucrats sitting down to decide who does & doesn’t “deserve” coverage…empowered with decision-making over life-and-death…just like Palin said.

Palin one, Obama zip.

And that leads into this other article of “must-not-miss” stuff straight from the archives of that extremist Libertarian crackpot Neal Boortz: Four Problems That Could Sink America. Briefly summarized here:

1. We don’t like to work. Sure, now that jobs are scarce, everybody’s willing to put in a few extra hours to stay ahead of the ax. But look around: We still expect easy money, hope to retire early, and embrace the oversimplistic message of bestsellers like The One Minute Millionaire and The 4-Hour Workweek. Unfortunately, the rest of the world isn’t sending as much money our way as it used to, which makes it harder to do less with more.
:
2. Nobody wants to sacrifice. Why should we? The government is standing by with stimulus money, banker bailouts, homeowner aid, cash for clunkers, expanded healthcare, and maybe more stimulus money. And most Americans will never have to pay an extra dime for any of this. Somehow, $9 trillion worth of government debt will just become somebody else’s problem.

3. We’re uninformed.
:
People who lack the sense to question Big Lies always end up in deep trouble. Being well informed takes work, even with the Internet. In a democracy, that’s simply a civic burden. If we’re too foolish or lazy to educate ourselves on healthcare, global warming, financial reform, and other complicated issues, then we’re signing ourselves over to special interests who see nothing wrong with plundering our national–and personal–wealth.
:
4. iCulture. We may be chastened by the recession, but Americans still believe they deserve the best of everything–the best job, the best healthcare, the best education for our kids. And we want it at a discount–or better yet, free–which brings us back to the usual disconnect between what we want and what we’re willing to pay for.

Do you see a common thread amongst those four? I do. I call it the “ant and grasshopper milkshake.”

People who are willing to endure the dilemma of delayed gratification, for a late reward, are intermingled in their personal fortunes and prospects with lazier people who just want to fuck around. The result: The standard of living for hard-working people who choose to educate themselves and then act on that education, is deprecated; the standard of living for jag-offs, conversely, is artificially enhanced.

To stand in opposition to this, is not extreme. To lend your voice in support of it, is not moderate.

Our friend in New Mexico does not suffer from a lack of brains, or balls, or judgment. He simply misunderstands the debate — some of the time. And he doesn’t even misunderstand the debate quite so much; he misunderstands the enemy.

His values on the other hand, are right where they should be. And his idea is an awesome one — I know this to be true, because it’s an idea we’ve had here many a time. People need to pull their heads out of their asses with regard to old-fashioned honest hard work, and listen to what Mike Rowe has to say. For whatever other disagreements he & I may have, we are abso-freakin-lutely on the same page there. I swear, if people gave up watching American Idol, and spend just five minutes out of that time out of every hour that was spent previously, watching Dirty Jobs — a lot of this nation’s problems would disappear overnight.

Posted in My Blogger Friends, Poisoning Capitalism, Poisoning Strength | 11 Comments »

Stopping the “Pledge” Echo

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Blogger friend Buck has just caught wind of the “I Pledge” video, and he’s not too fond of the smell.

Well, the video itself is just the leafy part of the weed. The root of it has to do with this absurd notion that, under the right set of rules and under some Really Swell Guys elected and appointed as our leaders, we suddenly become a better people. Our friend in New Mexico didn’t ask for any advice here, but I think I’ve got an idea or two about how to stop an echo when you run into this…this…let’s call it “used food.”

First, forget the damn video. Remember, leafy part of weed, root part of weed. You’re much more likely to run into other manifestations of this errant mindset. Maybe not quite so much now as you were last winter, but here and there you can still encounter the starry-eyed Obama fan. Even as they recover from their stupor they can still be heard to utter a few words of nonsense about “being led” by someone who will “inspire us to do better.”

Here is how you stop that echo.

Agree. Agree with every single word. After all, all they’re saying is that people should try to be the best they can be; you’re only disagreeing about the gimmick used. So let them drone on about all the things they can do, kind of nudge them away from the “trim down my carbon footprint,” and toward things that make sense like “be a better parent,” “write to my teevee network to put on more wholesome and educational shows when kids get home from school,” et al.

And then you lay the smack down.

Just get that number-eleven between your eyebrows, frown just ever so slightly, as if you’re thinking really hard about something; if you have a beard, maybe run your fingers through it ever so thoughtfully. And then interject that bit of wisdom “Hey, you know, these things are so wonderful we can probably put some thought into doing them no matter who happens to be President, right?”

It’s just freakin’ glorious. Fun to do, and fun to watch.

As an added benefit, if they choose to find a way to argue with you on this point — they’ll fail on all counts. They won’t find a way to do it, and they’ll give away the fact that they’re trying to. Which, in turn, tells you something very useful about the real motivations of your “opponent”…whether he really does want to do good things, or whether he has something else in mind. And that’s always a good thing to know early on.

Posted in Everyday Dimwits, My Blogger Friends, Obamamania | No Comments »

Jeans Are Sexist

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

I’m going to go ahead and link this one without comment, too.

Because feminists don’t have much to legitimately complain about, they have to resort to making up sexism. They can go so far as to even find it in different styles of jeans. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Okay, forget the creepy “modelquins” commercials for a second. Old Navy has managed to once again be condescending to its customers. They have added a new style to their ridiculously named women’s jeans that neatly packages their women customers into brightly colored, cotton, female stereotypes.

Previously, you could be slutty (the Flirt ), a doormat (the Sweetheart ), or a bitch (the Diva ). Now you can be The Dreamer.

In other words, you’re fat and you better push those curves into the appropriate shape.

Cause if you don’t, you’ll only get to daydream about a boyfriend to steal jeans from when you would rather not be a slutty, doormat, bitch.

These are cuts of jeans that this feminist is complaining about. Here is how Old Navy actually describes them.

The Dreamer: classic-rise jeans that sit at your waist, are straight through the hip and thigh. Have a front panel that slims the tummy and a no-gap band for full coverage in the back.

The Flirt: mid-rise jeans that sit right below the waist, are straight through the hip and thigh.

The Sweetheart: classic-rise jeans that sit at your waist, are relaxed through the hip and thigh.

The Diva: low-rise jeans that sit on your hips, are slim through the hip and thigh.

The Weekend: low-rise jeans that sit low on your waist, and have a relaxed boyfriend fit.

Yes, I can clearly see how these five styles translate to fat, slut, doormat, and bitch. It’s SO obvious. That girl isn’t reading too much into it at all!

Posted in Flogs | 9 Comments »

D’JEver Notice? XXXVI

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Another post at Feministing, and this is among the one-outta-ten posts that do not confine themselves to that erstwhile topic of “I hate this thing over there so much, help me hate it.”

Which of course can mean only one thing: Celebrating the killing of unborn babies. No, not just celebrating; today’s feminists don’t stop at celebrating, nor does Jessica Valenti. Crusading for more people to do it, and to do it casually. Up to, and past, the point of giving people instructions about whether they are supposed to feel sad or not.

In another win for reproductive justice this week, a federal judge called a South Dakota anti-choice law – which mandates that doctors tell women seeking abortions that the procedure increases the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts – “untruthful and misleading.”

On the suicide issue, Schreier was convinced by multiple studies showing women who get abortions have no increased risk of suicide. The state provided arguments, but no evidence, to the contrary, she said.

“Because such a risk is not ‘known,’ the suicide disclosure language of the statute is untruthful and misleading,” Schreier wrote.

You know, because there is no link between abortion and depression.

The bad news?

But the judge upheld a portion of the informed consent law, which says abortions “terminate the life of a whole separate unique living human being.”

Well, I’ll take a small victory. For now.

Keep plugging away Jessica darling; You’ll be able to define humans out of existence any year now. You’re James Taggart, and I’m afraid what happened to him in the last few pages is what is one day going to happen to you, for precisely the same reason. I don’t want to see it happen but I don’t see how it can be avoided.

Ever notice this about the modern feminist movement? It’s supposed to have something to do with re-making our society, solidifying the role of women who live in it. So that they remain important to us, and our society becomes culturally encouraged to recognize that importance; to offer them the dignity they deserve.

And in its most recent phases of evolution, what are the two most indispensable positions? They are head & shoulders above all the rest: pro abortion, and pro gay marriage.

Those are the two positions most emphatically antithetical to the role of women in our society. The two positions most assured to belittle them, to confine their labors to things men could do just as capably. To condemn the female sex to roles most marginal, most replaceable, and least respected…at least when compared to motherhood. Feminism is supposed to make the female vibrant and vital, and yet as the years go on by it continues to nurture this petulant, pissy resentment against motherhood.

Pro abortion…pro gay marriage.

Some “feminist” movement you’ve turned out to be.

Posted in Flogs | 2 Comments »

For Now, We Dance

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

And we didn’t get here by saying “Oh, we’re willing to compromise and be moderate…that proves we’re reasonable…” We got here by the opposition being unreasonable. And with everyone realizing that on their own.

A certain faithful reader needed to see that. Now then. On with the dancing.

Posted in My Blogger Friends, Poisoning Western Civilization, Universal Healthcare | No Comments »

What the F*ck is Going On in Portales, NM?

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Things seem to be going alright for our friend overall, no bitching or moaning about bad teeth, just some engaging and aesthetically pleasing photography, edifying thoughts on our Air Force, et cetera. We were relieved to see him benefit from such a widespread and obviously heartfelt defense over at Daphne’s place, he’s certainly deserving of one.

We agree much more often than we disagree. We’re in two different generations, but our story is the same: Sick and tired of seeing more and more wreckage accumulate from yet more bad liberal ideas. We have much in common personally. We’re both geeks, with lengthy careers and semi-interesting stories to tell about them…somewhat…both “lucking out” with some combination of luck and hard work, into jobs somewhat at odds with high-school-grad status. Funny/sad stories to tell on the love-life front. The younger of us is still coping with the metropolitan-super-sanitized-bullshit each and every day, albeit having managed to ensconce himself in the partial security blanket that is Folsom; the older one is in the enviable position of having extricated himself from it altogether. I’ve often thought if something should happen to my Lady Love, God forbid, Buck might be something of a real-life sketching of myself in the later years, a sort of “Time Travel Morgan.”

This comment, though, was a little bit of a head-scratcher:

I tend to think of you (and your rhetoric) as sort of a scorched-earth pessimist, Morgan. If you throw out the outliers on either side of the bell-curve… and by that I mean the Jane Hamshers and the Morgan Freebergs (in the blogosphere)… the great majority of us are indeed sick and tired of all the goddamned “Your’re eeevil!” statements, followed by the inevitable “You’re stoopid!” retorts. Our politics today look more like an elementary school playground than reasoned discourse between adults.

There HAS to be a better way, or the republic is doomed.

Well, I agree entirely with the elementary school playground remark. On me being a scorched-earth pessimist, that’s probably a misunderstanding but a forgivable one; once the “typical” discourse about this-or-that turns to glurgy sweet socially acceptable nonsense, count me out thankyewverymuch. We’re into the Prager mindset here, showing a strong and sustained preference for clarity over agreement. Some folks interpret this as antisocial behavior. I can see where they’re coming from, wrong as they may be.

On our rhetoric matching the “You’re Stupid” versus “You’re Evil,” we’ll let the reader judge this one. My comment is limited to — I dunno what he’s been reading. We at least attempt to be a little more, uh, nuanced than that…

But Hamsher? We’re a counterpart to her?

Just wow. The Morgan Rule Number One counsels an unorthodox solution to the false accusation: “If I’m gonna be accused, I wanna be guilty.” According to that, then, I need to become a conservative version of Jane Hamsher. Well, that takes some talent I don’t gots. I simply don’t know how to go about it.

I’m familiar with the doctrine of discarding outliers in the data before processing the data — in computer science, in statistics, in democracy and other social matters. There is some merit to it, but all in all the practice is much more controversial than most people understand it to be. The fact of the matter is, much of the appeal this has had for us throughout the years has been taught to us by our civil servants in the public school system. They just love it, because excluding the outlier lends unnatural and unmerited weight to conventional thought; the public school system, being a labor union construct, adores conventional thought. Makes the populace much easier to control.

First thing I did when I read this surreal comment, was head on over to Buck’s place to see if anything was going wretchedly wrong. Surely such a capable mind would require a strong seismic force to shake his connection to reality? The dude called me Hamsher. Thankfully, as noted above, all seems well over there. That settled, I undertook the task of trying to figure out what bee had somehow flown into his bonnet. Process of elimination would yield fruit the quickest, I decided; also noted above is the fact that we don’t disagree on much, although we disagree. I took a quick inventory of the issues —

We seem to disagree on Sarah Palin;
We disagree about legalizing pot;
We disagree about pretending illegal aliens belong here.

Perhaps he feels I have failed to give his side of one of these, or all three, proper consideration. This is certainly possible, and I am, perhaps, prone to frequent error here. It’s a malady common to technical people: Once we find a method is a good one, our tendency is to shun all the others.

There is a problem with considering Buck’s point of view on these three, though. In all three cases, it calls for turning one’s back on reality. Taking a certain thing that is known to be something — and deliberately pretending it is the opposite of that thing. Palin, who can obviously get more done in a constant unit of time than most folks can, is an incapable dimwit; pot, consumed in a variety of forms for the express purpose of altering the thinking process, doesn’t do this; and illegal aliens are not illegal at all.

Bunny trail here: In the case of the illegal aliens, I notice the word “undocumented” is used in place of “illegal” by the tireless advocates who work so hard to proffer this doctrine of “Pretend things are the opposite of what they really are.” Obviously this is an errant practice and it is being promoted for nefarious purposes — but when you think on it a minute or two, “undocumented” makes the point even more ruggedly. By which I mean, my point. If a law is a bad one, the adjective “illegal” might fail to sell some on the idea that said illegal thing should be avoided. “Undocumented,” on the other hand, means you don’t know something. When you’re talking about twelve to eighteen million of something living in close proximity to our kids to whose protection and safety we are sworn, and go to sometimes absurd lengths in other matters to supplement even incrementally — this is a heady issue.

Other than those, I can’t think of anything on which we’ve disagreed. It’s a testament to how much respect I have for our blog-brother that I put this much thought into what could have inspired what might very well be nothing more than a brain fart, but at this paragraph I think the point of diminishing returns has been crossed in this exercise. We have much more to say to the opposition than “you’re stupid/evil,” and we’re not a Hamsher; at least, I don’t think we are. As for pessimism, it’s always been our position that while the recent avalanche of dumbth is thick, slick, fast and treacherous, our country will survive it in the end — after losing a whole lotta stuff, most tragically from our heritage. But wiser. And still flawed. Our nation has a lot of things going for it, but one must always remember it is a construct upon humanity with all of humanity’s blessings and all of humanity’s shortcomings. And Adam did bite out of the apple. The point is, though, that we’ll get through the current crisis, and that’s always been our position over here.

In my experience, moderating one’s tone in mixed company brings benefit and is often costless; but moderating one’s understanding of truth brings no benefit at all, and costs like crazy. We live in interesting times, wherein anyone who undertakes to learn what is happening right now but at the same time keep outlying thoughts out of his head, embarks on a road to insanity. If the end goal is to keep extreme viewpoints from being expressed, lest others become offended, the far better course is to learn to keep one’s mouth shut. But let the thoughts develop as the truth compels them to be developed.

Posted in My Blogger Friends, Poisoning Individuality and Reason | 5 Comments »

The Seating Arrangements for Next Week’s Dinner Party…

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

…don’t put blogsister Cassy Fiano side-by-side with Levi Johnson.

Posted in Everyday Dimwits, My Blogger Friends | No Comments »

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