Saturday, July 31, 2010
More Questions About the Cordoba Mosque
To find out, she tracked down "Iman Faisal." It appears that he has ducked out of sight and has resurfaced in Kuala Lumpur, byt when called there he quickly hung up.
Another interesting thing about his foundation. He's said he'll produce $100 million. But here's a quick look at his foundation's finances
Rauf's Cordoba Initiative was set up in Colorado in 2004 as a small, tax-exempt foundation. Over the first five years, the Initiative in its U.S. 2008 federal tax return reported receiving donations totaling less than $100,000. Here we are two years later, and the same foundation, hand-in-hand with another hitherto small foundation, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, run by Rauf and his wife out of the same New York office, has hooked up with a real estate developer named Sharif El-Gamal.
Has he won the lottery? Who's really behind this and who's supplying the money? Are all Arab Imams filthy rich?
Claudia Rosett is asking the questions that Bloomberg and the MFM should be asking ...
Whose show is this, anyway? ... Some Americans are left grieving afresh, and many are left guessing, while the mysteries multiply. At least part of the answer lies in such details as where is the money coming from. For that matter, where is Imam Feisal looking for it? And when will he make himself available to tell us all about it?
I would like to think that there would come a time and place of healing, but the secrecy - and the name Cordoba House - does not bode well for this project.
Labels: Islamofascism
Friday, July 30, 2010
How a city manager of a small, poor CA town made $787K

The number defies logic. Yet there it is, in the LA Times, for all the world to see: 787,637. That's the annual salary for Robert Rizzo. He's not a lawyer or a corporate exec. According to the the Times, he's the city administrator for Bell, one of the poorest towns in Los Angeles County (map).
Rizzo isn't the only one with a big fat paycheck. Two other Bell employees are pulling in astronomical incomes. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 and Police Chief Randy Adams makes $457,000.
To put things in perspective, the Times listed the annual salaries of other public servants who have to run bigger places like Los Angeles, California and, oh, the United States. Here's a rundown of salaries:
Bell Chief Administrative officer Robert Rizzo: $787,637
-- Los Angeles City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana: $256,803
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: $173,987 (Schwarzenegger has declined to take his salary)
-- President Barack Obama: $400,000
Is it neccessary to report that Rizzo is a Democrat?
Here's the rest of the story:
Since the story ran last week, the county D.A.'s office and the state are opening investigations, while Rizzo, Spaccia and Adams are quitting. And while they won't get severance packages, Rizzo is entitled to a state pension of $650,000 a year for life.
Labels: corruption
This is how Democrats are bringing us together.
Science is the Boss!?
Has Science! become more authoritarian causing people to distrust it? Apparently in Science! reporting, there has been a sharp increase in the use of the phrase “Science! says we must”, and people are beginning to feel that Science! is just pushing them around. And here are some other phrases that have increased in recent years in Science! reporting:From now on when I hear Science say something I'm going to give Science the finger.
* Science! says we must
* Science! tells us we should
* Science! requires
* Bow down before Science!
* The power of Science! compels you
* Blaspheme to Science! will be noted and punished
* Science! demands your obedience and loyalty
* Do you dare speak before almighty Science!
* Kneel before Science!
* Science! shall crush you
* Foolish mortal! How dare you question Science!
* You have angered Science! and will pay dearly for it
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Time magazine’s new cover: Woman whose nose was cut off by Taliban

This is what the human detritus who public Wikileaks are aiming for.
Labels: Afghanistan, Islamofascism, jihad, media, The Press
Greeks baring rifts
It might have disappeared from the notoriously parochial British media, but it is still there – Greece, that is. And their problems have not been resolved. In fact, they seem to be getting worse. The current round of troubles started a few days ago when the nation's lorry drivers announced their intention to go on indefinite strike today over plans to open up their sector to new licenses, opening up the transport business to new entrants.
Labels: Economy, Europe, Liberalism
Those "no big deal" Wickileaks
CBS News reports that Times of London reporters “scanning the [Wikileaks] reports for just a couple hours found hundreds of Afghan names mentioned as aiding the U.S.-led war effort.”
Recently Radio Netherlands described what Afghans who are suspected by the Taliban can expect to endure. The Taliban have cut off the hands of construction workers who build government-funded projects; sent a suicide car bomb against a district chief believed to have been working with US special forces. Death in many forms will be their lot. One informant Radio Netherlands described “holds a thick yellow sheet tightly around his face” to preserve his anonymity. Now it turns out he shouldn’t have bothered. If the London Times is right, his name might be one of the several hundred the British reporter has found in just a few hours.
Yet the dead are the lucky ones. The more unfortunate may wind up in a torture chamber similar to one found by Coldstream Guards. It features such amenities as chains to hang prisoners from walls. Not that the inmates would want to walk on the floor: that features broken glass. And there is limb amputation, kneecapping with an electric drill, eye gouging, bone-breaking or ritual rape to smash the will. Where the offender is not himself available punishment will be visited on his relatives.
Labels: Afghanistan, Liberalism, Soldiers, War
Dogs catching treat
TIME magazine says Rush is right ... watch out for flying pigs.
Limbaugh has a point. The Deepwater Horizon explosion was an awful tragedy for the 11 workers who died on the rig, ...But so far ... it does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage. "The impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared," says geochemist Jacqueline Michel, a federal contractor who is coordinating shoreline assessments in Louisiana.
Yes, the spill killed birds — but so far, less than 1% of the number killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska 21 years ago. Yes, we've heard horror stories about oiled dolphins — but so far, wildlife-response teams have collected only three visibly oiled carcasses of mammals. Yes, the spill prompted harsh restrictions on fishing and shrimping, but so far, the region's fish and shrimp have tested clean, and the restrictions are gradually being lifted. And yes, scientists have warned that the oil could accelerate the destruction of Louisiana's disintegrating coastal marshes — a real slow-motion ecological calamity — but so far, assessment teams have found only about 350 acres of oiled marshes, when Louisiana was already losing about 15,000 acres of wetlands every year.
UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg reminds us that what nature and BP did in the Gulf is mild compared to what Obama did. That's the REAL disaster.
The greatest damage from the Deepwater Horizon disaster (and yes, even with the hype-deflation, it's still a disaster) has been from government. The drilling ban imposed by the administration, against the counsel of the sort of "sound science" Obama usually sanctifies, has been devastating to the region, costing thousands of jobs and untold millions in lost revenues and taxes. That's definitely something the people couldn't have done better for themselves.
Meanwhile, if Obama is serious about driving America forward to a green economy "even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there," he will take the Gulf region devastation on the road, destroying good jobs across the country (the oil and gas industry pays twice the national average) and replacing them with bad ones. He will replace cheap energy with expensive energy. (During the campaign, he promised that his plan would cause electricity rates to "skyrocket.") He will place bets on unproven technologies while discarding proven ones. In short, he will nationalize a disastrous disaster policy.
Labels: biased reporting, Gulf Oil Spill, media, The Press
An old argument revisited
The economic "rights" asserted by Roosevelt in his second Bill of Rights differ and conflict with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are claims on the liberty of others. If I have a right to medical care, you must have a corresponding duty to supply it. If I have a right to a decent home, you must have a duty to provide it.
The argument for the welfare state belongs in the same family as "the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." That's Lincoln again.
Lincoln memorably derided the underlying principle as "the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it."
Labels: Liberalism
JournoList, Shame of a Nation: Politico & Roger Simon Have Some ‘Splaining to Do
I say MFM. MSM was before we knew how corrupt the media is.You say MSM, I say Politico. You say corrupt, I say Politico....
Politico might be an online publication, a part of the New Media, but when it comes to corrupted, left-wing arrogance they make the Washington Post look somewhat honest … somewhat. Part of the reason I reserve a special place in my heart to store up a unique resentment for all things Politico is due to the very fact that they practice their dark arts online. Like a toxic virus they spread over to the Internet where the right (by design) and the left (by accident) are trying to forever kill off the very thing Politico is — wolfish left-wing propagandists hidden in the sheeps’ clothing of “journalism.”
Labels: biased reporting, media, The Press
Ann Coulter" "With Friends Like These, Who Needs Keith Olbermann? "
While engaging in astonishing viciousness, vulgarity and violence toward Republicans, liberals accuse cheerful, law-abiding Tea Party activists of being violent racists.
Responding to these vile charges, conservative television pundits think it's a great comeback to say: "There is the fringe on both sides."
Both sides? Really? How about: "That's a despicable lie"? Did that occur to you simpering morons as a possible reply to the slanderous claim that conservatives are fiery racists?
Ann gives examples; read the whole thing.
Labels: biased reporting, Conservative, Coulter, media, Race, The Press
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
No violence please, we’re Americans.
Labels: War
Empire of Silence
Read the rest.A personal incident has given me a particular perspective on recent news about the media. Last Tuesday, I received word that the French release of my thriller novel Empire of Lies had been canceled by publisher Seuil Policiers. The editor who originally bought the book had left the French company, and the new editor, my agent says, feels that “she can not publish . . . because of the political and religious aspects of the story.” This, even though it’s in breach of a contract for which I’ve been paid in full. Empire of Lies features a politically conservative Christian protagonist, Jason Harrow, who believes he has uncovered an Islamist terrorist plot being obscured by the leftist mainstream media. “Lies, lies, lies,” the emotionally troubled Harrow murmurs at his television set. “It’s all about what they don’t say.” It will come as no surprise that my friend Andrew Breitbart praised the book as the only thriller he’d ever read in which the mainstream media were the villains.
The book’s French cancellation is, I realize, a rather small cultural event. Yet it gives specific color to the recent revelations on the Daily Caller website that left-wing journalists conspired to suppress scandals that might harm Barack Obama and to the brouhaha over Breitbart’s online release of a video that resulted in a government worker’s momentarily losing her job. In both stories, one thing leaps out at me: everywhere, the Left favors fewer voices and less information, and conservatives favor more. Everywhere, the Left seeks to disappear its opposition, whereas the Right is willing to meet them head-on.
Labels: biased reporting, Fascism, Liberalism, media
Bell, CA residents up in arms over council salaries.
Labels: corruption, Liberalism, Politics
Opinion Journal: 'Journolists' vs. Fox News
Labels: biased reporting, Economy, Obama, The Press
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Keep tenure or academics will hire incompetents.
In a recent post, Orin (relying on an argument by H. Lorne Carmichael) cites faculty self-selection as an argument for tenure:The Volokh Conspiracy is a lawblog which seems to attract legal profs, lawyers and a smattering of other academics. That tenure is required to keep professors from hiring incompetents seems to be such an argument against interest - the ethics of academics - that I though it would be ridiculed. But no; Somin doesn't say that academics would do no such thing ... he says he's not persuaded.
The basic idea is that tenure is a necessary evil because faculties vote on who to let join them: If professors know that their own jobs will be in jeopardy if they hire someone better than themselves, they will make sure that they only hire incompetent new people.
This is indeed a much stronger argument for tenure than the usual academic freedom rationale, which I criticized here. Still, I’m not persuaded.
You have to stare in wonder at the academic establishment.
Labels: Academia
"I remember when charges of extremism and racism weren’t completely partisan in motivation. Or maybe I’m thinking of some fiction I read."
Some other random thoughts:
In this time of high unemployment and many threats abroad, our biggest problem is imaginary racism.
So apparently Sherrod hasn’t learned a single lesson about baseless charges of racism. You can charge Breitbart with being an irresponsible political hack, but to say he want to bring the country back to the time of slavery you have to be a loony toon.
Labels: Liberalism, Race
"It should be noted, though, that only one of the two major political parties has always been against slavery."
Here’s Chris Matthews not listening to Paul Ryan
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Labels: biased reporting, Economy
Obama's Protection
Monday, July 26, 2010
Charles Sherrod on Video: "We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms From Stealing Our
Does this sound to you like a guy with a heart open to racial healing?This is the husband of the woman who's now being inducted into the "Race Victim's Hall of Fame."
From Riehl World View: Sherrod: "We Must Stop The White Man And His Uncle Toms ..."
Read the whole thing and watch the second video.
Labels: Race
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Media Don't Want America to Understand Shirley Sherrod
Earlier this week a handful of people in the blogosphere began to speculate Sherrod would pull off a “full Ginsburg,” or become only the thirteenth person to appear on all major Sunday talk-shows on the same day since the feat was first accomplished by William H. Ginsburg in 1998. However, this was before a clip of Sherrod suggesting Andrew Breitbart wants blacks “stuck back in the times of slavery” went viral. Sherrod also drew extensive criticism late in the week for blasting Fox News as racist.
Considering the Shirley Sherrod interview barrage that took place last Thursday, to not see Sherrod on television Sunday morning sends a clear signal the mainstream media no longer feels allowing the public to get to know the real Shirley Sherrod advances their agenda.
Labels: biased reporting, Liberalism, Race
Ask your family and friends if then Senator John F Kennedy, voted for or against President Eisenhower's 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Labels: History, Liberalism, Race
Everyone is a racist ... except Sherrod.
Just in the few days that Sherrod has talked to the media, we have been enlightened about how she manages to find racism in America...She identified the following racists in quotes over the last week:Comment by "Pops" at Just One Minute.
Andrew Brietbart is a racist.
Glenn Beck is a racist.
Fox News is racist.
Bill O'Reilly is a racist.
The Republian Party is racist.
Those who opposed Obamacare are racist.
Most whites at the USDA are racists.
President Obama may not be a racist, but he's not 'down for the struggle', so he's basically in bed with Whitey.
And Shirley Sherrod, the only person to publicly admit she discriminated against someone based on ther race...is the only non-racist in her scenario.
This is not going well for the Liberal establishment. They have another Cindy Sheehan.
Labels: Race
Carville Slams Obama Again, Now on Moratorium
I'm not a fan of Carville, but I think he understands that virtually every action that Team Obama takes is destroying the Democrats.
Labels: Economy, Gulf Oil Spill, Obama
Is it permissible to ridicule Jihad?
We’ve seen a rash of homegrown Islamist terrorists in recent years, and there has been a lot of agonizing about why. One explanation that I haven’t seen elsewhere still strikes me as plausible: The attraction that adolescents and the disaffected feel toward groups that their parents and teachers fear. If you’re feeling marginalized, after all, why not choose the margin? And while you’re at it, why not choose a marginalized group that inspires fear and unease on the part of mainstream society? At least then you’ll get a kind of respect.He concludes:
In the past fifty years, adolescents have joined a host of marginalized groups their parents found dangerous – juvenile delinquents, mods and rockers, punks, skinheads, and Goths. So why not jihadis? Islamist terror certainly scares authority figures; why wouldn’t Western adolescents and misfits be attracted to violent Islamism — at least as a symbolic stance?
I’m sure that’s not the only explanation for the appeal of homegrown Islamist extremism to a handful of youngsters in this country.
Mockery may turn out to be the key to breaking the movement. That’s what finally destroyed the mystique of the KKK.Well, perhaps, but I doubt it. There's one good reason why mockery won't be the path to making Jihad infashionable: the Political Correctness Police won't have it..
A comment following the essay by "A. Criminal" makes the point that
People who make fun of Islam and Ismlamists are typically called bigots or, illogically, racists by the sanctimonious people who infest government and the media. Islamists, and therefore Sharia and jihad, have protected status nowadays (just ask NASA) and it’s very naughty to make fun of them.
Labels: jihad, War on Terror
White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi
THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya."A wink is as good as a nod."
Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.
Labels: Islamofascism, Obama, War on Terror
Toward a more honest discussion of race
... instead of upholding a colorblind society, the federal government has for decades imposed a multitude of racial preferences throughout the economy, especially in the areas of employment and contracting. For example, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, found that the Obama administration used race and gender as criteria to decide which auto dealerships would be closed.
Labels: Race
Can public nudity be far behind?
What's the difference between this and two postage stamps and a band aid? Probably about $200.

Of course few of these suits are really designed for the beach. Think this model is getting anywhere near the surf? It looks more like an angel costume in a Lag Vegas review.

Finally, beach wear bottoms like this have to chafe delicate parts of the body if worn too long in the hot sun.

What are you looking at?
Labels: pictures
Kathleen Oarker on the media coccoon: "It is no fun writing about friends and colleagues"
...weak tea -- a tempest in Barbie's teacup.
For the millions who have no idea what I'm talking about...
...it was a consortium of far lesser-known folks (academics, mid- to low-level producers, etc.) who enjoyed the camaraderie of the like-minded.
In the conservative world, we call such people Fox News. (Just kidding, guys, but really.)
...some also have been presented out of context and, besides, were offered as part of an ongoing argument among colleagues who believed they were acting in good faith that theirs was a private conversation.
Labels: biased reporting, Conservative, Liberalism
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Breitbart Responds
Labels: Breitbart
WaPo's Ezra Klein: Putz or Schmuck?

For the answer, click on the LINK
Yeah, that's the answer Ezra, voters are angry that companies are making money again.
A Putz AND a Schmuck!
Labels: biased reporting, Liberalism, media, The Press
Big bad oil
How to Write about Africa
Excerpt: In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.
Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.
Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.
Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.
And this is critical in writing about Africa:
Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.For a perfct example of the kind of thing that Binyavanga Wainaina refers to, here's Oprah Winfrey in her arrival in Africa:
The first time I set foot on African soil, I knew I had returned home. It was a powerful experience coming back to the land of bones. It felt like a return to myself.
A lot of African Americans live with the eternal question of "who am I really?" The answer resounded in my spirit with profound clarity the moments I saw an African child smile. Those were my eyes, my lips, my face. And when I first heard African children singing, I knew that not only was I home, but that I would come back to this land again and again. There is a bond that runs very deep between my primal self and the children of Africa. It is a relationship that exists beyond words and one that is reinforced every time I plant my feet in the land of my ancestors. The children of Africa are, to quote scripture, "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Gordon Clark's work crystallizes this connection as he juxtaposes familiar faces and expressions against a barren and inhospitable landscape. Indeed what Clark accomplishes is to capture the essence of Africa's beautiful and amazing people set against a geography of challenge.
We on the dark continent are familiar by now with the spectacle of the prostrate African American celebrity, kissing the soil from which they were spawned. "Don't put your lips there," we want to say. "I just saw a bergie wander away zipping up his pants and... oh, never mind." Because deep down we know that maybe we'll get a multimillion dollar school out of the connection, even if said connection was say, a good 7000km away in West Africa somewhere.
So I really thought that Oprah Winfrey was parodying those kind of sentiment in the foreword to South African photographer, Gordon Clark's book "Transitions".
"Ha ha ha!" I chortled with delight. "'There is a bond that runs very deep between my primal self and the children of Africa,'" I quoted. "This is good stuff."
But no, oh no. The Queen of chat and purveyor of pseudoscience medicinal quackery is as ever all the more terrifying because she's sincere. She really does take herself so seriously that she would dedicate 80% of the foreword to an amazing photographer's work with the most self-indulgent and vainglorious crap - and throw him a bone of congratulations at the end for "crystallizing" her connection. Er, actually the book is a treasure box of gorgeous images from across the continent - not a tribute to your confused sense of identity.
Labels: Africa, Liberalism
David Frum is an idiot.
Labels: biased reporting, Conservative, Liberalism
Good God! Barack Obama is Chauncey Gardiner!
“Being There” is the tall tale of a gardener who becomes a favorite to run for U.S. president following an unlikely series of misunderstandings.
The first occurs when Chauncey is turned out of the mansion where he has lived (and gardened) his whole life upon his benefactor’s death. When someone asks his name, “Chance the Gardener” is heard as “Chauncey Gardiner.” Thereafter, everyone Gardiner meets projects his or her own needs and expectations onto this kind but empty-headed “nobody.” In their minds, Gardiner is the wealthy aristocrat they need him to be, his mundane gardening observations sublime metaphors filled with timeless wit and wisdom.
Labels: Obama
Friday, July 23, 2010
The JournoList in pictures
Rush Limbaugh On Sarah Spitz apology.
I always love it when these people get a dose of their own medicine because they can't take it. So she said "made poorly considered remarks about Rush Limbaugh to what I believed was a private e-mail discussion group from my personal e-mail account. As a publicist, I realize more than anyone that is no excuse for irresponsible behavior. I apologize to anyone I may have offended and I regret these comments greatly; they do not reflect the values by which I conduct my life." Now, that simple isn't true. She said it, she wrote it, she stood by it. Why apologize? Sarah, this is where you people just flummox me. You wrote it. You meant it. Stand by it. She apologizes to "anyone I may have offended and I regret these comments." She doesn't regret 'em, and she hasn't apologized to me. She just apologized to anybody she "may have offended," but why apologize in the first place? She's buckling to pressure. She meant to say it.
She meant it. (interruption) What, Snerdley? What? (interruption) I don't know who is pressuring her to apologize. I have no idea who's pressuring here. You'd have to ask her. But I don't know why she's apologizing. She meant it! Stand by it. She knows damn well she meant it. Everybody on that website, in that listserv, meant everything they wrote. It's just fascinating to see they don't have the guts to stand by it. So that's my reaction. If you want to know what I think about it, that's it. (interruption) If she apologized to me directly? I don't know what I would do, but... (sigh) (interruption) Well, yes, I know I'd be gracious, but I'd just... (interruption) Well, I don't know if it will ever happen, but the point is that the latest trend in apologies, "That's not who I really am." You know, "That's not the person I am." Bull! It is who you are! You are a commie! You are a full-fledged Marxist liberal! You do wish I was dead. It is who you are.
Labels: Liberalism, Limbaugh
The psychopaths are JournoList
"...throw[ing] Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the fuck up, as with most bullies.
What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.
... saying that he would "skullfuck" a terrorist's corpse at an editorial meeting if that was required to "establish his anti-terrorist bona fides"
All of these secular libs will achieve an eternal electro-afterlife, since their words will live forever in Google. And Ms. Spitz's hands-down number one work will be her Limbaugh rant, which will perhaps amuse her grandkids one day.
That almost makes me sad. Almost.
Labels: biased reporting, Liberalism, media, The Press
Andrew Breitbart may be the Wililam Buckley of the Internet Age
Considering his esprit as well as well as the splash of his Web sites, it seems to me that Andrew Breitbart may be the Wililam Buckley of the Internet Age -- part journalist, part showman, part conservative visionary and ideological entrepreneur. He has an instinctive understanding of the media environment that is the base of the left's cultural monopoly and he means to do his best to overthrow it.
Slate has reposted its illuminating profile of Andrew here. James Taranto profiled Breitbart last year in "Taking on the 'Democrat-Media complex.'" In both profiles one can deduce the scope of Andrew's ambition and something of the genius he brings to the project.
Andrew has become a target of opportunity in the current affair involving Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP. The enormous weight of the Democrat-Media complex is seeking to crush him. One sees in Politico's "Breitbart: I am public enemy number 1" that Andrew understands precisely what is happening and that he declines to accept the role that has been assigned him in this shadow play. See also his performance on Good Morning America yesterday with George Stephanopoulos and left-wing Media Matters hack Eric Boehlert (video below, report and transcript here).
via Powerline
Labels: Liberalism, Race
"Sherrod may be the only official ever dismissed because of the *fear* that Fox host Glenn Beck might go after her."
As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tried to pressure her into resigning, Sherrod says Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday to say "do it, because you're going to be on 'Glenn Beck' tonight." And for all the focus on Fox, much of the mainstream media ran with a fragmentary story that painted an obscure 62-year-old Georgian as an unrepentant racist....
Labels: Liberalism, media, Obama
SAME AS IT EVER WAS.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Obama and Hitler on the same billboard?
This means that when a Congressman Joe Wilson shouts "You lie!" at Barack Obama, you respond, "Representative Wilson was wrong. Obama lies a lot." It means that when the left bristles at a satirical letter to Lincoln, you understand that bold, fresh pieces of insanity will always hate satire. And, personally, do I really care that some Tea Party folks juxtaposed Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler on a billboard? Not really. I'm just not that concerned about Mr. Hitler's reputation.
Note to members of the MFM.You sucked before; now you suck and could be part of a sucker conspiracy.
To all you non-JournoLister reporters out there, please be aware that your credibility has just taken a big hit, because we, your faithful readers, don’t actually know who is or who isn’t. You can thank JournoList for that, you can thank Ezra Klein, and you can thank the Washington Post, which has done its outstanding professionals absolutely no favors in any of this.
Labels: biased reporting, media, The Press
What I Learned From the Shirley Sherrod Case
(1) Shirley Sherrod is a racist.
(2) NAACP is racist.
(3) MFM can't read.
(4) MFM doesn't care.
Labels: biased reporting, media, Race, The Press
Obama's racial problem.
The fundamental weakness with President Obama’s theory of racial healing and social progress is that has assumed that America would always have the means to pay for its grand ambitions. With the arrow of redistribution flowing along racial lines from the relatively well-off whites to the latinos and blacks, ‘progressive politics’ in a depression may just be another word for “division and tension between black and white Americans”. When it became clear that Obama would not — could not — fix the economy; and when it became clear who was going to pay the bill for his social engineering, his supported melted away. President Obama doesn’t have a racial problem. He has an economic and ideological problem with racial dimensions.
While black support remains steady the other ethnic components of his base are falling away. What is astounding is the rate at which it has collapsed. White support was “as high as 60 percent as late as the week of May 10, 2009″. Two months later it it was below 40% and still falling. More interesting still are hispanic opinion trends which have followed the same downward trend as whites, albeit from a higher base. Interestingly, neither the President’s appointment of the “wise Latina” nor his war with Arizona helped him on a sustained basis.
For example, Hispanic warmth toward Obama hit its peak (85 percent) a few weeks before he nominated Sonia Sotomayor on May 26, 2009. By August, he was down in the 60s with Hispanics.
Similarly, in the weeks before Obama went to war against the citizens of Arizona in late April 2010 over SB1070, his Hispanic approval rating had been in the 60s. Now, it’s at 55.
The problem is that his governing mental model may be founded in a lost world — in the Marxist critiques of the 1960s and 70s. It may have been forged at a time when Americans seemed obscenely prosperous in comparison to the denizens of the Third World. They were harmless eccentricities at the time. Today, in a globalized world where China, not America is on track to become the greatest consumer in the world; in a world where Americans and Britons pose as Filipinos to get jobs, it is nothing short of disastrous. His old categories of race and privilege and noblesse oblige are survivals from a bygone age. President Obama has made much of being the harbinger of the future. On the contrary, he may turn out to be a relic from the past.
In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would "Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out" as Limbaugh writhed in torment.
In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. "I never knew I had this much hate in me," she wrote. "But he deserves it."
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Obama wins! And Journolisters rejoice
SPENCER ACKERMAN: Let’s just throw Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the fuck up, as with most bullies.
JOE KLEIN, TIME: Pete Wehner…these sort of things always end badly.
ERIC ALTERMAN, AUTHOR, WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA: Fucking Nascar retards…
Nov. 12
Keep in mind that these people are the best of Liberaldom. Read the whole thing.
Labels: biased reporting, Liberalism, media, The Press
US Debt Rating Cut: Outlook “Negative”
The US has been stripped of its AAA credit rating – by a Chinese company.
Dagong Global Credit, the “most influential founder of China’s credit rating industry” maintains an “AA” rating on the United States with a “negative” outlook.
We're less creditworthy than Luxembourg, but still ahead of South Africa.

Thank you Team Obama.
Labels: Economy
U.S. Navy Successfully Tests Laser Gun
The U.S. Navy has successfully tested a new weapon that uses high powered laser beams that are capable of destroying high speed planes and ships. The successful test was demonstrated today at an aerospace convention in the United Kingdom where a video showing the weapon destroying a test drone was screened.

PORTSMOUTH, R.I.--If you thought laser weapons were just military writer's futuristic fantasy, think again. On Tuesday, Raytheon and the U.S. Navy announced that they have successfully used a high-power, solid-state laser, in conjunction with a Phalanx Close-in Weapon System, to knock four UAVs out of the sky off the coast of California.
The system was electrically powered, and Raytheon said it offers the military a very cost-efficient and nearly unlimited "magazine" for shooting down things like threatening UAVs, or perhaps airplanes. "Once development is completed," Raytheon said in a release, "the Laser Area Weapon System will give the warfighter a speed-of-light solution for defeating rockets, mortars, UAVs, and other targets."
Labels: Military, War, Weapons
JournoList as a Management Problem
The real problem with JournoList is that much of it consisted of exchanges among people who worked for institutions about how to best hijack their employers for the cause of Progressivism. Thus, the J-List discussion revealed yesterday in the Daily Caller was about how the group could get their media organizations to play down the Reverend Wright affair and help elect Barack Obama.
Were I an editor of one of these institutions, I would instantly fire any employee who participated in this gross violation of his/her duty. For example, the J-List included Washington Post reporters, and the idea that the paper has been turned into a propaganda organ is a big reason it is bleeding readers and influence.
Of course, it is possible that the Post’s editors were on the list, since the membership is not known, in which case the corporate executives should fire the editors, or the board should fire the executives, or the stockholders should fire the board. (If Director Warren Buffet was on J-List, I give up.)
Labels: biased reporting, Liberalism, media, The Press
If Shirley Sherrod gets her job back should Rush Limbaugh be able to buy St. Louis Rams?
It's all about "context" you see, and the MSM so anxious to heep the racist label attached to the Tea Party that they're willing to throw Shirley under the bus so that they can go on making the Tea Party the home of racism in America.
Not so long ago, Rush Limbaugh wanted to be part of a group buying the Rams. But some people used made-up quotes to smear him. After he was dropped from the buying group, the media dropped the issue. Objective accomplished.
Now that we have established that context matters in determining is someone is racis, can we go a step further and admit that lies are also off-limits when we call someone a racist?
Question #1: If Shirley gets her job back, should Rush get to own part of the Rams?
Question #2: Did the JournoList get involved in smearing Rush?
Labels: biased reporting, Liberalism, media, Race, The Press
Whistling Past the JournoList Graveyard
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, progressives gotta try throwing a white sheet over Fred Barnes to save Obama from a scandal that should have finished off his campaign....
The Daily Caller has treated conservatives to the unique sensation of being shocked by revelations that don’t surprise us a bit. We’ve known this stuff was going on for years. The Reverend Wright story is one of many examples where media bias is easily detected by simply reversing the political alignment of the principles, and asking what the media coverage would be like.
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine the reaction to the discovery of John McCain’s twenty-year association with a chapter of the Klan, followed by a major speech in which McCain described the Kleagle as “an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy,” whom he could “no more disown than he could disown the white community.” If that wasn’t enough to fill newsrooms with stroke victims, the craven decision to throw the Kleagle under the bus a few days later, after one more outrageous statement, would have done the trick.
A rational, informed electorate wouldn’t have allowed Obama to survive the Reverend Wright scandal. A great deal of media manipulation was necessary to slip him past such obstacles, and into the White House. It will be somewhat comforting to think it was all an expensive prank by the JournoList frat boys.
Labels: biased reporting, Fascism, Liberalism, media
Liberal journalists suggest government shut down Fox News
From the Daily Caller:
When the writer Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article about immigration for National Review, for example, blogger Ed Kilgore didn’t even bother to grapple with Hanson’s arguments. Instead Kilgore dismissed Hanson’s piece out of hand as “the kind of Old White Guy cultural reaction that is at the heart of the Tea Party Movement. It’s very close in spirit to the classic 1970s racist tome, The Camp of the Saints, where White Guys struggle to make up their minds whether to go out and murder brown people or just give up.”
The very existence of Fox News, meanwhile, sends Journolisters into paroxysms of rage. When Howell Raines charged that the network had a conservative bias, the members of Journolist discussed whether the federal government should shut the channel down.
“I am genuinely scared” of Fox, wrote Guardian columnist Daniel Davies, because it “shows you that a genuinely shameless and unethical media organisation *cannot* be controlled by any form of peer pressure or self-regulation, and nor can it be successfully cold-shouldered or ostracised. In order to have even a semblance of control, you need a tough legal framework.” Davies, a Brit, frequently argued the United States needed stricter libel laws.
“I agree,” said Michael Scherer of Time Magazine. Roger “Ailes understands that his job is to build a tribal identity, not a news organization. You can’t hurt Fox by saying it gets it wrong, if Ailes just uses the criticism to deepen the tribal identity.”
Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/liberal-journalists-suggest-government-shut-down-fox-news/2/#ixzz0uKOeQeol
Labels: biased reporting, Fascism, Liberalism, media
WHO criticizes Amnesty report into NKorea health
The issue is sensitive for WHO because its director-general, Margaret Chan, praised the communist country after a visit in April and described its health care as the "envy" of most developing nations.
Amnesty's report on Thursday described North Korea's health care system in shambles, with doctors sometimes performing amputations without anesthesia and working by candlelight in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power. It also raised questions about whether coverage is universal as it — and WHO — claimed, noting most interviewees said they or a family member had given doctors cigarettes, alcohol or money to receive medical care. And those without any of these reported that they could get no health assistance at all.
Garwood and WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib insisted that Amnesty's report was complementary to their boss' observations, and sought to downplay Chan's praise for North Korea. Instead, they focused on the challenges she outlined for North Korea, from poor infrastructure and equipment to malnutrition and an inadequate supply of medicines.
Asked Friday what countries were envious of North Korea's health, Chaib said she couldn't name any. But she highlighted the importance of maintaining the health body's presence in the country, where officials do their best to save lives despite "persisting challenges."
"We are an organization dealing with member states, and we respect the sovereignty of all countries," Chaib said. "We need to work there to improve the lives of people."
Labels: biased reporting, health care, Korea, Medical, UN




