Thursday, May 31, 2012

TO BIAS OR NOT TO BIAS. THAT IS THE QUESTION

Watched Charlie Rose interview a couple of people this week.

One was a conservative Republican, the other a liberal Democrat.

Every statement made by the conservative was met with a furrowed brow and challenge by Rose.

Every statement made by the liberal was met with a smile and "clarification." None was challenged in the same way the conservative had been challenged.

See, media bias does not have to be something like Rose stating his position on a topic. It can be couched in the body language, phrasing and methods of the interviewer.

If Fox News is slanted toward conservatives and can freely admit it ("fair and balanced" and "we report, you decide" notwithstanding), then why can't the liberal media (CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN and AP, etc.) admit their bias?

We are all biased to one degree or another.

I have a conservative bias and am proud of it.

You can call me stupid, ignorant, one-sided or anything else you can think of. But you can't call me unbiased. I am biased and that's that.

I am biased about other things, too.

I am biased against being struck by lightning.

I have never tried it, but I can guarantee you I wouldn't like it.

I have tried liberalism and found it wanting and unlikable.

I find liberals by-and-large unlikable when pressed on their ideas.

That their ideas have never worked, do not now work and never will work does not sway them at all, because they earnestly believe their intellect is greater than the intellect of conservatives.

The opposite is really true.

No person with more than half a brain could possibly be a liberal.

It just is scientifically impossible.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR

Here's what he said (in case you don't speak mumbling):

Reporter: Last thing. If that’s the argument, how is that different from Romney’s argument on Bain Capital, which is that many succeeded and a few failed?

Carney: Look, there, there, there is the… the difference in that… your overall view of what your responsibilities are as president, and what your view of the economic future is. And, and the president believes, as he’s made clear, that a president’s responsibility is not just to, uh… those who win, but those who, for an example, in a company where there have been layoffs or a company that has gone bankrupt, that, you know, we have to make sure that those folks have the means to find other employment, that they have the ability to train for other kinds of work, and that’s part of the overall responsibility the president has.

And Carney is one of the best President BO (the child president) has to offer!

ONE OF THE BEST DESCRIPTIONS OF THE MISERABLE LEFT I'VE READ IN A LONG TIME!

Meet the Flukes!

By F. H. Buckley from the May 2012 issue of The American Spectator

Too many Americans today are "born without a skin." There’s a uniquely American ritual that has so far escaped the attention of cultural anthropologists. A group of people huddle, near a water cooler perhaps. One of them lowers his head, looks nervously from side to side, and then begins to speak softly, so that no one else might hear.

You’ve caught him in the act of perpetrating a joke.

This isn’t exactly the golden age of humor, as Rush Limbaugh discovered. For which our morality police will breathe a sigh of relief. They don’t have to worry about an edgy Saturday Night Live (“Jane, you ignorant slut!”) or National Lampoon. In fact, they don’t much have to worry about laughter at all, since there isn’t a lot of it. Laughter is dangerous, you see, because in every joke there’s a butt, someone at whom we laugh. Otherwise, it’s not funny.

That’s precisely the problem, however. Our laughter tells the butt that he’s a fool, a chump, a hypocrite. In short, he’s ridiculous. That’s a useful message, since our laughter tells the butt to shape up. Poor sap, he should thank us. Not that that’s likely, since there’s nothing more humiliating than ridicule.

That explains the death of laughter, since it collides with its arch-foe, the modern duty of respect. We used to think that social justice was all about economic needs, but now we’ve got a stronger safety net and it’s about banning expressions of disrespect. Gay marriage, the “war on women.” It’s all about feelings.

By the way, have you ever noticed that the modern definition of “social” is “not”? Social science is not science. Social work is not work. Social justice is not justice.

Forgive me, but I’m rather short on socially approved feelings these days. I don’t like being told that conservative views “disrespect” the whiners, and mostly I’m simply not interested in their complaints. I’m the last person I know who supports “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” You’re in a wonderful relationship? Fine. I just don’t want to know about it. It may well be the most faaabulous thing in your life at the moment, the only thing you want to talk about, but at best you’ve committed the unpardonable sin of becoming a bore. At worst, you’re passive-aggressive, and are churlishly claiming a right to my expression of respect. Either way, I’m defriending you.

Too many Americans today are, like Jefferson’s cousin, John Randolph of Roanoke, “born without a skin.” Every snub is magnified a hundredfold, and burns like fire on their souls. The easy grace that permits the strong man to laugh off a jest has been replaced by a touchiness that feels a slight from ten feet away. The difference is that, unlike Randolph, we’ve replaced the duel with the petition: “We, the undersigned, are outraged that…”

We, the undersigned, are pretty much outraged all the time, in case you haven’t noticed. Which is another reason for the death of laughter. So little time, so much to hate. In George Orwell’s 1984, every citizen was required to participate in a daily two minute hate-in. They were shown a film of Enemies of the People and required to express their hatred for 120 seconds. They got off easy. If MSNBC had only two minutes to get the hate in, they’d have nothing much left to broadcast for the remainder of their time.

Which brings us back to Limbaugh. In case you’ve been living on Mars, Rush said a Bad Word on February 29, and there’s been Hell to pay ever since. A lady called Sandra Fluke (rhymes with…oh, never mind) complained before an agitprop Democratic committee about Georgetown Law School’s policy of not providing insurance coverage for contraceptive pills. She said that a prescription cost $1,000 a year. Actually, it’s closer to $100, and Rush wondered what the extra money was all about. And so he used That Word, causing 300 million hearts to go all-aflutter.

Georgetown is a Jesuit university, and from this some might have concluded that it was a Catholic institution. If so, one might have wondered what Ms. Fluke expected when she got there. What she expected, she said, was that Georgetown would live up to the Jesuit creed, as enlightened people understand it, and Georgetown seemed eager to oblige her. The university’s president, John DeGioia, hastened to condemn Limbaugh for the disrespect he had displayed to a Georgetown student.

One reads that her parents are proud of her. That’s not surprising. After all, they were responding to President Obama’s demands, for he had telephoned their daughter to say that her parents ought to be proud of her. How their hearts must swell at the fame and respect she has brought to the name Fluke, which will live forevermore as a symbol of…something or other.

The entire episode was shame-making, but not because of some fictitious war on women. Rather, it revealed the essential triviality of modern politics. The economy is tanking, a fifth of Americans are out of work, the public debt load is wholly unsustainable, and what we want to know is whether Obama will come out publicly in favor of gay marriage. The Iranians are about to get the bomb, the Arab spring has turned to winter, we’re embroiled in an Afghani quagmire, but the real question is whether Rush’s advertisers will dump him.

So far they’re hanging in, for the most part, because Rush still commands what appears to be the largest audience in American radio. His listeners like his politics, of course, but that’s not the only story. Rush is also a humorist of a particularly American type, the teller of tall tales, the man behind the golden microphone, the orator who invites you to laugh with him at his exaggerations. He also offers an astute analysis of American politics, but sensible policy advice doesn’t make for an audience said to be of 20 million people a week. He is, above all, an entertainer, and entertainers sometimes tell bad jokes, especially if asked to perform for upward of 600 hours a year, for more than 20 years.

That’s not good enough for people on the left, and it’s also not good enough for the many people on the right who joined in the opportunistic show of hypocritical outrage. The latter are an interesting group. Some are prigs, of course, who are shocked, just shocked, when Foster Friess tells a joke about aspirin pills as a form of birth control. Others are what the French call vendus, the sell-outs who owe their celebrity solely to their willingness to dump on their colleagues on the right. For the banal Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, the Fluke episode was a godsend, since it permitted her to move on from the awfulness of Sarah Palin, volume CXI. Am I the only one who misses CNN’s Parker-Spitzer? She was Little Nell, and like Oscar Wilde one had to have a heart of stone not to giggle at her stunned befuddlement, a vapid grin fixed on her immobile face, when teamed up with motormouth Eliot Spitzer. (But then who could have handled Spitzer? Oh yes, Sarah Palin.)

Finally, there’s a third group: the conservative who yearns for left-wing approbation. I am so reasonable, my facts so irrefutable, my conclusions so logical. How can you deny me respect, Keith Olbermann? That’s an intellectual failing, of course, one of high silliness, but it’s also a moral failing. It’s an example of the narcissism at the heart of the ethic of respect.

You know what one should do with all such people? Laugh at them.

About the Author F. H. Buckley is Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law.

(Blog owners note: Any comments that do no more than attack the writer, Rush Limbaugh, me or any of my other commenters will be deleted. If you want to refute, refute with facts, linear logic or opinion about the substance of the post. Period.)

Monday, May 28, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Thursday, May 24, 2012

SUPPORT ISRAEL? WE'D BETTER!

In the law, regarding a person on the witness stand, it is said, "Never ask a question to which you do not know the answer." Perhaps that would be a good rule for news reporters to follow also.

Part ONE:

Even those who are not particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu could get a good measure of satisfaction from this interview with British Television during the retaliation against Hamas' shelling of Israel. The interviewer asked him: "How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?"

Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?" Interviewer: "Why not?"

Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany 's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima ... Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children.

Perhaps you have another question?"

Part TWO: Benjamin Netanyahu gave another interview and was asked about Israel 's occupation of Arab lands. His response was, "It's our land."

 The reporter was stunned - read below. "Yes, it's our land... It's important information since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events."

"Crash Course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict." (1.5 minutes to read!)

Here are overlooked facts in the current and past Middle East situation. A Christian university professor compiled these: Facts:

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem: Israel became a nation in 1312 BC, two thousand (2,000) years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BC, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand (1,000) years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 lasted no more than 22 years.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital,and Arab leaders did not bother to come visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran.

7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left (many in fear of retaliation by their own brethren, the Arabs), without ever seeing an Israeli soldier. The ones who stayed were afforded the same peace, civility, and citizenship rights as everyone else.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONLLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that hasnever been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.

15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

18. The UN was silent while the Jordanians destroyed 58 Jerusalem synagogues.

19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

These are incredible times. We have to ask what our role should be.

What will we tell our grandchildren about what we did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Monday, May 21, 2012

LET'S LEARN TO LEARN 'EM A THING OR TWO

For years I have been stating that 30% of high school graduates could not read their own diplomas.

It turns out that I was wrong.

It’s closer to 50%.

The teachers’ unions, in concert with some very stupid politicians, have managed to take Florida to new lows of education.

Federal mandates under the policies of the last 4 presidents have done nothing to help the situation.

This article from Reuters makes the point.

When the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results first came in and 52% of freshman students failed to read at their grade levels, Florida did the logical thing and lowered the standards.

That made the students much smarter.

Now only 50% fail to read at grade level.

What a great job the Florida Board of Education and the federal Department of Education have done!!

All of their great “progressive” ideas have worked so well that America is falling farther and farther behind the rest of the world.

It is time to get the government out of the “business” of education, something they know absolutely nothing about to begin with.

We need to return to the concept of public schools and do away with the idea of government schools.

For you liberal/progressives who don’t know the difference, public schools are run by the local public and are not beholden to the government for money or guidance.

It was public schools that put men on the moon. Government schools have never been able to repeat the feat, but have managed to kill more than a few people not doing it.

A literate society is the only hope for a free society. If people can’t read well enough to know that their liberties are being infringed upon, they will never be able to take the necessary steps to prevent it.

On the other hand, a person who can read can learn to do absolutely anything.

Florida is a microcosm of the rest of the country. People settle here from every state in the union.

We have more schools than ever in our history, and the product we are producing is defective.

It is time to put parents back in charge of the educational system (a-la the old time PTA, something which does not exist today). It is also time to teach teachers how to teach, not to spend their time being amateur psychologists, responsible for the “self-esteem” of students through artificial means.

Self-esteem is the result of accomplishment.

Accomplishment is the result of learning the basics of arithmetic, reading, science and (correct) history.

That means rote memorization until that which is memorized is ready to be applied to linear thought.

If that’s “boring,” then so be it.

It worked for hundreds of years, and it will work now.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

JUST LISTEN TO THE CONTENT OF THIS VIDEO. IS IT ACCURATE OR NOT?




Hat tips to: Important Stuff--Or Not and Geeeez!

Oh, and don't bother to comment unless your comment demonstrates that you've actually watched the video.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

TOOT YOUR OWN HORN, AMATEUR

Reported in the Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2012

Insurers must credit ObamaCare when giving new round of rebates;

Health-insurance companies must tell customers who get a premium rebate this summer that the check is the result of the Obama administration's health-care law, according to federal guidelines released Friday.

The move is the latest sign the Obama administration is trying to draw attention to the law's benefits before the fall elections, even though the law faces an uncertain future. The Supreme Court is expected to decide in June whether its central plank-a mandate that everyone carry insurance-violates the Constitution.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Monday, May 14, 2012

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS HE IS AN AMATEUR

From Ed Lasky:

Edward Klein's new book on Barack Obama, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, is a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency -- while being weighed down by a small circle of "advisers" who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House.

Klein's book begins with a talisman-like quote uttered by Barack Obama when his recently appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tried to boost Obama's ego by telling him, "Your legacy is going to be preventing the second Great Depression." To which Barack Obama responded, "That's not enough for me."

As all of America knows by now, Obama has aggressively sought to "fundamentally transform" America -- one of the few promises he has kept from the days of 2008.

Five trillion dollars of borrowing, ObamaCare passed over the objections of the majority of Americans through legislative legerdemain and special deals made with resistant politicians, failed stimulus, green programs failing left and right as taxpayers are left holding the bag, a recovery that is the most anemic on record, an America that has been sundered by the man who promises to unite us, America weaker abroad and at home -- yes, America has been fundamentally transformed. Mission Accomplished. But how and why did Obama succeed in such a catastrophic way? That is the question that Klein successfully answers in his extremely readable and enjoyable book, with enough spicy details to satisfy the craving of anyone interested in how President Obama and those closest to him have driven us to the condition we find ourselves in as we approach November.

One of the motifs that runs throughout the book is Barack Obama's sheer level of incompetency. He has the fatal conceit of many politicians: an overweening ego. That may be a prerequisite for politicians and leaders, but when it is unleavened by a willingness to consider the views of others, it becomes a fatal conceit. And Obama has that trait in abundance.

Stories tumble out that reveal a man who believes he is all but omniscient -- unwilling to give any credence to the views of others (especially but not limited to those across the aisle).

Experts in management are interviewed who point out that he lacks essential qualities of leadership. Indeed, the book gets its title from an outburst from Bill Clinton, who was trying to encourage Hillary to take on Obama in the Democratic primary of 2012: Obama doesn't know how to be president. He doesn't know how the world works. He's incompetent.

He's...he's...Barack Obama's an amateur Read more.

(End of quote from article)

President BO (the child president) came into office unprepared, with no actual work experience, a very short stent as a senator, no understanding of the Constitution he is supposed to protect and defend (never mind that he is falsely accused of having been a Constitutional professor [He was only a lecturer]) and absolutely no understanding of foreign affairs.

Lasky is right. President BO (the child president) is a rank amateur.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

CALIPHANIA HERE WE COME

Two years ago (and further back for some) so-called "right wingers" in the U.S. were warning of a coming Caliphate. For that they were ridiculed, socffed at and told they were conspiratists.

For those who don't know, Caliphate is the original political government system established in Islam, comprising the Muslim community and the lands as well as the peoples under it dominion in the centuries following the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Caliphate, as understood in the Middle East today (and headed up by the Caliph), represents world domination and rule by Islam. Foolish thinking by those stupid "right wingers," right?

Well, take a look at this and then think it through.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

HEY! I WANT MINE!

If Elizabeth Warren, suspected of being 1/32 Cherokee Indian (because of her great-great-great-grandmother), can get all kinds of federal perks by being a minority, I want every penny of my college costs returned, I want reparations from the government and I want my own water fountain to drink from. In fact, I should get twice as much as she did. I'm 1/16 Cherokee Indian! Could this be my great-great-grandmother?

Monday, May 7, 2012

ANOTHER INTELLIGENT ONE

Thursday, May 3, 2012

OK, I KNOW. BUT IT'S FUNNY!



Look, I know there are countries where eating dog is considered perfectly normal. And I don't care one whit.

In our culture, though, dogs are held in high regard as "family" members. (I know. I just lost my favorite dog ever to congestive heart failure.)

As a result, President BO (the child president)'s revelation that he was "introduced" to dog meat is abhorrent to many Americans.

That being said, and whatever your position on dog meat, this video is funny.

Thanks and a hat tip to LR.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

PANTS ON FIRE!

Talking about whether or not Mitt Romney would have taken out OBL, President BO (the child president) said:

“I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. That’s been at least my practice.”

O has it, now?

Consider:

“No family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”


“As president, I will close Guantanamo.”

“But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support.”

“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.”

“I will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American people an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website.”

“No political appointee in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.”

“I’ll give an annual State of the World address to the American people where I lay out national security policy.”




Tuesday, May 1, 2012

WHY CAN'T THIS AMATEUR GET IT RIGHT?

"When people say we should get rid of Planned Parenthood, they’re not just talking about restricting a woman’s ability to make her own health decision; they’re talking about denying, as a practical matter, the preventive care, like mammograms, that millions of women rely on."

Planned Parenthood does not now and never has provided mammograms.

He keeps on and keeps on making statements he wishes were true and aren't.

Why do liberals continue to give him passes on these pieces of stupidity (or flat out lies)?