Monthly Archives: July 2010
Pravda
My friend Dean “Dino” Russell is a roofer in the middle Keys. Dancing about on roofs all his life has made him the most physically fit man in the Home Depot; it also gives him an overview of life. He is the third-most conservative man I know.
This morning, Dino emailed me a copy of the CyberAlert compilation of news items reported in the daily BiasAlert. Calling itself “America’s Media Watchdog,” the Media Research Center News Analysis Division “document(s), expose(s) and neutralize(s) liberal media bias.”
The following examples aren’t very exciting but they lead to an important discovery about the “news.”
1. Matthews to Democrat: What Percentage of Republicans Would You Put In the ‘Nut Bag’?
Chris Matthews, on Monday’s Hardball, brought on his own personal Congressman, Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, to review how his party was going to distinguish themselves from the GOP in the midterms with Matthews asking the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee head if they were focusing on all the “crazy” Republicans, or in other words “nut collecting.” Matthews, after playing a clip of Barack Obama singling out Republicans Joe Barton, John Boehner and Roy Blunt, also reminded Van Hollen the President missed another “crazy” person with “B” name as he proclaimed: “If you’re going out looking for nuts, it would seem like you’d put [Michele Bachmann] in your basket.” Matthews even tried to pin down Van Hollen by demanding: “What percentage of the Republican Party would you put in the nut bag right now?”Yawn. Chris Matthews is a syndicated “commentator,” not a reporter. Beck probably asked a guest “What percentage of Dumbocrats would you put in the ‘nut bag’?” yesterday, too.
2. CBS’s Schieffer Interviews Eric Holder, Ignores Black Panther Case
While devoting all of Sunday’s Face the Nation to an interview with Attorney General Eric Holder, CBS host Bob Schieffer failed to ask a single question about the Obama Justice Department dropping a voter intimidation case against the Black Panthers or allegations that the department has adopted a policy of ignoring such cases. At the end of the interview, Schieffer even asked about Holder’s infamous comment that the United States was a “nation of cowards” when it came to discussing race. However, the Face the Nation host failed to use that comment as a transition to the Black Panthers case, despite the fact that former DOJ attorney Christian Adams recently testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, accusing the department of adopting a policy of refusing to pursue voter intimidation cases that involved black defendants and white victims.Yawn again. I watched FTN and included some of it in Sunday’s commentary. Bob Schieffer didn’t ask General Holder about a lot of things. He didn’t ask about U.S. v. Microsoft. He didn’t ask about Goldman Sachs. He didn’t ask about ACORN. He didn’t ask about the voter intimidation accusation made by Christian Adams.
Some of his questions were softish but they weren’t bad.
3. No Balance Required? MSNBC Features Only Pro-Gay Side of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Debate
MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer on Monday appeared baffled as to why more U.S. politicians weren’t ‘standing up’ to demand the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” touting it as “a civil rights issue.” In the span of two hours, the cable network featured a gay member of the military and a conservative to discuss the issue. However, both guests favored allowing homosexuals to serve openly.That is the most troubling of these examples, although not surprising. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) criticized Brewer live on the air; he said she was “absurd”, “fundamentally dishonest”, “irresponsible” and lacked “integrity” for her handling of interviews. She’s allegedly a news anchor, not a commentator and did her time as general assignment reporter. We should expect better.
None of this should worry us but for one terrible truth: the American news audience — including Dino and Rufus — has come to believe that Brewer and Colbert and Matthews and Beck and Limbaugh and O’Reilly are reporters and what they do is news.
Paranoia
My friend Rufus is not paranoid. “Besides,” he said, “Even paranoiacs can have enemies.”
Rufus has stated that a Korean torpedo may have taken out Deepwater Horizon, that the ObamaNation tried to destroy the entire banking and insurance industry in order to nationalize health care, and that the ObamaNation did deliberately crash the entire economy in order to steal General Motors from its owners.
I don’t believe the latter theory.
“Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel said in an interview quoted in the NYTimes. “They are opportunities to do big things.”
I do believe the ObamaNation took advantage of the crashed economy to steal General Motors from its owners simply because they could.
Conspiracy theorists espouse clandestine liberal plans against the common citizens, extravagant murder plots, and other schemes that explain major political and historical events.
Some conspiracy theories have been advanced by government insiders themselves including the Vast International Communist Conspiracy (McCarthy’s right wing accusations of disloyalty, subversion, and treason during the Second Red Scare) and the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (Hillary Clinton’s left wing defense of Bill during the Lewinsky scandal when she called Monica’s claims the “latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Clinton’s political enemies.”)
We now know all of those charges were false, and yet …
Rufus makes a good argument linking North Korea’s torpedo attack on a South Korean warship to a possible torpedo attack on Trans Ocean’s Korean ties (Hyundai built the Deepwater Horizon).
Rufus and I both made a good argument showing that when governments drive insurers out of the business, only the government is left to supply the need. Whoda thunk a Chicago pol could understand supply and demand?
And there are plenty of examples of government overstepping its bounds. The City of St. Albans here told a local store owner he couldn’t paint his building yellow. President Barack Obama ordered General Motors boss Rick Wagoner to resign (and that was a year before he ordered Carl-Henric Svanberg to suspend BP’s dividends).
“Look at that Vermont man charged with downloading child porn,” Rufus said. 23 year old Michael Liberty pleaded not guilty to three charges in Burlington last week. Police say they found several images of child pornography on his computer after tracking his downloads; Liberty said he had deleted any child porn he had accidentally downloaded.
“Did you ever wonder how the cops found Liberty?” Rufus asked. “NSA does keyword searches on every U.S. phone call, and Comcast examines every byte that goes over its Internet system to decide whether to throttle its customer usage.
“What’s to keep Comcast from looking at the content you download?” From there, he thinks, it is a short step to slowing competitor’s content or tattling to the very regulators who will approve the NBC deal.
Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company on its way to world domination, is buying control of NBC Universal for $13 billion.
“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence,” Napoleon Bonaparte warned us.
Supermarket ID cards. ISPs seeing our mail. Local governments telling us what to paint. The nation’s highest official telling us what to think.
Whether malice on the part of the Washington ruling class or incompetence on the part of the voters, we Americans have given up our strong, independent, problem-solving ways in favor of temporary … comfort.
And it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to notice that.
I.R.V.
Early voting starts today in Vermont, 45 days ahead of Primary Day. I can’t believe the Demorats refuse to institute Instant Runoff Voting for their primary elections. Demorats have five candidates vying for governor and IRV is the only way to determine the real will of the people.
Guest Post: George says This May Not Be Bloggable
George Poleczech is a dooms-day survivalist. He believes the world will end December 23, 2014 — two years and two days beyond the end of the Mayan calendar because that is the day his Mexican barber swears is the number of years and days that the Mayan calendar is out of whack because the entire Mayan society got drunk and stayed drunk for 732 days back when record keeping was important before the Spaniards arrived and mucked things up.
George has a large stash of nonperishable foodstuffs put away for tough times, and 12-23-2014 is his red letter day for All Hell Breaking Loose. Heaven help us all if his barber is right.
Anyway, this is George’s culinary contribution to Survival in the 21st Century.
George writes:Today was experimental day at the Poleczech home, pretending that the S**t had hit the Fan, and that my bride and myself were having to stretch Peter’s underwear to feed Paul’s appetite. It was all just an experiment, so I could afford to be whimsical.
To underwrite this endeavor I took a can of Sam’s Club premium salmon and decided to make fried fritters with it — enough to feed a family of five for a full meal and then some. To do that, I needed a packet of ready-to-stir cornbread mix with directions plain to read on the side of the box. I chose Martha White because the print was large.
Fast forward: I mixed the cornbread according to the directions and added a 15 oz can of Sam’s premium salmon and stirred it in thoroughly. Then, I added the secret ingredient that I had learned some 65 years ago at the culinary feet of my dad, who was the real cook in the family. (Of course, the secret ingredient shall remain a secret). Without it, the fritters will come apart in the fry oil and turn into a messy, crumbly glob.
Then, I heated a skillet with about 1/3 inch of vegetable oil, and when it was smoky hot, I spooned in the first seven fritters and watched them sizzle to browny perfection. I performed this action thrice until I had 22 fried salmon fritters piled on a flat plate; and then I called Mrs George in to enjoy the first fruits. She was impressed.
Prior to our sitting down, she had opened a can of okra and tomatoes as an accompaniment to the tasty treats. What else could serve so well? Okra and tomatoes keep you regular.
But then the ultimate question arose. What for wine?
I mean, what kind of wine does one choose for salmon fritters and okra and tomatoes? Mrs George had the perfect choice. She chose a vintage Pouilly-Fuisse from Walmart ($2.97 a bottle). Perfect.
Me, I had a beer.
She chose to compliment the fish ingredient of her fritters with a gourmet tartar sauce, and I smeared mine with ketchup to enjoy the cornbread DNA of the mixture. To each his/her own.
Of the 22 fritters, we left 13 for snacks later on. We wiped out the okra and tomatoes.
As we sat and sipped the last drops from our wine glasses, Mrs George arched a provocative eyebrow, touched me beneath the table and demurely inquired what the secret ingredient was.
Did she really think I would give away such a vital secret on the veiled promise of passion’s pleasure? I told her to kiss off. No way was I going to give up the secret that had been passed down from father to son — from one millennium to another.
She left the table in a snit — leaving me to do the dishes and scrub the skillet.
So be it. Some secrets are worth scrubbing pots for.
Isn’t this an interesting message?