August 20, 2008
Vote Charlie for Hot Blogger!
ThreeSources friend Charlie "Tecumseh" on the PA turnpike has been nominated for the HotBloggerCalendar.
Vote for him if you can -- I could not figure out the site (perhaps voting is not open yet?) We'll keep you informed...
August 4, 2008
WaPo Headline
Y'know, I almost hate to beat up on the venerable Washington Post. They have provided more honest coverage of post-surge Iraq and the Obama campaign than most other media outlets.
But today, a Rasmussen Poll shows Senator McCain with his first lead, and my WaPo email leads with the headline: Obama Leads, Pessimism Reigns Among Key Group. It seems -- can I get a "mirabile dictu?" -- that the überliberal, collectivist Senator has a lot of support from "low wage" workers.
Obama's advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers -- a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November -- Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.
There wouldn't be, I don't know, the slightest chance that a lot of these people are on
The new poll included interviews with 1,350 randomly selected workers 18 to 64 years old who put in at least 30 hours a week but earned $27,000 or less last year. As a group, they are somewhat less likely to be Republicans than all adults under age 65 and are also less likely to be registered to vote. As many call themselves conservatives as liberal, and nearly four in 10 said their views on most political matters are "moderate."
Quite a scoop, WaPo, quite a scoop!
July 20, 2008
The New Graeme Frosts II
(This is a long update to the post below, "The New Graeme Frosts.")
I wondered how long it would take to see the "bloggers are mean to the overweight" meme. Eidelblog links to a Kevin Hayden post dated 7:16 last night.
In the process, they neglect to consider the high percentages of Ohio families reporting similar financial difficulties, even those with family incomes between $40K and $79K. Paying for gas, getting a good job or getting a raise, paying for healthcare or insurance has grown difficult for between 1 and 4 and 1 in 2 Ohioans in that middle class income range.They neglect to mention that the daughter seems motivated to work and to educate herself, while refusing to get pregnant to gain more assistance.
Leaving aside the unclaimed abstinence medal, there really are two stories here. Perry is right to focus on "state worship" as enabling these people to make bad decisions with little or no consequence. I'm equally interested as a media story. NPR wanted to run this story so very badly. I'm sure they advertised for someone to feature. And I am sure they were delighted to get Angelica and Gloria.
I am pretty uncomfortable piling on those two women, because -- unlike the Frosts -- they didn't put themselves up (Does NPR pay? I hope so in this instance.) And their plight is pretty sad. I will not agree with the commenters on Gateway Pundit who claim these two live a princely life because their percentage of fixed payments to income is low. I flatly condemn the cruel sexual comments.
My complaint is with NPR. Hayden has a point that it is more difficult to assemble a healthy diet on less money. They can't really afford a health club and personal trainer, and starchy, high carbohydrate foods are the cheapest. BUT THAT WASN'T THE STORY! Had NPR done a feature on those who find it hard to eat healthfully in Bush's Amerikkka, that would have been an option, and Ms. Nunez and Ms. Hernandez would have been great "gets."
But NPR was sworn to show starvation. That supports their call for more government help and puts the current administration’s policies in a bad light. So they comb the Buckeye State for a family to feature and these are the best they can find. Hayden tells us that a quarter of Ohio families are in that predicament -- so why did NPR choose Nunez and Hernandez?
I suggest that perhaps there are not millions of starving families in Ohio and that NPR had to scrape pretty far down the barrel.
May 5, 2008
Dumbest. Idea. All. Week.
Don Luskin ups the ante. In a rare display of Internet understatement, he thinks this qualifies only for worst idea of the week:
The time has come for the nation's wealthiest colleges and universities to rescue its leading newspapers — resources almost as vital to higher education's purpose as libraries, laboratories, classrooms, and concert halls. The plan I have in mind would call upon the richest institutions to set aside 3 percent of their endowments to buy The New York Times. That's for a start. Additional purchases of other newspapers by other endowments should follow.
Man, why didn't we think of that?
May 1, 2008
Huh? What?
AP: Consumer spending up but much of gain reflects higher prices
WASHINGTON - Soaring prices for food, gas and other everyday needs pushed consumer spending to a faster pace than expected in March.The Commerce Department reported Thursday that consumer spending was up 0.4 percent, double the increase that economists had forecast.
NYTimes: Low Spending Is Taking Toll on Economy
For months, beleaguered American consumers have defied expert forecasts that they would soon succumb to the pressures of falling home prices, fewer jobs and shrinking paychecks. Now, they appear to have given in.On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that the economy continued to stagnate during the first three months of the year, with a sharp pullback
UPDATE: The Associated Press has changed the headline to "Soaring prices for food, gas push consumer spending higher" I'm sure they apologize for any implied optimism.
Headline of the Week
Larry Kudlow mentioned it on his show last night, and Instapundit links today:
Jimmy P: Dude, Where's My Recession?Remember, the shorthand rule for declaring a recession is back-to-back quarters of negative growth. The semiofficial recession judge, the National Bureau of Economic Research, has a more complex formula, but I am not sure it has ever declared a recession when the economy never actually shrank. And consider this: The Intrade online betting market now says there is a meager 25 percent chance of a recession—using the negative-back-to-back-quarters definition—in 2008.
Of course, even the +0.6 growth didn't stop Kudlow's permabears from asserting recession on the show last night.
April 21, 2008
Best Blogger Ever
It really may be Jeff Goldstein. He explains his site and ties it into my favorite novel:
If you’ve ever read, say, Gravity’s Rainbow or Foucault’s Pendulum, you’ll note that the first fifty or so pages are incredibly slow going and, from a purely passive reading level, difficult to get through. The reason is, I think, that both Pynchon and Eco are actually taking that opportunity not only to provide narrative exposition, but instead are interested in teaching you how to read the text: they are introducing you to the peculiar grammar of the work — the way it operates linguistically, the way connections are made in that narrative universe, the way temporality will be approached and approximated, the way movement in point of view will be signaled, etc.
[...]
I try to attract those readers willing to take the leap or invest the time.And of course, I in turn reward your loyalty and determination by disappearing for months at a time.
Hat-tip: Instapundit (who's not too bad either).
Well... I'm at his site enough to qualify as a stalker, but as Gomer once said, "I like him. I don't love him, but I like him."
Still no "thrills up my leg," Ardsgaine, but I have really enjoyed his stuff over the years, and the Gravity's Rainbow riff is well done.
Posted by: jk at April 21, 2008 3:42 PMApril 11, 2008
Sunny Optimism
The WaPo highlights "A Weekend to Start Fixing the World"
Financial markets are tumbling. The world economy is starting to sputter. Food prices have shot up so far, so fast, that there are riots in the streets of many poor nations.It's a hard time to be one of the masters of the global economy.
Those leaders -- finance ministers from all over the world -- are gathering in Washington this weekend to sort out their reactions to the most profound global economic crises in at least a decade. The situation could reveal the limitations that international economic institutions face in dealing with the risks inherent to global capitalism.
Don't buy any green bananas, kids, this old world is not gonna be around much longer.
Sadly, the real threat is that our 535 world fixers in Washington (before the guests arrive) will read the WaPo and feel compelled to do more fixing. Starbucks has capitulated to Lassez Faire, lets think about calming down and giving markets a chance to work.
April 7, 2008
Kudos to CBS News!
I am serious as a heart attack. This is a superb bit of reporting:
Ow! It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
I'm always good for a segue, this made me think of Arnold Kling's awesome piece on Inequality and Excess (of political power).
Can you name the members of the County Council in Montgomery County, Maryland? I can't name very many of them, and I live there. Still, getting elected to the County Council in Montgomery County, which is pretty far down the ladder in terms of political power in the United States, enables you to control more annual spending than the wealth of Donald Trump or Steven Jobs.At the Federal level, the Budget is $3 trillion. If you divide that by 535 (the number of Senators and Congressmen), then on average each legislator controls over $5 billion in spending per year. That is more than even the world's richest person could spend annually.
Kling starts with the Clinton's $109 Million income between 2000-2007. This generates a lot of ink, but the CBS story -- and would I ever doubt a CBS story? -- says Rep. Murtha brought $159.1M to PA-13 in earmarks in one year.
Those Clinton speeches start to look like good value. Hat-tip: Greyhawk via Insty
Grand larceny in broad daylight - and all we can do about it is run 3-minute news segments and blog like madmen.
The founders rolled over in their collective graves upon passage of the 16th Amendment. How much longer until Americans roll over on Congress?
Posted by: johngalt at April 12, 2008 12:41 PMApril 6, 2008
Quote of the Day
Every four years, we are assured that "this will be the dirtiest campaign ever" when history is always full of more acrimony and more biting invective. We get Scarlett O'Hara-esque vapors if McCain is called a warmonger, or Senator Clinton is accused of "misspeaking" or if we claim that perhaps, Senator Obama might not actually walk on water.
Too bad they did not have blogs in 1856 -- this should have received more currency:
"No greater service could be rendered to the cause of truth than by putting Greeley where he ought to be. He is a liar and the truth is not in him. He is a mush toad spotted traitor to the Constitution. And he is a knave beyond the lowest reach of any comparison I can make. Shall this political turkey buzzard be permitted to vomit the filthy contents of his stomach on every decent man in the country without having his neck twisted?" -- Judge Jeremiah S. Black of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court defending his friend and Democratic nominee, James Buchannan from attacks by Horace Greeley.
From J.S. Black to J. Reynolds, June 9, 1856, Black MSS, Library of Congress. Quoted in Carl B. Swisher's "Roger B. Taney" Macmillan Company, 1935.
Nice!
Reminds me of one of my favorite insults:
"No one can have a greater opinion of him than I, and I think he's a filthy little beast."
Posted by: johngalt at April 6, 2008 2:22 PMMarch 27, 2008
AP Economic Wisdom
The Republic is truly doomed. I was with some relatives yesterday who are pretty well informed. Not news junkies or blog fiends, but good, average-American, read-the-papers-watch-the-news types. They discussed how bad the economy is and the evils of predatory lending.
The lead Yahoo/AP headline today is pretty instructive: "Economy sputters with 0.6 percent growth"
I suppose you can call < 1% sputtering -- but I read it and thought "well, that's not recession." And when you get to the fourth paragraph, the AP confirms:
Under one rough rule, the economy needs to contract for six straight months to be considered in a recession. The government will release its estimate for first-quarter GDP in late April.
Under another rough rule, Zero degrees Celsius is considered "freezing," and 4 + 7 is generally considered to be around 11.
An instructive article would have pointed that out in the lede. 0.6 is sluggish but a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Instead we get speculation:
WASHINGTON - The economy nearly sputtered out at the end of the year and is probably faring even worse now amid continuing housing, credit and financial crises.
We speculate in the lede, provide a poor definition of recession in paragraph four, and put a negative headline on it -- yup, it's an AP story. Kind of surprising they didn't mention Abu Ghraib...
In France, 0.4% economic growth per quarter is called something else: normal.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at March 27, 2008 1:22 PMMarch 15, 2008
Words Matter
Blogging sucks. Every time I procrastinate in writing something, I always find it more thought out and better written (or is that “written better?”).
BeldarBlog says "Lies about "the George W. Bush Recession™ of 2008" are well underway." I link not to promote a rosy economic scenario, but to highlight something that disturbs me. Take it away, Beldar:
The word "recession" has a very, very specific meaning in classical economics. In fact, this same article admits that (emphasis mine), just before it starts to lie: "Although the classic definition of recession is two consecutive quarters of declines in the gross domestic product ...." If these people were being candid, they would complete this sentence by saying, "... but in this article we're using that same word, 'recession,' to mean something different, something poorly defined, something vague, and something ominous, all because it suits our purposes better and we don't mind being liars."
I read the same story in the Wall Street Journal and had the same thought. Even on Kudlow and Company, where I expect a little better, they are pretty cavalier about the technical and the casual use of the R word.
The thesis of the WSJ article is that "a majority of economists" in a forecasting survey say that the US is already in recession. Aggregate Economic predictions, huh. Insert joke here.
UPDATE: Steve Horwitz at the Austrian Economics Blog asks if we'd expect the following headlines:
"Three-quarters think Swayze X-ray shows pancreatic cancer""Three-quarters think the barometric pressure is falling"
Good stuff (HT: Everyday Economist)
There you have it - "The economic analysis is settled." (At least until January 20th, when it MIGHT be "re-evaluated.")
Posted by: johngalt at March 15, 2008 2:55 PMThis reminds me of Warren Buffett's comments from a few weeks back where he argued that we were in a recession even if the technical definition wasn't satisfied. If I was the reporter on the Buffett story, the headline would have read:
'Buffett: If we redefine recession, we are currently in a recession.'
Posted by: HB at March 16, 2008 2:54 PMHeh. And if we redefine "hurricane" to mean four inches of spring snow, Colorado is having its first hurricane.
Posted by: jk at March 17, 2008 10:27 AMFebruary 7, 2008
Hooray for Hugh!
I was going to post this yesterday but it is more germane today. Even before Governor Romney left the race, his übersupporter, Hugh Hewitt, was reminding his readers about the stakes. Hugh gives seven reasons to support the nominee, I'll excerpt one:
Folks who want to take their ball and go home have to realize that even three SCOTUS appointments could revolutionize the way elections are handled in this country in a stroke, mandating the submission of redistricting lines to court scrutiny for "fairness."
Dale Franks at Q&O again asks how Hewitt can switch so quickly.
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=7824
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at February 8, 2008 1:35 PMI'm a pretty unlikely Hugh defender, but it does not surprise me at all. Your candidate drops out, a clear front-runner is created, and you choose to support the front-runner.
It is very consistent with his "Painting the Map Red" book he penned before the previous election. Hewitt, like me, sees a lot of danger in electing a Democrat in 2008. He wanted Romney, I wanted Giuliani, but we are both prepared to support McCain. So as to avoid Clinton or Obama.
Nope, no whiplash here -- and I am not even a lawyer.
Well, as I've been saying, optimism must be tempered by reality.
Perhaps Hewitt did realize the inevitable, but he's always been a bit of a shill anyway. What gets me, and I've said this before, is that a self-professed staunch conservative will support a moral conservative who governs like a socialist. Romney's economic record is undesirable, but maybe he can just flop again on abortion and social issues, and become Hillary's running mate since they have the same "health insurance" vision.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at February 11, 2008 1:52 PMFebruary 6, 2008
Headlines Headlines Headlines
You don't say?
Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks
(tip to JJP)
Sorry, buddy, I posted this a few days ago...
Posted by: jk at February 7, 2008 11:55 AMGah! How embarassing!
Posted by: AlexC at February 7, 2008 12:45 PMYou can tell who the two intellectuals are around here, huh?
Posted by: jk at February 7, 2008 1:58 PMFebruary 4, 2008
How Not to Smuggle Cocaine
Mr. Taranto finds the funniest of his headlines ever:
Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks
Somewhere, Mencken is smiling...
Nancy Reagan was right!
Posted by: mdmhvonpa at February 5, 2008 10:00 AMShe usually was, man, she usually was.
Posted by: jk at February 5, 2008 12:19 PMJanuary 15, 2008
Who Let This Guy on the NYTimes Ed Page?
That weird, swishing sound you hear is the entire population of West Manhattan spewing coffee out on their [Perry E, can you help me out -- what would they eat for breakfast?].
Imagine, you open your New York Times to catch up on the latest foreign policy truths from Thomas Friedman, get the state of the economy from Paul Krugman, see who MoDo is shredding today, and -- wait a minute! What is this? Bill Kristol?
Last year’s success, in Anbar and elsewhere, was made possible by confidence among Iraqis that U.S. troops would stay and help protect them, that the U.S. would not abandon them to their enemies. Because the U.S. sent more troops instead of withdrawing — because, in other words, President Bush won his battles in 2007 with the Democratic Congress — we have been able to turn around the situation in Iraq.And now Iraq’s Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law — one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground by harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation. They are being deprived of even that talking point.
Yesterday, on “Meet the Press,” Hillary Clinton claimed that the Iraqis are changing their ways in part because of the Democratic candidates’ “commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009.” So the Democratic Party, having proclaimed that the war is lost and having sought to withdraw U.S. troops, deserves credit for any progress that may have been achieved in Iraq.
That is truly a fairy tale. And it is driven by a refusal to admit real success because that success has been achieved under the leadership of ... George W. Bush. The horror!
Hat-tip: Larry Kudlow
January 10, 2008
Merry Christmas, From Rupert
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page has a new look and a new price.
We're rolling out a new Web site for the Journal editorial page, offering all of our editorials and op-eds, video interviews and commentary. Please enjoy our message of free people and free markets -- for free.
January 4, 2008
Jonathan Last Blogging at Standard
Galley Slave, Weekly Standard writer, and jk-Buffy-sire, Jonathan V. Last, is slumming. The Weekly Standard's Campaign Standard blog has made some arrangement to get Last doing some political blogging. I'm rather glad. Here he is on Obama Triumphant:
Portsmouth, N.H.
It's 5 degrees outside, the intersections near the Pan-Am hangar where Obama's first event is this morning are plastered with placards urging us to "Stop Global Warming," and I'm parked next to two Priuses. Welcome to Obama Nation.A lot's being said about Obama's youth bulge in Iowa last night. He took 57 percent of the under-30 vote while Hillary Clinton took just about 50 percent of the over-65 vote. (Including, one assumes, a monster margin in the 100-and-over vote.)
Great stuff, I hope they keep him throughout the campaign.
January 3, 2008
Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair magazine introduces Karl Rove as follows:
A principal architect of the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, Karl Rove, 57, has charted a long course from the internship he landed with the Republican Party in Utah almost four decades ago. Here, the president’s former deputy chief of staff reflects on his fear of going broke, his impatience, and his voracious reading habit.
Rove's answers to the questionnaire are pretty interesting. At least they were fair, huh Karl?
Hat-tip: Instapundit
December 28, 2007
I Agree With Glenn Greenwald
Stop the presses! Moonbat lefty, Glenn Greenwald, has penned a paragraph with which I cannot disagree. I was going to attack Peggy Noonan's insane WSJ Editorial this morning. Maybe after a few cups of coffee, I might have said something like:
What a stupid and vapid woman this is, but respected and admired by our media class because she fits right in with them — endlessly impressed by her own sophistication, maturity and insight while drooling out platitudes one never hears except in seventh-grade cafeterias and on our political talk shows. As always, this isn’t worth noting because the adolescent stupidity on display here is unique to Noonan, but precisely because it isn’t. This is how our national elections are decided: by people like her, spewing things like this.
That's Greenwald, quoted in a Protein Wisdom post which is concerned with whether (as Greenwald charges) Noonan used a pejorative term when she said John Edwards was "poofing" his hair on YouTube.
Without delving into poof etymology (Rule #2, No Poofters!) I can't fault Grunewald’s distain for today's column. It's a crowning achievement in years of decline for Noonan. Look at my posts from three or four years ago, and you'll see she was one of my favorite writers.
Now I think she is becoming the Republicans' Helen Thomas. Today she enumerates which Presidential candidates are "reasonable" enough to be President. Biden: yes, Dodd: yes, Clinton: yes but no... She dismisses Edwards for the famous YouTube hair care tutorial, but not policy.
I've made the comparison before, but again, read Noonan. then compare to a typically smart column from Kim Strassel comparing Senator Obama's "New Ideas" to classic, boilerplate liberalism.
The torch has been passed, the runner has left the county, the tables have been picked up and the spectators have gone home. Strassel is the political voice of the WSJ Ed page.
December 21, 2007
Putting the But First
No, I'm not offering a lesson on skating backwards, just giving some props to AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger. Most AP writers will provide some good economic news, followed by but, as in "GDP growth was revised up to 7.9% today, but concerns about Abu Ghraib, global warming, and lead paint in Chinese toys still rattled consumers."
That's child's play. Crutsinger provides some good news, but he goes butt first, to prevent your giddy enthusiasm from making you drop the paper and missing the dark cloud behind the silver lining:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers put aside worries about slumping home sales and soaring gasoline prices and headed to the malls in November, pushing spending up by the largest amount in 3 1/2 years. The better-than-expected surge lessened fears of an imminent recession.
I'd comment further, but I am so worried about slumping home sales and soaring gas prices (in my neighborhood, they have "soared" from $3.09 to $2.89), I can't really continue. Have a good weekend, y'all!
November 15, 2007
VDH
Professor Hanson points out that the gains in Iraq are not getting the press that Abu Ghraib did. Ever cautious, he wonders if we have indeed passed a turning point:
Nevertheless, we may be witnessing one of those radical, unforeseen reversals in America's wars that have often changed our history.The White House was burned by British forces in late August 1814; a little more than four months later, the British were routed at New Orleans. During the Civil War, the Union army was on the ropes in July 1864 yet outside Atlanta by September. The Germans were driving through France in March 1918, but fleeing toward the Rhine by August. The communists took Seoul in early January 1951, yet were pushed back across the Demilitarized Zone a little more than three months later.
Of course, we don't know the final outcome in Iraq, given the remaining problems of Shiite militias and diehard al-Qaidists - and the question of our own remaining resolve.
Hat-tip: Hugh
November 14, 2007
Layers
This is an effect of the layers upon layers of editorial oversight in the mainstream media.
In a Nov. 13 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that Paris Hilton was praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, said she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there isn't a binge-drinking elephant problem in India.
Just a hunch.
Don Luskin tells about the New York Times reporting that VP Al Gore will be donating his salary to charity, but not mentioning that it is his charity. Layers and layers.
Posted by: jk at November 14, 2007 1:38 PMOctober 25, 2007
Beauchamp Rapprochement?
I will still spew a few angry words at the cowardice of Franklin Foer and the mendacity of the once proud "The New Republic."
But this Michael Yon piece on Private Beauchamp has silenced me forever on his score. Read the whole thing -- and send him $50 -- but the short version is that his commander gave him the chance to go or stay. And he chose, another time, to stay in Iraq and continue a difficult mission in our nation's uniform:
Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.
You shut up one blogger, soldier. Thank you for your service.
Hat-tip: Instapundit
October 24, 2007
It's True! I Read It In TNR!
Drudge says he's got the goods on TNR's latest fabulist.
I love this story. I'll never tire of it.
Hat-tip: Instapundit
October 13, 2007
An MSM Moment
Kind of like a "Senior Moment," I suppose -- I had an MSM moment this morning.
My recording of the Rockies game ended with two outs and two strikes on the last batter in the bottom of the 11th. I first ensured that our incredible team prevailed and they did.
Then I saw the lead Yahoo head: Ex-general: 'No end in sight' in Iraq Wesley Clark? No, General Sanchez.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency — such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled.
I certainly respect the General and his service but this was a disappointing attack on the administration. Or was it? Terri @ I Think ^(Link) Therefore I Err links to two stories which say the General attacked first-- and most vocally -- the press. Funny how that gets left out. Powerline:
The Washington Post's headline was typical: "Former Iraq Commander Faults Bush."Actually, I don't believe Sanchez ever mentioned Bush by name, although, as I say, he was critical of just about everybody. But it would be hard to tell from press accounts of Sanchez's speech that he was mostly critical of...the press.
John Hinderacker provides much of the text of the speech, and General Sanchez did start on the press.
It is still a disappointment to read this story when General Petraeus’s efforts seem to be bearing fruit. McClellan - Grant?
October 11, 2007
You live long enough...
You see everything!
Mickey Kaus lectures National Review for not being tough enough on Senator McCain vis-à-vis immigration:
I think they're cheap dates. McCain obviously still believes his semi-amnesty is the essence of "real immigration reform." Is he saying it will have to wait until the border are actually secured? No. He only requires "trust" that the borders "will" be secured, trust that will be accomplished by any number of government confidence-building measures (success in Iraq, cutting spending, better FEMA disaster response) that have nothing to do with actually securing the border. ... I don't trust his definition of "trust," and he seems willfully oblivious to the difficulties facing any successful enforcement attempt--including a half-decade of lawsuits from many of McCain's pro-comprehensive allies. ..
Yeah! And the cut-and-run crowd at The Weekly Standard is just not committed to the war! How about those right-wing capitalist kooks at The Nation?...
I'm going back to bed.
October 1, 2007
Good News Leads the AP
I chide them when they bury it, I have to give props when they do it right. The top Yahoo/AP Headline as I post is: US, Iraqi Civilian Deaths Fall Sharply.
BAGHDAD - Deaths among American forces and Iraqi civilians fell dramatically last month to their lowest levels in more than a year, according to figures compiled by the U.S. military, the Iraqi government and The Associated Press.
The decline signaled a U.S. success in bringing down violence in Baghdad and surrounding regions since Washington completed its infusion of 30,000 more troops on June 15.A total of 64 American forces died in September — the lowest monthly toll since July 2006.
The decline in Iraqi civilian deaths was even more dramatic, falling from 1,975 in August to 922 last month, a decline of 53.3 percent. The breakdown in September was 844 civilians and 78 police and Iraqi soldiers, according to Iraq's ministries of Health, Interior and Defense.
Memphis, however, is a quagmire.
September 23, 2007
NYTimes: "We made a mistake"
As Instapundit says "Oops." As The NY Daily News says The old gray lady has some explaining to do.
Officials at the New York Times have admitted a liberal activist group was permitted to pay half the rate it should have for a provocative ad condemning U.S. Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus.The MoveOn ad, which cast Petraeus as "General Betray Us" and attacked his truthfulness, ran on the same day the commander made a highly anticipated appearance before Congress.
But since the liberal group paid the standby rate of $64,575 for the full-page ad, it should not have been guaranteed to run on Sept. 10, the day Petraeus warned Congress against a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Times personnel said.
"We made a mistake," Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, told the newspaper's public editor.
Hey these things happen. I'm just extremely certain they do not happen too frequently to an advocacy group that disagrees with the NYTimes Ed Page.
Added to the price discount controversy is this observation by the Times' own Clark Hoyt "that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, "We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature."
Posted by: johngalt at September 24, 2007 3:12 PMAugust 22, 2007
T-N-RRRRRRRRR!
TNR has broken its silence on the Scott Beauchamp contretemps. Jonathan Chait writes a hit piece on William Kristol:
Kristol's sensibility is perfectly summed up in one representative passage from a recent issue. The topic was The New Republic's decision to publish an essay by Scott Beauchamp, an American soldier serving in Iraq, detailing some repugnant acts he said he and his comrades committed. Legitimate questions have been raised about this essay's veracity. (We've been publishing updates on our continuing efforts to get answers to them at tnr.com.) But Kristol rushed past these questions, immediately declaring the piece a "fiction." Offering up his interpretation of why tnr would publish such slanders, he concluded, in an editorial titled, "They Don't Really Support the Troops":
How dare he expose our making s**t up to advance our political agenda! Read the whole thing, if you can. It seems they were just "edifying their readers."
August 21, 2007
T-N-AAAAAAAAARGH!
False Dawn.
by the Editors.
Why the U.S. Must act in Darfur -- right now!
Well, something sure is false. Say, when TNR supported the liberation of Iraq.
I have complained before that it is disingenuous for them to demand action in Sudan when they have abandoned the effort in Iraq. That's old news and seeking consistency of reason from the left is a loser's game.
BUT! After l'Affaire Beauchamp, you'd think they'd be concerned about another brave generation of idealistic American soldiers, marines and airmen becoming ensconced in the depravity that is war. Why Beauchamp turned into a complete asshole in a staging base. Surely we can't subject innocent troops to this.
I linked to The Nation this morning and told my emailer that at least they were honestly whacked. TNR's fall defies description.
August 8, 2007
Happy Birthday, Insty!
As the breast blogger said (I cannot quite find the link, sorry) "Glenn wouldn't link to me if I were on fire and was liveblogging it." AlexC has scored the coveted Instalanche on both ThreeSources and Pstupidonymous.
But I come to praise Glenn, not spam him in link-whoring messages. Seriously, his six years of prolific and intelligent production on Instapundit has altered our world as significantly as most politicians, media figures and business leaders.
He has kept his edge and his cool. I disagreed with him violently on immigration, but on about everything else he either hits me where I live, or gives me a new way to think it. I started reading Andrew Sullivan more than Professor Reynolds, but I think I've read every post of his for the last four years at least.
Well done, sir.
August 7, 2007
We've Always been at War with Eurasia!
A search on The New Republic for “Shock Troops” turns up no results; they’ve apparently removed Scott Beauchamp’s articles without a word.
A once proud magazine. Marty Peretz, come home, we need you.
Who is this Scott Thomas fellow you speak of?
Posted by: mdmhvonpa at August 7, 2007 8:39 PMIt must've been a dream. I thought TNR hired the husband of one of its writers to do dispatches from Baghdad. He went all John Kerry and wrote of atrocities that were disproved.
I have to stop eating Thai food beofre bed...
Posted by: jk at August 8, 2007 10:39 AMAugust 6, 2007
White Kossaks
Trouble in Kos land: A By-lined story in the WaPo reports "A Diversity of Opinion, if Not Opinionators"
"It's mostly white. More male than female," says the former high school math and science teacher turned activist. "It's not very diverse."There goes the open secret of the netroots, or those who make up the community of the Internet grass-roots movement.
For all the talk about the increasing influence of this growing group -- "We are a community . . . a movement . . . an institution," Cooper said in a speech Saturday night -- what gets scant attention is its demography.
I am not ready to concede that they have such great diversity of opinions either. Some think Bush is a fascist, some think he is the antichrist?
Will Somebody Please Tell Ann and me
(And I'm totally surprised to read that there was another debate. I am constantly paying attention to the news and want to watch all the debates, yet I knew nothing of this one. How do they expect normal people to notice?)That's Ann Althouse, after celebrating a few good GOP lines from yesterday's debate.
I, too, found out there was a debate ex post facto, as it were. I have missed two Democratic debates and one Republican. Like Althouse, I consider myself pretty well tuned into politics. Can't they put ads on beer cans or something?
NYTimes Headline
Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping
I suppose that's accurate, it seems it could have been worded differently.
At least they acknowledge that its a LEGAL reach for a change.
Usual NYT stuff is "W=1984"
Posted by: TrekMedic251 at August 7, 2007 9:59 AMAugust 5, 2007
The Blame Game
Terri at I Think ^(Link) Therefore I Err, gets the segue prize today (It is unfortunately not a Segue) for her post The Blame Game: She ties the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mark Steyn, Senator John McCain, a reporter for the Arab News, and Senator John Edwards into a single post. Kids, don't try this at home.
Truly - it's an honor!
I'd like to thank today's news sources for making the post so easy to write that I actually posted on a Sunday!
And thank you of course to the academy at Three Sources without which I would still be humble.
August 2, 2007
TNR Stands by Story
"Kuwait, Iraq -- one of those sandy, hot countries..."
The New Republic has completed its review of the "Scott Thomas: Shock Troops" story and has found only one error. The mess hall where the diarist claims to have personally mocked a woman who was disfigured with war wounds was in Kuwait, not in Iraq. "We sincerely regret this mistake."
The manufacturer of the Bradley vehicle says it is agile enough to hit a dog, so the story of a US military professional who routinely risks his life, civilians and the crew for sadism stands.
No doubt it could be true. I still find it instructive that TNR can find little space for military victories, heroic exploits, or the overwhelming kindness shown by soldiers and contractors, yet they can make space for a column disparaging the troops. At least the story has a happy ending:
Although we place great weight on the corroborations we have received, we wished to know more. But, late last week, the Army began its own investigation, short-circuiting our efforts. Beauchamp had his cell-phone and computer taken away and is currently unable to speak to even his family. His fellow soldiers no longer feel comfortable communicating with reporters. If further substantive information comes to light, TNR will, of course, share it with you.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy...
UPDATE: Dean Barnett, who has really owned this story, provides a more thorough and harsher reaction to the TNR defense.
UPDATE II: ThreeSources friend Perry is not buying it.
July 30, 2007
Long Tail in Accuracy
Mickey Kaus makes an interesting point. Print editors introduce ambiguity and error when they edit a piece to fit in a restricted space.
We don't kill no widows in these parts: Note to NYT's Andrew Adam Newman: That's my quote, buddy--which explains why Steven den Beste, to whom you attribute it, had those two little marks on either end.... P.S. This is the classic sort of error usually introduced by an editor trying to save space. Print editors do have to save space. But web editors don't. That's a major, unremarked virtue of blogs over newspapers when it comes to the newspaper's alleged unique selling proposition: accuracy. In fact, the need to fit copy to a limited space is a powerful error-creating machine in both dailies and magazines. Harried print editors compress, and get it wrong. Or they fool around trying to simplify attribution and get it wrong. Or they guiltlessly edit quotes within quotation marks and (by definition) get them wrong. ... In cyberspace,, if it takes one more line to get it right, you can take one more line. I haven't killed a widow in so long I've forgotten what it feels like.
People look at the "demand-side" of The Long Tail. Maybe it is the business I am in, but I am more intrigued by what enables it.
The move from scarcity to abundance is the foundation of Long Tail businesses. Wal*Mart has to fight scarcity of shelf space, as does the video store. Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix have an abundance of (virtual) shelf space and can pursue long tail strategies. The blogger likewise has an abundance of column inches.
July 26, 2007
I Can't Even Cancel
Sadly, I let my TNR digital subscription lapse a few months ago. They booted the price up a bit and I was going back and forth whether I would renew. It has lost some of its luster after Peter Beinart left, and the loonies are getting many more column inches than they used to.
Now that "Scott Thomas" has outed himself, I wish my subscription were current. I would love to cancel in high dudgeon. We have not discussed it at ThreeSources, but I bet you've all followed the story. The pseudonymous Thomas wrote "anecdotal diaries" of life in Iraq as an American soldier. In his stories, he and his compatriots disrespected Iraqis and acted dishonorably and unprofessionally. He claimed that he himself had cruelly insulted a woman who had been disfigured by an IED. His friends destroyed infrastructure in their Bradley fighting vehicles and always swerved to kill dogs. He didn't get to "Gengis Khan," but it was only a matter of time.
Now that many military bloggers have disputed his tales, he takes to the TNR blog to out himself and defend his fellow soldiers against charges that they are -- it gets pretty weird here -- charges that they are honorable and decent. It seems those who say the military is not loaded with psychopaths and sadists are chickenhawks.
It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.
We are too psychotic sadists, dammit! How dare you question my lack of patriotism!
Beauchamp/Thomas is a Private and he may have actually done or seen some of the unprofessional incidents he describes, though I suspect some serious hyperbole. Most telling is that TNR -- the least moonbatty of Democratic mags -- chooses to represent our brave men and women by this cowardly example. The commenters on The Plank are all rallying around Beauchamp and ridiculing those who have dared question his perfidy.
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt and Dean Barnett have covered this well. Hugh links to a Wikipedia entry on TNR "controversies."
All right, now that he's outed himself...
Court-martial the little **** for whatever he claimed to do, which is what should have been done to John Kerry after his Congressional testimony in the 1970s.
If his claims are not true, then he's lying, and worse, lying about his fellow soldiers. That's "conduct unbecoming." A CO will take issue either way with troops insulting a disfigured contractor, or one of his troops lying about the others doing it.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at July 26, 2007 5:10 PMAbsolutely right.
Posted by: jk at July 26, 2007 5:13 PMJuly 18, 2007
Bias?
Bias? At the A.P.?
It was good to, finally, see an announcement of the captured al Qaida leader. In a bylined story for the AP, Robert Reid opens right out of Journalism 101:
BAGHDAD - The U.S. command announced on Wednesday the arrest of an al-Qaida leader it said served as the link between the organization's command in Iraq and Osama bin Laden's inner circle, enabling it to wield considerable influence over the Iraqi group.
Okay, enough news. Let's get to the real story -- the perfidy of the Bush Administration:
The announcement was made as the White House steps up efforts to link the war in Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, with a growing number of Americans opposing the Iraq conflict. Some independent analysts question the extent of al-Qaida's role in Iraq.
I think these guys are just having these military successes to fuel their propaganda machine. Good thing the AP is not going to let them get away with it!
July 13, 2007
The Torch Has Been Passed
I made a formal and overly dramatic dissolution of my punditry ties with Peggy Noonan on June 1.
One of the things I meant to say in that post was that a reasonable comparison of Peggy Noonan with "Potomac Watch" author Kimberly Strassel would show that the torch has been passed. Peggy Noonan's "What I Saw at the Revolution" had a profound effect on me and did much to make me the partisan hack that I am today. After 9/11, her columns, collected in "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag," were a good forum for her powerful and romantic writing.
But I dare you to compare the two today (is it sexist for me to single out two blonde women writers?) and make a credible claim that they belong on the same ed page. Both are on the free site today, let’s compare.
Kim writes a tightly thought and constructed column about campaign finance reform, and the irony of its deleterious effect on Senator McCain's Presidential campaign. I'd use it as a textbook example of a great column.
State your premise:
John McCain's campaign fell into disarray this week, kicked off by the news it had raised a scant $24 million so far. Mark these money woes down to any number of problems, but don't entirely discount the McCain-Feingold effect.
Acknowledge contrary indicators:
Let's stipulate that most of the good senator's troubles stem from high-profile policy disagreements he's had with his own base. He's tweaked noses on global warming and slapped faces on immigration. His admirable decision to stand strong on Iraq has been undermined by his tendency to stand weak on national security issues such as interrogations and enemy combatants. And economic conservatives just don't trust a guy who won't admit that cutting taxes is good.
She then seriously discusses the importance of the topic to key constituent groups and the political implications. Then, she compares beliefs of McCain Feingold from other top tier candidates, before a strong conclusion:
Whatever the effect, Mr. McCain must surely be considering the irony of his current situation. Mitt Romney has also burned through money quickly, and in theory should be looking at a low bank balance. But Mr. Romney can write himself a check at any time--one of the few things McCain-Feingold allows.Mr. McCain might well have some billionaire supporters who'd be only too happy to give him a big financial boost at this crucial time, though they won't be allowed to thanks to finance restrictions. The senator has family money, though it's not clear he'd tap that to keep his bid running. For now, he's stuck raising it the hard way, under a system that much of the GOP hates.
Succinct, informative, cohesive. If I taught a class, I'd bring this in as an example.
Our Margaret, on the other hand, has a good little cry, because that mean old President Bush has the temerity to be jocular in a press conference when SHE IS STILL SO ANGRY AT HIM! MEN!!!!
His stock answer is that of course he feels the sadness of the families who've lost someone in Iraq. And of course he must. Beyond that his good humor seems to me disorienting, and strange.In arguing for the right path as he sees it, the president more and more claims for himself virtues that the other side, by inference, lacks. He is "idealistic"; those who oppose him are, apparently, lacking in ideals. He makes his decisions "based on principle," unlike his critics, who are ever watchful of the polls. He is steadfast, brave, he believes "freedom isn't just for Americans" but has "universal . . . applications," unlike those selfish, isolationist types who oppose him.
Noonan points out that we cannot fire the President right now (a point Cindy Sheehan made on Kudlow & Company last night) but she knows we all want to. She talks to a rock-ribbed-republican in Georgia who doesn't believe the President. A Rock ribbed republican! She and Mrs. Rock Rib both grit their teeth when the President is on.
Americans can't fire the president right now, so they're waiting it out. They can tell a pollster how they feel, and they do, and they can tell friends, and they do that too. They also watch the news conference, and grit their teeth a bit.
Methinks it is time to, perhaps, fire Ms. Noonan.
July 6, 2007
Wage growth falls 0.1%; poor, minorities hardest hit
Some pretty good jobs numbers today -- that is, unless you are reading them in the New York Times:
Wage gains for most Americans last month were slow, and are most likely still trailing inflation. Compared with June 2006, average hourly earnings for workers in nonmanagement jobs increased 3.9 percent, to $17.38, less than the 4 percent advance in May.
Ahh yes, the heady, halcyon days of last monthwhen wage growth was 4.0% instead of 3.9 -- you can just feel the stagnation in the air.
Hat-tip: Don Luskin, who points out "according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation is running at 2.7%. How is it that a 3.9% wage increase is "trailing" 2.7% inflation?"
June 25, 2007
Media Complicity
Roger Simon has a superb post on the media's deafening silence when their time came to defend Salman Rushdie against what Simon calls "enemies of the Enlightenment." Simon refers to a quote from Glenn Reynolds that bothered me in the same and a different way. Over the weekend Professor Reynolds said:
"Frankly, I think the best argument for electing a Democrat as President is that as long as a Republican is in office the media powers-that-be will refuse to condemn even the worst atrocities on the part of Islamists, for fear of helping the real enemy in the White House."
That upset Simon and me as lovers of freedom -- and further upset me as a partisan hack. Must we really put Senator Obama in the White House to nationalize medicine in the name of freedom? That's a level of Pragmatism I'm not ready to try.
Simon continues to darkly -- but not unconvincingly -- claim that the Iraq War was doomed because of media bias, exacerbated by administration partisanship.
The same prejudices that Rutten describes in his Rushdie article are the ones that have seriously undermined the possibility of victory for democracy in Iraq. A media that could call obvious fascists and religious fascists "insurgents" (a term once reserved for Pancho Villa) in the interest of "objectivity" encouraged a specious atmosphere of moral equivalence to democracy from the start. Whether this was conscious or unconscious is beside the point. Whatever it was, our enemies, the enemies of the Enlightenment, seized on it for propaganda purposes and continue to do so. (Note that in the new Daniel Pearl movie, Pearl's beheading is not even shown - that was praised as tasteful by Roger Ebert.) And, as everyone knows, the playing field of asymmetrical war is the media, far more than the battlefield. Only in the world of public opinion can we be defeated.
Dark days. Simon quotes Arthur Miller and it's not out of place.
Banned by PBS, Bumped by FOX
Warning: an angry rant follows. Those seeking polite, well reasoned commentary should click over to Michelle Malkin or Anne Coulter or something.
Will somebody please tell me what lottery we lost? Right of center folk get the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh; the crown jewel is FOXNews. My Boulder County compatriots get NPR, PBS and, well, everything else.
I HATE FOX NEWS! I like Brit Hume's show; I record it every day and watch it three or four times a week. I watch "Beltway Boys" and the "Journal Editorial Report" every week, and I watch Chris Wallace's Fox New Sunday every week. It runs on FOX Network but it seems fair to credit FOXNews with its production.
EVERY OTHER MINUTE IS PURE CRAP.
I accepted this Faustian bargain and chose to watch the shows I like. That's the deal with television. I don't have to watch "Two and a Half Men" because the same network shows the Broncos. I always chuckle that the most "conservative" show on TV has got to be Larry Kudlow's "Kudlow & Company" on CNBC. But FOX pre-empted all my shows this weekend, because 23 hours of tabloid news is not enough for them some days.
My heart goes out to the friends and the family of the pregnant woman in Ohio who was abducted and killed. I don't mean to minimize the tragedy in any way. It's a horrible crime; I certainly hope the perpetrators are found and punished. Beyond that, I don't need to know or care to know the names and the details. I cannot believe the family wants Geraldo, Greta, and me in their living room.
Beltway Boys was pre-empted at 4PM Mountain. I'm used to this and know I can try to record it again at 9:30 after WSJ Editorial Report. Surprise! They were still yapping through both of those. I found and recorded another replay at 4AM and, mirabile dictu, it ran.
I am ranting. It's only a TV show. What really got me was that I had also recorded "Muslims Against Jihad," which PBS had spiked for reasons many thought were PC and appeasement of victim groups. FOX didn't mind hyping the show:
Tune in this weekend, as FOX News Channel presents the documentary the Public Broadcasting System didn't want you to see.It's a film about the difference between moderate Muslims and the radicals who want to kill us. It asks where are the moderate Muslims and why aren't they speaking out against the jihadists? And it was financed with $675,000 of taxpayers' money.
Of course, that would have meant that FOX would have HAD TO STOP TALKING ABOUT THE ATTRACTIVE, WHITE, MURDER VICTIM FOR 90 MINUTES. Even at one in the morning (three Eastern), we couldn't have that. So I recorded an hour and a half of "Breaking News" that was at least 12 hours old.
FOX.
Congratulations, you too have discovered that FoxNews is crap.
Not for it's "conservative" bias, but for the same reason all 24 hour news is crap.
They have a day to fill... and sometimes there isn't that much going on.
... that and they program based on people tuning in and out throughout the day... not actually watching it all day long. (though some do)
Posted by: AlexC at June 25, 2007 1:46 PMA good friend of this blog has assured me in private that Greta Van Susteren has all those women locked up in her basement.
In FOX's defense, I like the headline on the SCOTUS free speach decision: "Court Snuffs Out 'Bong Hits'"
Posted by: jk at June 25, 2007 2:47 PMWould you believe that when I tuned in to FNC this morning I was surprised to learn that the woman's body had been found - on SATURDAY? Yes, I actually managed to avoid the breaking news. I spent Friday through Sunday baling and stacking 1500 bales of hay. The only news I got was between innings of Rockies games on the radio. (Speaking of which, can we have the Yankees back? Those Blue Jays and their plastic grass and plastic dirt really jacked with the Rox.)
I watched FNC when it was new. It was fresh. It was awesome. Now, it's CNN with a slightly traditional tone, although Bill Hemmer's arrival from CNN was an ominous sign. I still think he's a plant.
Posted by: johngalt at June 25, 2007 3:24 PMI'm with AlexC. 24 hours of news shows for maybe 2 hours of actual "Headline News" is too much!
I think the last time I watched news on TV was to get pictures during Katrina.
June 21, 2007
How About a Short Krugman ETF
I'm not making fun of Paul Krugman's height (blog friend Perry Eidlebus tells Don Luskin that he is lying when he claims to be 5' 7"). I am making fun of his poor predictions. Both Luskin and Larry Kudlow celebrate the four year anniversary of his claim that "In short, the current surge in stocks looks like another bubble, one that will eventually burst."
Luskin's reply is more colorful, so I will use it:
Brilliant. Just f***ing brilliant. The total return to the S&P 500 since then has been about 66%, including dividends. Gee -- I sure wish I'd sold everything four years ago like Krugman said to do.
He seems wrong with sufficient frequency that I'd like to start a fund that would do the opposite of what he says. Users could short Krugman easily and I could deduct TimesSelect from my taxes.
"You lied."
"I exaggerated."
I didn't exactly say he lied, or did I, but standing on the same stage, I definitely seemed taller. Still, isn't Krugman a bit old to be thinking so childishly about it? Short stature is something you can't do anything about, but your weight is completely under your control except in exceptional medical circumstances.
BTW, the night I met Krugman was when I got him to autograph a copy of his book, my gift to a good friend. Oh, the relish in my reply, after he asked my friend's name. "Don Luskin."
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at June 22, 2007 2:58 PMROFLMAO -- I would've loved to have seen that.
Posted by: jk at June 22, 2007 3:37 PM"Lied" might be a little strong. Luskin quotes your letter as:
You're right, that has to be with elevator shoes. When I met him at that Social Security debate, he definitely seemed shorter than I, and I'm 5'5". Granted, I don't know for certain, but like with all things Krugman, we should automatically be skeptical. His track record is all about purporting things to be true, which the rest of us counter with actual facts.
Exactly. Now, MoDo would've gotten the benefit of the doubt. Posted by: jk at June 22, 2007 3:54 PM
June 11, 2007
Arlen Specter is now "Top Republican"
The AP Headline reads "Top Republican to vote against Gonzales"
Leader McConnell? No, following the link I found out that Senator Arlen Specter is the top Republican. Well, he is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. I fear it's gone to his head. He talks about himself in the third person now:
"If you ask Arlen Specter, do I have confidence in Attorney General Gonzales, the answer is a resounding no," Specter said during a news conference in Philadelphia. "I'm going to vote that I have no confidence in Attorney General Gonzales."
If you ask jk, that's never a good sign.
He's a "Top Republican" to the MSM world because that godd***ed RINO thinks like a good little Demo-Socialist!
Posted by: TrekMedic251 at June 11, 2007 8:31 PMMay 31, 2007
Dueling Headlines
AP goes with "Economy has worst growth since 2002"
WASHINGTON - The economy nearly stalled in the first quarter with growth slowing to a pace of just 0.6 percent. That was the worst three-month showing in over four years.
But I'm tempted to go with "Economy Grows for 23 consecutive Quarters." Yeah, that's Pollyanna on steroids, but once you get past the lede, the news is not so bad:
[..] fewer people signed up for unemployment benefits last week. New filings dropped by 4,000 to 310,000. That suggests the employment climate is weathering well the economy's sluggish spell.[...] construction spending edged up by 0.1 percent in April, down from a 0.6 percent gain in the previous month. Spending by private builders on nonresidential projects and spending by the government on big projects each climbed to all time highs in April but that strength was tempered by continued weakness in residential construction.
In the GDP report, many economists believe the first quarter will be the low point for this year. They expect growth will improve but still be sluggish.
[...] Investment in home building was cut by 15.4 percent, on an annualized basis, in the first quarter. However, that wasn't as deep a cut as the 17 percent annualized drop initally [sic] estimated. And, it wasn't as severe as the 19.8 percent annualized drop seen in the final quarter of last year.
[...] Consumers boosted their spending by a 4.4 percent growth rate in the first quarter, the most in a year. Consumer spending accounts for a major chunk of economic activity.
[...] Companies profits gained a bit of ground in the first quarter. One measure showed after tax profits rising by 1 percent, up from 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter.
Not mentioned were the record closes for the DJIA, S&P 500 and Russel2K.
May 22, 2007
NYTimes: Right on Gouging
Surprised?
The Grey Lady gets bashed enough around here, one must remember that it really is a great newspaper. Today, they're correct on "price gouging" and appropriately dismissive of anti-gouging legislation.
It goes without saying that gasoline retailers and oil companies will seek to maximize their profit, which usually means charging the highest price markets can bear.But is that price gouging?
Because the demand for gasoline is what economists call inelastic, which means that people cannot quickly reduce their consumption when prices rise sharply, abrupt supply shortages lead to steep price increases without any immediate decline in sales.
The most common reason for such increases in gasoline prices is a steep increase in the price of crude oil. But crude oil prices are set in global markets, and even the biggest American or European oil companies are modest players compared with state-controlled oil companies in the Persian Gulf, Russia and Latin America.
Even the mighty Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which defines itself as a competition-limiting cartel, has only a limited grip on world oil prices. OPEC countries watched helplessly as oil prices plunged in the early 1980s and remained mired below $20 a barrel for most years (excluding the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1991) through the mid-1990s.
It seems hard to believe today, but world oil prices briefly drifted below $11 a barrel in 1998. Not surprisingly, few lawmakers in Congress took that opportunity to denounce “unconscionably excessive” price declines.
Kinda warms the heart. Hat-tip: Instapundit
UPDATE: Insty also has a YouTube of CNN bashing the Democrats for junkets. Tonight on FOXNews: "Was President Reagan really a weasel?"
May 1, 2007
Interesting Blog Concept
Registered usrers submit stories and vote on them; the most popular get posted onto the home page.
A project of Alex Singleton, who describes it in more detail on Samizdata.
It's very "Digg"-ish... or reddit-like.
Two things about those kinds of sites.
1) they require a critical mass or particpants
2) they can also be gamed.
Posted by: AlexC at May 1, 2007 6:21 PMBased on Digg. I had not seen or heard of it before.
I would say the Samizdata and Adam Smith Institute connections might bring it to critical mass pretty quickly, your second concern is worrisome.
I also wonder if it lacks a character or voice. I'm interested, though, I signed up for a login on the beta and plan to stick with it awhile and see what happens.
April 28, 2007
Western Media's Fifth Column
The observation that western media has a predominant leftist bias that leads to "news" reports critical of US and Israeli military and foreign policy is not new. Thomas Sowell wrote 'Western Media: Fourth Estate or Fifth Column' more than two years ago.
Whether the one-sided reporting of the war in Vietnam was a factor in the American defeat there used to be a matter of controversy. But, in recent years, high officials of the Communist government of Vietnam have themselves admitted that they lost the war on the battlefields but won it in the U.S. media and on the streets of America, where political pressures from the anti-war movement threw away the victory for which thousands of American lives had been sacrificed.
What is new is a Harvard University researcher publishes a paper that "describes the trajectory of the media from objective observer to fiery advocate, becoming in fact a weapon of modern warfare." And that researcher is none other than Marvin Kalb, a household name from his work on network news broadcasts in decades past. Like Bernard Goldberg, Kalb made his career as a member of the vaunted Fourth Estate he is now critical of.
The full paper can be downloaded here, and is replete with examples of internet and satellite TV enabled military espionage by middle east "news" outlets, and similar abetting behavior by western media:
Whether “sub,” “supra” or “trans” this fusion of radical, revolutionary politics and ultramodern communications technology, as witnessed in the Lebanon War of 2006, has come to define the very nature of asymmetrical warfare. A key consequence of this new warfare is that the role of the journalist in many parts of the world has been dramatically transformed—from a quest for objectivity and fairness to an acceptance of advocacy as a tool of the craft. If once the journalist aspired to honest and detached reporting, now it has become increasingly acceptable for the journalist to be an activist player and a fiery advocate. 24/7 cable news has placed a premium on provocative chatter, not on substantive discourse. Many journalists in the Middle East, born into a culture of submissiveness to centralized authority, have always seen themselves as players and advocates, but this has not been the norm in Europe or the United States, and this change is both noteworthy and disturbing. {Emphasis mine.]
The motto of the Scripps-Howard newspapers, still displayed prominently on the masthead of papers they publish (including Denver's 'Rocky Mountain News') reads: Give light and the people will find their own way. Consider in which direction the light now being given is intended to lead people.
Hat tip: Cox & Forkum with an appropriately selected cartoon from the South Lebanon war of 2006.
I think that's true, but I'm ok with it as long as we know it. And I think most people do know that the news isn't objective. Once it's determined that journalists are not objective, then you can start to arrest them for being an enemy combatant if that ends up being the case. And you can do it without listening to the argument that they're just trying to be "fair".
Posted by: Terri at April 28, 2007 2:37 PMI think you're right that most people who are paying attention know that the news isn't objective, but what about the other half (or more) who don't pay attention?
And if there were no market for objective news, Fox News wouldn't continue to use the motto "fair and balanced."
Bloggers have proven an effective counterweight to MSM misinformation. But when the dominant mass distributors of news information can be counted on to deliver consistently slanted reports consciously designed to support a particular dogma, how is that any different from state control of the media?
Posted by: johngalt at April 29, 2007 12:24 PMDo I misread? The answer is coercive power and your comparison seems uncharacteristically relativist from jg.
The leftist media oligopoly is subject to corrective market pressure from FOXNews, blogs, and talk radio. The public school monopoly has nothing to fear.
Coercive power is AN answer, but not the one I'd choose. Instead I'm cautioning against thoughtful individuals being "ok with" ideological filters on news broadcasts which, by definition, are advertised as thorough and objective.
What is relativistic in the comparison between state control of media (which censors what threatens state control and embellishes what flatters it) and a dogmatic information oligopoly, which does exactly the same thing?
The LMO is subject to democratic market pressure. When the market is polarized and evenly divided ideologically then the market pressure you rely on evaporates. Particularly when individuals who disagree with the dominant paradigm are "ok with it."
Posted by: johngalt at April 30, 2007 2:53 PMI left a better comment on this subject over at Terri's blog:
"Fair enough - the news is a free-market business. However, I am particularly sensitive to the redefinition of the concept ‘reality’ that is driven by the philosophy of Pragmatism. Abdicating the principle that news must be objective and opinion must be on the editorial page is the civil equivalent of allowing a wartime enemy to capture your capital because defending civilian property “isn’t the army’s job.”
The progress and security of a free society is based upon individual choice of the best ideas amongst all available. When the available ideas are restricted by ideological censorship then freedom is in jeopardy.
Edward R. Murrow is turning over in his grave."
Posted by: johngalt at April 30, 2007 3:23 PMApril 26, 2007
Still the Bunny Blog
People come to ThreeSources looking for informed commentary on important issues, application of basic economic principles to politics, and a bit of internecine "clarification" of principles from our divergent viewpoints.
Nah, just kiddin'. Chocolate Bunnies keep us afloat. Here are the top 20 search strings for (a very busy) April (Getting that Easter peak...)
| Top 20 of 7509 Total Search Strings | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| # | Hits | Search String | |
| 1 | 1266 | 6.58% | chocolate bunny |
| 2 | 1114 | 5.79% | pepsi |
| 3 | 711 | 3.70% | chocolate bunnies |
| 4 | 238 | 1.24% | lance armstrong |
| 5 | 222 | 1.15% | easter bunny cartoon |
| 6 | 184 | 0.96% | cartoon bunny |
| 7 | 168 | 0.87% | chocolate bunny cartoon |
| 8 | 157 | 0.82% | scary easter bunny |
| 9 | 153 | 0.80% | liberal |
| 10 | 148 | 0.77% | cartoon bunnies |
| 11 | 139 | 0.72% | mugabe |
| 12 | 137 | 0.71% | chocolate easter bunny |
| 13 | 129 | 0.67% | evil easter bunny |
| 14 | 107 | 0.56% | five pillars |
| 15 | 97 | 0.50% | pillars |
| 16 | 90 | 0.47% | easter bunny cartoons |
| 17 | 72 | 0.37% | battle of normandy |
| 18 | 68 | 0.35% | cartoon rabbits |
| 19 | 66 | 0.34% | cartoon easter bunny |
| 20 | 62 | 0.32% | south park characters |
Sigh. Here it is.
Un-foxtrot-believable.
Posted by: johngalt at April 28, 2007 11:43 AMApril 24, 2007
THE WAR IS LOST!!!
Katie Couric's epic struggle to provide peace and stability to the CBS Evening News is floundering. And Dean Barnett shares one high level official who has dared to tell the public that it's over:
"The broadcast is an abject failure, by any measure," says Rich Hanley, director of graduate programs at the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University. “They gambled that viewers wanted a softer, less-dramatic presentation of the news, and they lost. It's not fair to blame Couric for everything, but she's certainly the centerpiece and deserves a fair share."
Must one more haircut be sacrificed to this futile effort?
April 20, 2007
NBC II
A friend sends a link to Mickey Kaus, who makes a well reasoned case for NBC's abstaining.
Isn't Michael Ledeen right--NBC shouldn't have shown that video. It seems less like an "ethical challenge" than a no-brainer. Why encourage other potential Cho's to try for a similar publicity bonanza? This isn't a Unabomber like case where publicizing a killer's electronic media kit might help identify him. We already know who did it.
It's well done but I remain unconvinced. The killer "got what he wanted" but he was very much too dead to enjoy it.
Mickster is right that l'Affaire Imus looks pretty silly against this but so what? That Imus coverage was overblown does not reflect on VT coverage.
UPDATE: Don Surber makes a better comparison than Cho - Imus: Cho vs. 9/11 vs. Katrina. The famous restraint that caused 9/11 pictures to disappear from the news stacks poorly against the broadcast of prurient images from New Orleans and the Cho video.
I'm a poor choice to defend the media. (Hat-tip: Insty).
Before I'm voted off the raft, let me make one point. FOXNews, unsurprisingly, set the news machine on 11 for this story. We had a logo and theme song the day it happened, the young man's picture was on every four minutes and any thread of information gleaned about him was cause for a news alert where they would break into coverage of the same story. This is how the business goes in 24x7 cable land. I'm not complaining but I choose not to watch. I fast forward through most of Brit Hume's show. They do not have 30 minutes of new information.
I digress, The point is that NBC's decision to air the killer's video does not strike me as morally inferior to another network's interviewing a guy who once sold him a pair of shoes ("He was a quiet kid, and he wore a 9C...") They're both "making him famous" and he is too dead to enjoy the coverage.
April 19, 2007
NBC and the VT Broadcast
One could have a thoughtful discussion of NBC's decision to broadcast the media received from the VT murderer -- but then you wouldn't make a good blogger. Hugh Hewitt suggests it might be The Single Worst Editorial Decision In The History Of Broadcast News?
The airing of the pictures and video is obviously a hurtful and destructive act, one that will prime many killing pumps in the years ahead, and one obviously made on the fly by individuals of almost no experience with or curiosity about the deranged mind.
I don't get it. Perhaps my blog brothers will put me right. I see it as a borderline case and I could have applauded restraint and discretion had they decided not to air it. But I cannot get into Hugh's high dudgeon.
Blaming NBC for the "next" shooting makes no more sense than blaming Smith & Wesson, or "society" or racism.
Capus and the other heads at NBC debated long and hard over whether to show the video.
WTF was the debate? How high will our ratings go and how much should we charge advertisers??
Was it a debate over doing the morally correct thing versus the morally reprehensible? (We can see which side won that debate,...)
As for me,...F**k NBC!! I used to watch the Today Show over breakfast (my little TV in the kitchen doesn't have cable), but no more!
Posted by: TrekMedic251 at April 19, 2007 8:15 PMAny reason to not watch The Today Show is a good one, Trek.
The free market guy in me says that if the ratings were going to spike, that proves an interest in seeing it.
Were it a prurient look at the bodies or the murders, it would clearly be wrong. I just don't see what is clearly wrong with broadcasting this guy's "manifesto." I reject the assertion that it will encourage other mass murderers; I think that is a very singular deficiency.
April 15, 2007
Misc Blogging
Why I blog?
1) Pent up rage
2) A deep fountain of anger
3) Venom: $15 per barrel.
4) Trek Medic tags me with these things.
5) Spreading the love. JK, John Galt, Charlie, Mark.
Feelin' the love, but I think I'll break my link of the chain. (After all, there were no threats of impending mortal danger for failure to participate.)
Venom. Is that one of them 'ternative fuels? Fer 15 bucks I'll give it a try.
Posted by: johngalt at April 15, 2007 9:09 PMDistill it my friend. 101 Octane Fury is hard to beat. With Lead too.... so "it'll run good."
Posted by: AlexC at April 16, 2007 1:12 AMOhhh, my rage is creamier than your rage. Ever try the Vitriol blend?
Posted by: mdmhvonpa at April 16, 2007 9:46 AMI'll play. Beats work (which might be #5...)
There's really just one for me. I enjoy being forced to clarify and voice the things I believe in. You can yell at your family at a barbecue, but blogging forces you to articulate it clearly and defensibly.
April 9, 2007
Blog Redesign Awards
I give the gold to: A Second Hand Conjecture.
Not sure when the redesign was completed, but wow, it looks great.
Then again, I can't even type "redesign' (since corrected).
Wow! Thanks! Actually pretty much all of the credit should go to Lance, but thanks again for the plug.
Cheers.
Posted by: MichaelW at April 10, 2007 1:37 PMApril 6, 2007
Another Objective Reporter
A good friend of this blog sends a link to a CBS News "Public Eye" piece, where an intrepid and insightful CBS News reporter interviews an intrepid and insightful CBS News reporter. The fatuousness is too thick to read the whole thing, but if you scroll down, Rome-based CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey is asked to elaborate on his complaints about Senator McCain's upbeat visit to Baghdad:
Allen Pizzey: Yes. It's disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It's electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, "Oh, we walked around for a whole hour…and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren't we great, we drove in from the airport." Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying "Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized."
My emailer questions whether threatening signs are really that good a deterrent to terrorists.
If you can wade a little further, the next question is about media objectivity:
Brian Montopoli: There used to be a pretty vigorous debate about whether the media is reporting the war through an anti-administration liberal bias lens, though that has died down a bittle bit of late. How do you feel about that argument?Allen Pizzey: I dismiss that. Because I think the Bush administration in particular thinks that anything that doesn't wholly support everything they say is against them. And you don't have to support one side or the other. If the administration makes idiotic claims, or claims that are patently, to us on the ground, wrong, why should we not report that they're wrong? All we're doing is reporting what we can see and understand.
To recap: He didn't see McCain in the marketplace, but "if he did" it was staged and phony -- but he is completely objective!
This Instapundit post has video of General Patraeus's answering such complaints. I find him a little more credible than a Rome-based CBS correspondent who admits he never saw it.
UPDATE: A great comment from the CBS site:
Lots of references here to the "MSM." We in the military prefer to call them the "National Media Establishment," or, more precisely, by their acronym, the "NME." Say it fast, out loud - "N-M-E," and you'll get what I mean.
March 15, 2007
Allegedly...
No doubt this is good journalism and in keeping with the NYTimes Style Guide, but this grouchy hawk rolled his eyes at this Headline:
Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks Is Said to Confess
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, long said to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to them at a military hearing held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Saturday, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday. He also acknowledged full or partial responsibility for more than 30 other terror attacks or plots.
We can't be sure, mind you -- it's just a rumor about something somebody might have said he might have said. Again, it is probably correct to phrase it this way. It just seems to me that the NYTimes is able to find its certain declarative voice on the important topics of the day, like Bush Administration malfeasance, gender discrimination at golf clubs, and the importance of shutting down Guantánamo and releasing all those innocent freedom fighters.
March 14, 2007
Contest
Here's your chance to take an all-expenses-paid trip with Nick Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.This year, Nick will be traveling with two people, a student enrolled in an American college or graduate school and a middle school or high school teacher.
To enter you must write an essay no longer than 700 words explaining why you're the right candidate for this trip.
Second prize: Two trips with Pulitzer-Prize winning NYTimes columnist, Nick Kristof. I dunno, a night of cocktails with MoDo maybe, but carrying Kristof's luggage? Not me, man.
UPDATE: Sorry, I forgot the link.
March 12, 2007
Three Decades of Peretz's TNR
Martin Peretz gives a serious and honest summary of his tenure as owner of The New Republic. I have subscribed to the digital version for a few years now and had no idea he was the owner. I thought he was just some guy who wrote the best pieces in the book.
He admits (as the New York Times will not) that freedom has not been served by TNR's and its readers support of anti-Americanism up to and including Stalinism.
What is dogma to many of them is simply the historical and psychological assault on the United States. In the cold war, many Americans did not want the Soviet Union to lose. And that France has now become a heroic nation simply for resisting the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq is preposterous. After all, France is a closed-minded, prissy, rigidly class-bound, economically retarded, and nostalgic country. Nostalgic for its martial glory that goes back a century plus, and jealous of it, too, in resisting the reality that military might no longer belongs to the motherland. During my time at tnr, we've tried to guide liberalism away from such intellectual mush. To my regret, we haven't always prevailed.
Their Stalinist phase was before his day, but he still admits "there have been many times when I've hurled my own magazine against the wall in anger." It's a great and succinct piece, let me know if you can't get it and I'll email it. He defends Israel and provides a look at the UN that would be at home in The Weekly Standard, but that TNR readers need to hear:
Which brings us to the United Nations--a failing, bloated, corrupt, and unprincipled institution whose very foundations compel it not to act justly. It is functionally the captive of