Read my recent review of the world premiere performance of the new John Musto and Mark Campbell opera, "The Inspector" at Curtain Up!, my review site at the Washington Times Communities. Quite an interesting show.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Slaughter in Syria
Roger Simon introduces a series of videos on Pajamas Media that give true and gruesomely graphic insight into one of the many Middle Eastern thug-ocracies and their repressive, Stalinist-style policies. This time it's Syria, only the latest in the rolling powder-keg of populist revolts in that unfortunate quadrant. Read Simon's intro first, giving his rationale for offering these horrifying film clips, since he also explains how they were obtained and at what potential cost to the filmers.
One of the frustrating things about modern reporting is the fact that we rarely, if ever, get news footage from countries that have proved to be our implacable enemies over the years. Part of this is due to severe censorship on the part of those governments. Part, sadly, is due to the cowardice of the MSM which doesn't want Americans to know that there's real evil out there. (Ruins the moral equivalency argument.) The MSM themselves often obtain this type of footage, but then they sit on it, offering weak-kneed excuses for not airing it. Simon and Pajamas Media are doing a public service by making these videos available. You'll never see them on CNN.
President Obama's response thus far to these unfolding events has been weak-kneed and equivocal. We'd like to think that he's providing cover for American covert ops in various Middle Eastern countries. But given his behavior thus far on these and other matters, including our shameful lack of cooperation with NATO in Libya, I have to wonder if the President is, once again, playing the post-colonial card to improve our "image" with leftist intellectuals abroad. In other words, all these problems were really caused by British-American imperialism and we have no "right" to intervene as people sort out the evil that we caused. It's a disturbing thought.
PJ Media's footage, airing as it is right now, provides a grimly ironic commentary on this Holy Saturday, the day when Christians await the commemoration of the martyred Jesus' rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday. Hopefully, in a secular sense, the Syrian people themselves will soon experience their own resurrection as a country by toppling the Iranian-backed Assad tyranny.
One of the frustrating things about modern reporting is the fact that we rarely, if ever, get news footage from countries that have proved to be our implacable enemies over the years. Part of this is due to severe censorship on the part of those governments. Part, sadly, is due to the cowardice of the MSM which doesn't want Americans to know that there's real evil out there. (Ruins the moral equivalency argument.) The MSM themselves often obtain this type of footage, but then they sit on it, offering weak-kneed excuses for not airing it. Simon and Pajamas Media are doing a public service by making these videos available. You'll never see them on CNN.
President Obama's response thus far to these unfolding events has been weak-kneed and equivocal. We'd like to think that he's providing cover for American covert ops in various Middle Eastern countries. But given his behavior thus far on these and other matters, including our shameful lack of cooperation with NATO in Libya, I have to wonder if the President is, once again, playing the post-colonial card to improve our "image" with leftist intellectuals abroad. In other words, all these problems were really caused by British-American imperialism and we have no "right" to intervene as people sort out the evil that we caused. It's a disturbing thought.
PJ Media's footage, airing as it is right now, provides a grimly ironic commentary on this Holy Saturday, the day when Christians await the commemoration of the martyred Jesus' rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday. Hopefully, in a secular sense, the Syrian people themselves will soon experience their own resurrection as a country by toppling the Iranian-backed Assad tyranny.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Return of Sarah Barracuda
Sarah Palin is back, and how. AP reports:
Dan Riehl has a little better idea than AP as to what's really going on here. Unlike the "professionals," Riehl has more than a clue as to what this story is really about: leadership.
One commentator ("Judas Priest") runs with this, picking up the cudgels and letting loose the best anti-left diatribe I've seen in months. It's on Riehl's site, but I'm reproducing it in full here to save you some time.
Of course, the AP then goes on to trash Palin by innuendo and try to slant the story in favor of the lefty union trolls and thugs who inevitably showed up to trash the Tea Partiers. (And note: the AP puts Tea Party in lower case, another one of the hundreds of not-so-subtle, smarmy, casual digs anybody who's not on the left has to endure on almost a daily basis.Sarah Palin defended Wisconsin's governor at a tea party tax day rally Saturday, telling hundreds of supporters that his polarizing union rights law is designed to save public jobs.
Dan Riehl has a little better idea than AP as to what's really going on here. Unlike the "professionals," Riehl has more than a clue as to what this story is really about: leadership.
It's ironic to watch so many so called establishment Republicans who seem to want to be leader of the free world dance their way around the more serious political battles of our time. They criticize, they pontificate, or editorialize, yet from ObamaCare to a budget deal, they're also careful to not too directly engage. The same can be said of them for what has played out in Madison, Wisconsin over the past month.Riehl's commentators are interesting, too, although as usual they're invaded by the usual assortment of (probably) paid lefty trolls who trot out the tired blame-Sarah meme--you know, the one where she's a coward and a quitter for resigning as Alaska's governor. Which, as they well know, she did to prevent all the Democrat-supported frivolous lawsuits against her from bankrupting her family--which was their intention.
Whether it's talking about death panels, or blood libel, to now showing up in Madison - that's not former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. As I said to a friend and colleague tonight, wherever the current battle is, that's very often where you can find Palin. One of the first requirements for leadership is to show up out front. No one will ever accuse Palin of not doing that. Doing so also has an interesting side benefit for any would be leader. When you lead, people tend to follow and support you, even if not at first.
One commentator ("Judas Priest") runs with this, picking up the cudgels and letting loose the best anti-left diatribe I've seen in months. It's on Riehl's site, but I'm reproducing it in full here to save you some time.
I have nothing more to add.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Al Gore: Warmist Jackass
He's ba-a-a-ack! Yes indeedy, Al Gore, aka "The Goracle." America's own Foghorn Leghorn and longtime pretender to the White House has surfaced yet again with the same old self-serving "global warming" rant. Ever notice? Each of Gore's successive media resurrections resemble trailers from those old Hammer films where Dracula constantly rises from the grave they put him in back in the previous film. In any event, The Hill reports:
Al Gore told young green energy advocates Friday that progress on global warming must come from a strong grassroots movement that can counter the oil and coal lobbies, which he alleged have “paralyzed” governments.
Not to be deterred, America's Clown Prince of RICO continues:
Socialist Democrat Party continues unanswered and unchallenged.
Gore retreated for awhile after the East Anglia-led global warmingfraud hoax was exposed two years ago. I guess he figures the coast is clear now, so it's time to defend his vast "green" investments again. Let's never forget that Gore has staked his entire economic future on money-losing but taxpayer supported boondoggles subsidizing "alternative energy" projects, none of which will ever generate a dime in unsubsidized profits.
I'm amazed that this blustering, self-righteous, idiot still gets any press coverage at all. Then again, I maybe shouldn't be. After all, it's that same "legitimate media" that anointed "The One," whose presidency is already threatening to dethrone the Carter interregnum as the worst presidency ever. Between Gore and Obama, it's a real contest as to which of these super smarmy politicos is actually the most drippingly condescending to and contemptuous of the average American citizen. I hope a few of these citizens at least will regain their equilibrium and common sense before entering the voting booth in November 2012.
As for Gore. It is increasingly possible that we will never again see a bigger, blowsier, more blissfully buffo bloviator in this century.
Al Gore told young green energy advocates Friday that progress on global warming must come from a strong grassroots movement that can counter the oil and coal lobbies, which he alleged have “paralyzed” governments.
Gore – who compared action on global warming to the Civil Rights movement – was the keynote speaker at Power Shift 2011, a Washington, D.C. conference attended largely by college students.Gore's agitprop included the following meaningless observation:
Here's an audience tailor made for this horizontally-challenged warmist buffoon whose undergrad college GPA was actually lower than that of G.W. Bush, the alleged moron who beat Gore and his operatives fair and square in Florida in Y2K. Today's college kids largely learn nothing but the Marxist propaganda they hear in the average college classroom rather than actual useful subject matter.
“It’s true that governments by and large have been politically paralyzed because the energy companies, the coal companies, the oil companies, the coal-burning utilities, they have spent enormous amounts of money and they have succeeded in many countries in paralyzing the political process,” the former vice president said.Of course it's also true that the entire Lamestream Media, nearly all Democrats in Congress, and every lefty prof this or that side of the Pecos, plus America's Blatherer-in-Chief are all warmists who are casting a blind eye on the EPA's illegal overregulation of the utility and mining industries, all of which furthers the warmists' ends. Not to mention the ruthless lobbying of the enviro-freaks. I'd say these clowns currently have the upper hand over Gore's whipping boys of the day, the energy company lobbyists, who are ultimately on the side of all Americans who want lower-cost domestically produced energy whenever possible, not higher energy prices extorted by unfriendly regimes and speculators.
Not to be deterred, America's Clown Prince of RICO continues:
“There are four anti-climate lobbyists on Capitol Hill in this city for every single member of the House and every single member of the Senate,” Gore said Friday night at the opening of the April 15-18 conference.Yep, it has to come from young people. Young people who won't be able to get a job or pay back their horrendous student loans, courtesy of Obama, the Democrats, and the environmentaloids, all of whom seek to cut back on human reproduction by making living itself impossibly expensive. Young people who won't see a dime of Medicare or Social Security if the demagoguing of the
“What is the answer for this?" Gore asked. "It has to come from you. It has to come at the grassroots level. It has to come from young people, and I believe that you are up to it and that you can do it.”
Gore retreated for awhile after the East Anglia-led global warming
I'm amazed that this blustering, self-righteous, idiot still gets any press coverage at all. Then again, I maybe shouldn't be. After all, it's that same "legitimate media" that anointed "The One," whose presidency is already threatening to dethrone the Carter interregnum as the worst presidency ever. Between Gore and Obama, it's a real contest as to which of these super smarmy politicos is actually the most drippingly condescending to and contemptuous of the average American citizen. I hope a few of these citizens at least will regain their equilibrium and common sense before entering the voting booth in November 2012.
As for Gore. It is increasingly possible that we will never again see a bigger, blowsier, more blissfully buffo bloviator in this century.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Cleveland Orchestra's "Don Giovanni"
Since I'm back in town, I've just now posted my review of the Cleveland Orchestra's marvelous, recently-concluded production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Check it out here in my column "Curtain Up!" in the Washington Times Communities online.
While your in the neighborhood, check out Politics, another area for which the Washington Times is justly famous. Good stuff here on both sides of the spectrum.
While your in the neighborhood, check out Politics, another area for which the Washington Times is justly famous. Good stuff here on both sides of the spectrum.
Monday, March 28, 2011
More on Media Matters' Illegal Exploitation of 501(c)(3)
You heard it here first--there's almost certainly a very good case to be made for revoking Media Matters' 501(c)(3) privileges, i.e., that organization's nonprofit status, with reference to its recently announced plan to destroy Fox News. This Soros-funded hard-left hate site is certainly violating the IRS rules that prohibit such an organization from active partisan politicking which is all it takes for a revocation as we explained in our earlier HazZzMat post here.
Now the Examiner's editorial page is picking up the refrain:
Now the Examiner's editorial page is picking up the refrain:
Being a C3 puts MM in the non-profit, non-commercial sector, and it also bars the organzation from participating in partisan political activity. This new, more aggressive stance, however, appears to run directly counter to the government's requirements for maintaining a C3 tax status.Yup. Wonder if Soros' expensive lawyers or Media Matters' reprehensible David Brock thought of that before they launched this latest Gramsican-Alinskyite attack on free speech. If they look like Stalinists and talk like Stalinists....
Since Brock classifies Fox News as the "leader" of the Republican Party, by his own description he is involving his organization in a partisan battle. High-priced K Street lawyers can probably find a federal judge or a sympathetic IRS bureaucrat willing to either look the other way or accept some sort of MM rationale such as that it is merely providing educational information about a partisan group.
But in the IRS application for 501(C)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation status, Section VIII, Question I asks the applicant: "Do you support or oppose candidates in political campaigns in any way?" (Emphasis added).
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Geraldine Ferraro Dead at 75
Frankly, I rarely share a tear for a Democrat these days, but I was sorry to hear of former 1984 Democrat VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro's passing at the fairly young age of 75. According to Fox News:
Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was being treated for blood cancer, a disease she battled for 12 years, her family said.
Revoke Media Matters' 501(c)(3)
Here's an interesting story today by Brandon Kiser at The Right Sphere via Ed Morrisey at Hot Air:
States Brock:
Two points, the second one first. Here we see one of the classic, Gramscian tactics the left has used for decades to transform their phony argumentation: the redefinition of terms. To even the relatively uninformed, Fox is indeed a news organization, like it or not. But in one fell swoop, without any supporting facts, Brock now declares that it is NOT a news organization, presumably because it generally (although not nearly always) supports the Republican argument.
Not only absurd on its face, Brock's organization itself, along with the rest of the discredited MSM, defeats his own argument since the MSM, lock, stock, and barrel, is in the tank for the Democrat-left at all times, and unapologetically so. If it's fair game to unilaterally redefine Fox news as the "de facto leader of the GOP," then it's also fair game to redefine the entirety of the MSM as the "de facto leader of the Democrat Party," and wage guerrilla war against them as well. Which, of course, is something Brock will never do, since Media Matters is, was, and always will be an organization by, for, and of the Democrat left.
Which brings us to our A-list argument, suggested here by Kiser but promoted by us for a long, long time:
In addition to their obvious control of the MSM, however, the left has taken over a key piece of funding machinery via intentionally subverting a key element in the U.S. Tax Code: the 501(c)(3) "charitable" organization. You name it. Organizations from AARP to the Sierra Club, from Greenpeace to the Ford Foundation, once perfectly respectable, tax-exempt organizations have been taken over, one by one. And now, along with the public-employee unions who are desperately trying to overturn the results of the 2010 elections, they're all united in using their tax-favored status to massively fund the final destruction of the USA and its basically two-party structure by eliminating the opposing view.
Such activities are clearly partisan and political and thus openly and notoriously violate the intent of the tax code re: 502(c)(3) organizations, all of which are specifically prohibited from undertaking political activities.
Life, of course, is rarely simple. Any number of 501(c)(3) organizations exploit loopholes in the law allowing them to own certain subsidiaries. And it's via these subsidiaries that the politicking is carried on in at least some of these organizations. All this is another story, probably a lot of other stories.
But the main point here is that Brock has exposed Media Matters for what it was always intended to be--a phony, astroturfing political organization dedicated to smearing and ultimately stamping out any political point of view that bothers Democrats, trade unions, trial lawyers, or the Soros-led (and funded) billionaire leftocracy.
It's time to employ a simple two-step program here: First, work as if your life depended on it to gain Republican (and hopefully Tea Party) control of the Senate and the White House in 2012 while retaining a commanding Republican lead in the House. And second: use that control to defund the left by enacting:
“Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press,” its memo says. “Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”
Two points, the second one first. Here we see one of the classic, Gramscian tactics the left has used for decades to transform their phony argumentation: the redefinition of terms. To even the relatively uninformed, Fox is indeed a news organization, like it or not. But in one fell swoop, without any supporting facts, Brock now declares that it is NOT a news organization, presumably because it generally (although not nearly always) supports the Republican argument.
Not only absurd on its face, Brock's organization itself, along with the rest of the discredited MSM, defeats his own argument since the MSM, lock, stock, and barrel, is in the tank for the Democrat-left at all times, and unapologetically so. If it's fair game to unilaterally redefine Fox news as the "de facto leader of the GOP," then it's also fair game to redefine the entirety of the MSM as the "de facto leader of the Democrat Party," and wage guerrilla war against them as well. Which, of course, is something Brock will never do, since Media Matters is, was, and always will be an organization by, for, and of the Democrat left.
Which brings us to our A-list argument, suggested here by Kiser but promoted by us for a long, long time:
The cutesy-sounding mission of Media Matters to “correct conservative misinformation” is no longer even remotely appropriate. No, MMFA is a political group with $10 million-plus in annual funding designed to wage war against Fox News, and in their eyes the GOP and conservatives as a whole.Yep. As the anti-Nixonians in the 1970s used to love to say, "Follow the money." The epic scandal over the last 50 or so years has been the long-march of the left through America's key institutions, another key element in the Gramscian strategy to take over the national narrative, or cultural hegemony, in order to divert it toward Gramsci's longed-for new world (Marxist) order. And one of the best ways of controlling the narrative is to make sure only one thread of it--the socialist thread--is heard while all other voices are shut down and shut out. (BTW, Brandon, surely your suggestion that Media Matters "reconsider" their tax status was meant ironically, right?)
Because of this, Media Matters should reconsider their 501(c)(3) status which is designated for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes. MMFA no longer meets any of these qualifiers (it’s arguable they never [sic] did) and under the banner of waging a war against Fox News and the GOP puts them in an entirely different zip code.
In addition to their obvious control of the MSM, however, the left has taken over a key piece of funding machinery via intentionally subverting a key element in the U.S. Tax Code: the 501(c)(3) "charitable" organization. You name it. Organizations from AARP to the Sierra Club, from Greenpeace to the Ford Foundation, once perfectly respectable, tax-exempt organizations have been taken over, one by one. And now, along with the public-employee unions who are desperately trying to overturn the results of the 2010 elections, they're all united in using their tax-favored status to massively fund the final destruction of the USA and its basically two-party structure by eliminating the opposing view.
Such activities are clearly partisan and political and thus openly and notoriously violate the intent of the tax code re: 502(c)(3) organizations, all of which are specifically prohibited from undertaking political activities.
Life, of course, is rarely simple. Any number of 501(c)(3) organizations exploit loopholes in the law allowing them to own certain subsidiaries. And it's via these subsidiaries that the politicking is carried on in at least some of these organizations. All this is another story, probably a lot of other stories.
But the main point here is that Brock has exposed Media Matters for what it was always intended to be--a phony, astroturfing political organization dedicated to smearing and ultimately stamping out any political point of view that bothers Democrats, trade unions, trial lawyers, or the Soros-led (and funded) billionaire leftocracy.
It's time to employ a simple two-step program here: First, work as if your life depended on it to gain Republican (and hopefully Tea Party) control of the Senate and the White House in 2012 while retaining a commanding Republican lead in the House. And second: use that control to defund the left by enacting:
- Tort reform to throttle the costly predations of America's Trial Lawyers
- Union reform to bar public employee unions at the state and national level
- Revoking the 501(c)(3) status of all such organizations that are funding, either openly or covertly (via cleverly interlocking subsidiaries) political activities in violation of this statute. Such revocations would probably have to include some re-writing of the code to close the loopholes, but it needs to be done and done soon.
A Tribute to Obamanation
We've been on travel up in Cleveland, and are now returning to blogging back in DC. And what to our wondering eyes just appeared in a recent, scurrilous email? A brand new tribute to President Obama:
Click (or double-click) to enlarge.
Hey, look, it's funny, right? A lot funnier than Bill Maher's by now virally-legendary, way-over-the-top smear of Sarah Palin. Rich lefties and faux-socialists like Maher love to redefine terms. This latest excursion by Maher into the left's spreading tar-pit of exceptionally vile anti-female-Republican misogyny definitively and graphically proves the utter bankruptcy of ideas, ideals, and moral standards on that side of the political aisle. Disgusting.
Hey, look, it's funny, right? A lot funnier than Bill Maher's by now virally-legendary, way-over-the-top smear of Sarah Palin. Rich lefties and faux-socialists like Maher love to redefine terms. This latest excursion by Maher into the left's spreading tar-pit of exceptionally vile anti-female-Republican misogyny definitively and graphically proves the utter bankruptcy of ideas, ideals, and moral standards on that side of the political aisle. Disgusting.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Obama's Keystone Cops
Re: Obama's amateurish bungling during the current Libyan affair, heres a wonderful observation today via Instapundit. Follow the link below for more:
Victor Davis Hanson weighs in. Under Bush, we were the world’s policeman. Under Obama, the world’s Keystone Kops.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Obama an expert in Trivial Pursuit?
Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you. Apropos of our observations in our previous entry, check out Keith Kossler's recent observations on the subject at White House Dossier:
As I move into the autumn of life, I am beginning at last to understand the motives and motivations of Shakespeare's bizarre Timon of Athens.
The Middle East is afire with rebellion, Japan is imploding from an earthquake, and the battle of the budget is on in the United States, but none of this seems to be deterring President Obama from a heavy schedule of childish distractions.
The newly installed tandem of White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Senior Adviser David Plouffe were supposed to impart a new sense of discipline and purpose to the White House. Instead, they are permitting him to showcase himself as a poorly focused leader who has his priorities backward.
This morning, as Japan’s nuclear crisis enters a potentially catastrophic phase, we are told that Obama is videotaping his NCAA tournament picks and that we’ll be able to tune into ESPN Wednesday to find out who he likes.
Saturday, he made his 61st outing to the golf course as president, and got back to the White House with just enough time for a quick shower before heading out to party with Washington’s elite journalists at the annual Gridiron Dinner.Apparently--and appallingly--there are no adults left in Washington, DC. Have things really gotten so bad in this country that we're going to have to adopt the Tunisian and Egyptian models if we're to achieve real "hope and change?"
As I move into the autumn of life, I am beginning at last to understand the motives and motivations of Shakespeare's bizarre Timon of Athens.
Ongoing fallout from a stupid presidency; or, Dave Fry for President
By now, nearly every sentient being in this country knows the world's a mess. Making matters worse, remember that the MSM persuaded us to put a literal moron in the White House in 2008: Barack Obama, our Community Organizer-in-Chief. We're paying an extraordinarily heavy, continuing price for that epic folly.
Making matters still worse, since the Republicans couldn't move the Senate to the right in 2010, the fecklessSocialists Democrats are still running the show during Barack Obama's continuing virtual and actual absences from Washington, preferring, by their very inaction, to force the Fed to defensively print money while they continue to spend us into fiscal Armageddon. Why pay for bribes to your constituents when you can simply debase the currency to accomplish the same thing? I think I'm beginning to understand how patriotic Americans must have felt circa 1859-60 as the country slid rapidly into a special hell, courtesy of near-bovine President James Buchanan's stellar ineptitude coupled with an utterly deadlocked and dysfunctional Congress.
Dave Fry, who writes "Dave's Daily"--a technical charting column appearing almost every day on Jim Cramer's financial website, TheStreet--catches us up on the still-evolving nuclear disaster in Japan in his closing remarks, wrapping festivities with the following observations:
Making matters still worse, since the Republicans couldn't move the Senate to the right in 2010, the feckless
Dave Fry, who writes "Dave's Daily"--a technical charting column appearing almost every day on Jim Cramer's financial website, TheStreet--catches us up on the still-evolving nuclear disaster in Japan in his closing remarks, wrapping festivities with the following observations:
The United States has proven its diplomatic and strategic ineptitude along with other Western allies regarding all things MENA [Middle East and North Africa]. We have taken defeat from the jaws of victory and taken Gaddafi from just another tyrant back into an active terrorist.Game, set, and match. For once, I have absolutely nothing to add. This says it all. Maybe Dave should throw his hat in the ring in 2012.
The Saudis have invaded Bahrain infuriating the Iranians. We knew nothing of this until after the event so poor is our intelligence. All this is why we need a courageous leader to put forth a coherent and effective national energy policy. All we've done is block providers and created a worthless Department of Energy stuffed with bureaucrats and oozing patronage. It's a disgrace!
Grammar and Spelling: The Sorry State of Online Journalism
Okay, I know, I know. Financial, fiscal, physical, and political disasters abound and I'll get to them. But in reading about them online (and for that matter, offline), I am continually appalled at the pathetic state of writing, editing, and grammatical usage that abounds on the net. Online content is a veritable disaster area of howlers.
Case in point: This afternoon headline on CNBC's "Fast Money" financial news site:
I'm cutting and pasting it here now in the actual hope that someone will catch this and fix it, so if you check the link and it's fixed, great.
But in point of fact, that's the way it is right now. From my standpoint as a working journalist, the only thing that's worse than a good in your article is a goof in the headline. Such an error simply howls IGNORANCE AND CARELESSNESS to an educated reader. But it's de rigeur these days. It's a dirty little fact that most journalists really can't write very well to begin with. In recent years, economy moves have eviscerated not only the editors who used to catch and fix this kind of stuff. But in many places, I'd wager there are no copy editors or fact checkers left in the newsroom at all.
The result: the kind of stupidity you see in the example above. Obviously, the moron who wrote the headline thinks that "tact" is a word that's modified by the preposition "in." If indeed he or she knows what a preposition is. Of course, it also goes without saying that the headline writer doesn't have a clue that there is, in the English language, an actual word, "intact," which in this context would mean "the rally is still in existence. It is no longer a former rally."
It is perhaps a small part of our ongoing tragedy that neither companies nor individuals take much pride in how their work comes across anymore, particularly in the writing professions where the bottom line in conjunction with a dysfunctional educational system have taken written communication to an all-time low these days. I have less of a beef with your average blogger who does the best he or she can without a back bench. But there's simply no excuse for an outfit like CNBC which, presumably, operates at the highest level of professionalism.
Yet such a headline as the one above proves that there's little if any QC involved in CNBC's online content. And if a headline (aka "hed" in news speak) is careless, can we have much confident in the quality or veracity of the content it introduces?
I'm done. For now.
Case in point: This afternoon headline on CNBC's "Fast Money" financial news site:
Pros: S&P Resilience Could Signal Rally in Tact
I'm cutting and pasting it here now in the actual hope that someone will catch this and fix it, so if you check the link and it's fixed, great.
But in point of fact, that's the way it is right now. From my standpoint as a working journalist, the only thing that's worse than a good in your article is a goof in the headline. Such an error simply howls IGNORANCE AND CARELESSNESS to an educated reader. But it's de rigeur these days. It's a dirty little fact that most journalists really can't write very well to begin with. In recent years, economy moves have eviscerated not only the editors who used to catch and fix this kind of stuff. But in many places, I'd wager there are no copy editors or fact checkers left in the newsroom at all.
The result: the kind of stupidity you see in the example above. Obviously, the moron who wrote the headline thinks that "tact" is a word that's modified by the preposition "in." If indeed he or she knows what a preposition is. Of course, it also goes without saying that the headline writer doesn't have a clue that there is, in the English language, an actual word, "intact," which in this context would mean "the rally is still in existence. It is no longer a former rally."
It is perhaps a small part of our ongoing tragedy that neither companies nor individuals take much pride in how their work comes across anymore, particularly in the writing professions where the bottom line in conjunction with a dysfunctional educational system have taken written communication to an all-time low these days. I have less of a beef with your average blogger who does the best he or she can without a back bench. But there's simply no excuse for an outfit like CNBC which, presumably, operates at the highest level of professionalism.
Yet such a headline as the one above proves that there's little if any QC involved in CNBC's online content. And if a headline (aka "hed" in news speak) is careless, can we have much confident in the quality or veracity of the content it introduces?
I'm done. For now.
Monday, March 14, 2011
New Obama 2012 Campaign Poster
And it's a good one, obtained via one of today's posts at Power Line:
In the immortal words of a former Alaska Governor, "How's that hope-y, change-y stuff workin' out for ya?"
In the immortal words of a former Alaska Governor, "How's that hope-y, change-y stuff workin' out for ya?"
Messing around with Messiaen (and Radiohead)
Lots of politics and natural disasters to talk about this week, but I've been busy reviewing music over the last couple of days. Check out my Washington Times Communities review of the National Symphony Orchestra's performance of Olivier Messiaen's amazing Turangalila Symphony as well as my backgrounder on the strange electronic ondes Martenot that's used in this 1949 modernist epic. It's entitled "Where Messiaen and Radiohead converge."
And you thought classical music was stodgy.
And you thought classical music was stodgy.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Transformational Liberalism?
Today in Hot Air, Allahpundit discusses Laura Ingraham's woodshed session with NYTimes' faux conservative columnist David Brooks who finds that
Point two: by whose lights is every single thing the Republicans try to do always "scary." (Queue Jim Cramer's "Oooooo" ghost sound.) Either Brooks and everyone else on his NYC cocktail circuit is a wuss. Or they're just doing this as part of their usual elitist preening?
Referring to the video in the Hot Air link, Allahpundit tosses to us the following notion:
Any other questions? Good. Then let's take back our language and American cultural hegemony along with it by refusing to use phony, misleading, elite terms like "transformational liberalism."
The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it.Point one: is Brooks obtusely stupid or is he just kidding about the Pelosi-crats' fitness to govern?? As in bankrupting the USA forever?? To the contrary, I'd say Brooks is unfit to wield a pen. On the other hand, this is the kind of mindless condescension typical of New York Times' writers who never venture beyond Manhattan while voicing expert opinions on the real America they will never know.
Point two: by whose lights is every single thing the Republicans try to do always "scary." (Queue Jim Cramer's "Oooooo" ghost sound.) Either Brooks and everyone else on his NYC cocktail circuit is a wuss. Or they're just doing this as part of their usual elitist preening?
Referring to the video in the Hot Air link, Allahpundit tosses to us the following notion:
You’ll hear [Brooks] say here that he thinks Obama’s not hard left but “a more pragmatic type of liberal.” But in the 2009 column linked above, he acknowledged that moderates were wrong about O and that his “actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice.” Which is it?Answer: neither. "Transformational liberalism" is yet another fine example of a Marxist weasel word (like "progressive"). Transformational liberalism = communism. Period.
Any other questions? Good. Then let's take back our language and American cultural hegemony along with it by refusing to use phony, misleading, elite terms like "transformational liberalism."
Friday, March 04, 2011
Is the Chevy Volt ReVolting?
This just in from Ecofreak blog AutoblogGreen:
Whether anyone is aware of it or not--and the MSM is not going to help you here--the Obama Administration is on a stealth mission to price fossil fuel energy into the stratosphere to force you to buy taxpayer-subsidized boondoggles like the Chevy Volt and to encourage you to "go green," whatever the hell that is. It's all part of the left's "global warming" hoax which is all part of the grand socialist scheme to impoverish Americans by redistributing this country's wealth everywhere but here.
But it's ultimately going to fail. Just as folks are waking up to the Democrat campaign fund game that's being disguised as public employee union-busting, so, too, are people beginning to notice that this administration leaves no stone unturned in thwarting American energy company's ability to extract low-cost, domestic oil and gas resourced from the United States itself. This assures our utter dependence on increasingly unreliable--and costly--foreign energy sources, driving our prices up.
The Volt is just one symptom of this--and perhaps the main reason the administration is still controlling the company--to guarantee that we continue to subsidize a low horsepower car that is not practical in most places, is grossly overpriced. And most importantly, that nobody wants for precisely those reasons.
Of course, AutoblogGreen won't be mentioning this. It doesn't go along with The Narrative.
Peruse Chevrolet's February sales release, and you'll notice one number that's blatantly missing: the number of Chevy Volts sold. The number – a very modest 281 – is available in the company's detailed data (PDF), but it certainly isn't something that GM wants to highlight, apparently. Keeping the number quiet is a bit understandable, since it's lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January.Why? I'll tell these boobs why. Because nobody wants these bloody, overpriced things. We're shocked. Shocked.
Nissan doesn't have anything to brag about here, either (and it didn't avoiding any mention of the Leaf sales in its press release). Why? Well, back in January, the company sold 87 Leafs. In February? Just 67.
Whether anyone is aware of it or not--and the MSM is not going to help you here--the Obama Administration is on a stealth mission to price fossil fuel energy into the stratosphere to force you to buy taxpayer-subsidized boondoggles like the Chevy Volt and to encourage you to "go green," whatever the hell that is. It's all part of the left's "global warming" hoax which is all part of the grand socialist scheme to impoverish Americans by redistributing this country's wealth everywhere but here.
But it's ultimately going to fail. Just as folks are waking up to the Democrat campaign fund game that's being disguised as public employee union-busting, so, too, are people beginning to notice that this administration leaves no stone unturned in thwarting American energy company's ability to extract low-cost, domestic oil and gas resourced from the United States itself. This assures our utter dependence on increasingly unreliable--and costly--foreign energy sources, driving our prices up.
The Volt is just one symptom of this--and perhaps the main reason the administration is still controlling the company--to guarantee that we continue to subsidize a low horsepower car that is not practical in most places, is grossly overpriced. And most importantly, that nobody wants for precisely those reasons.
Of course, AutoblogGreen won't be mentioning this. It doesn't go along with The Narrative.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Why I Left Ohio
"Why, oh why, oh why-oh,
Did I ever leave Ohio?"
--Leonard Bernstein, "Wonderful Town"
This tasty bit of union thuggery via Stacy McCain's The Other McCain:
BTW, note the other good news above, namely that the Ohio Senate has already passed its public employee union limiting bill. The Ohio House is next, then on to Gov. John Kasich for the ol' John Henry.
Wisconsin Democrats-in-hiding take note: the clock is ticking.
BTW 2. The whole sad story playing out in the old Rust Belt is a major reason why I left my original home in Ohio decades ago. No opportunities. None. Businesses have left these states, particularly Ohio and Michigan, in droves. The reason? Unless you play paddycake with public and private union thugs, you simply can't get anything done. By the time everyone's palm gets greased, the money's all gone and improvements never happen. It's as if the Mafia itself has taken over these states. You can't prevail against it. So if you want a life, you leave.
These states have become a national laughingstock, but I'm not laughing. There are good, honest, down-to-earth people living in these states, the greatest and most loyal friends and neighbors in the world. Many vote against their own self-interests by pulling the Democrat lever every four years because it's the only thing they've ever known and there's no one else around to counter the propaganda. But this year, it looks like many of these good people have started to wake up. If Rust Belt state governments can de-unionize to a great degree, they could be very quickly on the way to becoming the leaders of America's 21st century.
(We'll except Illinois, however, still firmly in the grip of the Stalinist state and local government combine that elevated one of its own to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Run, interestingly, by my old Georgetown dorm-mate and now Governor Pat Quinn, this is a state that's rapidly closing in on California and New York for the "let's be the first to default on our debts" sweepstakes.)
Did I ever leave Ohio?"
--Leonard Bernstein, "Wonderful Town"
This tasty bit of union thuggery via Stacy McCain's The Other McCain:
Ohio’s state Senate yesterday passed S.B. 5, which would limit the power of government employee unions. Among those voting for the measure was state Sen. Frank LaRose, a 31-year-old freshman Republican from Akron. After the passage of S.B. 5, LaRose’s Facebook page filled up with comments, including one from Michael Sarge Piotrowski who — as Melissa Clouthier explains at Red State — is a lawyer representing the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police.Gee, sounds like a threat to me. But then again, it's probably not since, as we all know, only Sarah Palin and the "teabaggers" threaten anyone with violence. Never those peaceful Democrats. McCain's site posts a screenshot of the Facebook page just in case it gets mysteriously removed.
“Funny thing about cops, they hold grudges,” Piotroski wrote on LaRose’s page.
BTW, note the other good news above, namely that the Ohio Senate has already passed its public employee union limiting bill. The Ohio House is next, then on to Gov. John Kasich for the ol' John Henry.
Wisconsin Democrats-in-hiding take note: the clock is ticking.
BTW 2. The whole sad story playing out in the old Rust Belt is a major reason why I left my original home in Ohio decades ago. No opportunities. None. Businesses have left these states, particularly Ohio and Michigan, in droves. The reason? Unless you play paddycake with public and private union thugs, you simply can't get anything done. By the time everyone's palm gets greased, the money's all gone and improvements never happen. It's as if the Mafia itself has taken over these states. You can't prevail against it. So if you want a life, you leave.
These states have become a national laughingstock, but I'm not laughing. There are good, honest, down-to-earth people living in these states, the greatest and most loyal friends and neighbors in the world. Many vote against their own self-interests by pulling the Democrat lever every four years because it's the only thing they've ever known and there's no one else around to counter the propaganda. But this year, it looks like many of these good people have started to wake up. If Rust Belt state governments can de-unionize to a great degree, they could be very quickly on the way to becoming the leaders of America's 21st century.
(We'll except Illinois, however, still firmly in the grip of the Stalinist state and local government combine that elevated one of its own to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Run, interestingly, by my old Georgetown dorm-mate and now Governor Pat Quinn, this is a state that's rapidly closing in on California and New York for the "let's be the first to default on our debts" sweepstakes.)
Texas Farmers Under Terrorist Attack
This from a Fox News report headed "America's Third War":
Doesn't every President take an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the union" of the United States of America? How is this President fulfilling his oath with regard to, say, Arizona and Texas. Rhetorical question, of course. (BTW, except for the now-aborted fence, the Bushies were not a ton better on this.) What the hell is wrong here? Do Texas and Arizona need to deputize vigilante groups to get things done? Or is this administration happy with the drug cartels moving their operations over to this side of the Rio Grande?
HazZzMat has been thumping on this issue--the slow descent of Mexico into failed-nation status and its dire consequences for the U.S. Here's just another example of the issue. Do we have to wait for another 9/11-style calamity in America's southwest region before the Federal government--and this president--wake up and do their jobs? Or is this yet another fine example of how the soft tyranny of incremental Marxism in this country is rotting us from within?
BTW, Fox provides a link to the Texas Border Protection site but it doesn't seem to work. For a more generalized link on the issue, try USBorderWatch.com.
In Texas, nearly 8,200 farms and ranches back up to the Mexican border.Need details? Try these:
The men and women who live and work on those properties say they’re under attack from the same drug cartels blamed for thousands of murders in Mexico.
“It’s a war, make no mistake about it,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said. “And it’s happening on American soil.”
“Farmers and ranchers are being run off their own property by armed terrorists showing up and telling them they have to leave their land,” Staples said...This is another example of some very serious business that isn't being covered at all by the MSM, largely because it doesn't track with "the narrative." It's also largely being ignored by the Obama administration because they figure the land in question should go back to Mexico anyway. You think I'm kidding? Well action--in this case inaction--speaks louder than words.
... Joe Aguilar, said enough is enough. After walking up on armed gunmen sneaking undocumented immigrants into the United States through his land, Aguilar decided to sell his farm.“It’s really sad to say, you either have to beat ‘em or join ‘em and I decided not to do either,” Aguilar said.
Doesn't every President take an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the union" of the United States of America? How is this President fulfilling his oath with regard to, say, Arizona and Texas. Rhetorical question, of course. (BTW, except for the now-aborted fence, the Bushies were not a ton better on this.) What the hell is wrong here? Do Texas and Arizona need to deputize vigilante groups to get things done? Or is this administration happy with the drug cartels moving their operations over to this side of the Rio Grande?
HazZzMat has been thumping on this issue--the slow descent of Mexico into failed-nation status and its dire consequences for the U.S. Here's just another example of the issue. Do we have to wait for another 9/11-style calamity in America's southwest region before the Federal government--and this president--wake up and do their jobs? Or is this yet another fine example of how the soft tyranny of incremental Marxism in this country is rotting us from within?
BTW, Fox provides a link to the Texas Border Protection site but it doesn't seem to work. For a more generalized link on the issue, try USBorderWatch.com.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Fire Eric Holder
According to Politico:
Eric Holder has racially polarized the Department of No-Longer Justice to a breathtaking degree. It is astonishing that in 2011, America's chief law enforcement officer has demonstrated, time and again in word and in deed, that the law will be enforced unequally on his watch. If a white attorney general were to play such a game with African-Americans or even hint at it, he'd be toast before the day was out. What makes Holder any different? Rhetorical question of course.
Holder needs to be fired right now. Pronto. There's no place for racism in the Department of Justice. And Eric Holder had ought to know this better than anybody else. But rather than rise above the fray, he's chosen to play the race card in an astonishing manner by institutionalizing reverse discrimination as a key policy of the Obama administrations Department of justice.
2012 can't come fast enough.
Attorney General Eric Holder finally got fed up Tuesday with claims that the Justice Department went easy in a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party because they are African American.Holder was being confronted in a hearing on this issue by Rep. John Culbertson (R-TX) who suggested strongly that Holder was refusing to prosecute what appears to be a fairly open-and-shut case of voter intimidation because the intimidators were black. Indeed, it's tough to arrive at any other conclusion. So Holder tried to evade the issue once again and turn the tables on Culbertson:
"Think about that," Holder said. "When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia—which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people," said Holder, who is black.In other words, since black voters were intimidated in times gone by, it's perfectly okay if they do the intimidating now. This gives a whole new dimension to the pre-1965 "separate but equal" doctrine. Is this retribution, or what?
Eric Holder has racially polarized the Department of No-Longer Justice to a breathtaking degree. It is astonishing that in 2011, America's chief law enforcement officer has demonstrated, time and again in word and in deed, that the law will be enforced unequally on his watch. If a white attorney general were to play such a game with African-Americans or even hint at it, he'd be toast before the day was out. What makes Holder any different? Rhetorical question of course.
Holder needs to be fired right now. Pronto. There's no place for racism in the Department of Justice. And Eric Holder had ought to know this better than anybody else. But rather than rise above the fray, he's chosen to play the race card in an astonishing manner by institutionalizing reverse discrimination as a key policy of the Obama administrations Department of justice.
2012 can't come fast enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)