October 16, 2004
Jon Stewart Destroys Crossfire.
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show eats Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala of CNN's Crossfire alive. (not for the faint of heart or the weak of bladder. He's not joking but it is hilarious.) The Volokh Conspiracy has a link to the video Here. Jon may be a staunch Democrat but he gets my vote on this one.
Jon: How old are you Tucker?
Tucker: I'm 34 years old.
Jon: Any you still wear a bow tie? I'm not calling you stupid Tucker, it takes a really talented guy to tie a bow tie.
That's the nicest thing he said. This is must see T.V.
MSNBC reports that Democrat bloggers are more organized?
Flipping through the channels this Saturday I made the mistake of dropping by MSNBC's weekend Horserace Hardblogger show. What a friggin' crock. They made note that Slate.com and Salon.com were both nationally recognized and democratic. They went on to say that they were both being dwarfed in traffic to the likes of Daily KOS which they stated was one of the top rated bloggers. They also made note that democrat bloggers had been aranging bus trips to battleground states to blog. Hopefully, this piece is strong enough to directly tie MSNBC to the ranks of officially democratically biased.
Let's start this thing off at the top: Slate.com is a sister website to MSNBC in the MSN parenting structure. That would indicate to me a democratic bias. The opinion paper being put out by the parent company is democratically biased would direct me straight away to believe that their news agency was as well.
Now for the Daily KOS, Markos Moulitsas. He is one of the hottest bloggers in the sphere according to N.Z. Bear's TTLB ecosystem. He is the number two "pundit", second only to instapundit, Glenn Reynolds. Although Glenn tries to err on the side of independent he frequently and unapologetically errs on the side of republican. But these aren't the only two guys in the sphere. Let's roll down the top 10 on the TTLB:
Instapundit - Republican
Daily KOS - Democrat
Talking points memo - Democrat
The Drudge Report - Republican (barely)
Atrios - Democrat
Little Green Footballs - Republican
Andrew Sullivan - Democrat
The Volokh Conspiracy - Republican
Blogs for Bush - Republican
The Washington Monthly - Democrat
Tally: D:5 R:5
This gives the demographic representation that there is no real superpower in the blog realm. There is no super organized democrat group. If anything, it shows a super organized republican group: Blogs for Bush. All others are individuals with followers, dictators if you will.
But that's not the end of the KOS story. I no longer know where the article is but KOS actually gave credit to the Bush bloggers for being a more organized group of bloggers. It looks to be that the Democratic Republic of MSNBC is not giving us the whole story. Talk about trying to create the news.
I almost forgot: we ride busses too.
Update: I almost forgot the most important blogger in the entire ranking structure. N.Z. Bear himself (gatekeeper of the ranking structure) is on the Bush bandwagon.
Update again: Washington Monthly has just been bumped from the top ten buy everyone's favorite Dan Rather killer POWERLINE! That changes the score from 5/5 to 6/4 (7/4 if you include N.Z. Bear).
October 15, 2004
Fair Game or Foul Play?
Okay, Cheney's daughter,
Fair Game or Foul Play?
Let's start where this crap began, with the name drop by John Edwards during the VP debate:
"I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing,"
If you go back to the tape you'll note that Cheney was ready and willing to rip Edwards' perky little face off if he spoke ill of his daughter or their relationship...and I would have loved to see it. As it stood, he came off as paying Cheney a compliment on his daughter at a rather inopportune moment. For the next 20 minutes or so Cheney had that "what the hell was that about?" look on his face.
Time passes, nothing is mentioned by anyone until the last debate.
Asked about Gay marriage, Kerry evokes Mary Cheney in a move as distasteful as his invocation of his 15 year friend Superman Christopher Reeves (May he be walking somewhere in heaven). Here's the comment:
"We're all God's children, Bob, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not a choice."
At this point I believe it is appropriate to let you know that Mary Cheney has been considered off limits to reporters throughout the same-sex marriage debate. This is not an accident. This is intentional attacking a family and not debating a point. What was he attacking though? John Edwards called their family support and relationship a wonderful thing. Again, this is out of place in a debate and certainly uncalled for. Lynne Cheney, Mary's mother can no longer hold back and fires off this comment:
"Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man. Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."
Even Arizona Sen. John McCain, the person Kerry tried to claim as "on his side" called Kerry's remarks "certainly inappropriate." Now it's time to enter the spin doctors to try and mop things up. One more time, what are they driving at with this? What does the Kerry/Edwards hope to say with this line of off limits commenting? Let's go to Mary Beth Cahill, the queen of spin for the answer:
"She seems to be very proud and open about her sexuality, her parents seem to be very proud of her. It comes up, there are a lot of questions here about gay marriage, and she is someone who is a major figure in the campaign. I think it's fair game and I think she has been treated very respectfully."
It's fair game? It has NEVER been fair game. She is NOT a major figure in the campaign. She is a daughter working with her father's campaign. There is nothing more to it. Her relationship with her family has ALWAYS been strictly OFF LIMITS.
So is this what everything about? They want to call Cheney a hypocrite for supporting Bush while loving his lesbian daughter? I guess if you can't make one legitimate attack on him for Halliburton (Every attack on Cheney for Halliburton has been proven to be groundless including the uncontested Iraq contract.) attack his family. Can you get any more classy? Is this the way we want our president to talk about people? Can they go any lower?
Nicolle Devenish, Bush's Communications Director knows the score. They're trying to clean up a mess.:
"Mary Beth Cahill revealed a campaign strategy last night to Chris Wallace, that Mary Cheney is fair game. Kerry's new statement is complete double-speak. He's just trying to clean up a mess."
Unfortunately, this was not the end, nothing got cleaned up; it gets dirtier. Elizabeth Edwards talks about the elephant in the middle of the DNC's room in her comments about Lynn Cheney's remarks:
"She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs. ... I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences. ... It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response"
There you have it, the Democratic party has called Cheney ashamed of her daughter. This is dirty pool. There is no justification for this. They can't even show respect for a diverse family. Really nice campaign strategy. It really calls America to your softer side John. Of course, what do you expect from a couple of lawyers, kindness? The presidency is not a trial and I am not a part of your jury.
All quotes derived from this FOXNews article.
October 14, 2004
"Exaggerations"
I'm not going to give you a blow by blow of the debate. I'll just cut it down to the two broadsides at their source. Everybody I work with gimaced in unison to both of these, including our poor misled democrat. (He's excused, he's a card carrying actor.) I'll flirt with more from the debate but I'm not going to "punditize" it. These are best served in pure form:
BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those "exaggerations".
"BUSH: I want to remind people listening tonight that a plan is not a litany of complaints, and a plan is not to lay out programs that you can't pay for.
He just said he wants everybody to be able to buy in to the same plan that senators and congressmen get. That costs the government $7,700 per family. If every family in America signed up, like the senator suggested, [it] would cost us $5 trillion over 10 years.
It's an empty promise. It's called bait and switch."
Fellowship 9/11
If you are going to watch one F 9/11 spoof film this year watch this one. Ifilm is the absolute bomb for indie film makers. This is yet another shining example of what can be done on a less-than-shoestring budget.
So Sauron and Sauramon are in league with each other? The white wizard and the dark lord scheming together? That's prepostorus!
October 12, 2004
Now there are two..no wait...three anti-Moore movies
For your viewing edjutainment;
Thanks to the Pajamahadeen I have discovered a second movie poised to set Michael Moore on fire. This movie hosts such personalities as Dick Morris, Ron Silver, Zell Miller and others. Enter Fahrenhype 9/11. This movie can be found at Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and NetFlix as well as other places.
UPDATE: The Pajama Editor has informed me that there is a third movie out there: Michael Moore Hates America. Apparently this one's not republican based and has Penn and Teller (heavy libertarians) commenting in the movie. They've had a showing on the 12th..hey! that's today! And another showing on the 15th. More information will follow when it becomes available.
Just as a reminder there is still the wonderfull flick Celcius 41.11 you can pick up. Unfortunately, it's not out anywhere but the Citizen's United interactive page.
And if you want to watch a free documentary about how college is misdirecting our youth you can go here. Evan Coyne Maloney has done some very nice work as an anti-protestor with a video camera in the past. This is quite possibly his best work.
My suggestion: buy Celcius 41.11, go down to blockbuster, rent both Fahrenhype 9/11 and Fahrenheit 9/11 (yeah, I guess I plugged it. Oh well.), then watch in this order: Fahrenheit 9/11, Fahrenhype 9/11, then Celcius 41.11. And if you haven't been sent into a catatonic state of gloom, doom, death and dispair you can go online and watch Evan's documentary to polish off your day.
NEW POLL SHOWS BUSH KICKING THE SNOT OUT OF KERRY!!
In a new technique nearly as accurate and contradicting as Zogby's and Gallup Bush has trounced Kerry 67%-33% with Nader and Badnarik represented in the appropriate states. The results can be found here.
Meetup.com and Strike Ten have joined together and have just recently completed their unbiased poll of over 2,000 bowlers. Here's how it went:
The Bowl-Off used a unique scoring system to prevent ballot stuffing. Bowlers were divided into teams based on their candidate (Kerry, Bush and, in some places, Nader and Badnarik). After the teams bowled, the top 3 scores for each team at each Strike Ten-affiliated bowling center were recorded. All told, President Bush carried 67% of the centers and had a higher average score of 175-161. Nearly 2,000 peoplle participated in over 40 states.
Not only are there more Bush bowlers but Bush bowlers are better bowlers! Have a good day and go bowling.
Kerry wants to win one for Superman
Daisy led me on to something Wizbang posted. Kerry had this to say about Christopher Reeves' death:
Unfortunately, there's one little problem: He had a heart attack and fell into a coma on Saturday...or was it actually Thursday. Would this be considered the media trying to stretch the truth to save their savior Kerry? Even still, I doubt that Kerry would be one of Superman's last calls.
Here's the even bigger dig. I'll say it loud so nobody misses it:
YOU DON'T NEED AN EMBRYO TO HARVEST STEM CELLS! YOU CAN GET THEM FROM YOUR FAT!!
Here's the most recent article if you don't believe me. You don't even have to harvest them ahead of time. Even skinny people have enough fat to harvest. The person who is sick with Parkinson's or some other disease can supply their own stem cells. Here's another article showing fat stem cells mending a fracture that never would have been able to heal by normal means. There was even an international conference held by IFATS about this stuff on October 3-5 in Pittsburgh.
People really need to get a grip and check into things. Kerry's cheap jab from the shoulder of a dead man shows me he does not understand the sanctity of a human life.
Afghanistan From The Left Side Of The Street
On Saturday Afghanistan had its first ever elections. Over 40% of the women in that country voted. It was a great day for the Afghan people. They had become more advanced than Saudi Arabia in key areas of third world development at that moment. They became a new beacon for Democracy in the Middle East. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, his staff and right minded bloggers lauded the event as a significant date in Afghan and world history. Democrats were nearly silent. The only thing I've been able to pull up on comments after Saturday was something Doug linked for me here.
It's a quote from Bob's Big Boy (Edwards):
"If you look at what's actually happened in Afghanistan since the Taliban was toppled, their opium production is back up. They're producing 75 percent of the world's opium," Edwards said. "On top of that, there are big chunks of the country still in the control of warlords and drug lords, and there are still some serious security issues in the country."
Yep, same old doom and gloom they've been pushing since day one. I wonder if they've ever heard the expression "If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all."? I guess that's considered a violation of free speech now isn't it? Other than their standard "I would have done everything he did only better" line lets see if we can extract some fact from this:
...since the Taliban was toppled, their opium production is back up. They're producing 75 percent of the world's opium...
Yes, that is true. But that's not the whole story. In 1999 Afghanistan was the world's leader in opium production with 75%. That number equated to about 4,000 tons of raw opium. The year 2000 heralded about 70% of the world market. The Taliban put strict orders against all opium growers, banning the production and burning fields and labs. It cut their countries overall revenue in half but by 2001 UN officials believed there was going to be no opium coming out of Afghanistan that year. They were mistaken, as Pakistan was flooded with opium during the war. In 2002 they regained their throne as the leading producer of opium on the world. Now they are back at it and 2003 was believed to hold 3,750 tons of opium for Afghanistan. What else do they know how to do? They've been growing and harvesting mass quantities of opium since 1978 when Mexico was prevented from making it. This is and has been their best selling product for around 26 years.
So how do we get the Afghans to try something new? Should we try and move them to South America's biggest producer of Cocaine? We could do what is currently being done and just sit around like the rest of the UN and do nothing. We could go in another direction; we could assist Hamid Karzai with his plea for international assistance in the cracking down of drugs in his country. One of the biggest problems with cutting out the opium trade is that you have to replace it with something else. One would have to make it economically feasible, nationally respectable, and physically safe (drug lords run drug farmers, they kill people) for them to produce corn, soybeans, wheat, and other food crops. Are there any international takers? Yeah, I didn't think so.
If someone wanted to be really enterprising this could be the cure for hunger in Africa. Go ahead Mr. Edwards; spend more of my tax dollars to support the rest of the world. We will be broke but Afghanistan will be saved. Oops, I almost forgot, we are currently the world's biggest producer of grain products. Would Mr. Edwards like to kill their livelihoods as well?
Here's the second piece:
...On top of that, there are big chunks of the country still in the control of warlords and drug lords, and there are still some serious security issues in the country...
Could these be the same warlords and drug lords that have been there since 1978? Again, no other nations are standing up and asking to help. Once again we have asked the international community. And once again the international community would rather debate the intricacies of wine and cheese. There is a funk in Europe that I've mentioned before that has become so complacent with things that they refuse to take any action on anything outside of their little sphere of influence. They are a bunch of internationally lazy fools. I'm sure any one of the three "conservative euros" out there will agree with me.
Or are these the warlords and drug lords that have been hiding in the hills of Pakistan that no one has been able to infiltrate without complete disaster including the Pakistani's? That's right, Pakistan's government will not even go up there because it's so backwater. Is there an Arab equivalent to Deliverance? Would they start the movie with dueling 'uds? This is seriously one international redneck part of the world. They have a different way of dealing with things but can be slowly persuaded to see the light of civilization, just like we're doing in West Virginia. Maybe Edwards can take his southern accent and talk to them like a redneck emissary?
(No insult meant to those with southern accents or living in West Virginia. I'm just trying to prove a stereotypical point.)
October 11, 2004
Don't wanna' be an American Idiot
Don't want a nation controlled by the media. (sing along if you know the words)
- Green Day; American Idiot -
Yep, I know it was supposed to be an anti-Bush song but it's looking more like a jab at the democratic leaning media every day. First there was Rathergate that we shot to hell. Now I drop by Jeff's place, Beautiful Atrocities and notice he's not got the ABC eye. He's also got a nice post including Drudge's recovered ABC memo.
Here's the line that everyone is, or at least should be, talking about:
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we hold both sides equally accountable.
- Don't want a nation controlled by the media. -
Now that this memo has come out in addition to CBS's Rathergate what news can we trust? Who can we turn to for honest reporting? Will NBC get slam dunked as well? Are they just as bad or not? If I were an NBC executive I'd be pulling my hair out about now. I'd be doing my best to distance myself from the other big boys. I'd probably even be willing to put out a memo stating to report Bush more favorably than Kerry just to show greater distance from the other "big News" agencies. That would make the democrats happy. Take one look at MSNBC and you know that this will not happen. Have you noticed how biased their debate polling has been? They'd lose 75% of their target audience. It's not going to happen.
So why do they do it? Why do they try to pass themselves off as the unbiased media when they are anything but? I'm sure I'll get some flack for this one but Matt Drudge is coming off more independent than just about all of the majors. CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and FOXNews are all biased to varying degrees. Newspapers are usually not much better. From The Washington Post to The Washington Times you will have different leanings for every issue. Why not just label yourself what you really are? We all know what we're looking at? Are they just in denial?
I'm not disappointed with the fact that all news agencies are biased. They've been that way since the dawn of time. They can't help it, human beings have political leanings and it comes out in their writing. The thing that torques me is the fact that they will go screaming to their news deaths before they will admit that no, they are not "fair and balanced" after all. Most of us are smart enough to figure it out on our own but they really suck in the "American Idiots".
My first and last flip-flop plug
I had to run up to Wal-Mart today to pick up some art supplies for one of my son's many projects. As I was pulling in I noticed a John Kerry bumper sticker on the right side of the minivan next to me. Something seemed odd so I took another look at the back, there was a George Bush sticker on the left side. I looked at the Kerry sitcker again. Then I noticed it, I wish I had my digital camera at the time. It looked like this:
I nearly hit the light post I was laughing so hard. I love America's sence of style.
Fortunately, the wife of the person who had created such a masterpiece was in the car waiting. She was a bit worried that the sticker would be frowned upon. Her husband had just put it up yesterday when they picked up the sticker at the peanut festival and she scoled him for doing it. I had to remind her that Chesapeake, VA is an extremely republican city. I told her to remember to tell her husband about the great sticker art and went on my way. God I love the city I live in!