Friday, June 18. 2010
 Revealed: Orangutans use language of at least FORTY different gestures to 'talk'
Yesterday was Bunker Hill Day
PJ O'Rourke on public schools: End them, Don't Mend Them. A quote:
Schaeffer calculated that Los Angeles, which claims $19,000 per-pupil spending, actually spends $25,000. The New York metropolitan area admits to a per-pupil average of $18,700, but the true cost is about $26,900. The District of Columbia’s per-pupil outlay is claimed to be $17,542. The real number is an astonishing $28,170—155 percent more than the average tuition at the famously pricey private academies of the capital region.
I believe that the $ should follow the kid to wherever the family wants.
Vitter: Obama Exploiting Oil Spill to Push Liberal Agenda
Krauthammer: The O is Dreamer in Chief
Soccer is a Capitalist Tool
Q&O:
Legislators are not executives, they are process orientated admins. The skill sets for the two are completely different. One set requires decision making of the highest order – sometimes on an instant and unilateral basis. The other set requires slow deliberation, compromise and consensus building. One deals with pure leadership. The other deals with the duller aspects of management. Executives are result oriented. Administrators are entirely process driven. Executives use action as their means of accomplishment. Administrators set goals and work toward them as their means of achievement.
Hmmm. Chicago Law Prof on Obama: “The Professors Hated Him because he was Lazy, Unqualified & Never Attended any of the Faculty Meetings”
Other McCain:
...am I the only reader who resents being lectured to by 22-year-olds? I don’t care what your SAT score was, sweetheart. You’re not that precocious.
Duke: Goodbye to One Man, One Vote
Thursday, June 17. 2010
Female Viagra fails
From Shiver at Pajamas:
When I see a president with enough leisure time on his hands to party (not on his own dime, lest we forget) chime in on a baseball umpire’s call, and never miss a beat on the Democrat fundraising circuit or a chance to shave one more point from his golf score while crises explode unfettered from here to kingdom come, I see a president so out of touch with reality that it would take a complete nitwit not to assume the man has simply lost all his bearings. Flipped out. Gone ‘round the bend. Is so out to lunch that he doesn’t even have the good sense to pretend he’s hard at work so as to quell the public’s growing-more-frantic-by-the-day concern.
And when all is said and done, I shall always remember the Hey Jude sing-along as the most clarifying image of the whole unseemly mess we refer to as the Obama presidency. He’s done.
Is he? I did think this quote from his speech was strange, when he spoke of "our determination to fight for the America we want for our children ... even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like."
More detail from that IPCC insider:
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider.
The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was ”only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography …
Powerline: The O's long nose
IRANIAN AND HEZHOLLAH FLOTILLAS ARE SAILING
There is plenty of oil around
The BP Oil Disaster: Big Government’s Dream Come True
$5m prize for good governance goes unclaimed again in Africa
Feds move to grab power over state governent unions
Did you wonder, as I did, who Mead was and what he does?
131 Law School Deans Fail To Sign Letter Supporting Kagan
Wednesday, June 16. 2010
The US Labor Department is going after employers of children age 13 and under.
Anyone illegally employing 12-and 13-year-olds will now face a penalty of $6,000 for each violation. The maximum fine previously was $900.
Those employing children under 12 will face a penalty of $8,000 per violation. That's up from a previous maximum of $1,150.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (soh-LEES') says the new fines are part of a stepped up effort to crack down on illegal child labor. The penalties could go as high as $11,000 per violation in cases that involve injury or willful and repeated offenders.
I started working at age 5, sweeping the sidewalks in front of stores, dusting stock, shoveling snow, and the myriad of other jobs I could find in the neighborhood. Twenty-five cents for an afternoon’s work was big bucks to a poor slum kid. More important, I learned work habits. Friends raised in rural areas worked in the fields at age 5. They learned work habits. We all feel better off today for the learning.
No one is in favor of putting kids in sweat-shops for 16-hour days, or such, as my grandparents were in the early 1900s.
But, next time you hear anyone complaining that kids don’t have work habits, or don’t value the money they have or the comforts, thank the types who feel that childhood and adolescence should be a skate or so protected as to deny kids and teens the opportunities to become adults with better work habits and self-responsibility.
From Gateway:
Over the past 30 years:
Democrats have blocked the development of new sources of petroleum.
Democrats have blocked drilling in ANWR.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the coast of Florida.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the east coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the west coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast.
Democrats have blocked building oil refineries.
Democrats have blocked clean nuclear energy production.
Democrats have blocked clean coal production.
But, they’re funding projects in Brazil.
We have the Chinese drilling off our southern coast, and Brazil is drilling everywhere they can. I think the Dems have an aversion to American oil.
The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider
Compare, contrast: News Judgment, Washington-Post style
Chantrill begins:
It is true that liberalism is cruel, corrupt, wasteful, and unjust. But one should never forget its delusion. The delusion is a simple one. It is a belief that government can be made rational and efficient. This delusion leads our liberal friends into disaster after disaster.
Applebaum: Acting like politicians can solve all our problems just makes us look weak
NPR Poll Shows Tough Road Ahead For Democrats
MSNBC bashes the O. Scroll down and see the Frank Luntz video. Good grief. Americans really can see through BS.
Powerline: Was Einstein bright?
Tiger: Meritocracy and teachers unions cannot coexist
A new friend in Iran? Ahmadinejad: Obama Is Immature
Remarkable: One-fifth of NYC supports Tea Party
Hillary Clinton: Secretary of Your Estate
No Soccer please, we're Moslems
Cruel, via Insty:
IN THE MAIL: From Mike Cullen, Whiny Little Bitch: The Excuse-Filled Presidency of Barack Obama. That’s rather harsh for a sitting President, but it does support my observation that Obama’s first term has already morphed into Bush’s second term. .
If not Carter's...
Steyn:
Now Mr. Bawer finds himself cited for "Islamophobia" in an official report from Norway's near parodically Orwellian "Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion". .
A repeat, which splains it all:
Tuesday, June 15. 2010
Boortz: THE GOLDEN AGE OF GOVERNMENT UNIONS IS OVER
Legal Insurrection: Unions Rescued In Rhode Island
These things should be illegal. The intrinsic conflict of interest would never be legal in business.
Remember CBS’ 60 Minutes Mike Wallace? One of the most feared questions used to be, “I’m Mike Wallace, and I’d like to ask you a few questions,” as Wallace showed up with camara crew at someone’s front door. As this tribute DVD to Wallace summarizes his career, “Take any great event in the last 50 years, and CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace has been there – asking the tough, frank, and even impertinent questions of the famous and the infamous.”
Now we have a young person daring to just ask a congressman whether he supported the Obama agenda, actually “"Do you fully believe in the Obama agenda?" The congressman repeatedly asks, “who are you?” The young person repeatedly answers, “a student.” The congressman grabs the questioner. (It is still unknown who the questioner is.)
It may be an “assault” by the congressman, punishable under law. It is a congressman acting excessively, when he could have just walked away.
It is, also, a sidewalk interviewer, accompanied by another shooting video, refusing to identify himself.
I would ask the same question as the congressman did, and without an answer or an answer that would lead me to not talk with the interviewer, I would walk away. (Scott Johnson at PowerLine agrees, and still reminds us that the congressman acted like a “bully and a nut.” I think neither, but rather unhinged as the congressman apologized for acting.)
At least Mike Wallace identified himself.
Yes, there is fear being struck into the hearts of liberal Democrats by being exposed as fools and tools by ambush journalism. Liberal journalists are defending the congressman.
There’s also many fools and tools among Republican congressmen.
Will those who defend anonymous ambush journalism be as defensive of it when Republican fools are similarly exposed?
Anyone being interviewed has the right to know who the questioner is, and the right to not reply to questions. Anyone asking a question of another should have the civility and integrity to let the interviewee know who the questioner is, at least if asked. Unless assaulted themselves, the target of the interview does not have the right to assault the questioner. That much is clear.
What isn't clear is whether ethics, journalistic or otherwise, flow both ways. It should.
Monday, June 14. 2010
NYS borrowing from pension fund to make annual required payment to pension fund. Just like Euroland.
I have heard of people who use credit cards to pay the interest on other credit cards.
The New York Times’ headline could have been “Turkey’s Islamist Government Is Just Doing the U.S. A Favor, Wink, Wink” instead of “For Turkey, an Embrace of Iran Is a Matter of Building Bridges,” by Sabrina Tavernise.
With the imprimatur “News Analysis”, the NYTs bureau chief in Istanbul, Sabrina Tavernise, with a 1993 B.A. from Barnard College in Russian Studies, tells us that “Top leaders of Mr. Erdogan’s party believe that only a Turkey that is independent from the United States will be an asset for Washington in the long run.” Tavernise adds, “Turkey is not lost, they say, but simply disagrees with the United States over how to approach the problems in the Middle East.”
Although mildly disagreed with by some sources in her article, her “news analysis” is an apologia for Turkey’s Islamist government siding with Iran, Syria, Hamas against the US, Israel, and the West. Oh, and now Hizbullah. Erdogan has invited the head of Hizbullah, on the recommendation of Hamas, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may attend also, to attend a rally in Turkey honoring Erdogan.
Tavernise is mostly carrying water for the Erdogan government, akin to the NYT’s Walter Duranty for Stalin’s.
Continue reading "NYTs “Walter Duranty” Bureau Chief In Istanbul"
Saturday, June 12. 2010
Episcopalians against Israel: Religious Rally Against Israel. Good grief.
Why didn't the O give his Auntie a hand? Oh, I get it. Government is supposed to take care of our aging and dysfunctional relatives. We pay taxes, don't we? Are there no workhouses?
They lied. Health overhaul to force changes in employer plans
Nobody in America could read before the Federal Dept of Education was created. Harsanyi: The Revolt Against Liberal Orthodoxy
TNR: Why haven’t progressives mounted more of a challenge to the war in Afghanistan?
Stasi-Style Doctors On The Way. Can't wait.
Kagan: A results-oriented justice. Is that like a hangin' judge?
Tiger: ACORN, voter fraud, and Barack Obama. Can you imagine if Bush...
Powerline: Take back South Dakota
Big Hollywood: Mad at Christians
Eric asks Do you have the freedom to eat what you want? Of course not. Government gets to decide for you, thus simplifying your life and keeping you healthy for work on their tax plantation. Too bad there is no reliable prescription for a healthy diet, yet. And who would care anyway? I was raised on Cheerios, Fluffernutter sandwiches, TV dinners, and spaghetti from a can, and I turned out fine, 6'2", strong, slim, Conservative, and a highly intelligent chick magnet. I never saw a salad outside an Italian pizza restaurant when I was a kid. I thought salads were an Italian thing. My Dad called it "rabbit food," and he still will not touch it. He warns everybody eating a salad, without a trace of pc, that "the Mexicans shit in the fields."
How Little League baseball put me on the road to Conservatism
Sweden: 13-months of Paternal leave? I can think of a fun way to game this so you'd never have to work until retirement age. Heck, why should guys have to work at all? We guys are mostly too cool to work. Too sensitive, too. God made us for lovin', fishin' and huntin'.
The O as Anglophobe. That is shameful. For all of her faults, she is America's Mother Country.
On what grounds can Lefties attack Ayaan Hirsi Ali? And why would anybody want to? She is brilliant and beautiful. Maybe too cute for the Lefties...
Now off to our special annual urban hike with pals and gals: Battery Park to the Cloisters (if we make it). With whistle stops at pubs along the way. Need good shoes and a good liver for this event. Broadway was the old Indian trail. One good thing about urban hikes is that you don't need to carry anything except a few bucks in your pocket. Another is that you can take the subway back home. Next year, I am considering handing out Maggie's Farm t-shirts for the hike, with a Farmall and a logo. Our group is around 25 people now, and we draw straws in advance for who gets to decide on the route. I was hoping for the end point to be Alexander Hamilton's farmhouse, but somebody picked the Cloisters.
Friday, June 11. 2010
NAACP Branded As "Racist" For Promoting Idea That Black People Are Stupid. Make sure you go to Ace's link and watch the very brief video.
The pathetic part is that these folks don't see how they are beclowning themselves, and if they know what black holes are, it doesn't show. They are looking for black hos. Black hos, if they are seeking them, are easy to find on 11th Avenue in the 30s and 40s after 9 pm, along with the white and hispanic and even asian hos. It's as multicultural as a White House Cabinet.
Black holes are a trickier business.
The issue, of course, is not stupidity. Stupidity comes in all colors, as does beclownment. The issue is using real or feigned ignorance, or real or feigned paranoia, or real or feigned offense, to score points by bullying innocents. That is immoral.
Jobs report a nightmare for Obama progressivism
Rabbi Who Taped Helen Thomas Is Inundated With Hate Mail and Death Threats. If you go to his site, you can read the emails he's been getting.
VDH: The Incredibly Wonderful World of our Sensitive Elites
Pence to Obama: Whose side are you on, anyway?
Lindsey Graham Said What About Climate Change?
Rasmussen: Angle Leads Reid by Wide Margin. Also, It Begins: Nevada GOP Winner and Tea Party Favorite a 'Far-Right Conservative'
How can the powerful run a country for the common good if people can say anything they want? Free Speech: Use It or Lose It
You greedy bastard. You want to keep your mortgage deduction. I haven't heard people mention that the mortgage deduction, like all itemized deductions, fades out with income level and has done so for many years now. I am a flat-taxer: 13% on every penny of everybody's net income.
Thursday, June 10. 2010
What’s this Turkey hash with Erdogan’s fingers in it?
Many, including in Washington, don’t “get” how a NATO nation, since WWI on a Western-oriented course (at least until 2002), could be so complicit in the IHH thugs upon the Marvi Marmara and so palsy with Iran, Syria and other despots challenging regional peace and the US.
I turned to Gerald Robbins, the Turkish-speaking expert and Associate Scholar at Philadelphia’s Foreign Policy Research Institute, about what’s on the plate in Ankara.
Turkey’s internal politics are a mystery to most Americans. Robbins says, “The folks around President Obama have no sense of the nuances involved. Symbols far outweigh substance with them.” Robbins continues:
Their mindframe is Turkey should be elevated in regional importance since it is large, Muslim, and Western-oriented. Remember that Obama visited Turkey shortly after his inauguration to symbolize a new outlook in regional US diplomacy. Israel is seen as less important since it can’t serve as a “bridge” into the Muslim world.
Robbins asks, “I wonder if the US Jewish lobbies understand this mindframe?"
I asked Robbins to sketch out what Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan’s political environment is about.
Continue reading "Who “Gets” Turkey? Interview With An Expert"
Mitch Daniels: Ride Along with Mitch
Kuhn on the O's tipping point:
At some point, the bad show also goes on too long. Negative perceptions of the character are formed. That's the tipping point. And it's possible, but not necessarily probable, that Obama's point has already come to pass.
Jobs report a nightmare for Obama progressivism
Senate showdown over EPA power grab
This could get to be fun: CARLY FIORINA on Her Impressive Record, Sean Hannity & Barbara Boxer’s Hair
Shaidle: Toronto’s Love of Diversity Is Tested by Islamists
Genetics of Jews. Still Semitic.
Days after being caught cropping photos for political effect, Reuters releases a photo bank of Hamas propaganda images from Gaza.
From Coyote:
...here is a sure fire test for a progressive. If given a choice between two worlds:
- A capitalist society where the overall levels of wealth and technology continue to increase, though in a pattern that is dynamic, chaotic, generally unpredictable, and whose rewards are unevenly distributed, or…
- A “progressive” society where everyone is poorer, but income is generally more evenly distributed. In this society, jobs and pay and industries change only very slowly, and people have good assurances that they will continue to have what they have today, with little downside but also with very little upside.
Progressives will choose #2. Even if it means everyone is poorer. Even if it cuts off any future improvements we might gain in technology or wealth or lifespan or whatever. They want to take what we have today, divide it up more equally, and then live to eternity with just that.
Wednesday, June 9. 2010
 Consider, if you have not done so, adding a comment to today's Grandpa post. We'll make it an annual repost, a website Keepsake.
How we think our forager ancestors lived. Like hippies, shared women and shared food.
Ask a (science) Nobel Laureate. Cool. My question: Are numbers a real reflection of reality, or just a handy human invention?
Meg Whitman will be the next gov of California. But is the job do-able with a Dem legislature?
Hating Christianity Is Nothing New for Progressives. Always wondered how the Left managed to portray Hitler as a "right-winger" when he was a socialist.
Emery on Messiah Fatigue:
How did he turn health care into a wedge issue against his own party? Why are we awash in a sea of dead pelicans? Why has he so much time on his hands for fundraisers and galas? Why are our relations so much worse with all of our allies, while our -- and their -- enemies go on building bombs?
Based on these facts, Obama seems nobody's highway to heaven. He's the sleek, splashy sports car that sits in the driveway, that looked so cool in the showroom, and handled so well on the test drive, but has a bad habit of stalling in traffic, and just doesn't take to the road.
WSJ: The Alien in the White House - The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.
Red Rosie O’Donnell Calls For ‘Communism’ In America; Confiscate BP’s Assets. Confiscate her assets first, please.
O Admin policies destroying jobs for youth
Sissy: What really goes on beneath the burka?
Still crazy after all these years: Daniel Ellsberg
Iran mocks US sanctions. (where did that link go?) Oh, here it is.
How many real jobs has Jerry Brown created in his life? Jerry Brown comes out swinging
at Meg Whitman
The Limits of Liberalism: The dangers of ideological confusion
The stupidification of America
Reb on Russell Kirk:
Saying "limited government is good" is not very much different from saying "I wish I had a full head of hair." The more adamant a person is in these simplicities, the more likely it is that he or she has an allergy to thinking.) If you want to save America, you need to get yourself schooled in Kirk.
President Kick Ass cannot even handle a pet dog. Pathetic. Even when my kids were little, they would not put up with that from our dogs. That is now a worthless dog, and it is the owners' fault. How your dog behaves is a reflection of you and your training - or lack thereof, so analyze this:
Tiger on risk-aversion:
Risk is the price for most great and fun things. Sadly, few people today accept that exchange or even acknowledge that one comes with the other, and now we are fixing to expunge risk from our economic lives just as we have from the playground.
One Cosmos on single women:
...But if we accept the premise that the greatest threat to our liberty is the vast, intrusive, coercive, greedy, and corrupt State, then it is a simple matter of fact that single women are responsible for electing politicians such as Obama who promise to grow government -- just as married women and men can be statistically relied upon to oppose the leviathan state.
Obama Threatens to Beat Up Gulf Coast. Related, re President Blame Bush: Obama to high school grads: 'Don't make excuses'
Rabbi with cell phone camera beats MSM
Barone on Michigan:
...rich liberals may be able to afford Obamastimulus and Obamacare, but voters with modest incomes don’t think they can.
Obama’s real problem is that the era of hope and change is over, and he hasn’t adjusted to it. He’s confronted by a debt crisis, the oil spill, and high unemployment. These are front-burner issues a president is expected to address seriously and on which he’ll be held accountable. Yet Obama is still stuck on his old agenda. And he dwells on sentiments like bipartisanship that no longer resonate.
Obama is hoist on his own petard. The man who blames Bush for everything now finds there are some things presidents cannot do. More deeply, the opposition party that persuades the public government can solve all their problems, discovers once in power there are problems their government cannot solve.
Alas, it will take more time than they have to learn the next lesson: that governments which try to solve the insoluble, more or less invariably, make each problem worse.
Tuesday, June 8. 2010
The so-called Cadillac excise tax in ObamaCare will force tens of millions of Americans into Yugos.
The 40% excise tax imposed by ObamaCare upon “Cadillac” medical insurance and related plans could actually increase costs to employers by up to 60%.
The Democrat Congress voted for it to penalize the supposedly well-to-do and to raise revenues. Some conservatives support it as well, to force more cost-consciousness in the choice of medical benefits and potentially restrain medical care usage and cost-inflation.
The effects will be drastic, well beyond what many are aware.
The Cadillac excise tax is paid by the administrator of the medical plan, whether the insurer or claims administrator, and will be passed on to the employer sponsoring the plan for its employees. The excise tax is not deductible from taxes. So, if in, say, a 35% federal tax bracket the 40% becomes an actual 54%. Most states conform to federal tax regs, so add in the state tax impact and the true cost of the Cadillac excise tax can be as much as 60% or more.
The excise tax will take effect in 2018. It impacts the excess of annual premium above $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family (including as of 2013 a restricted to a max of $2500 annual employee contribution to pre-tax flexible spending accounts to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses), those thresholds then adjusted by CPI inflation which is far below medical cost inflation. (Some “dangerous” trades and some elders have slightly higher thresholds.)
Add that 40% to 60% on top of current and future premiums and the result will be a sharp increase in employers and employees’ costs, resulting in sharp decreases in benefits for medical care.
Now, let’s segue to a medical insurance client of mine in Southern California. Medical insurance premiums in Southern California are well-below those in many other states, NY, NJ or Mass. as prime examples of states that have much higher premiums due to community rating and guarantee-issue which are also parts of ObamaCare to be imposed on all states.
It’s a small firm. Neither the owners nor their employees are rich. Their earnings are middle-class. The owners are both married with two child dependents. An employee is married, his wife having had expensive life-saving treatments for cancer, an ongoing expense. Their medical insurance is with a major reputable carrier. The plan is a PPO, with in-network and out-of-network benefits. They have excellent in-network access to top doctors and hospitals, but to save his wife’s life the employee had to use the out-of-network benefits to go to another state at Mayo. The employer pays most of the employees’ premium.
The current monthly premium for a family is $3031 ($36,372 annually). (The benefits are below.)
At their last renewal, they could have cut a family’s monthly premium to $2597 ($31,164 annually), for an increase in out-of-network coinsurance (member responsibility to pay) from the present out-of-network 40% of negotiated (discounted) charges and 100% of the excess above that to 50%, an increase of $500 per member in-network and $4000 out-of-network in maximum annual out-of-pocket expense($1000 in-network and $8000 family), and a $5 brand Rx co-pay increase.
The business owners do not drive fancy cars, live in fancy houses, go to fancy restaurants or on fancy vacations. Their priority is on protecting their families and that of their employees, especially with an employee’s wife having a life-threatening disease needing special out-of-network care.
They chose to not cut benefits, now anyway.
In the future, they will have to cut benefits to far below even the currently available alternative.
Multiply that cut in benefits by millions of employers, and tens of millions of employees.
As Al Jolson famously said, “Ya ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Americans with medical insurance will be forced by ObamaCare to switch to Yugos.
(Current plan benefits: In-network, doctor visits are $20, hospital inpatient is 20% of the carrier’s negotiated discounted charges, and prescriptions are $10 for generic/$25 for brand on the formulary and $40 non-formulary brand. The annual out-of-pocket maximum is $3000 per member, with a two-member maximum of $6000 for a family. The lifetime covered charges is $5-million. Is that “Cadillac”? Oh, by the way, as Politico reports, the ObamaCare "Health law could ban low-cost plans" as well. American workers are screwed either way by ObamaCare.)
I do not blame BP for the oil. It's a SNAFU, and such things happen daily in life if not usually on this scale. Blaming and scapegoating are for nursery school and politicians. This BP gas station is good, tho:
Space entrepreneurs.
Who created one of our favorite web sites? Denis Dutton, of Arts & Letters Daily
How bad are things in Gaza?
Also, US Asked to Look into American Backers of Gaza Flotilla
Gateway: In 2009 the Obamas spent over $10 million of taxpayer money on drunken White House parties. Hey, that was my money. That was my Beer Fund.
As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather
Global warming hoax update, h/t Vanderleun
GOP Still Sees Gains in November Despite Tightening Races
Re Krauthammer:
You may wonder whether [Krauthammer] ever applies his psychiatric knowledge to his analysis of politics. He has been known to joke, “As a professional, I diagnose Senator X with . . .” — but the real answer is no. “Psychiatry has no application to politics,” he says, “and anyone who pretends it does is a fraud.”
Helen Thomas: Blacks should go back to Africa. How about WASPs back to England?
What's "news"? Surber, from his piece on Al Gore:
(The) 10 elements of news: immediacy, proximity, consequence, prominence, suspence, oddity, sex, conflict, emotion, new.
News stories must have at least one of these elements. The more elements, the greater the story — usually.
Moonbattery asks:
Any English trolls care to step up to the plate and explain how you're not really living in Muslim-occupied territory?
Megyn Kelly: Actually, Elton John had a great time at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding. h/t, Insty
NYM responds to Kinsley's bashing of Tea Parties:
Michael Kinsley sneered at participants in the Tea Party Movement, in the Atlantic, dismissing them as people only interested in a tax cut, and challenging their patriotism. Kinsley admires instead the 1960s anti-war movement, which he describes as “selfless and idealistic.”
Bah, humbug! I was there. Whom does Kinsley think he’s kidding? The 1960s anti-war movement was pure selfishness. The student revolution gave people our age the chance to throw their weight around and they took it. Adolescent hormones, excess energy, and self-importance found expression in opportunistic rebellion against authority powered by the disproportionate weight of an unusually large age group sept. A lot of people back then went out to the demonstration motivated by nothing nobler than the desire to see themselves on the six o’clock news.
Monday, June 7. 2010
Dr. Arie Friedman on A Dying Profession
I think it is still appealing (as a second income) for those who find the work interesting and challenging. It will be mostly women in the US, I think, in the future, and on government pay.
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It's working flawlessly: President Obama's outreach to Muslim countries