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November 28, 2005

Thoughts on the Thanksgiving Parade "News"

Being Thanksgiving weekend, the news was a bit slow in US politics. The big story seemed to be that Matt and Katie failed to report the news that the M&Ms balloon was involved in an accident that resulted in two injuries. The big question of the weekend was whether Matt and Katie, as representatives of the "news" division of NBC, should have broken away from coverage and told the story of the accident.

Lot of folks believe that they SHOULD have broken away for the news. The general argument is that as members of the "news" team, they had a responsibility to cover this as news. I disagree. My main argument is that Matt and Katie are NOT members of the "news" team at NBC. The NBC Today show isn't really a news show at all. It is merely entertainment posing as news. If it were news, then the focus would be on the news of the day. Today focuses on many things, with the news serving as a sidebar. That NBC has the Today Show falling in the News Division is a mistake on the part of the NBC organization.

With that in mind, NBC was right to NOT cover the balloon accident news as news during the broadcast of the parade. The real culprit here is that the modern network news mentality has moved far away from telling the news. Today's network news is a product, sold to a news-consuming audience that craves lightweight coverage. Knowing their market, the big-three networks now focus on fluff, activism, and scare tactics for the flagship broadcasts. The morning shows, aimed at the housewife and retiree crowd, have been dumbed down to not only what the networks believe those audiences can handle, but what the ratings say will sell.

Ratings are a major problem with the network news. Focusing on ratings means taking the focus away from telling the news of the day accurately. To do their jobs properly, they'd have to ignore the ratings. That isn't going to happen.

As for the parade broadcast, I didn't watch it. If I had, I wouldn't have been watching to see breaking news about accidents and injury. I'd have been watching to see actresses lip-syncing christmas tunes as they passed in front of the NBC booth. It's that simple.

Instead, I was watching "Greg the Bunny" on IFC.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 21, 2005

Most Inspirational Movies of the Century

AFI is polling for the Most Inspirational Movies of the Century. That's an interesting concept for a list. Betsy Newmark offers her suggestions for the list and I'm sure more will be coming. I thought I'd mention a few of my own thoughts.

Posted by Lockjaw at 9:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 15, 2005

BOTW Quote Re: Al Qaeda in Iraq

Zarqawi is the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, or, as the Democrats call it, al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda. Some news organizations have taken to calling AQII "al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," apparently counting on their readers' being too ignorant to know Mesopotamia is "Iraq" in Greek.

From Opinion Journal's Best of the Web.

Posted by Lockjaw at 6:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 14, 2005

Terminator TV Show - Sarah Conner Chronicles

For the fans of the Terminator series of movies (which includes my wife and myself), Fox has ordered a pilot for a new show that focuses on Sarah Connor and her son John. The series will be set between the second and third movies, and will be more character driven and less cyborg-action oriented. Let's hope they get a quality product, and that it actually turns into a good series.

If it is of high quality, expect it to be cancelled after a move to a hardly-watched timeslot against stronger shows, as seems to happen to nearly every other Fox show that my wife and I like. Latest quality Fox show to get the axe, the highly acclaimed, award-winning Arrested Development. Then again, is Arrested really being cancelled? It's hard to say. Only the first 13 episodes of the season are being shown, and the "back nine" aren't on order. Maybe Fox will smarten up and stick this show back on a good night.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 11, 2005

Mmmmm, Coffee

I'm blogging from the coffee shop today. The wife exercises at a local Curves. Next door is a nice little coffee shop called Mr. Bean. Fairly recently, the shop changed ownership. That's a good thing, because the coffee here is really good now. Before, the java was on the weak side. I'm still trying to figure that out, because the science behind coffee is fairly simple. The only way I can figure that the mochas and cappuccinos were so weak was that the shots were short, but that's speculation. The "little bird" says the previous owner did things like re-use grounds, and similar activities. I know I never had that problem, because I always had freshly ground beans used for my drinks. That's a benefit of paying attention to the drink prep.

Now, the coffee actually tastes like coffee. My grande latte with tiramisu tastes fantastic. The new ownership also brought in wireless access, and has a PC available for free use by the customers. It's really nice. Maybe I should grab a table one morning on my day off, set up the PC, lay out some business cards, and set up shop. It only takes a couple clients to make it worthwhile.

One drawback? They're playing the local oldies station on the radio. I'd much prefer the "Jack-style" station from nearby that they call "Simon." Of course, my real preference would be to fire up the PC and listen to Radio Paradise in some headphones. Maybe I'll bring some earbuds next time.

There is another coffee shop in town. It has always been busy, every time I've been there. For some reason, though, it has changed hands a few times since opening, and never seems to have the same people. Compared to the old Mr. Bean, it had much better coffee and wireless. They took out their wireless a while back. I'm not sure if it was brought back by more recent management, but they finally have some competition on coffee quality.

Mmmmmm, coffee. *drool*

Posted by Lockjaw at 3:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Left Wrong on WMDs Again (and Again, and Again...)

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. The left continually says that Iraq posed no threat, that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that Hussein made no attempts to gain access to nuclear materials. None of this is true, of course, but that doesn't stop people who have no understanding of the word "truth" from saying it over, and over again. Saddam Hussein had made open threats against America many times, and had his military fire on our planes for years. He used WMDs on the Kurds, and we have found chemical weapons. The first two points, therefore, have long since been proven false.

Now, the third major argument of the left goes down in flames. The BBC is reporting on an operation by the United States to remove 1.77 tons of enriched uranium and other radioactive materials. In other words, Iraq had a nuclear program, just like the intel had said.

"The United Nations nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - and Iraqi officials were informed ahead of the operation, which happened ahead of the 28 June handover of sovereignty."

One day, the left will learn to not speak authoritatively on stands they have no evidence to support.

No, probably not.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Military Applications of Silly String

Hat tip to Geek Press for this interesting story. Alejandro Hernandez, during his stay in Iraq, found an interesting use for Silly String. When entering a building, this wonderful toy of children, teenagers, and drunk college students turns into a tripwire detection tool. He sprayed it across the room, and a tripwire could be detected because the foam string would lightly rest on the wire. Pictures of the Silly String in action are at this link.

Donations of Silly String are requested for Hernandez's brother, currently performing similar duties in Iraq.

SGT Dennis Hernandez
HHC 2/502 Inf
101st ABN DIV (AASLT)
APO AE 09398

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 8, 2005

French [Muslim] Youth Riots Continue - Media Oblivious

As I walked into the break room at work, this morning, a co-worker of mine wondered aloud what the reasons were behind the riots in France. In a carefully worded sentence, and a hushed tone, I gave him a major detail he hadn't been aware of, and that most of the major media has been avoiding. These youth that are rioting in France are Muslims, and evidence exists that shows the riots to be much more organized than they appear.

Newsday gives a little of the background story of the riots.

"The two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore, were polite young men who liked to play soccer. Their families were of African origin, one from Mauritania, the other from Tunisia.

"They grew up in a sprawling public housing project in Clichy-sous-Bois, a bleak northern Paris suburb, and they died on Oct. 27 by accidental electrocution while fleeing a police identification check."

Two muslim kids flee from a police ID checkpoint, and in the process of their flight, are accidentally electrocuted. That's enough motivation to start days of riots, destroy millions of dollars in personal property, and directly or indirectly, cause additional deaths. What a pathetic excuse that is. That's almost as pathetic an excuse as Yassir Arafat's "palestinian" intifada because Ariel Sharon decided to pay a visit to the temple mount in Jerusalem.

One of the most visible weapons in the riots is the infamous "Molotov Cocktail." Now, any kid could grab a glass bottle and a rag, load up on gasoline, and make a firebomb, but police have raided apartments and found bomb factories creating these weapons for the rioters. This is a clear indication that the riots are more than simply a groundswell of dissatisfaction. Someone is fanning these flames, and ensuring that the rioters have the tools to destroy as much as they can.

If you're willing to dig a little deeper, which is easy enough to do with Google News, you can find this information for yourself. It's just too bad that we can't trust CNN or many of the other major media outlets to do this basic research, or tell the truth about it once they discover it.

That Islam was involved in these riots was a surprise to my co-worker. It shouldn't have been.

Posted by Lockjaw at 10:21 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

David Limbaugh on Liberal Orthodoxy

What do liberals believe? That's become a hard question to answer. Gone are the days when you could easily name what liberals believe in. Once, you could say they believed in specific issues. Now, though, they've taken on a particularly weird orthodoxy that has little in common with their old ways. In his latest column, David Limbaugh describes the current belief system of the left in no uncertain terms. He does a great job of laying out their statements against the truth. Information like this contributed greatly to my turn away from liberalism a decade ago. If only the current batch of liberals could follow a logical thought process, they might still be able to turn away from the dark side.

Posted by Lockjaw at 9:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 6, 2005

Bill Clinton Says Hillary Would Be Better Prez Than He

Bill Clinton says that Hillary would be a better President than he was. That's a pretty hard statement to argue with. It would be hard to be a WORSE President than Clinton was, though it has been known to happen before.

Clinton goes on to say that he was too young to be a good President.

"I think she wouldn't make as many mistakes because, you know, we're older and more mature, and she is far more experienced now in all the relevant ways than I was when I took office."

The big question, though, is if Hillary Clinton would run for President promising a co-presidency, like she did when Bill ran. Somehow I think not. Before, she made sure to let us all know who was boss of that family. Now, it's established as fact.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 3, 2005

Excellent Explanation of Oil Markets

DJ Drummond, over at Polipundit has written a fantastic entry on the economics of oil. I've written on this subject in the past, but Drummond really did a fine job of covering a lot of the details of why the oil prices fluctuate. Also, there's a great chart showing the inflation adjusted prices of gasoline since the early 1970s. If you think gas prices are outrageous, and that the oil companies exist just to screw you, this post should be a good education.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 1, 2005

100 Million Missing Women?

While persusing the website of one of the authors of Freakanomics, I found an interesting article from Slate by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt. The article tells of the work of Emily Oster in studying the problem of the "missing women" in Southeast Asia. The hypothesis of the missing women is that, given normal ratios of births of male to female children, there should be many more females in Southeastern Asia societies than there are. The supposition is that the reason for this disparity is mysoginistic in nature. Oster showed that much, but not all, of this disparity can actually be traced to a higher than normal rate of Hepatitis B infection in those societies. As Hepatitis B infected women are more likely to give birth to boys, many of those missing women were simply never born at all.

The article is quite an interesting read. It ends with another anecdote about Oster that I found quite interesting as well. I'll leave it to you to check it out.

Posted by Lockjaw at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Michelle Malkin's New Book - Unhinged

Michelle Malkin has a new book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild. It's on my short list of books I really want to read. Malkin points out:

"It’s not Republicans taking chainsaws to Democrat campaign signs and running down political opponents with their cars. It’s not conservatives burning Democrats in effigy, defacing war memorials, and supporting the fragging of American troops. And it’s not conservatives producing a bullet-riddled bumper crop of assassination-themed musicals, books and collectible stamps.

"It’s not a Republican who invoked Pol Pot and Nazis and Soviet gulag operators when discussing American troops at Guantanamo Bay. That was Democrat Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who kept his Senate Minority Whip position and who continues to blame an “orchestrated right-wing attack” for what came out of his mouth.

"It’s not Republicans who suggested that President Bush had advance knowledge of the September 11th attacks or that Osama bin Laden has already been captured. Those notions were advanced by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and current Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

"And it wasn’t a Republican who asserted that the war Iraq was “just as bad as six million Jews being killed.” That was Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel, who has refused to apologize and whom no Democrat leader has denounced.

"The views of unhinged liberals are no longer relegated to the private remarks of a few Democrat politicians or the bloviations of a few fringe figures on the far Left. The syndrome is far more pervasive, intense, and sanctimoniously self-delusional than anything on the Right."

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Alito Nomination Showdown Begins

Nearly 24 hours after news of the Alito nomination emerged, we've had a little time to see what the reaction is going to be. As usual, the Democrats fail to offer the same respect and deference to the President's nomination that the Republicans gave to Democrat presidents. When a Democrat president nominates someone for a judgeship, even a SCOTUS appointment, Republicans will point out differences, but in the end recognize that the President is the one tasked with making the choice. When Republicans presidents nominate, Democrats insist that they should consult with them so they can get who THEY want instead of who the President wants.

That's why, in the final Senate vote, Democrat nominees get virtually unanimous support, while Republican nominees have to worry about the vote count. The Constitution says that a SCOTUS appointment is the President's job to make, and the Democrats don't care about the Constitution. Is that a strong statement? Yes it is, but history supports it. Check the count.

John Roberts, nominated by a Republican 78-22
Steven Breyer, nominated by a Democrat 87-9
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, nominated by a Democrat 96-3
Clarence Thomas, nominated by a Republican 52-48
David Souter, nominated by a Republican but considered "acceptable" by the Democrats 90-9

In fact, as you go back down the list, Democrats get to have their nominations virtually without a fight, but Republicans have to nominate someone acceptable to the Democrats or expect a battle. That the Democrats allowed Scalia to get on the bench with a unanimous vote is less a sign of comity than it is a sign that Democrats just aren't all that bright.

So, here we are again. The President has made his nomination. The Senate now gets their chance to take part in the advice and consent phase. The Senate should be concerned with how Alito interprets the Constitution of the United States of America, the controlling law of the land. The Democrats, though, have one thing they care about more than the Constitution. Abortion will be the single most important issue in this nomination fight.

Looking back at the nomination history, it becomes clear why SCOTUS fights have become so much more heated in recent years. Until Reagan, the Democrats were winning the abortion issue. If you want to kill your baby, you can do so right up until it sees light outside the womb. Heck, the Democrats have actually fought to allow the baby to be killed after it has seen light outside the womb, but that fight hasn't been won yet. Nixon didn't have to worry about the abortion issue, because his nominations were pre-Roe. Ford didn't have to worry, because he wasn't pushing the issue of protecting the children from Democrats.

It really wasn't until Reagan came along, and the Republicans realized that their political power was truly on the rise that the abortion fight became important. The left, energized by their defeat of America in Vietnam, thought that they should be the winners in politics, as well. Reagan's whipping of Carter at the polls was demoralizing, so the Democrats became hateful. Abortion, they argued, should be made legal retroactively in the cases of Reagan and Jesse Helms.

Once the left realized that a successful, popular, Republican president had the power to shift the makeup of the Supreme Court enough to possibly overturn Roe-v-Wade, they went nuts. Opposition to nominations became the battle for which they prepared every day. Roe-v-Wade became the most important issue in the nation, to the left. As liberalism turned from political viewpoint to religion, abortion became the child sacrifice and liberal senators the high priests.

So, here we are. Another nomination has rolled around. This time, the nominee is clearly anti-murder. You'd think that would be a good thing, except that the left refuses to recognize the snuffing out of a human life as murder if it just happens to be a baby in ANY pre-birth state. Because Alito is anti-murder, specifically in the case of the unborn child, Democrats will oppose him to the end. It's their way. Their faith is in danger.

Here's the funny thing about it all. If Roe-v-Wade was overturned today, abortion would still be legal tomorrow. That's how meaningless this fight is. Of course, meaningless means without meaning. That pretty much sums up the modern Democrat Party in a nutshell.

Meaningless.

Posted by Lockjaw at 5:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack