Saturday, July 18, 2009
HA! Econ Advisor cites Google search as evidence of recovery.
These guys really are a bunch of clowns. I don't know about you, but the very first thing I did after reading this ridiculous story was go to Google and search for "economic depression."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sotomayor
I keep getting asked if Sotomayor should be confirmed. The answer is obviously yes. Republicans need to learn the lesson that elections matter. We've thrown away two opportunities to win Presidential elections in my lifetime... nominating Bob Dole in 1996 and then McCain in 2008, and we've paid dearly both times.
The President gets a wide berth, in my opinion, on the judges he nominates to the bench. If his own party wants to argue the point and say no, then fine. And Harriet Meiers was a great example of a party not simply lying back and taking it when their guy makes a bad choice (The Dems could learn something from that, but they won't because nothing is more important than managing the image of The One).
But as long as the nominee has a very basic legal and intellectual qualification for the bench, and Sotomayor clearly does, then that nominee should be confirmed no matter how much he or she sucks. And believe me, it's hard to think of a collection of opinions I would disagree with more than the Sotomayor rulings that have been highlighted during this process.
So she should be confirmed unanimously, and we should learn our lesson about not screwing around.
That said, those who would argue the Republicans shouldn't take the opportunity to show the country why Sotomayor sucks are just crazy. Not only do we have a responsibility to ourselves to remind our own poiticians and voters why elections matter, but we owe it to the country to make sure that every stone is overturned before anyone, ANYONE, is confirmed to sit in one of the most powerful seats in the most powerful government on Earth.
The President gets a wide berth, in my opinion, on the judges he nominates to the bench. If his own party wants to argue the point and say no, then fine. And Harriet Meiers was a great example of a party not simply lying back and taking it when their guy makes a bad choice (The Dems could learn something from that, but they won't because nothing is more important than managing the image of The One).
But as long as the nominee has a very basic legal and intellectual qualification for the bench, and Sotomayor clearly does, then that nominee should be confirmed no matter how much he or she sucks. And believe me, it's hard to think of a collection of opinions I would disagree with more than the Sotomayor rulings that have been highlighted during this process.
So she should be confirmed unanimously, and we should learn our lesson about not screwing around.
That said, those who would argue the Republicans shouldn't take the opportunity to show the country why Sotomayor sucks are just crazy. Not only do we have a responsibility to ourselves to remind our own poiticians and voters why elections matter, but we owe it to the country to make sure that every stone is overturned before anyone, ANYONE, is confirmed to sit in one of the most powerful seats in the most powerful government on Earth.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
John Mellencamp: Epic Fail
“I don’t think people fought and gave their lives so that some guy can sit in his bedroom and be mean. I don’t think that’s what freedom of speech is,” he continued. “Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people. But somehow it’s turned into ‘I can be an asshole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.’ It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech."
Would it be piling on to point out that I think he's being an asshole and should be forced, preferably by an agent of the Government, to shut up?
Would it be piling on to point out that I think he's being an asshole and should be forced, preferably by an agent of the Government, to shut up?
Monday, July 6, 2009
If I want to know what Republicans are running for Governor of California...
I have to read about it in the Washington Post.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
More dishonest reporting on the gun issue
At this point I think we have to assume these journalists are doing this intentionally, it just happens too often.
See if you can follow the tortured logic this reporter uses in a desperate attempt to make his facts fit the accepted narrative, that evil US gun smugglers are fueling drug-related gun battles all across the Western Hemisphere.
The opening paragraph lets us know what the reporter is going to try and show us.
"KINGSTON, Jamaica – Ships from Miami steam into Jamaica's main harbor loaded with TV sets and blue jeans. But some of the most popular U.S. imports never appear on the manifests: handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates."
But of course you just know that if you read the piece with a discerning eye, he's not going to prove anything of the sort. That's why I clicked on the headline when I logged on to Yahoo this morning.
Check this out...
"Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose origin can be traced, 80 percent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforcement officials have said in interviews with The Associated Press."
Isn't there a crucial piece of information missing from this sentence? Isn't it a piece of information without which, you can't possibly make the assertion the reporter makes in his opening paragraph?
"Of those whose origin can be traced."
Well how many is that? What if they can only trace the origin of 10? That would mean only 8 guns a year come from the United States. And if that's the number, it hardly seems worth an entire AP article. Now maybe it's more than 10, but the article doesn't say, and so we don't know. It's at least as likely that the number is 10 as it is that the number is all 1,000 isn't it?
And while we're at it... what about that 1,000 number. I'm getting that number from this sentence.
"The volume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that end up in the hands of drug cartels — Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year."
If you say "fewer than 1,000" I think it's fair to assume that the actual number is something like 9,467. And the reporter HAS to know that this is exactly what his readers will assume. But you have to read four paragraphs deeper into the piece to get to this sentence.
"But they have a long way to go. Jamaican authorities have confiscated only 100 guns coming into ports in the last five years, along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. That in turn is just a fraction of the 700 or so weapons confiscated on the streets each year."
So while it's technically correct that 700 is "fewer than 1,000", it's also true that 700 is a lot closer to 500 than it is to 1,000. That's one hell of an exaggeration, no? The reporter ignore a 30% error between what the actual number is, and what he wishes it was, the much scarier figure of 1,000, and just prints the scary number... even though he reveals it to be false later on in the same damned piece.
Increasing gun control measures is serious business. If you want to support the idea that US gun owners and sellers should be subjected to increased regulation an surveillance, that's fine. It's a free country. But this is one of those issues where you owe it to the world to make your argument with accurate facts backing them up. And to use a powerful platform like the AP to flat-out lie about the issue does more harm to your argument than good.
I don't know who Mike Melia is, but this is shamefully biased reporting, and he should be ashamed of himself.
See if you can follow the tortured logic this reporter uses in a desperate attempt to make his facts fit the accepted narrative, that evil US gun smugglers are fueling drug-related gun battles all across the Western Hemisphere.
The opening paragraph lets us know what the reporter is going to try and show us.
"KINGSTON, Jamaica – Ships from Miami steam into Jamaica's main harbor loaded with TV sets and blue jeans. But some of the most popular U.S. imports never appear on the manifests: handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates."
But of course you just know that if you read the piece with a discerning eye, he's not going to prove anything of the sort. That's why I clicked on the headline when I logged on to Yahoo this morning.
Check this out...
"Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose origin can be traced, 80 percent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforcement officials have said in interviews with The Associated Press."
Isn't there a crucial piece of information missing from this sentence? Isn't it a piece of information without which, you can't possibly make the assertion the reporter makes in his opening paragraph?
"Of those whose origin can be traced."
Well how many is that? What if they can only trace the origin of 10? That would mean only 8 guns a year come from the United States. And if that's the number, it hardly seems worth an entire AP article. Now maybe it's more than 10, but the article doesn't say, and so we don't know. It's at least as likely that the number is 10 as it is that the number is all 1,000 isn't it?
And while we're at it... what about that 1,000 number. I'm getting that number from this sentence.
"The volume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that end up in the hands of drug cartels — Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year."
If you say "fewer than 1,000" I think it's fair to assume that the actual number is something like 9,467. And the reporter HAS to know that this is exactly what his readers will assume. But you have to read four paragraphs deeper into the piece to get to this sentence.
"But they have a long way to go. Jamaican authorities have confiscated only 100 guns coming into ports in the last five years, along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. That in turn is just a fraction of the 700 or so weapons confiscated on the streets each year."
So while it's technically correct that 700 is "fewer than 1,000", it's also true that 700 is a lot closer to 500 than it is to 1,000. That's one hell of an exaggeration, no? The reporter ignore a 30% error between what the actual number is, and what he wishes it was, the much scarier figure of 1,000, and just prints the scary number... even though he reveals it to be false later on in the same damned piece.
Increasing gun control measures is serious business. If you want to support the idea that US gun owners and sellers should be subjected to increased regulation an surveillance, that's fine. It's a free country. But this is one of those issues where you owe it to the world to make your argument with accurate facts backing them up. And to use a powerful platform like the AP to flat-out lie about the issue does more harm to your argument than good.
I don't know who Mike Melia is, but this is shamefully biased reporting, and he should be ashamed of himself.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Oh the irony....
Sending a man to do a man's job.
Obama sends USS John McCain to intercept North Korean ship.
UPDATE: From a writer friend of mine who e-mailed "meanwhile the USS Obama (A Kayack) is taking on water off the coast of Iran."
Obama sends USS John McCain to intercept North Korean ship.
UPDATE: From a writer friend of mine who e-mailed "meanwhile the USS Obama (A Kayack) is taking on water off the coast of Iran."
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