Archive for 2009

PATTERICO: L.A. Times Columnist Uncritically Quoted Star of Latest ACORN Video. “In September, L.A. Times columnist James Rainey wrote a column in which he uncritically quoted ACORN worker Lavelle Stewart suggesting that she had turned Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office . . . It’s too bad Rainey never received that warning. Because guess who is the star of Giles and O’Keefe’s latest ACORN video? . . . I now publicly ask the question Rainey would not answer privately: having written a misleading column that falsely suggested that ACORN in L.A. was clean — and that Giles and O’Keefe were dishonest — is James Rainey now going to write a new column and correct the record?”

It’s amazing how Breitbart mousetraps them again and again.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Memo to CBS and Katie Couric: Release the unedited Palin video. “Sarah Palin criticizes CBS for editing long interviews into the most damaging soundbites and making her look stupid and irritable. There’s an easy solution: Release the unedited video. There is a lot of material in the book making assertions about all sorts of trenchant comments Palin supposedly made. Palin says she was asked the same questions over and over in an effort to elicit a bad answer. She says that some of her answers were clipped after some simple beginning and before she delved into details that would have made her look smart and knowledgeable. It would be very easy to check if we had all the video. Put it up on line.”

This is why Sarah should have brought her own camera.

THE INSTA-DAUGHTER ON WATCHING PALIN: “Sarah Palin’s got to stop blaming the media soon. It’s like Obama blaming George W. Bush for everything. It works for a while and then it gets old.”

TAX COURT LACKS JURISDICTION to order IRS to apologize to taxpayer. Hmm. Has it no inherent equitable power? And the claim that an apology would violate sovereign immunity strikes me as dubious.


DONATED BLOOD AGAIN for the Blue/Orange blood drive. The questions just seem to get longer, but the crowd was good today — and, somewhat unusually, almost all male. Usually it seems to lean the other way.

I don’t know if Tennessee will beat Kentucky again, but either way it’s a win. And yeah, this is a recycled photo from a past donation, but it always looks about the same. And hey, it seems like everybody’s recycling imagery these days anyway. . . .

“SMART GRID” A THREAT TO PRIVACY? “According to the study, examples of information that utilities and partner companies might be able to glean from more granular power consumption data include whether and how often exercise equipment is used; whether a house has an alarm system and how often it is activated; when occupants usually shower, and how often they wash their clothes.” And even more fine-grained information when combined with other data.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 2010 BETA: First Impressions.

BYRON YORK: Did Holder stiff Senate on Justice Dept. lawyers who defended jihadis? “Some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were taken aback Wednesday by Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to reveal conflicts of interest involving Justice Department lawyers who, before joining the Obama administration, worked on behalf of Guatanamo detainees. One reason it has taken so long to deal with the Guantanamo cases is the number of legal challenges lodged by lawyers for the detainees, some of whom are now working on detainee matters in the Obama Justice Department.”