HOLLYWOOD: Where Fresh Ideas Go To Die.
Archive for 2011
February 23, 2011
CRITICISM OF THE new USDA diet guidelines.
CHANGE: Crude Oil Breaks $110 / barrel.
COAST TO COAST in a pickup powered by cellulosic ethanol.
FAKE KOCH CALLER CALLS SCOTT WALKER:
You could say that it’s bad that the prankster got through, but that shows that he’s willing to talk to a lot of people and also that David Koch isn’t a frequent caller who gets special treatment and is recognized by his caller ID and his voice and manner of speaking.
Doesn’t this prank call prove that Scott Walker is not close to Koch? He doesn’t recognize his voice! He doesn’t drift into a more personal style of speech. He treats him like a generic political supporter.
That’s not how the lefties are spinning it, but then what else have they got lately?
“TRULY NAUSEATING:” Daily Show camel stunt fail. “You know, the world is real. And ‘The Daily Show’ is fake.”
Plus, where is the outcry from PETA? “Probably hanging out with the outcry from the Freedom From Religion Foundation over the Reverend Jesse Jackson leading a prayer (with the crowd of protesters in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda).”
BILL WHITTLE: Obama’s Friends And Enemies.
MICHAEL BARONE: Public Unions Force Taxpayers To Fund Democrats.
Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.
But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s public employee unions. Walker was staging “an assault on unions,” he said, and added that “public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.”
Enormous contributions, yes — to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.
Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.
Hence the violently outraged response to efforts to do anything about them.
AT AMAZON, markdowns on automotive and motorcycle gear.
DO ELITE COLLEGES REALLY TURN OUT higher earners?
TELEGRAPH: Obama’s Strange Silence On Libya.
Investor’s Business Daily: As Libya Burns, Obama Fiddles.
Hey, he’s flummoxed by pirates. What’s he gonna do about Libya?
MORE VIOLENT RHETORIC: Dem Rep to unions: Time to get ‘bloody.’
A Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts is raising the stakes in the nation’s fight over the future of public employee unions, saying emails aren’t enough to show support and that it is time to “get a little bloody.”
“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary,” Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Ma.) told a crowd in Boston on Tuesday rallying in solidarity for Wisconsin union members.
Capuano’s comments come at a time when there is heightened sensitivity to violent rhetoric in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-Az.) shooting in January.
Not seeing much of that “heightened sensitivity” anymore, actually. . . .
UPDATE: Related: The Ultimate Irony of Today’s Rally In Boston.
RUMSFELD FLUMMOXES ANDREA MITCHELL: “I’ve rarely seen a political figure tie a top news personality up in such knots.” She keeps hitting him with conventional-lefty-wisdom spin, and he keeps dragging her back to the facts. No wonder the press hates him. Plus, at the end, a dig at Bob Woodward.
ROBERT HEINLEIN’S EXPERIENCE with political ignorance.
$4 GAS PRICES hit California.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Unions And Medicaid. “It’s not that the union position never coincides with the interests of Medicaid beneficiaries–of course they want there to be more beneficiaries, so they’re going to fight to the death against a decline in enrollment. But when it’s between them and the beneficiaries, the unions choose . . . themselves.”
BOGUS-EXCUSE DOCTORS having their profiles removed from the UW website?
UPDATE: A reader emails: “Your updates on the fake sick notes in Wisconsin got me wondering—if the mass sickout and fake note scheme was coordinated by the union(s), could they be subject to RICO? Not sure it’d be a good thing if they could, but just wondering.” I don’t know. RICO is not my area of expertise.
SPORTS TRIUMPH OF THE DAY: Caltech basketball snaps 310-game conference losing streak.
WISCONSIN UPDATE: State begins review of excuse notes for protesters.
Staff at the state Department of Regulation and Licensing have begun to review roughly 300 e-mail complaints about doctors issuing excuse notes for protesters at the state Capitol over the weekend, officials said Tuesday.
Complaints that name a specific doctor and the alleged violations of rules covered by their licenses will be forwarded to the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board. Letters specifying the complaint will be sent to the doctors at the start of the investigation. . . .
Officials with the Madison and Milwaukee school districts also plan to scrutinize doctor’s notes presented to excuse absences during the protests. Because of the large number of teacher absences, Madison schools were closed for four days, and Milwaukee schools were closed for one.
Stay tuned.
WASHINGTON POST: On Obama jobs tour, unemployed have little voice. “White House officials were unable to give a single example of him interacting, even in private, with a person who had recently lost a job, although they emphasized that they don’t know about every person with whom Obama has talked.”