JACK WELCH SLAMS HARRY REID: His ‘comments about Gov. Romney’s taxes, religion reach new low’.
Archive for 2012
September 27, 2012
ME IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Give Egypt’s Aid Money to Libya.
ANN COULTER CAUSES MASS HYSTERIA ON ‘THE VIEW,’ WHOOPI BLEEPED: Alternate title: comedienne who believes moon landings were faked disputes Coulter’s take on American history.
ZOMBIETIME: The Five False Assumptions Behind Poll-Skewing.
IF YOU WANT TO SCARE SOMEONE OUT OF THE HICCUPS, don’t point a gun at their face. Remember, never point a gun at something you’re not willing to shoot.
AT AMAZON, markdowns on family- and kid-friendly videogames.
Also, today only: T3 ManeTamer Ionic Ceramic Tourmaline Flat Iron, $59.99.
CLAUDIA ROSETT: In The Shadow Of Ahmadinejad’s Hotel.
BRINGING AMERICAN FOOTBALL to South Asia. “India is in love with football, sure. But we’re talking fútbol, not its burly, hairy-eared U.S. cousin. But a new venture, the Elite Football League of India, or EFLI, is betting that South Asia will fall for the American game. With backing from high-profile investors like former NFL head coach Mike Ditka and movie star Mark Wahlberg, the EFLI has built an eight-team league, with squads representing Sri Lanka, Pakistan and various India cities. Its goal is to build the game from the ground up, carving a new niche in the region’s growing sports sector.”
THE DESIRE NAMED STREETCAR: “It’s time to rethink America’s retrograde love affair with trolley technology,” Samuel L. Scheib writes at Reason, in an a new article titled, “The Streetcar Swindle.”
“The [contemporary] streetcar is like a bus on rails, but it has no advantages over a bus,” says Gregory Thompson, professor of transportation planning at Florida State University and chairman of the Transportation Research Board’s Light Rail Committee, in Scheib’s article.
But light rail in general has one advantage over a bus — at least for the cities who commission such projects, a 2006 study by the CATO Institute noted:
A transit agency that expands its bus fleet gets the support of the transit operators union. But an agency that builds a rail line gets the support of construction companies, construction unions, banks and bond dealers, railcar manufacturers, electric power companies (if the railcars are electric powered), downtown property owners, and other real estate interests. Rail may be a negative-sum game for the region as a whole, but those concentrated interests stand to gain a lot at a relatively small expense to everyone else.
And spreading the wealth around is the operative phrase of the decade, isn’t it?
ARE EMAILS KILLING the art of communication?
BENGHAZI: Yes, it was a terrorist attack, and yes, Obama and the State Dept. have known all along, Jim Treacher writes. As he adds in a previous post on the subject, “You know things are getting bad for the Obama administration when they have to give in and acknowledge consensus reality.”
DON’T BE MEAN TO THE KITTY A Houston woman shot her husband in the stomach after he threatened to harm their kitten. The husband recovered, but I suspect he won’t see his wife’s kitty for the rest of his life. The wife has been charged with aggravated assault.
REVENGE, OBAMA STYLE: Casino magnate and Romney-backer Sheldon Adelson’s wife has an op-ed in the Daily Caller today in which she goes on the offense against the Obama Administration (whose DOJ is investigating her husband for bribery and money laundering) and mainstream media:
Those who currently chase after my family, who demonize us for our political positions, are acting on motives contrary to American values. And those in the media who are collaborating with these people are also acting from the same wrong political motives. Indeed, they are feeding it with a media double standard — allowing for Democrats what is forbidden to Republicans.
Adelson has a legitimate point about media bias in favor of team Obama. Just consider the nasty hit job of the Huffington Post on Adelson yesterday, the headline of which was “Sheldon Adelson: Investigation Into His Casinos by Justice Department is Top Reason for Backing Romney,” and then went on to conclude, “Beyond the potential for a friendlier hearing from federal prosecutors, Adelson stands to be on the fun end of a $2 billion tax cut if Romney wins as well.”
Yeah, Huff Post– I’m sure that’s it: Adelson couldn’t possibly support Romney for other reasons, like the state of the economy or maybe the fact that Romney doesn’t have a history of bullying opponents who exercise their First Amendment rights.
OBAMA’S APPROVAL RATING MIRRORS 2010:
For all of the wishful thinking in the mainstream press about President Obama’s positioning 40 days before this election, Obama’s approval rating looks remarkably similar to what it was on this date in 2010 — shortly before his party lost a historic 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats.
He really does seem to be phoning it in at times, doesn’t he?
BOB ZUBRIN: The Truth About DDT and Silent Spring.
I also recommend his Merchants of Despair.
RECOVERY SUMMER FALL WINTER NEVER? “Has the U.S. economy turned a corner? Yes, and then another corner and now it’s going backward. A slew of bad economic data today,” as collated by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute:
If the above forecast is correct, the National Bureau of Economic Research might wind up declaring that the U.S. economy slipped back into recession in late 2012 even though the economy was actually not yet contracting at that point. (Here is my post from earlier on why we are in the recession red zone.)
And if that happens, economic historians might well shove aside the weak three-year recovery and call the entire 2007-2013 period, the Long Recession or some such. I have already have been, just like the 1980-82 period was a long recession, two downturns sandwiching a brief recovery.
“I can only express my disgust so many times, Ace adds. “This is huge, and the media is embargoing it entirely.”
Well, they’ve got bigger stories to focus on — such as, did Romney hire a new blogger for his campaign staff?
SANDRA TSING-LOH: The Problem Is That No Man Is Good Enough For Me And My Friends.
James Taranto responds: “Well, allow us to inject a male point of view. Suppose you’re the purportedly perfect man–a guy who has the qualities of Messers. X, Y, Z and Q all rolled into one. Why would you want to spend 90 minutes, much less a lifetime, with someone who’d rather scream at you than change a light bulb herself?”
UPDATE: Reader Stephen Ystebo writes: “One very positive sign I’ve noticed over the last couple years is what appears to be an ongoing (to borrow your term) ‘cascade’ effect regarding the current state of society’s treatment of men. The Atlantic article is a very good example. A couple years ago, any comment in support of the women being the issue would have been rare and immediately pounced upon by both men and women. Now we have an article – in the Atlantic of all places – where almost every comment is made by men and women fed up with how things are and writing in no uncertain terms about it. It gives me hope that we may start moving towards the center a bit.”
Yes, you see that even in New Zealand.
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OBAMA AD: “TIME FOR A NEW ECONOMIC PATRIOTISM:” Because the old economic patriotism worked out so well.
TEACHERS UNIONS VILIFY NEW MOVIE, but filmmakers “Won’t Back Down.” Given Hollywood’s own dependence on unions, note the blue on blue angle to these attacks:
One industry source yesterday confirmed reports that the Screen Actors union president was asked by union officials to warn the movie’s stars about union bashing. On the “Today” show Monday, after protests at the premiere, Gyllenhaal went out of her way to say she’s not a union basher.
Meanwhile the American Federation of Teachers’ president, Randi Weingarten, has denounced the movie for “using the most blatant stereotypes.” She has a point: Gyllenhaal’s fictional child’s teacher is a heartless monster. But when Weingarten falls back on blatant stereotypes herself, blaming growing anti-union sentiment on right wing cabals, she loses credibility. Numerous Democrats, despite all that teachers union funding, are now also pushing back, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who just chaired the Democratic National Convention, and Obama’s education secretary, Arnie Duncan.
But this isn’t just about Hollywood. Right here in Boston, City Councilor John Connolly says he’s “hugely frustrated with the pace of change,” irate Boston’s new teachers’ contract was settled “without adding a single minute to our short school day.” Connolly said his own child’s school, the Trotter, was “at the bottom of the barrel four years ago.” But now it’s a so-called “turnaround school” with longer days, where principals can actually hire teachers they want. The difference, said Connolly, is miraculous. Now, that sounds like the makings of a feel-good movie.
RELATED: Matt Damon’s troubled anti-frack film.
SARAH HOYT: NERVES. “Someday, if I become famous, someone will unearth the picture from the front page of a defunct newspaper of me at sixteen, in that very stupid windbreaker, my face unnaturally pale, holding the stupid banner. Standing. Breathing. Waiting for death or reprieve.”
EGYPT ISN’T AN ALLY. This is what a real Arab ally of America looks like.
WOMEN TAKE NOTICE: GUN RIGHTS AT RISK IN NOVEMBER ELECTION: In all the talk about the starkness of the choice voters face between Obama and Romney on issues of foreign policy and the economy, another critically important right is being almost forgotten: The Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.
In this sober op-ed in the Daily Caller by lawyer Gail Trotter, she reminds us that the right to own guns for self defense is important to everyone, but particularly women, who generally are unable to fend off an attack without a weapon. The election of President Obama will mean four more years of the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices, and the Court’s conclusion in 2008 that the Second Amendments right to “keep and bear arms” included, well, an actual right to keep and bear arms (including handguns), was a shockingly close 5-4 decision. One more liberal/progressive Justice on the Supreme Court would likely alter this result, reinterpreting the Second Amendment to protect only the right of the “militia” to keep and bear arms.
JENNIFER RUBIN IN THE WASHINGTON POST: Did Obama Lie About The Embassy Attacks?