Archive for 2012

READER GEORGE DUNCAN WRITES TO ASK THAT I MENTION HIS BOOK: Request granted!

ANOTHER ONE DOWN: NBC Fires Lilia Luciano Over George Zimmerman Tape Edit. More from Tom Maguire. “And for comic relief, turn to the Media Encoder, Brian Stelter of the NY Times. Mr. Stelter doesn’t understand or won’t report that the problem at NBC runs beyond two problematic airings on the Today Show. Yet I remain confident that if Fox News had misreported something unflattering to Obama his coverage would be more comprehensive. . . . If we can persuade Mr. Stelter to re-read TV Newser he will discover there are *three* problematic edits from the Today Show. For some reason he seems to be reporting this in a way that minimizes NBC’s miscues.”

TEACHING WRITING AND THINKING: “Although the U.S. spends more and more on ‘education,’ great numbers of young (and now, middle-aged) citizens can’t do what used to be easy for most grade-schoolers — writing clear, well-thought-out sentences. They’ve never been taught to do that and with each passing year, there are fewer teachers who might teach them how.”

WELL, THAT’S TRUE, OF COURSE: Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate). An IP Address doesn’t identify a person. “Different family members, or even visitors, could have performed the alleged downloads. Unless the wireless router has been appropriately secured (and in some cases, even if it has been secured), neighbors or passersby could access the Internet using the IP address assigned to a particular subscriber and download the plaintiff’s film.”

BOB KRUMM: Welcome to the Stag-Nation. “This is what a stagnant economy looks like. The gain of 115,000 jobs is less than enough to keep up with population increases, and was below the median economic forecast for April. The only reason that the unemployment rate ‘fell’ to 8.1% is because the labor force participation rate keeps dropping. If you stop looking for work, you aren’t unemployed. But you’re not employed either. You’re just ‘missing.’ You don’t count. Welcome to the country we now live in: the Stag-Nation.”

THIS WOULD EXPLAIN THE SCENT OF DESPERATION IN THE EMAILS I’M GETTING FROM THE LUGAR PRESS OFFICE, DESPITE THEIR CLAIMS OF (NO, REALLY) “LUGAR-MENTUM:” New Indiana Poll – Mourdock up 48-38.

BEWARE THE MOB that advocates “fairness.” “History is replete with Peoples’ movements that, claiming weight of numbers and well-meaning intentions for others, have changed the course of society–but not necessarily for the better. In other words, pathologically altruistic movements.”

From Barbara Oakley, author of Pathological Altruism.

MICKEY KAUS: “It was illegal for John Edwards to get Rachel ‘Bunny’ Mellon to give many thousands to hide his mistress in order to help him become president–-but giving many thousands to fund a BS-y antipoverty institute that had exactly the same purpose is OK? … It seems to me this is the key legal question the prosecution will have to answer. If the line is vague as I think it will be, should this really be a criminal case?”