“FORGET CHRIS MATTHEWS — HE’LL TAKE NANCY O’DELL.” Politico: Barack Obama’s Soft-Media Strategy. When you’re on the run from Tingles, you’re really afraid of taking tough questions.
Archive for 2012
August 17, 2012
MARK JUDGE: Russia’s Rock N Roll Riot. Will Pussy Riot’s role in Russia match The Plastic People of the Universe’s role in Czechoslovakia?
Well, Vladimir Putin seems to be afraid of girls . . . .
UPDATE: A report from the Pussy Riot protest in Washington.
AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT: Is your commmunity prepared?
Related: U.S. Woefully Unprepared for a Blackout Like India’s: Analysis.
If this interests you, you might check out Bill Quick’s disaster-preparedness forum.
Related: Pre-Post-Apocalyptic Survival Gear. More here.
UPDATE: GAO: EPA rules to cause energy price increases in Midwest, ‘compromise’ electric grid.
CHINA’S “UNLIVABLE” MEGALOPOLISES.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Unemployment Rate Rises In 44 States.
UPDATE: Red vs. Blue: “It turns out that the population-weighted average unemployment rate in states with Republican governors is 7.6 percent. The number for states with Democratic governors in 8.8. In other words, blue America (defined in terms of governors) has a higher unemployment rate than red America. Make of that what you will.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Justin Katz writes:
Hey, Prof. Reynolds.
Being in the failing state of Rhode Island and having to deal with the monthly announcements that “unemployment fell,” I had a bit of a negative reaction to your report, earlier, that only 44 states saw unemployment increases. As Rhode Island shows, falling unemployment can mean that more people are giving up than are losing their jobs. Hardly a positive development. I collected the numbers earlier today, and as it happens *employment* fell in every single state except Utah, which saw a very, very small increase.
I follow these numbers every month, because in relative terms Rhode Island presents a morbid fascination, but this month was really pretty astonishing. *Every single state* except a slight increase in Utah!
I wonder if the result would be different if the media weren’t suppressing the impression that Romney could actually win.
Oh, a lot of things would be different.
VLADIMIR PUTIN IS SCARED OF GIRLS: Pussy Riot Supporters Stage Protests Around The World.
STILL ASKING: How Did Harry Reid Get Rich?
MICHAEL GERSON: Obama’s Betrayal.
In the innocent, bygone days of February, President Obama told NBC News that the campaign would get negative against him, but provided this assurance: “I think that you will be able to see how we conduct ourselves in the campaign. I think it will be consistent with how I conducted myself in 2008 and hopefully how I have conducted myself as president of the United States.”
Not since Gary Hart urged reporters to follow him around because “they’d be very bored” has an assurance been more of an indictment. The Obama campaign has targeted and intimidated Republican donors on an Internet enemies list. It has engaged in the juvenile mockery of Mitt Romney’s singing. It has suggested, without evidence, that Romney may have committed the felony of falsifying Federal Election Commission documents. It has speculated, without proof, that Romney has avoided paying taxes. When Joe Biden engages in racially charged hyperbole, he is awkwardly but accurately reflecting the spirit of the 2012 Obama campaign. . . . The Obama campaign is veering toward antinomianism. Since it regards its own motives as pure, it feels it can dispense with the normal rules of accuracy, civility and decency. So we get the political methods of Spiro Agnew combined with the moral self-regard of Woodrow Wilson. It is not an attractive mixture.
Nasty, but incompetent. That’s been their hallmark all along.
SEPARATE, BUT EQUALIZED: Colorado U. to segregate dorms for students with gun permits. “The Daily Camera, a Boulder newspaper, reports that new rules are troubling to James Manley, the attorney from the Mountain States Legal Foundation, who represented the student gun-rights group that brought the original lawsuit against CU’s gun ban.” He’s just one o’ them outside agitators.
THE DARK-HORSE CANDIDATE TO REPLACE JOE BIDEN: Elizabeth Warren? Is “Dark Horse” her Indian name?
IN JAPAN, WORKING TOO HARD AND NOT HAVING ENOUGH SEX. “In 2007, Japans population reached a tipping point. It was the first year in its history (excluding 1945) where the number of deaths exceeded the number of births. In 2007 there were 2,000 more deaths than births. In 2011 that figure rose to approximately 204,000, and it’s a figure that is accelerating. Indeed, at 23.1%, Japan has the highest proportion of over-65s in the world, and at 13.2%, the world’s lowest proportion of under 14s. Japan’s population peaked at 127.7 million in 2007, and is forecast to shrink to a mere 47 million by 2100. What are the economic and social forces behind this?”
READER BRUCE GOLDMAN is waiting for the Paul Ryan speech in Richmond and sends these pics.
“2 1/4 hours before Ryan arrives and the line winds all the way around deep rings and out to the street.”
“Early arrivals 3 hours before speech time.”
Looks like people are having a good time.
HOW TO SELL women athletes.
READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Pat Larkin writes: “Larry Bond and I have just released our third military thriller, CAULDRON, as an Amazon eBook, priced at $2.99. Here’s the link.”
COMING TO SAUDI ARABIA: Women-Only Cities. “Saudi Arabia has a problem: The Persian Gulf kingdom has an increasingly educated, increasingly unemployed female population and ultraconservative laws and customs that forbid women from mingling, much less working, with men. The Saudis are fashioning an unusual solution, building an industrial city that will allow only women.”
If I were a Saudi woman, I’d find this appealing, but I think it bodes poorly for the future of Saudi society.
REPEAL THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS! Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars.
Anton Vickerman, 38-year old owner of the once popular link site surfthechannel.com (STC), was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday by a British judge. But the prosecutors sitting across the courtroom from him didn’t work for the Crown—they were lawyers for the movie studio trade group Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).
FACT, not public officials in the UK, was the driving force behind Vickerman’s prosecution. Indeed, FACT effectively took on the role of a private law enforcement agency. Private investigators hired by FACT first identified Vickerman as the administrator of STC and built the case against him. His assets were frozen at FACT’s request by a government agency—which was itself funded by FACT. And when the UK’s public prosecutors decided not to press charges against Vickerman at all, FACT initiated a criminal prosecution on its own dime.
These guys have too much money. Repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!
PUTTING A LUXURY TWIST on mushroom-hunting trips.
GABRIELLA BLUM: Technology And The Future Of Violence.