COMING SOON: The Summer When You’re Expected to Save Drive-In Movie Theaters. “Later this year, movie studios are scheduled to stop distributing films in old-fashioned 35-millimeter format. Everything will go digital, which is fine for the vast majority of indoor theaters that have already upgraded to digital projectors. It’s a different story with drive-ins, however, many of which find themselves in need of handouts to pay for the upgrade. Care to cough up a $100 donation on top of the cost of popcorn?”
Archive for 2013
April 16, 2013
ROGER SIMON REALLY LIKED ALLEN BARTON’S PLAY, Years To The Day. So much so that he even phoned me about it! (Bumped).
“ANTI-GUN LEGISLATION BEFORE THE SENATE:” Harry Reid Accidentally Tells The Truth.
BOSTON BOMBINGS: What Did The Cameras See?
WHEN NEWS IS AWKWARD FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA.
CHANGE: Former Volleyball Star Gabrielle Reece Ignites Controversy With Marriage Advice: Being ‘Submissive’ Is a Sign of Strength. “If you want to have that dynamic where your guy isn’t like, your chick — guess what? You better give him some love.”
RICHARD EPSTEIN: The trouble with paid sick leave.
THE DANGERS OF SURVEILLANCE.
SEE, I TOLD YOU THAT MOST OF WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW YESTERDAY WAS WRONG: Boston Cellular Networks Were Just Flooded, Not Shut Down.
IN THE MAIL: From S.M. Stirling & David Drake, Hope Reborn.
BARBARIC: Turkish Pianist Sentenced for Twitter Postings. “A court here handed down a suspended 10-month prison term on Monday for Fazil Say, an internationally acclaimed Turkish pianist and composer convicted of insulting Islam and offending Muslims in postings on Twitter. . . . In recent years, many intellectuals, writers and artists have been prosecuted for statements about Islam and Turkish identity, both of which the pro-Islamic government seeks to shield from criticism. Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, however, have rarely figured in previous trials, although Turks are active users of the sites.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Blue Civil War: Knives Drawn in Education Fight.
Delegates at the California Democratic Party convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution yesterday censuring fellow party members who support school reform and calling groups like Democrats for School Reform a front for Republican and corporate interests. . . .
The delegates and their union backers are responding to a surge of Democratic support for reform ideas like charter schools, test-based accountability, and teacher performance evaluations. Democratic LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Coalition for School Reform backed reform-minded officials in LA’s recent Board of Education elections. The group boasts among its biggest donors blue power-brokers like Michael Bloomberg, Hollywood executives, and other individuals who are hardly “Republican operatives.”
The results for Villaraigosa’s reformers in the LA school board elections were mixed, but the momentum is clearly on the reformers’ side. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a bipartisan consensus begin to emerge on education reform. Policies like teacher evaluation and parental choice are increasingly supported by elements of both the Right and the Left. The Democratic politicians and donors pushing for such reforms seem to have weighed the costs to unionized teachers and decided that they are worth the benefits to students.
We can’t say whether this means the reformers will win the day in California, but it’s safe to say that that the political coalition that once held the Democratic Party together is cracking.
Ultimately, people care more about their kids than about political loyalty.
QUESTIONS OF COORDINATION: Left-wing groups engage in near-simultaneous attack on Sen. Mitch McConnell. With the cooperation of certain members of the press.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF JOB-KILLING REGULATIONS: Porn film permits drop dramatically in Los Angeles because of new law that requires performers to wear condoms. “Los Angeles residents voted in November to force actors in pornographic films to wear condoms during shoots, and now the industry is feeling the results as many producers have opted for different shoot locations.” Kinda like the way gun-control laws have cost jobs. Those blue-state bluenoses are really chasing away all the fun sectors.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON THE GOSNELL CASE: Breaking Media Silence: Media bias exists not only in how they cover stories, but in their choice of stories to cover. And not to cover.
UPDATE: Interestingly, despite all the Boston coverage, the two most popular op-eds at USA Today are on Gosnell — Kirsten Powers’ from last week is still #1, and mine is #2.
LOOKING BACK AT pundits’ unseemly haste to blame the Tea Party for terrorism.
ROGER SIMON: Peter Bergen: Who’s a ‘Terrorism Expert’? “Why then did Bergen have so little impulse control? Well, he was on CNN, but I think it’s more than that. Bergen is the man who — shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden — stated that ‘Killing bin Laden is end of the War on Terror. We can just sort of announce that right now.’ Whoa. No wonder he favors domestic terrorism. How inconvenient it would be for him if it turned out some Wahhabis were still running around Boston blowing people up. . . . Being an expert is foolish. No one knows anything. Wait for the facts.”
NICK GILLESPIE AND TODD KRAININ: 5 Unacknowledged, Unexpected, and Unavoidable Facts about Govt Spending and the Economy.
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Maduro Victory in Venezuela Stinks of Fraud.
IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY: Pew Poll: Opinion of U.S. Government Hits Record Low. States rated much higher.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Mort Zuckerman: Enduring an economic ‘Long Misery,’ American hope has turned into despair.
BOSTON: Police search an apartment in Revere. More news rounded up here. “Surprisingly, there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of movement overnight in the Boston bombings story. The investigation into what has been called a terrorist attack continues, but the feds aren’t saying much. They don’t appear concerned that this might be an ongoing series of attacks.”
Still holding an unnamed foreigner as a “person of interest.” “The foreigner, who was badly burned, was in the United States on a student visa and is considered a person of interest and possible suspect in the case but has not been formally charged or arrested. The potential suspect is currently hospitalized.”
According to an expert quoted by the Boston Herald, it could “easily” have been a one-man job.
LIFE IN THE OBAMA ECONOMY: ‘Panel Crasher’ Trying to Eat for Free at D.C. Think Tanks. “After losing his job, the Panel Crasher says he started joking with his friends about how to fill his time between now and the fall, when he enters grad school. Finding a full-time job for just a few months seemed unlikely. But with the loss of income, he needed to figure out how to feed himself, and remembered all the lunch events he attended.”