GATEWAY PUNDIT JIM HOFT IS SICK, and the folks at Breitbart are trying to help.
Archive for 2013
August 30, 2013
ALSO, IT’S RACIST NOT TO SUPPORT A WAR WHEN OBAMA IS PRESIDENT: Mia Farrow slams ‘British bystanders’ over Parliament’s Syria vote.
IN THE MAIL: From Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Race.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 113.
MEGAN MCARDLE: I Want My HGTV.
HGTV confines itself to the last couple of years, when the renovations will still look relatively fresh.
What’s interesting to contemplate is how this changes the underlying economics of the network. Most networks that create a successful show can expect syndication revenue to make up the bottom line. That’s less true of reality shows, of course, but there’s still quite a bit of scope in a well-designed show. Food Network can run old episodes of “Chopped,” and they’ll be no less enjoyable simply because watermelon and feta salad is sooooooo 2012. Making a television show is like making a capital investment: Make the show once, and you can continue making money off it for years to come.
HGTV’s products, on the other hand, are essentially a perishable good. A 2008 episode of a kitchen renovation show has essentially expired. It cannot be safely aired.
Hence, a lot of reruns.
PUBLIC PENSION CRISIS UPDATE: San Bernardino 1, Calpers 0.
San Bernardino just received the judicial go-ahead to declare bankruptcy more than a year after its initial bankruptcy filing. The ruling, delivered by a federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday, concludes a long legal battle between the city and Calpers, which was fighting to keep the city out of bankruptcy in order to keep its funds flowing into the pension coffers. It now looks like Calpers will have to get in line with the city’s other creditors, meaning it will probably have to take a haircut just like everyone else. . . .
The bankruptcy of one of California’s biggest cities is a major story in its own right, but even more important is what this tells us about Detroit, the country’s largest municipal bankruptcy case. Followers of that saga will note that Detroit’s pension funds are using tactics very similar to those of Calpers, fighting in court to keep the city out of bankruptcy. The Times is careful to note that the two cases are different, and that San Bernardino’s case is not precedent-setting for Detroit. But this is nonetheless an early indicator for how federal bankruptcy courts might treat these cases moving forward—and it gives Detroit’s public pension funds plenty more to worry about.
Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be.
MORE OR LESS EVERYTHING, BUT THAT’S POLITICALLY USEFUL: What ‘The Butler’ gets wrong about Ronald Reagan and race.
MICKEY KAUS ON IMMIGRATION: The Mother Of All Squirrels. “How were they actually going to pass an amnesty bill in the GOP House without anyone noticing? Even if the MSM cooperates by playing down the issue? The debt ceiling/Obamacare fight isn’t enough to distract the base forever. We’re no longer shocked by the NSA and IRS tax exemption stories, everyone’s picked their side–another scandal isn’t going to do the job. You’d almost need a war or something. And that’s not about to happen.”
WASHINGTON POST: U.S. military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a U.S. strike on Syria. “Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy.” Ya think?
TIME TO INVEST IN THOSE BURGER-MAKING ROBOTS: Workers set to strike fast food restaurants for higher wages.
ENCRYPTION IS USEFUL, BUT OVERRATED: New Snowden Leak Reports ‘Groundbreaking’ NSA Crypto-Cracking.
MICHAEL BARONE: Are cable news ratings a harbinger of voter turnout?
Evidently MSNBC’s ratings have been plummeting this year, and not just because it’s August; the comparisons are with similar months last year. August 2013 ratings were 28 percent below those for August 2012.
Why? One hypothesis is that Barack Obama is having a no good, very bad year in may ways — the IRS scandal, Benghazi, drone killings and NSA surveillance — and that his followers are less motivated to watch cable news than they were last year, when he was running for re-election and mostly leading, though just by a bit, in the polls. It’s no secret that MSNBC’s audience is heavily tilted toward liberals, and with bad news coming in it’s possible that liberals are finding other things to do than watch hour after hour of conservative-bashing news.
The interesting question, if that plausible hypothesis is correct, is whether liberals will be less likely to turn out and vote this fall and in 2014 than they were in 2012.
They should be, out of embarrassment if nothing else.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Labor Force Participation Hits 34-Year Low.
JAMES TARANTO: ‘Common’ Mistakes: When good people use bad logic.
Slate.com, you’re obviously trying to bait us with the headline of that Allison Benedikt post: “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person.” Well, good job. You succeeded.
The attention-grabbing “bad person” formulation is presumably facetious, but the underlying argument–that all parents ought to enroll their children in public schools–is not. Conservatives frequently accuse elite liberals, including President Obama and his most recent Democratic predecessor, of hypocrisy for proclaiming their devotion to public education while shielding their own children from it. Benedikt’s argument is consistent with that criticism.
But that is not to say that it is logically sound. . . .
The assumption behind treating education as a public good is that in general, educating children makes them more successful adults, and successful people are more valuable to society than unsuccessful ones. If that is true, then consigning your child to a mediocre education is harmful to the common good, because it reduces his likelihood of success–which can mean everything from becoming a gainfully employed taxpayer to discovering a cure for cancer.
Benedikt’s view of what constitutes “the common good” seems to be limited to the institutions of government. It’s the flip side of the Dewey-Konczal theory that any “public” action–any action that affects anyone else–justifies government intervention. And like the Dewey-Konczal theory, the Benedikt argument leads in directions that liberals ought to find discomfiting. . . .
We have no children in public schools (that we know of), because we have no children. If we did have a child in a public school, we suspect we would indeed take a keen interest in the quality of education, and we just might be savvy and persistent enough to have an impact. By remaining single and childless, we are having exactly the same impact on the quality of public schools as we would have if we married, fathered a child, and sent him to a private school. Intelligent, successful people who choose to remain childless are therefore just as bad as parents who send their children to private schools.
No, actually we’re worse.
Education is not the only governmental function that is affected by the decision to have children or not. By depriving the future United States of taxpayers, we are hastening the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare and increasing their burden on other people’s children. At least most children who go to private schools eventually end up paying taxes.
So childless men are worse people than parents who send their children to private school. But by Benedikt’s logic, childless women are even worse people than childless men.
They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, people would be trying to force women to breed. And they were right!
SO FAR, OBAMA IS THE PUNCHLINE: Punchlines: Obama and the war in Syria.
PERSONALLY, I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD PAY SOME INCOME TAX — AND IT SHOULD GO UP AND DOWN WITH SPENDING: The 47 percent is now the 43 percent: Number of Americans paying no income taxes drops.
THE HILL: Unclassified Syria briefing exposes rifts among key lawmakers.
Thursday night’s briefing by top Obama administration officials exposed divisions among key lawmakers on what to do in Syria.
Lawmakers on the unclassified conference call said the officials made it clear that President Obama is still weighing his options but believes “beyond a doubt” that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces used chemical weapons “intentionally” in an attack last week that rebels say killed more than 1,000 people.
They left convinced that Assad’s forces were responsible for using chemical weapons, and that Obama should respond. But they were split on the timeline, with some calling for an immediate and forceful response while others said the president must make his case to the American people.
“The views of Congress are important to the President’s decision-making process,” the White House said in a statement after the call, “and we will continue to engage with Members as the President reaches a decision on the appropriate U.S. response to the Syrian government’s violation of international norms against the use of chemical weapons.”
Of course, consulting with Congressional leaders isn’t the same as consulting with Congress. While it’s polite, it has no legal or constitutional relevance.