JOURNALISM HISTORIAN: CNN’S MALPRACTICE IS ‘A GIFT FROM HEAVEN FOR’ TRUMP.
In Reason’s newest podcast, W. Joseph Campbell says, “It makes you wonder why these news organizations are not doing a more thorough job of…fact-checking…and being a bit wary of anonymous sources.”
Just think of them as Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.
And don’t miss his puncturing of the media’s overinflated, self-serving myths regarding their role in Watergate.
WELL DONE: Iraqi Prime Minister congratulates armed forces for Mosul “victory.”
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday and congratulated the armed forces for their “victory” over Islamic State after eight months of urban warfare, bringing an end to three years of jihadist rule in the city.
The battle has left large parts of Mosul in ruins, killed thousands of civilians and displaced nearly one million people.
“The commander in chief of the armed forces (Prime Minister) Haider al-Abadi arrived in the liberated city of Mosul and congratulated the heroic fighters and Iraqi people for the great victory,” his office said in a statement.
The decaying corpses of militants lay in the narrow streets of the Old City where Islamic State has staged a last stand against Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition.
“Victory” is in always quotes because, I suppose, Reuters.
WHAT ARE THESE “ALBUM” COVERS YOU REFER TO? At their best Hipgnosis created utterly memorable and oddly moving images.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: 14 Books Colleges Should Ask Freshmen to Read Over the Summer.
To paraphrase David Horowitz, you can’t get a good education if you’re only learning half of the story.
NORTH KOREA CALLS U.S. PRACTICE BOMBING RUN A “PROVOCATION”: Pyongyang is referring to this B1-B exercise.
RELATED: B1-B at Nellis AFB, Nevada. The exhaust looks like a mirage.
THE DEVIL’S HENCHMEN: What to do with the corpses of Islamic State fighters? A gritty tour of hasty grave sites and wadis with scattered bones outside of Mosul.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE LIFE OF BEINART: It’s True: Liberals Hate Western Civilization.
Well, what did Western Civilization ever really do for us, anyhow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo
IN THE MAIL: From Brad Thor, Use of Force: A Thriller.
Plus, today’s Gold Box Deals and Lightning Deals.
WHY PEOPLE HATE THE MEDIA, CHAPTER MDCXIII: “The Washington Post built an entire story around this — a story that blames right-wing talk radio for a left-wing crackpot opening fire on a baseball field full of Republicans, because they are Republicans. Let that sink in: the Washington Post blames right-wing talk radio for a left-winger’s assassination attempt on Republican politicians…These people are so lost in their anti-conservative bigotry that they can’t tell up from down or right from wrong.”
As Michael Dougherty of National Review tweets in response to the Post’s fiction, “Alexandria as the new Dallas. So filled with right wing hate it makes socialists kill.”
Hey, that strategy worked remarkably well as a deflection point for the left in 1963; less so in 2011 – but hey, might as well break out the old playbook one more time, huh?
MAYBE SHE’LL CAMPAIGN IN WISCONSIN: Hillary Clinton looks for her role in midterms.
OUR CLASS-CONSCIOUS MEDIA: So this one time at a journalism conference…
I was talking to this person whom I’d just met. They told me about their job and where they worked. They asked me about mine. I told them I’d worked in public media in Alaska before moving to the Lower 48. I was a couple of months from wrapping up my time as a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford. They asked about what I worked on and I explained my research around collaboration in journalism and that I intended to continue working in this space after the fellowship ended.
“Well, what does your husband do?”
“He’s a truck driver and a mechanic.”
“…Oh.”
“Private equity” would be a better answer, I’d guess.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
As Twitter user Kate Hyde notes, “The same people defending Sarsour now peddled the distinction between Islam and jihad. This is why people are wary.”
Exit question: “Can we count on Democrats to talk [favorably] about jihad all day, every day from now on?”
INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE: Injured Baton Rouge Police Officer Sues Black Lives Matter.
JUST DON’T ASK FOR CREAM: ‘Fellatio cafe’ where customers receive oral sex while they drink their coffee.
ANDY McCARTHY: ‘A Word of Truth’ About Linda Sarsour’s ‘Jihad.’
I’m so old, I can remember when the left still openly stated that jihad was a euphemism for terror. But hey, the Newspeak Dictionary was due for an update, anyhow.
CHANGE: Hungarian far right launches new political party. All of this, basically, is the result of Merkel’s failure on immigration.
THE THIRD CIRCUIT FINDS A FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO RECORD THE POLICE.
There’s also a Due Process Right To Record The Police.
DRAIN THAT SWAMP: Hundreds of VA officials fired since Trump’s inauguration.
Faster — and more, much more — please.
AT AMAZON, still on sale, J5 Tactical V1-Pro Flashlight.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF ECONOMICS: Cash for Clunkers Was a Complete Failure.
Three economists (from MIT and Tex A&M) have crunched the numbers and discovered that Obama’s Cash-for-Clunkers scheme back in 2009 was a failure even by Keynesian standards.
The abstract of the study tells you everything you need to know.
The 2009 Cash for Clunkers program aimed to stimulate consumer spending in the new automobile industry, which was experiencing disproportionate reductions in demand and employment during the Great Recession. Exploiting program eligibility criteria in a regression discontinuity design, we show nearly 60 percent of the subsidies went to households who would have purchased during the two-month program anyway; the rest accelerated sales by no more than eight months. Moreover, the program’s fuel efficiency restrictions shifted purchases toward vehicles that cost on average $5,000 less. On net, Cash for Clunkers significantly reduced total new vehicle spending over the ten month period.
This is remarkable. At the time, the most obvious criticism of the scheme was that it would simply alter the timing of purchases.
And scholars the following year confirmed that the program didn’t have any long-run impact.
But now we find out that there was impact, but it was negative. Here’s the most relevant graph from the study. It shows actual vehicle spending and estimated spending in the absence of the program.
Much more at the link.
KAROL MARKOWICZ: Attraction Will Always Defy “Social Justice.”
Can attraction be taught, or mandated by cultural enforcers?
Take the much-mocked Vice magazine piece titled “Why Can’t My Famous Gender Nonconforming Friends Get Laid?” The writer, Meredith Talusan, seemingly earnestly asks why her friends who are popular on social media can’t get dates.
Talusan describes her friends Jacob Tobia and Alok Vaid-Menon as “femme nonbinary icons.” This means they don’t identify as male or female. And indeed in the picture accompanying the piece, Tobia and Vaid-Menon straddle some middle line, sporting facial stubble but wearing a skirt, makeup and heels.
It’s complicated, no doubt about it.
Talusan goes on and on about how amazing her friends are yet how no one will sleep with them. It leads to the obvious question: Why doesn’t Talusan do it? Talusan is herself gender-nonconforming, in a non-exclusive relationship and obviously thinks Tobia and Vaid-Menon are great, so why not? The answer: Talusan “presents” as female and, well, Tobia and Vaid-Menon are attracted to men.
Therein lies the rub. Gay men like men, which Tobia and Vaid-Menon say they are not. Straight men like women, which Tobia and Vaid-Menon also say they are not. They can’t alter their preferences to be attracted to women and neither can the men they desire.
That doesn’t mean they won’t find love — there’s a lid for every pot, as everyone’s grandmother likes to say, and that’s probably true. But when Tobia is friend-zoned and posts on Facebook, “I am only sorry that we live in a culture where people like me have to struggle in order to have romance, companionship, and sensuality in our lives,” he misses the point. You can’t shame someone into attraction. It isn’t cerebral.
Attraction is mysterious, even in far simpler situations than the one described by Talusan.
Also, “social justice” is a myth, and “social justice warriors” are usually broken people with mental problems, which tends to make them less attractive.
CHANCES ARE HIGH HE WON’T LIVE THAT LONG: Vox Proclaims Bernie Sanders the 2020 Frontrunner.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
