Archive for 2013

PROF. JACOBSON: Conservative media has come a long way, baby, but has a longer way to go. The liberal media are still dominant: “It’s why reporters can collude at a press conference just after four Americans were killed in Benghazi to make sure the appropriate ‘gotcha’ question was asked not of the officials responsible for the safety of our personnel, but of … Mitt Romney. . . . And it’s getting the job done on Obamacare and the government shutdown. The media almost exclusively blames a potential shutdown on Republicans, when in fact it is Obama and Harry Reid who are willing shut down the government over Obamacare. We’ve come a long way, baby, but we have an even longer way to go.”

As a famous man said, get in their face. Punch back twice as hard.

MORE NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: New Commercial Ship Reaches Space Station. “Orbital Science Corp.’s Cygnus cargo ship pulled up at the orbiting lab Sunday morning. The space station astronauts used their robot arm to grab it. The capsule is making its debut on this test flight, and contains more than a half-ton of food, clothes and other supplies for the six astronauts. It marks a major accomplishment 260 miles up. Only one other private company has ever made such a high-flying shipment.” But now there are two.

“THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE” FOR YOUNG WOMEN TODAY? It’s “what do to with their pubes.” Well, then I guess feminism has pretty much reached its endpoint. On the other hand, maybe not, as this is all apparently men’s fault.

MATT K. KEWIS: Goodbye to romance: Are rom-coms worse than porn?

Anyone who has seen the trailer for the new movie Don Jon knows that Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), really cares about his porn. Fewer know that his love interest, Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), is likewise addicted to the sappy fairy tales we call romantic comedies.

I like the juxtaposition. Both things can be destructive. But while porn has a bad reputation, those who peddle unrealistic notions about love and marriage and relationships get a pass. One wonders which of these fantasies have done the most damage to families.

Indeed.

DOWNSIDES OF THE 21ST CENTURY: UK Planes Facing Laser Attacks. “Thousands of planes coming in to land at Britain’s busiest airports are being endangered by a wave of potentially deadly laser attacks from the ground. . . . Most of the attacks are on large commercial jets, but even military planes carrying injured troops home from Afghanistan to hospitals in the Midlands have been targeted. . . . Last year, 1,570 laser attack incidents were logged with the CAA and in 2011 the figure was 1,911.” Lots of tech talk about banning lasers, but precious little information on who’s behind these attacks. Hmm.

GETTING SMARTER: Mercedes-Benz S-Class stability system uses sensors, stereo camera (w/ Video). “According to the company, Magic Body Control combines the advantages of the active suspension system Active Body Control (ABC) with the Road Surface Scan function– a stereo camera that scans the road ahead and registers the road surface and its condition.” Just another step toward autonomous vehicles.

MORE DIESEL NEWS: 2013 Mercedes-Benz GLK250 BlueTec. I test drove one of these compact sport-utes a couple of years ago and liked it, but the mileage was execrable. The Diesel helps.

SPACE: SpaceX launches upgraded Falcon 9 rocket. “Given the multiple upgrades involved, Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and chief designer, said he considered the launching a test flight. Canada’s 1,100-pound Cassiope space weather satellite, provided by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, the Canadian Space Agency and the University of Calgary, reportedly got the ride for about $10 million.”

CARL CANNON: Democrat Leaders’ Explosive Words:

It’s hard to say which is worse: that so many prominent Democrats believe they aren’t responsible for any of Washington’s gridlock—or that they’d say these things anyway. Not all that long ago, a presidential spokesman using this language would be talking about murderers who hijacked airplanes or drove explosive-laden trucks into the barracks of U.S. Marines—not political opponents with differing notions about federal spending.

With suicide bombs going off daily around the world and funerals for the Washington Navy Yard victims still taking place, one might expect a modicum of rhetorical restraint from inside the White House. No such luck. For five years now, such metaphors have been the cudgel of choice for administration officials, along with their fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill and journalistic fellow travelers.

It all starts with President Obama, who routinely accuses Republicans trying to thwart his spending plans by putting “party ahead of country.” Last January, when talking—as Dan Pfeiffer was this week—about GOP insistence on trading spending cuts for agreeing to raise the nation’s debt limit—the president said he wouldn’t negotiate with those holding “a gun at the head of the American people.”

Joe Biden asserts Republicans are holding the country “hostage” with their spending stance, and in a 2011 meeting with congressional Democrats the vice president agreed with the suggestion that Tea Party groups were “terrorists.”

Among Democrats on Capitol Hill, it starts at the top, too.

Read the whole thing. It’s all fine, as long as Sarah Palin isn’t the one talking.