Yes, Al Gore has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
If he wins, he’s going to make the wingnut freak out over Jimmy carter look like a bloody pick nick.
heh
Kevin Drum expresses a similar sense of Schadenfreude.
Category: Media
The Meme that the Government Understates Inflation is Hitting the Mainstream
Here it is, San Diego Union-Tribune, of all places.
Basically the bad numbers come from a number of factors:
- Bogus adjustments to inflation (I’ll post on “Hedonics” later).
- Calling increases in prices asset appreciation (housing bubble).
- Ignoring the effects of increases in College tuition. They also ignore the fact that people have few working years as a result of inflating degree requirements for positions.
- Medical cost increases are understated in the cost of living.
- Over-weighting consumer electronics in the CPI.
Understated CPI numbers mask dropping living standards, and reduce increases in entitlements, and as such, they benefit governments, regardless of party.
Media Whores at the WaPo
In this case Howie Kurtz, the Washington Post’s walking conflict of interest media critic who says that the media is going all out on Hillary’s laugh because it was fun to do.
Jon Stewart, setting the pace for political journalism, kicked things off last week by assembling a grab bag of giggling and guffawing when the senator appeared on all five Sunday talk shows, from a barn outside her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. As Clinton was seen bursting into belly laughs– sometimes oddly and abruptly — at queries by the likes of Bob Schieffer and Chris Wallace, the “Daily Show” host likened her to a robot switching into chuckle mode when aggressive interrogators needed to be neutralized.
It’s nice that reporters like Jon Stewart, but to quote Mr. Stewart (with bleating from Carlson and Bergalia)
STEWART: Will jump on it. In many ways, it’s funny. And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad.
BEGALA: We have noticed.
STEWART: And I wanted to — I felt that that wasn’t fair and I should come here and tell you that I don’t — it’s not so much that it’s bad, as it’s hurting America. But I wanted to come here today and say…
STEWART: Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.
….
STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you’re helping the politicians and the corporations. And we’re left out there to mow our lawns.
BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we’re too rough on them when they make mistakes.
STEWART: No, no, no, you’re not too rough on them. You’re part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.
….
STEWART: … is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: So what I would suggest is, when you talk about you’re holding politicians’ feet to fire, I think that’s disingenuous. I think you’re…
CARLSON: “How are you holding up?” I mean, come on.
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: No, no, no. But my role isn’t, I don’t think…
CARLSON: But you can ask him a real question, don’t you think, instead of saying…
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: I don’t think I have to. By the way, I also asked him, “Were you in Cambodia?” But I didn’t really care.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: Because I don’t care, because I think it’s stupid.
CARLSON: I can tell.
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: But my point is this. If your idea of confronting me is that I don’t ask hard-hitting enough news questions, we’re in bad shape, fellows. (LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: We’re here to love you, not confront you.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: We’re here to be nice.
STEWART: No, no, no, but what I’m saying is this. I’m not. I’m here to confront you, because we need help
from the media and they’re hurting us. And it’s — the idea is……
STEWART: It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.
CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?
STEWART: Absolutely.
CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: What is wrong with you?
….
Emphasis mine.
Shoot Me Now!!! I Agree with the Mustache of Pompous Pontification
Yes, I mean Thomas Friedman, when he says, “What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid.”
Actually, 911 did not make us stupid, it made you stupid. It made many Americans stupid. It made the entire Washington Press Corps stupid.
Me, I saw him using it for politics in his September 11, 2001 speech.
I’m just saying.
What Ezra Said (on Ads)
Mr Klein, that is.
Is All Publicity Good Publicity?
The viciously RightWing Center For Union Facts is currently advertising on my sidebar. As always, I don’t screen my advertisers for opinion because I don’t endorse any of them. But though I’m happy to take the Center’s cash, it’s worth pointing out that they’re a business front group that exists for no purpose save to smear and attack workers trying to organize for better wages, benefits, and treatment. Pretty loathsome folks. More on them here
His policy is the same as mine.
Then again, he actually has enough readers that advertisers specifically want to be on his site.
That being said, if you see an ad you find objectionable, email me. I won’t pull the ad, but I may ridicule it.
NPR Tells White House That He Doesn’t Get His Choice of Toady to Interview Him
The White House offered NPR an interview with George W. Bush, with the stipulation that Juan Williams (Softball Interviewer, Toady to Right Wingers, and Incompetent) interview him. NPR said no interview unless they chose the interviewer, so the White House had him interview Bush on….wait for it….Fox News.
I never how Juan Williams has managed to keep a job. I have never heard him do a story, or an interview, competently, and he brushed off Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment without revealing that he himself was a sexual harasser.
My conclusion is that he has been coasting on his book Eyes on the Prize* for about 25 years.
*I bet you were expecting me to accuse him of an being an affirmative action hire, but I don’t think that he is. I think that he has gotten his job because on the fact that he was prominently competent once (never to be repeated).
Paul Krugmen Gets it on Bill O’Reilly
Of course, Bill O’Reilley is not an uneducated immigrant from Ukraine, and this was circa 1930.
Pinkt vi Menschen
…
Anyway, what it reminded me of was an often retold family story: my great-grandmother visited Coney Island and was surprised to see black families enjoying themselves at the beach. “Pinkt vi menschen”, she said – just like people.But she was an uneducated immigrant from Ukraine, and this was circa 1930.
Of note, Uncle Tom Juan Williams, Fox News toady and sexual harasser, is defending all this.
Big surprise that.
Pay Per View Review
Our previous cable service was plain vanilla, no cable box, so now we get pay per view, and we checked out a movie list night, Happily N’Ever After, one of the more recent CGI movies to hit the small screen.
Cast:
George Carlin: The Wizard (Sort of)
Andy Dick: Mambo
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Ella
Michael McShane: Rumplestiltskin
Freddie Prinze Jr.: Rick
Wallace Shawn: Munk
Patrick Warburton: Prince Humperdink
Sigourney Weaver: Frieda
George Carlin is amusing, but he has perhaps 3 minutes screen time in this retelling of the Cinderella story, which is juxtaposed with the metaphysics of fairy tales.
Patrick Warburton and Wallace Shawn do a journeyman job of playing…Patrick Warburton and Wallace Shawn, and they are amusing.
For once, Andy Dick is not repellent
Sigourney Weaver is a wonderful evil stepmother, easily the strongest performance of the movie, with Weaver at her scenery chewing best. What’s more, she is the sexiest animated character since Jessica rabbit, and far more interesting, both libidinally and in terms of character development.
but the two leads, Gellar and Prinze are somewhat lackluster.
Freddy Prince, who plays Rick, performs well as the Prince Humperdink’s dogsbody and dishwasher, but Gellar’s performance as Ella is rather lackluster. Some of this is not her fault, as the character is written to be a bit of a ninny.. It doesn’t help that the stepmom is way hotter.
The plot, and plot device are a bit contrived, but I enjoyed it, and more importantly, my kids enjoyed it.
It’s amusing, if fluffy, and the hidden movie references will amuse the adults watching with their kids.
And of course, the happy ending.
Unfortunate Headlines
Or maybe just too truthful: What Catherine the Great can teach CEOs.
They’ve already done to the shareholders and workers what she did to her horse*.
FWIW, Jay Winik, the author of this book, also does not have a good handle on what Catherine the Great was as a ruler. Look up Potemkin villiages.
*Yes, I know that the story is false. She died of a stroke while sitting on the chamber pot.
Whiskey Foxtrot Tango: Bush Calls Obama Intellectually Lazy?
No really. An anonymous senior Bush administration official has called Barack Obama “intellectually lazy”.
The author of the article is right wing hack Bill Sammon, but still, the idea that someone working for George W. Bush would call anyone intellectually lazy is un f$%#ing believable.
George W. Bush has Terri Schiavo beat in the intellectual laziness department.
Russians Working on Hybrid Nuclear Submarine?
The Russians haven’t had a secret ship program in years, so this is interesting:
Submarine: Military Secret Shows Up on the Internet – Kommersant Moscow
Municipal authorities in Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod Region, accidentally revealed the design for the latest Russian submarine when it posted an account of a meeting with its commander on its website. The high level of secrecy surrounding the submarine suggests that it is a unique experiment on the part of scientists and the military.
On September 6, the official site of the city of Sarov (www.adm.sarov.ru) reported on a visit to the city by the commander of the submarine Sarov Capt. 1st Rank Sergey Kroshkin. In the text, it stated that the Sarov was still in the stocks at the Severodvinsk but “the chief commander of the Navy has set the task of finishing work by the end of the year.” The number of the submarine project was given: 20120 and its technical and tactical characteristics as well. those data indicate that the new submarine is very similar to the Project 877 Paltus (Halibut) diesel submarine, but its water displacement is greater (3950 vs. 3050 tons).
The article further goes on to surmise that this submarine has a mini-nuclear reactor on board, so that it can function much in the same way as some of the new conventional boats out there that can stay under water for over a month.
It makes sense. While one could not deploy any great distance with a 500-1000 kw reactor, your time underwater once on station wound be nearly limitless (by comparison, the Seawolf is somethere in the 50,000 kw MW range and has a top speed of over 35 kts).
Schadenfreude: Scaife’s Divorce Edition
It’s nice to see the rat-bastard who spent somewhere on the order of a hundred million dollars chasing Clinton’s penis getting his:
Scaife’s Wife Gets Giant Settlement After Messy Divorce — Claims Newspaper is ‘Hobby’
PITTSBURGH The estranged wife of billionaire and newspaper owner Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh banking heir turned media mogul, was awarded $725,000 a month in temporary support during their acrimonious divorce, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.Scaife, 75, and his second wife, Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife, are battling on several fronts, from how to assess and divide his wealth to custody of a yellow Labrador retriever named Beauregard, the newspaper said.
Piece of advice, dude: there isn’t a dog out there worth 725 grand a month. LET HER HAVE IT.
The funny part is this dispute about assets:
A judge may also have to decide whether the $20 million to $30 million a year she claims he spends to support the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review constitutes a business loss, as he contends, or spending on a hobby, as she sees it. Scaife owns the newspaper – a rival to the Post-Gazette – along with the Tribune-Review of Greensburg and several smaller dailies and weeklies.
…..
Records filed in the case suggest Scaife has spent $140 million to $244 million, depending on whom you believe, to subsidize the Tribune-Review since its inception in 1992. Scaife’s other papers are generally profitable, the divorce papers state.
….
Margaret Scaife’s alimony could grow higher depending on how Judge Alan Hertzberg views his income. He has asked for briefs due Thursday before making a final decision on the temporary award, which was set on a preliminary basis by a hearing officer last year.
Calling the Tribune-Review a hobby may be reasonable, depending on the legal fine points, but I would never call it a newspaper.
TimesSelect is Gone. Krugman is free at last!!!
Cool.
Needless to say, I will be checking out Krugman’s columns, and commenting on them regularly.
For Maureen Dowd and David Brooks? Not so much.
When Chris Matthews Finds Something “Ludicrous”……
You know that someone has jumped the shark.
We have 36 nations in Iraq like I have 36 cars (I have 2½),
Olberman Beats Billo in 25-54 Demographic
Though Fox has a lock on the Geriatric set that advertisers don’t want to sell to. Dat here.
Maybe the folks at MSNBC should get a clue, and program some people around him who aren’t whiny right wing nut jobs like Tucker Carleson.
From the Dept of the Blatantly Obvious: Rock Star Edition
A new studyrock stars die young primarily because of booze and drugs.
Well Duh.
David S. Broder Please Retire Now
Well, it looks like “the Dean” is at it again. He writes about how he longs for 3rd party candidates for president, specifically a Hagel-Bloomberg ticket.
The idea is that the American public longs for “post partisan” politics.
He thinks that candidates who differ on abortion, gun laws, gay rights, taxes, public schools, and role of religion in the public sphere, can somehow find common ground. This is like the bite of a dog into a stone, it is a stupidity.
What he derides as “partisan” politics is actually the legitimate give and take of differences in policy, but sitting where he does, living in the continuous cocktail party known as Sally Quinn’s Washington, it’s all too inconvenient.
These differences get in the way of a pleasant party, and the policies have very little effect on him, being paid to pontificate being one of the lifestyles least effected by significant policy decision.
He is not effected when other people’s children die in Iraq, or when other people’s children lack medical care and die because Bush and His Evil Minions™ believe that it’s worse to provide government funded health care to one relatively well off kid than it is for 1000 poor children to to have no access to health care.
He is the personification of what is wrong with the culture of Washington, DC.
The New Republic is Done…Put a Fork in It.
There was an interesting post in Gawker about how the most recent issue of “The New Republic” was nearly ad free.
All that subscriptions pay for is ink on paper and postage, and generally, not even that. The money in newspapers and magazines in the ad revenue.
The fact is that TNR has been a weapon against liberals since Marty Peretz took it over. You hear it over, and over, and over again from Conservatives, “Even the liberal New Republic…..”
There will be a part of me that will be sad, because for its first 60 years it was a decent magazine, but since it’s become a welfare program for plagiarists (Ruth Shalit), fabulists (Stephen Glass), sock puppets* (Lee Siegel), and enthusiastic endorsement of poorly researched racist agitprop (Andrew Sullivan).
When you consider the contributors before it Peretz, John Dewey, W. E. B. DuBois, Walter Lippmann, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, Philip Roth, etc., it’s a bit of a pity that it will likely go away, and a bigger pity that Marty pissed all that down the drain.
*Full disclosure, I’ve sock puppeted. I acknowledge that this means that I have no personal credibility. Confirm what I write by going to the links I cite, and reviewing my arguments. Seriously. FWIW, I’ll try not to sock puppet in my own comments section. I haven’t yet.
Seriously, if I say the sky is blue, go check the Weather Channel to confirm this.
Neat Movie Web Site
Mr. Movie Times, it allows you to get the schedule for movie theaters in your area.
My wife called me to look for a movie for her and the kids to see, and I found this on Google.
Seriously, is there any reason left to go dead tree except for the comics? (Yes, I know that you can get them on line, but the paper just works better)
More on the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Fight
It appears that Paramount and Dreamworks are going HD DVD.
This is a switch for Paramount, which had supported both.
There are really two reasons for this, HD-DVD is a lot cheaper, $299 vs $499, and there are more HD-DVD players in the US (not counting the Blu-Ray drives on the Sony PS3, but who wants to play a DVD on a game system that doesn’t even have a remote>).