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July 2007 Stats for The Big Picture.
Quite a few bloggers have been critical of ultra-leftist Robert Scheer, whose biased, hyperbole-driven slams at America appear regularly in the LA TIMES. Bill O’Reilly summarizes the current criticism here; for more, see Shark Blog.
In his latest column, Scheer tries to slink out of the current hailstorm of criticism by this ingenious diversion:
When our Pentagon, however – a $400-billion-a-year juggernaut – savages individual journalists for questioning its version of events, it is worth noting.
But in the original article Scheer did more than question. He appointed himself judge and jury and stated outright:
Now we find that in 2003 the real-life Pentagon’s ability and willingness to manipulate the facts make Hollywood’s story lines look tame. After a thorough investigation, the British Broadcasting Corp. has presented a shocking dissection of the “heroic” rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, as reported by the U.S. military and a breathless American press.
Sure, if Scheer had just raised questions, it would’ve been fine. But that’s not what he did. He flat out pretended to have the facts nailed down. That’s exactly what’s provoked this current round of criticism of his tactics. He’s been caught red-handed in a fake-out.
The critics got it totally wrong. Two months ago I said this looked good. After reading all the critical pans I had my doubts. When I read it opened at $86m, I knew I’d see it soon. I saw it Monday – it was close to perfect.
, due to a fire at Glenn’s server provider. In the meantime, you can go to the InstaPundit backup site.
Update: InstaPundit is back online.
Check out this excellent Patrick Ruffini post, referencing a recent Harris Poll:
Denmark 64%
U.S.A. 57%
Netherlands 45%
Luxembourg 39%
Sweden 37%
United Kingdom 32%
Ireland 30%
Austria 26%
Finland 26%
European Union (Average) 21%
Belgium 17%
Germany 17%
Italy 16%
Spain 16%
France 14%
Greece 11%
Portugal 6%
Patrick makes some excellent points regarding this info.
There’s more good poll results on this subject at the Harris Site, here.
As an American I would just like to add, Go Team!
Rick Bragg, suspended by the NEW YORK TIMES in the wake of the Jayson Blair fiasco, comments on what the mainstream press is currently experiencing:
“And this insanity—this bizarre atmosphere we’re moving through as if in a dream—we’re being made to feel ashamed for what was routine. . . . Reporters are being bad-mouthed daily. I hate it. It makes me sick.”
Mr. Bragg is experiencing, doubtless for the first time, how unfair hostile reporting is. Yet this is what the mainstream press has subjected every other business in America to for decades.
Hostile reporting is the result of the sentence all mainstream reporters say, specifically, “To be objective I must be hostile to the subject of the article.” That sentence is false. Hostility as a goal produces only attacks. It does not produce fairness. This is what Bragg, and the press, are discovering under these unfortunate circumstances.
It’s easy to tear things down. Anyone can do that. What is laudable is to build, to contribute, to be helpful. So, to practice what I preach, let me seek to offer something helpful.
A good example of how to do great reporting with fairness can be found in the trade and business press. Examples: FORTUNE, FORBES, BUSINESS WEEK, VARIETY, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, etc. etc. etc. These publications are recognized for expert, truthful, fair reporting. But their goal is to help: to help the businesses on which they report.
I would suggest that the mainstream press should consider that the business on which they report is the business of the world – the health, well-being, and prosperity of the American people, and of all people everywhere. With the goal of promoting these good things, the press will be able to report fully, truthfully, helpfully, and admirably.
Update: typo (Freudian slip) corrected: “meanstream” changed to “mainstream” in paragraph 3.
Via Instapundit, who seems to see all:
THE ARAB STREET TURNS OUT:CASABLANCA, Morocco, May 25—Tens of thousands of demonstrators chanting “no to terrorism” thronged the streets of Casablanca today, nine days after 43 people were killed in coordinated suicide attacks in the city.“I am here for myself and for them, the next generation,” said Abdellatif Ghanam, an unemployed night watchman, gesturing to his 6-year-old son. “The people who did those attacks are not followers of Islam in its true sense.”
Interesting.
Interesting indeed. I’ve been ahead of the curve in the opinion that the recent terrorist attacks in Arab nations were going to change things in our favor.
I think the terrorists are eating their own power base by launching attacks in Arab nations. They must be desperate to do it. They must be getting shut out of America, or it would be happening here. The current administration must be doing a fantastic job of shutting them out. We all have to stay vigilant to help. I believe a key reason that there haven’t been more terrorist attacks here is that there are so many of us keeping our eyes open. Go Team.
So, what’s the argument in favor of tax cuts? Are tax cuts justified today? Bruce Bartlett has an LA TIMES article that presents the argument in favor of tax cuts concisely.
By denying government its fuel, tax cuts forced politicians to cut spending. In this sense, supply-side economics echoed the thinking of conservative economist Milton Friedman, who wrote in a 1978 column that “the only effective way to restrain government spending is by limiting government’s explicit tax revenue – just as a limited income is the only effective restraint on any individual’s or family’s spending.”
It makes sense. It’s hard to build votes for cutting spending, because whatever special interest group benefits from any particular spending plan gets all bent out of shape when you talk about cutting it. But most people like the plan of reducing their annual tax bite.
To make this plan work, it’s essential at the same time, as Andrew Sullivan states (see previous post), to prevent simultaneous increases in spending.
Andrew Sullivan states that he is “all in favor of tax cuts,” but that the Republican party is irresponsible to seek tax cuts in a time of deficits. Sullivan argues well, as always, citing this USA Today article:
State legislatures controlled by Republicans increased spending an average of 6.54% per year from 1997 to 2002, compared with 6.17% for legislatures run by Democrats… Republicans cut taxes an average of 1.08% annually from 1997 to 2002 when they controlled both the legislature and governor’s office. Democrats cut taxes 0.59% annually when they were in charge of state government.
He concludes:
I was wrong yesterday. The Democrats aren’t worse. They’re actually better at controlling spending than today’s Republicans.
However, he may not have been wrong. 1997 to 2002 included the anomalous years of the Internet economic boom. They aren’t representative of anyone’s economic behavior during normal times. A study over a longer period of time is required for the excellent comparison Sullivan suggests between the two parties.
What is it with many Arab leaders?
The answer is, under 1 billion dollars.
War Costs: How Much? Well, How High Can You Count?A look at the numbers from the war
May 26 issue – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered the U.S. military to collaborate on a “lessons learned” study of the Iraq war. That will take months, but the air commander, Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley, has had a team from his “analysis and assessments” staff compile some raw numbers. Some highlights of the 16-page report:
423,998 U.S. MILITARY personnel were deployed; other Coalition forces sent an additional 42,987 troops. The total is roughly equivalent to the population of Albuquerque, N.M. The war lasted 720 hours. The allies flew more than 41,400 sorties. That consumed 18,622 tons of fuel, enough to keep a Boeing 737-300 airliner aloft for about 12 years. The Coalition flew 1,801 aircraft-all but 138 were American. The Iraqis were showered with 31,800,000 leaflets bearing 81 different messages. End to end, the leaflets would have made 120,454 rolls of toilet paper. Coalition forces lost 20 aircraft, but only 7as a result of enemy fire. Search-and-rescue teams flew 55 missions and saved 73 people. 80 aircraft were flown to gather intelligence; they took 42,000 pictures of the battlefield, transmitted 3,200 hours of video and eavesdropped on 2,400 hours of Iraqi communications. Known costs: $917,744,361.55 – an amount equivalent to 46 minutes, 10.5 seconds- worth of total U.S. economic output in 2001.
– John Barry
$918 million. Despite the article’s rabble-rousing title, this just isn’t that significant a cost to the U.S. As Senator Everett Dirksen said, “A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.”
Congress blows billions every year just by not controlling costs better.
It seems to me that what Washington needs big-time is a heavy-duty cost-management database that will track all Federal spending and put the details at the fingertips of anybody with a computer.
Update: 6/13/03 . The actual cost appears to be much higher than was stated in this article.
Good grief. It’s a jacket women can wear that stuns anyone who touches it with an electric shock. You must think I’m making this up, but according to WIRED Magazine :
Shocking New Jacket Hits Street
By Leander KahneyA new anti-assault device for women wards off potential assailants with an 80,000-volt electric shock.
Dubbed “exo-electric armor,” the No-Contact Jacket looks like an ordinary fashionable women’s coat. But an inner layer of conductive fiber carries a low-amp charge that delivers a nasty but non-lethal shock to anyone who messes with its wearer.
“It’s kind of like sticking your finger in a wall socket,” said Adam Whiton, one of its designers. “It hurts. If someone tries to grab you from behind, they get the full, hefty shock out of it. That’s really painful.” ...
To prevent accidental discharges, the wearer must arm the jacket before it can deliver a shock. A lock on the sleeve must first be opened with a key, and then the charge is built up by holding down a button inside one of the sleeves.
The idea is to charge it only in threatening situations or when the wearer feels vulnerable, Whiton said. A woman might arm it when she’s walking to her car at night, for instance.
Is this a good idea? I guess so, if the woman doesn’t mind having all her jackets made out of Robocop material. Hey, you gotta love this though:
When charged, the jacket crackles audibly. A pair of slits in the outer lining shows the electric arcs that course across the entire middle layer. It’s an impressive display of the jacket’s power.
Huh? Most people remember the dotcom bust. But did you know that it’s currently a dotcom boom for advertising? Hidden in a Business Week article on Apple we find this surprising sentence:
SWEET MUSIC. The nascent, Net-driven recovery in the graphics and advertising business is another important factor. While advertising in traditional media remains lackluster, online advertising is growing at a double-digit clip.
Warning: this post contains SPOILERS for MATRIX RELOADED.
We’ve got what appears to be the full text of the Architect’s speach (see previous entry). But it seems fairly incomprehensible as written. Posters on Usenet seem to be figuring it out – or possibly even improving it over the movie. It seems the posters on Usenet may be making more sense out of it than the Wachowski brothers did when they wrote the film.
A poster using the screen name Johnny Newsreader has a particularly good take on it.
The choice that Neo is given is essentially this:1) The door to his right (the one Neo doesn’t select) will reload the
Matrix, as has happened five times before. The inhabitants will stay alive
for the new version; their minds will just be reset. Hopefully by now, the
Architect will have tweaked the Matrix enough to fix the bug and, if not,
there will be a seventh Neo, a seventh Zion, etc. In this scenario, Trinity
will die (since she’ll be killed in the Matrix), her body liquified and fed
intravenously to infants, etc.2) The door to his left (the one he chooses) does NOT reload the Matrix,
letting the bug continue. Trinity gets to live (for now), but the bug will
eventually destroy the Matrix, and everyone connected to the Matrix will
die. The machines will have to formulate alternatives to the bioelectricity
that the humans provide, as all of humanity will be dead.In other words, door #1 reloads the matrix, the unstable element (i.e. all
the people) in Zion is wiped out, but all the individuals get to go on
living (in their little dream worlds). Door #2 doesn’t reload the matrix,
but the flaw will eventually bring down the Matrix itself, and everyone will
die who is connected to it.
Warning: SPOILERS ahead for THE MATRIX RELOADED. The following contains a scene from the end of the film.
For all those trying to figure out what the heck happened at the end of THE MATRIX RELOADED, helpful souls on Usenet have posted what is claimed to be the full text of the scene between the Architect and Neo.
THE ARCHITECT Hello, Neo. NEO Who are you? THE ARCHITECT I am THE ARCHITECT. I created the matrix. I’ve been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant. NEO Why am I here? THE ARCHITECT Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here. NEO You haven’t answered my question. THE ARCHITECT Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others. The responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: Others? What others? How many? Answer me!’ THE ARCHITECT (CONT’D) The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version. Again, the responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: Five versions? Three? I’ve been lied too. This is bull.From the LA TIMES opinion piece I quoted earlier today:
...On Tuesday, [the crown prince of Saudi Arabia] said: “There can be no acceptance or justification for terrorism. Nor is there a place for any ideology which promotes it.”
Finally! From 9-11 until now, we heard no such strong condemnations of terrorism from any Arab nations. On the contrary, we had stories like this:
NEW YORK (CNN) [Oct. 12, 2001]
—Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday the city would not accept a $10 million donation for disaster relief from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal after the prince suggested U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the September 11 attacks.
No Arab nations, and few Arab commentators, spoke up to loudly condemn terrorism. This was a big tip-off that they were secretly supporting it.
Now that the terrorists are starting to destroy other Arabs, Arabic leaders are at last speaking out against them.
