2007 September | Hoystory

Archive for September, 2007

Sep

Lying, willful ignorance or stupidity?

By admin Closed 1 Star

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Media

I’m not sure which category to put New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal in.

It is true that we don’t have many conservative columnists on the Op-Ed page. Actually, right now, we have David Brooks, who gets to be the dunking target for a lot of readers because he’s a Republican and a conservative. Most of our other columnists are clearly not either, although I would defy anyone to label Maureen Dowd by party affiliation or ideology. I’ve known her and worked closely with her for 20 years and I can’t tell you the answer to either one.

Is he serious? Maureen Dowd is a left wing liberal who hasn’t voted for a Republican for any elected office, from dog catcher on up, for her entire adult life.

I defy Maureen Dowd to prove me wrong. I’ve read, shudder, her columns for a handful of years and can tell you that.

Who does Rosenthal thinks buys that — on the left or the right?

Talk about treating your readers like complete morons. And some people wonder why the business is going in the tank.

Sep

You too can be a great actor

By admin Closed 1 Star

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Funny

This might’ve been entertaining to see.

Point Break LIVE!, the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster, tells the story of former college football star Johnny Utah (Reeves in the film), as he pursues the surfing, bankrobbing, skydiving, bare-hand-fighting, adrenaline junkie cum Zen Master, Bodhi Sattva. The Brechtian blockbuster, which garnered a “Seattle P-I Best of Seattle 2004″ award during its run in the Northwest, features armed robbery, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, and no less than two extended skydiving sequences. Best of all, you could be the next Johnny Utah… the starring role of Keanu will be selected at random from the audience each night, and will read their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting.

It’s really tough to identify which of Keanu Reeves’ movies was the worst. Personally, I think his butchering of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” was the low point. Although, it was probably actor Michael Keaton’s best performance.

Sep

Bad journalism 101

By admin Closed 1 Star

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Iraq and Media

MSNBC’s David Shuster is a jerk. In an apparent effort to win kudos from Media Matters for America, Shuster earlier this week went after Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) over her support for the Iraq war. So far, so fair — though not exactly a sterling example of unbiased journalism.

Shuster decided that he’d throw in a little pop quiz that some in the media delight in giving to GOP politicians. He asked Blackburn the name of the last soldier from her district killed in Iraq. She didn’t know the soldier’s name — and it turns out Shuster didn’t either. (Or maybe he did, tough to tell.)

In what passes for “logic” with the mainstream media, a politician is a hypocrite if they support the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and don’t know the name of the last person from their district killed there. Seriously, here’s Shuster’s terse response to a blogger regarding the incident:

the story was about blackburn’s hypocrisy… it wouldn’t matter whether the soldier’s name was David shuster or Crazy Water [the email name of the reader]. she didn’t know the name, period.

Regards,
D

If journalists still wonder why they have a bad reputation — well, they’re stupid. Did you see journalists challenging politicians who opposed the war to name the last Iraqi fed through a plastic shredder feet first? Or the name of the last woman Uday or Qusay raped? Is that really relevant to their votes?

Sep

Who you gonna believe?

By admin Closed 1 Star

(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Democrats and Media

President Clinton’s former hatchet-man, Sidney Blumenthal, comes out swinging in defense of Dan Rather and his laughable lawsuit in this article over at Salon.com.

You don’t need to read past the third paragraph of the story to see the return of “fake but accurate.”

In making his case, Rather will certainly establish beyond reasonable doubt that George W. Bush never completed his required service in the Texas Air National Guard. Moreover, Rather’s suit will seek to demonstrate that the documents used in his “60 Minutes II” piece were not inauthentic and that he and his producers acted responsibly in presenting them and the information they contained — and that that information is true. Indeed, no credible source has refuted the essential facts of the story.

“Not inauthentic.” Oh, what a beautiful double-negative.

Yes, no credible source has refuted the “facts” created using the default settings of Microsoft Word.

If you’re really interested in a good laugh, check out the Editor’s Choice responses to Blumenthal’s garbage. It makes you wonder when Bush Derangement Syndrome became a cult.

Sep

Hot, hot, hot

By admin Closed 1 Star

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Environment

Today’s San Diego Union-Tribune has an article on the shrinking Arctic ice and its potential to cause drought in Southern California.

A few thoughts:

First, Southern California is a desert. I’ve lived in San Diego County for most of my life and there have been drought conditions more often than not. This time we apparently have a new bogeyman to blame.

Second, wacky climate models:

Three years ago, computer forecast models predicted that in 2050, the reduced ice mass would cause climate shifts that would result in a drought in the western United States.

But the ice is melting far faster than climatologists thought it would.

So much ice has disappeared that the Arctic today looks much like what scientists thought it would in 2050. It’s as if the atmosphere hit the fast-forward button.

The predicted climate changes also may have arrived, with much of the West in the midst of the kind of severe drought that geoscientist Jacob Sewall had envisioned for 2050.

Note the way the “logic” appears to be working here: The climate model is accurate, the atmosphere hit the fast-forward button.

In the real world, if the climate model was off by 43 years, you might want to reconsider the belief that the model was mimicking anything resembling the real world.

Now, it’s possible that something drastic and completely unforseen has happened in the last three years to invalidate their climate model, but if so they don’t mention it.

Instead, they continue to operate as if all of their models are accurate. They’re off by 43 years, but they’re sure that this is what’s causing the drought this time.

Most climatologists agree the loss of Arctic ice will probably change weather patterns.

Yeah, and global warming was supposed to result in an increase in severe hurricanes the past couple of years in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

The truth of the matter is that no one has a clue. Climatology is a discipline in its infancy. “We just don’t know” isn’t the type of response that’s going to get you grant money nowadays, so too many scientists go about their scaremongering in search of a buck.

Sep

The role of jurors

By admin Closed 1 Star

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Education and Judges

You can’t always blame the education system for the poor state of civics education — sometimes you get to blame judges.

In a story in Sunday’s Union-Tribune about a program to educate teachers on how t teach about the justice system to their students, Superior Court Judge Richard G. Cline had the following take on the role of jurors:

“Students don’t realize that the courts are how adults decide their sandbox squabbles,” Cline said in an interview, explaining the inspiration for the institute. “You can change laws and corporate practices by going and serving as a juror.”

You can change laws by serving as a juror? Really. I think the judge is mistaken. Changing laws is usually reserved for legislators — and judges.

Sep

Dan Rather

By admin Closed 1 Star

(No Ratings Yet)

Loading ...

Categories: Media

I mentioned last week that former anchor Dan Rather had filed suit against CBS. I continue to look forward to the discovery process. For those who are interested, National Review’s Jonah Goldberg has a drop-dead funny bit of schadenfraude that you should read.

In 2004, at the height of the Dan Rather Memogate story, I wrote in National Review: “Across the media universe the questions pour out: Why is Dan Rather doing this to himself? Why does he drag this out? Why won’t he just come clean? Why would he let this happen in the first place? Why is CBS standing by him? Why … why … why?

“There is only one plausible answer: Ours is a just and decent God.”

Well, God has not forsaken us. Dan Rather seems divinely inspired to crash more times than a Kennedy driving home from an office party. The multimillionaire semi-retired newsman is suing for $70 million, $1 million for every year he’s been alive since he was five years old. Which is fitting, because that’s what he sounds like. The gist of his lawsuit is that CBS used him as a “scapegoat” in the Memogate story to “pacify the White House.” The swelled-headed former anchor, who used to brag incessantly about his toughness and independence, also whines in his suit that the network forced him to apologize under duress when “no apology from him was warranted,” and that the former managing editor of CBS News “was not responsible for any such errors.”

It only gets better from there.

In addition to Rather’s old fraud, I don’t want a new fraud of his to get lost. Last week on Mark Cuban’s HDNet cable channel, Rather had a hard-hitting “exposé” on the new Boeing jet that’s made out of carbon fiber. Rather uses a disgruntled engineer who was fired for making a racist statement as the sole basis for his fearmongering that carbon fiber is far more dangerous than good old fashioned aluminum. [Transcript here in Word format.]

Over at Wired Magazine, Aaron Rowe exposes Rather and the one-sided hack job that he did.

What is interesting to me as a journalist is this exchange between Rowe and Rather’s new executive producer Wayne Nelson.

Mr. Rowe–As Executive Producer of Dan Rather Reports i must take issue with the unbelievably shallow piece you wrote on the program. Yes, perhaps you should watch it before making so many inane comments. And when you watch it, perhaps you will notice that it is not Mr. Rather making the charges but an engineer with more than 40 years at Boeing, as well as several of his colleagues. Vince Weldon has serious concerns with the “crashworthiness” of the 787. As someone who worked closely on the design of the plane we believe he has the right to air his concerns before thousands of passengers begin flying the plane.

Wayne Nelson
Dan Rather Reports
New York, NY

***
Wayne,

Perhaps you should have provided some balance to your story by contacting some third party experts.

Aaron Rowe

***

You wouldn’t know balance if it bit you in the ass. Why don’t you stick to engineering. Hopefully you’re better at that. Want more bloggger boy?

Get a life

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Aside from being jaw-droppingly unprofessional, it seems as Rather has another problem: Wayne Nelson. Ever since his CBS News implosion, Rather has demonstrated one pressing need: a straitjacket. With a straitjacket nowhere in sight, Rather needs an executive producer that will rein him in and challenge him.

Wayne Nelson is a yes-man.

And an ass.

Sep

20 rounds of applause

By admin Closed 1 Star

(No Ratings Yet)

Loading ...

Categories: Education and Idiots

That’s the number that whackjob despot Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket got during his speech/Q&A at Columbia University.

Does anyone want to lay odds on the likelihood of a speech given by President Bush at Columbia University getting half that many cheers?

What does that say about Columbia University? What does that say about the American left?

Sep

Feeling the heat

By admin Closed 1 Star

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

Loading ...

Categories: Environment and Government

If you’re at all interested in global warming, or long for the good old days of programming in Fortran (who knew I would’ve been better off learning Fortran than Pascal in high school?) then you should check out some of the analysis going on over at Climate Audit.

Steve McIntyre and friends are trying to figure out how NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen is “adjusting” for the Urban Heat Island effect and determining exactly how and how much the Earth is warming.

For a graphical look at the goings on, I present to you this chart of the temperature data for Wellington, New Zeland. The black lines are the raw temperature data (in degrees Celsius) and the red lines are Hansen’s “adjustment.”

Wellington, New Zeland temperatures

The numbers stop mysteriously in 1988 because that’s apparently when the city of Wellington plunged into the sea. Just kidding. It didn’t plunge into the sea — but NASA did lose it. Seriously.

For those of you just a little bit outraged that your local newspaper or TV newscast failed to report on the correction to the temperature numbers that made 1931 the warmest year on record and dropped 1998 to No. 2, don’t dismay.

Hansen has done some further rejiggering to his methods and now 1931 and 1998 are tied.

And they want to destroy the economy of most of the Western world and condemn the world’s poor to continued poverty, disease and despair based on research of this dubious quality?

Sep

The Old Gray Lady is senile

By admin Closed 1 Star

(No Ratings Yet)

Loading ...

Categories: Media

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt revealed in his Sunday column that MoveOn.org’s infamous “General Betray Us” ad was not only sold at a discount, but should never have run in the first place according to the paper’s standards for advocacy advertising.

Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?

The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.

The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was “rough,” he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print.

MoveOn.org is now trying to help cover for the Times by promising to pay the “correct” rate — and is calling on GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani to do the same.

Hoyt’s column doesn’t really answer the key question at hand: Exactly how did the mistake in the ad rate get made. Step-by-step. How long has this advertising person been with the company? Maybe one can be forgiven if it’s a relatively new employee, but if it’s someone who’s been around quite awhile, then the chances of it being favoritism go up. The column also doesn’t delve into this tidbit:

Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org, told me that his group called The Times on the Friday before Petraeus’s appearance on Capitol Hill and asked for a rush ad in Monday’s paper. He said The Times called back and “told us there was room Monday, and it would cost $65,000.” Pariser said there was no discussion about a standby rate. “We paid this rate before, so we recognized it,” he said. [emphasis added]

I want to know the circumstances of these other occasions. Has MoveOn.org been getting a special rate for years? Or did the previous circumstances (i.e. not knowing for sure which day it will run) dictate that lower rate.

Hoyt has made a good first step, but there’s some more digging called for.