Maxine Waters...

...what a leader!

First Female Ames Winner.

Michelle Bachmann is the first female to win the Ames Straw Poll. But this has not received much attention. Conservatives naturally tend to pay less attenion to identity politics. And the media's disapproval of Michelle Bachmann as a human being drives them to ignore it as well.

Vilifying Capitalism

It happens at the hands of hippies-turned-teachers and professors every day.  As a result it creeps into the public rhetoric.  The fact that Microsoft had to "apologize" for this fully appropriate tweet is a testament to the way that Western culture has vilified one of the main driving forces behind Western greatness.

New York Times: Marion Barry Says Adrian Fenty Did A Lot For "White People"

The New York Times is at its best in a recent article.  Former inmate, former DC Mayor and current DC Council Member Marion Barry is interviewed for an article about the problems that come with "gentrification" and informs readers that Adrian Fenty (also a former Mayor) did a lot of things that "white people" like.  We assume he means more than eat at fancy sandwich shops.  The fact that the NYT even gives lip service to those who speak out against the peace and prosperity brought by "gentrification" is a joke in itself. 

WaPo Covers DC Conservative Happy Hour...Isn't That Biased.

 D.C. politicos host dueling happy hours.

The above article mentions the conservative First Friday happy hours and includes an awesomely bad picture of the rival lefty gathering.  It also includes a link to a longer write up on the two events that is strangely not overly biased.

And We Are Back... First Topic: Rep. Giffords

Our apologies for the delay between posts, but we were changing jobs.

Yesterday pictures of a rapidly improving Gabrielle Giffords graced front pages across the country. This prompted two questions in our mind: 1) Would her recovery get the same attention if she was a man? 2) Would it get the same attention if she was a Republican woman?

Answer 1) No. It would be ignored across the board. All media outlets would pay less attention and part of this is due to public demand: People like a damsel in distress story.

Answer 2) Kind of. Fox and other sympathetic outlets would cover the story the same way if she was a Republican. But there is no way that mere recovery pictures, like we saw yesterday, would be on the cover of the New York Times or Washington Post.

A Case Study In Awful Reporting.

I generally appreciate Politico's reporting even if it can be slightly left leaning at times.  But today's headline story is too much.  Last night Democrats won a formerly Republican House seat in a special election in upstate New York that featured two right-of-center candidates (a tea party candidate and a moderate Republican).  Politico is now claiming that Democrats have "cracked the code" for winning in 2012.  Let us review:  special election; upstate New York; two right-of-center candidates in a three way race.  All of this and the Democrat still wins by less than 5 points and does not get a majority of the votes. That's right:  right-wing candidates won a majority of the vote, but Politico claims Democrats have found the golden ticket for 2012. Great reporting Politico. 

No Comment Needed.

A friend forwarded me this today. No comment is really needed:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/17/senator-questions-benefits-to-adult-baby/

He's Not Wrong...

A former French Justice Minister had the following to say about the recent arrest of the French Socialist and IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York.  Regardless of one's feelings about Struass-Kahn and the situation at hand, the sentiment is universally applicable: "Never forget it's not just judges that are elected (in New York), but prosecutors. And the chief of police is elected. And clearly, in public opinion, to exhibit a powerful rich man in the presence of a victim from a very poor background, electorally, it pays off."  http://ca.news.yahoo.com/french-outraged-u-treatment-strauss-kahn-123012695.html

Misguided.

The Nazi regime in Germany has been gone for over 75 years now.  The Nazi regime was a horrible regime and a liberal one (as Jonah Goldberg at National Review has made something of a name for himself pointing out.)  But for some reason a fascination with it continues.  It is such a fascination that lead to the prosecution of John Demjanjuk.  Demjanjuk was a Soviet soldier in World War Two who was captured by the Germans, ended up working at a concentration camp (possibly by force) and then coming to America after the war.  In 2009 he was extradited to Germany and this week found guilty of being a former Nazi and sentenced to five years in prison.  He is 91 years old.  This is a man who was forced into service by the Soviets, became a POW of the Nazis and probably did whatever he had to do to survive before later starting a life in Ohio.  The whole trial was a circus and a joke. 

 

 

A RINO Loses in DC...

This is a good thing. Patrick Mara the "Republican" candidate for DC Council does not support the 2nd Amendment and advocated for the ridiculous idea of DC Congressional "voting rights." He is a liberal on many social issues also. He would have been a bad leader for the party in the nation's Capital.

That being said, with the vast array of choices in this special election it is somewhat ironic that DC voters once again picked a candidate from southeast DC who has been accused of corruption (Marion Barry, Vince Gray...and now Vincent Orange, the latest once-again member of the DC Council.)

File This Under "Be Thankful For The First Amendment."

The Constitution has been weakened and abused over the last 7 to 8 decades, yet Americans still enjoy strong free speech rights. Such is not the case in the rest of the world. Even the English speaking world:

A Canadian comic has been ordered to pay CA$15,000 (US$15,745) to a woman he taunted along with her same-sex partner during a show in a Vancouver restaurant three years ago, the Vancouver Sun reported Thursday. Stand-up comedian Guy Earl was ordered to pay the money to Lorna Pardy, 32, while the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal also ordered the Vancouver restaurant owner, Salam Ishmail, to pay her $7,500. Pardy said Earle directed homophobic and sexist insults at her when she was a patron, and he was the master of ceremonies at an open mic comedy show at the restaurant in 2007. http://www.myfoxny.com/dpps/news/lesbian-insults-get-comic-fined-dpgonc-km-20110421_12871288

An Interesting Analysis...

...Of women's college basketball.

Looking Back At March.

This past month was the month of Saint Patrick’s Day and the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Here are some thoughts about both of these events:

The actual history of Saint Patrick is often (obviously) obscured.

There is no problem with the commercialization of Saint Patrick’s day (or for that matter the commercialization of just about anything), except when it comes at the cost of absolutely forgetting the origin of the thing. For instance, there is no problem with Santa Claus as long as the public conscience remembers the events in Bethlehem. And there is no problem with one dollar pints of green beer, unless the public conscience forgets the story of Saint Patrick.

Saint Patrick was born to Roman parents in England. In his teens, he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland. He became a Christian while in captivity. Propelled by his new found faith, he escaped from Ireland back to the continent of Europe. He was then educated as a priest and never really feeling at home again in Rome or England returned to Ireland to convert the island.

Saint Patrick’s history has nothing to do with snakes or even really Irish identity, but for the fact that he brought Christianity to island and thus became the patron saint.

There is no problem with celebrating this holiday with an Irish pint, but to act as if it is a manufactured day just meant for drinking is confusing a day celebrating a Western and Christian hero with…well, Cinco de Mayo.

As for the NCAA Tournament: There have been various attempts at various levels of government to force the NCAA to have a football tournament. A simple look at this year’s basketball tournament tells us why this would not only be needless big government interference, but also just a plain bad idea.

This year's “March Madness” has been entertaining, but no one actually thinks it will produce the best team as its champion. Comparatively, Auburn (or Oregon) this year, Alabama (or Texas) last year and Florida (or Oklahoma) the year before were truly the top of the bunch in football. They were great teams and played great championship games. Do you think anyone will say the same about Virginia Commonwealth in Basketball?

The market has a way of working things out. The bowl system produces the best result for football. March Madness gets people paying attention to college basketball. In football there is a greater interest in having the best two teams play for the title. In basketball there is a greater interest in office pools and brackets and upsets. It works out nicely. The invisible hand at work.

How Quaint.

Whenever the New York Times does a profile on life in DC, it always reeks of “oh how quaint and provincial it is down there." A recent article on well known DC bloggers is no exception.

The bloggers profiled in the following article are arguably famous, but nice and approachable figures around DC. So of course the NYT masterfully overstates their importance in a clever underhanded attempt at making Washington look "Busch League."

“How cute, they run blogs. We have hedge fund managers here.”

I will give the NYT credit though: Many people in DC (sadly maybe some of those mentioned in the article) will take pride in this article and not catch on to the subtle insult.

Washington’s New Brat Pack Masters Media "One winter evening, Brian Beutler, 28, a reporter for the online publication Talking Points Memo, sat with his friend and roommate Dave Weigel, 29, a political reporter for Slate and a contributor to MSNBC, at a coffee shop on U Street. Recovering from a cold as snow fell outside, Mr. Beutler spoke about his younger — well, relatively younger — days in the city. “Everyone’s gotten a little bit older and a little more boring,” Mr. Beutler said, speaking of a wave of Washington bloggers who have come of age together...

... In only a few years, these young men and others like them have become part of the journalistic establishment in Washington. Once they lived in groups in squalid homes and stayed out late, reading comic books in between posts as more seasoned reporters slogged their way through traditional publications like The Hill and Roll Call. Now the members of this “Juicebox Mafia,” as they were first called by Eli Lake of The Washington Times, in a reference to youth, have become destination reading for — and respected by — the city’s power elite...

...There is precedent for such packs of smart, self-important young men in other capital cities. More than 50 years ago, Gay Talese wrote of “the witty, irreverent sons of a conquering nation,” led by George Plimpton, who once tromped through Paris…" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/fashion/27YOUNGPUNDITS.html

John Derbyshire On Fire This Week...

Great broadcast by him. There is a brief section on the budget that is a little slow at the start, but he really gets going after that. A great application of conservatism to current events.

Listen here.

Thought Of The Day.

The cost of a cruise missile being fired on Libya would fund NPR for the better part of a decade.

It is hard to draw conclusions from this...NPR still is a waste and there are decent arguments for intervention in Libya, but it puts things in perspective.

Iona Institute: China Credit's Christianity For Rise Of The West.

Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese

In the West we are doing our best to destroy our Christian heritage but in China, Chinese intellectuals are coming around to the view that it is precisely this heritage that has made the West so successful. Read more: http://www.ionainstitute.ie/index.php?id=1336

New York Times Watch.

NYT’s Dismal Editorial Standards and Bruce Fein’s Falsehoods
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/259692/inyti-s-dismal-editorial-standards-and-bruce-fein-s-falsehoods-ed-whelan

More on NYT’s Dismal Editorial Standards and Bruce Fein’s Falsehoods
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/259783/more-nyt-s-dismal-editorial-standards-and-bruce-fein-s-falsehoods-ed-whelan

Was It A Good Thing...

Going off of our last post: Was it a good thing that the British gave up control of the Suez Canal to Egypt? From the looks of this news, no: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=208988

Thought Of The Day: Current Events Edition.

"It’s a good thing we teamed up with the Soviets to make the British and
French leave the Suez canal under Egyptian control. " - Foseti

The NYT Should Look A Little Harder.

The NYT claims there are few dumb regulations:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=732909&f=77

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Best Thing I Have Read So Far This Week.

"Oprah Winfrey says she turned to comfort food when "Bride of Chucky" beat "Beloved" in its opening weekend."
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2011/01/13/2011-01-13_oprah_winfrey_beloved_box_office_failure_made_me_eat_30_pounds_of_mac_and_cheese.html

The RNC: Does it still matter?

The Republican National Committee will elect a new Chairman this week. But does it matter? The tea party insurgents certainly underminded the party establishment this fall.

And now news is starting to come through the grape vine that at least one conservative PAC is preparing to have their own semi-public selection process to determine whom to support in the 2012 POTUS primaries. This would essentially be an independent primary within the GOP primaries. It would defintely further undermind the RNC.

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So From What I Am Hearing...

...from the Left lately, the attackers in this video must be violent, extreme Tea Party types. Because, as we all know, they are the ones who commit violent crimes in this country: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/video-shows-attack-on-metro-rider-010611

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New York Times Watch.

Of course a one-term Congressman with no real accomplishments is deserving of a departing article dedicated to him in “America’s finest newspaper:”

He Entered Congress Swinging, and Exits That Way
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/us/politics/03grayson.html?_r=1&ref=politics