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“It’s a half minute news story”

Posted: March 9, 2011 by datechguy in media, opinion/news
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thus Sayith Carl Bernstein Watching Morning Joe, because of the resignation the NPR statement and the current fight was forced to cover the story. Yet although they played the key segments (stressing it was “edited” and that is was O’Keefe’s group while not mentioning that O’Keefe wasn’t in the video, nor mentioning the 2nd NPR person in the videos) the topic was instantly about how much of a non story this was, how unimportant it is and why we shouldn’t care.

Thus the show is able to say: “Yes we covered it.”, without giving it any credence.

Alas for them they had Cokie Roberts and her husband scheduled so it was impossible to not touch on it again. Again it was called a distraction, Cokie stressed how the small stations would suffer without federal funding and how much separation there is from the actual journalism and the exects.

This tells me that they can’t ignore it. The trap was the crank call against Walker. Morning Joe and the MSM went long on it, the media ate it up. Because they did and because it was Walker is still in the news. it became impossible to totally ignore it.

This is going to undermine democrats in the senate big time which already had problems:

In November, the same week that George Soros declared war on Fox News by giving $1 million to Media Matters, NPR announced it had accepted a $1.8 million grant from Soros’s Open Society Foundations for a 50-state local reporting initiative.

The grant, coming so close to Williams’s firing, stuck in conservatives’ craw.

“When NPR receives million-dollar gifts from Mr. Soros, it is an insult to taxpayers when other organizations, such as MoveOn.org demand that Congress ‘save NPR and PBS’ by guaranteeing ‘permanent funding and independence from partisan meddling,’ as the liberal interest group did last month,” DeMint wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week.

The increased scrutiny is certainly not going to be healthy for them.

Update: Vivian Schiller just resigned. Apparently this is no longer a half minute new story. Over to you Carl.

Update 2: That half minute keeps getting longer and longer doesn’t it? Ron Schiller is now out of Aspen too, and apparently Vivian didn’t resign, she was fired.

What is a military for?

Posted: March 8, 2011 by datechguy in culture, war
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Apparently its primary purpose is to make a social statement:

The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday.

Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008.

One barrier that keeps women from the highest ranks is their inability to serve in combat units. Promotion and job opportunities have favored those with battlefield leadership credentials.

The report ordered by Congress in 2009 calls for greater diversity in the military’s leadership so it will better reflect the racial, ethnic and gender mix in the armed forces and in American society.

Let me point out something very simple. The purpose of the military is not to reflect the racial, ethnic and gender mix of the country. The job of the military is to:

  • Fight and deter the enemies of the united states
  • Defend our allies and to deter those who would threaten them.
  • Protect American interest and citizens.

As long as we are able to do this, I don’t care if our military is composed of three-legged aliens who all answer to the name “Harold”. I’ll let others argue the specifics, the bottom line is promotion and leadership should be based on whatever helps the military achieve those goals I listed, that it!

The moment we do otherwise we lose the best military in the world, and believe me the rest of the world and our enemies are watching.

The sign that the battle in Wisconsin is practically won

Posted: March 8, 2011 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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One thing I’ve noticed in covering protests is that you get a lot of hangers-on.

For example at almost every Boston protest you will get one guy who carries his US flag with corporate symbols replacing stripes, you will get a guy with a Palestinian flag. And if the tea party is anywhere nearby I guarantee you that the LaRouche democrats will be around, usually with their Obama Hitler posters, and of course there are the truthers.

Generally these guys are the crazy uncles of any movement they find themselves a parade and try to get noticed within it.

Which brings us to Michael Moore getting in FRONT of the crowd:

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore urged Wisconsin residents Saturday to fight against Republican efforts to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights, telling thousands of protesters that “Madison is only the beginning.”

There has been story after story about Moore’s appearance, I submit it shows that the left is losing this fight.

Moore’s biggest fans are on the far left, not in the mainstream. If Moore is the story, if he is the man in front. That tells you the message isn’t working or playing, polls or no.

As I was writing this I noticed this at Althouse who apparently agrees:

I wonder if the teachers and other Wisconsin union members who got the protest started 3 weeks ago appreciate having Michael Moore absorb their issue — maintaining the quality of professional public employment in Wisconsin — into his larger anti-capitalist agenda for America.

This is a problem with extending the protests. The crowd changes, new infusions of energy come from outsiders who see a ready-made platform to climb up on. These old-school, left-wing attacks on corporations have little to do with the distinct problems of jobs in the public sector — where, management is the government of the state and its citzens.

If their big draw is Michael Moore that tells you something about what is going on.

Ride right through them, they’re demoralized as hell.

Now that’s a poll to pay attention to…

Posted: March 8, 2011 by datechguy in oddities, opinion/news
Tags: ,

As a general rule polls are a snapshot in time, informative to the degree that they aren’t manipulated to get a desired result. You learn much more from trends that from an individual poll.

In theory this isn’t a poll, but if it was it speaks volumes:

White House Communications Office internal memo dated February 22 noted “a major issue with the Commencement Challenge.”

“As of yesterday we had received 14 applications and the deadline is Friday,” the memo said. The memo also urged recipients to, “please keep the application number close hold.”

A follow-up memo on February 28 reported receipt of 68 applications. Noting the competition among more than 1,000 schools last year, the memo said, “Something isn’t working.” It called on staffers to ask “friendly congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral offices” to encourage schools to apply.

Think about it, In just one year the number of schools that would like Obama to speak at their high school graduation has dropped by more that 93%. You would think that any high school would want a president to speak at it.

Ah DaTechGuy, it’s because of Racism. Has to be right? Tell me, I’m not an expect but I’d be shocked if there were not 68 majority black high schools in New York City alone.

Allah Pundit actually has sympathy:

Is there any sadder testament to the fading magic of Hopenchange than this? Reading it, I actually felt sorry for the guy.

I can’t manage that, this whole business show he’s kinda vain. I bet he thinks this job is about him.

The emperor here has no clothes and hasn’t for a while. The media keeps portraying him as unbeatable in 2012, I’ve been wondering why people buy this line. If you have to hustle to get high schools to invite you, if you have to send out friendly congresspeople to ask people to invite you then you aren’t all that popular.

Ride right through them, they’re demoralized as hell!

Update: Via Glenn Byron York remembers history:

“Will anybody run against George Bush in 1992?” asked Juan Williams in the Washington Post on March 10, 1991. “There are no candidate footprints in the pristine snows of New Hampshire this winter and the Iowa cornfields are untrampled.”

March passed, and then April, May, June, and July, and still Democrats searched for candidates willing to challenge Bush. One by one, the big names — Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Mario Cuomo — decided not to run. Bush was just too strong.

The Democratic field that finally emerged seemed decidedly lackluster: Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey, Bill Clinton, Douglas Wilder and Tom Harkin. After an undistinguished primary season, one of them would be the sacrificial lamb to run against Bush.

Today, 20 years later, there’s no need to elaborate on how it turned out. All you have to say is that the prize went to the candidate who took a risk when others shied away

Exactly.

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