Click here for DaTechGuyBlog.com Same Fedoras, Same Cannoli different domain.
Please Help DaTechGuy pay Da Bills
Click for the latest show
I know I just woke up and am a little groggy but am I actually seeing this?
We have ACTUAL DEATH THREATS against ACTUAL SITTING MEMBERS of an ACTUAL LEGISLATURE that the MSM is ignoring and not reporting on and Morning Joe is hitting Sarah Palin over the video response from January?
The question of responding or no is interesting but frankly old .
Yeah the politico angle on if she is running is legit but c’mon guys.
I’m really surprised that I can really be surprised here.
Donny Deutch is calling the Governor Fascist, Mika is still hitting the governor and the republicans but points out the Democrats having fled have not a lot of lets to stand on.
Harold Ford is hitting Walker with both fists, Willie Geist is also saying it shows Walker for what he is etc etc etc.
Pat Buchanan is nailing it that the pictures of the mobs are going to hurt big time but the bottom line is did this work or did it not work.
Barnicle is pointing out that it’s going to come down in four years with “are you better off than you were four years ago.” Mika is agreeing.
The reports from Althouse of door being handcuffed shut by protesters are going to be in republican ads next year and will be devastating in the next election both locally and nationally.
Today’s vote in the legislature will determine if Wisconsin is ruled by the mob or by the law. It will also be interesting to see how the police react. Will they help republican legislatures get through the mob? Will they keep the mob from trying to intimidate the legislatures?
It will be an interesting day. I say the unions will go all in because they feel they have nothing to lose. The pictures will not be pretty.
Will democrats be smart enough to stop the Unions or will they be egging them on?
It will be fun to find out.
…about appearances of bias:
Conan: Finally, several of you wrote during yesterday’s show about PP, about the conflict over what percentage of the agency’s clients receive abortions. We’ve asked NPR’s heal policy correspondent Julie Rovner to join us again. Julie, always nice to have with you us.… And we heard two figures from opposing sides yesterday, 3% and 10%, who’s right?
Rovner: Well, the conflict is really that PP keeps its statistics according to the percent of those services that are provided, not according to how many people get what. So it turns out that there are – that indeed, abortions are 3% of the services provided, although – and that was what, I think, Sarah Stoesz from PP kind of misspoke when she said it was 3% of patients who come in get abortions.
It is actually a little bit closer to the 10% that Marjorie Dannenfesler suggested, because there are about 3 million patients who come in. There are about 300,000 abortions provided.
The hook, just 24 hours earlier they promoted the very same 3% figure. Quite a coincidence, or as Jill Stanek puts it:
Perhaps James O’Keefe’s release yesterday of damaging investigative videos against National Public Radio (read more here, here, and here) had nothing to do with it.
Or perhaps a desperate NPR is suddenly trying to appear more fair and balanced in the face of potentially losing $90 million in taxpayer funding.
Yup I can’t see why we would think that NPR is in damage control mode.
I guess when you are fighting for limited federal dollars, some alliances are just too expensive to worry about.
Update: Dropped an “e” in Jill’s name, corrected
I couple of days ago I saw this post from a Chinese site concerning Charlie Sheen. It from a Chinese view concerning Sheen actions in terms of parental fealty (that is respect for one’s parents and family name) Sicilians are very big into this so the article interested me. The author talked about how media influences behavior:
How many young people have been led astray by Sheen’s boasts about his substance abuse and freewheeling sex life? And that was when he was in character on national television, as a randy bachelor in Two and a Half Men.
The author then talked about the difference between how such a situation would be handled in a Chinese culture rather than an American one.
Take Edison Chen, who humbly apologized and slipped away to Canada. Or Li Gang’s father, who wept as he sought forgiveness on his son’s behalf.
The fact that Sheen continues to embarrass himself unabated, becoming even a hero to many, points to the vast differences in cultures.
Now there is a lot of talk about how TV really doesn’t have an influence and it doesn’t really matter. It is to those people that I direct the next line:
He ignored his own father’s advice to keep quiet, who was once the president of the US. emphasis mine Sheen is a disgrace, unfilial to his father and his fatherland.
You are likely laughing right now. Look at this guy who doesn’t know the difference between West Wing and reality, what a maroon. Consider how many years West Wing was on, how many people who don’t pay attention to this kind of thing, or lived overseas with no other point of reference actually believed what they saw?
Which brings us to NPR.
One of the things that makes institutional bias the “media template” so insidious is the effect of a false background message on people who do not pay attention to what is going on. True or false it becomes what “everybody knows”.
When a person or a group has an acknowledged bias (For example I am unapologetic conservative Catholic) those biases are out there and people can make an informed decision on what to believe or not. When you have a large company supported by tax dollars feeding biases such as shown in the NPR videos you are simply providing propaganda to a particular side, and to those who are either not paying attention regularly or to those listening overseas it becomes what “everybody knows”.
I don’t think this is a bug, I think NPR considers this a feature. How many people have a false impression of the Tea Party, a position that would be moot if they attended a meeting or two?
And that is why government funding doesn’t belong, if people or groups want to give their money to support a point of view that’s one thing, its a free country. To use public funds, particularly when we have a deficit, to do so that’s another.
Update: Fealty was misspelled in the Chinese article and I copied that misspelling, corrected.
Update 2: The damage control keeps up first Ron Schiller, then Vivian Schiller now Ron again
Aspen Institute communications director Jim Spiegelman says in an e-mail: “Ron Schiller has informed us that, in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements, he does not feel that it’s in the best interests of the Aspen Institute for him to come work here.”
That half minute news story keeps getting longer doesn’t it?
The NPR executive caught on video bashing the Tea Party and saying that NPR didn’t need federal funding will not be heading to the Aspen Institute. Ron Schiller had been scheduled to start his new position as director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence April 1, according to a glowing press release distributed last week.
But now Aspen Institute communications director Jim Spiegelman says that Schiller will not be working there.
Rush is now reporting that Ron Schiller is claiming his statements do not reflect the views of NPR or his own. Say WHAT?
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 