Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Morning Joe today: “Sarah Palin is not a serious person”: Update they find Fuller!

Posted: January 18, 2011 by datechguy in media, opinion/news
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Again the transformation from the “when is she going to speak out” before she talked to the “she shouldn’t’ make it about herself”.

Guys I like you but are you actually listening to yourselves? You have given 10 minutes to Sarah Palin because it is your attempt to boost ratings. Remember MSNBC + CNN doesn’t manage to manage to draw as many views as Fox, so you go all Sarah Palin to fire up the niche market and to draw eyeballs of folks like me to see what you guys are going to say.

Mike, I love you, we are both guys from the kingdom, but if you decide that if you are tweeting you are not a serious person that places you in firmly in the middle of the 20th century (when you are born) c’mon Mike.

The problem is people on the right who don’t support her for president see this totally differently:

I continue to believe that Sarah Palin is not yet qualified to be president, but my admiration for her continues to grow. Her interview with Sean Hannity, just aired, was almost pitch-perfect. It was dignified. It was well-modulated. It was strong. And it was thoughtful. She kept her composure even as Hannity put on the screen some of the vilest, most vicious attacks against her — the sorts of things that were so bad that if they were said about me they might shake me to my core. She explained her thought process after hearing about the shooting in Tucson, and explained the timing of her videotaped message, and explained her use of the term “blood libel.” She insisted, rightly, that strong and honest — but respectful — political debate should not be stifled, and noted that it only seems like the right is asked to stifle its views. She was correct on all counts.

Guys, I understand your job is to draw ratings but c’mon guys is there no other way to get audience?

Oh btw I was checking school cancellations so I missed a few min, I don’t know if they mentioned the Fuller Brush man’s apology, but I’ll watch through the 7 a.m. hour to see if that changes.

Update: They find the brush man at 6:33 a.m. in headlines at the bottom of the hour, they give him 30 seconds and Joe throws a comment or two.

Update 2: Does anyone remember the advice that Joe Scarborough & company gave the GOP all during 2009 & 2010. It was the opposite of what they did. If the Republican’s took your advice they would be the minority party in the house now.

Update 3: Joe unexpectedly tears into Carl Bernstein over the “ignorant” business. Carl quotes republicans who didn’t like her but plays the phony geography card showing that he, not Palin is the ignorant one. What on earth happened? He is really going after him on the Palin ignorant and demagogue stuff. What did they inject him with over the break?

Update 4: Joe has actually compared the way Palin is treated by the MSM to the way Reagan was treated in 1980 by the MSM. Am I actually awake and seeing this? This is what you call a 180.

Way too early reports on the apology

Posted: January 18, 2011 by datechguy in fun, media, opinion/news
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I fell asleep on the couch last night and work up at 5 a.m. Much to my youngest’s dismay I don’t see Fitchburg schools listed as canceled but I did turn on Way Too Early with Willie Geist and I see they have discovered Eric Fuller now that he has apologized.

That delay resulted in this post which resulted in my single best day since the blog opened, so I guess I should thank the MSNBC crew for delaying.

I presume Morning Joe will have it as well, but the focus is likely going to be another Palin derangement syndrome day.

(I think the battle hymn song is over the top, I think it enters Palin cult territory. I’m sure they are very nice people but I thought it was shall we say…amusing. )

Sudan and Tunisa two changes in government

Posted: January 17, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news
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The referendum in Sudan is over and the vote is independence:

International observers gave south Sudan’s independence referendum their seal of approval on Monday and said a vote for secession was now “virtually certain” in their first official judgment on the poll.

Early results from last week’s plebiscite suggest people from Sudan’s oil-producing south overwhelming voted to split away from the north after decades of civil war.

Might be a tad premature to say independence but this is now the best shot for the Christians in Southern Sudan to enjoy a modicum of peace.

If they manage to pull it off I would not be surprised to see Christians who are being slain elsewhere on the continent to head in that direction.

Meanwhile in Tunisia although there is violence Michael Totten thinks there is a real shot for shot for Democracy:

Unlike in war-torn Afghanistan or fanatical Saudi Arabia, Tunisian democracy is a real possibility. It’s a bit unlikely as it’s only one possible option of many, but it could happen. Mebazaa himself is now promising, perhaps even sincerely, “a better political life which will include democracy, plurality and active participation for all the children of Tunis.”

I’ve spent time in more than a dozen Muslim countries, eight of them Arab, and Tunisia is — or at least was before this month when things fell apart — one of the most advanced and stable. The majority of its citizens belong to a well-educated middle class, the infrastructure seems no worse than Europe’s, and a high percentage of women in the cities have discarded the veil and the headscarf and dress like Europeans. The latter may sound like a small thing, but in a Muslim country, it visually indicates how much women’s rights have advanced. The overwhelming majority live near the coast in cosmopolitan cities that have traded and been in cultural contact with Europeans for millennia. It’s not a Western country, but it fully belongs to the Mediterranean region and is oriented more toward the West than most Arab countries.

Beirut was once a cosmopolitanism place too. This will be a real test, can an Islamic country when removing a dictator create a state that has freedoms that other Islamic states avoid, or will it become a place where Sharia is either officially or unofficially enforced?

These two stories are going to tell us an awful lot. Let’s make sure we pay attention.

Cuba, Christians and Haiti the world keeps turning

Posted: January 17, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news
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If you followed the blogs you likely didn’t think that anything else was going on except for blaming Sarah Palin for Arizona but there are a few things going on that you should know:

Item: Europe continues it’s post Christian Path:

If you think Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian denominations are lying about how Europe is secularizing, as well as shunning specifically Christianity, this should be proof.

The three million copies of the 2011-2012 school calendar published by the European Union has omitted Christian holidays, while continuing to note important Jewish and Muslim celebrations.

While Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter are missing from the calendar’s pages, days commemorating “Sikh Baisakhi-Day, the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, the Muslim holiday Aid-el-Kebir,” remain in place,”

Europe is still stung by Anti-Semitic slaughter and Muslims are the fastest growing population in the area so they can’t be offended. Christians, who cares.

Item: Iraq continues its own “post Christian era” that being more of a Post Christian being alive” era: (warning very graphic photos of slaughter)

This Assyrian Catholic church was taken over by jihadis, and during the course of the several hours during which they controlled the church, the insurgents killed many of the worshippers, until the Iraqi army forces finally stormed the building.

I have been viewing reports from survivors of the massacre, posted on YouTube (here, here and here). From these, and earlier published reports (e.g. here), a picture emerges of the jihadis as religiously motivated people who engaged their victims in theological conversations about Islam, and justified their actions based on the Islamic sharia.

And the fun for Christians continues in Pakistan too:

A day after the two got into an argument, the Muslim woman walked out onto the street and started shouting that her sister-in-law had abused the Holy Prophet (pbuh).

A short while later, a group of men forced their way into the house and started slapping the Christian woman, said another of her brothers.

“Other men and women from the neighbourhood started gathering at the house too and they beat up my sister and mother. They were the only people in the house,” he added.

A participant in the beating said that the women’s faces were blackened, and that they were made to wear necklaces of shoes and paraded around the locality on donkeys to humiliate them. The women denied blaspheming and repeatedly touched their feet, seeking mercy, he added.

I’m sure feminists in the west will make strong objections to this kind of thing someday before I die. Of course when they do the shock will likely kill me.
Item: Don’t call him a socialist but Obama is trying to bail out the Castro’s in Cuba.

A senior Obama official told The Miami Herald the much-expected move to expand cultural, religious and educational travel to Cuba is part of the administration’s continuing “effort to support the Cuban people’s desire to freely determine their own future.

President Barack Obama is also restoring the amount of money ($2,000) that can be sent to nonfamily members to the level they were at during part of the Clinton and Bush administrations.

As Val Prieto said Cuba’s #1 export is people generating money to send back. This is getting very little notice outside of Babalu Blog, but now you know about it.

Item: In the middle of a post whose real point is faith The Anchoress informs us the UN shows how it’s (not) done in Haiti:

The UN complied. As it turns out, the local aid organizations took the free food that came in from all over the world and were not selling it; they were hoarding it in order to sell it. But the people, for the most part, had no money to buy it with. The Haitian government is so corrupt and I’m sure they’re in cahoots with the local distribution organizations. Someone will get rich off the backs of the poor, and many will die for someone else’s greed.

The day that actual honest people are in charge in Haiti it will be a gift from God.

The world keeps turning no matter what we’re focusing on.

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