Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Morning Joe Frozen and Perserved

Posted: February 24, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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I wonder if there is going to be a global warming story as they freeze at the White house.

6:40 a.m. Mika looks like Davros wanting to shout EXTERMINATE!

6:42 a.m. President Who and Why, Abbot and Costello live!

6:44 a.m. They are right Clinton has grown. It was a fair statement that she got her position in NY due to her association with her husband, but nobody could say that about her now.

6:46 a.m. I’m very interested in seeing what actual troops think of her vs what Andrea I know NUT-THING Mitchel says.

6:59 a.m. Chuck and Willie in the briefing room, Willie sure is tall next to Chuck

7:09 a.m. Well we all know how well the federal government runs things, particular Fannie & Freddie

7:38 a.m. Oh joy our governor Deval (Obama Jr, lets have the highest gas tax in the nation) Patrick is coming up.

7:42 a.m. Patrick: “Is it budget cuts? What happened to the studio?”

7:44 a.m. Patrick: We will use the money for bridges and road work, don’t trivialize job preservation.

7:46 a.m. Barnicle asked him about the gas tax business. He is saying its that or tolls etc…

8:08 a.m. My Helicopter seems totally adequate to me.

8:10 a.m. It sounds like they are ranking him high on BS, because he can crack a joke about himself, just what we are needing in a president for a crisis.

8:13 a.m. The Republican Senator from South Carolina points out its how you ask the question as to the reason why the package polls so well.

8:23 a.m. Schumer seems to be on the attack Jindal mode, that seems to be contrary to the they want him to be the nominee.

8:25 a.m. Todd asks about the other governors. “They won’t have to raise taxes for two years.”

8:35 a.m. Why should there be a department of education? Todd asks. Sec: They are competing with people all over the world. Not much of an answer.

8:49 a.m. Now we see Gibbs office, it would be nice if he asked if he read the stimulus bill itself.

8:52 a.m. Don’t take it personal but make it personal if it is asked by a certain CNBC person.

8:54 a.m. It never hit me that Mika hung around here as a kid, I totally forgot about that.

8:56 a.m. Is it just me or is Mika over layered today in terms of make-up.

The Indispensable man

Posted: February 23, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , ,

The American Spectator has a first rate article tweaking the attempt to Blame Hoover for the actions of Bill Moyers during the LBJ era:

The Washington Post’s scoop, and Moyers’s non-denial denial, regurgitates a familiar excuse: Hoover did it. In this time-worn script, the FBI director plays the role of Mephistopheles, with various liberal presidents cast as the innocent with the pesky devil upon his shoulder.

He goes through the litany of the Democratic/liberal and concludes thusly:

J. Edgar Hoover is necessary to square the soaring liberal rhetoric on civil liberties with the atrocious civil liberties records of liberal presidents. With an ideology extolling civil liberties crashing into its record of smashing civil liberties, ideologues reshape the facts to fit the ideology. The blame-Hoover template asks readers to believe that the president takes orders from the director of the FBI rather than the reverse. It portrays the world-class arm-twister Lyndon Johnson as a man prone to crying uncle, Woodrow Wilson as secretly opposing his administration’s policies, and the Kennedys acceding to electronic surveillance on Martin Luther King only for his own protection.

If Hoover didn’t exist liberal authors would need to invent him.

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Unrelated thought, would you like the idea of Hoover in charge of homeland security right now? I would.

Cause and effect

Posted: February 23, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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We can’t be surprised when we see stories like this:

The Tibetan New Year, or Losar, is normally the most festive holiday of the year, when Tibetans burn incense, make special dumplings and set off fireworks. But this year, Tibetans have declared a moratorium on celebrating their own holiday, saying they will instead observe a mourning period for people killed last year during protests against Chinese rule.

Amazing and I thought everyone loved a holiday!

“Instead of the usual celebrations marked by singing, dancing and other festivities, silence will be observed and butter lamps will be lit in the temples and homes to pray for the deceased,” they announced in a statement last month.

The tactic appears to be driving Chinese authorities crazy. They’re countering with their own campaign of forced merriment, organizing concerts, pageants, fireworks, horse races, archery competitions.

And you VILL haf fun or else:

At Beijing’s Central University for Nationalities, Tibetan students who had applied last year for permission to hold a Losar celebration informed the university recently that they wished to cancel. But the university told them that the party must go on, said a university source who asked not to be quoted by name.

“Celebrating is compulsory,” he said.

And ve haf vays of making you party:

On Feb. 14, a 39-year-old Tibetan monk set off a furor when he walked through a public market in the Tibetan plateau’s Lithang county carrying a photograph of the Dalai Lama and chanting, “No Losar.” Hundreds of people reportedly joined the protests, which continued into the next two days, according to the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy. The group said that Chinese police detained 21 people, some of whom were badly beaten, and that the county has been locked down for the holiday.

Reports say that as many as 20,000 additional soldiers and paramilitary troops have been deployed in Tibetan areas and that in Qinghai province, village leaders were threatened with arrest if they urged people not to celebrate the holiday.

Well its a good think that we are concerned about human rights, aren’t we:

Clinton told reporters covering her tour of Asian nations that human rights violations by China should not stand in the way of cooperation between the two powers on financial, environmental and security crises, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported.

And we all know how softplaying human rights worked with the Olympics:

Well, advocates of granting the Olympic Games to China all said that having the Games would force the PRC to liberalize. It would be good for human rights, people said. Even Chinese authorities themselves said that the Games would cause them to liberalize!

That was the great selling point.

And what happened? Not only did the Games not have a liberalizing effect; they had the opposite — moving the PRC to crack down all the more. I documented this extensively in a five-part series on this site last August. You can find it in my archive, here.

What a surprise, as the old Cox and Forkum cartoons say: “I’m a communist dictator you fool!”

Update: Darren Hutchinson notices other interesting aspects.

Morning Joe The team is back

Posted: February 23, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Joe and Mika are back together, the world is right again:

7:05 a.m. Joe nails it on the Hollywood phony rebel stuff.

7:10 a.m. They talk about unfunded mandates. They note that Jindel has actually read the bill, not sure if ARNULD has.

7:15 a.m. Politically smart to take the money if you want to stay Governor. Smart to reject it if you want the GOP nomination.

7:17 a.m. The unions must know they are losing the fight for card check since their ads are denying that the secret ballot is removed. They claim it becomes the “workers choice” to remove the secret ballot.

7:24 a.m Did a BBC reporter just say that she wants to hear real economists confirm this is good?

7:27 a.m. 40% of GDP, lets play Swedish stimulus.

7:33 a.m. You guys are wild having fun like that. Social security needs to be addressed but its smaller than the heath care stuff say WH budget guy.

7:41 a.m. Will the left be more of a problem for Obama?

7:42 a.m. Todd: The democrats have done a great job demagoguing Social security over the years.

7:46 a.m. Todd: Retirement? We are going to work until we die.

7:57 a.m. John Zigler on Morning Joe, it will be hard to ignore his film after this.

7:58 a.m. Two Morning Joe quotes in the film.

8:01 a.m. Compelling and new story? So was Palin are you suggesting that Palin wasn’t?

8:03 a.m. Mika, she hurt yourself. Example what do you read question. I think that’s a fair point.

8:04 a.m. They were trying to trap her, says Ziegler points to the documentary. They are hitting him hard, but they are being fair.

8:05 a.m. Pat askes if the media was in the tank and what particular networks were. They don’t let him answer and tease Pat for the question, THAT was funny.

8:05 a.m. We will watch the movie and have you back. I thought this was the fairest hearing outside of Fox he will get.

8:09 a.m. Mika gave Joe an opening to talk more about Ziegler and he passed; interesting.

8:12 a.m. The Gibbs saying he doesn’t know what he is talking about clip and it looks like the Mika-Paris Hilton business.

8:38 a.m. Harry Reid: This is going to stimulate the economy republican governors helped pass this.

8:40 a.m. Reid: It’s not Nationalization, Brokaw: Yes it is. Reid: There are a lot of good things going on, the government has always been involved in the private sector

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