Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
Matthew Baskin at NPR was looking for gun bloggers to interview who support gun control. Is that funny or sad? Or just plain pathetic?
The answer is YES.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Twitter:
If censoring Huck Finn will help get a great book back on h.s. reading lists, isn’t that worth it?
If pasting FoxNews transcripts into the NYT will help get people to read it, isn’t that worth it?
Hell, even if it DOESN’T get people to read the NYT, it’s probably worth it.
FWIW, Murdoc probably wouldn’t feel the way he does about this if it hadn’t been for the past two decades of political correctness police running around getting all worried about all sorts of stupid crap. At some point people are going to say “enough is enough” and reject even the more reasonable PC thinking.
Murdoc’s “some point” was somewhere in the mid 1990s.
(Via HotAir)
Last week I wrote this about the future of ROTC on many college campuses which had banned it following the passage of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:
Will we be seeing ROTC and on-campus recruiting re-established at all the schools who banned it in the wake of DADT now that DADT is going away? I doubt it, as the leadership of many of those schools had probably been waiting for a reason to pull the trigger and DADT was merely a good excuse.
And a commenter added:
This reminds me of something I read on John T. Reed’s blog a while ago;
“The most delicious aspect of ending the “Don’t ask, don’t tell policy” would be forcing the colleges and universities who ban ROTC and military recruiters to admit their real agenda: they just hate the military. As long as the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy exists, the academics can cite that as their reason for banning the military.”
That alone makes the lifting of DADT worth it!
And now we have this by Colman McCarthy in the Washington Post:
It should not be forgotten that schools have legitimate and moral reasons for keeping the military at bay, regardless of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” They can stand with those who for reasons of conscience reject military solutions to conflicts.
and
ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school, if by purity we mean trying to rise above the foul idea that nations can kill and destroy their way to peace. If a school such as Harvard does sell out to the military, let it at least be honest and add a sign at its Cambridge front portal: Harvard, a Pentagon Annex. [emphasis Murdoc's]
Taints the intellectual purity of a school. According to an admitted opponent of ROTC.
As I wrote earlier, I think that the military and American society in general could benefit a little by the return of ROTC to some of these campuses. But if the only real result is going to be the open admission that DADT was not the real reason for banning it in the first place, that will at least be fun to watch.
‘Programming error’ caused Russian rocket failure
A Russian Proton rocket failed to get three Glonass satellites into orbit over the weekend, apparently due to computer programming issues. Glonass is the Russian equivalent of GPS. They’ve been trying to get the whole system back online after if fell into disrepair in the 1990s.
Here’s a bit from the AFP article:
Once separated from the Proton launch rocket, the upper-stage booster rocket with the three satellites aboard should have put them in orbit about 20 kilometres (12 miles) above the earth.
Wow. Just think how fast those things must be going to maintain orbit at only 12 miles. And the system works by listening for the things screaming overhead. “We just heard number seven, comrade, and that’s number fifteen. This must be Siberia.”
Okay, the article was probably supposed to say “20,000 km (12,000 miles),” which is about what Wikipedia says these things normally orbit at.
A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS’s cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile.
CBS station KFMB put in calls to the Navy and Air Force Monday night about the striking launch off the coast of Los Angeles, which was easily visible from the coast, but the military has said nothing about the launch.
Hard to believe that the military would try to keep secrets form the media. Was probably marsh gas. Or a weather balloon.
UPDATE: Jet contrails from some angles look like missile trails
Right. Sure they do. (Can you believe how fast “they got to him”?)
UPDATE 2: Plus don’t forget this.
UPDATE 3: Six Theories.
‘Stranger Danger’ and the Decline of Halloween
Even when I was a kid, back in the “Bewitched” and “Brady Bunch” costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties.
That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger’s Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)
As a parent, I’m torn between wanting my kids to be able to do the things I did as a kid (like ride a bike without a helmet) and wanting to keep my kids as safe as possible (like making them wear a helmet when they ride a bike.) When it comes to the bike helmet, I happen to think it’s probably worth wearing one, even though I never seriously hurt my head while riding a bike and don’t think I know anyone else who did, either. Some of the other nanny-ist ideas, though, seem a bit much. Many of them. Most, maybe.
Many stand to make money when people are alarmed. Or when they can turn tragedy into a payday, even if the tragedy is their own son’s death. So the pressure will always be to increase the nanny-ism, and those that disagree will be painted as people who wish for kids to get hurt.
There is a line in there somewhere when it comes to kids’ safety, and it will be in different places for different people. But the public perception of that line’s location seems off by quite a bit as far as Murdoc can tell. A lot of it has to do with round-the-clock news coverage and instant updates helping create an illusion of constant danger lurking around every corner.
Via Instapundit.
The Wikileaks organization has morphed from a relatively harmless aid to government whistleblowers into a threat to U.S. national security. It should be treated accordingly.
Via Blackfive.
Meanwhile:
As with the July dump of Afghan war documents, the mainstream press has attempted to kindle story lines from the Iraq war data dump that imply scandal, particularly regarding civilian casualties. But once again, the information is underwhelming. There are no smoking guns except for some inconvenient truths about the actual existence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program and Iranian involvement in Iraq’s insurgency.
I’m sure that all of those cheering on Wikileaks will be headlining all of that stuff.
DangerRoom, on the other hand, has this: WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results
NPR: Where “Teabag” Videos Are Defended But Blaming 9-11 on Muslims Will Get You Fired
Via Instapundit.
I’ve never been what you’d call a “fan” of Juan Williams, but I’ve usually felt he was a lot more balanced than a lot of media personalities. Not always, and he was usually on the other side of issues than Murdoc. But this firing thing seems a bit weird.
On Instapundit:
“Here in Minnesota, we are experiencing a remarkable instance of how discreet liberals can be when it comes to a candidate’s personal life. Mark Dayton is running for Governor of this state, and his history of mental illness and substance abuse is hiding in plain sight–he has freely acknowledged these problems to almost-complete strangers, yet Minnesota’s reporters and editors have carefully avoided confusing the voters with information that might not reflect well on a Democrat. Somehow one senses a pattern here.”
Murdoc continues to believe that, for the most part, it’s not a “pattern” pointing toward some big Liberal conspiracy to bias the news coverage. By and large, I think it’s a product of professionals, particularly those in positions of power, of holding personal biases which cannot help but make it into the decision making about what doesn’t get covered, what does, and how it does.
Murdoc wouldn’t pretend for a moment that he’s some “fair and balanced” unbiased guy who presents things evenly and without personal opinions entering into the decisions about what to write about and how to write it. For instance, if the story on Instapundit was about a Republican politician with a shady background being covered for by the media, it’s far less likely that MO would have noted it. (Though, for the record, Murdoc’s personal bias against the news media means that they’re all in season all year round…)
Publishers, editors, and writers in the news reporting media all hold great sway over the American public. That sway has been reduced lately, but it’s still significant. When such a large percentage of those in those positions all have similar political leanings, the editorial meetings are probably quite often an echo chamber. And with relatively few options for Conservative-leaning types in the industry, a lot of them end up in the same few organizations…which then end up sounding like echo chambers on the other end of the spectrum.
Speaking of Minnesota, Murdoc knows a guy running for state rep for Fridley (District 51B). Stop by Dale Helm’s campaign page and check it out if you live in the area. Though we’ve only recently re-established contact (thanks to the magic of social networking) I knew Dale way back in the day. He’s an Eagle Scout, a National Guard vet, and Murdoc would bet he’d make a great state rep.
UPDATE: Also on the media is this:
“Once upon a time, members of the media could be counted upon to champion free expression even when nobody else would. Where the First Amendment was implicated, newspapers were willing to go to bat for everyone from neo-Nazis to Hustler magazine, and to take on powerful institutions from the Vatican to the Pentagon, often while patting themselves on the back for ’speaking truth to power.’ Yet when it comes to the Islamic question, many in the media will not even stick up for themselves. That is, to say the least, a very ominous development.”
It’s not that Murdoc is an advocate “Draw Mohammed Day” or similar crap, any more than he’s an advocate for “Piss Jesus” artwork, America-hate rhetoric, or the Alien films after the second one. But freedom of expression means freedom. It’s clear that some freedom advocates are really only advocating for some freedom and for some expressions. Namely their own.
Again, this isn’t surprising. Everyone thinks what they think because they think they’re right. The problem is when people in places of influence use their own personal opinion of what’s right to trump the law, common sense, and God-given rights.
