August 2006 Archives

Jack Cafferty:

[L]ike swallows returning to Capistrano, the politicians flocked to New Orleans on the first anniversary of Katrina to draw attention to one of America's great failures.
. . .
I find it absolutely amazing, John, that any politician who had anything to do with Katrina had nerve enough to walk into the city of New Orleans today

KING: Quite a few of them there.

CAFFERTY: Oh, yes. Well, they're shameless, you know.

These days I suppose many (unaffected) Americans equate a good photo op with actually getting something done. Thus today's show.

Too bad most of these folks were AWOL one year ago today.

Yesterday brought the shocking news that some weirdo really hadn't snuck half way across the country, killed little JonBenet, and ultimately turned up in Thailand. I'm still trying to come to terms with this stunning development.

And so after a week of breathless TV news reports on what John Mark Karr eat or went to the bathroom, and endless hours of legal pundits speculating on a case that never materialized, we've come to this.

I agree with Howard Kurtz:

Will every anchor, correspondent and producer who shamelessly hyped the John Mark Karr story now apologize for taking the country for a ride?

Don't hold your breath.

This was such a sham, from the opening moments, that it instantly goes down with the greatest media embarrassments in modern history.

Yes, I'd like an apology from all the news people who wasting my time with this garbage when I wanted to watch real news. CNN, MSNBC, and FNC producers: feel free to leave your apologies in the comment section.

I was listening to talk radio on Monday and a bothered caller phoned in. He had seen on Fox News Channel that the UN had passed a "law" (valid in 180 countries) which threatens to punish parents who didn't let their kids play outside with other kids when they want to.

Worse yet, according to the soon-to-be parent/caller, there's a movement to pass this law in America!

Really, is it any surprise that people in power can get away with doing all sorts of crazy stuff when we have Americans gullible enough to believe everything they hear (or think they hear) on Fox News Channel and talk radio? If people believe the UN will mandate outside playtime, what purported "threat" won't they believe?

I watched parts of CNN's documentary last night. While it did provide more depth than the "they want to kill us because of our freedom" mantra we typically hear, it still seemed superficial. Here we have reporters who have supposedly been monitoring the guy for nearly 10 years, and they don't offer much more than general observations on how he gave up wealth to wonder in the mountains in pursuit of his spiritually-motivated war. That's really insightful.

It's interesting that in a program supposedly intended to help us get to know the enemy, CNN only plays a handful of very brief clips from bin Laden interviews. I guess they had to run it through the politically-correct sanitizer before releasing it for public consumption. Or are we still worried about encoded messages buried in eight-year old interviews?

Which is responsible for more American deaths last year?

(a) The terrorist who want to kill every one of us

(b) Motor vehicles

If you only watch national TV news, you'll undoubtedly be surprised to learn that it's (b):

The number of people killed on U.S. roadways in 2005 climbed to the highest level in 15 years, an increase tied to rising deaths among motorcyclists and pedestrians, the federal government reported yesterday.

A total of 43,443 people died in traffic accidents last year, up 1.4 percent from the previous year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The agency said the motorcycle death toll rose for the eighth consecutive year.

Full report here (.pdf file).

Let me get this straight: since 2000, we've had what, 5,000 Americans killed from terrorism? And in the last year alone, over 43,000 were killed out on the roads.

But if you were a Martian whose only contact with Earth was in watching MSNBCNNFox, which of the two would you think was more dangerous to human life? Terrorism, of course. It's terror all the time. Terra, terra, terra. If there's not an alleged terrorism plot for the news networks to cover, they're talking about potential future plots. "Are we safe?"

I'm not suggesting that terrorism isn't something to be concerned about (especially if you're a public policymaker). But how about some perspective on things? You know, a "fair and balanced" look at risk. Statistics suggest that 1 in 84 people will die in a motor-vehicle accident. Perhaps if the media devoted more air time to this threat, people would be more conscientious of road safety.

There's another element to this. Not only are people far more likely to have their safety threated by a vehicle than by a terrorist, but the former is something you may actually be able to control. If a bomb goes off nearby, there might not be much you can do about it. You might simply be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But you can minimize the threat of auto accidents by taking precautions (e.g., seat belts) and driving safely (don't drink or speed).

So ultimately, which of the two threats is it more useful to fret about?

Hmmmm:

In the 2005 Tour de France with 189 starters, here's the profile of the average rider:

* Height -- 1.79 meters (5 feet, 10.4 inches)
* Weight -- 71 kilograms (156.2 pounds)
* Resting heart rate -- 50 bpm
* Lung capacity -- 5.69 liters (1.48 gallons)

Me:

--Height: 5 feet, 9.5 inches (?) [it's been a while since my last laser measurement)
--Weight: 156 pounds (per doctor's visit this week)
--Resting heart rate: the machine at Wal-Mart said it's 39, but it has to be wrong. Last time I checked manually it was in the 48-50 bpm range
--Lung capacity: I have no idea

So there you have it, I'm the mirror image of a Tour de France rider. All I need to do is to be able to ride a tiny bit faster (easy enough said) and next year I can be ridding down the Champs-Elysées.

Russia overtakes Saudi Arabia as world's leading oil producer.

Face of baby Jesus found in ultrasound.

Las Vegas to end 24 hour operation of its marriage license office. Score one for the sanctity of marriage budget cuts.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) talks of the Iraqi "miracle." Yes, it is rather incredible. With thousands of Americans, ten thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of billions spent on the adventure, we're only having a few dozen people being killed in the streets every day. Imagine how things would be if this were only a "normal" operation, without this miraculous success.

I don't know anything about oil refinery operations, but for all the talk we hear of needing more refineries, it sure seems to take a long time to get existing units back on line after a shutdown.

One year to restart production?

I came across the story of Terry Fox, a 22 year old who ran a 3,339 mile fund raiser after losing his right leg to cancer. (Shortly thereafter he died from the disease.)

Whenever I don't feel like going out to do a few miles, I only need think of stories like this for motivation.

Thanks to CNN, I will no longer be taking walks around my neighborhood.

Hmmm, come to think of it, one of the people down the street does keep bees. That's suspicious . . . they could be used in a terrorist plot.

Look out: Bees on a plane!!

Great job in your effort to be the first to air unsubstantiated (and ultimately untrue) rumors when that old lady went nuts on a flight yesterday. With the threat of terrorism as far removed from the national consciousness as it is these days, I'm particularly glad that you went against convention and mixed an al Qaeda angle to the story. Lately you've neglected your responsibility to remind Americans that someone is about to kill us all.

I also think it's good that authorities may have finally captured JonBenet Ramsey's killer. And that's all I want to know about that.

Just another day for advanced "conservative" studies:

That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell. Ceasefire leads to more war. Ceasefires lead to increased wars, increased intensity.

Ceasefires lead to more death.

Up is down. Black is white. Wikiality is great, isn't it?

On Sunday approximately 100 cyclists did a 12-mile silent ride in memory of Jeffrey Roth, who was killed last week on U.S. 321.

TV news coverage:

WBIR

WATE

TIME has compiled a list of the "50 Coolest Websites."

Although I spend a fair amount of time on the Internet, lists like this always seem to direct me toward undiscovered territory.

Billmon:

It's a pretty ironic coda to the wingnut flypaper theory -- under which we were supposed to "take the fight" to the terrorists in Iraq (and Afghanistan and Lebanon and, in time, Iran) so that we wouldn't have to fight them in the streets of New York and London:

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, said that the war in Iraq attracts terrorists "where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London."

Either there are more than enough flies to go around or the flypaper has moved -- or both. In his post, Juan Cole cited recent poll results showing that 13% of all British Muslims surveyed think last year's London bombers are religious martyrs, while another 16% think their ends were justified even if their means weren't. That's almost 30% -- of a population of 1.6 million.

Looking back on real and supposed terrorist attacks against the west, one begins to wonder whether we would have done just as well to invade England or Pakistan as Iraq, since the former seem to be where the terrorists are hanging out these days.

Oy:

A 48-year-old Maryville man was killed when struck by a truck Wednesday afternoon as he rode his bicycle along the shoulder of West Lamar Alexander Parkway.
. . .
Maryville police officers said Roth was riding westbound alongside the parkway near North Union Grove Road about 4 p.m. when he was struck from behind by a 1999 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck driven by Tommy L. Carroll, 46, of Vinegar Valley Road, Friendsville.

Witnesses said the truck was being driven erratically before it struck the bicycle, and was weaving back and forth between lanes, off into the grass in the median, then off onto the shoulder. According to a police report, the truck hit the cyclist and knocked the rider onto the hood and windshield of the truck. The rider was carried some distance before he came off the truck and onto the pavement.

Despite a broken windshield, the truck crossed the parkway and into the eastbound lane while continuing west and out of town. Witnesses followed and notified authorities of the hit-and-run vehicle's location.

According to the article, the driver was involved in two other accidents before he was caught.

Hopefully, multiple criminal charges are upcoming.

I suppose this is another thing that's "messy."

Perhaps when Maliki had the ear of the United States Congress he should have made a point about having a say regarding U.S. military actions in "his" country. But I guess it was easier to go with the approved speech instead.

The Connecticut primary, that is. I realize that this campaign takes place close to the big media markets and that there are only a few competitive races during the primaries. So you expect to hear about it. But good grief, some blogs have been playing it up as if the fate of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance. Like him or not, the Senate clearly has far bigger issues than Joe Liberman.

That being said, I see how some of these bloggers have been frustrated by the media coverage. Here is David Gergen last night on CNN:

But my larger concern here is that the disappearance of the Senators, with Senators like Bill Bradley and Alan Simpson and Jack Danforth, and, you know, so many others, as they've left the Senate, it's been much, much harder to put together bipartisan compromises.

And if the message out of Connecticut is, you work with the other side too closely and we're going to burn you. Just like Lincoln Chaffey, if you work too closely with the Democrats, we're going to burn you. That means that people are going to be afraid to be in the center. And it really, I think, provides a recipe for a very divided, very polarized and very dysfunctional politics.

Sure, a point can be made about the death of moderates in Congress. But this isn't the case to make that argument. If Liberman loses, it won't be because he crossed party lines to compromise on a spending bill or because he joined the "Gang of 14." It will be because he embraced the biggest screw up of the Bush presidency (the Iraq War) and continues to deny the disaster on the ground there.

This isn't about bipartisanship; it's about whether or not Liberman is in touch with reality.

Nations that have elections don't have civil wars.

A news site has 20 fuel-saving tips. It includes the standard ones, but also a few you don't hear as frequently:

--Finding your vehicles "sweet spot." I realize that vehicles have different efficient speed "sweet spots," but I didn't realize it might be as fast as 85 m.p. h. I have no idea what it is for my car, because I typically mix in significant city driving on a typical tank. Maybe I should be driving faster.

--Parking in the shade to avoid gasoline evaporation.

--Wait to get gas until the tank is almost empty--less weight to haul around.

--Buy gas on Wednesdays: statistically the cheapest day of the week.

I was amused by the "Don't stop" tip. It's a good one, one that I often do. But I was kind of surprised by the way they present it; it's as if they are encouraging people to roll through stop signs.

UPDATE: The aforementioned rolling stop slide make Keith Olbermann's Worse Person of the World!

Is this part of the re-election agenda?

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen wants the state to do a better job at preparing students for careers at Wal-Mart. But he's not talking about stocking shelves or checking out customers at the retail giant.

Instead, Bredesen wants to tailor community college programs to offer courses on retail management.
. . .
While no formal arrangement has been struck, Bredesen and Wal-Mart officials agreed to work on developing a curriculum.

Bredesen told The Associated Press he would consider an arrangement where community colleges teach Wal-Mart-specific skills, if the company would agree to guarantee jobs for graduates with good grades.

It's great to provide students with skills employers want. But I'm curious not only how many jobs this would impact, but also how much middle management Wal-Mart jobs actually pay? Does this make sense from an public cost/benefit standpoint?

Professor Cole has an interesting post touching on the oil component of our tension with Iran.

A theory posits that we have a short window of opportunity to deal with the Iranian problem (with its oil) before it goes nuclear. Is it just a coincidence that the Project for the New American Century crowd (and its mouthpieces) has recently ramped up the "World War III" rhetoric?

Already has a website.

UPDATE: The reference is to this.

Somewhat related, The Atlantic has a good read on the history of Wikipedia. One quote:

In June 2001, only six months after Wikipedia was founded, a Polish Wikipedian named Krzysztof Jasiutowicz made an arresting and remarkably forward-looking observation. The Internet, he mused, was nothing but a “global Wikipedia without the end-user editing facility.”

Good point.

There was enough irony in the Mel Gibson arrest story to last one or two days on TV news. But we certainly didn't need what's shaping up to be a whole week of wall to wall coverage. And that was true before I saw Scarborough Country's little experiment last night of having a producer simulate Mel's intoxication.

We've now entered hysteria territory.

Good:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Wednesday said Iraqi forces will take over security in all 18 Iraqi provinces by the end of the year, a presidential aide told CNN.
. . .
"We are highly optimistic that we will terminate terrorism in this year... the multinational forces' role is a supportive one and the Iraqi forces will take over security in all Iraqi provinces by the end of this year gradually and God's will, we will take the lead," The Associated Press reported Talabani as saying.

Uh, oh. Doesn't the Iraqi president realize that time tables only embolden the terrorists? I don't know how he's going to "terminate terrorism" in this manner.

Commander Stay-The-Course probably intends to have 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2009. But hopefully this will add some sanity to the debate and embolden the Democrats to show a little resolve of their own. A hopeful development.

A meteorologist got some pictures of a rare cloud formation over Antartica.

Michelle "why does she continue to get airtime" Malkin's latest gem:

Because the manufactured outrage that Qana is not really about the deaths at Qana; it is something about much larger. It is about the jihad du jour that these — that members of the religion of perpetual outrage are always ginning up. I mean, if it’s not Qana, it’s something else.

I'm bet Ms. Malkin doesn't even get the irony of someone discussing a "religion of perpetual outrage" on Fox News.

Michelle "why does she continue to get airtime" Malkin's latest gem:

Because the manufactured outrage that Qana is not really about the deaths at Qana; it is something about much larger. It is about the jihad du jour that these — that members of the religion of perpetual outrage are always ginning up. I mean, if it’s not Qana, it’s something else.

I'm bet Ms. Malkin doesn't even get the irony of someone discussing a "religion of perpetual outrage" on Fox News.

I wasn't aware such a resource existed. (Site here.) Jack Shafer asks why it exists. Well, someone might want to know where potential meth sources are.