It really was a pathetic performance.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Hyphens Can Be Your Friend
…or your enemy. I’m fairly fastidious about this (as I am with apostrophes), and I no doubt annoy many people whose stuff I edit. As the piece points out, the purpose of a hyphen is to disambiguate adjectives, so you can tell for sure what is modifying what. For instance, “a light red fox” could be an underweight red fox, but “light-red fox” indicates that it is a fox (of indeterminate subspecies) that is light red in color. The exception is if the first word is an adverb, such as “lightly colored fox,” in which case the hyphen and connection of the two words is implicit.
That is all.
I’m Sure That’s Part Of It
Is extreme bank regulation a key to the lousy economy? The fact that there’s a ton of uncertainty about Frank-Dodd doesn’t help, either. And of course, Sarbanes-Oxley has been a disaster for start ups.
An Out-Of-This-World Debate Question
I have some thoughts on last night’s surprise space policy discussion, over at National Review Online.
On The Internet, No One Knows You’re A Dog
Many also can’t tell that you’re not a Syrian lesbian. Or is that a Lebanese sybian?
I am so confused.
Did He Say That With A Straight Face?
Barack Obama: “If you’re looking for partisan rhetoric, I’m not your guy.”
Words fail. The frightening thing is, that he may actually be so self delusional as to believe it.
The Republican Space Policy Debate
The topic of space actually came up in the Republican debate this evening. Jeff Foust has the story. It just demonstrates how unimportant the subject is, that no one on the panel other than Newt really knew anything about it. And what little they do know is undoubtedly wrong, given the abysmal media coverage of the topic for the last year and a half (if not forever).
How To Save The Planet
…according to Bjørn Lomborg, a voice of sanity against the Malthusian humanity-hating watermelons. I’m a little surprised, actually, to see such a politically incorrect piece in Newsweak.
Empathy For The Roasting Weiner
Matt Welch doesn’t have quite as much as Peter Beinart thinks he should. Me, neither.
Appreciating America
…from abroad. Some trenchant and depressing thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:
It is wise to navigate through the news and elite wisdom through two landmarks: anything that Barack Obama says will be airbrushed, improved, or modified to fit facts post facto; anything Sarah Palin says or does will be contextualized in Neanderthal terms. Teams of Post and Times volunteers now sort through Sarah Palin’s email; not a reporter in the world is curious about what Barack Obama once said about Rashid Khalidi or the Columbia University GPA that won him entrance to Harvard Law School. Accept that asymmetry and almost everything not only makes sense about these two cultural guideposts, but can, by extension, explain the 1860-like division in American itself.
Go to Europe and see the left-wing desired future for America: dense urban apartment living by design rather than by necessity; one smart car; no backyard or third bedroom; dependence on mass transit; political graffiti everywhere demanding more union benefits or social entitlements; entourages of horn-blaring, police-escorted technocrats racing through the streets on the hour; gated inherited homes of an aristocratic technocracy on the Mediterranean coast, Rhine, Danube, etc., exempt from much socialist and environmental law; $10 a gallon gas; sky-high power bills; racial segregation coupled with elite praise of illegal immigration and diversity; and unexamined groupthink on green issues, entitlements, and the culpability of the U.S. Drink it all in and you have the liberal agenda for an America to be.
We can still change it next year.