Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

11 Comments

Debunked:

There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the “Great Garbage Patch” between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.

I’m shocked, shocked that an environmental issue has been overhyped by the media. This part had me scratching my head, though:

Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic itself;

Huh? If they’re talking about the mass equivalence of the energy in an Einsteinian sense, that’s obviously nonsense, but I’m sure that’s not what they mean. But what do they mean?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

The Christaphobia

6 Comments

…of Hollywood and the elitist left:

Because those craaaazy red states are the places where you’re likely to find fundies, and the Westboro church is just the natural extrapolation of the red-state fundie ideas, right? RED STATE! OOHGABOOGA! Think of it: horror movies often have guys who A) kidnap victims, B) saw off their heads, and C) film it all for their own enjoyment. Oh, if only there really was a group of religious extremists who did these all things – it would give a movie a certain horrible topicality you just don’t get with unkillable bogeymen. But Smith would never do a movie about Al Qaeda in, say, a city in a blue state. No one would produce it; no one would distribute it. But a movie that links the Westboro church to something inherent in the ideological distinction of a “red state” will get you backslaps from all the right-thinking people. It’s lazy. It’s super-lazy.

A couple points. First, this is just more slander of Christians while ignoring the fact that Fred Phelps and his fellow vile cretinous loony tunes are Democrats. But as with Timothy McVeigh, they never let reality get in the way of an urban myth when they see an opportunity to smear conservatives and Christians.

Second, they’re both Christophobes and Islamaphobes. They’re Christaphobes in the same sense that they (projecting) accuse others of being “Islamaphobes,” that is, they have an irrational fear of Christians (at least as far as their remaining hale and hearty goes, though perhaps their fear that Christians will help undo the state that they worship is genuine). On the other hand, while those they call “Islamaphobes” have a quite reasonable concern about a foreign totalitarian ideology making a foothold in our own culture, the leftist elites have a simple and genuine fear of actual violence from Muslims (though they rarely state it explicitly), were they to ever give them the same treatment that they fearlessly mete out to peace-loving Christians (and conservatives) every day.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Year The “Progressives…”

46 Comments

…came after the Constitution. And the Constitution fought back. It was also the year that the “voters saw the left’s unvarnished agenda and said no:”

Never has a Congress done so much and been so despised for it.

…The real story of 2010 is that the voters were finally able to see and judge this liberal agenda in its unvarnished form. For once, there was no Republican President to muddle the message or divide the accountability. The public was able to compare the promise of 8% unemployment if the government spent $812 billion on “stimulus” with the 9.8% jobless result. They stood athwart liberal history in the making and said, “Stop.”

And justly so. No, the government, and especially the federal government, can’t make you eat your broccoli.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Botched Environmental Predictions

15 Comments

Here are eight.

Speaking of which, here’s some new research (yes, “peer reviewed”) indicating that most of the warming modelling done to date is invalid. I’m shocked, shocked.

Decades from now, scientists, real ones, are going to be amazed at the hubris of today’s generation of climate “scientists,” given how little we really understand this complex and chaotic phenomenon.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Moving The Goalposts

4 Comments

Now that DADT has passed, the mindless pacifists have to come up with a new excuse to keep ROTC off campus. Colman McCarthy has a very pathetic attempt. Victor Davis Hanson isn’t very impressed, either.

[Update Friday morning]

“The US military can’t possibly be a hundredth as uncomfortable with gays as the Left is uncomfortable with the American soldier.”

More from Stephen Green.

And this seems related, too: “I have an easier time being openly gay with conservatives than I do being a conservative with other gay people.”

Sounds about right to me.

[Bumped]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Just In Case You Were Still Under The Delusion

9 Comments

…that Ezra Klein is intelligent, I present Exhibit A:

By the way, in case it isn’t clear, the reason these two liberals want people to believe the constitution is impossible to decipher is because they despise the constitution. Liberals want the government to have limitless power and that is in direct contrast with what the founders designed the constitution to do. Of course the constitution allows for its own amendment but liberal policies simply aren’t popular enough to garner constitutional amendments thus simply ignoring the constitution is the next best step.

This is even stupider than when John Conyers said that there was no point in reading the bill, because he wouldn’t be able to understand it. Conyers isn’t competent to legislate, and Klein isn’t competent to pontificate or at least, no one should be giving him such a big soapbox. As Glenn says, he’s credentialed, but not educated.

[Update a while later]

Well, that was quick. But it is Iowahawk, after all.

What the Constitution means to me:

The next part of the Constitution, the middle, is considered by many people to be the main most important part. However, there are other people who disagree with this interpretation, which has led to controversy and conflict. I have to say that I personally side with the people who think it is the most important, because the middle is where the main crux of the Constitution happens. For example, e.g., the middle is the part where we find the Woman’s Right to Choose and the Miranda part, which is a critical issue still today. In the middle you will also various parts about African-Americans, and especially journalism.

Finally there is the last part of the Constitution, which, as many people have noted, can be juxtaposed with the earlier parts. For people who haven’t read the Constitution, I recommend reading it all the way too the end to see how it is juxtaposed in a very important way. I don’t want to give out any “spoilers,” because it’s really amazing.

Because the Constitution is so old, it is written in the “old-timey” language of people of more than one century ago, which leads many modern people to get confused and frustrated by it. “What is this stupid boring thing?” they will ask, then go back to playing Super Mario Cart. These modern people could not be any more wrong, because hidden underneath all the “so-called” confusing words is an exciting story with twists and turns everywhere. Fortunately, and most importantly, the Founding Fathers also invented the Supreme Court which does a good job of translating the Constitution into modern words and juxtaposing them for all of us, the American people of the United States.

Oh, to aspire to be as wise as Ezra Klein. Actually, it sort of reminds me of Anne Elk’s theory about brontosauruses. Which was hers.

[Update on Friday morning]

Heh. Why is it called a Klein bottle?

That’s not really fair, though. I know other Kleins, who are probably embarrassed by Ezra.