Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Comforting Myths

20 Comments

…about gun control:

The news account doesn’t tell us if this “semi-automatic rifle” is one of those terrifying “assault weapons” or a more common semi-automatic hunting rifle. The next time that someone asks why anyone would need an assault weapon, here’s your answer: four armed criminals forcing entry into a home that they know is occupied. The invaders knew that the inhabitants were probably going to be able to identify them later. What do you think these home invaders were going to do to potential witnesses before they left? Against a crew like this, a weapon that lets you fire 20 to 30 shots without reloading suddenly sounds useful.

I agree with him that gun controllers are not necessarily evil, that they sincerely believe the cognitive dissonant nonsense that they spout. As he says, it’s an hysterical combination of hoplophobia and a need to control an uncertain and (to them, at least) scary world. But I also don’t think that it’s just a coincidence that the largest mass murders, whether by madmen in universities, or governments committing genocide, occur when the populace has been disarmed. If we believe that the First Amendment should be expanded to the rest of the world, the right to self defense should be universal as well, as a fundamental human right.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Budget…

2 Comments

…with no shortage of lies:

A truly serious president would not be fiddling around while our future burns. He would be addressing entitlements (mainly, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid), which have tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities and constitute 60 percent of the budget. The day of reckoning on this government-generated mess is not all that far off, and when it comes, the economic crisis of the moment will seem small potatoes.

It’s a shame that we don’t have a serious president. It’s amazing that people report on this thing with a straight face. It’s like the coverage of Saddam Hussein’s “election” in which he got 99.9% of the vote.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

You’re Not Fired!

14 Comments

Don Trump knows a gold mine when he sees it.

[Update a few minutes later]

You have to feel sorry for the actual pageant winner. Who even knows her name now?

Carrie Prejean was the real winner of the pageant, thanks to Perez Hilton and the other vicious bigots (like frequent commenter “Jim”).

[Wednesday evening update]

Commenter “Jim” has (under some, but probably minimum duress) retracted his comment that Ms. Prejean sounds like a bigot in comments here, and I hereby retract mine that he does.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Common Sense In Louisiana

23 Comments

Legislation is being passed to allow concealed carry on campus. I don’t understand this, though:

The bill would allow the governing boards of the colleges to designate where the weapons would be stored while the carrier is on campus.

If they can carry, why would they have to store them?

Also, note the usual idiocy and illogic in comments opposed to this:

So, a faculty or staff member who wants to intimidate a student or colleague can use their concealed weapon. Sure makes rape easier, huh?

Yes, because people who have passed the background check for concealed carry are such notorious rapists, and no one commits rape without a gun, and in the absence of this law, no rapist would even think about carrying a gun on campus, because, you know, it’s against the law.

This is exactly what we need, wannabe macho 18-year-olds who have watched too much TV – where shots never miss intended targets – trying to be a heroes. Be prepared to hear the words “innocent bystanders shot” much more often.

Ignoring the fact that you have to be twenty-one to get a permit.

Having a permit to carry a concealed weapon does NOT indicate 24/7 mental stability.

It’s actually a pretty good surrogate for it.

It’s funny how none of the dire predictions of the hoplophobes ever come to pass. I haven’t noticed the blood running in the streets in Michigan for the past few years when they went to “shall issue,” despite all of the predictions of Wolverine exsanguination, and there has been no noticeable increase in innocent deaths in Florida since they passed the castle law down here. This is hysteria, and completely irrational.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Chickens Already Coming Home To Roost

3 Comments

Megan McArdle says that we may already be having a problem with sovereign debt risk:

Obama’s spending plans are extraordinarily ambitious. His projected deficits for the rest of his possibly presidency are higher than the “runaway” deficits that plagued most of the Bush administration–and after the first few years, that’s not stimulus, that’s ordinary spending outstripping revenue. For a while now, I’ve been asking people at conferences, on and off the record, what America’s sovereign debt risk is? That is, how long until people stop treating treasuries as the “risk free” securities, and start demanding a premium for the risk that we might default.

The answer from the right has been a nervous (perhaps hopeful) 2-3 years. The answer from the left, and professional Democratic wonks, is some unspecified time in the future. Probably, there will be a Republican in charge. Markets hate Republicans.

But last Thursday, the Treasury auction was . . . well, descriptions vary from “weak” to “horrible”. This raises the unpleasant possibility that markets are, as my business school professors insisted, “forward looking”. Voters may believe that getting a bunch of special interests to agree in principal that costs should be cut is the same thing as actually cutting costs. Bond markets don’t…

…Obama can assure voters that he inherited these deficits. But bond markets pay closer attention to the fact that Obama has already increased the projected deficit he inherited by 50%.

Let’s hope that the voters figure it out soon, and before Treasury has to start paying high interest on T-bills.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

You’ll Be As Shocked As I Was

15 Comments

…to learn that the president has no class:

Wanda Sykes isn’t of any interest to me. The fact that the American president was five feet away from her and had to laugh about her joke was of interest. A comedian wishes a citizen dead and the president laughs?

I can’t imagine such a “joke” being told about (say) Michael Moore during a Bush WHCD. I thought that the idea of the WHCD was supposed to be a “roast,” with those being lampooned in attendance, not a vicious attack on the president’s absent political enemies. And had such a thing had occurred, I can’t imagine the former president laughing at it. But with this president, we don’t have to imagine it. In many ways, it’s a return to the juvenile antics of the White House during the Clinton years. But it apparently gave Chris Matthews an extended leg tingle (shameful that, too, because Rush used to let him guest host for him back in the nineties), so I guess that’s all right.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obamacare

28 Comments

And your doctor:

Doctors will consolidate into larger practices to spread overhead costs, and they’ll cram more patients into tight schedules to make up in volume what’s lost in margin. Visits will be shortened and new appointments harder to secure. It already takes on average 18 days to get an initial appointment with an internist, according to the American Medical Association, and as many as 30 days for specialists like obstetricians and neurologists.

Right or wrong, more doctors will close their practices to new patients, especially patients carrying lower paying insurance such as Medicaid. Some doctors will opt out of the system entirely, going “cash only.” If too many doctors take this route the government could step in — as in Canada, for example — to effectively outlaw private-only medical practice.

These changes are superimposed on a payment system where compensation often bears no connection to clinical outcomes. Medicare provides all the wrong incentives. Its charge-based system pays doctors more for delivering more care, meaning incomes rise as medical problems persist and decline when illness resolves.

So let’s expand Medicare to everybody. Great.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obviously, The Answer Is “No”

12 Comments

Madam Speaker, have you no decency?

It’s kind of hard to run a witch hunt when you’re the lead witch.

[Tuesday morning update]

Some questions for the Speaker:

You said that you concurred with the letter written by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) that raised concerns about waterboarding. Is there any documentation to back that up? Did you sign the Harman letter? Were you aware of it in real time, or only later, when it was declassified? Did you send your own letter? Did you ever express your concerns with President Bush during any of your meetings with him between 2002 and 2008?

As I say in comments, I’m all for a truth commission, as long as it’s a whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth commission. Bring it on.

[Bumped]