Archive for January, 2009
Why Are Women Always Last To Approve Of Other Women?
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Name the minority. Just think of one. At one time or another, that minority–Irish, Italian, Black, Mexican, Cuban, etc.–has taken the back seat to the more prominent, and usually earlier, American immigrant majority.
And yet one group, no matter the color, who always follows: Women.
Sarah Palin’s mistreatment this last election at the hands of the Left, the Press, and mostly, women generally, revealed the sexism and hypocrisy of a big chunk of the electorate. So, Sarah is back in Washington today to talk at the Alfalfa Dinner. What caught my attention in The Politico’s article was this:
Comprised of mostly older white men, the group didn’t induct women until 1993. Blacks were only welcomed in the 1970s.
Presidents, though, almost always attend and speak.
This isn’t a sporting club or a golf club, where guys get naked together in steam rooms. This is a political club that everyone attends. Blacks were welcome 20 years before women.
During the election, both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were subject to vicious, sexist attacks. In Sarah Palin’s case, much to my chagrin, she was savaged by many a conservative woman. She was “too young” or she should “be with her children” or she should have “done a better job with her daughter” or she was “too beautiful” or she “talked funny” or she should “be home with her husband.”
Women stand in the way of equality. In order to justify their own work-parenting-spousal-career choices, they must make themselves right and everyone else wrong. This behavior is bad enough in Mommy and Me play dates, it’s worse, when the cattiness eliminates good potential candidates.
Are American women willing to continue their inane double bind and risk losing out on America’s potential Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, or Golda Meir?
The sexist men’s clubs tend to jump out and grab our attention. Women were only admitted in 1993? Wow. But the real stumbling block for a woman politician’s success is other women. They hold women candidates to standards they would never hold a man to. It’s time for women to let themselves off the hook and realize there is no “perfect” way to balance work and career. The Presidency is a sacrifice for all families who join their parent in the Oval Office. It is public service.
A woman could do the job. They have a few years to get used to the idea:
And aside from the real thing, club members always nominate a mock candidate for the highest office in the land. The “nominee” is then required to give an acceptance speech.
Should Palin be this year’s lucky nominee, she’ll be in good company: Three honorees have actually gone on to actually become president – Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
The MSM Saw Obsolescence Coming…..–UPDATED
Thursday, January 29th, 2009Should the New York Times go non-profit? That’s a thought. Will it matter if they do? I’m not sure.
From Gizmodo (who has a great video):
The piece is about the earliest days of digital media, when the lucky few home computer users could view content from a handful of prominent papers on their “television screens” by dialing into their CompuServe Information Service with their rotary phones.
It’s interesting to see how many people involved in the project at the Examiner and elsewhere had a resolutely realistic take on the whole thing, assuming, despite how clunky current technologies were, that digital media was the unavoidable future—a sentiment that has since lost favor in newsrooms, now that it’s actually coming to pass
Yes, well, it’s one thing to know you’re obsolete in theory. It’s another thing, to actually experience it.
UPDATED:
Via Instapundit, there IS life after losing a newspaper job.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Stimulus Package: The Deceitful Way To Nationalize Healthcare
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009A stimulus bill ostensibly stimulates the economy to grow. That means that money is put into a system to grow or build things that people want to buy–creating jobs and then creating money and then creating consumers who buy other stuff. It’s not rocket science, really.
That’s not what this Stimulus bill before the American people is all about though. So far, beyond being a big “I love you” blank-check to Democrat constituencies, it’s also a huge power-grab by the government. Perhaps the most disturbing power taking is happening in health care. From the New York Times:
As Congress rushes to inject cash into a listless economy, it is setting aside many of the restraints that have checked new domestic spending for more than a decade. The White House said the changes contemplated by Congress would provide coverage for nearly 8.5 million newly uninsured people who had lost their jobs and would protect Medicaid for many more whose eligibility would otherwise be at risk.
Of the $127 billion cost, the Congressional Budget Office said, $87 billion would be used to increase the federal share of Medicaid, $29 billion would subsidize private insurance and $11 billion would finance Medicaid for unemployed workers who could not otherwise qualify.
Most of the aid is billed as temporary. But Republicans fear that states would get hooked on it, just as they might grow accustomed to a big increase in federal aid to education, also included in the bill.
Democrats said the current economic crisis did not allow time for public hearings on the legislation.
The Democrats know that the American people won’t like a huge expansion of the government. But really, it’s not just expansion but what the Obama administration wants to do with the expansion. From Amanda Carpenter:
And, as written today, the bill gives billions to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Daschle’s to conduct “comparative medical research” and issue a final report.
Under the bill univeral health care advocate Daschle would receive $400 million to compare various medial treatments. The language, on page 135 of the bill, says it would fund “conduct, support, or synthesize research that compares the clinical outcomes,effectiveness, and appropriateness of items, services, and procedures that are used to prevent, diagnose, or treat diseases, disorders, and other health conditions; and encourage the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data.”
In other words, his job would be to find out what medical practices work and which ones don’t.Daschle would receive another $1.5 billion to give a final report to President Obama “containing information describing Federal activities on comparative effectiveness research and recommendations for additional investments in such research.”
The government, nameless, faceless bureaucrats will decide what is acceptable treatment and what is not. They will decide who deserves to die and who does not. They will make choices for the “greater good”.
Doctors and patients and the insurance worker familiar with the case won’t be making these choices–all have a direct stake in the outcome of the decision–a government worker will. Think IRS worker but for your health. Think DMV but life or death decisions with mile long waits.
This is what the Democrats are proposing and don’t have time for public hearings for. No discussions from patients or insurers or doctors, just the Congress and President Obama ramming through legislation because they can–they control the House, the Senate and the executive branch. They are taking advantage of the position.
Far from the economy being stimulated, the health care industry will be controlled by the government. Evidently, the auto industry, banking industry and Wall Street isn’t enough for these people. They want to control it all.
More at the Wall Street Journal
H/T Matt Lewis
The Media: Why Trust Them At All?
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Based on this last election cycle, I’ve come to the conclusion that people say that don’t trust the media, but their dominant opinions are still formed by the media. Remember the video of people who could tell you that Sarah Palin’s daughter was pregnant but could remember one Obama idea? It’s kinda like all Americans are above-average drivers. Americans believe themselves to be above-average informed while simultaneously distrusting the media. They know they’re being deceived and manipulated, they just believe the deception while believing they’re not believing.
The mainstream media doesn’t deserve the trust. Right now, CNN and Charles Johnson of LGF continue to argue over what is essentially Palestinian propaganda passed off as news. Ed Driscoll goes through the history and names the stories, huge stories the media was wrong about:
But if the jury is still out on that clip, let’s take a video look at news from this decade that we know conclusively was botched, including:
* The New Republic’s Danger Man, Scott Thomas Beauchamp.
* Reuters’ Picture Kill fiasco.
* Former CNN chief Eason Jordan claimed US (and Israeli) troops targeted journalists For assassination–but was surprisingly cool about working with Saddam Hussein.
* Hurricane Katrina and the “Echo Chamber in the Superdome.”
* Document Dan Rather.
* Jayson Blair.
* And the grandfather of ‘em all: Walter “Boom Boom” Duranty.
And this doesn’t even touch the most egregious form of media manipulation: what the media chooses to not report to you. For example, do you know how Barack Obama got his seat in the Illinois Senate? Why did it take the National Enquirer to break the John Edwards story–imagine if he’d have been a Republican Presidential candidate cheating on his campaigning wife who was suffering with cancer? Have you heard, nationally, about Chris Dodd’s involvement in the regulation related to the housing crisis while benefiting personally from the regulations? Have you seen the Palestinians using their children as shields during the war in any news coverage?
It’s not just misreporting, it’s what’s not being said at all that’s the danger. And maybe the bigger danger is that people will just believe everything because trying to keep up and filter is overwhelming. Or, they’ll get cynical and believe nothing. The whole systems relies on a certain amount of trust.
The most current example is the hype around the “Stimulus Package”. The government and the media sell it like it is a necessity. There is hysteria and rushing and that usually portends bad things for America, as is noted at The Politico:
Washington has a habit of passing legislation in a crisis and suffering from morning-after regrets — the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and last year’s original bank bailout plan come to mind. So we thought it would be wise to air the views of the naysayers toward Washington’s latest consensus approach.
The media shouldn’t exclude itself from criticism. Please. They sell their product on the back of hype and fear-mongering. It is to their competitive advantage to keep everyone frothing. And then, they’ll turn around tomorrow and tell the American people how the stimulus bill destroyed, destroyed I tell you!, America.
The hypocrisy would be comical if the side effects of the delusion drug weren’t so costly to a free republic.
Powerline
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009Proof That God Has A Sense Of Humor
Oops! Al Gore does it again!
Chris Brogan
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009You’re Doing It Wrong
‘Course you could be so wrong, you’re right.
Lucky or Wronged?
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Some people who survived the Hudson River plane landing feel that $5000 is not enough money to compensate them for their near-death experience. Emphasis on NEAR, because had the pilot been less skillful the people would most certainly BE dead.
What is fair in this case? A birds hit the engines and the engines died making the air plane into a monster glider. It was a freak occurrence that certainly couldn’t be blamed on air traffic controllers, the pilot or the mechanics of the plane. It is one of those circumstances where “sh*t happens”.
Well, at least I see it that way. Sure, it’s traumatic and distressing. I’m not confident I’d get on a plane again after that, but $5000 should be more than enough to get the counseling a normal person needs to recover, or not:
Joe Hart, a salesman from Charlotte who suffered a bloody nose and bruises, says he “would like to be made whole for the incident.”
It’s too soon after the accident to determine what emotional distress he has suffered, he says.
Wouldn’t we all like to be “made whole” from the traumas we experience? Wouldn’t it be great if a dollar amount could guarantee that wholeness? I think $5000 seems reasonable and fair. What do you think?
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Iowahawk Saves The Environment
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009Iowahawk’s got a list of many. Here are two of my favorites:
8. Go On a Random Killing Spree. The scientific debate is over: our current environmental mess is caused by an oversupply of human beings, and it’s high time we address these two-legged eco problems head on. Next time you’re on your way to a location shoot, do a little location shooting of your own – Biggie/Tupac style. Have the driver lower the tinted windows and pop a few caps on behalf of Mother Earth. Not only will you be doing the environment a good turn, it will earn you valuable youth market “street cred.”
9. Destroy The Entertainment Industry. Science shows that no single sector of the economy exemplifies America’s obscene energy waste more than show business. Witness the untold megatons of carbon released into the atmosphere every year by the production and consumption of entertainment, with no objective benefit to society. It all adds up to one gigantic, mindless, Earth-raping waste of time, and will take the commitment of progressive industry leaders like you to stop it. Before greenlighting any new project, make sure it contains at least 85% organic recycled preachy self-indulgence. By ridding your products of their dangerous popular appeal, you can keep the public where they belong — at home, with the TV off, playing eco-friendly board games like ‘Scrabble’ and ‘Mystery Date.’
There’s more environmental-friendly goodness at Iowahawk.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
