The Daily Plunge
Plunging Towards Gomorrah
Enviromentalist Gone Wild, White Media, and Time
Sep 2nd
Radical Environmentalist Dies the True Death: By now everyone has heard about the environmentalist who took hostages at Discovery Channel headquarters yesterday. Fortunately, the wacko wasn’t able to kill anyone.
A radical enviornmentalist who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters while wearing what police may be explosives was shot and killed by officers, police said.
The gunman, identified as James Lee, was killed by police following four hours of negotiations but the hostages are all safe, said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.
According to James Lee’s manifesto I don’t think he really minds dying for the cause. Lee considered humans disgusting filth. On the bright side, Lee was a huge fan of Al Gore’s inadvertently ironically-titled movie An Inconvenient Truth. I’m sure Lee is just a random crazy who can’t be tied to any ideological viewpoint. Nothing to see here, move on…
America’s Newsrooms are Overwhelmingly White: It’s not news that America’s newsrooms are dominated by white-guilt suffering liberals; however, they would like to remind us that Glenn Beck’s rally was predominately white. Well, what about the fact that the media is predominately white? If it’s good enough for the media, then it’s good enough for those crazy Glenn Beck people.
Freedom Sucks: Governor Deval Patrick wishes it wasn’t a free country. No really! Obviously it’s just a gaffe, right? I’m not so sure the liberal elite in this country actually wish this was a free country. Otherwise they wouldn’t be passing laws trying to control every single aspect of my life.
What’s Time’s Definition of “Clear? Time magazine has a long article entitled “How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular.” As you can imagine, it has nothing to do with his horrible policies and everything to do with angry white males. Here’s just a taste.
One explanation for Obama’s steep decline is that his presidency rests on what Gallup’s Frank Newport calls a “paradox” between Obama and the electorate. In 2008, Newport notes, trust in the federal government was at a historic low, dropping to around 25%, where it still remains. Yet Obama has offered government as the primary solution to most of the nation’s woes, calling for big new investments in health care, education, infrastructure and energy. Some voters bucked at the incongruity, repeatedly telling pollsters that even programs that have clearly helped the economy, like the $787 billion stimulus, did no such thing. Meanwhile, the resulting spike in deficits, which has been greatly magnified by tax revenue lost to the economic downturn, has spooked a broad sweep of the country, which simply does not trust Washington to responsibly handle such a massive liability. [emphasis added]
I guess this is breaking news because it’s not an accepted fact among economists that the so-called stimulus bill “clearly” helped anyone except for a few well-connected cronies. It was a pork-filled corruptocratic mess that added billions to the deficit. This is such a typical slant from the Left. They’re so ensconced in the liberal cocoon they don’t even know the difference between fantasy and fact. In the liberal world the great savior rescued the economy with the stimulus bill. In 2010, this kind of thinking can easily be dismissed as fantasy. In 1934, this kind of thinking convinced an entire generation of economists that you can simply spend your way out of economic calamity.
Does anyone ever wonder why the United States has had only one Great Depression? Isn’t it odd that the United States’ Depression that featured heavy government involvement was also the worst? The United States suffered through many short depressions that didn’t feature government stimulus and recovered within a few years. I’m just sayin’.
Katrina and the Waves
Sep 1st
Another sign of the Apocalypse: Paula Zahn discussing the Apocalypse.
I purposely shunned the news media this past week, particularly cable news, simply to avoid the incessant caterwauling over Katrina, five years later. Whilst flipping through the channels the other day, even the briefest glimpse of some “news” organization patting itself on the back and replaying its horrifically inaccurate coverage from five years ago caused my eyes to bleed.
Fortunately, I had beer and a Wii handy, so all was soon forgotten. I won’t enumerate every single journalistic misdemeanor and felony perpetrated on the American public in the aftermath of Katrina since W. Joseph Campbell, a professor in Communications at American University, did such a fine job in a recent post at Media Myth Alert.
However, I will say that Katrina may rank as the most overblown natural disaster in the history of mankind, puns and hyperbole very much intended. I’m certainly not downplaying the death and destruction wrought by the hurricane, but I will quibble with the way in which it has been portrayed.
Environmentalists love it because it supposedly represents Mother Nature’s disgust at humankind for having the audacity to drive cars. Race hustlers love it because it supposedly represents how the powerful white establishment could care less about blacks.
What Katrina actually represents is America’s slide into a culture of dependency. We should not be asking how the government can bail us out whenever something goes awry. We should be asking how we can better prepare ourselves so that we don’t need the government’s help.
Moreover, if we should expect any form of competence from government, it should be local and state government, not the Federal government. We are far more likely to be able to hold our local representatives to account than we are some pork-bellied beast thousands of miles away from the action.
Katrina did not expose the failure of the federal government; it exposed the failure of local government to have any semblance of sense before, during and after the storm. The old, tired saw, worn down by constantly sawing through the media’s BS, is that Katrina showed how foolish and inept the Bush administration was.
Even if this were true, it doesn’t change the fact that people need to take responsibility for themselves. Of course that’s an old-fashioned and outdated way of thinking. Also falling out of favor is the notion that we not only help ourselves, but that we help our neighbor when our neighbor is in need. With my boots on the ground, so to speak, I am much more likely to be in a position to help and to do so effectively.
What happens when we cede this responsibility to government is that we tend to care less about our neighbor.”Oh, Uncle Sam’s got his back. I can go back to playing Mario Kart,” we say to ourselves as the flood waters rise.
Today, the average Spaniard is 20 percentage points less likely than the average American to classify himself as “religious,” gives less than half as much to charity, and volunteers about one-fifth as often. And Spain has the highest level of charitable giving per capita in Western Europe (and has church attendance rates that are among the highest as well).
I’ll leave it to you to decide what these statistical variances between the United States and Europe mean and how they relate to the entitlement culture personified by Katrina then and Katrina five years later.
The Power of Herds
Sep 1st
Lie, shakedown, and repeat
In politics herds matter. Around 70 percent of evangelical Christians vote for Republicans while 90 percent of blacks for Democrats. What conclusions can we draw from these numbers? Well, if you’re a progressive you might automatically assume that since blacks vote predominantly for Democrats that the opposition must be racist. Or, since so many Christians vote Republican, liberals are all going to hell, or at least Purgatory (now called Durango Mountain Resort; I think it was part of the 2002 Papal Bull). I don’t believe that, but that’s basically what the Molotov-throwing Left does on a daily basis.
Large groups who vote the same aren’t necessarily correct. Has voting for Democrats in lockstep since the late ’60s helped blacks? Poverty hasn’t decreased among blacks. Crime hasn’t decreased. Education hasn’t gotten better. In fact, blacks are worst off socio-economically now than they were before the Left started treating them like children and wards of the state. The demagogues on the Left will just blame this on racist opposition to progress, but the Left ran Congress for decades before 1992. What does the Left offer Blacks today that will improve things? Not a damn thing except handouts and lip service. Politically, it’s an effective strategy for the Left; creating dependency through grievance mongering and envy has become the hallmark of today’s Democratic Party.
Groups are institutions. People like Al Sharpton must protect the status quo to remain relevant. The question is what can the government do to help blacks? The answer is nothing. It’s not the answer anyone likes to hear. It’s one that’s not politically popular. Anyone who wants to learn can learn in our education system. Our public school system is flawed, but it doesn’t turn away people who are diligent. There’s no magic bullet to force people to educate themselves.
All the money the U.S. wastes on handouts would probably be better spent paying children to go to school. At least that would create some incentive, but is that what we want to do? Do we really want to reward those who don’t care?
Bring in the Ghouls
Aug 31st
As a vocal proponent of amending the Constitution so that the Federal government’s sole and exclusive power is to regulate college and professional sports, I am still somewhat dismayed at the news that sullied my desk the other day about Roger Clemens.
Roger the Rocket, so dubbed for his ability to strike out batters in years past, is now better known as Roger the Dodger for his inability to tell the truth about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Unfortunately for Roger, the truth apparently eluded him while under oath before a Congressional hearing on steroid use in professional sports. As a result, Roger has been indicted by a Federal grand jury for what amounts to perjury.
In a sane world – that is, one in which the Federal government’s sole responsibility is policing sports – Clemens’ indictment would have been a necessary evil as part of the government’s only Constitutional power. But in this mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world, Clemens is being persecuted for no good reason.
It’s absolutely pointless to spend tax dollars on a Federal show trial of Clemens. I must have checked my copy of the Constitution at least a dozen times searching in vain for any mention of Congressional responsibility for Major League Baseball. But maybe it’s one of those clauses that covers everything, like the Commerce Clause or promoting “the general welfare.”
Let me be clear… This has nothing to do with anything other than a bunch of Congressional blowhards taking down easy targets so they can at least look like they’re accomplishing something. There’s nothing at stake here; only the apparently fragile egos of our beloved representatives. Congressional hearings have become nothing more than a three-ring circus of ghouls pick-pocketing the dead and then piling into their gas-guzzling freeloader-mobile to pick-pocket the taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the city of Houston has to undergo another indignity in a long line of indignities that stretches back to the 1979 Cotton Bowl.
Who’s Really Filled with Hate?
Aug 31st
What is so dangerous about Glenn Beck? He’s not my cup of tea, but is he mean spirited like Keith Olbermann? No, not really. It’s fascinating how Beck’s event in DC is being covered and the reaction to it by the Left. I say “fascinating” because I recall the Million Man March, which is still to this day reflected upon rather positively. I find this odd because I remember some of the absolute insanity that was on display. Here’s a clip from 1998 that took place right before the Million Man March. Feel the love from Malik Zulu Shabazz and Quanel X. By “feel the love,” I mean “kill white people.”
Is anyone talking like this who is closely involved with Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor event? Watch the highlights of Beck’s speech. It’s harmless. Imagine if someone before the Glenn Beck-athon said “If you find any good black people, kill them before they turn bad.” Quanel X believes “peace if possible, violence if necessary.”
Oh no, don’t let the children hear about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington or MLK. The press obsesses about race, especially if it’s damaging to Republicans. When the fascist racist mobs on the Left scurry about it might as well not be reported. People who listen to this type of crazy hate-filled rhetoric should be spotlighted and shamed out of existence. Unfortunately, leftist white guilt sufferers are disconnected from the race issue in any rational, meaningful sense. It muse be because of some kind of ridiculous pseudo intellectual theory dreamed up by some hippie New Leftest who suffered an LSD burnout in 1969.
Get over it. The world has moved on already. Hate speech shouldn’t be tolerated from anyone. Quit trying to associate Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin with hatemongers. They’re much further removed from hatemongering than the President, who had no problem listening to one for over 20 years.
Big Crowds, Thin Skin, and Paris Hilton
Aug 30th
Hilton/Beck 2012
Radio Silence: Gauging by the news today it’s difficult to know that a 300,000-person rally even took place in Washington D.C. over the weekend. I guess that means there wasn’t a race riot or some other event for the mainstream press to cover. The story that a peaceful crowd upset with the current course of the federal government just isn’t news during an election year.
Thin Skin Watch: Imagine if President Bush dedicated time to whining about how someone the Left treated him. Say what you will about him, but he never did, nor did any of Obama’s predecessors. I guess they felt it was unbecoming of the office to do so. Of course none of our previous presidents were “community organizers,” whose only job it is to whine. President Obama wants to blame all his problems on someone else and then he’s upset that some people aren’t happy. The press didn’t seem to mind when over 20 percent of Americans thought 9/11 was an inside job. Why am I supposed to be upset that people think he’s Muslim? Has anyone in the press bothered to check out where Obama went to church for decades and question whether or not it should really be defined as “Christian”?
Culture of Corruption Watch: Another Democratic member of Congress has been caught violating rules. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson was spreading the wealth around to relatives:
Longtime Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has awarded thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four relatives and a top aide’s two children since 2005, using foundation funds set aside for black lawmakers’ causes.
The recipients were ineligible under anti-nepotism rules of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which provided the money. And all of the awards violated a foundation requirement that scholarship winners live or study in a caucus member’s district.
Obviously Johnson isn’t to blame. It’s the racist anti-nepotism rules that are at fault, which is why it’s such a good idea to expand the scope and power of a centralized bureaucracy so that the “oppressed” can make sure they and their friends are taken care of. “Social justice” means never having to say your sorry.
Paris Hilton News: The biggest story over the weekend was the Paris Hilton arrest. Miss Hilton’s life is much more important to the average American than what’s going on in Washington D.C. No comment from Camp Hilton about her opinion of the events at the Lincoln Memorial. Oh well, at least Hilton has some idea of international affairs, particularly the complicated nexus between Bogota and Los Angeles.
Fair and Balanced
Aug 27th
The left pulled together every ounce of its faux outrage when it learned that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. contributed $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. I wonder how they feel about the fact that 88 percent of 2008 contributions by TV network execs, writers and reporters went to Obama and Democrats?
The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.
By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.
This is hardly a shocking revelation to anyone who pays attention to the news on any network beside FOX. Most journalists lean left and despite their best efforts to remain objective their coverage tilts left. That’s why the Washington Post is so desperate for a race riot or anything they can cover that’s damaging to conservatives. I wonder how much these agents of change give to charity in comparison? Hmmm…
Free Work, Dancing with Teen Mothers, and Daydream Believers
Aug 26th
Where do I Sign Up: A Community Services Board member in Norfolk, Virgina didn’t show up for work for 12 years and still got salary and benefits. Now that’s change I can believe in. You have to wonder what kind of human being could live with themselves collecting money like that, but look no further than our senior citizens who are collecting much more money than they put in at the expense of future generations.
Dancing with the Stars? Obviously my definition of “stars” is different that other people, especially since I think stars are giant balls of gas that emit light and heat. Bristol Palin, who is only famous because of her mother and the fact she got knocked up, is going to be on the new season of Dancing with the Stars. For those that remember, Miss Palin accused her now former fiance Levi Johnston of being a publicity hound. Hmmm… I have a feeling that she’ll co-star in an epic film with Lindsay Lohan in the next few years.
Head in the Sand: It’s not all doom and gloom Democrats! It looks like Reid Wilson over at Hotline On Call believes the Democrats won’t lose the House. Although I’m not sure his logic is logical:
Beyond advertising, money pays for turnout operations, another area in which Democrats have a clear advantage. The Democratic National Committee has pledged $30 million in cash and services to turn out the estimated 15 million voters who cast their first ballots for President Obama in 2008, and the DCCC has put an average of five field staffers on the ground in 75 districts.
This sounds a lot like what I heard during the 2006 election. The Republicans had a lot of money and a superior turnout operation, but ultimately lost the House. The GOP was missing the most crucial thing in an election: enthusiastic voters. 1,255,470 votes were cast in the uncontested Florida GOP Senate primary. There were 912,044 voters in the contested Democratic Senate primary. That’s hardly a reassuring if you’re a member of the Democratic party or Charlie Crist. Florida is a battleground state and the Democrats are staying at home and the Republicans are fired up.
Who is Michael Enright? James Taranto over at Best of the Web has an in-depth look at the history of the supposed Islamophobe Michael Enright, around whom the press is rallying as it always does when they think they’ve finally found a real “hate crime.” Taranto’s conclusions shouldn’t be shocking for those who aren’t caught up in the sensationalist news cycle. For whatever reason, Enright’s association with the pro-mosque left isn’t making headlines. You know what else isn’t making headlines? I’ve lost count of the number of attacks on innocent civilians in the United States by Muslims; however, no one is going around trying to say all Muslims are Americanophones…. or whatever. But perpetrate a hate crime against yourself or pretend you’re a racist right-winger to prove your own leftist politically-correct psychosis and the media reports it as fact in 82-point type on the front page. Then, when the truth comes out, it’s buried on page A-75 in 2-point type, if at all.
Washinton Posts Prays for a Race Riot in DC
Aug 26th
President Lincoln was often described as an "extremist" while he was alive.
I’ve never been quiet about my feelings for Glenn Beck. He just annoys me for a variety of different reasons. Evidently, Beck and others are doing a rally at Lincoln Memorial this weekend. Instead of covering the event the Washington Post wants to spin the rally as a plus for Democrats.
But with just a few days before the Beck rally, basic questions linger, including how big it will be and whether the event, which Beck says is nonpolitical, will help or hurt Republicans in November. Also unanswered is whether Beck can pull off the connection to King without creating offense – or confrontation with another event the same day led by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
I have other questions. Will the media manufacture another racism claim? Will the nonpolitical event help or hurt Democrats in November? Also unanswered is whether Sharpton can pull off the connection to Beck without creating offense – or confrontation with another event the same day led by Glenn Beck. One thing is for certain: the Post is hoping for some kind of game-changing headline to cripple the GOP.
The Washington Post article loves to talk about how extreme Glenn Beck is, but what about Al Sharpton? The man is a complete reprobate. The fact the media presents Sharpton as some kind of leader for African Americans is insulting to every flavor, stripe and color of mankind, especially blacks.
Of course the main rhetorical point from an event like this is, “How big is the crowd?” It doesn’t matter how large the crowd is because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s been two years since the ObamaMania tour and what has changed? Almost twice as many Republicans voted in the Florida primary than Democrats. Those large crying crowds are just a memory now. They symbolize the nature of crowds. They are like a vapor, much like mainstream press coverage.
Islamophobia: The Correct Answer
Aug 24th
The most recent issue of Time Magazine asks, “Is America Islamophobic?” I’m sure I could plumb the depths of this issue, but why bother when Mark Steyn fully exposes “Islamophobia” and all the other multi-cultural “phobias” that have emerged during this hyper-tolerant, PC, hate-crime era for what they really are in his classic tome America Alone?
As someone who’s called Islamophobic and homophobic every day of the week, I can’t help marveling at the speed and skill with which Muslim lobby groups have mastered the language of victimhood so adroitly used by the gay lobby. If I were the latter, I’d be a little miffed at these Ahmed-come-latelys. “Homophobia” was always absurd: people who are antipathetic to gays are not afraid of them in any real sense. The invention of a phoney-baloney “phobia” was a way of casting opposition to the gay political agenda as a kind of mental illness: don’t worry, you’re not really against same-sex marriage; with a bit of treatment and some medication, you’ll soon be feeling okay.
On the other hand, “Islamophobia” is not phony or even psychological but very literal – if you’re a Dutch member of parliament or British novelist or Danish cartoonist in hiding under threat of death or a French schoolgirl in certain suburbs getting jeered at as an infidel whore, your Islamophobia is highly justified. But Islam’s appropriation of the gay lobby’s framing of the debate is very artful. It’s the most explicit example of how Islam uses politically correct self-indulgent victimology as a cover. You’ll recall that most Western media outlets declined to publish those Danish cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed. Thus, even as they were piously warning of a rise in bogus “Islamophobia” – i.e., entirely justified concerns over Islamic terrorism and related issues – they were themselves suffering from genuine Islamophobia – i.e., a very real fear that, if they published those cartoons, an angry mob would storm their offices. It was a fine example of how the progressive mind’s invented psychoses leave it without any words to describe real dangers.
