• Media,  Media Bias

    Michael Kinsley Watch: Black and White and Dead All Over

    Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post: Black and White and Dead All Over

    …Ten years later, newspapers are starting to panic again. But merely slobbering after bloggers may not be enough. In 1996 the oldest Americans who grew up with computers and don’t even understand my tiresome anecdotes about how people used to resist them (“What’s a typewriter, Mike?”) were just entering adulthood. Now they are most of the working population, or close to it…

    …No one knows how all this will play out. But it is hard to believe that there will be room in the economy for delivering news by the Rube Goldberg process described above. That doesn’t mean newspapers are toast. After all, they’ve got the brand names…

    …And newspapers have got the content…

    …There is even hope for newspapers in the very absurdity of their current methods of production and distribution. What customers pay for a newspaper doesn’t cover the cost of the paper, let alone the attendant folderol. Without these costs, even zero revenue from customers would be a good deal for newspapers, if advertisers go along. Which they might. Maybe. Don’t you think? Please?

    Flap misses Michael Kinsley at the Los Angeles Times. The recent changes of personnel and editing staff has done nothing but precipitate the slide in the newspaper’s importance and circulation. In fact, Flap senses a MEAN VINDICTIVENESS on the part of the newspaper against NEW MEDIA and others because of their declining business model and number of subscribers.

    MIchael Kinsley in his own tongue in cheek manner explains the absurdity of the “pulp” newspaper Rube Goldberg mentality.

    He is RIGHT!

    The delivery of news content is NO longer pulp newspaper dependent. People want it fast, accurate and without an AGENDA/BIAS (except on opinion pages).

    Now, if Kinsley et al could change the newspapers towards this end……….

    BTW:

    Flap confesses the Los Angeles Times is WORSE since Kinsley left.



    Previous:

    Michael Kinsley: The Press Is in Decline


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  • Global War on Terror,  Iraq War,  Politics

    Iraq War Watch: NO WMD’s But Saddam Trained Thousands of International Terrorists

    Ruins of a former Taliban and Al Qaeda headquarters/training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan

    Powerline: Iraq’s Training of Terrorists Documented

    We spoke with Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard earlier this week; he told us that he was about to publish a bombshell: documents and photographs discovered in Iraq show that in the years leading up to the war, Saddam’s regime trained thousands of international terrorists at several camps in Iraq.

    Steve Hayes story: Saddam’s Terror Training Camps

    THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

    The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

    READ IT ALL

    John Hinderaker continues:

    Only a tiny fraction–between two and three percent–of the 2,000,000 “exploitable items” recovered in Iraq have been translated. Only in the last few weeks has the Bush administration finally made a commitment to devoting the necessary resources to reviewing and translating the Iraqi documents. Until now, the administration has been reluctant to allow access even to the handful of unclassified documents that have been translated. Thankfully, that posture is changing.

    While we have barely scratched the surface of Iraq’s intelligence records, it is already obvious that Saddam was a major supporter and enabler of Islamic terrorism:

    “As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein’s] support for transregional terrorists,” says one intelligence official.

    Apparently there are boxes full of photographs of jihadists training in Saddam’s camps. I’m looking forward to seeing them.

    Flap is too!

    But, will the New York Times publish them?


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  • Politics,  Samuel Alito,  Supreme Court

    Samuel Alito Watch: Concerned Alumni of Princeton and Democrat Desperation

    Matt Drudge: DEMOCRATS PLAN TO DESTROY ALITO

    Senate Democrats have put into place a plan that includes one last push to take down the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito as he heads into his confirmation hearing next week, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

    Senate Democrats intend to zero in on Alito’s alleged enthusiastic membership to an organization, they will charge, that was sexist and racist!

    Democrats hope to tie Alito to Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).

    Yeah right! A scholarly Federal Court of Appeals Judge is a closet racist and sexist.

    Desperate Democrats – UNHINGED

    Story is developing……..

    John Hinderaker at Powerline: Latest Dem Charge: Alito’s a Carnivore!

    According to the Democrats’ press release, Dujack will testify about Judge Alito’s long-ago “membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). Formed in 1972, CAP has been publicly criticized for its policies opposing Princeton’s decision to admit women and minorities.” The Democrats have gotten so used to making wild charges that I wonder whether they even bother to read their own propaganda. The decision to admit women at formerly all-male schools like Princeton was indeed controversial, but the Democrats’ suggestion that CAP “oppos[ed] Princeton’s decision to admit minorities” is ridiculous.


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  • Arnold Schwarzenegger,  California,  Election 2008,  Politics

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Reaction to Governor’s Speech – NEGATIVE

    California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gives his ‘state of the state’ address in Sacramento, California, January 5, 2006. A year after picking a bitter fight with legislators that he ended up losing at the polls, Schwarzenegger unveiled a massive 10-year spending plan on Thursday aimed at winning back Californian support ahead of his November re-election effort.

    San Francisco Chronicle: BOLD AGENDA FOR STATE
    BIGGEST BUILDING PLAN SINCE ’60S: Some lawmakers are skeptical Schwarzenegger can pull it off

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ambitious 10-year plan to invest an additional $222 billion in California’s aging transportation system and other public works is the first major commitment by a governor to rebuild the state since the 1960s.

    During that decade, primarily under the administration of Democrat Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, California created university campuses, the state water project and a network of highways that helped fuel the state’s economic growth.

    “This state was built on those big water projects and highway projects. Since then we haven’t done anything on a scale like this,” said Dennis Oliver, a spokesman for the California Alliance for Jobs, an Emeryville organization that represents highway construction companies and unions and has backed increased public works spending for more than a decade.

    Over the next five election cycles, beginning next June, Schwarzenegger wants to parcel out bonds for highways, transit systems, flood control projects, port improvements, jails, courts, levees, and construction and modernization of public schools and universities.

    Lawmakers reacted with caution to such an overwhelming proposal.

    The reaction to Governor Schwarzenegger’s is NEGATIVE. Some will wait for the budgetary details next week but………

    Dan Walters: Schwarzenegger may be putting himself into a political pitfall

    Clearly, however, it was ginned up as a vehicle to restore Schwarzenegger’s popularity. He is, in effect, putting his political eggs into a single basket, hoping that he can move the “strategic growth plan” through a Legislature dominated by those who really want him to fail and then persuade skeptical voters to accept the massive debt that it involves.

    John Fund of the Wall Street Journal

    It is striking to watch a governor who called for ‘blowing up bureaucratic boxes’ a year ago now say that the answer to the state’s problems is to “build it” and the solution will come. The governor’s new tack may indeed get him through the 2006 election but the contrast with last year’s State of the State speech is so dramatic that the Los Angeles Times was moved to note that “a central question (of the coming campaing) is apt to be whether Schwarzenegger is motivated more by core beliefs or a quest for personal success.” The early evidence isn’t encouraging.

    “I applaud his grand vision,” said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “But sometimes too much is less valuable than focusing on a few doable issues.”

    “He talked about putting out a framework for the next 20 years,” said Assembly GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. “Now the whole debate will be, what reforms can there be so that the money gets used efficiently, and then how do we pay for it?”

    Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and other lawmakers expressed skepticism at putting many bond measures on ballots for several election cycles.

    “It’s impossible to grasp,” the Oakland Democrat said. “People are so skeptical — if you don’t tell them specifics, they don’t believe it. They have earned the skepticism about our ability to improve things. I would much prefer to put something reasonable on the table that they believe in that outlines what they are interested in.”

    Mark Williams of KFBK (1530 in Sacramento) called the Governor a liar, someone who can’t be trusted–that he wasted the last two years and was going to waste this year.

    John Ziegler of KFI (640 in Los Angeles) called it a “surrender speech” and that the Governor sounded like a Democrat, not a Republican.

    Inga Barks of KMJ (580 in Fresno) wanted Senator McClintock to run instead of Schwarzenegger, saying this is not the guy we supported in the Recall–that he sounded more like Gray Davis.

    Steve Frank of the California Political News and Views

    This much I know and believe, that while the Governor was correct in his vision and needs for the future, the financing is no where near complete. To be complete it must also include the enforcement of immigration laws along with the needed changes in pension funding–otherwise this will be a vision without a possibility. And time is running short. With the explosion in the costs of illegal immigration and the crisis in government pension plans, a complete re-financing of the State, not just the infrastructure, is needed now. Hopefully, the budget will provide the answers next week.


    Orange County Register: What was he thinking?

    EDITORIAL: Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to spend more – but where will the money come from?

    But with state bond debt already stretching a prudent limit and the state still stuck in a rut of a $4 billion yearly structural deficit, how can the state sustain so much more spending and maintain fiscal discipline?

    He noted that this is the state of the California Dream. Yes, but which one?

    Developing as budgetary details details are released………

    Previous:


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: California 2006 State of the State


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Toll Roads in California’s Future?

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Infrastructure Bond Trial Balloon – $25-27 Billion


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Governor Expected to Propose College Fee Freeze


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: California Infrastructure Bond Will NOT Include Tax Increases


    California Taxes Watch: Builders and Politicians Pushing Bond Package

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Here Come the Tax Increases


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  • Criminals,  Culture

    Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” Vandalized in France

    AP: Artist Accused of Vandalizing Urinal

    A 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” _ a porcelain urinal _ with a hammer, police said.

    Duchamp’s 1917 piece _ an ordinary white, porcelain urinal that’s been called one of the most influential works of modern art _ was slightly chipped in the attack at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the museum said Thursday. It was removed from the exhibit for repair.

    The suspect, a Provence resident whose identity was not released, already vandalized the work in 1993 _ urinating into the piece when it was on display in Nimes, in southern France, police said.

    During questioning, the man claimed his hammer attack on Wednesday was a work of performance art that might have pleased Dada artists. The early 20th-century avant-garde movement was the focus of the exhibit that ends Monday, police said.

    A 2004 poll of 500 arts figures ranked “Fountain” as the most influential work of modern art _ ahead of Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” Andy Warhol’s screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and “Guernica,” Picasso’s depiction of war’s devastation.

    “Fountain” is estimated at $3.6 million.

    Well, the vandal has a point:

    The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

    — Marcel Duchamp


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  • Arnold Schwarzenegger,  California,  Election 2006,  Politics

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: California 2006 State of the State

    Former Gov. Gray Davis, accompanied by his wife, Sharon, right, smiles as he listens to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State address at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006. Schwarzenegger replaced Davis as governor in the 2003 recall election.

    Why is RECALLED Governor Gray Davis smiling?

    “This is like in the Army — left, right, left,” Davis shrugged.

    Washington Post: Schwarzenegger Seeks Huge Spending Increase

    With $70 Billion Plan to Rebuild State, He Continues Move to the Middle in an Election Year

    Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed extensive new spending for highways, schools, air quality and ports Thursday as he attempts to move to the political middle and regain his footing after a disastrous second year as California’s governor.

    In his second State of the State address, Schwarzenegger proposed a $70 billion bond issue, the biggest in California history, which over the next decade would pay for new schools, roads, better ports and improved air quality, as well as new levees and jails. He also backed a dollar increase in the minimum wage.

    “We must build a California eager to meet the challenges of the 21st century without reluctance or fear,” Schwarzenegger said in unveiling his plan, which would amount to twice California’s annual budget.

    “I say build it,” Schwarzenegger, 58, repeated throughout his speech as he outlined a vast “strategic growth plan” to rebuild the state’s crumbling infrastructure.

    TAX and SPEND Politics

    Developing for details………

    Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, left, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joke with each other after Schwarzenegger delivered his annual State of the State address held in Assembly Chambers at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006. At right is state Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland.

    Previous:


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Toll Roads in California’s Future?

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Infrastructure Bond Trial Balloon – $25-27 Billion


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Governor Expected to Propose College Fee Freeze


    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: California Infrastructure Bond Will NOT Include Tax Increases


    California Taxes Watch: Builders and Politicians Pushing Bond Package

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Here Come the Tax Increases


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