What the Liberal Media Don’t Want Americans to Know About Contraception

Posted on | February 18, 2012 | 8 Comments

The debate over ObamaCare’s mandated coverage for contraception raged for days before I finally managed to weigh in Wednesday, pointing out the absurd distortions and disinformation being promoted by liberals. Of course, I’m a Sexist Theocratic Right-Wing Misogynistic Patriarchal Oppressor, so no one believes a word I say on the subject.

Therefore it is helpful that Alexa Shrugged (who is a woman) has decided to help fight back with two important posts on the subject:

Part 1: Controlling the Birth Control Debate
First the Planned Parenthood-Komen kerfuffle, now contraception? Who would have thought 1 year ago that we would be battling the culture wars again 9 months before a presidential election when the economy’s in the tank. Well, maybe Obama. And that’s the point.

Part 2: Debunking the Myth that
99% of Women Are Using Birth Control
There’s a meme going around in the media that 99% of women are on birth control. First of all, if this is true, clearly there is no crisis of accessibility or cost — 99% is as universal for coverage as you’ll ever get. And if 99% of women already have a way of getting or paying for birth control, then why in the world do we need to make it free through an Obamacare mandate?? But anyway, we need to examine this 99% stat.

You can and should follow her on Twitter.

‘Top GOP Senator’ Freaks the Hell Out Over Mitt Romney’s Michigan Meltdown

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 50 Comments

Who is this “prominent Republican senator” who thinks Rick Santorum would “lose 35 states” if he got the nomination? Who is this vicious backstabbing crapweasel who wants to DRAFT JEB BUSH?

Lindsey Graham? John Cornyn? Mitch McConnell?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Old, Odd Fuddy-Duddys And Anyone Else Who Digs Liberty: Hie Thee To The East Lawn At High Noon On 24 March

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

Title alludes to Daily Pundit’s alternative suggestion for naming this blog. I like ‘The McCain Mutiny’, but once you’ve been indexed by Google, you don’t want to go making changes.

By the same token, once you’ve been annexed by the Progressive Borg, for something like ObamaCare, it gets very hard to undo. Which makes this:

The Road to Repeal Rally will take place on the East Lawn of the Capitol, right across the street (1st St NE) from the Supreme Court Building. The rally will begin at 12pm noon and will conclude at 2pm. Speakers and Coalition Partners to be announced soon.

. . .of paramount importance.

Road to Repeal

Wolverines!!!

Update: linked by That Mr. G. Guy.

Update II: Welcome, INSTAPUNDIT readers!

We Forgive You, Foster Friess

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 31 Comments

Ali Akbar, Foster Friess and Robert Stacy McCain at CPAC 2012

The joke about aspirin as a contraceptive — just hold it between your knees, ladies — was probably first told by Phyllis Diller on “The Tonight Show” back when Jack Paar was still hosting. Those of us old enough to remember it were surprised when it became “controversial” this week.

How does a decades-old gag become “controversial”? When it is re-told by a GOP billionaire who supports Rick Santorum for president.

Welcome to the Age of Political Correctness: Foster Friess has felt the need to apologize for telling that old joke.

Should conservatives denounce, disavow and “distance” ourselves from Mr. Friess? Not at all. We are quite proud to be associated with such a courageous and patriotic Christian gentleman. In fact, we have created a Special Patriotic Tribute to Foster Friess, and hope that everyone will click the link to see it. IYKWIMAITYD.

Our Tolerant Liberal Overlords (Unexpectedly!) Mock Dancing Lesbian

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 11 Comments

She insists on being known as “A Conservative Lesbian, Cynthia Yockey,” because that gets her to the top of any alphabetically ordered blogroll, at least until I change the name of this blog to “AAA Homophobic Sexist Patriarchal Theocratic Right-Wing Swine.” But I digress . . .

A video of Cynthia dancing to a rap song by Steven Crowder and Chris Loesch at CPAC went viral, which earned her mockery at Wonkette and at Mediaite, where Frances Martel wrote, “There is also an elder white lady grooving that is either hilarious or tragic” before subsequently updating to acknowledge that the “elder white lady” was in fact Cynthia, who is (a) merely 58 and (b) what would otherwise be regarded by liberals as a Sacred Victim of Unjust Discrimination.

Cynthia has taken notice of this, and there are a couple more things I’d like to point out:

1. Would Mediate ever describe Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, or any number of other liberal Baby Boomers as “elder”?
2. Why is the sexual preference of conservatives only noted when they are caught in “hypocrisy,” or outed by liberals, or openly gay and criticizing the GOP as homophobic?

Seriously: There are lots and lots of gay people who vote Republican and support conservative policies and never complain about discrimination or get caught in scandals, but you’d have no idea of this if all you knew was what you read in the liberal media.

For example, there were thousands of lesbians at CPAC. How do I know this? Well, there were many women attending the conference who did not fling themselves in lovestruck desperation at me, and so therefore . . .

Well, need I say it? I think not.

Anyway, Cynthia Yockey is good people and you should go hit her tip jar immediately, because when I flew back from Florida and no one else could get to the airport to pick me up, Cynthia was “AAA Ride Home From the Airport.” Some have entertained angels unaware.

The New Media Proletariat

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 43 Comments

It is rather a painful thing to acknowledge that Joy McCann is onto something when she remarks about the advent of a two-tiered blogging hierarchy. And it is even more painful to see my friend Jerry Wilson’s expressions of resentment toward Ed Morrissey about this.

In all honesty, despite what anyone may suspect from certain previous writings here (ahem), I recognize Ed as one of the great selfless souls of conservative New Media.

The growth of blogging, including the ascent of certain sites and individuals to pre-eminence within the ecology of the blogosphere, has fundamentally transformed the online environment. People who were still in high school when Bill Quick named the blogosophere (more than a decade ago) now wield more influence and throw more traffic than does Bill Quick himself. Those who have toiled long years as bloggers obviously have reason to resent the upstarts, who may not recognize how they stand on the shoulders of giants. By the same token, newcomers to the ‘sphere understandably resent the difficulty of carving out a readership in an environment where a certain hierarchy has seemingly become already set in stone.

Is some sort of revolutionary movement necessary to unleash the strength and satisfy the ambitions of the New Media Proletariat? Is the existing online hierarchy an engine of systemic injustice?

I think not.

The world is not fair, nor is there ever likely to be any system in human experience that operates as a pure meritocracy. There will always be those whose hard work is ill-compensated and unrecognized, just as there will inevitably be others who benefit extravagantly from what appears to others as undeserved good fortune.

Sic semper hoc.

What is true in the rest of the world and throughout human history is, alas, true in the online world: Life is not fair.

Yet nobody’s participation in this field is compulsory. I could quit this blog tomorrow and go drive a forklift, and probably make more money doing that than I’ve earned in the past year. There is no one in the blogosphere holding a gun to my head, no one with the authority to issue me any commands that I am obliged to obey. My participation is entirely voluntary, as is true of everyone who decides to create a blog and try to make themselves heard above the incessant online din.

Do I have advantages others do not? Indeed I do, and I exploit every one of these advantages to the fullest extent I can.

Do others in online media have advantages over me? Of course, and they will certainly employ those advantages to obtain for themselves the greatest possible personal benefit. It would be foolish for anyone to expect them to do less.

Nevertheless, it remains true that no blog is an island. There is no site with such a decisive advantage of readership or resources that it can neglect the need to grow and expand, to keep pace with the evolution of the online information system. Even within the seemingly rock-solid “Establishment” hierarchy of the blogosphere, there are still opportunities for those who are willing to embrace the challenges, to think of themselves not as oppressed toilers, but as innovative entrepreneurs.

Hear me, my virtual comrades!

You are not being oppressed by the Blogospheric Bourgeoisie.

There is no “Man” holding you down, no Tsar or imperial bureaucracy impeding your advancement. If you are not being linked, if your e-mails go unanswered, if you are banned or attacked or excluded, let those setbacks inspire you to still greater efforts, to new ideas and new enterprises.

If you feel yourself chained to your laptop, the chains that enslave you are forged by your own mind. You can quit tomorrow, walk away for as long as it suits your fancy, and begin again anew whenever, wherever and however you decide.

You may never be “equal,” my comrades, but never doubt that you are always equally free. And perhaps, indeed, the lowly and neglected among us have far greater liberty than do those who, by merit or mere luck, have succeeded in obtaining an income on which they are dependent, so that they are compelled daily to strive for new successes, to crank out the content like so many factory workers manning an industrial assembly line.

Comrades! I beseech you: Consider for yourself what value you add to whatever cause it is you seek to advance, and ask whether the success of that cause is an end greater than your own personal benefit. Your labors and your sufferings — real or imagined — can only be justified by one or the other, and it doesn’t matter which it is.

If it is your goal to be a New Media professional, you should seek the maximum compensation for your skill. If it is your goal to be a volunteer activist online, you have no measure of your success other than the advancement of whatever cause you embrace. It is certainly true that the larger your readership, the greater your impact either way. Yet it is incumbent upon you to expand your own readership, rather than to think of others as obligated to share their readership with you.

A blogospheric Welfare State can no more be the goal of online friends of liberty than would we wish an Internet dictatorship that would allot online traffic according to some egalitarian formula. Blogospheric free enterprise may not produce “social justice” in the virtual environment, but whatever it produces — for good or for ill — a capitalistic New Media will triumph over any other online equivalent of a planned economy that “experts” could invent or imagine.

Comrades of the New Media Proletariat: YOU ARE FREE!
Go forth and prove yourselves worthy of your freedom.

.

.

Is Ian Masters Looking For A Job In, I Don’t Know, Say, Tennessee?

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Valley of the Shadow points out Ian Masters, an LA radio personality of some note, who really seems to dig him some anti-Semitism. Read all of Joe Fein’s debunking of a sad situation in LA.  It brings to mind Charlotte Bergmann, whom I saw cruise through the blogger lounge at CPAC, but had no time to hail. These Lefty radio personalities seem to have problems with raaaaacism. Do they get that in their broadcasting school?

It used to seem strange and paradoxical that the Left, purporting to be all about fairness and decency, stand revealed as the least fair and decent upon serious analysis. But that seems to be their point: there is no ‘serious analysis’ on a societal scale. It’s really all about power, isn’t it? Especially if you have no moral center to explain why this is a violation of Matt 4:8-10.

And, speaking of those who apparently lack a moral center, Sean Penn continues to pal around with anti-Semites and those who hate America. Gotta love Sean’s approach to free speech: his is consistant in his mis-application thereof.

‘A Poor Impression Of The Insular, Cliquish Culture Of Their Discipline’

Posted on | February 17, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

An interesting article at Slate reprints an article from a decade ago about a non-professional philosopher who wrote a serious philosophical tract and then, retaining anonymity, paid philosophers to engage on it in scholarly journals. James Ryerson then goes on a hunt to unmask this anonymous thinker, with anti-climactic results, emphasis mine:

After all, the philosophers I had spoken with had assumed from the very beginning that “Coming to Understanding” was the work of an amateur. Not only did the draft itself suggest an amateur’s hand, but the whole elaborate production of the institute was a bright, shining neon advertisement for the fact that this was not a professional philosopher working through professional channels.
No, quite obviously it was the money that had convinced the reviewers to write their reviews. If anything, the institute’s anonymity had only made reviewers reluctant to participate. So I wrote Sanders back, suggesting that if his primary goal was, as he stated, to attract reviewers, then he should rest assured that my article would only broaden the range of philosophers who might be interested in contributing to his project.
His reply was revealing, for his message had changed. He explained that he no longer expected that he could genuinely interest the sort of professional academics who read Lingua Franca. Despite his deep admiration for the work of trained philosophers, he had come to form a poor impression of the insular, cliquish culture of their discipline. “I have found professional philosophers to be a proud, demanding bunch who protect their terrain with great contempt for outsiders,” he wrote. “My past attempts to publish my work did not get beyond the first contact stage because I had ‘no standing in the academy.'”

The whole article is interesting, if you’re keen on metaphysical topics. The bolded organizational behavior point is one that crops up every time you have a non-trivial number of people involved in an effort. Two of my favorite sayings in life:

• People don’t scale.
• Everything is easy when you know how to do it.

When you have more than, say, a half dozen people working together on a non-trivial effort, a standard normal distribution pops up, as leaders drift toward the management tail on the right, and the bums drift toward the left tail and check in with the #Occupy movement.

Staffing comes and goes in the left and middle, but the more people hang around, learn, and become skilled, the more to the right they drift, and the same sort of bitchy philosophers club alluded to in the article will form. Inevitably.

Will the conservative blogosphere suffer from this ‘malady’? It already does, or never will, depending upon your perspective. The barriers to entry are exceedingly low, the turnover is quite high, and technology tends to lob bolders at the keep of your coveted readership.

Aside: I absolutely meant no reference whatsoever to Mrs. Burri in this post. I was trying to crack a contextual joke, which was probably better left alone. I don’t really think he took it personally, but in such matters, I will always flog the horse well past dead.

via Stephen R. C. Hicks

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