The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Mutiny

Posted on | February 23, 2011 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

If a group of public servants under the UCMJ were to pull the sort of rolling stunt currently seen in Wisconsin, with support in various other states, no one would hesitate to call it precisely what it is.
Private sector unions are one thing. Trumka is a genius, getting all of those people to give him money to maintain the Blagojevich hair (whined the bald blogger). But public sector workers are an ass of a different color; they are public servants, not public masters.
If public sector workers are looking for sympathy, they can find it in the dictionary between schist and syphilis, to tidy an old family saying. Take your haircut back to what the tax base can afford, and get back to work. If this suits you not, recall that you voluntarily work for the public, and can voluntarily go find yourself a better job based upon your merit.  These teachers, for example, can take their precious butts out there and start a private school, no?  Let the resulting stellar test scores among the students carry their righteous argument.
May fortune smile upon Scott Walker and his efforts.

Category: Unions

LIVE AT FIVE – 2.23.11

Posted on | February 23, 2011 | 2 Comments

TOP NEWS
We Told You The Fix Was In: Emanuel Elected Mayor Of Chicago

Ladies and gentlemen, the new mayor of Chicago.

Via Lash3 on Twitter: This —> RT @teh_Dede: RT @im_bonafide: Rahm Emanuel wins Chicago mayoral race with 107% of votes cast.

Obama Pressured To Intervene In Libya
Critics question his silence

Libya Unrest Pushes Oil To 30-Month High
Analysts predict gas at $3.75/gallon by Memorial Day weekend



POLITICS
Governor Walker Refuses To Give In

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

“We don’t have any money,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office. “You can’t negotiate in good faith if you don’t have anything to give…For us, negotiating about not balancing the budget is not an option.”


Justice Thomas Marks Fifth Year Of Remaining Silent During Oral Arguments

With Thune Out, Senate Contenders For President Seem Unlikely In 2012

Supremes Weigh Tenth Amendment

Will Boehner Defund Planned Parenthood?



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Shares Flat As Oil Prices Trim Gains
U.S. Stocks Plummet On Libyan Turmoil
NASDAQ Weighs Own Bid For NYSE
FTC Eyes Apple In-App Purchases By Children
Verizon To Offer Wide Tablet Choices With Xoom Release
Top 4 Publisher Objections To Apple Subscriptions



SPORTS
Issues At UConn Cut Down List Of Programs Without Major Infractions

UConn coach John Calhoun: Suspended

NCAA adds to self-imposed penalties for rules violations in 2008, 2009

Turnovers Doom Illini In 89-70 Rout By Buckeyes

Rookie Patterson Powers Rockets Past Pistons

Setaguchi And The Sharks Stop Wings’ Winning Streak


Dodgers’ Padilla To Undergo MRI On Painful Elbow

Bryce Harper Aims To Make The Nationals Roster Out Of Spring Training



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Alyssa Milano Expecting

Ms. Milano and her proud hubby Dave Bugliari

First child for the lucky couple

How To Survive As A Stay At Home Girlfriend

Miley Cyrus Forces Dad To Cancel “The View” Appearance

“Golden Voice” Ted Williams Scores Reality Show

Ottawa Radio Station Bans Carrie Underwood After Senators Trade Her Husband To Nashville

Tony Parker Just Don’t Care

Chris Brown’s Restraining Order Is Over – He Can Go Near Rihanna Again

Chris Bosh’s Baby Mama Tapped For “Basketball Wives”

Beyonce Does Blackface: Offensive Or Meh?

Britney Makes Six Figures Off Music Video



FOREIGNERS
UN Security Council Condemns Libyan Crackdown
ASEAN Mediates In Cambodian/Thai Border Clash; Indonesian Observers Accepted By Both Sides
David Cameron: History Is Sweeping Through Middle East
31 Convicted, 63 Acquitted In Godhra Train Fire Case
Street Battles Erupt In Abidjan



BLOGS & STUFF
Gateway Pundit: It’s A Fleebagger Festival!
Protein Wisdom: Mitch Daniels Surrenders
Troglopundit: “Is It Really A Coincidence That More Democrats Are Heading For Illinois On The Same Day They’re Holding An Election In Chicago?”
Legal Insurrection: They Soooo Want To Be Like The Egyptian Protesters
Weekly Standard: Secretary Clinton Steps Up To The Plate On Libya – And Whiffs
Jim Manzi: Are Wisconsin Public Employees Underpaid?
Maggie’s Notebook: Walker Tells Absent Legislators To Show Up If They Want Their Pay – Direct Deposit Terminated
Donald Sensing: You Can Kill Him, But You Can’t Circumcise Him
Allahpundit: Harry Reid To Nevada Legislators – Hey, Let’s Make Prostitution Illegal
Confederate Yankee: Daily Show Tortures Camel For “Humor” – Just As Funny As Wisconsin Student Test Scores


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Chicago’s New F***ing Mayor

Posted on | February 23, 2011 | 21 Comments

Rahm Emanuel has cussed his way to victory in the Chicago mayoral election. He got 55 percent in a six-candidate field, with former Daley staffer Gery Chico getting 24 percent and the Worst Senator Ever getting 9 percent.

Category: Chicago, Illinois

Wretched, Tortured Souls

Posted on | February 22, 2011 | 5 Comments

“I start to ask myself how many people do I sit near at work that have a ticker attached to a stick of dynamite somewhere inside their wretched, tortured soul. One guy I know has a combative ex-wife and a messed up kid who hit puberty and has seemingly taken to questioning why he should bother. Another has a similarly combative ex-wife and a daughter who gets used as a proxy-war battlefield in the aftermath of a failed marriage. They seem like level-headed guys who handle their personnal demons — for now.
“The economy stays bad, America seems to decline and the culture gets more corsened and raw with each passing year of movies and musical acts. . . . The Bell Curve has seemingly been dragged in the wrong direction. What’s average now would have rated disgusting in a better age passed.”
— from “The Poisoning Of The Trees –- An Idiot Creates A Metaphor,” at RedState.com

Category: Alabama

The Blog Genie Is Out of the Bottle

Posted on | February 22, 2011 | 20 Comments

The guys who run the Memeorandum political news blog aggregator have another aggregator called Mediagazer, which is the source for this comment by Matt Schuler:

At the heart of the New York Times article is the suggestion that Facebook and Twitter are monopolizing the time that used to be dedicated to writing.

When I wrote about the New York Times “Death of Blogging” article yesterday, some of the commenters took an either/or view:

Blogging takes an ability to write and something to write about. Most people who text and pay attention to their Facebook pages have neither.
A blog dies because the blogger has no ability or reason to write. Texting and following a Facebook page is a waste of time. But to those who waste their time texting and visiting Facebook, their time isn’t worth much.

So you see here the idea that people “waste their time texting and visiting Facebook,” an idea I don’t share: What you do on Facebook or any other medium may be important or trivial. The medium does not determine the value or content of the message, but there are certain types of messages best suited to different media.

Many people have argued that blogs are best suited to short-form writing, although I’ve used this site from time to time to write articles of 2,000 or more words. The form and the content are independent of the medium, but if you want to write something longer than 140 characters, Twitter obviously won’t do. However, as I said yesterday, the argument whether Facebook or Twitter or any other medium can somehow “replace” blogs requires us to ask, “What do you mean by ‘blog’?” WordPress developer Matt Mullenweg writes:

Blogging has legs — it’s been growing now for more than a decade, but it’s not a “new thing” anymore. Underneath the data in the article there’s an interesting super-trend that the Times misses: people of all ages are becoming more and more comfortable publishing online. If you’re reading this blog you probably know the thrill of posting and getting feedback is addictive, and once you have a taste of that it’s hard to go back.

That’s just it: The phrase “blog” can mean many things, but at rock bottom it means “instantaneous self-publishing” — without any institutional barriers to publication. In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether you’re using blog software or Facebook or Twitter (I use all three). You can leave a comment here and instantly see it online (unless it gets caught in the moderation queue) and someone can respond to your comment in the same instantaneous way, so that you are having a real-time written dialogue to which anyone can contribute.

Participating in this conversation, however, requires a certain level of skill in reading, writing and thinking. There is no point writing a blog for the semi-literate, but there are lots of semi-literate people on Facebook.

Dan Riehl’s observation that the New York Times was engaged in wishful thinking — they want “blogs to go away so badly, they consistently look for ways to suggest that’s the case” — points toward the self-serving narrative of the traditional media, who wish to regain their lost monopoly on publishing. They are the middlemen who are eliminated by self-publishing technology.

Some of my Catholic friends deride my Protestant faith with the phrase, “Every man his own Pope,” and in the unfettered environment of online communication, every man is his own Pinch Sulzberger. That is to say the reader becomes his own editor, and can choose his own filter for information. You can subscribe to Alyssa Milano’s Twitter feed and get updates like this:

LIBYA: Protesters post videos to substantiate claims http://lat.ms/fX6dvx

Or you can bookmark Bob Belvedere’s The Camp of the Saints and get headlines like this:

A Is A And Treason Is Treason

And you can read this blog as a route to finding all that and more. The idea that people are using Tweets from an actress to stay updated on the latest news is perhaps no stranger than the idea that I, sitting here in my pajamas, can treat Alyssa Milano and Bob Belvedere as equals. Regular blog consumers probably wouldn’t even notice that contrast if I didn’t call it to their attention, because you have become accustomed to reading Charles G. Hill or Dan Collins cited as authorities equal (or superior) to bigtime pundits like Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

The Decides have lost their authority to decide.

Bloggers undermine the media establishment’s authority, as do all readers who seek out alternative voices online. Not everything about this democratizing influence of New Media technology is good, of course. The same technology that enables Ann Althouse to be a widely-read commentator also enables idiots to make death threats against her.

For good or ill, however, the genie of instantaneous self-publishing is out of the bottle, and nothing the New York Times writes about this phenomenon can put the blog genie back into the bottle.


Category: Blogging

Mitch Daniels Boomlet Ends

Posted on | February 22, 2011 | 43 Comments

He just threw Scott Walker under the bus:

Democrats went into a behind-closed-doors meeting Monday, refusing to return to the floor. Today, sources told The Indianapolis Star that Democrat lawmakers have left the state.
Daniels, a Republican, supported their right to deny Republicans a quorum to do business and the rights of labor unions to protest at the Statehouse.
“The activities of today are perfectly legitimate part of the process,” he said. “Even the smallest minority, and that’s what we’ve heard from in the last couple days, has every right to express the strength of its views and I salute those who did.”

The Underground Conservative was never on the Daniels 2012 bandwagon, but he’s sure as hell off it now:

Daniels took another step toward revealing himself as a Not Ready For Prime Time Player today when he told Indiana House Republicans to drop the Right-to-Work bill . . .

If you don’t support the right to work without interference from union goons, you’re not conservative:

Gov. Mitch Daniels signaled this afternoon that Republicans should drop the right-to-work bill that has brought the Indiana House to a standstill for two days and imperiled other measures.
Daniels told reporters this afternoon that he expects House Democrats will return to work if the bill dies. It would be unfortunate if other bills are caught up in the turmoil, he said.

One of Daniels’ pundit fans, Jim Geraghty now says he’s “extremely disappointed.”

UPDATE: “Alternate headline: ‘Apparently, Mitch Daniels not running for president.’”

Philip Klein bids for the Understatement of the Year Award: “In another move unlikely to endear him to conservative primary voters should he decide to seek the presidency . . .”

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin: “Unfortunately, GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels has gone and made himself an honorary fleebagger.”

Hey, you know who benefits from this?

Category: Election 2012, Indiana, Unions

Cashing In

Posted on | February 22, 2011 | 38 Comments

OK, so you get hired to do a job and, when the job’s over, you try to hustle a buck by stabbing your former employer in the back.

Explain to me why anyone should ever trust you. Or better yet, explain to me why anyone should ever do anything except spit on the ground when your name is mentioned.

Must be nice to get your book proposal promoted by Politico, you worthless two-faced backstabbing crapweasel.

Category: Sarah Palin, Vicious Backstabbing Crapweasels

URGENT BREAKING NEWS!

Posted on | February 22, 2011 | 5 Comments

Guess who’s pregnant?

Alyssa Milano is going to be a mom!
The actress, 38, and her husband Dave Bugliari, 32, are expecting their first child, Milano’s rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.
“They’re just over the moon,” says a friend of the “Who’s The Boss” and “Charmed” alum, who’s due in early fall. “They are so excited.”

She Tweeted me in late September and, five months later, announces she’s pregnant. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

UPDATE: The official confirmation Tweet:

UPDATE II: Trust me, this is way more important than Moammar Qaddafi. Washington Post, CBS News, New York Daily News, New York Post, ABC News — all the really important news outlets are covering this story.

Category: Celebrities
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin