For those of you who have been dying to hear what NBC anchor Brian Williams thinks about news coverage of Katrina (and you are legion), wait no more:

“I don’t think there has been a story better told by television,” [Williams] says.

For the media, Williams thinks the foremost lesson of Katrina is this: “When we go, we need to go all the way.”

He explains: “When we put our minds to it, we can cover a story unlike any other medium. We still have a vital civic role. We’ve got to remember, we report to the folks in our audience. We serve them. … We were witnesses. We were witnesses to a colossal disaster and a botched response. And that’s what happened.”

Williams apparently has forgotten TV’s stellar role as a false witness and rumor-monger, reporting murders and rapes that didn’t occur, dying babies that didn’t exist and shootings at rescue helicopters that never happened. Or, as Williams himself put it, “an archetype television story.”

Uh, isn’t that, “an archetypical television story?”

Fear not; television networks’ opinions of themselves remain unscathed, crisis after crisis.

Source: TVNewser via Media Bistro
Related Tags: MSM, Media bias, Katrina

No Comments yet »

Incredible Daughter #1 passes this along from Yahoo’s UK news:

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is being made to watch his appearance in cult cartoon South Park while he is behind bars.

The deposed leader on trial in Iraq was featured in the movie spin-off as the lover of the devil. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut featured Hussein and Satan attempting to take over the world together.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said US Marines guarding the former dictator during his trial for genocide were making him watch the movie “repeatedly”.

“I have it on pretty good information from the Marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie last year. That’s really adding insult to injury. I bet that made him really happy,” Stone said.

No Comments yet »

I was in Albuquerque all day yesterday, a land of no broadband access over my Verizon internet card. Blogging without broadband is no fun; hence no blogging.

On the plane … the endless planes … I did read a great little joke in the absolutely fabulous book I’m reading, The King of California, J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire. The book is a history of agriculture, water, capitalism and labor in California’s great San Joaquin Valley, and it’s a fabulous read. Boswell, in case you didn’t know, is the biggest farmer in the world.

The joke involves a decades-long running battle over the proposed 160-acre limit for farms receiving federal irrigation water — a nasty bit of federal social engineering. Finally, Boswell’s lobbyists got Carter ag sec Cecil Andrus (a big 160-acre limit proponent) to visit the San Joaquin to see the big farms up close. At a meeting with the farmers the tension in the room was reaching Israel-Hezbollah proportions — and Andrus hadn’t even said a word yet.

Former clerk of the house Pat Jennings introduced Andrus with this story:

“You know, this reminds me of a little story. Back home in Virginia, the county sheriff would come down to the courthouse every morning and there, sittin’ in the sun, were a couple of good ol’ boys who had just gotten back from fishin’. And every day, they had a string of big, fat fish that they had caught. And the sheriff syays, ‘Now, boys, how do you keep getting all those fish?’

“‘Oh,’ they say, ‘we’re not telling you, Sheriff.’

“Now, finally, the sheriff wears them down. And they say, ‘OK, sheriff, we’re going to take you fishin’ with us.’ So they all get into the boat and row out to the middle of the lake. And the sheriff says, ‘Well, where are the fishing rods?’

“One of the guys thens leans down and pulls out a stick of dynamite. He lights it, and throws it in the lake and, boom, 100 fish come belly up into the boat, stunned. The two good ol’ boys start scoopin’ ‘em up as fast as they can. And the sheriff starts screaming, ‘Wait a goshdarn minute, boys! You can’t do that! It’s illegal!’

“With that, one of the good ol’ boys reaches down, picks up another stick of dynamite, lights it and hands it to the sheriff. ‘Sheriff,’ he says, ‘your turn.’”

Turning to Andrus, Jennings said, “Your turn, Mr. Secretary,” and the farmers broke out in whoops of laughter, melting the ice.

I few months later, Andrus reversed his position, and that reversal, plus a ton of hard lobbying, got the 160-acre limit killed for the big cotton farmers of the San Joaquin.

Good politics and good humor should never be too far apart.

Related Tags: Politics

No Comments yet »

Most terrorists are content to hide like cockroaches between their very public moments. Not Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. He coddles an image of himself as the leader of his nation.

Terrorists don’t make such hot leaders though. Witness this AP report:

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a TV interview aired Sunday that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war.

Hezbollah guerrillas killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two more in a cross-border raid July 12, which sparked 34 days of fighting that ended Aug. 14. Five other Israeli soldiers were killed as they pursued the militants back into Lebanon.

“We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not,” he said in an interview with Lebanon’s New TV station.

Ever wondered how a guy who wears floor-length robes backpeddles? Now you know. “Gee, we’re sorry we wrecked the country, but we never, ever thought that would happen.”

Note how Nasrallah attempts to focus the cause of the war on Hezbollah’s kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers — effective spinning, because it puts blame on Israel for over-reacting. That’s much harder to do with the other cause of the war: Nazrallah’s command that Hezbollah fire rockets by the hundreds into northern Israel.

One senses that Nasrallah’s very capable media advisors see the tide of Lebanese public opinion swinging against the terrorist general-shiek whose adventurism cost so much destruction in their nation.

Related Tags: Lebanon, Israel, Nasrallah, Hezbollah, Hizbollah

No Comments yet »

Incredible Wife and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine last night. Turn your F-word tolerance to high because of Alan Arkin’s role, and you’ll enjoy a very funny movie about winners and losers … and how the real winners are the ones who passionately and compassionately believe in those they love.

Circumstances don’t create winners or losers; relationships of the heart and soul do.

There was one tacky moment, in which the parents were fighting in the room next door and the visiting brother-in-law turned on the TV to protect the teenage son from the rancor through the walls. The news comes on with Bush and Rumsfield, the son quickly turns off the TV — and several people in the audience laughed.

Why? The Nietzsche-reading son is dark and rebellious, but he had taken a vow of silence until he was accepted at the U.S. Air Force Academy so he could learn to fly jets. Why would he turn off war news so quickly? Why would people laugh?

Because for many, Bush is funny on his face, I guess. I don’t think that’s a vote-getting quality, though.

The evening got off to a very bad start with a trailer for a film “by the producers of Farenheit 9/11″ called The U.S. vs. John Lennon. A music-documentary featuring old film clips and current interviews with Yoko Ono, George McGovern, Walter Cronkite and G. Gordon Liddy (!), the film celebrates the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era with the clear intent of justifying and building opposition to the war in Iraq.

And, of course, it fully intends to draw parallels between Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.

What we should be seeing out of Hollywood are films that recall the films of the 40s that celebrated the heroic effort against Axis fascism, and of the 50s and 60s that (occasionally) celebrated the cause of freedom against the dark forces behind the iron curtain.

But what we get is a film with a moral core no more complex than “war doesn’t feel good, so it must be wrong,” designed to sucker more kids into not seeing the vileness of the enemy and the lateness of the hour in this war against Islamofascism.

Prepare for the media onslaught — this is going to be one over-hyped movie! It opens Sept. 15 — why not Sept. 11?

Related Tags: Hollywood, Iraq, Bush, Little Miss Sunshine, The U.S. vs. John Lennon

No Comments yet »

In my business I regularly see local government exact land from private landowners. The landowner is left with perhaps half his land for development, and the other half is gone, for open space, species and habitat protection and other noble social causes.

The trouble is, society doesn’t pay for its social causes. The landowner pays first, by not being compensated for the loss and not being able to achieve the best use of his land. Then the homebuilders pay, because each lot costs more since the developer as fewer lots over which to spread his costs. Finally, of course, the new homebuyer foots the bill in higher home costs.

City Council members by definition already have a home in the town, or they wouldn’t be on the council. Environmental activists have homes built where habitat once stood. Only the new home buyer doesn’t have a home — or a vote — in the town yet, so he always gets stiffed

The OC Register editorializes on this today, taking as its cue a particularly nasty case in a particularly nasty town, Brea, in northern OC. Brea has considered 300 acres of land owned by Leo Hayashi in Carbon Canyon [pictured]. Under the Brea general plan that was in effect when Hayashi bought the land, it was zoned for up to 307 homes.

Too many, thinks the city, so they seek “creative solutions” and find a way to get the number of homes they’ll let Hayashi build down to 15. In a fit of truly madcap creativity, they then decide to stiff-arm him with a requirement that he put in a fire station and other improvements at his expense, in effect making it impossible to develop his land. But is it an illegal taking without compensation?

The result is to make it cost-prohibitive for him to build virtually anything, but the city argues it would not have to pay for this regulatory heist because it still would allow Mr. Hayashi to build something.

Hayashi’s land can’t really absorb 307 homes — it’s far too hilly — but the number he can build within the 307-unit limit of the General Plan should be up to him and his engineers, so long as they comply with the extensive environmental and building laws that already over-protect California.

In another case, a habitat conservation plan in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area) would allow landowners to build on perhaps 3% of their land. The plan promises compensation, but it is clear that its financial structure is way off and there will be nothing approaching fair market compensation for the hapless landowners.

These “takings” fly under the public opinion that’s been howling ever since Kelo; perhaps because the taking isn’t 100%; perhaps because the land’s not being taken for a condo complex or Walmart; perhaps because it’s “just” a land developer that’s getting stiffed.

But these are uncompensating takings of private property nonetheless, and Constitutional fairness mandates that government be reigned in and individual property rights protected.

Related Tags: Eminent domain, Kelo, Brea, Property rights

No Comments yet »

AP has taken upon itself to limit our options in Latin America.

We no longer can stage good old CIA-backed coups. We no longer can send in the Marines. We no longer can bomb wayward nations back to the stone age.

So what are our options? Dipolomacy, of course, and doing what we can to support human rights, legitimate opposition parties and charities.

AP isn’t taking that idea sitting down!

he U.S. government is spending millions of dollars in the name of democracy in Venezuela _ bankrolling human rights seminars, training emerging leaders, advising political parties and giving to charities. But the money is raising deep suspicions among supporters of President Hugo Chavez, in part because the U.S. has refused to name many of the groups it’s supporting.

Details of the spending emerge in 1,600 pages of grant contracts obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request. The U.S. Agency for International Development released copies of 132 contracts in all, but whited out the names and other identifying details of nearly half the grantees.

AP actually sued under FOIA to find out what legal things the US is doing to support those Venezuelans who are concerned by, or harmed by, Chavez’s conversion of the nation to a Socialist state! And it’s not just our work in Venezuela that bugs AP:

The Bush administration has an $80 million plan to hasten change in Cuba, where Chavez has sworn to help defend Fidel Castro’s communist system. The U.S. also is spending millions on pro-democracy work in Bolivia, where Bush has warned of “an erosion of democracy” since a Chavez ally, socialist Evo Morales, was elected president in December.

I’ve tried to type this next sentence several times and I just can’t find the words. What does AP want? Who do they think they are? Who’s idea is this? What options do we have if they take away all options? Who are they to take away all our options? Will nothing get in the way of their runaway Bush Derangement Syndrome?

What, somebody please tell me, is wrong with the media and the Left in this country?

hat-tip: Breitbart
Related Tags: Media bias, Leftism, Associated Press, AP, Venezuela, Chavez

No Comments yet »

File this under “Bah, Humbug!” and hope it’s all resolved by the Fourth of July, when coastal towns all along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf shores — and every lakeside town in between — hope to hold their traditional, patriotic fireworks displays.

California Coast Keeper — a group attached at the hip to Robert Kennedy, Jr., who founded the franchise with River Keeper — threatened a lawsuit if Sea World didn’t stop its fireworks show because the San Diego theme park does not have a permit for discharging a pollutant into a water body. The federal Clean Water Act, which has jurisdiction from sea to shining sea, requires discharge permits for pollutants.

Sea World, which already has a Coastal Commission permit for up to 150 shows a year, quickly cowered and has suspended its popular Mission Bay fireworks show until the matter is sorted out.

The pollutant? Pyrotechnic residue, both chemical and the scraps of paper and cardboard from exploded shells. Quotes the San Diego Union Tribune:

“The implications of this are very significant,” said John Robertus, executive officer of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, the agency that will weigh the merits of SeaWorld’s application. “It has not been done anywhere in the U.S. that I am aware of. Locally, we have not seen a need to regulate that.”

This from a man who sees the need to regulate just about anything. A few years ago, he tried (and succeeded) to get rainwater declared a toxin as soon as it hit the ground, requiring runoff to be treated even before it reaches the stormwater system. His stubborness on the matter made impossible the construction of efficient regional stormwater treatment systems.

Coast Keeper does have a pretty good argument — the Clean Water Act does regulate discharges and there are heavy metals in the fireworks residue. But they have a lousy sense of priorities. The small amount of pollutants in a big ocean are truly a definition of insignificance, while the fireworks displays bring great enjoyment to millions.

“Enjoyment!?” shrieks Coast Keeper. “We don’t want no stinkin’ enjoyment!”

Related Tags: Environmentalism, Water quality, Coast Keepers, Sea World, Fireworks

No Comments yet »

Here’s the latest on the wild fronteir of maddening government expenditures and the collapse of sexual morality:

Thousands of taxpayer dollars are annually spent on hormone treatments, laser hair removal and makeup for “transgender” prison inmates and now one convicted murderer is suing the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to pay for an expensive sex-change surgery, claiming that he is a woman trapped in a man’s body.

The surgery is estimated to cost between $10,000 and $20,000 and the inmate, convicted in 1993 of murdering his wife, claims that his gender-identity disorder is a serious illness that can lead to severe anxiety, depression, suicide attempts and self-castration. …

The murderer, Robert Kosilek [pictured], already receives costly female hormone treatments, laser hair removal, makeup and female undergarments in prison. (source)

Let me just start by saying that self-castration sounds like a perfectly fine and much more appropriate solution to Kosilek’s problem than having us pay for his surgery.

And no, this isn’t just happening in Massachusetts. I understand that it is federal policy to pay for the completion of federal prisoners’ sex change operations if the inmate is part-way through the procedure prior to incarceration. And “part-way through” can mean as little as starting to take the hormones that precede surgery.

In some states, transgenered prisoners get their own jails, at your expense, because they are determined to be neither male nor female.

The financial aspects of this story steam me enough, but the moral side of the story is worse, and much deeper. It is a story of prisoner-coddling, of a government endorsement of the legitimacy of a behavior that troubles most of society deeply, of rewarding bad behavior, of not being able to find a spine and say no.

Wisconsin is the only state in the union that says no to paying for inmates’ transgender operations. Where are the other 49?

Related Tags: Government waste, Morality, Transgender, Kosilek

No Comments yet »

I’m flying to Denver then on to Albuquerque on Sunday, returning Monday. Will there be nail polish remover on my plane? Dynamite? Indian Muslims with too many cell phones?

And if such a situation arose, what would I do?

It is hardly a frivolous questions and the actors in these inflight dramas are hardly acting frivolously. They are struggling with questions of life and death in an environment where they have little control … and that environment happens to have five miles to fall, should the wrong decision is made.

That doesn’t make the passengers’ responses hysterical, even if there’s legitimacy to the argument that the London liquid explosives plot and the continuing media coverage of each subsequent flight impact is creating an atmosphere of near-hysteric hyper-vigilance.

In situations like this, human emotions swing between not wanting to embarrass oneself or others, and not wanting to die. Many rapes and murders have occurred because the victim chose not embarrassing over living. That’s bad enough, but having a couple hundred people die in the name of not embarrassing someone is too high a price.

So yes, I will act on my suspicions if they are aroused. But I sure hope they’re not, and I don’t have to.

Related Tags: Homeland security, Terrorism, Airlines

No Comments yet »