31 July 2008 @ 6:06PM >> ...at least that what Senator Barack Obama is implying.

Once again, the post-racial messiah, the guy who refers to his own grandmother as a “typical white person,” is playing the race card, effectively accusing the McCain team of using Obama’s race to try to scare voters. Of course, Saint Obama can’t point to any instances of this actually happening, and because he can’t, he is at least clever enough to use the future tense:

“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

This isn’t the first time Obama has pre-emptively accused his opponents of future bigotry. It’s becoming a pattern.

I’m beginning to dread an Obama presidency where every policy disagreement is a sign of racism and every press conference ends in standing ovations from the media. It’s already getting old.

30 July 2008 @ 7:06AM >> I haven’t yet seen the video myself, but a number of folks e-mailed me to tell me that yesterday, during a discussion of Oliver Stone’s upcoming film, Elisabeth Hasselbeck recommended that viewers instead watch Indoctrinate U. Apparently, she plugged the film not just once, but a couple of times.

Thanks a lot, Elisabeth! I hope everyone who was watching heeds your advice! And in lieu of that, I’ll settle for just several percent of the audience.

Update: Thanks to everyone who sent in links to the segment. Here’s the full segment on YouTube.

29 July 2008 @ 8:10AM >> Another unbiased, impartial report from the good folks at the Associated Press:

Republicans on Saturday blocked the Senate from considering a bill next week that would nearly double federal aid to help the poor pay heating and air-conditioning bills.

Although a dozen Senate Republicans support the measure, most voted with GOP leaders who would rather spend the time trumpeting their call to expand offshore oil drilling before Congress takes six weeks off for vacation and the presidential nominating conventions.

It doesn’t get much more blatant than that.

Kudos to AP for doing its part to drive the media’s credibility into the ground.

(Hat tip: Kevin D. Williamson)

26 July 2008 @ 7:37PM >> The website Regret the Error nominates a Typo of the Year, in which a newspaper manages to misspell its name and that of its industry, not in small type but in the masthead:

25 July 2008 @ 8:36AM >> The establishment media must assume its audience are fools, claiming to be objective and unbiased while the evidence says otherwise:

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans.

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans - a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.

22 July 2008 @ 7:51PM >> In a recent post, I cited some statistics on this year’s distribution of the income tax: “the richest 1% of tax filers [will pay] more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% [will pay] just 3%.”

In response, I commented, “Every time I hear someone claim that ‘the rich’ aren’t paying their ‘fair share,’ I wonder, how much tax would ‘the rich’ have to pay before it becomes fair?”

Steve W. e-mailed me with a good question:

What percentage of the total income earned goes to that top 1% of filers that are paying 40% of the income tax burden? If it is something like 37% of the total income, and they are paying 40% of the total income taxes, that doesn’t seem overly atrocious, but if they are down around 15% of the total income, that seems like a far bigger problem to me.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal supplied the answer:

The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. [...] Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. [...]

Aha, we are told: The rich paid more taxes because they made a greater share of the money. That is true. The top 1% earned 22% of all reported income. But they also paid a share of taxes not far from double their share of income. In other words, the tax code is already steeply progressive.

In other words, the top 1% earned 22% of the nation’s income, but paid 40% of the nation’s income tax. That’s a pretty steep disparity.

So, the question remains: if the rich aren’t paying their fair share even under this lopsided scenario, how much tax would “the rich” have to pay before it becomes fair?

21 July 2008 @ 7:12PM >> If you’re in the news business, media bias hurts your bottom line by diminishing the public’s trust in your product. In a business where messages are the only product, being seen as an unreliable messenger is just plain stupid business.

People are perceptive. They do pick up on bias, and it is hurting the media’s credibility:

The idea that reporters are trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, taken just before the new controversy involving the Times erupted, found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help the Democrat with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.

Just 14% believe most reporters will try to help McCain win, little changed from 13% a month ago. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.

[...]

In the latest survey, a plurality of Democrats-37%— say most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of the campaign. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe most reporters are trying to help Obama and 21% in Obama’s party think reporters are trying to help the Republican candidate.

Among Republicans, 78% believe reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage.

As for unaffiliated voters, 50% see a pro-Obama bias and 21% see unbiased coverage. Just 12% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the reporters are trying to help McCain.

In a more general sense, 45% say that most reporters would hide information if it hurt the candidate they wanted to win. Just 30% disagree and 25% are not sure. Democrats are evenly divided as to whether a reporter would release such information while Republicans and unaffiliated voters have less confidence in the reporters.

[...]

A separate survey released this morning also found that 50% of voters believe most reporters want to make the economy seem worse than it is. A plurality believes that the media has also tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is.

18 July 2008 @ 9:10AM >> With the cult-like hype around all things “green” these days, it seems like everyone is hopping on the bandwagon.

Sensing a marketing opportunity, companies are embracing the new culture of conspicuous planet-saving.

This week, a gift from a relative arrived in which Macy’s placed a postcard-sized note explaining that the package was shipped with “Earth-loving packing material” designed to “protect our environment.” Aside from the small matter of unnecessarily using the Earth’s resources to explain to me how Macy’s is saving the Earth’s resources, there was something rather comedic about the company’s presentation.

The gift arrived in a box over 2 feet tall. Width and length-wise, the box was 19 inches. It was a pretty big box, so when I picked it up, I expected something heavy. I was a bit surprised to discover how light it was, at least until I opened it up.

You see, the self-congratulatorily eco-friendly Macy’s filled this huge box with an item that was only one inch tall, 10 inches wide, and 15 inches deep. This wasn’t exactly a fragile item, either; it was essentially a block of wood. Macy’s could have put a stamp right on the item itself with no packaging and sent it out without much chance of damage.

So, the one inch tall item had 25x as much vertical space as necessary, along with an extra 9 inches of padding in one dimension and an extra 4 inches in another. Several dozen more of the shipped item could have fit in the box comfortably.

But after realizing the extent of the wasted space, I was quite relieved to pull the card out of the box telling me how environmentally friendly it all was.

14 July 2008 @ 8:50AM >> In Canada, there is no such thing as free speech. Say something someone doesn’t like, and you can end up in front of a “Human Rights Commission,” which has the power to punish you and even restrict what you might say in the future. These courts also have no rules of evidence, and the truth of what you’ve said is not a defense. The only thing that matters is whether someone from a group higher up in the Multicultural Hierarchy is willing to stand up and accuse you. Perhaps that explains why these commissions have a 100% conviction rate.

Ezra Levant is a journalist currently on trial in Canada. Recently, he spoke before a congressional caucus in Washington:

My expertise in the subject matter of today’s session was not acquired voluntarily, but by unhappy experience: I have been the subject of government persecution for my political and religious views for nearly 900 days. Unfortunately, stories like mine are not uncommon in the world. But they’re not supposed to happen in Canada, one of the freest countries.

In February of 2006, I was the publisher of a Canadian magazine called the Western Standard. We published a news story about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and the riots in the Muslim world that followed. To illustrate what all the fuss was about, we accompanied the story with pictures of several of those cartoons. It was a news story in a news magazine.

Before our magazine even hit the streets, a radical imam named Syed Soharwardy asked the police to arrest me - for blaspheming against Islam. The police didn’t, of course. But the Alberta “human rights commission”, a government agency, accepted Soharwardy’s complaint, and then an identical one from the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. The government has been investigating me ever since, including summoning me to a 90-minute interrogation. According to access to information documents, no fewer than 15 bureaucrats are working on my case. I’m a major crime scene!

Since then, Canada’s largest news magazine, called Maclean’s - our equivalent to Time magazine - was sued in three different human rights commissions for writing about the demographic growth of Islam in the West. And the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, the largest newspaper in Atlantic Canada, is being pursued by Nova Scotia’s human rights commission for printing an editorial cartoon depicting a local Muslim activist in a niqab - even though that is how she dresses.

In other words, Canadian human rights commissions — secular government organizations — are prosecuting religious fatwas. It’s a soft jihad against any criticism of radical Islam. It’s called “lawfare”, and it’s a greater danger to our western values of freedom, religious pluralism and the separation of church and state than the hard jihad of terrorism is. Even if targets like Maclean’s eventually “win”, they lose; the process is the punishment - and the chill affects everyone else.

Canadian human rights commissions, however, are not respectful of the sensitivities of all religions. Less politically correct faiths are regularly prosecuted by them. This May, an Alberta pastor named Stephen Boissoin was given a lifetime gag order, never to say anything critical of homosexuality - not in a church sermon, not even in private e-mails. As well, in what can only be called a Maoist verdict, he has been ordered to renounce his religious beliefs, and to publish a self-denunciation in the local newspaper.

This is Canada we’re talking about. Not Iran, not China, not Cuba.

[...]

The actual wording of the laws is to ban anything that is quote, “likely to expose a person to hatred or contempt”. Note the word “likely” - you don’t actually have to do anything wrong. You can be convicted for a “pre-crime”, something that hasn’t happened yet. And look at what’s illegal: causing emotions. Not real harm or damages. Just exposing someone to feelings. By the way, the truth of what you say is not a defence. And at the Maclean’s magazine trial last month, half a day was spent determining whether their jokes were funny. They even had a joke expert.

Don’t laugh - literally. Just three weeks ago, a comedian was ordered to stand trial for telling off-colour jokes in a night club. Warning to Chris Rock: don’t bother coming to Canada.

If the government of Canada doesn’t allow freedom of thought or speech, then Canada effectively allows no freedom at all.

10 July 2008 @ 9:53AM >> Interesting data on taxes from The Wall Street Journal:

New data from the IRS will be out in a few weeks on who pays how much in taxes. My contacts at the Treasury Department tell me that for the first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

Every time I hear someone claim that “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share,” I wonder, how much tax would “the rich” have to pay before it becomes fair?

9 July 2008 @ 9:19AM >> If you’re a pop culture junkie who doesn’t share the politics of Hollywood, you may enjoy Yeah Right, a new blog started by some fellow Bucknell alums I met while filming Indoctrinate U. Current topics range from The Office to the latest Weezer album, Che Guevara t-shirts, and the new 90210.

8 July 2008 @ 12:42AM >> The Economist noticed something interesting about Senator Barack Obama’s website. Most of the pages on the site—like this one—display a navigation bar showing the main sections of the site:

As The Economist reports:

The “people” section on [Obama’s] website divides Americans into 17 categories: Latinos, women, First Americans, environmentalists, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, Americans with disabilities, Asian-Americans and Pacific islanders and so on. There is no mention of whites, or men.

According to the Obama campaign, this is the exhaustive list of people that matter:

In the inclusive world of the post-racial messiah, heterosexual white males have been ethnically cyber-cleansed, and I’m probably a bigot for mentioning it.

7 July 2008 @ 8:18PM >> According to London’s Telegraph, British “[t]oddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.”

The paper’s political correspondent Rosa Prince reports:

The National Children’s Bureau, which receives lb12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

[...]

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: “Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships.”

It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: “blackie”, “Pakis”, “those people” or “they smell”.

The guide goes on to warn that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk’”.

Staff are told: “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action.”

3 July 2008 @ 8:53AM >> From the “why it’s a bad idea to have software do what humans should be doing” file, Washington Post columnist Al Kamen reports on a funny technoblooper that recently affected an automated news website run by the American Family Association:

There were certain words that would pop up from time to time in the Associated Press stories that moved onto the site that were a bit salacious, or unacceptable to post.

“We don’t have the staff to monitor all the Hollywood stories,” news director Fred Jackson said yesterday, “so we wanted an automated function.” He said they put up the filter about a month or so ago.

One word they wanted to filter was “gay.” The site felt that the term put the matter of homosexuality “in a positive light,” Jackson said, when the evangelical Christian organization was much opposed. So when a wire story referred to gay marriage, for example, the phrase would automatically appear as “homosexual marriage.”

Worked fine until Sunday, when the AP reported that “Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.” The story was headlined “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.”

“On Saturday,” the story said, “Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat...”

That’s world champion sprinter Tyson Gay, of course.

2 July 2008 @ 9:36AM >> Politicians like John McCain and Barack Obama show a fundamental misunderstanding of economics when they attack “speculators” as the cause of price increases for things like oil. Leaving aside the falling dollar—which increases the price of anything imported—the prices of commodities and raw materials are going up because demand for those materials has increased all over the world. And that demand has been increasing faster than supply.

In other words, as Robert J. Samuelson shows in the Washington Post, the shocking reality is that the law of supply and demand is governing the prices of commodities, not some unseen cabal of evil “speculators” gaming the system.

Unfortunately for politicians, economic laws can’t be demagogued. A suspicious and easily-caricatured “other” is needed to attack. So even though politicians themselves have done much to constrict the supply of certain commodities (oil) and artificially raise demand for others (corn), they’d prefer to blame the price increases on someone else. So “speculators”—who actually use futures markets to shield themselves from future risk—are now the villain du jour.

Let’s say you want to buy a plane ticket to visit a relative for Christmas. You might decide to buy the ticket now or months before Christmas. Many other people will do the same. You might just like making plans early, or you might be thinking about all those bills you’ll have around Christmas. Part of the rationale for buying early is that it helps you manage future expenses better by shifting some of the burden to today. Or you might just worry that the tickets will cost more in the future.

Well, the airline does the same thing.

It takes a lot of fuel to fly, and any significant change in the price of fuel changes the economics of every flight. So, airlines can buy fuel futures, meaning that they make a financial commitment today in exchange for a guarantee to get fuel at a certain price in the future. If the price of fuel moves up significantly, the airlines are protected because their price is locked in by the futures contract. This helps prevent airlines from taking massive losses on flights in the future, and it’s what enables them to sell you tickets months in advance.

If there were no futures market, airlines would be taking a big risk by selling tickets far in the future. Without the ability to lock in fuel prices, every ticket sold would amount to a bet taken by the airline. The futures market allows the airline to shift that gamble to a third party: whoever purchases the other side of the futures contract.

The so-called “speculators” aren’t gaming the market, they’re lubricating the market. Without them, commerce would be riskier and more expensive.

It’s too bad that both major party candidates don’t get this.

1 July 2008 @ 11:06PM >> The Islamification of Great Britain continues:

A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the “offensive” postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel.

The German shepherd puppy has proved hugely popular with the public, hundreds of who have logged on to the force’s website to read his online training diary.

But some Muslims in the Dundee area have reportedly been upset by the image because they consider dogs to be “ritually unclean”, while shopkeepers have refused to display the advert.

Tayside Police have admitted they should have consulted their ‘diversity’ officers before issuing the cards, but critics argued their apology was unnecessary.

[...]

A spokesman for Tayside Police said that Rebel had proved “extremely popular” with children and adults since he joined the force aged six weeks.

He added: “His incredible world-wide popularity - he has attracted record visitor numbers to our website - led us to believe Rebel could play a starring role in the promotion of our non-emergency number.

“However, we did not seek advice from the force’s diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.”