The media says they “support the troops”, but the troops repeatedly told me that they don’t watch the media because the portrayal of what is going on there is so inaccurate and misleading.
So either the troops (who are actually there) are wrong about the situation, or the media doesn’t really support them.
I know who I believe.
Archbishop of Canturbury says that Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims.
Ya think? I thought they were just mad because we drew cartoons of them. Turns out they’re upset at what Christians believe.
Because we don’t hear about it in the mainstream media, I wanted to point to an article that shows the progress we’ve had in Iraq in just the last two years. And since it’s been written by a person who is there and has been there in the past when things weren’t so good, I submit that it’s a better representation of the truth than what we’re being force fed through normal media channels.
Then there are times when the change hits you across the forehead like a 2×4. Yesterday I found inspiration in the tears of joy on hundreds of faces at the graduation for the Iraqi Military Academy at Rustimiyah as 252 young men graduated from the one year course of instruction and were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the Iraqi Army and Air Force…
We all just sort of stood there and soaked up the energy and passion. This is where Iraq is today. These families, rich and poor, Sunni and Shia, young and old were overcome with pride for their sons becoming officers of the new Iraq.
It wasn’t because they would be getting a regular pay check. Not because there is nothing else to do. These men have committed themselves to building a new democratic Iraq and the sheer joy and pride of their families tells even the most jaded observer, including a couple of veteran western journalists in my group, that something has shifted here that can’t be ignored.
read the whole thing.
In September of 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Idaho were both embarrassed when they were forced to admit that they had doctored promotional photographs to make their campuses look diverse. In both cases, non-white faces were added to real student photographs of all-white groups.
At the universities involved, officials insisted that they meant well, but just about everyone agreed that Photoshop diversity isn’t the real thing. But what if photos, even real photos of real live students, convey a false impression? . . .
The findings: Black students made up an average of 7.9 percent of students at the colleges studied, but 12.4 percent of those in viewbooks. Asian students are also more likely to be found in viewbooks than on campus, making up 3.3 percent of real students on average and 5.1 percent of portrayed students. . . . Looked at another way, he found that more than 75 percent of colleges appeared to overrepresent black students in viewbooks.
So why are black students more prevalent in viewbooks than on campus?
“Black equals diversity for many people. If you show African American students, people think that means your institution is diverse,” said Timothy D. Pippert, an assistant professor of sociology at Augsburg, who led the study. “They are defining diversity as that face.”
from this article.
My alma mater (Baylor University) is particularly guilty of this. One look through the alumni magazine would convince you that 50% of the campus is black, 25% of the campus is asian or hispanic, 10% is American indian or foreign born (the ubiquitous “other”, and the other 15% white. I challenge anyone to walk around campus and find a single non-white face in a thirty minute time span. Minorities are there, but they’re rare compared to white (majority female) students.
I’ve got no problem with diversity at schools- I like it. But the face that Baylor presents to the world in its media materials is laughingly inaccurate. It’s obvious to me or any of my friends who attended BU, and I always thought it was slightly dishonest. Nothing illegal about it, but it’s nice to see that the practice is getting some attention.
The Supreme Court ruled today on the Heller case that’s been in the news recently (having to do with the D.C. gun ban):
from the Scotusblog:
Individuals have a constitutional right to possess a basic firearm (the line drawn is unclear, but is basically those weapons in general lawful use and does not extend to automatic weapons) and to use that firearm in self-defense. The government can prohibit possession of firearms by, for example, felons and the mentally ill. And it can also regulate the sale of firearms, presumably through background checks. The Court leaves open the constitutionality of a licensing requirement.
D.C.’s laws are invalidated. The handgun ban is unconstitutional. The Court treats the District’s trigger lock requirement as categorical and not including a self-defense exception. It does not address whether the trigger lock rule would be constitutional if it had such an exception, though it suggests it would by referring to the right to have a “lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.”
The opinion leaves open the question whether the Second Amendment is incorporated against the States, but strongly suggests it is. So today’s ruling likely applies equally to State regulation.
So the Court has spoken: guns are an individual right enumerated in the Constitution, and the “guns are only valid for an organized militia” argument has finally been put to rest. I don’t own a gun, but I’m glad that I could get one if I wanted. I grew up shooting different kinds of guns with my grandpa and know some basic gun safety, so I’m not one of those that think a gun is going to jump up and kill something.
The Court’s allowance of prohibitions also seems reasonable. What has never seemed reasonable to me is the anti-gun position that making guns illegal would lower gun crimes. You can always find examples of stupid gun owners who shoot themselves accidentally, but this kind of example cherry picking isn’t intellectually honest. Nor is ignoring the fact that most criminals already own their guns in extra-legal circumstances (non-licensed, obtained w/o a background check, stolen), so a general ban on gun ownership would have left law abiding citizens with no protection: basically the old “if guns ownership becomes criminal only criminals will have guns” argument.
Besides, I doubt that the ruling is really going to change anythign. Not counting police officers, I’ve seen exactly one gun in person in the last two or three years.
Due respect to Tim Russert, but when the news hit today that he had died from a heart attack at age 58, did the entire media machine really need to grind to a halt for six hours of uninterrupted coverage? Illustrative of how insular the media culture is.
Yes, he was a good journalist. Yes, he did important work. And yes, he died before his time. But how many more-deserving people passed on today without so much as a passing glance?
If health insurance premiums and national wages continue to grow at current rates, the average cost of a family health insurance premium will surpass the average annual household income by 2025, approximately the time when the Medicare trust fund is projected to be insolvent.
I don’t know what the answer is- nationalization, privatization, boutique medical treatment, some sort of hybrid, or something completely new, but this is a serious issue, and the numbers don’t just get scary in 17 years. It’s looking like sometime during the next presidential term most Americans are going to have to take a hard look at their medical insurance and just quit paying premiums, either that or start doing without absolute necessities (and I’m not talking iPhones and cable tv here).
Much of the waste and out of control costs go not to the doctors, but to the lawyers and insurance companies themselves. Whenever we go to the doctor, we just pay out of pocket and usually get a 20-30% instant rebate on the bill- which is the market’s way of saying that there is a huge amount of waste in the system.
I’m happy that we live in a prosperous country. I’m happy that life spans are so dramatically better than they were even three generations ago, and I’m not unwilling to see a company turn a profit (a company is just made up of people, after all). But the system is badly broken and right now it seems like they only thing that will catalyze a fix is a complete breakdown. Which looks like it will happen, at the latest, by the end of the next decade.
The list of reasons why everyone should start a business, and why the home is a great first frontier for many of those businesses, is long. Here are some examples:
1. Because of online and communications technology, you can start many businesses at little or no cost.
2. You can start a side business without foregoing your “secure” day job.
3. You can spend more of your time doing something you’re passionate about.
4. You can make a little extra money, and maybe eventually ramp up to replacing that day job.
5. The biggest companies now have many free or inexpensive solutions available for small business making it easier than ever to start and grow.
6. If you have a family, just imagine what a positive impact it could have on your children as they watch you toil, create, breakthrough, tough it out, and demonstrate how to take control of your life and live passionately rather than being a cog in the wheel.
7. Outsourcing enables you to streamline your activities (and the physical footprint) of your business so that you focus on doing the work you love and farm out the other stuff.
8. Home-based business is generally accepted - even preferred - as a mode of business in the marketplace these days (whereas before there were credibility issues).
9. Tax write-offs are often available.
10. You take control of your destiny rather than relying on someone else to make the right decisions for your future.
Interesting take on the tax code.
In place of the limitless variety that emerges when individuals plan their own lives in a free society, tax laws strive to impose a dreary sameness–as if every individual should get married, have children, buy a home and save for retirement on a government-approved schedule–and as if every company should look to bureaucrats for the one true path to selecting real estate, equipment, fuels, employees and financing. Such artificial homogeneity has no place in the tax policy of a government dedicated to protecting individual rights…
…Imagine reasserting ourselves as rational, sovereign individuals, whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness include the right to choose values without asking society’s permission–and without chasing our own money, like lab rats sniffing cheese, down the twisting corridors of a labyrinthine tax code.
more here.
The Catholic Church decides to put up a statue to Galileo in the Vatican. Yes, really.
Wow. Though I do question some of the statistics.
It’s really only news to a few of the readers here (you know who you are), but publishing that Cease and Desist letter might now be considered copyright infringement.
Yes, that’s right, and it’s an indication of just how bad the copyright situation has gotten.
Bill Clinton: “Screw it, I’m running for President.” Priceless:
While the announcement has come as a surprise to many, Beltway observers said it was not completely unexpected, citing footage from a recent Democratic debate that showed Clinton fidgeting in his seat, gripping the arms of his chair, and repeatedly glancing at all the television cameras while rapidly tapping his right foot. Analysts also noted one debate in which Clinton mouthed responses to all the moderator’s questions while making hand gestures to himself.
Read the debates of the First Congress of the United States. Compare them to the debates of the 110th Congress memorialized in the Congressional Record. The deterioration in learning is alarming, virtual disproof of Charles Darwin’s theory of progressive evolution.
more here
November 07, 2007
“I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from ‘Chosen’ Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope. The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ the people were saying. One man said, ‘Thank you for peace.’ Another man, a Muslim, said ‘All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.’ The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.”
Michael Yon
Michael Yon is an independent reporter in Iraq being supported totally by the online community. He is bringing stories and images that the mainstream media can’t or won’t communicate. He’s doing an amazing job of not only telling some real stories that wouldn’t otherwise get told, but of embarrassing a national media that is orders-of-magnitude better connected and funded but somehow can’t seem to find good news.
link and paragraph via instapundit.
So after getting our six-month health insurance BOGU rate increase, I wrote a letter to the insurance company just to let them know that their practices aren’t going unnoticed, and that there are real people at the other end of their decisions to raise rates by as much as 25% every six months.
I got a letter back from the VP of the company today. In it, he told me that my calculations were wrong (they’re not, I double checked. He was assuming an annual increase while I assumed the biannual increase that has been their practice the past two years). He also incorrectly noted that our insurance premiums are based on my age, and that the company had figured the premiums wrong. He said that they had an age that is one year younger for me than my actual age, so they were going to have to raise my rates again to compensate. The only problem with this was that the policy in question doesn’t cover me, it covers my wife who is…. wait for it… one year younger than me.
So here’s the Vice President of a major American health insurance company making a basic math mistake and failing to read the very plain details of a very clear policy. He then tries to answer a complaint about increasing premium prices by erroneously increasing the premium price.
How much does this guy get paid every year? I mean, not counting his really good company-sponsored health insurance.
His explanation for why rates are skyrocketing is that there are fewer people to pay the rates. Too many people have been dropping insurance coverage and relying on the fact that hospitals have to treat you if you’re injured. And these people have been dropping their coverage and throwing themselves on the mercy of the state why?
“because rates have become so high”.
Give this genius a promotion.
Look, I understand that we’re experiencing the steep part of a Malthusian cycle here. I know that insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, etc, all have to earn a buck to make a living. But the whole lot of them have become like rabid dogs picking over the last survivors of a once-strong herd (that’s us, the premium payers, to clarify the twisted metaphor). Once the few remaining individuals and companies decide to throw up their hands at the ridiculous health care costs, the system will well and truly break. I don’t know what the answer is, but surely getting people in positions of leadership at insurance companies who can see past next quarter’s income statement would be a good start.
This is nuts. Crazy. Loco.
…the UK-based Performing Rights Society — the Brit equivalent of ASCAP or BMI — wants to make listening to music loud enough for anyone else to hear an offense punishable by hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
“You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”
Columbia President Lee Bollinger to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Red light cameras may be coming to Austin. Glenn Reynolds wrote a good article for Popular Mechanics about why these devious municipal money machines don’t really solve the problem, and actually cause accidents to increase.