Worst People in America

The folks at Right Wing News (a funny title for a 'news' organization) compiled a survey of right of center bloggers, as to who are the worst people in America. They used the definition that Keith Olbermann is using for his upcoming book "The Worst Person in the World: And 119 More Strong Contenders"; "It's a euphemism for somebody who's wrong and egregiously stupid and abusing their own position."

Some interesting names on the list are Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps. So, I must conclude that Robertson and Phelps basically offend most people, not just one side of the political spectrum. The not so interesting names are Barbra Streisand, George Clooney and Natalie Maines. They're just lightweight celebrities without the power to make drastic change and, I believe, when they speak, most people take what they say with a grain of salt. Of course, the usual suspects, Hillary and Bill, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Howard Dean and Harry Reid are strongly represented, no real surprise there.

The people on the list that I would include are Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, Michael Moore, Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Cynthia McKinney, Nancy Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, Phelps and Robertson. Chuck Schumer made Honorable Mention on their list, but, he would definitely have a spot on mine. I would also throw in Dick Durbin, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Mike Nifong, Morgan Spurlock, Don Fehr, Dusty Baker, the investigator who raided Jason Grimsley's house and Dennis Hastert. Coming up with 20 is kind of hard so Baker has to be included. I don't like to pick on people because they have opinions and express them, right or wrong. The people on my list, I believe, have opinions, but express things they don't believe to further their own careers in a niche that they've carved out for themselves. Offer suggestions in comments if there's anybody I missed who should be on this list.

Bias

I've been enjoying for the past couple of days the 'discussion' between Jane Galt at Asymmetrical Information and Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber about alleged bias in an Economist story. Without giving away my feelings on the issue at hand, organized labor and immigration, I enjoyed Ms. Galt's eloquent refutation of the perceived bias in the Economist article.

it's the natural human tendency to find things more believable when they agree with what you already believe. Mr Farrell, I'd suggest, simply doesn't notice it in other papers because, well, they agree with him more, and hence he finds them more believable. The Economist is no less methodologically rigorous than any other paper anyone I know has written for; indeed, it is rather more rigorous than most about things like fact-checking. The difference is that The Economist states its opinions, rather than maintaining a facade of neutrality while slanting the article so that the readers come to the same conclusion that the reporter did. This, of course, is more irritating if you happen to disagree with the analysis, but it is not measurably more "objective".

I have the same view. Fox News is nearly universally hated in the liberal blogosphere for being 'right-wing hacks', but what if they only feel that way because watching Fox News makes liberals question the story because they viscerally disagree with how the story is presented, balanced. I'm not saying that Fox News is balanced, but I definitely think it's more balanced than CBS News or CNN. Liberals just can't see the bias in CBS because they believe the stories presented.

Shelf Blogging

For Father's Day, I was tasked with hanging some shelves. I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I measured, used the level, employed some power tools and now I have 3 very sturdy shelves which I can use to hold picture frames so the desk is a little less cluttered.

Inspiration for shelf blogging comes from Radley. I'm sure he'd be as proud of this as being cited in Breyer's dissent from Hudson.

North Korea Photos

Every time I see photos of North Korea, I'm always amazed at the empty roads. More depressing pictures can be found here.

Bare Breast Being Broadcast Briefly

If you're going to fine someone $325,000 per incident of indecency, you should probably define indecency.

The bill does not apply to cable or satellite broadcasts, and does not try to define what is indecent. The FCC says indecent material is that which contains sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity.

Basically this bill will ensure that what we see on network TV will be increasingly more vanilla and cable networks such as FX, Comedy Central, Bravo and TNT will be the go-to places for real comedy and drama. Next will come an FCC power grab to regulate the cable networks, because they're showing T&A all evening long.

After I saw Janet Jackson's breast on the Superbowl, I knew this would happen. I can't believe (actually I can) that people are so offended about a bare breast being broadcast briefly. Maybe I could understand a little more if it was Bea Arthur's breast instead of Janet Jackson's.

Breast-Feed or Else

The New York Times yesterday ran a story explaining Tom Harkin's bill to put warning labels on cans of formula expressing the supposed virtues of breast feeding. Of course, I find this whole business utterly annoying. For the mothers of multiples, breast feeding, while not impossible, is certainly much more difficult and pretty unhealthy for the mother. In addition, several women don't produce enough milk to adequately feed their children. In any case, it's ridiculous to put a warning label extolling the supposed virtues of breast feeding on formula. Clark has more outrage at this proposed bill.

Library Lurking

I can't believe reporter Carl Monday could look himself in the mirror after reporting this story. The incident happened 2 years ago and Monday just baits the poor kid who has no idea what this interview is about. Very poor journalistic ethics, but, sadly, that's the case with most of these types of investigative reporters.

1776

During my vacation I read"1776" by David McCullough. I've always been more of a Revolutionary period buff than WWII or Civil War and greatly looked forward to this book. Fortunately for me, McCullough delivered a wonderful book. I'm not much of a war book reader, more of a fan of Constitutional Convention history, but the beginnings of the Revolutionary War are pretty interesting when written well.

The interesting things I learned were George Washington's relative ineptitude in early 1776 and while not a surprise, the ragtagitude of the Rebel army. It is shocking that the Rebels were able to overcome the beginning of the war and defeat the vastly superior British army and navy. The other interesting thing was the contempt the British army felt for the rebels. McCullough points out that the Americans had a higher standard of living in 1776 than any other people in the world at the time. The British could not understand why these relatively wealthy people would revolt against the king and held them in very low regard because of their rebellion.

The revolution could have very easily gone the other way, but for the, in retrospect, utter ridiculousness of the British generals deciding to sit out the winter and allowing the rebel army to take the offensive and do a surprise attack that turned the tides of the war. In late December of 1776, Washington was able to muster a master strike against the sitting British army that put them completely on the defensive. This battle forced the British to employ a new southern strategy that wasn't focused on in the book but extended the war for several years.

"1776" didn't really focus on any of the ideas of the founders that eventually found their way into the Declaration of Independence, instead focusing on tactics of the war. Nevertheless, it was an interesting and quick read, that was very fitting to read over Memorial Day weekend. Reading about how much our first soldiers suffered over the first winter campaign in American military history really puts in perspective how lucky we are to live in the greatest country in the history of the world and just how trivial many of the matters we fight about are in the grand scheme of things.