It's a minor thing in the overall story but it's too funny to let pass by.

Howie Kurtz let Schieffer come on his CNN to show answer Megyn Kelly's charges that Schieffer is in the tank for the Obama administration because during the course a 1/2 hour interview he conducted with AG Holder the case never came up.

Schieffer's defense is he's not dishonest, just not very good at his job.

KURTZ: Let's start with the obvious question. Why did you not ask Eric Holder in that interview about this former Justice official's allegation that a case against the New Black Panther Party was dropped because of racial politics?

SCHIEFFER: Well, it's certainly a question that is a legitimate question to ask. And basically what happened was this all really became a story when the whistleblower came out and testified that he'd had to leave the Justice Department and so on. And, frankly, had I known about that, I would have asked the question.

I was on vacation that week. This happened -- apparently, it got very little publicity. And, you know, I just didn't know about it.

Strangely enough, the thrust of the segment is that FNC gave the story too much coverage. What Schieffer really meant is that the story didn't get much publicity from the right kind of outlets, the approved gatekeepers he pays attention to. FNC? Doesn't count.

The bigger problem is it sounds like poor old Bob is working by himself to put on Face the Nation every week. He has no producers, no researchers, no editors to keep track of things when he's away or to help identify important issues. Nope just Bob. Sounds more like a guy doing a show from his basement on a webcam than a long running network show.

Shockingly! Howie didn't follow up and ask him about this lack of staff. Did Katie Couric get all the money? Are they going to have a Schieffer-A-Thon like we do for Ace? For God's sake the man is 73, give him a hand. An intern! Something.

Schieffer also says that the lack of coverage is not because of pro-Obama bias (or lack of staff) but rather a news value judgment.

Again, Howie being the sharp professional journalist that he is didn't follow up with the obvious question...what if a Republican administration had dropped the charges against a couple of Klansman (like the late Democrat Senator and Exalted Cyclops Bob Byrd) had been caught on video instead of New Black Panthers.

It's really hard to figure out why the likes of CBS, CNN and The Washington Post are dying.

Charlie Gibson emails to say, "Hey Bob, stop working my side of the street.".

Posted by: DrewM at 04:11 PM | Comments (213)
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Inception scores, Sorcerer's Apprentice becomes the latest Disney and Nic Cage bomb.

I saw Inception on Friday and it's definitely worth seeing in theaters. All the folks who incessantly complain about recycled Hollywood films or politically-motivated films will have nothing to bitch about with Inception. And it's by moron favorite Christopher Nolan with an awesome cast. It brought in $60 million, leading the weekend.

I did not see Sorcerer's Apprentice and I'll tell you why: Nicolas Cage. I loved National Treasure and maybe if I've been drinking I'll watch the Rock, but everything else this dude has ever been in has been awful. The sad thing is, Apprentice might have been okay, except for Cage. Same annoying "hyuck hyuck", but a new wig for every film. Oy. Poor Jay Baruchel. Anyway, Apprentice only earned $17 million this weekend, so it's unlikely to ever meet its $150 million budget. Oops.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 PM | Comments (266)
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This sounds familiar...

The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the stateÂ’s already-stressed budget.

[...]

“They are giving up out of frustration,’’ Fields said of the employers. “Most of them are very compassionate but they simply can’t afford health insurance any more.’’

Precisely how many small businesses have recently given up offering insurance is hard to pinpoint. The Office of Labor and Workforce Development said the most recent quarterly insurance data collected from small companies has not been compiled.

State officials said they have not seen convincing evidence that there is a trend. There has not been an unusually large spike in enrollment in Commonwealth Care, the subsidized insurance program, according to spokesman Richard Powers. And in any case, Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, secretary of health and human services, said the administration budgeted for higher health care spending because it anticipated that there would be growing numbers of long-term unemployed residents who would be signing up for coverage.

Let me rephrase that last paragraph:

State officials say there's no trend, but haven't seen the most recent quarter's data. In any case, the state has already decided it will spend more taxpayer money on healthcare this year, so, who cares, right? Right?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:20 PM | Comments (62)
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Paul Rand's recent "Tea Party Caucus" proposal is putting pressure on establishment-style Republicans. Well, according to the Washington Post, it is. But dig deeper -- even in the Post's own article -- and I'm not so sure this is such a "dire" threat.

Republicans such as Paul and Sharron Angle in Nevada may hold provocative views, but "they're our nominees and I think we ought to get behind them 100 percent," said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.).

"The candidates are not ours to choose," said Cornyn, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. "They're the choice of the primary voters in the states, and I think we should respect their choices."

Yet some Republicans worry that tea-party candidates are settling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected. Paul, who beat GOP establishment favorite Trey Grayson in Kentucky's primary, told the National Review that he would seek to join forces with GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.), "who are unafraid to stand up" and who have blocked numerous bills advanced by both parties deemed by the pair as expanding government.

The "some Republicans" named in the article? Trent Lott, who says no to "Jim DeMint disciples" and outgoing Utah senator Bob Bennett, who lost his primary to a tea party candidate. To say that these men are lacking credibility when it comes to the current state of conservatism or of the Republican Party is an understatement. Lott sounds like he's still got an axe to grind with old adversary DeMint and Bennett just sounds like a poor loser. Of course the MFM has quoted them for the proposition that the Tea Party will consume the GOP.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:02 PM | Comments (96)
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Awww, you poor widdle puddin' heads. Here's a space for any coherent thoughts that may stray through your gray matter. My internet is spotty, but I'm workin' on a few posts for ya.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:36 PM | Comments (87)
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No duh, says the 48%. How did we know? Well, back during the months-long fight over healthcare reform legislation the President said it wasn't a tax -- "I absolutely reject that notion" -- so anyone with a working brain knew it was.

Oh, but now it's time to defend the legislation in the courts and the Obama Administration is saying health insurance mandates come under the federal government's power to tax:

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

The tax argument comes with its own special brand of hell. As anyone who has had a tax dispute knows, the law requires you to pay disputed taxes first, before you're allowed to contest them at the IRS or in the courts. The Administration is arguing that the lawsuits should be dismissed because same rules apply to ObamaCare.

On the other side, the states suing agree that the penalty for failure to purchase health insurance goes to the federal government and so takes the form of a tax. But that's only the penalty. Before you get there, ObamaCare requires individuals to buy goods and services from private (in the sense of non-public) entities: the insurers. That's something very different than a tax. That's compelled economic activity and no court has so far "discovered" constitutional authority for the federal government to compel Americans to take part in private contracts against their will.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:03 AM | Comments (535)
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I'm still working on my stack of books that I listed last week, so I don't really have anything new to suggest. I have some words about my Amazon Kindle, though.

First: in past years, I generally had five or six books in my luggage when I traveled. And since my taste in reading tends to military history and the like, my books were generally thick hardcovers that weighed a ton. I have over a hundred books loaded onto my Kindle, and it goes where ever I go. I read a lot more now simply because it's more convenient: riding the bus, waiting for an appointment, standing in line, ten or fifteen minutes in bed before going to sleep. It's not like web-surfing on some gadget -- it's just like reading a book in terms of immersiveness, and its light enough not to be a burden on the hands and arms when lying down.

Second: the e-ink screen is great for most things, but it does obviously have some limitations. The page-turn speed is slow and can be irritating to some (though I barely notice it now); there are only 64 shades of gray on the display, and the resolution is limited, which means that sometimes photos, maps, and drawings don't render quite right. The navigational interface (the little pointing stick) is a little clunky -- I preferred the older model's scroll-wheel.

Third: lack of SD-card expandability. The first-gen Kindle could be expanded with a regular SD card, but the new one can't be. It comes with 2GB built-in storage. This is quite a lot since most of the books are simply HTML-formatted .mobi files, but if you read a lot of PDF documents or graphics-heavy books, it can be a limitation. (Or if you have a lot of MP3 audio books.)

Fourth: The text-to-speech functionality is surprisingly good. I have a seeing-impaired friend who bought a Kindle for herself after giving mine a try, and so far she loves it.

Fifth: The book selection for recent books is great, and the back-catalog is getting better all the time, but there are still some big gaps. However, I love only paying $10 for a recent-release book that would run me $25 or more in hardcover. This isn't always the case; due to publisher pushback, Amazon is charging more for some recent-release books to avoid cannibalizing hardcover sales. There are lots of "current events"-type books (like Too Big to Fail, a history of the 2008 financial meltdown) that I would have borrowed from the library rather than bought because I didn't really want to own the book, but now the cost-differential is enough to get me to buy it instead.

Sixth: I really like having all my books available on every device I use. Kindle books can be read by Kindle software running in nearly every device: dedicated Kindle reader, PC, smartphone, iPad, etc. I've forgotten my Kindle on a few occasions, so I generally just pull up my book on my Droid and continue reading. Amazon is trying to become the "iTunes of books", and they've made a good start.

Finally: battery-life, baby. The E-Ink screen has drawbacks, as I said before, but I'm getting 10 days to two full weeks of reading time out of a single charge (I turn the internal 3G radio off much of the time). Try getting that with an iPad!

The Kindle has paid back its price ten times over for me, and I bought mine before the big price drop. If you're a heavy reader, it's almost a no-brainer (if for nothing else than as a supplement to your dead-tree reading stock). the device itself is getting cheap enough now to be almost an impulse buy, though I do think that at some point Amazon is going to stop making the hardware themselves and simply re-brand a generic Android tablet. The future is OLED full-color touch screens -- the iPad has made that much clear if nothing else. There's going to be a huge glut of iPad-wannabes hitting the market this fall for Christmas, and once the dust settles, I expect Amazon to cut a deal with Asus or Cowon or one of the other big OEMs.

I generally have a love-hate relationship with most of my electronic gizmos, but not the Kindle. It does have some drawbacks, but it's become my constant companion, and I can't think of a better recommendation than that.

Posted by: Monty at 05:05 AM | Comments (193)
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Okay fine...I get it. You need a new post. I've noticed the comments in the open thread have become increasingly bizarre and incoherent... The problem is, I've got nothing coherent to say, either....

We're screwed. How about that? Obama has gotten everything he's wanted so far to "transform" America, and he's not even through yet. They plan on doing even more damage after the elections during the lame duck session.

And then, even if we take over both houses of Congress, we have to deal with Obama, and all of his ridiculous czars. Everything that goes wrong, starting in 2011, (and there will be lots going wrong!) will be blamed on the Republican majority for not cooperating with his Majesty.

Paul Ryan (who I would love to see run for President) has a plan...maybe you've heard of his "Roadmap For America's Future"?

All I know is we need a Congress full of smart, ballsy guys like Ryan, to help us dig out of this hole.

Here's a fun "Happy, Snappy & Incredibly Crappy" Andrew Klavan video I posted today at Nice Deb:

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:38 PM | Comments (131)
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Hello all M&M-type. Welcome to just another CatSaturday night ONT.

Ferris Club

So here's a re-imagined trailer of Ferris Bueller's Day Off based on the Ferris Bueller-Fight Club theory in which Ferris is merely a figment of Cameron's imagination, doing what Cam's afraid of and getting the girl he can't. It probably helps if you've actually seen Fight Club. Oh and there might be a NSFW frame at 2:57.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:33 PM | Comments (592)
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I've been pondering stuff today trying to mentally list all the major technological breakthroughs that humans have come up with over the past 20,000 years or so.

Obviously, the wheel/fire rank pretty high on the list, but what else is there out there our fertile brains have conjured up/harnessed over the millennia? For the sake of this discussion I've explicitly ignored weaponry - which is something humans are particularly adept at developing.

I'll start this out by tossing out few that struck me as pretty handy:

1) Hinges. Imagine a world without hinges. Pretty tough, eh?

2) Glues/adhesives. People have been gluing shit together for thousands of years using anything that was even remotely sticky. Try to imagine going through a day without using something that didn't have some component glued to something else.

3) Paint/protective coatings. Does a day go by that we don't see something that has a coat of paint on it?

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:14 PM | Comments (939)
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