This is a short piece compared to Michael's usual dispatches, but his point is well taken.

...Journalists tend to ignore moderate Muslims, not because of liberal bias or racism, but because sensationalism sells. At least they think thatÂ’s what sells.

And reporters often assume extremists are mainstream and “authentic” when they are not. Somehow, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been designated the voice of American Muslims. But CAIR is, frankly, an Islamic wingnut organization with a minuscule membership that has declined 90 percent since September 11, 2001. (More people read my medium-sized blog every day than are members of CAIR.)

The coalition of Islamist parties in Pakistan got three percent of the vote in the recent election. PakistanÂ’s radicals have made a real mess of the place, but they canÂ’t get any more traction at the polls than Ralph Nader can manage in the United States...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:23 PM | Comments (6)
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I have watched this video over 1000 times and every time I do, tears well up in my eyes. Yes, you can call me a pussy but I wonÂ’t listen to you because my mom said I wasnÂ’t a pussy. This Budweiser video, which was originally aired during the 2001 Pats/Rams Superbowl, is still the best damn beer/military/political video ever made. Watch and hold your manhoods cheap on St CrispinÂ’s Day.

Posted by: Open Blog at 02:37 PM | Comments (68)
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at least according to Lee Cowan of ABC News in today's NY Times article examining the press treatment Barack Obama has been receiving.

“I don’t think that it’s kind treatment versus unkind treatment,” Mr. Cowan began, taking issue with the depiction of journalists fawning over Mr. Obama in a “Saturday Night Live” skit last Saturday, a characterization stoked nearly every day since by Mrs. Clinton and her aides.

And yet, Mr. Cowan then described several advantages that he saw Mr. Obama as having over his rival. “He hasn’t been around as long, so there isn’t as much to pick at,” Mr. Cowan said. “He plays everything very cool. He’s not as much of a lightning rod. His personality just doesn’t seem to draw that kind of coverage.”

“Even in the conversations we have as colleagues, there is a sense of trying especially hard not to drink the Kool-Aid,” Mr. Cowan added. “It’s so rapturous, everything around him. All these huge rallies.”

Just a small point here Mr. Cowan -Once you use the word rapturous to describe a candidates events and admit that he isn't drawing critical coverage because he is cool you have drunk the Kool-Aid. In fact you are mixing in the cyanide and serving it to the little kids at that point.

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:54 PM | Comments (20)
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I kid you not. She actually said that. The woman is going to derail her hubby's campaign, yet.

While speaking to some assembled women at a daycare, she told them not to “go into Corporate America”.

“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

Naturally, Investors Business Daily took exception to that remark:

No disrespect to teachers and nurses, but there are problems with those remarks.

First, when she says “move out of the moneymaking industry into the helping industry,” she speaks volumes. Apparently, well-paid people in all kinds of profitable fields are, in the Obama worldview, just idle, scheming splinter-collectors who help only themselves.

On the other hand, the social workers who make sure the cash flows from the various elements of the massive government bureaucracy are the great and noble helpers.

However, the oil CEO who invests billions of dollars of his firm’s profits in the research and development of new technologies that bring hitherto unreachable deposits of fuel to the cars and homes of millions of Americans is very much in “the helping industry.”

So is the pharmaceutical executive who uses her business skills and scientific knowledge to decide to spend billions on R&D for new drugs that lengthen the lives of millions.

The real, productive jobs in the private sector help people in ways government can’t. A president who does not understand these things will kill the geese who lay the golden eggs — kill them with high taxes and onerous regulations and ultimately adverse economic conditions.

Second, did the Obamas really make a tough choice to give up high-paying jobs to work in community service? The University of Chicago Medical Center reportedly pays Michelle more than $300,000 a year for her services as “vice president of community and external affairs.”

Yeah, "Vice President of Community and External Affairs" sounds like an
important service oriented job....and with a $300,000 salary, wow! I guess that's what she means by "your salaries respond".

My question to Mrs. Obama is….What about business school teachers who teach students about, ya know…business? Are they really “helpers” if their students go on to be greedy, fat-cat business execs in the “moneymaking industry”? Hmmmmm?

What a silly, mixed up message.

Cross posted at Nice Deb with great comments.

Hat tip: Lucianne

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:52 PM | Comments (248)
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AliceH. suggested this, since there's nothing on the site in 12 hours.

Posted by: Ace at 01:12 PM | Comments (27)
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