Jul 24 2011
The Powerline contest for media illustrating the debt crisis facing the USA is done, and here is one of the top entries (not a winner, but highly rated):
I’m thinking most of us are the fish.
I’d feel better about it if the video had a disclaimer: NO GOLDFISH WERE HARMED DURING THE PRODUCTION OF THIS VIDEO.
Just kidding.
Jul 21 2011
Here is a link to one of the most repellent movies I’ve ever seen a tiny amount of (about all I could stand). It’s called MACHETE.
But I saw enough to know this. Some major stars lent their names and efforts to portray essentially all white people (at least any in a position of any kind of responsiblity or authority) as evil, while it shows all Mexican illegals to be honorable, innocent, heroic, and, in one case, “Christlike” figures. Oh, I forgot to mention, the white people are stupid and cowardly, while the Mexicans are clever and brave.
There are so many calumnies and distortions in this piece of trash that it’s hard to know where to start.
Why would Robert DeNiro, Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba, and Don Johnson, not to mention Cheech Marin, Lindsay Lohan and Danny Trejo, the main “hero” of the movie, choose to associate themselves with this garbage? (And make no mistake, it is garbage, with preachy anti-border statements, bloody schlock violence, and so many lies it would take a dozen paragraphs to recount them all, and dozens more to refute them.)
(Senators don’t set up their own pseudo-assassinations, the Border Patrol is made up of honorable law enforcement officers, the Minutemen do not engage in murderous random violence against Mexicans, and Mexican gangs are made up of murderous thugs, not honorable freedom fighters…. just to correct a few of the lies.)
This isn’t just another piece of lefty Hollywood brain rot. It is really evil. I do not exaggerate. It is so bad that some might defend it as satire of the La Raza fantasy variety. The problem is that it’s pretty clear the film makers are serious about it, even while “having fun” with it…. rather in the manner of INDEPENDANCE DAY being a satire of science fiction movies, while basically enjoying the genre, and basically being on the side of the good guys. Only, in this case, the good guys are murderous Mexican thugs, and the “bad guys” are unrecognizable caricatures of American white people, including normal citizens, law enforcement, politicians and border security activists.
This flick basically promotes hatred of America, and American values, while glorifying violence in the name of illegal aliens invading the USA.
It is as if a movie promoting racism, Jim Crow, and maybe even slavery was made, and actually found an audience. I would like to believe that Mexican-Americans are offended by the characterization of them in the film.
Incredibly, it gets 7 out of 10 stars on IMDB.
America may indeed by doomed.
Jul 08 2011
You may recall an earlier post where I described the humiliation of trying to get a decent photo for another website, to accompany an article I had written for that site. The article is now up at Renewing American Leadership, or ReAL.
BTW, after the debacle of trying to get a decent headshot photo for ReAL, my daughter finally came over with her professional SLR camera and her knowledge of light, shadow, exposure and (certainly not least) her skill at touching up afterwards, to get the picture of me that appears at ReAL. At least she didn’t make me look like I’d just finished the perp walk.
Jul 04 2011
The Orange County Register reports that a Transient finds police gun replica under leg.
A Costa Mesa homeless man called Costa Mesa police officers Sunday night to turn in a gun he said he found under his leg after waking up at Lyons Park.
The piece, which turned out to be an air-soft gun, is an exact replica of the 40-caliber semi-automatic Heckler & Koch pistol that Costa Mesa police officers use, Sgt. Clint Diebell said. The gun has the same weight, look, color and feel as the officers’ sidearm. When the slider is pulled or the cartridge is removed, one can see brass that resembles a bullet, Diebell said.
The transient, David Betts, is well known to the local Police Department. He called on his cell phone at 9:26 p.m., put the gun in a white paper bag and waited for the officers at a bus stop.
The gun will be stored in a found property area, Diebell said. If no one claims it, it eventually will be destroyed.
Diebell said owning an air-soft gun that fully resembles a real one is legal, but owners are not allowed to brandish or fire the weapon in a public place such as a city park.
There is so much wrong with this article that it’s hard to know where to begin.
Let’s start with this: the airgun shown above is not a “replica of a ‘police’ gun.” It is a replica of a typical .40 caliber handgun, a real firearm that is entirely legal for civilians to own (and carry, if they can get a concealed carry permit), and which some police officers carry as well. It is not a “police” gun in any sense, unless we plan to start referring to the donuts that police eat as “police donuts,” or the beer that they consume in cop bars as “police beer.”
The next thing that’s wrong with this report is that it isn’t news. A hobo found a toy gun and gave it to the cops because he couldn’t tell the difference? How is that “news”?
I don’t know how much training police receive these days in firearms identification, but I’m fairly sure that the report mischaracterizes Sgt. Diebell’s comments about how hard it is to tell the toy from the real thing. The report makes it sound like the Sgt. thinks it’s hard to tell the difference between the toy and real thing. I suppose that might be true, for someone who has never held or operated an actual hand gun. I’m pretty sure that the Sgt. would be able to tell in about 1 second that it was an airgun, something the reporter chose not to mention. Of course, people who really can’t tell the difference should assume such an item to be a real firearm until they know otherwise. I’ve told my own kids that when they see a firearm-looking item, they should assume it’s ‘real’ till proven otherwise. In what way is this a big deal, and newsworthy?
This sentence says it all, about the reporter’s ignorance regarding firearms: “When the slider is pulled or the cartridge is removed, one can see brass that resembles a bullet, Diebell said.” Guns don’t have “sliders,” they have “slides.” Airsoft ‘guns’ don’t have “cartridges” at all, but they do have little tiny plastic pellets that the user puts in a magazine that is then inserted into the grip of the handgun. There is no “brass” in them. I strongly suspect that the reporter used the word “cartridge” where he should have used “magazine,” since, as I said, airsoft guns don’t have cartridges, let alone ones that can be “removed.”
Why am I belaboring all of this? To make two points:
1) Reporters who report on “firearms related news stories” usually know less about firearms than they do about quantum physics or molecular biology. They don’t have the background to understand what an expert tells them, and so they don’t get the report right. It’s as simple as that. Media outlets usually can’t FIND a reporter to send on such “stories” who knows anything about guns, because these journalism school graduates have mostly never been around them…. which makes you wonder why they fear them so much. Maybe they watch too much TV.
2) The slant of this story is clearly that there is something dangerous about people being allowed to possess toys that look like the real thing. This is clearly meant to be in support of a new law to require them to be pink. But the reporter’s obvious opinion belongs in the editorial pages, not masquerading as ignorantly presented “news.”
By the way, if this idiotic law to require all airsoft guns to be pink actually passes, I expect that some crooks will be painting their real firearms a nice shade of hot pink, just to cause the cops with whom they may be shooting it out to pause that extra deadly second to decide if the weapon is “real” or not.
In the story linked above, would the cop who shot the teen age boy have been able to see that the airsoft gun was pink, in the low light conditions in which the shooting occurred?
The boy was left paralyzed in the shooting, which LAPD officials said occurred when an officer felt threatened because he was unable, in the dark, to distinguish that the weapon involved was a replica of a Beretta handgun.
You really can’t see colors well in the dark, can you?
And what reponsibility does the boy have for failing to comply with reasonable officer commands, and instead running, then brandishing his toy gun at the cops? In the low light, would it have mattered if the toy gun was pink?
It’s worth pointing out that some REAL guns are manufactured pink (and a variety of other bright colors), on purpose, to make them more attractive to women. Maybe the California legislature should make a new law that all real firearms sold in the state must be black or gun metal blue. Just so everyone can tell the difference, you know. Maybe the feminists will weigh in on that suggestion. Or not.
Google “pink airsoft legal California” and “SB 798” for more info and opinions on the proposed law. This is just another example of trying to fix everything in the world so that stupid people who do foolish things won’t suffer for it, at the expense of the freedom of everyone else.
It’s also an example of really bad reporting.
May 25 2011
ABC News has put up basic pro-abortion propaganda masquerading as news.
Mixing facts and interpretation, without differentiating the two, the link above has a “news” story accompanied by a video (with the ABC News logo!) that was actually produced by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a strongly pro-abortion advocacy organization. The video is not even thinly disguised; it is straight-up pro-abortion propaganda. For it to be presented with the ABC News logo, in a “news” story purporting to report demographic changes in who gets abortions and why, is the clearest possible evidence of the pro-abortion slant of the major media, a part of their over-all leftist tilt.
It’s also evidence of the inability of the major media to keep news and opinion/perspective separate, despite the major media’s protestations that even though most of its members are left, they can still be objective in reporting the news.
Ask yourself this: would ABC News put up a video produced by, say, Focus on the Family, reporting the exact same facts as the Guttmacher video, but offering a different interpretation of causes and effects, and a different prescription for what women really need? And would it put up such a video as the sole interpretation of the demographic “facts”?
The idea is risible, of course.
Of course, ABC News didn’t even bother to ASK any pro-life organization for a competing interpretation to the Guttmacher propaganda piece. Or, if ABC News did ask, it certainly didn’t report it.
Instead, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (given a bully pulpit by ABC News) would have us believe the canard that “poverty causes abortion” and that more federal social spending/entitlements would reduce abortion (Not so, but even if it was true, so what? It’s not like abortion is a BAD thing to the pro-aborts of the world, right?).
In another post, I’ll discuss some interpretations of the demographic aspects of abortion that ABC News didn’t bother to solicit from any pro-life organization.
For now, just know this: you can’t trust the reporting of the major media on abortion. Period.
Or on much else, either.
Feb 08 2011
The previous post in this series is here, and will help provide background for what follows.
There are many instances of people and groups who take risks for the gospel, do the unpopular thing, and God does bless them.But obvious worldly blessing is not a given.God has His own agenda and ways of doing things, and we cannot assume that our worldly success is due to God’s blessing, nor our difficulties evidence of our failure to seek God’s will and do it.Some missionaries are murdered, and martyrdom in Christ’s service did not end with the fall of the Roman Empire.Lesser difficulties also occur with some regularity, even in the modern world.
Yet how many boards and leaders of churches and para-church organizations proceed with the assumption that apparent worldly or financial success equals God’s blessing, with such a rigid conflation of the two that any policy which carries some attendant risk of worldly disapproval is assumed to be the wrong one? Consider the logic: if we are doing good, God will bless us in worldly ways. Therefore, we should not consider doing something that risks getting worldly disapproval, since if the world disapproves, by our benighted definition, God is not blessing us.
So how can we decide if we are making our decisions according to God’s plan, from a fully Christian worldview, or if we are simply doing what seems best to us, within our human expertise (and afflicted with human pride and desire for power), as we try to strengthen our organization or institution in a worldly sense?There is no way to know for sure, of course.
But one thing seems indicative.
If we find we are mostly making decisions from the point of view of what the world will think of us (not from the point of view of God’s will, God’s commands, God’s moral precepts, and Christ within and among us), even if we have great institutional and public success, even if we are doing some good, we are not doing what God desires of us. Christ’s way is one of sacrifice and risk-taking for the sake of the gospel, most particularly the risk of being misunderstood and vilified by those who do not know Him. This is true whether we are explaining His way to the world, or standing for the principles He taught.
I’ll be developing this idea further in subsequent posts.
The next post in this series is here.
Feb 07 2011
Much is made of the centrality of sacrifice in the Christian life, and justifiably so. Christ’s own life on earth was one of individual sacrifice and service, and not only on the cross, though that is the preeminent example. Simply being incarnated was a sacrifice (Philippians 2:5-9), and his very manner of living was sacrificial, in that he never married and had a family but instead lived for others, took risks of many kinds at various times for the sake of doing his Father’s will and speaking the truth, and so on.
As individuals, we are all called to sacrifice in one way or another for the sake of Christ and the gospel, though it’s a mistake to assume that everyone should live sacrificially in the same ways. One may choose to live simply and have greater financial freedom to give more (though all should give some), another may choose to give greatly of time and service (though all should do this some), and another may choose a lifestyle of great self-denial of one kind or another (though all of us must deny ourselves in some ways), all for the sake of doing God’s will. Few are called to sacrifice all. What seems fairly clear is that a person who has sacrificed nothing, not time, not finances, not manner of living, is likely to be a person who is not listening to God’s whispers, and probably a person who has not closely read the scriptures.
Yet some churches and para-church organizations seem to operate as if it is God’s will for them never to suffer or risk suffering, and never to choose a path that is hard and uncertain, or one that is likely to earn some degree of disapproval from the world, especially the secular world. Some para-church organizations operate as if their leadership believes in a sort of “prosperity gospel” for their organization (even when they deny that as a proper perspective for individuals), assuming that their role is to manage their organization with the same professional risk management as they would apply for any secular organization. And this risk management is fine, up to a point.
The “prosperity gospel” approach to a church or para-church organization is that somehow it can just get bigger and bigger, more and more popular, and it will all be because of God’s blessing. This may work for a time. And God may indeed be blessing certain efforts of the institution, while at the same time some of the institution’s apparent success may be coming from “playing it safe,” maintaining “good public relations,” even innovative business practices and good luck with market demographics or placement. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for people in an organization, including its leadership, to really know what measure of an organization’s apparent success is due to God’s blessing of its efforts, and what proportion is due to good business practices, smooth marketing, or just plain good luck. The temptation, of course, is to ascribe all success to God’s blessing, especially in public pronouncements.
Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. The assumption that God will increase the institutional strength and vigor of any organization that is doing His will is itself evidence of “prosperity gospel” thinking, not scripturally sound thinking about the nature of sacrifice for Christians, and Christian organizations. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament and church history reveals many instances of people and groups (institutions) who appear to be following God’s commands, but who suffer in various ways, sometimes almost in a “no good deed goes unpunished” sort of way, which is of course, the intention of Satan. The point is that apparent prosperity in the world is not proof of God’s blessing. Indeed, it is a sort of heresy to assume so.
I will develop this line of thinking further in future posts.
The next post in this series is here.
Dec 06 2010
‘Programming error’ caused Russian rocket failure
“The Proton launch rocket functioned abnormally, sending the three Glonass satellites and the upper-stage booster rocket on the wrong trajectory and they fell into the Pacific Ocean 1,500 kilometers northwest of Honolulu,” the statement said.
Once separated from the Proton launch rocket, the upper-stage booster rocket with the three satellites aboard should have put them in orbit about 20 kilometres (12 miles) above the earth.
Here’s the problem: reporters often write stories about matters regarding which they know essentially nothing.
From firearms to business practices to the economy to religion, not to mention science, too many reporters know way too little about the world, despite the ostensible “general education” they may have received in college.
I’ve seen stories that imply that Mexican narco-terrorists are using machine guns that were initially bought in US gun stores, except that machine guns mostly aren’t for sale in US gun stores (short of a very difficult-to-get license). Few gun stores stock machine guns for a simple reason…. they almost never have a customer who is legally allowed to buy one. That didn’t stop the media from reporting widely that “automatic assault rifles” from USA gun stores were flooding Mexico and in the hands of drug runners.
I’ve seen stories that tell us the only way to balance the federal budget (by increasing revenues) is to raise taxes. Few reporters who repeat this nonsense seem to have heard of the Laffer Curve, nor have they read basic economic history of the last 30 years, let alone the last 100.
Since most reporters have never run a business, and have never studied it either, their reporting on the realities of growing a business is usually laughable. All they know is what they hear at cocktail parties given by people who inherited their money.
The concept that reporters have of religious people, especially Christians, is beyond caricature. It is at the level of assuming African-Americans all eat grits and watermelon, or that all gay men are interior decorators or choreographers, or, for that matter, that most Muslims are terrorists. But we have to listen to these clowns pontificate about trends in American religion.
Here’s the thing: journalists think that the ability to write a sentence means they have the ability to communicate something that matters, or is true. They think they can tell who is lying to them, or distorting the facts out of self-interest. They think the ability to talk a little bit means they’re smarter than other people. They think interviewing skills replace background in the topic of the interview.
Editors don’t seem much better, since such a huge number of whoppers make it into print, and broadcast.
By the way, if you haven’t figured out what prompted this diatribe, it’s probably because you don’t know any more than the reporter(s) and editor(s) of this story about how high above the Earth is the minimum for a satellite to go into orbit. You may be forgiven for this. No one knows about everything. But people who purport to report on the events and issues of the world have a responsibility to educate themselves on the background to what they report on, just to keep from telling whoppers like this one.
Still laughing. If you could get into orbit at 12 miles above the Earth, you could get into orbit in an F-15. Check the Service Ceiling at the link. Of course, you’d need an amazing afterburner to get orbital velocity. Not that these dunces of reportage would know that.
Sep 15 2010
Lessons learned from the mildly idiotic plans of one Rev. Jones to publicly burn a Koran, regardless of the eventual shakeout (he’s been changing his mind a lot lately), the plan to build a mosque at Ground Zero, and remaining unanswered questions:
1) Muslims expressing deep outrage over this have no sense of proportion. Death threats? Insinuations that US national security is at stake? Compare to the reaction of Christians to the “Piss Christ” “artwork”.
2) Virtually everyone seems to be afraid of making Muslims angry. Could that be because they know this represents a real danger? Why is no one afraid of making Christians angry?
3) Americans have largely forgotten 9/11, despite the many reminders in the press and news coverage recently. They have forgotten how they felt on 9/12. Sadly.
4) Christianity and Islam are not on equal footing as “religions of peace.” Not even close. Not by a country mile. They don’t inhabit the same galaxy.
5) Where is the “moderate” Muslim outrage AT the Muslims who expressed such virulent outrage and threatened violence against Rev. Jones?
6) Why does the mainstream media stress the great patience and understanding that Americans should have for the Muslim ambition to build a Mosque at Ground Zero (!), without also suggesting that Muslims should really just ignore nitwits like Rev. Terry Jones, and not get so excited about his loony plans?
7) Why doesn’t our president make the same connection? Where does he get off telling Rev. Jones how destructive his plan is, but still telling Americans they should be accepting of the Ground Zero mosque, as if that plan represents some great sensitivity to American feelings?
8) Obama’s great political insight and wisdom, his deep connection to the American people, his smooth way with an audience…. all of this is a crock, a media made-up just-so story, which the media got away with in order to get their Annointed One elected, but which the American people have largely seen through.
The biggest loser over the Ground Zero Mosque and Terry Jones stories?
Obama, I think.
