Category Archives: Media

Update II: Waiting For The Weasel Vote (Baier Badgers Barack)

Democracy, Democrats, Healthcare, Media, Regulation, Republicans

“A procedural sleight of hand,” the Washington Post calls Pelosi’s putative plan to pass her hulking healthcare bill without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

“It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

This is not unusual; Republicans have resorted to “deem and pass” in the past, but will now make a big fuss, I hope. However, let this country not be lauded, as it often is, by the pundit peanut gallery for the great democracy it is. It is well-accepted that in a democracy the minority is thwarted. Less accepted is the fact that democracy bypasses the majority as well.

Update I: Via Glenn Beck a chart depicting the bypassing of democracy discussed in this post:

Update II (March 17): BAIER BADGERS BARACK. Bret has to be saluted for his valiant efforts to get this smooth operator of a president to answer a question instead of mouth agitprop, in this exclusive FoxNews interview. It’s worth watching Baier at work. He’s good. But, of course, the top propagandist had the upper hand in the end.

Update III: An Idol For The Age (Of The Idiot)

English, Feminism, Gender, Literature, Media, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

It is bad enough having to hear Maureen Dowd touted as a gift from God. Fittingly, Camille Paglia described Dowd as “that catty, third-rate, wannabe sorority queen. She’s such an empty vessel. One pleasure of reading The New York Times online is that I never have to see anything written by Maureen Dowd! I ignore her hypertext like spam for penis extenders.” To hear the same reverence reserved for Tina Brown, whom I’ve always thought of as no more than an editor of glossies—and the author of a gossipy, somewhat obese book about the anorexic dolt, Diana—is startling.

On “Tina’s emergence in England during the 1970s,” a friend writes: “In those days she was regarded as nothing more than a mildly attractive literary moll. The notion that she would one day be considered a serious biographer or an arbiter of cultural standards would’ve struck people back then as insane. I don’t imagine that THE NEW YORKER will ever recover from her despotism.”

Update I (March 14): Before she married a bigwig, she bedded a couple. Auberon Waugh and Martin Amis are examples. “Her relationship with Waugh,” writes Wikipedia, “served as a great boost to her writing career, as he used his influence to get attention drawn to her.”

Update II: From George’s excerpt we learn that Brown fears castrating others. Only males can lose their appendages. She’s outed herself as a castrater. Is this something to be proud of?

Update III: Here’s Fred Reed (via The Other Robert) in praise of Mexican women and against the Anglo-American Woman. The toxicity of the second class explains why younger American men are “Manly No More”:

“It is not easy to explain to an American readership under forty what is meant by being a woman. We are accustomed to androgynous, litigious, Prozac-sucking shrews who would inspire erectile dysfunction in an iron bar. Yes, there are exceptions and degrees, but here is the main current. (If there is anyone with less respect for women than the average squalling dyke feminist, I haven’t met it.)”

“Feminists of course say that femininity cannot be distinguished from subservience. But it ain’t so. The Mexicanas I know are not subservient. They work harder and bitch less than we do. They are not weak. They do not need support groups, Depacote, Paxil, Welbutrin, or classes in self-esteem (which idea they find puzzling or ridiculous). They are self-sufficient adults.”

Updated: In The New Individualist (Get It!)

Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Liberty, Media, Objectivism

Under Sherrie Gossett’s capable editorial and stylistic tutelage (as well as well as the brilliant David Kelley, Roger Donway, and others), The New Individualist, The Objectivist Magazine, is both sleek and substantive, rather than tinny and rigidly ideological. The Winter 2010 issue of TNI features a new, minimalist, elegant design, and two pieces by me: “Life In The Oink Sector,” and “Man With the Reverse Midas Touch.”

Please purchase this issue—and if possible, a subscription to TNI—to show your support for this writer and the publisher. Here is your chance to support worthy writers and publishers. Featuring thinkers such as David Kelley and Roger Donway, you’ll be well-rewarded.

Update (March 14): BAB frequenter Hugo Schmidt writes an interesting review in TNI of Robert Spencer’s Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is And Islam Isn’t. As I say, there is a lot that’s worth reading in the new issue. Get it! Subscribe or order an issue.

Chile Is No Haiti

Foreign Aid, Media, Nationhood, Race, The West

Does anyone not a moron dispute the fact that Chile has coped reasonably well with what was “one of the most powerful earthquakes in history”? If to judge by the number of opprobrious pieces the malfunctioning media, activist Anderson Cooper in the lead, ran about the little looting there was in Chile—they have been hoping that Chile, who’s been subjected to aftershocks as strong as Haiti’s main event, would fare as poorly as did the Africa of the Western Hemisphere.

But Cooper will have to reserve his fashionable T shirts for another time. The death toll in Chile has been revised down from about 800 to 452. Troops and firefighters have galvanized. Chilean telethons are being conducted, lo, without George Clooney, and Chileans are flying patriotic slogans such as “Chile Helps Chile.”

The country’s economy is quite good and the GDP per-capita decent.

I suspect that at bottom, the following blog title reflects what Cooper, the Alpha female at CNN, would have liked to have said and proven:

“Chile Earthquake Proves White People Loot Too.”

Chile’s ethnic groups: “white and white-Amerindian 95.4%, Mapuche 4%, other indigenous groups 0.6% (2002 census)”