Gibbs’ contempt for press a marvelous thing.

You cannot command respect from others if you will not demand respect from yourself.

(Via AosHQ) Excuse me while I give a measured, well-thought-out response to this bit of news:

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs approached White House reporters earlier this year in an attempt to end the long-standing practice of sourcing claims to anonymous administration officials, he told CNN on Sunday.

During that meeting with the press corps, Gibbs offered correspondents a no-background policy, in which the White House would only give on-the-record interviews if reporters promised not to cite unnamed sources, he explained to host Howard Kurtz in an interview on “Reliable Sources.”

HAHAHA… (repeat for five minutes, interspersed with multiple pauses for breath, attempts to regain composure, and resumption of laughter) Continue reading Gibbs’ contempt for press a marvelous thing.

Rasmussen succumbs to snark.

Rasmussen usually makes a good-faith effort to avoid being sardonic, but sometimes they just can’t help themselves (bolding mine):

…voters are closely divided over Congress’ most important role: 49% say it’s passing good legislation, while 43% see it as preventing bad legislation from becoming law. That’s why 39% of voters say it’s a good thing in today’s political climate to be the Party of No. But 34% disagree and say it’s not a good thing.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters correctly identify Republicans as the political party some have labeled the Party of No. Despite, or perhaps because of, this high level of awareness, Republicans have built a solid lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The title of this Rasmussen Report, by the way: “57% Have More Trust In Those In Congress Who Voted Against Bailouts.”  And that’s not even the worst news for Democrats in there.  The worst news for Democrats in there is that they’ve spent the last year viciously attacking a movement that 52% of the population thinks has a better grasp of current affairs than the average Member of Congress.  Because that isn’t going to translate as ‘throw all of them out;’ it’s going to translate to ‘throw all of them who are standing in the way out”…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh The Other 95 and faux-populism.

Looking at RS colleague Erick Erickson’s deconstruction of supposed ‘grassroots’ site The Other 95 to reveal yet another Left-astroturf 501(c)(3) organization (in this case, Democracy in Action), I am struck with an errant thought: this must be exquisitely frustrating for professional Lefty operatives.  They have almost everything that they need.  They have a solid majority in both Houses of Congress; an Executive branch run by a Democrat and which contains all sorts of people willing to quietly do them favors; a media that largely takes their claims at face value; a plethora of funding; and even a broad outline of goals.  They have all these things, but they lack one thing – one thing – and that’s actual warm bodies.  They can’t even fill a coffee house reliably, let alone a field.

The really funny part?  They’ve never needed to pack the room or the field before; because the Right. Doesn’t. Do. Protests.  We bragged about it: “We have jobs.” So they never had to worry about that, until now.  And it turns out that being able to bring out the people is actually an absolutely vital prerequisite for having a successful populist movement.

Go figure.

Moe Lane

#rsrh Being cheerfully mercenary in the e-book wars.

This article by Megan McArdle on the escalating war between the Kindle and the iPad over who gets to replace my print library (and thus, give me my basement back) is very interesting; unfortunately – and this isn’t Megan’s fault – I still haven’t decided which one I prefer, and thus can recommend.  Clearly what needs to happen is that each company should send me one to, ah, ‘analyze.’  Obviously, if one sends me one and the other doesn’t, that will make the results pretty much a foregone conclusion, yes?  I’ve even updated the Wish List on the Filthy Lucre page accordingly for said company representatives (and company representatives only*).

Oh, yes: do the same thing for Little Miss Attila.  After all, she brought this issue to my attention.

Moe Lane

PS: Seriously, why Amazon didn’t hand out more Kindles to New Media folks…

*My current readers already got me a new audio rig for phone interviews.  Which hopefully they feel that they’re getting their money’s worth on; I’m trying to get at least a couple in every week.

“Spelt tagliatelle is black people*!”

Spell-checking is simultaneously the greatest boon and the greatest burden of modern publishing: it used to be you actually read text before you sent it to the printer.  Now you just look for the wavy red lines on the screen, and never mind if you used the wrong (but properly-spelled) word:

SYDNEY — An Australian publisher is reprinting 7,000 cookbooks over a recipe for pasta with “salt and freshly ground black people.”

Penguin Group Australia’s head of publishing, Bob Sessions, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but called it nothing more than a “silly mistake.”

Via the Corner.

Here, let me save you time looking for it:

Moe Lane

*Classical reference.

Eric Massa and the mock-feudal Congress.

Heh.  I’ve been referring to Congress as being barons and petty-nobility – very, very, very petty nobility – for some time; but it’s nice that other people have noticed. Eleanor Clift (via Instapundit):

It took just three weeks for upstate New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa to resign his seat in Congress after accusations surfaced that he had sexually harassed members of his staff. The long trail of unwanted and often abusive advances that preceded his resignation—and why his alleged behavior went unreported for so long—highlights how much Capitol Hill is a feudal society, with each member the lord of his or her own territory.

The kicker is, it’s not even a proper feudal society.  A proper feudal society would have seen Speaker Pelosi’s office burned down by her own vassals for her willful sparking of a peasant revolt in said vassals’ fiefdoms.  Feudal societies were rambunctious affairs; the average French or English baron would have sneered at the milksops that blindly and meekly followed the Democratic party leadership’s charge over a cliff.

And let’s not get started on the Germans.

Moe Lane

PS: regarding the specifics, somebody should tell these people that the droit du seigneur – the sexual ‘rights’ of a feudal lord over his vassals – DIDN’T ACTUALLY EXIST.  Ah, the Democratic party: not only do they not learn from history, many of them didn’t actually take it in the first place…

Crossposted to RedState.

Better funding through Chemistry: Gore and Dow Chemicals.

Not to correct the Independent – oh, who am I kidding? I love to correct the Independent – but the correct term is ‘bribe.’

Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm

Al Gore, the self-styled squeakiest-clean and deepest-green politician in American history, has some explaining to do this weekend. His environmental organisation has taken money to raise awareness about the need for clean water from a controversial chemicals company involved in the aftermath of one of the world’s worst pollution disasters.

Dow Chemical, the US firm which now owns the leaking pesticides factory responsible for thousands of deaths in Bhopal, India, is sponsoring Life Earth events in 150 cities today. The event aims to raise money for clean water programmes. Research by environmental organisations has found dangerous levels of highly toxic chemicals in rivers, lakes and other water supplies close to several other factories owned by Dow and its subsidiaries in countries including the United States, Brazil and South Africa.

Or maybe ‘protection.’ Dow Chemical gives Gore money; Gore purifies Dow Chemical with the light of his countenance and his status as head of that strange little sect that he’s created over the last decade. It’s less money than Dow Chemical would need to spend to be in compliance with environmental demands, so everybody wins.

Well, everybody who isn’t simultaneously: in the environmental movement; and, a rube.  Those sorry sad sacks get to stew in silence again while their betters enjoy the good life.  Which is not a particularly attractive a lifestyle to me, but then I’m not a religious fanatic.

Moe Lane

PS: Actually, no, Al Gore will have to do no explaining at all.  Explanations are for those who do not Speak For The Trees.

Crossposted to RedState.

Reducing OH unemployment, one jobs czar at a time.

It’s… innovative, for a given value of ‘innovative:’ creating a new job in the Ohio state government to address why the Ohio state government has not been able to create jobs, I mean.

Ohio needs a jobs czar to envision ways of putting Ohioans back to work and to coordinate programs scattered across nine state agencies, a new report concludes.

The report, “Help Wanted: a Lead State workforce official,” depicts a system of overlapping and splintered programs and strategies that it says could be strengthened through a unity of purpose. The nonprofit Columbus-based Community Research Partners in Columbus released the report Thursday.

The above word ‘lead’ is meant in terms of ‘head’ or ‘chief’… and not in terms of ‘heavy, toxic weight,’ which is an accurate representation of the general effect of Democratic party policies on Ohio’s unemployment rate since Ted Strickland took office four years ago. 11%, these days: at this rate, they’ll have a czar to address why the job-creation czar hasn’t created more than one job by no later than June.  The state’s only hope is that they can somehow accelerate the process to the point where a new czar pops into existence every second… Continue reading Reducing OH unemployment, one jobs czar at a time.