Shatner Redux

Conan O'brien had William Shatner at it again last night. Classic.

30 July 2009

Captain Kirk as Sarah Palin

This is just too freakin' awesome to miss.

28 July 2009

The Opportunity Cost of Bank Welfare

Arianna Huffington has a great op-ed detailing the massive cost of the banking sector bailout in relation to the myriad financial crises facing almost every state. Huffington notes, in part:

Reading about the huge budget cuts almost every state in the country is being forced to make quickly puts the $4.7 trillion we have pumped into the financial sector into perspective, and leaves us pondering the opportunity cost -- what else we could have done with that money. Consider: America's states are facing a projected cumulative budget gap of $166 billion for fiscal 2010. That's a massive number. But when you remember that we spent $180 billion to bail out AIG, you realize that that alone would be more than enough to close the 2010 budget gap in every state in the union. Instead, that money has gone to the banks with no strings attached and no accompanying reform of the system. So all across the country the fiscal ax is falling. The devastation is in the details.

She details the states' problems in greater detail in the larger piece and it is sobering. To add weight to her points, I'll note that when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was recently asked what foreign central banks did with $500 billion that he gave them, he responded that he "didn't know." That is half a trillion dollars, boys and girls, and my wife and I have better records tracking our spending at the supermarket.

24 July 2009

Jon Stewart: The Cronkite Mantle

As a follow-up to my last post on Walter Cronkite and the current state of the news media in the US, I will note this post by Jason Linkins at The Huffington Post and the Time Magazine poll it references. Linkins says in part:

Well, in a result that he will probably accept as downright apocalyptic for America, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart has been selected, in an online poll conducted by Time Magazine, as America's Most Trusted Newscaster, post-Cronkite. Matched up against Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, Stewart prevailed with 44 percent of the vote. Now, if we're being honest, he probably managed to prevail as the winner precisely because he was the odd man out in a field of network news anchors. Nevertheless, I think Jim Cramer should feel free to SNACK ON THAT.

This says good -- and strangely well-deserved -- things about Stewart, but again acts as another cudgel with which to beat the news media in this country about its collective head and shoulders!

22 July 2009

Cronkite & the Modern Media

Glenn Greenwald has a great piece detailing the difference between journalists such as the recently deceased Walter Cronkite and those of the modern media. Greenwald notes that while the modern media pays great tribute to the reporters of the past, it doesn't hold itself to their levels of professionalism. Indeed, it doesn't even see itself as having the same role. These quotes are offered as examples:

"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .

"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.

The piece is well worth reading.

19 July 2009

Bank Reform: The Perfect Storm

Arianna Huffington recently detailed the bizarre world in which we now live where the foremost economic watchdogs on both the left and the right are calling President Obama's banking reforms a failure. Says Huffington:

Yesterday's opinion section of the Wall Street Journal offered convincing proof that those who want a progressive financial policy and those who simply want to save capitalism are in agreement about the madness of the administration's Wall Street policies.

There, on the editorial page of the capitalist Bible, was a piece taking repeated shots at Wall Street darling Goldman Sachs. And, over on the opposite page, a two-fisted op-ed by former hedge-fund manager Andy Kessler in which he labels the government bailout of Wall Street "a dumb move" and "a bust."

I'm planning to shrink down today's Journal, laminate it, and hand it out anytime someone in the media starts analyzing the economy using the cobweb-covered, tried-and-untrue right vs. left framing.

You know that this way of looking at financial policy is dead and buried when Rupert Murdoch's pride and joy is publishing takes that I could happily have written myself.

...

There is much in the Wall Street Journal that I don't agree with but, when it comes to the failure of the administration to address and fundamentally reform what Kessler calls "the structural problems that got us into trouble in the first place," we are of the same mind. There is no daylight between a progressive position focused on the paramount need to get the real economy going and one based purely on what makes free markets work.

The editorial goes so far as to suggest imposing a tax (yes, the Wall Street Journal is proposing a tax!), an FDIC-style bailout tax to be precise, "for those in the too-big-to-fail camp."

We've reached the point where the only people defending the administration's Wall Street policies are the people benefiting from them -- or their good friends, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers.

It is the final point that I've placed in bold above that is critical. Only the administration and those on the take -- so to speak -- are able to defend what has happened in the wake of our financial meltdown. Moreover, even those who may have first lacked the vision to see it are having their eyes opened to the fact that we have done little or nothing to right our ship, nor prevent it from sinking anew.

18 July 2009

Sarah Palin: The Final Word

With Sarah Palin's announcement that she will resign as governor of Alaska with her first term barely half over, many in the political world are speculating both why she made the move and what the consequences of it will be for her and for her party. Peggy Noonan has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, detailing her view of Palin and her place within the Republican party. It isn't pretty, but it is spot-on.

11 July 2009

Economic Recovery

Robert Reich has a very interesting -- and very sobering -- op-ed over at TPM regarding the economic recovery that many believe is going on right now in America. He's not buying it, noting that a true recovery will be spurred by consumers, not investors, and consumers have no money to spur them to action. Moreover, the normal avenues for them to get money are closed.

10 July 2009

Michael Jackson

The freaks have come out of the woodwork since Michael Jackson died last week. Most people seem to be focusing on his talent and his angels, rather than his demons. There is no doubt that he was marvelously talented, but this fact only makes his demons all the more terrible... and most certainly doesn't excuse them!

His death has brought his music back to the forefront of our popular culture, at least for a brief time. You can really see his place as the king of music videos in tributes such as inmate Thriller and Saudi Smooth Criminal. In my youth, MTV actually lived up to its name, focusing on videos. Whether you liked his music or not, his videos were always fun. Here is the real version of Thriller, probably the most famous video of all time. MJ's Smooth Criminal can be seen here. Here are a few other examples: Bad, Beat It, Billie Jean, The Way You Make Me Feel, & Black or White. As an aside, I was always partial to the Weird Al Yankovic parody of Bad titled Fat. "Ham on, ham on, ham on... whole wheat." Genius!

The most revolting thing regarding Michael Jackson's death is the media frenzy and I don't just mean the tabloid media. From David Kurtz at TPM:

Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism: "Fully 93% of cable coverage studied on the Thursday and Friday following his death was about the King of Pop."

Where exactly is the line between the tabloid and the news media?

1 July 2009

Right Wing Insanity... Treason

From David Kurtz at TPM:

Former CIA counter-terrorism expert and bin Laden tracker Michael Scheuer seems to have become unhinged, telling Glenn Beck last night: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States." Watch.

This has to be seen to be believed. The video is only a minute long, but it is as damning a piece of evidence against the radical right -- and against Fox News -- in this country as I've ever encountered. The viewpoint is certainly treasonous.

1 July 2009