Ruminations – 5jul08

George Rebane

• Colombian Rescue – It’s a humorous but sad sign of the times that the rescued Betancourt praises France and Sarkozy for her freedom, and does not even give a nod to the role that the US has played in making it all possible.  For years FARC has never given a tinker’s damn for France’s efforts which have been all but invisible to the rest of the world.  And those informed about US involvement in Colombia know that our country has managed all the progress in defeating FARC and its narcotics program with one hand tied behind its back.  Which hand??  The left hand, of course.

• The dumb get dumber.  We watched the NBC national news tonight with dinner.  The thirty-minute program contained only one fluff item that would affect the fortunes of US citizens – the growth and competition from Brazil, one of the BRIC countries.  The rest was about a 41-year-old Olympic veteran swimmer, California wild fires (close up of flames), and the progress of an abandoned baby penguin being raised by some warm-hearted people.  Meanwhile the EU is under Islamic assault and rejecting progress toward unity, Iran is posturing to ‘talk’ while rushing to complete its first nuclear device, US is printing money like its going out of style to continue inflating inflation (i.e. increasing the tax on your monetary assets while simultaneously reducing its transfer payment obligations).  And no one gives a big rat’s asset.

• California’s Air Resources Board, with the full backing of the left, is about to implement its AB32 Scope Plan that will redefine real property use across the land in the futile attempt to alter climate change.  This is a national issue that is purposely kept under the public radar by the mainstream media so as not to arouse any property rights ire now soundly asleep.

• US missile shield for Europe.  What in hell is going on??  We’re willing to install, fund, and man a missile defense system in Europe to reduce Iran’s (and other rogue Islam nations’) threat of nuclear blackmail against the EU, and we’re getting pushback from those getting the protection.  Poland wants us to bribe them into letting us do this on their soil.  From Reuters –

In the months-long negotiations, Tusk's (Polish prime minister)  center-right government had sought billions of dollars worth of U.S. investment to upgrade Polish air defenses in return for hosting 10 two-stage missile interceptors.
"We are ready to accept proposals or corrections from the American side which would include our proposal to increase (our) security. We can do this in a day, a week, a month," Tusk said.

Comments

[Russell Steele]

George, good post. I like the format with the highlighted titles to your comments. I find it interesting how few facts get into the news these days. I wonder if this is a major contributor to the decline of newspapers and the big three networks, and the rise of the blog-o-sphere? Keep up the good work.

[Martin Light]

Toss in the local print media that is stripping "news" information off the AP ticker to fill blank space because staff are unavailable to investigate and write articles about local goings-on. And, Sacramento television news is nearly as bad as their national cousins. With all the mischief happening under the dome in Sacramento by our elected the stations run sound bite stories about local news in faraway places. It seems the emphasis has changed to quantity vs. the quality of news reporting. I don't believe there is any organized conspiracy by the media but just a lowering of standards and of peer pressure which only provides an opportunity for others.

[George Rebane]

[gjr] By far, most of the feedback to RR comes via emails that sometimes launch side threads of discussion. Some of these emails that beg clarification or amplification of my post I include as a comment. The following from one friend and reader is one of those.

******
'Mornin George,

Re "Dumb Get Dumber..." I agree that the vacuousness of TV news is increasing, but you didn't include the advertising time; I think its twelve minutes. That's not much "news" out of a half hour.

Re "Cal Air Resources Board", last sentence, you are implying that there is a conspiracy among publishers to suppress news. In response, I am suppressing the word "preposterous", in favor of the phrase "far fetched".
******

[gjr] Agree on the vacuum level of the TV news. On the CARB piece (and previous pieces I have written on the same subject) of the MSM purposely advancing or suppressing an in issue, I have never meant to imply that the MSM practices a formal conspiracy in the sense that the co-conspirators secretly communicate beforehand to agree upon a subsequent action. Members of the MSM don’t need to do this, because on the whole they already have a fairly uniform political leaning which, of course, our friends on the left strongly deny. But if you accept such a state of affairs, then you see that there is no necessity for the MSM to conspire in order to be silent on CARB’s AB32 Scope Plan, which silence increases the likelihood that their collectivist ideals are advanced as property rights are again ratcheted downward – they make such decisions individually and naturally. And if you don’t accept that the MSM is left-leaning, then you can ascribe this industry-wide silence to yet another one of those miraculous chance occurrences with which the MSM blesses us on a regular schedule.

But to muster such belief in miracles, I also am disposed to suppress “No f_____g way” in favor of your more civil “far fetched”.