Thursday, March 10, 2011

John Stossel

I just got finished watching John Stossel's most recent episode, which aired tonight from the hours of 9 PM and 10 PM.  Stossel decided to go after people who are considered "heroes" by the media:  The Founders (Thaddeus Russell, author of A Renegade History of the United States argued against the prevailing wisdom,) Martin Luther King Jr. (Ibid,) the anti-war movement, the green movement (Kenneth Green of AEI argued against that,) green energy (the president of the Ayn Rand Institute took the micro-economic approach,) and Erin Brockovich (who was there in person.)

If I could provide a link to it, I would, but, in summary, certain things stood out.  Thaddeus Russell showed that prostitutes in the 19th Century were the real feminists, as they paved the way for certain activities that were sinful then but are considered normal today.  Things like a female walking without a male, females wearing red, females wearing comfortable clothing, females working (the lowest paid prostitute was still making five times what the average construction made back then.)  Prostitutes were among the richest people in the United States at the time; some of the first women to own property.

It would seem that the crazy Founders, like Benjamin Rush, are known per se but are not big figures.  There's a reason why most Americans can only quote a few Founders:  Those were the ones that ended up being involved with the American government on a federal level after the American Revolution.  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Adams, and Sam Adams are known to most Americans by name because of their accomplishments after the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence.

I suggest readers pick up John Stossel's two books, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity and Give Me a Break because the next bit discusses things he covered in those books.

Erin Brockovich is a saint of the left, mostly due to the dramatic portrayal of her by Julia Roberts, who won an Oscar for said performance.  But, Stossel argued, the science didn't back up her claims.  In other words, he was calling her a scum-sucking lawyer (which she was) profiting off of the mass panic of an easily manipulated town of people (she made $2 million through legal fees from this case.)  She admits immediately when confronted with the science that she is not a scientist.  She deflects when Stossel shows her that hexavaliant Chromium didn't have an observable impact on cancer in the region.  In other words, the scandal that made her a household name was complete and utter BS, as Penn & Teller might say (well, Penn would say that.)  It was manufactured by a law firm that was salivating at the potential lawyer fees from a class-action lawsuit.  And that's clearly what it was, once the media decided to ignore facts and go solely on emotion and phony "experts" like Brockovich.

Stossel, in his ending segment called "Stossel's Perspective," asked "Who are the real heroes then?"  He made it clear:  businessmen like David Packard who innovated and made our lives easier and better and scientists like Norman Borlaug whose innovations in wheat seed feed an extra billion people.  It's shocking to me that "Borlaug" is not even in Google Chrome's Dictionary and that I had to add it myself.

Penn & Teller may have rightfully proclaimed that Norman Borlaug is the greatest man who has ever lived because he is the only one who can claim to have directly saved the lives of a billion people.

And that's my blog.  Good night everyone.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Pokemon

Dear reader(s), the newest versions of Pokemon came out today, which is why I haven't been on.  Today, I also saw Rango, watched Animation Domination on the FOX Network, and did my usual blog readings.  So, I've been busy.

Doesn't leave much time for other things.

But, a few stories have been rattling around the Inter-webs.

The left continues its odd obsession with the Koch Brothers, wrongly accusing them of things George Soros and other left-wing financiers are already doing. The funny part of all of that is that some of the organizations going after the Koch Brothers are in fact financed by Soros.  Hilarious.

The 14 Wisconsin state senators, all Democrats, who fled the state to avoid a vote they knew they would lose, may return soon.  One of them is seven months pregnant.

Michael Moore joined the union protesters outside the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison.  It takes gall for Moore to talk about how bad rich people are while holding onto his multi-millions.  If he was serious, he'd give all his money to charity and work for a state union.

Early estimates show that the union protesters in Madison have damaged the Wisconsin state capitol building to the tune of over $7 million.  Tea Party members got together to clean up the trash left by the union protesters.

That's all for now.  Back to training my Pignite.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Cenk Uygur is insane!

Cenk Uygur, a man I have known about for a long time as the host of the radio program The Young Turks due to its popular YouTube channel, got his own show on MSNBC after Keith Olbermann got the boot.

He's insane.  People like Lee Doren of the popular libertarian YouTube channel How The World Works have gone after him in the past, but expect a lot more people in the media and blogosphere going after him now that he has a much bigger megaphone.  (Bill O'Reilly even had images of Cenk during the introduction segment of his Friday show.)

Cenk is claiming that the country is overwhelmingly liberal.  In a video embedded in the story linked at the bottom of this post (thank you, Mediaite,) Cenk Uygur brings up some BS polls (Penn & Teller already proved the point that all polls are BS) in order to prove this while completely ignoring the last election.

He also makes a huge error about our country.  When his guest told him that the reason more than half of the country wants to raise taxes on people making more than $100,000 a year is because more than half the country makes less than $100,000 a year, Cenk said "We're a democracy!"  We're a constitutional republic which is set up to prevent MAJORITY RULE.  That's the principle Cenk just violated.  He said that's why we should raise taxes on those making more than $100,000 a year.  What a crazy wanker.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cenk-uygur-drives-economist-nuts-claiming-gop-midterm-victory-a-sign-america-is-liberal/

An Introduction

As an off-shoot of my main blog, this blog will be small posts about my views on the day's news and events.

In order to bring y'all into where I get my news, I thought I'd just tell y'all.

I watch The O'Reilly Factor every day I can, mostly for the great people he gets to interview.  He's insanely economically illiterate and may even be pro-union, so I really don't agree with O'Reilly on a lot of things.  I really like his weekly interviews of John Stossel, Greg Gutfeld, Glenn Beck, and Dennis Miller.  This is the only program on the Fox News Channel I watch with any regularity.

I try to watch Stossel on the Fox Business Network every week I can, as it's a weekly program.  Unfortunately, it's on at 9 PM on Thursdays, which is The Office's time slot.  John Stossel is my favorite journalist right now.  He's the only one invoking F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman that I can think of.

When it comes to blogs, I read Townhall which is a syndicated conservative columnist aggregate; Hot Air which is an original post blog of conservative stories with a really great news feed of links to other sources; The Drudge Report which is the de facto link aggregate site for conservatives; Big Hollywood which covers popular culture from a conservative view point with a link aggregate of pop culture news similar in form to Hot Air; NewsBusters which is the blog arm of the Media Research Center which is dedicated to exposing liberal media bias where ever it rears its ugly head; Mediaite which is a sorta-conservative sorta-liberal media-focused blog like NewsBusters but less conservative; and Powerline which is a conservative blog without any real focus.

I, of course, also read the Wall Street Journal op-ed page whenever I can.

This also doesn't cover the plethora of places all the link aggregates on the above blogs take me.  To list them would be pointless.