Digital Brainwaves

Pajamas Media points out in, of all places, a review of The Dark Knight, an interesting difference between conservatives and liberals:

Liberals live in a world of “and.” Full security and full civil liberties. Universal health care and the best quality with no waiting. A dynamic economy and full welfare and unemployment benefits. Liberals, in other words, live in that scene in Spider-Man in which Spidey, forced to choose between saving a tram car full of innocent civilians and saving his girlfriend, chooses both. Liberals live in a fantasy.

Conservatives, though, live in a world of tradeoffs, of either/or. For having this relationship with reality, conservatives are caricatured as grumpy, stingy and negative. Surely all it takes is a bump in taxes on the wealthy and everything will be affordable? Where’s the Hope? Where’s the Dream? Yes, we can!

I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but it seems pretty reasoned. Have a look at the whole article (the quote is from page 2).

Starbucks announced at the first of this month that they would be closing 600 underperforming locations in a cost-saving move.

The Huffington Post has the list of the 600, and only two Rochester-area stores appear to be closing — one in Geneseo…

9484 GENESEO 4262 LAKEVILLE RD GENESEO NY

…and one in Greece.

7343 GREECE 2150 RIDGE RD W GREECE NY

Anyone (here in Rochester or anywhere else) losing their favorite store?

 ABC News, and just about every other mainstream media news outlet, thought they had their damning evidence against the war in Iraq:

It’s government report the White House didn’t want you to read: yesterday the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report’s availability and didn’t make the report available via email or online.

Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam’s government now in US custody, the government report is the first official acknowledgment from the US military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to al Qaeda.

That’s not really what the report says, though. As usual, it’s been spun to make readers believe what they want you to believe, instead of believing the facts. The report does not state there were no links, only that there was no evidence, in the small percentage of files they had examined, of an “operational link” — which is to say, Saddam wasn’t giving al-Qaeda orders.

Richard Miniter, writing for Pajamas Media, goes into great detail on what links were there, and concludes:

No connection? Well, Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi state certainly had a lot of meetings, money changed hands, some terrorist training occurred in Iraq, and a lot of personnel — including Abu Musab al Zarqawi — moved freely through the Iraqi police state. In short, there are connections.

None of this means that Iraq ran Al-Qaeda or had foreknowledge of its most gruesome attacks. It certainly does not mean Iraq was behind the 9-11 attacks or even knew about them in advance. [emphasis mine -- P]

Still, for there to be “no connection” between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, it would mean no meetings, no money, no training and no movement of personnel. On the strength of much weaker evidence, Saudi Arabia is “connected” to Al-Qaeda. Why is Iraq the one nation given the benefit of the doubt?

Have a read.

I either randomly stumbled across it in an article someplace (if I did, I didn’t save the link), or someone mentioned it in conversation recently, but I remembered the other day that I’ve blogged about man due to be sworn in as the next Governor of New York tomorrow, David Paterson, before. He had the wacky idea at the time to try to legislate that cops should, when things get dicey enough to require use of arms, get fancy and shoot to wound rather than shoot to kill.

Hopefully he’s got that idea shook out of his head.

That was fast:

“At Virgin Mobile, you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”

The stereotypical complaint is that FOX News Channel and its website, FOXNews.com, are politically biased to the right. Which is a reasonable comment, especially considering how far to the left most every other news outlet is; even being a little bit to the right of center is drastic, relative to everyone else.

But even FOXNews.com doesn’t mention that resigning New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat until the 19th paragraph of this story.

If he were a Republican, you know it’d be the first word in anyone else’s article copy.

EDIT: I initially identified the article as being from FOX News, however it now shows as credited to the Associated Press; I don’t know whether it changed or I misread it. Now I’m less surprised that it’s so far down the article; in fact, I’m almost surprised the party affiliation was mentioned at all.

That Governor Spitzer may have been caught up in a prostitution sting…

…or this rather silly-looking picture from his abrupt press conference this afternoon?

(AP photo, retrieved from FOXNews.com)

This should make it, *ahem* interesting to be a New Yorker for the next few months, if not longer: Governor Eliot Spitzer, in advance of a suddenly-scheduled announcement for later this afternoon, has allegedly admitted to his staff his involvement in a high-priced prostitution ring.

If the allegations prove true, it comes as rather interesting and hypocritical for this to be coming from the former state attorney general who has, from the article, “built his political legacy on rooting out corruption.” As I’m typing this, the radio is reporting Spitzer may possibly resign.

For the record, I voted for the other guy.

Apparently, new studies suggest that global CO₂ output must be ceased altogether in order to curb global warming. Two points on that:

1. Get the entire population of the world to give up their cars, trucks, minivans and SUVs? Good luck with that.
2. Considering that Earth isn’t the only planet whose temperature is changing like this, maybe we should look at some other ideas.

There’s a few other points that could be made, but this is a good start. Feel free to contribue in the comments below.

I’d sat on this for a week and a half, and had bookmarked it but neglected it, but was reminded of it again today.

Rush Limbaugh read this column by The Aspen Times Weekly’s Gary Hubbell on his show on February 19th, and I think it’s dead on. I’d almost forgotten about it until Glenn Beck interviewed the column’s author Wednesday morning. A few snippets:

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

Go have a look, it’s worth the read.