Stuff about me.
The best MMA podcast ever. I hosted with my friend Kevin. Maybe a bit rough around the edges. Hopefully we’ll get better with practice.
Anyway, listen here:
[podcast]http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-56581/TS-243478.mp3[/podcast]
Or go to the podcast website here:
http://jkmma.blogspot.com/
Kevin already has a couple good blog posts there. They are the best part of the whole thing so far.
Former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was shot and killed in July 4th in an apparent murder-suicide by a woman he was “dating” who was not his wife. News reporting have been referring to the woman as McNair’s “girlfriend.”
Meanwhile, South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford, is receiving much deserved scorn for his extra-marital affair with an Argentine woman whom new agencies refer to as his mistress.
Wonder why they felt the need to sanitize it for McNair?
One of the most brilliant political moves I have ever seen was when Barack Obama made Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State. The two had been bitter rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. They clearly did not care for each other.
In making Hillary Clinton his Sec. State, Obama seemed to be following the adage to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He gave her one of the most prestigious positions in his Cabinet, then he stripped that position of its influence. Case in point, Obama is scheduled to travel to Russia next week but his Secretary of State will not accompany him.
Back in May, Dick Morris wrote how Obama has taken authority away from Hillary Clinton.
Former Sen. George Mitchell is in charge of Arab-Israeli relations. Dennis Ross has Iran. Former U.N. Ambassador Dick Holbrooke has Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Hillary has to share her foreign policy role on the National Security Council (NSC) with Vice President Biden, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, CIA chief Leon Panetta and NSC staffer Samantha Powers (who once called Hillary a “monster”).
Obama maneuvered the Clinton’s into a corner where he could keep his eye on them but they can’t do any real damage to him. As part of the administration, Hillary cannot criticize Obama and neither can her husband. Doing so would be viewed as a betrayal.
What does surprise me is that the Clinton’s let themselves be caught in that political trap. They were supposed to be brilliant political strategists in their own right. How could they not see this coming? Rather than accepting the Sec. State nomination, Hillary’s best move would have been to announce that she was honored by the nomination and she fully supports Obama but she feels that she can best support him by remaining in the Senate and representing the people of New York. Now, she finds herself irrelevant with no senate seat and no influence in the president’s administration.
Bill Clinton at least is showing that he is not happy with the situation. Karen Gillenbrand was appointed to fill Hillary’s vacated senate seat. That seat will be up for election in 2010. The White House supports Gillenbrand and has made it clear they do not want any competition for her in the primary election. Bill Clinton is going to do a fund-raiser for Gillenbrand’s presumed primary opponent. Uh oh. Trouble in paradise?
It will be interesting to see if Hillary can get out of the trap she is in. Her only hope will be an unpopular Obama. Lucky for her, his approval ratings are headed south quickly. As the economy tanks, Hillary could eventually resign and distance herself from its failed economic policies (“I was not a domestic advsior) as well as foreign policy (“I tried to work with the president but he refused to listen to me”). Even so, it might be too late. Clinton influence seems to be irrevocably diminished.
(Hat tip: Hot Air)
Three is a pattern. Add Maine to the list.
Elaine Thibodeau of the State of Maine’s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation has sent a letter to the Christian Action Network (CAN) in which they were told to pay a fine totaling $4,000 for not being properly registered in the state as a fund-raising organization and for improperly using the name of Maine’s governor in its fund-raising letter. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/maine-fines-group-for-inflammatory-anti-muslim-message/.
CAN says they were properly registered and have the canceled checks that Maine cashed to prove it. As far as using the governor’s name, telling people to write the governor does not imply the governor supports CAN’s position.
Most telling is that Thibodeau claims that CAN’s fund-raising letter “contained an inflammatory anti-Muslim message.”
Think about what that says. The state of Maine says that CAN (or anyone else) is not allowed to send a letter that contains an inflammatory anti-Muslim message. Certain Islamic sects and the U.N. agree with that, but it is not consistent with our constitutionally protected rights in this country. We have the right to make inflammatory anti-anything messages.
If there was any doubt there there is a trend to erode our rights in this country, there should not be any doubt now. First Connecticut, then California’s speaker, now Maine. Christians are a special focus in this trend. We must not be intimidated into being silenced.
The LA Times published an interview with the Speaker of the California Assembly last Saturday. One response with from her is particularly telling:
How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?
The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.
Again we see a Democrat who does not understand democracy. She refers to free speech as terrorism. More importantly, she does not even understand that what she is actually bemoaning is the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. That means if we don’t like the government raising our taxes, we are constitutionally protected when we contact our legislators and tell them we will not vote for them if they raise those taxes.
We are in danger of losing our freedoms when people like California’s Speaker keep getting put back into office. Thankfully, she is up against a term limit and cannot be re-elected next year. This is why term limits are necessary.
(Hat tip: Hot Air)
This afternoon I was talking with someone about faith and work. I told him I thought this was an interesting time in our country. I see Catholics and Christians in general being more vocal about their faith and their right to participate in the public sphere. At the same time, I see more opposition than ever against people of faith in this country, specifically Christian faith.
I considered that a bit more and realized that trend of Christians being more outspoken is in response to the trend of trying to deny Christians their right to participate in public affairs. I found the proof of that a few hours later. The state of Connecticut has taken the lead in trying to disenfranchise Catholics. Earlier this year some Connecticut legislators introduced a bill to force the Catholic church, and only the Catholic church, to change its organizational structure. The bill was unconstitutional as the first amendment prohibits government from interfering with the exercise of religion. A state mandating the organizational structure of a church is so obviously the exact kind of interference that the first amendment prohibits that the sponsors were forced to withdraw the bill after attention was drawn to it. The archdiocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut was instrumental in leading the opposition.
Not content to just violate one clause of the first amendment, the state of Connecticut has upped the ante. Its Office of State Ethics has launched an investigation into the archdiocese’s actions in opposing the unconstitutional bill last March. The government claims that the archdiocese acted as a lobbying organization for higher buses to take people to protests and using its web site to encourage church members to contact their legislators about the bill. The government is claiming the archdiocese was required to register as a lobbying organization.
Bridgeport’s Archbishop William Lori calls the investigation a violation of the first amendment’s guarantee to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. I says that it is also a violation of the right to petition the government. Requiring people or organizations to register as lobbyists, especially when they are targets of proposed legislation prohibits those organizations from exercising their right of petition.
Who would have thought that in 2009 there would be overt government action in this country to suppress a churchi? Yes, Christians are being more vocal because they must if they want to preserve their own rights.
Last week about protesters demonstrated in front of the Electronic Entertainment Expo against the release of Electronic Arts video game Dante’s Inferno.
The protesters, who came from a church in Ventura County, held signs with slogans such as “trade in your playstation for a praystation” and “EA = anti-Christ” as they marched and handed out a homemade brochure that warns, “a video game hero does not have the authority to save and damn… ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE. and he will not judge the sinners who play this game kindly.”
See? Those crazy Christians are radicals. They get all offended over a video game. No reason to take them seriously. In fact, you should go out and buy this video game just to show them how backward their beliefs are.
But wait a minute. Yesterday, EA revealed that they were behind the protest. They hired a marketing company to create a viral marketing campaign. They even created a tacky web site and paid the E3 protesters to pose as Christians and act outraged.
I can’t help but notice that there was so little concern from Christians over this game that EA had to manufacture the fake outrage. Religious bigotry has come so far that one of the largest video game producers embraces it as a tactic to sell video games. But how backward is that?
Christians are a huge market segment in this country. Why not embrace them? Dante’s inferno uses the most famous Christian epic poem in history for its inspiration. The idea of the video game is to battle and defeat demons. Sure, the game will not have much theological value, but the idea of defeating evil is one that appeals to Christians. Instead of making Christians into villains to exploit, EA should view them as potential buyers. EA has shown me what they actually think of Christians and it isn’t a good picture.
Today’s Tweak Today mission is: Upload a photo of yourself holding an imaginary object. Now download another Tweaker’s photo and draw an object into the scene. Upload the composite!
I opted to put up a photo of Bailey. Here’s the before:
Fellow Tweaker leopicado came up with a cute one.
Yeah, I think it fits her. Thanks Leo.
Update: A second entry
Good one Syd.
When I see stories about the newspaper industry trying to save itself, I picture the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were a man is walking down the street of a plague-stricken town with cart, hitting a small cymbal and yelling, “Bring out yer dead.” One man tries to put a body on the cart but the man over his shoulder says, “I’m not dead.” That not-quite-dead man is the newspapers.
The increasingly fast decline of the newspaper business is the clearest sign of how rapidly technology is changing and how it changes business.
Last week, newspaper executives colluded, er, met in Chicago and came up with a strategy to keep the industry alive. Here are their “five doctrines.”
- True Value. Establish that news content online has value by charging for it. Begin “massive experimentation with several of the most promising options.”
- Fair Use. Maintain the value of professionally produced and edited content by “aggressively enforcing copyright, fair use and the right to profit from original work.”
- Fair Share. Negotiate a higher price for content produced by the news industry that is aggregated and redistributed by others.
- Digital Deliverance. “Invest in technologies, platforms and systems that provide content-based e-commerce, data-sharing and other revenue generating solutions.”
- Consumer Centric. Refocus on consumers and users. Shift revenue strategies from those focused on advertisers.
Problem is, they are starting with the wrong premise. The newspapers aren’t loosing readers only because the content is free online. The problem is that the newspapers publish yesterday’s news. That makes it even less valuable.
We subscribe to the newspaper for one reason. Coupons. We don’t read any of it. By the time I get the paper in the morning, I’ve already seen the news online. My wife is the coupon queen. We currently save more money with the coupons than we do on the subscription price for the paper. That may soon change.
Lately, we have been getting the grocery store weekly circular in the mail. Not much need to pay to get it again. And last Sunday, there was no coupon section in our paper. There are also now plenty of places to get grocery coupons…online.
On top of all that, newspaper publishing is just not economical. Business Insider figures that the NY Times could save money by giving every subscriber a free Amazon Kindle rather than deliver a printed version for a year. Printing newspapers is not a viable business model in the electronic age. They are going the way of the Dodo and the 8-track tape.
Update:
Just found this via HotAir:
Teamsters threaten to shut down Star Tribune
I hope someone tells the Teamsters that a vote to strike is a vote to lose their jobs. Talk about biting your nose to spite your face. The labor and distribution costs are exactly why the newspaper business is not sustainable. The Teamsters are only helping to speed up the process killing an industry.