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Matthew Hoy currently works as a metro page designer at the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The opinions presented here do not represent those of the Union-Tribune and are solely those of the author.

If you have any opinions or comments, please e-mail the author at: hoystory -at- cox -dot- net.

Dec. 7, 2001
Christian Coalition Challenged
Hoystory interviews al Qaeda
Fisking Fritz
Politicizing Prescription Drugs

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A note on the Amazon ads: I've chosen to display current events titles in the Amazon box. Unfortunately, Amazon appears to promote a disproportionate number of angry-left books. I have no power over it at this time. Rest assured, I'm still a conservative.



Sunday, February 29, 2004
Woot! "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" wins the Oscar for Best Picture -- for a total of 11 Academy Awards.

For Best Picture, it won over "Seabiscuit," proving that you can beat a dead horse.

9:08 PM (0) comments


Grocery strike: From all appearances the months long grocery strike will soon be over. (Full disclosure: I worked at an Alpha Beta grocery store while I was in high school and was therefore a member of UFCW Local 135.)

After reading numerous articles on the substance of the proposed contract, you can only come to one conclusion: the union lost.

Yes, the union was able to save most of their heatlh benefits and a good portion of their pensions, but to look at the big picture, the union has received a mortal wound that will eventually kill it several years down the road.

The union made a decision to focus its efforts on protecting the benefits of current workers, rather than making sure those same benefits would be available for new hires over the course of the contract.

The union has agreed to a two-tier system where employees doing the exact same job will have different pay and vastly disparate benefits. In three years, when the current contract is up, the union leadership will have some difficulty representing the interests of both groups.

Over the coming three years of the contract, current employees will receive no pay increases, their pension contributions will be cut and in the third year of the contract they will have to contribute to their health coverage.

It's even uglier for the new hires. They've got to work for one year before they get health care coverage -- and two and a half years for their family/dependents. When I worked for the Donrey newspaper group (cheap bastards) it was six months before you got health care coverage. One year? And 30 months for your dependents? Ridiculous.

Some striking workers are rightly angry at the union leadership, contending that this deal was something they could've gotten months ago -- possibly without even a strike. I think they're right. It's difficult to see much in the way of substance that the union got from the strike.

When a company wants to break a union, it often can, unless other, uninvolved unions rally to their support. Truckers unions staged periodic protests, refusing to deliver food to the stores, but it was far to little to bring the companies to heel.

I've only heard one story where a strike actually worked brilliantly for the union, and that was a Donrey-owned paper in Hawaii. The workers went on strike and the company brought in editors and reporters from other papers to put out the Hawaii paper. It worked fine for the company until the next shipment of newsprint came in from the mainland. That's when the dock workers -- also unionized -- refused to unload the newsprint.

The company discovered that it didn't matter if you had editors and reporters if you didn't have paper to run through the presses.

The days of being able to make grocery clerk a career and support a family are coming to a close.

The union lost.

1:00 PM (0) comments

Saturday, February 28, 2004
Reporting on abortion: My senior project at Cal Poly SLO was a content analysis of the Los Angeles Times coverage of the abortion issue. My findings confirmed those of Times reporter David Shaw who also did an extensive report on abortion coverage in the major media.

In short, when covering abortion:

The media is more likely to quote "pro-choice" advocates first, and more often.

When a story is on the front page, very often the pro-life quotes are far enough down in the story that they are on the jump -- which far fewer people read.

Newspapers (at that time -- 1990) were more likely to use the labels "pro-choice" and "abortion opponents." Using the preferred terminology of those they ideologically supported and an accurate, but more neutral term for those they opposed.

That brief review of abortion coverage was prompted by this article in Saturday's Union-Tribune on the federal government's subpoena of medical records of late-term abortions.

The article quotes:

Spokeswoman from Planned Parenthood

President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside counties

An attorney for Planned Parenthood.

A Justice Department spokeswoman (who basically says "no comment")

A law professor who observes that the subpoena is relevant to the lawsuit and privacy concerns can easily be satisfied.

The article, while interesting, is missing a big something. The "why". Why is the government asking for this information? There is no effort made to answer that question -- mainly because the only source of that information (with the government refusing to talk) would be a pro-life voice. That could have provided is some context that is missing in this article.

If you read the entire article, you get no hint of what the government is trying to prove by subpoenaing these records. The government's case is based upon the premise that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary. That's why they want these records.

The telling thing is that if the procedure was medically necessary, then Planned Parenthood would be using them (with names and other identifying information redacted) in their case.

11:38 PM (0) comments


Waste of resources: It appears as though someone got ticked at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and wrote him a missive filled with words not usually used in polite company.

Krugman's response? Send in the FBI.

I must say that I'm disappointed. I was bashing Krugman before bashing Krugman was cool -- and I haven't even received a postcard from the FBI, let alone a visit by a real, live agent.

It's really ironic that the FBI would be looking into people who send Krugman obnoxious letters. Krugman has repeatedly suggested that it is he who is the victim -- of the government. He jokes with German reporters that he may be arrested by the government and sent to Gitmo.

And then he calls the FBI about a nasty letter. Yeah, all that worry about the government and the stifliing of dissent by Krugman seems kind of foolish now, doesn't it Paulie?

12:10 PM (0) comments

Friday, February 27, 2004
That liberal media: I was sitting at my desk at the Union-Tribune when the news came in that the California Supreme Court refused to put a halt to the illegal gay "marriages" being conducted in San Francisco. I was first informed of the decision by an excited co-worker who yelled out "hooray!" at the news. The response by several others was "That's great" and "wonderful."

Yes, editorially, the Union-Tribune is relatively conservative. But the editorial board is the most ideologically balanced part of the paper. The people in the newsroom are decidedly of a liberal bent.

One bit of good news regarding this decision: In California we can remove judges from the bench. The most famous case was that of state supreme court Justice Rose Bird, who was removed by the voters for her unwavering opposition to the death penalty.

With more than 60 percent of Californians opposing same-sex marriage, the justices might want to reconsider enforcing state law.

7:08 PM (0) comments


Good point: "Best of the Web Today" notes yesterday's vote in the House to approve the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (aka Laci and Conner's law). The law would recognize that an attack on a pregnant woman actually affects two individuals -- the woman and her child.

Pro-abortion zealots (their position on laws like this one put to the lie that they are "pro-choice" -- after all, the woman in question here has chosen to have the child) oppose the law because they feel that recognizing that there is a fetus -- and that it can be harmed separate from the woman -- is an attack on abortion rights.



Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said it would be the first time in federal law that a fetus would be recognized as having the same rights as the born. The bill "is not about shielding pregnant women," she said. "It is and has always been about undermining freedom of choice."

The House, said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, was "taking advantage of tragedy to promote the far-right agenda of trying to rob women of their right to choose."

Nita Lowey and Kate Michelman, standing tall for a murderer's right to choose. And in truth, they are the ones undermining the intellectual case for abortion rights. The pro-life argument has always been that abortion is murder; Lowey and Michelman's view is that murder is abortion.


Exactly.

12:28 PM (0) comments


Questions on gay marriage: I'm against gay marriage for all of the (non-bigoted) reasons that you've heard cited by other conservative commentators. Civil unions I can live with.

Initially I was somewhat inclined to accept the proposition that some states would sanction gay marriage, as long as other states weren't forced to recognize it.

Well, after reading these questions from NRO's David Frum, I realize that such a halfway measure won't work.

Allowing just one state to make legal gay marriage creates the same sorts of problems that the Dred Scott decision spawned shortly before the civil war. If gay marriage is the law anywhere it makes gay marriage the law everywhere.

12:02 PM (0) comments


Joke of the day: Though I don't work as a copy editor now, I have in the past, so I look forward to getting my wings.


A reporter dies and goes to journalist heaven, where St. Peter issues him a harp and a set of moderate-sized wings.

"These seem kind of small," the reporter complains.

"Well," says St. Peter, "Wing size here is determined by how much abuse you suffered in your earthly life. See that guy with the butterfly-sized wings? He was a publisher. And the person with condor-sized wings? She was a night city editor."

Just then a squadron of F-16s roars overhead, forcing the two to hit the dirt.

St. Peter stands up, dusts himself off and mutters, "Damn copy editors."

2:58 AM (0) comments


The Dems debate: I'm watching a replay of Thursday night's Democrat presidential debate. Ho hum. I want to see these guys draw some blood. Best line so far: Larry King to Al Sharpton: "Rev. Sharpton, why are you in this race?"

Indeed.

2:32 AM (0) comments


What I'm reading: I've finally gotten around to reading Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the war in North Africa. The book is incredibly well-written and engaging. Even the prologue, usually part of the book that is a bore to read but necessary for understanding, is a joy to read. I've found myself repeatedly impressed by Atkinson's ability to turn a phrase. If you're a history buff at all, you ought to get out and read this book.

2:12 AM (0) comments


He's back: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has returned from his all-to-short vacation.

And he's made some news with this comment:


Let me spare you the usual economist's sermon on the virtues of free trade, except to say this: although old fallacies about international trade have been making a comeback lately (yes, Senator Charles Schumer, that means you), it is as true as ever that the U.S. economy would be poorer and less productive if we turned our back on world markets. [emphasis added]


That little comment is probably the most negative thing Krugman has said about a Democrat since he started writing for the Times. Yes, it seems pretty tame, but Krugman has seldom said a discouraging word to a Democrat.

Of course, if you read the rest of Krugman's column, he goes out of his way to praise Democrat presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry for his support of free trade. This despite Kerry's overheated rhetoric regarding "Benedict Arnold" corporations.

Oh, and if you ever doubted that Krugman was a pompous ass, this line should suffice as definitive proof.


"Trade often produces losers as well as winners," declares the best-selling textbook in international economics (by Maurice Obstfeld and yours truly).


Well, duh. If that's as insightful as Krugman's book gets, then who is the target audience? Elementary school students?

2:00 AM (0) comments

Thursday, February 26, 2004
More anti-religious bigots: I was going to rip into this Pioneer Press column by Brian Lambert, mainly because of this paragraph:


One brave and skeptical line of discussion would have been to ask Gibson, "How do you know any of this actually happened?" Journalists are supposed to be in the business of asking impertinent, uncomfortable questions. But I never heard or read anyone in any mainstream press organization wade into that one. Certainly not in the context of interviewing Gibson or in direct reference to "The Passion."


But, as I did my morning reading, I discovered (surprise!) that James Lileks had already ripped into it, and done it better than I would have.


I have on hand a hundred dollar bill I keep for emergencies – why, I don’t know, but it gives a certain amount of comfort. I would hand it over immediately just to hear the exchange that would follow if Mr. Lambert asked Mel Gibson that impertinent, uncomfortable question.

Now let us imagine Mr. Lambert reviewing an “O’Reilly Report” episode where the host began his interview with a major Muslim cleric by saying “So you actually believe in the word of Mohammed? What proof do you have?” One suspects that such an episode would be used to prove the pro-Christ bias of Murdock’s Fox empire, eh?

I await more Lambert pieces in which he goes to Iran, interviews the opposition, and asks them why they believe this Mohammed stuff. "How do you know any of this actually happened?" I can even see the headline: “Are Muslim Beliefs Grounded in Unexamined Fantasy? Devout Unable to Provide Empirical Proof of the Existence of the Transcendental Divine to Satisfy Cathode-Ray Tube Entertainment evaluator.”


From reading Brian Lambert's column and professor Clay Steinman's comments therein, do you think they have some not-so-subtle disdain for religious individuals? How does that affect their teaching/reporting? I'll be curious to see what kind of letters to the editor this dreck generates.

1:08 PM (0) comments


Social insecurity: If you missed it yesterday, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that Social Security is structurally unsound and they're going to have to do something about it.


With the economy now growing strongly, he said, the deficit "will tend to narrow somewhat" in the short term, but that won't be enough to cover the long-term federal retirement expenses of the 77 million baby boomers. The first-born members of that generation will become eligible for Social Security benefits in 2008, and for Medicare in 2011, he said. Over time, as the population ages, there will be fewer workers paying into the funds for every retiree drawing money out.

"This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources -- demands we almost surely will be unable to meet unless action is taken," Greenspan said, speaking for himself and not the Fed.

Greenspan, who chaired a commission that studied Social Security during the Reagan administration, said he would not change current retirees' benefits, but reminded members of Congress of two specific ways they could curtail the program's future growth.

He again recommended gradually raising the eligibility age for both Medicare and Social Security, to keep pace with the population's rising longevity. And he noted that they could link cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits to a measure of inflation other than the consumer price index, a widely followed measure that many economists believe overstates the rise in overall prices. A measure that showed less inflation would cause benefits to rise more slowly.


Let's be clear here, the main problem with Social Security solvency is a demographic one -- fewer workers paying benefits to a greater number of retirees. Your options are to raise the retirement age, cut benefits or dramatically increase taxes (on the people who are still working, not retirees). When Social Security was first created and the retirement age set at 65, the average American's life expectancy was much lower than it is today. Many Americans didn't reach that age, which helped with the program's solvency.

Certain "pundits" (Paul Krugman) have suggested that minor changes in taxation, etc. can ensure Social Security's solvency well into this century. If you're looking strictly at the problem from an accounting standpoint, that's probably true. Unfortunately, in the real world it's woefully inaccurate.

The Social Security (mis)"trust fund" today contains tons of IOUs from the past when more was collected by the government than needed to be disbursed. As the baby boomers retire, those IOUs will need to be redeemed -- either through blowing an even bigger hole in the deficit, borrowing (that won't last long) or raising taxes.

The current system doesn't work when the ratio of workers to retirees is low.

That's what Greenspan was talking about.

But at least one individual doesn't get it.


House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, said in a written statement that Greenspan's comments "dramatize the destructive effects of Republicans' reckless economic policies: record budget deficits, higher interest rates, lower economic growth and substantial risk to the Social Security benefits that retirees depend on."


Idiot. None of that matters in the long run, the economy can't support the influx of baby boomers into the Social Security program.

12:55 PM (0) comments


I said it first: On Saturday I pointed out that Christians aren't a major source of anti-Semitism in world. But as is typical, a highly paid columnist said it longer, and better.

12:11 AM (0) comments

Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Maureen Dowd is an idiot: That title should get me some Google hits, and it has the bonus of being true.

Dowd takes aim at both Mel Gibson for his film "The Passion" and President Bush for opposing gay marriage.

She's mad at Mel because "The Passion" made her feel angry and violent.

Solution: Take some valium.

She's mad at Bush because he's "whipping up intolerance."

Solution: Read a newspaper. Who started this? The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. If you think Bush started this thing you're definitely suffering from brain damage.

Do you have to fail an IQ test to get a job at the Times?

11:09 PM (0) comments


Davey v. Locke: Well, the Supreme Court has done it again. In its latest decision, the court has demonstrated that we need at least three more Antonin Scalias on the bench. (The way the Democrats filibuster, that will likely never happen, unfortunately.)

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the latest court ruling, Davey was a college student who decided to use a state scholarship to get a degree in pastoral ministries. The scholarship was awarded based on Davey's financial situation and his grades -- and was withdrawn only because he chose a religion-related major.

According to law prof Eugene Volokh, Justice Scalia's dissent "is far more persuasive" than that in the majority opinion. I'd have to say I agree. Following the majority's "logic" to it's logical conclusion would have insane results, Scalia notes:


Today's holding is limited to training the clergy, but its logic is readily extendible, and there are plenty of directions to go. What next? Will we deny priests and nuns their prescription-drug benefits on the ground that taxpayers' freedom of conscience forbids medicating the clergy at public expense? This may seem fanciful, but recall that France has proposed banning religious attire from schools, invoking interests in secularism no less benign than those the Court embraces today. When the public's freedom of conscience is invoked to justify denial of equal treatment, benevolent motives shade into indifference and ultimately into repression. Having accepted the justification in this case, the Court is less well equipped to fend it off in the future. I respectfully dissent.


There is an war on religion/religiousity in America, but it is being waged by only a small part of society; College professors, Hollywood liberals and the self-identifed secular "elite." The vast majority of America doesn't feel that religion should be shoved into the closet, but their voices aren't being heeded.

11:00 PM (0) comments


"An End to Evil": I recently finished David Frum and Richard Perle's "An End to Evil," and I agree with about 99 percent of what they write. The book is an excellent roadmap to dealing with the post-9/11 world, both at home and abroad.

My one area of disagreement with the authors is their attitude toward China. Frum and Perle make the standard conservative arguement that the method for democratizing China is through trade; free markets create democracy.

I'm unconvinced. If that were true, then Cuba would be a democracy now. For all the talk of the U.S. embargo on Cuba hurting that country, we're the only nation on the face of the Earth that has an embargo against them. I've never heard a convincing explanation for why it's good to embargo Cuba and not China.

Otherwise, from North Korea, to Syria, to Saudi Arabia, to the State Department, Frum and Perle lay out a solid, credible plan for dealing with the post-9/11 world. The main problem with instituting their plan is overcoming the political and intellectual inertia in this country -- and that's no easy task.

12:10 AM (0) comments

Tuesday, February 24, 2004
CD settlement: I was one of the thousands upon thousands of people who registered to get back a pittance from the music companies for sticking it to consumers with artificially high CD prices. My take: $13.86.

12:34 AM (0) comments

Monday, February 23, 2004
He's an independent: I mentioned the case of George Meagher and his recycled quote on Sunday. Well, the New York Times has corrected their mistake -- and Meagher's an independent.

I'm still waiting for formal word from public editor Daniel Okrent on what the Times policy is on recycling man-on-the-street quotes.

11:09 PM (0) comments


Insanity: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke to the Union-Tribune editorial board earlier this month, and a Q&A summary of the interview is available here.

There should be no surprise, but the interview contains some whoppers. My favorite (and by that I mean alarming) has to do with North Korea.


Is North Korea a threat?

Yes. Let me say that I hold no brief for Kim Jong Il. And having been the highest-level American official to meet him ever, in Pyongyang, and knowing full well what goes on in North Korea. It's a horrible place and the people are starving. And he is a horrible dictator. I do think, however, that we were in the process of talking with him about a verifiable agreement on limiting missile technology and the export of missile technology. What we were also doing was working out a way so that we could make a clear statement that we had no intention of aggression. And with the ultimate goal of trying to figure out whether there could be some kind of a normal relationship or diplomatic relations or some kind of path to that. And I had had interesting talks in Pyongyang with him. It made it very clear to me that he was smart and knew what he was doing.

I believe very strongly that you make arms control agreements with your enemies, not with your friends. So it was very important to try to get them within a variety of arms control regimes and then try to make them as verifiable as possible. We left a hand of cards on the table and the (Bush) administration did not pick them up.

Does the revelation by the North Koreans that they were in fact cheating on the agreement that they reached with the United States change any of your thoughts about North Korea?

First of all, I think there's some genuine confusion these days about what they really said. And whether the translations were correct. So it's hard to say.


Read that last answer again. The former secretary of state is unsure whether or not North Korea violated the 1994 Agreed Framework. This woman was in charge of the United States foreign policy -- and that should scare the bejeezus out of every American. In an effort to keep a grip on a Clinton administration "success" she attempts to deny the undeniable.

There's a lot more in the Q&A that demonstrates just how nuts the prevailing Democrat view of the world is. Just a couple more tidbits for those who are interested.

Albright on the right of a soverign state to self-defense:


There is an inherent right of self-defense for any country, which the president, as the commander in chief, exercises. The U.N. Charter is based on collective action. But Article 51 of the U.N. Charter does allow for the inherent right of self-defense. But once the international community takes a look at it, then it's supposed to be moved over to them.


That's right, once some U.N. committee (or maybe the Security Council) takes a "look" at your self-defense, then they have final say over what you're doing.

Finally, for a diplomat who's supposed to be careful with their words, this one's a doozy:


The American public knows very little about Islam and I think makes gross generalizations about people who are Muslims without understanding that that religion has been hijacked by fundamentalists. [emphasis added]


Considering what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, I might suggest she choose a different term.

3:17 AM (0) comments


Kerry and Vietnam: Not that he would have voted for him anyway, but San Diego Union-Tribune Insight editor Robert Caldwell outlines the case against John Kerry, from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran.

2:49 AM (0) comments


Then and now: A couple of interesting things are making news. First, there was this report in Sunday's Washington Post about "efforts" to deal with Osama bin Laden during Clinton's term in office.


In fashioning this sensitive policy in the midst of an impeachment crisis that lasted into early 1999, Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, struggled to forge a consensus within the White House national security team. Among other things, he had to keep on board a skeptical Attorney General Janet Reno and her Justice Department colleagues, who were deeply invested in law enforcement approaches to terrorism, according to senior officials involved.

As the months passed, Clinton signed new memos in which the language, while still ambiguous, made the use of lethal force by the CIA's Afghan agents more likely, according to officials involved. At first the CIA was permitted to use lethal force only in the course of a legitimate attempt to make an arrest. Later the memos allowed for a pure lethal attack if an arrest was not possible. Still, the CIA was required to plan all its agent missions with an arrest in mind.

Some CIA managers chafed at the White House instructions. The CIA received "no written word nor verbal order to conduct a lethal action" against bin Laden before Sept. 11, one official involved recalled. "The objective was to render this guy to law enforcement." In these operations, the CIA had to recruit agents "to grab [bin Laden] and bring him to a secure place where we can turn him over to the FBI. . . . If they had said 'lethal action' it would have been a whole different kettle of fish, and much easier."


Contrast that attitude toward terrorism (one that John Kerry would apparently revert to) with this tidbit from an upcoming book by Washington Times Pentagon correspondent Rowan Scarborough.


* al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein: Rumsfeld changed the rules of fighting against terrorists, focusing on one primary goal-killing them. Rumsfeld streamlined rules of engagement allowing soldiers on the ground to act quickly on new information. Rumsfeld also moved new special operations units under the control of the Pentagon. The book reveals how one such unit, the secret Grey Fox, could turn on cell phones without the enemy knowing it, allowing the CIA Predator to use the phone signal for a missile strike.


This is the way wars should be fought. Tying the military's hands is not advisable.

2:12 AM (0) comments

Sunday, February 22, 2004
Post-war record: Democrat Presidential hopeful John Kerry isn't the only prominent public figure decrying their detractors efforts to make an issue of their record after completing military service.

(Hoystory.com) -- Psychic medium John Edward, of the Sci-Fi channel's "Crossing Over," has reported that two prominent Americans are following Democrat Sen. John Kerry's lead in attacking their political opponents.

Kerry has been under fire recently from some Republicans for his anti-war activism in the early '70s.

Edward (the medium, not the senator) reported today that he had been contacted by Benedict Arnold and Lee Harvey Oswald, both of whom complained that historians have given them a bad rap

"Ethan Allen and I took Fort Ticonderoga. I defended Philadelphia," Arnold said. "Now, my political opponents ignore that service and focus on my later political decision to oppose the American revolution.

"They call me a traitor, but I served honorably for many years in the Continental Army," Arnold said. "Doesn't that count for anything? Why are historians questioning my patriotism?"

Oswald echoed Arnold's comments.

"I was a U.S. Marine. The few. The proud. The brave. You know the drill. So I assassinated JFK. That was a political decision," Oswald said. "My opponents should focus on my military service, not the fact that I made LBJ president."

2:29 PM (0) comments


Economics 101 for politicians: One of the latest Democrat Party complaints is that President Bush is in league with "Big Business" to secretly smuggle manufacturing jobs out of the United States. The basis of this charge is comments earlier this month by Gregory Mankiw that outsourcing certain jobs overseas is good for the economy in the long run. This statement is based on the economic principle of "comparative advantage." No, saying that this is basic economics isn't the same as saying this is good politics.

So, I wasn't completely surprised by the following exchange this morning on "Fox News Sunday."


GRANHOLM: But the reality is, Chris, you've got to come to the states where it is really happening.

In my state, we just had a company last week say 2,700 jobs in a town of 8,000 — that's like a nuclear bomb going off — are moving to Mexico, even though we offered zero taxes — zero taxes — for 20 years. We gave them a new plant. The UAW came up with concessions of $32 million a year, unprecedented.

But the company, Electrolux, chose to go to Mexico because they could pay people a $1.57 an hour. How are we supposed to compete with that when we have zero taxes...

WALLACE: But how is any president going to be able to solve that?

GRANHOLM: That's why...

WALLACE: You can rewrite a trade agreement, but that isn't going to make wages the same in Mexico as they are in Michigan.

GRANHOLM: No, clearly not, but why are we subsidizing the job losses? Why aren't we providing incentives for manufacturers to stay here? Why don't we enter trade agreements that have, at least, basic core labor and environmental standards, so that you do level the playing field?


They just don't get it. She noted that Michigan had provided numerous incentives for Electrolux to stay there, but sometimes it's just not economically feasible. What good is the company if it eventually goes under because it can no longer compete with others that are using cheaper labor?

Consumers also suffer when prices stay artificially high. My Hoover vacuum cleaner recently gave up the ghost after about seven years of use. At the time, it cost me a little over $100. Now, seven years later, I purchased a nice Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner -- also for $100. You know what? The Dirt Devil is a much better appliance than the Hoover ever was.

I realize that it is difficult when jobs are lost, but the economics is solid. Those jobs will be replaced -- and replaced by better-paying jobs. It's little solace if you're drawing unemployment, but that's the way the world works.

12:37 PM (0) comments


Bad journalism: Instapundit picked up this item on The New York Times apparently recycling a quote and changing the party affiliation of the individual quoted to better fit the premise of the story.

This incident has resulted in my first e-mail to Times public editor Daniel Okrent, politely asking for an explanation. I'll report what I learn.

Let me also put on my professional journalist hat for a moment. There's nothing inherently wrong about recycling a quote -- if you do it honestly.

For example, let's say the mayor of Normalville is being investigated for corruption. You've written stories regarding the investigation before, and the mayor has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. A few weeks later, the state (let's just say for the sake of argument) Democrat Party leader calls for the mayor to resign. You, as a good journalist, try to get ahold of the mayor to get his response, but find out that he's on vacation in France and you can't reach him. In this sort of situation it's perfectly OK to grab an old quote and re-use it as long as you make it clear it's an old quote.

At first glance, what this reporter has done doesn't appear to fall into what I would consider standard and acceptable journalistic practice. You generally don't recycle "man-on-the-street" quotes -- they're a snapshot in time. This snapshot is two weeks old. That's probably OK for a monthly magazine, but not for a daily newspaper.

If I'm this reporter's supervisor, she's getting a hand slap if this is the first time she's done something like this. I'm also going to run a correction/clarification. Correcting the party affiliation and clarifying the time frame on the latest quote. If the reporter did go back to the quoted individual recently to get a new quote, then I'll direct the reporter to do some original reporting. What was done was, at the very least, lazy reporting.

However, I don't think this sort of thing is an isolated incident -- and that's the real problem at the Times.

*UPDATE* It turns out this isn't an isolated incident. Last time it was a different reporter, but the same disease. Maybe a memo to all of the reporters is in order.

12:13 PM (0) comments


Someone, make us stop: An evil Muslim moron climbed on the No. 14 bus in Israel and blew himself up, killing at least seven and injuring more than 50.

The following statement from Palestinian "negotiator" Saeb Erekat would be funny if it weren't so sad.


Sunday's attack brought an immediate condemnation from chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.

"We condemn this attack and once again we urge the United States, and other members of the Quartet [Russia, EU and UN] to exert every possible effort to revive the peace process and put it back on track," he said.


Yeah, that'll solve the problem of the Palestinian death cult. You already had your shot back in 2000.

2:27 AM (0) comments


Rewriting history: I don't much like columnist Ann Coulter. Sorry, I know a lot of people think she's great, but her hyperbolic rhetoric makes her little more than a conservative bomb-thrower. She is to the right what the New York Times Maureen Dowd is to the left.

Having put that extended disclaimer on the record, this column about how Democrats are attempting to turn former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland into some sort of liberal martyr by unnecessarily embroidering his war record, is an excellent article.

Cleland lost three limbs in Vietnam, but he didn't lose them to hostile fire. He reached for a grenade that he thought he had dropped -- one he didn't think was live.


The story started to change only last year when the Democrats began citing Cleland's lost Senate seat as proof that Republicans hate war heroes. Indeed, until the myth of Republicans attacking Cleland for his lack of "patriotism" became central to the Democrats' narrative against George Bush, Cleland spoke only honorably and humbly about his accident. "How did I become a war hero?" he said to the Boston Globe reporter in 1997. "Simple. The grenade went off."

Cleland even admitted that, but for his accident, he would have "probably been some frustrated history teacher, teaching American government at some junior college." (OK, I got that wrong: I said he'd probably be a pharmacist.)

Cleland's true heroism came after the war, when he went on to build a productive life for himself. That is a story of inspiration and courage. He shouldn't let the Democrats tarnish an admirable life by "sexing up" his record in order to better attack George Bush.


Coulter's point was that the accident that cost Cleland three limbs was the sort that could happen to anyone in any branch of the military anywhere -- even in the National Guard.

For the record: A couple of weeks ago Democrat presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry equated going to jail, being a conscientious objector and fleeing to Canada with joining the National Guard.

Let's set aside for a moment the fact that National Guard troops were sent to Vietnam and died there. Let's also set aside the fact that when George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard that other TANG pilots were in Vietnam.

You can say that the goal of doing all of those things (jail, objector, Canada, National Guard) was to avoid being drafted and sent to the war in Vietnam. In that way they're the same. But, of those four possibilities, joining the National Guard is the most honorable.

Kerry's equating the National Guard with fleeing to Canada as thousands of them serving in Iraq today just isn't too bright. As evidenced by the following comic from Chris Muir.




1:41 AM (0) comments

Saturday, February 21, 2004
Not quite: I just got done reading a little recounting of a hysterical post by Eric "What Liberal Media" Alterman over at RealClearPolitics and just had to point one thing out.


This is delusional in the extreme. "Sensible" people have "only one hope"? Liberals bemoan the fact that Bush has used fear to divide the country since 9/11, yet here they are now trying to motivate voters with talk of the Apocalypse. Alterman & Co. are just a tiny hop, skip and a jump from proclaiming George W. Bush the Antichrist. You can just feel it.


The members of the loony left, like Alterman, are in no danger of proclaiming George W. Bush the Antichrist. See, in order for them to do that, first they'd have to believe in God. Then they'd have to believe that Christ actually lived and that he was something more than a pretty hip philosopher. Nope, there's no danger of them tagging Bush with the "Antichrist" brush.

11:59 PM (0) comments


Running for Senate in a red state: South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle isn't a fool. The senior senator is running for re-election in a state President Bush easily carried in 2000 and he doesn't want to become a victim of Bush's coattails in 2004.


Daschle told state chamber of commerce representatives meeting in the South Dakota capital that he is satisfied with the way things are going in Iraq.

"I give the effort overall real credit," Daschle said. "It is a good thing Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. It is a good thing we are democratizing the country."

He said he is not upset about the debate over pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, an issue that has dogged President Bush as Democratic presidential contenders have slogged through the primary season.


Now, this doesn't mean that Daschle will disavow or take to task the likely Democrat presidential nominee, whether it be John Kerry or John Edwards, on the issue. Though Daschle's opponent, John Thune, should pressure him to.

9:41 PM (0) comments


Is Bush in trouble?: Much has been made in the media the past few days of this poll which shows both John Kerry and John Edwards leading President Bush by double digits in a hypothetical general election matchup. After nearly two months of free anti-Bush campaign ads masquerading as a Democrat primary, this is no surprise. I don't think there's been another presidential party primary in modern history where there was so little in the way of intramural attacks -- 95 percent of the negative campaigning has been directed at President Bush.

Of course, these polls are meaningless at this point. Bush has just barely begun to fight back. Once the Democrat presidential nominee has been settled (very likely on March 2) the Republicans will begin to focus their attacks on that man.

For those who need some encouragement on the polling front, there is this little-reported poll from Zogby International.


A new poll conducted by Zogby International for The O’Leary Report and Southern Methodist University’s John Tower Center from February 12-15, 2004 of 1,209 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points found that if the election for president were held today, Democrat John Kerry would edge George W. Bush 46% to 45% in the “blue states” – or states won by Al Gore in the 2000 election. In the “red states,” or states won by George W. Bush in 2000, however, Bush wins handily by a 51% to 39% margin.


Read that again. In the states Bush lost last time around, he's in a statistical dead heat with Kerry. In the states Bush carried last time, Kerry's getting battered.

If the 2004 election were a repeat of 2000, then Bush would have an even larger electoral vote victory due to reapportionment.

This poll also shows that, at least among Bush's base, the months long Democrat attacks have had little impact.

5:36 PM (0) comments


Bypassing the Dems: President Bush yesterday gave a recess appointment to Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor to the federal appeals court. Pryor is the second federal judge (the first was Charles Pickering) Bush has given a recess appointment in response to an illegal Democrat filibuster.

The first Times article, which appeared yesterday on the Web site, curiously contains the following paragraph, which demonstrates the depth of the rot that has infected a once-great newspaper's news pages.


Mr. Pryor is known for, among other things, defending the right of high school athletes to pray "spontaneously" and for his initial support of an Alabama state judge who posted the Ten Commandments in his courtroom and erected a monument engraved with the Commandments in the Supreme Court rotunda.


Can anyone name another prominent southerner who defended the right of high school students to pray "spontaneously"? I'll give you a hint: He had problems keeping his trousers buckled.

The article also brings up Pryor's "initial" support of Judge Roy Moore of Ten Commandments fame. What the article irresponsibly leaves out is that once Moore failed to obey a judicial order to have the monument removed, Pryor prosecuted him and had him removed from office.

That action, and a laundry list of others, proves that Democrat criticisms of Pryor's "deeply held beliefs" preventing him from following the law are merely a smokescreen.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer also demonstrates in this latest event that he has no business on the Senate Judiciary Committee.


"The president is on shaky ground with the hard right and is using this questionably legal and politically shabby technique to bolster himself," Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Judiciary Committee member, said on Friday. "Regularly circumventing the advise-and-consent process is not the way to change the tone in Washington. It's shabby and the motivation is political more than anything else." [emphasis added]


Questionably legal? Is it possible that Schumer has failed an IQ test? The tool is perfectly legal. If he wants to talk about questionable legality he should be looking at his party's filibusters.

Schumer's moronic (and my use of that term may be offensive to morons) behavior and political tactics when it comes to judges -- especially minority judges who just happen to be politically conservative -- recalled this item from Minnesota.

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's nominee for state education commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke, has riled Democrats.

Pawlenty's response is one that President Bush could direct towards the Democrats in the Senate.


Pawlenty described Yecke as highly qualified and her detractors as "apologists for the status quo." He added: "Not liking somebody's policy direction isn't a good reason to tube a confirmation. If they don't like the policy direction, they should maybe win an election. That might be a new idea for them."


Elections have consequences. You'd think Schumer would have learned that by now.

2:34 PM (0) comments


Quick point on anti-Semitism and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ": I've been watching some of the TV reporting and listening to some talk radio where various individuals have been discussing "The Passion." The concern that has been raised is that the movie may create anti-Semitic feeling and lead to violence against Jews.

I haven't seen the film, but this claim is hogwash.

Most Christians nowadays -- especially in the United States -- aren't anti-Semitic. (And the Christians that are anti-Semitic aren't very devoted Christians.)

There is a rise in anti-Semitism in the world, but it is liberal secularists in Europe and radical Muslims that are the source of it. This movie will do nothing to sway the beliefs of those two groups -- should they even see it.

2:28 AM (0) comments

Friday, February 20, 2004
Iraq war fallout: Pardon the pun, but Libya's WMD program was able to make some plutonium for a nuclear weapon.

Libya has agreed to international inspections and to give up its WMD programs because our diplomats asked them nicely the swift and brutal manner in which Saddam Hussein's regime was taken care of scared Libya's leader Moammar Qaddafi.

1:00 PM (0) comments


Stick a fork in him: Dean is done. Of course, Dean was done after he got his butt kicked in both Iowa and New Hampshire -- he just didn't know it.

The Dean campaign's biggest problem all along wasn't anything they could do anything about -- you can't fire the candidate.

Today's New York Times reports that one of Howard Dean's biggest backers -- the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union -- has concluded that Dean suffers from mental problems.


"I have to vent," Mr. (Gerald W.) McEntee, the often blunt leader of the nation's largest public service union, said in a leisurely interview in his office here. "I think he's nuts."


Now he tells us.

Dean has had one lasting effect on the Democrat Party for this election cycle -- he's pulled it far to the left.

Both John Kerry and John Edwards voted against the $87 billion in supplemental funding for the troops and the rebuilding of Iraq -- largely because Dean's attacks on them for supporting the war in the first place were propelling him into the lead.

Of course, their flip-flops to assuage their base will give President Bush even more ammunition when the general election fight comes.

12:18 PM (0) comments

Thursday, February 19, 2004
Blogworthy: Fox News' "Special Report with Brit Hume" did a little report on the swank Georgetown digs that Democrat Senators John Kerry and John Edwards live in (Edwards owns his; Kerry's wife, Madame Ketchup owns the other). Both of the homes are more than 100 years old and each is worth north of $3 million.

So, they're both ridiculously wealthy. Nothing wrong with that.

But what's funny, as reported in the usually amusing "Grapevine" segment of the program, was the fact that a woman came out of Edwards' house while the Fox News reporter was taping his report and forbade him from taking pictures of the home without permission from the campaign HQ in Raleigh, N.C.

The reporter was standing on a public street and sidewalk and told her to basically get stuffed.

The woman reportedly told the reporter: "You'll hear from us," and then proceeded to follow the reporter around in her car.

Not too bright on the woman's part. Why? Well, the story itself wasn't notable. It lasted no more than three minutes or so. And I wouldn't have posted anything about it.

But by trying to stifle it, the woman made the report a whole lot more amusing -- and now it's a permanent part of the Internet.

Ma'am, you've been blogged.

1:56 AM (0) comments

Wednesday, February 18, 2004
And then there were two: John Edwards made a strong enough showing yesterday to effectively make it a two man race with Sen. John Kerry. Edwards still has a lot of work to do, but it appears as though March 2 will be the date we finally find out for sure who the Democrats' nominee will be.

Kerry is still undoubtedly the frontrunner, but Edwards is not out of it.

The next two weeks will be very interesting.

2:25 AM (0) comments


Covering for Glenn Frankel?: I mentioned an article on the BBC's Web site earlier this week that contained a quote by a Washington Post writer by the name of Glenn Frankel. Frankel asserted that proof of Kerry philandering wouldn't suprise anyone and the Post wouldn't run with the story even if they had photos to prove it.

Well, it's a day later and the outrageous part of the quote has disappeared from the BBC article.

It was there. Honest. I'm not the only one who noticed it.

1:50 AM (0) comments


More on infidelity and presidential politics: I mentioned earlier this week the crippling effect a proclivity to philander can have in a president. My thoughts along that line regarding former President Bill Clinton focused on the events which occurred in his second term.

But Slate's Mickey Kaus observes that Clinton's "bimbo eruptions" also affected his first term and possibly had an effect on the Democrats loss of Congress for the first time in decades.


Clinton's philandering in fact heavily impacted both his terms in office. First, his wife had the goods on him, which encouraged him to defer to her in giving her health care plan priority over welfare reform and defending it past the moment of compromise--the biggest mistakes of his first four years, mistakes that led directly to GOP control of the Congress. Second, because Clinton got away on the philandering charge in 1992 (thanks to all the Democrats covering for him) he was encouraged to think he could get away with it in office, even in front of a federal judge, with the obvious disastrous results for his second term. [emphasis in original]


The issue is relevant and shouldn't be hidden from the voting public.

1:40 AM (0) comments

Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Mel Gibson's "Passion": I watched most of Mel Gibson's interview on ABC last night (I think I missed the first 5-10 minutes) and was impressed. Gibson's description of the flaws in the past and how, by the grace of God, he finally overcame many of them, was inspiring.

I'll see the "Passion" when it comes out -- probably after the crowds die down a little bit. I hate crowded movie theaters.

Anyway, I mention that so I could point you toward this post by MCJ's Christopher Johnson.

I was particularly impressed by the stupidity of former Catholic priest and writer James Carroll:


All of this is to say that death was not the purpose of Jesus' life but only one part of a story that stretches from incarnation at Bethlehem to life as a Jew in Nazareth to preaching in Galilee to a courageous challenge to Roman imperialism in Jerusalem to permanent faith in the God of Israel whose promise is fulfilled in resurrection. In this full context, the death of Jesus can be seen as a full signal of his humanity -- and more. [emphasis added]


Theologians and seminary students, discuss.

12:41 PM (0) comments


An honor for Hoystory: I don't know how it happened, but Hoystory comes in this week at No. 7 on the BloggerForum Top 10 Blogspot sites of the week.

An explanation of the criterion for winning is located here. I read that and it's still as clear as mud exactly how you get into the Top 10.

Anyway, I'd like to thank thank the Academy...

1:31 AM (0) comments


Kerry scandal update: Well, the woman at the center of the alleged affair with Sen. John Kerry has now denied that anything happened. Her parents -- the same ones apparently who thought Kerry a "sleazeball" last week -- have come out with a statement claiming they love Kerry and will vote for him.

I'm sorry, but the parents' flip-flop seems odd to say the least.

I also don't know how to reconcile the young woman's claims that there's no there there with an earlier report that she gave a tell-all interview to an American TV network.

Time will tell.

On a related media note: I'm troubled by comments by The Washington Post's London correspondent Glenn Frankel to the BBC.


"We've been down this road many, many times before. We are extremely reluctant to follow this kind of thing up unless there is a really, really compelling public interest. We don't feel there is any reason to until it reaches a threshold.

"All we have at the moment is that the woman's parents, who are republicans, [sic] don't like Senator Kerry.

"In any case, nobody would be too shocked if Kerry lied about an affair. Even if someone came to us with photographs we still wouldn't run it. Lying to Don Imus [the radio host to whom Kerry gave his initial denial] is not a federal offence." [emphasis added]


The elite media may not care, but they should. We've had several years of experience on how a president can be crippled when his private peccadillos influence his public policy. Many Americans would be wary of a man who would lie not only to his wife, but to all America about his infidelity.


The Post may not be interested in it -- but that says more about the state of "elite" journalism than it does the politics of infidelity.

1:08 AM (0) comments

Monday, February 16, 2004
There were no good ol' days: Tower Records and the end of an era, courtesy of Radley Balko.

11:32 PM (0) comments


Assignment -- San Francisco: For the past few days, the city of San Francisco has been passing out fake marriage licenses to gullible gay couples. "Progressives" are lauding the act of "civil disobedience."

So, will someone...anyone...get two friends of the opposite sex and try to get a marriage license for three. If they're going to do this, let's see exactly how "progressive" they're willing to be.

11:20 PM (0) comments


Nice guys finish last: So, I'm flipping channels and I come across NBC's "Fear Factor," or as I like to call it: "Gross-out morons on parade." Apparently today's episode is the couples' challenge. The contest appears to be for the female half of the couple to spend one minute in a box with a bunch of tarantulas crawling all over her.

Well, this one woman is having an absolute nervous breakdown and her boyfriend is pressuring her like you wouldn't believe (or maybe you would) to get in that box with the spiders. I'm sitting here thinking: What kind of jackass would put the woman he allegedly loves through this -- for any amount of money?

And it gets worse. She's apologizing to him for not wanting to go through with it. "Don't hate me," she says.

Nice guys finish last and some women are just incredibly stupid.

8:46 PM (0) comments


SNL's Weekend Update: I'm sure many of you are familiar with Brazil's decision to photograph and fingerprint American visitors to that nation as a lame rebuke to the fact that we do something similar to their citizens (and most other nations') when they visit the United States. We do it to try to track terrorists and others who would wish us ill; they do it to be annoying.

So, according to "Saturday Night Live's" Weekend Update, Brazil's carnivale will have a 12-foot statue of Uncle Sam with his pants down and genitals exposed. (Whatever makes you Brazilians feel better.)

But the real joke was Weekend Update's report which referred to former President Bill Clinton describing Uncle Sam's proposed attire as "business casual."

7:06 PM (0) comments


Monthly banging of the tip jar: It's Presidents' Day and if you appreciate Hoystory and wish to send a few presidents my way, there's Amazon and Paypal links on the left. I'd also like to mention the Google ads, which are great for transferring funds from various Democrat campaigns to Hoystory. If you see a Howard Dean or John Kerry ad, click on it, deplete their warchests and support Hoystory.

If all of that seems like small potatoes and you're a reader of enormous wealth (Bill Gates, this means you), feel free to purchase this item for me.

1:40 PM (0) comments


Think this might be relevant?: The Alabama National Guard base commander who Democrats have cited as an authority on "Bush never showed up" claim, suffers from Alzheimer's.


Retired Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, the 187th's Tactical Reconnaissance Group's former commander, recanted his statement that he couldn't remember if Bush reported for duty, now saying his memory is faulty because he's in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's disease.

And The Boston Globe, which took the lead in challenging Bush's Guard service, reported serious doubts about the account given by one of Bush's prime accusers.

Turnipseed reversed gear after retired Lt. Col. John "Bill" Calhoun went public to say he remembered Bush well, and that in fact it was Turnipseed, then a colonel, who introduced Bush to him.

"Col. Turnipseed brought [Bush] in when he first came to me. I just know that he saw him there," Calhoun told The Post. Turnipseed said he regards Calhoun as trustworthy and believes he'd remember it correctly.


Will the stupid, irrelevant questions from the Washington media continue? Probably.

12:12 PM (0) comments


Whistleblower vs. thief: Senate Democrats have revealed the party affiliations of these two types of people. A whistleblower is always a Democrat and a thief is always a Republican. And Democrats accuse Republicans of always seeing things in black and white.

12:02 PM (0) comments

Sunday, February 15, 2004
Krauthammer at the AEI: Columnist Charles Krauthammer gave the annual Irving Kristol lecture last week at the American Enterprise Institute. You can find the text of his talk here. It's long, but I can't emphasize enough how worthwhile it is for every American in this post-9/11 world.

Krauthammer divides foreign policy into four major schools of thought and the implications of each and exposes the Democrat Party's beliefs (liberal internationalism) for the foolishness they are.


The other defining feature of the Clinton foreign policy was multilateralism, which expressed itself in a mania for treaties. The Clinton administration negotiated a dizzying succession of parchment promises on bioweapons, chemical weapons, nuclear testing, carbon emissions, anti-ballistic missiles, etc.

Why? No sentient being could believe that, say, the chemical or biological weapons treaties were anything more than transparently useless. Senator Joseph Biden once defended the Chemical Weapons Convention, which even its proponents admitted was unenforceable, on the grounds that it would “provide us with a valuable tool”--the “moral suasion of the entire international community.”

Moral suasion? Was it moral suasion that made Qaddafi see the wisdom of giving up his weapons of mass destruction? Or Iran agree for the first time to spot nuclear inspections? It was the suasion of the bayonet. It was the ignominious fall of Saddam--and the desire of interested spectators not to be next on the list. The whole point of this treaty was to keep rogue states from developing chemical weapons. Rogue states are, by definition, impervious to moral suasion.


A vote for John Kerry, or any other Democrat (with Joe Lieberman out of the race) is a vote for surrender in the war on terror. With Al Gore as president, the Taliban probably would have been defeated. But Saddam Hussein would still be in power, and possibly no longer under U.N. sanctions. Libya would still be secretly building a WMD program. Iran would still be holding the IAEA at arms length as it built nuclear weapons.

In an effort to win French, German and Russian approval for our foreign policy, Democrats would have done little -- and the world would be a much more dangerous place.

10:28 PM (0) comments


More on possible Kerry affair: Britain's Sun newspaper is reporting that the "other woman" in Sen. John Kerry's alleged affair has recorded a tell-all interview with an American TV network.

According to the paper, the network is sitting on the tape until they can verify the woman's story to their satisfaction.

I'm curious as to which network has the interview -- and when they're going to have all their ducks in a row and go ahead with airing it.

9:50 PM (0) comments

Saturday, February 14, 2004
Five stars: from a reader in San Diego, Calif.:

Hoystory is the best blog in the history of the Internet, nay the World. Never before has their been a Web site with such depth and breadth. Hoystory stands as a colossus astride the blogosphere, blotting out the inconsequential and overrated -- such as Instapundit, Altercation, Kausfiles and others to inconsequential to name.

6:10 PM (0) comments

Thursday, February 12, 2004
Politics and history: Last weekend I finally got around to seeing "The Pianist." The movie is the story of Polish Jewish concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman and how he survived World War II through luck and the help of friends and other people who risked their lives to save him from the concentration camps.

There are several scenes in the movie which show the utter disregard for human life the Nazis had. One memorable scene had a German officer stopping a group of Jewish workers, picking out 8-10 at random, ordering them to lie down, and then methodically shooting each once in the head -- one by one.

As I watched the movie, what I started thinking about was how some many on the left love to liken President Bush to Adolf Hitler and Republicans to Nazis. Not only is it wrong and offensive to Bush and the Republicans, but such comparisons also have the effect of minimalizing and trivializing what happened to millions of Jews.

I write this now because Fox News is showing clips of today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Democrats are complaining about the GOP leaking memos that at least cast the Democrats in a bad light, and at worst show some of them to be corrupt.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the architect of the Democrats' ideological litmus test for judges, has likened the leak of memos, which were stored unprotected on a shared computer server, to "Stalinist Russia...it's like Nazi Germany..."

Senator. No it is not. It is not even close. And your suggestion that it is is offensive and disgusting.

3:59 PM (0) comments


New hope for Edwards, Dean: Well, it appears as though Sen. John Kerry has a a little Bill Clinton problem. According to Matt Drudge, Kerry apparently had a recent (read 2002 or sooner) affair with an intern.

The question is, what does this mean for the primary campaign, assuming there is enough information to corroborate the reports?

This could turn the race for the Democrat nomination into a two-man race -- between Sen. John Edwards and Gov. Howard Dean.

As exit poll after exit poll has shown, the majority of Kerry supporters are voting for him because they believe he "can beat President Bush." His policy positions don't enter into the equation.

While infidelity may not offend his socially liberal base, it could certainly have an effect on those swing voters in the middle who don't want to have the country go through another Monica Lewinsky-type episode -- especially while in the middle of a war on terrorism. Even the liberals who accept Kerry just the way he is will recognize that his main quality -- electability -- will take a big hit from the charges.

Maybe states like California and New York, which don't vote until March 2, will have a say in who the Democrat nominee is. The media's portrayal of Kerry as the presumptive nominee may be a little presumptuous.

3:45 PM (0) comments

Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Multilateralism or unilateralism?: A New York Times editorial today on the deteriorating situation in Haiti and calls on the United States to get involved -- without U.N. approval.

Essay Questions:

1. Detail the differences between Iraq's and Haiti's "democratically elected" presidents and the treatment of their people.

2. Compare and contrast Haiti and Iraq's roles in the war on terror.

3. Construct a justification for why intervention in Iraq requires U.N. approval and Haiti doesn't even require U.N. consultation.

6:12 PM (0) comments


How do you know when you're persona non grata: So, Donald Luskin gets quoted in the New York Times as part of a non-Paul Krugman related story. Now, not only did the reporter apparently mischaracterize the substance of Luskin's position, but also screwed up the name of his company.

So today's Times runs the following correction on the name mistake -- not the substance mistake:


An article in Business Day yesterday about PeopleSoft's rejection of the latest takeover offer from Oracle misstated the name of an economics consulting firm whose chief investment officer said many stockholders were waiting as long as possible to tender their PeopleSoft shares in case a better offer came along. It is Trend Macrolytics, not Trend Macroanalytics.


The Times won't even bring themselves to write Luskin's name -- again.

12:57 AM (0) comments

Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Kerry's big media supporters: From London's Guardian newspaper:


Fresh from his latest win in Maine, the favourite to challenge George Bush for the US presidency has secured the financial support of some of the most powerful media moguls in the world.

As John Kerry's campaign to secure the Democrat nomination - and with it a crack at the White House - continues to gather pace, it has emerged that it is being bankrolled by key executives from News Corporation, MTV-owner Viacom and Sony.

The victory in Maine, Mr Kerry's 10th out of the 12 primaries in the opening weeks of the Democrat selection campaign, confirmed his position as overwhelming favourite to take on President Bush in November's presidential election.

Unsurprisingly, the donation from News Corp's boardroom came not from chairman Rupert Murdoch, a committed Republican, but from the company's chief operating officer, Peter Chernin.


Oh, that liberal media.

12:11 PM (0) comments


Kerry on leadership: So, "Hannity and Colmes" is showing some of then-Lt. John Kerry's testimony before Congress back on April 22, 1971, and Kerry makes the following statement:


We are here to ask, and we're here to ask vehemently: "Where are the leaders of our country?" Where is the leadership? We're here to ask William McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric and so many others: "Where are they now that we the men that they sent off to war have returned?" These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war.


So, deserting the troops is the most serious crime in the law of war? So, I'm guessing that being a Senator and, say, voting to authorize the president to send the troops into battle and later voting to cut off funding for them would be tantamount to say ... desertion?

Or is raising that issue regarding a Democrat's voting record the same as "questioning their patriotism?"

For a complete transcript of Kerry's testimony, look here.

2:23 AM (0) comments


Miracle on Ice: I saw Kurt Russell's latest flick, "Miracle" yesterday. Let me get the minor nitpick out of the way to start. The opening credits are a montage of images from the 1970s to help give the viewer the sense of what former President Jimmy Carter referred to as our "national malaise." The voiceovers on the credits are designed to sound like radio or tv broadcasts. The very first voiceover refers to the passage of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution giving 18-year-olds the right to vote. The voiceover says that the Amendment has passed both houses of Congress " and now goes to the president."

The President has no role active role in the Amendment process.

Now, the movie. I dimly remember watching the semi-final game against the Soviets as a youth, and, like many, I didn't know the difference "between a clothesline and a blue line."

Kurt Russell does an excellent job of portraying legendary coach Herb Brooks -- right town to the Minnesota accent, eh. Brooks is a man on a mission, every decision he makes is a step in achieving the ultimate goal of defeating the juggernaut that was the Soviet hockey team.

Brooks breaks the team down -- focusing on eliminating the Minnesota vs. Boston, Mass. tension by directing their ire towards himself.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The hockey players in the movie are just that -- hockey players -- they're not really actors, but they all do a credible job and don't take anything away from the film.

If you're looking for a good, family film, then this is one you definitely should see.

2:05 AM (0) comments


Get the straitjacket: Former Vice President Al Gore has lost his mind.


"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."


This gets filed under: "If a Republican said it about a Democrat, it'd be hate speech."

Sanity and Gore are fast becoming strangers. Gore is obviously suffering from an acute case of the Bill Clinton disease -- wishing one was president when tragedy occurs, thus solidifying your "legacy."

It still eats Gore that his Florida voters weren't intelligent enough to punch the right hole, and the state Supreme Court was overruled as it tried to give Democrat partisans enough time to manufacture votes in a few counties.

The video of Gore's little speech is scary. Thank heavens that Gore was not elected -- I don't think he could have taken the pressure resulting from dealing with the 9/11 attacks.

1:26 AM (0) comments

Monday, February 09, 2004
Food for thought: The logic behind the condensed and early primary season was to provide Democrats with a nominee early and head off any wacko (Deanlike) insurgency. The thought (apparently) was that having a nominee with nine months to go before the election would give the Democrat Party plenty of time to do fundraising and really rally behind their candidate.

But doesn't it also give the Republicans a lot of time to do opposition research and really tear down the Democrat nominee?

Kerry really hasn't been asked a whole lot of tough questions yet. You think Bush didn't do so hot on "Meet the Press" yesterday? Just wait until you see Russert armed with reams of GOP opposition research.

This early/condensed primary season may turn out to have been a bad idea for the Democrats.

4:00 AM (0) comments


Bush and Russert: Just finished watching the recording of Sunday's "Meet the Press."

Russert, true to form asked some tough questions. Second, Bush is no Alan Keyes when it comes to eloquence and sheer force of personality.

If I'm handing out grades, I give Bush a "C". This interview wasn't a deciding factor for any voter. He probably didn't win over anyone opposed to his policies and I don't think he lost any supporters either. For those independents in the middle, this is far too early to make a decision.

It was a good thing for Bush to get out there on the air. For nearly two months the Democrats have garnered the majority of the media attention (and rightly so) as they go through their primaries. Bush needed the opportunity to do a little fighting back -- even if he didn't do so as strongly as I would have liked.

3:54 AM (0) comments


Storytime: I didn't mention it earlier, but David Brooks Saturday column is a hoot. I can just imagine him leaning over and, in a singsong voice, reading it to a small child.

2:56 AM (0) comments

Friday, February 06, 2004
Fisking Krugman: The Econopundit has taken a close look at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's latest screed and sliced and diced it.

9:51 PM (0) comments


The party of special interests: If you'd been listening to the Democrat presidential hopefuls you'd think that the GOP is bought and paid for by special interests. Well, you'd be wrong.

There's more fallout from the infamous Senate Judiciary memos. The fired GOP staffer that I mentioned earlier this week has said that we haven't seen the worst of the memos, according to National Review's Byron York.


In a letter delivered to the committee Friday morning, Manuel Miranda says he has read "documents evidencing public corruption by elected officials and staff of the United States Senate."


The original memos included ones referencing Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Could they be corrupt? What do you think?

12:38 PM (0) comments


Hooters and High School: There's been a little brouhaha in Georgia over a high school senior who's working as a hostess at the local Hooters restaurant. She wears khaki pants and a polo shirt -- not the well-known tight tops and orange shorts that the waitresses wear.The job is part of a work-study program that gives kids school credit for holding down a job.

The superintendent of schools has decided that the girl, Laura Williams, will not receive school credit because Hooters isn't an appropriate venue for the work-study program.

Personally, I think this is no big deal. I've been to a Hooters once. It's not a big deal. Yes, there are attractive female waitresses. This is California, the local Denny's has attractive female waitresses.

But that aside, the reason I bring up this story (and see it as no big deal) was because I had a similar story fall into my lap in my first reporting job -- only it was 100 times better.

It never actually made it into the paper, because I couldn't get the paperwork I needed to get it past the lawyer.

You see, there was this high school student who got a job answering phones for a local company. The school never actually checked out the company, because, according to the paperwork the student submitted, it was run by the head of the local chapter of the NAACP. He well-known and respected member of the community.

After she turned 18, the girl stopped answering the phones and started going out on calls -- as a stripper.

They later found out that the guy running the business was not the head of the NAACP, but his son. As I was grilling the school principal, I had a hard time getting any information out of him because I kept bumping into the student's privacy rights. However, I was able to find out the reason they hadn't checked up on this business before approving the student's work-study program.

"Was the form incomplete?" I asked.

"Yes," the principal replied.

"Was the employer's name incomplete?"

"Yes."

"Was it missing a comma, two letters and a period?"

He chuckled. "Yes."

So, in the grand scheme of things, Hooters is no big deal.

2:33 AM (0) comments


Mad Mac Users: I've used Macs. I've used PCs. They're a tool, and nothing more.

But there is a small group of Mac users who seem to derive their sense of self from their overpriced, software-limited machines.

Case in point:


The Overclockers.com website published a barely believable hoax last week detailing the gutting of a brand new and very expensive Power Mac G5. This brought on an unbelievable reaction from the Mac community.

The hoaxer, identified only as "Andy," claimed he received a dual-processor G5 for Christmas. But preferring a Windows PC, he swapped out the insides of the $3,000 machine for the guts of a cheapo PC. The post included several digital photographs to prove the outrageous claim.

The stunt quickly became meme of the week. As news of it spread around the world, it generated the best traffic ever for the long-running Overclockers site, which claimed more than 300,000 visitors a day.

Reaction from the Mac community was swift and brutal.

Andy said his e-mail inbox quickly filled to capacity, with more than 1,300 messages, and an unknown number bounced. The mail he did receive was full of nice, kind thoughts like death threats, insults and all kinds of colorful invective.

"I hope your PC blows up and leaves your miserable face disfigured forever," read one. "You will surely burn in hell for an eternity for this one."

Another said Andy should be hung by his testicles and set on fire.


I know some Mac people who I don't think are this ... militant.

Why?

Because they own an Xbox.

But the people mentioned in the article need some serious therapy.

1:46 AM (0) comments

Thursday, February 05, 2004
There's a term for this sort of thing: And ... let me see ... yes ... here it is ... it's hypocrisy. Democrat presidential hopeful John Kerry has been attacking the Bush administration for being beholden to special interests when *gasp* he has too!


WASHINGTON - A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project. John Kerry (news - web sites) stepped in and blocked the legislation.

Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns.

Were the two connected? Kerry says not.

But to some government watchdogs, the tale of the Massachusetts senator's 2000 intervention, detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, is a textbook case of the special interest politicking that Kerry rails against on the presidential trail.

"The idea that Kerry has not helped or benefited from a specific special interest, which he has said, is utterly absurd," said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity that just published a book on political donations to the presidential candidates.


Kerry's riding high in the polls now with his numerous victories, but he isn't a knight in shining armor for the Democrat party. He's got plenty of flaws, and, as they are exposed, he will come back down to Earth.

2:47 AM (0) comments


Bush and the environment: The axiom is: Every Republican since Teddy Roosevelt has done everything in their power to turn the environment into some post-apocalyptic wasteland. Everything every Democrat does is sure to improve the enviornment, making it more like a modern-day Eden every day.

That being said, The New Republic's Gregg Easterbrook points out that scientists have actually determined that President Bush isn't actually the Toxic Polluting Demon from Hell.


This new study from the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that while air pollution is declining, the reduction could be accelerated by a "multi-state, multi-pollutant" approach that sets broad overall reduction targets, then allows industrial facilities to trade reduction permits with each other. (Current Clean Air Act rules generally require cumbersome site-by-site, pollutant-by-pollutant litigation.) It's, um, a scientific study, and so perhaps The New York Times might have been forgiven for reporting it in a short article on page A11, while The Washington Post might have been forgiven for according the study but three grafs under "Washington in Brief." Here's what was missing from the coverage. The "multi-state, multi-pollutant" approach just endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences is exactly what the Bush administration has proposed to adopt under its Clear Skies initiative.


What? How is this possible? What's next? Dogs and cats living together?

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the New York Times actually lauds the report. Now, the Times editorial doesn't mention "Clear Skies" at all -- is it possible that the Times doesn't realize that it's endorsing a Bush environmental plan derided by environmental groups?

2:35 AM (0) comments


Disgusting: The gutless GOP senators have fired an aide who was accused of leaking damning Democrat judiciary memos to the press.

With the collusion of many in the press (read The New York Times) the Democrats have deflected outrage from their own pandering to liberal special interest groups to the fact that some GOP staffer was able to reveal it.

Is there going to be any outrage from the mainstream media that a whistleblower was fired from his job because of Democrat pressure?

I'm disgusted by how little the Republicans in the Senate have done to get President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed, and then they cave on this.

Senate Majority leader Bill Frist needs a backbone transplant.

1:40 AM (0) comments


McAfee VirusScan is garbage: I got home tonight and found that I had been the honored recipient of a grand total of 161 copies of the MyDoom virus. The McAfee antivirus program, instead of just notifying me: "You've received 161 e-mails infected with the MyDoom virus," had me click a total of 322 times to acknowledge the fact. This is stupid. STAY AWAY from McAfee. It is evil.

12:17 AM (0) comments

Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Bush's National Guard service: For those of you who aren't up to speed on the latest inside-the-beltway scandal, "Bush was AWOL," here are some links for your education and edification.

First, the inestimable Bill Hobbs has a plethora of posts on the subject.

For those of you who don't trust any blogger other than myself, a non-partisan Web site, Factcheck.org, also has a list of facts regarding Bush's military service.

To summarize what you will find above, yes, Bush got special treatment getting into the Texas Air National Guard. Everything else DNC Chairman Terry McAulliffe, Michael Moore and their ilk have been saying is lies.

The curious thing is why Democrats are seemingly concerned about this issue now. After all, when Bill Clinton was the party's nominee, they sang a different tune.


Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat whose backers have raised questions about President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, once assailed critics of President Clinton’s lack of military service, saying, "We do not need to divide America over who served and how."

The Massachusetts senator, a decorated Vietnam veteran, went to the Senate floor in 1992 to defend Clinton, who was being dogged in his presidential campaign by charges that he dodged the draft.

Kerry compared Clinton’s critics to "latter-day Spiro Agnews" by playing "to the worst instincts of divisiveness and reaction that still haunt America. Are we now going to create a new scarlet letter in the context of Vietnam?"

"The race for the White House should be about leadership and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them," Kerry said at the time.


The Democrats also didn't address the issue when Vietnam veteran Al Gore was running against Bush. Why? Because Gore's service was seen as insulating his anti-war father from criticism, and the younger Gore had bodyguards. Bush got special treatment to get into the National Guard, but Gore got extraordinary treatment designed to keep him alive in a war zone.

Kerry doesn't have Gore's downside on his military experience, so he doesn't have to worry about a hypocrisy charge on the subject. Kerry's still going to have to answer questons regarding things he said and did as part of Vietnam Veterans Against War, but slamming Bush for his National Guard service is a pretty safe, if disgusting, play.

1:54 PM (0) comments


Super Tuesday 1.0: Well, the results are in and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is the big winner. Kerry wrapped up wins in Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico and North Dakota. Gen. Wesley Clark snookered a bare plurality of the voters in Oklahoma, and Sen. John Edwards handily won his native South Carolina.

Has Kerry got it all wrapped up? Probably, but I wouldn't start printing up the attack ads until delegate-rich California and New York vote.

For Sen. Joe Lieberman, Tuesday was the last stop on his journey to footnote status. Lieberman, the most sane of the Democrat hopefuls when it came to national security, will be missed.

Edwards needed to win South Carolina to justify his continued campaigning. He's still a long-shot, and is more likely as a possible vice presidential candidate to John Kerry, who has serious problems appealing to southern voters.

Clark's narrow win in Oklahoma means the general will still be in the race, at least for a couple more weeks.

The next debate, whenever it takes place, should include only Kerry, Edwards, Clark and maybe Dean. The remaining candidates have no serious chance at winning the nomination, and it's time to quit the farce.

Speaking of Dean, his campaign's self-destruction has been impressive and swift. I can't recall the last time someone fell so far, so fast -- skydivers excepted.

2:59 AM (0) comments


Mydoom virus: I've got a public e-mail address over there on the left, so I expect to get more than my fair share of viruses and the like that make their way over the Internet and into my home. After years of using Norton Antivirus satisfactorily, I switched to McAfee. Why? Because it was time to renew and McAfee was available at Costco for less.

That's appearing to be a mistake.

You see, whenever McAfee detects/cleans a virus attached to an e-mail, up pops a little window offering more information, or if you want to continue what you were doing. I always click "continue" and that window disappears...and up pops another window offering to scan my entire hard drive. I say "no" to that, because I've already done it once today -- just to be safe. But this happens every single time! I'm nearing 100 today. I got home this evening and there was such a backup in the received mail that I spent over five minutes click clicking my way to actually seeing if there was any non-spam e-mail. (At this point in this post I've already done this double-click dance four times.)

So, I looked and could find no options to turn this notification off and couldn't find any. So I went to McAfee's site -- nothing. So I afforded myself the online chat that McAfee makes available, which I share with you.


Please wait while we find a technician to assist you...
All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.

An agent will be with you in a moment. Thank you for your patience.

You are currently at position number 4 in the queue.

An agent will be with you in a moment. Thank you for your patience.

You have been connected to Paula Andrews.

Paula Andrews: Matthew, thank you for contacting the McAfee Online Support Center. How can I assist you today?

Matthew Hoy: Hello

Paula Andrews: Hello, Matthew.

Matthew Hoy: OK, here's the deal. I have a well-known e-mail address for my web site and i'm getting hit with this mydoom virus like crazy it's not getting in, McAfee is catching it...but... I'm sick and tired of having to click the "continue what I was doing" button AND "no, I don't want to scan all my files now" boxes. Is there some way to turn them off? Seriously, I got home from work and spent 5 minutes clicking and clicking.

[delete queries regarding software version and OS I'm using]

Paula Andrews: Matthew, there is only one option to stop these pop ups.
Paula Andrews: Press CTRL + ALT + DEL, click on Processes tab---end task on Mcvsescn file from there.


This is where my eyebrow is raised in a debonaire, but questioning, fashion.


Matthew Hoy: Is that disabling the Virus scanner?

Paula Andrews: No, it is for email scanning.

Matthew Hoy: So, the e-mail wouldn't be scanned and these viruses removed?

Paula Andrews: Matthew, please end task this file and then download all your emails and then scan your system.

Matthew Hoy: So you're saying I would have to scan my entire system after each time I downloaded e-mails?

Paula Andrews: Yes, that is the only solution to stop these popups.


This is insane. Seriously. There's got to be a switch to turn these things off.


Matthew Hoy: That's unacceptable. Who can I write a nasty e-mail to about this "feature"?

Paula Andrews: Matthew, you are facing this because of this virus only, this is for some time only.

Matthew Hoy: Yeah, but it's a pain in the butt and there should be some option given to me to turn at least the second notification off. That's what's driving me up the walls. I don't mind clicking the "continue what I was doing" button, it's that it doesn't let me continue what I'm doing, I've got to click another dang box. Who is someone in customer support that I can write to?

Paula Andrews: Matthew , there is no option for this thing, but I will pass on your feedback to the appropriate department.

Matthew Hoy: Thanks. Also make a note to them that this is something that makes me want to go back to Norton. This is the equivalent of being harassed by a program -- Norton never did that to me.


And that last part is true. Norton would pop up with one window each time you checked your mail and say something to the effect: "These files had viruses in them and we took care of it."

I didn't have to go click clicking for every single infected e-mail message.

I have a list. McAfee is on it.

For those of you who are curious. I am finished with this post, and the click click count for the Mydoom virus is at nine!

1:21 AM (0) comments

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