December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year!

Posted by Charles Austin at 10:22 AM | Comments (4)

December 20, 2005

Enquiring Minds and All That

Just in case you thought Big Media had any second thoughts or shame concerning their reporting on Hurrican Katrina and it's aftermath... Shepard Smith is reporting live from New Orlean's 9th Ward this evening.

Posted by Charles Austin at 07:17 PM | Comments (1)

December 18, 2005

YAPP (Yet Another Posting Post)

Thanks to all the kind comments to the last post. Here's a few random thoughts, and while full time blogging has not resumed quite yet, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

timepoty.jpg

The Good Samaritans: It's a shame to see Bono come between Bill and Melinda Gates. But like Jesus said, "Heaven keeps a special place for those who contribute huge sums of money while maintaining just enough for themselves to feed and clothe your average third-world country." Gosh, I love serious journalism.

sheehan.jpg

Sheehan Leads War Protest in Spain: The running of the bullshit.

Let freedom ring: President Bush asserted Sunday night the United States is winning the war in Iraq but acknowledged setbacks and the doubts of some "that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day." He pleaded with Americans to ignore "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right." In related news, Senator Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) demanded that Bush stop questioning his patriotism with his anti-defeatist talk.

Meanwhile, Sufis and Sunnis continue to lose sleep: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday termed Iran as the global front-runner of 'real Islam', the news agency ISNA reported. 'Islam is the only mean for salvation of mankind with the Iranian nation as global front-runner and flag-holder of the real Islam,' Ahmadinjead said in his first-ever meeting as president with students in Teheran.

What the Hell is wrong with people? Donovan McNabb is criticized by the Philadelphia head of the NAACP for "trying to be white": "In essence Donny, you are mediocre at best," Mondesire wrote. "And trying to disguise that fact behind some concocted reasoning that African American quarterbacks who can scramble and who can run the ball are somehow lesser field generals ... is more insulting off the field than on." Amazing. Alas, then Donovan lets us know that perhaps such cultural relativism is as out of line as we might have thought: Obviously, if it's someone else who is not African American, it's racism," McNabb told reporters attending his annual holiday party last Saturday. "But when someone of the same race talks about you because you're selling out because you're not running the ball, it goes back to, 'What are we really talking about here?' "If you talk about my play, that's one thing. When you talk about my race, now we've got problems. If you're trying to make a name off my name, again, I hope your closet is clean because something is going to come out about you ... I always thought the NAACP supported African Americans and didn't talk bad about them. Now you learn a little bit more." No doubt, Rush Limbaugh might agree.

In sad NFL news, Former NFL defensive tackle Darrell Russell and an unidentified person were killed Thursday morning after their speeding car crashed, hospital authorities said. Russell was 29. Speeding you say? According to a report on KCBS, the accident occurred on southbound La Cienega Boulevard just after 6 a.m. local time. Russell was a passenger in the car and pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a hospital spokesperson told SportsTicker. The report said the driver of the Pontiac Grand Prix involved in the accident was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at UCLA Medical Center. According to the report, the car hit a curb, ran over a fire hydrant and knocked over several news racks before striking a bus, which was out of service with its flashers on. Thankfully, no one outside the vehicle was hurt.

Another year and another undefeated Fighting Illini basketball team has trouble getting any respect, apparently because they don't play on the East Coast. As soon as the buzzer sounded to end Illinois' victory at North Carolina last month the first thing Dick Vitale said was, "What a great game these kids from North Carolina played." Sigh.

In other sporting news, with the apparent return of Rex Grossman tonight the Bears are starting to look like NFC favorites to me, especially outdoors with home field advantage. Tonight is the first time I've got to see the Bears all season, and boy do they look good on 60" of HDTV. I realize that I may be a bit biased but I think the officials got the call with 12:09 of the fourth quarter correct. The Falcon WR only had one foot down before he was leveled, and he did not maintain control when he hit the ground. It would have been an incomplete pass had Nathan Vasher not then caught it.

Robert Novak continues to dazzle with his brilliance: Senior Defense Department officials say Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told them nobody should stay for just another year, but that he wants them for the rest of President Bush's second term. That is read as a signal that Rumsfeld intends to serve out the next three years. Rumsfeld finishing his term would contradict wide speculation that he will quit soon after this week's Iraqi parliamentary elections. For "wide speculation," read "silly Democratic Christmas non-religious holiday wish."

Just remember, everything you know (if acquired from Big Media) is wrong: The bodies of New Orleans residents killed by Hurricane Katrina were almost as likely to be recovered from middle-class neighborhoods as from the city's poorer districts, such as the Lower 9th Ward, according to a Times analysis of data released by the state of Louisiana. The analysis contradicts what swiftly became conventional wisdom in the days after the storm hit — that it was the city's poorest African American residents who bore the brunt of the hurricane. Slightly more than half of the bodies were found in the city's poorer neighborhoods, with the remainder scattered throughout middle-class and even some richer districts.

Ahem: Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist. Jeez, it must really be a slow news day for this to make the papers.

And to close with one scary thought, I figure Iran's got about five more weeks before Israel does the world's dirty work one more time.

Posted by Charles Austin at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2005

Is There Anybody Out There

At long last my labours have borne fruit.

Today my partner Dave and I bought the company I've been working for since last year. I've never been so much in debt. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Blogging shall resume shortly.

Posted by Charles Austin at 10:07 PM | Comments (12)