A few things of interest in the NYTimes this morning. Ombudswhatever Clark Hoyt apologizes for a Times business reporter who plagiarized his stuff from the Wall Street Journal, but still can’t manage to apologize for the entire newspaper plagiarizing Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government’s lies about ACORN offices. Worse, the Times apologized for not having covered this bogus story earlier and in more depth.
Hoyt has famously acknowledged that their coverage turned out to be inaccurate (hard not to be when they allow themselves to be spoon fed by propagandists) but will not issue a correction (even while noting NYC’s ACORN reorg/name change), which pretty much cheapens all the Times’ content.
Frank Rich has a somewhat cynical column about this week’s up or down vote on health care. Even Rich can’t muster sufficient cynicism over a process fraught with unsolicited compromise and concessions made to Senators who will never ever vote for improving health care.
“They are waiting for us to act,” Obama said on Wednesday of the American people. “They are waiting for us to lead.” Actually, they have given up waiting. Some 80 percent of the country believes that “nothing can be accomplished” in Washington, according to an Ipsos/McClatchy poll conducted a week ago. The percentage is just as high among Democrats, many of whom admire the president but have a sinking sense of disillusionment about his ability to exercise power.
Listening to Left, Right & Center at WYSO.org right now, and the latest jabber is that we should pass the bill and fix it in a subsequent Congress. Only the loathsome presence of WaTimes propagandist Tony Blankely makes me even slightly sympathetic to the mess that’s up for a vote.
Imho, that will only work if we can find some Puerto Ricans to shoot up Congress between now and the next session. (Last Monday was the 56th anniversary of their last attempt.)
-
I’m still boycotting the WaPost (except for Toles), but I do need to acknowledge that Frank Ahrens has another weasely column on how impossible Toyota’s quest for truth is in l’affaire acceleration whatzeefuck.
A curious argument that essentially says there are 20,000 parts in a car and Toyota has to conduct spectrographic analyses of each part in alphabetical order before they can solve this unfathomable mystery.
The cheapest thing about this Ahrens column is how much of it parrots his previous column. The second cheapest thing is that it’s the same column I cited but did not link to before, except with the date stamp updated to keep it up towards the top in Google searches on this topic.
Is Toyota paying for this column? They’re certainly regrouping and going on the offensive. Monday they’re going to “stage” a technical demonstration to prove the onboard electronic control systems are peachy keen perfect.
I did not know you could prove a negative. It seems to me that such a demonstration would only prove they don’t know how to replicate their sudden acceleration problem. Or maybe that they do know how to conduct a simulation but in a way that doesn’t trigger any sudden acceleration problems.
Paranoid? Me? No, just very much aware of how worthless this kind of cyber-dog and robo-pony show is. Engineers have proven time and again that bumblebees can’t fly. Proving that a specific kind of malfunction that has occurred many times doesn’t actually exist should be a piece of cake.
At Injuryboard.com, Michael Phelan writes about Toyota’s extreme lack of transparency regarding their black box data. In fact, Toyota’s demonstration on Monday is meant to be a rebuttal of those accusations. A rebuttal that will still not make that black box data public.
It’s very hard to believe that Toyota’s not withholding information.
Very hard.
-
-
More on that state senate race DFL endorsement here in St. Paul from the PiPress. Jeremiah Ellis is probably a great guy and deserving of the nod, but how much value should be placed on an endorsement that came from so few DFLers?
Each Minnesota state senator represents 25,000 Minnesotans. The PiPress’s account doesn’t say how many delegates were voting, but they do mention a procedural vote in which 104 delegates voted.
104. And the DFL didn’t even blush when they handed out that endorsement.
That’s .4% of the people in SD67. I have no idea who in that district is most qualified to hold that seat, but fortunately another contender, Rena Moran, has decided to run in the primary without the DFL endorsement.
Maybe by summer people will be paying more attention. They may even have a chance to talk to one or more door knocking candidates. Democracy might actually happen, something that’s far more likely when thousands vote as opposed to a scant hundred caucus-qualified DFL activists. Activists who, of course, booed when Moran refused to abide by the endorsement.
SD67ers now have several months to study up on the candidates.
Rena Moran: Wellstone Action!, Facebook.
Jeremy Ellis: webpage, Facebook.
-
Etc.:
More former Scientologists speak up about their whackjob fully evil-activated pseudo religion
Botox for migraines?
Low oxygen zones?
No shortage of political scandals
Looking back at laissez-faire’s origins
Suicide Bomber in Chief?
Taser update from Digby
Rivaling the Great Depression
Ahmed Chalabi update
Sunday morning music from WINston
-
They’re fundraising at WYSO today. Things have changed a bit since my buddy got railroaded out of their studios by their former whackjob station manager. That job’s turned over a few times in recent years and Vick is on right now to do some fundraising and to air his last interview with Barbara Ehrenreich between pitches.
If you value public radio but don’t like your local version of it, consider making a donation to WYSO, preferably while Vick’s on the air.
Justice sometimes prevails, but it needs encouragement, especially in the Miami Valley.
No comments:
Post a Comment