THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Every Bubble Bursts Eventually: President Barack Hussein Obama is facing criticism that no pundit would have predicted in 2008: He cares less about Africa than his white, conservative predecessor, George W. Bush. The Washington Post reports:
First lady Michelle Obama’s upcoming five-day goodwill tour to sub-Saharan Africa, designed to highlight HIV/AIDS projects and inspire young adults there, is billed by the White House as an important next step in the administration’s outreach to the continent.
But the trip also has resurrected criticism among a vocal subset of Africa advocates - including President Obama supporters - who say they are disappointed that the first American president with African roots has not personally focused more on the region.
Critics cite changes to a HIV/AIDS program advanced during the Bush administration, the relatively limited time Obama has spent on the continent as president and their belief that Africa has become less significant in U.S. foreign policy. …
Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, a Ghanaian who runs a New York investment and research firm specializing in Africa, pointed to what he said was the irony in the shared disappointment. “We really said if a black man became president, it would change the world, but we are basically back at the same level we were before,” he said. “The bulk of the policy is still the legacy of the Clinton and Bush years. The Obama legacy toward Africa is still yet to be seen.”
† The Case For Puerto Rican Statehood (last item): In an article about President Barack Hussein Obama’s trip to Puerto Rico last week, The Washington Post noted that the “largely symbolic” trip could “aid his 2012 reelection prospects”:
Although the nearly 4 million people who live on the island cannot vote in the U.S. general election, those who have moved to one of the 50 states can. Both parties consider the 4.6 million Puerto Ricans in the United States an important voting bloc, particularly the nearly 900,000 in Florida, a key swing state for Obama’s 2012 campaign.
But The WaPo - which like other MSM outlets, routinely pretends that Spanish speakers are all “Hispanics” and that all “Hispanics” have a common political agenda - makes the rare acknowledgment that “Democrats have argued that their party is more supportive than the GOP of immigration reform, but that is less important to Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens.”
It’s just one example of the political left and its winged monkeys in the MSM unquestioningly promoting fictions that support their worldview.
Meanwhile, as is often the case, Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” came closer to the mark in its coverage of Obama’s island jaunt than the “real” media:
“[S]enior Latino correspondent” Al Madrigal … attempted to explain how Latin Americans aren’t a unified political constituency– for example, “Mexicans want immigration reform so they can stay in the country; Puerto Ricans want immigration reform to keep the Mexicans out”– and that the old days where you could “just throw a campaign ad on Telemundo” are long gone.
This contrast in coverage of the president’s Puerto Rico trip was on The Stiletto’s mind as she watched Jon Stewart make what she thought was a credible case on “FOX News Sunday” that it’s not so much that left-leaning journalists are systematically pushing a liberal agenda, but rather that “bias of the mainstream media is towards sensationalism, conflict and laziness.” And when Chris Wallace said he thought that what Stewart really wants is “to be a political player” the comedian demurred: “[T]he embarrassment is that I’m given credibility in this world because of the disappointment that the public has in what the news media does.”
Favoring Stewart’s argument is that the left is too inconsistent, illogical and fractious to maintain the discipline to agree on a single coherent message, and thus they tend to run about in circles like headless chickens when reality intrudes upon the alternate universe they inhabit.
† SOTU = Stuff Our Taxes Underwrite: In her analysis of President Barack Hussein Obama's State of the Union address, The Stiletto took him to task for claiming that government "historically" provided funding for cutting edge scientists and inventors, noting that Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) who - in the time-honored tradition of inventors and innovators - self-funded their ventures. More on this point from Dr. Jeffrey R. Cornwall, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville:
[T]he largest source of financing has always been the entrepreneur's own money and any funds they are able to raise from friends and family members. This accounts for about 85-90% of all funding. Very few entrepreneurs max out credit cards successfully to start a venture. While this makes for great theater for journalists, it just does not happen that often and when it is used by an aspiring entrepreneur it is rarely successful.
And what about bootstrapping? Heck, even Silicon Valley has finally caught on to how creative one can be when starting a venture with little capital.
The surveys by NFIB and others clearly show that credit availability is not the problem. It is demand in the economy. If you want to find blame for that, let's not start with the financial sector sucking out talent and credit, but let's start with the giant sucking sound coming from a government that taxes too much and spends twice as much as they tax. …
This economy is not in need of recovery. It is in need of rebuilding. We have had decades of misguided public policy that has slowly bled the entrepreneurial spirit and incentives for entrepreneurial risk taking out of our country.
† Depends What The Meaning Of “Torture” Is: The military puts its elite commandos though Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) training, which includes simulated capture and torture, to prepare them for getting stranded behind enemy lines. Psychologists are on hand to sound the alarm if a trainee is becoming mentally unstable. But to know when enough is enough, they have to go through the training themselves, Wired reports.
† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, The TSA Emperor Wears No Clothes: Part II): The TSA claims to be using Israeli-type "behavioral markers" at American airports. But something must have gotten lost in the translation after the tried-and-true Israeli protocols were amended by the TSA to ensure that Muslims do not get profiled. In that respect, the TSA's version of behavioral profiling is working great - Muslims are not getting profiled. Mexicans and Dominicans are, reports The Star-Ledger (Newark) reports:
The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee said they want the head of the Transportation Security Administration to explain how racial profiling became a common practice among TSA screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) are both seeking answers from TSA Administrator John Pistole, after a federal report found several behavior detection officers, or BDOs, had singled out Mexican and Dominican passengers for special scrutiny, bag searches, questioning and document reviews in 2008 and 2009. …
The report, which was ordered by Newark’s former TSA director in the wake of complaints from BDOs, said passengers found to have lapsed visas or expired passports would be referred for additional screening or turned over to immigration officials. It was an easy way, the report said, for the behavior detection unit to boost its referrals and appear productive.
The group of managers and BDOs who engaged in racial profiling were dubbed "the Great Mexican Hunters" by other TSA employees at the airport.
† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, A Teeny Weenie Scandal): With the constituents he purportedly "gave a voice to" when he wasn’t busy playing with himself and photographing the results joining his Dem colleagues in calling for his resignation, the miscreant member of Congress finally decided to - as the New York Post memorably put it - "yank himself" - from the body politic with a speech that The Washington Post characterized as “sound[ing] like those of someone at the start of a political career - not announcing its shame-faced end”:
I got into politics to give a voice to the many people who simply did not have one," he said. "Now I will be looking to other ways to contribute my talents to make sure that we live up to that most New York and American of ideals.
His parents were, no doubt, shame-faced when he bizarrely thanked them for the boffo job they did raising him ("I want to express my gratitude to my family: to my mother and father who instilled in me the values that carried me this far.") Weiner’s “values” carried him to the premature end of an inconsequential political career – fellow legislators pegged him as a publicity whore who wouldn’t put his nose to the grindstone to initiate and pass legislation. So a better use of his time and talents – whatever they may be – is to make sure he lives up to the ideals of decorum parents of men who don’t tweet pix of thier privates to random women online have instilled in their sons.
† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, Life Imitates “A Law Abiding Citizen”): Having been ordered by the Supreme Court to find a solution to its prison overpopulation problem, CA officials say they plan to shift low-level offenders to county jails and build new prisons to spread the badasses around so they have more elbow room, The Wall Street Journal reports:
But the eight-page outline remained unclear on how the state will pay for the dramatic shift and hinted prison officials may have trouble meeting court-ordered deadlines to clear prison space within two years.
Prior to the high court’s ruling, [Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown] signed Assembly Bill 109, which would move people convicted of crimes deemed “non-serious, nonviolent and nonsexual” to county jails with some of the costs paid by the state—a plan known as “realignment.” The plan’s funding, however, is contingent on a budget deal that has yet to appear.
Some local sheriffs said they fear the state would begin to transfer inmates without any support. Greg Munks, sheriff of San Mateo County, which is just south of San Francisco, said the release order would require the state to send an additional 500 inmates to his lockup, which already is at 120% of capacity with 1,000 inmates. Mr. Munks said the added prisoners could force him to release some inmates.
“This will really depend on how much funding we will receive from the state,” Munks said. “We can’t do this by ourselves.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Media Irrelevancy – A Self-Inflicted Wound): Is Orbitz going wobbly on its refusal to knuckle under to Media Matters? A recent Miami Herald blog post suggests this may be the case:
After a three-week campaign by high-profile LGBT organizations urging Orbitz to examine numerous examples of rampant anti-LGBT bigotry on News Corp's Fox News Channel, the gay-friendly travel agency has agreed to review its advertising policy to ensure that it spends its ad dollars on network [programs] that are consistent with its core corporate values of tolerance and non-discrimination.
But while the statement by Brian Hoyt, Vice President, Communications & Government Affairs, Orbitz Worldwide, acknowledges that the company “has heard from” the LGBT community and promises “a review of programming on the full range of media we buy” the company was rather noncommittal about how the results of the review will inform its ad strategy, saying only that customers will see that our actions will reflect the values that Orbitz, the brand, and company, embody." Orbitz’s values may continue to embrace “tolerance, non-discrimination and equality” by running ad campaigns “across a broad range of media outlets to ensure its messages reach a broad and diverse audience.” And that means keeping FOX News in the mix.
† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth, John Edwards: The King Of Heels Now And Forever): The New York Times offers this look back at the 18th Century’s version of Twitter:
In 1791, while serving as secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton began an affair with Maria Reynolds, blackmailing her husband for several years to allow it to continue. When a muckraker exposed the affair and the cover-up, Hamilton turned to the communications technology of the day to defend himself, publishing a pamphlet in which he argued that he had never abused any public resources.
More than two centuries and many scandals later, Twitter has replaced pamphlets as the medium of the moment – and become the new means for politicians to engage in sexual misconduct.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Darell Hammond, who grew up a ward of the state of IL at the age of 4 when his father skipped out on his mother and siblings, and now heads up the nonprofit KaBOOM!, which had enabled poor communities nationwide to organize and build playgrounds since 1996. The New York Times reports:
For 15 years, KaBOOM! has been leading playground construction around the country, mostly in neighborhoods where at least 70 percent of children qualify for the federal government’s free and reduced-cost lunch program. Earlier this month, it completed its 150th playground on the Gulf Coast - in New Orleans’ Palmer Park. …
What makes KaBOOM!’s model unique is the way it sparks leadership and unleashes energy within communities to improve the play environment. KaBOOM! … has spent years refining a process that teaches people around the country how to organize themselves to turn around their own public spaces. Along the way, it has created a blueprint for activating citizens - something of particular value in a country that has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the industrialized world. …
KaBOOM!’s approach is captured by its name. Its signature events are one-day building projects - typically held on Saturdays - when local residents and other volunteers, through a burst of coordinated energy over six to eight hours, transform an empty patch of land into a colorful playground. …
An average playground costs about $75,000. The deal that KaBOOM! strikes with local groups is this: KaBOOM! will provide a road map and pay 90 percent of the costs, but the community must handle the organization work and come up with the remaining 10 percent. KaBOOM! provides advice for soliciting donations, shows locals how to organize a design day to generate excitement - enlisting children to draw their own “dream playgrounds” - and brings in a project manager to oversee the build day.
The Times points out that Hammond’s philosophy is rooted in “the ‘benevolent community’ - neighbors pitching in for the common good – [which] has been described by Robert Reich as one the defining narratives of American history.” So when big government pushes away the helping hand offered by community and charity (third item) so bureaucrats can dole out taxpayer-funded entitlements, it’s un-American.
Comments