Author: Kevin

Agenda? What Agenda? (Part “Who can keep track?”)

Instapundit links to Mudville Gazette, who reports on the news media debating the use of graphic images of American dead to influence American politics:

“War is a horrible thing. It is about killing,” ABC News “Nightline” Executive Producer Leroy Sievers said in an unusual message to the program’s e-mail subscribers discussing the issues posed by Wednesday’s killings. “If we try to avoid showing pictures of bodies, if we make it too clean, then maybe we make it too easy to go to war again.”

—

The pictures from Wednesday’s attack, Rosenstiel said, could anger viewers or “engender disenchantment about the war.”

“These are the kinds of pictures that will linger,” said John Schulz, dean of Boston University’s College of Communications and a former faculty member at the National War College.

“They’ll be there in November when people go to vote.” (From the LA Times)

—

It has got to give the American public pause about this question of how welcome we are there,” says Robert Dallek, a presidential biographer who studied Franklin Roosevelt’s tenure during World War II and Lyndon Johnson’s during Vietnam. “This is not Vietnam, but it is reminiscent of Vietnam.” (From USA Today)

So, let me see if I understand this. The media doesn’t show us graphic images of Americans killed in, say the Cole attack, or the bombing of the Marine Barracks, or the people leaping from the WTC to their deaths, or the pieces of Israelis blown up by suicide homicide bombers because that might make us want to go to war, but they will show graphic images of dead Americans killed in Iraq so that we’ll decide that the war isn’t worth the cost, and we won’t find it “easy to go to war again.”

In other words, the press has now admitted blatantly that its job is not to inform us, but to manipulate us, and their manipulation is directed to keep us from going to war, and to discourage us if we are at war.

Yet this isn’t to be considered treason.

Update: The Puppyblender also points to Ed Driscoll, who says very much the same thing I did, but with more links to more examples.

And We Should Pay Attention to the World Court….Why?

Persnickety, author of the blog Ordinary Galoot is on a mission. A mission to spread the word of a House Resolution that is intended to remind the Supreme Court that the Justices are there to decide cases based on AMERICAN law, and nothing else:

I will re-post this and re-post this and re-post this until you get excited about it!!

There is a resolution in the House of Representatives that needs your support. It says, essentially: Bleep You, Sandra Day O’Connor, AND the World Court you rode in on!

Go read the whole thing. Then call your Rep. Then spread the word.

Your Representative can’t represent you if he doesn’t know where you stand. It’s only Populist Authoritarianism if it violates our individual rights.

More Editorial Cartoons

(Well, so much for Photobucket as an image hosting site. I burned 3500MB in bandwidth in less than five days this month. So, anybody: Good, cheap image hosting service for bandwitdth of about 30GB/month?)

This time with a 9/11 Commission theme (for the most part.) We start with three cartoonists who get it. Mike Ramirez (as usual) of the LA Times:

Larry Wright of the Detroit News

Chuck Asay of the Colorado Springs Gazette makes an interesting point:

Robert Arial of South Carolina’s The State has another cynical view of Clarke:

Here’s someone who doesn’t seem to get it, really. J.D. Crowe of the Mobile Register

Should Kerry be successful, Wayne Stayskal of the Tampa Tribune makes a prediction:

And finally, in an interesting illustration of the exercise of Populist Authoritarianism, Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon Journal weighs in:

Yup, we minority pariahs need to join up.

From Samizdata comes a suggestion that we call a spade a spade when it comes to what our putatively representative forms of government actually are:

Property rights? What are those? The tyranny of the majority (or their elected representatives who know what’s best for all of us) has spoken! Smoking? Verboten! Fast food? In their gunsights. Guns? You’re not qualified! You cannot possibly make a decision for yourself that is not first reviewed and approved by the nanny-state!

Spread the meme.

Logic Over Ranting – Wins Every Time

Wince and Nod lays down a point-by-point logical smackdown on the “BUSH LIED” meme.

Excellent logic and exposition. Outstanding, Wince. Sorry it took me so long to find it.

See? Insomnia Brought on by Allergies is Good for Something!

Since I can’t sleep for coughing and sneezing, here I am!

For those of you wanting an RSS feed, apparently this is mine: http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/atom.xml

It’s now active.

And Bill Whittle has published Chapter Two in his latest series of essays, It’s a Trap! That was worth the loss of sleep all by itself.

And I’ve posted another response to Tim Lambert’s thread on self-defense in the UK.

Who needs more than three hours sleep anyway?

Who’s Gullible?

Tim Lambert, who authors the Australian blog Deltoid which is dedicated to the pursuit and exposure of John Lott as a fraud (and I tend to believe Tim is more right than wrong about that), picked up on the outrage many of us felt over a recent short news story I commented on last week. Tim writes that we seem gullible in jumping to the conclusion that “self defence is illegal in the UK.” I’ve taken him to task over this topic in the comments to his post. He seems to be avoiding the pertinent questions here.

Department of Humor, Mental Image Division

Perusing the tracking data for this site, I find that I have had one visitor as the result of a Google Search for “smallest bikini in the universe,” and on top of that, in that search The Smallest Minority comes up fourth on the list.

Yikes!

To anyone who has ever seen me, the idea of me in a SPEEDO is frightening.

Photoshoppers RULE!

Reader Steven Nielsen, a Senior from the University of Washington, sent me his latest effort. He explains:

I was inspired by an MSNBC News photo of John Kerry in Texas about a month ago. The picture, as I have doctored it, speaks for itself. With Kerry at the Helm, this is what we can expect…

Damn, that’s funny. And I too support the 2004 Bush/Rice ticket.

Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools – Teacher’s Lounge

I am a teacher . . . And I am tired.

Tired of……

> > politics, frustrated colleagues,

> > semiconscious students,

> > media hype and especially, ……I am tired of

> > parents who expect me to resolve their children’s problems.

I simply do not have the answers.

I have tried everything…… I have hugged your child, listened to your child, bought supplies for your child, and reminded your child of the importance of getting an education ….. as well as the importance of caring about life with heart genuineness.

I have read……Theories on how to teach at-risk students. (this includes the entire student population, because “at-risk” is really defined as children growing up without parental supervision).

I have read……. theories on how to teach pregnant students, students on drugs, abused students, high-energy students, shy students, female students and male students.

I have…… attended conferences for ideas on how to teach hands-on activities, higher level thinking skills, cooperative learning groups, technology, standards-based education and numerous other strategies.

I have…… lain awake at night rolling over and over in my head solutions, and lamentations.

I have….. cried tears, trying to find the answers for motivating your child to have success in my classroom and in life.

I am a teacher.

I am not a doctor,

I am not a psychiatrist,

I am not a former drug addict.

I am not God, and…..

I am, emphatically and unequivocally, not your child’s parent.

I am a teacher.

I am tired……

> of politicians blaming policy-makers,

> of state government blaming localities,

> of administration blaming central office

> of central office blaming school board

> of school board blaming city council, and……..

> everyone blaming teachers.

But I have to tell you….. the students who have success in my classroom are the ones whose parents I have met at every open house and on every parent/teacher conference day. So, please, do not tell me that educators are the solution.

The solution…. the power and the state of your child’s welfare lie in your hands. Not in mine, but in the hands of you, the parent. And if you don’t want to lose another educator who cares, who sweats, who encourages your child…..then I suggest you get to your child’s school and make education matter in your child’s life.

Because I am a *teacher*!

Written by a TEACHER in the Jacksonville Florida Public School System

Copied in whole from Indigo Insights, because I wanted to archive it, and I couldn’t figure out where the permalinks were.