JOURNALISM’S SLOW, SAD DEATH

A slow, sad, and well-deserved death. Michael Gerson laments the death of “objective journalism”.

[W]hat is passing is not only a business but also a profession -- the journalistic tradition of nonpartisan objectivity.

Heh.

Free markets, it turns out, often make poor fact-checkers, instead feeding the fantasies of conspiracy theorists from "birthers" to Sept. 11, 2001, "truthers."

“Birthers” not including the Trig Palin fanticizers, of course.

"...Walter Cronkite prospered in the old environment, ..."

And Tet was a victory, not a defeat.

[F]ew American bloggers have the resources or inclination to report from war zones, famines and genocides.

Michael Yon, Michael Totten, J.D. Johannes. And Mudville Gazette, Blackfive. Maybe the mainstream media could consider engaging them?

[B]bloggers would have little to collect or comment upon without the costly enterprise of newsgathering and investigative reporting.

Rathergate.

What is to be done? A lot of good people are working on it.

Yes, but they’re not working in the mainstream media.

[Update & bump] Big Government isn't as kind to Gerson as I am.

THE ECONOMY AS A PHYSICS PROBLEM

University of Utah physicist Tim Garrett has published a study that approaches the economy and its relation to global warming as a physics problem — and comes to some controversial conclusions: that rising carbon dioxide emissions cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.

This is an intruiging article ... and as an engineer, I’m tempted to put more trust in physics than I am in climate “scientists.” Garrett's model has a certain elegance about it, and I’ve found over my career that simple, elegant models – even wrong simple, elegant models - usually offer more insight into the fundamentals of a problem than do more complicated ones.

Link via Instapundit.

BACK TAXES

California Gov. Schwarzenegger must be preparing to join the Obama administration.

PULLING NO PUNCHES

Andrew Breitbart of Big Government is on the attack. He leaves no scorn unexposed in his criticism of the mainstream media’s defense of ACORN.

Martin and Dreier are trying to rebuild the media and the left elite, who use the poor and the downtrodden as their foot soldiers in order to maintain power in government, academia, the media and Hollywood. For them, ACORN provides the perfect photo-op.

Via Instapundit.

I SHOULD RUN FOR OFFICE

Researchers at the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity found 440 “phantom [Congressional] districts” listed on Recovery.gov, the U.S. government’s official website for data related to Recovery Act spending.

Glenn Reynolds is considering running for office in Tennessee’s 29th [phantom] Congressional District and has already pickedup financial support. Maybe I should announce my candidacy for Virginia’s 79th [phantom] Congressional District – I could use some quatloos as well.

[Update & bump to top] Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) is testing the waters for his run for Tenessee’s phantom 29th Congressional District. Go encourage him – better a real congresscritter for a fake district than a fake congresscritter from a real district (and we have plenty of them).

TIGER TROUBLES

Reports claim Woods crash followed argument with wife.

Wasn’t that pretty obvious when the accident was first reported? Leave ‘em alone.

CIRCLE THE WAGONS, GLOBAL WARMERS

The Washington Post’s global warming apologist strikes out again.

The purloined e-mail correspondence published by skeptics last week -- portraying some leading climate researchers as petty, vindictive and tremendously eager to make their data fit accepted theories -- does not prove that global warming is a fraud. ... [T]ell the polar ice caps that they're free to stop melting.

Eugene Robinson still has trouble differentiating between weather and climate.

It's warmer now than it was 100 years ago.

Um, given what we now know about the data, are your sure?

At issue is the long-term trend, and one would expect anomalous blips from time to time.

It doesn’t seem to occur to Mr. Robinson that over a period of several thousands of years, the famous “hockey stick” might be the “anomalous blip”.

[W]e know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and we know the planet is hotter than it was a century ago.

Know? Or believe? Sorry, Eugene, we know the data is corrupt; beyond that, ... we only believe.

EAT DIRT

Seems sort of obvious to me.

[Update and bump] This may be the only beneficial unintended consequence of ObamaCare.

THROW THE BUMS OUT

Rand Simberg on ClimateGate:

[A] deliberate and unrevealed fudging of results in an attempt to make the real world fit one’s preconceptions is beyond the scientific pale. Journal articles have been thrown out for it; PhD candidates have lost their degrees for it.

My sentiments exactly. I worked hard for my PhD. These clowns have dishonored it. Revoke their degrees and fire them.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE

So now John Holgren, Obama’s “Science Czar”, is part of ClimateGate?

Via Don Surber.

CANDID CAMERA MOMENTS

Victor Davis Hanson: “There are a number of isolated incidents that, in the great scheme of things, should be seen as rather trivial. But they are gaining symbolic importance, which is working against President Obama.”

HIDE THE DECLINE

It didn’t take long for the mocking to begin.

PAID TO LIE

Another reason downsize government.

KILL THE BILLS

Do health reform right.

Yes.

HARNESSING THE OCEAN

"The ocean is a potential treasure trove for renewable energy—one NASA study estimated more than 91 000 terawatt-hours annually of accessible energy worldwide... [A]n Australia-based company has found a new way, to predictably and reliably generate energy from the ocean. The technology relies on the power of ocean swells, which are easy-to-predict long-wavelength oscillations."

DRIVER TRAINING

Rather than teach on-the-road driving skills, the Michigan legislature is considering “forcing driving students in that state to spend time learning ‘the importance of carpooling and transportation’ along with ‘identifying the attributes of a fuel-efficient vehicle’ and ‘recycling vehicle parts and fluids,’ among other non-driving learning.”

Yes, and let’s not forget the importance of public transportation.

WEAPON OF MASS DISTRACTION

Spinning in the wind.

Translation: Sarah Palin’s not one of us (the elite, conservative and/or liberal) and therefore cannot possibly be competent to govern.

Via Hot Air.

BRING ON THE VOTE

Nothing like the courage of conviction.

POLITICAL PROBLEM-SOLVING

Paraphrasing Thomas Sowell: ”What is stupid is believing that politicians are trying to solve our problems, instead of theirs.... No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are ... trying to solve their own problems - of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two.”

ABOUT TIME

Sarah Palin’s influence on other would-be politicians can by seen by the growing number of women she has inspired to seek public office.

"I think that for a long time people see politicians as part of an elite establishment, and our nation's at a crossroads where the American people realize that the elite establishment has gotten us into a mess," [Patricia] Sullivan [running to unseat Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson in Florida's 8th Congressional District] said, sounding themes associated with Palin.

But, but ... Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual male, knows women dislike Sarah Palin.