BLINKERED THINKER

A viewpoint that’s “blinkered” (i.e., limited in range or outlook).

12 May 2009 • 10:41 am 0

Nancy Pelosi’s Stained Dress

Lisa Schiffren has a piece on NRO’s The Corner in which she avers that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who feigned shock that Bush/Cheney gave the green light to waterboarding terrrorists, will not pay any price–political or legal–for her demonstrable duplicity about her lack of knowledge of what the CIA was doing re stepped-up interrogation procedures. The recently released CIA memoranda are the equivalent of a stained dress for the lower-middlebrowed Pelosi (whose actual brow moves about as much as Lenin’s). One would think that with all the air miles she racks up, flying on taxpayer-owned jets, to Europe, the Middle East, and and her California district, she would have had the opportunity to conjure up a more plausible timeline of what and when she knew about enhanced interrogation.

Honorable people are on both sides of the waterboarding debate: e.g., Dick Cheney & Jane Harmon. Ms. Schiffren is undoubtedly correct that Pelosi will not be hurt by her own dishonesty, for there are far too many dishonest politicians, pundits, and journalists who will cover her sagging rear end. Her hard left congressional district makes her reelection a foregone conclusion, as that of her ethically blinkered colleague, Charlie Rangel’s house seat in NYC. We will see Pelosi on the Speaker’s dais during the state of the union address–jumping up and down like a high school cheerleader at each gauzy applause line–both next January and the ensuing years. She will NOT be held accountable–not by NBC news, not by the unhinged Andrew Sullivan, not by the odious Olbermann, not by her caucus, not by the pacifist groups, not by Democratic donors, not by George Soros, and not by the president. Despite the occasion piece by WaPo, Roll Call, or Politico there is no media drumbeat condemning her.

And Republican opposition is feckless on this matter, as it has been for the last few years on most things.

Filed under: Pelosi, Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

28 April 2009 • 10:38 am 0

Fat Jack Murtha & The NY Times?

Everyone knows that financially The NY Times is in as precarious a position as the domestic automakers. The quality of its journalism–notwithstanding the self-congratulatory Pulitzers–is worth less than the current price of the company’s shares. A case in point is the Times’ recent piece on Fat Jack Murtha, the willfully corrupt congressman from SW Pennsylvania:

Mr. Murtha, who declined to be interviewed, has brushed off such concerns. He has said publicly that federal prosecutors have not contacted him about any investigations. At 76, he returned to Congress on Wednesday, two weeks after knee-replacement surgery, with a new symbol of both his power and his vulnerability: a heavy wooden walking stick topped by a six-inch gold knob, a gift from the Marine commanding officer.

[emphasis added]

This shortish piece, with David D. Kirkpatrick’s byline, required Ron Nixon’s assistance, despite the lack of a lot of original reporting. Neither man noticed the improper “Marine commanding officer” referent. Which commanding officer? Kirkpatrick-cum-Nixon might be referring to the Marine Commandant, past or present, but we can’t be sure. No one caught this in the editing process. A lack of military service by our so-called journalistic elite accounts for such regularly occurring sloppiness
in its military coverage.

Moe Lane at Red State comments on the Murtha/Obama disconnect. I have previously discussed Fat Jack here.

Filed under: John Murtha, N Y Times, Uncategorized , , ,

19 April 2009 • 10:15 am 0

Another Sleazy Congressman

Blogging about John Murtha could be a full-time avocation, if one had the stomach for it. First elected to Congress 36 years ago, he has ingratiated himself to PA’s 12th district constituents by assiduously perfecting the congressional art of bringing home the bacon to the sparsely-populated region of SW Pennsylvania. Defense contractors also love his hoggish ways, for he slops a lot of taxpayer $$$ in their direction.

Today’s WaPo runs an unflattering article about Murtha’s largesse towards the recently renamed “John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.” (The very idea of naming an airport for a living—and still-sitting—member of Congress rubs this blogger the wrong way. I quietly seethe every time I fly into Anchorage, Alaska’s “Ted Stevens” monument to himself.) Murtha Int’l has, according to today’s piece, received at least 150 million taxpayer dollars in the past 10 years, due to his direct efforts; an additional $50 million over the same period has been channeled to that underused facility by Murtha’s colleagues and assorted federal agencies.

Among the other data in the piece: Murtha directed $192 million to his district in 2008 alone; his airport’s passenger count has shrunk 50% in the past decade; US taxpayers subsidize the six daily flights in & out of that burg’s airport–amounting to $147 per passenger; the airport recently hired a subsidiary of a defense contractor which itself has received $23 million since ‘01 and is run by “a close friend” of Murtha’s. Read the whole piece here.

Johnstown, PA’s own newspaper ran a piece about Murtha International’s multimillion dollar radar installation that has never been used, and was lobbied for by Murtha himself.

Murtha is one sleazy congressman who, in my opinion, should have been indicted in 1980. Through his efforts he has proudly enriched his friends and former staffers, all at taxpayers’ expense. His loathsome remarks of the Marines in Iraq have been well discussed. I’m ashamed that he and I once wore the same uniform. Let’s hope that this is Murtha’s last term as a Pennsylvania congressman; he deserves to hold office as much as Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

Filed under: John Murtha, Johnstown Airport , , , , , , ,

9 April 2009 • 2:34 pm 0

Minnesota Dermatologists Rip Off Composer Dave Grusin???

One of Blinkered Thinker’s pet peeves is the “borrowing” of recorded music for commercial purposes, i.e., using prerecorded music without permission by companies and organizations. Over the years I’ve heard a Madonna recording used for a Midwestern car wash, the late Johnny Cash’s singing in radio/TV ads for an RV dealership in northern New England (”the sharpest pencil in town”), and lately, I’ve heard radio commercials for a dermatology medical practice here in central Minnesota: Skin Care Doctors, P.A.

This medical practice is currently running radio ads on KNSI-AM 1450 in St. Cloud, Minnesota, with composer Dave Grusin’s theme song from the long-running hit series St. Elsewhere looping in the background. St. Elsewhere, not coincidentally, was a MEDICAL TV show. I blame KNSI, a unit of Leighton Enterprises, for airing the ads with the misappropriated Grusin music. And I blame the MDs of Skin Care Doctors for ripping off the Grammy Award multi-winner and Academy Award nominee.

Skin Care Doctors has a local office in Sartell, MN–a pretentious bedroom community for St. Cloud (home of radio station KNSI)– and offices in Apple Valley, Burnsville, Orono, and Edina (around the Twin Cities). I have nothing against dermatologists in particular, but these MDs are not paying royalties (to the best of my knowledge) to Grusin or BMI. If they were, the radio spots would become prohibitively expensive.

Skin Care Doctors, P.A. has a website. KNSI’s website is here.

Another category of royalties avoiders is that of community symphonies. Many local symphonies publicize their upcoming concert series on radio, yet they use the digital recordings of the Big Boys, e.g., Chicago or Philadelphia, as a representation of what the community symphony subscriber will hear when he or she attends. No attribution is ever given, and radio stations too often turn a blind eye to the practice, figuring that the organizations is question are non-profits, and hence there is no real harm done, and the music used for the spot is clean-sounding and professionally performed.

Filed under: music, music royalties , , , , ,

• 10:02 am 0

A Swiss View of Obama

Alfred Defago, a former Swiss ambassador to the US and current professor of international relations at UW Madison, stated the following in a recent Swiss interview:

Alfred Defago: I still see a lot of transatlantic misunderstandings. With the Obama era Europeans are more open to the US all of a sudden – they think Obama can change almost everything – and there’s sometimes a very uncritical admiration for him and an overly optimistic picture of America.

Paradoxically I sometimes have the impression that the Obama cult is the flip side of the hatred of Bush and the other America, but in both cases Europeans are far from having a realistic and balanced view of the US.

(The Swiss are not alone in their gooey love affair with our Dear Leader.)

Mr. Defago’s rhetoric boldly goes where few professors at Madison dare, when it comes to Obama:

I’m slightly sceptical about Obama’s economic plans. He’s maybe too comprehensive in his efforts to resolve problems.

Looking at how Europeans react to his enormous stimulus package, you see the old tensions once again. For example [on March 26] the Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek said American remedies for the global recession were “the road to hell”

Read the whole interview

Filed under: Obama, Switzerland , , ,

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  • Nancy Pelosi’s Stained Dress
    Lisa Schiffren has a piece on NRO’s The Corner in which she avers that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who feigned shock that Bush/Cheney gave the green light to waterboarding terrrorists, will not pay any price–political or legal–for her demonstrable duplicity about her lack of knowledge of what the CIA was doing re stepped-up interrogation procedur […]
  • Fat Jack Murtha & The NY Times?
    Everyone knows that financially The NY Times is in as precarious a position as the domestic automakers. The quality of its journalism–notwithstanding the self-congratulatory Pulitzers–is worth less than the current price of the company’s shares. A case in point is the Times’ recent piece on Fat Jack Murtha, the willfully corrupt con […]
  • Another Sleazy Congressman
    Blogging about John Murtha could be a full-time avocation, if one had the stomach for it. First elected to Congress 36 years ago, he has ingratiated himself to PA’s 12th district constituents by assiduously perfecting the congressional art of bringing home the bacon to the sparsely-populated region of SW Pennsylvania. Defense contractors [...]
  • Minnesota Dermatologists Rip Off Composer Dave Grusin???
    One of Blinkered Thinker’s pet peeves is the “borrowing” of recorded music for commercial purposes, i.e., using prerecorded music without permission by companies and organizations. Over the years I’ve heard a Madonna recording used for a Midwestern car wash, the late Johnny Cash’s singing in radio/TV ads for an RV dealership in […]
  • A Swiss View of Obama
    Alfred Defago, a former Swiss ambassador to the US and current professor of international relations at UW Madison, stated the following in a recent Swiss interview: Alfred Defago: I still see a lot of transatlantic misunderstandings. With the Obama era Europeans are more open to the US all of a sudden – they think Obama can [...]

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