weissblog

For many years I, along with countless other conservatives, have complained about the bias in the media. Well, an article in Investors Business Daily yesterday mentions an interesting joint study that was conducted by Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harverd’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. The study uncovered some interesting facts about how television, radio, and newspapers show an obvious favoritism toward the Democrats. For starters, the Democrats get more coverage than the Republicans. Then, it was shown that the coverage was more likely to show the Democrats in a positive light while Republicans were more likely to be shown in a neutral light. Here’s the chart Investor’s Business Daily used.

chart © 2007 Investor’s Business Daily

Of course the article will likely have no effect whatsoever on anything. The media still claim they’re neutral.

The Department of Homeland Security has admitted to Congress that it has had over 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years.

Okay, there’s two sides to this one. On one hand, they’re supposedly in charge of all the intel info that our great nation has and they really need to protect that information. On the other hand, they are THE target because they do have all the information. What I’d like to see is the # on how many attempts there were that didn’t make it. Then we could see if it’s just the shear number of attacks that some are slipping through or if it’s really that the DHS is just dropping the ball here.

In the end, though, the DHS knows it’s a target and should better protect the information that they have. And that starts with training the employees, not with hardware. Most security breaches are a result of someone doing something stupid, anyway.

Okay, we all know that the government wastes money. But this on really has me upset. A report by the Minority Office of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee examines how CDC has been managing it’s money. I’m just going to list a couple of points here, but you can get your own pdf of the CDC Off Center report.

• $1.7 million — including terrorism funds — on a Hollywood liaison program, which happens to be run by a former employee (pg. 87);
• $45 million for conferences, including those featuring prostitutes, protests, and beach parties (pgs. 48 – 60);
• $250,000 spent so two former employees could help build staff morale, (pgs. 100 – 101);
• $128,000 in CDC bioterrorism funds spent by L.A. County on trinkets such as letter openers, whistles, magnets, mouse pads, flashlights, pens, and travel toothbrushes (pgs. 106 – 110).
• $5 billion spent over seven years on HIV/AIDS prevention funding, with no decrease in infection rates. The U.S. still sees 40,000 new cases each year (pgs. 23-37);
• HIV/AIDS prevention funds spent on a transgender beauty pageant (pg. 45);

For those wondering why this bothers me, you have to realize that I used to work for a non-profit in Arkansas that assisted people infected with HIV/AIDS. In addition to helping those infected we also did abstinence based presentations in the schools and offered classes and retreats to help educate people on how to live with this disease. And, in all this, we dealt with the CDC on a regular basis. However, we could never get the CDC to give us a grant to help pay for anything. We were always having to go to private foundations to fund our projects. If it wasn’t for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation we would have never been able to help as many people as we did. Anyway, that’s why this issue got me fired up.

Also, please realize that the CDC isn’t a business. Its money comes from the federal government and thus from your tax dollars. So in a indirect way, we all just paid for a transgender beauty pageant.

</rant>

I am just about sick of all the media attention about Don Imus. He made a statement last week and the media is still raving about it. It’s been a week, let it go! Quit trying to burn the guy at the stake.

Look people, I’m not saying that he’s a nice guy, Okay? But the last time I checked, there are no laws in the USA that require people to be politically correct. Imus is rarely ever PC. And he won’t be PC when he come back from his two week vacation suspension. Everyone knows this. Get over it.

For everyone that’s yelling that Imus is raciest, sexist, stupid, etc. He’s a shock jock, he’s suppose to shock people! And in this day and age of over rampant political correctness what better way to do it than make sexist remarks.

And, just for the record, the phrase ‘nappy headed hoes’ is one that is heard often in the black community around Arkansas, where I grew up. There it’s not considered anything worthy of uproar. Of course that could be because it’s usually said by a black person about a black person. Maybe that’s why everyone’s mad, how dare Mr. Don “Whitey” Imus use a black only phrase! Or maybe it’s a Southern thing and the Rutgers basketball team didn’t get the joke because they’re Yankees. Oh, but those aren’t politically correct statements to make either, and I say both in jest to try to point out how crazy all this mess is. It seems that some people (Read: Al Sharpton) sit around all day looking for something to be offended by so they can throw a fit about in.

Look, if you don’t like the Imus in the Morning show, then don’t listen to it. It’s a simple as that. If enough people stop listening, then the advertisers will pull support and the radio will drop the show. It’s that simple. Personally, I just want to be able to watch a newscast without having to see Imus and Sharpton on it; I don’t care for either of them. In my opinion, neither of them are anywhere near as intelligent as they think they are.

Acunamatada!

Today Wired posted an article letting folks know about the Virgin Earth Challenge. Over all I’d have to say that it’s a good thing, though I have some reservations about it. To quote the challenge website:

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges’ satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.

Now, I have my own opinion and point of views about the whole global warming issue, namely I have not seen proof that the cause of the rise in temperatures is caused by CO2 emissions. However I have seen a correlation between the rise of CO2 and the rise of the average temperature. So, it seems to me that lowering CO2 would, at the very least, be a good thing.

However, rather than trying to create a machine that attempts to vacuum the greenhouse gases out of the air, the same gases that were put there mostly by other machines, I’d like to see the reforestation of the rain forest and many of the forests here in the USA and an increase in the use of recycled materials.

It seems to me that developing such a machine would only encourage the human race to continue to take the planet for granted. But to work together to cut the CO2 emissions and to re-plant trees (and not just fast growing softwood tress, but rather to plant and oak for every oak that’s cut down, and so on and so forth).

These is just a brief overview of the issue, one which I’m likely to elaborate on further at a later date.