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Writers' Strike - some thoughts

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Thursday, January 17, 2008 2:19:00 PM
Disney is giving its CEO, Robert Iger, a 7% pay increase, making his total compensation package for 2007 valued at about $27.7 million. If that is what Disney wants to pay its CEO, then it's no skin off my nose.

However, when the you take that information together with the fact that if Disney gave the Writers Guild of America everything it wanted then it would only cost Disney about $6.25 million a year. In other words, Robert Iger could write a personal check to settle the strike and still have a total annual compensation package worth over $21 million.

On the other hand, the Hollywood Hill, a group of liberal Hollywood activists (brought you by the Department of Redundancy Department), see its reason for being as follows:

"The entertainment industry, and again, Hollywood in particular, has a charter to entertain and to provoke the imagination, raise awareness, present controversy, catalyze reflection, thought, and discussion, and in so doing, Hollywood has come to recognize that it has the responsibility to advocate and catalyze global responsibility. Like the free press but packaged in a manner to achieve its charter, Hollywood has the capacity to be a catalyst for social change."

Reading something like that makes me hope that Mr. Iger keeps his checkbook closed.
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Where's the Democrat verson of John McCain?

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 10:34:42 PM
I would like someone to point out to me the Democrat who regularly insults and snubs the Liberal base, takes conservative positions domestic social and economic issues, thinks man-made global warming is nothing to worry about, pushes oil exploration in Alaska's ANWR and wants to vigorously fight the war against Islamo-Nazism.

That kind of Democrat will never appear on the public stage.

The moment a Republican appears on the public stage who regularly insults and snubs the Conservative base, strongly fights for liberal positions on domestic social and economic issues, accepts the Gore thesis on climate change, votes to block oil exploration in ANWR ... and, by the way, was pushing for the Iraq surge before Pres. Bush
...
That kind of Republican is pegged as the leading candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination by the Main Scream Media.

Go figure.

If there was a Democrat candidate who did to Democrats what John McCain does to Republicans, then I'd vote for the Democrat in a heartbeat.
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Democrat anti-science positions

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 9:37:28 PM
How come when conservatives take positions opposing embryonic stem cell research and favoring adult stem cell research they are attacked for being "anti-science"?

However, when liberals attack the science around nuclear power and nuclear waste storage, they are considered "pro-science"
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Huckabee dirty campaign tactics & Medved's blindspot

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 6:15:07 PM
If you have listened to Michael Medved at any time during the past few weeks, then you have heard him go on and on about how clean Mike Huckabee's campaign has been. This, despite the dirty trick of creating a negative ad and then holding a press conference to claim that you weren't going to run the negative ad, and then run the negative ad.

Since that bit of political theater didn't seem to change Medved's tune regarding Rev. ... uh, I mean Gov. Mike's clean campaigning, I doubt that the Huckabee Push Poll automated phone calls, in South Carolina, attacking Fred Thompson, and in Michigan, attacking Mitt Romney, will either.
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Food for thought from Neil Gaiman

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Monday, January 14, 2008 11:28:54 PM
Here's something I found in an interview Neil Gaiman gave to Booksl*t.com. I don't expect many, if any who frequent Townhall.com, to agree with Neil's religious world view. But his point at the end is definitely something to ponder.
"Given that we’re living in a universe in which religions and mythologies and semi-imaginary things, depending on where you’re standing, the level of imaginariness…. There are definitely people who look at the entirety of what’s going on the world today as a couple of people fighting over whose imaginary friend likes them better. And then you’ve got people who say, “No, no, this isn’t an imaginary friend, he’s actually the real thing. But that guy over there, he’s an imaginary friend.” And it’s huge and it’s responsible for an enormous amount of worry and difficulty and it’s why I’m not allowed to travel with eight ounces of shampoo. I’m allowed four ounces. I’m going to have to pour away half of my shampoo before I can put it in my quart bag and put it in my carryon. Which is really bizarre.

"And that’s because of people arguing over things that many people regard as imaginary. Chiefly, gods, religions, and national boundaries, which are absolutely imaginary. They’re completely notional. They don’t tend to exist. As soon as you pull back half a mile and look down at the Earth there are no national boundaries. There aren’t even any national boundaries when you get down and walk around. They’re just imaginary lines we draw on maps.

"I don’t know where I got to from that. It was more sort of a rant. I just get fascinated by people who assume that things that are imaginary have no relevance to their lives. ..." (emphasis added)

The next time I hear someone attack fantastical fiction as a pointless waste of time, I'm going to think about this quote. Perhaps I'll ask said attacker well if imaginary things aren't so important why, pray tell, are we so worried about defending U.S. - Mexico border, which, when you boil things down a bit, is just a line some folks drew on a map.

The point being, I think, is that the imaginary is incredibly relevant and incredibly important to all of our lives.
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Life in Seattle, Pt. IV

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Sunday, January 13, 2008 3:34:10 PM
I dropped by the University Village Barnes & Noble, near University of Washington. While my wife picked up a cookbook she ordered, I went in search of Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism. There was a not a copy to be found. Nothing on the 'New Non-Fiction' table. Nothing in the Current Events section.

I did find about 20 copies of Chris Hedges' book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America.

Every time liberals, and we all know it is liberals who run the Big Box bookstore outlets, attempt to bury a book by a conservative, they prove Goldberg's thesis. It isn't conservatives who are the fascist force in America. It is liberals.
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Media Bias Example #95181687487845

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Friday, January 11, 2008 2:10:07 PM
President Bush makes an historic trip to the Middle East. But who does the Democrat Times of Los Angeles choose to put on its frontpage?

Every Leftists favorite South American communist dictator, of course.

Disgraceful. The term 'Useful Idiots' is to kind for those who made this decision.
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A McCain blast from the past

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Thursday, January 10, 2008 6:32:56 PM
Those of you who like to put a few bucks on a BCS championship game or NCAA Final Four and support McCain for president these days, may want to rethink you position.

Back in 2002 John McCain was looking at making college betting a federal crime.

If Republicans put this nanny state so-called Republican in the White House, then they  should not complain later when every bit of domestic legislation pushed by his bully pulpit is no different that what might be proposed by a President Obama or President H. Clinton.
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PeTA targets Catholic Monastary

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:08:50 AM
The far Left, animal worshiping, activist group PeTA has forced Mepkin Abbey to end its decade long egg producing business. This is a major economic hit to the Abbey, since producing and selling eggs was about 60% of its income.

This is nothing less than a direct attack against the monk's Christian faith. The Abbey's statement makes it clear that this work played a key role in their faith centered, contemplative life:

"The monks at Mepkin live under the rule of St. Benedict which calls for monks to provide for their daily needs by the work of their hands. Work is a basic component of the monastic life and is central to a monk's growth as a contemplative. For centuries, monasteries relied on some type of agricultural work because it is the kind of work that can foster prayer and contemplation."

If you can please go to the Abbey's Store and support them however you can.

Thanks to Amy Wellborn Dubruiel and Gashwin Gomes for blogging about this.
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John Ringo & Sci Fi that won't insult conservatives

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Thursday, January 10, 2008 12:41:50 AM
If you are a science fiction fan who happens to be a conservative, then John Ringo should be on your bookshelf.

Check out some of his Op-Eds and 'Essays & Rants'. You will find a guy who not only supports the troops, but also supports the mission they are on. And if that isn't enough for you then how's this, from an essay titled Unified Theory of Liberal Stupidity Or... Why Does The Left Hate Western Civilization? :
What is with the left?

It can't be denied that many of them do drugs, but I don't think that's the crux of the reason. Smoking too much pot will make you stupid, but not this stupid. This is a special kind of stupidity that requires a real brain behind it. This is stupidity with suspenders.

So let us follow the trail of their thoughts, delve into the inner recesses of this group that makes "Dumb and Dumber" look like "Einstein and Bohr", attempt to divine what is the key factor that binds wanting to go to bed with brutal dictators and hating decent hard working farmers who just want a little water for their crops.
This is from Chapter 2 of Into the Looking Glass:

He'd recently considered going back to grad school to polish off another Ph.D. The only question was in what. A**hole physics, astrophysics to the uninitiated, was out. The whole field was filled with eggheads who couldn't tell reality from fantasy and most of them put their fantasies squarely on the liberal side of the political divide. Maybe atomic level engineering, but the only school that had a department, yet, was MIT. Bleck. Among other oddities in his field, Weaver was a staunch and outspoken political conservative of a seriously military bent. A year, about what it would take despite the "recommended" three years, in the People's Republic of Massachusetts was more than he could stand.

There's more where that came from. But don't read Ringo just because his politics may fit with yours. Read him because he writes strong characters in tightly plotted stories. The fact that he isn't yet another mindless liberal is just icing on the cake. If you need a shot of some tough guy Sci Fi, then Ringo's your guy.

I'm going out right now to find me a copy of Ghost.
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Say it ain't so, Professor. Say it ain't so.

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Wednesday, January 09, 2008 5:27:27 PM
Could this really be true? Is a contingent of Columbia University professors going to travel to Tehran and bow down before a man who has denied the Holocaust and declared it Allah's will that another sovereign nation be destroyed? According to one news source that does seem to be the case.

This sounds like the joke about how the ACLU was going to sue the American government to prevent use of the lowercase letter 't' because it looked to much like a cross. The problem with this joke is that many  people would take this bit of news seriously given the ACLU's propensity to sue, at the drop of a hat, any time a Christian symbol appears in the public square.

As much as I would like to believe that a bunch of Lefty professors would apologize to the antisemitic, America hating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I'm going remain skeptical that they would go this far until I see or hear it verified somewhere other than a news source from Tehran itself.
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Realpolitik abandons Christian minorities

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 3:54:35 PM
Orthodox Christians have once again been given short shrift by an American President. Clinton sided with Islamo-Nazism in Kosovo and now President Bush is siding with Islamic radicals against Orthodox Christians in Turkey.

This, of course, is nothing new.  American realpolitik calculus has always given Orthodox Christians the short end of the stick; abandoning them to the forces of Islamo-Nazism throughout the Middle East and areas of the former Ottoman Empire.

Pres. Bush's comments, "I think Turkey sets a fantastic example for nations around the world to see where it's possible to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam and that's important" flies in the face of reality on the ground. I think it would be news to many Turkish Christians that their nation is a "fantastic example" of democracy.

"All over Turkey, Christians are under attack. In January Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian newspaper editor, was shot dead in Istanbul by a teenager who said he had “insulted Turkishness”. In April two Turks and a German, all evangelists, were murdered in Malatya. Their killers bound and tortured them before slitting their throats. In December an Italian Catholic priest was knifed by a teenager in Izmir. Another Italian priest was shot dead in Trabzon in 2006.
...
"[E]vidence leaked to the media in the Dink and Malatya cases points to collusion between the perpetrators and rogue elements in the police and the army. It also suggests that the Istanbul police were tipped off about Mr Dink's murder a year before it was carried out.
...
"The government has yet to approve a draft bill to help non-Muslims recover thousands of properties that have been confiscated by the state and either sold or left to decay."

I understand why Pres. Bush is bowing down before the Turkish state. If he doesn't than one of the few Middle Eastern "allies"  in the war against Islamo-Nazism is lost. However, this also leads me to the sad conclusion that this realpolitik means dhimmitude will be the never ending condition of Christians throughout the Islamic world.

How can we win this war when we shoot at some Islamo-Nazis with one hand, while praising and back-slapping others as forces for democracy and progress?
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Liberals write the darndest things

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 10:14:04 AM
Imagine the media firestorm that would come were a conservative writing for, say, the Weekly Standard or National Review to pen this bit of irrationality:
"Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.
...
"[W]hat we see is that huge swaths of [liberal] America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.
...
"There is a poetic justice to this of course.
...
"The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes."
But this wasn't penned by conservative. It was authored by David Lindorff, "an award-winning journalist [and] former New York Times contributor", for the Baltimore Chronicle. Global warming will be great, according to Mr. Lindorff, because it will allow Liberals to make Conservatives second class citizens in America. I thought the Left was all about tolerance and compassion.

Thanks to Roger Kimball for pointing out this bit of Liberal lunacy.

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Am I a Conservative?

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Monday, January 07, 2008 10:34:40 PM
I am fascinated with the works published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. They produce some of the best books and journals available today. I don't think Regnery or Encounter Books come close to the intellectual gravitas coming from ISI.

I don't subscribe to their journals (a factor of funds rather than desire) so I'm limited to what is available online and what I find now again in a bookstore. Recently I found the Summer 2007 issue of Modern Age. The focus of this issue is the "Why I am a Conservative: A Symposium". All this is a long, and perhaps not very interesting, way of introducing this Michael Oakeshott quote from "On being Conservative":

"To be a conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss."

I do love the bit about "present laughter to utopian bliss". There could not be a more accurate distinction between conservatives and liberals with regards to that quality.
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Is she crying?!?

Posted by Daniel Crandall on Monday, January 07, 2008 6:46:33 PM
Hillary Clinton gets all choked up and on the verge of tears while stumping for President. 

I think she needs to watch A League of Their Own before she goes out again.

Then again, part of this reminds me of the old Bill Clinton water-works which he managed, on occasion, to turn on and off in order to garner public sympathy.
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