So long to Katie Couric, not that it's that big a deal:
The explosion of news choices on cable and the Web have made the evening news an anachronism enjoyed mostly by an audience of older and less highly educated viewers, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. If there is little prestige, honor, and future being the anchor of the No. 1 show chasing an audience that is becoming smaller, older, and is less-educated, imagine how the No. 3 anchor must have felt....
Thank goodness this is the minority view on the court:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer argued Tuesday that judges need to apply the Constitution's values with an eye toward the changing times as he talked about the past successes and missteps of the nation's highest court.
One of our religious whack jobs burns a book, and some of their religious whack jobs respond in a mob attack that leaves 20 dead. There is general agreement here that our whack job might be despicable but had the right to do what he did under the "flag burning is symbolic speech" precedent. But we shouldn't glide right by Terry Jones' moral culpabiity: Jones is not quite like the rape victim who is blamed for wearing too short a skirt:
Hey, we're useful for something again!
Japanese workers battling to stop a radioactive water leak into the Pacific from the beleaguered nuclear power plant have resorted to using newspaper and sawdust to try and block the pipes.
I
Sen. Chuck Schumer is typical of most Democrats' delusions about spending and the debt:
“And the overall goal: again, cutting waste, using a smart short scalpel but not a meat axe,” he said. “Senate Democrats and the president are on the same page and I think we're moving in that direction.”
How do you explore the gun rights/gun control issue without addressing 2nd Amendment concerns? It's easy -- just don't bring the pesky thing up. In this article by Brady Campaign head and former mayor Paul Helmke, "Common-sense steps to reduce gun violence," the 2nd Amendment isn't mentioned a single time, or even referred to obliquely.
This is how it's going to go for the rest of the year, isn't it? Down a penny or two, then up 20.
If President Obama's rhetoric is starting to turn off even Ruth Marcus, it might be time to hire some new speechwriters, or get a new logic book:
It's time to retire the false choice.
As a rhetorical device, particularly as a political rhetorical device, the false choice has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any. The phrase has become a trite substitute for serious thinking. It serves too often to obscure rather than to explain.
Shocking research of the week:
Money may not buy happiness, but beauty buys both money and happiness, says a study published online today that gauged happiness and attractiveness among more than 25,000 people worldwide.
Economists at the University of Texas-Austin analyzed data from five large surveys conducted between 1971 and 2009 in the USA, Canada, Germany and Britain. They found that beautiful people are generally happier than the plain Jane or even ugly Joe.
When Louis Farrakhan has to choose between President Obama and Moammar Gadhafi, it's not even a close call, is it?
Speaking from the pulpit of Chicago's Mosque Maryam, the Nation of Islam's international headquarters, purchased 40 years ago with a $3 million loan from Gadhafi, Farrakhan blamed demons for altering President Barack Obama's moral conscience and driving the assault on Gadhafi, who he calls a brother.
