Public Broadcasting Names New President – a Republican…

AP reports:

WASHINGTON - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, already embroiled in controversy over allegations of a liberal-leaning bias in PBS programming, chose a former Republican Party co-chairman Thursday as its president and chief executive.

Patricia S. Harrison, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, was selected following three days of closed-door meetings by the corporation's board of directors.

Democratic lawmakers last week urged the CPB to put off choosing a new president, citing concerns about political interference by the corporation's chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson. A Republican, Tomlinson, has been critical of public affairs programming at PBS, alleging that it's too liberal.

Not sure what’s up, here.  Is this a reaction to the complaints about liberal bias, or is this a hope on the part of the CPB board to save their cushy, overpaid jobs, by throwing a bone at the Republican dominated Congress?

Either way, I’m not impressed.  Yes, I would suggest this would be a positive move in the direction of ending the leftist bias that CBP has always had.  But I think the nation better served if we were to eliminate the CPB outright, thus removing the temptation for returning to their old tricks. And given CPB/PBS history, I think that a threat bigger than this temporary and as yet unmeasured gain.

CNN Money, evem, is reporting that Jobless rates fell faster than expected. Again.

You think the Democrats will notice?

Where did these come from, then?

Congrats to Chuck Simmins, today.

Reuters has his blog bigtime today in an article about donations to Tsunami victims.

I’m willing to bet the boy’s counters are dizzy.
…..’sall good though; his blog deserves it.

Noted at Gizmodo A PacMan guitar, they call a Git-Fiddle.

Go look.

(Shrug)
Weird.

Burning a cross is illegal.
Hate speech, the law calls it.

Why isn’t flag burning considered hate speech by the law?

In reseaching the last Rasmussen poll I posted, I ran across another at Mister Minority, also posted at

WorldNetDaily;

70% of Americans, say the poll results, 70% of Americans think that the Gitmo detainees are not being ‘abused’, and our actions there are the right ones. 20 percent of Americans polled believed detainees have been treated unfairly.

This doesn’t seem to bode well for the Democrats and others who have been investing an awful lot of capital in the abuse meme.

WorldNetDaily reports a Rasmussen poll:

"Two-thirds of Americans believe immigrants should integrate into the U.S. culture, according to a new poll.

The Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 17 percent believe immigrants should maintain the culture of their home country while 67 percent believe newcomers should "adopt America's culture, language, and heritage."

And here’s the killer:

Seventy-nine percent say immigrants should be required to learn English before they are allowed to become citizens.

Of course the MSM and government will ignore this, and bury it.

But what have I been saying?

“It’s not race, it’s culture.”

An important point from Alan Reynolds :

"The price of crude didn't rise from $12 in early 1999 to nearly $60 because the world suddenly ran out of oil. On the contrary, the world supply of petroleum has risen 10 percent since then, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), from 65.8 million barrels a day in 1999 to 72.5 million in 2004. Cambridge Energy Research Associates estimates global oil production capacity will increase at least twice that rapidly over the next five years -- by as much as 16 million barrels a day by 2010.

Oil prices did not quintuple after 1999 because Americans suddenly switched from mini-cars to SUVs. On the contrary, if all passenger cars, pickups and SUVs were replaced with bicycles, the United States would still import a lot of oil.
We import nearly 58 percent of all petroleum, yet only 45 percent of each barrel is used to produce gasoline, and a significant portion of that gasoline is used in delivery vans and taxis. Commuter and leisure driving accounts for little more than 40 percent of the oil we consume -- far less than the amount we import"

Did you note that? Go back and read it again;
Getting rid of the SUV won’t solve a thing. What’s in America’s driveway, is not the problem.

He goes on to point out that the real key, here, is the amount of industrial activity.. and not just in the US and China, but elsewhere. When industrial production of all goods, (Consumer and otherwise) falls so too does the price of oil.

Want the bad news first? High oil prices have already slowed industrial production in many countries, even China and the United States to a lesser extent. Leading indicators point to wider and deeper trouble ahead.

The good news is that oil prices have proven very sensitive to industrial production, so this problem is self-limiting. Cost-squeezed industrial firms -- not necessarily in the United States -- will be reducing production and thereby reducing world oil demand and prices.

RTWT.

In 20 years in hte computer biz, I thought I’d seen it all. Musing proves me wrong. A $50 mouse pad?
Yikes.

(BBCT > Andy C)

USATODAY reports a quote from the Cook report:

"The book seems so over the top that I don't think it's going to be taken terribly seriously," said Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report. "The Hillary bashers will still be bashing Hillary, and the defenders will still be defending, but I don't see how this changes anything."

Well, yeah, the subject matter is over the top.
But perhaps, that’s the point.

Ya see, there are many who think the fantastic can’t possibly be true.
And that’s a dangerous mindset, that allows fantastic crimes to be worked against us. Who, for example, on 9/10/01 would have considered what happened on 9/11 to be possible? Surely, it was too fantastic to be true.

And here’s the thing; The descriptions and accounts I’ve read in the book so far are quite plausable, and fit with what we know of the woman’s personality.

In a question of which of the two situations… the 9/11 attacks and Hillary pulling the stuff as described in this book, I would consider less beleiveable, the 9/11 attacks. And the sad truth is, so too would the majority of Americans, which is why this book is getting the attention it is.

I’ll review the thing more fully when I’m done reading. But my advice to my fellows on the right; Sit back and wait for this stuff to develop before making pronouncements. Look; When you see Useless Toady banging the drum against the book, you’ve gotta figure there’s something they’d rather the people not see.

Jon at GOP Bloggers

"When Democrats are not complaining about non-existent Republican attacks on their patriotism, they are busy trying to demoralize Americans and weaken our resolve as a vehicle to attack President Bush. How else to describe the Democrats' habitual validation of al Qaeda's doctrine of alleging torture where none exists and their overdone hypersensitivity on terrorist interrogations that is so inane as to cripple America's ability to gather intelligence? "

In this way: When they’re not bitching about our questioning their partiotism, they’re giving us ample REASON to question their patriotism.

Arthur Chrenkoff notes a proposal to make Iraqi oil the property of all the people in much the same was as Alaska does.

A good concept.

But I doubt it could be used against the insurgency. The flaw here of course s the idea requires a stable oil infrastructure, which is by no means assured at the outset; After all, isn’t one of their weapons blowing up pipelines?

Slashdot reports that half of businesses still use Windows 2000.

After using XP last night on my new system, I begin to more fully understand why.

Tony Blankley does a fair enough job of reviewing the Ed Klien book, The Truth About Hillary. The review seems reasonable based on what of the book I’ve read thusfar. (Just bought a copy last night, but have only zipped a couple chapters because the new computer, “Panther”, came in last night.)