Florida Pilot

A compendium of random thoughts from a former Washington Beltway insider who is now having a lot more fun flying small airplanes in Central Florida.

Thursday, December 30, 2004

getting a piece of the action

When it comes to providing aid to the victims of the recent Asian earthquake/tsunami, it appears that the United Nations is more concerned about getting its "piece of the action" than making sure that victims get aid in the most expeditious manner possible. How else to explain the following comments in response to President Bush's initiative in creating a groups to coordinate efforts consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia.

"“I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said.

“Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme.

“It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.”"

Of course, the most recent major effort undertaken by the United Nations is the Iraqi "Oil for Food" program from which billions of dollars were improperly taken. With Oil for Food now only a fond memory of UN bureaucrats due to Saddam Hussein's fall from power, one can see how the UN would love to replace it with another major program from which a bit of "vig" can be extracted.

President Bush is to be commended for not using the UN under the present circumstances. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is supposedly having the Oil for Food program invesigated but at a pace that is even slower than the CBS investigation of Dan Rather. Perhaps if the United States stopped participation in all UN aid programs until the Oil for Food problems are disclosed and resolved, some action might be forthcoming.

the blame Bush game

Given the historic magnigude of the Asian earthquake and resulting tsunami, it was inevitable that the liberal media would find some way to blame Geoge Bush for it. The only question was which media outlet would be the first and what would be the nature of their claim.

Well, the first major liberal media outlet to attempt to blame Bush for the trusnami is The Washington Post. They are essentially blaming Bush for being slow to pledge relief efforts and not making some sort of big public show like Bill Clinton would. The Bush administration has pointed out that U.S. contibutions to international relief efforts have increased since the Clinton era but that has not addressed the criticism.

I guess the only surprise is that the liberals have yet to find a way to blame Bush directly for the event itself. While some would consider it an act of God, it seems like something that algore could blame on Bush environmental policies, perhaps failure to support the anti-American Kyoto treaty. But it may be just vacations schedules at the liberal media that have spared Bush from a claim of direct responsibility. Also, Michael Moore, hero to anti-Bush liberals and anti-American terrorists has yet to be heard from.

Monday, December 27, 2004


central florida frost 12-27-2004

Sunday, December 26, 2004

what is old is new

With the media-favored Kerry campaign machinery out of business, the Democratic National Committee in apparent winter hibernation and even Michael Moore's outrageous behavior becoming repetitious and boring, what is an uncreative liberal media to do until the next election cycle. The answer is simple; recycle old stories.

If you enter "Rancher Albert Kolk" into a google search, you will find 782 references, all of them (that I have looked at) refering to stories about a "new" parachute system designed to work on small airplanes. The story, attributed to Associate Press, appears to be primarily taken from press materials prepared by Ballistic Recovery Systems which has been making small aircraft parachute systems for over 20 years! and Cirrus Design, a small plane manufacturer which has been making planes that use the parachutes for the past several years.

And who is Rancher Albert Kolk to deserve such noteriety? Well, after putting his "spin-resistant" Cirrus into a spin, Albert Kolk saved the day by crashing his plane into the ground with the aid of the parachute. Stories at the time indicated that a failure to switch fuel tanks causing a weight imbalance in the wings had a lot to do with the plane getting out of control but there is no official report available online from the Canadian equivalent of the National Transportation Safely Board. Had Kolk been flying a non-Cirrus airplane, he would probably have been able to employ anti-spin procedures to get the plane back under control and avoid having a crash at all, but in the Cirrus, using the parachute to mitigate the crash is the only approved option if the plane starts to spin.

Reading these promotional stories conveniently published as "news" one would wonder why any small airplane would not be equipped with a parachute. Here are some reasons:

(1) The number of occasions in which a parachute would actually be useful to a well-trained pilot is very very small. A loss of engine power (most feared by the non-pilot) simply results in the plane becoming a somewhat heavy glider. Mid-air crashes typically occur close to the groundand under circumstances in which deployment of a parachute may not be possible. As far as spins are concerned, Cirrus is the only plane in its class to require a parachute deployment and resulting crash if a spin is entered.

(2) There is no way to test the parachute system before attempting to use it; if it doesn't work there is no second chance or backup system. In addition, there have been a couple of cases in which the parachute was deployed after the airplane was already on the ground; clearly not of much help.

(3) In the Cirrus installation, use of the parachute is required (by the Pilot's Operating Handbook) in circumstances in which normal control adjustment would be made in most airplanes. An inadvertent stall with a wing down possibly caused by turbulence would be quickly recovered in most aircraft with opposite rudder; the Cirrus owner would have to pull the chute and crash the airplane under such circumstances.

(4) The availability of the chute is likely to lead to careless piloting and a higher accident rate. One example of this is the "save" in Fort Lauderdale in which the pilot paniced and "pulled the chute" at low altitude, crashing his airplane instead of simply pulling the "alternate static source" and continuing his flight. Due to the vagaries of the winds, the plane crashed in an uninhabited part of a heavily urbanized area; had it crashed and injured or killed innocent people on the ground, the Associated Press might not be publishing such laudatory articles.

(5) Once the chute is pulled, the airplane is no longer under pilot control and is going to crash wherever the winds blow it. The resultant crash is equivalent to dropping the plane from a height of from 15 to 30 feet. The FAA-approved pilot handbook suggests deployment of the chute may cause significant injury or death and destroy the airframe.

The insurance industry considers the parachute-equipped Cirrus airplane to be a higher risk than competing aircraft of similar (or even greater) complexity, punishing its owners with higher premiums and greater training/experience requirements It is not clear to what extent this is due to the presence of the parachute but pulling the chute handle when a better option is readily available (see (4) above) will result in an unnecessary crash and a substantial insurance claim.

Listening to a Cirrus salesman, however, is a lot like hanging around a car lot on the Vegas strip and the boyz seem to be pretty successful in moving a lot of metal, er plastic to be more correct.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

moonbat liberals and deserters unite

Moonbat liberals appear to be willing to align themselves with any and all enemies of the United States including military deserters like Pablo Paredes.

During the draft era, individuals being drafted for service could apply for conscientious objector status. Conscientous objectors, individuals whose religious beliefs precluded participation in warfare, could be assigned to noncombatant tasks. The whole concept of conscientious objector makes no sense in today's all-volunteer force since anyone in the armed services has had the opportunity to object to warfare by simply not joining the service in the first place. Going ahead and joining the service and them claiming to be a conscientious objector when assigned to combat duty is the mark of a coward.

But moonbats are willing to support any and all enemies of the United States including military deserters, Saddam Hussein whose removal from power they find troubling and even Osama bin Laden, whose terrorist attacks on the United States are somehow mitigated in the moonbat mind by his admiration for moonbat hero Michael Moore.


Christmas dog

Friday, December 24, 2004

setting priorities

The extent of the taxpayer subsidy proposed to relocate the failed Montreal Expos baseball team to Washington DC and rename it the Nationals is staggering. It looked for a while last week, however, that Linda Cropp, city council Chairman, was going to stand up on behalf of city taxpayers and demand that baseball pay at least a small share of the cost of a new stadium. It now appears that her opposition was only a token one, evidently taken primarily to better position herself for a run against current "mayor-for-life" Anthony Williams.

But, when push came to shove, Cropp settled for what appears to be a meaningless provision requesting but not requiring private some private funding for the stadium. Of course, what private group is going to provide funding when the government stands ready to do it if they don't. So, the fat cats in baseball land get a major Christmas present courtesy of DC taxpayers.

But, although I haven't been in the area for a few years, the largesse of the city to the barons of baseball seemed to be inconsistent with their previous unwillingness to pay for improvements to DC city schools. In fact, while the city is going to spend something over $10 million to temporarily "rehab" the city's 43 year old RFK stadium for baseball's use for a few years while the new $500 million or so baseball palace is being constructed, my recollection is that the city claimed an inability to find the money to rehabilitate or replace school buildings over 100 years old.

The web site referenced above shows the city poor-mouthing and asking for the federal government to subsidize city school repair and reconstruction. Do you think the city will withdrawal this request now that they have figured out how to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for a stadium? I can't imagine Congress or the administration supporting additional subsidies for the city given generous giveaways to baseball billionaries.

But, RFK stadium, to be fixed up for interim use by the baseball team, is the most recent example of the city throwing money at the baseball barons and getting nothing in return. RFK stadium only housed baseball for 10 years until the team it was built to house left for greener pastures.

Perhaps John McCain might figure out a more intelligent way to solve the drug use in baseball. Right now, the focus appears to be on threatening to pass laws making already illegal drug use by ballplayers extra-special illegal. But, as long as the top tier of plays can make tens of millions of dollars per year more than merely "good" players, the incentive to use illegal drugs will be irresistible. If, however, public subsidies to baseball (including stadia and other subsidies) were eliminated, owners would be under economic pressure to reduce salaries, perhaps to a level that would discourage drug use. Maybe McCain could introduce some legislation to outlaw public subsidies for professional sports.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

still seeking the truth about kerry

The defeat of John Kerry in the recent election has apparently not eliminated his desire to be president (and I'm sure Teresa hasn't lost her ambition to be first lady either). Therefore, it is good news that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are planning to continue their work. The fact is that, while the Swiftees did an amazing job in bringing information about Kerry's Vietnam record to light, their stories were first ignored and then attacked by the liberal media elite who were anxious to get Kerry in office no matter what they had to do (for example, Dan Rather comes to mind here).

"The end of the 2004 presidential election campaign doesn't spell the end of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the well-funded alliance of former servicemen that remains dedicated to preventing Sen. John Kerry from becoming president.
The group, which recently changed its name to Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, plans to convene next month to celebrate its successes and to consider speaking out further about Kerry's military service, his anti-war activities afterward, and other issues, says William E. Franke, who ran the organization's day-to-day operations.
... [Franke] said the swift boat group's members remained frustrated, feeling that the news media did not bore in sufficiently on what he regards as unanswered questions about Kerry's service records."

Monday, December 20, 2004

Katie Couric to replace Dan Rather?

Technically, NBC's Today show is considered part of the network's news operation, as are each of the other major network morning shows (not just the short "news" portion of the show but the whole thing!) I guess Katie Couric is therefore considered a news broadcaster and presumably eligible for a network news anchor position.

But why not add a 5 minute news segment to the Letterman show (similar to that done on their morning show) and then move David Letterman to the CBS news anchor position? They might have to add a short weather segment as well but there is no shortage of balding men willing to read the weather for big money.

In fact, the host of the CBS Big Brother show is Julie Chen who, believe it or not, is considered a news reporter. Does that make the Big Brother show a news show? If you look at the extent of its coverage on CBS shows that are labeled as "news", you would have to conclude that it is a news show.

better not interfere with the payola industry

Apparently backers of country singer Chely Wright were pretending to have military connections when contacting radio stations to promote airplay of her song The Bumper of My SUV.

For folks who wonder why there is such a limited selection of songs played on most radio stations, the answer is that playlists are heaving influenced by payments by recording companies. Since direct payola from the record companies to stations would be illegal, all of the current payola is handled by third party agents. Of course, those payments (which are rather large) are part of the reason that recorded music is so expensive relative to other forms of entertainment.

I guess the folks in Chely's fan club didn't understand that the proper way to promote a song is with cash payments.

never in doubt

It looks like baseball fat cats can count on Washington, D.C. mayor Anthony Williams to represent their interests ahead of those of mere citizens or voters in the nation's capital.

"D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said yesterday that voters can throw him out of office if they don't like his plan to bring a baseball team to the city.
'You're elected not to be a refrigerator or a mirror and just reflect what people are saying,' Mr. Williams said during an appearance on 'Fox News Sunday' with Chris Wallace.
'Ten [percent], 20 percent of the time you're elected to do what you think is in the best interests of the city,' the mayor said. 'If people don't agree with that, they can throw you out next time. And I think this is one of those issues.'"

So, the mayor's priority is to bring a baseball team to Washington, a city with an astoundingly high crime rate and some of the most expensive and worst performing public schools in the nation. And if the voters don't like it, they can get rid of him in a few years. In fact, since the mayor is in his second term and the voters have yet to show much concern about the astoundingly high crime rate and some of the most expensive and worst performing public schools in the nation, something as minor as wasting only several hundred million dollars to bring in a baseball team is not likely to make a difference.

Given the traditionally poor performance of the D.C. government, one has to wonder why Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp is even opposing the baseball giveaway; after all, it is not her money and more than it is the mayor's and caring about the taxpayers has never been a concern of the city council in the past.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

an election that algore would love

The Washington state governor's race is in the midst of the thrid count over six week after election day. Sound Politics has been doing an admirable job of reporting the antics.

Repulican Dino Rossi won both the election and the first recount with a razor thin margin. The throught of having to give up power has apparently galvanized the democratic party establishment there to become more and more desperate; even more so since Rossi's win was not predicted by the polls that democrats seem to love more than actual results these days. Most recently, the democrats have been "finding" new ballots in democrat-friendly areas.

So far, the state courts have been unwilling to rewrite the rules -- in sharp contrast to Florida's Supreme court in the 2000 presidential election which kept making up gore-favorable new couting rules until they were spanked by the U.S. Supreme court.

The problem here are rules that permit canvassing boards (sometimes highly partisan) to attempt to determine the intent of the voter. How about a simple rule that if you don't fill your ballot our correctly, it doesn't count.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

city council attempts to

"Washington's new baseball team shut down business and promotional operations indefinitely Wednesday as its move to the nation's capital teetered on the brink of collapse.
The decision by major league baseball followed the District of Columbia Council's decision Tuesday night to require private financing for at least half the cost of building a new stadium. The September agreement to move the Montreal Expos to Washington called for a ballpark fully financed by government money."

It appears that the Washington, D.C. city council, never considered to be particularly friendly to taxpayers, has apparently drawn the line over a plan to subsidize baseball millionaires and billionaires with something more than $530 million in taxpayer funds.

Not wanting to be considered too taxpayer friendly all of a sudden, the council has apparently expressed a willingness to waste only somthing more than $250 million to bring baseball to the city.

For its part, baseball has expressed its unhappiness by refusing to show the public the design of uniforms for the new team. Will the baseball establishment take its ball and play elsewhere? That apparently is based on whether they can extract more money from taxpayers in another jurisdiction.





Monday, December 13, 2004

maybe he should have purchased the "platinum edition" pardon

"[Marc] Rich, the fugitive Swiss-based commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Bill Clinton in January 2001, is a primary target of criminal probes under way in the U.S. attorney's office in New York and by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, sources said.

"We think he was a major player in this — a central figure," a senior law-enforcement official told The [New York] Post.

Investigators are looking into a series of deals that took place in the months after his pardon from Clinton. If criminal wrongdoing is established in these deals, he could be subject to prosecution."

Rich's ex-wife Denise contributed $1,000,000 to Democratic campaigns including the Hillary Clinton Senate race as well as $450,000 for the Clinton library. This generosity was apparently enough to convice Clinton to override the recommendations of his staff and award a pardon to Rich. But the pardon awarded by Clinton only covered past crimes not future crimes.

I'm thinking that Rich might well have paid in excess of $10,000,000 for a "platinum" pardon that would have covered future crimes as well as past crimes. As things stand now, if Rich is again indicted, he will likely have to wait until a Hillary Clinton administration to get another pardon and that one is going to cost quite a bit more as the vast right-wing conspiracy folks are likely to go crazy over a second pardon.

One would think that a top grifter like Bill Clinton would have figured out a way to extract quite a bit more from the pardons than he did.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Hailey rides to the rescue of Rather et al

David Hailey is a faculty member at Utah State University who has been trying to show that the forged Bush memos used by Dan Rather were actually produced on a typewriter.

Of course, as most everyone knows, Charles Johnson created an animated gif file that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the forged memos had been prepared using the Times New Roman font under Microsoft Word. But maybe David Hailey didn't see this as his paper expresses some surprise that so many have concluded that the font used was indeed Times New Roman.

But apparently unaware of the existence of the animated gif and through some very complex and convoluted cut and paste and computer-assisted manipulations, Hailey concludes that the font used was a "typewriter" font and that, therefore, it was most likely produced using a typewrite. But when Hailey concludes it was a typewriter font, that means that he found it by searching a font directory using "typewriter" as the keyword. Of course, a compter font called "typewriter" would not be uncommon.

The bottom line here is that Hailey seems to be trying to produce something that Rather, Mapes, et al. can use to justify acceptance of the forged documents in the first place. They can reference Hailey to show that some presumably educated person with some presumed expertise in the field was able to conclude that the documents may have been prepared on a typewriter and, if so, how could lay persons like Rather and Mapes be expected to know any better.

But what is in this for Hailey? Perhaps a casting call for the next round of celebrity wresling? For sure, Hailey will get a place in the Mary Mapes' Rolodex if she gets into trouble again in the future.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Big Al Sharpton scores big in walking around money

"The Democratic National Committee paid Sharpton $86,715 in travel and consulting fees to compensate for his campaigning for Kerry and other Democratic candidates, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission."

It is traditional in democratic party politics to offer "walking around money" to encourage minority voters to vote the party ticket. Ususually, this is a few dollars, enough for a pack of cigarettes or a beer or two. But Al Sharpton apparently scored big in garnering almost $90,000 in what can fairly be characterized as walking around money from the democratic party.

When Sharpton was running himself (and even while his opponents (other than John Kerry) were pinching pennies, he was well known for spending his contributor's money (and federal matching funds) by staying at the best hotels and eating at the best restaurants. With his big score from the DNC, one can assume that Al continued to live the good life while exhorting minority voters to support Kerry.

It would be interesting to see how much in "travel and expenses" the "band of brothers" who butressed Kerry's Vietnam war claims were paid.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

learning nothing

Terry McAwful, probably as responsible as anyone for continuing democratic party losses is still at work and still making no sense.

"The remembrance of Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor took on partisan political spin Tuesday with a Democrat leader using it to attack House Republicans.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, in a special Pearl Harbor Day statement, said national unity 63 years ago enabled Americans to go forward and defeat the country's enemies, but the same kind of unity needed now was being undermined by Republican disagreements over provisions of the yet-to-be-voted on intelligence reform bill.

'While we as a nation are united in this fight, there are clearly deep divisions within the Republican Party, divisions that are impeding our fight against terrorism,' he said."

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

The Breck girl in action

John Edwards has his handlers make over his flags like he has them do his hair.

"Consider 'the fuss over the flags,' writes Jim Schlosser of the Greensboro News & Record.
'For 45 minutes before the boyish, blue-suited Edwards entered the auditorium of the Greensboro Historical Museum for a farewell town meeting with constituents, his aides furled, unfurled and kept repositioning five American flags and a North Carolina flag on the stage.
'They'd move one flag forward, another backward. They twisted coat hangers and placed them inside two flags to make the fabric lean a certain way,' Mr. Schlosser says.
'An aide picked a place on the floor in front of the stage and marked it with white tape. This is where Edwards needed to stand for the flags to be centered in the background.'
Hold your flags, we're not through yet.
'The aides then changed their minds and moved the tape to the second step leading up to the stage. One aide went to the back of the auditorium and folded his hands as if it were a camera lens. He squinted through his fingers and called for some more last-minute shifting of the flags.' "

Monday, December 06, 2004

blacks reaching out to Bush, never!

According to a story by Armstrong Williams in Human Events Online, NAACP head Kweisi Mfume did not resign as was reported by was booted out by Chairman Julian Bond.

"Bond and Mfume essentially partnered with the Democratic Party to revitalize the organization. Not surprisingly, the rhetoric coming out of the NAACP became increasingly partisan. During a speech before 2,000 attendees at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond proclaimed that President George W. Bush has "selected [political] nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing and chosen cabinet officials whose devotion to confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection." During a 2003 appearance at the National Press Club, Bond referred to the Republican Party as “a crazed swarm of right wing locusts” that have sought to “subvert, ignore, defy and destroy the laws that require an America which is bias-free,” Later that night Bond dubbed the Republicans, "the white people's party."

Following the event, Mfume confronted Bond with his fear that the organization had become too outwardly political. Soon thereafter, the IRS launched investigation into whether Bond’s remarks violated the organization’s tax exempt status.

The final tear came after the election. Mfume suggested sending a letter to President Bush, mapping out ways that they could work together to help the community. Bond rejected the idea. Mfume sent the letter anyway. To Bond, this was an unforgivable. A few weeks later, Bond had Mfume voted out. The message was clear: There is no room within the NAACP for intellectual diversity. Just loyal servitude to the Democratic Party. "

At the time Mufume was selected to head the organization, his total loyalty to the Democratic party was not in question so it is not clear why or when he would have decided to be more accomodating to Republicans.

Any responsible observer would conclude that the alliance between blacks in Amercia and the Democrat party has ceased to benefit the former group. Perhaps the best example of this fact is in education where the teacher's unions, perhaps the most solid backers of the Democrats, want nothing to do with any type of educational reforms that might require accountability for their members (and could lead for better futures for black students in schools). Surely the Julian Bonds and Jessie Jacksons of the world are as aware of this as anyone else but it is unimaginable that these folks would give up their high status and rank in the Democratic hierachy if the only benefits would accure to poor members of their own race.



Sunday, December 05, 2004

Congress with nothing userful to do

"Major League Baseball should enforce stronger rules against steroid abuse by players on its own, but Congress will require changes by law if necessary, leading lawmakers said Sunday.
Sen. John McCain, the driving force behind changing how baseball polices performance-enhancing drug use, said Sunday he believes President Bush would sign a bill into law."

One has to wonder what possible Federal interest there is in whether or not highly paid baseball players choose to take drugs. I can see where there is some legitimate governmental interest in making sure airline pilots and bus and truck drivers are drug free, but baseball players?

Is there perhaps a thought that drugged up players will be smashing more balls into the stands, injuring fans and therby endangering public health? Maybe so but the marketplace would would quickly correct that problem as fewer people would attend the games in person. In that event, baseball might well decide to replace live attendees with Disney-style animated characters. As long as TV ratings for games featuring drugged-up players are high, everyone would actually be better off. In fact, the economics of the baseball industry have improved quite a bit since drug use has become more widespread. If they started mixing up some "speed" with the steriods these players seem to favor, maybe the game itself would move at something faster than a glacial pace, allowing normal human beings to watch a full game without falling asleep from boredom and permitting even more ads to be shown during televised games.

Congress with nothing useful to do??

"US Senator John McCain warned that Congress may consider imposing drug tests on major league baseball players, as Washington tries to stem the damage from a raging doping scandal that has discredited professional sport.

'I will introduce legislation in January that requires some kind of regimen for testing of Major League baseball players. And I believe that we can pass it through the Congress of the United States,' Senator John McCain told the 'Fox News Sunday' television program."

What possible Federal interest is there in whether or not baseball players are drugged up or not. I can understand why the government is concerned about drugged up airplane pilots, bus driver, or truck drivers but baseball players? What possible harm can it do anyone if all of the ball players are drugged up and what possible benefit exists if they are not?

The fact is that the baseball players have been using drugs for some time now and it seems to have been fine since attendence (and salaries) have increased as well.

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Bush trash-writer Kitty Kelley asked real questions during interview

According to the New York Daily News, Kitty Kelley was very unhappy at being asked real questions by Matt Lauer during an inteview on the Today show to promote here Bush-bashing attack book.

"Literary scandalmonger Kitty Kelley - whose George W. Bush expos, 'The Family,' has dropped off the best-seller lists - is still smarting from the tough grilling she received in September from the 'Today' show's Matt Lauer."

Lauer asked her how it was that in the four years Kelley claims to have spent "researching" her book, she never found anything positive to say about the president (or any of his family). Actually, that is a good question that could be asked of Michael Moore as well although we don't know if he has had his anti-Bush obsession as long as Kelley.

Eminem attempts to join top ranks of liberal intellectuals

With his latest antics, it looks like Eminem is making his move to join the top rank of key liberal intellectuals such as Barbara Streisand and Michael Moore.

Editing a music video to show Dick Cheney suffering a heart attack is right up there with some of Michael Moore's work.

Apparently MTV was the inspritation for this latest bid of liberal genius. They apparently decided that showing a mob of folks following Eminem to register to vote was outdated and something like a mob march on the Capitol would be more appropriate. I think having them all drink some "special" Kool-Aid would even be better!

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

cBS investigation will be a whitewash

According to a comment from Viacom president Leslie Moonves in Variety, it looks like the cBS investigation of the Rathergate mess will be a whitewash.

"CBS News is awaiting a final report from an independent committee investigating a story on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard that was sourced, in part, with documents that were found to have been forged.
Moonves said he's confident that any level of negligence found in the decision to air the documents would not prevent Rather from continuing as an investigative reporter for '60 Minutes.'"

The network's position is that Rather's upcoming resignation from the anchor chair is unrelated to the forged documents and coverup case. Now, Moonves is saying that the "investigation" will not disclose anything that would affect Rather's ability to continue on as a full-time investigate reporter; in fact, probably spending the next four years working with Mary Mapes to find the "real documents".

Or maybe the cBS investigation will result in Mapes' termination but, given the delays in the report being issued (likely waiting until interest in the case diminishes), even that might not happen. If Mapes is sent packing, it will likely be with a generous severance payment.

It doesn't look like cBS management is treating this whole episode as anything very significant. Perhaps the fact that the story was attacking George Bush was justification enough to use forged documents.