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Friday, April 24, 2009

The Fat Lady Sang, Tea Parties & More

Sky News: Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent could soon become the most-viewed YouTube video of all time. Web videos of her moving rendition of I Dreamed A Dream have been viewed 100 million times, statisticians believe.  Miss Boyle's voice stunned the judges and propelled her to global fame.  More...

FoxNews: Chants like "Give me liberty, not debt" and "Our kids can't afford you" were heard across several U.S. cities Wednesday as anti-tax "tea party" protesters took to the streets to voice their opposition to big government spending.  More...
Pearce: Evidently liberal news commentators are scared of the implications the uprising will have on Obama's agenda as they could do nothing but make jokes about 'teabagging' and call the demonstrators 'racist.'

FoxNews: Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA on Sunday, but the big story to come out of the normally politics-free telecast was Miss California's comments regarding gay marriage.  More...
Pearce: See Perez Hilton's unbelievable rant about the answer taped just after the show.

CNN: U.S. Navy snipers fatally shot three pirates holding an American cargo-ship captain hostage after seeing that one of the pirates "had an AK-47 leveled at the captain's back," a military official said Sunday.  More...
Pearce: The successful resolution to this conflict, which seemed straight out of a Disney movie, was a relief to Obama who narrowly avoided a very thorny situation.  The shots of those snipers,authorized by the President, was a positive sign of strength from a man who has given us reason to doubt his willingness to stand strong in the face of challenges i.e. from North Korea & Iran.  However, on Iraq, I agree with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell that Obama is hardly different than Bush, which is encouraging.

NYT: President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.  More...
Pearce: This revelation has sparked fierce debate on both sides of the issue.  Some, such as FoxNews' Shepard Smith (seen dropping the F-bomb on Torture here) believe it is an issue of who we are as a nation and that its efficacy has no standing.  However, Bush's CIA chief saysObama is risking national security as the CIA confirms that such techniques thwarted a 9/11 style attack on LA.

WT: Obama to soon get secure Blackberry.  More...

Pearce: The AP is continuing a surprising trend of taking the President to task on a number of his policies.  This week it writes "Obama's latest budget-tightening effort hardly makes a dime's worth of difference... Cut a latte or two out of your annual budget and you've just done as much belt-tightening as President Barack Obama asked of his Cabinet on Monday."

WT: Napolitano stands by controversial report  More...
Politico: 100 Days- What Obama wants you to read.  More...

Pearce: I feel a bit duped by the Obama machine in light of this revelation about the picture of him with our brave troops in Iraq that I featured in my last post.  Hat tip to Erik Soderstrom for the story.

Telegraph: IMF warns over parallels to Great Depression.  More...
Economists: Economic green shoots are appearing in the press.  More...
AP: Relations between the US and Cuba seem within reach.  More...
CBC: Napolitano claimed 9/11 terrorists came from Canada.  More...

Pearce: There is a very interesting case currently in front of the Supreme Court involving 'Hillary: The Movie.' The court is currently split over how to apply the McCain-Feingold campaign law to the controversial film.

WSJ: Freddie Mac CFO hangs himself.  More...
Independent: Doctor claims he can clone human beings.  More...
DN: Teen soils self after deputy surprises him.  More...

OPINION:
Romney: A timid advocate of freedom.  More...  (Pearce: are we seeing early shots 2012?)
Morris: Obama's leap to Socialism.  More...
Rove: The President's apology tour.  More...
Krauthammer: The sting, in four parts.  More...

Pearce: As Heritage points out, not even Paul Krugman, one of Obama's staunchest advocates is buying the President's boasting over $100 million (with an m) in spending cuts.

Juan Williams: A civil rights outrage.  More...  (Pearce: A great piece by a liberal from NPR.  Yet another example of some of Obama's policies not sitting well with even his allies.)

Friedman: In the age of pirates.  More...
Abramowitz: Diverging coalitions- the transformation of the American electorate.  More...
Abramowitz: Independent voters and the President- myths and realities.  More...
Farrell: Even Jack Bauer can't stop the 'Goldman Conspiracy.'  More...
National Post: The border for dummies.  More...

Pearce: I highly recommend The Case Against Smoking Bans to anyone who is interested in economics, public policy and/or issues of individual liberty.  While I personally hate smoking and loved being in Scotland where it is banned in all public places, my higher principles of individual liberty and belief in free market, laissez-faire policy lead me to oppose such bans.  Truly an excellent piece.

Note: Credit to PG contributor Billy Hughes for encouraging me to add more voice to the articles I post.  Expect more of that and also original material from Billy in the future.

1 comment:

Billy Hughes said...

Monday, Monday:
Let's Be Clear, The Press Doesn't Hate Obama

In honor of Pearce branching out and adding some of his own voice (finally) to this blog, I'll make my first comment (blog post later) - no need to thank me PG readership, you're welcome.

The Press Doesn't Hate Obama

Reading Pearce's last post, some of you might get the idea that the press (The AP? Krugman? GASP.) has suddenly turned against Obama. To some extent they are being more critical, but to say they've turned against him is just wrong. See this gushing story on Obama's First 100 Days from TIME:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1893277,00.html

That would be more indicative of how the (still) liberal media feels about Barack - he's still a rock star (how many stories were written about his new dog?), and I for one like the new having-a-visible-President-who-can-intelligently-speak thing.

My favorite article about Obama's First 100 Days actually comes from Politico:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090423/pl_politico/21605

The story talks about what the White House "wants us to think" and includes the following:

"Obama’s not in the bubble."

"Look for more stories about how the president reads 10 letters from ordinary Americans every day, often responds in his own hand and sometimes calls Cabinet secretaries to share the insights he learns. The story has been done already by ABC, The Washington Post and The New York Times, which published it in the Monday edition."

Favorite Monday Op-Ed

As far as new things to read, I think everybody should read Paul Krugman's latest article about compensation on Wall Street (even though its a bit bitter):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27krugman.html?ref=opinion

Continuing Education

If Pearce lets me keep posting on this list, I plan to always include a couple of "Continuing Education" links. These are things everybody should just know / be able to speak about intelligently, at least in my opinion. This is supposed to be helpful stuff for:

1) Job Interviews
2) Arguments with your Roommate
3) Talking to Your Parents and Other Older Generations (Think: For Use at Awkward Cocktail Parties)

For this week:

Don't Assume Atheists Are Weird People:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/us/27atheist.html?em

Always Have a Couple of Books / Articles To Talk About in a Job Interview:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/business/26corner.html?em

"This interview of Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant."

"And there are a lot of ways to go at that. I like to ask people what they’ve read, what are the last three or four books they’ve read, and what did they enjoy about those. And to really understand them as individuals because, you know, the résumés you get are wonderful résumés. Wonderful education, great work history. So you have to probe a little bit deeper into the human intangibles, because we’ve all seen many instances where people had perfect résumés, but weren’t effective in an organization."

Know Generally Who Is In The Fortune 500:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/full_list/index.html

Happy reading,

BH