Monday, April 5th, 2010
The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein
This novel is about four geniuses travelling through space and mutiple-dimensions in a flying car with its own AI. The travellers wander through multiple science fiction universes, including several of Heinlein’s own.
A fun ride for Heinlein fan, but I would not recommend this for someone reading their first Heinlein novel. If you haven’t read any thing by the Grandmaster of American Science Fiction, you are missing not just good adventure stories. As author Spider Robinson so aptly put it, “And I repeat: if there is anything that can divert the land of my birth from its current stampede into the Stone Age, it is the widespread dissemination of the thoughts and perceptions that Robert Heinlein has been selling as entertainment since 1939.”
Monday Book Pick Archive
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Monday, April 5th, 2010
If you listen to CNN/MSNBC/etc, you would think the people who attend Tea Party protests are a bunch of racist, violent militia members. The MSM is desperately trying to portray them as an “out of touch” fringe element.
Well, the actual truth is quite a bit different. According to this recent poll, Tea Party members are a pretty fair representation of America.
The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.
…
The group is united around two issues – the economy/jobs and reducing the deficit. They believe that cutting spending is the key to job creation and favor tax cuts as the best way to stimulate the economy. That said 61 percent of Tea Party members believe infrastructure spending creates jobs. Moreover, given the choice Tea Party members favor 63-32 reducing unemployment to 5 percent over balancing the budget.
Gallup conducted another poll that shows similar results.
Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That’s the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.
Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more likely to be male and less likely to be lower-income.
In several other respects, however — their age, educational background, employment status, and race — Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large.
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air points out “The educational background of Tea Party followers almost exactly matches that of the general population. Among age demos, the differences between the two are no more than two points for any of the four categories used by Gallup. The same is true of employment profiles, although ironically Tea Party followers tend slightly more to be employed full-time than not.” He continues on to note that Fox News is gaining viewers, while the left leaning MSNBC & CNN, who have been bashing the Tea party members non-stop, are loosing views at an accelerated rate. Could this trend have something to do with those left leaning “news” organizations demonizing the people who watch them?
Since we are looking at polls, let us review the results of this Rasmussen poll.
On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.
Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly feel closer to the Tea Party and most Democrats say that their views are more like Obama’s. Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party while 38% side with the President.
That’s right, more people agree with the Tea Party movement than our Dear Leader. There is literally enough on the liberal media bias on this subject to fill a book. Even given all these facts, I don’t expect MSNBC, CNN, ABC News or CBS News to discontinue their efforts to dehumanize members of the Tea Party movement. Their goals, and the goals of most of America, just don’t match up anymore.
Update: Compare and contrast: Tea Party protest and leftist protest. At the Tea Party, you have a peaceful demonstration with a multi-racial crowd calling for a return to the principles of the Founding Fathers. At the leftist demonstration, you have racists calling for violence against minorities, people holding up signs supporting murdering communist thugs and 9/11 Troofers. Which one do you thing better represents most Americans?
Update: The left’s astroturf response is pretty quick on this topic. I’ve already gotten two identical comments on this, from the same IP address, with two different identifying email addresses. The comment is what you would expect from the left, completely free of any facts and repeats the left’s hate filled talking points multiple times. Here is one of the facts the left doesn’t want you to know. The only violence at a tea party was four white democrats, wearing purple SEIU t-shirts, attacked a Tea Party protester, who is Black, and beat him so badly he ended up in the hospital. The “liberal” attackers didn’t miss out on using racial slurs while attacking Mr. Gladney.
I’m not kidding about the leftist astroturfing. I’ve found the identical comment in at least six different blog comment streams.
Update: CNN sends a reporter without a political ax to grind to a Tea Party, and finds that they really are Mainstream Americans and are not violent racists! Shannon Travis, the CNN reporter in question, does repeats the debunked “n-word” and spitting claims against Tea Party members. Andrew Breitbart has upped the bounty to $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund to anybody who can provide a video proving that Tea Party members used racial slur against democrat Georgia Rep. John Lewis. Given that videos show his staffers had their cell phones out and were taking videos when he walked through the Tea Party crowd (instead of taking the underground tunnel that members of Congress typically use) they shouldn’t have a problem collecting $100,000 for the United Negro College Fund if there was any truth to their claims.
Posted in Media Bias, Politics, Tea Party, When democrats attack | 5 Comments »
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Sherlock Holmes
Not the big budget Hollywood version that was just released on DVD/Blu-Ray, but a deliciously bad version by the same people who brought you uber-low budget Princess of Mars. I would guess that this one was done on an even lower production budget and was probably shot in about the same amount of time. The draw for SciFi geeks is Dominic Keating (best known for Star Trek: Enterprise) and Gareth David-Lloyd (who just finished up three seasons of really good SciFi in the BBC’s Torchwood). David-Lloyd played Dr. Watson and Keating played yet another brother of Sherlock Holmes. We knew about Mycroft Holmes (a founding member of the Diogenes Club) and his younger brother Sigerson. This film introduces yet another brother who’s name I can’t even remember from seeing this a few weeks ago. Even IMDB doesn’t list it. Ben Syder, in is first film role, was actually not bad as Sherlock Holmes, but again, this film isn’t high art. It’s B-Movie making at its low budget best.
Friday B-Movie Archive
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Friday, April 2nd, 2010
You remember Cindy Sheehan, the left’s “ultimate moral authority” when protesting the policies of former President George W. Bush. Well, she hasn’t been in the news much lately. Not since her campaign van had its tires slashed when she was running against Nancy Pelosi.
Well, it appears she made the news a couple of weeks ago, but not the same level of coverage she used to get from the fawning left leaning MSM outlets that she got protesting President George W. Bush.
She was arrested outside the White House, were she was protesting the policies of our Dear Leader. She was quote as yelling “Arrest that war criminal!” in reference to Mr. Obama.
You don’t remember seeing this on the evening news? Neither do I. No mention of it on CNN’s site either. It seems that Ms. Sheehan’s passion no longer fits the MSM’s narrative.
Posted in Barking Moonbats, Media Bias, Our Dear Leader, Politics | 6 Comments »
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
It’s a nifty & shiny gadget and here is a post I made about it over at Urbin Technology.
I was discussing tech stuff with a buddy and made the following comment.
The Apple iPad really isn’t a new product trying to break into the market, it’s an expansion on an existing product line with a rabidly fanatical user base.
It’s not the magic device that many had hoped for, but it’s magic in a business sense that is pure Steve Jobs. It’s certainly good enough.
I used to carry a better phone than my iPhone, and a better PDA, and an MP3 player with more storage, and better camera. My iPhone does all those functions, not as well, but good enough, that I only carry one device all the time, instead of four.
Ya, the Kindle is probably a better e-text reader due it’s E-ink screen, but is it good enough to spend an additional $260 for when your $500 tablet, that does a bunch of other stuff as well, is a good enough e-text reader?
As for that “bunch of other stuff,” just look at the itunes store. Not just the apps, but the movies and TV shows. The iPad is handier than my notebook, has a better screen than my netbook, and with the rumored Hulu app, I’ll be able to stream Red Eye and watch TV shows as well as video bought or rented through iTunes. That isn’t even counting the apps being written now to take advantage of the new features of the bloody thing.
My prediction is that it’s going to sell and sell well. It’s popularity will drive sales for other tablet platforms, such as the Adam. The beauty of is that is a typical Apple product in that there is nothing really ground breaking about it. It’s a collection of well known and existing technology put together into a really well designed package.
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