No. He'll be an engineer.

This even astounds me

· 04/15/2009 07:26 PM by Steve Gigl

Thousands attend tax-day protest in Madison, Wis.

It’s a promising headline. No point of view here, right? The AP is totally objective, after all…

Speakers at a sometimes angry rally Wednesday accused Gov. Jim Doyle and lawmakers of smoking crack cocaine, said government spending was ruining the country and called for the ouster of all elected Democrats.

[emphases mine] Do you suppose any of the liberal protests over the years were labeled as “angry” by the AP? Even though I’m sure at least as much—or maybe orders of magnitude more—anger was on display at those rallies… I doubt it.

Doesn’t fit the storyline, dontcha know.

One sign in the crowd compared President Barack Obama to the anti-Christ.

Again, do you suppose that a single sign that said something terrible about Bush in the various anti-war rallies was reported like that? Oh how I wish I had Lexis-Nexus and a couple of hours to waste.

A small group of well-dressed counter protesters held up signs that said “Save the Rich” and “Don’t Tax My Boss’s Yacht.” The purpose was to argue for a fair tax system that appropriately taxes the rich, said Scot Ross, one of the protesters and leader of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now.

Perfectly objective descriptions there, right? Apparently all of the righties were dressed like slobs.

Do you suppose the reporter had any interest in finding out what the purpose of the tea party protest was?

Oh, and later you get a little bit of context: the crack statement was indeed a joke, and a bit of a repeated metaphor, not the literal accusation mentioned in the first paragraph. Shocking, I know.

This is interesting:

Capitol police on the scene would not provide a crowd estimate and said it had to come from the state Department of Administration. Department spokeswoman Emily Winecke said the department would not issue an estimate. She did not immediately reply to messages to explain why.

‘round here it’s always the police who provide the estimate, isn’t it? I wonder why they didn’t?

(I have a feeling it wasn’t because they were too busy tasering, pepper-spraying, and beating back ornery protesters. Just a guess. Mitch can probably confirm that.)

UPDATE: Edited to make it seem less like it was written in 30 seconds (it was). Also: boy, these people from the St. Paul protest sure seem ANGRY, don’t they? Badly dressed though, for sure.

UPDATED AGAIN: Wait, who is angry again? Conservatives, or liberals in the media who would rather not hear from conservatives? Do you suppose she was outraged when President Bush was compared to Hitler in protests every other week for 5 years?

Another UPDATE: After the CNN cameras stopped transmitting, a woman took that “reporter” to task like her colleagues in the studio should have. Too bad it didn’t go out live too.

Last UPDATE I swear: Huh. Apparently, the media malpractice over the tea parties is just the thing to get me back into politics.

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: National

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Consumer alert

· 12/30/2008 10:11 AM by Steve Gigl

I have an HP 5510 all-in-one printer/scanner/fax, and for the most part, despite some bulky software, I like it. Or I did, until I started getting “Print Cartridge Error” messages on it.

I tried the suggestions from HP’s website (cleaning contacts and ink nozzles), but nothing helped. Then my mom suggested setting the date back on my PC to see if HP was building obsolescence into all of their cartridges.

Worked like a charm when I set it back to December 2007. Jerks.

Just so I’m being clear, the cartridges are physically fine and have ink. HP, in their infinite wisdom greed decided that you aren’t allowed to use the same print cartridge for longer than X months, so they built a timer into their printer that throws an error and stops you from printing when you haven’t spent a crapload of money on a new print cartridge recently.

Oh, I am so going to find out how to defeat this. And HP has guaranteed that they won’t see another dime from me on cartridges if I can avoid it; even if refills suck, I will be refilling from here on out.

You’re shooting yourselves in the foot, HP. My next printer won’t be one of yours.

UPDATE 2/23/09: (long-awaited, I’m sure): There is indeed a solution for this, but if you want your printer to stay under warranty, skip it and buy a new cartridge.

But if you, like me, are not under warranty and don’t really care whether your printer lives or dies (bonus if you still won’t buy another HP printer or cartridge ever again), there is a way to get around this “feature.” It is somewhat explained at the end of the “best solution” from LeWillie here. I basically broke the connection to the battery, then wired the two ends to a switch that I mounted on the case of the printer. So any time I need to clear the data from the printer’s memory, I can just switch it to “off.”

Not a task for the faint of heart, obviously, but my printer is up and running again, at least for now.

Category: Technology
Scope: National

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Hope and (pocket) change

· 11/05/2008 05:53 PM by Steve Gigl

Yeah, I’m feeling a little snarky for a lot of reasons, only one of which is political.

But it doesn’t matter much how I feel… how does the business world feel about our President-elect? Let’s check today’s industry news:

1. AMD lays off 500 people worldwide
2. IBM’s chip unit cuts temp workers
3. Anadigics cuts 15 percent of workforce
4. Intersil to cut 9 percent of workforce

Oh.

OK, what about stocks?

The blue- chip index ended at 9,139.27, off 486.01 points, or 5.1%.

Unfair? Yeah. But not nearly as unfair as pinning the subprime mortgage crisis on Republicans, who were the only ones sounding warnings about them several years ago.

UPDATE: Forgot one: Cadence cuts 625 jobs

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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Quote of the day

· 10/30/2008 10:14 PM by Steve Gigl

Via Rand Simberg, by John Hood:

Government is not charity. It is not persuasion, or cooperation, or sharing. Government is a fist, a shove, a gun.

[Surprise surprise, the next sentence is: “Obama either doesn’t understand this, or doesn’t want voters to understand it.”]

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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R.I.P Dean Barnett

· 10/28/2008 07:46 AM by Steve Gigl

I didn’t know him, but I admired him..

Also: what he said, and pretty much what they said.

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: National

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This even astounds me

· 04/15/2009 07:26 PM by Steve Gigl

Thousands attend tax-day protest in Madison, Wis.

It’s a promising headline. No point of view here, right? The AP is totally objective, after all…

Speakers at a sometimes angry rally Wednesday accused Gov. Jim Doyle and lawmakers of smoking crack cocaine, said government spending was ruining the country and called for the ouster of all elected Democrats.

[emphases mine] Do you suppose any of the liberal protests over the years were labeled as “angry” by the AP? Even though I’m sure at least as much—or maybe orders of magnitude more—anger was on display at those rallies… I doubt it.

Doesn’t fit the storyline, dontcha know.

One sign in the crowd compared President Barack Obama to the anti-Christ.

Again, do you suppose that a single sign that said something terrible about Bush in the various anti-war rallies was reported like that? Oh how I wish I had Lexis-Nexus and a couple of hours to waste.

A small group of well-dressed counter protesters held up signs that said “Save the Rich” and “Don’t Tax My Boss’s Yacht.” The purpose was to argue for a fair tax system that appropriately taxes the rich, said Scot Ross, one of the protesters and leader of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now.

Perfectly objective descriptions there, right? Apparently all of the righties were dressed like slobs.

Do you suppose the reporter had any interest in finding out what the purpose of the tea party protest was?

Oh, and later you get a little bit of context: the crack statement was indeed a joke, and a bit of a repeated metaphor, not the literal accusation mentioned in the first paragraph. Shocking, I know.

This is interesting:

Capitol police on the scene would not provide a crowd estimate and said it had to come from the state Department of Administration. Department spokeswoman Emily Winecke said the department would not issue an estimate. She did not immediately reply to messages to explain why.

‘round here it’s always the police who provide the estimate, isn’t it? I wonder why they didn’t?

(I have a feeling it wasn’t because they were too busy tasering, pepper-spraying, and beating back ornery protesters. Just a guess. Mitch can probably confirm that.)

UPDATE: Edited to make it seem less like it was written in 30 seconds (it was). Also: boy, these people from the St. Paul protest sure seem ANGRY, don’t they? Badly dressed though, for sure.

UPDATED AGAIN: Wait, who is angry again? Conservatives, or liberals in the media who would rather not hear from conservatives? Do you suppose she was outraged when President Bush was compared to Hitler in protests every other week for 5 years?

Another UPDATE: After the CNN cameras stopped transmitting, a woman took that “reporter” to task like her colleagues in the studio should have. Too bad it didn’t go out live too.

Last UPDATE I swear: Huh. Apparently, the media malpractice over the tea parties is just the thing to get me back into politics.

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: National

Rantback

Consumer alert

· 12/30/2008 10:11 AM by Steve Gigl

I have an HP 5510 all-in-one printer/scanner/fax, and for the most part, despite some bulky software, I like it. Or I did, until I started getting “Print Cartridge Error” messages on it.

I tried the suggestions from HP’s website (cleaning contacts and ink nozzles), but nothing helped. Then my mom suggested setting the date back on my PC to see if HP was building obsolescence into all of their cartridges.

Worked like a charm when I set it back to December 2007. Jerks.

Just so I’m being clear, the cartridges are physically fine and have ink. HP, in their infinite wisdom greed decided that you aren’t allowed to use the same print cartridge for longer than X months, so they built a timer into their printer that throws an error and stops you from printing when you haven’t spent a crapload of money on a new print cartridge recently.

Oh, I am so going to find out how to defeat this. And HP has guaranteed that they won’t see another dime from me on cartridges if I can avoid it; even if refills suck, I will be refilling from here on out.

You’re shooting yourselves in the foot, HP. My next printer won’t be one of yours.

UPDATE 2/23/09: (long-awaited, I’m sure): There is indeed a solution for this, but if you want your printer to stay under warranty, skip it and buy a new cartridge.

But if you, like me, are not under warranty and don’t really care whether your printer lives or dies (bonus if you still won’t buy another HP printer or cartridge ever again), there is a way to get around this “feature.” It is somewhat explained at the end of the “best solution” from LeWillie here. I basically broke the connection to the battery, then wired the two ends to a switch that I mounted on the case of the printer. So any time I need to clear the data from the printer’s memory, I can just switch it to “off.”

Not a task for the faint of heart, obviously, but my printer is up and running again, at least for now.

Category: Technology
Scope: National

Rantback

Hope and (pocket) change

· 11/05/2008 05:53 PM by Steve Gigl

Yeah, I’m feeling a little snarky for a lot of reasons, only one of which is political.

But it doesn’t matter much how I feel… how does the business world feel about our President-elect? Let’s check today’s industry news:

1. AMD lays off 500 people worldwide
2. IBM’s chip unit cuts temp workers
3. Anadigics cuts 15 percent of workforce
4. Intersil to cut 9 percent of workforce

Oh.

OK, what about stocks?

The blue- chip index ended at 9,139.27, off 486.01 points, or 5.1%.

Unfair? Yeah. But not nearly as unfair as pinning the subprime mortgage crisis on Republicans, who were the only ones sounding warnings about them several years ago.

UPDATE: Forgot one: Cadence cuts 625 jobs

Category: Politics
Scope: National

Rantback

Quote of the day

· 10/30/2008 10:14 PM by Steve Gigl

Via Rand Simberg, by John Hood:

Government is not charity. It is not persuasion, or cooperation, or sharing. Government is a fist, a shove, a gun.

[Surprise surprise, the next sentence is: “Obama either doesn’t understand this, or doesn’t want voters to understand it.”]

Category: Politics
Scope: National

Rantback

R.I.P Dean Barnett

· 10/28/2008 07:46 AM by Steve Gigl

I didn’t know him, but I admired him..

Also: what he said, and pretty much what they said.

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: National

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Schrodinger's Racism

· 09/23/2008 08:29 PM by Steve Gigl

From what I can tell via the media, if Barack Obama wins, it will be because we are finally moving into a post-racial era. And if he loses, it will be because we are all a bunch of racists.

Apparently America is sitting in the box, waiting to observe itself.

(Link via Rand Simberg)

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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It looks kinda like a nail, right?

· 09/16/2008 09:33 PM by Steve Gigl

Because all McCain and Obama see are hammers.

See, this is why us right-of-center types didn’t necessarily want McCain to be the nominee. Not that he’s a bad guy, or that he wouldn’t be an outstanding president on some fronts. But he’s a bit dim about the economy:

McCain blames Wall Street’s ‘unbridled greed’ for economic woes

Well duh, but then he talks about establishing a commission and creating “comprehensive regulations.” Goodie.

Then again, look at the alternative:

Obama accused McCain of being an opponent of government regulation who turned a blind eye to market recklessness…

Both of them think more regulation will fix things. Yeesh.

Note: all regulations do is make money for lawyers and accountants (and legislators and lobbyists). Nothing more.

In fact, I heard an economist claim this morning that the regulations put in place after the Enron mess—including a requirement to write off paper losses every quarter even when the securities hadn’t been sold yet—caused, among other things, Lehman Brothers’ situation to look worse than it was, requiring them to abandon their recovery plans and file for bankruptcy. No idea if this is true (King?), but I definitely believe in the power of unintended consequences.

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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And the dead shall rise... and vote Democrat

· 09/16/2008 01:38 PM by Steve Gigl

I remember a book about this,. No, not that one ... something about “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat” or something, right?*...

(via Steve H.)

Category: Politics
Scope: National

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Media vs. McCain/Palin

· 09/12/2008 02:10 PM by Steve Gigl

Oh yeah, it’s on, and they’ve stopped being subtle about it. The AP has decided to do attack pieces on McCain, and the Strib is putting Drudge-like headlines on their front page to enhance the effect:

On ‘The View,’ McCain misstates Palin’s record on earmarks

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday defended two debunked television ads attacking Democrat Barack Obama and claimed erroneously that running mate Sarah Palin never sought money for lawmakers’ pet projects as Alaska governor. Palin has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year alone.

Those impartial editors in the MSM must take Fridays off, because the web guys have put biased links and summaries on the front page twice today.

And yeah, I’ve got a screen shot this time.

UPDATE: Ah, the Swift-Boating [And by that, I mean the tarnishing of legitimate complaints as being debunked and false because someone repeated “they’ve been debunked” enough times that the public buys it.] begins anew:

McCain also stood by two of his campaign commercials — one which said Obama favored comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students and another that suggested the Democratic hopeful had called Palin a pig. Both are misleading and factually inaccurate.

Emphasis mine. How, exactly, can something as open to interpretation as whether or not Obama meant to refer to Palin—and his audience clearly thought he did—be “factually inaccurate?”

Or is it factually inaccurate because the Democrats say it is? Noted, oh impartial and objective ones.

Even better:

And while Obama told a campaign rally this week that electing McCain would be like “putting lipstick on a pig,” he never used the phrase in connection to Palin.

Oh, now that’s just sad. Stop carrying water for your petty candidate, you schmucks.

And better:

McCain looked irked when Behar asked him whether he had jettisoned his independence as a candidate by appearing to be in “lock step” with President Bush’s policies.

“What specific area have I, quote, ‘changed?’ Nobody can name it,” McCain said.

McCain has changed positions on significant issues. For example, he once opposed Bush’s tax cuts but now supports making them permanent. He had opposed lifting the ban on additional offshore oil exploration but now calls for drilling off the U.S. coast. He had been against mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions but now favors them.

Ooh, look at me, I’m challenging the Rethuglicans in an AP story! I’m so brave!

Meanwhile, has anyone in the AP refuted anything Obama has said in that manner? (And if you say “No, but there isn’t anything to refute,” well, you’re too dumb to be voting. Every politician says refutable nonsense, but apparently only Democrats can get away with it.)

Dammit, I didn’t want to get this far back into politics. STOP BEING SO BIASED, SO I CAN GO BACK TO READING FRIVOLOUS CRAP!

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: National

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Totally objective

· 09/12/2008 06:58 AM by Steve Gigl

Strib front page headline: “Palin tries to defend qualifications in interview”

That’s the unbiased press I know and love hate!

It hammers on her alleged inability to handle foreign policy questions, but apart from not being able to spell out the Bush Doctrine, the answers they detail in the article were fine.

I think they were attempting a “gotcha” about Georgia:

She also said Russia’s attack into Georgia last month was “unprovoked.”

Which is actually true: the Russians took advantage of Georgia’s retaliation against South Ossetia’s use of banned weapons:

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

Update:

Oh, and about that Bush Doctrine thing? I thought it was that “states that support or harbor terrorists are terrorist states,” but Charlie Gibson said that it was the “preemptive war against states that pose a threat thingy.” Turns out we were both right. And wrong. And Palin, although it’s painted as a gaffe, was close:

Gibson pressed her for an interpretation of it. She said: “His world view.”

Yeah, she was closer than she probably thought:

The Bush Doctrine is a phrase used to describe various related foreign policy principles of United States president George W. Bush, created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Update 2:

And about that whole book banning thing (note that the Strib used the phrase book banning as much as possible):

The librarian at the center of a 1996 controversy with then-Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin says she can’t recall any effort by Palin to ban specific books from the town library.

In her first public statement since Palin was named the GOP vice-presidential candidate, Mary Ellen Baker said today, “I simply do not recall a conversation with specific titles,” Baker told ABCNews.com.

Damn facts, getting in the way of a good smearing…

OK, what did the Strib’s article actually say? Here:

Update 3: Hmm, as of 9:35 AM, the Strib changed their front page link to “Palin defends qualifications in interview.” Apparently, upon further review, she succeeded.

Category: Media & Entertainment
Scope: National

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