Saturday, October 03, 2009

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

9 comments:

geoff said...

If inexplicably cheerful NPR reporters have been chirping excitedly about this story it hasn't been on the air.

larry, dfh said...

Friday's 'marketplace', yeah, I know, it's a.p.m., had a per-usually stupic health care segment. Megan McArdle, whoevber she is, informed us all that the 'public option', whatever that is, is dead, and that the only reason for it in the first place was because all these lefties wanted to bankrupt insurance companies. There wasn't a single mention of affordable healthcare (at least that I can recall), or about the number of people who really can't affort to be sick. It was just a big boo-hoo for the insurance companies, And it was typically public-radio dishonest.

Porter Melmoth said...

I lasted about 2 minutes this morn, suffering through Guest Superstar Hostess Jac E. Lyden (whose sole gimmick is a cheesy Barbara Walters imitation), Yawn Williams and The Simonizer (cameo phone-in appearance, while 'on assignment'), who were all savoring the failure of the Obama bid for an Olympic Chicago.

No need to deconstruct the predictable vapidness of these three and their thoughts.

Anonymous said...

all savoring the failure of the Obama bid for an Olympic Chicago.

I could really not care less about Chicago getting the olympics (one way or the other.)

There are arguments to be made for and against and they have been rehashed ad nauseam.

but i agree with naomi Klein on one thing:

Obama had better make a personal appearance in Copenhagen for the climate summit after doing so for the stupid Olympics.

Copenhagen: Obama Better Go Back
by Naomi Klein

My bet is he will send some low level "representative", but I would like to be proven wrong.

Scientists say that climate change is probably the most pressing problem now facing humanity and someone ouir leaders are STILL acting all "la di da" about it.

geoff said...

Scientists say that climate change is probably the most pressing problem now facing humanity and someone ouir leaders are STILL acting all "la di da" about it.

geoff said...

...oops...I meant to add, or worse: KCRW's LRC personality Tony Blankley claims all the scientists are coordinating a massive charade and that the claims of man made climate change are a hoax.

Porter Melmoth said...

...which is hilarious, because Tony Bloatley, 'The Washington Times' and the Very Rev. Moon have been hoaxing for decades, so they ought to know.

Jay Schiavone said...

Simon gloats today, but if the Olympics went to Chicago Simon would be at the front of the conga line of proud Chicago natives, congratulating himself. Don't believe it? Listen to him flogging the Cubs year after year.

Anonymous said...

The omniscient Howard Berkes knows

Why Chicago Failed To Win The Olympics

Berkes thinks Chicago was not chosen because the US was not allowed to "glad-hand, lobby or perform the most basic function of any campaign: count* potential votes" and that, in general, the IOC is simply biased against America.

*buy?

First, I'd have to say that the restrictions on "lobbying" [read: vote buying] imposed by the IOC after the Salt lake City vote buying scandal are a GOOD thing. Perhaps we should have the same sort of restrictions here for our own elections.

But the idea that this is why Chicago failed to win is a bit of a stretch. That's like saying the reason Al Gore lost the election to Bush is that he was not allowed to "terminate" him (quite literally.)

It obviously never occurred to Berkes that the IOC may have some objective* criteria for deciding which city wins and actually evaluated proposals based on those criteria.
*(I realize that "objective", like "torture" is not in the NPR vocabulary)


Second, Berkes provides no evidence that IOC is biased against America.

In fact, based on the number of games that HAVE been hosted by US cities over the years, I'd have to say that the claim is ludicrous on its face.