Category Archives: Scribbles

The hypocritcal NFL

Unless, of course, those initials really do stand for the Negro Football League. In which case, the other N-word works for them, I guess. Otherwise

Media lynch mobs

They’re an old, disreputable story, from the early days of journalism where publishers competed in cutthroat fashion to the modern where most of the practitioners have certificates from like-minded liberal degree mills. Hence the reporting and commentary of the majority resembles an echo chamber.

The media (and political, let’s not forget) effort to lynch Rush Limbaugh because he dared consider investing in an NFL franchise is the latest case in point. One outfit after another snatched up scurrilous racist quotes to hang him with, and even when they were exposed as lies, implied that well, they could be true, and therefore…

Rare reader Veeshir contends it is such behavior that is killing newspapers and reducing the viewership of television operations like CNN and MSNBC. I tend to think it’s a business-model problem, but the Limbaugh lynch mob, and the fact that it takes a British newspaper to perform a dispassionate analysis of it is a strong argument for his point of view.

MORE from Instapundit. And this is one nice retraction and apology. Of course libel can be costly.

The trouble with Star Trek

Science fiction writer Charles Stross ruined his Merchant Princes series for me with its explicit anti-Bush politics, but I agree with him about Star Trek. I liked it when it was new in the 60s, even retained some interest in it in the 80s. Now I see it’s as bad as the old Edgar Rice Burroughs’ tales of Mars.

That’s because, as CS says, ST merely pastes the sci and tech on top of its storyline, whereas good scifi builds the storyline out of plausible sci and tech which informs the story’s world. Now if he’d just forgone using his fiction for his personal political propaganda, I’d still be looking forward to his books.

Via Instapundit.

“This is the start of a long day”

If you’re not quite bold about flying, you may not find a lot of reassurance in Captain Dave’s writing. But the reality behind his poetry sure beats sitting in an office chair under a cluster of gas balloons (see below).

Insanity over North Carolina

Well, he made it to 14,783 feet asl and lived to tell about it on a colorful Web page. Actually, that was low. He’d previously been above 17,000 feet asl. But the higher ascent had been in the gondola of a gas balloon. His lower achievement was in an office chair. Sort of like Lawn Chair Larry (aka Danny Deckchair), only, thoughtfully, with portable oxygen and a GPS. And he wasn’t drunk. Just, obviously, insane.

Airbus Training

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Thinking ahead for Airbus aircrews, whose Air India version has way too much time on their hands.

Link via Simply Jews.

Bossy gives more milk

The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for Veterinary Medicine goes to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows [who] are nameless. Makes sense to me, but, then, I am not a dairy farmer. How about it, Diller?