The Power of Crap Compels You

Fenty flunks basic math or "how I can't read a chart"

2008-03-18T23:25:00.010-04:00

Now, I understand why Mayor Fenty has to come out in defense of the District's handgun ban, being it District law and all. But basically stretching the truth (i.e. pretty much lying) about the effect of the ban? Not so good.

[Click here for a video of the Mayor's post hearing press conference]

The Mayor claims that the handgun ban has "significantly curtailed the number of violent crimes in the city."

This is complete bunk. Below are three graphs of data taken from DisasterCenter.com. Its lists the number of crimes in various categories for each year from 1960 to 2006, along with the District's population at the time. I have focused on three categories: violent crime, murder and assault.

click image for larger picture

In each graph the bars represent the rate of crimes of each category per 100,000 residence. The bar representing 1976 -- the year the gun ban was enacted -- is colored red. There are also three lines on each graph. The red line represents the 1976 rate, the yellow line represents the average rate for that crime between 1960 and 1976, and the green line represents the average rate for that crime post 1977. As you can see, for each of these categories the crime rate has actually increased. In fact, if you go back to the source data and look at all of the data every category except rape and burglary have shot up significantly since the gun ban (the average for rape and burglary pre and post gun ban are virtually identical).

I like Mayor Fenty; I think he has been (so far) overall a positive for the District. Outright lying to make try to justify a crappy law, however, is just bad.

Rove Indicted (really for really real real this time)

2006-05-18T17:30:00.000-04:00

HEY YOU MEDIA TYPES... YOU MUST CREDIT THE POWER OF CRAP COMPELS YOU ON THIS BOMBSHELL OF STORY

Um, Rove's been indicted. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who heard Fitzy talk about it at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

The BBC needs a new science editor

2005-10-13T23:40:00.000-04:00

This is just stunning:

The "orbit maintenance operation" would take place early on Friday morning, said official news agency Xinhua.

Gravity has drawn Shenzhou VI too close to earth, the agency said.

Shenzhou VI, which has two astronauts on board, is in a low enough orbit to be affected by the Earth's gravitational pull. [emphasis added]

As opposed to a higher orbit that is, you know, totally unaffected by gravity. Note to Auntie Beeb: there is no such thing as an orbit unaffected by gravity. Gravity is sort of necessary for orbit. Has to do with those funny little laws that Newton and Einstein came up with.

What's wrong with D.C.?

2005-02-11T15:07:00.000-05:00

Here's a question that has been bugging me as of late: why does the District of Columbia have an unemployment rate of 9% when the entire D.C. area -- D.C., Northern Virginia, Southern Maryland and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia -- has an unemployment rate of 2.9%? Are there aspects of the District that make its residents less desirable / able to find employment, or are there aspects of the District that make it more hospitable than its surrounding areas to those unable to find work?

As I said, I really don't have an answer to this question, but I do have a few ideas. So, over the next month or so I hope to take a look at various aspects of the District to see what exactly about the District causes such a dichotomy.

The BBC sure know how to edit copy

2004-11-05T17:03:00.000-05:00

In one of their "let's hear from our readers" feedback sessions the BBC asked American voters who voted for Bush to explain why they did so. I took the opportunity to drop a quick, snarky, one sentence reply to the effect of

I voted for Bush for a number of reasons, but I have to confess one made me happiest was knowing knowing his reelection would drive you guys right up a wall.

(probably not verbatim, but pretty close to what was sent). What did I notice on the Beeb's website today?

I voted for Bush for a number of reasons, but I have to confess one of them was because of all the lecturing and condescending opinions I read in the foreign press and heard from the "holier than thou" crowd in Europe. It just got on my nerves so much that people who only get a sliver of heavily bias coverage about America could hold such closed-minded opinions about our elections. Maybe four more years will give you a chance to open your minds to new ideas and consider that there are Americans who have a right to believe differently than you.

Andrew, Washington, DC

Now, I suppose there may be another Andrew from DC who just happened to start his reply with "I voted for Bush for a number of reasons, but I have to confess..." but I find that pretty hard to believe. I guess they really meant it when they said The BBC may edit your comments and cannot guarantee that all emails will be published.

Mini-fisking the Boss

2004-09-27T21:02:00.000-04:00

I'll get it out of the way upfront: I likes me some Boss. I've bought many of his albums and spent serious dosh to see him in concert; Tunnel of Love is easily in my top 10 albums of all time. Having said that I don't necessarily agree with him politically, especially during the current silly season.

Apparently, he's given an interview to Jann Wenner over at Rolling Stone, talking politics and the "Vote for Change" tour he's participating in. Editor and Publisher has a write-up, focusing on his take on the media.

Most of his criticism, however, is aimed at TV coverage, and he reveals that as "a dedicated" New York Times reader he has gained "enormous sustenance" from columnists Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman.

Translation: I consume the media that most aligns with my own world-view...

"Real news is the news we need to protect our freedoms. You get tabloid news, you get blood-and-guts news, you get news shot through with a self-glorifying façade of patriotism, but people have to sift too much for the news that we need to protect our freedoms....The loss of some of the soberness and seriousness of those institutions has had a devastating effect upon people's ability to respond to the events of the day."

Translation: ... but it really cheeses me off when others who I don't agree with do the same.

Tom Shales: Insane

2004-09-20T19:51:00.000-04:00

Tonight on Hardball Chris Matthews did two or three segments on the Rather/CBS News bru-ha-ha with David Gergen, Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ and Tom Shales, the Washington Post's TV critic. Long story short: Tom Shales is a moonbat. A quick summary of some of the things he said:

Rather is not a liar (but Bush is)
This was probably a Republican black bag job anyway ("a gift to Bush")
The risk Rather/CBS News took with the story was not reckless

Basically, Shales seems to feel that Rather was on to something and is being persecuted.

Ex-Bush speechwriter David Frum (who was on the next segment) summed Shales up perfectly when Matthews ask him to comment on Shales' theory it was the Republicans who set the whole thing up.

"No, I think it was the Masons. That would be a better response to Tom. What a stupid thing to say."

Hopefully MSNBC posts the transcript.

UPDATE: Here's the transcript. The money exchange:

MATTHEWS: Tom, why did Dan Rather pay such a big chance with such low stakes? Had he gotten the story, had he scooped everybody with this document, it wouldn‘t have been a—this isn‘t a trophy, this. Is it worth the risk he took?

SHALES: Yes, I think so.

And I still don‘t think he was reckless. I don‘t think we should rule out the booby trap theory that Dorothy seemed to be floating.

MATTHEWS: OK. Who set the trap?

SHALES: The one that Republicans typed up these

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: No, her theory is the Democrats

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Your theory is the Republicans did it.

SHALES: My theory, they could very well have put the little “th” with the wrong thing knowing exactly which mistakes would be found, slip to some guy who is a little unhinged anyway, and there to CBS.

MATTHEWS: Right.

SHALES: Because it is like such a gift to the Republican Party and to

George W. Bush. I mean, it is like Christmas

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But here, again, there‘s a risk factor. If they were caught putting this little—setting up this sting operation that Dan fell · that first Burkett and then Dan fell victim to, that would have been a much more colossal story.

(LAUGHTER)

SHALES: Well, but somebody has got to break it. Somebody has got to prove it.

MATTHEWS: I mean, Nixon was trying to prove that Howard Hughes was paying off Larry O‘Brien. Nobody cares what he was trying to prove. They just care he broke in to do it, or his people did.

SHALES: Nixon didn‘t get caught until after he was reelected. Maybe Bush won‘t get caught until after he is reelected either.

Obscure Photoshop

2004-09-16T01:58:00.000-04:00

"Sure I framed him, but he was guilty."

Who at Viacom wants this?

2004-09-15T01:18:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm going to continue my tin foil hat riff I started a few months back and ask just what the hell is going on over at Viacom?

Since the whole world by now knows about CBS's 60 Minutes II Bush TexANG fiasco I waste too much time covering well tread ground. (If you have been living under a rock over the last week go visit AllahPundit, PowerlineBlog, INDCJournal and RatherBiased for all the info you'll need). What I do find completely perplexing is just why CBS/Viacom has allowed Rather/CBS News to get this far without getting involved. Regardless of what whether or not Viacom brass think Dan Rather has the goods or not, its pretty apparent that the world at large have lost faith in CBS's version of the story.

Now, Viacom is a publicly traded company, and CBS contributes a large wad of cash towards Viacom's bottom line. Journalistic integrity is something that takes a long time to build up, but only one real screw-up to greatly damage, if not destroy. And a news business is built on just that integrity. Without a certain level of trust people aren't going to want to watch your product, and the fewer eyeballs watching your product, the less you can sell your advertising time for. Even if Viacom was full of Bush-hating, Kerry-loving partisans simple economics dictate that they nip this credibility problem in the bud as soon as possible. If the consensus at Viacom is that they had the wrong end of the stick, then they get their mea culpas out and stop digging the hole they've found themselves in ASAP. If, on the other hand, the Viacom brass believes 60 Minutes II's evidence is rock solid they still have to win back a skeptical public which means they gather independent experts and allow an investigation that is open and public. The problem is Viacom have apparently decided to go down the worst path they could go down, namely stubbornly insist they are correct, but continue to obscure the process and evidence they used to come to their conclusion. This will do nothing but continue to erode the public's confidence in their objectivity, which will have a demonstrable effect on their bottom line.

So, the $64,000 question is: why exactly is Viacom allowing CBS News to continue to self distruct? Some folks in the blogosphere think that the memos originated from either the DNC or the Kerry campaign and Rather/CBS News is digging in to protect Kerry's presidential bid from the blow-back this revelation would cause. I have my doubts about this, at least the idea that its Rather/CBS News is behind the strategy simply because of the economic argument I discussed above. Rather, et al may not have a problem mortgaging their reputations to keep a dog in this fight, but the bean counters above them most certainly would. And although news departments traditionally are kept at arms length from the "money" side of things (in order to enhance the appearance that they are as independent from even the appearance of outside influence as possbile) you would expect once the damage really started to pile up Viacom brass would swoop in and, behind closed doors, lay some wood down and let Rather and Co know what's what. After all, at a point its cold hard cash that's on the line and they have a feudatory duty to Viacom shareholders.

So, if CBS is to continue this line of attack it is only because someone very high up at Viacom is allowing it to. As I mentioned before I've written about the appearance of partisanship at Viacom's Infinity Radio division and AllahPundit is reporting that CBS's support comes from way up high. So who at Viacom is willing to bet the livelihood of the company on John Kerry? Redstone? Moonves? Whoever it is, its one hell of a bet to make, and one it looks likely they'll lose. The question is at what cost.

ABC News notes CBS's linguistic backtracking

2004-09-11T20:56:00.000-04:00

Although CBS has come out swinging against those throwing doubt on the authenticity of their newly uncovered TexANG memos the Note over at ABC News highlights the fact that CBS has quietly been changing some of the wording of their defense:

CBS's "Early Show" did a tell this morning on the document story.

An anchor read: "The authenticity of those documents is now being questions. Family members doubt that Killian would have written an unsigned memo . . . "

And "there are questions about the typography, which some experts say appear to have been done on a computer."

"CBS News says it stands by the story."

And then they quoted from the second CBS statement (not the third) that said that CBS was "convinced" the documents were authentic.

That conviction was dropped from a third CBS statement, which they asked ABC News to use instead of the second.

Compare two sequential statements released by CBS News last night:

New: "As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 MINUTES report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts. As importantly, 60 MINUTES also interviewed close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian. They confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."

Old: "As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on 60 MINUTES was thoroughly investigated by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity. In addition to analysis of the documents themselves, CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. These individuals were close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written."

So, not only did CBS soften their defense, but they've also asked other news outlets to bury the older, stronger language.

Paging Walter Cronkite

2004-09-10T01:34:00.000-04:00

Remember just last month when old Walt was in the news:

The newsman said he values the Internet as a research tool, but he finds some stories published on the Web -- scandals especially -- play too fast and loose with the facts.

"I am dumbfounded that there hasn't been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet. I expect that to develop in the fairly near future," he said.

Hey Walt, here's a quiz:

Q: Who just played fast and loose with the facts (and quite possibly libelous)?

a) Those wacky bloggers

b) your old stomping ground: CBS News

Someone should give Ed Wasserman the same quiz.

More fun with Photoshop

2004-09-09T20:06:00.000-04:00

Unless you've been living under a rock today you would have probably run across the whole CBS TANG Memo bru-ha-ha that's been ping-ponging its way across the blogasphere. As far as I can tell the timeline goes something like this

Some posters over at the FreeRepublic website first noticed something they thought was fishy with the memos. Then this morning the guys over at PowerLineBlog grabbed the ball and started running with the story. This was followed by Charles at LGF cranking out a Word document that looked suspiciously like one of the memos in question. Pacetown followed with a post of his own. This brought about a rebuttal from The Talent Show entitled Grasping at Straws. So who's right?

Well, I've got Office. I've got Photoshop. Ain't no evidence like the type you investigate yourself. So, I grabbed the original pdf file from here. I then fired up Word X for the Mac and typed this (TNR font, 12 pts. No mucking with the margins or anything). From these two files I produced two screenshots (click on image to download large tiff files)

Original PDF:

My Document:

Dumped them into Photoshop, killed the background on my version, coloured it Red and overlaid it on the original, which was coloured blue. Five minutes of rotating and stretching and this is what we get:

(Click on image for large png of the file).

If you're curious you can also look at the psd file I created to do this. And all of this was done with a 10 lb baby in my left arm.

The result? Well, The Talent Show's Photoshop skills leave something to be desired. Its wasn't all that hard to get a better fit between the original and a freshly typed Word document. As for the match, well it ain't perfect, but its not convincingly all that different either. Line spacing is essentially the same, as are the word breaks. There's some divergence around the text in the first line of each bulleted paragraph, but how much faxing and/or copying could cause the difference I have no idea. This little exercise certainly doesn't prove to me conclusively that the document is a fake, but iI find it pretty compelling. What are the odds that a document produced over 30 years ago on a typewriter would match that closely to something banged out on Word in less than five minutes? I'll leave that as an exercise for you readers.

He Lied, They Died

2004-08-27T08:53:00.000-04:00

A little variation on a theme:

He Lied

They Died

I was in diapers during the tail end of Vietnam so I certainly don't have much in the way of a feel for the times as, say, my father does (who served a year in Thailand during the war) so a lot of the nuance of the time is lost on me. I realize that the Vietnam war and our involvement was/is a complicated subject; years have been spent debating whether or not we should have ever been there, when we should have left, etc, and I don't think there will be any definitive answer anytime soon.

I do, however, remember a lot of Vietnamese refugees when my father was stationed at Edwards (my mom did a lot of volunteer work with them); people don't leave in droves by any means necessary from a country that is pleasant to live in. There were millions in Vietnam and Cambodia slaughtered and starved by the very regimes we were fighting after we left. Kerry's Winter Soldier testimony to congress helped turn a country against the war, and hastened our withdrawal. If its acceptable to say "He Lied, They Died" about Bush and Iraq, then its equally acceptable to pin at least a modicum of responsibility for the lives of a few million on Kerry too.

Tin Foil Hat Time or The Other Air America

2004-05-24T20:25:00.000-04:00

While Air America has garnered all of the attention -- if not actual listeners -- as the "voice of the left" it will have a negligible effect in terms of influence when it comes to the actual election. From what I can tell from its first two months of operation a) it doesn't have an overwhelming listenership to begin with and b) what listenership it does already tilts to the progressive side. To truly sway you have to have a large enough audience that cuts across ideological boundaries. The idea that there is a great mass of the undecided tuning in every day to the Randi Rhodes show that can be swayed into voting (D) come November is wishful thinking at best. No, the most Air America can hope to achieve is to rile up the choir and make sure they all make it to the voting booth come the second Tuesday of November. So if not AA, who? Well, interestingly enough, Infinity Broadcasting.

Now I know what you're thinking, "You're a few months late on the whole Howard Stern bit," and on that you are quite correct. But Howard is only part of the story.

I live in DC so most of my morning and afternoon drive is spent on WJFK. JFK hosts Howard during morning drive and Don and Mike in the afternoon hour, both syndicated nationally. I am a fairly regular listener of Howard's and will catch the last half an hour of the Don and Mike show since the rest of the radio dial is just plain awful (Opie and Anthony used to do afternoon drive until the whole Sex for Sam stunt. Afternoon drive has sucked since they left, but that's neither here nor there). JFK also hosts the Ron and Fez show which I usually catch the beginning of on the way home, and will throw on the radio if I'm working on a project around the house; its a pretty funny show. So that's three mostly apolitical Infinity talk shows, two with a national audience that enjoy a certain amount of success that cuts across the political spectrum a great deal more than the like of Air America or even Rush Limbaugh.

I'll skip over the whole "Howard hates the FCC" bit because its been covered ad-nauseam else where. I'll simply say a) I agree that the FCC has gone nutso and b) Howard is a complete hypocrite (ask any other Infinity jocks what will happen to their show / career if they mention Howard on the air Let's just say Howard has all the power of Commissioner Copps when it comes to Infinity talent and has used it on more than one occasion). Since the whole 1/8th-of-a-second-boob-at-the-Superbowl and its FCC overreaction since then Howard has, as any listener would tell you, gone on an anti-Bush diatribe at about a one-a-day pace (never-mind Copps, his largest detractor at the FCC, is a Democrat). This, as I mentioned, is not news. But what is is the amount of anti-Bush rhetoric that has been coming out of both the Ron & Fez and Don & Mike shows over the last few months that has been noticeable due to the mostly apolitical nature of the shows. Like Stern both shows have been constantly and conspicuously anti-Bush. Granted, its less FCC driven than Iraq driven, but the escalation of it as a regular show topic is outside the shows' norm and it dovetails nicely with the start of Howard's crusade.

Now, do I think that Howard or Mel (Karmazin) have decreed from upon high "though shall bash Bush at least one hour every day?" I doubt that seriously. But I do suspect that there may be an informal "if you're inclined to bash the administration you now have permission to do so regardless of your show format." Howard carries a lot of weight at Infinity; he's a large revenue source. Howard is notorious at holding a grudge and, as I have mentioned before, will use his considerable influence within Infinity when he feels the need. You can count the number of minds Air America are going to change on one hand. The number Mel Karmazin and Co. could change may be something completely different.

2004-05-24T17:47:00.000-04:00

I confess that, while I generally dig the guy, I sometimes can't tell when Hunter S. Thompson is serious or just full of it (which, I believe, is the point). Anyway, he has a new post up at Page 2 over at ESPN with this little chestnut:

Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these photographs did... I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line. Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport.

As for the ashamed part, well to each their own. I'm none too proud of what those ass-clowns did over in Abu Ghraib either. But to say "Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these photographs did" is a warped sense of moral equivalence that borders on the pathological.

Let's review, shall we:

Holocaust Shocking...

Abu Ghraib even more shocking.

Mr. Thompson, welcome to the idiotarian club.

UPDATE: Well, according to Drudge ESPN has edited Hunter's copy to remove the line about the Nazis. Now the question is will Hunter cry foul over censorship or lay low? (I bet the former).

Air America: Ain't-we-all-rather-white radio

2004-03-28T23:14:00.000-05:00

Next week Air America Radio goes live, billing itself as progressive radio for the millions who have been neglected by talk radio broadcasters today. By "progressive" they mean left of center, to which I find myself a bit puzzled by the charge that talk radio has neglected the left end of the spectrum considering NPR and Pacifica Radio (to name two) have been providing "left" based talk radio for quite some time now. But that's a discussion for another day. The thing that struck me as odd is how a radio network that prides itself on its progressive roots is so, well, white. Take a look at the opening day roster

Marc Maron

Sue Ellicott

Mark Riley

Lizz Winstead

Chuck D

Rachel Maddow

Al Franken

Katherine Lanpher

Randi Rhodes

Marty Kaplan

Janeane Garofalo

Sam Seder

Now that's one white ass list. Granted, Chuck D is there to add a little colour, but other than that this group seems as white as the driven snow (granted I did have to go a'googlin to figure out who a couple of the names I didn't recognize were so lets say my little list has an error of +/- 1 non-white person). Hardly what I would call a "progressive" mixture. Frankly, until there's a shakeup in their on-air talent I think Air America's tag line should be "Limousine Liberal Radio."