Boston Legal Bias

I sometimes enjoy watching Boston Legal on ABC. It’s clever, quirky, and has good dialogue. Other times, I don’t enjoy it so much, because the show’s producer, David E. Kelley, can’t keep his political views out of the show. I don’t expect the show to be completely balanced, but I do expect it to be somewhat fair.

Tonight’s episode included three story lines:

1) A man is accused of murdering the judge for whom he is clerking and with whom he was having an affair.

2) Denny Crane (William Shatner) meets an online acquaintance for the first time, only to find out she’s a midget. He spurns her and she sues him, accusing him of dwarf-hatred.

3) A transvestite with multiple personalities sues his employer when he is terminated for wanting to take maternity leave.

Some people have long claimed that Hollywood only portrays Christians as hypocritical, crazy, or deluded. Let’s see how tonight’s episode of Boston Legal fares.

The story includes three references to Christianity:

1) The murdered judge’s next-door neighbor says he is “really Christian”, right before he admits to being a peeping-Tom who watched the judge have sex with the clerk.

2) Denny Crane, trying to get away from his date with the midget, claims he can’t date her because she’s Jewish and he’s Christian.

3) It is revealed that the accused murderer had dreams that God was telling him to kill the judge. The clerk admits to these dreams and says that he was raised in a very “conservative” (which is probably a code word for “Catholic”) household and feels a lot of guilt for committing adultery with the judge, although he claims he didn’t kill her.

Not bad. Two out of three. The peeping-Tom “Christian” neighbor is hypocritical and the accused murderer’s “conservative” upbringing may have driven him to murder.

But wait, there’s more!

Each episode ends with Denny Crane and Alan Shore (James Spader) sitting on their penthouse patio smoking cigars, drinking scotch, and ruminating about their day. This is usually David E. Kelley and his writers' chance to disseminate their opinions to their unwary audience. Usually, Alan Shore spouts a liberal viewpoint and Denny Crane takes a conservative viewpoint. But always, Alan Shore comes across as the reasonable intellectual, while Denny Crane comes across as, well, having “mad-cow disease”.

Tonight’s patio conversation started with Denny Crane making judgmental comments about midgets - about how they breed like hamsters and have midget orgies. Alan Shore takes these comments and turns them into a soliloquy against racial profiling and a (perceived) attack on civil liberties.

For once, I’d like to see the conservative/Republican viewpoint portrayed with logical, sound arguments and a better representative than Denny Crane.

Come on, David, I expect more of you. Take the challenge. Let’s see what happens if you create a mix of characters that truly reflects reality, instead of constantly reminding us that you are the liberal master of your television domain.

An Islamic Fascist is an Islamic Fascist is an Islamic Fascist

The ever-brilliant Victor Davis Hanson tends to write long articles with multiple points. Such is the way of the academic mind.

However since most people can't digest all that information and logic in a single sitting, I will extract one particularly lucid point from his latest article which is titled “Islamic Fascism 101” (the emphasis is mine):

…just as it was idle in the middle of World War II to speculate how many Germans, Japanese, or Italians really accepted the silly hatred of Hitler, Mussolini, or Tojo, so too it is a vain enterprise to worry over how many Muslims follow or support al Qaeda, or, in contrast, how many in the Middle East actively resist Islamists.

Most people have no ideology, but simply accommodate themselves to the prevailing sense of an agenda’s success or failure. Just as there weren’t more than a dozen vocal critics of Hitler after the Wehrmacht finished off France in six weeks in June of 1940, so too there wasn’t a Nazi to be found in June 1945 when Berlin lay in rubble.

It doesn’t matter whether Middle Easterners actually accept the tenets of bin Laden’s worldview - not if they think he is on the ascendancy, can bring them a sense of restored pride, and humiliate the Jews and the West on the cheap. Bin Laden is no more eccentric or impotent than Hitler was in the late 1920s.Yet if he can claim that his martyrs forced the United States out of Afghanistan and Iraq, toppled a petrol sheikdom or two, and acquired its wealth and influence - or if he got his hands on nuclear weapons and lorded it over appeasing Westerners - then he too, like the Fuhrer in the 1930s, will become untouchable. The same is true of Iran’s president Ahmadinejad.

In one blow, VDH shatters the hackneyed argument many use to defend Middle Eastern nations – that the majority of their populations aren’t violent extremists. As history has shown, you don’t need the support of the majority to wreak massive carnage and chaos throughout the world.

The situation with Iran is bad and getting worse. Ahmadinejad is becoming bolder by the day, but what’s frightening is that he personally has little power. He has power because he is the puppet/voice piece for the mullahs who truly control Iran.

For some reason, the situation with Iran reminds me of the ending of “Terminator”:

As she pays him, distant thunder rolls.

The boy yells something in Spanish as he runs off.

SARAH: What did he say?

ATTENDANT (accented): There is a storm coming in.

Sarah gazes at the thunderheads building up out over the desert. Heat lightning pulses in their depths.

SARAH (quietly): I know.

Bill Clinton vs. Chris Wallace

Just in case you missed the discussion:

Shooting Nuns - More Evidence That Islam is the “Religion of Peace”

So the Pope reads a quote from the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, and offends Muslims the world over.

Here is part of what the Pope said:

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

How do “peaceful” Muslims react?

They shoot a 65-year-old nun.

According to this AFP story:

Gunmen shot and killed an elderly Italian nun at a children's hospital in the Islamist-controlled Somali capital amid outrage over Pope Benedict XVI's comments about Islam, witnesses said.

There seem to be a limited number of actions that Muslims take when they are “offended”:

1) Shoot and kill someone.
2) Kidnap and behead someone.
3) Threaten to shoot someone.
4) Threaten to kill someone.
5) Threaten to behead someone (which I suppose is a subset of #4).

Case in point - the above article quotes a “a prominent Mogadishu cleric (who) called for Muslims to ‘hunt down’ and kill the pontiff for his remarks.”

"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," hardline imam Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.

Of course, the reporter adds the word “hardline” to emphasize that this isn’t a mainstream Muslim. There seem to be a lot of “hardline” Muslims these days, and very few “mainstream” Muslims denouncing them.

In other news, a “radical Muslim group” threatened a suicide attack on the Vatican”.

Oh, and Palestinians set fire to an Anglican church.




Yes, Virginia, Islam truly is the “religion of peace”.

An Interesting Juxtaposition of Stories

Just now, on the local TV news (KONG-TV’s 10 o’clock news), I saw an interesting juxtaposition of stories about illegal immigration.

The first story described protests supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. Of course, the story didn’t call it “amnesty”, but instead said that the protestors were supporting the passage of “immigration-friendly” legislation.

What a nice choice of words. Who could be against “anything-friendly” legislation? If you’re against it, you must be unfriendly – and who wants to be that?

The second story then described how Washington State farmers are complaining about a shortage of (migrant) workers to pick their crops, and how the shortage may drive up produce and fruit prices.

So, KONG-TV shows a story about protestors in support of “immigration-friendly” legislation, and then implies that if the legislation is not passed, it could hit produce- and fruit-eaters right in their wallets!

Hmm. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

Revisionist History from the Associated Press

Do you remember the immigration protests earlier this year? The photos of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and their supporters crowding the streets waving countless Mexican flags?

Here’s a reminder in case you’ve forgotten:


Today, in an AP article entitled ”Immigration protests may not spur votes”, Michael R. Blood and Peter Prengaman discuss how the protests have not spurred an increase in voter registration among Hispanics.

Hmm…could that have anything to do with the fact that the majority of protestors were illegal immigrants and not U.S. citizens?

But I digress.

Let’s first note the opening sentence of the article (the highlight is mine):

Immigration protests that drew hundreds of thousands of flag-waving demonstrators to the nation's streets last spring promised a potent political legacy — a surge of new Hispanic voters.

“Flag-waving demonstrators.” That’s an accurate statement because it doesn’t specify which flag!

The really interesting thing about this article is the photo that was chosen to accompany it.

Here’s the photo with caption:

Holding aloft a U.S. flag, immigration rights demonstrators march in Los Angeles, May 1, 2006. These immigration protests that sent hundreds of thousands of people into the nation's streets this spring promised to leave behind a potent political legacy _ a surge of new Hispanic voters. But an Associated Press review of registration figures from major rally cities suggests there has been no surge in registrations, at least not yet (AP Photo/Stefano Paltera, File)
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According to this photo, those protestors sure look like a patriotic bunch!

If you follow the link to the associated slide show, you will also notice that none of the photos show Mexican flags. The only flags shown are American flags!

We know that’s not true.

I think these photos shows what the protestors truly felt about the American flag:



Once again, the AP shows that they are biased. They are revising the facts to manipulate people’s memories of the true events.

This is yet another example of why the public no longer turns to the mainstream media for facts, but are turning instead to independent sources such as Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, and other blogs.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin’s blog for the above photos.)

Original link to this post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/09/revisionist-history-from-associated.html

Surprise! Another Example of CNN’s Bias

Sigh. CNN’s at it again–structuring their stories to manipulate readers’ opinions.

In CNN’s article, “40 bodies found in Baghdad; al Qaeda leader in custody”, the good news about the capture of the No. 2 Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq is given second-billing to the bad news about how many people died in Iraq today, not only in the headline but in the body of the story.

It’s as if CNN wants to remind us that the violence in Iraq continues and capturing a top Al-Qaeda leader doesn’t make a difference.

What CNN misses is that the capture of Hamed Jumaa Al Saeedi will affect Al-Qaeda’s future operations, not operations already in progress.

This is just another example of how the large news organizations put their own spin on what should be objective journalism.

Nightmare Mortgages – It Will All Hit the Fan in 2007, Part 13

This Business Week article describes better than I could the huge impact risky mortgages are going to have on the housing market.

The article covers the following topics:

1) The proliferation of risky Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs)

2) The proliferation of “Option ARMs” where borrowers can choose between several different payments every month, some of which don’t even cover the interest payment for that month.

3) How banks and other lenders pawn off the risk by packaging their mortgages and selling them as Mortgage-Backed Securities on Wall Street.

4) How mortgage brokers push Option ARMs onto their clients because of the higher commissions.

5) How banks and lenders have pushed riskier ARMS and Option ARMS to keep the housing bubble going after housing prices became unaffordable using standard 30-year fixed-rate mortgages.

Here is an excerpt:

For cash-strapped homeowners, it was a pitch they couldn't refuse: Refinance your mortgage at a bargain rate and cut your payments in half. New home buyers, stretching to afford something in a super-heated market, didn't even need to produce documentation, much less a downpayment.

Those who took the bait are in for a nasty surprise. While many Americans have started to worry about falling home prices, borrowers who jumped into so-called option ARM loans have another, more urgent problem: payments that are about to skyrocket…

…The bill is coming due. Many of the option ARMs taken out in 2004 and 2005 are resetting at much higher payment schedules -- often to the astonishment of people who thought the low installments were fixed for at least five years. And because home prices have leveled off, borrowers can't count on rising equity to bail them out. What's more, steep penalties prevent them from refinancing. The most diligent home buyers asked enough questions to know that option ARMs can be fraught with risk. But others, caught up in real estate mania, ignored or failed to appreciate the risk.

How popular are option ARMs?

Because banks don't have to report how many option ARMs they underwrite, few choose to do so. But the best available estimates show that option ARMs have soared in popularity. They accounted for as little as 0.5% of all mortgages written in 2003, but that shot up to at least 12.3% through the first five months of this year, according to FirstAmerican LoanPerformance, an industry tracker. And while they made up at least 40% of mortgages in Salinas, Calif., and 26% in Naples, Fla., they're not just found in overheated coastal markets: Through Mar. 31 of this year, at least 51% of mortgages in West Virginia and 26% in Wyoming were option ARMs.

Considering that 30-40% of new jobs created over the last 3 years have been related to the housing boom (construction, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, framers, painters, appraisers, appliance salesmen), any ripple in the housing market could created tsunamis in the general economy.

The article cites specific examples of people who made unwise choices and are now in financial jeopardy.

Scary stuff.

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Links to previous "It Will All Hit The Fan in 2007" posts:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4 (Addendum), Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

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Original link to this post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/09/nightmare-mortgages-it-will-all-hit.html

Maybe It’s Our Constitution, Capitalism, and Judeo-Christian Values

In the Travel section of today’s Seattle Times, there’s an article entitled “A life-changing journey – now on to change the world”, written by Haley Edwards, a 23-year-old writer. The article is the final installment of an ongoing series describing Ms. Edwards’ travels through the Middle East and Asia.

The articles are well-written, articulate, and thoughtful. However, in this final installment, Ms. Edwards falls into a common trap.

Ms. Edwards starts her article with:

I'm back in the United States and, man, does it feel good to have a shower. After nearly 120 days of sleeping in a different hostel every night, I've come to appreciate the small things: indoor plumbing; clean sheets; crosswalks; toilet paper.

She then says:

When I first came back, I was almost paralyzed by these constant comparisons between America and the developing world. Why should I have a washer/dryer when those kids don't even have clothes? Why should I have the choice between Blue C Sushi and Dick's when a family I stayed with not a week before was probably not eating at all?

Why indeed? I’ll answer her question at the end of this post.

Here is what comes next:

Now that I've seen the poverty, disease and terrorism that haunt the rest of the world, don't I have an obligation to do something about it?

She does and so do we.

But what can we do?

Ms. Edwards cites examples of giving money to UNICEF and Oxfam, and of choosing to send $50 to feed a starving child instead of buying a pair of Hush Puppies, although she does admit that “I could send my $50 to India and that kid would still die.”

I’d like to add another idea to the mix.

Doing something about world poverty doesn’t necessarily mean shipping truckloads of wheat to less-developed countries. Instead, let’s think about changing the backwards ideas and culture of the less-developed nations.

In the article, Ms. Edwards briefly mentions Kashmir, which is the territory between Pakistan and India that both nations claim belongs to them. Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country, whereas India is Hindu with a strict class-oriented society. In both cases, certain members of society are repressed. In the Muslim nation of Pakistan, women do not enjoy the same rights as men. In India, what class you are born into affects what opportunities you will have in life.

Perhaps the reason why Americans have “the choice between Blue C Sushi and Dick’s” (and Kashmiris don’t) has something to do with how our society is structured.

Our society is based on the U.S. Constitution which, in the Bill of Rights, provides:
- Freedom of religion
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom against unlawful search and seizure
- Right to a fair trial

Our Judeo-Christian values led to the establishment of the idea that “all men are created equal” (although our enactment of this belief has been imperfect and slow).

These ideas led to the concept of private ownership of property and means of production (capitalism), which led to a technological revolution that still continues today. Currently, even communist China is reaping the benefits of its tentative embrace of capitalism.

All of these contribute to a robust, healthy and prosperous society, which among other things, produces Dick’s drive-ins, sushi restaurants, Starbucks coffee joints, laptop computers, iPods, Boeing airplanes, and yes, indoor plumbing and toilet paper.

I am not saying that our society is perfect, because it isn’t. Capitalism isn’t perfect. But what we have accomplished in the United States is the best experiment in individual dignity and freedom that the world has ever seen.

So maybe we shouldn’t send money abroad to help those less fortunate than us. Instead, let’s send the seeds of change – the ideas that all men (and women) are created equal and should be given the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and help those in need enact these ideas in their own societies.

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Original link to this post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/09/maybe-its-our-constitution-capitalism.html

NY Times Puts Political Spin on Real Estate Article

NY Times Puts Political Spin on Real Estate Article

The New York Times recently had the following article by Floyd Norris

August 26, 2006
In Housing as in Most Things: What’s Up the Most, Falls the Most
By FLOYD NORRIS

IF you raise prices enough, people will stop buying.

That may not impress economists as a new thought, but it accurately describes the current United States home market, where home buyers are suddenly more reluctant to put down their money, and the supply of homes for sale has reached record levels.

The housing boom that now appears to have ended was most pronounced in a handful of areas largely concentrated on the East and West Coasts, while people in the Midwest wondered what all the excitement was about. Now it is the areas that did the best that are seeing the most buyer resistance.

In three states, the rate of home sales in the second quarter of this year fell by more than a quarter from a year earlier. All are in warm-weather areas, all were viewed as likely to gain population as baby boomers retired and all enjoyed rapid price rises in the first half of the current decade, in part because of speculation by investors seeking quick profits. They are California, Florida and Arizona.

While those states had the largest decline in sales rates, the six other states along with the District of Columbia that led the country in sales price increases early in the decade are now also experiencing sales declines more rapid than those in the nation as a whole. They include Hawaii and Nevada, two other areas that had intrigued investors, as well as the region that benefited from the growth of the federal government in this decade: Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

At the other end of the list are the 10 states with the smallest home price gains from 2000 to 2005. In six of them the pace of sales has risen this year, notwithstanding the national trend, and another three have had declines that are smaller than the national average.

The best of those 10 is Texas, where the pace of sales in the second quarter of 2006 was up 11 percent from a year earlier, and at a record high. Texas has benefited from a trend that may have hurt home sales in most areas: rising oil prices.

The state where higher oil prices are perhaps the worst news is Michigan, home of an automobile industry that bet on the continued growth of sales of sport utility vehicles. Home prices did not rise much there early in the decade, but now the pace of sales is falling at a double-digit rate, worse than in the rest of the country.

Put another way, the pace of home sales in Michigan is almost exactly where it was in late 1997, while the national sales rate is still 46 percent above the figure then. In Texas, the gain over that period is 83 percent. Over that same period, the price of a barrel of crude oil has soared to $72 from $18.

During the first part of this decade, it was the so-called blue states, the ones that elect Democrats, that were more likely to see big home price increases. If those that rose the most then are now to suffer the most, it will be the blue states that do the worst in the housing downturn.

Among the states where home prices rose more than the national average from 2000 to 2005, John Kerry won 155 electoral votes in 2004, compared with just 55 for President Bush. But among states where home prices rose less than the national average, Mr. Bush gained 231 electoral votes to just 97 for Mr. Kerry.

Why did Mr. Norris feel compelled to include the last two paragraphs? Is he trying to imply that states that voted for Kerry do better economically? Or those that vote for Bush do worse?

Either way, the article seems to end abruptly and off-topic.

Is this what passes for journalism these days?

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Original link to this post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/09/ny-times-puts-political-spin-on-real.html

U.S. News Thinks Dean “Frugal”, Bush “Weird”

Paul Bedard's "Washington Whispers" section in the August 14-21 issue of U.S. News and World Report includes the following blurbs (the highlights are mine):

The Top Dem Finally Dumps Dial-Up

He was heralded in 2004 as the king of Internet politics and fundraising, but get this: Up until just a few weeks ago, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean had only snail-slow dial-up service wired to his home computer in Burlington. “We finally got him to buy DSL,” says a relieved aide. It wasn’t the technology that kept the Democratic Party chairman from the light-speed service. Friends say he’s just frugal and didn’t want to spend more. And he won’t expense it to the party. Another old-school sign: Dean doesn’t carry a BlackBerry, choosing to phone aides instead.

So U.S. News spins Howard Dean’s lack of high-speed Internet access as “frugal” and principled, since he “won’t expense it to the party”.

You wonder how this story would have been reported if it had been about President Bush. Would the President also have been shown as “frugal” or would he be “out of touch” and “behind the times”?

Right after this little love-fest is a story about President Bush:

Mmm, Nice, Warm Bottled Water!

If you ever have a chance to snag President Bush as a featured speaker, here are two little quirks on his list of wants. First, provide a box of Altoids. Yes, he’s a fan of those “curiously strong” semisweet breath mints. “He doesn’t,” says a Bushie, “like sweets much, so these work good as mints.” Second: warm water. Actually, room temperature. Preferably bottled. “He doesn’t like it cold,” adds the insider. “It’s kind of weird.”

So, President Bush’s tastes are “kind of weird”.

It's interesting how these stories were co-located, the first showing Howard Dean as “frugal” and the next showing President Bush having weird diva-like back-stage demands. Requesting Altoids and room-temperature water seem like very normal demands, showing me that he’s a regular guy.

It’s comical how the article takes these pretty normal requests and works hard to depict them as unusual and “kind of weird” by using short sentences:

"Second: warm water. Actually, room temperature. Preferably bottled."

Also note how Dean has “aides” and “friends” while the President has a “Bushie” and “insider”.

I don’t know if Mr. Bedard consciously intended any of this, but his obvious bias shines through.

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Original link to this post:
http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/09/us-news-thinks-dean-frugal-bush-weird.html