Holy Meteorological Meltdowns Batman
Every now and then in this job you come across something that just has to be shared far and wide… In this case it’s AccuWeather.com meteorologist Jim Kosek’s rather, umm, impassioned “Snowpocalypse” forecast:
Oh boy…
(H/T: LauraW @ AoSHQ)
New York Appeals Court Dismisses Dan Rather’s Suit vs. CBS
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the whole sorry “Rathergate” affair… A New York State Appeals Court has dismissed Dan Rather’s $70 million wrongful termination suit against CBS:
A New York state appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former TV newsman Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS Corp in which Rather claimed he was made a scapegoat in a scandal over a 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush’s military record.
The ruling on Tuesday by a panel of judges of the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said Rather’s $70 million complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and that a lower court erred in denying CBS’s motion to throw out the lawsuit.
Rather, 77, sued CBS in 2007 after his career collapsed following a 60 Minutes II report on the Pres. George W. Bush’s Vietnam-era military service. The report relied in part on documents that could not be authenticated and that appear to have been generated using modern word processing software rather than a typewriter in the 1970s.
More from the Los Angels Times:
In its ruling, issued more than five months after the parties argued the case before the appellate division, the court reversed Judge Ira Gammerman’s decisions on the case.
“This Court finds that the motion court erred in denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss the claims for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty, and therefore we find the complaint must be dismissed in its entirety,” the ruling said.
The appellate division found that Gammerman should have dismissed Rather’s breach of contract claim against CBS, rejecting the anchor’s argument that he was warehoused by the network constituted a violation of his deal.
“This claim attempts to gloss over the fact that Rather continued to be compensated at his normal CBS salary of approximately $6 million a year until June 2006 when the compensation was accelerated upon termination, consistent with his contract,” the court wrote. Rather’s contract did not require “that CBS actually use Rather’s services or broadcast any programs on which he appears, but simply retains the option of accelerating the payment of his compensation under the agreement if he is not assigned to either program.”
The appellate division found that Rather failed to support his claim that CBS damaged his future business opportunities, saying “it would be speculative to conclude that any action taken by CBS would have alone substantially affected his market value at that time.” And the appeals judges wrote that he could not sue for breach of fiduciary duty because CBS did not owe Rather a fiduciary duty.
The appellate division wrote that Rather had no grounds on which to claim fraud, dismissing his argument that he is making substantially less money at his current job at HDNet than the $4 million annually he believed he could have made at CBS as speculative and irrelevant. And the anchor failed to prove that the fall-out from CBS’ handling of the Bush story curtailed other job prospects.
Ouch, that amounts to total repudiation of Rather’s claims… One would hope Dan Rather save himself further humiliation and just fade quietly into obscurity, unfortunately, that’s not his style… He’s apparently planning to appeal the decision.
John Lott: ABC’s “If I Only Had a Gun” Experiment Shameful
I watched ABC’s 20/20 special report “If I Only Had a Gun” last Friday. I came away from it with a couple of distinct impressions and I’ve been meaning to write a post about them… I’m going to defer to John Lott though, he seems to have come away the same impressions I did.
The first thing that struck was their experiment to “prove” that armed citizens can’t stop school shooters. Lott writes:
The experiment was set up to make the student fail. It did not resemble a real-world shooting. The same scenario is shown three times, but in each case the student with the gun is seated in the same seat –- the center seat in the front row. The attacker is not only a top-notch shooter –- a firearms expert who teaches firearms tactics and strategy to police -– but also obviously knows precisely where the student with the gun is sitting.
Each time the experiment is run, the attacker first fires two shots at the teacher in the front of the class and then turns his gun directly on the very student with the gun. The attacker wastes no time trying to gun down any of the unarmed students. Thus, very unrealistically, between the very first shot setting the armed student on notice and the shots at the armed student, there is at most 2 seconds. The armed student is allowed virtually no time to react and, unsurprisingly, fails under the same circumstances that would have led even experienced police officers to fare poorly.
But in the real world, a typical shooter is not a top-notch firearms expert and has no clue about whether or not anyone might be armed and, if so, where they are seated. If you have 50 people –- a pretty typical college classroom –- and he is unknown to the attacker, the armed student is given a tremendous advantage. Actually, if the experiment run by “20/20″ seriously demonstrated anything, it highlighted the problem of relying on uniformed police or security guards for safety: the killer instantly knows whom to shoot first.
Yet, in the ABC experiment, the purposefully disadvantaged students are not just identified and facing (within less than 2 seconds) an attacker whose gun is already drawn. They are also forced to wear unfamiliar gloves, a helmet, and a holster. This only adds to the difficulties the students face in handling their guns.
Lott is entirely correct as former police officer I’ve had good deal of firearms training and I doubt, given the variables in the 20/20 experiment, I would have fared much better than the students.
The second point is the so called “gun show loop-hole”… The gun show loop-hole is a bit a of fallacy pushed by gun control advocates, In short, if you buy a firearm from a licensed dealer you have to complete the required paperwork and under go a background check regardless where you purchase it. The so called loop-hole arises from private sales… That is sales one private citizen to another, the laws vary by jurisdiction but in some states no paperwork or background checks are required. For what it’s worth here in Connecticut background checks are required for private sales.
Regardless as Lott notes “… very few criminals get their guns from gun shows: a U.S. Justice Department survey of 18,000 state prison inmates showed that less than one percent (0.7%) of prisoners had obtained their gun from a gun show. Even adding flea markets and gun shows together raises the number to just 1.7 percent.”
Media Bias, What Media Bias???
Mike over at Flopping Aces points out striking visual evidence of media bias:
Mark Dziubek of Southington Conn. steps off a bus in Fairfield Conn. on Saturday March 21, 2009 as members of the media wait outside at a AIG executive’s home. A busload of activists outnumbered 2-to-1 by reporters and photographers are paying visits to the homes of American International Group Inc. executives in Connecticut to protest tens of millions of dollars in bonuses awarded by the company.
Today we learn that the group which organized and paid for the bus tour is nothing but a front for ACORN, the infamous voter fraud group whose most famous “community organizer” is none other than President Obama.
If you’re still unconvinced that media bias exists consider this: At the same time as that ACORN/Working Families Party media circus, were reporters outnumbered protesters was going on in Fairfield roughly 300 concerned citizens were protesting out of control government spending at the Ridgefield Tea Party.
I was there, I counted TWO (2) reporters. One from the Ridgefield Press and one from the News Times.
Related
- AIG “distraction” descends into mob mentality as ACORN’s “Working Family Party” organizes bus tour of AIG exec homes – Flopping Aces
Just When I Think I’ve Seen and Heard it All
What kind of a parent names their children Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell?
Parents like Heath and Deborah Campbell:
Holland Township man names son after Adolf Hitler
Sunday, December 14, 2008
By DOUGLAS B. BRILL
The Express-TimesHOLLAND TWP. | In a living room decorated with war books, German combat knives and swastikas, a 2-year-old boy, blond and blue-eyed, played with a plastic dinner set.
The boy, asked his name, put down a tiny plate and ran behind his father’s leg. He flashed a shy smile but wouldn’t answer. Heath Campbell, 35, the boy’s father, encouraged him.
“Say Adolf,” said Campbell, a Holocaust denier who has three children named for Nazism.
Again, the boy wouldn’t answer. It wasn’t the first time the name caused hesitation.
Adolf Hitler Campbell — it’s indeed the name on his birth certificate — turns 3 today, and the Campbell family believes the boy has been mistreated. A local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with “Adolf Hitler” on it.
The ShopRite in Greenwich Township has also refused to make a cake bearing the name of Campbell’s daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns 2 in February.
Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, a girl named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler, turns 1 in April.
“ShopRite can’t even make a cake for a 3-year-old,” said Deborah Campbell, 25, who is Heath’s wife of three years and the mother of the children. “That’s sad.”
A director for the Anti-Defamation League in Philadelphia applauded the supermarket’s decision. An Allentown psychologist said the names would cause problems for the children later in life.
Three things… First of all why is this story even in the news? Second bravo to ShopRite for not yielding to political correctness and refusing the Campbell’s business. Lastly, jeers to Wal-Mart.
Ed Morrissey and Debbie Schlussel have more on the story.
Mikheil Saakashvili: Georgia Acted in Self-Defense
There’s always two sides to every story and unfortunately, for the most part the western new media has only told half story about the Russian invasion of Georgia. If you haven’t read Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s excellent Op Ed in today’s Wall Street Journal you should.
Georgia Acted in Self-Defense
Some people seem to misunderstand which country was invaded.
By Mikheil Saakashvili, Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2008
Since Russia invaded Georgia last August, the international community seems stuck on one question about how the war started: Did the Georgian military act irresponsibly to take control of Tskhinvali in the South Ossetia region of Georgia?
This question has been pushed to the center in large degree by a fierce, multimillion-dollar Russian PR campaign that hinges on leaked, very partial, and misleading reports from a military observer from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that claimed Georgia responded militarily in South Ossetia without sufficient provocation by Russia. Judging from recent media coverage, this campaign has been successful.
Focusing on this question distracts from Russia’s intense, blatant policy of regime change that has long aimed to destabilize Georgia through ethnic manipulation, and thus thwart our democracy while stopping NATO’s expansion. Furthermore, it has never been in dispute whether our forces entered South Ossetia. I have always openly acknowledged that I ordered military action in South Ossetia — as any responsible democratic leader would have done, and as the Georgian Constitution required me to do in defense of the country.
I made this decision after being confronted by two facts. First, Russia had massed hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers on the border between Russian and Georgia in the area of South Ossetia. We had firm intelligence that they were crossing into Georgia, a fact later confirmed by telephone intercepts verified by the New York Times and others — and a fact never substantially denied by Russia. (We had alerted the international community both about the military deployment and an inflow of mercenaries early on Aug. 7.)
Second, for a week Russian forces and their proxies engaged in a series of deadly provocations, shelling Georgian villages that were under my government’s control — with much of the artillery located in Tskhinvali, often within sites controlled by Russian peacekeepers. Then, on Aug. 7, Russia and its proxies killed several Georgian peacekeepers. Russian peacekeepers and OSCE observers admitted that they were incapable of preventing the lethal attacks. In fact, the OSCE had proven impotent in preventing the Russians from building two illegal military bases inside South Ossetia during the preceding year. Read the rest…
Reporters Kicked Off OBama’s Campaign Plane???
Matt Drudge is reporting that the Obama campaign has kicked reporters from the New York Post, Washington Times and Dallas Morning News off his campaign plane… All three papers have recently endorsed John McCain.
From Fox News:
Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain — the Washington Times, the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News — have been booted from Barack Obama’s campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.
The Washington Times reported Friday that it was notified of the Obama campaign’s decision Thursday evening — even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.
Executive Editor John Solomon told FOXNews.com that the Obama campaign said it didn’t have enough seats on the plane, but “I don’t think the explanation makes sense to us.”
“We’ve been traveling since 2007 with him. … We’re a relevant newspaper — every day we break news,” Solomon said. “And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven’t covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are … it sort of feels unfair.”
He said the newspaper protested but was turned down again by the campaign.
“I can only hope that the candidate who describes himself as wanting to unite the nation doesn’t have some sort of litmus test for who he decides gets to cover the campaign,” Solomon said, noting that the Obama campaign’s decision came just two days after the paper endorsed McCain.
More from the Washington Times:
The Washington Times, N.Y. Post and Dallas Morning News — three newspapers that recently endorsed John McCain — won’t be flying on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plane in the final days of his campaign — the papers have been told there is no room.
The Obama campaign informed The Washington Times Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after The Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department.
“This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama’s campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter’s pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign,” said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon. News organizations typically pay campaigns for the cost of traveling on the candidate’s planes.
“I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn’t using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign,” Mr. Solomon said.
I guess Sen. Obama is tired of throwing his friends under the bus and is now tossing journalist off the plane. Alright seriously, normally I’d consider this a non-story but given the Obama campaign’s reaction to reporters like Barbara West who’ve asked tough questions this bit of news is troubling.
Update: Michelle Malkin sums things up nicely: If you don’t make me glow, you gotta go.
Media Biased? Michael Malone Thinks So
Just how bad has the media’s coverage of the presidential campaign been?
Bad enough that ABC News’s Silicon Insider Michael Malone says he’s “embarrassed to admit what I do for a living”.
The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game — with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer,” because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.
You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I’m cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).
My hard-living — and when I knew her, scary — grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I’ve spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.
So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist,” you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.
Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word “said” — muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. — to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.
But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.
But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.
That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can’t achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty — especially in ourselves. Read the rest…
Note to the AP: You Can Stop Digging Now
Just when you think the Associated Press can’t sink any lower they do. The news analysis piece on Sarah Palin’s William Ayers remarks by the AP’s Douglass K. Daniel is real jaw-dropper: Analysis: Palin’s words carry racial tinge.
Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.
Most troubling, however, is how allowing racism to creep into the discussion serves McCain’s purpose so well. As the fallout from Wright’s sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America’s promise to treat all people equally.
John McCain occasionally looks back on decisions with regret. He has apologized for opposing a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He has apologized for refusing to call for the removal of a Confederate flag from South Carolina’s Capitol.
When the 2008 campaign is over McCain might regret appeals such as Palin’s perhaps more so if he wins.
Wow… This really is the year journalism died.
Here’s the video of Palin’s remarks:
Here’s the New York Times story she’s refering to.
Allahpundit has more on the AP story at Hot Air and Dan Spencer has more on Obama’s radical connections at Red State… I’m going back to the Dolphins game, there’s 1:55 left and they’re winning for change!
Update: The Dolphins Win… They knocked off the San Diego Chargers 17-10. 
Updates (6:45 p.m.): Quin Hillyer at the American Spectator goes after the AP:
This might be the single most irresponsible piece the Associated Press has EVER run. Not only does it badly misstate (i.e. excuses, plays down, hides) the level of Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, but it goes to phenomenally bizarre lengths to claim that Sarah Palin’s repeated references to Ayers — who is white — somehow “carry a racially tinged subtext.” HUH????!!???? This is sick. Literally sick. Have things really reached the point where ANY criticism of Obama is racist? Next thing you know, criticism of Obama for having the most liberal voting record in the Senate will be called racist. Criticism of Obama for being against the surge will be called racist. Hell, next thing you know, criticism of Joe Biden will be called racist, because Biden is the running mate for a black man and, well, any criticism of him is code for racist opposition to Obama.
Jonah Goldberg calls the AP’s analysis Outrageously Asinine:
Douglass Daniel, an editor of the Associated Press, offers some absurd analysis of the race, trying to make the case that playing the Ayers’ card is “racially tinged,” journalistic code these days for flat out racist.
70 Million Viewers – Wow
Ok so it was really only 69,989,000 but last nights Vice Presidential debate was the most watched ever.
From the the Live Feed:
Thursday’s highly anticipated face-off between Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Delaware senator Joe Biden was the most-watched vp debate of all time.
Last night’s event was seen by nearly 70 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
That’s the most-viewed debate — presidential or vp — since the second round between Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and George Bush in 1992 (and possibly the most since 1980’s famed debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter).
Thursday’s event was 33% higher than Friday’s top-of-the-ticket debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. It’s 61% higher than the 2004 debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. And it ranks 23% higher than the former title-holder for the most-watched vp debate — the 1984 match between George Bush and Geraldine Ferrarro (56.7 million).
H/T: Flopping Aces.
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