Darwin Awards

The 2006 winners of the Darwin Awards have been announced. I figured my readers would want to know that. Although quite a few of them will have already been well aware of this fact.

Danger Signs

The Los Angeles Times (warning: VERY annoying registration required - worst I have ever bothered dealing with) has a warning to the television networks. It appears that they are losing viewers in one of their key demographic categories: 25- to 54-year-old women. The networks are shrugging it off, blaming global warming (no, I'm serious), but what if it is actually true? Have they begun a slide that will be very hard to recover from?

NEW YORK — When her children were young, Jenny Lauck used to flip on "Today" or "Good Morning America" as she brewed her morning coffee and tended to her babies.

But several years ago, the 34-year-old mother of three stopped watching the morning shows. After getting TiVo, she had no patience to sit through multiple commercial breaks during a live newscast. On top of that, the segments began to seem more and more frivolous.

"Watching morning television for me is the equivalent of reading People magazine in the dentist's office," said Lauck, who writes for websites from her home in Santa Rosa, Calif. "They don't have anything new or particularly relevant to my life. It seems like a lot of fluff. I feel like I can get information faster and cleaner on the Internet."

Lauck's not alone in souring on network news programs. In particular, this season has seen a significant erosion of the morning shows' demographic sweet spot: 25- to 54-year-old women.

Almost 450,000 of these women — coveted by advertisers because of their household purchasing power — turned off the three broadcast morning programs so far this season, a decline of 10% compared to the same point last year, according to a Times analysis of Nielsen Media Research data. (Male viewers the same age also fell by 9%, but they make up a much smaller portion of the audience.)

It's difficult to trace the exact cause of the drop. It comes after two popular morning hosts, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, left their shows to be evening news anchors. At the same time, the advent of "mommy blogs," the growing popularity of online news sites and the ever-more-frantic press of daily life appear to have led many women to forgo the morning ritual of watching TV.

News executives are sanguine about the ratings dip, calling it a short-term fluctuation. They attribute it in large part to the unseasonably mild winter in much of the country until recently, noting that temperate weather draws people outside, and away from their television sets.

"We are certainly aware of it, but not making a lot if it just yet," said Jim Bell, executive producer of NBC's "Today." "I maintain the foundation of the morning is perfectly stable and fine. I suspect that when there are big, breaking news stories or significant weather events, we will grow, as we've always grown."

If the dwindling female viewership persists, however, it has implications not only for the individual morning programs but the news divisions as a whole, which rely on the profitable shows to finance most of the network's news-gathering operations.

So what if the golden goose suddenly stops cooperating? What is the networks are suddenly facing fleeing viewership? This has been a huge topic in the blogosphere for a while now, of course. Some folks have been warning about the demise of the mainstream media for some time now. The rapidly sinking New York Times (and the dire straits of the LA Times - with their bone stupid registration policy - that's a hint, idiots) are but two easy examples.

An interesting addendum to this. My wife and I were chatting a bit this evening and I mentioned this article. She said she wasn't all that surprised, she had given up on watching any news at all these days and actually usually changes the station if news comes up on the radio when she's driving. The conversation turned to Barack Obama for whatever reason and she said she had never seen a picture of him. After I picked my jaw up off the floor it occurred to me how bad that is for the MSM. It means the messages they are pumping out by the gallon may not be actually doing what they think it is.

The MSM is losing the very people they need the most and they are doing it rapidly, I suspect.

Felonious Feline Firebugs

All you people who harbor cats in your house thinking the little beasts are "pets" might want to rethink that. The Animal Uprising™ appears to have turned the feline felons into firebugs and unleashed them on the unwitting populace.

Firefighters say it looks like a cat may be responsible for a house fire in Fincastle. Crews responded just before 10:00 p.m. Wednesday to 217 Herndon Road, where the cat apparently knocked a burning candle under the couch. 

This happened in Fincastle, Virginia. What is interesting is another line in the story. Firefighters had a hard time putting out the fire and had to use water trucks to do it.

Because the fire hydrants were frozen solid.

The Land Of Snow And Ice

Years ago, I attended college at the State University College at Oswego, New York. Now aside from the vast amounts of hilarity that the parking stickers provided (they bore the initials "SUCO") it was a more or less typical State college. A bit larger than the norm for the colleges (as opposed to the universities) in the state system. But the weather was not at all typical, at least for someone who had grown up mostly in Rochester, New York. We had snow in Rochester, of course and lake effect snow could be quite heavy. But Oswego had Snow. I happened to be attending during the years when Oswego experienced some of the heaviest snowfalls on record. We called the city, "The land of snow and ice".

But it appears that they are having an even heavier winter than those I experienced. They are closing in on 100 inches in the past week.

"Have to move fast. Want to at least get it off my roof," said Ray DeLong, 75, as he carved a path to his driveway with a snowblower and two contractors pushed streams of snow from the roof of his two-story home.

Snow squalls off Lake Ontario have dumped snow by the feet onto Oswego County communities since Sunday, leading Gov. Eliot Spitzer to declare a state disaster emergency.

Parish and Scriba had about 8 feet of snow since the squalls started, according to the National Weather Service. Mexico Mayor Terry Grimshaw said his village was blanketed by 7 feet.

On Friday, the squalls shifted south into Syracuse and stayed there, dropping 4 to 8 inches of snow.

But forecasters said heavy snow bands would return to Oswego County later Friday night and likely stall there again. The forecasts call for another 6 to 12 inches, pushing the seven-day total over 100 inches.

While residents enjoyed Friday's lull, snow plows were out in full force to clear roads. An advisory against any nonessential travel remained in effect for Oswego and three nearby counties. Snow banks tower nearly 10 feet tall and have narrowed roads.

I remember driving through streets that resembled tunnels more than roads. An intense claustrophobic feeling as walls of white towered over you and your car. It was actually even worse walking through it. You felt like a rat in a maze. The city of Oswego, back then at least, had phenomenal snow removal equipment. They happened to have several large nuclear power plants in their tax base (two then, another one later) They could afford the best and a lot of it. But there were times when even they got swamped (if you ever see a ten-wheel dump truck, with a full load of salt and a rotary plow a man can stand up inside of mounted on the front hit a snowdrift and stick, you remember it). For all the headlines about Oswego, by the way, they probably have even heavy snowfalls over in the area known as Tug Hill. There are fewer people there, though.

UPDATE: WaPo coverage this morning.

You Say It’s Your Birthday

It's Stop The ACLU's second birthday today. They are in good company with Maggie's Farm.

UPDATE: I have been duly chastised for failing to note Granddaddy Long Legs' birthday yesterday. My apologies.

Head Of Cartoon Network Resigns

The head of Cartoon Network, Jim Samples, has resigned in the wake of the Boston "guerrilla marketing" scheme that went awry. Turner Network Television, parent of Cartoon Network had already paid the city $2 million to settle any complaints over the stunt.

The announcement of Jim Samples resignation was made in an internal memo sent to Cartoon Network staff members. In the statement, Samples said he regretted what had happened.

"It's my hope that my decision allows us to put this chapter behind us and get back to our mission of delivering unrivaled original animated entertainment for consumers of all ages," Samples said.

I predicted that heads would roll over it. Not that it was difficult to see.

Murtha Makes Threats, Gets Air Transport

John Murtha is now openly threatening the Defense Department with investigations and possible negative budget impacts over the Air Pelosi matter.

Representative John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Defense Department's budget, said he contacted officials at the Pentagon and told them to provide a large plane.

“I said she should have the same consideration Hastert did,'' Murtha said, adding that it isn't wise for the Pentagon to reject her use of a non-stop plane.

“They're making a mistake when they leak it, because she decides on the allocation for the Defense Department,'' he said. He added he didn't think Pelosi would let a rejection drive her decisions on Pentagon funding.

Murtha said he will hold hearings that examine the use of military planes by members of Congress and Bush administration officials for the past two fiscal years. Asked whether the hearings are payback for the decision on Pelosi's request, he smiled and said, “Would I do something like that?''

Caving in to the pressure, the Defense Department immediately agreed to transport Murtha by air.

Still More Thumping Of The AP

It's not like it is all that hard to find things to fault the Associated Press over these days. Frankly, they are getting ridiculous with their hyper-partisan news coverage and the carrying of enemy propaganda as straight news. But Jules Crittenden really finally got fed up and has dismembered their latest "news report" coming out of Tehran. It is a classic and worth the read.

No mention of Iran’s nuclear defiance, U.S. accusations of Iranian material support for Iraq’s insurgents and militias, or of Iranian agents arrested in Iraq. That “diplomat … detained” line refers to an abduction by an unknown party, and its description of that as a “detention” is nothing short of bizarre.  Based on past precedent, the kidnapping by gunmen in Iraqi Army uniforms is more likely to have been carried out by an Iranian-backed Shiite death squad or Sunni terrorist group than by the United States.  

The dangerous American outrages described in this article happen in a vacuum, unprovoked, at least for the first five paragraphs of this Iranian propaganda exercise. And even then, it’s hard to understand what the source of the “tension” is between the United States and Iran.

Iran’s defiance of the international community over its suspected nuclear weapons program only emerges obliquely in the sixth paragraph, as a “dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.”  No mention of the word “weapons.”  Anywhere. Certainly nowhere near the words “nuclear” or “insurgency in Iraq.”

The United States’ concerns about Iran’s underwriting of violent sectarian chaos in Iraq  also gets a nod in graph six, as Iran’s “role in Iraq.” Not a peep on what that role might be or why anyone would be concerned about it.

Read it all. Jules has the journalism background to really dismantle this execrable article in a very, very devastating way. Will it change a thing the AP is doing? Unfortunately, it probably will not.

Suicide Squirrel Shocks City

The city of Escanaba, Michigan got a rude awakening to the realities of the Animal Uprising™ when a ravening rodent wrecked their local electric company leaving 1,300 people without power. Well, ok, it didn't exactly wreck the company, we exaggerated a little there. But it did find a way to short out one of the main circuits all the way back to the power plant.

However, Tuesday afternoon in a southern Escanaba neighborhood, a short caused by a squirrel went all the way back to the power plant, shutting down one of the city's four main circuits and affecting businesses along US 41.

All power was restored within about 30 minutes.  Officials say the squirrel didn't make it. (Ed. Note: But it probably was a spectacular flash.)

It would appear that their protective relaying scheme may need a bit of a tweak. Depending on how things are configured and the transmission voltage involved, it is a bit unusual to see a squirrel induced fault trip a line all the way back to the plant.

Nazi Rabbits

I stumbled across this very disturbing article while looking for something else. The Wisconsin Historical Society has in its collections a book, bound in angora wool, that once belonged to Heinrich Himmler. It describes, in great detail illustrated with photographs, the extensive Nazi angora rabbit project that operated within the same camps where millions of humans were ruthlessly exterminated. The rabbits were treated wonderfully while the humans were starved and gassed.

The rabbits were raised for their soft, warm fur, which was shaved and used for, among other things, the linings of jackets for Luftwaffe pilots. And it is believed that the rabbits also served as a reminder to the prisoners that they were valued less than animals near the bottom of the food chain.

Chicago Tribune war correspondent Sigrid Schultz found the book in its hiding place near Himmler's Alpine villa, and described the significance of the angora project:

"In the same compound where 800 human beings would be packed into barracks that were barely adequate for 200, the rabbits lived in luxury in their own elegant hutches. In Buchenwald, where tens of thousands of human beings were starved to death, rabbits enjoyed beautifully prepared meals. The SS men who whipped, tortured, and killed prisoners saw to it that the rabbits enjoyed loving care.

"Why had Himmler ordered the book with the innocent-looking rabbits to be hidden?" wrote Schultz, who died in 1980, long after the "Angora" album was acquired as part of WHS's mass communications collections. "Had he realized that it cast a revealing light on the mentality of the SS? Had he reached the point where he did not want those who found the book in his house to see evidence in black and white of the determination of his gangs to make humans under their control feel beneath the level of an animal … ?"

Schultz also noted that Himmler had given speeches bragging that "We Germans are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals." He also described his prisoners in the camps as "human animals" but added that "it is a crime against our blood to worry about them."

Absolutely stunning. A complete disconnect with humanity in favor of "kindness to animals". The pictures can be viewed at the society's website here. Use the search pictures tool and enter "Angora". They will also have a special online exhibition coming out next month.

Stealth Pork

This is positively breathtaking. The Democrat controlled congress has discovered a new - and even dirtier - way to slip earmarks past public scrutiny. It allows them to shamelessly claim they are cutting earmarks while actually slipping barrels of pork under the public's radar. Kimberley Strassel, writing in the Opinion Journal, has the details of the new Congressional steal pork program. It is very, very ugly.

That put the new House appropriations chief, Wisconsin's David Obey–a spender for our time–in the distasteful position of having to live up to his party's election promises to fix the earmark boondoggle. He begrudgingly promised a "moratorium." And last week, when Mr. Obey celebrated the passage of his $464 billion 2007 spending bill, he bragged that Democrats had fulfilled their promise and "stripped all earmarks from the measure."

"This decision doesn't come without pain," intoned Mr. Obey. "Many worthwhile earmarks are not funded in this measure, but we had to take this step to clear the decks, clean up the process and start over."

The key language here is "not funded in this measure," and it explains why Mr. Obey is still smiling through his pain. Congressional members, led by appropriators and an army of staff, have already figured out a new way to keep their favors in the money, and it might as well be called 1-800-EARMARKS (which unfortunately is already taken). All across Washington, members are at this moment phoning budget officers at federal agencies–Interior, Defense, HUD, you name it–privately demanding that earmarks in previous legislation be fully renewed again this year. There might not be a single official earmark in the 2007 spending bill, but thousands are in the works all the same.

And getting far less scrutiny than before–if that's even possible. Under this new regime, members don't even have to go to the trouble of slipping an earmark into a committee report, where it might later (once the voting is over) come in for criticism. All the profligates need now to keep the money flowing is a quiet office and a cellphone.

Despite a congressional desire to keep this quiet, the evidence of marathon dialing is mounting. Lobbyists, thrilled their clients are still getting earmark handouts, are now publicly crowing about this underground program. Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn–anti-earmark warriors–sent a letter to the Department of Energy last week wanting to know how that agency was handling the demands. On the same day, DOE chief of staff Jeffrey Kupfer delivered an internal memo to agency officers acknowledging that "offices have begun to receive requests from some Congressional offices, asking that the Department continue to fund programs or activities that received earmarked funds in prior years," and laying out a procedure for handling such orders.

What was that meme before the election? Oh yeah, "culture of corruption". It looks like the Culture of Corruption, v. 2.0 is up and stealthily running. Meet the new boss.

Rock The Casbah

Robert Reilly, former director of the Voice of America (VOA), has an op-ed in today's Washington Post pointing out the bad choices that have been made in cutting off the VOA's Arabic language service and virtually all of its Farsi service. Instead of trying to tell the Middle East about America, our broadcasts now consist of pop music.

We did not fight communism with pop music. In fact, during the Cold War, America used its government media institutions to broadcast its ideas and beliefs. So why are we not refashioning those successful broadcast strategies and trying to spread our ideas in the Muslim world, the breeding ground of much of the world's terrorist threats?

Members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) have shared their answer: Radio Sawa's progenitor, media mogul Norman Pattiz, was still serving his Clinton-appointed term in 2002 when he told the New Yorker that "it was MTV that brought down the Berlin Wall." (Not Ronald Reagan, Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel, of course.) President Bush's appointees did not improve the board's outlook. In October 2002, Ken Tomlinson, then the board's new chairman, approvingly quoted his son as saying Spears's music "represents the sounds of freedom." It seems that the board transformed the "war of ideas" into the battle of the bands.

So, is MTV winning the "war of ideas"? After years of the United States broadcasting Britney Spears to the Levant, the average radical mullah has not exactly succumbed to apoplexy or come to love democracy. A State Department inspector general's draft report on Radio Sawa (the final report was never issued) found that"it is difficult to ascertain Radio Sawa's impact in countering anti-American views and the biased state-run media of the Arab world." Or, as one expert panel assembled to assess its value concluded, "Radio Sawa failed to present America to its audience."

Radio Free Europe was an important US strategic asset during the Cold War. There is no good reason to send Britney Spear's music over the airwaves rather than to present American ideas and ideals. Why aren't we? It may be amusing to some listeners, but rocking the casbah isn't helping us win a lot of friends.

The War Of The Words

Charles Krauthammer takes aim this morning at the way words in Washington have become much more important than deeds in the posturing over the Iraq war. And a man like Krauthammer, who makes his living with the use of words knows exactly how to use those words like a scalpel.

When it came to doing something serious about the surge, the Senate ducked. It unanimously (81-0) approved sending Gen. David H. Petraeus to Baghdad to do the surge — precisely what a majority of the senators said they did not want done.

If you really oppose the surge, how can you not oppose the appointment of the man whose very mission is to carry it out? Yet not one senator did so. Instead, they spent days fine-tuning the wording of a nonbinding — i.e., entirely toothless — expression of disapproval.

A serious legislative body would not be arguing over degrees of disapproval anyway, but about the elements of three or four alternative plans that might actually change our course in Iraq, something they all say they desire. But instead of making a contribution to thinking through how the war should be either prosecuted or liquidated, they negotiate language that provides precisely the amount of distancing a senator might need as political insulation should the surge either succeed or fail.

Words. The Democrats are all in favor of "redeployment" and pretend that this is an alternative plan. But the word redeployment is meaningless. It simply means changing the position of our soldiers and, implicitly, changing their mission. Unless you're saying where you're redeploying to, and with what mission, you've said nothing. It's a statement of opposition, yet another expression of disapproval of the current strategy — much like an empty, nonbinding congressional resolution — until you say whether you want to redeploy to Kansas or Kurdistan.

Words. Consider "surge." It carries an air of energy, aggression and even hope. That, in fact, is a fairly good reflection of Petraeus's view of it — not just more troops but a change in the rules of engagement, with more latitude to fight, less political interference by the Iraqi government and a much tougher attitude toward foreign, especially Iranian, agents in Iraq.

There is a surreal quality to much of the framing and reframing of each Senator's position and posturing through all of this flurry of words. If you look at the deeds and not the words, the Senate unanimously approved the general who is tasked with carrying out the surge. Yet they then play games the moment his back is turned to leave to conduct the mission. It's all about straddling the issue, not addressing it. For the Senators who so desperately want to pass a non-binding resolution, here's a novel idea: Offer an alternative that does not, a) damage the national security of the United States and, b) does not lead to a genocidal bloodbath in Iraq. Anything else is just partisan spin writ large. Our troops deserve better than that.

Palestinians Sign Peace Accord

In a blatant attempt to split Europe away from the US, the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas groups signed a "peace" and power-sharing agreement. (I can't find the quotes that I glanced at yesterday that actually had the Palestinian spokesmen admitting that it was a play for Europe's affection. Apparently, they have been disappeared).

Palestinians also hope the agreement will avert an outright civil war. Clashes between Hamas and Fatah gunmen have killed 130 Palestinians since May, and cease-fires have repeatedly broken down. The latest fragile truce came Sunday, after four days of fighting killed 30 people.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal headed two days of intense negotiations in a Mecca palace overlooking the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine — a venue Saudi Arabia chose to step up the pressure on the two sides to compromise.

Much of the negotiations centered on a single word. Abbas pressed Hamas to accept the stronger stance of "committing to" past peace accords with Israel signed by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Liberation Organization. But in the end, he was forced to settle for the promise to "respect" them.

The final agreement was announced at a ceremony aired live on Arab television Thursday night, in which Saudi King Abdullah sat with Abbas on his right and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on his left.

Abbas aide Nabil Amr read a letter from Abbas proclaiming the accord and asking Haniyeh of Hamas to form the new coalition government within five weeks, divvying up Cabinet posts between the factions according to a formula agreed on in the Mecca talks.

Abbas and Mashaal insisted the agreement would bring peace between their factions and lavished praise on the Saudi monarch for his help — even comparing him to the Prophet Muhammad in his ability to bring reconciliation.

The Palestinian president said the deal would "satisfy our people … and bring us to the shores of peace … This initiative has been crowned with success."

Mashaal vowed the accord would put an end to violence after a series of truces between Fatah and Hamas gunmen that collapsed.

"I tell those who fear that the fate of this agreement will be the same fate of the old ones, … we have pledged our allegiance to God from this sacred place …. and we will go back to our country fully committed to it."

"I say to our young people that this is an agreement of the leadership of the biggest groups and none of you should accept any order from others to fire," he said.

Celebratory gunfire erupted all over Gaza when the news was announced. Casualty figures are not available at this hour.

More from the Washington Post.

Happy Birthday

Maggie's Farm is either one or two two years old today. I think the working conditions have made them lose track of the date…. Or maybe it was the limes. Stop over and wish them well.