Dukes Of Hazzard Rocks

Well, kinda. But I have a reader, she knows who she is, who has loved Dukes of Hazzard since the beginning and has the car horn to prove it. The horn is on the Suburban she uses to cart her brood. Hey, even mothers of five children can have flair, ya'll.

Get The Girl With Blogging

Hey, it'd work for me!

Comparing Obama and Limbaugh

Ann Althouse does and says this:

I'm inclined to say Rush is wrong, but I note that he's only asking a series of questions, so I can't. I'll have to say that, ironically, Rush is a bit like Obama, wandering aimlessly for syllabic combinations that will equal a cogent, salient thought. Both men mesmerize their listeners and move them along on a current of verbiage.

Well. Limbaugh is a radio personality and entertainer. His schtick is his ability to craft a sentence and provoke. Obama's ability to "mesmerize" and "move them along on a current of verbiage" is a little more distressing because the President actually has to stand for something as he will represent the country. Limbaugh represents his capitalistic imperative. More power to him, but he won't be representing me or America or defining foreign policy or imposing government solutions. (And I'm not saying that Althouse believes this, only that the comparison seems odd. Liberals pick fights with Limbaugh all the time--and Ann is no liberal. The compare and contrast should be with McCain.)

Google Sucks

I'm switching away from Blogger (owned by Google) and not a day too soon. The new site should be up within a week or two. Thankfully. I don't want to give Google any more business than necessary. They left a video up of a marine being shot through the head by an Iraqi sniper for far too long. What is wrong with those people?

Handy Manny's Pervasive Racism

Bloggers live glamorous lives. We're like Hollywood starlets except were older, don't shower often and wear pajamas to the grocery store. Wait, that's just like a Hollywood starlet. While I sit here cranking out the content, one of my progeny uses me as a jungle gym when he's not watching Disney Channel or Noggin. I have become intimately acquainted with kid-fare and it's generally as repugnant as adult-fare. No wonder TV ratings are in the crapper.

Exhibit "A" is Handy Manny--the ode to Mexican immigrant greatness. I'm a huge fan of the industrious work-ethic that seems to be woven into the Mexican culture. I can personally attest to the fine work that Mexican-Americans contribute to our country and economy. Handy Manny exemplifies these traits. More power to him. In contrast to old Hanny Manny, though there is another character: Mr. Lopart. Mr. Lopart is be-speckled, be-fuddled, so smart he's stupid, messes up everything he touches, rather weak and feeble, and refuses instruction or help from anyone, even those who know more than him. In short, Mr. Lopart is the worst cliché of the middle-aged, white American male.

It makes me sick. Watch just the first 30 seconds or so. You'll see what I mean.



The Mexican, black, and oriental characters are all kind-hearted, have something broken and have the sense to get help from the super hero Handy Manny. Not Mr. Lopart. He's the stupid white guy. Watching it once or twice is one thing. Seeing this racism every single day is galling. And this unspoken but obvious message is burned into the hard drives of America's children. So parents, pay attention. Indoctrination begins young and could be happening right under your nose.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Obama Propaganda

I don't know why but this propagandist "art" bothers me in a major way. It does seem to capture the completely unbalanced adoration and subconscious authoritarian urges of his leftist lovers.

Medical Studies: Examine the Sample, Ignore the Media

Most studies use college students for the sample. For example, my biggest pet peeve study is the use of the Hep B vaccine in newborns. The vaccine study used not only on adults as test subjects, it used only on men. One could argue that we now have heaps of data since babies have been vaccinated for years, but that's just the point. The children were experiments. The vaccine required, for political reasons. On the outside chance the child turns out to be gay or an IV drug user, he or she is ostensibly protected from Hep B. There's all sorts of controversy about mandatory HPV vaccination. I'm still amazed that people willingly vaccinate their child against a disease, Hep B, that is easily preventable and entirely lifestyle dependent. Don't believe me? Here's the risk pool for Hep B:

What groups of adults are at increased risk of HBV infection?

• Healthcare workers and public safety workers with reasonably anticipated risk for exposure to blood or blood-contaminated body fluids
• Men who have sex with men
• Sexually active people who are not in long-term, mutually monogamous relationships
• People seeking evaluation or treatment for a sexually transmitted disease
• Current or recent injection drug users
• Inmates of long-term correctional facilities
• People with end-stage kidney disease, including predialysis, hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and home dialysis patients
• Staff and residents of institutions or group homes for the developmentally challenged
• Household members and sex partners of people with chronic HBV infection
• Susceptible (non-infected) people from United States populations known to previously or currently have high rates of childhood HBV infection, including Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders, and immigrants or refugees from countries with intermediate or high rates of chronic HBV infection. To see a list of these countries, go to http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/country_listing.htm
• International travelers to regions with high or intermediate rates of HBV infection. To see a list of these countries, go to http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/country_listing.htm

Is your baby at risk? I think not. In addition, recent research shows that by adolescence, only 60% of kids show immunity. So the kids need to be boosted in youth? Why not just make the vaccine voluntary and give it to all the little junkies and sexpots with their HPV vaccine when they turn twelve so they can enjoy blow jobs and heroin in the back of the bus and not worry about consequences? Except, oops, they might still have to worry about throat cancer. Just keep the number of blow job partners under five. You should be fine.

Nuance. Or, you could just wait to get married to have sex. Or you could forgo using IV drugs.

Because college student samples are such a small population segment, it's difficult to understand why anyone cites them with any confidence. The numbers guy focuses on this problem. You should read his whole article.

But psychologists may be getting what they pay for. College students aren't representative by age, wealth, income, educational level or geographic location. "What if you studied 7-year-old kids and made inferences about geriatrics?" asks Robert Peterson, a marketing professor at the University of Texas, Austin. "Everyone would say you can't do that. But you can use these college students."

"People have always been aware of this issue," Prof. Peterson says, but many have chosen to ignore it. A 1986 paper by David Sears, a UCLA psychology professor, documented the increased use of college students for research in the prior quarter century and explored the potential biases that might introduce. In the meantime, the use of college students has, if anything, risen, researchers say.

And while the studies may have limited value, and researchers know it, reporters will jump on interesting research and put it in easily digestible language that misinterprets the results. It can be worse than misleading. Reporters rarely have a medical background and often get it wrong. Hmmm....reminds me of some of the military reporting.

Proceed with caution.

iPhone Or Terrorism: What's More Important?

After reading scores of stories about the iPhone and only a few about the British terrorism plots, I decided to Google both. I searched the terrorism stories a couple different ways, trying to get more hits to no avail.

The iPhone wins by a 5:1 margin. This about sums up how serious the media takes terrorism, but does it represent the average American, too?

Most American Muslims Assimilated, A Significant Minority Want To Kill You UPDATED Lutherns Too

UPDATED:

Iowahawk reports on a poll of Lutherns. This is significant:

Kohut pointed to one of the study's key findings that only 29% of all respondents agreed that "bloody, random violence against infidels" was "always" or "frequently" justified, versus 56% who said such violence was "seldom" or "never" justified. The approval of violence rose slightly among younger Lutherans and when the hypothetical violence was targeted against Presbyterians, but still fell well short of a majority.

"The only demographic cohort we saw where murderous random violence had a majority support was among 18-35 year old male followers of the Wisconsin Synod," said Kohut. "And that was barely above the margin of error. Even then, fewer than half (41% to 46%) said they would personally volunteer to carry out the violence themselves."

Well, I'm just happy about the majority. Focus on the positive, you know?

*******

Says Ace:

"Overwhelming majority." 26%-69% on the terrorism justified vs. never justified question amoung young Muslim American males.

Again, I was more hoping for something like a "unanimity."

I ask of Mr. Hooper: Would he feel relieved if I told him right now 69% of young non-Muslim males opposed, but 26% supported, killing you and fellow Muslims due to our anger at their foreign policy?

I don't think so. I think he'd call that "hatred" and "backlash."

So I'm not getting why he thinks that we should be happy that only one in four young Muslim men are open to murdering the rest of us.

Ace goes on to illustrate how the media, and the polling company itself (Pew), obscure the important data for politically correct ends.

Censorship in Europe

So, France won't allow the violence being done by "youths" to be published on the internet or other forms of media. They will "moderate" content. Fausta says, "where France leads, Europe follows."

Does America follow after Europe?