Many fictional detectives have been touted as “the new Travis McGee” since MacDonald's death, but (in my opinion) none of them has quite lived up to that standard. Nolte's detective, Garrison Gage, doesn't, either. But he's still pretty good.
Daily Archives: March 21, 2011
What’s Killing NPR?
This is the title of a piece by Howard Kurtz in Newsweek. This is a very strange title to a piece that says the following: But with its future on the line, NPR’s decimated management has opted for quiet diplomacy rather than a full-throated defense of one of the few news operations that is actually expanding, reaching an impressive 27 million listeners a week. For some reason unknown to the rest of the world, NPR’s future is “on the line” because the 10 to 15% of its budget that comes from our tax dollars is being threatened by congressional Republicans. I’m not going to address the money issue, but it’s absurd to think “public broadcasting” can’t survive without these funds. I’m more interested in what I’ve heard coming from NPR these last two weeks. It’s been kind of comical to hear NPR reporters and anchors lament that for some crazy reason conservatives see NPR as biased to the left. I heard Ira Glass, the host of the popular NPR staple “This American Life,” venting his frustration on another NPR show, “On the Media” last week at the wimpy defense NPR management is making of its journalistic integrity. He couldn’t fathom why
National Science Foundation Promotes Gay Agenda
By Mike Gray The National Science Foundation (NSF) has a budget of about $7.5 billion, a lot of it “contributed” by tax payers. NSF underwrites a PBS television program called Nova Science Now: What’s the Next Big Thing? hosted by the personable astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. This program is often required viewing for middle- and high-school science students in state-run schools. On the February 23rd broadcast, a synthetic biologist from Nebraska named Jay Keasling was profiled. Keasling’s interests are currently focused on synthetic biofuels research and, it’s made abundantly clear, having sex with other men. Keasling admits he’s gay, but because of peer pressure in the Bible-belt Midwest he didn’t “come out” until he moved to Berkeley to do research. His father, in a brief insert, says he accepts his son’s orientation. Why it was necessary even to mention Keasling’s homosexuality in the context of a science program isn’t clear at all. If he were studying sexual orientation instead of “designer” microbes, then his gayness might have some relevance. One may conclude that this was just one more attempt to mainstream the gay agenda aimed at young people while using tax payer money.
Notable Quote: Marlo Lewis on the Duplicity That Enables and Protects the EPA’s “Purloined Power to Restrict America’s Access to Affordable, Carbon-based Energy”
By Mike Gray Making sausage was never this ugly. Congress . . . never authorized EPA to determine fuel economy standards for motor vehicles, much less dictate national policy on climate change. The CAA , after all, was enacted in 1970, years before global warming was even a gleam in Al Gore’s eye. Adopting the Baucus amendment would put Congress’s legislative stamp of approval on EPA’s end-run around the legislative process. The Baucus amendment has almost no chance of passing in the GOP-led House of Representatives. However, it does not need to pass to perpetuate EPA’s shocking power grab. A cynical hypocrisy pervades this whole issue: Not once during the four years when when Massachusetts v. EPA was litigated before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court did counsel for EPA bother to point out that regulating GHGs via the CAA would lead to absurd results, nor did counsel mention that EPA would have to play lawmaker and amend the CAA in order to avoid an administrative meltdown. More fundamentally, EPA’s counsel never made the basic point that EPA could not issue a GHG endangerment rule without eventually regulating
Notable Quote: Mike Adams on “Fill-in-the-Blank Studies”
By Mike Gray “I’m not in the mood to think.” For some time, I have made a habit of asking students their major (and minor) immediately after they ask me a silly question. This is necessary because I teach two basic studies courses per semester – both populated by students from across the spectrum of academic disciplines. I have found (consistently) that nearly all inane questions and comments come from students in just a handful of academic majors. In the past, I’ve gotten myself in hot water for suggesting that the African American Center, LGBTQIA Center, Women’s Center, and El Centro Hispano be shut down in order to ease our current state budget crisis. But, today, I propose that we go further by eliminating all academic majors and minors ending with the word “studies.” This is not meant to be prejudicial – although, having little else to do, the Arrogant American Centers will try to make it so. Let it be known that I propose eliminating more than just Arrogant American and Hyphenated American Studies. I also want to do away with Communication Studies, Environmental Studies, Liberal Studies, Women’s Studies, and Gay and Lesbian Studies. Eliminate “studies” studies and let
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