Old journalism joke comes to life

For decades editors have used this as the best example of a bad headline: “Firemen fight fire.”

Those old editors must have died out or been laid off in favor of younger and lesser-paid ones, at least in Ohama. Here’s the headline on a story of a house fire in the Omaha World-Herald today: “Firefighters battle fire.”

How will they refer to the second store?

Someone has opened a toilet-themed restaurant in Taiwan. It’s been so successful they’re opening another store. Will that one be called No. 2?

(Link via Instapundit)

Transit Tax Debate is About Policy, Not Politics

The Herald-Sun reports today on the discussion among transit tax supporters about when might be the best time to get Triangle voters to approve a transit tax. Gov. Perdue signed the local-option tax into law last week and now it’s up to the pols and the supporters to take the next steps. I hope those next steps include a review of data on key issues that are part of the discussion here. For example, the pros and cons of different transportation tools, funding mechanisms, spending priorities, and the economic impact of tax hikes.

Politico: John & Elizabeth Edwards Attended Kennedy Memorial

Friday night’s Kennedy memorial at the JFK library included this scene, writes Glenn Thrush at politico.com:

One of the striking scenes at last night’s memorial for Ted Kennedy was a quick reunion between John Edwards and his longtime political guru David Axelrod, who shared an embrace and chat in the lobby of the JFK Library.

Edwards seemed to do most of the talking. Axelrod — who crafted Edwards’ “Two Americas” message in 2004 before becoming President Obama’s main political adviser for the ’08 election — seemed to be doing most of the consoling, patting Edwards’ back and smiling as the former senator and ’04 vice presidential candidate spoke expressively.

Elizabeth, writes Thrush, was right there with him.

Somebody needs to water the Astroturf

ACORN, MoveOn and Organizing for America could only manage 1,000 people in Times Square. Are you serious? AFP got more than that at several locations in North Carolina during the hottest part of August, and none of them had signs pre-made by community organizers.

FORGOT TO MENTION: When the mainstream media characterized the 1,000-plus crowds for the AFP rallies in North Carolina, they always used the term “hundreds,” refusing to use the number “1,000.” But not this time. AP immediately opted to write in its story that “up to 1,000″ attended the pro-Obamacare rally. I take “up to 1,000″ to mean that it wasn’t anywhere near 1,000 but that wording allowed AP to fudge it to a higher level.

New theory: We’re being governed by stoners

Leigh Scott at Big Hollywood has a new and original theory: The nation is being governed by people stoned out of their gourds:

Stoners have a bizarre, communal logic that dictates that everything exists for the collective. Your pizza, your stash, your girlfriend all exist for the greater stoner good. To demand private ownership of anything is an offense to the “stoner code.”

With this in mind, how can one not see the recent doings in Washington as anything but massive cannabis abuse? Cash for clunkers? Stoner logic. Stimulus package? Stoner logic. Government run health care? Stoner logic. Cap and trade? Stoner logic.

Obamabot astroturfers gather in Raleigh

Organizing for America’s fake grassroots caravan came through Raleigh yesterday, replete with professionally manufactured signs, street theater, and bused-in protesters, proof, as one blogger put it, “that these pro-Obamacare organizers fear what their rallies would look like if they didn’t bring their own crowd.”

Conservative Nation has a good account of the day with great photos, which fleshes out the account you may have found in your local paper.

Meanwhile, in Denver, the Obamabots really pulled out the stops. Blogger El Marco has a great account, including an outrageous discovery. Organizers required names and addresses from everyone, including those there to oppose Obama’s reforms, but then the local Democratic congressman announced that the names would be sent to the president to show how much support his reforms had in Denver. As one attendee said:

It is so deplorably dishonest for these “astroturf” bullies with their professionally printed signs and buttons to forcibly extract signatures from people and then for Perlmutter (my Congressman also!!) to knowingly use those signatures ~ I believe that in any other arena this would be fraud!!!”

Liberals are different from you and me

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates brings her pretentious prose to the death of Edward M. Kennedy. In doing so she illustrates how leftist intellectuals really are different from the rest of us, and not in good ways. Here is her macabre calculus regarding the vulgar life of Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy-shortened life of Mary Jo Kopechne:

Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?

Another left-winger on The Huffington Post was thinking in the same obscene vein, speculating that because Kopechne was a civil-rights activist that she’d approve of Kennedy’s later career, never mind that he left her to drown to save his ample behind:

Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.

These are not normal people.

Great wisdom from Victoria Jackson

Maybe you remember Victoria Jackson. She mostly played a ditzy blond in sketches when she was a regular on “Saturday Night Live” for six seasons. Turns out she’s from a devout Christian family from Florida, and is a former gymnast who attended Furman and Auburn universities before heading west to Hollywood.

Lately she’s taken to writing interesting blog posts on the Big Hollywood blog. Here’s her latest. It’s about the importance of fathers. She had a loving one, but, as she points out, most poor people don’t, or didn’t. Her post includes this wise observation:

Obama didn’t have a father. Maybe that’s why he sees the government as Daddy.

While she’s no Sigmund Freud, it doesn’t take a Freud to see that she may be on to something there.

No Signs, No Protests, No Nothing

Evidently Duke liberals like their organic produce more than they want a takeover of the health care industry as proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. The parking lot at the Durham Whole Foods next to Duke was nearly full earlier today, as usual. No signs, no protests, no flyers on the bulletin board, no nothing in response to CEO John Mackey’s recent Wall Street Journal column in support of consumer-driven health care reform. I went inside and dropped $60 in support of Mr. Mackey.