Add to Channel ^(beta)

Show #97. Listen here: Subscribe here: Here’s what I Ripped & Read today:

More on Terri Schiavo

New Podcasters

The Coming War on Blogs

Hollywood Perceptions

More on Terri Schiavo My opinion on what to do about the Schiavo case has changed over the last few days. Essentially my initial preference to do whatever was necessary to save her life was trumped by a stronger feeling that we should follow the rule of law to its conclusion, and stop trying to subvert the courts through Congressional action. I’ve noticed that as my opinions have shifted towards the left on this, some others have become more strident and vocal going the other direction. The first of these is John Gibson on Fox News. As Glenn Reynolds noticed at Instapundit:

SCHIAVO HYSTERIA from Fox’s John Gibson:

Just to burnish my reputation as a bomb thrower, I think Jeb Bush should give serious thought to storming the Bastille. By that I mean he should think about telling his cops to go over to Terri Schiavo’s hospice, go inside, put her on a gurney and load her into an ambulance. They could take her to a hospital, revive her, and reattach her feeding tube. It wouldn’t save Terri exactly; she’d still be in the same rotten shape she was in before they disconnected the feeding tube.

...As John Cole observes: “There is enough dumb out there to hold both parties back.”

The last thing we need is some crazy posse of federal agents pulling an Elian Gonzalez on us, Janet Reno-style, storming the hospice to intervene. The conservatives look foolish enough attempting to over rule the constitution. You know that things have gotten out of control when National Review and Ralph Nader come together. That’s what has happened today. From The Corner on National Review Online K.J. Lopez writes:

THE COURT “HAS ORDERED HER TO BE MADE DEAD” [K. J. Lopez] Ralph Nader joins the voices for Terri Schiavo.

Here’s what Ralph had to say:

WASHINGTON, March 24 /U.S. Newswire/ - Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, author of the award winning book “Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America” call upon the Florida Courts, Governor Jeb Bush and concerned citizens to take any legal action available to let Terri Schiavo live. “A profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo,” Nader and Smith asserted today. “Worse, this slow death by dehydration is being imposed upon her under the color of law, in proceedings in which every benefit of the doubt-and there are many doubts in this case-has been given to her death, rather than her continued life.”

I am very suspicious of this one. Glenn Reynolds noticed that what Congress did is less than what people thought they did. After watching the debate, I was certain that come Monday morning, she would be saved. Here’s what Ann Althouse said, as pointed to by Glenn Reynolds:

ANN ALTHOUSE:

I watched a number of the cable TV news analysis shows last night (and in the last few days), and I am appalled at the failure even to raise the most basic legal point about the statute Congress passed. Time after time, I heard people - like Fred Barnes on Fox News’s “Special Report” - say that everyone knows that Congress intended to give Terri Schiavo a de novo hearing, in which the federal court would disregard everything the state courts have done, and that the federal courts ignored the statute that Congress went to such extraordinary lengths to pass. . . . Regardless of what people like Barnes think Congress intended, the federal courts were given a statutory text to follow, and the fact is they followed that text. Yet the TV commentators - at least what I heard - never made this most basic point. . . . The federal courts in no way flouted the federal statute. It’s irrelevant that Congress managed to make people think it was doing things that it never put in the statutory text.

I’m quite astonished to hear people who call themselves conservatives arguing, in effect, that Congress and the federal courts have a free-ranging charter to correct any injustice, anywhere, regardless of the Constitution. And yet my email runneth over with just those kinds of comments. And arguing that “it’s okay because liberals do it too” doesn’t undercut my point that conservatives are acting like liberals here. It makes it. Every system generates unjust results. This may (or may not) be one of them, but there’s no reason to think that Congressional action on an individual legal case is likely to improve things. My lefty law professors used to think that more procedures were always better, and seemed willing to tie the Constitution and the rules of procedure into knots to get to the result they liked. Even they have learned, to a degree, that more procedure doesn’t necessarily lead to better outcomes overall. And conservatives, as opposed to bleeding-heart liberals, are supposed to understand that there’s more at stake than the outcome in individual cases, and that there are real costs to putting whatever thumb-pressure on the scales it takes to get to a desired outcome in each case. Or so I thought.

Over at Progressive Conservative, Mark Radulich has noticed that the Republicans are getting crazier each day. Commenting on a Newsmax article describing a rescue scenario like the one that Janet Reno ran against Elian Gonzalez, he said this:

So it’s come down to two wrongs make a right, is that where we are? The GOP and their buddies in the media echo chamber are seriously suggesting sending in the National Guard a la Janet Reno and “rescuingâ€? Terry Schiavo. You people have lost your bloody minds! I cannot believe that in a matter of weeks the GOP has moved from disingenuously political, to Moveon.org level shrill, to flat out full goose bozo. I’m simply amazed at how little respect they have for the law and for our legal institutions. I thought this was the small government, less intrusive party? Apparently they are small government, less intrusion so long as they can legislate morality a la Iran. I used to chafe at the term, “Taliban Wing of the Republican Party” but now I can see where it’s accurate. I stand here as a proud registered Republican wondering just what the hell happened to my party? They bet the farm on saving this woman’s life and now they will in fact reap the whirlwind.

New Podcasters The Washington Post reports that several mainstream political people are jumping on the Podcasting bandwagon:

John Edwards may be out of office, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t hear him. The former vice presidential candidate this week released his first podcast, an online audio recording featuring Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, chatting about the NCAA basketball tournament, her breast cancer treatments, his opposition to President Bush’s Social Security plans and (pander alert) his respect for bloggers.

I listened to some of it. PoliticalFan podcast has fisked it. He has some audio challenges, including recording at too high a level, which resulted in clipping. On the whole, it is a great start. The Post also mentions the Republican podcasters as well:

Podcasting is not just for Democrats. The Republican National Committee has released its own podcasts on www.gop.com - although they will sound familiar to anyone who has watched the party’s Web video series “Off the Record.” They are the audio portions of those interviews with GOP politicians. “Additional podcasts will be available soon,” the RNC Web site said.

Go to www.gop.com/Podcasting to sign up for “Off The Record” podcast. The feed is here . I listened to it, and it is pretty standard party line stuff. Reuters reports that ClearChannel is planning to release podcasts of their morning shows soon:

As early as July, Clear Channel plans to take on some of its toughest critics with an aggressive new digital strategy. It may begin offering subscription online radio services, the ability to buy songs digitally or in CD format, or even ringtones directly from their Web sites. Perhaps most surprising of all, Clear Channel also plans to make some of its live morning shows available for downloading, commonly known as “Podcasting.” “Radio online seemed clunky,” Harrison told Reuters in an interview this week. “It seemed as if they had their heads buried in the sand.” But he added, “Online is radio’s for the taking.”

Notice the war-like tone that Harrison is taking. Podcasting is going to get competitive soon, as commercial efforts join and perhaps replace us rank amateurs. Thanks to Dave Winer for the pointer to the Reuters piece. The Coming War on Blogs Betsy Newmark read a column by John D. Miller at Tech Central Station on the titled topic and had this to say:

John D. Miller has a depressing column about the “coming war on blogs.” He theorizes that blogs will soon be vulnerable from laws affecting campaign contributions, libel, and copyrights. There may be some point to the last two, but the campaign contribution one really gets my goat. Are we really to the point in the silly laws restricting freedom of speech and political campaigns that individual citizens can’t write about their preferences for a particular candidate without that being seen as a political contribution? It’s time for a Blogger Protection Act to say that blogger speech does not constitute a financial contribution any more than Chris Matthews spouting off on TV about how great or stupid some candidate is.

Here’s what James said:

1. Campaign Finance Reform - Blog entries in support of a candidate could be considered political contributions to that candidate. The danger for most bloggers would lie not in contributing more than the legally permissible amount to a candidate, but rather in having to fill out the paperwork necessary to report their “political contributions”. The MSM, of course, would never permit their editorials in favor of a candidate to be considered political contributions. So to use campaign finance reform against bloggers, courts would have to distinguish between bloggers and the “legitimate” media. Any definition of bloggers will be imprecise, but this won’t stop courts because most legal categories already have fuzzy boundaries. To define a blogger, courts could simply use the “I know it when I see it” approach famously employed by Justice Potter Stewart to determine whether something constituted hard-core pornography.

Wizbangblog reported more:

RedState got an exclusive copy of the first draft of the proposed rules – NOT THE ONES RELEASED EARLIER THIS WEEK. CNET reports on the content:

According to the March 10 document, political Web sites would be regulated by default unless they were password-protected and read by fewer than 500 people in a 30-day period. Many of those Web sites would have been required to post government-mandated notices or risk violating campaign finance laws.

Nothing to worry about my ass! The blogoshpere owes Commissioner Smith a serious debt of gratitude! You can leave comments for him here and I’ll forward them along to him. RedState has the secret first draft document available for download. As they note, “Without the public outcry, what sort of rule would have been released yesterday? This heinous draft, mind you – is only two weeks old.” The only way to ensure complete freedom online is to keep up the pressure, since the FEC (to their credit) is listening. The Online Coalition will keep the pressure on the FEC. Join over 3,100 of your fellow bloggers in signing our letter to FEC Chairman Thomas online, and let your voice be heard.

So if we have an open blog, post on a candidate, it may be construed as providing something of value and is therefore subject to regulation. This is getting crazy. I can just imagine the disclosure I’ll have to make in my podcast.

The views expressed in this podcasdt represent those of me, myself, and I, and shall not be confused with anything of value whatsoever. I was not paid by anyone to say this. If offered money, I would turn it down. Any influence I might have on an election is purely coincidental. If anything I say may have changed your mind, you are hereby instructed to change it back again. Thank you for listening.

Or something like that. Hollywood Perceptions Don’t get Captain Ed at the Captain’s Quarters started unless you are ready for the consequences. Here’s his post from yesterday on the liberal line in Hollywood:

Ah, Those Darned “Perceptions”! The new president of the [Motion Picture Association of America] MPAA met with Christian Toto of the Washington Times to discuss the challenges of replacing the only other man to hold that position, Jack Valenti, in the changed political climate in which Hollywood finds itself. Dan Glickman, former Agriculture Secretary under Bill Clinton, acknowledged that working with two Republican-controlled branches of government would present some difficulties, but it seems the first hurdle for Glickman might be reality instead:

The president of the Motion Picture Association of America says Hollywood must build a bridge to the Republican-controlled Congress in order to deflate perceptions of a liberal bias. ... “There’s no question in the general world there’s the perception that the entertainment community is to the left of the country as a whole,” Mr. Glickman told editors and reporters at The Washington Times yesterday. “I’ve got to build bridges with the people who run the show.” The former congressman dismissed the notion that the movie industry acts as one entity, but admitted that’s precisely how the public reacts whenever a handful of liberal actors back Democratic candidates.

No sir, that is how the public reacts when it is given a steady diet of films and television entertainment which relentless portrays Republicans as Snidely Whiplash characters and Democrats as the heroes. Watch such highly-regarded fare as West Wing, The American President, and The Contender - all well-financed and A-list productions - and tell me that Glickman can’t see a trend. Michael Douglas provides the stirring climax at the end of TAP by loudly proclaiming every leftist talking point known to mankind in response to Richard Dreyfuss’ one-dimensional portrait of a comic-book Republican attack dog. Gary Oldman - who later complained that his attempts to moderate his portrayal were edited out of The Contender - gets to play a creepy, loutish, and hyopcritical GOP leader while Joan Allen portrays a martyred VP nominee and Jeff Bridges plays a courageous, cigar-chomping Democratic president in one of the most politically biased A-list dramas I’ve ever seen. And those are just the political dramas. Let’s not forget last year’s The Day After Tomorrow, with its ridiculous disaster-flick treatment of global warming, complete with its own eeeeeevil Dick Cheney clone. And Glickman ignores completely where the power brokers in Hollywood put their money. We’re not talking about a “handful of liberal actors” supporting Democratic candidates. People like Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and others who have the money and power to get films made put big money into Democratic coffers while Hollywood Republicans have to hide in the shadows to get work. Michael Moore strings together a series of lies and dishonestly edited clips to make his paean to Leni Riefenstahl, Fahrenheit 9/11, and the Hollywood community hails him as a hero, while conservative Mel Gibson makes an apolitical movie about Jesus Christ - and gets figuratively crucified for it. Mr. Glickman may also want to review the last few Aacademy Awards presentations to understand the “perception” of liberal bias in Hollywood. Listen to Chris Rock talk about the Gap declaring war on the Banana Republic for two full minutes at the start of this year’s show. Also listen to the huge reception he gets for Bush-bashing, and the almost dead silence given to his feeble and brief attempt at balancing the humor with a shot at John Kerry. Glickman worries about perceptions. He should instead challenge his community to see their biases for what they are, and for how their audience sees straight through it. He gets one cheer for speaking to the more conservative Washington Times, but loses two for trying to spread the propaganda instead of addressing the truth.

Go get ‘em, Ed! That’s it for today, Podcatchers! What other podcasters are talking about: podcasting

More info: ripnread.blogspot.com