The film is set for release May 6 2011
In Discussing Finance, Rhodes Scholar Rachel Demonstrates Crack Journalism Skills
On
6:12 PM
0
comments
by Lawrence Myers from BigJournalism.com
Who exactly is Rachel Maddow anyway? How did she get a show on MSNBC? A quick glance at her bio shows, let’s see, no journalistic credentials whatsoever. This comes as no surprise. And yet, considering that she has a Stanford degree in public policy, a Doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford, and (holy cats!) was a Rhodes Scholar, you’d think she might demonstrate those smarts by not making herself look like a total moron.
I’m talking about her screed against payday lenders. Never mind the usual blather about being “legal loan sharks”. Obviously, had the esteemed Dr. Maddow taken an elective class in economics, she’d realize that payday lenders fill a vital role in providing short-term credit to those in need, and what would happen if they didn’t exist. However, the fact that she failed to point these facts out reveal her weak journalistic skills. Oh, but I forgot, she isn’t a journalist. She’s another academic who should know better.
The sanctimonious conclusion to her hit piece, however, is particularly revelatory. She calls payday loan business model, “usury,” and demonstrates her spelling acumen by putting the correct five letters in the correct order, telling us that “it’s in the dictionary, and actually, also in the Bible.”
Alas, Dr. Maddow manages to demonstrate exactly why she isn’t a journalist. If she were, she’d be able to actually look up the real definition of “usury” in the dictionary while properly interpreting the Biblical passages that refer to it. Then she’d find they have no application to the issue and work an actual balanced story around it.
Here’s the definition of usury from a random Google search:
An exorbitant or unlawful rate of interest.
Let’s take “unlawful” first. States that permit payday loans also specify the maximum allowable fee and/or interest by statute. As long as a payday lender makes a loan within those amounts, the loans are lawful and therefore not usurious. And they do.
Let’s define “exorbitant,” per the same dictionary:
Greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation.
We must ask what “reasonable” means in the world of short-term unsecured credit.
If a lender charges a price he deems reasonable that the borrower thinks is unreasonable, the borrower will not take out the loan. If the borrower wants a price he deems reasonable that the lender thinks is unreasonable, the lender will not make the loan.
So what is “reasonable”?
It’s obvious. Ready? Here’s the earth-shaking news: we define “reasonable” to mean “that price that both the lender and borrower agree upon so that a transaction occurs.” Most call this “the free market.” Since hundreds of millions of transactions have occurred in payday loan stores across the nation, both sides must obviously think the transaction is reasonably priced, or they wouldn’t undertake it, per the analysis above.
Therefore, the interest rate is reasonable, and therefore not exorbitant.
Thus, we see that payday loan rates are not usurious because the rate of interest is both lawful and not exorbitant.
Secular usury claim debunked, Dr. Maddow. It is in the dictionary. You got that part right.
It is also in the Bible, but not anywhere close to the way Dr. Maddow thinks it does. We look to Nehemiah for what most people speak of when they mention usury.
The myopic and incorrect interpretation of Nehemiah 5, as provided by the Doctor of Theology Rachel Maddow, is that it fails to place blame where it is due – on the King. The Jews were oppressed due to the taxes they had to pay the King, not due to the interest they were being charged!
The parable here is that the Jews were truly powerless and starving, while being charged interest on loans for the fields where they worked their food. In this particular scenario, I’d say (as Nehemiah did), that this practice was indeed taking advantage of the poor.
However, much as Rev. Maddow wishes an analogy exists between the parable of Nehemiah and payday loans, none exists. Payday loans, when used and offered responsibly, don’t take advantage of anyone. They help people bridge financial gaps.
When used irresponsibly, the fault lies with the borrower, unless the loan was made irresponsibly. In that case, the lender bears responsibility as well, but not all of it.
Any lender who makes a loan to someone truly poverty-stricken, who already owes other lenders and/or does not have any chance to repay the loan, is being irresponsible. But since 94% of all payday loans are paid back on time, I’d say that situation rarely exists in the payday lending space. What lender wants to make a loan to someone if they don’t have a reasonable expectation of getting their principle back?
So why not just leave it up to consumers to decide what to do, Sister Maddow? I mean, why not at least mention it in your program?
Maybe because the non-journalist in her doesn’t feel required to actually present a balanced presentation. After all, she is a Rhodes Scholar.
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: Airbrush Edition
On
9:47 PM
0
comments
THE WONDERS OF MODERN PHOTOGRAPHIC SCIENCE
VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Dirty Hippy Edition
On
9:36 PM
0
comments
Words cannot express the sadness I feel. Not for the trees however but for these people who have no life. If it wasn't so funny it would be tragic.
by Anthony Barnes
video from CNSNews
Well it certainly seems that Harrison Ford cares about the enviroment. So much so that he wants you to by carbon credits, reduce your fossil fuels and your energy use. There is one big problem with this however, just like every other Enviro-Elitist in Hollywood the rules do not apply to them. Ford owns 7 planes, BUT WAIT!, he only flies one at a time, WHEW!! thank God for that.
What is so great about this video is that the reporter basically just asks the question and allows Ford to pontificate on and on about what people can do to make the world a lucious and beautiful place, and when confronted with his hypocrisy exclaims he doesn't have to walk the walk until everyone else does. The reporter only had to provide the noose for Ford to hang himself with, and he gladly does. Hopefully someday Hollywood will realize that most of us in America really don't care about their opinions and we just want to be entertained.
At least Ford doesn't fly the Millenium Falcon around the planet I am sure the Ion thrusters in that really would pollute the joint.
Jon Stewart Flunks His Spartacus Test
On
2:30 AM
0
comments
By Jeffrey Lord on 4.27.10 @ 6:08AM
"I am Spartacus."
It is one of the iconic lines from an iconic film.
Remember Spartacus? The 1960 Stanley Kubrick film based on a Howard Fast novel about a slave rebellion back in the glory days of Rome? Kirk Douglas -- father of Michael -- played the heroic slave leader Spartacus, his good friend Antonius played by Tony Curtis. In the signal moment from the film (said to be a slap at McCarthyism by the film's blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo), re-captured slaves, back in chains, are offered leniency. They will not face crucifixion if they will but give up Spartacus, who sits in their midst unrecognizable to the Romans. Waiting for the answer is Spartacus's foe, the Roman General Crassus, played by Laurence Olivier. After a moment of silence, as Spartacus is about to give himself up to be crucified, one by one the slaves stand and announce "I am Spartacus!" -- signaling their willingness to share their compatriot's fate. The scene epitomizes courage, a willingness to take a stand when the all-too-easy thing to do would be to simply say nothing and get off the hook.
One of the grim facts of war is that one never knows where and when these moments will present themselves. The question always is: when presented with this moment, what would you do?
Most probably, you will never know until the moment arrives.
The fact that the story is history now doesn't make it any easier to recall. The passengers, doubtless scared witless, decided to rebel. They would not be passive participants in the destruction of their country. One by one they stood up and said, in effect, "I am Spartacus." Or, in the words of passenger Todd Beamer, "Let's roll." A horrific struggle raged, the plane went down in a farmer's field in Pennsylvania. Every single passenger and hijacker died. The White House and the United States Capitol, not to mention an unimagined number of lives on the ground, were spared.
"I am Spartacus," these people were saying to the rest of us. "I am Spartacus."
Comes now the tale of South Park, the irreverent, edgy and sometime (sometime??) offensive cartoon created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The show is a staple of Comedy Central, where it regularly spends its air time, in the words of the New York Post, ridiculing "every sacred convention in the book, from major religions and celebrities to gays and the physically disabled." Which is to say, making full use of the First Amendment right to free expression.
As all of America now knows, Parker and Stone decided to do their thing with Islam and Mohammed, having their characters trying to decide how to portray Mohammed without, well, actually showing him. Which, of course, is forbidden in Islam. This being a comedy show, The Prophet finally shows up in a bear costume.
And in the blink of an eye, a Spartacus moment began to evolve. Again according to the Post, "a New York-based Web site, Revolution Muslim…'warned' Parker and Stone they would end up like Theo Van Gogh -- the Dutch filmmaker killed in 2004 by an Islamic terrorist after he made a film dealing with abuse of Muslim women."
Threatened now, Parker and Stone refused to back down. They prepared a response, inserted as part of the storyline in their next South Park episode. Kyle, the one Jewish kid in the mix (and modeled after co-creator Stone), was to have delivered a 35-second speech at show's end warning of "fear and intimidation." There was to be no mention of Mohammed.
And Comedy Central -- Cowardly Central as the Post promptly dubbed the network -- bleeped Kyle's little talk out completely. Parker and Stone have a statement on their website, found here.
Which brings us to Jon Stewart.
He the Braveheart who has dared to battle -- yes! Can you believe it!!!??? -- Fox News! Stewart is so daring, don't you know, so gutsy, so edgy he actually uses -- OMG! -- the F-bomb on the air! Wow! What a guy! How 1969! The New York Times, unsurprisingly quick to adore this kind of faux courage, responded with an adoring profile, calling this David of the Liberal Media "relentless" as he swings away at the Goliath Fox. Ooooooooo…look! He took on…Bernard Goldberg! Sarah Palin! What a guy! Dust off the next Profile in Courage Award, Caroline!
Then, out of the blue, Jon Stewart found himself in a situation that demanded not the faux courage to take on Fox News. This time, not unlike the passengers of United Flight 93, Stewart suddenly found himself staring his own Spartacus moment in the face. The real thing.
His response?
"It's their right," he said of Comedy Central in a verbal shrug of indifference. "We all serve at their pleasure." In a monologue punctuated by yuks, he defended the network by saying, "The censorship was a decision Comedy Central made, I think as a way to protect our employees from what they believe was any harmful repercussions to them….but again they sign the checks."
They sign the checks.
Now there's a Spartacus moment. "Hey, Spartacus babe, we luv ya, big guy. What a ride that revolt thing, huh? Listen, Sparky, I can't hang up on some cross somewhere. I'm doing the lion-in-the-arena thing next Friday. They tell me the place is sold out. So, well, you're sweet. Really. But General Crassus over there signs the checks, capiche? And, hey, we gotta protect our guys, right? Ahhh, General Crassus? Spartacus is the guy with the dimple-in-the-chin thing going. Front row center."
This Stewart response -- not to mention the response from the Comedy Central suits themselves -- is an unintentional snapshot into the mind of American liberalism. What to do about people who have committed mass murder in places like New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Madrid, London, Bali, Baghdad, Mumbai, and Kabul -- and that only for starters while they figure out how to get their hands on a nuclear bomb or biological and chemical weapons?
Just look sternly into the camera, wring your hands, and say to these misguided people what Jon Stewart said to Revolution Muslim: "Your type of hatred and intolerance -- that's the enemy."
Take that Al Qaeda!
This is really quite remarkable, if in its own way quite predictable. Jon Stewart is by all accounts a nice guy, a talented guy, a smart guy. He has used The Daily Show to successfully carve out a niche as what his occasional Fox sparring partner Bill O'Reilly calls "a cornerstone of the liberal media in America." God bless America and Stewart's freedom.
Yet precisely because Stewart is viewed as the Lion of the Liberal Media, his wimpy response to an actual threat from a group presenting itself as just one more face of Islamic terror serves as a reminder of exactly why so many millions of Americans have come to mistrust President Obama or in fact any liberal when it comes to responding to America's enemies. After all the touchy-feely Obama outreach to Iran -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just continues to build his nuclear bombs anyway. Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry travel to Syria to make nice -- but long range Scud missiles will go to Hezbollah anyway. And so on. Electing Obama was presented as the change that would make precisely this kind of threat to South Park go away. Oops.
There is nothing new here, really. Same thin soup, different bowl. Neville Chamberlain hosts The Daily Show.
The problem is that instead of American national security or that of the West, we are talking about a slightly different issue yet one still vitally connected to the larger whole.
American and Western culture -- the good, the bad and the ugly of it over a few thousand centuries, from Plato to Parker and Shakespeare to Stone -- can thrive only in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. That freedom, as has been made abundantly clear since 9/11, is under full scale assault.
Whether it's planes being rammed into buildings in the heart of the world's financial center or the latest move in Somalia to ban music, intellectual freedom is under attack. The attackers may be organized, they may be unorganized. They may have billions at their disposal, they may have a box cutter. But make no mistake, they are obsessed with the same thing -- achieving victory over the West and all it represents whatever the cost and however long it takes.
They do not care about the safety and security of Trey Parker and Matt Stone or Jon Stewart or Comedy Central or Fox or MSNBC or the best Jewish deli in Manhattan or the next cover girl for Sports Illustrated or any other production of Western culture. The objective is to kill the target of the moment -- and oh by the way, wipe out the rest of us too. No tactic is too small, no weapon big enough.
Which is why the fact that someone as smart as Jon Stewart closes his eyes hoping his sudden Spartacus moment will just somehow go away is disturbing.
This isn't going away. This is real. It has appeared countless times in human history, and it has reared its head once more. This time at Comedy Central, as unlikely as it might seem. Where the response was exactly the timelessly wrong answer.
The right answer is never to pretend that if you somehow were transported back in time, say to a house in Amsterdam in August of 1944 and the German Grüne Polizei were pounding at your door, you could get away with saying: "Hi. Fox News can %$#@@ themselves. You guys sign the checks. Seig Heil. Ann Frank is upstairs, third door to the right, the room behind the bookcase."
The right answer would be, the right answer is always: I am Ann Frank.
I am Spartacus.
I am Trey Parker. I am Matt Stone.
I am Jon Stewart. And I quit.
Its Not the Same GOP
On
8:59 PM
0
comments
by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
After Republicans suffered consecutive bruising defeats in 2006 and 2008, boastful Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officials warned that Republicans faced a difficult decision: Go along with the sweeping agenda of the new administration, or suffer the disastrous consequences of taking on an enormously popular president in the 2010 elections.
Perhaps the GOP of 2005 would have taken the bait and swallowed the administration’s bad medicine. After all, Republicans during that period were guilty of spending too much and growing government too much, both of which would become hallmarks of the February 2009 stimulus plan and the loaded agenda that would follow. That GOP became a bloated, go-along to get-along body that forgot how to lead. We blew it, and we were rightfully fired by our bosses – the American people.
But the GOP in the House today is different. Very different. Led by a new generation of young and energetic leaders, we are committed to restoring the public’s trust in our ability to lead as responsible adults.
Let’s take a look at the last 16 months.
In the face of one-party Democratic rule, House Republicans learned fairly quickly that an election won on ‘change’ would result in a far more intrusive and expensive government. At the time, many political pundits joined the chorus of Democrats who warned that House Republicans faced political suicide if they didn’t support the President’s signature inaugural initiative – his stimulus plan. Yet we decided to fight. And we fought hard. The reason we were able to credibly oppose such a popular President was because we presented a much more responsible approach that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost of the eventual stimulus law that has failed to deliver as promised. A 178-seat minority isn’t going to win many legislative battles in the House. But it did prove sufficient to offer a clear contrast and provide the first glimpse of a Republican Party that had returned to its fiscally conservative roots.
From that moment, a revitalized House GOP dedicated itself to developing alternative solutions grounded in the fiscally responsible, small-government principles proven to work for our economy. On the stimulus, instead of pouring hundreds of billions down the rat holes of un-stimulative government programs, we proposed to give private-sector job creators an incentive to hire by exempting small businesses from 20 percent of their tax liability. On health care, instead of the budget-busting government takeover known as Obamacare, we provided solutions such as medical liability reform and purchasing health care across state lines which would lower costs while enabling families and patients to keep the care they have if they liked it. To create real jobs, we offered a “no cost Jobs plan” that would cut unemployment by approving lingering free-trade agreements and halting the deluge of ‘Obama tax increases.’ And on the budget, not only did we challenge President Obama to freeze spending at last year’s levels, but we offered cuts that would save taxpayers more than $375 billion.
We even challenged President Obama in a letter to help us force a vote in the House on the modest budget savings he proposed but which have been ignored by the Democrat majority. As has become routine, we have yet to receive a response.
Washington is always talking about the unlimited ways to increase spending. How about instead we start spending a lot more time talking about ways to cut expenditures and save money. That’s one reason why this Republican Conference adopted an earmark moratorium so we can finally start to fix a process that’s been broken for years. Could you imagine the Republican party of five years ago taking that step?
The point is that in each of these circumstances, we have stood up against an administration and a Pelosi-led Congress hell-bent on reorienting the role of government in America. While we may not have the numbers, our fight and conviction remains strong.
We understand that if our government is going to continue to spend and insert itself into the private economy the way that the Obama Administration and the Pelosi/Reid Congress has, then the America we know and love is in trouble. We will face steeper taxation, slower growth, higher unemployment and less economic opportunity for everyone. That may be a sacrifice Democrats are willing to stomach on their way to creating a European-style social welfare state. But for us it’s an unacceptable and radical departure from the American way.
America is a nation at a crossroads, and it is up to each of us to determine what kind of country we want to be. We must not leave our children a country more in debt and worse off than we found it, and I believe it is one of the biggest moral obligations of our time to act now to put a stop to what is happening in Washington. That means listening to the American people. It means spending less and saving more. It means pushing common-sense solutions that serve the national interest, not the special interests. And it means ensuring that our children have the same opportunity to achieve that we were given.
I am under no illusions – both parties have helped to create a debt that everyone knows is dangerously high. But only one of them is going to keep going down that path and taking our country with it. The other has learned its lesson and has reformed itself.
by Byron York from the Washington Examiner
The chattering class is aghast at Arizona's new immigration law. "Harkens back to apartheid," says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker. "Shameful," says the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne. "Terrible…an invitation to abuse," says the New York Times' David Brooks.
For his part, President Obama calls the law "misguided" and says it "threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Obama has ordered the Justice Department to "closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation."
Has anyone actually read the law? Contrary to the talk, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully-crafted measure designed to help law enforcement deal with a serious problem in Arizona. Its authors anticipated criticism and went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional and will hold up in court. It is the criticism of the law that is over the top, not the law itself.
The law requires police to check with federal authorities on a person's immigration status, if officers have stopped that person for some legitimate reason and come to suspect that he or she might be in the U.S. illegally. The heart of the law is this provision: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person…"
What fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. "That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law," says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. "The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop."
As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking. It's not race -- Arizona's new law specifically says race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion.
For example: "Arizona already has a state law on human smuggling," says Kobach. "An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor." That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal. Under the new law, the officer would get in touch with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check on their status.
But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.
Is having to produce a driver's license too burdensome? These days, natural-born U.S. citizens, and everybody else, too, are required to show a driver's license to get on an airplane, to check into a hotel, even to purchase some over-the-counter allergy medicines. If it's a burden, it's a burden on everyone.
Still, critics worry the law would force some people to carry their papers, just like in an old movie. The fact is, since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens in this country to carry, on their person, the documentation proving they are here legally -- green card, work visa, etc. That hasn't changed.
Kobach, a Republican who is now running for Kansas Secretary of State, was the chief adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft on immigration issues from 2001 to 2003. He has successfully defended Arizona immigration laws in the past. "The bill was drafted in expectation that the open-borders crowd would almost certainly bring a lawsuit," he says. "It's drafted to withstand judicial scrutiny."
The bottom line is, it's a good law, sensibly written and rigorously focused -- no matter what the critics say.
by Wynn Marlow from BigHollywood.com
There has been a monsoon in Timbale. Anna, leader of the Visitors, intercedes with her technology. Questioned off the record, the Secretary General of the U.N. accuses Anna of “playing politics with tragedy. She used the people of Timbale to gain public and political clout.”
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
The former is an excerpt from the ABC television show ”V.” The latter, the cynical assessment of President Obama’s consigliore and Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel of the economic crisis occurring in the United States.
An opportunity to do what things you think you could not do before? Health care reform? Cap and tax? Government takeover of car companies, banks, and executive pay?
I think the remake of “V” currently showing on ABC must surely have been conceived as a metaphor. The alien visitors whose ships hover over multiple U.S. cities, and who plot to woo humans to join them to achieve their own veiled purpose, are equivalent to the current administration in Washington. Radicals, schooled by Saul Alinsky, affecting cleverly cultivated pleasing faces and voices.
The Visitors are not what they appear to be. They are… spoiler alert… lizards clothed in human skin. If you cross them, they skin you with gleaming metal instruments. Chicago style.
Didn’t Rham once send a dead fish to a pollster who had angered him? A tad short of skinning, but shudderingly similar.
Anna, in the episode which aired on ABC last Tuesday, says, “The future of our species, our cause, our survival outweighs any sacrifice. There is no room for human emotion, for weakness of any kind.”
I can imagine the modern Godfather Emanuel proclaiming similarly to candidate Obama while making his case for the “fundamental transformation” of this country. Yes we can…
Anna of the Other Planet tells Scott Wolf, playing The Reporter, “You’ll get to see progress being made, first-hand.” Oh, that word–progress–and all that is permissible to be done in its name.
On this planet, progress takes the form of Obamacare. We didn’t ask for it. We didn’t want it. They shoved it down our throats regardless.
On “V,” Anna gives Timbale “blue energy” after the monsoon. When asked by her Lieutenant, “Why are we giving blue energy to the humans?” she smugly replies, “Because, once they’re dependent on it…. We can turn it off.”
Sounds like entitlements to me, in all their insidious forms.
At the end of the episode, The Reporter says to Anna, “They think you’re a God.. [But I think] you’re not just visitors. You’re here to stay. But are you here for our benefit – or for yours?”
Hmmm. Something I’d say to Obama and his radical regime, if I had a prime time show on ABC.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Cartoon
Posts
