Sometimes there is just so much interesting or bizarre stuff out there that I have to squeeze it all into one post of "quick hits".

First up, Paul Mirengoff at Powerline was at a press conference for Sen. Dick Durbin of IL and threw him a curve-ball about the NSA surveillance issue. Durbin was caught flat-footed because Mirengoff framed the question in a legal context. The video is here. It's pretty amusing.

The Senator looked like someone had just smacked him across the face with a sock full of manure and he asked Mirengoff what publication he represented. Durbin, apparently, has never heard of Pajamas Media or Powerline. A reader of the blog pointed out that such mediocre minds as Durbin's are not used to being questioned by legal specialists (Mirengoff is an attorney by trade) but rather by ignorant reporters who barely grasp the law themselves.

It's going to get harder and harder to prevent folks like Paul Mirengoff from asking these kinds of questions. Beware the bloggers!!

Next, never mind Global Warming. A Russian astronomer is predicting a "mini-Ice Age" later this century. But it has nothing to do with human activities. This scientist points out a troublesome fact for those Chicken Littles who proclaim that we are the cause of this phenomenon: "Dramatic changes in the earth's surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun's energy output and ultraviolet radiation." Hey, my oil bill has been pretty managable this winter, so I'm not complaining.

Go ahead, reach for that nacho-cheese chalupa. A new 8-year study has found no link between a low-fat diet and reduced instances of cancer or heart disease. Hey, it's in the NY Times so it's got to be true, right? Seriously though folks. Eat sensibly, get some exercise and stop obsessing about the latest fad diets. Enjoy life because it's not going to adhere to your timetable.

Now to politics. Democrats are worried that they won't be able to capitalize on the opposition's troubles enough to make any substantial gains in November. IL Senator Barack Obama says "We have been in a reactive posture for too long. I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes." He's only half-right. He's leaving out the part where you have to offer voters something to say "yes" too as well.

We all know that FoxNews Channel is kicking CNN's ass on cable. And it's getting worse every day for the Atlanta-based news network. But apparently, CNN is doing the opposite on the web. CNN.com got more than six times the hits than FoxNews.com in January 2006. I have two explanations. First, as was pointed out by my FoxNews Channel watching, CNN.com surfing sister-in-law, the FoxNews website sucks. I have to agree. It's hard to navigate and find exactly what you're looking for. CNN.com definitely has advantages here.

But also, people who are looking for news and information that isn't filtered by Liberal media bias have soooo many alternatives on the Web. Those people that make up the market that FoxNews.com would most appeal too are busy surfing blogs and conservative web-zines like National Review, the Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, Human Events, Townhall.com...(the list goes on and on). Liberals have a lot fewer choices on the web to find what they're looking for and most of them head to CNN.com by default. And considering which media produces the most ad revenues, I seriously doubt that News Corp would want to change places with Time-Warner.

I'll finish with my candidate for dipshit celebrity of the week: Gwyneth Paltrow. She lives in Britain and recently said in an interview that the British are "more intelligent" than Americans. Okay. Well, this is a woman who named her daughter "Apple". I have no doubt that to her the British are very intelligent. The problem is that she assumes that the average American is as stupid as she is.

Posted by: Gary at 09:51 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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