No ID, no vote, 10 retired nuns told

Via Stateline.org.

I don’t really have much on this story, although I’m sure our left of center friends will love it. What caught my eye was the fact of the Sacramento Bee doing a story on Indiana photo ID with a dateline of “Washington.”

Ok, so I’m amused by small things.

Better late than never

Nice to see the print media keeping up.

The new address of Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign Web site seems to indicate he will be seeking a third term in 2010.The new address is http://www.jimdoyle2010.com . The previous address was http://www.doylelawton.com.

Doyle’s campaign finance director Mike Edmondson said Friday the governor still has not made a decision on whether he will run again.

Let’s see, I’ve seen that somewhere before. Oh, yeah, that’s right. Spring City Chronicle saw it here and I saw it at Cindy Kilkenny’s who read it at Boots and Sabers.

On Wednesday.

Sometimes political talk TV makes me feel the same way

Pat Sajak writes,

After years of feeding my habit, this political TV junkie finally suffered from total, absolute burnout. I became tired of the same talking heads babbling about the same sets of talking points; the pundits who were almost always wrong, and, when they were proven wrong, would go on to explain why things didn’t go as they should have; and the “strategists” who shared their Machiavellian concepts with the rest of us. I couldn’t take one more split-screen set of so-called experts yelling at each other, pontificating and prognosticating. I had it up to here with CNN and Fox News and MSNBC. I couldn’t bear the superficial interviews on the network morning shows or the self-important musings of the nightly newscasts. I became sick of the polls and the stories about the polls and the analyses of the polls.

Me, too, but mine started farther back, back when I began blogging in November, 2003. Of course, I may just be adding one more voice to the cacophony already proliferating.

The result for Sajak?

 So I quit. Cold turkey. No more news on television. None. No Hardball, no Meet the Press, no Good Morning, America. Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I was free at last!

So, during this election cycle, I have gained virtually all of my political news from written sources. As a result, I’ve found myself caring more about what has been said rather than how it was said. I no longer see — nor do I miss — the instant analysis that follows debates. I don’t have to subject myself to on-air advisors telling candidates what they must do to perform better in the next primary.

I’m not quite ready to go that far, but I admit I haven’t followed every debate and when the shouting matches start on TV, I change the channel.

Tucker Carlson replaced

Tucker Carlson out at MSNBC (a tip of the conservative ball cap to shoebox posting at No Runny Eggs steveegg).

If Alan Colmes is the token liberal at FOXNews, Joe Scarborough is now the token conservative at MSNBC.

Network apologizes for mocking town name

From Yahoo! News,

A cable sports network says it no longer will make Athol the butt of its jokes.
Comcast SportsNet said Thursday it would pull a newspaper ad that leaders of the small central Massachusetts town called insulting and offensive.

The ad featured two side-by-side signs that together read: “We can pronounce Worcester … without sounding like an Athol.”

Fine. But didn’t the AP just make a joke at the town’s expense with the first paragraph?

Declining MCTS ridership, why?

Bruce at Badger Blogger takes a look at an article appearing in Saturday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on ridership in the city’s bus system. Our left-of-center friends have laid the blame at Scott Walker’s feet. That’s a bit harsh, but I agree with Bruce that that is exactly what the MJS intended with this “hit” piece.

Sandler’s predictable writing makes their agenda pretty transparent. Best example being a quotation, “objectively” talking about how people are “often willing to be taxed” for increased services from, you guessed it, a spokesperson for a public transportation advocacy group. [Italics his]

More at Badger Blogger.

I guess that’s why they call it “Smart Money”

The Capital Times cuts back

Continuing a rash of newspaper cut backs, the Madison Capital Times

will increase its Internet content while at the same time reducing the number of times it publishes each week.

Another newspaper, another cutback. Circulation was

16,565 for the most recent reporting period, compared with 87,708 daily and 141,234 on Sundays for the State Journal

This one is slightly different though; this is a “progressive” newspaper in the heart of “progressivism” failing.

Could “fat” be part of the problem?

The Capital Times … lists nearly 60 reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom employees, compared with about 100 for the State Journal which, unlike The Capital Times, puts out a large Sunday paper.

A voluntary buyout is expected to affect about 20 of the newsroom staff.

Frankly, with opinions like this, it’s easy to see why circulation has been falling (scroll down for enutpenfry’s funny re-write of the column).

Can it be long before we see the Wisconsin Capital Times Journal?

Playground Politics

James Wigderson 

Sun-Times wrestles with new reality

The day after Owen noted a smaller Wisconsin State Journal, a shrunken Chicago Sun-Times hit the streets,

Readers of the Chicago Sun-Times picked up a smaller paper Tuesday, the latest tangible sign of the economic struggles engaging metropolitan newspapers around the country.

The tabloid’s physical shrinkage, by about 1 inch to save newsprint costs, is more easily accomplished than the pending staff cuts that will pare editorial positions by 19 percent, the largest local newsroom layoff in recent memory.

Candidates are ambitious

Yes, Michael Kinsley in this week’s TIME magazine lets the cat out of the bag.

Never would have guessed, would you?

Stuck outside the top three

From the St. Pete Times,

Candidates with tremendous resumes Biden, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd have campaigned ferociously in Iowa for nearly a year. But they’re mostly getting dismissed by media consumed instead with a steady barrage of polls showing a Clinton-Obama-Edwards dead heat.

Are they dismissed by the media, or does the media not cover them because they have no support among the voters?

Also noted on Anderson Cooper tonight, was his first question to the panel, asking if the media has blown this up more than it should be.

In a word, Yes. But, of course, that’s not what the panel said.

Then notice this headline from Yahoo, “Americans frustrated by influence wielded by Iowa, New Hampshire.”

And why does Iowa and New Hampshire wield such influence? The media following the “horse race” aspects of the campaign. Every poll result is reported breathlessly, every number debated endlessly for “meaning,” even though, most of the time, the numbers are within the margin of error and, therefore, devoid of meaning.

Stop the presses!

Hard hitting news and commentary from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Good people do good things!

Democratic poll finds good news for Democratic candidate!

Baseball players helped by drugs!

Al-nighters might not help students! (page 16A, no link on MJS web site)

Give it time

A tip of the conservative cap to elliot for this from Ann Althouse about Jena,

These are very complicated (and conflicting) reports, strained through high passions. It’s important to keep a clear head and try to get a complete picture. And don’t forget that you don’t have to choose sides. It’s possible for everyone to be wrong.

But, unfortunately, in the news and blogging world, it’s important to be first with an opinion or story whatever it may be. We have to have the scoop, we have to be able to say, “You heard it here first.”

When maybe we just need to let the facts come out.

Breaking News!

It has been reported O.J. has taken another breath.

Stay tuned.

The new crop of community columnists

Sunday’s Journal Sentinel announces a new group of community columnists who will be contributing columns over the next year. One describes herself as a “conservative liberal” (?) another is a “neoconservative” (I didn’t think there were any left); several are members of the Reader Advisory Committee whose members have “Quick hits” published on the editorial pages.

Congratulations to the group, although I’m kinda partial to the first group myself.

Couric: ‘Real Progress’ In Iraq

From WCBS with a tip of the conservative ball cap to the Drudge Report

“We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability,” Couric said Tuesday. “I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda.”

Things you didn’t know

From Politico.com

Schumer to fight new Bush high court picks

Like he didn’t fight the others.

From the Journal Sentinel

Upon further review, health plan is a wreck for business

Surprise, businesses, as told by John Torino, are against Healthy Wisconsin.

From the Associated Press

Bush Defends Troop Buildup in Iraq

You were expecting him to do something else?

From Stateline.org

Home insurance woes mount in coastal states

Revisiting Moyers

Updating last week’s post on Moyers’ comment on Rove’s retirement. One commenter pointed me to this post on Moyers’ blog. Then there was this post by the ombudsman, who appears to not have that great a relationship with Moyers.

I’m not sure now what information Moyers used in his characterization of Rove as an agnostic. For my part it still doesn’t matter, although claiming to be a Christian while in actuality being agnostic would be a little more serious, Rove was an advisor not an office holder. We’ve already read about cynicism in the White House toward the Christian right, so who cares?

By the way, you can see what caused all the commotion here.

Oh, no, not more good news about Iraq

And from Der Spiegel, no less. I don’t know if the Left will be able to stand it.

Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq

Yeah, I know, the headline is not all that promising, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. But it’s an in-depth article and not all bad news. Here’s how it ends,

That’s the situation in Iraq. A race is underway. Now every day on the calendar is historic. The future can be won or it can be gambled away.

A tip of the ol’ conservative cap to the Queen of All Evil, who wonders “How has Karl Rove managed to get the German Press to do a 180°?”

Indeed.

You can find more on Der Spiegel’s previous reports on Iraq at David’s Medienkritik Online (linked to by the QOAE)

Un-biased?

Milwaukee’s two African-American opinion writers, Gregory Sanford and Eugene Kane, both wrote about Obama and Hillary receiving ovations from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Sure, I believe in media objectivity [/sarcasm off].