Fox Opinion Channel

Some things are just hard to understand. On Fox News, almost everything is hard to understand.

Last night, Fox's commentators, including the network's designated liberal Alan Colmes, decided that there was no point in our actually listening to the Democratic Convention's keynote address, so they talked over almost all of it. The keynote address, for God's sake. A twenty-minute address, and we got maybe two minutes of it. Instead, we are treated to a bunch of commercials and an interview with Rudy Giuliani. That's right, they used the Republican keynote speaker to talk over the Democratic keynote address. Couldn't have waited just a bit, guys? I'll be most interested to see if they jabber over the Republican keynote address next week.

Update: They didn't. No jabber. Broadcast the whole thing. Surprise!

But that is as nothing compared to the utterly bizarre commentary by Megyn Kelly just the previous night. It turns out, according to Megyn, that if you change the words someone says, they sound different. Megyn can prove it, too. Here is Megyn entering an alternate universe while yakking about Michelle Obama's address at the convention:

[W]hat [Michelle] said was, and I wrote it down, was, "The world as it is just won't do." If you replace "world" with "country," you're back to the same debate, arguably, that you have been having about Michelle Obama's feelings about this country.

Seriously. That is what Megyn said. Replace what Michelle did say with what Michelle didn't say, and it doesn't sound so good.

OK, let's see how this works. Here is what Megyn said when asked who her favorite active "journalist" is:

Brit Hume. The man truly knows everything about everything.

Now, if I replace the first "everything" with "nothing", and the second one with "anything", here's what I get:

Brit Hume. The man truly knows nothing about anything.

So, it turns out that Megyn thinks Brit Hume is an idiot. Hey, it does work!

At this point, Fox really has no option other than to remove the word "News" from its name.

Maytag's Exclusive Feature

Oh, sure, this sounds handy. But think about it. Only one person in the entire world can use it at a time. It's a stupid feature.

Truth in Labeling

Corrected label for "fat free half & half"

If You Own a Dog, You Should Have One of These

Because you just never know when you'll need it.
Keep one in the car, too.

A Startling Statistic

Maybe it's because they live so much longer?

Source: Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

Update: I thought this was an interesting point of view, so I looked into the AAPS just a little. A smorgasbord of other AAPS headlines "in perspective":

• The Dark Side of Peer Review
• 32,000 Scientists Dissent from Global Warming "Consensus" *
• US Scientists Back Autism Link to MMR **
• European Population in Decline, Welfare State Threatened
• Thank Hillary Clinton for Flu Vaccine Shortage

And:

• Ron Paul’s “tea party” breaks fund-raising record
• Ron Paul sets one day GOP fundraising record
• Ron Paul supporters aim to break record for contributions on Nov. 5
• Michigan GOP leader wants Paul barred from future debates
• Ron Paul introduces bill to rein in the FDA

Interesting.

* 32,000 Scientists Dissent from Global Warming "Consensus"

Um, not really. The petition web site as of today lists 31,072 people (not 32,000, and not scientists, as we shall see) who mailed in a postcard. While the web site says that signers must have degrees in "appropriate scientific fields", the organizers seem to be pretty casual about what those might be. Your family doctor apparently qualifies. So does Fluffy's veterinarian. And anyone with, say, a B.S. in electrical engineering. Are they really qualified to voice an informed opinion on the science of global climate change?

I think it's quite interesting to note that, of those 31,072 signers, exactly 40 claim a degree in climatology. Four-oh. About one-tenth of one percent.

Moreover, having a B.S. doesn't make you a "scientist" by any stretch of the imagination. Nurses generally have a B.S. degree or equivalent. God bless 'em ev'ry one, but do you know many nurses who refer to themselves as "scientists"?

Now, the list of "scientists" posted on the site does not include locations or institutional affiliations, so it's pretty durn hard for anyone independent to validate them. Is "R. Payne" qualified? Who knows? There's no way for us to check, is there?

The petition organizers claim to have validated "most" of the signers, but, just for fun...

...I picked a name at random from the list and fired up Google. I'm sorry, Alison. Alison M. Azar holds a B.S. in chemistry and is Vice President of Sales for the M.F. Cachat Co, "a regional technical sales organization focused on the marketing and distribution of specialty chemical products." Previously she was Midwest Regional Sales Manager. Her professional affiliations include the Institute of Food Technologists and the Society of Cosmetic Chemists.

I feel quite certain that Alison is a very fine person, but is she a "scientist"? In an "appropriate scientific field"? If she is, then so am I (and I'm not, I assure you).

** US Scientists Back Autism Link to MMR

Um, not really. Their own article has no statement from any scientist saying anything remotely like that. This is all they can say:

The vaccine strain of measles virus has been found in 85% of samples taken from the guts of children with regressive autism, according to a study to be presented in Montreal, Canada, this week by Dr. Stephen Walker of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina.

Right, probably because 85% of the kids he studied had been vaccinated. I'll bet he found milk in 95% of 'em, too. I think the real cause of autism is probably milk.

In point of fact, Dr. Walker himself warns that his study does not indicate a link between MMR vaccine and autism: "That is not what our research is showing."

I guess the good scientists at AAPS have forgotten what they learned in their high school science class: correlation does not imply causation.

1. Sales of ice cream cones increase during summer months.
2. Drownings increase during summer months.
3. Therefore, ice cream cones cause drowning.

Say It Ain't So, CSI

Get out! New York cops don't work out of spacious, pristine, dimly-lit, ultra-modern offices? Crime scene technicians are not heavily involved in pursuing and apprehending suspects? NYPD does not have the technology to obtain a recognizable image of a suspect by enhancing the reflection in an eyeball from a fuzzy security camera video?

I can't believe this. I am so depressed.

(Note also that CNN remains obsessed with Miss USA falling down.)

Tempest in an Inkpot

About that New Yorker cover. I see a lot a stuff that's just silly.

It's not funny.

It's not supposed to be funny. New Yorker covers rarely are. They can be wry; they can be satirical; they can be pretty. Sometimes they are subtle enough to require study before they are understood; sometimes they are blunt instruments. Occasionally, yes, they may elicit a subdued chuckle. But funny? Not so much.

It's racist.

No, it isn't. It's anti-racist.

The New Yorker thinks that the Obamas are gun-toting, flag-burning, America-hating Islamic terrorists.

No, it doesn't. It thinks that the Obamas are none of these. The cover isn't characterizing the Obamas; it's ridiculing the smears that are being used against them.

I'm going to boycott The New Yorker

OK. Conservatives already do, so you must be a liberal. Let's think this through. Better yet, let's look at some stuff that's appeared in The New Yorker:

• Hendrick Hertzberg questions the need for a war in Iraq--in August, 2002. (Quick, go make a list of everyone else who was doing that before the war started.)


• Seymour Hersh exposes torture at Abu Ghraib.


• Hersh debunks the cherry-picked intelligence used to justify the war.


• Steven Coll notes that "The suppression of professional military dissent helped to create the disaster in Iraq; now it is depriving American voters of an election-year debate about the defense issues that matter most."


• Jane Mayer writes on Dick Cheney's ties to Halliburton.


• Nicholas Lemann takes on Bill O'Reilly.

This is a tiny sample, believe me. This is the magazine you want to boycott?

They shouldn't have used it because [insert your favorite demographic here] won't understand it.

Sorry, but that is not The New Yorker's problem. The magazine is written for its readers. Most magazines are. It seems a little off the mark to say that a magazine should tailor its content for people who don't read it.

They put this on the cover to sell magazines.

Outrageous!

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Update: Jon Stewart excoriates The New Yorker for printing satire that some people might not get. Daily Show correspondents reveal that this kind of horrible stuff permeates the magazine: in addition to believing that Obama is an Islamic extremist, it supports baby-killing.