Mark Casey Online

John Swift Demands Pardons for Deadly Wal-Mart Stampeders

Mark Casey — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:41:31 +0000

The wonderful satirist John Swift has joined the chorus of media and political figures telling outgoing lame duck George W. Bush just who should avoid jail time for their nefarious deeds. For some, it’s Gitmo torturers. For others, it’s dirty CEOs. For one Scooter Libby, it’s a guy who took the fall for leaking a CIA agent’s name.

But for Swift, it’s the valiant capitalists who sought Black Friday deals at Wal-Mart, and who trampled an employee to death on their way to noble holiday bargains:

Prosecutors may even try to score cheap political points by filing criminal charges against some of these bargain hunters, who have been called “savages” and “animals” by demagogues in the liberal media. Of course, my heart goes out to the family of this man who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but while it is unfortunate that someone got hurt, capitalism is not a dinner party. There will always be some collateral damage in a free market. Socialists who hate capitalism are now trying to scapegoat these patriotic Americans…

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Today’s Big Picture

Mark Casey — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:36:00 +0000

Andrew Sullivan has rooted up (get it?) an impressive series of photographs by Myoung Ho Lee — call them portraits — of trees, with an artificial “canvas” behind them, to turn them into natural, artificially displayed, organic art:

A real tree in front of a backlit canvas

Here’s a quote from Andrew’s ripped quote from the article:

Trees are attractive objects in that they enable people to think philosophically and appreciate aesthetically. But too often, we don’t recognize the value of ordinary mundane objects around us. Seeing trees in a refreshing way or restoring the value of trees is to awaken all beings on earth in my work.

Today’s Big Picture [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="493" caption="Barack Obama at a Rally of...
Today’s Big Picture Obama Pumpkins at YesWeCarve.com: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Obama Supporters...
That Wiley Stock Market [caption id="attachment_87" align="alignright" width="300" caption="A row of houses in foreclosure"][/caption]...
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Book: Rupert Murdoch Hates Bill O’Reilly; Obama Hates Fox News

Mark Casey — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:27:06 +0000

Michael Calderone at Politico has a fascinating preview of Michael Wolff’s new book, “The Man Who Owns the News” — a biography of Rupert Murdoch.

In it, Wolff reveals some surprising details about Murdoch and his most famous property, the Fox News channel. Details such as the fact that Murdoch doesn’t particularly care for the station’s star, Bill O’Reilly, nor the culture of angry isolationism that channel’s commentary echoes thanks to his success. And apparently the rest of the Fox News brass, slimy as they may be, doesn’t necessarily disagree with Murdoch.

And then there’s this highly entertaining quote directly from the book about a meeting this summer between Murdoch, Fox executive Roger Ailes, and Obama:

Obama lit into Ailes. He said he didn’t want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign-fearsome—just short of a terrorist.

Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had come on the air instead of giving Fox the back of his hand.

A tentative truce, which may or may not have historical significance, was thereupon agreed.

Remember, that was in the summer. Obama did, in fact, go on the air, and provide O’Reilly with his second-highest ratings ever, only to get interrupted and berated by the splotchy king of conflict. The network did not respond in good faith, and instead ramped up their “Obama-the-Terrorist” storyline.

An interesting story, nonetheless.

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Forget the Last 20 Years — Look at this Chart!

Mark Casey — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:30:13 +0000

Conservative economist Greg Mankiw is upset by this meme which seems to be forming that Obama’s economic team is more special than any of Bush’s — which happens to include Mankiw himself.

So, in response to Paul Krugman’s post about the days of cronyism being over, Mankiw pulls out a large chart which purports to rank economists based upon their “academic accomplishments,” and wouldn’t you know it — plenty of folks from both Obama and Bush’s teams are on the chart. Thus, Mankiw deftly proves that everything Bush ever did (cough *tap Mankiw* cough) is just as good as anything Obama will do:

Judging by this objective criterion, it looks like the two adminstrations are drawing economists from roughly the same talent pool.

Of course, the bulk of Obama’s team earned their chops by presiding over the largest and longest economic expansion in American history (Clinton Admin.); and Mankiw and his buddies get to stake their claim in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

BUT THEY’RE ALL ON THE SAME CHART!

There is also some irony in the fact that Mankiw vaguely implies Krugman is a “hack” while referencing a chart which conveniently ranks Krugman ahead of Mankiw:

15. Paul Krugman
21. Greg Mankiw

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Rickroll’d: Macy’s Parade Personally Interrupted by Rick Astley

Mark Casey — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:49:39 +0000

Cartoon Network’s singing float for their show “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” got Rickroll’d at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. The characters on the float started to sing a song from the show, but were quickly interrupted by Rick Astley himself, singing his viral song from the 80’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

I love it. Check it out:

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Little Mermaid on Broadway Sexes Up Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade

Mark Casey — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:46:27 +0000

A little quirky Thanksgiving humor never hurt anyone, and this year served up a delight in the form of a “Little Mermaid on Broadway” performance during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Everyone knows that Ariel wears a seashell bra and little else, and the Broadway production doesn’t omit this detail. But apparently the producers of the family-friendly parade found her outfit a bit risque, because they opted to have her wear a massive red and white Christmas-themed scarf, strategically placed so that it hangs down in front of her breasts. Can you blame them, though? Here’s what Ariel would otherwise be wearing:

No other members of the cast were wearing Christmas attire.

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Looking Ahead to 2012?

Mark Casey — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:41:44 +0000

People who claim the media is madly in love with Barack Obama haven’t been paying enough attention to the oddly incessant stories about what GOP warriors will rise to challenge him in 2012.

Marc Ambinder’s blog takes a look ahead.

Who says there will even be a world to run in 2012?

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Tucker Carlson Praises the Anti-Sex Demographic for Inventing Sex

Mark Casey — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:51:53 +0000

Last week, a pastor in Texas became a pop phenomenon when he suggested to his followers that they have more sex. It was a funny, quirky, cute story.

And it took nearly a week for the likes of Tucker Carlson to politicize it:

Overall, according to a 1997 study in the British Medical Journal, men with the most active sex lives have a death rate half that of those with the least active. Sex prolongs life.

You’d think that someone other than Ed Young would have noticed this. Maybe one of the tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats paid to worry about America’s health might have caught on and launched an ad campaign on billboards and city buses. (“Sex: It’s the Right Thing to Do,” or “Take a Minute for Couchball.”) But no. It took an evangelical.

Yes, it “took an evangelical.” Just like it took a million evangelicals to convince Bush and his subordinates that “abstinance only” could somehow be related to the idea of “education.”

Carlson has never backed down from a challenge, but he should probably quit while he’s ahead when it comes to dressing up the most anti-sex demographic on the face of the Earth as the kingpins of the activity. You can’t slap a bowtie on a pig and call it a genius.

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How to Create a Stimulus Straw-Man

Mark Casey — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:57:57 +0000

Conservative economist Greg Mankiw giggles at Democrats’ silly belief that the government can improve the economy:

The Washington Post reports:

“Facing an increasingly ominous economic outlook, President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats are rapidly ratcheting up plans for a massive fiscal stimulus program that could total as much as $700 billion over the next two years….Obama has set a goal of creating or preserving 2.5 million jobs by 2011.“

Dividing one number by the other, that works out to $280,000 per job. What is going on here?

Oh, those silly liberals and their horribly wasteful government spending. Mankiw is suggesting a consumer approach to job creation, thinking that, somehow, the government will literally be spending x amount of dollars on “creating” a job.

The stimulus plan in question, of course, is about promoting economic health — not the mere hiring of 2.5 million people by the government.

Is Mankiw deliberately ignoring the other possible roles that government may take in affecting the economy because conservative economists don’t believe the government may play that role? Is he pretending to be stupid in order to create a stimulus straw-man?

After the last eight years, does anything Mankiw thinks the government should do matter?

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As the Biden Turns

Mark Casey — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:05:52 +0000

Speculation about Joe Biden’s senate seat, for now, is over. His longtime aid Ted Kaufman has gotten the gig.

Marc Ambinder’s blog (via Matthew Berger and Mike Memoli) speculates that we’ll all be speculating about Beau Biden in the speculative future.

Speculate.

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