Bloggers Pick Up Where Ben Left Off

Tom Grubisich is irritated. Seems people can write on the internet anonymously:

These days we want "transparency" in all institutions, even private ones. There's one massive exception -- the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall. Indeed, it has millions of people speaking out in millions of online forums. But most of them are wearing the equivalent of paper bags over their heads. We know them only by their Internet "handles" -- gotalife, runningwithscissors, stoptheplanet and myriad other inventive names.

Too bad journalism schools don't teach about the eminent journalist, Benjamin Franklin, anymore.

During the eighteenth century, it was common for writers and journalists to use pseudonyms, or false names, when they created newspaper articles and letters to the editor. Franklin used this convention extensively throughout his life, sometimes to express an idea that might have been considered slanderous or even illegal by the authorities; other times to present two sides of an issue, much like the point-counterpoint style of journalism used today.

Ben Franklin aka:

Silence Dogood
Caelia Shortface and Martha Careful
Busy Body
Anthony Afterwit
Alice Addertongue
Richard Saunders
Polly Baker
Benevolus

Mr. Grubisich, when you strip the stereotypes away with a pen name, you're left with one thing - an idea. Could be a good idea, bad idea, or mediocre idea. If you are concerned about anonymity on the internet perhaps your real problem is your inability to reason with someone's idea.

Perhaps Mr. Grubisich thinks we would be better served if sites like these didn't have anonymous authors.

H/T CQ

Start Using Your Head

I’ve already criticized Senator Obama this week for public displays of ignorance so I didn’t want to pile on when he flew to Detroit and got it wrong concerning fuel economy standards across the world. But somehow he’s managed to add hypocrisy to his Detroit agenda:

Sen. Barack Obama talks a good game. He also drives a good car, but the two are not entirely compatible.

The Democratic presidential contender was in Detroit on Monday, oozing charisma and environmental awareness as he chided local automakers for building too many big vehicles and not enough fuel-efficient hybrids.

So his choice to drive a V8 Hemi-powered Chrysler 300C emits a whiff of hypocrisy along with its exhaust fumes. Obama's choice proves once again that fuel economy is seldom the No. 1 factor when Americans buy cars. The 340-horsepower 300C has plenty of room for the lanky senator, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters. It gets 25 miles per gallon on the highway, good for a big sedan, but far short of hybrids and compact cars.

Nice ride though.

H/T Instapundit

Because Mormons only Knock on Doors

I guess the fact that PBS showed the “Mormons” but spiked the documentary on Islamists is an indication that Mormons won’t cut your head off:

Martyn Burke’s documentary “Islam vs. Islamists” (produced with Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev) was commissioned by PBS for its “American Crossroads” series, but never shown by the network. Quality control or censorship? Pajamas Media CEO and Motion Picture Academy member Roger L. Simon has seen the film and has an answer.

More here

What Obama's Gaffe Reveals

How would one miss 10,000 deaths in one Kansas town?

Barack Obama's gaffe here, stating 10,000 people died in Kansas tornando's this past week, is astounding because of his lack of comprehension of what that figure means. The number is higher than deaths from the 9/11 attacks, Hurrican Katrina, and U.S. Iraq war casulties combined. When my high school son heard me play the video his first reaction was "did he say 10,000?!" Such a number of deaths in a single American tragedy would bring this country to a standstill; and yet it didn't phase the Senator when he spoke it, as it did my son listening from across the room.

The gaffe reveals a lack of awareness or "feel" for the scope of disasters in America. The kind of stuff the average person becomes familiar with as they read the paper, watch the news, and discuss events with friends at the water cooler. The Senator is from Illinois, which happens to be in the North end of Tornado Alley (I lived pretty close to the Illinois state line, in Indiana, and recall the tornado watches and warnings) - certainly the Chicago papers provided damage reports from the interior of the state. Does he read them? If he does, is he able to analyze and compare/contrast information?

I've remarked before of the ignorance displayed by Senator Obama. This extended campaign season doesn't seem to working in his favor but it does appear to be working in America's.

Al Sharpton - God's Gift to Republicans

If Democrats really believe in God, why is the Mormon, Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader? At least if one is to follow the logic of Al Sharpton who says:

"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," Sharpton said Monday during a debate with Hitchens at the New York Public
Library's Beaux-Arts headquarters.

One knows Al Sharpton is saying something outlandish or outrageous when his lips are moving, so there is not much need for comment here. I would point out that once again, the attack against Mitt Romney’s faith comes from the left – not the right.

My point about Democrats and God, while mostly in jest is not far from the mark. The truth is the Republican primaries will be the challenge for the Mormon candidate, not the general election. Democrat’s just don’t have the religious credibility to mount an effective Jihad against a Mormon or any other candidate’s religion.

If the Reverend Sharpton wishes to marshal such a jihad of believers, he is going to have to rely on Republicans not Democrats. So far such Republicans would probably have more concern over the faith of Al Sharpton then the faith of Mitt Romney.

Secret Guilt?

I’ve regarded Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) as a function of the left’s desire for power. Wretchard, however, provides an interesting thesis I find more in line with human nature:

…secret guilt may stand at the center of the inexplicable hysteria with which the Left regard the neocons and President Bush in particular. Recently a Ramussen poll showed that "only four in ten Democrats will commit to the idea that George Bush did not know of the 9/11 attack in advance. Sixty-one percent of them either believe he did or are unsure." What could account for such a widespread belief in a bizarre conspiracy theory? Why do otherwise intelligent people insist, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that "fire does not melt steel" and embrace all kinds of ridiculous fantasies? I think the extreme demonization of George W. Bush and the neocons is psychologically necessary in order to restore a feeling of moral superiority to the Leftist universe. They would be guilt stricken without it. The more intelligent Leftists must be subconsciously aware of how monstrous the enemy is and secretly cognizant of how great is the betrayal of their own ideals. They can't confront this fact; cannot accept that they are delivering children, as Caroline Glick's example above shows, to cruel murderers. And in order to obtain some kind of solace and to have the effrontery to march in support of "freedom fighters" who are nothing but sadistic thugs, it is necessary for them to invent something worse; to make a caricature devil of GWB to place them once again, if not upon the side of angels, at least in the camp of the lesser evil. George Bush must be made nothing less than the moral equivalent of Hitler or else their ethical universe would collapse.

But George Bush is not Hitler. And one day the better men among the Left will face up to the fact that they have failed a huge moral and historical test. And from that memory, there will be no redemption.

Ironically, such guilt from the Left would parallel post-war Germany’s guilt over going along with Hitler.

The challenge for Demo Presidential candidates is daunting. They are going to have to appeal to the majority of their party who are off their rockers concerning 9/11. And the Republican video cameras will be running. After the primaries, the Demo candidates will need to do a little more than tacking to the right; they will have to demonstrate a restored sanity to be credible to the rest of the nation. If the Dem candidate wins, reality really sets in - the world is what it is despite their professed fantasies. Do you think a Hillary Clinton is going to pull troops out of Iraq knowing full well the calamity that will ensue? Hardly.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good

For hard core adherents to all things green, environmentalism is a religion. Brit Hume reports the appropriately named “Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa” is replacing Gideon provided Bibles:

The Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa wants to become California's first certified "green" hotel — meaning it is friendly to the environment. Bloomberg reports the facility is equipped with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled paper.

It also is doing away with one staple of hotel rooms all across the world — the Gideon Bible. It seems that the effort to be green has led the hotel to move the Bible out of the nightstand drawer — replacing it on the bureau will be a copy of Al Gore's global warming book — "An Inconvenient Truth."

It is the hotel’s prerogative to furnish or not furnish whatever religious texts they desire, whether it is the Bible, Mao’s Little Red Book, or the prophet Al’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (an appropriate title for the Bible too). The point is a lot of what passes for environmentalism must be taken on faith – such as not changing incandescent light bulbs for fluorescents will have the seas lapping at my doorstep in fifty years.

As in Galileo’s day when ill-informed doctors of religion regarded the heavens and all things in them rotating around their world, the environmentalists have put the human at the center of their universe. After all a primary doctrine of their faith is humans cause global warming. Like Galileo, those that don’t conform to their beliefs are heretics who must be made to conform.

Other than fertilizer, the religion of environmentalism, however, doesn’t offer much of an afterlife. This is its fatal flaw. If life doesn’t go on, does it really matter what happens when you are gone? Here is where the environmentalist might want to take a page from the Bible.