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Newsbites and viewsbites and the power of crowd-sourced journalism

Like Tiny twisting and shifting her ears in all directions for environmental clues, we spent much of the day hanging around what Jordan Raynor calls the "Citizen-Powered News Bureau," turning our mind's ear to manageable portions of the 24/7 rush of 140-or-fewer-character newsbites and viewsbites from citizen journalists we're following on Twitter. Like a teaser headine, a well-written tweet invites us to follow the writer's Tiny URL links to larger worlds beyond. Writes Raynor: "News consumers are trusting crowd-sourced journalism to provide them with the news they want because they believe in the idea of a truly free-market journalism system where trusted news sources rise to the top naturally."

"You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you're running for the presidency," Charles Krauthammer told Megyn Kelly — first woman ever to sub as host of Fox News's flagship "Special Report with Brit Baier" — last night. We cringed at the condescension towards Sarah Palin as we grumbled to the television that oh, yes you can sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés, indefinitely, if your name is Barack Obama and big media is in the tank for you. Most annoying of all, our beloved Krauthammer agreed with liberal co-panelist Mara Liasson:

Now, as to Palin, I agree entirely with what Mara said. She is — she has star power without any doubt. She has an extremely devoted following. But she is not a serious candidate for the presidency.

She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn't. She has to stop speaking in clichés and platitudes. It won't work.

And how, pray tell, do Charles and Mara know what Sarah has or hasn't been doing beyond official duties since November? You can bet they don't follow AKGovSarahzPalin on Twitter, a great way to keep up with her schedule and priorities [Can't be sure whether she or a staffer does the actual twittering, but like Palin herself, her tweets have an authentic ring about them.] If Krauthammer and Liasson know something, let's have the details. We'd heard rumors just after the election that among other things the Alaska Governor was being mentored on foreign relations and government waste by Republican heavyweight Fred Thompson. As for those Northeast Corridor Republican fuddy-duddies who look down their noses at the hayseed caricature relentlessly spun by a biased, elitist media, we offer this insight from the executive producer of "Saturday Night Live," as quoted by Daniel Henninger during the last weeks of the fall campaign:

Lorne Michaels lives on the forward wave of American life. This week he gave his view of Sarah Palin to EW.com: "I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she's powerful. Her politics aren't my politics. But you can see that she's a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she's had a huge impact. People connect to her."

But not Charles Krauthammer and fellow members of the fuddy-duddy community. As we wrote in our very first Palin post "It's a girl?" late August last year, "Charles Krauthammer on Fox is saying McCain should pick someone 'safe' like Fred Thompson [Ironic, huh? –ed]. We LOVE Fred, of course, and our sis will remind us that we have a heart too soon made glad, but the Governor of Alaska gets our girls-just-wanna-have-fun juices flowing. Sarah, get your gun!" We're reminded of something Dr. Krauthammer said just the other day about President Obama's poor judgment in siding with the would-be dictator of Honduras:

Look, a rule of thumb here is whenever you find yourself on the side of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and the Castro twins, you ought to re-examine your assumptions.

To you, sir, we would add our own rule of thumb:

Whenever you find yourself on the side of Mara Liasson, you ought to re-examine your assumptions.

And look. Please try to avoid using that toe-curling Liassonism, "Look," at the start of every declarative sentence.

Update: Look, all animals, all the time at Modulator's Friday Ark #250.

Obama: Freedom of speech? Who needs it?

"'Freedom from Fear' (left) and 'Freedom from Want' are two of Norman Rockwell's 'The Four Freedoms' series inspired by FDR's rousing wartime State of the Union address in 1941," we captioned these images from a 2004 post. "Reproduced in four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post in 1943, the original paintings by America's favorite illustrator toured the United States, raising over $130 million for the war effort. (Norman Rockwell Museum photos)"

"Who would have thunk it? George Bush turns out to be [Actually always was. –ed] the truer proponent of freedom," twitters Fred Thompson. Joshua Muravchik explains:

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. No administration has ever made these its primary, much less its exclusive, goals overseas. But ever since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America’s diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.

This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear."

"'Freedom of Speech' left and 'Freedom to Worship' complete the series," we wrote in 2004. "We remember having reproductions of the illustrations hanging on the walls of our grade-school classrooms in the fifties and thinking even then they seemed quaintly old-fashioned. In today's world, again at war with those who would stomp on our freedoms, we see them with fresh eyes. Because Rockwell's subject matter was usually on the corny side, serious art critics tended to look down upon the artist's accomplishment, but beyond the anecdotal component — much loved by the average American — his compositional and painterly skills were quite remarkable.

Contrast Obama's anemic assertion last January that democracy is less important than "freedom from want and freedom from fear" — not to mention his tepid response to earth-shaking events in Iran and his ongoing "sledging strategy of intimidation" designed to discredit domestic dissent, from Fox News and talk radio on down to us bloggers and anti-statist tea partiers — with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's rousing State of the Union January 6, 1941:

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

As we twittered in response to Fred Thompson's observation above, "How telling Obama left out 2 of FDRs 4 freedoms: freedom of speech & freedom of worship!"

"Just ready for a post-election break"

Tiny poses with the White House Christmas card in the countdown to supper yesterday afternoon. Nice colors all around.

"YEAH, IT’S BEEN A LITTLE SLOWER THAN USUAL, writes the Professor:

I’m taking a semi-vacation from blogging this week. Still online some, but less than usual. Email in particular, isn’t getting the usual attention. Just ready for a post-election break.

The view from the front porch early morning as the faux Alps across the street at Eastern Salt catch the sun's early rays.

Yah. That's kind of how we feel of late. 'Been reading a lot of stuff — with an eye out especially for rumblings of burgeoning Palin power — thinking and discussing with Tuck and Goomp and our sis but not writing so much. We hear tell our old love Fred Thompson may be getting the Alaska Governor up to speed on foreign relations and such:

There's some low-level buzz among the Palinisti that Fred may already be quietly tutoring Sarah on FR and federal gov't waste (he wrote the book). Jeri Thompson has taken a leading role in Team Sarah, a group of mostly women that's supporting Palin, and there's speculation that Jeri has persuaded Fred to help mentor the governor.

One thing our friends on the other side of the aisle — and their fellow travelers in academia and the media — are missing big time: Sarah isn't just for evangelicals and social conservatives.

Update: More election-break opportunities, with and without backbones, at Modulator's Friday Ark #220.

How I learned to stop worrying and love John McCain

"There’s been plenty of speculation since self-described Democratic-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman started stumping for Sen. John McCain in December that Al Gore’s 2000 runningmate might reprise that role for his Republican friend," the WSJ reported three weeks back. In the wake of McCain's "monster lead" following Super-Duper Tuesday, Scott Ott of ScrappleFace is suggesting Fred Thompson's the one. Above, former Senate colleagues John McCain and Fred Thompson (AP photo)

"Nothing in America is inevitable. We are the captains of our fate. We can overcome any challenge as long as we keep our courage and stand by our principles," Super-Duper Tuesday's Republican man of the hour John McCain told supporters and the immediate universe in his Victory Party speech last night [via A Second Hand Conjecture]. The words were what we disaffected freedom-loving, small-government-embracing, invisible-hand-holding types thought we'd never hear from the free-speech-restricting, anthropogenic-global-warming-proseletyzing, economics-challenged frontrunner who is enjoying what Shepard Smith is calling a "monster lead" over rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Who knew the proprietor of the Fast-Talking Straight Talk Express had principles? According to Reason Magazine's Michael W. Lynch [via Transterrestrial Musings] in a 1999 profile of McCain, "The Good Soldier," it depends upon what your definition of principles is:

"I'm fundamentally a deregulator, a free-trader, a free-enterpriser," says McCain, as he begins to rattle off a list of libertarian bona fides. "Most of my efforts have been to reduce the size of government. I spend weeks every year trying to turn back pork-barrel projects. I fought 10 years for the line-item veto. I believe in smaller government, the best government is local government . . ."

Yah, except when it isn't:

"The tobacco deal, and perhaps for some, campaign finance, is not in keeping with my [conservative and libertarian voting record]," McCain admits, in a bit of an understatement. The question is what this high-profile apostasy says about a man who clearly wants to be president . . .

Asked what he wants people to think when they hear his name, he says "principled" without hesitation. Press accounts are salted with quotes from McCain and his admirers about how he "does what's right."

As with principles, it depends upon what your definition of what's right is, as Lynch explains:

For John McCain, principle is fundamentally about honor -- personal honor: about keeping his word, about doing what is right and doing it well. "Principle" combines honesty, stubbornness, and loyalty. This notion of principle is very different from adhering to a consistent political philosophy. It explains McCain's popular appeal, especially in contrast to the exceptionally dishonorable Clinton administration, but also accounts for the distrust, even contempt, he inspires among the ideologically committed.

"In the end," concludes Lynch [this was 1999, remember] "it looks likely that McCain's maverick sense of virtue will keep him from any serious run for the presidency":

Although his bravery and charisma might serve him well in a general election, GOP primary voters care about political consistency. The party's traditionalist and libertarian wings may bitterly oppose each other, but they both profess a definition of principle that is bourgeois, impersonal, and quite foreign to McCain. It is not enough to be honest, stubborn, and loyal.

Our principles are bourgeois and impersonal? We beg to differ. They are heartfelt and based upon a lifelong study of human nature. As for McCain himself, we're sure he's stubborn and loyal. Honest? Once again, we guess it depends upon what your definition of honest is. Then there's what George Bush Pere called "the vision thing":

When the [Weekly] Standard's [Andrew] Ferguson tried to nail him down on his vision, McCain replied: "The first thing I'd do is convene the best minds I know of in the field of foreign policy . . . I'd say, `Look, let's figure out where we are, where we need to go, and what our conceptual framework is. Let's work out a cohesive foreign policy.' I'm sure that those people, with their collective brilliance and a lot of experience, could come up with a very cohesive foreign policy."

Relying on experts "goes well with a military background," says Rahe. "The Navy and Air Force see the world as engineers, a series of technical problems that need to be fixed." McCain, who repeatedly calls on the authority of experts to justify his positions on issues ranging from foreign policy to tobacco, fits this pattern well.

In that context, Scott Ott's "Team America Strategy" on how McCain can beat the Democratic nominee begins to make sense:

A Democrat-nominated inflatable porpoise would pull at least 49 percent of the popular vote in a general election. So, what chance does maverick McCain have against a ruthless machine like Hillary '08, or a well-organized, well-funded messianic movement like Obamamania?

Short story: Sen. McCain can't do it alone . . . but Team America could. The Team America strategy calls for the war hero to run as Commander-in-Chief, and to surround himself with Lt. Generals who compensate for his weaknesses in almost every other area.

Fred Thompson on as vice president to serve as the Constitutional conscience of the administration -- an ideological gravitas behemoth -- who can do for President McCain what Dick Cheney has done for President Bush on foreign policy . . .

Mitt Romney reminds voters of "the guy who laid them off." This is, of course, precisely the kind of guy we need to tame our bloated bureaucracy . . . as director of the Office of Management and Budget . . .

Rep. Tom Tancredo, the stalwart champion of secure borders and respect for the rule of law, would naturally serve as director of U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (formerly the INS). Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani could head up the Department of Homeland Security.

Now that's an administration we could get on board with. One final note -- as we ourselves suggested here the other day for the self-professed economics-challenged Senator McCain -- from Betsy Newmark: "I think a lot of politicians would benefit from getting a tutorial from Thomas Sowell."

Update: Welcome, Instapundit readers! If McCain's nomination doesn't kill us, it will make us stronger.

Update II: Welcome, Maggie's Farm readers!

Update III: Welcome, fellow asylum inmates. Dr. Sanity is in.

The trumpet of a prophecy!

Babe inspects a low-lying branch of the privet, a feline version of the Drudge Report, filled with links to the latest news.

We stayed up for the debate and agree with pollster Frank Luntz's panel of everyday folk that Fred's the one. Some are saying it's "too little too late." They need to relax. Meanwhile, in imail news:

We: There should be another quickie ANIMAL post up by the time you reboot tomorrow morning. I have an awesome picture of Baby meeping outside. Trying to come up with some copy.

She: Can you send me the picture? I love making up copy.

We: It's in the mail!

She: He looks like the happiest cat on earth.

We: To me he looks very intense, reading the scent messages.

She: The warm weather must have brought out scents, yes. "Ah, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?"

We: That's it!

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,    
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

-- From Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Update: In spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. Elisson in the comments:

Percy Bysshe
Would take a pysshe
In Lake Geneva's water.
Then, without fail,
Begin to nail
Good Mister Godwin's daughter.

Thanks, good lookin'.

Update: Heartbreaking news -- via Modulator's Friday Ark #173 -- from the Father of the Felinosphere, Laurence Simon, who has lost his precious Frisky, blogged here from time to time through the years. You can read more about Frisky, Edloe and Piper at blogHOUSTON.

"Frisky, AKA Mr. Fluffy, defends box in dramatic photo series," we captioned this image of one of Laurence Simon's lionized feline companions back in April of 2004.

A poignant and poetic tribute to Frisky from Blog d'Elisson:

The love humans feel for their Animal Buddies is fraught with the deep knowledge that our longer lifespans virtually guarantee painful farewells. It is the Way of the World.

Loving our two cats the way we do, we can barely force ourselves to imagine that they will not always be with us. And having met Frisky -- and the rest of the Simon menagerie -- I can personally attest to the deep affection Lair and Gina have for their cats . . . all of them.

Godspeed, Mr. Fluffy.

Behind a smokescreen of environmental concern

Nothing beats Baby Cakes backlit by the sun. All majesty and splendor and pink ears.

"But why worry about making a product so good people feel they have to have it, when you can instead get the government to tell them they have no choice?" asks WSJ editorial board member Brian M. Carney rhetorically in his must-read "Bye Bye Lightbulb," a window into the way Congress and the president run mercantilistic interference for chosen clients behind a smokescreen of environmental concern:

OK, they did not exactly ban them. But the energy bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush [blogged here] sets energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs that traditional incandescent bulbs cannot meet.

Spiral-type compact fluorescent lamp. "Many CFLs are designed to replace an incandescent lamp and can fit in the existing light fixtures formerly used for incandescents," according to Wikipedia.

As we blogged last April on what we called "the spectacle of our fellow Americans congratulating themselves for replacing light bulbs":

Glenn Reynolds had the last word on the virtues of CFLs [compact fluorescent lamps] months ago when he noted that low-energy bulbs were already making inroads driven by market forces.

It appears, however, that the powers that be and the lobbyists who enable them can't wait for the invisible hand to deliver the goods. Carney continues cynically:

Now, I'm sure that Philips and GE and Sylvania all want to make the world a better place and so on. But if they can do so while at the same time getting the government to force their customers to pay 10 times as much for their products, well . . . did they mention that they're making the world a better place? The light bulb that costs 10 times as much does, it is true, last four times as long. But if you're a lightbulb maker, that's a pretty good trade.

If you're a consumer, you have to decide that for yourself. Except that, after the ban, you won't be allowed to any more. You just got traded up, forcibly, to a "better" product.

The halogen spotlight in the kitchen combines with late-afternoon light streaming in the window to bring out the peaches-and-cream loveliness of all that is Tiny.

Creeping nanny statism and cryptic subsidization of major manufacturers -- a marriage made in Beltway Hell.

Update: Major species subsidization under way at Friday Ark #172 at Modulator.

Update II: Goomp in the comments:

I think Brian Carney misses the real force behind the move to CFL light bulbs. While I have no doubt the manufacturers are pleased with the laws mandating their use, the real driving force is the "I want to feel important and noble" urges of environmental nutcakes whom lawmakers wish to accommodate.

Exactly. That would be Schopenhauer's informational and reputational "cascades" of sheeplike belief formation that cause flat-earthers to crowd the cultural ether in every era.

Update: Maggie's Farm links.

Sometimes a cigar is NOT just a cigar

"Mental institution, Michael. It might be something you should think about," confides a Cuban-cigar-chomping Fred Thompson in the above-linked faux-fatherly-advice rapid response video to Michael Moore's whiney debate challenge to the unannounced presidential candidate, a Drudge exclusive this morning. With apologies to Siggy, sometimes a cigar is NOT just a cigar. In Senator Thompson's hand and mouth it becomes a WMD to atomize the portly crockumentary filmmaker's house of cards. Class will out.

Meanwhile, forget about Brit Hume and the "First-in-the-South Republican Primary Yawner Debate" on Fox News tonight. Too many candidates, too many words, too little beef. Drudge and Thompson leave Hume and the Ten Little Indians in the pixel dust.

Update: "Fred Thompson is the first politician anywhere to understand how the speed of the internet can change politics," writes Bob Krum [via Instapundit], who has a military term for what the Senator just did:

This is something that should alarm Fred’s opponents -- both Republican and Democrat.  In certain military circles there’s this concept known as the “OODA Loop.”  OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act.  The late Colonel John Boyd, a Korean War pilot, came up with the concept to try to explain why American pilots were so much better than their opponents in dogfights.  He determined that through a combination of training, aerodynamics, and cockpit design, American pilots and their aircraft could more quickly observe a stimulus and respond.  It allowed them to react and act again and again so quickly, that at some point, the American fliers were an entire decision cycle ahead of their opponents.  It’s called “getting inside your opponent’s OODA loop.”

Roger Abramson seems to be channeling our own thoughts:

By the way, Thompson’s response to Moore will have a much greater impact on the presidential campaign than anything said at this little shindig tonight. It’ll be seen by many more people too.

This is starting to get interesting.

Update II:  A backdoor Instalanchette. We left a linked message in the comments at VolunteerVoters.com, to whom the Lancherizer had linked. Hey. We get it where we can.

Update III: Michael Moore should have done a Google search before opening his big, fat mouth. On the other hand, why would he? He's never been one to allow himself to be confused by the facts. Goomp -- who traveled to Cuba as a young businessman in his salad days -- in the comments:

When I smoked cigars twenty years ago, I loved them, Cuban cigars had become illegal because of Castro's repressive liberal ideas. I checked with Google and find that we have relented and it is now legal to buy Cubans. They are the best.

I'll puff to that.

"I've got all the faith in the world in this horse"

"I didn't watch it," says dark horse Fred Thompson in an engaging Brietbart TV interview re the recent MSNBC ten-little-indians sideshow . "Ten people and Chris Matthews. That's quite a challenge, shall we say?" Compare the authentic conversational tone with Hillary's transparently all-about-me invitation to join her in "conversation" in the early days of her presidential bid. "National security has to be the overriding issue," adds Fred, even as Hillary is "calling for" a reneging of authorization for the war in Iraq.

"Besides his strong defense of federalism and his obvious telegenic qualities, Thompson does not cut a profile different from the top-tier GOP candidates," asserts Daniel Drezner, challenging his readers to respond to the question

Will Thompson only be the flavor of the month until he announces?

Those were fighting words -- not to mention grist for our blogmill -- what with our just having watched and listened to and fallen head-over-heels all over again for the Fredster himself in a soothingly straight-shooting Brietbart TV interview now making the rounds. You can listen to it here ["BOOKMARK THIS NEW SITE. IT'S GOING TO MAKE HISTORY!" notes an appealingly hyperventilating Lucianne]. We're still bothered with Thompson's having supported McCain-Feingold, of course, but nobody's perfect. While all about him were losing their heads at Thursday's Republican "debate," this dark horse has been moving up along the inner rail, with op eds showing up at Pajamas Media, Red State, National Review Online and other blogs, building "a buzz online," as CBS News headlines. Here's what we wrote in Drezner's comments:

My gut feeling is that Fred Thompson's come-from-behind "strategery" is akin to that of "dark bay colt" Street Smart at yesterday's Kentucky Derby. As his jockey said, his voice atremble, "I've got all the faith in the world in this horse."

Faith, hope and love. It's downright Biblical. That's what Ronnie gave us way back when, and that's what the Democrats' suave, white-guilt-assuaging "perfect negro" -- Joe Biden's "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" who emerged full blown from Oprah's brow last fall -- is offering. Now we folks on the right side of the aisle have got our own savior figure upon which to project our own faith, hope and love. 'Don't know whether it will last, but for now we're enjoying the view.

Speaking of enjoying the view, want some frosting on the cake? Pro-American Frenchman Nicolas Sarkozy has won the presidential election 55% to 46%, with an 86% turnout. We were lucky enough to have been tuned in to C-Span just as his socialist opponent Ségolène Royal conceded and the man of the hour took the podium. As of this posting, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC haven't breathed a word, but PJMs Paris correspondent, Nidra Poller is on the case. Goosebumps to hear the new leader of La Belle France saying something we thought we'd never hear from our amis over there:

I would like our American friends to know that they can count on our friendship.

According to the Times, it probably won't make that much of a difference:

There is something about the French that resists a change, even in times of trouble. Historians famously trace it to the Enlightenment, when France developed a republican model based on the collective will. By contrast, republican models in Britain and America stressed the primacy of economics and individualism -- what the French still, with a shudder, call liberalism.

Even so, until further notice, Allons enfants de la Patrie!