Television Sound Explained

Aiming for the Middle Brow

John Derbyshire with good thoughts to chew on: How Radio Wrecks the Right.

With reasons for gratitude duly noted, are there some downsides to conservative talk radio? Taking the conservative project as a whole—limited government, fiscal prudence, equality under law, personal liberty, patriotism, realism abroad—has talk radio helped or hurt? All those good things are plainly off the table for the next four years at least, a prospect that conservatives can only view with anguish. Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs?

They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly. The big names, too, were all uncritical of the decade-long (at least) efforts to “build democracy” in no-account nations with politically primitive populations. Sean Hannity called the Iraq War a “massive success,” and in January 2008 deemed the U.S. economy “phenomenal.”

Update:

Derb has found some thoughts from Terry Teachout on the subject of the Middlebrow Moment.

TSA: A dagger in the heart of General Aviation

If the technicalities of the latest “security” proposal from the paranoid jackboots at the TSA seem hard to follow, this should make it very clear.

This is not a big plane, and the idea that when it’s in private operation it should face the same security as a commercial airplane is laughable. Do we need to screen all five passengers that are traveling together from the same company? Should we not let them on with a knife just because they’re on a plane instead of anywhere else? Please. . . . This would put another dagger in the heart of general aviation, an industry that has already taken more than its share of pain this year.

The Philosophical Angle on Intelligent Design

A good take down here by Larry Herzberg.

The strongest objection relates to the fallacy of the man who was dealt a Royal Flush and said, since the odds are so great against being dealt this hand I must not have it.

If Earth, the universe, and the laws of physics seem fine-tuned for our existence it’s because we are a product of the earth, the universe and the laws of physics. Life does exist and, as a commenter above points out, winning the lottery is not a proof of the existence of any god.

The Wonders of Inflation!

Gosh, I sure hope the government does everything it can to lower the purchasing price of the dollar! It sure worked swell last time!