Potpourri

Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.

This is tax day for those of us who filed an extension back in April. As I write out the check and address the envelope, I can’t help but think of Senator Obama’s promise that he only wants to raise taxes on the top 5% of Americans – the rest of us will get a tax cut, and that’s only fair…isn’t it? Yes, class warfare is alive and well in America, and the Democrats love to fan the flames. Of course the whole thing is bogus. There are any number of good articles out there that debunk the claim that Obama will give tax cuts to 95% of us. If you care to look for them, you’ll find them. I don’t have the energy to recap them all here. Not after writing the check I have to write.

Of course, now that I’ve filed, in a few more months I’ll get my $1,200 “stimulus” check. In fact, if the Democrats get their way, there may be even more “stimulus” money coming back to me. What I’d really like to know, though, is how much it cost the government to take my money in, and then process a check back to me. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just let me keep more of it in the first place?

And when did the New York Times jump the shark? Its reportage has become so predictable, it has become such a caricature of itself, that I think it’s clear that it has. It’s only a question of how far back we have to go to find the moment. Speaking of predictable reportage, how about this: The NYT review of the movie American Carol, which is a satire of Michael Moore’s movies, says that “Cheap shots and mean spirits abound,” and that the movie contains “satirical bigotry.” On the other hand, Bill Maher’s new movie, Religulous, which is guaranteed to offend just about any person of faith, is “extremely funny in a similarly [referring to the movie Borat by the same director] irreverent, offhanded way.” But, after all, “The majority of Americans…embrace some form of blind faith,” so "The majority of his subjects are easy targets."

This attitude is nothing new, of course, nor is it confined to the New York Times. Frankly, the last straw that caused me to cancel my subscription to the Seattle Times was the blatantly anti-religious bias that was evident in the way the paper covered The Passion of the Christ compared to The Last Temptation of Christ.

But that’s OK…the beauty of a free market is that people get to vote with their pocketbooks, and newspapers like the New York Times are losing circulation like crazy: down 3.8% in the 6 months ending this past March. Of course, it would never occur to them that their editorial bias has anything to do with declining circulation. They’re convinced that they are on the side of the angels, and they’re being victimized by alternative media like the Internet.

Oh, and did you hear the news about the new porn flick that stars a Barak Obama look-alike? HA! Who am I kidding? Nobody could get away with making a movie like that – howls of outrage would ring from sea to shining sea, they would be castigated by every news outlet in the world, they would be called racist, they would probably be sued by somebody like moveon.org, we’d never hear the end of it! It would be a national and international outrage! No, Larry Flynt’s porn movie, which reportedly has already been shot, stars a Sarah Palin look-alike! And we all know that’s just all in good fun. Why, it’s in the fine old American tradition of political satire, and who could possibly object to that? Double standard? What double standard?

Thanks for listening.