Gosnell inspired by Galactic Cowboys song?

Kermit Gosnell, the abortion clinic doctor on trial for murder and other charges in Pennsylvania, may be able to blame his behavior on the mass media.  Gosnell could argue he was compelled to act based on the song "If I Were a Killer" by the Galactic Cowboys.

Sample lyrics:

If I were a killer
I'd hide behind a doctor's door
If I were a killer
I'd scrape you off my office floor
If I were a killer

The song contained a scarcely-concealed anti-abortion message, yet garnered some MTV airplay on the Headbanger's Ball program.




No, I don't think Gosnell was inspired by the song. Just in case somebody thinks I'm serious about that.

Nifty Music: Alpha Rev

I became acquainted with the singer for Alpha Rev through his work with the supergroup Flying Colors.  I checked out a few Alpha Rev songs last year and none of them particularly grabbed me.  But then I caught this video version of the new single from the album "Bloom" and Whoa.

Great song.  Enjoy.

Slate with must-read article on enhanced interrogation and waterboarding

The article does much to clarify certain issues that very many people continue to get wrong, such as the notion that waterboarding was used as an attempt to directly acquire intelligence information.

Did “enhanced interrogation techniques” help us find Osama Bin Laden and destroy al-Qaida? Were they torture? Were they wrong? Yesterday, three former CIA officials grappled with those questions in a forum at the American Enterprise Institute. The discussion was supposed to be about Zero Dark Thirty. But it was really a chance to see in person the thinking of the people who ran and justified the detainee interrogation program. It’s also a chance to examine our own thinking.

Read it.

Nifty Music: "The New Collisions"

Okay, so I'm late with the "discovery" and the group has already changed its name (not as memorable or I'd remember it), but this is good rockin' pop music.

2012 music faves III

I listened to British pop group "The Contrast" quite a bit this year, though they didn't release an album in 2012. Picture a more muscular REM and you've got an idea of the sound before even starting the video. I featured "I am an Alien" earlier this year, so I'm posting a 2008 video for the song "Caught in a Trap."

2012 music faves II

Surprise favorite Frankie Rose hooked me with her retro girl-group jangly pop sound. The vocals carry extra pop because it sounds almost like, well, the acoustics for a serious church choir. The whole album is solid, and "Night Swim" is suitably representative.

2012 music faves I

I had two main new music favorites over the past year. One was the supergroup "Flying Colors," featuring guitarist Steve Morse (among others).

The song "Kayla" is one of the highlights of their debut album, and the band did a great job with the song on this live version.

Tax Policy Center: Hey, how about some regressive tax reform?

The Tax Policy Center, a think-tank dedicated to tax issues, is linked to the center-left Brookings Institution.  One of its noteworthy accomplishments from the election season came when it criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax plan, saying that it would require raising taxes on the middle class.

The news media and the Obama campaign used that talking point mercilessly against Romney.

Now, the Tax Policy Center comes forward with its own tax reform plan.  At first blush, the plan calls for raising revenue and boosting the economy with regressive taxation.

At least that's my initial take.  Here's how the authors introduce their plan:

This paper examines the fiscal outlook and tax reform options in the United States.  The major conclusions include:  the United States faces a substantial fiscal shortfall in the medium- and long-term; both spending cuts and tax increases should contribute to the solution; tax increases need not do significant harm to economic growth; and there are sensible ways to both reform tax structure and raise revenues, including tax expenditure reform, the creation of a value-added tax, the creation of a carbon tax, or an increase in the gasoline tax.

The latter three all appear regressive on the face of it.  I'm not yet clear on what the authors mean by "tax expenditure reform."

It strikes me as a tad ironic that the Tax Policy Center plays a key role in producing one of the election's most notable anti-Romney talking points, a talking point that emphasizes Romney's supposed willingness to raise taxes on the middle class, and then publishes a study that apparently recommends tax reform that deliberately broadens the tax base to include the middle class and perhaps the lower class as well.

Note (after further reading of the tax proposal):

The paper eventually explains "tax expenditure" in a way that makes it resemble the reform of tax deductions Romney described during the campaign.  The authors' recommendation for a value-added tax includes the suggestion of a cash payment to all households to cancel the effect of the tax on necessities--strongly reminiscent of the tax "prebate" featured in the Fair Tax proposal.   Bottom line:  This tax reform plan will result in higher taxes on the middle class.

The Kurtz curse

Ordinarily I respect Howard Kurtz's opinion as a media expert.  But his story today on the second presidential debate is a bridge too far.

Kurtz:

By attacking moderator Candy Crowley for inserting herself into the middle of that argument, the Romney camp is diverting attention from the fact that an energized Obama often dictated the terms of the argument and frequently put their man on the defensive.

Kurtz is partly right.  Mr. Obama was energized and largely dictated the terms of the argument.

But what about Crowley's role in allowing the president to dictate the terms of the argument?

1. Crowley interrupted Romney far more often than she did the president
2. Crowley afforded the president substantially more speaking time than Romney
3. Crowley chose the questions the town hall participants would ask, which did much to set the stage for placing Romney on the defensive

It's simply the cherry on top of all this that Crowley in addition blurted out a partisan spur-of-the moment fact check in Mr. Obama's favor.

Yes, Mr. Obama marginally outperformed Romney in the debate.  But the way the cards were stacked against Romney has to be part of the story. 

Shame on Howard Kurtz for trying to minimize that part of the story.

Thanks to Northeast Musings

I appreciate Cynthia Van Doren recognizing on her Northeast Musings blog my new Zebra Fact Check project as well as the AllSides project for getting past the distortions of media bias.  J.D. and I highlighted AllSides (coincidentally?) at the PolitiFact Bias site.

Thanks, Cynthia!


10/16/2012  Fixed hyperlink/thanks to J.D. for pointing out the problem