Brian Williams the shill

Visiting with good friends -- mostly liberals -- recently in Wyoming and Montana, it was enlightening to find that their main source of "news", at least of the television variety, was that served up by NBC's Brian Williams.  The news that yours truly found Williams generally far too biased politically and and therefore too big government solution orientated was largely greeted by these friends with indifference. Perhaps they did not find his reporting biased, or if they did, didn't care, or preferred Williams' world view.   This bit of reporting by Geoffrey Dickens of Newsbusters leaves no doubt for calling Williams what he is: a shill for the Democrat Party in general and Obama in particular.  And why not?  NBC is owned by the largest rent seeking corporation in the US, GE, who probably has more full time lobbyists than any other corporation and who has a huge stake in a large and growing federal government.  Such is the problem with a massive industrial corporation owning a major media outlet that is by the terms of its FCC license agreement supposed to be doing its news coverage business in the interests of all the people without regard to politics.  

Another Berlinski

As a fan of Claire Berlinski's reportage from her post as a free lancer in Istanbul, it was a great pleasure to discover this interview with her father David Berlinski by Peter Robinson on the Uncommon Knowledge site.  Berlinski's daughter is extremely insightful on middle eastern affairs and one can understand how she comes by her intellectual firepower by watching a rather long but most interesting video.

Special treat in Copenhagen

Events such as this one which occurred in the Central Train Station in Copenhagen seem to be taking place more often lately.  Various city Philharmonics have appeared during Christmastime in malls in the US.  Its a particularly effective way to popularize great music and is effective in that cause as evidenced by the crowd reaction in this video.

How the liberal mind works

This is a long (57 minutes) interview of Fran Rich by Brian Lamb of C-Span.  It is particularly interesting in that it reveals quite clearly the approach to issues and events by a true blue liberal.  Rich is a product of the Washington/New York axis of media elites who don't think the rest of the country matters all that much.  Most of his opinions and views are about politics, or so it seems from this interview.  There is little or no mention of economics and capitalism and all the real stuff that makes the world go around.  Rich very much lives in the liberal cocoon of interests and thoughts reflected in the famous remark by one of the TV anchors who once said no one he knew approved of the Iraq intervention by the Bush administration.  Rich was a theatre critic before his gig as an op-ed contributor to the NYTimes, where he has been employed many years.  Interestingly he seems recently to have soured on Obama although not in this interview which took place before the election of '08.