Back in Business - Blogging by Numbers!!!

First off, I get it. The vlog was not the most popular item I've posted. It looks like I'm speaking from a dark cave in the mountainous regions of Pakistan, and because I was suffering from a nasty respiratory tract infection the day I posted it, I sounded like a Canadian version of the Taco Bell Chihuahua with throat cancer. Some kind readers have suggested that if I tweaked it a little here and there, it might be something they could get on board with, but the overall consensus is that it was bad. Not Vanilla Sky bad, but not the sort of quality my fans have come expect from the Hype. You've all said pretty clearly that you come here for the writing, and that's extremely humbling and flattering.

Many of you have been waiting for the "year in review" article I write each January. Unfortunately, it's not happening this year because I'm a lazy bastard I think it's a little late in the game at this point - unless of course, I take a cue from Charlie Sheen and declare it so late that I'm winning. It's now no secret that my mother was battling cancer for the last 14 months. She passed away April 19th, and my father, who never left her side, passed away unexpectedly a few weeks earlier, on March 28th. As you can imagine, my priorities were adjusted accordingly. The blog has been on a break, and it might be a slow year for the Hype, but TSH is not going anywhere, so please be patient and I'll be back up to speed at some point.

The Hype has never really been a "blog", in the traditional sense. Blogging is simply a means to an end - a format I use. I have always considered TSH to be a website. I don't like to cram scatter-shot opinions every day, the way Justice Sotomayor crams Pabst Blue Ribbon and dog-eared back issues of "The Public Interest" on Friday nights. There's lots of daily red meat on my facebook page, so feel free to "like me" if you want in on some of that sweet libertoid-conservative moonshine.

Let the Blogging by Numbers begin!!

1 - This morning I was scrolling through Google News to check out the disastrous OMB stats, when I noticed we are still being forced to suffer through the ranting of NPR's answer to Rooster Cogburn, Prima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnic. For my Canadian readers, NPR is America's answer to CBC radio, if CBC was twice as liberal and a third less boring. Most locals know Dupnic has a long a career of hogging the spotlight with his myopic left wing views on everything from immigration to the Tea Partiers, but ever since he grabbed the global media spotlight as the self-appointed National Discourse Referee in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings, it seems he has no intentions of shutting up.

For those who may not recall, while Sherriff Dupnic was spending his time making the rounds on the national talk show circuit, his deputies were wasting the crucial first 48 hours of the investigation trying to find evidence to support his hypothesis that right wing talk radio and the conservative movement had somehow triggered Jarad Lee Loughner into committing the shooting spree that left six people dead and 13 injured. The media was quick to take the lead on this narrative, with Paul Krugman and Keith Olbermann blaming Sarah Palin and other conservatives for the massacre, even before the name of the shooter had been released. As we go to print, Krugman is still refusing to let go of his pet theory, proving once again that intelligence is not a prerequisite for winning the Nobel Prize in economics (can't remember who first made that joke, but please accept a hat tip).

Would it be nice to have more civility in public discourse? Of course, but claiming that increased awareness and passionate engagement in the political process incites mass murder is the cheapest and lowest form of treating the supposed illness some disingenuously claim they want to cure.

2 - YES WE CAN!! By 'we' I mean President Obama, and by 'can' I mean can drive the economy into the tank faster than you can say 'Sister Suzie Sittin' on a Stimulus'. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the housing market has tanked for the 57th consecutive month. 7 million Americans have joined the ranks of the jobless, with unemployment touching double digits, and the deficit sitting at 16.5 trillion dollars. The President campaigned on a plethora of feel good platitudes and olive leaf diplomacy, and handing him the Presidency brings to mind the famous P.J. O'Rourke quip about how handing over power and money to a politician is like handing car keys and whisky to a teenage boy. Obama is driving drunk with your money, and has wedged himself further into the "car in the ditch" metaphor he was so fond of using on the campaign trail.

3 - There's nothing I deplore more than junk science and left-wing media hysteria (except for people who say 'fuss-strated' instead of 'frustrated'). Combine the two and people usually start dying as a result of activism by affluent Western liberals who think third world poverty is better than American capitalism...just as long as they're not the ones living in squalor.

Over thirty years ago the restriction on the use of DDT - based on the faulty claim that it posed a risk to wildlife - contributed to the deaths of an estimated 20 million people from malaria. Five years after the ban on DDT was placed in Sri Lanka, cases of Malaria jumped from an astounding 17 in 1964 to an estimated 2,500,000 by 1969. When environmentalist Charles Worster was presented with the disastrous effects the restrictions were having on human life, he responded;

"So what? People are the causes of all the problems; we have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this is as good a way as any."

While Japan was dealing with the aftermath of a wide scale disaster and recovery efforts were ongoing, the hemp soaked, Leary incarnates took to the streets with "No Nukes" signs. As Jonah and I pointed out at the time, no one was hurt or died in the infamous Three Mile Island accident that was often dragged out as a comparison. What type of power source has provided the most fatalities in the last decade? Eco-friendly Wind Farming! The global media focused so much attention on a nuclear Holocaust that never transpired, man power was diverted from rescue efforts where they were really needed. God rest their souls.

4 - There is no Joe - there is only Zuul.

5 - Osama Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes, and it was only a matter of time before sanctimonious liberal terrorist apologists would begin wagging their fingers at the victims of 9/11 for cheering the end of a man who caused so much death and destruction, and the disruption of American life to this day (if you've hopped on a plane recently, you probably got the full cavity shake down without the happy ending). There are reasonable arguments detailing why we should show restraint - many of my staunchly conservative readers have made very strong cases for just that. James Bowman pointed out, drawing from the lessons of the sinking of the Santiago by Captain Philip during the Spanish American war, that there is a solid case to be made for restraint, but none of those reasonable arguments are coming from the global left.

The most annoying of these arguments is the "how would Americans feel if Osama Bin Laden killed President Obama, and Arabs took to the street cheering with placards showing the President's body?" Please. First, Osama Bin Laden was not the President of any country. He was the leader of a terrorist organization living like a coward in the comfort of a villa in a Pakistani suburb. Secondly, radical Arabs make a weekly habit of showing the latest head they've lopped off on the Internet. Lastly, as the twin towers were crumbling to the ground, much of the Arab world erupted in a week long Islamic mardi gras. Restraint, harkening back to Bowman's point, is in keeping with the best traditions of the Western Honor culture. As for the complaints of liberals, they're nothing more than the usual boiler plate loathing of America they can't help from voicing.

6 - DON'T STIFLE MY CREATIVITY!!!

7 - My editor/wife/dominatrix would like to remind everyone that the 3rd annual Oslo Freedom Forum is underway, and the only game in town as far insightful commentary comes from the invaluable Jay Nordlinger over at NRO. It's must-read stuff, so head on over after you've forwarded the link to this blog piece to everyone you know and some you don't.

8 - Life is too short to read the Huffpo.

Cordially

Joe