WEST COAST DOCKWORKERS' WAGES
I questioned on Thursday the accuracy of wages being reported in the major media for the dockworkers being locked out at West Coast ports, because the figures seem completely outrageous. This CNN article gives a slightly larger explanation on dockworker wages.

ILWU members are among the best paid blue collar workers in the nation. PMA figures show longshoremen earned an average of $82,895 last year, clerks averaged $118,844 and foremen, who are members of the union, averaged $157,352.

Almost 30 percent of union members in the longshoremen classification work less than 1,600 hours a year, equivalent to 40 hours a week for 40 weeks.

Only a bit more than half work 2,000 or more hours, which is essentially full-time employment across the year. Those working 2,000 or more hours had average pay of $106,883 in 2001, according to PMA.

Unfortately, I still don't have an accurate picture of the wages, because I still don't know what the median wages are for each position, and how much overtime was worked to reach the median wage. This page at the Pacific Maritime Association provides hours, wages and shifts reports, and I'll play with the data to see if I can't get a more accurate picture of what type of wages the dockworkers are making and how much overtime is being worked.

ESPN2'S FEMALE COLLEGE FOOTBALL ANNOUNCER IS HORRIBLE
Pam Ward is calling Big Ten college football games for ESPN2, teaming with former Ohio State and Detroit Lions linebacker Chris Spielman. Having received degrees from two Big Ten universities, I am disappointed to have to listen to this substandard announcer on Saturdays. Besides having a weak announcer's voice, Ward does not understand the concept of providing basic information like who caught or carried the ball, who made the tackle, how long the play was, what down it is, and how much more is needed for the first down. Many television announcers fall down on providing basic information nowadays, probably because they rely too much on television graphics, but Ward is particularly bad.

I suppose when Ward is rightly let go by ESPN, NOW and other women's groups will be in an uproar. You can read USA Today's puff piece on Ward here.

BASEBALL PLAYOFFS, PART II
Radley Balko of The Agitator argues it is a myth that small-market baseball teams don't have a chance by looking at this year’s playoff team. I’ve seen other bloggers link to Balko’s post, so I feel it’s my duty to point out the two biggest errors in Balko’s argument.

The first problem is Balko only looked at this year’s playoff teams. To come up with a true picture of the lack of competitiveness of small-market teams, Balko needed to look at playoff teams since 1995, when the last collective-bargaining agreement was signed. Bob Costas’ Fair Play: A Fan’s Case for Baseball argued that all of the data from 1995 through 1999 showed that big-market teams had a huge advantage in making the playoffs.

The Minnesota Twins making the playoffs this year is absolutely not proof that small-market teams can regularly compete with big-market teams. Minnesota played in the weakest division with other small-market teams. By taking advantage of the weighted schedule, Minnesota’s record against the American League Central was 50-25. A rainout against the worst team in baseball, Detroit, prevented Minnesota from tying Boston for the best division record in baseball at 51-25. Minnesota didn’t even have a winning record against the rest of the American League. Playing on turf in a dome, which is extremely rare in baseball now, gives Minnesota a distinct home-field advantage, and Minnesota did win two-thirds of its home game, tied for best in the American League. But as you might have guessed, Minnesota has the worst record of the eight playoff teams. Yes, a team can get lucky every so often in baseball.

If there is a true anomaly in baseball, it is the Oakland A’s, who have made the playoffs the last three years. Oakland is probably the best run team in baseball, but we all know Oakland and Minnesota will not be able to afford to keep these teams in tact under free agency.

The second problem with Balko’s analysis is he linked to Nielsen Media Research data for metropolitan market sizes, and discussed teams sharing a media market by splitting the market. Since media markets aren’t evenly split by multiple teams and there is overlap, a more appropriate way to look at media markets is this study that estimates the true market size of a baseball team.

But even true market size of a baseball team isn’t the best way to determine who the haves and have-nots are in baseball. The data that really matters isn’t how big the market is, but how much money is actually derived from the local market. This spreadsheet at Major League Baseball shows the local television, radio, and cable revenue dollars for each team for 2001. You can see that the New York Yankees' local media revenue was $56.75 million, which is almost 23% higher than the next team, the New York Mets. Seven teams generated less than $10 million dollars in local media revenues, and 25 of the 28 baseball teams not located in New York generated local media revenues less than half of the Yankees' $56.75 million.

But even local media revenue isn’t the complete picture. The Major League Baseball spreadsheet shows game-receipt revenue and other local revenues. If you look at this money, which is a lot more than the local media revenues, you can very easily guess which smaller-market teams have new, taxpayer-financed stadiums. San Francisco and Seattle are making a killing on their stadiums, and both have made the playoffs two out the last three years.

One last item to consider is the depth of the owners’ pockets. Teams with wealthy owners willing to lose money to win have done well like Arizona, Cleveland, and Florida in 1997 under Wayne Huizenga. Teams without deep pockets or teams with large corporate ownership that demand financial accountability have not done so well.

Baseball has a lot of competitive problems. Ultimately when so many teams consistently don't have a chance to win, it's bad for the entire sport. Kids in small markets are far more interested in football, so the fan base is drying up. To make up for the low ratings and revenue shortfalls, Major League Baseball resorts to doing silly things like expanding the playoffs and designating wild-card teams.

QUICK 3 1/2 STAR MOVIE REVIEW
HBO is now playing the movie Evolution, released last summer. I recall not being excited by the commercials, but it turns out that was just bad marketing. The movie is hilarious, and bound to be a comedy classic.

Also, the movie has the second best product placement in recent movie history after Cast Away and its use of the FedEx brand. You'll have to watch Evolution to find out which well known consumer product is so critical to the movie plot.

Here's Roger Ebert's 2 1/2 star review from last summer.

WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN
I'm ususally the first in line to say how lazy, overpaid, and corrupt union workers are, but something does strike me as not quite correct. Most publications are reporting the annual wages of the dockworkers at $80,000 to $150,000, including The L.A. Times and The New York Times (actually NYT is reporting wages as high as $158,000).

This pay range appears so exorbitant that I suspect most of the dockworkers are on the low end of the annual pay range, and these dockworkers are working a lot of overtime. I also suspect that the media has been too lazy to independently confirm these figures, so I don't know what to believe.

Because the annual pay ranges being reported are so outrageous, most Americans probably have very little sympathy with the dockworkers, which I certainly don't have a problem with. I'm simply surprised that the left-wing media would present the dockworkers' pay in such a negative way, when there is an opportunity to present the data without mentioning $150,000. I guess journalists' inability to understand even the most basic statistics is preventing the data from being presented in another way.

Username: sabertooth1. Password: sabertooth1.

BASEBALL PLAYOFFS
It's baseball playoffs time and football season in America, so my Australian and European readers will have to bear with me while I make some very important sports-related comments this month.

I'm not a fan of the wild-card team in baseball playoffs or even three divisions in each league for that matter. But given the current baseball playoff format and league organization, I have a few recommendations that will increase fan interest, raise television ratings, preserve the sanctity of the game, and ultimately lead to more revenue for Major League Baseball.

The most desirable match-up in the World Series is a meeting of the best team from each league, so the likelihood of this occurring should be increased. Again, this is good for fan interest and ratings, and it also rewards teams for maintaining consistent excellence over a 162-game season. Unfortunately, the advent of the wild-card team in the baseball playoffs undermines these principles and decreases the likelihood of a stellar World Series match-up, because a weaker wild-card team can get lucky in a best-of-five series and knock off the best team.

To correct this flaw, I propose the following two changes. First, a few days should be taken off between the end of the season and the playoffs and in between playoff rounds to allow for teams to set up their most desirable pitching rotation. Teams should not be penalized for having better competition, especially teams with better records than their playoff competition. Second, there should be no days off during a playoff series. A five- or seven-game series must be played on consecutive days. Teams would be forced to use standard five-pitcher rotations, so the advantage would go to the overall better team, not the team with two dominating pitchers. It's possible to fly across the country and still play on consecutive nights, and both teams would have to deal with identical travel problems. I also suspect there would be greater fan interest and ratings if games were played on consecutive nights instead of fans guessing whether or not a playoff game is on television on any given day.

Send me your baseball comments, and read Off-wing Opinion.

NEW YORK TIMES PUBLISHES SEXIST GARBAGE
I'm trying to focus more on West Coast media, but I couldn't help but comment on today's opinion piece by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. A quick scan throught the blogosphere didn't turn up any comments on Dowd's column, so it's up to me to point out the gross sexism in a column that the New York Times or any other "respected" newspaper would never publish if a man wrote something similar about women.

Here's the first paragraph of the column: "Watching Robert Torricelli mist and mewl, as he was torn from the bosom of the Senate, gave me new pause over that old question: Are men biologically suited to hold political office and leadership positions?"

Can you imagine a male New York Times columnist asking if women are biologically suited to hold political office and leadership positions? Of course not, because it would never happen. The New York Times would never publish such a thing, and a male columnist would never write such a thing without fear of being fired.

Ms. Dowd is regularly slammed by bloggers, including Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds, so it's possible the lack of comments regarding today's column are because Ms. Dowd is held in such low esteem that it's no longer worth other people's time to comment on her stupidity.

THE SPLIT IN THE LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT
InstaPundit has a post referring to a National Review article about libertarians and the war. The split in libertarian ranks was obvious on the very day of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit is quoted in the article as saying: "I think there's a split among libertarians between those who view government as the enemy and those who view individual self-defense as the most important right. There's a lot of overlap in political positions between people who take those views. To a lot of libertarians, the war looks like self-defense writ large. Whereas to another class of libertarians, anything that strengthens the state is wrong, even in self-defense."

I disagree that this is the crux of the split. I think the split between the big-L Libertarian Party anti-war group and the little-l libertarians who back military force in the Middle East has to do with fundamental principles of each group. I think big-L Libertarians believe in minimizing coercion, which includes minimizing not only the coercive power of government in Americans' everyday lives, but also minimizing the coercive power of American foreign policy and the American military on other peoples and nations. Small-l libertarians believe in maximizing individual liberty, which includes the freedom to trade and do business with people from other countries, and the expectation that property rights and freedoms will be protected. An American foreign policy that proactively encourages democracy and capitalism in foreign countries leads not only to greater individual liberty in America and the world, but ultimately it leads to peace.

I never seriously considered joining the Libertarian Party, because it has always had what I consider an incorrect and even naive anti-military stance even before 9/11. Plus all evidence shows supporting third parties in single-representative, winner-take-all districts is a wasted vote, because a coalition will almost always be built to attract a majority or plurality of the voters in the district. I've been so put off by the anti-war rhetoric of big-L Libertarians since the attacks that I prefer to call myself a "free marketer," as opposed to a "small-l libertarian."

THE GREED OF SOCIALISM
Australian John Ray writes a fascinating blog called Dissecting Leftism. John is a professor, so his blog is an academic journal of thoughts and ideas the he pulls together to be published as academic papers. I previously linked to one of his papers that was posted on Frontpage Magazine.

Anyway, John's most recent postings are a product of our e-mail discussions. John has made entries before on his blog after having an e-mail discussion with me, and I have to admit it is flattering that some of my thought on socialism and socialists could end up in an academic paper.

My friends and family may recognize my "Socialism is Greed" argument in the second paragraph of John's first posting. I've always been amazed at the absurdity of the "Capitalism is Greed" and "Corporate Greed" accusations by the left and their media friends, when the fundamental principle of socialism is greed. Calls for "sharing the wealth," expanding the welfare state, and progressive taxes are simply demands for stealing what others have earned. It is greed, pure and simple. Using the coercive power of the state to confiscate others' property and wealth does not legitimize these gross principles and ideology; it makes it worse.

Union workers going on strike over wages is no different. Striking workers holding "Stop Corporate Greed" are really the ultimate in hypocrisy. Union workers are already getting wages above the market rate of labor. Yet when they strike, they are demanding an even larger difference between their wages and the market rate. They attack executives for high compensation, but they are demanding the same thing. They attack the "greed" of corporate profits, yet demanding higher wages is the equivolent of higher profit on their labor. So who's greedy?

When you read John's blog, note that I never would have said or written, "Is it not greed to use the coercive power of unions to receive an unfair wage, often at the expense of other less-unionized workers?" The greed of unions is at the expense of capitalists and stockholders who have taken responsibility for themselves and risked their own capital--the type of responsibility and risk that union workers refuse to take--not at the expense of other workers.

I'll be commenting on some of John's ideas regarding the left-wing infestation of mainstream churches in the very near future.

SABERTOOTH TIP USED IN WSJ'S BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
Yesterday I sent a tip to the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web Today column. I mentioned the Steve Lopez column from Sunday's Los Angeles Times that claimed, "National polls, some of which suggest 70% of Americans support a war against Iraq, are not to be trusted. Roughly 75% of the readers of this column are opposed." The Wall Street Journal filed the Lopez column under "Stupidity Watch." I mentioned the column on Sunday in my SUNDAY LOS ANGELES TIMES WRAP-UP.

MAJORITY OF L.A. PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS FAILING GRADUATION EXAMS
In an article from today's L.A. Daily News, it was reported that only 45 percent of Los Angeles public schools' high-school students passed the English-language arts section while only 21 percent passed the math section of California's graduation exam.

What does Superintendent Roy Romer propose to fix this problem? You guess it: more public school! Romer proposes adding a 13th year of school and extending the school day for those students not passing the graduation test. What wonderful logic. Give students more of what already didn't work and magically the problem will be solved. Maybe I can start a government program that cures alcoholics by force feeding them beer.

What's even more amazing are the some the actual quotes from the story, which outright state Los Angeles public schools are a failure and these results should be expected. Here are two quotes in the article from Romer himself:

"What we see here is obviously disappointing results of 10 years of failure of urban districts. We know that. It's no surprise to us."

"We have a system in which the culture has been, Give them a D and pass."

Wow! The head of the Los Angeles public schools is publicly saying that the district is a failure, he isn't surprised how poorly these students did on the exam, and that the fundamental culture of the school system is to simply pass on uneducated kids.

But the best quote comes from Chatsworth High Principal Dan Wyatt who says, "There will be some in every school who won't pass the test and thus won't graduate. I think once the state Legislature sees what the statewide results are, there might be a revision on the test." That's right. The problem can be fixed by rewriting the test, not by educating the students.

We keep hearing the problem is not enough funding. This clearly isn't a funding issue. Taxpayers will be throwing more good money at bad money. Taxpayers are already paying for after-school tutoring and an "intense English-intervention program." Now the taxpayers are going to be asked to fund an additional year of education which costs approximately $10,000, and remedial classes taught in summer, in the evening, or on weekends. And the remedial math classes are taught at the seventh-grade level for students expected to graduate high school.

Americans need to understand that the government is incapable of educating children. Only when the free market delivers education will the American educational system be accountable to students and parents. And the free market unencumbered by government regulation would be able to provide high-quality educational choices at affordable prices. Be sure to check out The Alliance for the Separation of School & State

Here's the Los Angeles Times' take on the story. Of course, the Times took the racial inequities spin that says more resources have to be spent on "poor students and students of color."

UPDATE: Kimberly Swygert discusses more California testing follies (scroll down a little) in her critique of a San Francisco Chronicle article that mentions 90% of "disabled" kids are flunking the California graduation exam. Of course, a hot-shot lawyer is suing the state on behalf of California's 173,470 disabled high school students, because the fact that so many "disabled" kids failed the exam is a "disaster in the making."

UPDATE 2: Michael Lopez comments on the L.A. Times article on his blog, Highered Intelligence. Michael's comments are about the much more fundamental problem of people being entitled to high school diplomas, which effectively makes high school diplomas devoid of meaning and accomplishment.

TELEVISION DEMOGRAPHICS SEGMENT ON 60 MINUTES
Last night, I watched a news segment on 60 Minutes that discussed the desire of broadcast networks to appeal to the 18-49 year-old demographic segment. Networks continue to create more and more shows directed at young people, even though the over-49 age group is the fastest growing demographic segment, older people watch more television, and these people are wealthier with more money to spend on consumer products.

The explanation on 60 Minutes given for this phenomenon was television shows are created and programmed to appeal to the available advertising dollars. The advertising money is in promoting movies, video games, fast food, beer, and soft drinks--all things that appeal to younger people, so the show claimed. This sounds like a reasonable explanation; however, the program never gave the commonly-accepted reason why advertising to younger people is so desirable to advertisers and why advertisers will pay a premium to reach younger television viewers.

The reason major advertisers want younger people viewing their advertisements is because younger people are less likely to have developed solid brand preferences. The older someone is the more likely he or she is to drink Coca-Cola, and only Coca-Cola. This brand loyalty makes it harder to sway people to switch brands and try new products.

At no time during the 15 minutes segment did 60 Minutes mention this idea of brand loyalty. Big Media just can't seem to get it right when it comes to reporting on business and economics.

SUNDAY LOS ANGELES TIMES WRAP-UP
Here are comments from Sunday's Los Angeles Times. You can use the username "sabertooth1" and the password "sabertooth1," if you haven't already registered for a free password.

TALK OF AN IRAQ WAR RILES BRITONS
This article is written in a clearly anti-American point of view of a coming war with Iraq with a lot of unnecessary insulting comments reported. The article leaves an entirely different impression of the demonstration than I received Saturday on InstaPundit.

TIMES COLUMNIST TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND POLLING
Here's another columnist at a large American newspaper who doesn't understand statistically-correct polling. The Los Angeles Times columnist, Steve Lopez, leads the column with his stupidity. The first two paragraphs are quoted below:

"National polls, some of which suggest 70% of Americans support a war against Iraq, are not to be trusted. Roughly 75% of the readers of this column are opposed, and that many people can't be wrong.

Twice now I've raised questions about the wisdom of such an undertaking, and several hundred people have backed me up."

New York Times' columnists have been making comments like this for some time now.

STYLE CAN UPSTAGE SUBSTANCE IN HOLLYWOOD SECESSION
Here's another "news" article in the L.A. Times about secession in Los Angeles. Of course, the Times belittles those involved in Hollywood's secession plan. Again, I'm certain the L.A. Times gives secession this type of coverage, because Hollywood and Valley secession would destroy the L.A. Times' circulation.

BILLIE JEAN KING WONDERS WHY EDUCATORS DON'T ENCOURAGE GIRLS TO PLAY SPORTS
Billie Jean King wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the L.A. Times. Clearly playing tennis is now a career path to having opinions published.

Ms. King argues that girls should be encouraged just as much as boys to play sports. Near the end of her opinion piece, King asks, "So why are teachers and coaches not doing this? Why aren't our educational leaders encouraging girls to play sports?" Ms. King is obviously unfamiliar with the American public schools' agenda of crushing interest and desire in sports, since sports can only lead to low self-esteem and competitive behavior that does not meet the standards of socialism.

BUM FIGHT VIDEOS SPARK OUTCRY
I admit I'm fascinated by the BumFights.com website and video. A group of young men paid homeless people with small amounts of money and alcohol to fight each other and injure themselves on video. It's estimated that 300,000 copies of the video have sold at $19.95. Well, one of the young men has finally been charged with a felony for allegedly soliciting the violent acts.

There are no pictures on the L.A. Times website, which is too bad. The photograph of the homeless man with "BUMFIGHT" and a beer bottle tattooed on his forehead in the paper edition is absolutely priceless.

LENO AND LETTERMAN GIVEN MCCAIN-FEINGOLD EXEMPTIONS
The Federal Election Commission has ruled that political jokes on late-night talk shows are not covered by the new campaign finance law. The law, which takes effect Nov. 6, prohibits special interest groups from airing ads identifying federal candidates within one month of a primary or two months of a general election. FEC Commissioner Karl Sandstrom said the ruling would keep public service announcements, late night comedy monologues, and talk shows that mention or feature federal candidates from falling under the new law's restrictions.

In a related story, Mickey Kaus reports that the FEC has ruled that 501(c)3 charitable organizations are exempt too, because the IRS can police them. But the IRS has allowed these charitable organizations to fund political initiatives in the past, so this looks like a huge loophole.

I'm sure my readers already foresaw this type of crap long before McCain-Feingold ever passed. I'm certain the Supreme Court will strike down McCain-Feingold on 1st Amendment grounds, but that's not good enough for me. There should be no limits on political spending in a free country. People should be free to spend their money however they like, and there would be no need to spend it on politicians' elections if politicians weren't allowed to shakedown Americans with taxes, regulation, and the threat of higher taxes and more regulation.

GO TO JAIL FOR RECEIVING JUNK E-MAIL
Samizdata.net has a fascinating posting about going to jail on child pornography charges, even when not actively searching for and downloading child pornography. The government can recover files on computer hard drives--even those that were never looked at and deleted--and can bring charges of possession of child pornography. This phenomenon effectively gives the government carte blanche to arrest and throw people in prison. Be sure to read the reader comments at the end of the posting.

UCLA STUDENT GOVERNMENT USES RACE TO REJECT JOB APPLICANTS
The Angry Clam reports that the UCLA Undergraduate Student Association Council rejected well-qualified people because they were white. The Daily Bruin reported this racism on Thursday, and then condoned the racism in a Friday editorial.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh writes that the UCLA student government is in violation of California's Proposition 209 color-blindness initiative, which bans discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race and other factors. Professor Volokh also thinks this is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the federal Equal Protection Clause.

So what's the chance of the UCLA administration actually doing something about this gross racism? Zero?

12-YEAR-OLD BAKERSFIELD BOY ARRESTED FOR HOSTAGE PLOT
A 12-year-old Bakersfield, California middle school student planned to take his class hostage, rape a girl and kill himself, but the plot was foiled after another student saw him carrying a knife, police said. The boy was prepared for a long police siege and brought handcuffs, condoms, a sexual device, ham, crackers and a bottle of beer. The boy was taken to juvenile hall and booked for investigation of possession of a weapon and making terrorist threats.

I suppose his lawyer will argue what a kind, thoughtful boy he is. Since he planned on killing himself, he could have only brought the condoms for the benefit of his targeted rape victim.

The middle school principal was quoted as saying, "[The boy] was somewhat remorseful."

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR SIGNS PAID FAMILY LEAVE BILL
I mentioned this story a few weeks ago. I find something a little confusing here, because the original story from the San Jose Mercury News said that the maximum yearly tax was $520 for workers making $65,000 and up. All of the news articles are now reporting that the maximum yearly tax is $70 for people earning more than $72,000. You can read the recent stories from Reuters, AP, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and San Jose Mercury News.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon has called Governor Davis's labor policies bad for business. And the Chamber of Commerce is "profoundly disappointed" with the signing of the bill. Besides providing an incentive not to work, the numbers don't seem to add up.

The law allows for six weeks of paid leave at 55% of wages up to $728 per week. The average annual tax to support this law is $27 per year per worker. The maximum tax is $70 for workers earning over $72,000 per year. 13 million California workers would be forced to participate in the program.

1. At $728 per week for six weeks, someone on paid leave would earn $4,368. At $70 per year in tax contributions, it takes 62.4 years for the state to get the money back, not including interest or a change in taxes.
2. At $27 per year in taxes from the average worker, the state will raise $351 million per year. If the newspapers are misusing the term "average," the $351 million could be wrong.
3. The typical Californian making the median salary of $36,000 would receive approximately $380 per week in benefits. For six weeks, this is $2,285. At that cost, approximately 1.18% (153,637) of the 13 million eligible workers could take advantage of the program for six weeks every year.

Now I realize that not everyone would take advantage of the program, not everyone would take six weeks, and the law does say that employers can require the employee use up their paid vacation first, but I see a train wreck coming. With any government program, there's an economic incentive to use it. Far more people will use this program than estimated, if the numbers are based on people taking unpaid leave now under the federal law. I anticipate a lot of people having a "serious illness" in the family. I would bet on this program having a budget shortfall within the first two year, necessitating a tax increase.

Here's the governor's press release, and the actual text of the bill. Again, I'll be gone for two days and not posting, but I want to receive a lot of e-mails from my readers on this topic. I'll post additional comments as soon as I read the e-mails and see what others are writing on this subject.

A BUNCH OF LINKS
I'll be heading out town for two days early tomorrow morning, and I will not be posting during that time. Here's a bunch of interesting articles for you to read in the meantime. As always, you can use the username "sabertooth1" and password "sabertooth1" for any Los Angeles Times or New York Times article that is password protected, if you don't already have your free password.

L.A. TIMES JOURNALIST WRITES LIKE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT
The article is about the two U.S. pilots being prosecuted for killing four Canadian soldiers. The L.A. Times staff writer describes events like an adjective-happy high school student who has no clue about the military. Very funny stuff.

The article actually raises some interesting points about whether the pilots are scapegoats. Personally as a former infantryman, I think it's about time pilots receive the same scrutiny ground troops receive for battlefield errors. For too long, pilots have been using the impersonality of technology, speed, and distance as an excuse for trigger mistakes that would have sent an infantryman to the brig.

INDIANA CHILD ABUSE STORY
Al Barger at Culpepper Log writes how the media, in particular Fox News, overdid this non-story. It was sensational, so it's good for ratings. Never mind how destructive the video is to personal lives, including the victim now and in the future. By the way, I don't think the media should report the names of people until after they are convicted.

Anyways, I think the real story here that everyone is overlooking is how "child-protective services" are a gross injustice. Like dealing with the IRS, you are guilty until you prove your innocence when it comes to "child abuse." Power-hungry, over-zealous government social workers--with below average IQs--can come over to your home with a police escort and take your children. It's disgusting. The police announcement--before they found the woman--that all they care about is the "health of the child," is load of crap too. Score another one for the socialists of American who "care."

SANTA MONICA RESIDENTS FINALLY GETTING FED UP WITH HOMELESS PEOPLE
As a former Santa Monica resident, I will say that huge numbers of homeless people really do lower the quality life of Santa Monica residents. Of course I moved, but it's nice to see some of Santa Monica's socialist residents finally getting fed up too.

LOS ANGELES RESIDENTS DISINTERESTED IN SECESSION
The L.A. Times is reporting that residents don't seem to care about Valley and Hollywood secession on November's ballot. I still think the L.A. Times gives little or negative coverage to secession because secession would destroy its circulation.

NEW CALIFORNIA BILL ALLOWS CONSUMERS TO SHOP FOR BEST PRICE ON CONTACTS
California government officials are acting like they're doing residents of California a favor, but we should be asking why we need a bill like this. Why don't Californians naturally have the ability to take a prescription anywhere to get the best deal? Why would an eye doctor have the right to control a prescription for contacts? What has the California government done to create the situation where legislation is needed to rectify it? Here's the governor's press release on the bill.

AL GORE'S SPEECH
Al Gore is really getting hammered over the speech he made about the Bush Administration's policy on Iraq. Here's the start of my collection of some of the better comments.

Read the comments at VodkaPundit, Cut on the Bias, and Andrew Sullivan. I'll add more comments as I come across them.