Time for another LinkSwarm!
LinkSwarm for May 6, 2013
May 6th, 2013I’m Not at the NRA Meeting in Houston. But Ted Cruz Is.
May 3rd, 2013I couldn’t go to the NRA annual meeting in Houston this weekend, as much as I would have liked to, because I went to a family even in Houston last week.
But fortunately, Ted Cruz is there.
“The Constitution matters. All of the Constitution matters. You don’t get to pick and choose.”
The Decline and Fall of the Austin American-Statesman
May 2nd, 2013I’m not sure if you noticed (and it’s entirely possible you haven’t), but the Austin American-Statesman has instituted a paywall on their website. Obviously the Statesman feels that their slow, steady decline just isn’t getting the job done, so they’ll move straight to assisted suicide.
The Statesman website was not my first choice for news. Or my second. Or my tenth. In fact, they probably come in slightly ahead of Pravda (though behind Russia Today, which is pretty quick at putting up relevant disaster videos). Despite living in Austin for decades, I’ve never subscribed to the Statesman, and purchases of single issues has been limited to the day after national elections and UT winning a national football championship.
The Statesman was never a great newspaper in the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
It’s no secret that the Statesman has suffered severe declines in circulation (possibly even more severe than the average suffered by the print newspaper industry a whole), despite publishing in one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country. But finding a single source for year by year Statesman circulation figures has proved elusive. Here’s what I found from various heterogeneous sources for daily (rather than Sunday) circulation, so they may very well not line up with “official” circulation figures (especially for the three most recent years), but are probably close enough to the ballpark to get a good idea of the decline.
So, here’s a chart for Daily Average Circulation Figures for the Austin American Statesman for 2004-2012:
(Click to embiggen. Crappy chart courtesy of a 12 year old version of Excel. I’m sure Will Franklin could do much better.)
And some of that most recent number may be even more dubious, given that sometimes the Statesman won’t actually cancel people’s subscription when asked. And try to charge people more than they agreed to for the discount subscriptions they do sell. And don’t always deliver the issues people have actually paid for.
The Statesman has been in a long, steady decline in staff as well. They bought out 71 employees in 2009, another accepted by 33 people in June of 2011, and laid off an additional 53 employees in October 2011. And even after that, more copy editing jobs were to be consolidated in Florida by Cox Media.
Cox tried to sell the paper in 2009, but backed out of the deal.
One big reason for declining newspaper circulation is the obvious and pronounced liberal bias in so much of the MSM. With so many choices for news on the Internet, local news is no longer a reason to continue funding a carrier medium for liberal opinion.
The paywall seems to be the last thing newspapers institute before they go under entirely (a few of the bigger ones excepted). Initial reactions to the move are hardly ecstatic. I don’t expect the Statesman to go straight out of business next year, but I do expect their decline in circulation to accelerate.
May 1st: Victims of Communism Day
May 1st, 2013Today is an important day.
I’m speaking, of course, of Victims of Communism Day.
People may say that anti-communism is a cause that’s passe, but keep in mind that:
Plus, the crimes of an ideology that killed 100 million people should never be forgotten. Especially one that still has friends in high places.
This is EXACTLY Why We Sent Ted Cruz to Washington
April 30th, 2013Republican Senators have been yelling at Ted Cruz. At the top of their lungs, no less. “How dare you make me stand on principle???”
We won the gun control fight because Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul stood up for principle and shamed other Republican Senators into standing up as well.
We sent Cruz to Washington to shame Republicans into acting like Republicans. No, you don’t get to to betray conservative principles and expect us to keep donating and working for you merely because you have an (R) after your name. No, you don’t get to cave into Washington’s permanent liberal establishment without cost. No, you don’t get to enjoying fawning “strange new respect” profiles from the media without getting primaried. “You could just not be a bunch of squishes.”
Does anyone doubt that we’d now be seeing fawning profiles of Senator Dewhurst for his help in forging a “compromise” on gun control?
Spain IS Beyond Doomed, But It’s Not Practicing Real Austerity
April 30th, 2013Take a look at these charts. Unemployment in Spain is up over 25%, and most have been unemployed more than 2 years. Matthew O’Brien is correct when he says that Spain’s inflexible labor laws contribute greatly to the unemployment, but errs when he says that “austerity hasn’t been the path to prosperity. It’s been the path to perma-slump.”
Austerity hasn’t failed in Spain. It hasn’t been tried.
Spain last ran a budget surplus in 2008, and since then it has engaged in deficit spending. In 2012, Spain’s budget deficit was 9.4% of GDP, and this year it will be 10.6% of GDP.
Remember, real austerity isn’t trying to tax-and-spend your way to prosperity. Real austerity is cutting budgets until outlays match receipts. Estonia bit the bullet and balanced its budget, and its economy is now growing at a steady clip. Meanwhile, governments all across Europe continue to try the same deficit spending Keynesian pump-priming, and keep having the same recession. In most of Europe, “austerity” has meant digging their own graves more slowly rather that stopping digging.
And European elites refuse to stop digging because their power and perks all stem from swaddling voters in an unsustainable cradle-to-grave welfare system.
If all this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Europe makes the same mistakes, gets the same results, and keeps doubling down on stupid, content to keep the farce running as long as they possibly can. Instead actually of solving the interrelated problems of debt, unsustainable entitlements, and the Euro, the Euroelite seem content to preside over the world’s slowest, most boring train wreck. Yes, it’s a pity the train is sliding inexorably toward the chasm, but there’s such fine vintages to be had in the saloon car, and it offers such a magnificent view of the coming crash…
As a Fractional Indian, I Approve This Message
April 29th, 2013
And while we’re on the subject, I suspect that the Comanche and Apache warriors of the 19th century would far rather have bad-ass war machines named after them than be depicted as the wimpy, politically correct proto-Greens Hollywood tries to make them out to be…
Rosemary Lehmberg: Seen at The Gun Show
April 28th, 2013
Hat tip: Dwight, who brings us news that Lehmberg “won’t be seeking reelection.” Well, duh. People who have been removed from office don’t run for reelection…
LinkSwarm for April 26, 2013
April 26th, 2013For a startling change of pace, this week the Friday LinkSwarm will be on…Friday!
“Clearly, some observers fear ordinary Americans more than they do terrorists; they fret more over how dangerously unintelligent and hateful Yanks will respond to bombings than they do over the bombings themselves. But where is this Islamophobic mob? Where are these marauding Muslim-haters undergoing a post-Boston freakout? They are a figment of liberal observers’ imaginations.”
Gun Update for April 25, 2012
April 25th, 2013A random basket of gun news, including more fallout from the Senate’s failure to restrict gun rights:
Gun owners care year in and year out. And they vote on the issue. This had little to do with the fearsome power of “the NRA”, or their fundraising efforts. It had to do with gun owners who will do their best to unelect any politician who votes to deprive them of what they view as constitutional rights. Those gun owners are more likely to live in swing states than the most avid gun controllers: progressives who cram themselves into a handful of cities. And they vote on the issue, unlike progressives, who, for all their furor at the outcome, put a large number of issues–taxes, abortion, welfare programs, and so forth–much higher on their list of priorities. By 2014, the odds of any “No” vote losing their job over it are pretty slim.