Hewitt Blog

Hopefully Big Ben will be back in time for the Browns to beat him twice.

The reports in this article are much more optimistic than earlier bulletins.

Prayers for his speedy and complete recovery.

"Remember when Davey Jones showed up at Marcia's prom?"

(HT: Tim Blair.)

UPDATE: Exciting competitions from the YearlyKos.

UPDATE 2: Byron York asks when MSM will actually read and report on what is posted at DailyKos.

From the BBC. No word on pepperoni.

From the Times of London's profile of Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute:

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”

Apparently, it is easier than you might think.

(HT: SeeingEyeBlog.)

UPDATE: SeeingEyeBlog has a new home!

The WaPo's Howard Kurtz and the New York Times' David Carr both consider Ann Coulter today.

Kurtz asks:

Is it time for the media to stop lavishing attention on Ann Coulter?

The answer is "yes."

Carr concludes:

You can accuse her of cynicism all you want, but the fact that she is one of the leading political writers of our age says something about the rest of us.

But Mr. Carr doesn't add that it says the same thing as does the status of DailyKos and Frank Rich.

Extreme commentary, like extreme sports, has an audience. MSM has profited from, and credentialed, both.

Tim Blair pens a perfect sentence.

BizzyBlog notes Victor Davis Hanson observation, and applies the marketing analysis.

The left isn't dense. It is just business-savvy.

ConfederateYankee tips us to Ray Robison's new feature at FoxNews.com: The Saddam Dossier. Put simply, FoxNews has found a specialist and assigned him to dive into the untranslated docs being published on the web by the military. What a concept --original reporting on crucial primary documents left untouched by MSM.

Meanwhile, the collapsing Los Angeles Times runs a sympathy piece on its television counterpart, MSNBC:

For NBC Universal — whose parent General Electric has long preached the need to be No. 1 or 2 in every business segment — MSNBC has become the Problem That Can't Be Fixed.

So, what to do with the Problem That Can't Be Fixed? It appears that MSNBC will adopt the Los Angeles Times' strategy of changing nothing on the theory that it is the audience that is too stupid to pay attention:

The network has yet to name a replacement [for Rick Kaplan]. Early speculation has centered on Phil Griffin, a veteran MSNBC producer who helps oversee NBC's "Today Show." But NBC News President Steve Capus cautioned that viewers should expect a tune-up rather than a salvage job.

"There's no need to scrap everything and start from scratch," Capus said in a interview Friday. "We're not going to completely change direction…. I see it as part of the continual evolution of this channel." Capus added that he's especially pleased with ratings growth for Matthews' "Hardball" and Olbermann's "Countdown." Capus said that, in contrast to a year or so ago, he now believes MSNBC is in "a good place."

Still, it's clear that some major changes are on the way.

What is wonderful is that the MSNBC brain trust that will try and fix the problem appears to consist primarily of those who helped make the problem.

Lots of people watch lots of cable news.

They just don't watch MSNBC.

They do watch FNC.

NBC can't figure out why. Is it possible that the politics of the NBC brass might be getting in the way? As it does in the management offices of the Los Angeles Times?

(BTW: For a look inside the trouble Tribune Company, be sure to read yesterday's analysis from the Chicago Tribune. And Jon Friedman's interview with Chicago Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski.)

From the Examiner.com:

"Webb accuses Miller of being a wealthy Washington, D.C., lobbyist and Miller accuses Webb of being a Republican-turned-Democrat-turned back Republican-turned-Democrat again," Dick Wadhams, chief of Allen's campaign staff, said with a gleeful chuckle. "We think they're both right."