Category Archives: Journalism

UPDATE II: Newt Pokes the Palestinians (Paul Brings It on ABC)

Elections, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intelligence, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Objectivism, Palestinian Authority, Pop-Culture, Republicans

Newt poked at the Palestinians yesterday, and the matter was rehashed during another debate between the GOP candidates. That’s the only interesting thing there is to report about the ABC moderated debate in Des Moines. I mean, there might have been more, but since transcripts are unavailable, I can’t tell.

You must have noticed how these presidential candidates are tripping over themselves to make nice with Israel and distance themselves from the “plight (or is it the blight) that never shuts up.” (You already know my position on foreign aid to Israel and to all the rest: NADA.)

Gingrich defended the controversial comments he made Friday, when he said the Palestinian people were “invented.” He said tonight that his statements were “factually correct.”
“Is it historically correct? Yes. Are we in a situation where every day rockets are fired into Israel while the United States — the current administration, tries to pressure the Israelis into a peace process. Hamas does not admit the right of Israel to exist and says publicly not a single Jew will remain,” Gingrich said.
“It’s fundamentally time for somebody to stand up and say enough lying about the Middle East,” he said.

I will say that I am amazed at the love caucus goers are showing Newt and the disdain they’ve heaped on Romney. Leave aside politics and my own political philosophy; Mitt Romney is the better character (as in human being). But Americans hate success when it is combined with good looks, fidelity to family and faith—and when these traits belong to a man who is mild-mannered and contained and not given to Oprah-like abreaction.

A slimy statist slob like Newt; now that’s a candidate Americans can relate to. I’m sorry; I don’t get it.

Idiot alert: From the fact that I have mentioned Mitt’s character and carriage favorably, please do not deduce that I support his polices. The last does not follow from the first. If you are a newcomer to this space, do read my commentary before you implode at my impartiality.

I’m a paleolibertarian, not a Republican. I apologize in advance for offering a dispassionate opinion about Mitt’s character while not being a supporter of his policies. I know how confusing an impartial comment could be to many who’ve come of age in the “Age of the Idiot.”

UPDATE I (Dec. 11): “WHY COME YOU DON’T HAVE A TATTOO?” My apologies to all those who were offended by my comments above. However, I am sick of being forced into tribalism. Because I’m libertarian—with certain political allegiances and loyalties—I’m expected to refrain from offering an impartial analysis of the political and cultural landscape, if that assessment fails to favor “my side.”

This tribal logic (or rhythm rather) works as follows: If she supports Paul she must not say a good thing about Romney’s private persona.

Forget about it. Get used to being exposed to more that cheerleading for “our” side. You come here for analysis; get used to it. My assessment of the political and cultural landscape will be forthcoming irrespective of my political allegiances and loyalties.

People who can’t tolerate this remind me of the “tarded” doctor character in the film “Idiocracy,” when he discovers that his patient doesn’t have the tribe’s stamp of approval: a special tattoo.

Doctor: “And if you could just go ahead and, like, put your tattoo in that shit.”
Joe: “That’s weird. This thing has the same misprint as that magazine. What are the odds of–”
Doctor: “Where’s your tattoo? Tattoo? Why don’t you have this?”
Joe: “Oh, god!”
Doctor: “Where’s your tattoo?”
Joe: “Oh, my god.”
Doctor: “Why come you don’t have a tattoo?”

Next: Myron, are you on a liberal (of the leftist kind) binge today? With respect to your comments below: If the singular reason for political organization is pelf—the destruction, murder, robbery, and delegitimization of the relatively civilized entity adjacent to it—then, I would argue, a “people” does not have a right to organize. Or, at least, such “organization” should be disrupted by its victims.

Reality tells us that this is the reason for the Palestinian push for self-determination—the gains to themselves must always coincide with losses to their Israeli neighbors; loss of life, land, political legitimacy. By reality I mean their ACTIONS, political and other.

Second: The fact that Jews fought in the WW II, or on the South’s side during the War Between the States, for that matter—does nothing to invalidate or vaporize their biblical ties to Israel. Those ties are validated in reality, by the fact that certain Jews have revived Israel for the better, and at huge costs to individuals pioneers. The place was a no-man’s land before modern Jewish settlement commenced.

UPDATE II: PAUL BRINGS IT. Paul, who by the way agrees with me and called Romney “more diplomatic than Gingrich,” was presidential during the debate. I glean this from snippets the moron media screens. Here’s some script at last via The Liberty Tree:

It was Texas congressman Ron Paul who delivered the most substantive responses and drew the loudest applause.
Early in the debate Congressman Paul was asked to comment on Gingrich’s flip-flopping. “He’s been on so many positions on so many issues,” Paul responded, but drew attention to his own record, stating, “you might have a little bit of trouble competing with me on consistency.”
On the subject of Gingrich’s earnings from Freddie Mac, Paul said, “He was earning a lot of money from Freddie Mac while I was fighting over a decade to try to explain to people where the housing bubble was coming from,” In a rebuke of the former Speaker, Paul added, “I think you probably got some of our taxpayers’ money.”

UPDATE VIII: America’s Angelic O.J. (No Hearsay, Please!)

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Etiquette, Europe, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Morality, Racism, Reason, The Zeitgeist

The following is from “America’s Angelic O.J,” now on WND.COM:

“The conviction of America’s sweetart du jour, Amanda Knox, was overturned this month. Based on O.J.-like evidence, Knox was convicted of murdering her British roommate. The vicious and depraved Nov. 1, 2007 killing took place in the historic, university city of Perugia, Italy. Police bungling notwithstanding, the biological and circumstantial evidence stacked against Knox and her former lover Raffaele Sollecito was considerable. …

…The once-convicted killers were declared innocent, no less, and released, due in no small part to a PR blitz mounted by Knox’s family and their Seattle-based publicist. They were assisted by the country’s national media, left and right. With the exception of Bill O’Reilly, former homicide prosecutor Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Jeanine Pirro; Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC—all worked tirelessly on behalf of the attractive, white kids. The conviction of Rudy Guede the American media let stand. Guede, the pretty pair’s (alleged) partner in crime, is a black man who lacked their appeal and assets.

… On Nov. 5, 2007, after cartwheeling and canoodling with Sollecito at the police station, Knox framed Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder and rape which she claimed to have overheard. (At that stage, only the cops knew Ms. Kercher had been sexually assaulted.) Lumumba was Amanda’s innocent employer. Knox even committed this evidentiary concoction to writing in a five-page memorandum. Later she blamed police for making her. Amanda’s allergy to the truth cost Lumumba – another black man who remained voiceless in the American media – his livelihood and reputation. …

… Nor did Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith, Wolf Blitzer, Piers Morgan, Dr. Drew, Oprah (on and on), give the time of day to the victim’s family. In defense of our homegrown popularizers and poor thinkers, however, the Kercher family was way too classy to partake in the circus created by the Ugly Americans and their aides. …

… Comprehending circumstantial evidence demands analytical and deductive thinking. These faculties are becoming rare in the Age of the Idiot now upon us, as was glaringly apparent in the deliberations of Casey Anthony’s jurors. The average individual seldom reads; he knows only what is palpable and perceivable—what he can see and feel. If he can’t picture something—see it happen on YouTube or on CSI—he certainly cannot think about it in the abstract. …”

Read the rest of “America’s Angelic O.J” on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

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UPDATE I: A MEASURE OF THE ZEITGEIST. BuzzFeed wants to know “Who’s Hotter: Amanda Knox Or Casey Anthony?” Intellectually, this item is more honest than what mainstream media has been dishing on the noxious Knox. By lumping the two ex-convicts together—both implicated in “vicious and depraved” deeds—BuzzFeed is disrespecting the duo. At least this is how I optimistically read this contest.

UPDATE II: An interesting thread on my Facebook Wall. I say ideas should not exist in the arid arena of pure thought. Chris Baker disagrees.

UPDATE III (Oct. 7): A comment at TrueJustice.org links to “America’s Angelic O.J.”:

Great article on WND that you linked to Peter. Some nice quotes in it too, such as:

“Ann Coulter offered up a few tart tweets about Knox’s exoneration: – Amanda Knox not guilty, Casey Anthony rolls eyes, says; ‘well, duh…’”

“Comprehending circumstantial evidence demands analytical and deductive thinking. These faculties are becoming rare in the Age of the Idiot now upon us…”

How true, and I must remember that line.

Someone else on the same site’s comments section, however, impugns my column solely because I write for WND, which the writer calls (fairly) “Obama Birth Certificate Central.”

But I am not a “birther.” The comment is precisely the kind of argument to expect in the “age of the Idiot now upon us”: The comment relies on the “well-known logical error known as the ad hominem fallacy. This is the fallacy of thinking one can undermine the status of a claim or argument by undermining the motives or character” or associations of the person who makes it. (I’ve paraphrased writer Mark Rowland’s definition, which I particularly liked.)

UPDATE IV: I like the way writers with a blind spot for crime perpetrated by sweet young females or whites harp-on, and hide behind, the misguided theory of the crime: a ritual or a sexual game gone wrong. As if today’s youngsters don’t sometimes experiment along the lines of the vapid, vampiric films they devour; as if they never enact the alternate reality they occupy. Some kids don’t exist outside their hand held devices, and the stuff they see in these toys.

More to the point, the obsession with motive is another CSI hangover. In “America’s Angelic O.J.,” I clearly say that, “Police bungling notwithstanding,” there is often no accounting for the “subterranean irrational forces that so often propel evil.”

This central stupidity conjures the manner in which Geraldo Rivera exculpated Casey Anthony: “Why would a mother kill her child?”, the Fox host wanted to know.

UPDATE V: Via the grapevine, I am getting word of certain racialists, never rationalists, who are admonishing me for my deductions vis-a-vis the evidence in the Knox case. The claim being that I’ve failed to grasp and formulaically highlight the prevalence of “black dysfunction” in our society. Their implication, I imagine, is that the indisputable involvement of a black man in the murder must automatically exclude the whites. The “case” against me is a grotesque joke, coming as it does from the quintessential American chauvinists who’ve generally ignored (except for tokenism) the largest, if disorganized, racial ethnocide in the 21st century: that of rural, white South Africans. And its chronicler: Guess who wrote the definitive text on that racial enthnocide? And guess who’s ignored that text yet is now lecturing its author about not being sufficiently racial in her treatment of the Knox crime? Your typical, navel-gazing American, Race-Über-Alles paleo. Give me a break!

UPDATE VI (Oct. Eight): NO HEARSAY, PLEASE. Jerri Lynn Ward: As a lawyer, you know that hearsay is inadmissible, and is wrong argument. I try to avoid it on BAB. The information you’ve provided us falls in that category. The source I studied and quoted is a veteran reporter in Italy who was actually THERE, in the thick of the case. She writes for liberals (who generally love Knox) and has no agenda. I know agenda when I see it. Barbie Latza Nadeau’s reporting was as impartial and impeccable as they come, in my opinion. This woman fits the old mold of journalism.

UPDATE VII: Jack kindly left a link to his source on the Knox case, a man called Steve Moore. I perused the site and saw not one hyperlink to a primary source document, meaning court documents, briefs, etc. This is one of those individuals who is postulating from afar. I’m loathe to promote this kind of individual’s verbiage on the blog. For an “investigator” to offer nothing more than a narrative, and no primary documents: that’s is suspect. You are free to look him up on Jack’s advice.

UPDATE VIII: Jennifer mentioned the love-making at the scene of the crime:

Oblivious to the cameras—or perhaps for them—-Amanda Knox (22) and Raffaele Sollecito (25) exchanged a slow, sensual kiss in full view of world media. Not far from where the two kissed lay the body of Meredith Kercher, the English girl with whom Knox had shared student accommodation in Perugia, Italy. Her throat slit, Meredith had expired in slow agony.
The kinky canoodling of Knox and her paramour outside the house of horrors conjured the climactic moment in the film noir “The Comfort of Strangers.”
Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren play an older couple (Robert and Caroline) who live in a palazzo in Venice. They gain the trust of the vacationing Mary and Colin (played by the late Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett), a young English couple. As Colin sips a cocktail with Robert at the latter’s Venetian residence, Robert suddenly and swiftly (as planned) moves to cut Colin’s throat. He then steps over his gurgling victim and the gushing blood to engage in frenzied sex with his eager wife Caroline.
The two have fulfilled a shared fantasy.

[From “O.J.-Like Evidence Convicts Noxious Knox.”]

UPDATED: Fox News-Google GOP 2012 Debate: Perry’s Bushisms (Mitt’s Manners)

Bush, Elections, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Journalism, Media, Politics, Relatives, Republicans

The debate was good; well-put together with interesting information culled from the Google meta-media. The Republican “thrust and Perry” in Tampa, Florida, earlier this month, set a good standard. You know me: I want words—textual red meat to sink my teeth into. I was worried at first that, true to character, Fox News would stick with visuals and stiff the written or pixelated word. (Here’s a slide show of the debaters! Oy!) But—hooray!— Fox came through with a rush transcript. Well-done!

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MINN had the opportunity to salvage the question Jon Huntsman flubbed in the previous, Tea-Party debate: “Out of every dollar I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?” “It’s all yours,” she replied, but we still have to send something back for the government. A contradiction, of course.

FORMER Utah Governor Jon Huntsman solidified his standing as a committed statist, having “told the New Hampshire Union Leader [that] as president [he] would subsidize the natural gas industry.” Huntsman just can’t keep his sticky fingers out of the meddling business. The industry doesn’t need help; it needs to be left alone. (The industry is currently making its case to the public via tremendous ads that explain the safeguards with respect to fracking.)

However, as in the previous debate, Huntsman managed to distill, better than the rest, a foreign-policy vision: “… as the only one on stage with any hands-on foreign policy experience, having served — having lived overseas four different times, we’re at a critical juncture in our country. We don’t have a foreign policy, and we don’t project the goodness of this country in terms of liberty, democracy, open markets, and human rights, with a weak core. And right now in this country, our core, our economy, is broken. And we don’t shine that light today. We’re 25 percent of the world’s GDP. The world is a better place when the United States is strong [I understood him to mean strong economically]. So guiding anything that we talk about from a foreign policy standpoint needs to be fixing our core. But, second of all, I believe that, you know, after 10 years of fighting the war on terror, people are ready to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, Rick.”

Texas Governor Rick Perry sounds more and more like a slightly less stupid W, which is still plenty stupid and cunning to boot.

Here Perry is losing control over the words, as W used to:

PERRY:

I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment?
Was it — was before he was before the social programs, from the standpoint of he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against Roe v. Wade? He was for Race to the Top, he’s for Obamacare, and now he’s against it. I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and — and — and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.

Now that’s a Bushism. Shudder.

Garry Johnson had a good joke: “My next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.”

Even better was Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, invoking Ronald Reagan’s lines:

“When your brother-in-law is unemployed, it’s a recession. When you’re unemployed, it’s a depression. When Jimmy Carter’s unemployed, it’s a recovery. Nothing — nothing will turn America around more than Election Night, when Barack Obama loses decisively.”

NOW, SOMEONE PRAY TELL, why do all these candidates say “Sosal Security”? In English it’s pronounced Soshial Security.”

UPDATE (Sept. 23): MITT’S MANNERS. Hours after this site singled out Perry’s pathetic Bushisms, mainstream media is doing the same. Almost a full day after the debate, Perry’s word-salad is being reluctantly reported by Fox News.

However, what other sources see as a dismal lack of command of issues of foreign affairs, Fox News described as Perry’s “show of some chops, flashing knowledge about the Haqqani Network and Indian diplomacy.”

I’m with Alan Schroeder of the HuffPo:

Yet on matters of substance, Perry remains startlingly unprepared. Asked a theoretical question about Pakistan losing control of its nuclear weapons, the governor gave an incoherent response that amounted to a pile of steaming dung. It is remarkable that a man so obviously lacking in foreign policy credentials does not make a greater effort to bone up; in this regard he is more Sarah Palin than Ronald Reagan.

Over to Schroeder again:

Romney the debater is crisp, businesslike, in command of his material, and as bloodlessly efficient as a German luxury sedan. Perry the debater is sloppy, sentimental, uncertain of his facts, and brimming with the sort of down-home folksiness that makes Republican audiences go weak in the knees.

Freedom Fighters Vs. Freedom Deniers; Truth Vs. Untruth

Conservatism, Journalism, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Pseudo-history, Pseudo-intellectualism

If economic historian Tom Woods and XM radio host Mike Church made it onto Freedom Watch’s often-misnamed Freedom-Fighters panel, I would be inclined to tune in more often. These men have fidelity to truth and reality. It was on display during an appearance on Judge Napoliaton’s Fox Business show.

More often than not, I switch off. Sure, the occasional freedom fighter finds his way onto the segment, but the Freedom Fighters Panel is set-up, in general, in the mold followed by every other cable and network show. It’s positively postmodernist. Present the public with two competing “perspectives” or worldviews. By doing so, you mislead Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber into thinking that indeed there are two realities, and that he may decide which one is more compelling.

The truth is that truth is immutable; it is not relative. There is, moreover, too little truth in media. Truth cannot afford to be diluted or presented by its adherents as dueling with untruth.

Gasbag Gasparino/Nancy Skinner/Caroline Heldman/Tara Dowdell/—these Fox News fixtures no more represent truth or promote it than does your average Holocaust denier.

Except, that—although I know nothing about the Dewey Decimal Classification—I believe that in a library, Holocaust denying literature would not be classified under history. If I am correct in this last assumption, why classify the reality defying bunk spewed by the likes of Nancy Skinner, Caroline Heldman, Tara Dowdell, Carl Jeffers, Joe Sibila, Erika Payne, “Charlie” Rangel, and other assorted TV mouths, as versions of the truth? For that is what the panel format suggests.

Naturally, the dueling “perspectives,” political-panel format is quite compatible with the aims of CNN, MSNBC, and other progressive media outlets.