Category Archives: Media

Limbaugh Climbs Into a Cripple

Rush Limbaugh’s sneering assault on Michael J. Fox’s affliction was utterly depraved. A human being with a head and a heart would have stuck to the issue, rather than level such a cruel attack on a disfigured and suffering human being.

The issue is this: The Founders bequeathed a central government of delegated and enumerated powers. Intellectual property laws are the only constitutional means at Congress’s disposal with which to “promote the Progress of Science. (About their merit Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor, was unconvinced). Research and development (R&D) spending is nowhere among Congress’s constitutional legislative powers.

Implied in Democratic petit mals about Stem Cell research is that if the House didn’t mulct taxpayers of R&D money, there’d be no R&D. Not according to the United States Department of Health & Human Services: “Based on 2002 data, one study reports that private sector research and development in stem cells was being conducted by approximately 1000 scientists in over 30 firms. Aggregate spending was estimated at $208 million. Geron Corporation alone reported that it spent more than $70 million on stem cell research by September 2003.

In the Stem Cell Business News Guide to Stem Cell Companies (Feb 2003), 61 U.S. and international companies are listed as pursuing some form of research or therapeutic product development involving stem cells. What do you know? The private sector has already been beavering away, for some time now, exploring the promise—or lack thereof—of stem cells.

Limbaugh needed only to remind Fox (and himself and his party) of a thing called the Constitution; he needed to berate Fox only for using his celebrity to petition congress for money not his—tax dollars. Limbaugh ought to have suggested Fox raise money for private research among his stinking rich friends, not pickpocket the taxpayer. Instead Limbaugh climbed into a cripple.

Later, Limbaugh offered a lame apology, the main purpose of which was to point out how magnanimous he was: “All right then, I stand corrected. . . . So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act.”

Maher’s Moronity

Media, The Zeitgeist

Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time,” told Joe Scarborough he wants Bush impeached, but not for anything meaningful, such as, say, prosecuting an illegal and unjust war. Oh no, after all, Maher was down with the mob on that one—he wasn’t exactly unwavering in his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Instead, the HBO host thinks impeachment proceedings ought to be initiated on the grounds that, on 9/11, after he had been told by Andrew Card that America had been attacked, Bush sat put for seven minutes at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School. The president was there “to read to a class and talk about education.”

Maher’s notion of an impeachment is as frivolous as the one initiated against Clinton.

Maher's Moronity

Media, The Zeitgeist

Maher’s notion of an impeachment is as frivolous as the one initiated against Clinton.

Updated: Rotten Reporting Again (About Those 650 Thou Dead in Iraq)

Iraq, Journalism, Media, The Zeitgeist, War

The Associates Press (via Rational Report) reports that:

A “controversial new study contends that nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq—more than 10 times higher than other independent estimates of the toll.”

Dubya and his Oh-What-A-Wonderful-War contingent dispute these figures. And so they should.

The latest Lancet report has never claimed 655,000 civilian deaths total, but rather that, “An estimated 655,000 more Iraqis have died as a consequence of the March 2003 military invasion of Iraq than would have been expected in a non-conflict situation.”

What we have here, once again, is rotten reporting. When the first Lancet report appeared two year ago, mainstream press also fudged the facts. I think I was the only writer who made the necessary distinctions. I explained:

“In the final days of Saddam’s reign of terror, i.e., in the 15 months preceding the invasion, the primary causes of death in Iraq were natural: heart attack, stroke and chronic illness. Since Iraq became another neocon object lesson, the primary cause of death has been violence, according to the report.
Since March 2003, Iraqis have suffered from an excess of deaths, if you will. As Dr. Les Roberts, author of the study, told BBC News, ‘About 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.’
According to the study, “The relative risk, the risk of deaths from any cause was two-and-a-half times higher for Iraqi civilians after the 2003 invasion than in the preceding 15 months. But ‘the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the U.S.-led invasion.”

Update: My thanks to Bob Murphy and Sean Mercer for demanding further clarification: My point is non-ideological; I’d simply like to see accurate reporting. The 650,000 figure would include deaths due to a greater incidence of heart attacks, cancer, strokes, stress and displacement-related deaths, deaths associated with a lack of health care and potable water, etc. Thus, silly journalists build doubt into the report because they give the impression that this many people died directly because of the war. Rather, the figure represents both direct and indirect casualties of the invasion, which is why it’s believable.

It goes without saying that the report is a criminal indictment of the invasion. If not for the invasion, the leading cause of death in Iraqi would still be natural, as it was during Saddam’s suzerainty.