WeMisleadYouFollow

OMG: ACORN CEO Visited the White House

2009-12-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

(Update below)
Instapundit, which has gone on virtually non stop about how the ACORN scandal is just about the biggest thing ever, finally got back around to ACORN news after a there was reason for those who are ideologically driven to ignore ACORN.

Namely, the most relevant news regarding ACORN in nearly a year: A Congressional Research Service Study found no evidence that ACORN had engaged in fraudulent voting or finances for the past half decade.

So was this the relevant news that Instapundit finally got around to covering?

After all, Instapundit is one of those sites that has been ranting on nonstop about how ACORN has been engaging in systematic voter fraud; and how the media, though it has covered this ACORN issue far too much, has in Instapundit's view not been covering it enough (much like Instapundit's Big Brother).

Nope.

Here is what Instapundit dug up instead, wording it in a way to appear as if there is some sort of relevancy to what is, essentially, completely irrelevant.

But that is what Instapundit does. Essentially ignore that the Congressional Research Service found no evidence of voter wrong doing, but at the same time try to insinuate that the CEO of ACORN visiting the White House is somehow bad. Even better, try to tie it into that "sting" operation where a few of ACORNS thousands of employees took their motto of trying to help people a little too far. Notice how Instapundit does this with the seemingly sinister, but ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT, TO PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING, statement that it was a "week before the sting operations!":

NEWS: White House Visitors Log: ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis In Obama Residence Week Before Sting Videos Launched.

This is not that far removed from writing that Instapundit had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch last Wednesday, one day before the infamous Christmas airline bomber had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch!!

What is Instapundit trying to do here anyway, same old same old "Insta-BS"?

It never changes.

Update: Politico's Ben Smith reports that it is not the same Bertha Lewis as the ACORN CEO (thus Instapundit and all the other Matt Drudge and Breitbart clones got it wrong), but a Bertha Lewis with a different middle initial. We don't think it's relevant, one way or the other.

Why is Fox Not Talking About this Nonstop?

2009-12-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

Remember when, not long ago, the Fox channel, and many far right zealots simply could not stop proclaiming how the ACORN "voter fraud" was one of the biggest stories of the decade? And how a mainstream media that was giving it far too much attention, was, in their words, virtually ignoring it?

How much coverage is that same far right, and its sponsor channel that likes to work in some pseudo news tidbits with its newslike appearing advocacy, giving to this little piece of news regarding its "story of the year."

A newly-issued Congressional Research Service (CRS) study (pdf) on the activities of the community group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) found no evidence the group has engaged in fraudulent voting or violations of federal financing rules over the last five years.

And how many times did America hear how this group, which supported Obama, had engaged in fraudulent voting or violated federal financing rules at the same time?

How many times will this "error of the year" be corrected? With near round the clock coverage of it just like Fox seemed to insist the "ACORN scandal" required?

Not exactly. A google search of the terms "ACORN," and "fraud," with either "voter," or "voting" within the domain of foxnews.com yielded a plethora of results. But in the first few dozen (we got tired of checking after that) there was no mention of the news above that ACORN had been cleared for the past half decade (changing "fraud" to "fraudulent" did not change this fact).

In fact, in the first few dozen results, none were even in the last two weeks or so, while November, October, and September found all kinds of ACORN and fraud stories on Fox. It seems like, once the "story of the year" brought some news that didn't suit "fair and balanced" Fox's ideology, it went from being a 'story of the year" to pretty much off of Fox's radar.

And people still refer to this channel and organization as a news organization, which is the real shame. And this is Fox online -- which is far better than the TV channel and actually does sometimes carry some decent substantive news.

NRO and Jonah Goldberg Out of Touch with Reality

2009-12-28T20:45:00.000-08:00

Here is what the National Review Online Actually published:

Janet Napolitano oversaw a report that singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorists because of their political views.

The DHS report was on violent extremism, not the political ideology. Janet Napolitano did not oversee it, she inherited it. It was commissioned, and mainly produced, under the Bush Administration.

And to say that it "singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorist because of their political views" is wildly off the mark.
Here's the DHS report. Contrast it with NRO and Jonah Goldberg's fantasy world, where if there is a legitimate threat of far right extremist violence (which almost all experts concur on, including many noted conservatives) how does the DHS assess it without, according to Goldberg's "logic," "singling out" Americans for their views, absurd as this assertion of Goldberg's is. How does it? It can't, which is the whole point.

Person Who is Never Wrong Does Not Know Basic Logic or Science

2009-12-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

"Who's never wrong about anything" is the way the London Telegraph describes James Delingpole, who recently wrote one of the most inane, and manipulative posts, ever to have graced the online pages of a major "news" source.

Here is Delingpole's assertion, as he shows why climate gate, is the "scientific scandal" of the modern era.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

So what is the evidence of these "private doubts?"

First, let's consider what is meant by "warming up;" nanmely, is climate change real. Now let's look at his "evidence" from one of the hacked emails:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Did the person who is "never wrong about anything" ever take a science class in high school or college? Did he pass it? Of is it just that his ideological bent has annilihated his ability to exercise basic scientific understanding or rudimentary logic when it comes to what is clearly an ideological issue to him (just read his popular post, linked to twice above.)

Sadly, that seems to be what is happening, in America (and apparently in our little puppy England) as we continue our march toward becoming more and more ill informed, as we become more and more ideologically driven.

Consider the paragraph that is cited as his "evidence." It claims a disappointment with the ability of a model to predict something, and has almost nothing to do with the underlying isssue of warming.

Some scientist is bummed because he can't accurately model exactly what is happening in the climate, and that's a relevant portion of what he requotes as the "scientific scandal of the modern era"?

This is what happens when the debate no longer revolves around what is going on, and what is the most sensible thing (if anything) to do about it, but between those who are essentially interested in understanding science when dealing with the physical world (which is what defines science), and those who are so driven by their "wants" "beliefs" "desires" and preconceived notions of the way that things should be, or that they want them to be, that their ability to spin (thus convincing themselves at the same time as others) increases commensurate with their precipitiously decreasing ability to objectively reason.

The rest of his examples are also similarly misplaced or well overblown. And even if by "trick" and "hide" these scientists did not mean what most scientists normally mean (rounding out errors) and meant what non scientist mean by these things, so what. It's about as consequential to the underlying issue of climate change as........ [you fill in your own analogy; ours was too ribald to permit the printing thereof].

In other words, irrelevant. Because it's not their data that drives this. It's not their estimations that drive this. Without any of it, the entire basic underlying science is the same. The physics never changes. The known fact of net emissions increases in GHC and how much those are, never changes. The fact that heat trapping gases do drive climate, never changes. And even the observable data, the only non essential part of this equation (although it has tended to corroborate early predictions decades ago) doesn't change; that is,data produced by some of the most reputable organizations on the planet, including NASA and the NOAA, and not some scientist at climate center East Anglia.
And the London Telegraph publishes his tripe, and perpetuates and promotes such idiocy.

Hopefully Delingpole lives in a big house near the sea, where he plans on staying a long, long time.

The American Spectator -- Why Would You Follow Something That Purposefully Misleads?

2009-12-15T01:53:00.000-08:00

The American Spectator -- Why would you follow something that purposefully misleads? Or, if not purposefully, illustrates no clue regarding the subject matter which it is nevertheless trying to inform you on, and, what do you know, by a bizarre coincidence, is also wildly misinforming you.

What is the reason for that bizarre coincidence? Simple. The American Spectator has a particular view that -- right or wrong -- it very zealously, almost religiously, wants to believe, and promulgate. So it does it's darndest to then cherry pick, manipulate, and misrepresent information in order to promote that pre conceived notion.

Why would you trust such a magazine as a source of information?

Don't believe that this is what the America Spectator does? Let's take an example, on a very objective, factually based, non partisan, and in fact, wholly scientific matter, which nevertheless has been turned into a somewhat partisan, and very subjective matter by resources just like the American Spectator.

Here is their opening two paragraphs, with links, of a piece by Paul Chesser. It is clear Chesser wants to believe something, so has done his darndest to convince himself that what he wants to believe, is accruate. He has that right. As do you to read his stuff. But if you want to be informed, rather than mislead into thinking that you are coming to your own conclusins,when in fact you are being somewhat manipulated, why would you want to?

Here we go:

It is like the Peanuts gang laughing in derision after yet another Charlie Brown gaffe. It is like the doubling-over at the double-stumble (video) during fashion week in Paris.

The cackles and guffaws now come routinely. Global warming alarmists, led by inconvenienced (because of cooling weather) Al Gore, are seeing their prophecies of doom dissolve. Now that big ice grows, big winter is bad (like last year), cold temperatures hit record levels, and global mean surface temperature has not continued upward -- despite continued increases in that demonized "greenhouse" gas, carbon dioxide -- the panic peddlers look like flailing jesters.

First, notice the three of three completely gratuitous links in paragraph one. Okay, that's fine. But what about paragraph two, where the mocking stops, and the "substance" begins?

The first link showed that it was really cold one day. Trying even to insinuate relevance to this, would be like saying in late May that we must be going into winter in the northern hemisphere, because at 4:30 p.m. it was cooler out than at 4:23. To call it idiotic doesn't even do it justice. But this is supposed to be entertaining? Is that what the American Spectator is, a "wholly" entertaining magazing that "informs"? How is it doing that here, and not misleading you by trying to imply that a day or two of temperatures have anything to do with the only data that really matters -- the decades long temperature trend.

The second link (go ahead, click on it, or go the original and try it there) is of course, "broken or expired."

Then comes the third link. Go ahead and click on it, also, and see how it was "really cold." It shows a record cold snap in a particula region,which is like saying now on a Wednesday in May that we are moving to winter because Tuesday hit a record low in your state (while perhaps hitting record highs in other areas, and on other continents). Only here this American Spectator artiucle actualy tries to tell its readers that this is in anyway relevant to the issue. What is this; blatant scientific idiocy on the part of the American Spectator, or an attempt to manipulate and deceive, you, its audience?

Which one?

Perhaps American Spectator does not understand the science. But then why write the article?? And why do so to try and undermine the consensus of an overwhelming majority of scientists (which, in itself, is fine), by the writing patent scientific absurdities and taking advantage of the fact that most of its audience probably does not consist of scientists either, and is looking to the/American Spectator for guidance on the issue.And yet instead, is getting mislead.

Link four is not bad. But it is similarly irrelevant, since those who think that global climate change -- which means that our huge net emissions of heat trapping gases will have an influence on the climate -- somehow completely obviate natural patters, as well as cause climate to suddenly become linear and not still erratic (when really we should expect it to become more so) don't understand the issue.

Not "well, they have a different take on the issue." But; "don't understand the issue." At the same time,we want all the data we can get, and all of it is relevant for assessing what degree of impact we may have. So the source of this link -- Richard Lindzen of MIT -- why is he cherry picking a relatively short time span here? Is he just trying to refine modeling, or is he trying to suggest that climate change is not a real phenomenon because temperatures are following expected non linear patterns?

Well, it turns out Richard Lindzen is a self described global warming "denier." What do you know. This is a fine view to have, although it does not appear, from this link that Lindzen's methodology of scientific reasoning is very objectively sound.

But what is interesting to note is that very very few actual scientists reject the consensus that the large net addition of gases that trap heat into the atmosphere will invariably affect climate. Very very few scientists reject this consensus because there has realy been no scientifically plausible basis -- given what we know about climate, atmosphere, and heat (as well as the long term historical ice core data) to reject it. Notice how American Spectator scours far and wide to bring you that source, however; a source which then in turn posits as his evidence something which is largely irrelevant to the broader issue -- namnely, that change will be non linear.

For those who think that climate change means that temperature change will be linear, guess what; it doesn't. So the American Spectator mislead with every single substantive link and statement in that paragraph. And the one link and assertion that it did not mislead? It simply got it wrong.

Which brings us back to the original question. If you want to be fed cherry picked, and highly misleading information designed to make you think you are coming to your own conclusions, the American Spectator is your source. If you actually want to be given objective, reasoned information, look elsewhere.

How is Monica Crowley Repeatedly Asked Back to Speak On Television News Shows?

2009-12-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

This is how America is becoming increasingly misinformed:

McLaughlin Group, December 13, 2009:

John McGlaughlin:

There is Consensus now that cars do not grow on pineapple trees, but are made, usually, in auto factories.

Monica Crowley:

"No there's not!"

Ha ha. That was a joke.

Unfortunately, this is not:

John McGlaughlin:

There is consensus that the earth is warming.

Monica Crowley:

No there isn't.

Do you need evidence of the inaccuracy of this statement? Just google every prominent scientific organization the world over; NASA, the NOAA, etc. etc. Or just look at this chart from NASA going back over 130 years, draw your own conclusion, and then ask yourself:

How is Crowley this profoundly uninformed, and yetstill being held out as a person who is serving to inform us on our airwaves?

Oh, and as for every single mainstream science organization? Crowley now characterizes that as "religion." The fervid, ideological, radical desire to stick to a preconceived belief now matter how at odds with the dispassionate, non partisan, scientific facts around us, can be best described as almost religion like. So how do those so engaged avoid the severe cognitive dissonance that would occur were they to objectivley look at the incontrovertible facts?

Easy -- just dismiss the source of the incontrovertible facts as "religion" -- which, in this case, is essentially what Crowley has now labeled science.

The writer of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, would be so proud.

America: Reason has Left the Building.

More Incredible Errors/Purposeful Manipulations of Viewers? From Fair and Balanced Fox

2009-12-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

The real question is why people would want to watch a news station that does not report news, but that spins the news a certain way in order to support particular advocacy positions.

One that not only does this, but does it somewhat manipulatively, by trying very hard to "come off" as and convince viewers that it is unbiased and objective

So then what was this? Fox News'Andrew Napolitano:

NASA's Goddard Space Center made a remarkable discovery. The headline from the DailyTech is -- you're not going to believe this -- quote: "NASA acknowledges solar cycle, not man, responsible for global warming."

So, basically -- are you ready for this? -- the sun heats the Earth. The real question is whether Al Gore's NASA guy, Dr. James Hanson, will give up on trying to say "people heat the Earth" and "people cause global warming," or if the man who produced the report will get fired for going against the green -- I mean, against the grain.

What was this?

Stupidity on the part of Napolitano? Just an innocent mistake? How many mistakes like this are made by Fox?

The real question is how many hours go by where Fox does not make a mistake like this. Yet it is extremely rare to find a "mistake" by Fox that does not support a particular ideological side to the issues we face in America today -- and always that same "ideological" side.

Or maybe Fox likes scouring headlines or other out of context snippets to bring to its readers as "news" what helps to support what Fox wants to convey, without actually doing what real news does -- spending a few mintues checking up on the actual news, let alone, of course, doing any actual investigation.

Remember Napolitano not only told Fox viewers that NASA claimed that the sun, not any of man's greenhouse gas activities, were responsible for any global warming that was occurring, but he also mocked NASA and even NASA's James Hansen for asserting the overwhelming conclusion of the world' scientists, as well as every single major, pure science (aka, non partisan) organization the world over.

From the NASA report that Fox "you decide" news told its reporters concluded that the sun, and not human activity, was responsible for any global warming:

"For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change," said Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

... "Over recent decades, however, we have moved into a human-dominated climate that some have termed the Anthropocene. The major change in Earth's climate is now really dominated by human activity, which has never happened before."

The sun is relatively calm compared to other stars. "We don't know what the sun is going to do a hundred years from now," said Doug Rabin, a solar physicist at Goddard. "It could be considerably more active and therefore have more influence on Earth's climate."

So, aside from doing any actual news work, how was it that Napolitano, "conveniently" got it so wrong, on such a large issue topic, and reported to a country wide network of viewers that NASA had concluded that manking was not causing any global warming?

Simple. Napolitano went to a classic "source" for major network reporting. The online blog "Daily Tech," which frequently misleads, routinely along ideological lines as well. A perfect source for Fox to get its "news" from. All Fox, and Napolitano had to do in order to not wildly mislead its viewers, something which is a simple task for an evening blogger with a full time job and a life full of activities, was take a minute and go to the source that Daily Tech itself misleadingly relied upon.

But for "Fair and Balanced" Fox, that was apparently too much.

What a fraud Australian Rupert Murdoch's network is perpetrating on the American public, who puts up with it.

It's probably Fox that is playing not just a big role in the incredible dumbing down of America, but in the transition of the Republican/ conservative party into a far right wing party of zealous ideologues, who believe they are "objective."

Climate Change, and the Tragedy of the Commons

2009-12-07T03:15:00.000-08:00

This post, a little while ago, was in response to this Althouse blog post. As an update, it noted a rather intriguing comment, and tried to put it in context.

There were a number of other spirited comments to Althouse's post, that are worth pointing out briefly. One of the more germane, was this:

And, Skeptical, I'm not sure how "going green" could only be done collectively.

All you have to do is convince a substantial portion of the population that the world will end if we don't stop producing CO2. Apparently, all the science is behind you, as well as the media, Hollywood, etc. Shouldn't be hard, in that case. Just convince them that we'll all die, the land inundated, the Statue of Liberty exploding, etc.

Any rational person who believed this would then minimize their own CO2 production.

Actually, the whole point is that they wouldn't. A rational, yet consistently and thoroughly altruistic person who is willing to make sacrifices on their own, for the environmental benefit of all, and for no recognition might (and some people do, somewhat). But from a pure, calcuated, rationality perspective, a rational person would not. (Another commenter did point out that this argument is like recognizing that we need a national treasury, with funds, to take care of national defense and other related items, and asking all taxation to be "voluntary.")

The reason for this is that each person's actions are conducted in isolation of everyone else's. If one person on the globe did nothing to try and help climate change, it will not have an effect upon the ultimate outcome. Therefore, a purely "rational" approach is to keep doing what one wants to do, and hope that everyone else takes action -- in other words, thinks and acts differently.

Here was another comment, though seemingly in some contradiction of our post here, that was pretty good. Or at least funny:

If we can't burn coal, then hell, we NEED global warming. Chilly otherwise.

Coal is a predominant part of the problem. It is, CO2 emissions aside, also extremely polluting, often environmentally degrading, and is often mined and acquired, as a practical matter, by extremely destructive practices to local ecologies, watersheds, and landscapes.

There were also multiple comments posted that presume all of this coercion, and loss of freedom (some with rather hysterical sounding language) from sensibly addressing climate change. But it is not clear where all of this is coming from. We have far more restrictive laws right now than no more coal burning, as even an extreme example.

But that is not even the best solution. What is a much better one, is to simply not issues new plant permits (as it's already something that we have eexercised authority over, for far less reason), and and allow the market place to decide with respect to the rest of existing coal based energy production in what direction it goes, by heavily taxing the deleterious activity (which rewards those who find innovative ways to cut back and thus put their money into other, far more productive uses). And then in turn using those funds, ideally, not to then reward "better alternatives" but for tax refunds or stimulus if short term effects are to retard growth while our economy transitions. (In a perfect ccapitalistic market, everything would adjust instaneously, and there would be not a dime of cost or harm. But the real world is not like that. Markets take time to adjust, and any undue short term harm via policy changes to certain sectors can easily be balanced out via remediation. As well as could, for those so concerned, undue harship to the poor who use a disproportionate amount of their available funds on energy, and may not have the flexibility to as readily and creatively adopt.)

As for the "intrusive" idea that some activities that we have taken for granted will "cost" more: The unfair subsidy that those activies received because their environmenatal harm -- which is real even if it does not seem to matter as much to everybody -- was not integrated in to their pricing structure, thus giving them a competitive advantage over otherwise more beneficial productive practices and processes, will be lessened. That's not an infringement upon anything.

The only real philosophical issue here is: Why would person A's right to pollute transcend person B's right to be free of such pollution caused by person A's activity? Or even vice versa.

Neither should transcend, without more facts. If your neighbor is polluting the air that you must breathe, and you say "no go," she may very well be infringing more on your rights than vice versa.

The fact that this issue is something that we all share -- increased atmospheric greenhouse gase induced climate change is global by definition -- doesn't really change this. It's still a harm. Even if more abstract to some, than to others.

Lastly, here was a comment referencing perhaps one of the most misinformed books in the history of science.

Skeptical - wrong. If you bothered to read Superfreakonomics you'd know that there are cheaper solutions to cooling the planet other then flushing 25-50% of GDP down the drain.

For an example of just how stupid this book is (though this blog normally refrains from the use of the word "stupid,") it was suggested that solar panels "are probably not a good thing" when it comes to global warming because they are "black," which, of course, absorbs heat, and they are only able to translate a percentage of that heat into usable energy.
On a scientific level, it is difficult to conceive of a statement that is more idiotic, than this. In any context.

The sun produces that heat (that the "black" solar panel absorbs) anyway. It goes somewhere. Even if the solar panel is black (though many are not), it might otherwise hit a black roof. Or dark ground.

But the real problem is the idea that the sun's heat energy that the panel absorbed is anywhere near equal to (let alone greater than) the warming potential of greenhouse gases saved --even if, somehow, "all" of the sun's heat that hits that panel would otherwise have miraculously disappeared as if it did not exist in the first place, in the absence of said "solar panel."

This is beyond comical science. It is like Beavis and Butthead do science. But that would be unfair to Beavis and Butthead, who don't hold themselves out to the world as experts, and write books making these assertions.

Even if only a small percentage of the sun's energy is captured (though technologies are well ahead of the perecentages that the book uses), the heat warming differential of the energy is up to several hundred thousand times greater by using at least some of that captured energy to produce non greenhouse gas emitting, usable energy.

[Instead of technical explanations, google science and engineering sites if you really want to know why. But common sense ought to tell you. One quick reason, among several, is that this heat from the sun is transitory. By turning a small fraction of it into energy which does not emit CO2 in the process, it replaces CO2 emitting sources, and thus heat trapping CO2 molecules. These would have become part of the (now increasing) carbon cycle, but they do not break down. In other words, instead of just trapping or accumulating heat for that instant (as in the absorption by black, blue, slightly less by yellow polka dotted solar panels), a portion of the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel consumption, will persist, and trap heat, indefinitely.]

That's only the beginning of the problems with the wildly misinformed "Superfreakonomics." But it ought to give one a bit of an idea of just how hard the authors sought to be "provocative,"and contrarian -- all the way to the point, of abject idiocy, in consideration of the fact that they wrote a book postulating this.

Lastly, let's take that idea that addressing climate change will "flush 25 to 50% of GDP down the drain." This is the type of widely presumed thinking (if an extreme example of it) that allowed Superfreakonomics Author's Dunbar and Levitt to come across as really sharp, creative thinkers in the only slightly less inane (but seemingly sound) "Freakonomics." Dunbar and Levitt would often speak (or write) in terms of "this costs" this without having any idea of that that means, or "if you would do that, that means implicity" when it means nothing of the sort. (Just because they are economists,and so called "contrarians" doesn't prevent them from falling prey to some of our most innately held and seemingly intuitive assumptions, that are housed in a complete misunderstanding of just what "value" is and the inherent limitations upon tangible valuation measurement across things that are not comparable even if we are constantly forced to make choices with respect to them on a daily basis. )

GDP is ultimately a measure of total cost. It is the sum total of all goods and services produced. (Which, over time, roughly equates to what we have spent, since supply tends to equal out to demand. Oversupply, we cut back production, undersupply, we increase more. ) All addressing climate change does, worse case scenario, is change what is in fact spent, that constitutes GDP. (Which in the long run should not matter anyway; what does matter is growth, and job opportunity). It will not lower GDP.

There is a caveat, however. Our economy does not transition instaneously (as noted above). IN the short run, random proscription, as opposed to sensibly thought out policy, can have a shorter term repressive effect, before the marketplace fully adapts and reallocates goods, products, production processes (in this case energy productio processes as well as sources, for instance), etc. The effect is small, but that effect then has a fractionally smaller effect as well. Thus the more abrupt, radical shifts in policy to achieve a more important goal, should be accompanied by some sort of ameliorative action. (Using funds raised initially to subsidize those most hurt, on a decreasing scale, so that the motivation to alter the behavior is not undermined.)

Aside from this effect -- which may occur if we suddenly just started shutting everything down, instead of started using marketplace oriented motivation to let the market make its own adjustments -- there will be no "loss" to GDP. What is proscribed, or what becomes more expensive, will be substituted by what is then more attractive, and less expensive, while heightening market based development, production and implementation of those alternatives, all of which will contribute to growth (and smarter growht, by the way), whereas they would not have before.

More Althouse Logic

2009-12-07T01:33:00.000-08:00

We covered Althouse in an earlier post, here, with additional links that are aptly illustrative.

On that popular blog, it's just non stop ideology and spin: often wildly misleading or ill informed, and, even more frequently, seemingly regardless of the context or logic behind it.

Here is another example, from today: It is a statement that in the abstract, this blog agrees with. That is, just because we are a nation of laws, we should not:

...need law[s] telling us every last thing we ought to do: Individual voluntary action is a big distraction from what we really need — compulsion.

Except that once the context is considered, the very reasonable sounding statement -- why do we need laws telling us "everything," suddenly, is either manipulative, or illogical.

The context is a Washington Post editorial by Mike Tidwell. We are not sure that we agree with the editorial overall, but the basic underlying message is that volunteerism does not work when it comes to environmental matters.

In fact, environmentalism may be the very last place where volunteerism can effectively work.

This is not to say it is bad. It's good. Just that the problem is that the sacrifice is made by the individual making the choice. The benefit (known, or, more often in environmental matters, hidden) is conferrd to society at large. It relies upon idealistic altruism ahead of self interest.

Another "ism" -- apart from some other serious problems -- that relied upon so called good will as its prime moving force, was Communism. Aside fromg being anti individual to the hilt, ultimately anti freedom, and anti motivational, that also does not work on a practical level either. And for the same reason that large scale enviromental issues won't be solved by a small segment of the population, thru "good intent" trying to adjust for them, and the majority of the population, not.

This basic phenomenon has been so exhaustively covered, there is no point in it being gone over here. Althouse is a law professor, but yet has seemingly immunized herself from the basic ideas, and the multitude of corrollaries, of the "Tragedy of the Commons"? [Update, see here]

Again, volunteerism done in this regard is good. It helps. It is just that it can not work on its own when it comes to most problems that we all equally share, to which the cost of solution is borne individually, while the benefit is borne collectively.

This does't mean the solutions always need to be "laws." And the less often they are, for many reasons, the better. But it does mean that solutions should often entail policies that help balance out the tremendous unfairness to business and industry that is at an enormous competitive disadvantage because its processes do not harm the environment for everybody as much as others, yet it receives no commensurate competitive advantage as a result of this.

And why? Because while some people (presuming perfect knowledge, which it self is usually quite a stretch) might take this into account, most won't. And again, that is just with respect to those with perfect knowledge. (Sure there are what seem to be very rare, occasional, smaller scale exceptions, but these are largly de facto advertising campaigns, that happen to hit upon an emotion of concern or new chic "in," which may be also be almost as likely ignorantly engaged in as not.)

But then these are economic concepts. Althouse has shown that when it comes to economics and science both, well, the blog is popular -- and maybe this is why it is? -- let's just suggest there is room for considerable, reasoned, additional thought. The blog, instead, is great for spinning things to fit a pre formulated view, and for affirmation of what one perhaps really wants to, or thinks one, believes; but not so great when it comes to actually informing, or being objective. It is great at making people think that they are thinking, but poor at actually requiring them to think (most online sites are that way, however), and the blog is poor at exhibiting actual thinking, as opposed to almost constant knee jerk ideological pigeounholing, and overly clever spinning.

In effect, the business and industries -- not that they are "bad" -- that do tend to wreak more enviromental harm, are implicity subsidized, in that their true costs are not reflected in their pricing structure. Other businesses and industry and processes and methodologies which don't (or do less) are thus unduly punished, implicitly, since thus the absence (or lesser amounts) of these costs, is not reflected in their pricing structure.

That is why environmental issues are, according to economists, the classic "externality" -- or harm (or, theoretically, good) that occurs outside of the umbrella of market place decision making.

Of course, to Althouse (and perhaps some other far right wingers), the market "naturally integrates" these things. Then again, Althouse frequently exhibits an utter lack of objectivity -- along with an abject scientific illiteracy and a seemingly open open hostility toward correcting that. As, for example, by claiming that climate change may be "potentially be the biggest hoax ever," when the essence of climate change actually is defined by a few things that are in fact incontrovertible, with the unknown -- what is the exact effect -- being somewhat secondary, yet fairly easily reasoned. (Again, see here).

Of course the marketplace doesn't integrate these things. If it could, communism -- aside from the other, in our estimation, quite severe, philosphical problems with communism expressed above -- would work. And it doesn't.

Continue to do good things to help the environment, if that moves you. It is good (so long as people don't start over proselytizing issues.) While problems can, in small measure, be improved this way, by the basic practical nature of man, including the entire premise of our otherwise quite sound capitalistic system -- make economic decisions that benefit us, not everyone else -- they can not be solved. Logic ovewhelmingly illustrates this. Common sense overwhelminginly illustrates this. And actual experience, when it comes to ubiquitous, large scale wide spread environmental problems, has never failed to illustrate this.

Just not in the disconnected from reality world of the Althouse blog. A world where sensibly addressing environmental concerns that effect the quality of the existence of all of us, and the world that we leave our children, is "compulsion," and where the world will magically become clearner and species will flourish, and excessive net greenouse gas emissions will never occur --and little green fairies will come down from heaven every other evening to mow everybodie's lawn, and sprinkle money under their door mats -- by everyone just "doing the right thing (not to mention, even more problematically, having the knowledge to do that) for everyone else, on their own, via only their own, sacrifice.

This doesn't work, whether it be a locality (where if it is small such practices do tend to be more practical), a region (where they don't) a country (where the idea is a bit far fetched), or the world (where it is even more far fetched, such as in he case of climate change.)

Don't want compulsion? Work towards sensible policies -- that solve the problem --that aren't compulsive. Fighting sensible redress to climate change, and continuing to pour out misinformation that is only undermining reasonable and informative discussion and policy, is if anything moving us on a path where more and more compulsion may be in the cards, as we get the worst of both words: More compulsion by a frustrated populace and governing agencies as the problem subsequently gets worse and people wring their hands over the needless failure to take sensible, earlier action; and the unneccesary destructive ecological and biological effects of continued atmospheric heat trapping gas concentration levels.
____________________

Update: Below is a reasonably typical comment, if a bit more extreme, to Althouse's post on this. It helps exhibit the tremendous disconnect between the facts on this issue, and the level of information and how it is being perceived. It is also evidence of just how far the so called "left" is from being able to effectively articulate a case (since, even though it is a scientific, and non partisan issue, Democrats seemed to be more inclined to want to address climate change than Republicans, though most moderate Republicans want to as well.)

How can a party that is supportive of reasonable measures to address a serious ecological problem that extremely short sighted (and quite unnecessary) practices and policies have promulgated, carry on with business as usual with thes level of misinformation and misperception,as well as mistrust, in the comment exhibited just below? Of course, the problem with the left is that they then soley blame those on the right, not realizing that misinformation is a product not just of the misinformation that many are feeding, it is also a product of the non effective communication and informative focus of those who are trying to inform. And maybe Democrats, including wholescale moderates, are letting the far right use a small number on the left to define everyone who doesn't agree with some of the policies or ideas of the far right.

Here is the comment:

And the beat goes on from the brainwashed liberals. They really accept unquestioned the assumption the CO2 is a dirty pollutant. With that much stupidity they are trapped in an end to their own lives and insist that like the Prophet of Jonestown they shall make is all drink the cool-aid together, quickly, quickly...before an adult posting on Facebook comes and puts an end to the Cult. Crack Emcee was right all along. This is not mere politics for men like Mike Tidwell. It is a mass murder cult that desires to see us all driven out into the wilderness as Pol Pot did for the Cambodians.

They "really accept the unquestioned assumption that CO2 is a dirty pollutant." Just how poor a job have "brainwashed" liberals done at conveying what is going on here? (As well as the media, which is supposed to be covering the news and informing, not trying to appease groups that are going to shout at if if the relevant facts don't happen to support that group and the media simply reports the facts).

CO2 is a gas. We breathe it out. Most things in nature are bad or good -- often even lethal, or life requiring, depending upon usage, and amount. CO2, in general is no different. It is the most important greenhouse gas. Greenouse gases make life as we know it on earth possible. Without them, the earth would largely be a frozen ball.

Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and we strongly suspect -- many scientists are convinced (and the long term geologic record strongly supports) -- that the earth gets warmer, are even more certain that the climate gets more extreme and volatile, and even more certain that inevitably, there will be rapid climatalogical changes (from a geologic perspective). And we know that this will represent far too quick an ecological shift for adjustment. (Not to mention, if it is warming, which all theory and evidence both strongly point to, it will ultimately lead to a host of additional problems, if not minor to major catastrophes for large populations, and there is not much adjustment that can be made to increasingly volatile weather patterns, and increasing sea levels.)

We know there is too much greenhouse gas buildupin the atmosphere, because we know how much there has been historically. And we know the very precise, identifiable, reasons why they have risen dramatically above the normal, and far more slowly (on the order of ten to one hundred times slower) fluctuating cycles. Again, see link above for multiple links to data.

More Instapundit to Althouse Ideological Parroting

2009-12-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

InstaBS, Dec. 6, 2009:

December 6, 2009
CLARK HOYT DROPS THE BALL AGAIN, gets spanked by Ann Althouse.

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 9:21 pm

This Ann Althouse? The one that apparently believes that it is commendable that -- and has to affirmatively share -- with her many readers (often sent over by Instapundit), that she "believes" in science. That actually has to note this belief?

The Anglia affair is newsworthy. And that's it. What is incontrovertible is that heat trapping greenhouse gases have risen remarkably, and remarkably rapidly, of late; and that we know precisely what human activities have led to this.

And these levels are not just higher than they have been for the last 650,000-800,00 years, they are significantly higher, and climbing still.

What is also incontrovertible is that we are seeing the slowly increasing warming, and increasing weather volatility, that we would tend to expect. (But can't really be sure about, while we can be sure that there will be increasing climate changes.)

That fact that a few scientists were afraid that some conflicting and otherwise largely irrelevant data to the underlying issue would have a disproportionate impact upon what is an already misinformed debate (thanks to sites like Instanpundit, and Althouse, of course), and so, wrongly, tried to hide some data, is a story. But that's all it is. A story. Not some huges scandal that deserves constant attention, or that changes the basic science.

So what did Clark Hoyt do that Ann, "No, really, 'I'm a believer"' in science, but not necessarily a believer in the Easter Bunny" Althouse, in the words of Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, "spanked" him on? Let's see:

Wow. Hoyt thinks that the NY Times handled the "Climategate" story appropriately. Presumably Hoyt believed that non stop, round the clock, let's decide to throw science out the window "controversy" was not really required by this scandal -- as apparently those on the very far right, who tend to over dominate thr framing of our debate in America today, do.

Yes. That is dropping the ball. If one is wishing desperately for any smidgeon, any kernel, by which to be able to cling to the not very objective idea that the basic, known facts -- that heat drives climate; atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have skyrockected; they have skyrocketed due to very known and very specific, easily identifiable activities and practices; and we have seen a very slow but corroborating warming, and more volatile climate shift -- are somehow irrevelant (which is bad science), or untrue (which is not true).

[Update: Time magazine, hardly a "liberal" source, has an article aptly entitled: "The Stolen E-Mails: Has 'Climategate' Been Overblown?" It notes,correctly, that:

The truth is that the e-mails, while unseemly, do little to change the overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of man-made climate change.]

Climate gate, a bit more rationally examined. In particular, see here. Or here.

Yet a clearly outraged Althouse over the fact that the NY Times is not going to start (mis)interpreting the science or grilling on topics that really don't warrant grilling ("are you sure it's not the hot air coming out of the Instanpundit and Althouse sites, and not the fact that heat drives climate and that atmospheric heat trapping gases have radically risen that is causing climate change, maybe?") writes the following:

Drastic, mindboggingly expensive policy changes are proposed based on this science, making this potentially the biggest fraud in history.

Come on Ann, drop your ideological hat for one second. We know that perhaps some law professors are not that logical, necessarily; but are you seriously this gullible?

Also, and quite seriously, what makes you such a theoretical economics expert (when most people can't even get one of the two right) that you know that the "cost" to address climate change is really going to be so great, or even remotely significant at all.

Maybe all that this "cost" will accomplish is to discourage more harmful processes and activities that we have been over drastically overrelying upon, and encourage less harmful process that we have been drastically under relying upon. Maybe all the "cost" itself, since GDP is a measure of all goods produced (and ultimately they are not re produced if they are not bought), simply goes toward our net growth. In other words, Ann, and Glenn, maybe the development and growth of much smarter, more sensible, cleaner, and renewable fuels and energy practices will actually help constitute our growth, rather than, as you presume, impede it.

And is this really an ideological issue? If not, then why so seemingly knee jerk against the idea -- in this case, fighting tooth and nail the basic, incontrovertible science that you, Ann, say you are a believer in.

What if you are right? Big deal, it costs some money. But it is incontrovertible that greenhouse gases trap heat, and that very identifiable activities are contributing massive amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and that atmospheric levels are wildly out of whack with both historical norms, and --quite logically given its causes -- that this has occurred at geologically breakneck speed.

No one knows exactly what will occur. But it is almost impossible for this to not have some type of radical effect upon climate, over time. Likely, that effect will be warming, and increased volatility (which the actual data that we do have backs up, rather strongly). But we don't know with absolute certainty, from a scientific perspective. We do know that it is wildly reckless. And that it really has nothing to do with ideology, or partisanship, or economic perceptions and beliefs, or anything else. Nothing but basic science, which explains the world around us.

And the funniest thing, the concern, over this "cost," in the long run, is probably misplaced. Expenditures are what grow our economy; they don't strangle us. Are you fearful that a little money spent on protecting the ecology and biology of our world might delay the onset of the next great coffee maker by 3 months; or make electricity"cost" more for a little while? But then perhaps -- until we have the proper market incentives to promulgate more development, implementation, and usage of smarter fuels and processes -- we are vastly over utilizing these things right now: which would be wildly inefficient. And inefficieny is a cost. And, all those expenditures go to grow our economy, and are as valuable as anything else we choose to do.

And in this case, they are probably far more valuable -- as it will enable us to avoid what, from a non ideological, non partisan, cold, hard, scientific reality (which is the reality of our physical world, like it or not) is very likely to be increasing and rapid scale ecological and biological harm -- those expenditures will in the long run be going toward something for more productive and beneficial. That's not a cost.

And this perspective is a pretty far cry from "Drastic, mindboggingly expensive policy changes." Which perhaps is what is driving so many, illogically, and non dispassionately, to cling to the idea, scientifically ridiculous as it is -- that maybe this is all a "fraud," let alone the biggest fraud in history, that Althouse potentially calls it.

Which itself is what is really, "mindboggling." Except it's not. It's driven by increasingly fervid (and unhealthy) ideology in this country.

Put aside that preconceived belief, or desired belief, for a moment. Go take some measurements of the air, monitor some sites, examine the history through 100,000s of years of ice cores, study the science of air chemistry. And see what you see. And then just consider. Maybe switching over to fuels, for example, that are not extremely finite, that don't otherwise pollute heavily (as coal and oil do, extraordinarily in the case of coal), is in fact,a smart economic thing to do.

Mabye you'll see a whole new world. And maybe we can make some progress on this issue, that like it or not we are all in together.

And keep in mind that, if anything, this is an anti big government blog. But anti big government does not mean that we don't sensibly address collectively the few things that we are forced to share. And, besides national defense, what is number one on that list?

The quality of our natural environment.

The WSJ's James Taranto is Full of More Horse Manure Than a Stable of Mares

2009-11-29T01:20:00.000-08:00

In a rather convoluted post on the climate change science email scandal this past wednesday, Taranto writes the following:

[NY Times Environmental Reporter Andrew] Revkin reports that the "latest peer-reviewed science" shows that "the case for climate change as a serious risk to human affairs" is "clear, despite recent firestorms over some data sets and scientists' actions."

What we now know about the "peer review" process in this field indicates that this is a predetermined conclusion. Revkin misleads his readers by describing it as if it were a real finding.

It should be considered profound that someone who writes the Wall Street Journal Online's "best of the web" today column could write something either this manipulative, or this inane.

Which is it? Does Taranto know? Does he know why this statement of his is inane? Or is he so driven by lopsided ideological zeal that he can't see it?

"What we know" about the peer review process in this field does not indicate that this is a predetermined conclusion. It indicates that it was potentially a predetermined conclusion with respect to a few scientists in this field.

There's a pretty big difference there.

But then, logic is not Taranto's strong suit. Not by a long shot. No wonder why he writes an incredibly partisan blog for the Wall Street Journal. Decent logical skills -- as opposed to the ability to convince others of same (others who simply want their beliefs reinforced, and to be made to think tha they are thinking without actually doing so) -- would get in the way of that, as well as in the Wall Street Journal's editorial philosophy.

Here's some more from the same column:

"Along similar lines is this comment from Michael Tomasky, the American Washington correspondent of London's Guardian:

One hope I had for the Obama era was that maybe we'd all grow up and have quasi-substantive debates about these things. Well, if anything, this "conversation" in America has become even more immature and batty than it was before. It ain't Barack's fault. But there's very little hope in America of having a serious conversation about anything.
Tomasky has a point, and here's a good example of a statement that is immature in both tone and substance: "It ain't Barack's fault."

Exactly. Because Obama is doing so much to quash substantive debate! And it's particularly because of Obama that we don't have any, any more.

Question for the Wall Street Journal Editors: What kind of crack is Taranto smoking? Oh wait, the ridiculously partisan crack of far right wing pre determined belief driven ideology.

Health Care Reform's Individual Mandate -- More Impositions on Freedom

2009-11-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

Here is a good debate between David Rivkin and Lee Casey, on the one hand, and Professor Jack Balkin, on the other, on the constitutionality of an individual federal health care mandate.

It's a good debate, however, only because there is considerable question as to whether this is good policy. Not all things that might be theoretically constitutional, as that document is today intepreted, are good ideas.

Balkin is right. The mandate likely passes constitutional muster. But it is still an imposition on freedom.

Moreoever, without reforming health insurance, all it does is serve as a boon to health insurance companies, and will likely do little to address the underlying problem of excessive cost while forcing people to pay for private coverage that is often cost inefficient.

The more money that goes to for private health insurance rather than directly into a consumers own health care, the more money that is being expended that is not furthering actual health care or its improvement. An individual mandate then in turn dictates this to citizens, telling them in essence that they must pay money to a for profit entity in order to provide themselves -- not others -- with insurance coverage.

In short, it's a terrible idea. And it's intrusive. And it's invasive. And it's yet another indirect handout to a large corporate lobbying concern, one that here is far more responsible for the excessive health care costs that are driving the perceived need for reform in the first place, than for mitigating them.

Sarah Palin Wrote That? Yeah, Sure, Right

2009-11-28T23:42:00.000-08:00

We have to confess. Our first reaction upon hearing the sentence was -- until the part about the beer bottle in the dogs jaw (which was just bad) -- that it was pretty good. And we were suprised that Palin had written it. To say the least.

Of course, it turns out, Palin didn't write it. So who were these ruse's exactly, who pounced all over this Obama as Palin prose? Readers in a forum? Big deal. What else is new.

But Althouse, rabid right wing conservative, bizarrely writes that she liked the quote better after she found out that Obama had (ostensibly) written it. Which makes no sense, unless she thought that a small apartment with intermittent heat and a downstairs buzzer that didn't work, right up the street from a garage made a lot more sense for Obama's past than Alaska Frontier Palin.

But the grandest part of Althouse's "objectivity" is her announcement that Palin's book and Obama's are almost exactly the same.

Goldberg might -- though she might have needed a few dozen hours rather than 60 seconds -- have been better served pointing out all the hypocrisies, inconsistencies, manipulations and misrepresentations in Palin's work, rather than suggesting, and looking somewhat elitist in so doing, that comparing Palin's book to Obama's "Dreams of My Father," was like comparing "Twilight" to "War and Peace." Of course, what Althouse says in response is hilarious. Unintentionally. And it's too bad Goldberg was cut off right after going on about "nuance," which seems also to be besides the point. (Maybe she is techinically right. But Political books are not art shows or depth of character studies. They are to promote and make a point -- ether a valid one, or ones -- or deceptive, misleading, ones. Focusing on how and why noted political books accomplished one or the other, rather than "nuance," is a lot more productive and relevant. But we don't know what else she said. Althouse cut off the tape at that moment.)

The Far Right and Instapundit's Manipulative Obsession with "ClimateGate"

2009-11-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

Instapundit's obsession with climate gate was noted here.

Now Instapundit is citing articles (as part of its own pajamas TV site, no less) that call for a delay in climate talks, because of what is otherwise a fairly irrelevant academic scandal. And the article that it links to is truly profound:

Let's just start with the bulk of the first sentence:

Because, apparently, the “dog ate the homework” – more specifically the temperature data on which the whole global warming “can of beans” depends.

How much of this is outright lying, and how much is outright, abject ignorance? It is hard to say.

But that is what happens when interpretation of facts and events is driven by ideology, rather than vice versa. A largely irrelevant scientific scandal ensues, and in the world of ideology, all other substance must now fly out the window as well. How convenient. This way we can continue to avoid dealing with climate change!

And of course, to Instapundit,and this souce that Reynolds cites, it means that all of the temperature data on which the whole global warming 'can of beans' depends is now meaningless.

It is hard to accurately describe such idiocy with mere words.

Read the article. Yes, only those at East Anglia had the magic grail of data, with the rest of the world powerless to figure things out, and now, completely data empty. And thus with that data questioned, requoting out of context from an inane Times online article, "It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years."

No, it doesn't. And in fact it doesn't mean anything of the sort. And to claim otherwise is abjectly poor journalism, and even worse science. (What it does mean is that academics are not able to check East Anglia calculations that show a temperature rise over the past 150 years.)

But would one expect anything less from an Instapundit article citing an article on its own home grown pajamas TV. No shocker that this Instapundit site had no less than 120 million visitors in the last 12 month period measured.

The most manipulative and ideology reinforcing crap floats to the top.

More BS from Instapundit Insta-BS

2009-11-28T21:47:00.000-08:00

Also from Instapundit, November 28:

GATEWAY PUNDIT: 4000 Patriots Join James O’Keefe At St. Louis Tea Party Protest.

Posted at 8:41 pm by Glenn Reynolds

So if you go to a tea party protest, that makes you a "patriot"? Most of those at tea party "events" have a hard time even articulating what it is they are protesting about. But it means automatic qualification as a "Patriot"?

Yes, in the misleading, BS world of Instapundit.

Patriotism: To the far right today and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit -- doing everything one can to undermine and attack the president of the United States when it is a Democrat, and not even questioning or criticizing the president or party in power when it is the party the far right voted for. Another way to put it is love not of country but of government, when it is the government one voted for, and knee jerk blind, hatred for government and its leaders, when it is not the government one has voted for.

Word to America. That is not Patriotism. That is very slow, creeping facism.

Once Again Insta-BS Cites a Source that has no Idea what they are Talking About

2009-11-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

Here is the inane Instapundit post from earlier today:

MANCESSION: The Jobless Gender Gap: Unemployment for men is growing at a much faster pace than for women. “Imagine the outcry if women amounted to roughly three in four lost jobs in this recession.”

This was not by accident, but a matter of Administration policy in response to interest-group pressure.

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 9:33 pm.

The second link is to this article in the Weekly Standard, which offers no proof whatsoever of its claim. But proof was never relevant to a site like Instapundit: Which wants to believe, and so leaps at any circumstantial evidence, and then cites it as if it is proof.

Maybe the Weekly Standard article makes a good point. Or maybe t is complete horse malarkey. (Both appear routinely in the Weekly standard, with an edge to the latter.) The point is, there is really no way of knowing, since almost nothing is supported.

In Weekly Standard world: Proposal was for construction stimulus jobs. Women's groups protested. scant information regarding actual evidence or other considerations is actually provided in the article. But, what does that matter, since ultimate stimulus package did not emphasize construction jobs, this was then without a doubt a result of women groups protesting!

In Weekly Standard World, if you usually order a chocolate milkshake with your fries, but today you order a strawberry one and ask for a hurricane, and a hurricane comes, then ordering strawberry milkshakes causes hurricanes!

But one thing that the Weekly Standard article does assert that is determinable without additional evidence, one way or another, is the following claim by author Christina Hoff Sommers, so it is no shock that the article appears to be another case of manipulation. That claim -- keep in mind as you read it that the AEI is focused above all else on economics -- is this:

The whole idea of economic stimulus is to use government spending to put idle factors of production back to work.

No, it's not. And when it is, it's a bad idea. Or a bad expression of what economic stimulus -- good or bad idea iself -- is all about.

What it is all about is increasing aggregate demand in the economy, which has lagged below that of aggregate supply. That may have the effect of putting idle production back to work -- or, if that idle production has lagged due to competition, replacing it with more efficient competitors or alternatives. But the idea of stimulus is to stimulate demand and spur production and renew job growth, but not necessarily by simply propping up sectors or production capacities that are inefficient and thus have idle capacity. This AEI "economist" confuses the purpose of such policy, with a potential and often resultant effect.

That's lazy analysis, but one wouldn't expect Instapundit to rely upon anything less. As long as it throws a theory out there -- right or wrong, without backing it up -- that's against the Obama administration, that's good enough for Instapundit, your one stop shop for Insta BS.

Sarah Palin and Political Coverage: A Wonderfully Bad Question, and an Accurate, but Disturbing, Answer

2009-11-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

Here is the on the one hand inane, and on the other hand relevant, question that politics daily asked a handful of conventional political "experts:"

Will [former Alaska Governor) Sarah Palin ever be president?

Here is the answer: It depends.

What does it depend upon? How dumb our country becomes.

We are becoming increasingly dumber. Hopefully, this is a trend that can be arrested, and reversed; but there are not legitimate signs of this yet. If we become dumb enough, Sarah Palin will be president. If we don't, she won't.

This is not to be glib and say that she will be president if we are "dumb" enough to elect her. But it is to say that if our country continues to get dumber and dumber when it comes to politics, policy, and rhetoric, being led increasingly more by the latter, than by fact, while being manipulated or led by increasing ideological belief that we are in fact being led more by fact, than Sarah Palin will be become president.

Another way of putting it, is if we continue to listen to things like this intensely ideologically driven and abjectively subjective and often manipulative site, then she will.

The Earth Has Continued to Warm the Past 10 Years, Not Cool

2009-11-27T02:44:00.000-08:00

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer. Graphs here.

The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years. And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

Not only has the last decade been the warmest decade on record, but the "ten warmest years on record have all occurred in the last eleven years."
And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun. Heat drives climate. Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

John McCain's "Objectivity" on Sarah Palin

2009-11-25T15:53:00.001-08:00

McCain called Palin his "soul mate" last year shortly after meeting her -- an unfortunate choice of words given how radically right, and radically bereft of correct information, Palin was.

This was the same Palin, whom the media is quick to point out, that supported the Bridge to Nowhere initially while telling voters she "stood up to it," while not so quick to point out that she "told" voters she "stood up to that bridge to nowhere and told them no!," repeatedly, night after night after night even after the lie was dubunked, in wildly passionate crescendoing, booming eloquent voice, when in fact she remained a supporter of the project even after becoming Governor, and only "turned against" the project when it became a national symbol of pork waste (McCain even contemptously cited it several times on the primary campaign trail even while Palin was still in favor of it), and Congress cut off all further funding for the project.

That's just the tip of the iceberg on Palin.

But pointing these things out -- which still is not sufficiently done as we continue to listen to this person's opinion as if he is an expert when she is nothing of the sort is apparently being unfair to Palin, according to John McCain.

"Attacks" upon Palin are apparently unsettling to her former running mate and "soul mate," who himself, in order to get the nomination, radically shifted to the right, and nevertheless still became the media protected savior of integrity in politics and the untouchable expert on foreign policy and military strategy matters.

Maybe there are some crass attacks out there on Palin which are not non personal, fact based assessments of this person's constant assertions to the American populace. But even if so, this recent assertion by McCain belies a huge disconnect between the Palin issue, and everything else:

"I’m entertained and sometimes a little angry when I see this constant, vicious attacks by people on the left," McCain said of Palin during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren.

"’I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years that I’ve been in politics," McCain continued, "the viciousness and the personalization of the attacks on Sarah Palin."

McCain's "never seen anything like it" in all the years he has been in politics? Really?

He probably didn't see anything like it -- in fact, far worse than it -- in 2008, when Palin herself engaged in a constant and wildly misleading campaign against his political opponent, Barack Obama, repeatedly questioning his integrity, calling him "unfit to lead" as a result of critical facts she got wrong and he got right, questioning his patriotism that even conservatives were calling racially tinged, very insinuatingly said he "doesn't see America like other Americans" in concert with suggesting he was connected to terrorists, suggested that he was two faced, and, as CNN puts it, intoxicated by his own voice; called Obama's actions "appalling" and "atrocious" while wholly mischaracterizing Obama's votes on the issue, and completely lying about the subject matter of a remark that Obama had made in order to falsely make him look horrible on it.

Or maybe McCain just hated Obama too, so much so that such viciousness then, simply did not exist?

The politico article linked to above also points out that McCain "did not mention that some of the harshest attacks against the former Alaska governor have come from former members of his own presidential campaign." Wonder why that is.

And speaking of viciousness and personalization unlike any he has ever seen, here is McCain in 1998:

Q:"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?"
A: "Because her father is Janet Reno."

McCain said that. Not a late night stand up comic. And still it would have been inappropriate. What leading politician has said anything that downright meanspirited on a personal, not policy or factual, level about Palin? McCain didn't only attack the personal looks of the female attorney general, in an extraordinarily disparaging way, he attacked an innocent kid. Publicly.

Calling all Teapots. Get your black out. Seriously.

"Belief" in "Science"

2009-11-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

A post earlier today noted some of the science on climate change, and the far right ideologically driven dogma of popular (fake instant credibility building)"law professor" sites such as Intapundit and Althouse.

Conveniently, Althouse writes yesterday: "I'm having a really hard time believing scientists lately."

Perhaps tipping her hand, Althouse then immediately asserts, as if to put the (rare) objective reader at ease, and further show the (common) subjective reader how "balanced" and "rational" she is, that "I'm a thorough believer in science."

This is an interesting statement. Science is the study and understanding of the physical world around us. In other words, lacking any other dimensional construct, objective reality. So Althouse has to assert that she is a "believer" in this, as if it's a choice? As in one can choose not to "believe" in "science," aka, observable learnings of our physical world. Give her extra credit for being, in her words, a "believer" in this.

Of course, driven by ideological dogma (which sometimes conflicts with science -- or objective, non partian physical reality) and with sources like this (also written by lawyers) -- which she cites in this same piece regarding her "skepticism rubbed raw" by climategate -- it is easy for Althouse to be "skeptical of scientists" as opposed to being skeptical of questionable motives and scientific data, for valid, non political objective reason. That is, a source which mangles the facts through grandiose omission, and comission.

Yes, just read powerline; the aerosol affect of SO2 largely offsets the heat trapping propensities of drastically increasing greenhouse gas concentrations!! (Decades -- or less -- from now, these same ideologically driven groups are going to be saying the same thing that was said on Iraq "no one knew nor could have contemplated how complex the Iraq dynamic was going to be," and be completely oblivious to the fact that they repeatedly fought non partisan objective scientific reality tooth and nail.)

Actually, if we all just turn our air conditioning up a little more, this may offset most of the negative effects of climate change too! Note that such a seemingly moronic statement is only slighly more inane than the claim in the grotesquely negligent piece of abject trash "Superfreakonomics" that solar panels, because they are "black," don't help because they don't absorb much of the energy of the sun and the rest is "reradiated as heat."

Yes, just read powerline. The basic long standing scientific fact that greenhouse gases trap heat (and in almost exclusive concentrations are the main reason why the surface of venus is over 800 degrees Fahrenheit) may not be a myth after all, but S02 particulates block sunlight and so cause cooling! You see, science is such a beautiful thing; if one consumes twenty seven Big Macs a day, but takes a sip of ice water, one will lose weight or remain relatively constant, since Big Macs put on calories, but the body must burn calories in order to bring the ice water up to temperature!

You see how easy science is? Natural SO2 pollution, you dopes. It offsets atmospheric heat trapping gases! Powerline is just grand. And what a grasp of science it has. Just like Althouse.

Althouse, Knee Jerk, Follows Wildly Misleading Ideological Dogma, Once Again

2009-11-25T13:20:00.000-08:00

We wrote yesterday about the rather grand disparity between the underlying science facts of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the so called "climategate" scandal.

And we wrote today about the ideologically driven illogic of the overly popular law professor blog, Althouse (In some ways mirroring the even more popular, law professor blog, Instapundit. See here, here, here, and here.)

Not suprisingly, here is Althouse's saracastic take today on this same "climategate scandal:"

That solemn editorial about global warming looks pretty silly...

... with all those comments about Climategate.

Newspapers just aren't what they used to be, when the readers can instantly talk back.

Of course Althouse's link is to the same "Newsbusters" column cited by her major promoter, Instapundit.
As for the fact that "newspapers aren't what they used to be, when readers can instantly talk back," Althouse is correct, but not exactly how she intended. Now, newspapers can be filled with all sorts of wildly erroneous assertions in comments; unchecked, untested, unchallenged. And relied upon by Newsbusters for its own analysis, which then in turn is relied upon, knee jerk dogma style, by Instapundit, and Althouse, etc.

From that original post, let's recap:

So here is one of the quotes provided to show how alert, informed readers are pushing back in this "hilariously bizarre situation" [note, this is the exact same link that Althouse smugly links to in her Post today to show that newpapers can now be criticized and "corrected" online by readers] where "climategate" is not being given enough "mention" by the media (emphasis added):

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, [temperatures] have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

So the article is all about how some scientists may have tried to push some selective data years back, and how it is bizarre that the media largely ignores this as it examines the actual scientific issue of increasing heat trapping gas concentrations in our atmosphere. And it does this how? By citing things that are simply made up, and diametrically incorrect. [Nowithstanding the fact that the hacked emails did little to contradict global warming, as opposed to a shred of potential data in support of it amongst a sea flood of otherwise correlative information.]

Here are some facts, which to Newsbusters -- even in a piece with the express purpose of making much ado about some purposefully selected facts (by trying to quash contradictory data) years ago --apparently otherwise have less relevancy than "climategate."

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer. Graphs here.
The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years. And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun. Heat drives climate. Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

But that's okay. To a smug Althouse, Newspapers are "not like what they used to be" because now readers will take them to task prompted by their own ideological leanings, instead. And this is only making newspapers better and better, as they increasingly bend to criticism and mischaracterization from the far right, prompted on by such highly misleading sites as Instapundit, and Althouse.

Just Another Example: Palin the Manipulative Rhetoric King

2009-11-25T11:53:00.000-08:00

A post from earlier today suggested that Sarah Palin:

...is not well informed, to say the least; is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven; has a fanastic gift for rhetoric; and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at it, in terms of convincing herself, and many others.

Almost all of these qualities is on display in this article in Politico, as Palin plays the Obama doesn't like or respect our troops card. It almost completely misstates Obama's positions and communications, and is otherwise also complete horsesh*t.

(Note that the phrase "obviously," was not put in front of the phrase "complete horsesh*t," because if it was that obvious, the media and others would not continue to pay attention to this person who is so caught up in her strangely twisted view of the world that she probably wouldn't recognize an objective fact if it jumped up and bit her in the nose.)

But it is a view that has a lot of appeal. The sort of high rhetoric appeal that extreme authoritarian states tend to take, where the lack of constant national chauvenistic sentiment is taken as a sign of weakness or insult. (See Fox news, for example, where "apparently they think the art of diplomacy is to get other countries to hate us for no good reason, and to pass up sensible opportunities to build rapore and communication with no attendant loss to our own interests or goals.")

Here, Palin madly spins the latter, very likely without ever even realizing she is doing so:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.

“There’s been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe.”

“They’re making sacrifices,” said Palin, who visited the Army base at Fort Bragg on Monday as part of her ongoing book tour. “They’re putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world. I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them.”

Last year, Republican columnist Kathleeen Parker wrote that "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

And Palin just added a bunch more dollars to the till with her typical, ill informed and wildly misleading exploitation of troop politics.

The Politico article also notes that Palin "urged Obama to adopt the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal by adding 40,000 U.S. troops to the conflict in Afghanistan."

Which is good. Because Palin is such an expert on Afghanistan:

During the Vice Presidential Debate last Autumn, Palin claimed that “Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.“ Later, because of this, she called him “unfit to lead."

Here Palin lied to the American people about what Obama had stated, and was either outright pathological about what was going on in Afghanistan;, or, more likely, had nary a clue. Obama’s point wasn't, what Palin told the American people it was — that we were essentially in Afghanistan to kill civilians, but that our over reliance upon air raids was resulting in too many collateral casualties. This was not morally acceptable, nor strategically sound.

Back in mid August, 2007, when Obama had made the point that Palin looked straight into the eyes of America, and called “reckless, reckless, and untrue,” not only were too many civilians being killed by collateral damage, but more civilians were being killed unintentionally by U.S. forces collaterally, than were being killed by insurgents.

Nor was this a big secret (except, of course, perhaps to ex-Alaskan Governors who despite having a glib and adept rhetorical tongue, could not name a single source (see minute 3:30) of news and information that they read).

Eight days prior to Obama’s statement, Foreign Service Correspondent Pamela Constable had even reported on the Washington Post's Sunday front page that “a mounting toll of civilian casualties, mostly in bombing raids… have inflamed public opinion, turned many Afghans against the foreign forces, and further strained [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai’s credibility.”

Just not in Palin's world, where this reality does not exist, and all those innocent civilians dying must be like a fairy tale that we tell children; like the abominable snowman or something.

What makes Palin's profoundly ignorant assessment on Afghanistan even more mind blowing -- and mindblowing that Politico is giving Palin's "opinion" on what we should do with respect to the vexing Afghanistan challenge right now to the American people as if she is some sort of expert -- is that a month before the vice presidential debate "reckless, reckless,and untrue" Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologized for the numerous civilian casualties in Afghanistan — the same casualties that according to Afghanistan expert Sarah Palin, were not occurring. And the day before that, Senior Afghanistan Commander David McKiernan (whom Palin identified in the debate as "McClellan") noted that an over reliance upon air power, due to a shortage in troop levels, was responsible for the rise in civilian casualties — the same civilian casualties that according to “Wasilla main street reality” Palin, were not occurring.

But now today America should listen to Palin's opinion on Afghanistan, because she is "popular;" and while she gratuitously and manipulatively proselytizes on America's troops, at that -- using them as pawns in her carefully crafted, seemingly subtle, yet wildly misleading, highly charged and emotionally manipulative attacks upon our current Commander in Chief.

Vintage Palin (for more on the blogger in the clip shown, see the recent post referred to at the outset). If BS were currency, she could bail out Wall Street herself. And our media just keeps putting her in the spotlight. And she just keeps getting away with it.

The Delusion of Rhetoric

2009-11-25T03:58:00.000-08:00

Here is an example of the type of radically illogical "logic" that the far right wing (and very popular) Ann Althouse engages in.

Here is another example on a substantive topic which Althouse, as a law professor, should be able to reasonably assess, where Althouse can't even correctly read the Washington Post article that she relies upon, much less assess the situation correctly. (Note, Althouse's Post was considerably altered, and shortened, after this critique of it went up; we are sure coincidentally.) Here Althouse asserts that Barack Obama called the Cambridge police stupid. Obama did not. He said the police (clearly referring to the arresting officers) acted stupidly. This might seem like a minor miscue, but for a law professor it is anything but.

Here, on Monday, is an example of a new form of game playing that passes for commentary these days.

Among some of the less radically far right comments to this highly manipulative post, are the following

1. "I think people are starting to 'get' Ann. One person said she is masterful in picking out holes in arguments, and provoking others to lose it when they become frustrated in not being able to defend their positions."

Actually, Althouse is masterful at manipulating the issue from an ideological perspective, without having to bother with facts, or plain, objective non partisan reason, that cuts against it.This is what makes her wildly popular, among those with potentially similar ideological bent (just as it does Sarah Palin.)

2. "Ann's a tease of sorts. She knows how to phrase things in such a manner as to call into question someone else's motives and actions in an enticing manner."
.
Actually, Althouse knows how to phrase things in such a manner so as to turn inside out, and outside in.

Consider what she does in this very same post.

In an earlier post, which famous blogger Andrew Sullivan noted here, Althouse took one of the weaker examples of Sarah Palin "lies" by Sullivan -- Palin's claim that the "only" flag that she has in her office is the Israeli flag -- and jumped all over it.

It was a pretty weak example of a lie. But consider the logic that Althouse uses to address it:

What's odd is his definition of a lie. If I said I was just wearing jeans to a party, you wouldn't have exposed me as a liar if I turned up wearing a shirt and shoes as well. In fact, you'd sound like a dork — or, with good enough delivery, a comedian — if you said, "You liar. You said you were just wearing jeans!"

Except for one very big thing. "Just wearing jeans" in terms of "going out" attire refers to the outfit, not just the jeans, and everyone knows this. Just as the statement that "I am going over" X's house does not mean that one is literally flying over X's house,and everyone knows this.

The statement "the only flag I have in my office" has no such connotation, whatsoever. None.

Althouse is a law professor, and yet, apparently, could not see this distinction. Or chose not to.

But then notice how Althouse failed to respond to Sullivan's point, which was to "debunk" what she bitterly complained of. Instead, she fantasized about just such a list of "lies" by Obama; but of course did not produce one. And if and when Althouse does -- though it is likely this won't happen -- one can be certain it will be filled with errors, misrepresentations, and manipulations. (And in the event Althouse does produce such a list, this statement that it "will be filled with errors, misrepresentations, and manipulations" will be referred back to for support. One might wonder how this can be so comfortably predicted. Easy: it is the largely unwitting modus operandus of those who are patently driven by intense ideology. Also, to believe that Palin and Obama engage in disseminating falsity on anywhere near the same level, or even in the same ball park, is either to be driven by such blind ideology, or to know very little of the facts of which Palin speaks.)

Should Sullivan be calling Palin clinically delusional? No, but then that's not the point of Althouse's post, either.

What Sullivan may not get here is that people are partisanally driven -- the more ideologically so, the more they tend to filter facts to suit their own beliefs. Althouse is a far more educated version of this. Palin is not well informed, to say the least, is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven, has a fanastic gift for rhetoric, and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things, while grasping (albeit often in wildly distorted fashion) a few underlying fundamental truths, or half truths. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at this, in terms of convincing herself, and many others.

Glenn Beck is clinically delusional. Palin is not. And Sullivan should probably stay away from pop psychology.

Althouse, in the meantime, should follow her own fairly ironic statement in this same Post on Sullivan that she is "into pursuing the truth." If she was, she would be a bit more concerned about why a good portion of the country is widly supportive of a women that knows very little about America and is often wildly misleading, rather than concerning herself with word and manipulative game playing over Republican Sullivan's list giving: And thus into finding out the truth or fiction of such assertions (and many other misrepresentations by Palin that Sullivan missed), rather than simply fantasizing the same over her professed deeply ingrained political enemy, Barack Obama.

But Perhaps Althouse is somewhat of a closet Palin supporter herself. After all, a careful read of her wildly popular blog aptly illustrates that with a gift for logical twisting in support of ideology, she is not all that different from her.

National Review's the Corner Out of Touch with Reality on Context

2009-11-25T01:31:00.000-08:00

This post provides a pretty apt illustration of the types of mental and logical contortions that are engaged in by the pursuit of "fact" to fit pre conceived ideological purpose, rather than the purpose of fact in order to determine rational direction and response.

Yesterday, Johan Goldberg at the Corner blog at National Review Online suggests the following, regarding "climategate" 2009:

If these were internal Exxon-Mobil e-mails, the trial lawyers would be racing out the door with only one pants-leg filled and every Green press flack would be demanding this lead the evening news and front every newspaper above the fold. If similar e-mails came from the RNC showing racism or homophobia, the New York Times would not demur in the name of privacy, it would call for the GOP to go into federal receivership.

Really?

Well, no.

Instapundit Sources: When Facts Get in the Way, Make up Opposite Ones

2009-11-24T23:42:00.000-08:00

Insta BS is all gleeful (and yesterday alone had no less than six other posts) about the largely irrelevant "climategate" scandal, that showed some old data was potentially compromised to support a determined position.

Jeez, where have we heard that before. It's only happened thousands of times with respect to climate change data by anti climate interests. But does a single instance of the latter prove that climate change therefore is as Al Gore claims?

Of course not. Nor is the fact of some old perhaps manipulated data scrunching by some concerned climate scientists very relevant to the opposite; that is, it has no bearing on the actual issue and the science and facts underlying it.

So here is one of the quotes provided to show how alert, informed readers are pushing back in this "hilariously bizarre situation" where "climategate" is not being given enough "mention" by the media (emphasis added):

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, [temperatures] have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

So the article is all about how some scientists may have tried to push some selective data years back, and how it is bizarre that the media largely ignores this as it examines the actual scientific issue of increasing heat trapping gas concentrations in our atmosphere. And it does this how? By citing things that are simply made up, and diametrically incorrect.

Here are some facts, which to Newsbusters -- even in a piece with the express purpose of making much ado about some purposefully selected facts (by trying to quash contradictory data) years ago --apparently otherwise have less relevancy than "climategate."

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer. Graphs here.

The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years. And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun. Heat drives climate. Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

But none of that matters in the world of predetermined ideology. Even though some scientists who acted improperly a while back really has almost no relevance to the scientific issue, data or question and challenge at hand. As Reuters noted two days ago:

The issue of scientists behaving badly does nothing to invalidate the science,” said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC in Washington. “This does nothing to the U.S. climate bill, which will be decided mostly by economic forces, not environmental ones.”

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, said the release of the e-mails will be remembered mostly as as embarrassment to the researchers.

“It shows that the process of science is not always pristine,” said Leiserowitz. “But there’s no smoking gun in the e-mails from what I’ve seen.”

Leiserowitz, who is a social scientist, said the e-mails would provide fodder for the 2 to 3 percent of the general public that are hard-core climate change doubters. “For that small group it is like meat to the wolves.”

No doubt.

Strange Freudian Slip on Pox News?

2009-11-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of here:

At about 10:57 [EST] during a piece about NASA auctioning off some surplus equipment, ["Fox News"]Miami correspondent Phil Keating mistakenly referred to an Airstream camper van as an "Astroglide."

Here is a dodge Airstream camper van.

Here is what Astroglide is.

See the difference?

One glides down the road. The other glides, um.....

Palin's Not What?

2009-11-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, there is some nice end of world action footage, and a half clever SNL Spoof of this and Palin; but catch the assertion here that "Palin is not really a political figure."

She just ran for Vice President. She was just governor of a State. She is constantly talked about in mainstream media political discussions. She is considered one of a handful of frontrunners of the GOP Political Party. She addresses policy and political issues publicly. She just wrote a book which is about her and politics.

But she's "not really a political figure." Of course not.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pox "News" -- Finally Someone Gets It

2009-11-20T00:34:00.000-08:00

November 19, Jeff Bercovici, the Daily Finance:

Every news organization makes mistakes. But when Fox News makes mistakes, they seem to tilt in a suspiciously consistent direction, favoring Republicans and conservatives over Democrats and liberals.

No doubt. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of what Fox engages in.

Even so, this pattern of ideologically-slanted errors illustrates the danger of packaging a news operation around a core of opinion programming. As long as Fox News is a network by and for conservatives, the people who produce its shows -- even its "objective" shows -- are going to see in the news what they expect to see rather than what it really is.

What happens is that Fox tends to present those things which those with a certain predisposed idea, or "belief" would want presented as news, and it tends to present them in the way that those with a certain predisposed idea or "belief" would want them presented. By reaffirming what one wants to think, that same audience actually views Fox as "fair and balanced" because it helps present to them their own world view, or the one that they think that they want to have. By posing as a "News" station, rather than as outright advocacy, Fox is far more effective in this regard than if it were openly an advocacy channel, because its viewers are led to believe that it is really a news organization giving them "all sides" and relevant facts, and letting viewers come to their own conclusions, when it is constantly manipulating them by presenting advocacy couched as "news."

As if this were not enough, many of Fox's major stalwarts almost constantly engage in misleading and erroneous information, to further this same end.

Sarcasm on Bush - More Insta BS

2009-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

More manipulation and ideologically driven blindness from the highly influential and widely read "Insta BS" site -- more formally known as Instapundit.

Facing the reality of the Bush Administration's misunderstanding of the issues, and the facts, would require heavily ideologically driven sites like Instapundit to reconsider their own belief driven orientation. Or at least consider the possibility that belief is helping to shape interpretation of the facts, more so than the idea that facts are helping to shape belief.

One easy way to ignore the realities of the Bush Administration's heavily authoritarian, overly secretive, fiscally reckless, globally myopic and misfocused, constitutionally impinging, corporate favoring, environmentally destructive tenure is to mock the claim to any ties between the conditions that we face today, and the approaches and policies of the Bush Administration for most of this decade.

Thus today we see this little sardonic gem from Instapundit:

November 19, 2009

I BLAME THE FAILED POLICIES OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Kellogg Co. warns of nationwide Eggo shortage.
Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 10:20 am

For the record, the "Eggo" Shortage is due to "interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them." One plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a n...historic amounts of rain in the area. At another plant, its largest, several production lines are closed down for repairs.

Perhaps Reynold's creepy sarcasm is based on the idea that bad storms played a role;one of the things that leading scientists have been saying for over two decades is that increasing the concentration of heat trapping molecules in the atmosphere will lead to more volatile weather patterns; and of course, the Bush Administration, as well as Congress while it was in office, largely ignored the issue of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Or perhaps it is based on pure air.

Either way, it evinces an unwillingness to look objectively at facts which conflict with a predetermined, and largely ideological mindset. And one of the best ways to do this is to find ways to mock what in fact needs to be looked at, and see in others the very practices that are being engaged in by oneself.

As an example of the latter, Glenn Reynold's on Instapundit also put up this extraordinary, and rather ironic, post:

DAVID HARSANYI ON SARAH PALIN: “All you haters out there force me to root for her.” “The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to non-existent congressional districts — which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one’s nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.”

Apart from capturing the over reliance upon crude and misleading stereotpyes, and one or two other points, Harsanyi's article in the Denver Post is sheer idiocy, from the very beginning, to the very end. It is no wonder that Instapundit linked to it.

As for the "impelled" to write about Palin point, instapundit is promoting a Denver Post column which actually makes the argument that because Andrew Sullivan, who is not "CNN" but a blogger, chooses to write about Palin rather than a stimulus funding accouting snafu, must be unable to see things right in front of his nose.

This is a specious stretch, to say the least. And it was promoted by non other than a law professsor. (But then here's an even stronger example of Instapundit's law professor logic.)

So by this line of reasoning one could bring up the many hundreds of key stories that famous blogger Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit chooses not to write on each day, and thus argue this shows that Reynold's can not see what is in front of his nose, every day, hour after hour after hour? After all, we are not talking about one story here, but a constant stream of them, completely missed, by Instapundit. Every day. And Instapundit has dozens of little posts, so it does act more like a news source, than the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who is a true blogger in the sense that he writes columns, and covers more limited, select topics, rather than the scattershot approach that Instapundit takes. And still Instapundit puts up almost nothing on this site which cuts against its excessive ideological orientation.

(With respect to the second part of this extraordinary post by Instanpundit, a reference to Megan McArdle writing yesterday in the Atlantic on this same general topic, see here.)

Sure We Can Condemn It While Supporting It

2009-11-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

A Column in the National Review Online a few months ago called the claim that Obama was not an American citizen (the "birther" argument) "lunacy," and then proceeded nevertheless to spend most of the rest of that column supporting the legitimacy of that very same "lunacy" claim.

Here is Megan McArdle, writing in the Atlantic, yesterday:

Y’all well know that I really don’t like Sarah Palin. In fact, more than one of you has yelled at me about this. And I find the whole schtick about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her really grating. That’s why I really wish the media wouldn’t act like, well, a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her.

In other words, it is ridiculous to hear about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans out to get her, but the media, is, well, really just a bunch of elitist hooligans out to get her. Or, in McArdle's (weak) defense, only "act" like it.

The rest of McArdle's piece, very one sidedly, also omits a great deal of highly pertinent information.

It's Goal is to "Mislead Citizens of West Virginia into Supporting its Outrageously Destructive Product"

2009-11-07T15:39:00.000-08:00

We are clearly at the time where it simply does not make sense to proceed forward with fossil fuel reliance. The only real issue is how best to switch over our energy sources while maximizing overall economic growth by virtue of the industry and services attendant to new energy source development and implementation.

But those addicted to coal -- namely, the far right wing who see doing anything sensible wit respect to the environment or otherwise trying to lessen our destructive tendencies, as "meddling" and of course the coal industry itself, can't yet seem to see this glaringly lopsided, non partisan, non ideologically based reality.

And so they fight it, tooth and nail.

The latest comes from the "Friends of Coal," whose mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens about the coal industry." In the sometimes ideologically driven, and occassionally exaggerated or dismissive, but otherwise extraordinarily well researched and highly informative blog Climate Progress.org, physicist Joe Romm writes about how Friends of Coal is selling coal to children.

Kind of trying to inspire them to make a pact with the devil early on, so to speak, while they are young and impressionable?

And why not. "Coal is cheap,"as it tells them, and coal "puts people to work," as it tells them (as does cleaning up disasters, but that point is unmentioned). And it tells them in user friendly fun filled coloring books, too!

Why not indoctrinate kids on the beauty of coal. After all, it's not like we are greatly increasing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, which trap heat, or that heat drives climate, or that this is largely a result of fossil fuel use, or that mining coal often destroys entire mountain tops, poisons watersheds and often entire mini ecosystems, or that the burning of coal itself gives off a wonderful laundy list of other airborne pollutants (including being predominantly responsible for mercury toxicity in consumers of large game fish like tuna, shark, halibut and swordfish).

It's not like any of that stuff is true, so why not let Friends of Coal indoctrinate our kids on how great coal is!

Maybe next year friends of lead can sponsor children related school functions, scholarships, events (all of which Friends of Coal has done) and distribute coloring books showing kids how wonderful lead is. "Lead is cheap. Lead is heavy. This makes great fishing sinkers. Lead is our friend!" Maybe the year after that, we can start with Arsenic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we "need coal." Like we need a rotten tooth in order to eat, as opposed to building a replacement tooth or otherwise fixing it.

We need energy. Energy is all around us. By continuing to foolishly rely upon coal, we only undermine the necessary market motivations needed to move us productively into the development and implementation of job generating -- but not profoundly polluting, environmentaly destructive, or flat out dumb -- cleaner energy sources.

Instapundit Will Just Throw Anything Out There, no Matter How Absurdly Inconsistent

2009-10-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a post today by the famous site Instapundit (aka, "InstaBS"), noting how Democrats have already stopped supporting the Obama Administration.

Earlier in the day, In yet another post, Instapundit linked to this piece, noting it was now politically safe to criticize the President.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that his famous blog just criticized the Administration by pointing out how the administration is being criticized by Democrats, less than an hour later Instapundit links to this, as follows:

THOMAS SOWELL: Dismantling America, Part II. “This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.”

The dismantling of America that he quotes as "too serious for squeamish silence"? The outlandishly hypocritical contention that Obama Administration supporters don't let anyone criticize it. Directly contradicting the two earlier attacks on the Obama Administration.

Any attack, any claim, will work by the far right to throw out there. If it's anti the Obama administration, that's good enough, even if it directly contradicts an attack that the same far right indulgent just threw out there against the Obama Administration a half hour earlier.

Repeat: The issue of not being allowed to criticize the administration is "too serious for squeamish silence." While on the other hand, quite unlike the Bush Administration situation, many supporters of the Obama Administration now not only don't suport it, but criticize, and it is also now "politically safe," to criticize the Obama Administration.

But that's okay. The issue of not being able to criticize the administration, and so few doing so, is "too serious for squeamish silence."

And those on the far right who criticize the administration, and who are responded to in terms far less divisive or insulting, view those responses as "stifling dissent;" but yet coincidentally enough, don't view their own, often more egregious, divisive, emotionally pandering, and often highly derogatory misrepresentations similarly.

The far right --of which the ideologically driven and almost entirely subjective, and overly influential Instapundit site is a classic example-- is driven by a fierce, almost religiously partisan antipathy toward Obama, and any valid concerns (such as those that might be shared by supporters even) is only icing on the cake of self righteousnes that propels forward such blind hypocrisy as this:

It's ironic; propelled on by a few Liberals who foolishly fell into the trap and thought they were doing something productive by stating how they "hated Bush," almost no one could make a point against the Bush Administration for the better part of this decade, without being accused of simple hyper partisan ideology and/or just hatred of Bush himself -- when in most instances, it simply wasn't true. But it was a way to avoid the substance of the points made about and against the Bush Administration.

Now almost blind attacks upon the Obama Administration, clinging to shards of evidence that could have been applied several fold over to the prior administration that the far right supported, similarly serve as a way to avoid the substance of points made that are inconvenient to objectively consider if one desires (whether realizing it or not) to cling to a fairly hyper ideological perspective.
As noted here, this is how the far right perpetuates its belief.

More Far Right Wing Projection -- "Real Clear Politics" Dismantling of Objectivity

2009-10-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in a "Real, Clear, Politics" piece ominously entitled "Dismantling of America, Part II," Thomas Sowell wrote:

Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.

The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.

Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.

Even though the criminality has nothing to do with the Obama Administration, notice how Sowell reflects back on an earlier episode as a professor in academia, finishing up with that key word/concept that lingers in the mind, leading right into his "expose" of blind Obama administration loyalty. Making that subtle but not directly expressed connection.

It is what the far right does, subtly, over, and over, and over, and over.

But notice what else Sowell does here. He makes a decent enough point -- that is is fair to question the Obama Administration even if one was, or still is, an Obama Administration supporter. But he misses two things, which would make this piece rather humorous, if it were not going to be read by a lot of people shaking their head up and down in agreed outrage, and linked to by one of the most popular blogs in America in "serious" support of Sowell's "point."

And those two things are:

1) There are plenty of people who question the Obama administration, who voted for it,and even who still support it. Less than one year in.

2) Several years into the Bush Administration, almost no one who voted for it still ever questioned it, and dismissed anything anybody ever said in opposition or disagrement with it as indignations of bad faith, or hatred. Almost constantly. Far more than we see from automatic Obama supporters today. And the Bush Administration, contrary to the constant propaganda by the far right's "news" advocacy station of choice, was not moderate, at all. The Obama administration, overall, is.

But once again, the far right sees beautifully in others what it can not see in itself, even though it is but a fraction elsewhere of the pattern that the far right, throught most of the Bush Administration, engaged in constantly.

It's called projection. And to the far right, it is as natural as swimming is to fish.

It is what they do, to perpetuate their beliefs.

Is Senator MItch McConnell Saying that Most Americans are Idiots?

2009-10-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

Probably not, because not impugning voters is something that Republicans (and in particular the far right, from which framework McConnell emanates) tend to be much better at than Democrats. Still, Either he is saying this (unlikely), or he is being misleading or illogical (take your pick).

Mitch McConnell:

I think it is perfectly clear that most Americans will treat the vote to get on the bill as a vote on the substance of the bill. So our view is that cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill is a vote to endorse a half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in new taxes, and higher insurance -- health insurance premiums for everyone else.

Putting aside McConnell's highly questionable framing of the health care bill, a vote to avoid a filibuster is not a vote in favor of Health Care. These are two entirely separate things. McConnell says most Americans -- perhaps taking their cues from him? -- will, falsely, view them the same.

Rasmussen Reports and Instapundit Both Mislead

2009-10-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the entire Glenn Reynolds post:

POLL: 44% Favor Health Care Reform, 50% Oppose.

In Reynold's defense, he probably did not have time to read the piece. (We have noted this tendency before, particularly in support of the often highly illogical and wildly skewed Althouse site -- see the bottom of this piece here).

What was Rasmussen Reports' excuse? (See the headline to its piece).

Here is what the poll actually concluded:

Forty-four percent (44%) of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. ...The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% are opposed to the plan.

Putting aside whether the poll is accurate or not, is this "minor" technicality. Let's try not to put too fine a point on it, and then simultaneously ask how it is that famed law professor and blogger Reynolds did not get this (assuming the read it, which of course then begs the question as to why one of the most popular blogs in America relies in full for its posts upon pieces it does not read) and Rasmussen Reports not get this?

Namely: Support of health care reform, and support of the current health care reform "plan," are not the same thing.

Manipulative Trash to Reach a Pre-Desired End Result Will Attract Readers

2009-10-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

The Althouse blog is pure, unadulterated, far right wing bias that often turns logic into sauerkraut. It is often linked to by Instapundit (aka, InstaBS), which alerted us to this little fact:

Althouse is the third most visited law professor blog, in America. (Or at least of those with publicly available site meters).

Here are just a few examples of how logically and politically skewed the Althouse blog is, and yet for the last 30 day period measured, there were over 13 million page views.

That's an awful lot of people being mislead.

Yeah, It's the Media that Harms Limbaugh, Not his Constant Falsities and Misrepresentations

2009-10-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh never said anything racist? His comments about Donovan McNabb were not at all racist, just good old common sense? Maybe not racist, but they were not very sensible, either. The fact is, plenty of black quarterbacks have been hammered by the media. And the reason McNabb has not been quite as hammered, is probably because he is extremely polite, and has been hammered by the Philly fans, ever since he was first introduced as the Eagles top draft choice. And he's also not on an elite level, but he's a pretty good quarterback, and always has been. (The media must constantly hammer onetime superstar Terrell Owens, nearly beyond belief, because "he's black and they want him to fail"?)

One from the vault -- another -- how do we put this nicely?? um, "genius" (yeah, that'll work), who doesn't seem to know jack squat about football but cites off a bunch of stats that he knows nothing about, to prove that Limbaugh was right that McNabb is just a bad quarterback and the media loves him because he is black!

Mathias Kawinuka is among those NFL players who say they would not play for the Rams if Limbaugh became an owner.

Limbaugh has a right to try and buy a team, and NFL players have the right to voice their opinions. Frankly, given the many extreme, often bigoted and even more often, wildly inaccurate comments that Limbaugh has made -- and not the ones allegedly discredited in this post linked above, and not to mention his miserable and short lived ESPN experience -- this seems like a rather well reasoned position.

What Limbaugh does, and apparently Ed Driscoll and InstaBS miss this, is that he makes something up that is wildly off the mark -- sometimes a hypothetical, sometimes declared as fact, and the bases almost his entire argument off of it.

One usually does not need to listen to Limbaugh for more than few minutes, often only a few seconds, before he does this. But to a far right audience, led by belief, this slips right on by. But then, this blog has documented other examples where things that might mess up a rigidly partisan, and often far right, orientation, slip right on by InstaBS.

Here is a clip of Limbaugh's rather ridiculous statement that "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up, with the black kids cheering." (The particular statement that Mathias Kiwanuka, noted above, wasn't all that down with).

But that's not the really problematic statement; at least it's kind of funny, if in poor taste and likely racist. The real problem statement, the one that routinely gets missed, and the types of statements that Limbaugh utters constantly in order to pull the BS that he pulls and have it go right by so many otherwise well meaning folk, is about 17 seconds in:

Everyone is saying, oh, the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he is
white.

No, everyone is not saying this. And in fact, most people are not. And anybody who is, is pretty out there. But then Limbaugh, in his very next statement, utters another falsity, in "support" of his prior inanity:

Newsweek magazine told us this.

In fact, if one listens carefully to what Limbaugh then says next, with respect to what Newsweek magazine said (exaggerating even that part as well), Newsweek magazine did not say anything of the sort.

But then, those that listen to Limbaugh, don't seem to listen too carefully.

All of this is in the first 25 seconds. And it is routine for Limbaugh: If the Olympics were for BS, rather than, say, sports, all Americans could once again be proud of Rush, as he would assuredly shatter Michael Phelps record of eight golds in one year.

Pull out any tape of any show, and this is what Limbaugh does, constantly. It is a disgrace to logic, and fact. But his audience does not want to be shown this; it's easier to just point fingers at those who "criticize" Limbaugh. But the fact is, Limbaugh is not really being "criticized;" it is simply being pointed out that Limbaugh is one of the most misleading, and manipulative, voices in America. And it would take an opposition with about one fourth his rhetorical skill about two days to make the case so effectively that Limbaugh's audience would essentially shrivel up to a few far right zealots. But Limbaugh's staunchest opposition, doesn't know how to make the case to outside of its own choir.

Meanwhile, inane pundits like David Brooks engage in logic that is almost as bad, in order to try and downplay Limbaugh's vast influence.

It's a wonder we have intelligent conversation in this country for our national discourse, and debate.

Oh, yeah. That's right. We don't anymore.

Obama, Baltimore Ravens on "Civility," and Biased Baltimore TV Critics

2009-10-14T00:38:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik on the 60 Minutes Obama Interview:

At the end of last night’s conversation, the president decided to play media critic again and use 24-hour cable news channels as the foil for making himself look like the would-be champion of civility. Kroft set the president up on this theme, and then let him run straight into the end zone untouched – where the interview ended.
Instead of ending the interview there with big smiles between the two as “60 Minutes” did, I would suggest that perhaps Kroft should have respectfully asked the president if he thought using the adverb “stupidly” at a press conference to describe the behavior of the Cambridge (Mass.) police officer who took Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. into custody was a good exampleof civility.

Speaking of running into the end zone untouched, his local Baltimore Ravens football team, despite dominating the still rather horrific Kansas City Chiefs, let them into the end zone 3 times: Once on a blocked punt. Once after a long pick return by former first round pick and current backup Derrick Johnson set them up at the two, and once after some nice passes by K.C QB Brodie Croyle, who shockingly managed to get through the entire game without being injured. This resulted in a rather close game until the end, despite the Baltimore team’s otherwise lopsided domination of the Chiefs.

(The Ravens had an interesting ”running into the end zone” situation themselves. With the game over, if Baltimore on 4th down elects to kick a field goal from inside the one yard line with 36 seconds remaining (thereby putting them up by two scores) Baltimore rather uncivilily opted to go for the touchdown on 4th down. Willis McGahee did “run it in.” But if they got stopped, Kansas City would still have had a shot at the game, which, with the field goal, they would not have. Granted, K.C. would have had around 34 seconds, and they had a long way to go. But still, why increase the other teams chances of pulling it out, when the game is all but over?)
Perhaps it is the many interesting end zone forays in this game that Zarowik could have been writing of, rather than of Kroft allowing the President to go “untouched” into the “end zone” by allowing him to make a well needed point about political discourse and civility without debating the the President about his own civility, because the President once earlier this summer, in a foolish (or, um, uh, err, “stupid”) political move, had called an action stupid, which in fact was stupid.

(Of course, Mr. Uncivility himself, then invited this same police officer, who had acted in a manner which raises significant questions about judgment, to the White House “for a beer.” Prompting us to wonder who else might be invited.)

Baltimore Sun "Critic" Can't take Criticism

2009-10-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Sun Critic David Zurawik wrote a relatively dull, typical, non substantive, "gotcha" piece on Barack Obama's "60 Minutes" Interview, Sunday, September 13. In it, he made some fairly lame football analogies; perhaps because it was NFL Football opening Sunday.

And he called out 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft for enabling Obama to make a point about promoting civility, without having challenged Obama for having called the actions of the arresting officer in the Professor Henry Louis Gates Affair, "stupid" (not to mention subsequently inviting this same officer to to the White House for a beer.) This blog addressed it here.

His home team that day, the Ravens, had amassed over 500 total yards and largely dominated the Kansas City Chiefs, yet for a while were in danger of losing the game. Perhaps as a result, at the end of the game, the team engaged in some uncivil (and strategically ill-advised) behavior; by, with around 40 seconds to go, up by 7, from inside the one, going for the touchdown instead of the field goal on 4th down. Had they been stopped, K.C. would have had a chance (albeit a very small chance) to come back and win the game. Had they kicked the field goal, Kansas city would have had to had received a kickoff, scored a touchdown, recovered an onside kick, and scored again, all within about 30 seconds. Virtually an impossibility.

An Admin' from this blog posted the following comment to Zurawik's 60 Minutes critique:

Did you catch the Ravens game? Now there was some uncivil behavior, speaking of end zones.

I Agree Obama was very foolish to have used that term. I do not agree however, that calling actions that in fact were likely stupid, as stupid, is all that uncivil. [Once It was clear Gates had not broken into his home, and understandable that he would have been upset, whether he overreacted or not,THERE WAS NO ISSUE LEFT. Making it into one, rather than politely apologizing for the rather comical (or not, as far as Gates is concerned) mixup, was an extremely poor error of judgment and/or use of authoritative power.]

Or, at least not to the level of many months later taking issue with Obama's claim that we need more civility, when overall he has been on the receiving end of an enormous amount of uncivility, and otherwise been reasonably civil and courteous himself -- and was agreeing with a relatively important point.

With respect to your very last point, I don't believe Obama was "blaming it all" on the 24 hour news cycles. But, aside from, uh, "all of us," which I for one know is not accurate, who would you blame it on?"

Rather incredibly, this comment was apparently not "approved" by the "blog author" and professional critic Zurawik. Perhaps there was some sort of strange, blog error on the blog, so we can't be certain -- but Zurawik could certainly clarify this. Email is Admin@WeMisleadYouFollow.com [Update: of course Zurawik never did.]

More Evidence That Fox's Sean Hannity Lives in a Separate Reality

2009-10-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

Found here, in eight seconds.

Another fantastic Washington Post Editorial

2009-10-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

Some people -- perhaps unfairly, perhaps not -- have taken to saying that the Washington Post editorial page has fallen somewhere below bird cage liner. (They maintain that it is below it, because bird cage liner is not normally of such a misleading and logically adulterated nature.)

This site does not necessarily agree -- but the Washington Post editorial pages does continue its march, ever onward, toward thought excrement poised as thoughtfulness.

Then along comes today's gem by none other than Richard Cohen, who perhaps best exemplifies the recent trend toward the appearance of wit over any semblance of underlying sense.

The same Richard Cohen who pronounced Al Gore unlikable, and more, then years later bemoaned the fact that Gore was not our President and declared him the 'perfect candidate;" even chiding, in his words, his "colleagues in the media" for promoting misleading caricatures of Gore in the past.

The Same Cohen who spent an entire paragraph --in a piece under 800 words no less -- explaining his "standing" to call Stephen Colbert's ('06) correspondents dinner speech "unfunny" (and lash out at and call him a "bully" if not an outright coward") -- namely, many decades earlier, in grade school, his teacher thought him "funny." Just ask anyone, he says.

The same Cohen, who when it comes to bullies, explained in yet another golden Washington Post op ed how he came to know that our decision in 2006 to share top secret nuclear technology with India "was a good move" because it was "stupidity" to treat "friends the same as enemies." Something he learned behind his high school one day while watching a hero get the better of a bully until the bully's friend jumped in. (Cohen bragged about the lesson he learned, but apparently not about getting the victims back or stopping the bully, something he apparently did not learn).

The same Cohen who was so in love with John McCain's inner hero that the he could practically do no wrong, until the evidence mounted so greatly that Cohen - A Democrat and once professed "liberal"-- finally ripped into McCain later in 2008, apparently forlorn that his long time love had so betrayed him, blind to the reality for over a year, when it is his only job, not to be.

The same Cohen who openly supported the Iraq war right upon until it started, then many moons later viciously ripped into the Bush Administraton over it -- even calling for Bush's impeachment, when all of the facts that needed to be known, were in fact public knowledge prior to the war. Namely that we had not credible data on WMDs, that legitimate weapons inspections had not taken place in Iraq since at least the mid 90s, and that in the winter of '03 viable weapons inspections were finally taking place any ever inspector to a tee said to "wait."

The list goes on. And on.

So here today is Cohen professing this wondeful line:

My love of these many years came into the room and asked what I was working on. I detailed some topics, enthralled as usual by my brilliance, but she
scoffed at them all.

So he wrote about the recent Nobel peace prize award, as she suggested. Fair enough. But here is what he wrote: the American people should get the award, because "we" voted for Obama.

It is not clear if this was a dis on white people, since Obama lost the election among whites; really bad satire; or even worse, non satire. You tell us.

What is clear it is that it is yet another inane column, from a vain, ridiculously self righteous columnist, from an increasingly inane, editorial page, from what used to be one of the country's premier newspapers.

Logic - NRO Style

2009-07-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

A column in NRO yesterday smacks down the whole "birther" nonsense, and commends the NRO for (allegedly) "smacking down" the whole nonsense, because it is, in the words of this NRO columnist, "lunacy."

And then nevertheless proceeds to reproduce an extremely long email that in essence ressurects the question.

The reproduced email constituting most of this column claiming to condemn the birther thing as sheer lunacy, actually makes this twisted point: "If the question is so crazy.... why all the fuss?"

Apparently, this is truly not obvious to the NRO, or this emailer.

In other words, this NRO columnist notes his satisfaction with the "lunacy" birther thing having been smacked down, and then devotes some 90 percent of his column to an email, using contorted and disconnected logic, that resurrects it.

Accusing Obama of not having been born in the U.S.A, despite evidence to the contrary, is "sheer lunacy," on the one hand, but yet on the other hand, Obama is "getting a pass" because this "sheer lunacy" has not been investigated further?

There is also the strange notion -- surely absent in spades by this same e-mailer and columnist prior to January, 2009 -- that "transparency" in the White House somehow means (essentially) that every potentially troublesome, embarrasing or negative PR detail of every moment or fact of Obama's existence on this planet must be continually re-vetted -- just see the column, which references things which are now wholly irrelevant, and then complains how "Obama is getting a pass, whereas other Presidents have not.")

But the most interesting about this tied into knots logic so typical of NRO, is that the main claim in the cited piece that there is something to this, is the "hysteria" when this "lunacy" is brought up. In other words, why the annoyance when it is brought up? (Answer, because, in your words, it is "lunacy"?)

Yet other columns, while similarly dismissing the "lunacy" of the birthers claims, have used not "hysteria" but in fact, a rather unconcerned"dismissal" by the Administration as evidence that there is something to this "birther" issue after all!

In other words, why the lack of annoyance when it is brought up?" (Answer, because, in your words, it is "lunacy," and thus ridiculous, sidetracking, and has been vetted?)

To sum it all up. Here is what NRO and cohorts believe: The birther thing is sheer lunacy.

Except we really can't be sure. Because why all the concern on the part of the administration?

Except we really can't be sure. Because why all the lack of concern on the part of the administration.

It really doesn't matter what the facts are. They will be spun, torqued, twisted, manipulated, distorted beyond all recognition, to meet a predisposed set of beliefs. In NRO's case, those beliefs include the inherent dislike it must feel over Obama, even if the so called birthing "lunacy," as they put it, should have nothing to do with it.

Memo to the Wall Street Journal's Blog: When "After" Means Days, Not 22 Years.

2009-07-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

Taking the concept of literalness, to ridiculous lengths, here's another oddity from the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto:

Even Including That, the Story Was Accurate
Here’s an odd correction from the Los Angeles Times:

"An article in Sunday’s Section A about Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s role in Congress’ healthcare debate said that Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) had urged his friend to stop drinking after the Massachusetts Democrat’s 1969 car accident at happaquiddick. Hatch gave the advice in 1991, after Kennedy spent an evening at a Florida bar with his nephew William Kennedy Smith, who subsequently was charged with rape and later acquitted."

Why the correction? We’re pretty sure 1991 was after 1969

Are we missing the satire here? Surely Taranto can not claim to mean that when the statement "I urged him to stop drinking after the [fill in very specific event]" somehow does not mean within an appropriate vicinity of time, but "technically" any time after, including decades after.

That would be like, to someone who said "We were over Taranto's house drinking Yuengling when he showed us this kind of crazy column he wrote," saying "so you were in a helicopter over his house drinking?" and meaning it. On second thought, it would be worse.

Here's another example, and one we hope someone can share with Mr. Taranto:

Q: "Why did you never correct your brother's tendency to turn his head away before connecting with the ball?

A: "I did, after the Kingsdale game, junior season."

Only the person did it, 22 years after, the Kingsdale game, junior season.

Of course a correction was necessary by the LA Times: The article unequivocally implied that Hatch had urged Kennedy to stop drinking in a reasonable vicinity of time "after" the 1969 accident, not 22 years later -- and no one reading the article would have thought otherwise. Taranto's logic here, or (to us) incomprehensible satire, is somewhat hard to fathom.

2009-07-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

These two pieces were harsh on the NY Times Maureen Dowd -- and deservedly so. And it has been acknowledged that Pulitzers are routinely awarded based on politics, and little more. But as we noted in a link to the second piece, Dowd has had a distinguished career (including a Pulitzer), so we labored to find a column that was not atrocious.

The very first one we came across, on Gates, Crowley, and Obama a few days earlier, while not all of it was pinpoint, was reasonably perceptive. So to Maureen Dowd, who, we are sure, could give not a whit, we say "nice column."

NY TIMES MAUREEN DOWD, TAKES DOWN NY TIMES MAUREEN DOWD

2009-07-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier, we noted that NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote the following:

Hillary, who so often in the past came across as aggrieved, paranoid and press-loathing, was confident and comfortable in her role as top diplomat, discussing the world with mastery and shrugging off suggestions that she has been disappeared by her former rival, the president.

And why it was a "wee" bit off the objective scale, and a "wee"bit onto the playing into hyperbolized and manipulated characterizations scale.

Since reading Dowd's superficial, conventionally parroting, and manufactured democrat chic opinions is fairly painful (and what's the point, really, though the country's leading newspaper apparently thinks there is one), we relied on The Daily Howler for this quote as well, from the same column by Dowd quoted from above.

Notice the irony:

The Alaskan [Palin] who shot to stardom a year ago as the tough embodiment of Diana the Huntress has now stepped down as governor and morphed into what theRepublicans always caricatured Hillary as—preachy, screechy and angry.

We'll ignore Maureen Dowd's dopey Diana characterization, and focus on this: "morphed into what the Republicans always caricatured Hillary as—preachy, screechy and angry."

"What the Republicans" (actually, only some Republicans -- namely, right wing Republicans) "caricaturized Hillary as - preachy, screechy,and angry."

Yet here is Dowd, in the very same column in which she later notes this fact, writing: "Hillary, who so often... came across as aggrieved, paranoid and press-loathing."

Ah, but that's not a "Republican caricature" of Hillary Clinton. Rather, it is just a Dowd observation, right? Or perhaps just a pandering, kowtowing media characterization --or should we say "caricature"?
-----------------

So we peeked at Dowd's column (sometimes one can't help looking at the car wreck across the highway.) Here is another incredible statement:

Sarah, who was once a blazingly confident media darling

Really? Conventional wisdom (namely, the "wisdom" that the far right has been screaming at the top of its lungs since the day after John McCain somewhat"spontaneously" announced little known -- including, to McCain himself, apparently -- Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate) has it that the press has had it in for Palin from almost the start. We don't agree with the "conventional wisdom" here. But to call Palin a media darling?

That is pretty funny.

Palin's coverage may have been favorable relative to the facts (a claim that even the " left" is content not to make - preferring, as always to fight the battle under the framing of its political opponents), but the facts were, and are, extraordinarly unfavorable. Yet to Dowd, Palin was a media darling? Her column only gets worse from there, to ridiculously drawing made up parrellels between the two women, besides, of course, the painfully obvious ones.

It seems this NY Times columnist simply makes things up, to arrange her prose in nice, flowing, sentences. This is what it seems, much editorilization in America has come to in the 21st century. Dowd just does a particularly good (or should we say "bad") job of it.

notes from althouse piece on scary logic of far right - obesity, divorce

2009-07-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

There has long been a debate as to how much of a role the government should play in helping to promote health. Note also that helping to promote it is far different than dictating it. Obesity, according to some experts, is a health crisis in this country. And obesity is perhaps a relevant, practical inquiry in a nation that spends almost a fifth of its entire GNP, directly or indirectly (and we think, rather haphazardly), on health care; including more money shelled out by the government on it than on anything else save national defense. To inquire how to promote better health, does not necessarily mean infringement upon personal freedom. Can the government go too far in addressing obesity? Yes. But one could list an endless number of possibilities with respect to any statement made on any subject,in this vein. The question is what policies, and what is being stated?

SCARY LOGIC FROM THE FAR RIGHT ON GOVERMENT INTRUSION

2009-07-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

One of the greater ironies of our time is how the far right appears to be only very selectively concerned with government intrusion into the lives of individuals in a country of liberty and checked, limited, government powers -- the founding premises of our nation.

That being said, selective concern is far better than no concern.

Except many of the instances of expressed concern seem to be misleading, or logically stretched. Curiously enough, they also almost always seem to be directly aimed at an overall policy, government or politician that the far right itself politically opposes.

Here's a quick example of both of these points, at once.

Yesterday, we noted how the very popular blog Althouse cited the Washington Post, while missing essentially the entire point of the linked piece, and then some.

Today, Althouse, presumably as non satire, promotes the following monstrosity:

Think about it. Yesterday, we were talking about how the government "has ways of changing behavior" to deal with the supposed medical expenses studies attribute to obesity.If studies show that divorce damages health, then horning into our marriages will become the government's business too. Obviously another blue pill. You expect us to pay for the red pill, when there's a blue pill?

We certainly understand the well warranted concern over government dictating what people can and can't do. But while the very general idea here, in theory, is solid, the example given is absurd.

The claim made in the first part of the above quote, that "yesterday, we were talking about how the government 'has ways of changing behavior'" regarding obesity and health, is extremely misleading. And the connection, after that, to the idea that therefore, studies show that "divorce might be bad" health wise, is incredibly specious, or simply flat out stone cold illogical (aka, preposterous.)

The Wall Street Journal article discussed "yesterday" quotes someone from a non profit Trust concerned with promoting health, not, "the government." Calling that "the goverment" is wildly irresponsible.

The relevant portion of the WSJ article:

Unless you address obesity, you're never going to address rising health-care costs." Obesity-related conditions now account for 9.1% of all medical spending, up from 6.5% in 1998, the study concluded.

Health economists have long warned that obesity is a driving force behind the rise in health spending. For example, diabetes costs the nation $190 billion a year to treat, and excess weight is the single biggest risk factor for developing diabetes. Moreover, obese diabetics are the hardest to treat, with higher rates of foot ulcers and amputations, among other things.

The new study's look at per-capita spending may offer a shock to the wallets of people who haven't yet heeded straight health warnings.

"Health care costs are dramatically higher for people who are obese and it doesn't have to be that way," said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, who wasn't involved in the new research. "We have ways of changing behavior and changing those health outcomes so that we don't have to deal with the medical
consequences of obesity," added Mr. Levi, who advocates community-based programs that promote physical activity and better nutrition.

It was awkwardly stated -- and maybe he even meant worse by it; but "ways to change" certainly can mean mean "ways" without compulsion. In any event, once again, it is a Trust for health, not the government.

But it was precisely that "chilling locution" that set off the wave of fright of the possibility of, say, "the government telling people they could not get divorced," because, like a million other things, divorces are correlated with slightly higher disease rates. (And we don't even know if the lack of a divorce in an otherwise unhealthy living situation, might or might not be similarly correlated, since there is no way to account for this variable, it seems.)

This leap to divorce -- aside from the over ominous reading of a non profit Trust analyst (who may or may not (but probably) meant promotional advocacy means), with the government itself -- is simply a ridiculous leap of logic. It helps illustrate how the far right's thinking is often grounded in hysteria and specious speculation, that the far right itself often confuses for "common sense.'

We see it done on a repeated basis.

Normally, it just goes right on unchecked, for the most part; even, sometimes, helping somewhat to frame our national discussion. (Since, as long as loud enough voices say it just convincingly enough, our media likes to then parrot it as reasonable and one "side" to some debate.)

On this little bit of "chilling locution"/divorce zaniness, it was of course promoted by that overly popular bit of horse malarkey, instapundit itself. Shocker, that. Note to Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds -- who actually teaches law -- perhaps you should read the things that you link to? Although, in quite a telling symmetry, it is clear that this site that you linked to, also does not.

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund is to Political and Media Objectivity, what Sarah Palin is to Serving out Full Terms as Governor

2009-07-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

The chasm between prematurely ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's rhetoric, and reality, is so large given her status as one of the GOP frontrunners, that it is frightening.

Below is an example of precisely the type of media that Palin does not viciously condemn; does not blatantly mislead about; does not frighteningly misunderstand the entire purpose of and premise behind; and which, irony of ironies, is precisely what Palin likely envisions when she nevertheless speaks of something entirely disparate, about that very same media itself.

That is, media not doing its job, and not serving as an independent, objective, fourth estate check upon power and the powerful, upon government, upon groupthink run amuck, and upon misrepresentation and untruth, but rather a media that says what Palin wants to hear, in the way that she wants to hear it. In other words, exactly what defines a state run media in non democratic regimes.

The scary thing is Palin, and her followers -- like the Wall Street Journal's Fund -- do not seem to see the extraordinarily ignorant hypocrisy in Palin's statements, including this one - a statement that here Fund promotes as if it were quite reasonable, coming from Palin:

Ms. Palin appeared liberated by leaving office and used blunt words to take her media critics down a peg. “You represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy,” she said. “Democracy depends on you, and that is why -- that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin’ things up.”

She didn’t stop there. “One other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family, too, so leave his kids alone,” she told the enthusiastic crowd gathered at a picnic grounds in Fairbanks. Ms. Palin will no doubt have a future as a stump speaker and political commentator in the lower 48, and her media critique certainly will find receptive audiences.

For just the tip of the iceberg -- but enough to objectively (something that Fund routinely appears on the road to being incapable of doing) establish a bit of the case above, see this piece with respect to Palin's statement to the media to "quit making things up."

Perhaps Fund should read it. Along with a bit more in regard to the actual facts, the actual media coverage of Palin, and the rhetoric that Palin has repeatedly used. (It is almost like while the rest of us are composed of flesh and blood -- most of us anyway -- or, alternatively, a few key atoms in various combinations, Palin is composed of something entirely different: Pure, unadulterated rhetoric. It is like in the science fiction movies where "it" is not a being, but a pure energy field -- except Palin is instead a pure rhetoric field. )

It works, of course, because in that same media itself -- including those, like Fund, who might be about as politically (and journalistically) objective as as Fox guarding a hen house is on reporting about a missing hen -- are those who buy it.

Yet It is rhetoric like Palin's, and the sheep like mentality that does not look behind it at the facts, that has changed the nature (and, ultimately and quite ironically given Palin's constant yammering to the contrary, the freedom) of every once great nation or society the world has ever seen.

Fund, as an allegedly independent journalist, is a bit of a cheerleader for it, without even knowing it. Fund's bs meter is not only broken; so long as it meets his political orientations, he's got a bs feeder, which apparently sniffs it out and promotes it.

And then, of course, there are some others, such as conservative columnist Katherine Parker, who seems to want to like Palin, but nevertheless, aptly penned perhaps the most applicable line about Palin yet put to print.

Yet Parker is either not very objective; or, perhaps more likely, not excessively knowledgeable with respect to all the facts. And was "relieved" at Palin's vice presidential debate performance, and praised it -- as apparently, truthfulness, or again, knowledge, was not relevant to Parker's assessment (or again, more likely, unknown to her.) Yet contrast the absurd standard that Parker starts with; "What did they do with the other Sarah Palin? I mean the one who bases foreign policy experience on the proximity of Russia to Alaska" with this from the link just cited:

Most media outlets [etc.] repeated the [idea] that ...Palin “exceeded” expectations...and that there were no real gaffes. ...[And] there were no gaffes:...by the standard which expected Sarah Palin to be incapable of uttering a coherent sentence. But let’s apply a different standard, one which some might have the temerity to suggest is more applicable to the actual situation: That is, what might be expected and required of .... someone who's the right arm to, and a heartbeat away from, the most important job in the world.

Contrast that idea,with Parker's positive assessment of Palin's debate performance, because Palin did not (once again) say that she had relevant foreign policy experience because "Alaska is close to Russia." ("Close to" hundreds of hundreds of miles of some of the most barren, desolate, largely uninhabited tundra on earth, and further away from Moscow than Washington, D.C, is from London.)

And then Parker had this to say about Palin:

Does that mean she's ready to lead the free world should circumstances warrant? that question remains. Right next to same question about Barack Obama.

Granted, Parker is a conservative, so she is not supposed to be hawking Obama. Though -- unreported by the general media, and largely ignored by active Democrats, who somehow neglected to see the relevance in terms of building credibility with those whom the Democrats need to reach -- Obama was supported by an unusually high number of knowledgeable, leading Republicans. (Some of whom are now questioning that support, as are some Democrats, at least. But we forget that Obama inherited a lot of problems, that are quickly transitioning over to being "his." Particularly with Democrats once again losing the battle of framing -- or perhaps, not even fully knowing how to wage it, or recognizing its prominent existence in the first place.)

And Parker certainly was entitled to her legitimate doubts. But to place Palin, given the ex-Alaska Governor's incredibly poor grasp of facts, constant reliance upon almost zealous belief, continual habit of misrepresentations, lack of relevant experience and almost complete and utter lack of any world knowledge, equally alongside Obama in terms of being ready to lead the "free world," is a bit much.

Yet here is what a few days prior, Parker had, much more insightfully, penned about Palin, which pretty much sums it all up:

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

John Fund, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, and about Wall Street, apparently bought it; hook, line, and sinker.

IS RE-SHARING NEWS, ITSELF NEWS? HUFFINGTON POST TRANSCRIBES PART OF CNN AND LARRY KING'S INTERVIEW WITH FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL

2009-07-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

As posted by Sonoma County Democracy for America, and reflective of various sites picking up the "story" that Colin Powell, "in an interview with CNN's Larry King," suggested that both Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates could have acted a bit differently:

by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Technically, this is true. The "Huffington Post "news team"very briefly summarized this portion of the interview, and provided the video itself and a convenient transcript of it. Still, we are pretty comfortable with the impression that it was CNN that produced the actual news here.

This is not to say that the Huffington Post did not provide a valuable service, or that acknowledgements are not appropriate. But it seems that somewhat lost in this acknowledgement is the fact that CNN produced the relevant news; the Huffington Post then made the news on TV, easily available online.

The "By The Huffington Post News Team," along with "courtesy of Politics on Huffington Post," phrasing, might subtly suggest that the Huffington Post engaged in actual news reporting here. That is, we tend to think of the "news team" not as the team that gathers the news, but one that is the original reporter or, as in the case of CNN and Larry King's interview, creates it.

Perhaps that is no longer clearly the case.

The Huff Post indeed has a very cost efficient model. But could it be replicated, in the absence of the actual CNNs, the NY Times', and the scores of other "real" news" services? (Note, the Hufffinton Post also itself engages in reporting, serving a quasi blog -- news function; part of the reason why this question is more than esoteric.)

Below, we suggested (on the otherwise same topic of Professor Gates arrest in his own home):

As the wonderful Althouse re-reports (indulging in what, for the most part, passes for the reporting that the "online blogosphere" must over rely upon in order to replace traditional, necessary, hard hitting investigative journalism with -- a large part of the reason why we are sour on the claim that with the "rise" of the blogosphere, the demise of today's mainstream media is somehow less relevant) and we re-re-report..

Regarding the substance of what Powell said, see immediately below, here

Riot of the Year -- Palin's Directive to Media

2009-07-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Or, we should say, it would be a riot if it were not so serious, and this person was not actually considered a potential leader of the GOP.

Here are Palin's words to a media that -- despite constant cries and whines to the contrary, has actually gone rather softly on her IN RELATION TO THE FACTS. "Quit making things up."

Palin, without, of course, supporting her accusation, was referring to the media "making things up" with respect to American Soldiers.

Last year, Sarah "Quit Making Things Up" Palin, stated that Obama's statement that our air raiding Afghanistan villages was resulting in too many civilian casualties, was a "a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment." Eight days before Obama's comment, the Washington Post reported on its Sunday front page

A mounting toll of civilian casualties, mostly in bombing raids... have inflamed public opinion, turned many Afghans against the foreign forces [note; that's us], and further strained [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai's credibility.

Of course, remember that when asked what source of news she reads, Palin could not cite a single one.

Palin also does not appear to listen to our top military commanders, either: In September of 2008, Afghanistian Senior Commander David McKiernan (who in the vice presidential debate, Palin called "McClellan") asserted that there were mounting civilian casualties in Afghanistan, due to an over reliance upon air power. The next day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, issued an apology to the Afghanistan government for the excessive casualties -- the ones that, in Palin's world of "making things up," didn't exist. (That's "straight talk" for ya: Something that Palin is a virtuoso at claiming she delivers, and the exact opposite, in actually delivering.)

The "Bridge to Nowhere," that in speech after impassioned speech Palin riled her supporters with her boldly and almost zealously repeated"principled" opposition to? Palin was a firm supporter of it until the issue was over -- until it became a national issue, until Congress made clear that it was withdrawing any more support for the project (and thus, no longer a matter of "pork," Alaska would have to pay for it), and even until shortly after John McCain scathingly mocked it himself on the campaign trail.

Last year, to Joe Biden's point that the McCain campaign opposed granting bankruptcy judges the power to change interest rates and principal on borrower’s primary residences, Palin, who clearly did not know, again, simply "made something up," and stated: "that is not so." It was so. And McCain's campaign corrected Palin the next day.

Here's Palin completely "making stuff up" on Energy -- the topic on which she is an alleged expert -- and then continuing to do so, even after being corrected.

Climate Progress.org calls the Washington Post editorial page a "joke" for running an energy piece by Palin. Is it?

The piece was against capping carbon (perhaps not a good position, but that is not the issue with the piece.) Palin, the "quit making things up" ex-Alaska Governor, was asked this by Gwen Ifill during the vice presidential debate. "do you support capping carbon emissions? PALIN: I do. I do."

And the list goes on... and on.... and on....

Yet Palin, as with many things rhetorical, has reduced attacking the media to art form and unequivocal passion until the media, even if it does not do its job and stays soft, simply states Palin's version of reality. This is perhaps more troubling in a popular figure than many, Republican or Democrat alike, seem to recognize:

In fact, to this same media which almost universally proclaimed her "performance" both reasonable and gaffe free, Palin has repeatedly vented in this manner, as if in a "democracy," the role of an independent press -- which Thomas Jefferson considered so important that he proclaimed given a choice between the two, he would choose it before government itself -- is to merely parrot the points of candidates and the government that the candidates and government want the people to hear; that is, the operational principle of almost every governmental system the world over, that is in fact not a democracy.

....Actually, it is manipulation, and misinformation like Sarah Palin delivered in spades to the American people, that is the problem. Not to mention our putting up with it.

Bill Kristol -- Expert on Health Care Issues, Or Another Famous Pundit Who Has Almost No Clue What They are Talking About?

2009-07-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Kristol asserts that the "the deepest vulnerability of Obamacare is that it (intentionally) puts us on a course towards government rationing of health care. " The word "intentionally" in the parenthetical is Kristol's, also. Wonderful how he knows this.

He cites the following language from a Ted Kennedy - Bob Shrum health care article as proof of his naive explanation and prognosis on rationing:

For example, in Medicare today, 18 percent of patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days--at a cost of more than $15 billion in 2005. Most of these readmissions are unnecessary, but we don't reward hospitals and doctors for preventing them. By changing that, we'll save billions

Kristol finds this idea frightening, neglecting to note that health care insurers already practice forms of selective rationing all the time, but with their bottom line duty being profits, not maximizing the benefit of the health care with the costs.

He may or may not have a point with respect to the government potentially making too many decisions (which is part of why we recommend this) in what is otherwise a sea of misinformed conjectures, but contrast Kristol's analysis of how the government -- which already spends hundreds of billions a year on health care -- trying to save money, is bad, with an example of health insurer practices in order to save money:

Bayonne Medical Center filed a federal lawsuit yesterday accusing Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey of intimidating patients into leaving the hospital early and avoiding its emergency room in an effort to save money.

The suit alleges Horizon routinely sent couriers to hospital bedsides to warn patients they could incur massive bills if they did not transfer out of Bayonne, which does not participate in the insurer's payment network. Hospital officials said the tactics violated state law and in some cases seriously jeopardized patients' health.

Here's the hospital --which also clearly has a vested interest in this -- spin on it:

Bayonne Hospital Center and Hospital Patient File Federal Lawsuit to Protect Bayonne, New Jersey Residents From Life-Threatening Business Practices of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ.
Suit Charges Horizon with Systematic Attack on Emergency Care in Quest for Profit

Here's the legal complaint filed by the hospital, against the insurer.

Of course, with respect to Kristol's unsubstantiated and a bit hypocritical assertion that health care reform "puts us on a course of government rationing of health care," that same assertion was also aggressively postulated with respect to the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid over four decades ago.

Once again, we say the problem is over insurance, not the extent to which the government decides to foot some health insurance costs as an option for some otherwise struggling to do so.

The Politics of Waterloo and Health Care?

2009-07-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

On the other hand, the issue seems to be about the best way to improve the health care mess - whether there's far too much government expenditure on it already, not enough coverage or ability to afford good health care on the part of citizens, or both -- rather than the President's "waterloo."

2009-07-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

But seriously, speaking of the Washington Post, are they trying to become the new official voice of ignorance?

2009-07-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

The AP' s Washington Bureau Chief simply continues to amaze.

Much more problematic is that those concerned with the importance of a rigorous, independent, and at least reasonably objective press, continue to put up with this partisan shrill clothed in the camouflage of a reporter, much less the all important role of Washington Bureau Chief for the Associated Press.

Fournier's just doing his thing, which is practicing his often wildly misleading and skewed presentations, housed as "news." It's those who put up with him which is the real issue.

What do you do? Those with the power, make the case, and make it stick. That's all. Don't make it to your fellow choir mates, make it to America. Turn it into a story.

I suppose we could document several hundred instances, with hundreds more links and relevant facts, to emphatically back this up. But, really, what's the point. Do you really want to read it?

2009-07-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

"Palin Bashing is Women Bashing." Okay.

Christian Science Monitor: "Langhorne, Pa. - Let's call it what it is: sexism in the media. No matter your political stripe, pundits are skewering Sarah Palin. Again. Back in the media spotlight for announcing her resignation as governor July 3, she's become easy fodder for misogynistic bashing."

Bob Somerby had an interesting column (see 2d half of his piece) on this very same point (emphasis added).

"'COHEN (7/7/09): ...Was it okay with the GOP if the person a heartbeat away from the presidency was—pardon me, but it's true—a ditz with no national experience whatsoever? You betcha. The party had cracked up, accepting a nullity because she was antiabortion over a seasoned senator and former governor because they were not. Ideology won. The nation lost.'

...Palin was a horrible candidate...But someone like Cohen can’t voice such a judgment about a woman without quickly turning to familiar sexist language. He asks our forgiveness as he does, thus showing he knows there’s a problem.

“Pardon me,” the elite pundit says, calling Palin “a ditz.” “Pardon me”—but the statement "is true.”

Now that is a teachable moment.

And, of course, Cohen’s so dumb that he seems to think that a stereotypical insult of that type can actually be a matter of “fact.” You really have to be dumb—and uncaring—to say something like that."

Harsh, but Somerby is right. Someone being a "ditz," by definition, can not be a matter of "fact," but not, apparently, to Cohen, who, um, uh, errr, is a bit of a ditz. In our humble opinion, by the way, as all such proclamations are. As per usual, Cohen's also wrong as to why the "party" accepted the nomination (while at the same time missing the fact that quite a number of very prominent republicans, increasingly, lambasted the choice); because Palin brought an "energy" (manipulative as it is, see this above) and it was McCain's choice, not theirs.

Still, what the Christian Science Monitor is missing, and what the media still has not very well covered, are the facts. Let's take a look back when they really mattered, then and today.

As noted above, the point is...

2009-07-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

Update, to this Post below.

Apparently, some Senators are also alleging outright that the concealment by the CIA broke the law.

Additionally, as this constitutional issues Salon columnist aptly notes, the Attorney General may be part of the administration, but also acts independently in matters of prosecution.

2009-07-13T03:10:00.000-07:00

"It seems to be pure, unadulterated spin," in reference to this, by Instapundit, is what we wrote below.

The Washington Post, despite widespread efforts to paint the contrary picture, has hardly been an Obama Cheerleader. But according to the Post, whaddya know, "Recent Disclosures Prompt Obama Administration to Rethink Approach to Inquiries." You mean, not poll numbers, but things like "fresh disclosures about CIA activity that had been hidden from Congress for seven years"? Or the suggestion by the House Intelligence Chairman, less than a week ago, that the CIA "lied to lawmakers," apparently backed up by the director of the CIA"? Or perhaps reports that, of course, warrantless survelliance has been far more widespread than had been represented, and previously thought, at the same time its efficacy and effect have possibly been greatly exaggerated? And that there may even have been "hints" of "political pressure in preparing...threat assessments that helped form the legal basis" for continuing the classified [and quite possibly unconstitutional] program?

Nah, it's just poll numbers. Instapundit. Your one stop shop for pithy commentary, witty observations, and non stop far right wing subjective partisan b.s.

2009-07-13T02:31:00.000-07:00

It seems our suspicions below were correct; it does appear to be a case of simple, unbridled, deeply seated skepticism, perhaps even well ahead of the facts.

2009-07-13T02:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Glenn Reynolds and Instapundit.... what a skeptic, searching far and wide to find the most "fitting" quotes for the unbiased benefit of readers everywhere.

We'll keep our eyes open on the issue. But there has been a non stop and sometimes reasonable call to at least look at the torture question, so are we? And is the Attorney General, in contemplating it, really looking at Obama's poll numbers?

The case could be made, but so far, it seems to be pure, unadulterated spin. I'm just sayin'.

And speaking of torture, "American Conservative" (also mentioned just below) has this interesting twist to add, in its August 1 edition.

2009-07-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Law Professor and "Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds seems like a pretty intelligent, witty guy. But someone needs to explain the concept of "variance" to him, to say the least. (It's a theme we have seen repeatedly). It is funny though.

But really, now.

2009-07-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hilarious Headline of the week: "Palin Willing To Campaign For Democrats." And it's posted on the Huffington Post, among other places.

Yes, Palin is willing to campaign for Democrats. This Palin. Now attempting to play Democrats (who if you ask them, never get played) -- and of course, once again, the voters -- like a fiddle.

I suppose we could give about a thousand examples of how Machiavellian this is, and how, of course, the media (and Huff Post) is playing into it. But what would be the point.