America's Other Crisis

The slow death of logic and critical thinking...

It looks like the tin foil hat brigade is starting to form a consensus about the war in Georgia...

Apparently its all a Republican plot orchestrated so that McCain can win the election.

From the Huffington Post

What a Convenient Little War for The Republicans

In classic "Wag The Dog" scenario there is a neat little war brewing between American and Russian proxies, and real Russian troops, in the Caucacus Mountains on the Russian border.
...

What is most interesting is that McCain's chief foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann,
has been advising/ lobbying for pro-western Georgia for the last four years.

Can't you just imagine what happened?

Randy lets it be known to the Georgian President that this would be a good time for Georgian troops to invade South Ossetia, which had been an autonomous territory for more than a decade. The Georgians didn't take much persuading, as they had been wanting to crack down with their troops for a long time.

And with American -- Republican -- support, what a better time to act?

Meanwhile Bush is conveniently meeting with Putin at the Olympics in Beijing and lets it be known that if Georgia attacks Ossetia, the US will not "mind" -- Wink Wink -- an aggressive response from Russia.

I recognize the Huff Po for the partisan tool that it is but when your writers start expousing pet conspiracy theories and you happen to be running one of the most heavily trafficked US political blogs on the web its doesn't do crap for your credibility.

I see this as part of a disturbing trend in American culture. Considering that 25% of all Americans believe they have been wiretapped and a double digit portion (lost the link to the poll courtesy of Firefox 2.1) of Americans believe that either the government could have prevented 9/11 and didn't or were behind it in the first place I'm inclined to think that the number of people that are using the basic tools of reasoning is on the decrease. And if Mr. Fleetwood, who used to be a journalist at several reputable publications, is any indicator those same irrational people are actually getting jobs of influence and import which is doubly disturbing.

As for the Huff Po they'd do well to realize that the longer they allow their writers to use their blog as a staging ground for pet conspiracy theories the more they damage their positions and their party.

Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?

Unfortunately, I think not...

From Media Matters

During the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." He made the comment while discussing with a caller a conversation he had with a previous caller, "Mike from Chicago," who said he "used to be military," and "believe[s] that we should pull out of Iraq." Limbaugh told the second caller, whom he identified as "Mike, this one from Olympia, Washington," that "[t]here's a lot" that people who favor U.S. withdrawal "don't understand" and that when asked why the United States should pull out, their only answer is, " 'Well, we just gotta bring the troops home.' ... 'Save the -- keeps the troops safe' or whatever," adding, "[I]t's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people." "Mike" from Olympia replied, "No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media." Limbaugh interjected, "The phony soldiers." The caller, who had earlier said, "I am a serving American military, in the Army," agreed, replying, "The phony soldiers."

He's going to come away from this free and clear. He left enough weasel/wiggle room in his statement to say that he meant that liberal groups are either hiring soldiers to voice dissatisfaction with the war or are using people dressed as soldiers (which is illegal) to promote their antiwar agenda. Given the fact that during the previous call he claimed to have the authority to decide who is and isn't a real Republican I have no doubt that he also believes he has the jurisdiction to judge the whether or not one's honorable discharge is valid or not. If he truly believes that then apparently the Viagra is going to the wrong head.

I'm certain that Mr. Limbaugh will survive this scrape at the cost of a few listeners and live to bloviate another day. However if he continues to push the envelope at the current rate he has been he may very well end up with in a slot on satellite radio some day. That of course would require his sponsors to start pulling their ads due to public outcry ala Imus. While no such campaign has been successful so far, one can always hope.

County May Kill Emergency Broadcasts Due to Partisan Content

Here is the dumb part:

By Scott Wyman
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

June 13, 2007, 1:19 PM EDT

Rush Limbaugh has long been a thorn in the side of liberals, but now, because of him, some Democratic politicians don't even want to join with a local radio station to broadcast hurricane information.

Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to Limbaugh's talk show.

and here is the funny part:

Limbaugh responded to the commissioners Wednesday on his radio show. He said the county's qualms about WIOD are a sign of out-of-control partisanship in the nation.

Thank you so much Mr.Obvious. You forgot to add "which I helped create" to that last sentence.

Partisan Accusations

File this one under Moutains out of Molehills
Calling Himself ‘The Whitest Man In America,’ Fox’s Gibson Defends ‘Ooga Booga Fever’

Last week, during a discussion of the “TB Man story,” Fox News anchor John Gibson declared that tuberculosis usually affects someone “from the third world” or who contracted “ooga booga fever” in “some godforsaken hellhole.”

Noting the criticism of his remarks from Media Matters and ThinkProgress, Gibson responded on the June 1 edition of his radio show.

Calling himself “the whitest man in America, who is the black man’s best friend,” Gibson said his comments were not racist because he had just “invented” the term. “Now, I could have called it Machu Picchu fever or Latino jungle fever or something. I’ve gotten sick in those places too.” (Gibson noted, however, that he wouldn’t have called it “Potomac fever,” after Washington, DC.)

Later, Gibson contradicted himself, claiming he learned the phrase from reading Joseph Wilson’s book, which references Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. “So I, in making up ooga booga fever, I actually mispronounced the name of Burkina Faso. I should have said Ouagadougou fever.” more

Whitest man in America? That title was available? Well crap. Barry Manilow will be crushed.

Of Mountains and Molehills

I recall seeing posts about a fake memo earlier this week but frankly the issue at hand was so unimportant to me that I skimmed over it and went on with blogging about really important things like the war against Spam. Little did I know that certain large blogs completely blew it out of proportion launched vicious four letter word laden attacks on
former Green Berets for refusing to take down the relatively harmless memo only to find out said memo was real. (You can read the whole story here.)

At the tail end of that article is the part I find interesting because I recently discovered it to be true when I caught Red State lying and numerous blogs reporting that lie as truth. In the end I found statement below to completely accurate.

"right-wing bloggers continuously hurl accusations like this and then, when proven wrong, simply move on to the next accusatory orgy without any real acknowledgment of wrongdoing or apology."

Whats sad is that some of those blogs have actually broken real news stories in the past. I mean one of the beauties of blogland is that it keeps the MSM on its toes and lately some blogs are just really screwing the pooch in that area.

I was taught that there were men and then there were Men. Meaning that men had exterior plumbing and Men did their best to do the right thing. Part of that meant that if you made a mistake, you owned up to it and then apologized. That should also be the difference between a blogger and a Blogger one has a blog and the other also has integrity.

Daily KOS Turns 5 (and still acts it)

Kudos to Atrios at Eschaton for this post:

Worst American Birthdays Vol. XVI

The Daily Kos, born on this date in 2002, is perhaps the most malevolent force in American politics today. Since its establishment, it has done everything possible to silence other voices through the establishment of its diary system, to stop the progress of progressive candidates by bankrolling (with the help of its primary backer George Soros) a series of neo-Nazis like Ned Lamont, and has been openly hostile to the concept of open politics on the internet with its insistence on supporting "net neutrality" and an internet free of FEC regulation.

When historians look back on the decline and fall of America, May 26, 2002, will mark the point when order turned to anarchy, where liberal society turned to fascism, where our political discourse was snatched away from our betters and handed over, without thought to consequence, to the dirty masses whose ignorance and incivility drove our elites into hiding and our country into the abyss.

Happy Birthday Daily Kos, may Joe Lieberman outlive you so he can spit on your grave.

I rarely see eye to eye with Atrios but today we are on even ground if only in italics.

I'm Calling BS...

On Erick and Jeff Emanuel over at Red State:

So I'm looking at Memeorandum this morning to see what's being blogged about today and I see the article below over at Redstate and I go over to see what all the fuss is about:

"For the Legacy of These Men, You Should Call Congress and Stop This Bill.
These are the heros of Guam. The men of the United States military who rescued Guam from the Imperial Japanese. These men shed their blood that Guam might be free.

And yet, the House Majority Leader thinks this is not enough. Steny Hoyer thinks we should also have to pay Guam reparations for what Imperial Japan did to Guam.

(snipped out call congress at this no. part )

You can stop this madness. You can call your Congressman and tell him to vote against this bill. Call right now and tell your Congressman to oppose H.R. 1595." whole thing


Followed by a list of every serviceman who died liberating Guam. And at the bottom of that post is a link to the original post of which I am only posting the pertinent parts of here some parts of which I am putting in bold as I'll be talking about them specifically in a minute:

"Are you wondering what the heck I'm talking about? I mean, seriously - what in the world does the US have to do with this anyway, and why in the world would we owe reparations to a country for an action that we had no part of?

That's a question for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and his eight compatriots, all of whom have co-sponsored a bill that would require that America pay reparations to the people of Guam for - get this - the actions of the Japanese in World War II.

According to the bill (HR.1595, the "Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act"), the people of Guam:

suffered unspeakable harm as a result of the occupation of Guam by Imperial Japanese military forces during World War II , by being subjected to death, rape, severe personal injury, personal injury, forced labor, forced march, or internment.

For this reason (?), "the Secretary of the Treasury shall make payments" to WWII survivors and their descendants on Guam for the brutal actions of a third party.

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? After all, the US is the largest aid donor on the planet; it's only logical that we should rebuild, repatriate, and reparate every country that has been hurt by every war that we can find. Let's not stop with Guam - let's include everybody from Carthage on up to the present. Should we pay reparations to the Koreans for the Mongol invasions of the 14th century, and to the Spanish for the loss of their Armada in 1588? Why not?

And while this bill holds up $126,000,000.00 for the repayment of the people of Guam for what the Japanese did (as well as $5,000,000.00 for "the Secretary of the Interior [to] establish a grants program [to]...award grants for research, educational, and media activities that memorialize the events surrounding the occupation of Guam during World War II, honor the loyalty of the people of Guam during such occupation, or both, for purposes of appropriately illuminating and interpreting the causes and circumstances of such occupation and other similar occupations during a war"), our soldiers can't even get a dime in supplemental appropriations.

Way to go, Democrats. Your "blame America first" (even for things we have nothing to do with), anti-US soldier attitudes, actions, and mindsets have just been taken to a new level. " whole thing

So I decide to read the actual bill itself as it would appear from the post that there is a provision in it to pour salt on the graves of our honored dead. And I'll darned if I couldn't find that clause anywhere. So allow me via The Pacific Daily to boil the bill down for you:


"The bill is based on recommendations from the Guam War Claims Review Commission, which found that Guamanian Chamorros, were not treated the same as other Americans on war claims matters.

The compensation would be limited to an estimated 9,000 Chamorros who survived the occupation or their direct survivors.

The bill is based on recommendations from the Guam War Claims Review Commission, which found that Guamanian Chamorros, were not treated the same as other Americans on war claims matters."

The compensation would be limited to an estimated 9,000 Chamorros who survived the occupation or their direct survivors.

The bill includes a $5 million grant program for research, education and other activities to memorialize the events surrounding the occupation."


And after reading the bill I discover it has 28 co-sponsors including 6 Republicans: Rep. Elton Gallegly [R-CA], Rep. Jeff Miller [R-FL], Rep. Dennis Rehberg [R-MT], Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI], Rep. Dan Burton [R-IN], Rep. Donald Young [R-AK]. see here


That left me with the question of who created the Guam War Claims Review Commission when?


That was H.R. 308 (in the 107th Congress) see here

Jan 30, 2001		Introduced
Jun 24, 2002		Scheduled for Debate
Mar 13, 2001		Passed House
Nov 20, 2002		Passed Senate
Dec 16, 2002		Signed by President

Hey, wasn't the House and the Senate run by a Republican majority then? Wasn't it signed into law by a Republican President? So essentially the Democrats and Republicans that sponsored and cosponsored the bill were just finishing up work that the previous congress started?
So if this is a bad bill then its a bad bipartisan bill.

Mr. Emmanuel, either you didn't do your homework or lied about the facts in the name of partisanship.

Erick, you didn't double check the facts and proceeded to invoke the names of almost every serviceman that gave their lives to free Guam (in order to mobilize your readers). That is never to be done lightly and by doing so under false or erroneous pretenses you did them a great disservice and that is unforgivable.

Update
So I check my little traffic meter and see a few hits from Red State and wander over to see whats going on but there's no link in the comments thread or anything and then I see comments 5,6, and 7 and considering that one of those hits was from a secure section of Red State it's likely that came from Kowalski's email to Erick to which this is his response:

"Thank you Kowalski. I appreciate it. I do, however, want to leave the names on the front page a while longer. I think you understand the point and I'm pleased by the reaction it has gotten."

Since when did things like truth and integrity become of less value than reaction? And what does it that say about you that you do? It's that type of thinking that cost the GOP the House and the Senate in the first place. And if the DNC starts heading down that slippery slope it'll put them out of power too.

Midtopia linked back with Ripping Redstate

Rush Going the Way of Imus?

According to The Moderate Voice Mr. Limbaugh opted to play a song entitled "Barrack The Magic Negro". Having listened to it does tend to push the boundary of good taste. But judge for yourself and then drop by there for the Blog Roundup.




Of course in my opinion the odds of Rush "craploads of ad revenue" Limbaugh going the way of Imus are slim to none unless the sponsors start pulling out.

VA Tech Reflections

I was born in Roanoake VA, I have family that lives in Blacksburg, and odds are I have at least one distant cousin that goes to VA Tech. I started hunting, fishing, and target shooting in that neck of woods when I was eight. Hence it occurs to me that if such a catastrophe could happen there it could literally happen anywhere. And those that were affected by the violence that day have my sincerest condolences. And it is that spirit that I say the following:




Since that day partisans from both sides have called for stricter gun control laws, called for handguns to be allowed in schools, and conspiracy theorists have been wondering if it was a govt. black op. And to all of you I have this to say:






Shut up now.






Not one of the 32 people killed died so that you could advance your tired political ideals. None of them chose to die so that your party could advance its agenda. This isn't a political problem a
it's a human problem and in order to decrease the number of times massacres like this happen politicians, school administrators, campus security, law enforcement, corporations, and mental health professionals are going to have to work together.






To those voices on the left I say: You could have outlawed all guns and this could have still happened guns would be just as available as pot or meth currently is. They'd be smuggled in through the same routes as cocaine and illegal immigrants. And eventually some madman would have done something similar with home made pipe bombs.






To those on the right: Firearms being allowed on campuses might have prevented deaths but considering the low percentage of gun owners that have concealed carry licenses the odds of one of them being on campus in the right place at the right time are slim. Plus in the middle of a mass shooting a college student with a handgun looks just like a perp to a cop.






To those conspiracy theorists: You folks are hopeless and I'm not going to bother arguing with you.






What might be of use is the creation of a Danger to Self and/or Others database where campus security and mental health professionals could submit the name, DL, SSN, DoB of those that fall within those parameters to the authorities and that database could then be checked instantly by Federal Firearms License holders. And then a law could be passed that that FFL holders could be held liable in civil court and/or lose the license if anyone they sold a weapon to on that list committed an act of violence using that firearm.






Thats just one of many possible tools that could help reduce the odds of this happening agin. We'll never be able to totally stop madmen from killing people but we can at least try to think out of the political box for real solutions.