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“Middleton Mammary” Conspiracy Exposed!

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The ace investigative reporters at French magazine Closer have produced startling photographic evidence that the Duchess of Cambridge does, indeed, have breasts. There has been controversy surrounding the Middleton mammaries from the beginning of her relationship with Prince William over ten years ago.

Bubba Orbs and Mikey Mellon, co-founders of the organization Groping for the Truth, have alleged an international cover up has been going on for years. Keeping her breasts under wraps involved the complicity of hundreds, including high profile individuals from Great Britain, The United States and Italy. Some of the names that have been exposed include Alice Temperley, Prabal Gurung, and Alexander McQueen. It was less than a year ago that Prabal Gurung, who has a long-time relationship with First Lady Michelle Obama, had been implicated in a White House cover up.

When asked for their reaction to the recent photo of Kate Middleton’s breasts, Orbs responded, “Of course, we’re feeling up about all of this. We celebrated with a pair of milkshakes. ” He added, “We’re just grateful for the endowments that has given our organization such a great lift.”

This is the second vindication for the sleuths in as many months. Acting on a tip about Prince Harry, Orbs and Mellon were the nutcrackers whose Penisgate investigation exposed hard proof of the never-before-seen Royal Family Jewels.

When asked what’s next, they said that they plan to go to Florida, Virginia and Ohio in the United States. They are planning to track down rumors of an enormous boob that has appeared there but admit that it won’t be easy. According to Mellon, “Apparently it is constantly shifting positions and as of now we only have an etch-a-sketch of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Tale of Two Guns

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I was raised on a Wisconsin farm tended by the real-life incarnation of Oliver Wendell Douglas of the TV series, Green Acres. My father wasn’t much of a farmer but he was an avid hunter, and a pretty good one, too. As such, I grew up with a fairly impressive collection of firearms which I eventually learned to use well enough, though no-one ever called me sure-shot.

As a teenager, I might occasionally take the 45-70 off the rack, go to the back yard and pop off as many rounds as I figured my dad wouldn’t notice missing. I was on a farm, after all, and even if a neighbor did hear the gun shots they would have thought, correctly, that the only danger is to a rabbit or a fence post. I have genuinely fond memories of those warm summer afternoons when I defended the house against the hostile advances of bottles, tin cans and the occasional melon.

Let’s be honest, here. For their own sake guns can be truly seductive. A fine rifle has the craftsmanship of a Swiss watch with parts that mesh and click with a near poetic beauty. Yet, it retains the utility and ruggedness of a jeep – not the slightest hint of estrogen. What’s not to like? Form, function and beauty; this is a machine with an ergonomic heft that fits into your palm as an extension of your arm. You and the gun become one.

When a talented marks woman levels a rifle and sights down the barrel, she and the machine merge to create a powerful experience. She pulls the trigger and a loud crack from the barrel reports the excitement while the recoil resonates through her body. When that bullet hits it’s it mark there is a visceral excitement involving all of the senses, validating that union.

If you think I’m exaggerating, check out R. Lee Ermey gush like a twelve-year-old when he obliterates commie watermelons with a variety of firearms. In those moments, he is not thinking about the 2nd amendment or gun control, nor of property to defend or to take, or of God and Country. For now it’s just him, a semi-automatic and a bunch of dead watermelons that makes him squeal with delight. For a gun enthusiast the experience is visceral.

While you may think I’m picking on Ermey, I’m not, for two very good reasons. First is that even in his late sixties, if he told me to jump, I’d be wise to ask how high on the way up. Secondly, and more on point, I am absolutely no different. There is just no disguising the fact that guns are really, really fun. In one very limited sense, it could be argued that the experience is the same as a pinball wizard and his machine or an accomplished skier and his equipment.

What is different, of course, is that you can also use the gun to kill people and manage people’s behavior. (At least, in ways that are less practical than with a pinball machine.) If I’m a store clerk with a gun pointed at me, that gun owner is my new manager and I will obligingly empty the till into his sack. I also believe that the vast majority of gun-owners have a very sober and mature recognition of this. I know a hunter who couldn’t enjoy playing paint ball because pointing a gun at the other players was distressing and went against his instincts.

As a rule, however, owners are comfortable with the guns themselves if not downright fond of them. Most owners believe that they are both safe and facile with their use. Your average gun owner is also your average citizen, complete with the very natural and human goal of protecting themselves and their family, as well as their property and ideals. How dangerous our world really is can be rather subjective but there are few places left that aren’t touched by violence. With all that in mind, it would be almost crazy for a gun owner to not see that firearm as a friend and ally in defense from the many threats, both real and imagined, that lurk outside their doors. As one gun owner put it, “It just makes me feel safer.”

As it happens, my wife stands in exemplary contrast to my personal gun experiences. When I met her, she knew there was a middle-America largely because it was a five hour flight from New York to Los Angeles. Her sole experience with guns were nightly reports of drive-bys, hold-ups and the usual urban mayhem. She grew up in a world where the gun had no charm and no ulterior motive. Rather, it had a singular and ugly purpose. Whether for good or ill, it is nothing more than a tool for killing another person. She had no warm summer afternoons of picking off coke cans and the only thing she’s ever hunted was a cab.

Once, when she saw a shotgun on a table with barrel broken and no shells in the chamber (read “nonthreatening”), she grew pale and stiffened, as if she stumbled on a coiled and hissing rattler. I remember her discomfort, many years ago, when there was a gun in our house even though it was unloaded, in a case, safely buried in a closet and no ammunition. Like the viper she spied on the table it still, somehow, retained the ability to slither in the night and strike us in our sleep.

For anyone who lives in a city the anxiety that guns evoke is not particularly irrational, even if they or their family has never been a victim of gun violence. If you live in Los Angeles as I do, sooner or later you will have to detour home because of a police barricade that is investigating a shooting. I have seen police with weapons drawn just a few times which makes it, relatively, a lot. It is true that some city dwellers are safer than others but the reminders that a city is a dangerous place are constant and real.

John Atterberry, a music executive, was randomly shot and killed by a stranger who apparently was distraught over a recent break-up. This happened at an intersection that I have often walked with my wife when out for a movie and a drink. Ronni Chasen was shot and killed in her car by a would be robber on a bicycle at a stop-light in an affluent neighborhood. This incident was at a light on a commute route that I used for 6 years. Too often, in some way, we are able to locate ourselves at the site of a recent tragedy.

If the dangers are so thoroughly understood by the urban denizen, why would they want gun controls rather than carry one themselves? They share the same world with the same dangers and the same fundamental goals as the guy who sleeps with a Glock. They also have the goal of protecting themselves and their family, as well as their property and ideals. Just like the gun owner, they are making decisions about the cost to benefit of gun ownership and control laws.

However, in their world there really is a corollary between the number of guns on the street and the rate of gun violence. The idea of more law-biding citizens carrying as a deterrent to crime just won’t gain traction in those woods. This belief is drawn from a long history of prisons being choked with arrogant, stupid and brazen criminals despite three-strikes and the death penalty. Their conclusion is that owning a gun will not make them safer than simply having fewer guns on the street.

For these gun-control advocates, concealed carry and the expansion of gun-ownership rights has the same logic as using more landmines to make the city safer. My wife will never hold a gun much less keep one for personal safety. It just isn’t in her DNA. Whether legal or otherwise, another gun on the streets is perceived as just one more opportunity for someone to die a capricious and violent death. She and her family have racked up several lifetimes of living in big cities, and not one of them has been the victim of a gun crime. Still, the very idea of more guns out there just makes her feel less safe.

The gun-control debate has evolved into a litmus test of personal character and political values. We have become a divided culture with reasoned debate quickly devolving to hurling insults. No longer exchanging ideas, we find ourselves screaming with veins popping, “Why can’t you see what is so painfully obvious to me?” But it really isn’t that obvious. Most people never say out-loud what, in their hearts, is actually driving their beliefs. We aren’t allowed to say things like, “I just like them” or “they just scare me.”

However, with this in mind it should come as no surprise that we get little traction when we apply rational arguments to something that is much closer to a faith based position. At the most basic level, choosing to support gun owner rights or to support additional gun control laws is a personal and emotional calculation. Only then are the reasoned arguments developed to support those beliefs. Yet we bury this notion, and what we are left with is lobbing statistics, anecdotes, nuance arguments and idiotic excuses at each other only to perpetually fall on deaf ears. And we all know how well that’s been working.

The Fallacy of Liberal Media Bias

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There are countless individuals and organizations dedicated to tirelessly monitoring all forms of media, breathlessly posting the latest bias infraction, another brick in their bombproof case for the liberal media bias. Not confined to conservatives, indeed not even to politics, forward sentries on the internet are vigilant for bias in everything from breastfeeding to UFO activity.

There are plenty of surveys, formal or otherwise, that show there is little disagreement that MSM bias is real. That said, it turns out that this bias is a bit like pornography – we all know it when we see but there is little agreement on a common definition. So this raises a question: If there is no consensus on what constitutes bias or how it swings, does the charge of systemic liberal bias in the MSM have a leg to to stand on?

Without doubt, there are credible instances of bias that show up in the media. Mindful of this, the many watchdog organizations, whether liberal or conservative, do provide a truly valuable service to consumers of news in a cyclonic industry. The edit of George Zimmerman’s 911 call really did alter an interpretation of the conversation. And while I support the assertion that the Trayvon Martin tragedy highlights the reality of ongoing social challenges, I still don’t like being lied to; especially if I might unwittingly use that lie to support my sympathies.

The Zimmerman 911 edit is a demonstrably credible instance (or sample) of media bias. Unfortunately, most news items rarely have such a clean empirical test for the alleged bias. Most often, they drift without moorings in a subjective, and very crowded harbor. Let’s say I wake up one morning to hear a story on the radio that Action News X’s Special Investigative Team (SpIT) report that authorities believe that the numerous recent UFO sightings were most likely a weather balloon.

If I believe with the conviction of fact that the weather balloon was indeed an alien spacecraft I would, in turn, have every reason to believe that the integrity of SpIT’s reporting was corrupted. If a story violates my beliefs, then how meaningful is it when I label the story as biased? This is only one example of how sample collection can be flawed. Researchers have yet to produce a broadly accepted method to rate news items quantitatively for bias; therefore, these studies will continue to be dogged with perfectly credible accusations of some sort of bias in sampling.

Yet, despite the growing mountains of evidence showing MSM bias, using this as proof for an information cartel driving a liberal bias (or any bias) in the MSM still does not pile higher than a hill of beans. On the contrary, this overwhelming evidence is actually doing a better job of proving the the opposite: that there is no systemic bias in the MSM. To make my point, let’s play with marbles.

Alice and I decide to toss a marble in a bucket for every MSM news story we see. The color of the marble we toss represents our interpretation of the story’s political bias with red for conservative, blue for liberal and purple for politically neutral. I am a known card-carrying liberal and Alice sleeps in Reagan jammies. Not surprisingly, a month later, her bucket is filled with 50% blue marbles, 45% purple marbles and 5% red marbles. She looks at my bucket and quips, “Still wearing your Trotsky PJs, I see,” and notes that it contains 50% red marbles, 45% purple marbles and 5% blue marbles. So we thoroughly mix our respective buckets together in a tub, take a few steps back and, guess what? The tub appears to be filled with purple marbles.

If only two people play the game, it is reasonable to assume that one player is less objective than the other and, thus, skews the merged results. When lots and lots of people are collecting samples of media bias, the quantitative integrity of the sample collection matters less and less because it is also reasonable to assume that this lack of integrity distributes equally across the political spectrum. Since the errors will tend to distribute evenly across the political spectrum, then the results will still produce the same mean. Translation: still no systemic MSM bias being shown.

A news report deemed false (whether real or imagined) is the most popular indictment of the MSM bias but is far from the only argument being used. There are myriads of studies using methods such as relativistically ranking how conservative or liberal a news organization is deemed. Other studies have surveyed editors and journalists about their political beliefs. Still others count the frequency of liberal versus conservative sourcing, or possibly, the frequency of the reporting of a politically charged event.

So far, however, none of these studies has proved unassailable and whether they favor the liberal or conservative hunches, they are uniformly burdened with an avalanche of criticisms. For instance, despite the revelation that a very large percentage of journalists self-identify as liberal, the effect of this on their neutrality in reporting is still supposition.

I’m not suggesting these studies are all useless, just suspect. Mostly what I am saying, though, is that despite 30 years of research, we are still no closer to a definitive position on bias in media. Like the the news sample based evidence, what can be said is that, flawed or not, when viewed collectively the widely varying results of these studies still aggregate into a net-neutral conclusion.

As I hope I’ve made clear, I do believe that media bias is alive and well. It is sometime egregious and clumsy, as in the Zimmerman edit, but is more often quite subtle. Imagine Glenn Beck spending a tearful hour decrying the horrors of socialized health care which is not news but is editorial content (to be generous). Following Beck, the news opens with a laboriously objective story about the legislative state of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Can that story be considered objective if it has been potentially poisoned by the preceding editorial? Obviously, I’m picking on a popular cable news network in this example but in all truthfulness, I believe that this kind of cross pollination of news and editorial is not unique to Fox.

Actually, it is my opinion (not allegation) that this is an industry wide practice. Naturally, news organizations noisily boast of their neutrality and fairness. And while performing this very public song and dance, they actually quietly expect us to see through their disguise. Why wouldn’t they? What better way to for a news organization to brand themselves in a competitive MSM market. If Fox viewers took a bizarre seismic shift to the left then I have every reason to think that we will soon see a soggy face tearfully lamenting how the social order ordained by the constitution is being undermined by greedy corporate interests. Rupert Murdoch may have a political agenda but his prime directive is profit.

I will even confess a natural suspicion of corporations. My anxiety shoots up when, for instance, the three largest oil companies have closed door meetings with the vice president (who also happens to be waging war against an oil producing nation). Egregiously discomforting exceptions not withstanding, out-of-hand assumptions about a media corporation’s motive is akin to “proving” that the driver was speeding because that car model is popular with professional auto racers.

Corporations don’t like me, they like money and I’m okay with that. They are businesses first and foremost, and that means that a cartel-like collusion on providing news with a liberal bias will still have to make business sense. As a nation, the media consumer market will split down the middle of the political divide so it would make no sense for a cartel to alienate an entire half of the media market. As Daniel Sutter argues in his excellent and thorough essay, there is no profit advantage for this kind of collusion.

So when a fan of a political candidate blasts media bias for the the poor coverage Ron Paul receives, I offer a simpler explanation. Maybe it’s because nobody likes him. The news, after all, is just responding to consumer demand. (And Ron Paul supporters do like consumer driven markets, don’t they?) Thus, while it’s true that I regularly want to kick in my TV, I take comfort in knowing that all over the country, spanning race, creed, income and political beliefs, millions of other Americans also want to kick in their TV. And I figure that as long as the MSM is pissing off all of us, the system is still working.

Article first published as The Fallacy of Liberal Media Bias on Blogcritics. Named BC editors pick.

Email For A Rainy Day – The Eddie Sessions Session

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I recently received yet another impassioned “Why I Hate Obama” chain-mail article with the subject line, “Article from the: Wall Street Journal – by Eddie Sessions.” Predictably, the article did not appear in the Wall Street Journal and nobody knows who the hell Eddie Sessions is. (Good name for a rock star, though. “He just released his newest album, The Eddies Sessions Sessions.)

The article was one of those “kitchen sink” cases being made against Obama. You know, the ones that throw in every crime and misdemeanor imaginable committed by our president. Sessions can’t be taken seriously as journalist. With a vague amorphous evil lurking in every paragraph, though, I was forced to admire its horror story sensibilities.

It has been rainy and dreary of late, which made it perfect for parsing the arguments in the the email. This is an activity that is kind of like doing a crossword puzzle – it keeps the mind busy in a useless, incidental sort of of way. Sessions was a bit thin on facts but his scary language was downright Gothic. The article opens with:

I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

I have no idea what the extent of Soros’ influence was on Obama, but then again, neither does the author. However, it would be incredibly naive to believe that both Jeb and George W. enjoyed political success without the mentor-ship and financial support from his father and his political machinery. So is mentor-ship and support a bad thing?

His next assertion is laugh-out-loud stupid. Nobody would make the political calculation that a “tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name” would be a best bet to groom for high political office.

After eight years of presumably supporting Bush I certainly understand why he would frame “facile speaking skills” as a pejorative. As I recall, however, GOP Patron Saint, Ronald Reagan, was an extremely talented communicator. Was he evil too?

Scary Stuff: “at some point early on somebody or some group… “
Facts Presented: Tall; half-white, half-black, African/Muslim name.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

Last I read, republicans lionize ambition. It’s the lazy they hate!

Isn’t foresight a virtue? Memoirs are now routine and almost expected of anyone running for higher office. No reason to think that he wasn’t already thinking about high national office in 1995. A bit of foresight might have been nice when someone was contemplating lowering taxes while waging two wars.

There is no credible evidence to support the rumor that Bill Ayers was the actual author of Obama’s biographies. In fact, there is no credible evidence that the two were particularly close on in any respect. Note the qualifier “there are some who think.” Names, please.

Scary Stuff: “In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry.”
Facts Presented: “In a very real way, he has been a young man.”

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial.. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

If he rarely voted on anything controversial, then why was his voting record demonized as being radically to the left? You can’t have it both ways. I will add that his public stance against the Iraq war in 2003 was hardly neutral.

“Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine” This is one of those things that you get to say without it meaning anything. You get to wink and imply “we all know what that means.” Mayor Daley is, of course, shorthand for graft, corruption and voter fraud. The author is implicitly suggesting that Barrack Obama was engaged in the same. PROVE IT!

Scary Stuff: ”He had the… formidable political machine at his disposal.”
Facts Presented: Obama was an Illinois legislator and a Senator.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He was running for the Senate at the time of 2004 DNC and was, by any metric, not an unknown. (BTW, he won.) The point of this paragraph is to implied a conspiracy. The author doesn’t articulate the nature of the conspiracy much less provide facts. This is just another “wink” and that is the beauty of a conspiracy. They don’t demand facts, because “the conspirators destroy the evidence.”

Scary Stuff: ”His bid for the presidency was… part of some greater game plan.”
Facts Presented: Was a US Senator, Keynote Speaker for 2004 DNC

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

Um, okay. I suppose most of this is true. He did outmaneuver Clinton, win the Iowa caucus and is charming and cool by many accounts. Iowa the antithesis of cool? Hmm. Never really thought about it. But he did have an army of volunteers.

Scary Stuff: Jim Jones and his zombi minions lay to waste vast swatches of the heartland.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska. It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984′s Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man.

I found some nice bipartisan ground to stand on here. I also though John McCain was inept. (See we’re not so different.) I used to think that Obama was lucky to run against McCain. After following the GOP primary, I see that republicans seem to have a taste for inept candidates.

Of course the MSM fell in love with Obama. A black man was winning the race to the White House. This is the kind of news that sells papers, not your ordinary everyday headline stuff. Why wouldn’t they love that. Even Fox found the mileage in this. However, I don’t remember any conservative bitching when the enormous coverage included Reverend Wright, Rezko real estate transactions, John Ayers, Obama’s citizenship and the repeated suggestion that he was a Muslim. All fully reported and followed up by the MSM.

Scary Stuff: “He picked Sarah Palin.”
Facts Presented: “He picked Sarah Palin”

Now, nearly 3 full years into his presidency, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President.. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Gilded years? Which ones were those? He went to college, he got out and he worked. Also, if you don’t believe Obama can speak without a tele-prompter, check out this video of Obama taking Questions at GOP House Issues Conference, in January, 2010. He waxed the floor with those guys and they wouldn’t let him back unless cameras were barred.

Scary Stuff: ”All of those gilded years have left him unprepared…”
Facts Presented: Presidents use tele-promters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of
Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain …

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

A partial list of senior terrorists that Obama “wished away,” usually with a predator:  Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, Ilyas Kashmiri, mmar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, Ali Saleh Farhan, Harun Fazul, Younis al-Mauritani, Baitullah Mahsud, Noordin Muhammad Top, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Saleh al-Somali, ‘Abdallah Sa’id, Abdul Ghani Beradar (captured), Muhammad Haqqani, Qari Zafar, Hussein al-Yemeni, Dulmatin, Abu Ayyub, al-Masri, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Sheik Saeed al-Masri, Hamza al-Jawfial.

BTW, any student of history would know that Islam spread incredibly quickly for a couple of centuries but expansion was largely stagnant or declining during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Scary Stuff: “His capacity to wish away some terrible realities [with] the… intention to destroy America and enslave the West. It knocked on the doors… having gained a foothold [with] the great crowds that greeted him…[not] having even the slightest grasp of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions. (Did I copy that quote correctly? AR)
Facts Presented: Crowds greeted him.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Anybody who thinks that Obama is a communist doesn’t know what the fucking word means. Show me his manifesto and I will gladly re-evaluate.

Scary Stuff: In the end it was never about the party.
Facts Presented: None.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an  “obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against “jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu Akbar.” The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

I agree that Obama overreacted regarding the Harvard Professor and said as much at the time. To Obama’s credit he apologized, if only gingerly.

Regarding Fort Hood, the warning against jumping to conclusions was made within minutes of the news breaking to the public and was perfectly appropriate. In what way is this reckless or imprudent?

In context, the Christmas Bomber quote is completely void of policy implications. He was congratulating the passengers on the plane who physically prevented an explosion and said it “…demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist.”

Scary Stuff: ”The absurdity was lost on no-one.” and the word “obstreperous.”
Facts Presented: Obama did cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when
no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

According The New York Times, from 9/11 through April 2011, 450 have been charged with terrorism or national security crimes. Of those 279, cases were settled in civilian courts, with a conviction rate of 82% and an average prison sentence of more than 15 years. By contrast, after a decade, Military tribunals have produced all of five convictions with most defendants receiving relatively short sentences. Two were set free years ago.

Footnote: It is also true that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s civilian trial in New York famously resulted in him being acquitted of 280 charges engendering conservative outrage. However, he was convicted of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property – you know, the charge that mattered. He is serving a life sentence so it is hardly a failure of justice.

Scary Stuff: “No one would even consider such an obscenity.”
Facts Presented: Strove to close Gitmo.

And finally, Eddie Sessions closes with some more rounds of GOP Kum Bay Ya:

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual’s life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America ?

Okay, this has gotten tedious, even for me. Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive GOP nominee, I thought that this exercise would be instructive. An argument is a position supported with facts or information. This article did not contain any arguments. It contained ad-hominem attacks, quotes out of context, false information, dis-proven rumors, baseless speculation and colorful language.

Learn this distinction because you will be hearing an awful lot more of it in the coming months. On the article as a whole:

Scary Stuff: If this were a movie it would be “Halloween III.”
Facts Presented: Obama is the President of the United States – so get over it!

Nick Gillespie Panics Over Helicopter Parents

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In his recent Reason article, “Stop Panicking Over Bullies“, Nick Gillespie is careful to acknowledge that bullying is wrong and is not to be tolerated. That said, he goes on to argue that the bullying crisis is, in reality, a declining problem with an overblown sense of crisis. To make his case, Gillespie used dated studies which Scottie Thomaston at Prop 8 Trial Tracker does an excellent job of challenging and setting the facts straight about. However, whether bullying is waxing or waning is hardly the point. If bullying exists, it is a problem, no qualifiers.

Ironically, it is Gillespie’s own hysteria that is most apparent as he rehashes some well-worn libertarian irritations and highlights a few new ones. He decries the abuses of helicopter parents, the New York School Board, and Congress prohibiting those under 16 from driving tractors. He suggests that anti-bullying laws are a threat to free speech and that they will lead to more lawsuits against school systems.

He warns of more bureaucracy and the further dilution of already limited resources for existing school programs. He deprecates the problem of bullying by conflating it with a culture of over-protectiveness. He states, “Now that schools are peanut-free, latex-free and soda-free, parents, administrators and teachers have got to worry about something.”

It quickly becomes clear that Gillespie is willing to trade the inherent social good of an anti-bullying campaign in deference to his need to vent his pet peeves.

He recommends that there should be distinctions between the “the serious abuse suffered by the kids in the movie Bully” and the everyday “lower-level harassment.” This reframes and trivializes bullying as kids just being kids. So I ask, who will decide for that kid if the bullying rates a two or rates a ten? How bad does it have to get before the bullying is addressed with more than a “suck-it-up” from parents and teachers? I’m sure that Gillespie could confidently assess the correct level of seriousness; however most bullied kids still experience it as a ten.

And the consequences are real. The risk to bullied students include school attendance and a performance drop, with obvious further effects. They are more likely to develop behavioral problems and to show a higher level of drug and alcohol abuse. According to the National Institutes of Health, both the bully and the victim are at higher risk of engaging in violent behavior. Most tragically, there are an increasing number of studies that find a positive link between teen suicide and bullying.

It is appropriate to worry about the cost of and resources for a program and to be mindful of the unintended consequences of anti-bullying laws. But that is not where Gillespie wants to go. For him, the real problem is overprotective parents and a meddlesome government. But denialism is not a solution, it is a run from the problem.

The problem is real and the facts point to solutions that do help. But the real tragedy is that Gillespie is putting his disdain for helicopter parents ahead of the best interests of creating a secure and positive environment for our children. It might make him feel good today but it is an irrational trade on the future.

Article first published as Nick Gillespie Panics Over Helicopter Parents on Blogcritics.

Why Not Vacation in Haiti

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I love Haiti.

Five years ago, if I mentioned Haiti, people often responded, “Yes, I’ve always wanted to go to the South Pacific.”  Haiti found a way to grab global headlines, but only with a typically tragic cost.

Since the earthquake, money and attention has been flowing to the country and I would encourage everyone to keep this up. It is taking time but very gradually, it is helping. But there are other ways to help.

Go there on vacation.

This is the Haiti you don’t see on CNN. We were staying in a house on the beach when the guy in this picture paddled up and sold to us for lunch the lobsters he had just caught. We paid him six bucks each and for that he also grill them on the beach and served them to us for lunch. In short, not everything about Haiti sucks.

Rural Architecture

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This picture was sent to me with the title “Redneck Mansion.”  I know that I was supposed to laugh at it but I have to say that I really like it. Architects are always discussing the experience of a space. The experience here looks like a jungle Jim/ tree house sort of thing with a bit of Hopi cliff dwelling thrown in.

And it fits in with the current conversation of modularity and adaptive reuse quite nicely.

Mostly, though, what I like the is that it is organic to the site and appears organic in its own growth. Theoretically, somebody could start with just two or three parts and keep adding containers and trailers as the family,  even a whole village, expanded.