Crosspatch Chronicle

Back to the new blog again

2006-07-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

Townhall cleaned up most of my complaints. I am back to blogging over there again.

Why I Am So Upset With The Major Dailies

2006-07-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

Note: Blogging seems to be broken over at Townhall, it flags this post as "inappropriate" and I have no idea why. I have sent them email, maybe they will fix it.

EUREKA! I have finally been able to put my finger on exactly what has me so upset about the leaks of intelligence information in many of our major daily newspapers. I was aware that the reporting upset me and I could think of a lot of reasons why I should be upset such as the fact that it could put me and my family at risk, but none of those reasons exactly hit the root of why I was so angry. It wasn't until I logged into my online banking today that it dawned on me what it was. I feel personally violated by these exposures in the paper.

I live in a republic and as such we have people elected and appointed to act as our agents in the conduct of the business required to run a nation. As a mature and hopefully well-adjusted person, I am aware that I am placing my trust in these people to act in my stead and that some of those matters must remain secret just as I keep secret the passwords to my banking and the bank keeps secret certain measures they take on my behalf in order to keep my account safe from unauthorized use. In the case of the government, I am placing my trust in them to find people who would harm my family or members of my community and disrupt their plans or bring them to justice. These measures must remain a secret if they are to succeed. I do not have any desire or need to know exactly what they are doing at any given moment. In fact, if I am aware of what they are doing, then I consider something to be severely broken.

The people performing these operations on my behalf operate within a set of rules and have people who oversee them to make sure they stay within those limits. If they are operating within the limits, have not abused the trust placed in them, and have been successful, then all is well and there is nothing to report. These people are by proxy an extension of me. They are protecting my security. When the New York Times or some other major newspaper exposes one of these programs simply because it was secret, it is akin to exposing my bank's security measures just because they are secret. I then feel that my security has been violated, I feel more vulnerable, and those two things cause me to become angry.

What these papers have done in these exposures is to, in effect, violate the security of all Americans. How would Mr. Lichtblau or Mr. Keller feel if I wrote a piece telling everyone about the security measures that their banks use? What if I published the procedures used to access accounts, which computers were used for what purpose, where they were located, what operating systems they used and how they were interconnected to each other? What if they had installed protective measures because of past cases of fraud, theft, or other misuse and I had information about the safeguards that the bank used. What if they asked me not to publish this information because it could cause them to lose the ability to spot fraud or misuse of the system if I exposed it? What if I then exposed it anyway because I thought Mr. Lichtblau or Mr. Keller should know because banking is very important and they should know everything that goes on.

Mr Keller and Mr Lichtblau might be a little worried that their bank was more vulnerable now to abuse. And they might be angry with me if their accounts had been the victim of extremely serious misuse in the past. America's "security account" was seriously abused on 9/11 and the UK's on 7/7 and now India's on 7/11. Keller and Lichtblau have not only violated the security of every American, they have violated the security of people across the globe. They have put the people of Spain, and Bali, and Australia, and India, and the UK, and Germany and France at greater risk of attack by people who want to blow us to tiny bits and have more than once and probably will again in the future.

For this, my anger is beyond political rhetoric. It has nothing to do with a right/left political battle of ideals. It is a matter of basic public safety. These newspapers are a very real threat to the security of civilized nations around the world and it simply must stop. That they attack my government (yes, when someone tampers with my security, I regard that as an attack) when they are engaged in a legal method of protecting me, they violate my personal security. They are a direct personal threat to me and that causes an instinctive response in return.

Mr. Keller, Mr. Lichtblau, publishers, editors, and journalists across this country, I ask you please in the name of basic common human decency to please stop exposing our security measures. In fact, I would go as far as to ask you to report anyone attempting to leak this information to you because those people are trying to hurt you too. They are a threat to you and your community. From one human being to another human being, please don't kill my kids.

Thank you.

New Blog

2006-07-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

I have started blogging over at Townhall. There are some minor technical nits over there (blogroll doesn't work right, can't figure out how to change/edit the skin) but I have been looking for a different place to blog for some time and Townhall seems like a fitting place. As you can tell by my infrequent updates, my blog isn't a major prioity in my life so it doesn't make sense for me to pay a hosting company.

The Next Media Barrage

2006-07-05T11:14:00.001-07:00

UPDATE AT THE END

I believe I have detected the pattern for the next media attack on the current administration. The angle is "despite turning over control to Iraqis and putting hundreds of checkpoints and patrols on the street, the violence continues unabated".

Well, that is just plain hogwash. Sure, the numbers are still high, but they are in fact much lower than they have been. June's civilian death rate was 2/3 of what May's numbers were and all of the reductions came after the imposition of "Together, forward". If you remove the one market bombing, the death rate for July is well below that of June. Since there were so many killed in that one bombing, it is left out of my own figures until about the 10th of the month for two reasons. First, with only 5 days in a month, 66 deaths in one day skews the numbers so any underlying pattern isn't visible. Secondly, the individuals that placed that bomb have been killed or captured in a raid, so we aren't likely to see any more of their work.

I use the numbers of civilian deaths reported in the news as my guide. It isn't 100% accurate, it is often overstated, sometimes the same casualties are reported twice but overall, since the same mistakes are made fairly evenly over the months, it still provides a general idea of civilian deaths. Morgue counts aren't used because those tend to include insurgents, civilians, police and others.

May civilian deaths: 970 ( more than 30 per day)
June civilian deaths: 738 ( less than 25 per day)
July rate without Baghdad market bombing: ( less than 13 per day)

Extrapolated for the month and the 66 deaths in the Baghdad added back in, we are looking at something close to 460 deaths for July at the current rate. It is early in the month and 4 days is too few from which to extrapolate the entire month, but the trend is clear and the trend is down regardless of what the news is going to attempt to feed us using their own casualty figures. Note that casualty figures for Iraqi military and police are also trending down albeit more slowly and that is to be expected as they take the lead in more areas and are more exposed to dangers.

According to AFP today some 20 insurgent groups are prepared to begin negotiations and have been in various forms of contact with the government. That bodes well for future reductions in casualty counts as well.

The strategy of the press now is to portray the Iraqi government as a failure, present an image of hopelessness of our cause there, it can't be won, things keep getting worse, blah, blah, blah. Problem with that is, so far there doesn't seem to be any real evidence of it.

Today's blog entry was going to be another one about how our media doesn't care if they get people killed in order to futher their agenda but I have been saying that for months already in previous postings and others are birddogging that issue. What is most most important is what appears to be an overall media strategy of constant hammering of the Bush administration.

They are apparently using a two-pronged strategy at this point. One angle is to portray all efforts in Iraq as either outright failure, or to attempt to mitigate any appearance of success. This is due to polling results that show the main reason for low approval ratings is the progress in Iraq. Therefore, it is important to them that they show little or no progress whenever possible. The second angle is to portray President Bush as constantly overstepping his authority as President. They rely on the public having a short memory to do this. Shortly after 9/11 the media presented many articles giving suggestions on what must be done to better protect Americans against terrorism. Independent panels such as the 9/11 Commission also proposed similar ideas. When these are put into practice, the media then attempts to portray them as an administration acting beyond its authority and out of control.

What it seems to boil down to is that the news media assumes the American public is stupid, can't think for itself, can't remember what was said yesterday, and only knows what they are told in today's paper. It is also obvious that they have decided to engage directly in the political process by actively supporting one political party against another. While that isn't unusual or even a bad thing when a single paper does it, it is a bad thing when companies which own dozens of media outlets do it. Sometimes an outlet is the only paper in town. It really is no wonder we have seen such a grown of online media. It is about the only way for people to get enough information to make an intelligent decision. Our hometown newspaper editors think we are stupid and are spoon-feeding us propaganda.

UPDATE:

I read with interest a Reuters story out today that says 1,595 bodies were processed by Baghdad morgues last month. The story attempts to correlate that number directly to violence. I say not so fast. Baghdad is a large city with nearly 6 million residents. Now consider what would happen in the US in a city that large with temperatures over 110 degrees and no electricity for air conditioning. Might we experiance an upsurge in deaths here? Here is what the story says in the first two paragraphs:

Jul 5, 2006 — BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad's central morgue received 1,595 bodies last month — the highest number since the February bombing of a Shiite shrine sparked a wave of sectarian killings, a morgue official said on Wednesday.

The figures show the level of violence in Iraq has increased even after the killing on June 7 of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. air strike.

The second paragraph explicitly attempts to tie the 1595 bodies to increased violence when in fact, violence in the second half of the month was well below the first half of the month. The article goes on to state that 1375 bodies were processed in May and 1155 in April. Nationwide, reported civilian deaths from violence was up 180 from April to May but was significant was a shift in attacks to concentrate on Baghdad. So while Baghdad deaths probably did go up from April to May, that would have had nothing to do with Zarqawi's death as he wasn't killed until June.

This article is a lie. It is actually a classical piece of psyops. They give you a figure and attempt to have you believe it is a completely different figure. They give you the aggregate number of bodies processed at morgues but don't tell you how many were civilians, how many were police or Iraqi army, how many were insurgents, how many died from violence, how many died of illness or heat related complications, etc. They imply that the number of bodies brought to morgues in June were all related to violence. Did they take into account that in a city of 6 million people in heat over 100 degrees there might be more than a couple of hundred heat related deaths particularly among the old and sick? Apparently not. Here is what happened in Chicago in 1995 during the heatwave there:

Hundreds of victims never made it to a hospital. The most overcrowded place in the city was the Cook County Medical Examiners Office, where police transported hundreds of bodies for autopsies. The morgue typically receives about 17 bodies a day and has a total of 222 bays. By Saturday—just three days into the heat wave—its capacity was exceeded by hundreds, and the county had to bring in a fleet of refrigerated trucks to store the bodies. Police officers had to wait as long as three hours for a worker to receive the body. It was gruesome and incredible for this to be happening in the middle of a modern American city.

...

In 1995 there were no uniform standards for determining a "heat related death," so officials had to develop them. Edmund Donoghue, Cook County's chief medical examiner, used state-of-the-art criteria to report 465 heat-related deaths for the heat wave week and 521 heat deaths for the month of July.

So with Baghdad today at 109 and calling for temperatures over 110 by the end of this week, might one expect a rise in the number of people brought to morgues? I would.

The Markos Meltdown

2006-06-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have been watching the events surrounding a feud between The Daily Kos and The New Republic with some interests. Lee Siegal has posted some thoughts on the subject which spawned a few thoughts of my own that I thought I might jot down here.

While I would agree with Siegal to some extent, I believe he is painting with too broad a brush in his criticism of blogs and blogging. To use my particular case as an example, I am not a writer but I do have opinions and blogs provide me with a forum to express them, feeble as my attempts at it might be. Not being a wordsmith, what I build will not be as pretty nor as durable but it will convey the general idea.

Now I do agree that there is a certain herd mentality when it comes to certain blogs and bloggers. But I would also say that there are many who do read blogs that hold different views because that is how one learns. And there are those of us who would offer debate when we encounter differing opinions as it is how we plumb the ideas behind those opinions and behind our own opinions as well.

There is one thing that I will agree strongly with, though. There is a group which when encountering an opinion which differs from theirs, seems to take the difference of opinion as some kind of personal invalidation. They respond to a different opinion as if they have been personally attacked and often get defensive or worse, feel a need to launch a "counter-attack" when no attack on them was intended. I believe this is a result of one holding one's opinions too closely to their sense of self. In order to be healthy, one must be able to learn and allow their opinions to adapt and change as we evolve over the years. If we stand our personal identity on our opinions, we become rigid in our thinking and changing of opinion shakes the foundations of self identity and can cause emotional problems not the least of which is irrational behavior when confronted with alternative points of view. In that case, one must defend one's positions tooth and nail even in the face of clear information that our opinion might be wrong. We would become angry at the one who would show us our conclusions are incorrect and lash out at them. One would then either submit to the new information, accept its validity, and become lost as their former sense of self has been shattered and flail about seeking some new way to define their identity or they simply close their minds to the new information, gang together with others holding the same view, stick their collective fingers in their ears and throw rocks at anyone who dares threaten their conclusions. At this point their conclusions and opinions become religion. They are held in faith without any basis in logic.

The opinions at Kos are really religions beliefs rather than logical conclusions and the reaction you are witnessing from them is the same as that when someone's religion is attacked. I challenge you to go on any of the blogs in that circle and speak "heresy". Blasphemy will be punished swiftly with excommunication and you will be banned from the blog and your comments deleted. They are not interested in debate, they are not interested in defending or evolving or learning. They believe they have it right and anyone attacking their beliefs is attacking them personally and they respond as such. There is plenty of evidence of this behavior both on their website and on the blogs of others who would criticize them.

In fact, should one of them read this they might well feel a need to attack me and I have not even called their beliefs into question. They might want to ponder why that is. I suspect that by saying that they are operating on faith rather than logic they might believe I have somehow belittled their beliefs when all I have done is note the existance of the behavior and not passed judgment on it. I am willing to bet, though, that it caused a limbic reaction because their beliefs are a very tender spot to them, it is their very self identity and people are naturally protective of that. In other words, one would possibly get the same reaction from any other "fundamentalist" in any other belief system when their beliefs are commented on by an "outsider". I submit that the Kos Kids are "Fundamentalist Liberals" and react the same as a religious (or any other) fundamentalist does when their beliefs are argued with logic.

I am interested in seeing Markos answer one question. The question I would ask him is "What are you?". I would, if asked, say "Dad" or "an engineer". My identity doesn't reside on a foundation of political opinion so I can adapt a lot easier, accept criticism, engage in debate, leave a debate alone, modify my position, learn things. I suspect Markos' answer might be "A Liberal". And that would explain a lot of his behavior when his political views are challenged.

New York Times: ENOUGH!

2006-06-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

I have had most of the day to ponder the latest attack on American perpetrated by the New York Times and still I am having trouble putting an exact word to my feelings on the issue. ENOUGH, was as close as I could come. I find their behavior almost juvenile and at the same time patronizing and pompous. That an editor or journalist would pretend to weigh what value an intelligence gathering operation has against the enemy's need to know about it and decide that the enemy's knowledge is more important that preserving the secrecy of the program is extremely frustrating. They make no claims of wrongdoing. They expose no instances of someone making personal gain from the program. They present no evidence of mismanagement. They simply expose the program for the sake of exposing it. They themselves would use the exposure of this program to attempt to create a story to enrich themselves at the public expense. They are the criminals in this expose. Should it become evident that someone be killed in the future because of this disclosure, The New York Times will have blood directly on their hands.

Their behavior is like that of a playground bully who would hurt someone just because they know they can get away with it, and then does it again and again. And as is the case with the playground bully, I sincerely hope they receive a very hard smackdown.

I never elected The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times to executive office. I don't remember designating them the power to decide what is and what is not in the interests of the defense of this country. I don't recall them being delegated the authority to declassify information. But what upsets me most is that their article does nothing to protect the interests of Americans. Because it lacks any evidence of abuse or wrongdoing, the only service this article provides is to our enemies.

I would warn the investors of The New York Times that they might want to consider the safety of their investment. The business is obviously in the hands of people with questionable integrity, values, and possibly mental capacity. They would take actions that would endanger their community, their neighbors, their friends, and their families for what appears to be nothing. They would make it easier for an enemy to gather the financial resources needed to attack our country. What would such an attack do to your investment? What would such an attack do to your other investments? What about investment markets in general? The people at The New York Times have the potential to do great damage to the economic system in this country though their intelligence operations on behalf of groups that would want to do us damage.

If it were in my power to do so, I would order the New York Times razed to the ground. It is much more of a liability than it is an asset to this country. Until such time as the individuals at The New York Times can grow up and behave as responsible members of their community I would caution anyone from doing business of any sort with them. If they would expose themselves as individuals of such small integrity in their duty as responsible human beings to protect their own community, I can imagine they would care even less about anyone they are engaged in business with.

I am also very angry. The thought that just came to my mind is how proud I would be to serve my community as a witness to the execution for treason of certain employees of that organization.

ENOUGH

The Trouble With Numbers

2006-06-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

I am rather tired of hearing pundits repeating the line that the al Qaida terrorists represent only 10% of the total number of insurgents in Iraq as if that has some bearing on the violence there. It has nothing at all to do with numbers. It has to do with willingness to execute horrible acts that are in no way related to the number of people who would actually perpetrate such acts. For example, Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma. How many people and how much infrastructure does that require? Not very much. All one has to be willing to do is commit murder on a scale and with a brutality that others would have a problem doing. Same with terrorists in Iraq.

9/11 showed us that 20 people can kill thousands. The size of a group in no way corresponds to the level of violence that might emit from it. Nor does the level of violence reflect the level of support a group has. It simply means that they have the resources and the will to kill people. Building a car bomb is rather simple. It doesn't require a whole lot of people or infrastructure. And if two or three people can build one, the same two or three people can build a dozen of them. All they need is materials. It turns out that the materials are not that hard to come by. Every time someone is killed, there is a good chance a car has just become orphaned and available for use as a bomb platform. Heaven knows there is enough explosive stuff floating around there. Just go out into a field and dig, it seems. Building a hundred bombs could be done by a handful of people. You drive them out, park them, and an hour or a day or a week later you dial the number of the cell phone detonator and kaboom. Simple.

What is more important than the number of people involved in an organization is the number of acts that it is involved with. I believe (quite strongly) that al Qaida has been involved in a number of acts that is not in proportion with the number of their members. I also believe (again, quite strongly) that many of the acts were designed to precipitate additional acts by other groups and that these precipitated acts would not have happened without al Qaida being a catalyst. They might create a spectacular attack on a Shiite shrine and the next day attack some Sunnis in order to start open warfare between the groups. They light the fuse and then stand back to watch the fireworks resulting from it.

I firmly believe that the level of violence perpetrated by al Qaida in Iraq is not a linear relationship with the number of their members. So I am warning pundits, bloggers, talking heads of all stripe ... I am armed. I have a spring loaded dart gun that shoots darts with a suction cup on the end and if I EVER see anyone trying to minimize the impact of al Qaida in Iraq because of the number of people in that organization, I am going to let you have it. POW, right in the kisser or whatever I might hit that appears on my screen! Is that understood? Knock it off, it's silly.

HFM Caught Stealing

2006-06-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

HFM, the publisher of a new magazine called SHOCK and publisher of other magazines such as Car and Driver, Flying, Road and Track and several other titles has been caught stealing the art of blogger and photographer Michael Yon for the front cover of the inaugural issue of SHOCK.

The front cover carries a photograph of Maj. Mark Bieger carrying a wounded child in Iraq. This picture was apparently stolen electronically over the Internet and used as cover art. HFM has refused to recall the issue or compensate Mr. Yon for the artwork.

One would think that a media publisher would respect copyright law. Regardless of your stand on the events in Iraq, stealing of art for economic gain can not be tolerated. Please, click the button below to be taken to Mr. Yon's site where you will find several ways you can help.

Devotion

2006-06-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

There has been much published over the past several days concerning irregularities in some of the information from Haditha that prompted an investigation of actions of US troops there.

I have seen bloggers spending hours of their own time digging, fact checking, comparing, and publishing their findings for peer review and discussion. These are people that have jobs and other things in their lives that place demands on their time and energy but have answered what is apparently to them the call of an important mission, a call of duty.

While professional journalists should be doing the work that is being done by members of the general public in trying to get the story straight, we are already seeing results. Respected media giants such as Time are beginning to back off of some of their initial claims and distance themselves from initial sources.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am simply in awe. This spontaneous and most honest display of devotion by members of our community for our service members in seeing they get a fair shake is enough to make an old grouch misty.

Those troops are at risk every day defending us and it is wonderful to see such an outpouring of support when we have a chance to defend them in return. There are too many people out there doing whatever they can to list because I am afraid of leaving someone out and thereby diminishing their contribution, but they know who they are and honestly, it is events such as this that make me proud to be an American.

This is a real living example of the love and devotion America has for their armed forces members. If someone is going to make accusations that would bring dishonor on the institution of our military, they are going to need to run a gauntlet of ordinary Americans who are going to want to make darned sure they have done their homework first.

Unlike times not so far in the past, we now live in an America that really does support its troops, in both word and deed.

To those of you spending your own time and effort on this issue, I thank you with all my heart.

Iran: Brilliant US moves

2006-06-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

Originally posted in my RedState.com diary

This morning will dawn a little differently for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He will find the world has shifted in a way he probably didn't expect. He has before him today a united UN Security Council and a US offer of dialog. His attempt to drive a wedge between the US and Europe on the question of how to respond to Iran's unmonitored uranium enrichment has apparently failed as the US, Europe, and China have come together. They stand united in an agreement to offer Iran a path out of the corner they have painted themselves into.

One has to wonder if Ahmadinejad will feel betrayed by China and Russia for siding with the other permanent members of the Security Council. In any case, the ball is now on his side of the net and the world is watching his reaction. On a parallel track, Ahmadinejad's calls for dialog with the US in order to drive another wedge between the US President and the world opinion was also met in the affirmative, provided Iran meet its obligations to halt unmonitored enrichment. How could Bush appear unreasonable for asking only that Iran meet the obligations it had already agreed to in the past?

On one side we have a united security council and a calm Secretary of State. On the other side we have a president of Iran that has vowed several times that Iran will never stop their enrichment program. He has two balls in his court and, so far, appears to be facing an opposition that is calm, cool, collected, and not under fire in the court of public opinion. He now seems to have us right where we want him.

President Bush could not have hoped for a better outcome. The leverage at this point is clearly on our side. If Iran remains stubborn, it will appear that they, not us, are the ones being unreasonable in this situation. Already cracks are begining to form as comments trickle out from other Iranian politicians.

Internally, Iran is having economic problems and there is evidence of growing ethnic stife as the stresses of economic stagnation begin to heighten the sensativity of those lower on the economic ladder. At the same time, crackdowns by the government to force the population into an even more conservative proper "islamic" posture by imposing standards of dress even more restrictive than in the past are chafing an already irritated populace. Further irritations such as filtering outside internet access, monitoring SMS messages, and outlawing foreign travel are adding to the toll of misery faced by the people.

The one distraction that Ahmadinejad could rely on to turn people's attention away from the internal troubles has been the confrontation with the US. Attention on this issue is now focused on Iran and Ahmadinejad and not the US. We have shown restraint, we have worked with our allies, we have listened to their concerns and we have worked with them to create a unified front in the face of Iranian theatrics and the time has come for Iran to act and the world, including all of Iran, is watching.

Will he back down? Will he defy the UN? Either way it seems he is in a lose/lose situation and the fact that he even finds himself in this position to begin with must be costing him political capital at home. The Iranian people are more interested in better wages, more jobs, more import/export trade and making a better life for their children. They are not interested in testing the political will of foreign leaders for little gain and much potential loss. Will uranium enrichment clothe their kids, feed their family, give their father a job? To what extent does unmonitored uranium enrichment have the potential to improve their lives and to what extent does it have the potential to make things worse? These are the questions the Iranians themselves have been asking.

This morning might dawn on an Ahmadinejad who is realizing that he is quite possibly in serious foreign and domestic political trouble.

Very nice play, Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice!

2006-05-28T02:04:00.000-07:00

Thank you, American Heroes

2006-05-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

To all those that have given us everything they had to give, I thank you. There are those who are known, those who are unknown, and those known only to a select few. I thank you all. But this Memorial Day I would like to especially thank those whose graves will not be found in a national cemetery marked with a flag. There is nothing but a star to represent their sacrifice. We remember you and we thank you for your quiet service and devotion.

CBS News LIES - UPDATED

2006-05-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: After several hours with the incorrect information on their site, CBS finally decided to attribute the bribery investigation and allegedly corrupt Congressman to the correct party.

CBS news is reporting that the Louisiana Congressman caught on tape taking $100,000 and in whose freezer $90,000 of it was found is a Republican. He is a Democrat. The first two paragraphs of the article:

(CBS/AP) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI director Robert Mueller signaled they would resign this week rather than give in to Congress in a dispute over an FBI raid on Rep. William Jefferson's Capitol Hill office, an administration official tells CBS News.

Top law enforcement officials at the Justice Department and the FBI indicated to their counterparts at the White House that they could not, and were unwilling to, return documents to the Louisiana Republican which were seized as part of a bribery investigation.

He isn't "the Louisiana Republican", he is "the Louisiana DEMOCRAT".

Liberal News Outlets in Trouble -- More Evidence

2006-05-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

I noticed a tiny little entry today on the UPI wire that I believe is evidence that the US News media is on its way to irrelevance due to the priority they place on their political agenda rather than reporting the news and giving a thoughtful analysis. Here is what it said:

Beginning June 6, Britain's The Times of London tabloid newspaper will begin publishing a northeastern U.S. edition.

The daily will be printed on New York Post presses, which is another holding of News Corp., and will target wealthy readers in the finance and media industries, or "the penthouse demographic," said Robert Thomson, editor of the Times.

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch approved the plans for the U.S. edition, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Thomson said the offshoot was decided after it was realized several hundred copies were being flown to the U.S. northeast each day, along with the fact the Times' Web site receives three million unique U.S. hits each month.

Now imagine that. New York's "penthouse set" reading a foreign paper rather than the New York Times. What is it about The Times of London that might make it a desirable read? A lack of spin immediately comes to mind coupled with world class credibility. These are qualities the New York Times utterly lacks in the former and is losing in the latter.

Movers and shakers of the world, the people who engage in business decisions that impact billions of dollars, need an accurate picture of world events. They can not afford to base their business decisions on political spin and wishful thinking from political hacks posing as journalists publishing in a propaganda rag. They need accurate information and thoughtful analysis, not spin and clever syntax loaded with innuendo.

Like these "penthouse set" readers, I find I go more these days to the foreign press, albeit electronically. I find the coverage from outlets such as The Times of London and others to be refreshingly free of domestic US political spin and the analysis to be competent and insightful. As the major US papers become more interested in pushing their agenda than in reporting the news, more people are going to find themselves seeking alternatives. In today's electronic age competing papers are only keystrokes away. The notion that one could corner the information market by being the only paper in town is as obsolete as the dial telephone.

Circulation rates are falling among the old line major US papers. Papers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times (hmm, why doesn't a Chicago paper immediately come to mind in that mix? I'll have to ponder that some.) are becoming less influential as the decision makers now dilute the influence of these papers with alternative news sources offering less spin and more objectivity. At the same time the number of people subscribing to hard copy Times of London and even domestic papers such as The Washington Times are increasing. It isn't limited to the print media either. People are turning away from the network news outlets and cable outlets such as CNN and MSNBC and turning to outlets such as Fox News. There was a time in the not so distant past when The Larry King Show was the number one cable news show. Larry King is now listed sixth in the latest ratings I have seen and all five higher rated shows are Fox News programs. Larry King is still number one at CNN but CNN is shedding viewers. Its influence is waning as the influence of alternative outlets grow. It is also interesting to note that Fox News happens to be owned by the same group that owns The Times of London. Interesting? You bet. Coincidence? I think not. News Corp is driven by profit, not ideology. They hire people having a broad spectrum of viewpoints, not all marching in lockstep to a particular political drum.

This shouldn't surprise anyone in a market based economy. If something is produced that is judged to be of inferior quality or utility, people will find alternative sources of supply that fill their needs. The news organizations need to ask themselves why they are in business. Being a political outlet is a perfectly valid model but it presents certain business challenges when you consider that in so doing you are probably alienating half the potential consumers of your product. You are likely to end up preaching to the choir. And if that choir has several outlets of the same propaganda from which to choose, you are only going to get a portion of that half of the potential consumer base. If you publish real news and analysis then you are a useful information source to people of every political stripe.

If one decides to take their product down the political propaganda route then one can expect the financial success of the enterprise to be a consideration secondary to getting the proper indoctrination to the readership. In fact, we are seeing this very issue with outlets such as Air America, who is rumored to be going out of business any day now and is shedding outlets, and The New York Times who has had their financial paper (bonds) downgraded two full grades this past week. So when I step back and look at the overall landscape I see The New York Times in financial trouble with declining circulation. I see The Times of London with circulation increasing in the US to the extent that they are going to publish here and that circulation apparently going mostly to the influential decision makers in the region of the new circulation. The conclusion I would come to is that The New York Times is not only losing its influence in the general population of the market they serve as evidenced by lower circulation numbers and financial trouble, it is also losing its influence among the powerful players in world economics. And the influential players in world economics are often very influential on the political process in this country.

ABC News LIES

2006-05-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

Earlier today ABC posted on their "The Blotter" blog site the following article that explicitly stated that the Speaker of the House of Representatives was under FBI investigation:

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from high level official sources.

Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbysists who are now cooperating with the government. Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.

The other tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who reportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part of his plea agreement with the government. The letter was written shortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned by Abramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at the time.

The day Abramoff was indicted, Hastert denied any unlawful connection and said he would donate to charity any campaign contribution he had received from Abramoff and his clients.
A spokesman for Speaker Hastert told ABC News, "We are not aware of this. The Speaker has a long history and a well-documented record of opposing Indian Reservation shopping for casino gaming purposes."

This week, Hastert has been outspoken in his criticism of the FBI for its raid on the office of another congressman under investigation, Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana.

"My opinion is that they took the wrong path, Hastert said of the FBI. "They need to back up, and we need to go from there."

Shortly after that, the Speaker's office demanded a retraction and the FBI stated that the Speaker was absolutely not being investigated. Soon after that ABC said they stood by the story and someone at ABC made an interesting comment. I read something to the effect that "the story was carefully written, perhaps it isn't being read carefully". I thought it was pretty clear in that the first sentence of the first paragraph said the speaker was being investigated so I went back and looked at the URL again. What I then found was a completely different story. Here is what I found that ABC was now "standing behind":

Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.

The other tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who reportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part of his plea agreement with the government.

The letter was written shortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned by Abramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at the time.

The day Abramoff was indicted, Hastert denied any unlawful connection and said he would donate to charity any campaign contribution he had received from Abramoff and his clients.

A spokesman for Speaker Hastert told ABC News, "We are not aware of this. The Speaker has a long history and a well-documented record of opposing Indian Reservation shopping for casino gaming purposes.

"This week, Hastert has been outspoken in his criticism of the FBI for its raid on the office of another congressman under investigation, Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana.

"My opinion is that they took the wrong path, Hastert said of the FBI. "They need to back up, and we need to go from there."

Notice how the first paragraph says only that the Speaker is "included" in the investigation. This certainly is a careful use of words and completely changes the meaning. The Speaker could be cooperating, assisting, mentioned in a document, almost anything. ABC went back and changed the story, all the while claiming to "stand behind" it. Also note that the FBI said very clearly that the Speaker is NOT under investigation.

ABC news and their "The Blotter" blog have no journalistic integrity. They will publish something that says one thing, then go back later and modify it to say something else later. What will the article say tomorrow? Will they delete it and try to claim they never published it in the first place? Who knows. What a bunch of Goobers!

Good News from the Long War

2006-05-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

It seems things are going very well in Afghanistan. Allied forces are pushing into areas we hadn't operated in before with good results. Over the past week or so, this increased pressure from NATO and Afghan forces have resulted in hundreds of Taliban dead and the capture of many others including some apparently high ranking figures. As perplexed as I am about our commercial media's portrayal of this as some sort of Taliban resurgence, the fact remains that what we are witnessing is our forces taking the initiative, moving into areas that had been avoided in the past and giving the resident Taliban a sound thrashing.

In Iraq, large weapons caches have been discovered, more "high value targets" have been detained and optimistic statements of security takeover by the government have been announced. One interesting even caught my eye today and that was the oil ministry again talking about getting foreign investments in infrastructure and development in place. It is nice to hear forward looking statements coming out of the various segments of the Iraqi government. Mohammad posting from Iraq on Iraq The Model blog mentions that the Iraqi party formerly known as SCIRI will now be known as SICI as they drop the word "Revolutionary" from their name. They have become "Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq" and Mohammed noted that he hopes it isn't long before the various groups begin to drop the word "Islamic" from their party names as they become more mainstream. Mohammed also reports that President al-Maliki has also called for "reactivating the Iraqi-Korean cooperation committee to give it a bigger role in Iraq's reconstruction".

The commercial media is still playing "Chicken Little" with frantic headlines such as "Armed groups propel Iraq toward chaos". They have been predicting "chaos" and "civil war" for months and Iraq still manages to move forward. I suppose that is par for the course for our "fake but accurate" media these days. It recalls an old George Carlin bit that went along the likes of "I call 'em like I see 'em and if I don't see 'em, I make 'em up!". Reporting the reality of the situation getting better or worse doesn't seem to be as important to them as getting people to believe they are getting better or worse. In this case worse. With the exception of the cities of Baghdad and Ramadi, everything I am hearing from Iraq from people actually there says things are getting better.

Word is that European countries are starting to keep an eye out for jihadis returning from Iraq as they abandon the lost cause there. That is also a good sign, in an unexpected kind of way. At least while they are in Western Europe they can be watched closely.

Yemen is starting to warily eye Somalia as they should. Somalia and the Palestinian territories are where al Qaida will be operating next. They have already started to stir up trouble in Gaza by planting bombs in order to foment trouble between Hamas and Fatah. Getting a war started between those two would be al Qaida's plan. I have to wonder, though, how much the Palestinians would take to outsiders coming in and killing Palestinians. That seems to be al Qaeda's method. They go into a country and start getting the people killing each other. In the end, it's the people they have come to "help" that end up paying the price and al Qaida never wins.

The Problem With Ethanol

2006-05-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

Many people have proposed that we use ethanol in our cars to replace a major product of oil use in this country. This solution has an emotional appeal on the surface but has some serious problems when one looks deeper into the issue. First of all there is this notion that the US Government can just waive a wand and people will suddenly be able to purchase ethanol based cars. Well, we have a market driven economy, not a centrally dictated economy. When and if it becomes cheaper to run cars on ethanol, we will. Car makers will produce the cars and other enterprising folks will produce the fuel.

Next comes the basic energy/cost issue. It would be currently more expensive to run cars on ethanol than it is on gasoline even with gas at $3.00 per gallon. A gallon of ethanol has less energy than a gallon of gas. In order to get the same energy production as 10 gallons of gas, you need 15 gallons of ethanol (alcohol). So a car burning ethanol will burn about 1.5 times as much fuel per mile driven as one burning gasoline. To go as far as $30 of gas would take you, you will need to spend over $40 for ethanol. Now there may come a time when gas is over $4.00 per gallon and ethanol will be cost effective. At that point there will be market incentive to produce ethanol vehicles and they will be produced.

Another problem is distribution. Gasoline can be transported via piplelines over long distances, ethanol can't, at least not without replacing our entire pipeline infrastructure. You see, ethanol absorbs water. This means that pipelines transporting ethanol are subject to corrosion. We would have to transport this ethanol by road or rail rather than by pipelines. This adds another inefficency in the distribution network.

Then there is the whole notion of having a fuel resource that is dependent on the weather. Have a major drought and your fuel supply goes away. If the fuel is produced from corn, in a drought year we will have to choose between food or fuel. If we are using sugar to produce our fuel, a hurricane can again demolish our production.

So what the ethanol supporters would want us to do is force auto makers to produce vehicles that use a more expensive fuel that might go away if we have bad weather. I have a better idea.

Lets go on a major nuclear electric program, convert our rail system completely to electric, drive electricity prices down to the point where commuter electric vehicles are much cheaper than gasoline vehicles, and go on a major high-speed electric passenger rail program of the scale of the Interstate Highway project. Even if OPEC shut the oil off to the US we would still be able to get to work, move freight, and visit grandma; even in a drought year.

Modern nuclear technology is much advanced from the 1950's and 1960's designs of currently operating plants. There is also technology that allows for the reprocessing of waste into new fuel and the transmutation of waste products into materials that decay in 300 years rather than tens of thousands of years. These technologies would allow us to convert depleted and natural uranium unto fuel without enrichment. We would not need to mine any uranium for over 100 years nor would we need to enrich any. These technologies are there, ready for us to use. Bill Clinton killed the Integral Fast Reactor project after a campaign waged by one John Kerry. This project would have allowed a fuel cycle whereby fuel would be recycled on site. The eventual waste being less than 10% of that created by current reactors and that waste needing to be impounded for only 300 years. Thanks Bill, thanks John.

There are better ways right at our fingertips. All we need is the will to put them into play.

Donate To Murtha's Opponent

2006-05-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

There isn't much those of us outside of Pennsylvania can do to remove John Murtha from office but one thing we CAN do is help his opponent. Send Diana Irey a donation, look on the right side of the web page for the "Contribute" link marked with the yellow star.

After what he did today, I can't imagine returning him to Congress. You don't comment on a UCMJ investigation in progess. Even if he is correct, he might have just caused some serious problems for any prosecution. Murtha needs to go.

Our Military Much Improved

2006-05-17T14:14:00.000-07:00

According to this report our military is in much better shape than it was 5 years ago.

I personally believe that Donald Rumsfeld is a genius. He is taking an engineering approach to building a modular military where different modules can be grouped together to configure a force that meets the threat du jour rather than the old model of having all our forces configured in large divisions to meet a cold war era threat. A couple of gems jump out of the report:

The Army is transforming from a structure of 48 brigades, none of which had stand-alone capability, to a force of 70 active and Reserve modular Brigade Combat Teams. "These more agile, lethal and more autonomous units can deploy and fight quickly with enough of their own firepower, armor, logistics and administrative assets to protect and sustain themselves over time," Rumsfeld said. This is leading to a significant increase in readily available combat power, he added.

Along with this one:

The Navy previously could deploy only three aircraft carrier strike groups at once, adding two more within 30 days. Today it can deploy six, and add another within 90 days.

And this one:

These changes all have come about, Rumsfeld said, while the U.S. military has been engaged actively in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and while deploying around the world to meet the asymmetric threat posed by terrorism.

I am suspecting that some of that criticism that Rummy has been getting has been due to his changing of the configuration of the military and rocking the boat when it comes to their careers. I can imagine that a guy with 20+ years in and thinks he has everything pretty much figured out might get a little pissed when someone comes in and changes all the rules in the space of only 5 years.

President Bush's Immigration Speech

2006-05-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

Overall I thought the speech was superb. It covered all of my major points.

Catch and release -- no more
Barriers in rural areas -- done
Apply technology to border surveillance -- done
Beef up the Border Patrol -- done
In the meantime, put troops on the border in support roles to free up more Border Patrol for, well, patrolling the border.

He hit all the main points. I also support a guest worker program to legalize the illegals. We are going to need the Social Security tax as the boomers start to retire. We don't have enough youngsters in the pipeline to replace them. Immigrants will do the trick.

Immigration Isn't The Only Problem

2006-05-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Scroll for updates.

I have just returned from a family event in a Western US state. During the course of my chats with various members of my extended family, I have come to realize that the issue facing us isn't completely about immigration when it comes to the illegal issue. Fully half the problem is with us, right here in America. Allow me to elaborate on a couple of conversations I had.

Family Member A is a college student at a university in a Western US city. He works in both summer and winter to provide himself with an income. In winter he is a snowmobile guide and in summer he works construction. Both jobs are "under the table" in that he gets paid cash, has nothing withheld, and gets no W2 or 1099. As far as the IRS and his employer is concerned, his labor doesn't officially exist. He pays no taxes on his income and his employer is not burdened with unemployment insurance premiums, workers compensation premiums, 1/2 of the social security tax and other withholding trouble.

Family Member B is a drywall contractor in another major Western US city. He owns his own business and employs several people. Most of his work comes from bids to developers who are building large developments. He provides benefits and does all the proper withholding. He is finding it nearly impossible to compete with other contractors employing "under the table" labor. Sure, some of those laborers might be illegals, but many aren't. These competitors will take anyone willing to work. The only reason my relative is still in business is because of his quality of work and it's reputation coupled with the fact that there are some high-end developments under construction that are willing to pay extra for "premium" labor.

Making the illegals legal isn't going to fix the problem as long as employers are willing to hire anyone and not withhold proper taxes and file required paperwork. Family member A is white as Wonder Bread His coworkers at his construction job are about 2/3 hispanics who speak little or no english and he suspects are here illegally. The other 1/3 are young folks like himself who found a summer job working "under the table". We must smash this culture of under the table employment if we are ever going to get a grip on the illegal immigration problem.

If employers right now decided to "legal up" in their employment paperwork, the illegal worker problem would become a much smaller issue. Business employers aren't the only ones doing it either. A good many regular individuals do too. Do you have someone who does some light housekeeping for you, watches your kids or cuts your grass? Have you ever provided a form 1099 for the money you paid them over the course of the year? If you pay them by cash or personal check, chances are good they aren't reporting the income on their taxes. Filing a form 1099 would notify the government of the money you have paid them. Check with the IRS, they can usually answer your question over the telephone.

It is a myth that illegals take jobs that other Americans won't do. They pretty much take what they can get and often work side by side with other Americans. Most often, illegals take "under the table" cash employment. If we could stop that practice, we could eliminate a lot of the incentive to come here in the first place. The practice of "under the table" employment is everywhere. Several years ago I knew of a single mother on welfare who worked "under the table" doing childcare for other working mothers. She also had a live-in boyfriend who paid most of the bills. Had those other women filed 1099 forms for the money they paid her, the state and federal government would have been aware of her true income and would have given her the opportunity to pay her share of taxes and probably reduced or eliminated her welfare payments because she was actually doing quite well for an unemployed single mom. In fact, I would venture to guess that a large number of American "unemployed" are actually working "under the table".

Look in the mirror, America. There's the problem.

UPDATE:

This ties in with another thing I have considered. A national sales tax would provide a means to tax the "under the table" economy. It wouldn't matter if you are pouring cement or running a meth lab, you are going to spend the proceeds of your undocumented income at some point. A national sales tax would tap that undocumented economy. Most areas already have a mechanism for collecting sales tax so we are talking a couple of percent increase and the state sends a cut to the feds. Simple. The cost of putting it into motion is minimal and I believe the resulting revenue would be beyond anyone's expectations. It is also a "progressive" tax because poor people spend a greater portion of their money on rent, utilities, and groceries which would be exempt. You could make it even more of a "progressive" rate tax by exempting home purchases up to the amount of the state median home price from sales tax. Rich people would most likely purchase homes much above the median why the lower income would buy homes closer to or below the median paying less or no sales tax.

Goss and the CIA

2006-05-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting a bit before making my comments on the Goss resignation issue. I am not going to speculate on the reasons, I am simply going to accept it as fact and look forward. The reason is that I don't have any information on why and I am hearing speculation all over the spectrum as to reasons why and none of it appears to come from anyone in a position to know. In short, as Goss himself said, "It's one of those mysteries".

What I do have a very strong opinion about is the comments from some people concerning a desire to keep the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) position civilian. Notwithstanding that there have been what, 6 past military directors, I have had some sympathy with the view that the DCI should be a civilian. All of that changed when the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) position was created as one of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. The traditional role of the DCI was set out in 1947 legislation. It described the position as follows (according to wikipedia):

The Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 with the signing of the National Security Act by President Harry S. Truman. The act also created a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to serve as head of the United States intelligence community; act as the principal adviser to the President for intelligence matters related to the national security; and serve as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 amended the National Security Act to provide for a Director of National Intelligence who would assume some of the roles formerly fulfilled by the DCI, with a separate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Now the functions that I feel should be executed by a civilian have been moved out of the CIA and is now the responsibility of the DNI. There has also been talk that even more functions of the CIA will be moved over to DNI such as the Directorate of Intelligence. The CIA is, according to many familiar with the intelligence community, in the process of being transformed into a clandestine service performing covert operations and HUMINT activities. In other words, collection and operations. The analysis and policy impacting output is moving to DNI which IS headed by a civilian.

So I am having a problem understanding the call for a civilian director. It makes sense if you have an "old" CIA but doesn't make much sense for a "new" CIA. It can be a military slot just as NSA, DIA and some other agencies are. Our elected officials can't be that dumb. Maybe they think we are? Maybe they are relying on a traditional understanding of the CIA in order to find some reason to come out against the president's choice.

I believe their goal is to simply come out against whatever choice President Bush proposes. This was an easy "handle" to grab onto but comes off in your hand once you dig into the issue. This is not the time to bicker over a CIA director. We need to get this issue closed up and get on with things. Dragging this out is not going to do anything to endear Congress to the American people.

Who do I think should be in charge there? Someone who has experience in intelligence but has no connection with CIA. The agency is going to undergo some serious surgery and someone with an attachment to the old structure is going to be less helpful.

The Trouble With The Media

2006-05-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

For the longest time there has been something that I haven't been able to figure out with the media. For most of my adult life, the media has been a fairly reliable reflection of the opinions and leanings of America. Sure, there would be the exception here and there. I would hear a story that I thought was "out there" or just an obvious job of political slant but those seemed to be the exception. For the most part the sentiment of the media reflected the sentiment of the people.

Then recently things took a major change in direction. Starting shortly after President Bush's election, nearly all of the media content seemed to take an extreme slant to the left. Looking closer, it wasn't' just the words of the reporters taking that slant, it was the words of the sources they were using in their stories. It seemed like nearly every source quoted was hammering on the administration or its policies. I got the impression going into the 2004 elections that Bush was toast. In fact, even the polling numbers the media was reporting showed Bush behind. But even that had me puzzled because the reporting of the media didn't seem to be anywhere near the polling numbers. While the press seemed 75 to 80 percent against Bush in their reporting, the polls numbers being reported had Kerry ahead by a few points. The reporting seemed to be more out of line with the sentiment of the people than at any time I could remember.

Then Bush won and the problem got WORSE. The press turned even more away from what appeared to be the sentiment of the population at large. At first I blamed the journalists and the media organizations thinking that it was obvious from their reporting that they had a political agenda to push onto the people. Lately, though, the more I dig into the issue, I am coming to the realization that our press has been hijacked. Major media outlets are being spoon fed sources and stories and events to report on. In fact, these events are being carefully orchestrated with the same group holding the strings. Today was one of those days. We had the Secretary of Defense being heckled at a press conference, Cindy Sheehan in Canada begging them to accept deserters, a column by Lt. Gen. William Odom and an interview with Lawrence Korb all on the same day. The fact is that all of these people are connected.

What has happened is that a relatively small cross section of the American political spectrum has been given access to the media that is greatly out of proportion with their numbers or their popularity. The effect is to make their political agenda seem much more popular than it really is. There is a public relations firm called Fenton Communications that is associated with a large number of political cells. Each of these cells is composed of a fairly small number of people, some of them are maybe a half dozen, sometimes a little more. Names such as Center for International Policy and Center for Economic and Policy Research and Fund for Peace and Institute for Policy Studies and Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and Iraq Policy Information Group and a bazillion others are all cut from the same cloth. You might recognize some names that have popped up in the news ... Dana Priest, reporter for the Washington Post. Her husband is associated with the Center for International Policy. That is where a woman named Mary McCarthy worked after she left the White House before returning to the CIA. A guy named Joe Wilson is the featured speaker for the Iraq Policy Information Group, a spinoff cell of the Center for International Policy. When these groups get too large or want to branch out into a different issue, they spin off a new cell.

What all these have in common is a PR firm called Fenton Communications. So does Cindy Sheehan and so does MoveOn.org. I found it interesting that just about all the people involved in Washington's latest news grabbing headlines are all connected to each other and have probably known each other for a long time. Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Dana Priest, Mary McCarthy, all are connected to organizations that themselves are interconnected. The common item to all of them is Fenton Communications.

In the course of my research, I discover that this isn't the first time a lot of this kind of stuff has happened. During the Reagan administration there was one freshman Senator Kerry who was holding hearings on our efforts to combat the Sandanista government in Nicaragua. There was a journalist involved named Martha Honey who seemed to be getting a lot of CIA leaked information. There was a group of CIA types called the VIPs who were seemingly on her side. Martha Honey is now with the Institute for Policy Studies.

What seems to be happening is that the PR agency, who claims to be "very selective" in who they take as clients (basically, you have to be anti-Republican) manages to get these people in front of journalists for interviews, get columns out, get events staged (like the Rumsfeld press conference today) and generally spoon feed the media with events, information, and message. Fenton Communications "owns" the anti-war and anti-Bush movements. They set the message, they set the information flow. They place it right into the journalists lap packaged exactly as they want it. The journalists are simply reporting what they see. They either don't know or don't care that what they see is being carefully managed.

One of the advantages of having so many groups working through one PR agency is that there is a certain economy of scale when it comes to information. They can make sure the various groups reinforce each other to an extent. Validate each other's messages, not work at cross purposes, incorporate each other's buzzwords when applicable. "Mother" Cindy Sheehan is "Peace Mom". They all "Speak Truth to Power".

The net result is that a very small group of people gets a very large percentage of the media coverage. What did getting fired mean to McCarthy? She was "days away" from retiring anyway. It isn't like her career is ruined. Joe Wilson is making more on the speaking circuit than he would ever make as a government employee and Valerie Plame is today looking at a book deal.

Our media has been hijacked. Fenton Communications apparently "owns" the Associated Press, the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post when it comes to getting their message out. The second stringers then pick up the stories from the lead outlets. Our journalism trade has gotten lazy. There are few real reporters left. The few that are left will gladly take information that is laid in their lap and everyone else repeats it.

The bottom line is that the political message from the main media no longer reflects the opinions of the American people as a whole. The opinion of the population is more divided. An accurate representation would result in more debate in the articles in our mainstream media. There would be more pro-Administration viewpoints, about evenly divided. The result of this drift away from the opinions of the people is a drift by the people away from the media. People are coming to the conclusion that the media doesn't reflect their opinions on their own. The media can only publish propaganda for so long and the people either buy it or they don't. Apparently we aren't buying it. This is pushing people into other forms of information exchange such as blogs and media outlets that haven't allowed themselves to be hijacked in this manner (Fox News might be an example of that). Those outlets are seeing an increase in popularity. It isn't that the people aren't interested, they just aren't interested in "artificial news".

It is high time that the commercial news media in this country spoke truth to power, and that power is the people who digest their content. If they aren't honest, they will find themselves abandoned because we have alternatives in this age, and it appears that we are using them.

Gasoline Price Primer

2006-05-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

Many don't understand why rising oil prices directly mean rising gasoline prices. Some think that even though the market price of oil is up, it doesn't cost the oil company any more to get it, they are producing it, not buying it on the market. To understand why rising market crude prices also mean oil companies have to charge more for gasoline, let's use an eBay example.

This is a from a post I made in a comment at Flopping Aces but I decided to copy in here in my own blog:

Let's say you have a well in your yard and a pump and you can get 10 barrels of oil a day out of it. It costs you 10 dollars to pump and deliver a barrel of oil. You put the oil on eBay to sell it. As people bid on the oil, the price goes up. People buy your oil for $15 dollars a barrel and you make $5 per transaction and life is good. Now some kids named China and India that have only been buying one or two barrels a day from you decide they need more. You are still only pumping 10 barrels a day. This means they must outbid other people for the oil. Now your oil auctions settle for $50 a barrel and you make $40 per transaction and life just got better.

Now lets say I decide to make gasoline out of one of my barrels and sell that instead of selling crude. The people that don’t know economics are going to say fine, it costs you $10 to pump the oil, you don’t need to raise the price of gas. Back to eBay …

Lets say you can produce bolts of fabric for $10 and are selling them on eBay and they are bringing $20 so you make $10 each. Now lets say your fabric becomes very popular and it is now selling for $70. You have also been using one bolt a day to make socks. You were selling raw fabric for $20 and you were making enough socks so you were getting $30 for the socks you could make out of that bolt of fabric. So after your wear and tear on equipment and your labor, you made what you thought was a fair profit on the gasoline, ehm, I mean socks.

Now your bolts of fabric are bringing $70. Are you going to sell a bolt’s worth of socks for $30? Are you going to spend all that labor and equipment cost to LOSE $40 a bolt compared to what you could just sell the crude for without refining it … I mean fabric for without sewing it?
No, of corse not. You are going to raise the price of your socks so that you make at least as much on the cloth from socks as you could selling the raw cloth … so the price of gasoline … I mean SOCKS goes up.

My Take on Mr. Bill Keller (NYT)

2006-05-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

There is something that so bothers me in what Mr. Keller said in his response to Opinion Journal that I just have to say it now. There is this myth that is going around that the press was somehow hard on Bill Clinton. While it may be fine to go around saying that, saying it doesn't make it true.

The press softballed Clinton. They reproduced items brought out by other investigations but you never saw any hard "bird dog" reporting against Clinton from the likes of The Washington Post or The New York Times. They were more likely to print information against Ken Starr or when someone came forward to present information that made Clinton appear to look bad, the major media seemed to aim their investigative guns at the person bringing the information forward. Some of the people that exposed Clinton's actions in Arkansas were publicly humiliated in the press. The media wasn't at all hard on Clinton. That is one myth that needs to go. The press did everything they could to make what Clinton did seem like "no big deal" and making the Republicans look like they were getting all upset about nothing. This is the same press that gets all bent out of shape about a perjury indictment of Scooter Libby, but told everyone that a perjury indictment against Bill Clinton was "just politics".

What about the White House requesting the personal information files from the FBI of possibly up to 900 people, many who had served in the Reagan and Bush administrations? The media played it like there was nothing to it, just a big Republican conspiracy to make a mountain out of a molehill. Yeah? What if Bush requested the FBI background investigation files of Democrats serving under Clinton? There would be no end to the wailing. How soon people forget.

There, that little bit has been bothering me for years. I'm glad I got it off my chest.

Mr. Keller, you are not being honest. Not to the people and maybe not even to yourself.

How many articles have been published in your paper on the scubject of "Scooter" Libby over the past month? What's the count of articles whose main subject is Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV)? What's the count of articles whose main subject is Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)?

The plain fact of the matter is that your publication and your industry don't treat both parties equally. I have no trouble with a paper having a political slant but I do have a problem with the entire industry having a specific political slant. To pen a reply such as this as your response is patronizing to the extreme.

I might even be able to let you off the hook with the thought that maybe you don't even realize you are doing it. You are probably so sensative to any negative information at all about Democrats that even the slightest criticism "feels" as strong to you as the way Republicans are treated in the paper. To me the issue isn't so much about patriotism as it is about a trade I once respected as being an important strength of this nation now being corrupt and not caring if they damage our country in their haste to influnce Americans in the next election cycle. Our media would cause other countries to stop sharing intelligence information with us for years to come so the Democrats might have a better chance in the next election.

It would help if you had some balance. Maybe the major media could actually hire some articulate conservatives rather than hiring a token conservative who makes all on the right look like raving dumbasses. How about this novel idea ... how about half of your staff writing from the conservative viewpoint? It might actually help increase your readership. Democrats can find dozens of papers that validate their view. Other than the Washington Times, the other 50% of the population have no place to go but the Internet. Why do you think Fox News has high ratings? They are the only TV outlet that doesn't go out of its way to make Republicans look bad, that's why. And last time I looked, there were about as many Republicans in this country as Democrats. So Democrats have dozens of stations to choose from, Republicans have one that doesn't have to include the obligatory jab in every news story.

You don't have to lean toward anyone, just don't lean against anyone either. Speak truth to the power that buys your product (or isn't these days, as the case may be). The damage these leaks have done goes far beyond domestic politics. Countries may now be reluctant to share intelligence with us about a terrorist group moving into our country because they worry about it leaking and causing their source of information on the group to go away ... leaving them blind to the threat. When it comes to us or them, a foreign government is always going to consider their own interests before ours. The ironic part is, that if such a thing should ever happen, rather than blaming themselves for it, the press would try to blame "the Bush administration".

How many have to die, Mr. Keller, before you guys shut your mouths when it comes to intelligence information in time of war? Evidently 3,000 in New York wasn't enough. There are channels that can be used if the intelligence community is doing something wrong. Did you consider taking the information before a few members of the Congressional oversight committees first? You could have done that and published that you had done that to put pressure on the committee to respond without publishing the actual information if it is really change that you want. But it isn't really change that you want, is it Mr. Keller? What you really want to do is damage the Republicans and you can only do that by putting information out to the public that makes the Republicans look bad. Giving the information to Congress and pushing for action might get the situation corrected, but that wouldn't really satisfy you, would it? Now what you have done is damaged our nation's ability to obtain information from other countries for many administrations to come, no matter who is president. Last time I looked, our nation was composed of Democrats too. If a Democrat is elected in 2008 are rogue officers expected to leak information damaging to that administration to the Washington Times and Fox News? We don't want to start down the road of playing politics with our intelligence community because the end result is that it makes them useless. But looking at the agenda of some of John Kerry's friends, for example, making our intelligence community useless seems to be what their long term goal is anyway so I suppose to them it isn't much harm.

But most of all, I would think you would resent your publication and your profession being used by a third party for their own purposes. Dana Priest of the Washington Post isn't the first to be used in such a manner. Martha Honey is now associtaed with the Institute for Policy Studies. She was part of a very similar "operation" during the Reagan administration. PR Agencies such as Fenton Communications are setting the media agenda. These are the people that are feeding the sources to your journalists and deciding what your reporter is going to hear and how they are going to hear it. These are the people that are actually deciding your agenda. All you are doing is spell checking their work. You are being used and either don't know or you don't care. People are wise to it these days and are abandoning your information stream in droves. Not long ago we didn't really have a choice of where our information came from. Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, all cut from the same cloth. But we do have a choice now, Mr. Keller. Welcome to the 21st Century.

I'll spell check it later ... myself. :)