It sucks not having access to Blogger from work

Hence the very light blogging in the last little while.

But just to give everyone something to watch here's a couple videos:

The first, a beautiful example of the MSM in full liberal swing (by way of Hotair):



The hypocrisy is so thick even Kurtz can't seem to make sense of it.

And on the lighter side, a couple of WoW videos;

Starting with the infamous Leeroy Jenkins:


The not so family friendly WoW video (if you're watching this at work you may want to wear headphones)


Whose up for a little 4 wheelin':



And finally, also by way of Hotair, the maiden (and final) flight of the worlds first real X-Wing fighter.

The Tipping Point

It appears that Lou Dobbs has finally had enough of the far lefts tactics of delaying or demonizing any immigration reform by defining it as racist.



I just love how the Democrat tries to sound reasonable by agreeing with the idea behind the bill all the while trying to come up with some reason why it shouldn't be enforced. It's the same logic they use every time a bill is put forward to put a stop to voter fraud.

In both cases the solutions are pretty straight forward and easy to implement, but also in both cases, the Democrats (and to be fair many Republicans), don't actually want to do anything about it. They'd rather just leave well enough alone.

A lesson in journalism

It's always nice to see one reporter take another to task for the sorry state of affairs modern journalism has become but when Fox's Chris Wallace schools PBS's Bill Moyers the lesson seems all the more sweet by Wallace's matter of fact style.

Here's the video, by way of HotAir.



You can almost see Chris trying to hold back a smile as he takes Moyers out to the woodshed.

Bad news for Democrats

If they can't depend on their friends at the New York Times to 'interpret' all the recent news out of Iraq since the surge began then who can they depend on.



Could this be a sign of a change in the coverage of the war?

Imagine a world where reporters actually travel to the front lines to report what they see as opposed to sitting behind their desk depending entirely on second hand accounts (often not even bothering to do the slightest fact checking) or reporting out of hotel rooms in the green zone just so they can add the "Live from Iraq" banner on the screen.

When the MSM attacks

It's hardly ever a pretty sight; for the MSM that is.

In this case it's the Columbia Journalism Review.

So what do you do when a ideological colleague starts to get trashed for using shoddy journalism standards to try and portray a negative portrayal of soldiers as a 'unbiased' look sat a soldiers life in Iraq, well you target an attack piece against their critics trying to downplay the original bad journalism with an article that shouldn't have even made the grade at a high school paper of course.

First The New Republic runs a series of pieces from serviceman Scott Thomas Beauchamp without disclosing:

1. he is married to a TNR staffer.
2. he is a committed liberal (even going so far as to volunteer for Howard Deans Presidential campaign) who by his own admission joined the military to give his creative writing some bonifides.
3. many of his claims are not just dubious but defy the laws of physics and are a those that are easily fact checked such as "only Iraqi police have glocks" are often flat out wrong.

So in defense of this masterpiece CJR attacks milbloggers as being keyboard activists not willing to put themselves on the line. Apparently at the higher levels of journalism the idea of even understanding those you are attacking is considered beneath you as is actually Googling the term 'milblogger'.

OK, so the first result just says "Military Blogs" in the title, maybe thats just the topic they discuss, fair enough, but by the 4th and 5th results the stories are actually about blogging from the front lines and milbloggers getting injured in Iraq, even a not so bright first year journalist student may pick up on the concept that milblogger = military blogger meaning a blogger who is either currently or formerly an active duty military member.

Ah, fact checking in the new age of journalism. If it wasn't so funny it would be sad.

Check out the WorldWide Standard , LGF, Hotair and pretty much any other large blog left or right for more.

87%

That's the percentage of journalists who have given money to the Democratic party (as opposed to the Republican party) since 2004. But of course, just because they vote and donate liberal at at 9:1 ratio doesn't mean they ever let their personal beliefs influence their on air reporting, or so their far left defenders keep telling us.

Politicians on the other hand, if even given a free lunch by an executive when discussing trade deals is in the pocket of big business for all eternity, or so these same people say.

The funniest part, this research was done by MSNBC, by far the most left leaning of all the cable news channels.

(H/T LGF)

Elizabeth strikes back

... and in a big way.



For reference sake, here's the show they were talking about and much like the latest episode Rosie seems to have an issue answering anyone's question, even her own. Her ability to open her mouth and shout down everyone without a single coherent thought coming out is truly astounding.



And for the record when someone poses the quest "Who are the real terrorists?" with the preface that 650,000 civilians are dead in Iraq after the US invaded (a number throughly debunked on many sites across the blogosphere including here and Iraq Body Count) it hardly takes a great leap of logic or a conservative bias to link the two. They were part of the same sentence for crying out loud.

Well if one good thing could be said about Rosie's tenure on The View, besides the fact that it is coming to a end, it's that somehow in all her shouting, mud slinging, anti conservative ranting she's managed to push Elizabeth to speak out in a much stronger voice.

Truthers in the Media

Well it appears Eric Margolis isn't the only one off his meds at The Sun these days. Today's article by John Gleeson (Winnipeg Sun Editor) sees Eric's normal anti-Bush rants and one ups it. In todays Sun Gleeson tries to give a voice to the 9/11 'truth' movement, quoting several of their most outspoken leaders, and treats them as if their opinions are anything more than speculation built off of wild assumptions and carefully cherry picked facts.

In his defense of their position that the various World Trade Center buildings were taken down by controlled demolitions he leaves out some very important facts. The first is that out of this group of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, exactly 3 have engineering degrees and of those 3, zero are considered any sort of expert on controlled demolitions. In his own article, of the three scholars he quotes one is a theology professor another a philosophy professor and even the physics professor, Steven Jones, which incidentally is not the source of the highlighted quote about the collapse defying physics (that was the Philosophy prof), works in the field of theoretical physics dealing with cold fusion.

He also leaves out the portion where this group of universities finest have been unable to even decide what was the cause of the collapse, conventional explosives somehow secreted into all the buildings, a micro-nuke that produces no radiation or a high powered energy beam; all theories put forward by this esteemed group. Also of note, this group of the worlds brightest has been unable to get any of their 'papers' past the peer review process and published anywhere except for a 9/11 conspiracy journal.

All these points are strangely absent from Gleeson's post as it would probably pull the rug out from under his theory that 9/11 was an inside job to give the idiot/genius Bush (I lost my lefty decoder ring so I'm not sure what he is today) and his evil empire (which according to more and more people on the left is actually controlled by some evil Jewish conglomerate) an excuse to attack Afghanistan; a high profile target at the center of Bush's plan to take over the world which should be so obvious the details of which never have to be explained.

Oddly enough he does mention the Popular Mechanics article which thoroughly debunks pretty much every claim made by this group of ivory tower conspiracy nuts though he does it in such a way as to imply they are in on Bush's evil plan.

You better watch out Eric, looks like someone is gunning for you position as #1 Anti-Bushite at the Sun.

Fair and Balanced

It's bad enough when British teachers unions take it upon themselves to vote to boycott Israel or even British architects (that one was news to me) but now comes word that British Journalists have decided to add themselves to the growing list of ideologically blinded idiots (I only use that word because I just can't bring myself to type others that seem more appropriate) and call for their own boycott of the Jewish state.

Does the term "journalistic integrity" not mean anything to these people nowadays? Of course, knowing the BBC's issues with anti-Israel bias it's not hard believe that members of the British journalists union are not all that open minded on the subject.

With all this blatant antisemitism coming out of the UK as of late I may just have to add a new label to Blogger. And have no doubt this is antisemitism. Targeting a single country for it's actions in defense of itself against overwhelming and often outright hostile opposition while at the same time ignoring all others who as acknowledged governmental policy carry out far worse atrocities on a daily basis, simply because of the ethnicity of it's residents is bold faced racism at it finest. You can try to cover it up as much as possible but if ethnicities were removed and you described both the actions of Israel and that of it's neighbors over the past half century, while neither would be considered totally blameless, you would have a very hard time painting Israel as the aggressor.

(h/t LGF)

Innocent

I was going to leave the Duke lacrosse story alone but a couple posts I saw this morning made me change my mind.

The first was a post over at Protein Wisdom linking to ESPN writer Jemele Hill's apology to the accused. She's one of the few writer's anywhere to write, as she puts it:

"...two of the hardest words in the English language: I'm sorry."

And then there was this video linked from HotAir.



It's an odd morning when Jeff has the serious post and HotAir has all the comedy.

Eric's off his meds again

Somehow in Margolis's glowing review of Speaker, Nancy Pelosi's trip to the Mid East he left out a few small details.

Such as her flagrant violation of the Separation of Powers in which the President doesn't make laws and the Congress doesn't make foreign policy. Sure there have been attempts by Congressmen to push the boundaries and expand their roles in the past but rarely does a sitting Speaker of the House directly ignore a missive by a President with regards to international relations.

And he also somehow overlooks the entire Israel/Syria fiasco which was handled so poorly by Team Pelosi that the Prime Minister of Israel had to make an official statement rebuking her.

Not surprising, there's also no mention of the harsh Washinton Post review although it's been front and center in almost every discussion on the trip. Even on Meet the Press this morning it was hard for any of the guests to defend the trip, either the fact it happened or the way Pelosi handled it and with the exception of the National Review editor you couldn't blame that on any type of pro-conservative panel (the fact David Gregory was a guest should dispel that idea quite clearly).

Maybe they should have had Eric on, although I don't think his cheerleading outfit and the pom poms are really proper Sunday morning attire.

What Liberal Media?

Just a simple question to those 28% who still think there is a conservative bias to the media, please explain how the routine firing of 8 federal prosecutors becomes a newsworthy event which requires congressional hearings when:

1. They are political appointees which serve solely at the discretion of the President.


2. Several had negative performance ratings in or routinely ignored areas considered important by the new administration (voter fraud and illegal immigration for example).


3. The previous administration fired all 93 prosecutors, a truly unprecedented move, with at least one on the verge of indicting a Democratic Congressman, with nary a peep from the MSM.
   

The double standards in play here are simply amazing to watch and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

It's as bad as NBC's use of Tim Russert in covering the Scooter Libby perjury trial when he was a star witness in the case who completely changed his own story between the time he was interviewed by the FBI and testified at the trial.

Hijinx at the HuffPo

JonQuixote has a pretty good run down of the latest news about the 'Cheney should die' thread over at Huffington Post.

It's obvious from Arianna's reaction that she herself never reads her own blog. Wishing death to the President or Vice President is nothing new for most mainstream left blogs. In fact as Jon, and several other bloggers, point out one of Arianna's own bloggers has done so in an actual post, and not just in the comments section.

I'm just kind of surprised as to the reaction this has gotten from both the right and the left. Anyone the least bit familiar with left wing blogs like Kos or DU or for that matter Huffpo itself would recognize these type of dark thoughts as making up a sizable minority, if not the majority, of any discussion that centers around the current U.S. Administration. It would be like Noah floating around on the Ark and suddenly on day 12 of the flood looking up and being shocked at seeing a cloud.

But it is fun to read how every single negative comment ever written on any left wing blog is actually written by undercover right-wing spies meant to discredit 'the movement'. The proof of which is of course, the well known fact that Republicans are just that evil.

I also love the guy who on page 15 of the comments on Arianna's reply offers up that explanation because he's "surprised that no one has pointed what seems to be a clear possibility", well except for about 350 of the other 356 comments on the post, starting with comment #1.

I really hope he was being sarcastic. Sadly, I don't think those people in the thread demanding the return of the Fairness Doctrine were.

Update: (30 seconds later)
Thanks to Mary Katherine Ham for reminding me of this post that appeared on HuffPo just after the cleansing. Notice anything missing?

My favourite DKOS thread of the week

You can feel the outrage that "Faux News" (I wonder if any of them have actually tried to pronounce their little play on words) will be hosting yet another Democratic Debate.

Of course giving the Democratic Primary debate a national televised audience on the most watched news channel in North America is all some part of Rupert Murdoch's evil plan to keep Republicans in the White House.

There is one shining beacon of hope in the darkness, but despite his best efforts 'Talex' is having one hell of a time trying to pierce the shield of righteous indignation most of the kossacks have erected around their brains.

Media Neutrality - NBC edition

And this is NBC's goto guy for politics.

So to recap, we have staunch liberals Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as their primary political analysts and William Arkin, a rabid anti-armed services far left liberal covering the military but according to the left we are all to believe that they never let their preconceived notions and biases affect their reporting of the 'truth'.

Blogging from airport in Quebec

Surprisingly it's the only airport I've found where the "open" internet access is actually truly open, as in free; guess they've upgraded more than their seats.

Not much going on as I wait 2 hours for my next 50 minute flight before my hour and a half wait for my final 30 minute flight so I've decided to do a little light blogging.

First thing I've noticed is that over at LGF they have a link to Zombies response to, from all reputable accounts, is a laughable report from Human Rights Watch that still tries to cover up cover up what by all evidence appears to be just another attempt at fabricating an Israeli war crime. The gist of the HRW report, the Israeli's did in fact cause the damage using a mysterious unknown type of armament that can cause extreme fires which do not burn and explosions that do not destroy; oh yeah and rust, lots and lots of rust. Zombie has a link to his original debunking in his response.

Then there's this interesting bit of blog work from Michelle Malkin. It all concerns a simple little story out of Iraq about how John Kerry has been receiving the cold shoulder from soldiers on his latest visit to show how much he supports the troops. Not really an important story, just good for a laugh but questions have come up concerning the veracity of the claims of the timing of the primary photo. As a show of what makes the blogosphere so great when it comes to reporting events you can clearly follow the original story, it's counter claims and finally the investigation into whether or not the story is in fact accurate, all from one post with links to everyone involved. A stark contradiction to to the MSM's method of report first and damn the truth as exposed by the ambulance story above.

Well, just 45 more minutes before my boarding call. Time to do a little more light reading and possibly play a game or two over at CrazyMonkey.

Still here

Just not blogging a lot, either reading or writing.

Flew to Labrador City on the 15th (missed my original flight because of a runaway dog) and then made the 6 hour drive to Goose Bay on the 16th for an early Christmas with my brother and his family and made the return drive on the 18th. All in all an eventful first weekend of my Christmas vacation.

The change in flights did up costing me about $400 but meeting Megan in the Montreal airport kind of made up for it. Turns out her father was one of my chaperons on my school trip to Europe in grade 10.

My mother would kill me if she knew, and luckily she doesn't read blogs, but I almost stayed in Sept Isles overnight as my original rescheduled ticket called for, instead of spending the $350 for a ticket on another airline, just because me and Megan were having such a good time. Hey it's not everyday I strike up a 3 hour conversation with a beautiful girl I've never met before.

While the preliminaries are done, I still haven't made the final move to the Blogger 2.0 format. For now I'm using the excuse that I'm waiting to get my parents new computer up and running before investing too much time; in actuality, I'm just lazy.

So in the meantime, I'll drop a couple of interesting links to keep you busy:

• Found via LGF, PM Harper takes a stand against Hamas. It's taken most of my adult life, but we've finally gotten a federal government in that Canadians can be proud of. One that's willing to take a stand based on what's right and wrong not on what's popular.

• Via Campus Watch, again by way of LGF, this story of ABC news analyst, Fawaz Gerges, trying to equate the Palestinian troubles with the Holocaust. Yeah you know, I'm sure European Jews were also reaching population growth rates of just over 3% (West Bank) and almost 4% (Gaza) during the Holocaust (statistics via Wikipedia). Of course there's also the small point that many if not most of the deaths he uses to prove his point were caused by other Palestinians and in the case of Iraq, Muslim fundamentalists, but why let facts get in the way of a good moral relativism argument.

• Finally, Michelle and an army of interested bloggers continue with search for the elusive Jamil Hussein. I have a feeling Big Foot will be sitting down for an interview on The Tonight Show before the AP can produce their oft quoted source.
  

That's all for now.

Playing Catch-up

4 Days, no blogging =(

I don't really have an excuse except that I was feeling a bit under the weather (I wonder what the origin of that phrase is), so this ones a two-for.

First and not quite foremost, the Liberals elected a new national leader on Saturday evening. For those not keeping track of Canadian Liberal leadership races, the main contestants were:

1)An expat who for the last 27 years has lived in either in the UK or the US, only returning to Canada a year ago when the chance to head a federal party came up.

2) A former NDPer (the Canadian far left) who when elected Premier of Ontario managed to nearly bankrupt the economic engine of the country.

3)And an old school Liberal who held positions of power in both the Martin and Chretien governments during all the good scandals (Adscam, HRDC, the Gun registry). As environment minister he worked so hard that CO2 actually rose after the Liberals signed on for Kyoto and as of the Conservative take over were 41% higher than the were promised under the accord. A man whose mastery of the English language makes Jean Chretien appear to be an accomplished orator.

So out of this field of star candidates who did they elect? Why number 3 of course. So welcome to centre stage Mr. Dion.

-------------------

The other big news over the past few day has been the AP 'burning men' story. I guess the Associated Press was feeling left out with Dan Rather managing to disgrace prime time news and Reuters managing to disgrace photo journalists the world over, so they decided to just loosen then journalistic standards to include fictitious Iraqi police officers and anonymous reporters and unnamed witnesses just hoping that something would blow up and they'd finally get noticed.

The funniest part is watching the AP defenders, like the bunch over at the NYT's Blog, just try and make excuses for journalistic standards that wouldn't be acceptable at a junior high school paper. Their degree of tunnel vision knows no bounds when anything harmful to the US of more particularly the Bush administration is involved. As long as they agree with the idea of the story, the fact are irrelevant.