Response to a troll

CalJim, aka CaJim, Jammin, and "Guest", takes umbrage to comments I made in response to comments he made (re-read it - it'll make sense on the second pass). For those of you who don't know about good old Jimmy, let me introduce you.

• Old Jimmy is a butt-buddy of the Caput a Palos
• Old Jimmy is a prominent voice for the FLDS persecution club (FLDS Texas)
• Old Jimmy still refuses to believe that Greg Prickett is the Caput a Palos
• Old Jimmy thinks that the Vulture is guilty of journalistic malpractice
• Old Jimmy has reading comprehension issues
  

Let's address old Jimmy's gripes, one by one.

I have never called you a pedophile nor even inferred it, your need to broad brush many topics might work for you but don't accuse me of such simple minded thought processes. Come on Vulture admit it, I never called you a pedophile.

You, Jim, may not have ever called me a pedophile. But how would I know, since so many of you over there at FLDS Texas and the (thankfully) dead Caput Penitus Culus post as "anonymous".

But that's not even the point. I said, "Your side categorizes my side as being pro-pedophilia." Your side != you personally. There's that reading comprehension problem again.

Your preoccupation with 'Due Process' I've criticized, especially now in the light that minor children brought to the YFZ Ranch from Canada definitely were sex trafficked from British Columbia.

Really? Children brought to the YFZ Ranch from Canada were sex trafficked? See, I did a Google search under "News" (so as to filter out wild accusations from bloggers like little Greggie), for "FLDS sex trafficking Canada" and I didn't get a single hit. Not one.

That's how your side works. Some blogger repeats gossip and it's fact to you, because it's what you want to believe. Legitimate news operations risk lawsuits if they print wild accusations. That's why there's no mention of any of that under "News" on Google. Even Big Media (the BM for short) wants no part of allegations that might get them sued.

You, however, stay mute on anybodies rights other than FLDS Church Priesthood men and their Prophet. Howze that? The women and children of this fanatical sect are look upon by their tenets of faith as literal property but you somehow clam up on that topic. Does equality stop at the MENS room door for you?

First, it's "anybody's", not "anybodies". Do try to be articulate when you write.

Second, you want to talk about a "broad brush"? The very idea that my interest in Due Process starts and ends with the FLDS is ridiculous on its face. See the right hand column, where it says "Labels"? See how it starts with various amendments, includes categories such as "bad law", "constitution", "crime", "Das Überwachenden", "Der Staat", "DHS", "F'ing lawyers", "Free Speech" - I could go on and on. The FLDS? Child please! They're way down on my list of priorities. I've spent way more time railing about cops, prosecutors, and politicians who violate the public trust than I have on the FLDS - and a lot of the FLDS posts were to defend myself against the likes of you and your execrable cohorts.

Tell me, when I write about black men who spent decades in prison because of planted evidence, prosecutors hiding exculpatory evidence, or other malfeasance, does that mean I don't care about white men in the same situation? Or do you simply choose to only see what you want to see? I suspect the latter.

Scott Ledbetter republished your opinion pieces and his 'Ye Olde Journalist' blog fancies itself as a mainly journalistic site fighting yellow journalism and you allow him to pass off your writings as news content and it has never been labelled as editorial nor opinion column.

For the love of Pete! This is the exact same argument he raised months ago when Greggie's story appeared in the UNT student newspaper. Apparently old Jimmy expects Ye Olde Journalist to adhere to some kind of high standard of journalism, like The Washington Post or The New York Times. As if! Jimmy, those fishwraps regularly print opinion masquerading as news! Virtually every story about Global Warming is nothing but propaganda and political posturing slathered on like mustard on a ball park frank, masquerading as legitimate "news". What's the difference between Dana Milbank of The Post writing a Page 1 "news" article that says that Republicans are obstructing "progress" and me writing - well, anything? Get a clue, son. There is no "pure" journalism. Stop whizzing on Scotty. He can put anything he wants in his blog because....wait for it...it's HIS BLOG.

You're nothing but a troll, Jimmy. I don't know why I wasted my time responding to you. Nobody gives a rat's stinking tuchus what you think about anything. Your own mama doesn't even listen to you. Give up. Please.

Contrasting Presidents

Today is Presidents Day. This means that mattresses are discounted. That, and Federal employees get the day off. Hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm]

But February 21st used to mean something. It was the celebration of George Washington's birthday. It was Nixon (figures!) who combined GW's birthday with Abraham Lincoln's birthday, which falls just 9 days prior, to form Presidents Day.

It's a safe bet that no one born after 1980 has the remotest clue as to what Presidents Day is. That is, aside from the mattress sales.

Nixon did more than make two holidays into one when he combined Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays. He obscured what the two men meant to this nation at the crossroads of history at which they stood.

Washington: first in war, first in peace, and last in the National League. Okay, that's a lame and dated line. But does anyone remember WHY Washington was referred to as "first in war, first in peace"? General Washington was a gigantic figure in the creation of this country. He lead the armies. He secured the terms of British surrender. And he was the first president.

There were those who wanted to crown Washington as King following the revolution. He would have no part in it.

To fully appreciate the times in which Washington lived, you have to understand that the idea of a ruler who voluntarily steps down after a period of time and turns over power to another in a peaceful transition was something well outside of the norm. That Washington would serve two terms, handing over power to the newly elected President Adams at the end of his second term, and simply go home to Virginia was astounding for the times in which he lived.

That was the greatness of Washington.

Contrast that with the evil that was Lincoln. I wrote extensively about what Lincoln was (vice the "history" we're taught in government schools) two years ago. There's no point to elaborate on what I wrote then. It would just be piling on.

To lump Lincoln and Washington into a sort of equivalence (which is what Nixon effectively did) is to disrepect the greatness of Washington and whitewash the atrocities of Lincoln.

It's not right. It's just not right.

Big Media finally asks the question

A question that has been asked thousands of times in hundreds of different ways by those of us who are not ideologues has finally found its way into an opinion piece in the Washington Post. That question is: Why are liberals so condescending?

Though I suspect that the author of the article is himself left-leaning, he demonstrates the kind of intellectual honesty that is so rare among the Left. To this point, I was aware of only one left-leaning writer -- Camile Paglia -- whom that could be said of.

Two ideological pompous douchbags in particular come away from the article looking extraordinarily bad. Those individuals would be Il Duce and Markos Moulitsas (the Daily Kos).

Do yourself a favor and read the WaPo article. Regardless of your political perspective, Left, Right, Center, or Libertarian, you'll come away with a better understanding of why Leftists are soooooooooooo condescending.

I commend the Post for printing such an extraordinary article. It's not the kind of thing one expects from that pro-Stateist rag.

One last thing - don't you on the right celebrate this article too loudly. You're still on the hook for King George the Dim!

Playing fast and loose with the numbers

By now you've heard about the big Tea Party in Washington, DC last Saturday. The local media made such a big deal reporting about it in advance that I had no idea it was happening until it was over. Whatever.

I know it is SOP for protest event organizers to try to maximize the count in order to enhance the perception that their cause is highly supported. So it's not surprising that so-called "Conservatives" were reporting turnout in the 1 to 1.5 million range, with some even going as high as 2 million.

Likewise, it's SOP for those aligned in opposition to an event's purpose to minimize the count in order to diminish the perception that the opposition cause is highly supported. Hence the NY Times reporting that "thousands" had assembled in DC, and the Washington Compost reporting that "tens of thousands" were involved in the protest.

Did I just infer that Big Media (the BM for short) is standing in opposition to the Tea Party protesters? Inferring? No. Flat out stating as fact? Yes. More on that below.

Counts have been all over the map. I've seen counts as high as 2 million and as low as 20,000. The National Park Service unofficially estimated the crowd at between 950,000 and 1.2 million. My father-in-law heard somewhere that the "official" tally was 195,000.

Here's the rub. While an event of this type is a step in the right direction in letting our rulers know that we're getting fed up, goosing the turnout numbers is NOT going to help. The Million Man March lost most of its luster once the organizers tried to intimidate the Park Service into confirming that 1 million men were there (the Park Service estimated only around 600,000 in attendance for that event).

Now, back to the BM. The NY Times hid the story on page A37, below the fold. Contrast that with a story on a much smaller rally in Minnesota in favor of the government take-over of health care. That story was on Page A-35, ABOVE the fold. You say: big deal - two pages difference! But in the Sunday paper, two pages and a location above as opposed to below the fold are factors impacting which stories are read and which stories are overlooked. The NYT established plausible deniability because both stories are essentially buried. But the story in favor of Il Duce's excellent adventure will reach a small but significant number of people who won't view the other story.

Rather than duplicate effort, I call your attention to this entry on the NewsBusters website documenting the BM's rather unbecoming treatment of the event. More and more it seems that the BM is pro-Staat, anti-freedom.

The Washington Post issues a disingenuous 'mea culpa'

I think I made it quite plain during the course of the election cycle that I was thoroughly disgusted with Big Media (the BM for short) and their relentless campaign to see to it that their lord and savior Barack Obama would be elected as our next president. I guess their consciences must be bothering them now that the election is over. The Washington (Com)Post has printed the first of what I believe will be many articles in which the BM admits the obvious.

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

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The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement.

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Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain.

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McCain clinched the GOP nomination on March 4, and Obama won his on June 4. From then to Election Day, the tally was Obama, 626 stories, and McCain, 584. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain, 144 times; 41 stories featured both.

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Obama was in 311 Post photos and McCain in 282. Obama led in most categories. Obama led 133 to 121 in pictures more than three columns wide, 178 to 161 in smaller pictures, and 164 to 133 in color photos.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spare me the numbers. Where's the beef? Where's the admission that (a) you were in the tank for BOH, as your own readers decried?; (b) How many of the overwhelming number of stories on BOH were journalistic fellatio and how many of the stories on McCommie were hatchet jobs?; (c) What about the glaring difference between your handling of Sarah Palin vs. your handling of "Hairplug" Joe Biden? Ah, they're glad I asked.

One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama's running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission. However, I do not agree with those readers who thought The Post did only hatchet jobs on her. There were several good stories on her, the best on page 1 by Sally Jenkins on how Palin grew up in Alaska.

"Several" good stories on Palin. Uh huh. Don't try to sell that manure to this Vulture. I'm not buying. Your readers are right, again. You set out, like every other organ of the BM, to destroy Sarah Palin, because she doesn't worship at the shrine of abortion and isn't part of the New York-Washington elites club.

As 'mea culpas' go, this one was lame. "We sorta admit we were biased because the numbers are skewed" doesn't go far enough. The truth is the (Com)Post and most other BM fish wrappers weren't "reporting" on the election, they were trying to influence its outcome.

But that's one admission you're not going to get out of anyone in the BM.

Wiener of the Week

This week's Wiener is the Washington Post for their roll in the John McCain character assassination piece.

Hold on, Vulture, that story (if you can call a rumor-laden hit job a "story") was broken by the New York Times. Right. And who, within hours of the news of the Times story breaking, was right behind them with a "The New York Times today reports...." me-too! me too! me too! report?

Ah, but it gets better.

NEW YORK The Washington Post, which published its own story about Sen. John McCain's questionable ties to a Washington lobbyist just hours after The New York Times broke the story, was unable to finish its work on the story until the Times broke the news, according to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr.

"We had elements of the story in story form," Downie told E&P Thursday. "When the Times story appeared on their Web site last night, we were able to talk to sources who gave us further information that made it able to be published today. There were people who talked to us last night in ways that made us able to finish our story after the Times story went up."

What "elements" could you POSSIBLY have been missing? The spelling of "Iseman"? I mean, the "story" was nothing but 9-year-old rumor and innuendo, with some 20-year-old "Keating 5" thrown in for good measure. Are we disingenuous much, Mr. Downie?

This isn't the paper of Woodward and Bernstein any more. This is a poodle, carrying water for the Big Dog, the NYT.

For it's bed-wetting subservience to the NYT, the Washington Post is my Wiener of the Week.