Manipulating the Information Age

Billy Beck, talking about Jenna:

  My current conclusion: I have no real way of knowing what happened down there.

In “the Information Age,” that’s a very remarkable fact.

Don’t be so surprised.  Once people become dependent on “information” wasn’t the next logical progression that somebody would figure out how to manipulate it to their own advantage?

Last night, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck blamed California’s massive wildfires on the “damn environmentalists” and their “bad environmental policies.” He also claimed that global warming has nothing to do with the situation, stating, “[I]f I hear global warming one more time, blood is going to shoot out of my eyes.”

Hey, idiot…. Beck has correctly identified the problem.

I’m hearing the Disney folks are now into Martial Arts movies. They’ve managed to dig up some distant cousin of Bruce Lee to star in their first effort… “Honey, I Shrunk the Dragon”.

—  WASHINGTON — George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson.  In fact, he’s arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ.

Well, David, they share one other major thing in common… they were both wartime Presidents. I suppose that point never occurred to you.  Oh… and need I really remind you that Presidents don’t spend money… Congress does? And finally, the only real measure of such things is as a percentage of the GDP. But then, if you stuck to that, you’d not have a story, now, would you?

I mean, I know you’ve got an agenda to sell, and all, but at least try not to make it so damned obvious.

Hat tip to… well, you know.

Well, now… no WONDER Foer was keeping so silent.

Michelle says it very well indeed:

I repeat Ace’s distillation for those who have only superficial knowledge of this scandal: Remember: TNR Hid The Existence Of This Phone Call From The World.

To paraphrase the Clintons: It’s the cover-up, stupid.

And TNR’s sliming of The Weekly Standard.

And TNR’s false allegations that the military was censoring Beauchamp.

And TNR’s pathetic attempts to wrest control of the story from Beauchamp as he attempted to tell other media outlets that he was not being gagged, use Beauchamp’s wife as a wedge, and refusal to acknowledge the truth of their journalistic malpractice.

Get it?

Franklin Foer, now exposed as a liar, reacts like a good little liberal. and complains that the documents were leaked:

“It’s maddening to see the Army selectively leak to the Drudge Report things that we’ve been trying to obtain from them through Freedom of Information Act requests,” Mr. Foer said. “This fits a pattern in this case where the army has leaked a lot of stuff to right wing blogs.”

Mr. Foer said TNR had been trying since July to get access to some of the documents Mr. Drudge posted, but that the Army had not cooperated.

As one of Michelle’s readers suggests, is he really saying, here, that he was waiting for access to a conversation that he was originally a party to? Why not just be honest instead of playing for time?

Further, Foer suggests that the military who leaked the transcript.  On what basis does he make that charge?  It seems obvious that the credibility meter of The New Republic is about as close to zero no matter.

Memeorandum has a nice collection of links on this subject.

Joyner points up an AP story which labels Philadelphia Washington and Dallas as the places where the least attractive people in the United States congregate.

I wasn’t even aware there was a contest.  And attractiveness, is such a subjective thing to measure.  Was it really that slow a news day, that they needed to cough this one up?

Addendum:   (David L)

If you use Desmond Morris,  The Naked Ape, theory, this one is simple.    Sexual attraction is based on percieved reproductive success.   

Sounds rather like a forthcoming football game, doesn’t it? Interestingly, this little subtext drama gets played out in the sports venue of each city.

(Sigh) I haven’t even attempted to cover the fires in SouCal. I’m simply not equipped for the task. So I’ve not said much if anything at all about the goings on, there. (I will point out Dale Franks as being among the better sources I’ve seen for first hand info, given he’s there in the middle of that mess… and wish him luck)

There is one story, however, that I will comment on… which is, is a comparison between what’s going on at Qualcom Stadium, and what happened in New Orleans, at the Dome a few years ago while Katrina was raging outside.

Some have suggested that the Federal government is better equipped to handle things now, given the way they got spanked over Katrina. I submit, rather, that

I certainly have my differences with the government’s in California, and generally speaking view SouCal politics as akin to the Kremlin at times. But disaster preparedness is largely a state and local operation. The success or failure of such operations, depends entirely on the competency and preparedness of those state and local governments.

I believe that to be the difference between these two cases.

Addendum:

Oops. I neglected to tie in DavidL’s earlier thoughts on this. It’s what I get for posting before getting my coffee in me.

I should also have mentioned that the fault lies not only with the local government, but the local culture, which is a point I’ve made when we were discussing Katrina.

If you’re the president, do you visit southern California under these circumstances?  Mark Finkelstein over at Newsbusters points out that President Bush’s going, at least as far as we know right now, but points out that no matter what happens, no matter what he does, if he goes or does not, the left is going to be all over him about his choice.  I will give Mark an “attaboy” from here… he gives us the historical perspective on this, including historical links.

Megan McArdle:

Ezra and Brian are complaining that it’s hard to get anything done these days:

I think it’s almost certainly wrong that we’re not overwhelmed by the volume of tragedy in the world — there’d have to be something genuinely wrong with you to be able to absorb the current moment in some coherent way. So what many of us do is pick and choose. But once an issue is selected, there’s no real step two. Marching doesn’t work. Exhortations to write a letter or shoot an e-mail seem increasingly hoary, particularly as the process is taken over by organized pressure groups able to flood legislators with millions of e-mails. Volunteers are generally misused, and even when a campaign tries to construct a movement out of them, it can backfire, discrediting the whole enterprise (see Dean, Howard, and those $%*^*# orange beanies). The utter inadequacy of contemporary methods of protest and social action has been well established — it’s even been recast as narcisstic. As Martin writes:. . .

At the end of the day, there’s really one good option: Donating money. Possibly even raising it. And so political activism becomes indistinguishable from consumerism, and relies on funding other people’s ability to make a difference. Some groups, like Moveon, have done brilliant work at involving their small-time funders in the process, closing some of that gap. But the average campaign or cause is not nearly so innovative. And so most who want to be involved, who want to make a difference, are left writing a check, and never, themselves, feeling impactful.

First of all, the notion that this is some sort of uniquely horrible moment in world history is absurd. I grew up with the very real fear that one day, without much warning, I would simply vanish in a radioactive cloud. The fear of nuclear annihilation was the ever-present undercurrent to the lives of children living in major urban areas, or near military installations, in a way that you simply cannot comprehend unless you’ve lived it. Compared to the threat of global thermonuclear war, any of the world’s current problems, including climate change, are trivial.

With the exception of climate change–and even then, remember, it was already happening twenty years ago; we just didn’t see it–pretty much everything one can think of is better than ever. Wars are fewer, and kill fewer people. Everyone’s richer. Racism and xenophobia are bad, but not as bad as they used to be. Women have more freedom and opportunity than at any other moment in world history. Health care is better. Our teeth are cleaner, straighter, and less cavity-filled. We know more, do more, and enjoy more than human beings ever have before. I mean, things may look pretty grim compared to the three years at the end of the last millenium, but that’s life: you have good years, then you have less good years, then you have better years again.

But of course, people now in their early twenties don’t really remember anything before the late Clinton administration; no wonder everything seems like it’s going to hell in a handbasket. Their baseline is an unsustainable economic bubble in an unprecedented peacetime lull following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

With that one set of paragraphs, Megan explains to us why people as they grow older become more conservative politically speaking. They have, among other things, the benefit of the long view. (It seems strange to me personally to be speaking of 25 years as a long view, but there it is.)

It also speaks to me at least of a serious lack of the teaching of history… particularly, recent history. That, because one of the things that this points up to me is that the claim that things are going to hell in a handbasket by the younger crowd seems to me completely devoid of any accuracy when it tries to assess the direction we’re moving in. One needs to know where we were, before they can accurately judge where we’re going. And they clearly have no bloody clue where we’ve been.

This would seem to me, of necessity, to include the impact of our current situation in Iraq.  We have entire generations who have gotten used to the idea of having their problem solved within 48 minutes, (allowing for the standard set of commercials to break up the events ) where everyone gets to pack up and go home with smiles on their perfect faces, before the credits roll.

(Shrug) Some of the blame, certainly, can be laid on the Hollywood crowd , television, and so on.  But how much of the blame for this lack of a long view, can be laid on our educational system , which has been almost systematically the last twenty years or so removing what it teaches about history ?  As an example of what I’m talking about, the British educational system, has decided to remove Winston Churchill from its history courses?  Consider the depth of that transition; We’re talking about the pivotal individual in the British empire for the whole of the twentieth century.  There are American examples, as well.  We have discussed them here often enough for you to know what I’m talking about.

Is the solution for the lack of the long view the removal of education from the purview of government?

You’d like to think that one place our nations laws would be respected would be in the Halls of Congress.    Not if you are a democrat, who planned to flout our nation’s immigrantion laws by using illegal aliens as props.   Martin Kady, Crypt,  has the sordid detail:

Democrats knew they were embracing the touchy subject of immigration when they planned an afternoon press conference with three college students whose parents came to the United States illegally .

But they were stunned when Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a presidential candidate who has made a name for himself as a hard-liner on immigration, called for the three students – all of whom have been in the United States for over a decade – to be arrested.

The leftards were stunned:

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who sponsored the Dream Act, said he found it “absolutely stunning” that a member of Congress would call on college students to be arrested at a press conference.

A United States senator should not use an illegal alien as a prop.  Durbin should know better.   Does he?    Will the New York Time run a long series of op-eds on Durbin’s willingness to break the law?

Need less to say,  Think Progress was all upset:

Democrats were planning to hold a press conference today featuring three college students whose parents came to the United States illegally in order to promote the DREAM Act. But the event was postponed after anti-immigrant Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) called on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to arrest the three students: 

Now Think Progress is fond using the word illegal to describe anything to do with Dick Cheney.    Funny they just can’t bear to use the word in connection with immigrant.

The final word goes to Tancredo:

If we can’t enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?” 

Hat tip:  Memorandum.

Don’t go here if you have a weak stomach.

If ‘immigration”  is as hot as subject in the selection of our next President as I think it will be, Fred Thompson has just won not only the nomination, but the election, as well.

RAIDS RESULT IN CAPTURE OF SUSPECTED AL QAEDA LEADERS

Posted: 22 Oct 2007 06:20 AM CDT

RAIDS RESULT IN CAPTURE OF SUSPECTED AL QAEDA LEADERS

TWO MILITANTS KILLED IN FIRE FIGHT WITH COALITION FORCES

Posted: 22 Oct 2007 06:13 AM CDT

TWO MILITANTS KILLED IN FIRE FIGHT WITH COALITION FORCES

SEVERAL MILITANTS, ONE CHILD KILLED, FOUR CHILDREN WOUNDED IN ZABUL PROVINCE

Posted: 23 Oct 2007 05:50 AM CDT

SEVERAL MILITANTS, ONE CHILD KILLED, FOUR CHILDREN WOUNDED IN ZABUL PROVINCE

BASE SHOOTING UNDER INVESTIGATION: NOT TERROR-RELATED

Posted: 22 Oct 2007 11:15 AM CDT

BASE SHOOTING UNDER INVESTIGATION: NOT TERROR-RELATED

SHOOTINGS ARE NOT TERROR RELATED

Posted: 22 Oct 2007 07:22 AM CDT

SHOOTINGS ARE NOT TERROR RELATED

IRAQI SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES DETAIN TWO SUSPECTED TERRORIST OPERATIVES, KILL ONE

Posted: 22 Oct 2007 06:35 AM CDT

IRAQI SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES DETAIN TWO SUSPECTED TERRORIST OPERATIVES, KILL ONE

I’ve put up with about as much from Ron Paul supporters as I’m going to.  I’ve created a special spam bucket, with a special filter just for you clowns.  3/4 of which I don’t even see and none of it do I read.  Anyone pushing the phrase “Ron Paul” more than twice, automatically hits the spam can, and is also automatically forced into my perm spam list.

And before you ask… No you’re not getting out of there.  Anyone insane enough to support the idiot stands about as much chance of having something important to say on some other topic, as I have a winning a beauty contest. You yourselves have no interest in reading anything here, and my readers have no interest whatsoever in anything you have to say on any topic.

Bottom line: go away.

Addendum: Interesting.

Same night I finally reach my limit with those bozos, Red State does, as well. Captain Ed notes it and disagrees:

 It’s their community, of course, and they set the rules. However, this doesn’t hurt Paul’s credibility as much as it does Redstate’s. While Paul’s supporters tend towards the annoying and repetitive, they have less impact because we can easily engage them and counter their arguments. Banning them simply for their support for a candidate seems more like an admission that Redstate lacks that ability.

No, Ed, untrue.  If discussion was what these people were about, it would be one thing.  But the bottom line is, they’re not about discussion.  Thereby trying to game the system, and if possible to dominate the discussion.

After all, Paul will not be in the race all that much longer, and we need those voters to stay in the GOP when Paul disappears. There are worse impulses than libertarianism.

True; but libertarianism is not what Ron Paul is about, nor his supporters.  And frankly, I’d just as soon have people in the Republican party who actually maintain the ability to think.  Ron Paul and his supporters have developed and prided themselves on the ability to avoid such.

James Joyner: (Link repaired)

Reason‘s Dave Weigel takes to the pages of The American Conservative to warn Republicans that they’re not going to win in 2008 simply by bashing Hillary Clinton.

…

While negative campaigning and pointing out the weaknesses of one’s opponent can be quite effective, there hasn’t been a presidential election in my lifetime decided on that basis.

Reader “Floyd” differs with James… and rightly, to my memory:

James; How do you think Carter got elected?
All we heard was,,, “Ford wasn’t legitimately President.”& “Ford pardoned Nixon”

But here’s the take away for the coming election… I respond to Floyd:

Interesting.

I was about to say the reverse in the defeat of Carter… Negative campaigning was huge in Regan’s victory… the difference being it was negatives he didn’t have to spout… the American people decided on those negatives themselves… 21% inflation, Iran Hostages, gas lines, interest rates through the ceiling and the economy in the WC.

Reagan didn’t have to go negative, because the American people already knew what the negatives were, and were wrestling with them daily.

That seems to me to be of great import in this coming election. Given the recent polling which suggests that 50% of those polled would never vote for Hillary Clinton, my guess is the American people know what her negatives are, as well, and without being told.

The results of an election with her as the Democrat candidate, would be Carteresque, I think. Irony abounds… that would be true, regardless of her winning or losing… but I think that she’ll lose.

Addendum: (David L)

Agenda, we have have an agenda, and its ever growing, Mrs.  Clinton’s agenda.  Earlier today, I linked to video of Frank Luntz focus group.  One member pretty much nailed Mrs.  Clinton.  She has an agenda and at no point does her agenda put advancing the interests of the United States first.

Rudy made the point, that Mrs. Clinton has a million ideas, all of which involve spending taxpayers’ money and none of which we can afford.

Fred made the point, that you are better able to decide where to spend your money than Mrs.  Clinton is.

Rush made the point on H&C that Mrs. Clinton’s only real experience is quelling bimbo eruptions.

Finally how can a woman who did not protect our nation’s women from her predator husband and will not protect her marriage, be trusted to protect our country?

We have an issue, and Mrs. Clinton is the issue.