Here We Go Again: The NY Times Lies About Enemy Combatant Law

Andy McCarthy…

The Times is flat dishonest in its campaign against subjecting enemy combatants to military proceedings, which the Grey Lady passes off as a page-one news article.  Correspondent Tim Golden writes:

Under a law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in October, this double-wide trailer may be as close to a courtroom as most Guantánamo prisoners ever get. The law prohibits them from challenging their detention or treatment by writs of habeas corpus in the federal courts. Instead, they may only petition a single federal appeals court to examine whether the review boards followed the military’s own procedures in reviewing their status as “enemy combatants.”  [Emphasis added.]

It’s hard to quantify how inaccurate (and, one is compelled to conclude, disingenuous) this is.

Quite so, Andy, but this is the kind of slant we’ve come to expect from the New York Times, as I suggested yesterday.  indeed, we should stop making note of it every time the New York Times lies. They do it often enough that it’s hardly newsworthy.    It should, or rather, be newsworthy when they actually tell the truth.  As we see here, i If it supports liberal politics, the Times is all for it.  Regardless of how many times they have to lie to get the idea out.

Andy really hands them their buttocks on this one… justifiably so. Go and read, and you’ll see what’s got me agitated.

Some added pictures from the New Years Day celebrations over Niagara Falls, last night.

Sorry I was so brief in my description last night, as you can imagine I was rather tired.  I should make mention that these were taken from under the structure at Prospect Point.

I’m sure the structure was intended as an overlook to the falls, and it does a wonderful job at that, but it looks more like to half finished bridge than anything else.  Here’s a fairly decent picture of it swiped from a tourist site, taken from the Canadian side.  AS you look at the thing, I would be standing on the walkway, underneath. Mostly, I was shooting from there because of the rain. But also, because the angle is flat out perfect. (Perspective: Further to the background, perhaps a half mile, is the Rainbow bridge.)

I’ve tried taking fireworks pictures in the past, but have found that without a tripod it is nigh on useless, every single picture comes of a jumbled mess.  In this case because of a Christmas present from my older boy I came fully equipped for the task.

Enjoy!

I did manage to put some video together, too... and here it is.

one of the things I found interesting about the video that is not revealed very well in the still shots, is the number of flashbulbs going off of the Canadian side.  Apparently, the concept that flash bulbs and fireworks don’t mix hasn’t quite sunk in.

Shortly after midnight (EST) the zenith of Eliot Spitzer’s tenure as governor of New York State was attained.  Spitzer was sworn into office.   It is all down hill from here. Joe Mahoney of the New York Daily News has story:

ALBANY – Emboldened by his crushing victory at the polls, Gov. Spitzer will promise “historic” reform and a “new brand of politics” when he delivers his inaugural address as governor today.

The former state attorney general was sworn in at a private midnight ceremony at the Executive Mansion last night, 13 hours before his public appearance on the Capitol steps for the state’s first-ever outdoor inauguration.

“Day one has begun,” Spitzer, 47, said to a hearty cheer after he was sworn in by Manhattan Federal Judge Robert Sweet, whom Spitzer clerked for in 1984.

“I will do my best as the public has asked me to do.”

If ego were but talent and soaring rhetoric but potential, Spitzer would not only be a great governor, but also would be well on his way to the White House.   Alas poor Eliot, New York State is not a very governable and the office is governor and not empiror.   In order to govern Spitzer will actually have to persaude both the democrat controlled Assembly and the republican controlled Senate to cooperate with him   It is not going to happen.

We’ve been doing this every year, now for many years… going off on a near-midnight ramble to Niagara Falls to watch the fireworks display.

This year, unlike previous years, it rained.  50° outside.

Foreigner was playing in queen Victoria park, over on the Canadian side.  You can hear them clearly from our side of the pond.  Good lord, is Lou Graham performing again?  Last I knew we had some health trouble. Oh, well.

Anyway, rather than bore you with my writing all bore you with a few pictures before I go to bed.

Now, I tend to ignore such things, but I had a solid indication of how much it was raining, when I caught my youngest catching the rain on his tongue.

To give you a rough idea of where you are the skyline behind him is all Canadian.  Alex, here, is standing in New York.

This next picture is a little on the blurry side but I included to give you an idea of where you are.

That tall stroke of yellow-white lights directly at the center of the shot, is headlights coming down Clifton hill.  To the slight left of the shot is an extremely tall whiter light.  That’s the recently installed Ferris wheel.  I’ve never seen an up close but this thing has got to be huge.  We’ll have to check out, come summer.

Another shot of the skyline of the Canadian side, from the New York side.  And frame center, is a shot of the Skylon tower. When standing on the deck up there, you can see for around 80 miles. The tower he is darker than in previous years, where they have had lights streaming down the side of that thing in all directions, this year, there are none. Not quite sure why they stopped that.  It’s lack detracts from the scene.  I’m a little annoyed they didn’t do that this year.

Zoom back a few clicks, and you get a wider angle shot:

Again at the center is the Skylon. To the left of your shot, is a huge streak of blue from several spotlights.  Many people don’t know this, but there is a building along the shoreline is specific job it is to light the falls every night. These powerful arc lamps have been in place since the late forties and early fifties.  They hit the falls with various gel colors.  At center shot low, directly beneath the Skylon is a single point spotlight in the same color.  That’s where the Maid of the Mist docks.  It’s also where they should the fireworks off from.

Speaking of which, the elevator has just gone up to the top with a Roman candle tied to it’s belly, as you see here above (About halfway up in this shot); It’s time for the show to start.

I’ll add some more later today, along with, if I can figure out how, some video, as well.

Hot Air, tonight, has a series of links up about a recent NY Times article on abortion which included a bit about about a woman who was serving 30 years in a prison in El Salvador for getting an abortion.

Only one problem; That’s not what happened.  As NYT Public editor Byron Calme attempts to explain,

Apart from the flawed example of Ms. Climaco, Mr. Hitt’s 7,800-word cover article provided a broad and intriguing look at a nation where the penal code allows prison sentences for a woman who has an abortion, the provider of the procedure or anyone who assisted. His interviews with doctors, nurses, police officers, prosecutors, judges and both opponents and advocates of abortion offered revealing personal perspectives on the effects of the criminalization of the procedure.

According to Calme;

Complaints about the article began arriving at the paper after an anti-abortion Web site, LifeSiteNews.com, reported on Nov. 27 that the court had found that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy ended with a full-term live birth. The headline: “New York Times Caught in Abortion-Promoting Whopper — Infanticide Portrayed as Abortion.” Seizing on the misleading presentation of the article’s only example of a 30-year jail sentence for an abortion, the site urged viewers to complain to the publisher and the president of The Times. A few came to me.

Says he:

The care taken in the reporting and editing of this example didn’t meet the magazine’s normal standards.

Given the frequency with which this kind of ‘error’ pops up, I cannot help but wonder, if that isn’t precisely the magazine’s normal standards.  As a matter of fact, the entire of the New York Times can be placed in the same category, rather easily. That may seem a brash statement, but consider; had it not been for LifeSiteNews, this situation would not have come to light at all.  Given that point, how in the world can we trust the New York Times historically, not just in the articles they’re producing today?  The answer, if we are fair, is that we cannot.

(Tell me again, about how Blogdom isn’t shaking the towers of the Mighty MSM, people.)
Look again at what Calme says the article’ stated purpose was:

Mr. Hitt’s 7,800-word cover article provided a broad and intriguing look at a nation where the penal code allows prison sentences for a woman who has an abortion, the provider of the procedure or anyone who assisted. His interviews with doctors, nurses, police officers, prosecutors, judges and both opponents and advocates of abortion offered revealing personal perspectives on the effects of the criminalization of the procedure.

Even on Mr. Calme’s sparse and sympathetic overview, the purpose of the article is clear; placing countries and authorities where abortion is illegal in a bad light.  Clearly, this can be nothing less than a promotion of legalized abortion. No small wonder then, that the Times refuses to make a correction on the article, stating that the sole person that they refer to who caught 30 years, actually had a live birth and then killed the infant.  To expose that kind of inaccuracy, clearly discredits the article , the article’s author, and the article’s publisher, the New York Times.  It also, most imporantly to the Times, discredits the pro-abortion point of view promoted by that article.

Interesting post over at Insta-Glenn’s place.

Normally, I’d not bother; his usually ARE at least of some level of interest, and he gets basically all the links I’ll EVER get, in one day, and thereby doesn’t need the help.

In this case, though, I think he’s hit on something that’s going to need some additional attention. This is something that affects us all; readers writers site managers webmasters, and so on.

He quotes an article over on techcrunch.com :

Taken in a vacuum, a fairly trivial thing happened a few days ago. The co-founder of Firefox, Blake Ross, wrote a post criticizing Google called “Tip: Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose”. He takes issue with a new Google search feature that promotes certain of their own products over organic search results. See Google searches for Calendar, Blogging, Photo Sharing and others and see Google pushing Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa, respectively, above what is supposed to be the most relevant results – Google search. Even a search for Yahoo Calendar has these Google results above the obvious destination the user was searching for.

I say this is trivial incident taken in a vacuum because, quite frankly, Google has every right to promote their own products on their website. But I think Ross’ post may be a sign of a change in attitude towards Google that’s been percolating for the last year or so, and is beginning to manifest itself. The fact that a highly respected entrepreneur finally spoke out should be a wakeup call for Google.

He goes on to repeat his comments of awhile back that trust in Google has been declining for a long time now. He seems to think, and I agree that local should be taking this a lot more seriously.

But, then, he makes a rather strange comment; which is why I open my editor at all on this issue, tonight;

He says all you needed to take your business elsewhere than Google is to type a different URL. and perhaps, just perhaps, that is the reason that Google is making this move just now. With about 3/4 of the known world having Google’s toolbar up on the top of their browser, by virtue of its cooperation with another monopoly, Microsoft, the ability of Joe Average to “take your business elsewhere” is somewhat more complex than it might be.

It’s true enough; all one really has to do is type in the other URL, but given the convenience factor, and the factor of habit, as well as the factor of Google’s reputation, (a reputation they seem willing to sully in an effort to capitalize on it)… how many people will? Google is clearly gambling that it won’t be all that many.

Then again, Yahoo and AOL made such a gamble not long ago, as well… as the Techcrunch writeup suggests.

There is nothing, to my mind, that better demonstrates that the American left has lost its collectivist mind, than the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the execution of Saddam Hussein.  One would think, after reading their collective whining that US law enforcers had grabbed Howard Dean, and executed him, because he was giving George Bush trouble.

Let’s be clear about this; This execution did not happen because the U.S. wanted it so.  This happened because the Iraqis wanted it so.  It was their trial, not ours.  It was their sentence that was carried out, not ours.

Nor is this, as some would seem to suggest, the result of a simple difference of political opinion, either within Iraq, or the world as a whole. Saddam Hussein was tried and convicted of mass murder. Worse, the charges that he was actually condemned to death over were only one set of charges, of a long list of them, which will keep the Iraqis in courts for decades.  Not years, decades.

Nor was Hussein alone.  Several of his cohorts were convicted to death along with him, for their part in the deaths of thousands.

But none of that makes a bit of difference for our lefties.  If all of this doesn’t cause you to question just where it is their loyalties lie, it should.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, that the Palestinians were doing the same thing; welling in gnashing of teeth over this murderer’s fate. As VDH notes:

We gave the Palestinian Authority hundreds of millions of dollars for housing, schools, and security and they hate us; Saddam gave them a few thousand dollars as bounty for suicide murderers and they loved him.

That says it all.

That brings us back, however, to the question of where the loyalties of the American left lie. After all, one presumes if they see more clearly than the Palestinians have historically done, the kind of mass murderer that Saddam Hussein really was.  Why on earth would they be lamenting his execution?

I’ll tell you what; when you find the answer to that question, you will find the answer to the question of why the American left to this day thinks Bill Clinton was a good president, and Hillary Clinton would make a good president, and why, if their mouth is open, it’s because they’re blaming George W. Bush for something.

UNder an AP headline reading: At Least 80 Iraqis Killed in Post-Saddam Execution Violence …note a picture of gunmen toting weapons in an undated picture taken, apparently in Baqouba.  The image of increased violence thus seared, seared, mind you… into our brains…. (With a nod to John Kerry)
….we read the actual story…

BAGHDAD AP- At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday as they prepared to celebrate Islam’s biggest holiday, their first without Saddam Hussein.

The bombings came hours after Saddam was hanged in Baghdad for ordering the killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday’s violence was not unusually high for Iraq, nor did it appear to be in retaliation for the execution.

Observe, please, the difference in impressions that are left between the headline, and the storyline buried a couple of paras down.  The headline suggests and apparently wants us to believe that there is a spike in violence incidental to the hanging of Saddam Hussein.

Meantime the story line reports precisely the opposite. Note particularly the last sentence of the second paragraph.

Again, just for clarity:

Saturday’s violence was not unusually high for Iraq, nor did it appear to be in retaliation for the execution

The source?

The Associated Press.  Draw your own conclusions.

Oh, just for kickers… further down in the same story, we see an interesting tidbit:

Another 31 people died and 58 were injured when a bomb planted on a minibus exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad, said Issa Mohammed, director of the morgue in the neighboring town of Najaf.

The man blamed for parking the vehicle in Kufa, about 100 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was cornered and killed by a mob as he walked away from the explosion, police and witnesses said.

The second paragraph here, is a mental picture that Americans need to see.  It shows quite clearly that Iraqis want this bombing to end, they reject the Arabs terrorists, and what they stand for.  They only need help to rid themselves of the problem.

But of course this is buried near the bottom of the AP feed. Now, why would they do that?

Bits Notes: I had written this last night, but never transmitted it. Oops. 

I had planned to make a run to someplace special today.  The reason is clear enough if one looks at the calendar; this is the only day this month where I have both a free day, and I’m not required to be anywhere.  In this case, however, my wife decided she did not want to go anywhere.  So here I sat. Oh well.

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Not a total loss; I wrote some, I did some cleaning in the office, and generally beat up on my broadband connections.  I did some tuning on the servers, “Elephant”, in particular, which needs all the help it can get.

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I also finally got off my backside long enough to obtain two things for my cellphone; a USB cable, (it’s a rather odd one as such things go… not really an off the shelf thing.) And, a gig of NV RAM. My cell phone, you see, and tames a fairly decent MP3 player, by all the reviews I’ve seen.  Trouble is, I haven’t had enough memory to check it out, nor am I inclined to spend the money for songs I already have parked on the other server… “Bear”. With these I can move my music around as I see fit. Very slick.
I would have eventually gotten a MP3 player, anyway, a separate one, and probably one with more memory in it. But, I would have spent a good deal more money to get a good quality player and then I is still needed the data transfer cable to transfer my scheduling and contact information over to the phone from the computer.  t also doesn’t hurt, that there’s a fairly decent camera in the phone as well, which with the memory means that I’m pretty much set wherever I go with it. It’s not as good a quality as my PowerShot A95, but some things don’t require that kind of quality. So, to heck with it, I may as well get the additional memory and ride the MP three functions on the phone.
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We got a gift cert to “Olive Garden” for Christmas, we’re considering using it this weekend. It’s not exactly a restaurant we go to all the time, but it’ll be a nice change. The family tradition has been to run up to Niagara Falls for their NYE fireworks display. We’ll see about dinner over near Buffalo, and then make the run to the ‘Falls by midnight. The weather’s actually pretty good, this year, warmer than in past years, so we’ll be fine.
We’re also considering the best tack for New Year’s Eve, this year.

We had less than a stellar time last year in Niagara Falls, owing to the timing and the weather, as much as anything, last year. Didn’t help that the place we’d planned to park, across the from the Hard Rock Cafe on the American side. Perhaps if we show up a little earlier this year, we will not have nearly the problem.  My only concern is that if we end up having to walk in the distance, my wife’s feet, which have been giving the trouble lately may put the squash on the whole deal. Initially, since it looks like the usual parking lot is going to be closed again, my thought would have been to park over on the Robert Moses parkway were the fishing areas, and walk across the bridge to Goat island.  Perhaps we’ll just say the hell with it, and run to the Canadian side, this year. I’ll post some snaps tommrow.
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Some good responses to my extended essay on “Enlightening Islam”, via E-Mail.Believe me, I’m appreciative, but I would much rather than to respond via the comments function.  I went through a great deal of trouble to make sure that comments function work.  The idea here is that I’d like responses from the readers online not just e-mail.  I will certainly continue to respond to things that are mailed to me.  But some of these things I’m seeing in mail are more appropriate in comments, particularly because I think they’re things that your fellow readers would also like to read.

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The Snark of the day comes from Ann Althouse: 

“Several Democratic strategists last week urged [Mrs.] Clinton to unleash a ‘charisma offensive’..

“Is that even something she can do?

Tags: BitsBlog, Democrats, Elections