So we all know Glenn Beck is unbalanced, even those who take most of his antics as “loving his country” (sob) “so much” (sob). Some of us think he’s either more than a little unbalanced, which means he’s a mentally ill person being manipulated (did I say this somewhere before) or a total liar and hypocrite. Colbert did a great takedown a la Jon Stewart the other day. I’d show you the original Beck footage it is based on, but you get the idea.
I know the rest of the world is watching in shock and horror as Israel destroys Gaza and kills civilians with indiscriminate bombing. But even more so, they are perplexed how American can give Israel such unconditional support in what appears so clearly to them to be outright ethnic cleansing.
Here is how it works: A new Rasmussen poll shows that Americans are divided on the issue. Americans in general feel that the Palestinians are to blame, but they do not support the invasion, despite overwhelming bombardment of propaganda from the mainstream media.
Republicans overwhelmingly support it, while Democrats overwhelmingly are opposed. The problem is that our leadership is not divided. It does not represent us, rather unconditionally supporting Israel no matter what Israel has done or decides to do.
So aside from a few individualists who don’t care that standing up for what is right could cost them in their party, our elected representatives have decided not to represent us. Democrats and Republicans alike, they don’t care what we think or want. This is basically the only issue their behavior is diametrically opposed to the desires of the voting public.
It’s hard to tell what is real and what is not real. On the internet, pro-Israel trolls are overwhelmingly the “voice”. They deny that there have been Palestinian deaths, and as justification for massacring all Palestinians claim a number of Israeli deaths thousands of times what is true. They are anonymous trolls, just as Rush Limbaugh is a troll whose name we know.
Is it the Israel lobby? Or something else? I really don’t know. But I thought it would be good to discuss, since there doesn’t seem to be any rational discussion going on over here.
The other day a “special edition” of the New York Times dated July 4, 2009—a parody, actually—was printed and distributed in major cities. There was only good news to be seen: end of the wars, health care, etc. At the time I first got the link, the website—a perfect copy of the real NYT site— was not working. Later, only the front page worked, but now all the links are working, so enjoy!
Ivins, of course. Bruce E. Ivins, not Molly, who is also dead and sadly missed.
It certainly appears that one researcher working alone could have done all the technical stuff involved with this. They decided that before they spent untold millions of dollars focusing on the wrong guy, who is now $5.2 million richer for the harassment.
Maybe they have evidence proving he was the one who wrote all the little terrorist letters and notes that pointed to Islamic terrorists.
But it’s kind of hard to figure how he could also be the four separate highly-placed officials who were feeding disinformation to ABC during the panic, the network’s broadcasting of which was undoubtedly a major part of the cause of the anthrax panic, as well as the subsequent investigative focus on pinning it on somebody, anybody.
I’d like to rank some of the possibilities, but we have multiple threads here. So it’s not a simple “either/or” situation. Let’s just see what is probable (according to my limited knowledge here) and I’ll suggest alternatives where the probabilities seem to require them.
I’m really only trying to make you think and do your own research, not cover such a vast topic comprehensibly.
Did Ivins work alone on the Anthrax-handling part of it?
Could be.
Did Ivins work alone making and mailing out those terrorist notes and letters?
Could be.
Did Ivins carry off the impersonation of four different highly-placed government officials that served up false information to ABC News, which they turned around and fed to the public?
Nope. Didn’t happen that way.
Okay, so what might have happened?
Did government officials use this as a cover for disseminating propaganda intended to convince the public Iraq was involved, even though they had no idea what was going on?
Maybe, but it seems a little far-fetched, considering that the truth might be uncovered at an inconvenient time and come back to bite them.
Did ABC make up their informants after getting tips from Ivins?
Now there’s a possibility. How much do I trust the journalistic integrity of ABC? Not a whole lot. Let’s mark that “strongly possible”.
Did the government participate in the incident fully, guiding the development of propaganda and working to keep the investigation looking in the wrong place, while knowing that if that failed they could probably pin it on him and claim he was a crazy loner? And if worst came to worse, he could be found dead, so as not to turn evidence?
Umm…He did turn up dead, didn’t he?
This should sound like fiction, but unfortunately it does not sound nearly enough like fiction. Is there anyone working in the current Administration who has no ethics, no limits, and no respect for the American public, someone who might have participated in something like this?
I don’t like “conspiracy theories” that dig deep and throw a wide net in an effort to explain something that has a very simple explanation. But this does not have a simple explanation.
The case is made that this is plausible. In the absence of an apology by ABC for making it all up, I’d have to put my money on the last one. And even if ABC did apologize I’d have to take their apology with a grain of salt, since we have to consider the possibility that they might have been knowingly in on it, too.
Out pimping his book intended to set the record straight, former Bush Administration Under Secretary of State stopped in on one of the few serious media outlets for political discussion—The Daily Show on Comedy Central—and got asked the hard questions that should have been asked within the Administration sometime before this country decided to start a war. Seriously, the buck should stop with every former Administration hack who is now attempting to rewrite history as a disinterested party with no responsibility regarding what took place then and what is going on now.
I suspect that Stewart was probably the first interviewer who actually read the entire book. Certainly authors don’t expect to get grilled by interviewers who are trying to hide the fact that the notes they have in front of them were written by a staffer who may have only skimmed sections of the book.
Watch the two part video and see if you don’t agree with me that Jon Stewart would make the best Vice President we can possibly have in the Obama administration.
The problem with this story is that it reaches a Fox News-worthy conclusion right up front, only hinting at the end that the conclusion may be unjustified.
Having sex at early age has long been linked to a laundry list of health problems from an increased risk of sexual disease to an increased risk of cancer.
But now, Columbia University and New York state researchers say waiting too long to have sex may carry its own risks, according to an ABCnews.com report.
People who lose their virginity between the ages of 21 to 23 are more likely to suffer sexual dysfunction problems later in life, according to a study from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute’s HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies.
So the obvious conclusion is that beginning to have sex later will result in a man having a greater risk of sexual disfunction. Clear cause and effect, right?
The study, which is will appear in the January 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, found that men who lose their virginity in their 20’s seemed more likely to have problems becoming sexually aroused and reaching orgasm.
But the researchers pointed out that men who started having sex early were also at an increased risk for sexual dysfunction and said further research is needed to determine if a causal interpretation can be made.
If a causal interpretation can be made. It doesn’t sound like the researchers are at all convinced that a late start to sexual activity causes sexual disfunction, which is what was the lead-in, right?
Let’s look at the somewhat less glamourous but probably more likely cause and effect here. For men to wait until their twenties to begin sexual activity is probably a sign of an underlying sexual disfunction.
Bush Gives Musharraf Tips on Eliminating Democracy
In what he described as “an emergency mission to help a key ally in the war on terror,” President George W. Bush flew to Islamabad today to give General Pervez Musharraf tips on how to eliminate democracy.
Mr. Bush said he scheduled the trip just hours after General Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan and suspended elections “because when it comes to eliminating democracy, I thought my friend Pervez could benefit from my experience.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr. Bush said that while he commended General Musharraf’s impulse to eliminate democratic institutions, he felt that the military strongman was going about it the wrong way: “When you’re getting rid of democracy, the last thing you want to do is tell people you’re doing it.”
