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HOW BLOGGERS RUN THE PLANET
Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, in the New York Times:
“The way we perceive it,” he said, “is that right-wing bloggers are able to invent stories, get them out on Drudge, get them on Rush Limbaugh, get them on Fox, and pretty soon that spills over into the mainstream media. We, the progressives, we don’t have that kind of network to work with.”
Poor progressives. All they have is Lancet reports, Ayad Allawi killing people, the menace of depleted uranium, plastic turkeys, oil pipelines in Afghanistan, Jewish media conspiracies, another Stalingrad in Baghdad, Bush’s dumbness, harsh Afghan winters, the massive influence of Jeff Gannon, and looted Iraqi museums. They never get to invent any stories at all.
And it’s just a coincidence that points in the Kos forums and DU come effluently out of the lips of Pelosi and Boxer a week later…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 15 at 12:28 AM • permalinkMore seriously, Spiny Norman has it exactly right. The left assumes conspiracies, because that’s the way they’d do it.
Us non-left types (centrists, libertarians, right-wing death beasts and so on) aren’t inventing stories and trying to get them into the mainstream media. Why on earth would we want to do that, when we’ve basically written the MSM off as useless?
The left seems to think that the non-left is just like them, only evil. But there is a fundamental asymmetry that they cannot recognise:
The left thinks the right is evil.
The right thinks the left is stupid.Poor progressives. All they have is Lancet reports Lancet reports, Ayad Allawi killing people, the menace of depleted uranium, plastic turkeys, oil pipelines in Afghanistan, Jewish media conspiracies, another Stalingrad in Baghdad, Bush’s dumbness, harsh Afghan winters, the massive influence of Jeff Gannon, and looted Iraqi museums.
[p]I agree with Tim B about the multitude of progressive myths circulating in the MSM. However most of these are fairly trivial. There is, however, no doubt that the US government is responsible for some serious acts of negigence and violence.
There was some (exaggerated) looting of Iraqi museums, and Iraqi army weapons dumps did occur in the aftermath of the invasion. This was sanctioned by the CPA on the grounds that it aided retribution against the Baathists.
The Lancet study has not been effectively criticised by any scientific journal or agency that I am aware of, unless you think that Michael Fumento is a credible source. It remains a scientificly defensible proposition that the US invasion has caused the premature death, through martial violence or civil negligence, of ~ 100,000 person ie about 50,000 per annum.They never get to invent any stories at all.
Yeah, hardly anyone picked up the ‘Iraq is the new Vietnam’ theme…Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 03 15 at 02:20 AM • permalinkThe Lancet paper tried to use epidemeological methods to study something that doesn’t behave like a disease at all. The basic methodology was flawed, the data collection was flawed, and the statistical analysis was flawed.
The only certainty we can take away from this “study” is that the people who did it are idiots.
Roberts, you wrote:
“This was sanctioned by the CPA on the grounds that it aided retribution against the Baathists.”
Please cite a source for this statement.
Posted by David Crawford on 2005 03 15 at 04:53 AM • permalinkthat’d be a japanese ‘laser breathing rabbit’ wouldnt it sortelli? those nips sure know how to scare a person…
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 03 15 at 05:00 AM • permalinkYes, the bleating about blog from the left (which is now starting in the UK) is most amusing. It is great fun to see them panic as they lose control of the levers of news.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2005 03 15 at 08:13 AM • permalinkThere was actually a post over at DU that said Bush can’t go to war in Lebanon with “the Plame and Gannon scandals” hanging over his administration…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 15 at 10:34 AM • permalinkProgressive. Progressive?? One of the problems of trying to communicate with these people is that after every sentence out of their mouths one must tell them, “define your terms.”
They claim to be LIBERAL and most have no idea what liberal means. I am a liberal and proud of it- http://www.mises.org/story/1758 for original meaning.
Frank
...pretty soon that spills over into the mainstream media. We, the progressives, we don’t have that kind of network to work with
likely because if a ‘progressive’ wants a fictional story in the MSM he can go there direct.
Posted by whiteotter on 2005 03 15 at 11:49 AM • permalinkLike the Roswell space alien myth, the Johns Hopkins/Lancet Iraq War Death study is absurd on its face: its evidence is entirely hearsay, generously embellished by the political biases of the researchers. And yet, the burden of proof lies with its critics.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 15 at 01:34 PM • permalinkWhen it comes to invented stories, how about
global warmingerrrrglobal coolingerrr climate change?Posted by Kim du Toit on 2005 03 15 at 06:46 PM • permalinkAchillea, I am sure that they could be, but it would be best to wear protective gear when approaching the rabbit with the necessary power tools.
My best recommendation is that you have a member of PETA nearby to protest the abuse of the rabbit, at which point the rabbit will stop trying to laser-breath you for trying to fasten it’s bunny flesh to your automobile of choice and then focus its hateful energies on the tramp from PETA.
If you work quickly, you can mount the rabbit before it is finished burning the activist to cinders.
...
... did I just type “mount the rabbit”?
The PETA people love fake turkey, one made with tofu.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2005 03 16 at 06:27 AM • permalinkJack Strocchi sez….
This was sanctioned by the CPA on the grounds that it aided retribution against the Baathists.
Jack, based soley on your past behavior and track record, this is another one your “facts” that you oh-so-conveniently pulled out of your ass to support your conclusion.
The only good thing about you is…....never mind.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 16 at 06:47 AM • permalinkAnd if right wing bloggers run the planet, I want my share, and I want it right now. In cash, not check or EFT. But I’ll take a deed to prime real estate if the VRWC has a problem with cash flow right now.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 16 at 06:50 AM • permalinkAll this yelling and screaming about Lancet and stuff makes me want to go somewhere else and play.
Perhaps anyone who got yelled at/yelled would like to play too. It’s a simple game. Pick any peer-reviewed journal (eg. an epidemilogy or health science journal) have a friend pick a random article - that adds a fun social element - then dismantle its methodology and dismiss it. Coz hey, it’s not like you ReALLY need to spend all that time on a PhD (Poor Hungry Dog right?) to do a REAL peer review. I mean, hey - expertise isn’t god-given is it? So I’m sure just researching what a few people have written around the internets means you’ll be able to do a good enough job…
Why don’t I go first: Antioxidant supplements for prevention of gastrointestinal cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis from Vol. 364 Issue 9441, p1219 of Lancet They write:
Methods: With the Cochrane Collaboration methodology, we reviewed all randomised trials comparing antioxidant supplements with placebo for prevention of gastrointestinal cancers. We searched electronic databases and reference lists (February, 2003). Outcome measures were incidence of gastrointestinal cancers, overall mortality, and adverse effects. Outcomes were analysed with fixed-effect and random-effects model meta-analyses and were reported as relative risk with 95% CIs.
Well already I can see this research is just useless. Fixed effect models indeed! They’re not a gastrointesinal cancer specific methodology at all!! How did those hacks involved with Lancet miss THIS one?? Next spurious study plz
I was thinking to announce a First Annual Plastic Turkey Award winner, but maybe it should be the First Monthly Plastic Turkey Award winner. dk.au is certainly in the running.
I wonder whether every Lancet study is published openly and admittedly prior to peer review shortly before a U.S. Presidential election at its author’s insistence. Such a political short-circuiting of the scientific process, obviously designed to maximize the politically intended effect while minimizing any opportunity for a scientific response before the election, merits and demands the political criticism which it receives and the scorn and taint on the scientific reputation which Lancet and the study’s author have so deservedly suffered.
Anybody who peremptorily criticizes any criticism of such a procedure certainly should be stripped of their PhD, if they really have one. Such an agitprop clown tries to turn scientific publication on its head—publication is supposed to be exposure to criticism, NOT immunity to criticism.
The_Real_JeffS on 03/16 at 07:07 AM, in the process of sledging me, seems to be engaging in “Lancet denial”.
Jack, based soley on your past behavior and track record, this is another one your “facts� that you oh-so-conveniently pulled out of your ass to support your conclusion.
First, can TRJS point to any (subsequently ununcorrected) falsehoods that I have perpetrated? If he cant put up then he should shut up.
Second, can tRJS actually make a valid scientific critique of the Lancet study? I mean something not like the kind of rubbish that Michael Fumento puts out. Lancet looks like a model of academic probity to me, certainly compared to the kind of spin put out by Bush admin apologists.David Crawford on 03/15 at 05:10 AM, pleads with me to put up or shut up:
Please cite a source for [my] statement
“[The looting] was sanctioned by the CPA on the grounds that it aided retribution against the Baathists.”
Sure, unlike the confederacy of dunces in this commentary box (sortelli, real JeffS, rosceo) I’d am delighted to back up my statements with independent facts.Richard Perle, a neo-con advisor the the DoD, was an enthusiastic proponent of the looting and post-war violence, as a kind of street level purging operation of Baathist officials. He shrugged his shoulders about it to the Washington Post:
Those chaotic conditions have not come as a surprise, some administration officials said, nor are they necessarily all bad.
Richard Perle, an influential Pentagon adviser, said some amount of blood-letting may have to be accepted until U.S. and newly installed Iraqi authorities can develop a legal system to purge Baath Party members from Iraqi society. Perle raised the specter of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror and its leader, Maximilien Robespierre.“The Iraqis know who their oppressors are in their midst,” he said. “It isn’t Robespierre, I hope. But it’s up to the Iraqis, and there is bound to be score settling. If you know Rashid worked at the place where your brother was tortured and killed, people can be forgiven for chasing down and killing Rashid.”
Perle was not an isolated admin voice. In fact the London Times reported that it was Coalition policy to allow looting:
UNITED NATIONS officials have rebuked British commanders for urging local residents to loot buildings belonging to the Iraqi Army and the ruling Baath Party.
The British view is that the sight of local youths dismantling the offices and barracks of a regime they used to fear shows they have confidence that Saddam Hussain’s henchmen will not be returning to these towns in southern Iraq.
One senior British officer said: “We believe this sends a powerful message that the old guard is truly finished.�
Hussein was a criminal despot and, if a civil way could have been found to change his regime, the world would be well rid of him. The US military, as evinced by the absence of planted WMDs, is an honourable institution doing its best with a bad civil admin in a bad country.
But the Iraq attack, which has now empowered a proto-Islamist and pro-Iranian regime in a region of vital interest, is a strategic disaster. If the Lancet report is reliable, and no credible scientific authority has laid a glove on it so far, then this operation is also a humanitarian disaster.
These are real facts, not “progressive myths”.
Jack, how do you reconcile your claim
Richard Perle, a neo-con advisor the the DoD, was an enthusiastic proponent of the looting and post-war violence
with your statement
He shrugged his shoulders about it
Surely an enthusiastic proponent should do more than shrug his shoulders?
Or are you - just maybe - spinning this so hard that it’s coming to pieces like a cheap… Like a cheap thing that comes to pieces when you spin it?
Richard Perle, in his job as Defence Advisory board, almost certainly would have pushed for looting and purging Iraq. The quote from the senior British officer demonstrates that the pro-looting attitude was a Coalition policy, intended to forcefully “send a message” of regime change to Baathist hold-overs.
Of course Perle will offer up, to appease liberal conscience, a kind of faux fatalism about the predicted and preferred consequences of premeditated violence. But he cant change his spots as criminality is in his character, going by his record of war-profiteering and…looting his own company .The quote from the senior British officer demonstrates that the pro-looting attitude was a Coalition policy, intended to forcefully “send a messageâ€? of regime change to Baathist hold-overs.
Nonsense.
It says, after the fact, that it sent a message.
That’s it.
You have not the slightest shred of evidence to back up your allegations. Since that didn’t stop you making them, it is clear that you don’t have the slightest shred of integrity either.
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Projecting again, are they?
Not even subtle about it anymore…