Archive for December, 2010

When you are losing you play hide and seek with language

Posted: December 30, 2010 by datechguy in media, opinion/news
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One of the things that is always of note is how the left in particular likes to play with language to change opinion.

The best example of course being the change from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” as Victor Davis Hanson mentions in this piece:

When did global warming so easily get away with becoming “climate change”? With record winter low temperatures again this year in Europe, and similar freezing weather in the U.S., we are given a number of contorted exegeses from climatologists and green activists that, in fact, argue terrible cold is proof of global warming. One wonders: if it were now 80 degrees in New York or dry and 70 degrees in London, would we be told such unseasonable heat was not an artifact, but likewise real proof of climate change?

Philology usually is a good barometer of ideology: when global warming became climate change and now is evolving to “climate chaos,” you can see a case study in deductive thinking, as symptoms are fudged to conform to a preexisting diagnosis. Circular reasoning also is characteristic: we convince the coal-devouring and nuclear-producing Chinese that there is a soon to be big (Western-subsidized) global market for wind turbines and solar panels, given the spread of Gorism among Western elites and grandees, then we frighten Americans that the Chinese will soon capture the entire “green” market that we fostered unless we … (fill in the cap and trade / green subsidy-grant blanks).

I mentioned another example in my last post where the Amnesty business crowd has morphed into the Partnership for a new American Economy and of course the is the “other 98%” that became the “coffee party” that spun off “reclaim the dream” and “return to sanity” and now is “no labels“.

Well the left is at is again, as there is a concerted attempt to pressure the media into dropping “illegal Immigrants” to “undocumented immigrants”. When Megyn Kelly called them on it on Fox the clueless TPM nutcracker actually objected to HER:

Plenty of conservatives are pretty upset over a campaign by the Society of Professional Journalists to convince reporters to stop using the terms “illegal aliens” and “illegal immigrants” in favor of “undocumented immigrant.” But none are as livid as perpetually outraged Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who on Wednesday afternoon asked if journalists were going to start calling rapists “non-consensual sex partners” next.

“You could say that a burglar is an unauthorized visitor. You know, you could say that a rapist is a non-consensual sex partner which, obviously, would be considered offensive to the victims of those crimes,” Kelly said. “So how far could you take this?”

Mind you they put this up thinking it helps their case.

Dan Riehl at Big Journalism calls them out further:

Of course the Society of Professional Journalists would have a “Diversity Committee.” How else could liberals continue on with the thought policing of which they became so fond in college?

If you want to know why Fox is cleaning up in the ratings this is it.

And this is getting attention now?

Posted: December 30, 2010 by datechguy in DaTechGuy on DaRadio, media, politics
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My guest this Saturday Barbara Espinosa links to this gem at seeing Red in Arizona who discovers that like the zombie and vampire craze Amnesty won’t stay dead unless you stay on it:

In an almost-missed article tucked away in the Christmas Day Phoenix Republic tabloid-size weekend newspaper insert was this gem. It seems Mayor Philly Gordon has teamed up with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other big city mayors to lobby the federal government for a blast from the past

Let’s get more details:

Under the umbrella of “Partnership for a New American Economy,” a revised group (names included in this link) is being lead by Bloomberg and includes corporate bigwigs such as CEOs of Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney Co., and News Corporation, which owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. The gimmick this time is obviously to take the onus off of Congress in general and GOP aisle-crossers in specific.

“What we need to do is focus on bringing people together and how to get this comprehensive immigration reform and border security done,” the term-limited Gordon declared.

Ah Bloomberg, the darling of No Labels and the foe of snowplows but more interesting than Bloomberg is a connected dot.

So what do you think Robert Delgado, President and CEO of Hensley Beverage Company, one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer wholesaler and distributors in the nation, is doing on the Partnership for a New Economy list? That’s Cindy Hensley McCain’s hundreds-of-millions-a-year business. It’s a safe bet Delgado doesn’t operate in a vacuum separate from the McCain’s.

And is it just a coincidence that McCain confidant and political strategist, Wes Gullett is running for Phoenix Mayor, hoping to succeed Gordon? Could the fact that Gullett’s wife served as Gordon’s chief of staff just be happenstance, also?

What? Has McCain suddenly done a volte-face again? Remember the primaries:

During last fall’s election, the anxious McCain began talking like a border hawk, even taping commercials in which the salty-tongued former sailor advocated bringing troops and law enforcement together and completing “the danged fence“ to keep illegals out of America.

That McCain about-face and the Sarah Palin endorsement (that angered some conservatives but not me because it shows loyalty) made a whole lot of difference in the primary election but here is the kicker. This inserted article was in the Christmas edition of the Phoenix paper, however the original article was from June.

Funny how that didn’t managed to get publicity during the time that McCain was actually facing a primary challenge. What would have happened if the McCain connection to this stuff came out big in June? Likely ex-senator McCain would be a headliner in the No-Labels movement.

As I’ve often said, it is what is NOT reported more than what is that really makes media bias.

With the new Tea-Party dominated republican congress stuff like this will be harder but lets not relax.

The story of my parents first date

Posted: December 29, 2010 by datechguy in oddities, personal
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This may sound counter-intuitive but the great skank debate reminds me of this story of my mother’s first date with my father back in 43.

My father had a brother named Sam ( I named my oldest after him) he was never married but was very “popular” as evidenced by the group of elderly ladies in the back of the church that people avoided looking at during his funeral. He also had one son who is one of the best looking men I’ve ever seen.

One day in 1943 my mother was at I believe the Elks club with a couple of girls she knew when Sam came swaggering in. Sam noticing the three of them came over. With the exception of my mother the girls were smitten and were all over him while my mother didn’t give him the time of day. This of course peaked Sam’s interest in my mother to the point where the other girls were displeased ending in one of them spilling a drink on her dress.

After coming out of the bathroom my mother was angry and did the one thing she could think of to get back at the two of them, though uninterested in Sam she agreed to go out with them the following week.

Well Sam being Sam was all hands and although times were different in 43 my mother being my mother was having none of it. Finally she had him pull over, got out of the car and took a Taxi home having enough of his amorous attempts.

When Sam got home his younger brother (my dad) asked how his date when, and Sam answered: “Cripes Dominic I’ve never seen anything like it, let me tell you something; if you want a good Catholic girl, that Mary is the one, she wouldn’t let me get anywhere with her.”

My father laughed, Sam laughed and the both forgot about it.

Two weeks later My mother was at the Elks again, this time with her older sister Grace and her husband. My father (a good-looking man in his own right) walked in wearing his Navy blues and was getting some attention when he noticed my mother.

My father was a much different kettle of fish than his older brother and noting the three at the table assumed that Grace (10 years older than my mom) and her husband (many years older than Grace) were her parents. So he approached the man who would eventually be my uncle and asked permission to dance with his “daughter”. Aunt Grace’s husband was taken aback a sec but decided to have a bit of fun with him and pontifically gave his permission. My father having done what he considered the proper and honorable thing then approached my mother and had this exchange:

Excuse me miss, your father has given me permission to ask you to dance.

(suspicious) My father? When did you talk to my father?

(slightly confused) Just now. He gave me permission so may I have dance?

(very suspicious) What are you trying to pull? My father isn’t here!

(confused and embarrassed) But he’s right there, I asked him and he gave permission (pointing to my future uncle now laughing)

Oh, well that’s my brother in law, not my father, but I’ll dance with you.

My father made a date with my mother for next week but was very embarrassed and told the story to his brother Sam that evening. When Sam asked the girls name he said excitedly “Mary Quartarone? That’s the girl I was talking about! Boy Dominic that’s the girl for you!”

Needless to say things worked out, his future father in law was impressed by the story and my parents were married in 1947 and enjoyed 40 years together until my dad death back in 87.

Why does this remind me of the Assange case? Just this. The best way to avoid a bad situation is to avoid it. The right thing is generally the smart thing and the smart thing would have been not to have Assange in the house. Does that mean the ladies “had it coming”? Certainly not. Does that mean Assange is guilty? I don’t know the facts and frankly neither does anyone outside of the parties involved, but one of the side effects of moral norms are the protections they provide to people.

If Assange is guilty he will hopefully get what he deserves, (and given the damage his wikileaks has done he deserves a lot) but I would suggest to any star struck young lady who finds herself in a social setting with a “player”, that my mother’s 68 year old example is the one to follow.

Meanwhile while people debate the “skankiness” of Assange’s partners in Zimbabwe…

Posted: December 29, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
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…the wikileaks releases continue to put lives in danger.

Heroes of the American Left, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, have destroyed the best hope for ridding Zimbabwe of madman Robert Mugabe by releasing U.S. State Department cables of communications between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the leading opponent of Mugabe, and U.S. and E.U. officials, in which Tsvangirai secretly expressed support for sanctions against the brutal Mugabe regime as the only way to establish democracy in Zimbabwe.

He quotes this atlantic article that laments the results of the leak:

Any damage to democratic reforms from WikiLeaks likely comes not from malice but naivety. Assange is probably not best described, as Vice President Joe Biden recently put it, a “high-tech terrorist.” Rather, he, his organization, and their activist supporters believe that they can promote democracy by making an enemy of secrecy itself. What we’re seeing in Zimbabwe, however, is that those methods won’t necessarily be without significant collateral damage.

Chris it is not naivety, it is indifference. The goal is to hit the US and if some people who support democracy elsewhere end up dead who cares? This is the left, it is all about making ones self feel good (and no that wasn’t a reference to the great skank debate)

I’m with L Douglas Garrett:

The very idea that opposing Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF kleptocracy is in any way ‘treason’ against the nation of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) is shall-we-say open to dispute… although the medieval definition of ‘treason’ as an indignity against the person or property of the monarch might fit. Were that to be so in this case, of course, that would simply advertise more widely what is already known; that R. Mugabe and company see the state as their personal property.

I’ll say it plainly: In my opinion, conduct by any citizen of that nation that expedites the departure of the Mugabe regime is patriotism.

That’s about it.

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