Archive for the ‘internet/free speech’ Category

…regarding libel law:

While I am not litigious by nature — my views being rather Jacksonian in that regard — perhaps Governor Palin, Mrs. Vincent and their publishers have different views. It is my understanding that British libel law is far more inclined toward the plaintiffs than is true here in the United States, especially for “public figures” as covered under the U.S. Sullivan precedent.

Should Mrs. Vincent retain the services of a British attorney, I suspect that your publisher would be advised to settle the suit at any sum asked, as it would be quite impossible to prove that Mrs. Vincent is “closely associated with a well-known white supremacist,” which I most assuredly am not, no matter what any particular idiot has published to that effect or how often it has been repeated.

Think of the cost to your publisher, Felix Dennis, of flying Charles Johnson, Michelangelo Signorile, Rachel Maddow, et al., to London for a libel trial, sir. Ask yourself how such witnesses might stand up under cross-examination,

How do I know this is good advice? As Chris Hitchens reminds us Polanski won such a case in England :

In July 2005, Polanski took advantage of the notorious British libel laws to sue my colleagues at Vanity Fair and collect damages for his hurt feelings. It doesn’t matter much what the supposed complaint was—he had allegedly propositioned a Scandinavian model while purring about making her the next Sharon Tate—so much as it mattered that Polanski would dare to sue on a question of his own moral standing and reputation. “I don’t think,” he was quoted as saying of the allegation, “you could find a man who could behave in such a way.” Say what? Anxious for his thin skin, the British courts did not even put Polanski to the trouble of appearing in a country where he has never lived. They allowed him to pout his outraged susceptibilities by video link before heaping him with fresh money.

That being the case a certain Little Green Flake should be happy Mr. McCain is Jacksonian by nature. I’d say the same about Maddow but she doesn’t have to worry as Robert Stacy somehow thinks she is a handsomer woman than Mika. I beg to differ.

Frankly I think he should be more worried about Todd Palin. He has a lot more free time to avenge his wife’s honor.

…and that is North Korea:

North Korea is in the final stage of restoring its nuclear facilities, a news report said Tuesday, as leader Kim Jong Il expressed a conditional willingness to end Pyongyang’s boycott of international nuclear talks.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities reached the conclusion after scrutinizing about 10 atomic facilities in North Korea since April when the communist regime vowed to restart its nuclear program in anger over a U.N. rebuke of its long-range rocket launch.

I’m sure the media will get right on it as soon as their done fact checking SNL’s ass:

Heaven forbid that the average half-drunk late-night Saturday TV viewer be “misinformed” about our savior by a comedy show reminding them that health care’s “not done” (which it isn’t) and that Afghanistan’s gotten worse this year (which it has).

And people wonder why CNN and others are losing to a show at 3 a.m.

Red Eye averaged 432,000 total viewers and 202,000 in the demo. Let’s deal with the demo first – CNN’s 8pmET show, hosted by Campbell Brown, averaged 191,000 in the demo. Let’s just let that one sink in – Fox News had more people in the all important A25-54 demographic watching their channel at three in the morning (east coast time) than CNN had for the show that leads off their prime time. This says as much about Fox News as it does about CNN. Wow.

In total viewers (and demo), Red Eye beat the cable news competition three hours later. All three other morning shows, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, CNN’s American Morning and HLN’s Morning Express had less viewers in September.

I guess if I wanted to grow my blog in the early days I should have liveblogged Redeye.

Update: The Anchoress points this out with less snark than normal:

Yahoo ran a fact-check on the skit too. Can you believe it? The press is treating Obama like a little girl who needs all of their protection. And since both CNN and Yahoo have done this, I’m guessing someone at the WH wanted it done. Humorless, like I said. And stupid.

Read and watch the whole thing.

Morning Joe makes my head spin. He plays the “conservatives hate the US” over the Chicago stuff and then turns around and is the only guy who points out that 60 million were murdered by the China and the snubbing of the Dali Lama.

Then he goes and brings on Katrina vanden Heuvel and mainstreams her. It’s like a schizophrenic uncle.

Katty Kay makes a great point about the international press and not having a clue.

6:45: a.m. They are talking about anger in Rush’s voice? Are they watching the same clip that I was? Did they even listen to what he said?

Then again they are trying to leach off of him for eyeballs.

6:46 a.m. And Katty Kay not only decides that “Hussein” is an evil middle name again, they didn’t have a problem with it when the kids were chanting it.

Who wants to bet that in the next hour Vandel Heuvel goes with the “White Supremacist” stuff?

On Sept 30th I wrote this:

I personally would be shocked if MSNBC doesn’t pick this up sometime before the week is out.

5 days later we see Rachel Maddow using it without mentioning Robert Stacy by name on Meet the Press. Clever move too, by being ambiguous it allows the accusation to dangle there against Palin and her co-author and doesn’t require any of the people present to confirm her opinion on Robert Stacy she states it as a fact and instead of people having to say it’s BS they talk about “association” as if the charge was true.

Now because it was on Meet the Press it gives MSNBC an excuse to cover it and assures Charles of some screen time.

What a bunch of dishonorable people.

Update: If it only takes place online does it count as a Lesbian Rule 5 Catfight?