Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Jonah Goldberg writes a column in the LA times the once and for all proves that there are lies, damn lies and statistics:

According to the FBI, hate crimes against Muslims increased by a staggering 1,600% in 2001. That sounds serious! But wait, the increase is a math mirage. There were 28 anti-Islamic incidents in 2000. That number climbed to 481 the year a bunch of Muslim terrorists murdered 3,000 Americans in the name of Islam on Sept. 11.

Now, that was a hate crime.

Roll that number around your head. There are 300+ Million people in the US and 50 states in the country and in 2001 “hate crimes” a population out for revenge doesn’t even hit one a month per state?

Regardless, 2001 was the zenith or, looked at through the prism of our national shame, the nadir of the much-discussed anti-Muslim backlash in the United States. The following year, the number of anti-Islamic hate-crime incidents (overwhelmingly, nonviolent vandalism and nasty words) dropped to 155. In 2003, there were 149 such incidents. And the number has hovered around the mid-100s or lower ever since.

Sure, even one hate crime is too many. But does that sound like a anti-Muslim backlash to you?

So we are talking vandalism and nasty words? Lets look at the post 2002 numbers for a sec, The fabulously intolerant Americans that Andrea Mitchell is lecturing concerning sensitivity managed less than one “incident” per season per state since 9/11? And these “incidents” are apparently vandalism and nasty words? This again in a population of 300+ million?

Read the whole thing including that the number of anti Jewish incidents are 6 times higher and anti-islamic ones in the US over the same period.

Maybe if the MSM wants to find bigotry it should look in the mirror and ask themselves why they think the American people are a bunch of hate mongers. Then perhaps their ratings wouldn’t be in the toilet

And finally lets drop this whole “hate” crimes nonsense anyway. It criminalizes thought. Prosecute a rock through a window because it’s a rock through somebody’s window. Justice and law should be color blind.

memeorandum thread here

Update: I would have given a parody example of the MSM’s way of thinking but I couldn’t do better than Alex Pareene’s actual column for salon today. It is almost impossible to parody the left wing media.

If you are why don’t you join me at the Border Grille & Bar in Leominster Mass. I will be attending the Twin City tea party meeting that starts around 6:30 but will be staying afterward to talk and enjoy the half price appetizers and 25 cent wings.

If you are up for the tea party meeting come down and take a look, if you aren’t free till later say 9 p.m. then come afterward, we’ll enjoy some blogger company, do a segment or two of DaTechGuy’s field guide to bloggers, and maybe film a brief bloggers round table for our readers.

I’ll even bring extra hats in the car. What do you say?

but Chris Hitchens has only so many columns left in him so they should be promoted while there is still time:

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything “offensive” to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it’s easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be “phobic.” A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

Read the whole things and as you do remember this is from a supporter of the Mosque.

I’m going to miss Hitchens when he’s gone

memeorandum thread here

According to Tucker Carlson (who hasn’t hired me even slightly) or more properly Jonathan Strong says at least half of conservative bloggers are getting paid for coverage.

To that I say. I wish! Today I was at the Charlie Baker event in Framingham. I got up at 5, filled up the car, bought batteries and spent 95 minutes on the road at Rush Hour to get to Forte’s Parts connection in Framingham where he was appearing. Once there Interviewed the owner, one of his competitors who was there for the appearance, Charlie Baker, Mary Connaughton (Candidate for Auditor) and two state rep candidates Ed McGrath and Chris Resmini. I walked in the door back home just after 12 noon.

Once I got home I started uploading pictures and videos so they could be posted and shared with people interested in Massachusetts races. If you have to count the dollars I got for doing this, I’d say it amounts to nearly…..nearly one. Call it none.

I am very out of work and have been for a long time. If any of the people that the Daily caller seems to know wants to help kick in to pay for this I’d be more than happy to take their money. If candidates who want coverage want to pay me to go anywhere in the country to cover their story, I’d love to do it, but the daily caller not withstanding it’s more like what Robert Stacy said today:

Most conservative bloggers are part-timers, for whom a couple of hundred dollars a month would be a godsend. Trying to “monetize” Web traffic is a notoriously difficult task, and even successful full-time bloggers aren’t exactly “farting through silk,” to borrow P.J. O’Rourke’s colorful phrase.

That’s me all over, so Tucker if you know republicans willing to finance conservative bloggers send them right over.

Oh and here are the photos from the appearance:

Update: memeorandum thread here