Biased Media

Could You Imagine This Type of Support from O`Donnell for Bush ~ Me Neither

Published by Papa Giorgio

O’Donnell schooled by chess-player:

From video description:

On MSNBC’s The Last Word on September 16, after former chess champion and Russian political activist Garry Kasparov charged that President Obama had “blown up [the] reputation of his office” by allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk him down from his “red line” warning against Syria, host Lawrence O’Donnell tried to argue that Obama had not really lost face since he never specifically promised military action, even though the President warned of “enormous consequences” if chemical weapons were used.

Kasparov called out O’Donnell’s spin: “Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I think, I agree that that was the goal, and that’s why President said, “red line.” I understand that red line means that if somebody crosses red line, then you act and don’t talk anymore.”

READ MORE: http://mrc.org/biasalerts/msnbcs-odonnell-gets-schooled-garry-kasparov-obamas-red-line-waffle

Take note the agreement does not include biological weapons:

NAVY Shooter, Gun-Free Zones, 2nd Amendment Examples (CAUTION! the last video is GRAPHIC!)-UPDATED! NO AR-15 (two pistols & Shotgun)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gateway Pundit posts a great short comment about the NAVY yard shooter:

More than 40 federal agencies are armed to the teeth, including the Library of Congress, the Federal Reserve Board and the EPA.  But our military on military bases? Nope.

That fact is not lost on David Codrea at Gun Rights Examiner:

“While authorities are trying to piece together exactly what happened and who, if anyone besides dead named shooter Aaron Alexis was involved in today’s massacre at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., one fact is indisputable. The killer(s) took advantage of a “gun free zone” at not only the facility, but one that extends throughout Washington. D.C.

(Full exchange can be seen here)

UPDATE! Piers Morgan looks like an ASS! In the above video he says an AR-15 was and purchased in Virginia. What a dope!

Thanks HOT AIR!!!

Breitbart talks Clinton and “gun-free” zones:

It hasn’t always been the case that only MPs can carry firearms on U.S. military bases. A mere twenty years ago, “gun free zones” made their way to these facilities under the watch of President Bill Clinton.

According to a Washington Times editorial written days after the Nov. 5, 2009 attack on soldiers at Fort Hood, one of Clinton’s “first acts upon taking office… was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases.”

Clinton’s actions birthed Army regulations “forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection.”

In other words, thanks to Clinton, citizens who join the military to use guns to defend liberty abroad cannot practice their constitutional right to keep and bear arms while on active duty at home.

As the Times editorial board put it: “Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood.”

…read more…

`To Judge, Or Not To Judge` ~ Weiner Opts for the Later

Published by Papa Giorgio
Pragerism

“Most of the problems with our culture can be summed up in one phrase: ‘Who are you to say?’” ~ Dennis Prager.

(This comes via a h/t to Libertarian Republican) I thought this exchange between Weiner and a fellow Jew (who was very wise in his summation), but Wiener’s relativism comes screaming through. Let’s deal with this self-refuting statement first, and then let CARM jump in on the ethics wagon. The question becomes, if looking at Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s famous maxim, “If there is no God, all things are permissible,”

✡ “If there IS a God, are all things still permissible?”

Even the right to walk the streets without consequences for one’s actions? This aside, let us unpack a bit the challenge with three mock conversations from, Relativism: Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-Air, and is taken from a larger paper incorporating a wide variety of sources on this:

First Person: “You shouldn’t force your morality on me.”

Second Person: “Why not?”

First Person: “Because I don’t believe in forcing morality.”

Second Person: “If you don’t believe in it, then by all means, don’t do it. Especially don’t force that moral view of yours on me.”

First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”

Second Person: “I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that statement. Do you mean I have no right to an opinion?”

First Person: “You have a right to you’re opinion, but you have no right to force it on anyone.”

Second Person: “Is that your opinion?”

First Person: “Yes.”

Second Person: “Then why are you forcing it on me?”

First Person: “But your saying your view is right.”

Second Person: “Am I wrong?”

First Person: “Yes.”

Second Person: “Then your saying only your view is right, which is the very thing you objected to me saying.”

First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”

Second Person: “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you here, but it sounds to me like your telling me I’m wrong.”

First Person: “You are.”

Second Person: “Well, you seem to be saying my personal moral view shouldn’t apply to other people, but that sounds suspiciously like you are applying your moral view to me.  Why are you forcing your morality on me?”

Self-Defeating

  • “Most of the problems with our culture can be summed up in one phrase: ‘Who are you to say?’” ~ Dennis Prager.  So lets unpack this phrase and see how it is self-refuting, or as Tom Morris[1] put it, self-deleting. When someone says, “Who are you to say?” answer with, “Who are you to say ‘Who are you to say’?” [2]

This person is challenging your right to correct another, yet she is correcting you.  Your response to her amounts to “Who are you to correct my correction, if correcting in itself is wrong?” or “If I don’t have the right to challenge your view, then why do you have the right to challenge mine?”  Her objection is self-refuting; you’re just pointing it out.

The “Who are you to say?” challenge fails on another account.  Taken at face value, the question challenges one’s authority to judge another’s conduct.  It says, in effect, “What authorizes you to make a rule for others?  Are you in charge?”  This challenge miscasts my position.  I don’t expect others to obey me simply because I say so.  I’m appealing to reason, not asserting my authority.  It’s one thing to force beliefs; it’s quite another to state those beliefs and make an appeal for them.

The “Who are you to say?” complaint is a cheap shot.  At best it’s self-defeating.  It’s an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of your moral judgments, but the statement itself implies a moral judgment.  At worst, it legitimizes anarchy.[3]

[1] Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (IDG Books; 1999), p. 46
[2] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.
[3] Via SCRIBD

Defining Relativism ~ Dr. Beckwith

Dennis Prager, quite a few years ago, points out quite well that what the Left wants is NOT to be judged, in contradistinction to a ethical norm in human behavior:

  • Personal responsibility means you could be judged guilty.

  • We never want to be judged guilty.
  • So we must stop people who make such judgments.
  • We stop them by calling them judgmental.

He continues

We have substituted normal and sick for good and evil, and that, again, means no personal responsibility. How can you be held responsible if you did what you did because you are sick?…. There is no one standard to which all people are accountable any more. And that’s what Race-Gender-Class does. It subverts responsibility.

CARM rightly makes the point that — especially those who believe in the Bible (as Wiener seemingly professes in the above video)

…Without a standard of morality, there is no way to judge what is good or bad. Atheists, for example, might decry what is the behavior of God in the Old Testament when he orders the destruction of people groups. But, by what standard does any atheist have to judge what is morally correct? At best, an atheist would only have the ability to express an opinion since he cannot offer any objective standard of morality.

Religious people can appeal to a higher power from which they can ascertain what is good and bad…. God does and he has communicated his standard of righteousness. This communication is found in the Bible. Take the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20. We see a codification of moral standards. We are told not to lie, not to commit adultery, not to covet, etc.  These are standards given to us by God and though there are other cultures that don’t believe in the biblical God, they might have similar moral codes.  But, for the Christian the Bible is the supreme authority that judges what is moral.

We can only judge what is moral if we have a standard given to us by God, not some standard that is based on emotion, opinion, or the changing morals of society.  Even though atheists, agnostics, Muslims, and non-Christians might not approve of standards found in the Scriptures, we Christians believe that the Bible is the revealed and inspired Word of God and that within its pages are the moral standards by which we are to model our behavior. Therefore, the right to we have to judge what is moral comes from God as is revealed in his Word….

So Wiener’s summation in this back-and-forth show most of all his lack of deep thought on the important issue of public morality… and the consequences of violating it. Becoming a laughing stock!

Even Gay Patriot couldn’t pass this example of narcissism up!

It shows one of life’s classic moral confrontations.

  • The normal person (“normal” just meaning, “takes for granted that there are norms of personal behavior”) expresses a viewpoint like: There are norms; you are aware that you violated them when you repeatedly betrayed and humiliated your wife with your deviance, right? I’m not judging you, you can go home and have a good life, but you really don’t belong in the public eye. Have a nice life, but please stop bothering us here in the public square.
  • While the malignant narcissist expresses a viewpoint like: How DARE you tell me that I don’t belong in the public eye, being adored (e.g., voted for – and given power)?! You small person, you coward, you ignoramus, you self-appointed judge, you [insert names of choice]!

Hat tip, Michelle Malkin.

And Moonbat makes the point that some are attacking Obama’s positions just like they did Bush’s, but the difference this time is the media is ignoring it. Hmmmm… “naw, this isn’t more proof of a media bias” — says lemming:

CBS Opted for Al Gore`s Memo While Ignoring Mother Nature`s (Comedy At Its Best! Thanks CBS)

Published by Papa Giorgio


WUWT states via Bloomberg:

Six tropical systems have formed in the Atlantic since the season began June 1 and none of them has grown to hurricane strength with winds of at least 74 miles (120 kilometers) per hour. Accumulated cyclone energy in the Atlantic, a measure of tropical power, is about 30 percent of where it normally would be, said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of Colorado State University’s seasonal hurricane forecasts.

“At this point, I doubt that a super-active hurricane season will happen,” Klotzbach said in an e-mail yesterday.

Via Breitbart:

Al Gore was recently taken to task for exaggerating claims involving the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. The latest weather news makes his misrepresentations look all the more ridiculous.

For the first time since 2002, this year there will be no hurricane activity before September 1.

Reports indicate this is only the 25th time in 161 years that has happened. 

The first hurricane of the season has formed on or after September 1 only 25 times in the past 161 years. Since the satellite era began in the mid-1960s, there have only been five years without a hurricane by August 31. The last time a hurricane failed to form before September 1 was in 2002 when Hurricane Gustav formed on September 11.

It would be foolish to make fun of anything involving such potentially dangerous storms and it’s also possible we could still see many late developing storms. However, given all the misleading information passed off on the topic by Gore, his allies and a fawning media, hopefully any lack of serious storm activity won’t be buried by the media for political reasons.

Liberal Egalitarianism Fights the Important Battles of Our Day ~ NOT! (Libs vs. Washington Redskins)

Published by Papa Giorgio

~UPDATED with MSNBC and Prager article ~

(video is via HotAir)

Via Townhall.com:

…“The word redskin has a relatively innocent history. As Smithsonian linguist Ives Goddard has shown, European settlers in the 18th century seem to have adopted the term from Native Americans, who used ‘red skin’ to describe themselves, and it was generally a descriptor, not an insult.”

So, then, what’s so bad about the name Redskins?

Slate Argument One: “Here’s a quick thought experiment: Would any team, naming itself today, choose “Redskins” or adopt the team’s Indian-head logo? Of course it wouldn’t.”

Response: There are many teams with names that wouldn’t be adopted today. Who would name a team the “Red Sox,” “White Sox,” “Packers,” “Dodgers,” “Forty-Niners,” “Steelers,” or, for that matter, “Yankees?”

Slate Argument Two: “While the name Redskins is only a bit offensive, it’s extremely tacky and dated — like an old aunt who still talks about ‘colored people.’ … “

Response: Since Slate dismisses the term “colored people” as “tacky and dated,” why doesn’t it call on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP), to change its name?

Slate Argument Three: “Changing how you talk changes how you think. … Replacing ‘same-sex marriage’ with ‘marriage equality’ helped make gay marriage a universal cause rather than a special pleading.”

Response: It’s nice to have at least one left-wing source acknowledge how the left changes language to promote its causes. When more and more people began to suspect that global warming was not about to bring an apocalypse, and that, at the very least, it is in a pause mode, the left changed the term to “climate change.”

The “marriage equality” substitution for “same-sex marriage” is just one more example of dishonest manipulation of English.

Orwellian manipulation of language by the left would be reason enough to oppose dropping “Redskins,” a nearly 80-year-old tradition venerated by millions.

Argument Four is the key argument, offered by the Atlantic, in its support of Slate:

Response: “Whether people ‘should’ be offended by it or not doesn’t matter; the fact that some people are offended by it does.”

This is classic modern liberalism. It is why I have dubbed our age “The Age of Feelings.”

In classic progressive fashion, the Atlantic writer commits two important errors.

First, it does matter “whether people ‘should’ feel offended.” If we ceased using all arguments or descriptions because some people feel offended, we would cease using any arguments or descriptions. We should use the “reasonable person” test to determine what is offensive, not the “some people are offended” criterion.

On a recent broadcast of my radio show, I played excerpts of winning songs from the recent Eurovision Contest. One of them was from Hungary, and after I announced the Hungarian title, I jokingly translated it as “Let’s invade Romania.”

A man called up, and in unaccented English said he was of Hungarian stock and that I should apologize for offending him and Hungarians generally. I told him that his taking offense at a harmless joke was his problem, not what I said.

Teaching people to take offense is one of the left’s black arts. Outside of sex and drugs, the left is pretty much joyless and it kills joy constantly. The war on the “Redskins” name is just the latest example.

Second, it is the left that specializes in offending: labeling the Tea Party racist, public cursing, displaying crucifixes in urine, and regularly calling Republicans evil (Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column last month, wrote that the Republican mindset “takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable.” For such people to find the name “Redskins” offensive is a hoot.

[….]

The logo of the National Hockey League team, the Ottawa Senators, features a helmeted male senator of the Roman Empire. In the name of not offending the transgendered and of gender equality, the left will one day find that offensive, too; and demand that the logo feature a helmeted female as well.

…read more…

 Now for Prager’s insights… more coming today I am sure!

Some info from NewsBusters on this:

….Additionally, there’s no credible data to show Native Americans are seething over the team’s name, either. A survey done by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in 2003 and 2004 found that 90 percent of Native Americans were not offended by the Redskins name.

The clamor for a name change appears to be coming from a relatively small number of politically liberal Native Americans, and from white liberals in the media. It could turn into a dangerous and slippery slope. For if the Redskins are pressured to change their name, shouldn’t the Cleveland Indians change theirs as well? What about the Kansas City Chiefs, Atlanta Braves, and the many high schools and colleges that use Native American-themed nicknames? While we’re at it, let’s coerce Notre Dame to change its nickname as well. “Fighting Irish” is demeaning to our Irish-American brothers and sisters….

Newsmax lists some other orgs that will cease using it as well:

…In response to Slate’s announcement, New Republic editor Franklin Foer Tweeted on Thursday that his publication would follow suit.

The liberal magazine Mother Jones said on Friday it would also avoid using the name.

Other newspapers, websites and sports writers have taken similar stands, including The Washington City Paper, Washington online site DCist.com, the Kansas City Star newspaper and football writers at the Buffalo News and the Philadelphia Daily News.

The National Congress of American Indians, an advocacy group, said Slate.com recognized “the derogatory origins and nature of the team’s name.”

Representatives for the team declined to comment about the decisions by Slate and the other media organizations, but team owner Daniel Snyder recently told the newspaper USA Today, “We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. Never. You can use all caps.”…