28 Nov 2017

Potpourri

Potpourri 28 Comments

==> I asked Scott Horton for a summary of the situation in Yemen; here he is on the Jason Stapleton show.

==> I really don’t have any strong view on this situation right now; I have to think it through. Anyway, in case you hadn’t heard, apparently Project Veritas got caught trying to trick WaPo into admitting they are out for Roy Moore. If people think this account is biased, I’m happy to hear alternative accounts.

==> I am NOT endorsing this, and I don’t get any financial consideration for linking to it. But “I knew a guy” who asked me to look at this new cryptocurrency (which automatically stays linked to purchasing power of the USD) and I thought it was interesting. I pass it along merely to show how people are trying to create new coins that don’t operate the same way as Bitcoin.

==> I kinda like this article, “Why the Most Incredible Women Often Have the Worst Dating Lives.” Even if I might quibble with some of the particulars, I applaud the approach.

==> I thought this was too funny not to screenshot. (This is not a joke; this was a real NYT column, and tweet pushing it.)

28 Responses to “Potpourri”

  1. Darien says:

    In re: Project Veritas, they definitely did get busted by the Post. James O’Keefe said as much in a press release a few days ago:

    “Following months of undercover work within The Washington Post, our investigative journalist embedded within the publication had their [sic] cover blown.

    This is how undercover work goes. This isn’t the first time that has happened, and it won’t be the last time.”

    O’Keefe has not, to my knowledge, confessed that he’s “working for Roy Moore,” as the Post alleges, nor any other of their bogeymen.

  2. Harold says:

    Project Veritas is interesting. It demonstrates the difference between the so-called “left wing” mainstream media and the right wing media. The MSM has standards of balance and truthfulness, generally attempts to and is expected to live up to those standards. Occasionally they fall short and sometimes they apologise.

    The right wing media is unashamedly biased and untruthful.

    Project Veritas illustrates this well, because can you imagine a left wing version secretly recording Breitbart journalists to reveal their bias? It is absurd, because their bias is not secret. There is no pretence at balance.

    Project Veritas pays people to lie to the press as their job. This is troubling because if those lies are successful they have an effect. In this case the effect would be to undermine the other allegations. Deliberately spreading lies about these matters is not a good idea and is at odds with “Veritas”.

    On women dating – a lot of the reasons can be summed up as “Men are jerks”.

    • Stephen Dedalus says:

      “The MSM has standards of balance and truthfulness, generally attempts to and is expected to live up to those standards.”

      Harold has you beat as a comedian, Bob!

      • Tel says:

        The MSM has twice the standards of any regular person.

        That’s why they call them “double standards”.

    • Major-Freedom says:

      “The MSM has standards of balance and truthfulness.”

      Everyone has standards, the problem with the MSM is that because of Operation Mockingbird their standards for truth are as low as what exists in the country.

      • Harold says:

        MF. Operation Mockingbird seems to be something like the Russians are doing. Plant stories in the media to control the public perception.

        Your use of language seems to have dropped off somewhat, as “their standards of truth are as low as what exists in the country” is difficult to parse.

        You claim that because of a CIA operation in the 50’s and 60’s the MSM standards are ” as low as what exists in the country”.

        Perhaps it is a failure on my part, but I really don’t know what you are trying to say.

        Humour me a little and try to put it in words I can understand.

    • R.L. Styne says:

      I just love Harold’s tribalism.

      Remember these, Harold?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRk91fv7KUE

      • Harold says:

        R.L Styne
        I don’t remember those. One was from 1993 and included the detailed apology and explanation of the mistakes that were made. Exactly as I said. This indicates that the compiler was able to find about 6 incidents going back 25 years.

        As I said, people make mistakes. Institutions with standards apologise when these are revealed. Your link is a straw man because I never said the media never lies.

        As said, MSM generally tries to live up to the standards. Breitbart and Project Veritas do not even pretend to do so.

    • guest says:

      “Project Veritas is interesting. It demonstrates the difference between the so-called “left wing” mainstream media and the right wing media. The MSM has standards of balance and truthfulness, generally attempts to and is expected to live up to those standards. Occasionally they fall short and sometimes they apologise.”

      It’s now 2022, and this claim did not age well. 😀

  3. Transformer says:

    re: The Kowala Protocol:. I wonder if they will bring out KGold fixed to a given weight of gold or a Kcommodity fixed to the value of a bundle of tradable commodities ?

  4. Matt M says:

    The interesting thing to me about the NYT tweet is, not only are all of the various Hollywood “harassment” accounts getting inappropriately looped in with Harvey Weinstein (who is accused of multiple accounts of literal forcible rape complete with a spy ring to prevent victims from retaliating)…

    But now even Harvey Weinstein is getting the unfair end of the stick. Surely he’s not accused of murder, nor are any of his female accusers related to him (as far as I know).

    • Harold says:

      The Oedipus reference is surely a rhetorical flourish and not intended to be taken seriously.

      • Matt M says:

        Surely.

        But it still strikes me as bad form to put a photo of a guy up next to a headline that says “murder and incest” when he is accused of neither.

        Just as it’s bad form to lump “masturbated in front of female coworkers with express verbal consent but maybe they didn’t think he was serious” with “multiple counts of forcible rape and intimidation of witnesses”

        We shouldn’t group highly disparate things together like that. It’s dishonest, whether it’s for “rhetorical flourish” or not.

        • Darien says:

          It’s a good thing the Times has “standards of balance and truthfulness,” hey? Just imagine the horrible things they’d imply about Harvey Weinstein otherwise!

          • Dan says:

            Reading his comments makes me susceptible to permanent eye roll.

          • Harold says:

            The first word of the headline is important: Opinion: ,,, This tells us this is not reporting on fact.

            So yes, NYT has standards and is more or less sticking to them.

            • Craw says:

              So, a headline with your picture that read “Opinion: child molesters must be stopped” would count as sticking to standards and perfectly fair?

              • Harold says:

                That is not a fair analogy. The NYT headline does not say “Murderers must be stopped”, does it?

                This is slightly senseless argument. It is possible to malign someone by juxtaposition of pictures and text. This example (NYT above) does not in my opinion do so. That is partly because the literary reference in the title indicates it is not meant literally, partly because it is in the opinion section and partly because what he is accused of is so well known that nobody is likely to think he is now accused of murder from this. NYT is living up to the standards expected.

                Trump on the other hand clearly implied that Scarborough should be terminated (employment I think) due to “unsolved mystery” in Florida. Presumably a reference to the death of an intern. Do you think that is OK? Which is more close to accusing someone of murder?

        • Harold says:

          Matt M. Out of interest, what do you think of Trump suggesting Scaborough played a role in death of a woman when he is not accused of it? Just bad form or something worse?

    • Matt M says:

      On a similar note, see Fox New’s reporting on Matt Lauer:

      “Lauer’s behavior with women at NBC included luring a female employee into his office and exposing his penis to her, giving a sex toy as a gift and playing the game “f–k, marry or kill.”

      One is clearly a fireable and actionable offense of sexual harassment, another is somewhat crass behavior that probably crosses the line but isn’t nearly as obviously bad, and the third item is a harmless word game played by middle schoolers across the country on a routine basis. Lumping all of these things together in the same general category is outrageous.

      • Stephen Dedalus says:

        Anyone who thinks playing a word game with that name is “harmless” is a moron.

      • Craw says:

        You are missing the point. The point is precisely to implicate those middle schoolers as exam0les of “toxic masculinity “.

        • Harold says:

          Matt M can speak for himself, but he clearly said this was a harmless game played by middle schoolers.

          Stephen seems to think that the game is not harmless. This undermines Matt’s case that playing this game is of no account.

          There are many possible reasons why the game is not harmless. One is the use of profanity, which some consider harmful. Another is the objectification of women, which others consider harmful.

          I do not have strong opinion on middle schoolers playing it. I imagine girls have a version too, although it seems to mostly be played by boys and men. It is distasteful in my opinion.

          Matt is right though, that all things should not be lumped together. A Conservative Home Secretary in UK, Ken Clarke, got into trouble for suggesting that penalties could be lower for “date rape” than “stranger rape”.

          There was an outcry that “rape is rape” and he had to back down quickly. However, date rape cases are very difficult to prosecute. By their nature they are usually one word against another, impossible to get beyond reasonable doubt. Juries are not going to send someone away for 20 years for this. However, if there were a lesser crime of “date rape”, juries would be much more willing to convict (I believe). It seems to be the only realistic way to get higher conviction rates. Studies have shown that higher chances of getting caught are a much stronger deterrent that longer sentences, so this may be a much stronger deterrent as well.

          However again, Matt s wrong that listing different behaviours is necessarily putting them into the same category.

  5. Jim O'Connor says:

    11 Reasons why the most incredible women have the worst dating lives…

    Could be summarized as “11 ways men are just insecure sh*t”.

    Or, how to completely misunderstand what the sexes want out of each other and why this is all men’s fault.

  6. Major.Freedom says:

    The communists who need gender and race conflict to be created are very much creating conflict against men and white people.

    Project Veritas is not working for Moore, that is a CIA manufactured lie. Veritas is exposing the lies from the NYT, which doesn’t get reported on the MSM, which is precisely why some posters here don’t know about it.

    • Anonymous says:

      Capitalists such as Shell apparently need to create race conflict against people like the Nigerians just so that rich people in mostly white nations can have cheap gasoline. Stealing land, poisoning, killing, bribing the Nigerian military… very deadly race conflict.

      https://imgur.com/a/DjuNc

    • Anonymous says:

      Another example of a white supremacy in action is bombing and wars against third world nations, as explained by Lee Camp.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF3VuDXK95k&t=15m28s

  7. Harold says:

    “…that is a CIA manufactured lie.”

    Have you been away crafting your tinfoil hat?

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