Recently I have been messing around with Twitter, the social media site of the day (shameless plug: see me as warnerthuston on Twitter). So, checking out some of the Old Media to see what they were saying about Twitter, I ran across Time Magazine’s attempt to seem cool with the Twitterers, er Twitterists, er Twits, er whatever they are called. Time was following some “Tweets From a Washington Dinner” and I found something amusing there. Time, you see, added the Tweet from a guy claiming to be a John McCain adviser that was outed as a fraud months ago; Martin Eisenstadt.
You will recall that this fake Martin Eisenstadt was the same nonexistent fellow that fooled the media for weeks into thinking he was part of the McCain campaign for president. This Martin Eisenstadt even pretended to be a “Senior Fellow of the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy.” But it was finally revealed that this Martin Eisenstadt was really a liberal named Eitan Gorlin. But it didn’t come to light before he was quoted by several Old Media news outlets as a legitimate McCain adviser.
You might also recall that this fake McCain adviser made a splash in the Old Media because he claimed to know for a fact that Sarah Palin didn’t know that Africa was a continent. The Old Media was completely taken in by this fraud. By November of 2008, though, he was discovered as a hoaxer.
There is no Martin Eisenstadt and there is no such place as the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. The Old Media got taken. But, don’t tell that to Time Magazine. Let them continue in their little fantasy that Martin Eisenstadt still exists even though the rest of the world knew he was a hoax 6 months ago. Unfortunately for Time, even the mythical Eisenstadt is guffawing at their gullibility on his blog. Ah, the Old Media establishment. Always so reliable.
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Nancy Pelosi was aware of CIA torture
DEMOCRAT Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful person in the US Congress, and a critic of Bush administration interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, knew about the practice in 2003 and said nothing. The Speaker in the US House of Representatives made the admission yesterday in an extraordinary press conference as she fought to maintain her credibility among the Democratic base.
Appearing tense and flustered on the podium as she rifled through her notes, Ms Pelosi is in the firing line after offering several versions of events in the past few weeks about CIA briefings on interrogation policies in 2002 and 2003.
Republicans have accused her of hypocrisy and the Democrat from San Francisco has tried to hit back. She charged yesterday that the CIA was lying over what it was doing with detainees caught after 9/11. But she admitted for the first time that she learnt the CIA was employing harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding - which simulates drowning - in February 2003. She said a staffer alerted her to the contents of CIA briefings to other top politicians. She said the secrecy of the program prevented her from speaking out and denied that made her complicit in any detainee abuse.
The revelation is just one more of the bizarre explanations from Ms Pelosi over the CIA interrogation controversy. She acknowledges she was directly briefed by the CIA five months before that February conversation. But her account of the September 2002 meeting with CIA officials on the interrogation program differs markedly from that of the CIA and a Republican politician who was present.
Ms Pelosi said that in the briefing the CIA simply outlined the legal framework backing detainee interrogation but she was never told what interrogation measures the CIA had in mind or that any had been carried out - an explanation contradicted by others present.
SOURCE
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A Quick Lesson in Economics
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked; that no one would be poor, and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged, and everyone would receive the same grade; so no one would fail, and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged, and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset, and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less, and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings, and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.
That's pretty much what those dedicated Communists -- The Pilgrim Fathers -- found out too. He who will not learn from history ....
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Some Israelis understand Arabic
But none of the Western media do, it would seem
When talking among themselves and in Arabic, Middle East radicals often "let their hair down," to use the English-language idiom, meaning talk frankly about how they are fooling the dumb rubes in the West and what their real goals are. I often come upon this -except, of course, in the Western media. But the latest example, translated by MEMRI is irresistible.
The speaker in this case is Fatah's leader in Lebanon, Sultan Abu al-Einen, speaking on al-Quds television, April 6, 2009.
Very few people realize that during the Oslo peace process era, from 1994 to 2000, Israel admitted more than 200,000 Palestinians to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This includes Palestinian Authority (PA) personnel and their families and many others. This was an extraordinary humanitarian gesture and confidence-building measure for peace.
Unfortunately, such actions weren't reciprocated. And many of these people were no doubt involved in trying to murder Israelis-directly or indirectly-in the ensuing years.
Abu al-Einen, who put the number at 250,000 which is somewhat exaggerated but not that far off, is bragging. He has been asked by the interviewer what can be said that was good in the Oslo accords. He doesn't say that it brought the Palestinians closer to a compromise peace or a state, proved that Israel was a partner for peace or reduced bloodshed, or anything like that. His big example is that the Palestinians got a quarter of a million people back onto the battleground while giving nothing in return.
His second example of what was good about the Oslo accords is even more disconcerting. Israel allowed the Palestinians to bring in, or even gave them, guns which, according to Abu al-Einen totaled 40,000. Ha-ha! He says. Israel might have let these weapons be handed over, under the urgings of the United States and Europe, to maintain order in the Palestinian-governed areas and to prevent terrorism. But the ruling Fatah movement saw the weapons as a way to promote terrorism and kill Israelis.
Or in Abu al-Einen's words, "The weapons that were used against the Israeli enemy in Gaza and elsewhere - the Palestinian Authority takes pride in...weapons that were brought in as part of the agreement. These weapons were used in various times and places, and some people who returned from exile and bore these arms were martyred."
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
Germany now the ‘sick man of Europe’: "The eurozone economy slumped by a record 2.5 per cent in the first three months of the year, dragged down by Germany, which recorded the biggest drop in its GDP in nearly 40 years. The German economy, the engine room of the 16-nation eurozone, contracted by 3.8 per cent in the first quarter of the year, battered by the fall in demand for manufactured goods. This was the biggest drop in German GDP since records began in 1970 and followed a 2.2 per cent decline in the final quarter of last year. According to official data from Eurostat, the weakness in the eurozone economies was widespread, with Austria and the Netherlands suffering a 2.8 per cent drop in GDP. France, the second-largest eurozone economy, was slightly more resilient, contracting by 1.8 per cent, but the country has officially entered recession. The eurozone economy, which shrank at an annual rate of 4.6 per cent in the first quarter, has been in recession for a year.
Energy deal clubs Obama tax hopes: "House Democrats touted a weakened global-warming package Friday, releasing a compromise plan that undercuts President Obama's hopes to raise nearly $650 billion from the climate bill to pay for middle-class tax cuts. Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who have been locked in debate over how to tax carbon-dioxide emissions while protecting American industries, said Friday that their revised plan would give away 85 percent of the plan's carbon permits for free. Under Mr. Obama's original plan, businesses and other users would be required to purchase all of the permits through an auction, with the proceeds returned to middle- and lower-class taxpayers."
White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs': "The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use. In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country." Mr. Kerlikowske's comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate -- and likely more controversial -- stance on the nation's drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach. The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment's role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said."
The SEIU: A Case Study in Corruption: "The Services Employees International Union (SEIU) has been in the headlines in recent days for its collusion with the Obama Administration to strip the state of California of its rightful share of stimulus funds. It's a pay-to-play union ploy, one that California Representative Brian Bilbray (R), in an exclusive Washington News Observer interview, has termed “absurd.” Said Mr. Bilbray, “The entire concept of the president holding the taxpayers and the budget process in California hostage to be able to pay back to a union that gave [60] million dollars to his campaign, is just the kind of cynical politics that people are fed up with. We were promised change, and this is not change. This is really Chicago politics at its best—or its worst. I think that, the fact is, the local legislators, the governor have worked out a crisis policy here, and to have the president now use taxpayers money to extort policies out of the state of California is absurd. “Remember, this is not President Obama's money, this is California's taxpayer's money, that rightfully should be returned back to them, and without the strings. We're not talking about the stimulus package now being something that helps; this is not an issue of aid, this is an issue of control, and control from Washington.”
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here
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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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