This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • The dumbest crap ever written

    I thought I’d read the dumbest shit ever written at Veterans Today and from Gordon Duff, but this one from the Old Media has everything over there beat hands down. In the Minnesota Post is an article written by Doug Grow entitled “This week’s American Legion gathering is latest evidence that government does create jobs”;

    It has become popular — especially among conservative voices — to say that government doesn’t create jobs and economic growth; that only the private sector can do that. Government, the voices say, needs to get out of the way.

    But this week, more than 10,000 members of the American Legion will be in the Twin Cities, filling up hotels and restaurants throughout downtown Minneapolis. Before they leave, the delegates to the convention are expected to spend from $17 million to $22 million in the region.

    Much of the money will end up in state coffers directly through sales taxes and indirectly by income taxes paid by people whose jobs depend on tourism dollars. According to Explore Minnesota, there are 70,000 people in Hennepin County alone whose jobs revolve around travel and tourism.

    The point: The Legion delegates — and the thousands of delegates from dozens of other large conventions — wouldn’t be here without the Minneapolis Convention Center.

    The convention center is a product of government. It’s owned by the city. It’s built — and maintained — through a variety of hotel, restaurant and entertainment taxes. Authority for levying those taxes came from the 1986 Legislature.

    Government doesn’t create jobs? The convention center would seem to be a small example of a different reality.

    Fucking brilliant. One local government builds a convention center and it’s proof that conservatives are bone heads. How can Grow translate that into a national jobs program? Is Obama going to fund a series of convention centers?

    The structure, which opened in 1989, is not self-sustaining. Tax collections from hotel, liquor and restaurant taxes amount to about $48 million a year. $18 million of that is used to subsidize operations of the building, and the rest goes to pay off debt and keep the center as current as possible.

    But by continuing to invest, Tennant said, “the building remains ahead of the [national] competition.”

    “It’s designed to be a loss leader,” said Tennant. “There’s an effort to minimize the losses. But in every way, it’s been a great public investment.”

    Oh, so it doesn’t make enough money to be profitable without continuously dipping into taxpayer pockets, but somehow it’s proof that government creates jobs, huh? Funny, but something that costs more in taxes than it’s worth is hardly an asset to taxpayers, Mr. Grow.

  • Who cares what happens to NYC?

    So this hurricane, a category 1 hurricane, basically a strong rainstorm, is headed to New York City and everyone who is outside will get wet. The horrors of broken window panes and storm tossed boats really hit home when you watch reportage like this from Fox News;

    Nanny-mayor Bloomberg went on television last night to warn citizens to be careful with candles, which, apparently are somehow, fire hazards. Did you know that? I didn’t until Bloomberg told me. Geraldo Rivera was live on Fox News all night reporting that the Fox office building was getting wet. The horror of it all. He played clips from disaster movies when they came back from ads – it was all so much drama over a big rain storm. Don’t they realize how ridiculous they appear?

    Is there nothing else going on in the world? Does anyone really care if the streets of Manhattan get rained upon? Or if the vacationers at Fire Island have to cut short their vacations?

    UPDATE: Now Irene is downgraded to a tropical storm. Think that’ll downgrade the news coverage?

  • Newspaper retracts awesomest SEAL story

    The Mountain News which published a story about a clown who claimed that he commanded SEAL Team 6 and spent 31 years as a SEAL which we discussed last week, has admitted that perhaps they’d been a bit hasty in trotting out this particular fairy tale;

    A Freedom of Information request to ascertain whether Carl was ever trained as a Navy SEAL was submitted this week. However, Eric Erdmann, Freedom of Information coordinator at the Navy’s base in Coronado, California, said confirmation could not be provided by press time.

    However, Wikipedia, the online Encyclopedia, says SEAL Team 6 was disbanded in 1987 and replaced by a new unit, designated at the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU).

    The final commanding officer of the unit formerly known as SEAL Team 6 listed on that website was Capt. Scott P. Moore, who led the unit from 2004-06, a period that includes the time Carl claimed to have led the unit.

    So basically, they’re admitting that they’re doing their research retroactively. Funny how they discovered Wikipedia after they ran the article. I wish they’d tell us this goof-ass’ name so we can do our own research on him, because at this point, they have no credibility.

    His story was provably false from the first paragraph when he convinced the “journalist” that he went from Parris Island to Coronado. I’m sure the Navy has enough volunteers and they don’t need Marines to be SEALs…and I don’t think a Marine would want to be a sailor, anyway.

    Even when Mountain News gets the FOIA, are they even going to know what they’re reading? They need me on their staff, the buttnuggets.

  • That retirement pay thing again

    Several of you are upset with a CBS story about the planned changes to the military retirement system. I guess they shouldn’t have started the story the way they did;

    It sounds like a pretty good deal: Retire at age 38 after 20 years of work and get a monthly pension of half your salary for the rest of your life. All you have to do is join the military.

    Yep, that’s “all you have to do”…join. You don’t have to spend months away from your family, live in the mud, climb mountains pulling a 500-pound ahkio behind you through waist deep snow, suffer in triple digit temperatures and no air conditioning in sight. Stand in real torrential downpours, holding a spike lined tree hoping you don’t get washed away. Sleep in a hammock four inches above the swamp water because you don’t like waking up with poisonous snakes in your bed. You don’t have to live for days on a few moments of sleep or forage for your food. You don’t have to arrive at the cutting edge of battle by land, sea, or air.

    You don’t have to be responsible not only for your welfare, but the welfare of 30 other people and 7 million dollars worth of equipment, all before you’re 25 years old. Or you don’t have to move 120 one million dollar-plus vehicles and their crews from point A to point B across the plains of Europe before you’re 30 years old.

    You don’t have to look your country’s enemies in the eye and pull your trigger and then live with the attendant dreams the rest of your life. You don’t have to wake up with night sweats screaming almost every night. You don’t have to deal with the hippies spitting on you and calling you names. You don’t have to intermittently watch your children grow up.

    Your day doesn’t start at 4 in the morning and end at 6 PM on a regular duty day – on one of your short days. And it doesn’t include those days when you get called at 2 AM for an alert and you don’t come home for a month or six.

    And, oh, you don’t have to share half of your pension with that cheatin’ wife who couldn’t wait for you to come home from doing your duty before she divorced you.

    All you have to do is join the military and your future is secured with that anemic pension that presidents and Congress can snatch away from you a portion at a time.

    By the way, CBS, the military pension hasn’t been “half your salary” since Jimmy Carter made it 40% for folks who joined after 1977. Do your research.

  • Will Obama be at Dover this time?

    Last week, soon after that helicopter crashed killing 30 US troops, five more were killed in an IED attack when members of Company C, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division rolled over the explosive device in their MRAP. Now there was hardly a blip in the media when these five died. From Stars & Stripes;

    Sgt. Edward J. Frank II, 26, of Yonkers, N.Y.; Spc. Jameel T. Freeman, 26, of Baltimore, Md.; Spc. Patrick L. Lay II, 21, of Fletcher, N.C.; Spc. Jordan M. Morris, 23, of Stillwater, Okla.; Pfc. Rueben J. Lopez, 27, of Williams, Calif.

    So, with the headlines blasting over the helicopter crash, the president almost broke his neck to get to the air field to get his picture taken saluting the returning heroes. I wonder if he’ll bother to take some time out from this week’s activities to welcome these latest fallen soldiers. I’ll grant you that they aren’t SEALs, but that doesn’t make their sacrifice any less valuable or any less deserving of the president’s presence.

    Should we only expect him to attend solemn events when the media has a large presence? Or are some warriors more important than others?

  • Those crack reporters at CNN

    COB6 sends a CNN link from his undisclosed location about an Uzbek man in Alabama who was seeking help in assassinating our president;

    A 21-year-old man from Uzbekistan living in Alabama sought assistance to kill President Barack Obama, either by shooting him or potentially using explosives for a suicide attack, according to a government affidavit.

    Ulugbek Kodirov was indicted Tuesday and charged with threatening to kill the president.

    OK, so far, so good in the reportage arena, until CNN gets to the last line;

    Kodirov faces four counts of threatening the president and other weapons charges — including possessing grenades and an M15 machine gun, the Justice Department said.

    Oh, yeah? An M15 machine gun? COB6 speculates that Ulugbek is some kind of scary assassin from the future or more likely, the Justice Department and CNN don’t know what the hell the ass clown had for weaponry.

    I guess it’s too much to ask CNN to report that it was an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, because M15 machine gun just sounds more intelligent.

    I’m surprised they didn’t try to classify the grenades. You know, like the M203 high capacity grenades with fully automatic safety clips.

  • But, But… A Free Press is Supposed to be a GOOD Thing?

    First this almost viral story:  From Don Surber, and many others.

    That Vietnam hero John Kerry is saying:

    And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual.

    It doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what’s real, of who’s accountable, of who is not accountable, of who’s real, who isn’t, who’s serious, who isn’t?

    Then I stumbled across THIS curious bit of logic: Journalism Needs Government Help

    At the same time, however, the financial viability of the U.S. press has been shaken to its core. The proliferation of communications outlets has fractured the base of advertising and readers. Newsrooms have shrunk dramatically and foreign bureaus have been decimated. My best estimate is that there are presently only a few dozen full-time foreign correspondents from the U.S. covering all of China, despite the critical importance of that nation to our future.

    Both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission are undertaking studies of ways to ensure the steep economic decline faced by newspapers and broadcast news does not deprive Americans of the essential information they need as citizens. One idea under consideration is enhanced public funding for journalism. (emphasis added)

    Mr. Bollinger goes on to say we need NOT fear government control of The Press:

    There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research.

    I guess nameless bureaucrats in some cubicles deciding who gets how much, and for what, isn’t really a form of control?

    We, The Great Unwashed, are simply not enlightened enough to make these decisions in the market place! Big Brother will take of of us in yet another way.

  • It’s easy to fool fools

    The article started with a tear-jerking story about a soldier foresaken by his country…reporters love that shit;

    “Sir, I served honorably for this country. I gave blood for this country. And I lived in a hell hole as a prisoner of war for this country,” he told me, fighting back emotions. “But my government doesn’t care about me, and I’m tired of getting crapped on and forgotten about.”

    Pagell, who turns 69 next week, served four tours in Vietnam as a U.S. Army cardiovascular nurse, first arriving in 1961.

    On June 6, 1964, he was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned in a cage that was 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. There, for “26 months, 12 days, 14 hours and 23 minutes,” Pagell lived, cried, urinated, defecated, yelled, laughed and questioned God’s existence.

    “I cried out to God for his angel of death to come take me home,” he recalled in vivid detail.

    The angel of death should have taken him at that moment – and the reporter, Jerry Davich, for good measure. He was lying, Jerome Pagell, had never left the country during his service…but that wasn’t what the forged documents he gave Jerry Davich said. The reporter, in his follow-up mea culpa article quoted the local VFW commander;

    “This man should be charged with the Stolen Valor Act and made to apologize to real veterans,” [Earl McDowell, District 1 commander for the state’s Veterans of Foreign Wars] told me afterward.

    McDowell first met Pagell last year to discuss his issues with Veterans Affairs and the U.S. government.

    “He told me he had attained the rank of major in the Army, but could only produce a DD-214 that showed he was a private first class,” McDowell said. “His records do not indicate any overseas time.”

    So how is this the reporter’s fault? He probably didn’t recognize the forgeries as such and probably shouldn’t be expected to spot forgeries, but he checked the DoD’s POW database and couldn’t find Pagell’s name. Jerry Davich accepts responsibility for that, however, Davich was looking for a way to indict Veterans Affairs and the military for screwing this fraud, and no lack of proof was going to stop him.