see more pwn and owned pictures

FOR SOME YEARS NOW, PROJECT CENSORED HAS COME OUT WITH AN ANNUAL LIST OF SUCH NEWS STORIES DEEMED TO HAVE BEEN "CENSORED" by the Mainstream Media (as opposed to alternative and underground journals as broke the stories thus recognised).

As if trying to give Project Censored some "fair and balanced" competition in the (supposed) name of the "free market of news and ideas" somehow seen as "silencing conservative views preferred by Right-Thinking Americans," ConWebBlog notes where WorldNetDaily has come out with what the latter calls "Operation Spike," highlighting what they claim to be the top ten stories "spiked" by the MSM in the year previous.

So, thanks to ConWebBlog, here's the conservative reply (if you could call it that) to Project Censored for 2008:

WorldNetDaily has come out with its annual "Operation Spike" list of stories it claims "undeservedly 'spiked' by the establishment press." And as per usual, the list is largely comprised of misleading or bogus claims.

Unsurprisingly, given WND's deranged obsession with it, first place goes to "Charges that Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen of the U.S. and thus constitutionally ineligible to serve as president." Also unsurprisingly, WND fails to mention its own investigation of the issue, which concluded that the "certificate of live birth" released  by the Obama campaign is "authentic" and that Philip Berg's lawsuit claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen "relies on discredited claims."

In second place was a "U.S. Senate committee report that hundreds of top scientists have testified they believe claims of man-caused global warming are fraudulent." But as we've noted, the vast majority of the "650 international experts" cited by WND--from a report issued by Republican Sen. James Inhofe's press chief, Marc Morano--are recycled from a previous report issued by Inhofe and Morano, a report that was criticized for including a number of people with no expertise in climate science (or science, period). 

The article added that "more than 31,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, have signed a massive petition project that challenges belief in man-made global warming." But as we've detailed, that petition has been circulating for more than a decade, and the supporting materials sent by the petition's promoter, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, included an opinion piece that is misleadingly presented as an official-looking peer-reviewed paper.

Under the third-place entry, which asserts that the "true causes of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown ... point directly to the Democratic Party," WND repeats a claim made in September that the mortgage crisis can be blamed on "unsound, politically correct lending practices." As we noted at the time, the claim comes off as a tacit endorsement of the illegal practice of redlining--a refusal to offer banking services and/or loans in certain areas, something that in practice is racist because those areas were invariably minority-dominated. WND misleadingly claimed that two former officials of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, are "Barack Obama advisers." In fact, both Raines and the Obama campaign denied that Raines was an Obama adviser, and Johnson quit as an adviser last June.

In fourth place is "Obama's ties to terrorists and extremists"--another WND obsession of the guilt-by-association kind--cited as one example Rashid Khalidi, "the anti-Israel Palestinian professor." But WND fails to note that Khalidi also has ties to a group chaired by Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain.

In fifth place was "The campaigns of third-party presidential candidates, and Ron Paul's sensationally successful grass-roots campaign." But WND spiked that story too--as we've noted, WND's coverage of third-party candidates was minimal at best during the 2008 campaign.

As we've previously noted, it seems that the stories on the "Operation Spike" list were spiked for a reason--they're designed more to promote WND and Joseph Farah's personal political agenda (and his personal grudges and obsessions) than to advance the cause of actual journalism.

Is it any wonder that conservatives are whining and bawling and boohoohooing themselves out about "contempt of journalistic ethics and standards" when, in truth, they're (un)consciously guilty of what they accuse the Mainstream Media of practicing (and resorting to all manner of strategems and tricks to cover their tracks, or try to)?

AS EXPECTED, THE MINNESOTA CANVASSING BOARD GAVE ITS OFFICIAL SANCTION TO THE ELECTION OF AL FRANKEN FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE following one of the most infamously drawn-out election recounts in recorded history--and with a majority of 225 votes.

And, as likewise expected, the loser, former Republican such Norm Coleman, promptly went to the Minnesota Supreme Court to pray ask to restart the recount, invoking inevitable conservative patsies and platitudes about still more absentee ballots in storage yet to be properly counted (as would, so this line of thinking goes, tip the advantage back to Coleman), that there was "double-counting" of votes for Franken, that there was an "unhealthy Secular-Progressive bias" on the Canvassing Board's part and parcel, and so on and so on.

Which, as noted before, can only mean this for one of the more obnoxiously loyal droogs of His Fraudulency's Great Within: Videlicet, that his Willie Lumplump act only guarantees him Life Membership in the Sour Grapes Club.

Not to mention the ruin of his own career by way of drinking jags in the lowest of bars in the lowest of working-class districts where such tend to be all the more concentrate--perhaps deliberately.

=============

WHICH PROBABLY BRINGS TO MIND A CERTAIN VIRAL E-MAIL MAKING THE ROUNDS OF CERTAIN LESS-SOPHISTICATE CIRCLES which supposedly compareth the decline and fall of Republican Athens with the recent historic Presidential election results in a warped attempt @ context.

As Snopes.com will be more than happy to explain, reader, the argument is bogus and lies flat on its face.

*************

AMONG THE MORE INFAMOUS SPECIMENS OF ANTI-SEMITIC CANARD USED TO WHIP UP SUCH AMONG THOSE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER is the suggestion that Jews are all the more "dominant" in the ranks of Notorious Criminal Enterprises, among them Mrs. Warren's Profession--as per usual, lacking credible statistical substantiation, even when pressed to explain.

Deflating this canard is this item from this week's "Looking Back" feature from the Jewish weekly Forward from 100 years ago this week, as translated from the original Yiddish:

In the most recent issue of Tsienist, the monthly journal of the Zionist organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Independent Jewish Club began a major advertising campaign calling for a mass meeting of Jews in order to combat prostitution. Of the 3,000 prostitutes in Argentina, it is estimated that 90% are Jewish girls who were tricked into going there by the lowest sort of people—known as “white meat merchants”—and then sent to brothels and forced to work in the most revolting conditions. The Independent Jewish Club has combined forces with the government of Argentina to battle this scourge on society.

*************

NEWS GUARANTEED TO HAVE THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS OF CULTURAL CONSERVATISM DROOLING IN THE NTH DEGREE: A bar brawl in Colorado as erupted over a patron's choice of "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffitt off its jukebox proved fatal to the patron in question.

*************

JUST AS NEWS BROKE THAT ISRAEL WAS CONSIDERING A NEW FRANCO-EGYPTIAN CEASE FIRE PROPOSAL VIS-A-VIS THE "PREEMPTIVE" MARCH ON PALESTINIAN GAZA over recent days, Israel announced that it would suspend military operations for a three-hour period every day for the interim to allow deliveries of foodstuffs, medical supplies and fuel for the weak and suffering therein.

Which, more than anything, will likely be hoarded in locked warehouses near Beautiful Downtown Gaza City by the Hamas powers-that-be in Palestinian Gaza for allocation by Hamas to, more than likely, all-too-close droogs and lackeys of the Palestinian Authority rather than those in clear need therefor.

And which brings to mind a previously-mentioned suggestion worth repeating: Videlicet, encouraging the greater development of solar energy as a major source of power supply in Palestinian Gaza, the better as insurance against the Israeli power grid cutting supplies to Gaza for extended periods of time.

=============

STAYING ON THE SUBJECT OF ENERGY SUPPLY, FOLKSIES, a new embarrassment has emerged between Putinist Russia and the European Union over natural-gas supplies delivered by Gazprom, Mother Russia's Government-Protected Monopoly for Natural Gas Supply and Distribution, via Ukraine (through whose soverign territory crosses four Gazprom-controlled natural gas pipelines serving European Union states--and is already in an awful row with Russia over what Gazprom claims are "unpaid bills" for supply of natural gas to Ukraine's operatives in this regard).

In turn prompting Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko to invite EU leaders to an inspection visit @ a randomly-selected Russo-Ukrainian border crossing vis-a-vis one of the pipelines in question to determine for themselves whether or not Gazprom is telling the truth about no disruptions in Russo-European natural-gas supply and distribution via Ukrainian transit routes therefor.

Hence: If it's indeed true that Gazprom is pulling a fast one on Ukraine, then could Gazprom be routing European gas supplies via Belarus to avoid looking all the more embarrassed?

*************

CAN THERE BE SUCH A THING AS "TRADITIONAL PROCREATIVE MARRIAGE" (READ: ESSENTIALLY REDUCING WOMANHOOD TO THE LEVEL OF SEX MACHINES) for the purposes and intents of the Religiopolitical Right's articles of faith equating procreation with the need to maintain an unskilled, labour-intensive socioeconomic model as one with the defence of Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations?

@ least the Tips-Q blog thinks so (emphasis supplied):

Actually, I have been seeing this shift on some of the conservative blogs. The wing nuts keep trying to get traction with new arguments. This from Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. titled “African Americans Should Send Pro-Family Message to President-Elect”

ATLANTA, Jan. 5 /Christian Newswire/ – Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said today that African Americans celebrating the upcoming inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama should carry a pro-family agenda to Washington, DC.

“African Americans are pro-life and favor procreative marriage,” said Dr. King. “As we see the dawn of a new year and a great milestone being passed, blacks across the country should let our new president know that we want babies in the womb protected and traditional marriage respected. The accomplishment of an African American holding the nation’s highest office will be of little value if the black community continues to be destroyed by the horrible plague of abortion.”

“We need to party with a purpose,” added Dr. King. “We need to let Barack Obama know that our children’s lives are more important than the money and political support of the abortion lobby.”

Prompting Right Wing Watch @ People For the American Way, whence I learned about this item, to add this rejoinder:

[W]hen did the Religious Right start replacing their standard “traditional marriage” with “procreative marriage”?

And may we be reminded from History of attempts by racially-inclined, and yet totalitarian, regimes to increase birth rates among the "racially pure" in the name of National and Racial Honour, in particular Nazi Germany's Lebensborn campaign which saw marriage as "outdated" and "archaic" in stressing the need for creating an "Aryan Master Race" all the sooner (although allowing for the rite among such wanting the formality thereof out of tradition) ... and, to a lesser extent, apartheid South Africa's "Make Babies for Botha" campaign in the 1980's aimed @ especially the Afrikaner Peoples.

Unaware all the while of potential genetic consequences all the while, let alone (in the fomer instance) the shame and social stigma eventually ensuing among the byproducts in the postwar era, especially where post-Nazi regimes refused to recognise birth certificates issued under Nazi authority, making them, in effect, official bastards unable to get a decent education, employment or some semblance of a normal life.

*************

LATEST UNLIKELY "CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION" PROPAGANDA STUNT BY THOSE PUSHING THE MEME: Sending on a lecture tour of especially Low Church congregations in low-income or otherwise socioeconomically-disadvantaged communities what they claim to be an actual White Christian South African Family depicted as "Victims of Christian Persecution" relating what turns out being a carefully-scripted-to-the-point-of-insincere "lecture" supposedly relating "true and actual experiences" of their Loss of White Christian Honour in the hands of a "Black Communist-Influenced Regime***showing no shame or regard for White Christian Pride and Heritage in South Africa" all the while.

Even the emotion turns out being manufactured in a manner not unlike the handling of Charles VanDoren by the producers of the 1950's TV quiz show Twenty-One for the sake of ratings as much as for sales by its sponsors, Geritol. (The complete story thereof being reconstructed in the movie Quiz Show, which you may want to rent some night and watch in the interest of insight.)

What's more, the "freewill collection" taken @ such "lectures" to (as claimed) "assist in the evacuation of Afrikaner families out of South Africa before further persecution ensues" will wind up being diverted @ the last minute to "more pressing issues," and "for reasons you will understand." (Or so those behind the sham tour want you and I thinking when the time comes.)

Which ought to be watched in any case. And avoided. 

THE OTHER DAY, YOUR CORRESPONDENT, SOMETHING OF A LONGTIME FAN OF THE ONETIME TROLL MASCOTS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN THEME PARK in the Santa Clarita Valley of Southern California, got to thinking about how it must be that such species of Troll still resident in the hills across Southern California manage to have their fun, thereby getting their requisite Vitamin F dosage.

"Getting High on Fun," in other words.

And among the likely possibilities I imagined included going on extended backpacking trips as could get to be rather introllesting (even to the extent of many such bathing in mountain streams or hot-spring pools in the early morning hours).

Surfaris as could last whole weeks along the more obscure beaches of the Southern California surfing scene, reaching them in specially-modified vans upgraded to four-wheel-drive to reach otherwise inaccessible parts of the coast doing yeoman duty as campers (and, in some cases, building their own surfboards from groundfall redwood or pine, all the while managing to ride the waves with characteristic grace ... as well as plenty of time for bodysurfing, which their bodies seem to be well designed for). Not to mention plenty of opportunities for diving underwater searching for clams, or just for fun.

Backcountry snowboarding in isolated parts of higher-altitude slopes, including tag-team carveups of figure-of-eights as turn out being rather perfect.

People-watching in some of the more popular tourist-trap areas of Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach or even some of the malls across the Los Angeles basin, trying to act incognito and not having their cover blown (as well as chowing down on chili dogs and Orange Julius, peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat bread--the peanut butter coming from Magee's Nuts @ the Farmers Market; nothing less will do for those fun-loving creatures--even cases of family-sized bags of Laura Scudder's or Granny Goose potato chips; those Trolls love their food!).

Managing to get away with late-night parties running full tilt well into the dawn in isolated canyons or equally isolated beaches as include late-night hot dog roasts followed by gallons of coffee in the chilly pre-dawn fog as promises some killer waves among the surfer types ... or even chowing down in some inexpensive, but rather worthwhile, eatery certain Trolls know to have the best Mexican, Italian, Chinese, burgers, pizza, whatever (even if their appearence tests the patience of management as much as the kitchen staff having to deal with Troll-sized appetites).

Or simply lazing away hot summer days on the grass just chilling out and trying to stay sane.

No doubt about it: The life of Trolls across Southern California must be rather introllesting in and of itself.

(Come to think of it, I could just imagine Trollish-looking bands doing covers of the likes of "Please Don't Go" by KC and The Sunshine Band, "Exception" by Animotion or even "Wham-Bam-Shang-a-Lang" by Silver sounding much like the originals. Would this be stretching things?) 

more the engrish!

THERE'S NO MISTAKING THE OBVIOUS: CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDISTS WOULD JUST LOVE TO INVOKE THE NAME AND MEMORY OF ESPECIALLY THE LATE RONALD REAGAN to the point of sainthood when it comes to advancing their articles of faith, never mind such being quickly deflated by the Secular-Progressive community.

With facts, no less.

Case in point, thanks to ThinkProgress (emphasis supplied):

Appearing on CSPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the third ranking Republican in the House, repeatedly claimed that the solution to the economic crisis was to “do what Ronald Reagan did” and implement “across-the-board permanent marginal tax reductions.” Towards the end of his interview, however, a caller challenged Pence’s idea, saying that deficits exploded under Reagan, forcing the first President Bush to raise taxes.

Pence replied that the caller was right that Reagan “saw deficits and the national debt grow,” but claimed it was the fault of spending in Congress because Reagan’s tax cuts “resulted in more than a doubling of the revenues.” Pence then asked viewers to “check me on this”:

PENCE: You’re absolutely correct in saying that they saw deficits and the national debt grow under President Reagan, but it was — and check me on this, people can check things easily on the internet these days, check me on this — the rate reductions that President Reagan enacted resulted in more than a doubling of the revenues over the next seven years that went from the American people to the federal government.

Watch it:

ThinkProgress loves a challenge, so we looked into Pence’s claim. As he suggested, it wasn’t hard to find out on the internet that this common conservative claim is wrong.

As Media Matters noted when Sean Hannity made the same argument, revenues did not get close to doubling under Reagan:

According to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), when adjusted for inflation to constant fiscal year 2000 dollars, receipts (revenues) increased only from $1.077 trillion to $1.236 trillion during Reagan’s term in office. Even in unadjusted (current) dollars, Hannity’s claim that revenues “doubled” to more than $1 trillion during the Reagan administration is false: From 1981 to 1988, revenues in current dollars increased from $599.3 billion to $909.3 billion.

Additionally, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has found that “Income tax receipts grew noticeably more slowly than usual in the 1980s, after the large cuts in individual and corporate income tax rates in 1981.” In contrast, “income tax collections grew much more rapidly in the 1990s,” when “marginal income tax rates at the top of the income spectrum were raised,” wrote CBPP.

Meanwhile, need I reiterate my previous suggestion to conservative propagandists that they please cite actual examples from the here and now of such developed countries that actually have low unemployment rates within free-market parameters thanks to low-tax policies.

And need I further remind them that the main reason Communist regimes claimed to have nil-rate unemployment (which, know, they were forever insisting would be among capitalism's failings and undoings), apart from the usual propaganda angle, was the creation of "make-work/fake-work" positions to create the aura therefor. That, and reminding one and all where donations can actually be made to reduce the National Debt made all the worse by flawed conservative ideology made all the more hard-wired, to be sent to:

Department G
Bureau of the Public Debt
PO Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

(They can also be included with your Form 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ, 1040ES, 1040NR and 1040X tax returns, so long as the cheque is payable to "Bureau of the Public Debt" and the notation reads "Gift to Reduce Debt Held by the Public.")

Remember, too, that I intend to donate part of my proceeds from this blog's online shopping to Reduction of the National Debt--unless anyone can Show Cause why the National Debt needs to be kept all the higher for other than the obvious patsy of "political reasons" (including Far Right designs on having same refinanced through a series of gold-backed securities issues handled by "Christian" investment houses, or reasonable facsimilies thereof).

AS HAS BECOME SOMETHING OF A LAUGHABLE HABIT AND TRADITION COINCIDENT WITH THE START OF THE NEW YEAR, PAT "700 CLUB" ROBERTSON HAS GONE INTO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF MODE to announce his Predictions for the Ensuing Year, as Revealed to Him by G-d A-mighty.

As revealed to a candid world by Right Wing Watch of People For the American Way:

It’s the beginning of the year, so you know that that means:  Pat Robertson is back with his report on what God told him to expect in this coming year during his annual prayer retreat:

Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, announced at his staff's annual prayer retreat that God told him Americans would embrace socialism in 2009 "in order to relieve their pain" and that the economy would rebound under an Obama administration.

"The Lord said the economy of your nation will recover," Robertson told a group assembled at Founders Inn on the campus of Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., a university Robertson founded.

Robertson said God also declared, "The steps taken will lead to a dramatic increase in the power of government. The people will welcome socialism in order to relieve their pain. Nothing will stand in the way of a plan by Obama to restructure the economy in the same fashion as the New Deal in the '30s."

…

Socialist policies and massive government spending, Robertson told Meeuwsen, could lead to heavy hyperinflation, sending prices through the roof and the value of the dollar through the floor.

"The Lord said the dollar is going to go down dramatically," Robertson said in the interview. "If I'm hearing him right, gold will go to about $1900 dollars an ounce and oil to $300 a barrel."

Conveniently, CBN has posted the entire segment on YouTube for easy viewing, so you can listen for yourself as Robertson informs his audience that "Islam is weakening" and that poverty and misery will become so widespread that it will lead ten of millions to Christ:

Since they began the segment by highlighting a few instances where Robertson’s 2008 predictions proved correct, it only seems fair for us to remind everyone of his dire 2007 predictions when he warned that God had told him to expect a massive terrorist attack on US cities that would kill “possibly millions of people.”

As per usual, we need to ask whether Pat Robertson may really be some class of a closet inebriate, judging by the extent of his claiming to have received Divine Communication making such dire warnings as it does from year to year. In fact, those who study alcoholics' behaviour will tell you that a common behaviourial trait in the element is claiming to have found religion or religious experience, howbeit insincerely (as it turns out in the end).

Not to mention suggesting as Insightful Reading none other than The Predictions for the Year 1708 by "Isaac Bickerstaff" (t/n Jonathan Swift), which was actually intended as a satire directed as much @ almanac publishers as towards such classes (usually rather low) relying on such for information and advice; the passage which made the whole exercise legendary was this paragraph (quoted in Wikimedia):

My first prediction is but a trifle, yet I will mention it, to show how ignorant those sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns: It relates to Partridge the almanack-maker; I have consulted the stars of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever; therefore I advise him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time.

In the end, of course, it was Partridge who became ruined by the hoax when, on April 1st, the sexton of a nearby church asked Partridge @ his residence whether he had anything in mind for his euology, only to find Partridge rather alive and well. In time, sales of Partridge's almanacks (which were published and distributed exclusively through the Stationers' Company, as had an official monopoly on same) collapsed to the point where he lost his livelihood and died bankrupt.

But not before Bickerstaff (er, Swift) came out with this "Epitaph to Partridge" heaping satiric scorn in equal measure on not only Partridge, but also those who fell for his almanacks (via Wikimedia):

Here, five Foot deep, lies on his Back,
A Cobler, Starmonger, and Quack;
Who to the Stars in pure Good-will,
Does to his best look upward still.
Weep all you Customers that use
His Pills, his Almanacks, or Shoes;
And you that did your Fortunes seek,
Step to his Grave but once a Week:
This Earth which bears his Body's Print,
You'll find has so much Vertue in't,
That I durst pawn my Ears 'twill tell
Whate'er concerns you full as well,
In Physick, Stolen Goods, or Love,
As he himself could, when above.

Whether much the same will be said of Pat Robertson when his time comes, we will leave that to the Fates.

=============

AND SPEAKING OF ONE OF PAT ROBERTSON'S PAST TARGETS, AS IN VENEZUELAN MAJORDOMO HUGO CHAVEZ, his regime (as is majority owner of Citgo) has cancelled continued support of a scheme providing the Lower Classes in the otherwise "morally superior" United States with free heating oil.

The whole being deemed necessary because of resources needing to be redirected to domestic initiatives towards "empowerment" of the Lower Classes.

No doubt the neoconservatives will be rejoicing in the snug of The Gross Suckling card-key club down Branson way before too long....