The situation in Wisconsin has prompted a flood of editorial comment, and the diversity of opinion in the Mainstream Media is, as always, off the charts … on the side of the graph representing “none whatever.”  Certain facts are inconvenient, because, let’s face it, they don’t fit the narrative.  Consequently, they are omitted.  The example reproduced below reflects what would be the standard approach, if editorialists went so far as  to mention some of what is artfully omitted.   Continue Reading »

We have obtained the Dissociated Press memo congratulating Ben Nukols, head writer, for his work in obscuring the real scandal that was exposed by James O’Keefe.  There is really little to add; the memo speaks for itself … and reveals so much more.

Continue Reading »

January: Noting that every adult who ever died has eaten, the Center for Science in the Public Interest demands the FDA ban food. Congress considers increased subsidies for America’s farmers. The Democrats’ new minority status notwithstanding, Nancy Pelosi declares she is still Speaker and refuses to vacate her office. Democrats unanimously support Pelosi until they discover she’s promised every one of them chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee and the lead on her new ABC television series, “Extreme Takeover.” Cash-strapped New York City announces a “Tutoring Fee” for each lesson in its public schools. The President departs for a vacation in Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and a Lesser Antille to be named later. At New York City’s historic New Amsterdam Theater, a chorus line of America’s elite university presidents simultaneously high kicks and pats themselves on the back for forcing Congress to end “Don’t ask don’t tell,” Yale President Richard C. Levin steps downstage and announces a new reason to ban ROTC: military coffee isn’t certified fair trade. He adds, “We got a million of ‘em!”

February: Andrew Breitbart posts video taken in the Detroit Renaissance Center showing Representative Charles Barron forming a New Black Panthers cell with a call to “overthrow the oppressive, white power structure and burn this damn country to the ground!” Al Sharpton attacks Breitbart for racism, noting that fire is part of African culture. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange announces the release of five million documents exposing secret American plans to fight enemies in case of war. Harry Reid declares “Future wars are already lost.” While on a brief, three week break in the Seychelles, President Obama is informed that fires engulfing Detroit are out of control.

March: ABC News wins a Peabody Award after it re-edits footage of several Sarah Palin interviews to give the impression that her favorite sport is buck naked hunting and her favorite book is “Red, Blue, Yellow Shoe.” Steve Jobs announces the first combination computer, telephone, and handkerchief, Apple’s micro-thin iRag. The EEOC bans radio, “to end discrimination against the deaf.” President Obama and ex-President Carter report on the status of peace talks with North Korea, when Obama abruptly departs, “to help Michelle with her packing.” Carter then compliments Kim Jong Un’s wife and reveals the North Koreans possess a terrifying new weapon: nuclear-capable, deep-water rabbits. He surrenders unconditionally. President Obama spends a quiet fortnight vacationing in Rio de Janeiro, and brags to Brazilian President Lula about the new beauty of Michigan sunsets. Tom Tancredo demands the Border Patrol take steps to prevent illegal bird immigration from Mexico. Chris Matthews denounces “right-wing, spittle-flecked hysterics in the Republican party.”

April: President Obama garners some well-deserved rest during a four-week stop in Tierra Del Fuego. An incoherently babbling Nancy Pelosi is forcibly removed from the famed “Whisper Spot” in the Capitol, sedated, and taken to St. Elizabeth’s. The NTSC begins vetting volunteers from around the nation to insure they meet Federal height, weight, and diversity standards before permitting them to fight the fires that have destroyed Detroit and are moving inexorably on to Flint. Bill Gates admits that Windows Vista was, “just an April Fool’s joke that got completely out of hand.” Cash-strapped New York City begins selling naming rights to city departments. New Yorkers exhibit a surprising new level of respect for the Gambino Department of Parking Enforcement and the Luchese Office of Health Protection. Upset by an unscreened question during his Easter Egg Hunt greeting, President Obama abruptly departs. Fortunately, J. Z. Knight is there to channel President Cleveland.

May: From St. Elizabeth’s, Nancy Pelosi announces her election as “Speaker of the Communal Room,” and appoints John Hinckley to the powerful Thorazine Committee. Keith Olbermann attacks John Boehner in terms so vile the air melts in all three homes where the show is seen. After the broadcast, MSNBC suspends Olbermann for fifteen minutes and bars him from the office coffee maker for the rest of the day. Before permitting the use of “unsafe water” to fight the Detroit-Saginaw-Lansing fire, the EPA demands testing for a two hundred page list of potentially hazardous chemicals. The Yankees drop two out-of-town series, and George Steinbrenner claws his way out of his grave to strangle manager Joe Girardi. Steinbrenner returns only when told most of his estate will be taxed at thirty-five percent if he didn’t die in 2010. The President and his family enjoy a quick, three-week stay in Målselv and Kalvaag.

June: Keith Olbermann is named White House Chief of Protocol. A thirty-five year old Islamic radical, Mohammed Muhammad Mohammad, whose fingernails were replaced with miniature bombs, gets past TSA screening and boards a plane. His plan is foiled when an alert passenger notices Mohammad attempting to light his left thumb. Janet Napolitano announces, “Once again, the system has worked,” and orders TSA screeners to remove passengers’ fingernails. Liquor sales skyrocket. President Obama enjoys brief, week-long stops in Seram, Ambon, and Buru. With East Tawas threatened, Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder’s proclamation of “a state-wide day of prayer for rain” is thwarted when the ACLU wins an injunction stopping it.

July: Citing America’s expanding waistline, the FDA bans buffet restaurants. The regulations are so sloppily written that a specific exemption must be granted to avoid deporting Warren Buffet. Another outbreak of AIDS in adult film workers prompts porn star Ron Jeremy to lament “there are some days when I just don’t feel like getting into bed.” Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer commiserate. OSHA issues safety regulations for plastic coffee stirrers. Stung by Democrats’ increasingly vitriolic attacks on his administration, President Obama blames, “Republicans who act like mass murderers, pretend to look sad, shake head gravely, and fleem plooner swonts.” The President’s teleprompter is quietly replaced, and he takes a well-earned break in Albena, Bourgas, and Chernomorets.

August: The L. A. Weekly revives Jerry Brown’s old nick-name, “Governor Moonbeam,” when he announces massive state funding for his “Lunar Powered Night Vehicle” program. California voters pass Proposition 10-96, requiring the state to secede from reality. Ratings services discover Comedy Central has more news viewers than NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC combined. An unrelated Gallup poll finds the public better informed about current events than at any time in the last twenty-five years. After returning from his vacation in Pitcairn’s Island, President Obama expresses regret that most fire trucks in the mid-west do not meet federal fuel economy mandates, and refuses to sign waivers allowing them to fight the fires that now threaten Traverse City. A single box of five coffee stirrers sells on eBay for $160.00. President Obama’s new vacation plans are spoiled when the Australian Government won’t consider renaming Christmas Island “Kwanza Island.” The President refuses to come out of his room until dessert.

September: After delivering a spirited, two hour tribute to a legendary win notched by the University of Nevada, Reno 1953 poker team, Harry Reid makes an impassioned plea for his bill granting citizenship to illegal casino workers, who, “when the chips were down, rolled the dice, came to America, and who now call for us not to Welsh on the ‘bet’ in the better life they want.” An impassioned Carwyn Jones, the Prif Weinidog Cymru of Wales, protests, and Vice-President Biden cracks an unfortunate “Weinidog” joke on “Good Morning America.” Secretary of State Clinton’s condescending apology inflames the situation, prompting Wales to declare war. PETA applauds the President’s response: banning Welsh Rabbit from state dinners. Furious Democrats attack Republican attempts to suspend OSHA’s new toilet paper perforation regulations as “endangering our troops.” President Obama’s vacation in Papua New Guinea is ruined when the Detroit Free-Press (printed in Windsor), runs a hurtful editorial titled, “Put Out the Damn Fire, Mr. President.”

October: The President enjoys quality time with his family in Ibiza while Attorney General Eric Holder regrets the FBI was unable to complete background checks of ten thousand out-of-state volunteers in time to save Petosky and Cheboygan. Copyright troll Righthaven begins suing websites using English words, noting that the Las Vegas Review-Journal has already used English in copyrighted material. Attempting to stay solvent, New York City begins charging pedestrians $2.50 to walk on city sidewalks. Disaster looms in the Welsh War after the President is forced to recall the Navy in the face of a Greenpeace campaign to save the Wales. A thirty-three year old Islamic radical, Mustafa Allah Jihad-Jihad, whose hair was surgically replaced with micro-thin strands of high explosive gets past TSA screeners and boards a plane. His plan is foiled when an alert passenger notices Jihad-Jihad combing his hair with a matchbook. Janet Napolitano proudly asserts, “Once again, the system has worked.” TSA screeners begin scalping all passengers. Heroin sales skyrocket. Devil’s Night in Detroit comes and goes without incident, everything having long since burned down.

November: The financial crisis in New York City is so acute, the FDIC seizes the banks of the Hudson River. Denouncing President Obama for accepting a suggestion from John McCain on the wording of a Veterans’ Day statement as, “The last hay,” the newly-released Nancy Pelosi takes a group of tourists hostage and threatens to defenestrate “one dead hick per hour” if she doesn’t get an official Boeing 787 and six cases of 1990 Buena Vista Cabernet Sauvignon. Attorney General Holder checks the FBI hostage negotiating team for ethno-sexual diversity. Bloodshed is averted when the quick-thinking House Sergeant-at-Arms rushes to Pelosi’s office and plays a tape recording of a face-lift. Beguiled by the prospect of “the beard I’ve always wanted,” Pelosi surrenders without further incident. FCC announces new rules requiring its prior approval for any “words, phrases, clauses, or sentences used to convey information,” printed or broadcast to the public. Television executives note their news programs won’t be affected because they haven’t conveyed any information in years.

December: The first broadcast of “It’s Beige …” the new PBS show specifically designed to avoid undue excitement in children, triggers narcoleptic seizures in forty-five percent of viewers under the age of ten. EEOC announces its “Campaign to End Discrimination in Employment,” has successfully placed Gitmo detainees in jobs as TSA screeners. Propofol and Demerol prescriptions overwhelm manufacturers, and the remaining U. S. airline declares bankruptcy. The FCC approves the announcement of Thomas Jefferson’s victory over John Adams in the 1796 Presidential election. Cornel West demands reparations from the Federalist Party. Salvation Army Kettles are targeted by a mysterious “Anti-Santa,” who donates large bills for his liquor, automobile, and jewelry purchases. From her office at the University of Michigan-Sandusky, Catharine MacKinnon issues a law review jeremiad denouncing “A Holly Jolly Christmas” as “unmistakable in its hyper-textual telos of the perpetuation of the prepotency of the phallocentric power structure,” noting, “If the line, ‘kiss her once for me,’ isn’t a thinly-veiled incitement to rape, I don’t know what is.” Most law professors agree she doesn’t. In cash-strapped New York City, soup kitchens begin feeding the homeless to the hungry. From his vacation home in Margarita Island, Venezuela, President Obama tearfully announces he’s not coming back, lifting the holiday spirits of Americans who hope for a change for the better in 2012.

Originally posted here.

We’re not entirely sure how it happened, but the notes from a Creative Review Board meeting at a San Francisco ad agency have come into our hands. They appear to be from a meeting in 2015, which we would dismiss as a mere typo except that they refer to things that haven’t happened … yet … as past events.

We hope that this glimpse of the Ghost of Ballyhoo Future may serve as a warning. Somewhat, but not exactly like Scrooge, we ask, “Are these the shadows of memos that must be, or are they the shadows of memos that MIGHT be?”

Continue Reading »

So who’s the woman or man wandering through a 1928 Charlie Chaplin movie? A time traveler, or someone with an itchy ear?

Whoever it is, she or he will certainly be wandering through other historic events, as seen on the internet.

Continue reading…
http://www.news.com.au/technology/could-time-traveller-caught-on-film-in-the-circus-mean-future-day-has-arrived/story-e6frfro0-1225944037896

I don’t know how September 11 plays in the rest of the country, but here in the NY metropolitan area it is a somber day. I watch little television, but I do listen to the radio. Most of the morning programming today has been about the attack. In my opinion, this is entirely appropriate.

This year has added piquancy due to the planned Ground Zero mosque-no-it’s-an-outreach-center-no-really, and the hitherto obscure pastor from Florida who wants or doesn’t want to burn Korans today, depending of which interview was last broadcast.

As one who savors irony, I have found the last couple of weeks particularly interesting. The imam, whose name I can’t seem to remember but sounds like a dog barking, announced his project in the name of “outreach,” and then promptly left the country, allowing the situation to fester. It’s a curious style of outreach, rather like wanting to erect a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor.

I am compelled to include a show business reference because the parallelism is striking. The present situation mirrors the old Weber & Fields act. For those scratching their heads, Weber and Fields are believed to have been the originators of the wold’s most famous “old joke.”

Fields: Who vas dot lady I saw you with last night?

Weber: Dot vas no lady, dot vas mine wife.

That was offered only to identify Weber & Fields. Their routine was always punctuated with the taller Lew Fields pummeling the smaller Joe Weber brutally. Audiences liked much more violent humor in those days. Invariably, at some point, Fields would poke his finger into Weber’s eye, or choke him, saying, “You know how much I luff you!” Weber’s reply would be something along the lines of, “Jah! I can feel it.”

Having stuck his thumb in New York’s eye, the imam announces how much he luffs us.

In the latest development, the imam has announced that if the project is stopped now, the offensive nature of the halt will merely inflame the radicals.

No one in the media has pointed out the “heads I win, tails you lose” nature of this overwhelmingly unconvincing argument. Equally ignored is the inescapable conclusion that in order to get the respectful attention of American officialdom, one must merely lop off a few heads, mutilate a few bodies, and promise more of the same. The President has chimed in with his endorsement of the U. S. Constitution’s First Amendment, perhaps the first known instance of this President invoking the Constitution in defense of individual liberty. This should have gotten more notice — the President’s volte face in support of Muslims who bitterly cling to their boxcutters and religion.

It has been little remarked (although I have seen mentions), that the President’s position is another in a succession of his straw man arguments — no one is claiming there is no right to build a mosque at Ground Zero. In fact, for years there has been a mosque about four blocks from ground zero to the outrage of absolutely no one. Curiously, the Greek Orthodox church destroyed in the attack has not been allowed to rebuild. The Greek Orthodox don’t lop off heads these days, so New York City’s gargantuan bureaucracy feels no compunction about giving them the run-around.

Donald Trump has chimed in, offering to pay cash for the building on the condition that any mosque resulting be placed at least five blocks away. His offer has apparently been refused.

I look at this in a historical context, and the clues for doing so are there for anyone who cares to examine them. Radical Islamists have a history of building mosques at the sites of great victories. The mosque at Ground Zero is to be called “Cordoba House,” after the capital city of Muslim-ruled Spain. And the dedication of the planned building is to be held on … wait for it … September 11, 2011, exactly ten years to the day after the attack.

Coincidences, all, I’m sure.

We’re told how offensive we are if the mosque is stopped.

The Obama Administration is considering appointing a Harvard Law Professor to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Racket Bureau.  One gets the impression that the current White House is unaware of anyone who is not a Harvard professor, but even on the Harvard faculty there must be someone who with impressive-sounding credentials in credit, banking, or economics.  On the other hand, don’t leap to the conclusion that simply because Elizabeth Warren is a professor of law at Harvard that she is out of touch with the American people.

She’s studied them.

Really.

Our own Observer-Effect has the story.

J’ACCUSE!

A "Profession" is widely defined as a field of endeavor requiring highly specialized training and ability, having a set of ethical standards administered by its own members, and whose practitioners perform services for the benefit of their clients, and not for their own personal benefit.

Medicine, law, and the clergy are sometimes named as the only true professions, while more expansive definitions encompass accounting, engineering, architecture, and similar fields.

The JournoList scandal causes us to revisit the question: is journalism a profession?

I accuse it of failing the test!

Does journalism require a specialized training or ability? Not really; all it really requires in contemporary news organizations is the ability to write semi-coherently and purport to accurately provide an accounting of facts. In essence, anyone who can ask "who?, what?, where?, when?, and why? (and how much?)" and who can convert those answers to semi-coherent text, has the requisite talents. It does not require post-graduate training to be a news reporter or analyst.

So, on this front, Journalism fails the first test of being a profession.

How about "ethical standards"?

One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of Journalistic Standards and Ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:

…public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

Well, that’s a start. But is there any mechanism by which Journalists can eject those who fail to to live up to their ethical standards from their putative profession? When’s the last time you heard of a journalist being disbarred, or de-penned, as it were? Did Jason Blair lose his license to lie in print? Unenforced ethics are no ethics at all, except for show and tell.

I accuse Journalism of failing to enforce any meaningful ethical standards.

Add to this the obvious failure of the 400 members of the now infamous JournoList e-mail group to rein in the ethical lapses of the members of that list who openly used their journalistic influence to aid a partisan political campaign by suppressing negative stories and threatening to smear other commentators who sought to publicize the negative stories to which the JournoListers objected. Clearly, using one’s position as a journalist to further one’s own political agenda (while maintaining the fiction of objectivity and service to the public) is an ethical violation, and opposing some of the more juvenile and pernicious proposals seen on the list on the grounds that it won’t work very well hardly rises to the level of professional approbium, let alone ethical enforcement.

On this front, Journalism fails as a profession.

Similarly, do journalist perform their services for the benefit of their client (which some would say in the case of journalists is the public at large) and not with regard to their own personal benefit or gain? As we have seen in the JournoList case, the particpants were happily furthering their own personal political agenda by manipulating the media they worked for to suppress coverage of damaging stories about their preferred candidate, and collaborating with others in their so-called profession in hatching schemes to intimidate members of their own profession who did not share their radical left wing political agenda. In short, they short-shrifted their clients — the public — in deference to furthering their own personal political agenda. They lied by omission, and thus failed to tell the public the whole unvarnished truth about Obama’s 20 years of listening to racist anti-American sermons every Sunday by Rev. Wright. Worse still, they sought to silence others from telling that story.

I accuse the JournoListers of violating the canons of Journalistic integrity, objectivity, and keeping of the flame of truth.

What the JournoListers did was ethically equivalent to the doctor who denies his patient the latest most effective medication because the pharmacy he owns carries a competing and less efficacious medicine, and then compounds that ethical violation of trust by attempting to smear every other doctor in town who WOULD prescribe the more effective drug. Would you like to have your children treated by a doctor like that? Happily, you don’t need to worry, because medicine became a profession in the early 20th century, and ethical standards forbid doctors from profiting from the prescription of drugs and treatments to their patients, and those who try to do so get run out of the profession by their peers. That’s what it means to be a profession.

Wouldst that the same were true for journalists; but as the JournoList scandal teaches us, Journalism has no real ethical standards, no self-enforcement mechanism, and apparently a large segment of its own practitioners who could care less. Thus, journalism is a trade, or craft, and not a profession, no matter how much it pretends to be one.

Is it any wonder Journalists feel threatened by people in pajamas, blogging from PCs in their basements? Their monopoly on opinion manipulation hangs in the balance, and the radical political activists masquerading as journalists will have no truck with that.

Statistics: Posted by Elmo Zoneball — Sun Jul 25, 2010 3:34 pm

J’ACCUSE!

A "Profession" is widely defined as a field of endeavor requiring highly specialized training and ability, having a set of ethical standards administered by its own members, and whose practitioners perform services for the benefit of their clients, and not for their own personal benefit.

Medicine, law, and the clergy are sometimes named as the only true professions, while more expansive definitions encompass accounting, engineering, architecture, and similar fields.

The JournoList scandal causes us to revisit the question: is journalism a profession?

I accuse it of failing the test!

Does journalism require a specialized training or ability? Not really; all it really requires in contemporary news organizations is the ability to write semi-coherently and purport to accurately provide an accounting of facts. In essence, anyone who can ask "who?, what?, where?, when?, and why? (and how much?)" and who can convert those answers to semi-coherent text, has the requisite talents. It does not require post-graduate training to be a news reporter or analyst.

So, on this front, Journalism fails the first test of being a profession.

How about "ethical standards"?

One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of Journalistic Standards and Ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:

…public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

Well, that’s a start. But is there any mechanism by which Journalists can eject those who fail to to live up to their ethical standards from their putative profession? When’s the last time you heard of a journalist being disbarred, or de-penned, as it were? Did Jason Blair lose his license to lie in print? Unenforced ethics are no ethics at all, except for show and tell.

I accuse Journalism of failing to enforce any meaningful ethical standards.

Add to this the obvious failure of the 400 members of the now infamous JournoList e-mail group to rein in the ethical lapses of the members of that list who openly used their journalistic influence to aid a partisan political campaign by suppressing negative stories and threatening to smear other commentators who sought to publicize the negative stories to which the JournoListers objected. Clearly, using one’s position as a journalist to further one’s own political agenda (while maintaining the fiction of objectivity and service to the public) is an ethical violation, and opposing some of the more juvenile and pernicious proposals seen on the list on the grounds that it won’t work very well hardly rises to the level of professional approbium, let alone ethical enforcement.

On this front, Journalism fails as a profession.

Similarly, do journalist perform their services for the benefit of their client (which some would say in the case of journalists is the public at large) and not with regard to their own personal benefit or gain? As we have seen in the JournoList case, the particpants were happily furthering their own personal political agenda by manipulating the media they worked for to suppress coverage of damaging stories about their preferred candidate, and collaborating with others in their so-called profession in hatching schemes to intimidate members of their own profession who did not share their radical left wing political agenda. In short, they short-shrifted their clients — the public — in deference to furthering their own personal political agenda. They lied by omission, and thus failed to tell the public the whole unvarnished truth about Obama’s 20 years of listening to racist anti-American sermons every Sunday by Rev. Wright. Worse still, they sought to silence others from telling that story.

I accuse the JournoListers of violating the canons of Journalistic integrity, objectivity, and keeping of the flame of truth.

What the JournoListers did was ethically equivalent to the doctor who denies his patient the latest most effective medication because the pharmacy he owns carries a competing and less efficacious medicine, and then compounds that ethical violation of trust by attempting to smear every other doctor in town who WOULD prescribe the more effective drug. Would you like to have your children treated by a doctor like that? Happily, you don’t need to worry, because medicine became a profession in the early 20th century, and ethical standards forbid doctors from profiting from the prescription of drugs and treatments to their patients, and those who try to do so get run out of the profession by their peers. That’s what it means to be a profession.

Wouldst that the same were true for journalists; but as the JournoList scandal teaches us, Journalism has no real ethical standards, no self-enforcement mechanism, and apparently a large segment of its own practitioners who could care less. Thus, journalism is a trade, or craft, and not a profession, no matter how much it pretends to be one.

Is it any wonder Journalists feel threatened by people in pajamas, blogging from PCs in their basements? Their monopoly on opinion manipulation hangs in the balance, and the radical political activists masquerading as journalists will have no truck with that.

Statistics: Posted by Elmo Zoneball — Sun Jul 25, 2010 2:34 pm