MTV: Sarah Palin's ABC Interview Creatively Reported

MTV: Still misleading young Americans


MTV should get an award for the brazenness of its misleading coverage of Governor Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson. Picking up the left wing blogosphere's Palin as "advocate for war with Russia" meme and running with it, they characterized her her view on the Russia/Georgia conflict in a single, simplistic line:

Palin also discussed her views on foreign policy, saying that if Russia invades the neighboring country of Georgia, the United States might have to go to war with them.

It's like MTV isn't even trying. Of course, we know that Palin was talking about Georgia's entry into NATO, and when pressed by Gibson, she properly explained the nature of a military alliance. But I guess MTV assumes "the kids" are too stupid to handle nuances like context and details, especially when they're attempting to characterize the Republican candidate as a warmonger.

If you'll remember, this is not the first time MTV has done this. In '04, MTV was amongst the media outlets pushing the idea that the draft would return if Bush won re-election. MTV apparently doesn't think it's done its job unless it convinces impressionable kids that they're on the verge of being thrown into a meat grinder.

But MTV's biasfest 2008 didn't stop there. No, they went on to parrot lib talking points about the so called "scandalous" prayer Palin gave:

The candidate also took some time to clear up a comment she made at an Alaska church in which she called the war in Iraq "a task from God." "I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words," she said. "But what Abraham Lincoln had said — and that's a repeat in my comments — was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side."

Notice that MTV takes literally 4 words from to make it seem as if Governor Palin considers Iraq to be some sort of crusade in the name of God. Once again, the prayer in full:

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

This prayer is not something that would even require any "clearing up", or further explanation if they would just stop misquoting it. But what are we supposed to expect from MTV, who for years haven't been able to hide their bias. They're just another cog in the liberal broadcast media machine; MSNBC jr if you will.


Screw them, Fuse is better anyway.

by Rizzuto
Conservative Punk
Source: MTV; Still misleading young Americans
image: wired; dbkp

Beltway Elites and the Ordinary Americans They Rule

Life Outside the Beltway



Washington elites, pontificating pundits and media types would be very surprised to know: There is life outside the beltway. Millions of largely invisible, average Americans live there. And these Americans are living lives totally alien to the thousands of so-called experts and talking heads who claim to represent them.

For instance: These Americans, (I'll call them 'we' Americans, as I belong to their ranks), aren't waiting breathlessly for the latest word on high from Hillary. We really don't care what she says, having learned long ago that much of what comes out of her mouth is designed for political expediency, not conveying truths.

We're also not marveling over the new media messiah, Obama. We've been around awhile and we know what all the experts don't, namely, that a 15 minute flash in the pan does not a president make. As far as we're concerned, the job of running this, the greatest country in the world, requires more than being able to give a good speech. And even though some of us wear checkered shirts and have been known to drink beer on occasion doesn't mean we don't know the difference between socialism and capitalism.

Instead of spending all our time dissecting the nuance and context of the latest sound bite du jour, we have better things to do. Like earning a living, spending time with family or just plain having fun.

We have lives that are not dependant on political fortunes or government largesse. We live in the real world. A world, unlike the inside of the D.C. beltway, where hard work and merit are appreciated and rewarded. A world where a man's word is still his bond and Christian values still mean something. A world where acquiring power and money mean less than earning an honest living and the respect of our neighbors.

The latest polls mean less than zero to us. We know that in politics, 24 hours can be a lifetime and there are many lifetimes to go before we cast our votes in November.

We 'invisible' Americans know when we're being patronized and we have enough common sense to take with a grain of salt any pronouncements claiming to be 'for our own good.' We know best how to run our lives, not some yahoo who's only accomplishment was fooling enough of the populace to get elected to a position of political power.

To most of us in flyover country, political correctness is the hallmark of a herd animal - one who follows the group and lets others do his thinking for him. One who is more concerned with group status than doing what he thinks is right. You know who I mean: the guys and gals that appear on TV, gravely giving us peons the benefit of their vast knowledge. The ones who claim the 'truth' is relative yet insist that their version is the only acceptable truth.

The difference between those that inhabit the rarified real-estate inside-the-beltway and us average Americans is, we are held accountable for the decisions we make. And when we endorse or promote a cause or an idea, we do it with our own money, not the taxpayers'. And we do it quietly, for the right reasons, knowing that the virtue is in the doing, not the talking about it.

Here in the heartland, we all practice capitalism without shame and we don't apologize for making a profit. A lot of us still lower our voices to a whisper when discussing race, but we're working on that.

Words still have meanings and we know that relabelling a donkey as a princess doesn't make that ass a princess. We know a rose is still a rose, even if a self-annointed expert says it isn't. We really don't need or want all the inside-the-beltway experts telling us how to raise our own kids, what kind of car to buy, or how to celebrate diversity.

Mostly, we'd just like to be left alone by all the do-gooders who's main talents are manufacturing crisis' in order to save us from them. We'd sure appreciate it if you'd limit your mischief making to inside the beltway and leave us all alone. We can live our lives just fine without your help.


by Nancy Morgan

Nancy Morgan is a columnist and a news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina, where she writes "Culture Watch" weekly.

Article may be reprinted with attribution. Bio available on request.

images:
* fabricspray.com
* myslewski

Muslims and America

From the Library of Email Knowledge



The question was put to a man who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years: "Can a 'good' Muslim be a good American?

The following are his replies:


Can a "good" Muslim be a good American?

Theologically -NO.
Because his allegiance is to Allah,
the moon god of Arabia
01

Religiously - NO.
Because no other religion is accepted
by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)
02

Scripturally - NO.
Because his allegianceis to
the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).
04

Geographically -NO.
Because his allegiance is to Mecca,
to which he turns in prayer five times a day
04

Socially - NO.
Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him
to make friends with Christians or Jews.
05

Politically - no.
Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders),
who teach annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America
the great Satan.
06

Domestically - no.
Because he is instructed to marry four women and
beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).
07

Intellectually - no.
Because he cannot accept the American Constitution
since it is based on Biblical principles
and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.
09

Philosophically - no.
Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran
do not allow freedom of religion and expression.
Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist.
Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - no.
Because when we declare 'one nation under God,'
the Christian's God is loving and kind,
while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father,
nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99 excellent names.



Therefore after much study and deliberation....perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans.

Call it what you wish....it's still the truth.

If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above statements, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.

Pass it on, Fellow Americans.

This war is MUCH bigger than most Americans know or can understand.

by RidesAPaleHorse
images: RAPH
Sources:
* Can a Good Muslim be a Good American?
* Can a Good Muslim Be a Good American?


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Reuters: Americans with Guns Are Not All Drug Dealers or Urban Criminals

"The owners are not just urban criminals and drug dealers. There are hunters and home security advocates, and then there are the gun collectors."

--Reuters news story



Reuters published a story today about gun ownership in the USA. In the course of their meticulous research, they made an amazing discovery.

American gun owners are not all drug dealers and urban criminals.

Reuters then ran the story, YahooNews picked it up and the world NOW knows that there are a few gun-owning Americans who are not criminals--they're just gun nuts.

(Reuters) - An odd contraption in retired firefighter Alex Black's cluttered garage looks a bit like the hand winch at the top of a well. In fact, it is a machinegun.

Turning the shiny brass handle spat out a withering hail of bullets that transformed modern warfare.

"You march in to battle in straight lines against this, and nobody comes back," said Black, standing beside the hefty, carriage-mounted Colt Gatling Gun, which he restored over the course of a decade.

Reuters then reveals to the world that in a country of 300 million, there are 200 million firearms.

What's wrong with that?

Some Americans would maintain that that's not enough.

Black, who lives in this sleepy ranching town on the Arizona-Mexico border, is one of millions of gun collectors in the United States, where authorities estimate that there are more than 200 million firearms held in private hands in a country of 300 million people.

The American affinity for guns may puzzle foreigners who link high ownership rates and liberal gun ownership laws to the 84 gun deaths and 34 gun homicides that occur in the United States each day and wonder why gun control is not an issue in the U.S. presidential election.

It isn't an issue--yet.

But the next paragraph in the Reuters story is where the wire service unveils either its ignorance, political view or, most likely, both.

The owners are not just urban criminals and drug dealers. There are hunters and home security advocates, and then there are the gun collectors.

And, of course, if you own many guns you are a gun nut.

Reuters can't believe, apparently, that anyone would describe themselves that way.

Black's friend Lynn Kartchner is another self-described "gun nut" who lives in Douglas. He has a private arsenal of around 100 handguns, shotguns and rifles of all sorts which he uses for everything from hunting prairie dogs and rabbits to target shooting.

Europeans--Reuters is based in Europe--have a hard time understanding the American Second Amendment and why gun ownership is so important to many Americans.

Of course, Europeans who did understand the concept immigrated to the U.S. in years past.

The individual right to bear arms to protect home, family and neighbors and the notion of self-defense will get tested in the Supreme Court case set for next Monday, Heller v DC.

Reuters ends up the article with a quote from gun-owner Kartchner that they probably thought would chill the blood of most European readers.

But it likely elicited nodding of heads and smiles in most of the USA.

Kartchner has meticulously prepared the defense of his home.

He keeps a semi-automatic shotgun loaded with buck shot and heavy lead slugs behind the bedroom door, and a high-powered AR-15 assault rifle loaded in the next room.

"Guns are for projecting force," he says matter of factly, distinguishing firearms from other collectibles.

"Mao Zedong said 'power grows from the barrel of a gun,' and indeed it does."

The temptation is to file this story under "Dumbass".

Europeans are beginning to have to deal with a wide variety of problems on the continent that the political elites have been ignoring.

Criminal lawlessness, murders, honor killings, riots and other threats to the safety of individuals make a lot of Europeans wish, no doubt, that they had a right to bear arms.

The prediction is that the situation will get worse before it gets any better.

Perhaps then, Reuters will make an amazing discovery that there are some Europeans who own guns that are not criminals or drug dealers.


by Mondoreb
image: jerseynut
Source: For some in the US, Guns are a hobby, like any other
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American Mother Strip-Searched, Threatened and Jailed by Saudi Religious Police

For Sitting with a Man at Starbucks

Other Saudi News: Man Beheaded Yesterday

Saudi religious police, out for a stroll and a strip-search

More evidence the Saudis are the best 11th-century allies a country can have.

A 37-year-old American businesswoman and married mother of three was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the Kingdom's “Mutaween”--Saudi Arabia's religious police--for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.

The woman, "Yara", who doesn't want her last name published for fear of threats and reprisals, is seeking justice. When she was released from her day in prison, she was bruised over her body.

The woman was interviewed by The Times and said that she would remain in Saudi Arabia to fight the harsh enforcement of conservative Islam and not return to America.

"If I want to make a difference I have to stick around. If I leave they win. I can't just surrender to the terrorist acts of these people,” said Yara, who moved to Jeddah eight years ago with her husband, a prominent businessman.

Her ordeal began with a routine visit to the new Riyadh offices of her finance company, where she is a managing partner.

The electricity temporarily cut out, so Yara and her colleagues — who are all men — went to a nearby Starbucks to use its wireless internet.

She sat in a curtained booth with her business partner in the café's “family” area, the only seats where men and women are allowed to mix.

For Yara, it was a matter of convenience. But in Saudi Arabia, public contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.

“Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked ‘Why are you here together?'. I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” recalled Yara, who wears an abaya and headscarf, like most Saudi women.

The men--from the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a police force of several thousand men charged with enforcing dress codes, sex segregation and the observance of prayers--were serious.

She continues her story of an American's encounter with the Saudi religious police--and the tepid non-response of the American Embassy.

Yara, whose parents are Jordanian and grew up in Salt Lake City, once believed that life in Saudi Arabia was becoming more liberal. But on Monday the religious police took her mobile phone, pushed her into a cab and drove her to Malaz prison in Riyadh. She was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint a series of confessions pleading guilty to her “crime”.

“They took me into a filthy bathroom, full of water and dirt. They made me take off my clothes and squat and they threw my clothes in this slush and made me put them back on,” she said. Eventually she was taken before a judge.

“He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell'. I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she said.

Yara's husband, Hatim, used his political contacts in Jeddah to track her whereabouts. He was able to secure her release.

“I was lucky. I met other women in that prison who don't have the connections I did,” she said. Her story has received rare coverage in Saudi Arabia, where the press has been sharply critical of the police.

Yara was visited yesterday by officials from the American Embassy, who promised they would file a report.

An embassy official told The Times that it was being treated as “an internal Saudi matter” and refused to comment on her case.

The Saudi religious police number 10,000 in over 500 offices around the country.

An American woman is arrested, strip-searched and jailed for--sitting with a male in a coffee shop?

The Saudis have the right to run their country and enforce their laws any way they see fit.

Americans have the right not to do business with a country that practices such laws.

And, unless and until the American Embassy has issued warnings to American women visiting Saudi Arabia, it has a right to protect Americans from the arcane working of a midieval kingdom and such laws.

Unless such warnings are issued and publicized, Americans who travel have a right to expect that their government will stand up for them while conducting business in the lands of "allies".

Of course, it's been some time since the U.S. State Department looked out for American interests.

Meanwhile, we'll wait for the next story of an American woman being strip-searched in Saudi Arabia: a true American ally.

In other news--perhaps related, perhaps not--Saudi Arabia beheaded a man yesterday in the public square for murder.

A Saudi man was beheaded by the sword in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday after being convicted of murder, the interior ministry said.

Khaled al-Dadi was executed for stabbing Imad al-Swaihiri to death during a fight, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom, where executions are usually carried out in public.

Life goes on in the Saudi kingdom.

A couple of reminders of the mindset of a supposedly-modern American ally.

by Mondoreb
hat tip: radekr
image: bbc
Sources:
* Religious Police in Saudi Arabia Arrest US Woman for Sitting with a man in Starbucks
* Man Beheaded in Saudi Arabia



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

CNN Poll Shows More Americans Concerned: Global Warming Only One Concern

[photo:wtc-ep]
by Mondoreb

A new CNN poll just released shows fifty-six percent of Americans blame emissions from cars and industrial plant as the primary cause of global warming.

Other polling news: 56 percent of Americans blame NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN newscast, Time, Newsweek, a major city newsdaily or USA Today as their primary news source.

In a recent Death by 1000 Papercuts' poll, fifty-six percent of respondents blamed the New York Times as a primary cause of gassy emissions in the New York Metro area. Meanwhile, 56% of Americans blamed a lack of matches and the high cost of gasoline as the primary cause for not burning more copies of Newsweek and USA Today for warmth during the winter.

From CNN:

Most Americans blame emissions from cars and industrial plants as the primary cause of global warming and believe the United States should reduce levels even if other countries don't, a survey shows.

Fifty-six percent of poll respondents said the phenomenon of global warming has been proven, and can be largely blamed on human endeavors, such as power plants and factories, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.

One wonders if the fifty-six percent of Americans cited in this poll are the same majority of Americans who blame the American education system for failing to educated their childre? Or if this is the same 56% that blame Terminal Sneer for the rigid conformity that substitutes for rigorous thinking in the media elite?

In comparison, 21 percent of those surveyed claimed global warming problems are caused either by natural changes or are unproven.

This last bit may point to the numbers of critical thinkers turned out by much-maligned U.S. public schools.

In unrelated news, 56% of a certain blogger's fingers are going to grab a coffee now.



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American Short Attention Span: Daily COX & FORKUM

Cox & Forkum

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Rock Star Behavior = Rock Star Results

by Trigger Girlie

Today I was checking my email when something caught my eye. That something was a Yahoo News article titled "Study: Rock Stars Actually Do Die Young." My initial reaction was: "Really!" (OK, it was a little different, but you catch the drift).

So: indulging in obsessive behaviors such as excessive drug and alcohol use, unbalanced diet, and having more sexual partners than an African Silverbacked gorilla will actually speed up one's demise?

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit!

Apparently it took a whole team of scientists to determine that all those above mentioned things--especially if used all together--WILL mess you up in the long run and cause you to kick the bucket before your time.

The study also shows that "British and US rock stars are two to three times more likely to die young, primarily of drug and alcohol abuse…" Three times more likely than WHOM? Rock stars from Pakistan or Zimbabwe? The whole statement is akin to saying "People who lay down on railroad tracks are more likely to be hit by a train."

Do we need studies to prove that when you combine obsessive behaviors (aspirations of becoming a rock star, getting laid) with the usual rock star perks(read: drugs, girls, and money, which those people are chasing to begin with), you get a drug addicted, irresponsible moron on their way to rehab and eventually to his/her grave?

Now if these studies involved taking a couple of specimens like Britney, Courtney, or Cindi, locking them in a cell for 15 years while injecting them with all sorts of chemicals, then watching the train wrecks unravel before they came to a halt, it would be fine in my book. But those "scientists" get paid big bucks to tell us that the earth is round, the grass is green, and Howard Dean has mental problems.

There is a list of Rock Stars that died before their time, among them: Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, and Jimi Hendrix. It took a scientist to determine that Presley's food binges took him to an early grave via a massive heart attack? Or Cobain's marriage to the beast(no, not Courtney Love)that was heroin made him pull that trigger? Or that Jimi's cocktail of sleeping pills and wine caused him to choke to death on his own vomit?

Actually, it did take one scientist. His name is Mark Bellis, who specializes in the effects of alcohol, drugs, and violence on public health. In other words: if you want to know whats going to happen if you pop PCP, drink a bottle of grain alcohol, then take an axe along while grocery shopping, then Mark is your go-to man.

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