Fan Mail

This came in the other day:

Hey, I came across your blog and have these thoughts:

The international solidarity movement is peaceful...dumbass. Try reading up on your history too. Your blog doesn't cite history well. They're called books. In English you read the words from left to right. Try using facts instead of repeating information you got from your minister or president. They're not always telling the truth. But, you jackass, right-wing fascist, douches seem to take their bullshit for reality. I can't wait for death, I'll finally be far away from people like you!

Have a nice Day! You suck,

I love it! Keep those cards and letters coming in, Moonbats.

Say That Again?

We sometimes forget that newspaper reporters must report to editors who supposedly know more than they do, especially at newspapers like the New York Times. So pay close attention to this correction that appeared in the Times today:

Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Thursday about the entry of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt after Hamas militants destroyed part of a fence at the border with Gaza described incompletely the events regarding Gaza and Egypt three decades ago. In that era, Egypt accepted the return of Sinai from Israel but declined to take back Gaza, not just the Gazan half of the border city of Rafah. The article also misstated, in some editions, the location of the border. It separates Gaza from northern Egypt, not southern Egypt.

This is really mind boggling. The foreign desk of the "newspaper of record" can't even get its facts straight on simple stuff like that?

With the Times messing up the small stuff, it's no wonder that it messes up the big picture, and continually underplays Arab terrorism against Israel.

The Times and the 'Killer Vet'

The following blog post is reprinted with permission from Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project:

5219 words, and what do you get?
Another week older, and deeper in killer vet

With apologies to Tennessee Ernie, that’s how I felt while reading this week’s installment of the New York Times’ series “War Torn,” already torn to shreds from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to any sentient being in the blogosphere during the past week as transparent, statistically silly, dangerously damaging agenda journalism.

This week, the series delines the descent from Mormon alter boy to mentally wracked Iraq veteran to confessed murderer of his childrens’ mother. It’s truly chilling. The NYT’s points out the occasions where either the military, the VA or the Marine himself missed possible opportunities for stronger intervention. Like a macabre thriller, where the terrible ending is already known, one wants to yell out, “please help him.”

This week, the NYT’s points out:

Clearly, Mr. Smith’s descent into homicidal, and suicidal, behavior is not representative of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. But among the homicide cases involving recent war veterans examined by The New York Times, Mr. Smith’s stands out because his identity as a psychologically injured veteran shaped the way that his crime was perceived locally and handled by local authorities.

His crime was treated compassionately, with consideration of his obvious remorse and the trials he’s seen. That’s commendable.

Really, not to take away from this story telling, it’s still not a telling story about our servicepeople serving.

The fact of the matter is that there’s a lesser incidence of violence upon return to civilian life than among non-serving civilians. See here for example.

The NYT’s choice of focus, however, is upon the rare exceptions, and at a forecast total tens of thousands of words, the size of a book. Instead, where’s the focus upon the statistically greater successes in adjustment among veterans, greater civilian career successes than non-serving cohorts?

When that happens on the pages of the NYT’s, we’ll be more willing to believe it has compassion for veterans rather than exploitation of a few’s sad trails.

— Bruce Kesler

The Gaza Crying Towel

The poor, poor Palestinians are getting buckets of tears sloshing their way by the international news media, which has swallowed whole the line of propaganda sold by the Palestinians and their apologists.

Central to the weeping and wailing is that the poor, poor Palestinians are going without electricity. Isn't that awful? Thus we get this kind of weeping and wailing in the anti-Israel British media, such as the linked story originating in The Independent.

The BBC functioned, as usual, as a branch of the Hamas Ministry of Propaganda, replete with a photo essay showing dark streets and children weeping on cue. No parallel treatment was afforded the Israeli towns undergoing systematic terror rocket attacks.

The New York Times, naturally, supplied buckets of tears of its own.

No media outlet seems to be recording the obvious, which is: Since when is a country required to supply electricity to a country with which it is at war?

Excuse me, but did Britain supply electricity to Germany during the Blitz? Yet reporters at this same country expect Israel to do the same, despite the daily rain of rockets on Israeli border towns.

It's hard to find a better example of Palestinian media manipulation and bias against Israel.