Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Fake News

All this excitement about "fake news" has me puzzled, it seems like there are two kinds of fake news.

The "bad" kind is when some fringe media outlet or blog comes out with an unverified, unsourced, story that is pretty unrealistic and that story gets spread via social media by folks who don't actually read it, don't actually check it out and are just gullible enough to pass it on uncritically.

The "good" kind is where that "mainstream" media latches on to some narrative that furthers their political agenda and continues to run with it even after it is proven to be false.  Some examples.

"Hands up, Don't shoot."
"The gentle giant"
"I flew in under sniper fire"
 
I'm sure there are plenty more, but those make my point.

So, why is "fake news" applauded, encouraged, and perpetuated when it suits one side of the political aisle, even when the objective literal reality is false?


EDIT

"The Russians hacked the electrical grid"
"The Russians hacked the election"

Irony

Isn't it somewhat ironic that the people who were adamant that Clinton's private e mail server couldn't be/hadn't been hacked are that same ones blaming her loss on the hacking of e mails?

Isn't it ironic that the same people who fight tooth and nail against various laws to prevent voter fraud on the grounds that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent are the same ones trying to do re counts because of alleged voter fraud?   Isn't it more ironic that the recounts have resulted in a net gain for Trump?

Finally, isn't it ironic that there are people who want the outcome of the presidential elections decided by the voters of California?


Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Russians are coming

Recently there's been a big to do over the Russians trying to influence the outcome of the election by hacking the DNC e mails as well as Hillary's private server.   Historically, there are plenty of examples of various groups trying to affect election results in various ways.

1.   Various special interests and governments making donations and paying for speeches to family members or charitable foundations on candidates.
2.   Senate majority leaders who tell blatant lies about candidates failure to pay taxes.
3.   Campaign commercials that are false or distorted.
4.   Releasing internal campaign documents to the media.
5.   Manipulating the primary process to favor one candidate over another.

But even with all of that, and the fact that the actual hacking might be problematic, here's the deal.

The simple fact of the hacking and releasing of the e mail didn't have anything to do with the outcome.

It was to contents of the e mails.    It's the fact that the DNC and the democrat candidates campaign were exposed as the corrupt organizations that they are.   

Back in the 70's this kind of unearthing corruption was called investigative journalism and applauded, now it's just one more excuse for why Clinton lost.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Never let facts get in the way...

It's the time of year when the nativity narrative gets mangled into memes in an attempt to advance the leftist political agenda.   Y'all know what I'm talking about.    The ones where Jesus family is portrayed as "homeless" or "refugees" or whatever.

The fact is that Joseph, Mary and Jesus had a home.  They were compelled by an oppressive government bent on extracting more taxes from them (notice how nobody ever makes that comparison), to travel to Joseph's ancestral home in order to register for more taxes.  Clearly their situation is that of travelers being unable to find a hotel, than of the homeless.   Now, one could make the case that their flight into Egypt (later) is akin to modern day refugees, but certainly not the nativity story.

The newest version of this is the "unplanned pregnancy" meme, essentially comparing Mary to some girl who gets knocked up.    Of course, if one looks at the prophetic aspect then not only was this pregnancy planned, but it was planned and predicted hundreds of years before.   Oh, and wasn't Joseph's home in Nazareth?   But, wasn't the Messiah prophesied to be born in Bethlehem? 

Unplanned, homeless, refugees, really?  Sounds like God just might be sovereign after all.

Oh, and of course they were Jewish.  

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Please

Dear DNC,

Please make Keith Ellison the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, please.

Sincerely,
Craig