DailyKos Thugs Bully Paper to Pull Netroot Nation Story
July 22, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Just as I finish a piece laughing at DailyKos for claiming that it is conservatives that feel they have to “create their own alternate reality” because of their “rigid ideology,” I find a story out of The Austin American-Statesman where the DailyKos forced that paper to pull a story that had a mildly satirical take on last weekend’s Netroots Nation conference in Texas. Apparently, the DailyKos folks didn’t like The Austin American-Statesman’s “reality” so the Kossacks flooded the paper with their insistence on creating a new one.
The original article by the Statesman’s Patrick Beach knocked the nutrooters for the so-called “surprise” Gore visit, said it turned into a “faint-in,” and that their general feeling was “terribly self-confirming,” among other snippy comments… fun, but snippy. The general tone of the piece was that of amusement at how seriously the nutrooters took themselves. And, even more galling to said nutrooters, this story was the front page editorial of Sunday’s edition. (Original, Google cached version of Beach’s piece.)
This did not sit well with the nutrooters in question.
WaPo After Free Republic Again, Now Over Barack-is-a-Muslim Email
June 28, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Inernet, Islam, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post’s Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years. But, the Washington Post’s article is so filled with assumptions and a singular desire not to really investigate the matter that it boggles the mind. Naturally, all the journalistic missteps serve to shield Barack Obama from any controversy and make all opposition seem nefarious or unhinged.
The Obama flak in question is one Danielle Allen of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton. Mosk wishes to assure us that she is one smart cookie, apparently. To settle any question to the contrary, we are treated to some earnest, if over-the-top, adulation for good Doctor Allen. Allen is called a “razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist,” that she’s “gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates,” and that she works at the institute “most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein.” Mosk tells us that Allen “boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University.” The Post tells us that one winter morning Allen was “studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds.” Mosk also tells us that Allen “works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don’t have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe.”
Jeeze, next Mosk will be telling us that Danielle Allen is the virtual reincarnation of Einstein himself!
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Any Given Blog…
June 26, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
What for a Blog?
June 25, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Education, Inernet, News, Patriotism, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Everyone is talking about the “importance” of blogging and wondering where it will all lead at least where it concerns the influence blogging might have on politics. There was even a warning that bloggers are facing oppression and arrest at an increasing rate in some despotic countries proving that blogging is already causing at least some ripples in the political waters about the world. There is no reason at all to assume this is a fluke or that these ripples will cease to radiate from bloggers any time soon. All in all, to many it seems blogging is a newfangled concern we all face.
But is it new? And what the heck is it all for, really?
To answer the first question, let’s be clear about the relative newness of blogging. The only things that make it new is that it is done via a computer and has opened up the world of social comment for more people to indulge in then ever before. But we have seen something the like of blogging before. In fact, without a past relative of the blog we would not have became the United States of America in the first place.
Jailed for Blogging
June 20, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Bloggers are being arrested more and more as the importance of the Internet is realized by governments across the world, at least so warns the BBC. It seems an alarming report where community activists and democracy advocates are finding themselves being oppressed by government, arrested, and maybe even tortured because of their blogging. But, one little fact of the story is never really focussed on in this alarming BBC report on the release of the WIA report from the University of Washington. The fact that bloggers aren’t threatened much in democratic nations has been glossed over by this report.
Unfortunately, a cursory reading of this piece would leave the reader with the vague feeling that people all over the world are being arrested merely because they are blogging, but that isn’t quite the case. The way this report is written serves as a perfect example of a PCism more concerned with upsetting the tender sensibilities of tyrannical, undemocratic governments, than in reporting the oppression of its citizens. It’s a PCism gone so far that it makes the report uninformative at least to the most important aspect of the reason these bloggers are being arrested.
Here is how the BEEB starts their almost whitewashed report:
More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.
Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.
The BBC also gravely informs us that, “Citizens have faced arrest and jail for blogging about many different topics,” and that “Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised public policies and took political figures to task.”
The report goes on to explain why this new threat to bloggers has arisen.
The report said the rising number of arrests was testament to the “growing” political importance of blogging. It noted that arrests tended to increase during times of “political uncertainty”, such as around general elections or during large scale protests.
But one thing the BBC report does not do is fully explain what sort of nations are making all these arrests. Now, to the BEEB’s credit, they do include one little line to let us know were some of these arrests have been carried out.
More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.
But, still, the reader could easily miss the fact that this threat to free speech is, for the most part, occurring in nations of a certain nature, nations that are not free and open societies.
One Example of How Left Widely Funds Internet Operations
May 22, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Elections, Foreign Policy, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture, Technology | No Comments
Think Progress Exposed
-By Eric Odom
More than 2.5 million people read pages of Think Progress every month. Quite a staggering number, and something free-market minded Americans should pay close attention to.
While some in mainstream communication realms might not see this as a significant story, many more of us are starting to uncover the dark agenda that drives the left wing propaganda machine at Think Progress.
What are the Origins of Think Progress?
Here is what we know…
1) Think Progress is a Project of The Center for American Progress Action Fund
The Center for American Progress Action Fund is a “progressive” think-tank. Their “partner” is The Center for American Progress, a non-profit organization under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue code.
The Center for American Progress is ran by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. That’s right… Think Progress is essentially a tool of the Clinton machine.
In fact, George Soros and Halperin recruited Harold Ickes — chief fundraiser and former deputy chief of staff for the Clinton White House — to help organize the Center.
With this in mind, it’s interesting to notice the Center’s use of Think Progress to attack John McCain, when they won’t lift a finger to send negative attention to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
So much for “non-partisan”.
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The Next Right Project
May 9, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, GOP,