How-Not-To: Regain credibility for the media

Prez Duck is being mocked by his mention of the "terrorist attacks in Sweden, last night". Read the progressive/liberal media, and you'll find plenty of mocking, and explanations - because that's what these media do, they "explain", so that we don't have to exert our tiny little brains thinking - that will do their best to get "racism" and "white privilege" into the story.

Funnily enough, too, none of those media geniuses mentions this.

Now, obviously, this is not what Prez Duck was talking about, and I have no doubt he doesn't even know this is happening. And I can believe that these "non-fake-news" progressive/liberal media also don't know this is happening (yes, they should, but I've lowered my expectations of the media a few years ago).

I'm a little more surprised when I see people living in Sweden, some of them public officials, mocking Mr. Duck and not giving these grenade attacks (which went from 3 in 2013 to 34 in 2016) any mention.

Some a**hole with a knife in London gets a 24/7 news cycle treatment. Dozens of attacks with grenades in Sweden, and we barely hear about it. I had no idea about this, until I heard an analyst talking about it. A Portuguese analyst who is, in fact, one of the few here who doesn't hold a one-sided view.

Now, like I said, this is not related to Prez Duck's "alternative fact" on terrorist attacks in any way, shape, or form. My point is quite different.

This is an example of why it's so easy for Prez Duck to hit the media credibility and drag it through the mud. When talking about attacks in Sweden, not one single news media mentioned these past attacks. The analyst I mentioned above did it, stating clearly that it was totally unrelated to what Mr. Duck said, and saying that this was the only recurring incident he was aware of that was serious enough to be classified as "terrorism", although the Swedish authorities hadn't done that. See, dear media? You can be informative, accurate, and unbiased, all at the same time.

No one else mentioned this. Not now, and I don't remember having ever heard about it. As I looked for articles on it, I only found one attack extensively reported, and it included an 8-year-old British victim. It was the only time I found an article from the Guardian. Vox? Nowhere to be found. Slate? Out to lunch. Huff Post? MIA. NYT? Well, you get the picture. 

However, as soon as the Clown-In-Chief commits a blunder, all these "non-fake-news" media suddenly become "experts on Sveeden". And they did take some action on the subject, by tearing down the so-called "documentary" from some bloke called Ami Horowitz. A few years ago, I would've said "Good job". However, because of their biased reporting, these days I give as much credibility to this Horowitz fellow as I do to the media. E.g., the Guardian, on an article called "Donald Trump's Sweden comment referred to 'rising crime', White House says" (my emphasis), talks about crime in Sweden (not terrorism), and has no mention of the grenade attacks. I could understand not talking about it in the context of terrorism; not talking about it in the context of violent crime is omission, pure and simple. As usual, when this happens, you're either incompetent or acting with malice. Your call, Guardian.

Trump is an idiot, but that's all he needs to be to beat these biased brain-dead media, until they realize that if they keep reporting just one side of the issues, they'll never regain their lost credibility.

Except when it's worse

In order to understand today's title, you must go read yesterday's title.

And, yes, four posts in four days. I don't know, am I triggered, or something...?

Anyway...

So, waddabout good ole Milo on Bill Maher, hey?

Meh...

The inital talk went smoothly. Milo successfully played a sort of trollish charm that showed him in a good light. Every once in a while he'd say something sensible (like how progressives/liberals get all fired up triggered about useless stupid issues). Still, it was pretty much empty of actual ideas, and Bill didn't confront him on some of the more flagrant bullshit he spouted.

Then, on overtime, came the confrontation.

It's my opinion that Milo failed completely. Larry Wilmore showed what needs to be done with people like Milo - just let them speak. Then, confront them with facts. If you do this long enough, they'll run out of bullshit arguments (just like Milo did) and resort to childish tantrums: "Oooh, Bill, your guests are sooooo stupid". And without a supportive, adoring crowd, those tantrums can be seen for what they are - the last desperate resort of an ignorant idiot that has been cornered and has nothing else to say.

The only negative point were the "Go fuck yourself"s. Those played right into Milo's hand, and took the conversation back to where he shines. The way to finish, after the "stupid, low IQ guests" would have been something like "So, you have no arguments to contradict my facts, correct?"

After all the hype about this guy, I expected more. It was almost embarrassing reading all the tweets and articles saying this "dangerous troll" deserved no "platform" at all, let alone a "national platform". As usual, not only do these so-called progressives/liberals show the fascism they embrace these days, but they also display a remarkable degree of foot-shooting stupidity.

You see, before watching him on Bill Maher, I was tentatively buying into some of the hype about Milo. Maybe he was that much of a charismatic character, capable of sparring his way out of a debate and, thus, incensing the snowflakes to the point of melting. Now... now, after I watched him, I see the hype is completely overblown, and that the Left is doing most of the (alt-)Right's job to create the Milo Myth.

Every time you protest him, every time you keep him from speaking, you do him a favor. He gets to keep his mouth shut about his "ideas" (thus, you can't challenge the bullshit he says, like Larry did) and gets to appropriate a credible cause - freedom of speech. So, as far as stupidity goes, you, dear progressive/liberal, are remarkable.

Oh, and Bill...? Christopher Hitchens...? Really...? I mean, I never knew the man personally, but I'm having some very effing serious difficulty in picturing this "young Christopher Hitchens" you mentioned as someone as ignorant and as easy to beat in a debate as Milo. Are you telling me the young Chris was the total opposite of the older Chris?

The Left is just as bad as the Right

Let's go for something rare in this blog, a link to an article.

As almost everything on the Intercept, it's a long read. It's also very educational. For some years now, I've completely lost my trust on the left-leaning "mainstream" media. And I've never trusted the right-leaning media, to begin with; and this hasn't changed just because some of them are now "alt-right". So far, the Intercept has managed to be different, and it's the only news outlet I approach with a moderate degree of trust.

And, yes, one of their staff boycotting Bill Maher because of Milo did lower my perception of them. If you can't take your fight to the idiot, it's not the idiot that looks bad, it's you.

Speaking of Milo, remember the riots at Berkeley against "hate speech"? Well, the University of California, San Diego, announced a visit from the Dalai Lama. Cue the group of triggered Chinese students (the Chinese Students and Scholars Association) using the exact same good-sounding-but-empty arguments used by progressive fascists in the last few years to silence everyone they don't want to hear:

Currently, the various actions undertaken by the university have contravened the spirit of respect, tolerance, equality, and earnestness — the ethos upon which the university is built.

Eh eh eh... we, the oppressors of the Tibetan people have the right to not be offended, so you should cancel the visit of the Dalai-Lama. I can't wait to see how this will roll out. I've said it often, and I'll keep repeating it: The stupid attitudes of the Left on campuses (both students and staff) are going to give them some unpleasant surprises. Unfortunately, those surprises will probably not be good for society at large, but, then again, neither was the stupidity that started said attitudes.

Amway, back to the Intercept article...

The "lady" in question has been alternating between the SEC and a cozy corporate defense team job. She was appointed by presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama. I can give Carter the benefit of ignorance. Clinton should've known better - you may call him an optimist; I call him stupid. As for Obama... Stupid beyond belief, specially considering he was supposed to clean the mess that had been accumulating since Reagan/Thatcher and culminated in the "market correction" of 07/08. Every time she was appointed to the SEC, this "lady" has done her best to delay any rule that could be detrimental to her so-called "ex-clients" - namely, mega-corporations and banks, and their wealthy investors.

Mind you, this is not a defense of Republicans. It's just to remind all those "beautiful people" who spend their time saying "Democrats are good" because "identity politics" that none of these clowns (Democrats and Republicans) actually does anything to address inequality. In fact "identity politics" is nothing more than an artificially-created division to make sure the plebes are fighting each other and not paying attention to people like the "lady" in the article above.

I can only wish she would run for president, to see "progressive women" saying "Vote with your vagina, it's time for a woman in the White House". Or maybe Ann Coulter, or Sarah Palin. Hey, as long as it's a woman, right...?

Perhaps in France, women should also vote with their vaginas. It's about time to smash the patriarchy with a "Madame Le President". I'm sure we'll see an inter-sectional sisterhood wearing Le Bonnet de la Chatte, appealing to the vote in Le Pen.

So, while it's only fair to be outraged at what Prez Duck is rolling back with so little effort, maybe "progressive/liberal activists" and the "mainstream you-can-trust-us media" should do a little homework to understand why he needs so little effort. You can go read the Intercept article, it'll teach you how this "research" thingy is supposed to work.

I don't care how many Pussy Hats you have knitted, how many posters of Hillary and Obama you have in your house, or how many Trump supporters you have assaulted in the name of "solidarity". Your heroes are no different from your villains - and when it comes to fighting inequality, this is only more so.

The Grammy Privilege

As if on cue, there's an article on the Guardian about how BAME (look it up) artists have been neglected by the Grammy voters throughout the Ages.

The author goes on to quote some people who share his opinion that Beyonce should have won the album of the year. Since they share his opinion, they must be right, right?

He then takes us on a tour through some cherry-picked years, and treats us to his opinion of who coulda/shoulda won, all the while testing our patience with repeats of "not that there's anything awful about the winner, it's just that..." He lists a number of black bands/artists, and then some token white bands, showing us, in his unbiased wisdom, that the Grammys didn't overlook just the BAMEs.

Some moments are actually pretty amusing, like saying the Grammys "missed" AC/DC's "Back in Black" in 1981.

Funny he should mention that. Because the remarkable Grammy "visionaries" created the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance in 1989. They didn't so much miss AC/DC, they completely ignored the entire genre. And when they finally acknowledged its existence, it was to award that giant of metal, Jethro Tull. Funnily enough, there was also plenty of whining vocal discordance at the time, because everyone had already decided that Metallica were going to win. The song remains the same, only these days time it's more colorful.

In fact, forget this weird Hard Rock/Metal thingy, let's just look at good plain ole Rock, shall we? The year is 1992, and these were the nominees who lost:

• Bryan Adams - "Can't Stop This Thing We Started". Fair enough, it's a rock song.

• Jane's Addiction - "Been Caught Stealing". Never heard this, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I'm pretty sure it's quite different from Bryan Adams.

• Metallica – "Enter Sandman". Er... Dear Grammy people, this isn't Rock. This is Metal. Shocking though this revelation may be, there is a slight difference. Which, I presume, is why you created the "Best blah-blah Metal etc..." 3 years earlier.

• Tom Petty – "Learning to Fly". OK, another rock song.

• Queensrÿche – "Silent Lucidity". Right. Let's nominate for Best Rock Song a ballad from a Progressive Metal band.

And the winner was... Why, it was that unavoidable staple of Rock... Sting. Yeah, I know, it happens to me all the time - when I think about Rock, the first person that comes to mind is Sting.

If I had to choose a band that epitomized Rock, I'd choose Queen. And yet, they never won a single Grammy. In 1977, they were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (sorry, I don't know who comes up with this crap either), with "Bohemian Rhapsody". And who won that year? Chicago, with "If You Leave Me Now". Not that there's anything awful about the winner, it's just that... God, it's awful. Even by 1977 standards, it's a mellowish idiotic song... I mean, "Bohemian Rhapsody" lost to "Ooooooh, now, Baby, please, don't go"... Ugh! And looking at the other nominees for that year, you don't see anything that comes even close to the genius of "Bohemian Rhapsody".

But it's not just Queen. Let's keep on the same category and travel to 1974. Gladys Knight & the Pips won with "Neither One of Us (etc...)". One of the beaten nominees was "Live And Let Die". I know which song is best, and it ain't the winner. For the record, though, "Midnight Train To Georgia" is a fantastic song, and it wouldn't have shocked me to see it taking the #1 spot here.

Or let's look at 1971. Is anoyone really convinced that "Close To You", by The Carpenters is a better song than "Let it Be"?

The Grammys are a politicized award, just like the Oscars. In fact, just like pretty much any award where subjectivity reigns. Look no further than the Eurovision Song Contest. Last year, Ukraine won. Naturally, because they had the best song, not because everyone wanted to make a political statement. Ditto with the "Bearded-Lady-From-Austria", a few years ago.

The solution, as always, is more diversity. You see, all these people pushing white guilt upon non-BAMEs because their goddess lost to "privilege" aren't concerned that the Grammys are a political vanity fair where merit is redundant. Their problem is that the "right" people aren't winning. And the way to solve that is by creating quotas in the voter demographic.

In fact, the solution itself speaks volumes of how political these awards are. This "change in demographics" is also the solution Democrats (and liberal/progressives, in general) are counting on to ensure their perpetual victory at some point in the future.

I suspect the future may have some surprises in store for them.

Grammy Fascy-o

Last year we had the Oscars-So-White thingy. This year, cue the diversity nominations. Denzel Washington said in a recent interview "We're not here because of #OscarsSoWhite". As in "We were nominated based on our merit". Well... that's the problem with quotas, isn't it? No one can actually tell why you're there. Also, "merit"? The Oscars are one of the most politicized awards in the world, I doubt anyone has ever won based on merit. So, no worries, Denz, old chap, you're there for the same reason everyone else is.

Still, I could understand last year's drama - the whiteness of the nominees was a bit beyond the pale.

This year's Grammy drama, though, is different. It's election night all over again. Apparently, there was a winner already picked by Those-Who-Are-Right-!-!-! And what happens when that winner doesn't... well... win? Damn, I guess there's rigs in dem dar system, and y'all are supposed to feel guilty 'bout it, especially if y'all happen to have one o' dem "white skin" contraptions.

Or, as someone so kindly put it, if you're part of "White Mediocrity".

And no, this is not racist, because there can't be racism against white people, because white people have all that yummy white privilege, dontcha know? Well, except, maybe, for white gays. And white transgenders. Perhaps also white women, but many voted for Trump, so they may be in risk of getting kicked out of the "protected species" list. And, besides, non-white gays/transgender/women/etc suffer a lot more, because they don't have any of that nice white privilege. 

So, we went from last year's "We MUST be nominated" to this year's "We MUST be allowed to win".

As far as Adele and Beyonce are concerned, I couldn't care less about either, so my reaction was guaranteed to be a yuge "meh", whatever the result.

As for the more whiney-ragey visible reactions... well, just the normal for fascist America - angry mobs trying to shame and shut down anyone who doesn't stand 100% behind the "party line".

I leave as an exercise for the reader finding out whether I mean the fascists on the left or the fascists on the right.

Hint: There's more than one correct answer.

Er... Who could've predicted that...?

So, here we are, then.

Mr. Duck is in; his "Cabinet" shows he won't be draining any swamp, as was to be expected; and no one knows exactly what's going to happen (I predict his debts will "magically" disappear and his businesses will, finally, prosper). There's even a possibility that his own Party (so to speak) may actually become his fiercest opposition.

On the Left, a few sane voices briefly called for an introspection for the "Disaster", but were quickly drowned by the usual mob shouts of "Racism! Sexism! Nazi! Not my pussy!" So, the Left won't be addressing inequality anytime soon, because they're only concerned about certain types of inequality; you know, some inequalities are more unequal than others. This was driven home just now, as I was reading an article on the Guardian that managed to hammer "misogyny" and "white privilege" into an argument about fad diets.

In fact, if we still needed any proof (hint: we didn't) that the Left has become the Right, just with different slogans, we only need to read on how the Women's March, this weekend, was funded.

The Gathering of the Useless at Davos produced the same old "business-as-usual", its levels of ridiculous shooting off the charts with talks like "How to fix the Middle Class". The same luminaries that gave us last year's "Trump will never win" are presenting us their equally-brilliant predictions and solutions for the years to come.

Meanwhile, Oxfam has finally found out it had "over-valued the assets" of the poorest 50% on Earth, and that their wealth is actually matched by the richest eight people on Earth (not the richest 50, or 60, or whatever figure they had previously pulled out of their colons). I'm looking forward to the day when they reach the logical conclusion that drawing a so-called poverty line at an arbitrary value (say, $5/month) doesn't mean people earning above that line (e.g., $15/month) are no longer poor. Maybe then we can lay to rest that lovely theory that "capitalism" and "globalization" lifted 99.999999999999% of people off "poverty" in Asia.

And here in Europe, the talk is suddenly about "standing together" against the greatest attack Europe has faced since WWII. Standing together... it should be a piece of cake, given how Europe has "stood together" in the recent past:

1. A group of countries (e.g., Ireland, Holland, Luxembourg) and pseudo-countries (e.g., Lichtenstein) rob other countries of their tax income and enable tax-evading schemes, not to mention actual money laundering. The only thing on which they "stand together" is their "principle" of getting as much money as possible, regardless of its origin.

2. Germany keeps a superavit, against the EU rules, and gets no sanction for it.

3. France breaks the deficit rule, and there's not even talks about sanctions because "it's France".

I won't go again into the details of how countries like Greece and Portugal were treated, all to save mostly German banks. Greece was a particular egregious case, because all their "sins" (e.g., the 14th month-salary) were committed out in the open, and a significant part of the money was spent in business with Germany (e.g., the submarines).

I'll finish with my highlight of the past few months, what I consider to be the most ironic moment of all:

Virtue-signalling, "hard-working" countries (like Germany, Holland, Sweden, et al), that have spent these past few years telling us "lazy southerner bastards" that we have to pull our weight in the EU, getting all indignant when the US says they have to pull their weight in NATO. For the record, so do we, but we don't pretend to be more virtuous than anyone else.

Yes, I know, I'm repeating myself. But that's what you get when you write about people whose tiny little brains do not allow them to learn from their mistakes.

Actually, that's why I've written less here. I start writing, and I find myself repeating the same things I've already written, because these "best-of-the-best" elites keep repeating the same mistakes.

All Hail Trumpkin I

It's been almost a week.

I'm not going to say much, just note that progressives don't seem to have learned anything from Brexit, and seem poised to repeat this amazing intelectual feat after Trump. From what I've been reading, with some notable exceptions, progressive answer is to double down on the intolerance and hate (all the while pointing out the Other's intolerance and hate) and wait until the demographics ensure the "defenders of diversity" (as in "Where I live 98% voted Clinton") can ditch the rest of the country.

It might work, and nothing screams "progressive" like "Let's ditch those f*ckers and abandon them to their fate".

But I'm finding it much more ironic to follow the "European response". Let's see...

• Merkel & Friends have been telling us (Southern European lazy bastards) "We've got the money. We set the rules. You obey". They now seem to find it intriguing that someone else comes along and serves them with their own message.

• Merkel & Friends, again, have unleashed division in Europe (North/South) to save their banks, and to save themselves with their own electorates. Then, in an ironic twist, they were served their own poison (East/West) when we were hit by the migrant crisis. At that time, Merkel & Friends lamented Europe's lack of unity, apparently unable to realize that you reap what you sow. Now, they're going again for the mirage of an united European response to Trump. Will Merkel & Friends ever realize that, after their destruction of European unity, they will never achieve it again?

This week's elections in Moldova and, most especially, Bulgaria, show the explosive success of Berlin's plan. Most of the pundits on "our side" claim Putin has been sabotaging the West. I'd say he hardly needs to. The Elected Accountants in the West have shown their complete lack of vision. That could, of course, be caused by the fact that they have their heads so stuck up their belly buttons they can only see their own behinds.

• The most hilarious scene I've seen this week was our old buddy Juncker saying we need to teach Mr. Trump what Europe is. The man whose country robbed his European partners of taxes by giving under-the-table sweetheart deals to big corporations is going to teach the con artist what Europe is.

Dunning-Kruger FTW.