Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[skeptik]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080912/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_stretching_the_truth_4

Analysis: McCain's claims skirt facts, test voters

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 11, 8:29 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.
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Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead.

Even in a political culture accustomed to truth-stretching, McCain's skirting of facts has stood out this week. It has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and campaign pros are watching to see how much voters disregard news reports noting factual holes in the claims.

McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more notable because many political insiders consider him one of the greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight race with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally unstable.

Shaken by the experience, McCain denounced less-than-truthful campaigning. Vowing to live up to his "straight talk" motto, he apologized for his reluctance to criticize the flying of the Confederate flag at South Carolina's state Capitol in a bid for votes. When the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked the military record of Democrat and fellow Navy officer John Kerry in 2004, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."

Now, top aides to McCain include Steve Schmidt, who has close ties to Karl Rove, Bush's premier political adviser in 2000.

Politicians usually modify or drop claims when a string of newspaper and TV news accounts concludes they are untrue or greatly exaggerated. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, conceded she had not come under sniper fire in Bosnia after a batch of debunking articles subjected her to scorn during her primary contest against Obama.

But McCain and his running mate Palin, the Alaska governor, were defiant this week in the face of similar reports. Day after day she said she had told Congress "no thanks" to the so-called Bridge to Nowhere, a rural Alaska project that was abandoned when critics challenged its costs and usefulness. For nearly a week, major news outlets had documented that Palin supported the bridge when running for governor in 2006, noting that she turned against it only after it became an object of ridicule in Alaska and a symbol of Congress's out-of-control earmarking.

The McCain-Palin campaign made at least three other aggressive claims this week that omitted key details or made dubious assumptions to criticize Obama. It equated lawmakers' requests for money for special projects with corruption, even though Palin has sought nearly $200 million in such "earmarks" this year.

It produced an Internet ad implying that Obama had called Palin a pig when he used a familiar phrase, which McCain also has used, about putting "lipstick on a pig" to try to make a bad situation look better. McCain supporters said Obama was slyly alluding to Palin's description of herself as a pit bull in lipstick, but there was nothing in his remarks to support the claim. Obama accused the GOP campaign of "lies and phony outrage."

The lipstick wars were fully engaged when the McCain campaign produced another ad saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners. The charge triggered the sort of headlines becoming increasingly common in major newspapers and wire services monitoring the factual content of political ads and speeches.

"Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy," was the headline on a New York Times article Thursday. "McCain's 'Education' Spot is Dishonest, Deceptive," The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" article said.

Major news outlets have written such fact-checking articles for years. "But in the last two election cycles, the very notion that the facts matter seems to be under assault," said Michael X. Delli Carpini, an authority on political ads at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. "Candidates and their consultants seem to have learned that as long as you don't back down from your charges or claims, they will stick in the minds of voters regardless of their accuracy or at a minimum, what the truth is will remain murky, a matter of opinion rather than fact."

With Palin giving McCain's campaign a boost in the polls, Obama supporters are nervously watching to see what impact the latest claims will have. Surveys already show that most people believe Obama would raise their taxes — a regular McCain claim — even though independent groups such as the Tax Policy Center concluded that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under his proposals.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds defended the campaign's statements. "We include factual backup in every one of our TV spots," he said Thursday.

Obama, of course, has made exaggerated or questionable assertions as well. Earlier this year, for instance, he repeated a claim that more black men are in prison than in college, after news accounts refuted it. He also used a McCain remark about having troops in Iraq for "100 years" to exaggerate McCain's proposals for being fully engaged militarily in that country.

In general, however, Obama has been quicker to react to news accounts challenging his accuracy. Faced with skeptical reports this year, for instance, he stopped saying he "worked his way" through college, and instead credited hard work and scholarships.

Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now teaches politics at the University of Southern California, said McCain and Obama learned they must stretch the truth "when staying on the high road didn't work out to their benefit."

McCain, he said, "tried it his way. He had a poverty tour and nobody covered it. He had a national service tour, and everybody made fun of it. He proposed these joint town halls" with Obama, "and nothing come of it. Through the spring and early summer, that approach didn't work. You can't blame him for taking a step back and reassessing."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Babington covers national politics for The Associated Press.

 

[cookiecutter]

Fuck it, I'm moving to Canada

 

[The Ozzman]

http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

awesome.

 

[The Ozzman]

Facetiousness FUCK YEAH

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Also it's not gonna happen.

 

[rms]

ATHENE


2500 RATING


wtf is he doing on there? and its nice to see his hot girlfriend

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

win

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

um... wut?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,422661,00.html

Britain Adopts Islamic Law, Gives Sharia Courts Full Power to Rule on Civil Cases

Monday , September 15, 2008

FC2
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Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through county courts or the country's High Court, a part of its Supreme Court system.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.”

Click here to read more on this story from the Times of London.

 

[cookiecutter]

That's worrisome considering how backwards some sharia law is.

 

[genocide roach]

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

whats wrong with this? compliance with religion is entirely voluntary, and anyone who wants to be judge by religious law can do it on their own.

my question is, does someone have to volunteer to be judged by sharia law? or does your faith automatically mean youre going to a muslim court? what if a muslim wants to be judge by western law and is forced into a sharia court?
~gR~

 

[zabu of nΩd]

That's pretty horrendous. So much for separation of church and state, and equality under law. But I guess those are American ideals.

 

[Caecius]

RIALTO, Calif. — They're a relentless force on the gridiron, with a stinging defense. But don't expect anyone to cheer for the Rialto High School fire ants.

Rialto High Schhol's football field has been invaded by fire ants.

Discovered by a groundskeeper last week, the venomous red pests have set up several mound-like colonies on the football and baseball fields. The Southern California school canceled a freshman football game, moved practices and called the state Department of Agriculture.

"They're from South America," said Syeda Jafri, spokeswoman for the Rialto Unified School District.

"How they got here, we have no idea."

The school called in exterminators, and Jafri said the fields are expected to be clear of the unwanted guests by Friday, ready for next week's football game.

The infestation is not to be taken lightly, said Les Greenberg, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside.

"A small percentage of the population is allergic to the venom, just as with bees or wasps," Greenberg said.

"This could range anywhere from a nuisance to a health threat."

I hate fire ants.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

LOL

Sterilization of poor women proposed by Louisiana state legislator
From Wikinews
Thursday, September 25, 2008

A Louisiana representative has proposed a controversial solution to "generational welfare", which would pay women on welfare getting sterilization. John LaBruzzo said he thought of the idea because of his constituents' outrage over paying for welfare.

"You have these people who are just fed up with working their buns off to try to provide for their own family and being forced by the government [to] provide for others’ families who just want to have unlimited kids," he commented. He is currently working with Baton Rouge to gather data in support of his proposal.

The idea, which LaBruzzo has not finished forming, would award any woman on government assistance a check of $1,000 who gets her tubes tied. LaBruzzo is also considering rewarding sterilization in poor men and giving tax incentives for higher-income families to have more children.

LaBruzzo, who is against abortion, said that the people "on the other side of the political spectrum are pro-choice. Well, let's give these people the ability to choose".

While LaBruzzo has stated that he has received an outpouring of support over his idea, the ACLU spoke out against the proposal and called it a 'meanspirited attempt to eliminate the poor'. Planned Parenthood representative Julie Mickelberry called it a "bribery", suggesting a solution which attacked the root of the problem was needed and that the representative needed to "go back to addressing issues of education about unintended pregnancy and opening healthcare access".

What an idea. Probably utterly terrible and fascistic, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[The Ozzman]

Awesome

 

[whiskey funeral]

Another Evangelist caught loving kids way too much.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/25/childporn.alamo/index.html


(CNN) -- Evangelist Tony Alamo was arrested Thursday in Flagstaff, Arizona, on charges related to a child porn investigation, an FBI spokesman said.
Tony Alamo is shown with his wife, Susan, in this undated photo from Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.


The 74-year-old founder and leader of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries was arrested without incident at 2:45 p.m. (4:45 p.m. ET) as he was departing the Little America Hotel with his wife, said Manuel Johnson, spokesman for the FBI in Phoenix, Arizona.

The FBI, the Flagstaff Police Department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety were involved in the arrest, he said.

Alamo was charged under a federal statute with having knowingly transported a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity, Johnson said.

Alamo, whose real name is Bernie Hoffman, was taken to Coconino County Jail in Flagstaff, where he is to have an initial appearance Friday in federal magistrate court, Johnson said.

Over the weekend, about 100 federal and state agents authorities raided Alamo's 15-acre compound near Texarkana, Arkansas, and took six children into temporary custody.
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The children were interviewed as part of a two-year investigation into Tony Alamo Christian Ministries to determine whether they were physically or sexually abused, said Bill Sadler of the Arkansas State Police.

Alamo, reached by phone Saturday in Los Angeles, California, denied any wrongdoing.

"It's a hoax," Alamo said. "They're just trying to make our church look evil ... by saying I'm a pornographer. Saying that I rape little children. ... I love children. I don't abuse them. Never have. Never will."

Asked why authorities were searching the property, Alamo compared himself to Christ.

 

[The Ozzman]

LOL

He looks ridiculous. It's like something out of a bad movie

 

[whiskey funeral]

LOL

He looks ridiculous. It's like something out of a bad movie

Even better, Ozz:

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

AHAHA yeah I believe him...fuck these people.

 

[cookiecutter]

Can't blame him. Look at that wife!