NYT set to further reduce its relevance

NYT to begin charging for online subscriptions

One commenter to this story wrote:

"The NY Times is an incredible newspaper."

I certainly agree with that statement, though not in the way he meant it. Their credibility certainly isn't what it used to be. Leftists love them. Most other people either distrust or ignore them, and for good reason. The Times is the poster-child for the leftist corruption of what some call the Mainstream Media. That isn't to say that every article is leftist propaganda, but enough articles are that the paper as a whole is made suspect. In addition to the articles that attempt to persuade rather than inform (and I don't mean op-ed either), there is the perpetual question of what they're NOT telling you. If the Times is unable spin a story to their liking, they simply ignore it.

Growing distrust has lead to reduced readership. They try to blame this on the internet, but that argument falls apart when one looks at other papers whose circulation is either stable or growing. There are only so many leftists to sell papers to, and the Times already has that market saturated. The farther out in left field they go, the fewer people are going to buy their paper.

If they adopt a model that restricts open access to their content, bloggers will simply go elsewhere. This may be the point. Right now the Times is regularly called to task by citizen journalists for its lack of honesty. Not only does that criticism sting, but it further damages their brand, which over the long run determines the paper's continued relevance. By limiting access, they limit criticism. The problem is that when you limit criticism by hiding from your critics, you cease to be relevant to anyone who isn't a fanboy.

One might argue that the paper should seek to improve its quality by hiring those with a commitment to honesty and objectivity. The problem is that such people don't go to journalism school. At the very least they don't graduate from it. You can't hire people who don't exist. The Times would have to begin hiring people from other backgrounds, and that would provoke the ire of the Journalism school grads who won't appreciate having their educational credentials devalued like that.

The Road

The Road

I appreciated this movie, but the kid was annoying.

You would think that having been born into a world of decay and cannibalism, he wouldn't whine so much. You would also think that he would know when to be absolutely silent, like when a clan of cannibals is lurking downstairs. His "poppa! poppa!" routine made me want to reach through the screen and smack him.

His behavior would have made sense had he been a suburban rugrat uprooted from his world of peace and security and dropped into a post-apocalyptic hell. But he was BORN into this world, which made his behavior seem false and out of place. I hate stories that portray children as helpless by virtue of their youth alone. I dare say that a kid born into a world such as that one, who had managed to survive to the age of ten, would give most green berets a run for their money.

Viggo Mortensen's character as the wary and grimly determined father working to protect his son alive made a lot more sense to me.

Racism rears its ugly head again

Chicago Police scrap entrance exam

This is ridiculous racist nonsense. Hiring and promotion policies should be color-blind. Anyone and everyone should have the same opportunity. If "minorities" aren't pursuing a career in law enforcement, then how does compromising the integrity of the recruitment process make the job more attractive to them? If someone came along and told me that they'd lowered the standards of admission to a school or job so that I would qualify, I'd be angry and insulted. Yet time and time again I see this condescending crap being pushed by racists. Do they really expect a self-respecting "minority" to respond favourably to this? Why would anyone want to work someplace where their competence would always be in question because people with their shade of skin are not held to the same standard as everyone else?

Giving someone a job based on the color of their skin is a violation of the civil rights act of 1964. You would think that law enforcement agencies would be especially careful to actually follow the law.

Race is a social construct. There is no relationship between color and competence. Those who pretend otherwise are racists.

Communism or Environmentalism?

Anyone remember a british documentary called the Swindle of Global Warming? When I first saw it, I thought it was a slam dunk debunking of global warming.

Then I found out that they'd omitted data from 1980 onwards.

Then I found out that this same data forms the infamous "hockey stick" that has itself been refuted.

So we've got advocates and partisans on at least two sides of this lying, cooking the data, or omitting data that doesn't fit the conclusion they are trying to promote.

THIS is the fundamental problem with the "debate." When you have enough accurate information, the truth becomes self evident. When arguments continue despite the presence of conclusive data, and that data itself is obscured or omitted, it is because of hidden agendas.

I honestly and truly believe that the leftists who promote global warming / climate change / latest euphemism are doing so not for ecological reasons but for political and economic reasons. Its all about making the 3rd world safe for communism because pre-industrial agrarian societies are the ONLY places where communism has emerged from within. Communism can be externally imposed as in the case of eastern Europe under Stalin, but communist revolutions have never evolved on their own in any industrialized nation.

The leftists are well aware of this. However they cannot argue to the freedom loving peoples of the earth that economic development in the 3rd world will prevent a resurgence of communism. So instead they dress up as environmentalists and discourage economic development under the notion that it is bad ecologically.

The thing to remember however is that most of those on the left aren't really aware of this. They really do FEEL (as opposed to think) that carbon is bad, etc, etc, and that they are saving the earth from humanity. They're useful idiots in other words. There is a cadre, a vanguard, who cook these schemes up and drive the rhetoric who are fully aware of the true intent, but they don't advertise what they're really up to. It isn't that they're really trying to hide their true intentions either. They simply promote their false intentions so loudly that anything which reveals their true goals are drowned out. This isn't a huge conspiracy, but a huge scam perpetrated by a relatively small conspiracy.

However, when groups and individuals that set out to oppose these scam artists do things like omit data from 1980 onwards, it only helps the scam artists in the long run. You have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You have to tell truths that undermine your argument. If you cannot do this, then your argument itself is flawed. Failure to tell the whole truth will be seized upon and used against you.

Sooner or later the truth of the global warming scam will be understood by most, if not all. But by that time these leftist subversives will have moved on to some other scam. It is far better to fight them here and now than wait for them to cook up some other scam.

PC bullshit now supposedly a constitutional issue

http://minx.cc/?post=294638

I really don't see what his emails have to do with the 1st amendment.

Locking Hasan up months ago because he sent those emails would have been absolutely unconstitutional, and I'd be the first person to stand up and say that.

Depriving someone of their rights because of what they have said is WRONG. Locking someone up for saying something unpopular is the kind of thing they do in France to those who refuse to knuckle under to the dictates of Political Correctness. It is not what is done in a free society that values the open expression and exchange of ideas, no matter how unpopular.

Being a member of the US military is not a right. Being in a position of trust is not a right. Subjecting someone to scrutiny and careful surveillance on the basis of what they have said is not a violation of their rights, but common sense.

If I say "I want to kill Bob" and the police overhear me, it would be utterly wrong for them to arrest and incarcerate me on the basis of that statement alone. However it would not be wrong for them to keep a closer eye on me, and perhaps to warn Bob about what I'd said.

Diversity is a leftist nothing-word. It means nothing. America is a melting pot of people from a multitude of heritages, cultures and ethnicities. There is no special effort required to ensure that individuals from these various backgrounds live and work together as this is the inevitable outcome of their mere co-existence.

Tolerance is a good thing. Picking on someone for dressing differently, eating different foods, or practising a different religion is wrong. That being said, tolerance of difference does not and should not require the tolerance of evil. Your post-modernist liars will whine and claim that judging other cultures is wrong (and even impossible) because the notions of morality are culturally specific. This is bullshit. Right and wrong may not be ideas that are universally agreed upon, but they are universal truths. Some things are right, other things are wrong, and which is which can be known by the effects and consequences that ensue from each. In many cases one or more things may be right or wrong at the same time, with the difference being a matter of degree.

Tolerating that which you believe to be evil (not just different) is not a moral virtue, it is moral cowardice.

Many Muslims living in America speak a language other than English. This is a difference that should not be disparaged because it is not wrong in any way. Naturally they should be able to speak English as well if they expect to function in an English speaking country, but that is a pragmatic concern, not a moral one.

Many of these same Muslims are also extreme misogynists. This is a difference that should NOT be tolerated because it is demonstrably EVIL. Muslims who practice misogyny should be publicly humiliated and punished just as non-Muslims who do so are.

This is but one example, there are many others.

At the same time, there may very well be moral lessons that the greater society can learn from Muslims or their sub-cultures. The pursuit of moral improvement goes both ways. In a melting pot society, the virtues and positive values from all contributors are blended together, not melted away by the dominance of one.

Wisdom From Ace of Spades

http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=294539#c7108018

Just knee cap Hassan and toss him in a pen full of half starved hogs and film it for distribution, then tell the world that this is how all terrorists will be executed. "Engage in jihad and we'll turn you into pig shit."

Gay Marriage and other Irrelevant nonsense

What difference does it make if dykes and queers have their relationships recognized by the state?

I really do think that issues like abortion and gay marriage are nothing but proxies for other things. Social authoritarians and cultural Marxists use these issues as battlegrounds because they allow both sides to do what they most love, beat up on each other. Forget football or baseball, ideological squabbling is America's real national pastime.

What convinces me that these issues are proxies is that they are so unimportant. Real issues of real import wouldn't attract so many hangers on. Neither would real issues split so cleanly down ideological lines. Gay marriage affects gay people, who are an extreme minority. It doesn't affect normal people. Abortion affects teenagers who are too ignorant and stupid to use contraceptives properly. It doesn't affect responsible adults. It affects the dead babies too of course, but they aren't adding much to the debate. They're a quiet bunch, don't tend to say much.

The bile and vitriol exchanged over these topics are so extreme precisely because the stakes are so small. Whether abortion is legal or not won't make one whit of difference in the lives of most people. The same goes for gay marriage. This is also why a consensus is never reached, because to do so would mean that they players would have to find some other irrelevancy to bitch at each other about.

About the only thing that is good about all this is that it keeps these nutters occupied. Heaven forbid they ever stopped fighting with each other and had the opportunity to lay in to everyone else.