Category: Propaganda

Headlines can be misleading.

Reading USA Today I encountered this headline:

Majority of economists in USA TODAY survey back 2nd stimulus

I was skeptical, so I skimmed the article to figure out how the paper got to such an unlikely conclusion. Will you be surprised that the headline derives from this?

Congress should pass a second economic stimulus bill that could include tax cuts, an extension of unemployment benefits, or funds for roads and bridges, say a majority of economists polled recently by USA TODAY.
…

Thirty-two of the 43 economists (74%) who answered the question last week in a survey by USA TODAY said lawmakers should pass a stimulus bill to soften the blow. “It won’t keep us from going into recession,” PMI Group chief economist David Berson says. “But it may make the difference in preventing a worse recession.”

“Majority of economists who responded to USA Today Survey back 2nd stimulus” is not quite the same, is it? It loses a little punch. At the expense of some truth, since self-selected responses to a politically charged question is hardly objective. But the news isn’t about the objective, I suppose.

Note: Every blog entry can’t be a winner. I’m distracted by the World Series, so I needed to flex my blogging muscles.

Which Atlas Shrugged character is he?

I’ve been wrapped up in playoff baseball for the majority of the last three weeks. Much of the world is passing through my filter with scant attention. But Senator Obama managed to poke through that filter with a loooooong commercial about taxes. I sat dumbfounded through the second minute because I couldn’t believe he’d use such an obvious pander. From the ad:

…

On taxes, John McCain and I have very different ideas. Instead of giving hundreds of billions in new tax breaks to big corporations and oil companies, I’ll cut taxes for small and startup businesses that are the backbone of our economy.

Instead of more tax breaks for corporations that outsource American jobs, I’ll give them to companies who create jobs here. Instead of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest — I’ll focus on you.
…

If he is speaking to all Americans, as he clearly wants us to believe, who are the non-“you” taxpayers he is speaking about rather than to? Has there ever been a clumsier example of creating a “Them” for “Us” to despise?

Senator Obama may think he can pass off his class warfare bribe as an enlightened, good-for-society measure. Given the unthinking, partisan nature of much of America, he’ll probably pull it off with his half of the electorate. That does not change the undeniable fact that there is a group – consisting of “all men are created equal” Americans – he thinks he can harm because a) they have something he wants and b) they’re a minority of the population to be demagogued into submission. How very progressive.

No conspiracy. I think the media is lazy.

Here are three stories to demonstrate that media reporting on male circumcision borders on propaganda. First, from Aidsmap:

A meta-analysis of studies of circumcision in gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM) has not found sufficient evidence to show that being circumcised reduced their risk of acquiring HIV. Although it finds a small reduction in the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men, this is not statistically significant – in other words it could just be a chance finding. Furthermore, the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that although circumcised men who were exclusively insertive for anal sex had a lower risk of infection with HIV, the difference with uncircumcised men was still not statistically significant and could have been chance.

Fair enough, and there are further possibly-relevant nuances in the article. Those aren’t my focus here (nor do they overcome my principled objection to forced circumcision). Rather, consider how the editor titled this news:

Jury still out on whether circumcision protects gay men against HIV

What would it take for the jury to finally be in? We see how quickly it’s in on unstudied results assumed from a study that appears to give the results the researcher wants. (The answer? Six days.) When the jury gives an answer you don’t like? Deliberate further. I don’t wonder why.

Note: We can debate the semantics of scientific investigation of the hypothesis and findings, but pro-circumcision researchers use only a very loose application of either.

Second, from Time (emphasis added):

Circumcision is believed to lower H.I.V. transmission in several ways. The inner surface of the foreskin is rich with cells that are more vulnerable to H.I.V. than cells on other parts of the penis; because they are also closer to the epithelial surface and at higher risk for tears during intercourse, they increase susceptibility to infection. Removal of the foreskin further lowers men’s odds of developing genital ulcers (from diseases such as syphilis), which in turn lowers their vulnerability to H.I.V. during intercourse. In theory, circumcision should be protective for all men who participate in insertive sex, including heterosexual men and men who have sex with men.

Believed to lower is accurate, because all studies involving (voluntary, adult!) male circumcision and HIV risk reduction look at results. None of them have shown what generates the results researchers claim. There are theories, but nothing concrete. It could be nothing more than flawed methodology, right? Yet, Time reported male circumcision’s claimed role in reducing HIV risk as its 2007 medical breakthrough of the year. Has the magazine changed its opinion to one of logically-defensible caution?

Third, from the Jerusalem Post:

Almost a third of male immigrants from the former Soviet Union are uncircumcised, according to a survey by the Geocartography Institute commissioned by the Jerusalem AIDS Project.
…

The survey also found that 2.2% of women who immigrated from the FSU “didn’t know” whether their partner was circumcised, and 72.8% of female partners of uncircumcised new immigrants would prefer that they don’t undergo ritual circumcision.

That 72.8% figure is interesting. It’s subjective, a point I actively make, even when it benefits me. But this is the type of irrelevant statistic pro-circumcision propagandists like Dr. Brian Morris love to spew when their carefully-chosen studies suggest that women prefer circumcised partners. We mark anyone who would argue in favor of compulsory breast implants for teen girls because their male partners prefer large breasts as intellectually ridiculous. The same applies here. What women prefer only matters if the male choosing circumcision for himself wants it to influence his decision. For the anti-intellectuals who don’t get this, the propaganda can work against them. They’ll never notice, of course.

Continuing, with emphasis added:

Research carried out abroad shows incontrovertibly that circumcision reduces by 60% the risk of a man being infected with HIV by a female carrier. In many African countries with high HIV rates, men are lining up for circumcision, and Israel’s experience in circumcising thousands of adult males has aroused interest in the UN and among African governments.

How does incontrovertibly reconcile with believed to lower? In the same way that “six in 10 circumcised men are immune to HIV infection”?

The only time I’ll (mockingly) use Sarah Palin’s folksy fraud.

This is old, but I still want to write about it. In the lead up to the bailout bill, executive compensation caught fire as an issue. It’s something shiny because the numbers can be large. It’s also convenient because it enables partisans to avoid the complex discussion of causes and factors that might implicate them as part of the problem. From Ezra Klein (via Andrew Sullivan.):

One quick point on the bailout negotiations: The Democrats are making a big deal over limits on executive compensation. Such limits are nice, but in the context of this crisis, utterly meaningless. If Democrats extract concessions such that CEOs can be paid a lot of money rather than an obscene sum of money, but are unable to add provisions protecting homeowners, they will have lost, and lost badly.. Limits to executive compensation are a feel-good provision with little real world relevance or impact, and while it would be nice to have them in the bill, no one should be fooled into thinking them a high-level priority, nor believing that a compromise where compensation limits feature as a key Democratic boast suggests anything other than a total collapse in the negotiations.

This is why I’m not a partisan. I can’t (correctly) dismiss a provision as little more than a quest for happy feelings and then suggest that the provision should be in the legislation anyway because I want those happy feelings. There are real principles and, more importantly, real people involved.

In Mr. Klein’s defense, that isn’t quite enough evidence to support my argument, nor am I implicating him beyond that sentiment. Rather, nonsensical rhetoric from Senator Obama on the proposals then under consideration is a perfect example. (Mr. Klein sourced this without a link, which I tracked down.)

First, the plan must include protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to further reward the bad behavior of irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street. There has been talk that some CEOs may refuse to cooperate with this plan if they have to forgo multi-million-dollar salaries. I cannot imagine a position more selfish and greedy at a time of national crisis. And I would like to speak directly to those CEOs right now: Do not make that mistake. You are stewards for workers and communities all across our country who have put their trust in you. With the enormous rewards you have reaped come responsibilities, and we expect and demand that you to live up to them. This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives.

This is collectivist crap. Executives are stewards for the shareholders. Their responsibility is to run the business according to the goals of the owners, which is presumably to earn profit. Sometimes this goes badly. The owners should learn to write better compensation contracts for the future if they dislike their current results.

The political side is irrelevant, but Congress doesn’t think so. Where contracts exist, including for excessive subjective adjective compensation, government has a responsibility to honor the binding nature for all parties (i.e. not the politicians). Where politicians don’t like the contracts they’re buying, they should not buy the contracts. (They shouldn’t buy them, regardless. I’m sticking with the bailout line of reasoning.) Bitching that J. Dom Pérignon should suffer to make Joe Six-Pack feel better is obscene. If you need your schadenfreude, don’t bail J. Dom Pérignon out of his mess.

I’d question why we can’t agree on this, but I realize that punishing J. Dom Pérignon is more about implementing more regulation. The happy feelings are the bonus.

Blue is the new professionalism?

Via Amy Alkon, I see that TSA has new uniforms. (Conveniently unveiled on September 11th. Symbolism, woohoo!) I have no doubt this will improve the airport security experience. It says so right on the website. Click on What’s Behind the Uniform and you’ll be treated to exciting claims. For example:

ENGAGED WORKFORCE

TSA is revamping the checkpoint process and relying on more personal interaction to detect suspicious behavior. Training officers to increase one-on-one passenger interaction will foster a calmer, quieter environment that will result in a better experience for travelers and increased security.

Should I assume that the gaggle of TSA officers who attempted to bully me last month for exercising my rights hadn’t undergone the new training yet? Will new uniforms enable them to foster a calmer, quieter environment that doesn’t include 7 attentive thugs blocking the line for all passengers and patronizing me that their thuggery is somehow making us safer? Have they been corrected to understand that personal interaction that ends with me exercising my rights does not, in fact, mean that I have engaged in suspicious behavior in need of detecting?

I’m not counting on it.

Do I have a need for liberty?

Whatever the other guy doesn’t like, that’s what you don’t need to do. It says so in every central planner’s happiest fantasies. So, you say you want your high-performance BMW to push 100 miles per hour for the occasional track day, but you just haven’t realized that you’re threatening someone’s life every moment you’re not on the track. Is it good that someone wants to decide that for you?

SPEEDING is the cause of 30 percent of all traffic deaths in the United States — about 13,000 people a year. By comparison, alcohol is blamed 39 percent of the time, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But unlike drinking, which requires the police, breathalyzers and coercion to improve drivers’ behavior, there’s a simple way to prevent speeding: quit building cars that can exceed the speed limit.

It’s hard to pick what else I should excerpt from this horrible opinion piece; every sentiment in it is execrable. Where the obvious point that technology enables society to go much further than the suggestions mentioned is surprisingly ignored, I’d like to pretend that it’s because the author possesses even a tiny bit of concern for actual rights. I’d like to, but the author provides reasons to trust that no concern for rights exists. Consider:

Most cars can travel over 100 miles an hour — an illegal speed in every state. Our continued, deliberate production of potentially law-breaking devices has no real precedent. We regulate all sorts of items to decrease danger to the public, from baby cribs to bicycle helmets. Yet we continue to produce fast cars despite the lives lost, the tens of billions spent treating accident victims, and a good deal of gasoline wasted. (Speeding, after all, substantially reduces fuel efficiency due to the sheering force of wind.)

I’m amazed the writer thought he could sneak the line I italicized through the reader’s crap detector. I could throw my computer through the windshield of my neighbor’s car, damaging his property. That would break the law. I could potentially do it. Let’s ban computers under a reasonable weight the average person could lift with ease so that we can preserve all the car windows of the world?

It continues:

Despite all this, we Americans insist on the inalienable right to speed. Imagine, for a moment, if E-ZPass kept track of exactly when each car entered one toll booth and exited another, which would allow local governments to do some basic math, dividing distance traveled by time spent. If this calculation showed you to be a speeder, the authorities would send you a traffic ticket. Lives, money and oil would be saved and proof of wrongdoing would be undeniable, but the public outcry would be deafening.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and the rights implied – is the correct approach, of course, because that allows everyone to use products with the potential for danger, as long as they use them responsibly. Do no harm and remain hassle-free. Harm and do not remain hassle-free. It’s not complicated.

In the author’s E-ZPass example, I’d toss mine in the garbage the moment such a plan passed the legislature. Should I assume the author would then demand mandatory E-ZPass usage? GPS tracking in every car? Is there any intrusion too far? It’s usually irrational to believe there isn’t, but nothing irrational is too irrational for central planners.

This should be comedy gold. Instead, it’s just scary.

Sen. McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his VP nominee. Interesting.

So now that the election’s outcome is now longer in doubt, I’m looking for the partisan nonsense suggesting otherwise. I found it at The Corner. Every piece reminds me why I don’t bother to read NRO, not for mockery and certainly not for information. A few winners from today, in no particular order…

First:

A Little Dubya Love [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Readers heard Palin say “nucular” and wonder …

Given his track record, let’s imitate Bush’s shortcomings. Brilliant.

Next:

Hope and Change—for McCain [Victor Davis Hanson]

The brilliant timing of the post-Obama speech/kick off Labor Day weekend in the appointment of the anti-pork, middle-America charismatic Palin … The 72-year old McCain is still running behind the Messiah, and who knows whether the sudden 3.3 GDP good news on the economy, the stability in Iraq, and cooling off of gas price spikes will hold or play a role. …

Alaska is middle America? But poor geography skills are minor in the face of clear delusion.

Next:

Why Sarah Palin is No Dan Quayle [Peter Robinson]

… But whereas Dan Quayle never actually did anything for Bush, Sarah Palin has helped McCain in two important ways: She has cut short the attention the press would otherwise have lavished on Obama all weekend, limiting Obama’s bounce. This has solved McCain’s most immediate tactical problem.

Forgive me for thinking a candidate should choose a running mate on credentials rather than political (mis)calculation.

Continuing:

… And she has thrilled the GOP’s conservative base, which can now in good conscience give itself to the McCain candidacy with enthusiasm—not feigned enthusiasm, real enthusiasm—for the first time since the senator entered the race. This has solved McCain’s worst strategic problem.

Give itself? That’s just icky. But thank God only the Democrats are looking for a messiah.

Finally, my favorite:

Jubilation, Cont’d [Peter Robinson]

A reader:

The surest sign Palin has fired up the base is the high volume of Corner posts on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day—and the fact that I am deliriously hitting refresh every 5 minutes.

This is why the “Stupidity” tag had to beat down the “Propaganda” tag for primary category honors on this post.

If you lie down with communists, you wake up without rights.

Now this is an issue, as we reach the closing ceremonies?

Ambassador Clark T. Randt Jr. pressed the Chinese government on Saturday to immediately release the Americans, the statement said. U.S. officials would continue to raise concerns about the detentions with senior Chinese officials, it said.

“We are disappointed that China has not used the occasion of the Olympics to demonstrate greater tolerance and openness,” the statement said.

It urged China to show respect for human rights, freedom of speech and religion.

It is a savage view that believes the best individuals should hope for is to be tolerated by a government.

The blunt criticism came just hours before the end of the Games, which have largely followed the plan of China’s leaders for a smooth-running event that would increase the country’s international prestige.

And the world played the willing dupe, despite the Communist government’s well-known lack of respect for human rights. Somehow, participating in the games would convince the rights-abridging propagandists to not be rights-abridging propagandists?

Under pressure to address human rights and free speech concerns, China said it would allow protests during the Games in three designated areas. But none of the more than 70 applications to demonstrate was approved, and some people were arrested as they sought the permits, rights groups and relatives said.

“We found it unusual that none of these applications have come through,” [IOC president Jacques] Rogge said at a news conference Sunday.

Unusual? What part of rights-abridging propagandist makes arresting people seeking permits to protest – an infringement on at least two rights – in any way unusual or unpredictable?

Similar thoughts at A Stitch in Haste.

Monkey Smile Jamboree

In three minutes, this video neatly summarizes much that is wrong with the American mindset surrounding infant male circumcision.

After a bit about “what is circumcision”, we have this exchange:

Teen: “Does it hurt the baby?”
Adult: “It doesn’t feel good, but they don’t remember it.”
Teen: “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter the memory of pain, it matters the pain or not.”

The teen has a natural, reflexive push for simple logic. She gets it entirely correct. As I’ve argued before, following the “he won’t remember it” angle could justify anything short of murder. Something else (ethics, medical need) must get in the way, rendering “he won’t remember it” irrelevant. He will experience it. That matters.

Continuing on through the video, the adult pushes to replace logic with emotional conditioning. One of the teen girls asks why all (circumcised) men have “an awkward scar around their penis”. After laughter and a bit of disbelief, the adult responds:

“He’s talking about probably the separation from the shaft and the head, okay?”

This is ignorant. A scar results from every circumcision. It may be at the separation of the shaft and the glans, although it’s usually further down the shaft than that. (Not much, unfortunately, since there are nerve endings in the now-excised foreskin.) But there is a scar. No circumcised male is unique in being free of this inevitability. Any person who’s seen a circumcised penis, or even the result of another surgery, knows this if he or she is willing to acknowledge reality despite its interference with preferred fantasy.

Next comes the low point of the discussion from the adult:

“You want your husband or boyfriend or whoever… your husband, yeah, there we go, to be circumcised.”

If I told my (fictional) son that he wants his wife or girlfriend or whoever to be large-breasted, implying that he shouldn’t be with a smaller-breasted woman because their natural bodies are defective, you would consider me a piggish ass. Rightly so. Forcing one person to conform to the opinion of another is wrong. Including when it involves surgery. Especially when it involves children.

We all remember our economics, right? All tastes and preferences are subjective. Even if I ignore the preferences of the male subjected to circumcision so that he will presumably please his future partner’s aesthetic preference, as this woman does, what about the subjective tastes and preferences of these females? They’re entitled to their own opinion, as long as it’s the adult’s opinion that foreskins are gross? Conformity for all? That is wrong.

Apart from witnessing how the development of a young mind is perverted by an adult’s careless lack of curiosity, this video is instructive of how males are not the only people injured via circumcision. We expect conformity among females. They just get less unlucky in this debate. We achieve their conformity through manipulation rather than mutilation.