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Sunday, July 13, 2008
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25 comments:
Impeachment, Yeah, Dream on loons!
Hey is that Jennifer Teguia in the background? Isn't she the one who recently wrote about John McCain:
"McCain was whisked inside so I didn't even get to take his photo or see him at all.
That WAR CRIMINAL knows how to be seen when it works to his benefit and not seen when it doesn't, let me tell you."
LOL Using kids now as props for the same old recycled garbage from Code Pink.
I am fascinated by the anonymous comments we are getting these days. Keep up the good work folks!
Let me know when you're done with the name-calling and we can have a conversation.
peace,
jim
THANK GOD FOR TRUE PATRIOTS THAT PROTECT FOOLS LIKE CODE PINK...
I thank my Imaginary Friend for the Ladies in Pink, who get up every morning, remind themselves they were not born of fearful people, then go out and show the world how Free Americans conduct themselves in the presence of those who would be tyrants.
Happy Bastille Day!
Regarding the brave comments of "anonymous" about "using kids now as props"...
I am the proud father of those kids who are there in DC to learn about democracy. One thing (far from the only thing) that is frightening about the state of our country is that so many view patriotism as synonymous with obeisance, so that they disdain dissent and scorn the earnest voices of those who hope for a more peaceful world. Would that the world were run by CODEPINK grads, and I hope it will be one day. Bush deserves impeachment, though it won't happen. But the good will remind the world, forever, of his and Cheney's crimes. Congratulations to my daughters and their intrepid mom!
Protect our Constitution
Support our Troops with the Truth!!
CODEPINK keep it up!!
I don't understand how people who support code pink believe that if we simply crawl back into our shell. That the world will be at peace and those dictators who kill millions of their own people and make weapons of mass destruction should just be allowed to continue such actions. Furthermore, pulling out of countries that support and are home to Islamic extremists will not appease them but only make it easier for them to plan attacks. I love peace as much as any code pink member, but some things are work fighting for. You people have to realize the only thing that stops people from walking across the border and cutting your head off is the military. Islamic extremists will only be happy with the complete destruction of western culture and thought.
Thanks for your time.
Not persuaded... Most people are really careful about their children's images. Why put your children in a position to be used as props for Code Pink's recycled propaganda? Anyone can download the images. Moreover, did it occur to you that your children when they become adults may not be too proud of posing as political props with Code Pink? I just hope the kids don't get too much of dad's DNA.
In some people's minds, it is a good idea to send your children across the ocean to die in the streets of Baghdad for a mistake, but a bad idea to allow your children to be photographed holding up their fingers to promote peace in the world. I am not surprised that these people prefer to remain anonymous. Since anonymous is so smart, I wish he would tell us when the war is going to end, and what he is planning on doing to stop the next one.
Check out the a little snippet of the unreported progress in Iraq that the media is not reporting! And this is only scratches the surface of what the US has achieved there.
1. 47 countries have re-established embassies in Iraq.
2. Over 1 million new cell phone subscribers in Iraq.
3. Jan. 2005 - 25 Iraqi students came here to re-establish the Fulbright Scholarship program for Iraq.
4. There are 1.2 million Iraqis now employed by the Iraqi government.
5. There are 3,100 schools that have been renovated.
6. There are 364 schools under rehabilitation.
7. There are 4 research centers that have been built.
8. There are 263 new schools under construction.
9. There are 38 new schools that have been built.
10. There are now 20 universities open.
11. Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit.
12. 96 percent of Iraqi children under age 5 received their first polio vaccines.
13. Iraqi Stock exchange opened in 2004.
14. 46 institutes or colleges are now open.
15. 93 water facilities have been built.
16. 69 Electrical facilities.
17. The media has exploded in Iraq, it now has 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 tv stations.
18. The candidates in Iraq recently had a televised debate.
Today's News (Code Pink must really be depressed to hear this story because they support our enemies):
According to the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat more than 150 militants tied to Al-Quaeda or the Sunni based Islamic Army of Iraq have surrendered to US forces after they turned over a list of the militants to local Sunni leaders. After negotiations with tribal leaders half of the Sunni militants were released after turning in their weapons and pledging to Sunni leaders and US forces that they would no longer participate in armed conflict in return for their removal from the most wanted list. Nearly 70 Al-Quaeda militants who surrendered were arrested.
Jennifer Teguia, the JFK High School teacher who called John McCain a war criminal, is now part of the gallery at Target of Opportunity.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/codepink.htm
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/codepink_updates.htm
Check out this link to see graphic pictures from Iraq that Code Pink should consider posting.
It is item 20. and is labeled graphic pictures from Iraq. They will shock you.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/editorial.htm
For cool Code Pink and other protest photos go here:
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/protesters-1.htm
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/protesters-2.htm
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/protesters-4.htm
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/protesters-5.htm
Check out the a little snippet of the unreported progress in Iraq that the media is not reporting! And this is only scratches the surface of what the US has achieved there.
1. 47 countries have re-established embassies in Iraq.
2. Over 1 million new cell phone subscribers in Iraq.
3. Jan. 2005 - 25 Iraqi students came here to re-establish the Fulbright Scholarship program for Iraq.
4. There are 1.2 million Iraqis now employed by the Iraqi government.
5. There are 3,100 schools that have been renovated.
6. There are 364 schools under rehabilitation.
7. There are 4 research centers that have been built.
8. There are 263 new schools under construction.
9. There are 38 new schools that have been built.
10. There are now 20 universities open.
11. Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit.
12. 96 percent of Iraqi children under age 5 received their first polio vaccines.
13. Iraqi Stock exchange opened in 2004.
14. 46 institutes or colleges are now open.
15. 93 water facilities have been built.
16. 69 Electrical facilities.
17. The media has exploded in Iraq, it now has 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 tv stations.
18. The candidates in Iraq recently had a televised debate.
Here is Code Pink's leader Medea Benjamin in an interview defending Code Pink's favorite socialist dictator Hugo Chavez for closing the last independent media in Venezuela.
CARLSON: The apparent successor to Fidel Castro‘s brand of socialism is mixing things up once again. This weekend Hugo Chavez shut down one of the main television stations in Caracas because it was critical of his administration. That move sent thousands of people into the streets to protest, but not in this country, where some places Chavez remains remarkably popular. Joining us now, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange, a group that organizes tours of Chavez supporting Venezuelan neighborhoods, co-ops and government financed media outlets. Medea thanks for coming on.
MEDEA BENJAMIN, GLOBAL EXCHANGES CO-FOUNDER: Thanks for having me on Tucker.
CARLSON: I want to do something to cruel to you. I want to read your own quote back. Here is what you wrote last year, I believe. Quote, “Another basic myth” -- this is a piece about myths about Venezuela—“is that Chavez has limited freedom of speech and eroded civil rights.” That was March 4th, 2006. Do you want to revise that given the news that Hugo Chavez has closed the last nationally broadcast opposition television station for criticizing him?
BENJAMIN: Well that‘s just not true Tucker. What he did is he didn‘t renew the license. But there are still television shows, and television stations owned and run by the opposition media. I think that you hear more opposition to the government in Venezuela than you would here in the United States. That‘s in the TV, in the radio and in the print media.
CARLSON: I don‘t know what you have been smoking, Medea, but you are saying that this president just closed a television station because it criticized him, but somehow Venezuela has a freer press than America?
BENJAMIN: He did not close it because it criticized him. He closed it because it participated in a coup against a Democratically elected government, his government. If a television in United States advocated and was part of an effort to topple a Democratically government, the Bush administration let‘s take—I don‘t like it—
CARLSON: I am reading now from the 360 page white book on RCTV. This is published by Chavez‘s government. It accuses RCTV—that‘s the television station in question—of, quote, showing lack of respect for authorities and institutions. I would think, as a self described liberal, you would stand up for the right of people to, quote, challenge authorities and institutions. And yet, you are apologizing for the squelching of minority views. Why could that be?
BENJAMIN: Well, there are opposition TV press and print media all over Venezuela. I don‘t know if you have been there, Tucker, but you can go on a reality tour with us. You will see it everywhere you go.
CARLSON: Why would you—hold on. Why would you make excuses for that?
BENJAMIN: -- that tried to topple a Democratically—
CARLSON: How can a television—let‘s be real. You are throwing a very serious charge out there, a charge for which people have been killed in Venezuela. I am asking you a very simple question, explain how a television station can cause a coup? They said they did not like the president. Is that the same as pushing a coup? I mean, what the hell are you talking about?
BENJAMIN: They falsified information. They got people out on the street. They falsified footage that showed pro Chavez supporters killing people, which did not happen. They refuse to cover any of the pro Chavez demonstrations. When Chavez—
CARLSON: They refuse to cover pro Chavez demonstrations? I wonder if you are even a tiny bit ashamed that you are apologizing for fascism on national television.
BENJAMIN: I wonder if you are ashamed of calling a Democratically elected government a fascist government.
CARLSON: He just shut down a television station because that television station, as you put it, did not cover pro government administration. You have got to be kidding. You are losing touch here a little bit.
BENJAMIN: It participated in a coup against a Democratically elected government. If it was done here in the United States, that TV station would not only not be on the air, the people that ran it would probably be in jail right now. You are holding Chavez to a different standard. Peru recently did not renew a license. Uruguay didn‘t renew a license. Why do you hold Venezuela to a different standard.
CARLSON: Medea, I think it‘s very clear that because Chavez hates the United States, you are sympathetic to him and willing to make excuses for his anti-Democratic, anti-liberal behavior. And it‘s a shame.
BENJAMIN: No, it‘s because he takes the oil money and does not give it to reach oil barons like in the United States, but gives it for literacy and health programs.
CARLSON: OK, I am glad we have this tape, and I think some day you will be ashamed of it. But I appreciate your coming on any way. Medea Benjamin, thanks for joining us.
BENJAMIN: Thank you.
CARLSON: When Al Gore is not telling you how to live your life, he is telling us in the press how to do our jobs. Gore takes a public shot at Paris Hilton and the people who cover her. Willie Geist, one of those people, takes great offense. Details when we come back. You‘re watching MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: If you are one of the many who sat through the first 54 minutes of this program just for this moment, for the arrival of Willie Geist, wait no more. Here he is. From headquarters, Willie Geist.
WILLIE GEIST, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Tucker, I didn‘t sleep through that last segment. But the pro Chavez movement, no offense to the guests, may want to find a new mouth piece. I don‘t mean to judge.
If you think Code Pink is so about peace, then how do you reconcile its close ties to the dictator Hugo Chavez? Check out this snippet about how Chavez supports FARC:
"But the recent hostage rescue has also drawn attention to the real role played by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in using the FARC to destabilize the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, his regional archrival.
During a previous commando raid in March, which killed FARC second-in-command Raul Reyes at his Ecuador campsite, Colombian soldiers recovered files from Reyes' laptop showing, among other things, that high-ranking Venezuelans had schemed with the FARC to supply the group with high-tech weapons, ammunition and a $300 million grant. The files also detailed plans to exploit the hostage issue for political gain.
Chavez's support for the FARC has been known and tolerated for some time. Indeed, Venezuela has been harboring their leaders, who have operated openly within Venezuela's borders. Chavez's ban on overflights by U.S. planes participating in anti-narcotics operations in Colombia and his government's refusal to cooperate with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency have also benefited the FARC immeasurably. It is no coincidence that during Chavez's presidency, Venezuela has turned into a major conduit for the transshipment of cocaine.
Despite the FARC's killing of thousands of civilians and its continued holding of 700 hostages, the oil-rich Chavez government confessed its direct support for and solidarity with the region's most notorious terrorist group. During a speech this spring before Venezuela's congress and an assembled diplomatic corps, Chavez asked that the FARC be removed from U.S. and European terror lists.
It is clear that Chavez's earlier involvement in appearing to negotiate the release of FARC hostages was not a humanitarian act, but rather cold political grandstanding. It is suggestive of the amicableness between Chavez and the FARC that when the Colombian commandos duped the FARC and released the hostages, they chose as a disguise clothing and aircraft similar to those used by previous Venezuelan delegations.
Evidence of Chavez's support for the FARC has been revealed just as the Colombian military has made its biggest advances in its strategy of eliminating the group's leaders while encouraging defection among the rank-and-file. The rescue of the prominent hostages deprives the group of its most valuable bargaining chips. What's more, the hostages' stories have helped cement world opinion against the FARC. Marc Gonsalves, one of the rescued Americans, described being held in chains while tropical diseases ravaged his body. His message to the FARC and its sympathizers, conveyed by media across the world: "FARC, you are terrorists...terrorists with a capital 'T.'"
According to the young minions that Code Pink has seduced, millions have been killed in Iraq. Just more propaganda from Code Pink and their propaganda props.
See from Atlantic Monthly:
How many Iraqis have died because of the American invasion? It would be nice to know the local price of Saddam Hussein’s ouster, five years on. Many researchers have produced estimates. Unfortunately, these range from 81,020 to 1 million. The wide variance, of course, speaks to considerable uncertainty, although the individual figures are often absurdly precise.
The figure most often quoted, and until recently regarded by many as the most scientific, comes from a study published in TheLancet, a prominent British medical journal, just before the 2006 election. That study, which made headlines worldwide and was cited by war opponents from Ted Kennedy to Al-Jazeera, found that a shocking 601,027 Iraqis had died violent deaths since the U.S. invasion. But the timing of the study’s publication and the size of its estimate have attracted a great deal of criticism; its authors, mostly researchers at Johns Hopkins University, have been accused of everything from bias to outright fraud.
Research by the World Health Organization, published in January in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, has cast further doubt. It covered basically the same time period and used similar statistical techniques, but with a much larger sample and more-rigorous interview methods. It found that the Lancet study’s violent-death count was roughly four times too high. This has a familiar ring to it. A smaller study, released by the Johns Hopkins team in 2004, had been quickly contradicted by a larger UN survey suggesting that it had overstated excess mortality by, yes, about a factor of four.
“Conflict epidemiology,” the study of war’s health effects, is by its nature an inexact science. War and anarchy are not friends to careful, by-the-book research. We have little idea how many people now live in Iraq; ascertaining the number who have died there is a tall order. And huge disparities in death estimates are not unique to the conflict in Iraq; cluster sampling, the best-regarded survey technique for use in war-torn places, has produced estimates in other conflict zones, such as Darfur, that vary by factors of three or more.
All casualty studies have problems. But the Johns Hopkins study’s methodology was particularly troublesome. The number of neighborhoods the team sampled was just above the minimum needed for statistical significance, and the field interviewers rushed through their work. The interviewers were also given some discretion over which households they surveyed, a practice generally regarded as unwise. And though such latitude calls for closer-than-normal supervision of field interviewers, the Johns Hopkins team seems to have provided little. Any of these choices can be defended because of the dangers, and the authors have said as much, claiming, basically, that this was the best they could do in a bad situation.
But that raises an unwelcome question: If this is the best we can do, should we be doing this at all? Cluster sampling was developed for studying vaccination; it has never been validated for mortality. Because of the wide variance in the estimates it produces, some researchers are now questioning its usefulness.
Yet though its compromises made it particularly unreliable, the Lancet study remains the most widely known. Its conclusions were the earliest and most shocking of the scientific estimates and thus generated enormous media attention. The more-careful counts that followed prompted fewer, and less prominent, articles. There’s little doubt that the larger number will live on for years in the writings of antiwar activists. But the rest of us, too, were influenced by it, perhaps more than we realize. We will have to live with its legacy.
Most data create what cognitive scien- tists call “anchoring effects”: we fixate on numbers we’ve heard, even if they’re arbitrary or wrong. In one 1970s experiment, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (whose work won a Nobel Prize) famously picked a number at random in front of their subjects, by spinning a wheel, and then asked them to guess whether the percentage of African nations in the UN was higher or lower than that number. Next, they asked for a hard estimate of the actual percentage. The higher the random number, the higher the final estimate tended to be, even though the first number had been obviously irrelevant.
These effects persist, infecting our related views, even when the “facts” are subsequently discredited. In one study, for example, experimenters gave students false, negative information about a teacher, but then told them it was incorrect. Nonetheless, when subsequently asked to evaluate that teacher, the students generally turned in worse ratings than did students in a control group that had not heard the bogus information.
We anchor most strongly on the first number we hear, particularly when it is shocking and precise—like, say, 601,027 violent deaths in Iraq. And even when such a number is presented only as a central estimate in a wide range of statistical possibilities (as the Lancet study’s figure was), we tend to ignore the range, focusing instead on the lovely, hard number in the middle. Human beings are terrible at dealing with uncertainty, and besides, headlines seldom highlight margins of error.
When information supports positions we already hold, we of course tend to accept it less critically; when the opposite is true, we can be quite good at shutting the information out. “Motivated reasoning” is a mighty force, as anyone who has argued politics in a bar at 2 a.m. can attest. Scientists have observed the process, using a functional MRI machine to peer into the brain while it processes political statements, and their report is unsurprising. When we are assessing neutral statements, activity is concentrated in the areas that control higher reasoning. But when we process statements with political valence, suddenly our emotional cortices light up as well. Indeed, some research indicates that the emotion precedes, and governs, the higher cognition—that logic is, literally, an afterthought.
But cognitive bias is not limited to partisans; we all anchor on the numbers we hear. The Lancet article’s central estimate exerts a gravitational pull on even its harshest critics, who seem to be mentally benchmarking their estimates by how much they differ from that 601,027. Others who are not motivated to disprove that number tend to orbit even closer.
Once people make an estimate, they have a strong tendency to confirm it. If I ask you whether it is plausible that there are 600,000 Canada geese in Chicago, your thought process might go something like this: Big lake … a lot of parks … very near Canada … OK, sure. Once you’ve said yes to that 600,000 figure, psychological studies show, you’ll continue “recruiting evidence” for it, perhaps noticing an article on a goose refuge near the city. Eventually you’ll wind up surrounded by a little army of facts that support the theory. What most people don’t do is look for ways to falsify it: Shouldn’t the geese still be in Florida at this time of year?
This psychological quirk can create motivated reasoning even in an initially disinterested observer. By the time we’ve finished affirming the figure’s plausibility, it has become ours, and we’ll fight to defend it. Being challenged—say, arguing with a skeptical friend—now makes us dig in. Once mustered, the troops are hard to disperse.
All of this calls into question the idea that even a flawed study is better than no study. Like most people, I believe that more information is usually better; when facts or theories conflict, air the differences and let the facts fight it out. But not every number is a fact. And when the data fall below some threshold of quality, it’s better to have no numbers at all.
When researchers try to collect data in the heat of conflict, the necessary compromises make shocking outliers more likely. Yet early, messy studies are first to press, so the worse the data, the more likely we are to hear about it. Even when bad numbers are overthrown, the correction often comes too late. Appallingly high and, it turns out, inaccurate estimates of deaths resulting from sanctions were among the reasons advanced for invading Iraq. And ultimately, inflated early estimates of casualties can trivialize the very problem they were meant to highlight. When the initial estimates of 250,000 dead in the former Yugoslavia were revised downward, one conflict researcher complains, suddenly the number became “only” 100,000.
Witness the Johns Hopkins team’s critics, who triumphantly waved the WHO results at their opponents. But even if “only” 150,000 people have been killed by violence in Iraq, that’s a damn high price. Conversely, few of the study’s supporters expressed much pleasure at the news that an extra 450,000 people might be walking around in Iraq. After a year and a half of bitter argument, all that anyone seemed interested in was proving they had been right. In counting, we somehow lost track of the mountain of dead bodies piling up beneath our numbers.
The Ladies in White were snubbed by Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan who claim to be all about peace and justice. Wake up and realize that when you march with Code Pink they are using you as props for their true agenda which is anti-US.
From the AP’s Vanessa Arrington:
The Ladies in White, a group of women demanding the release of their loved ones,
described what they called "inhumane" conditions at Cuba's prisons in a letter for Sheehan that was sent to international reporters. The group said it was trying to get a copy to Sheehan as well.
"At the same time you and your noble followers fight for the closure of the U.S. prison at the Guantanamo naval base ... just a few miles away at the provincial Guantanamo prison in Cuban territory, peaceful and defenseless political prisoners suffer inhumane conditions, (living) without potable water and with poor nutrition, deficient medical assistance, insects and rodents, limited visits and precarious communication," the letter said.
"We exhort you to visit the prisons of Cuba, chosen randomly, and not those prepared" by authorities, it added.
more
It is a brilliant move to appeal to these leftists to basically get involved in the same exact cause that they claim to be in Cuba for: Human Rights.
And it will accomplish two things:
Code Pink will, of course, ignore the request to help another set of peaceful women that are working for justice and peace as Code Pink claims to be doing, thus showing their hypocrisy and their true communist funded anti-American agenda.
And by taking advantage of the media circus accompanying Code Pink to Cuba, they are able to attract some much needed media attention to the plight of their jailed loved ones. and their country.
Seems funny, Code Pink complains about Bush, yet its leaders embrace a dictator like Hugo Chavez who is supporting a war in neighboring Columbia. They claim to be about human rights and yet Medea Benjamin defends the closure of the last independently owned tv station in Venezuela. Also, they snub the Ladies in White who are the spouses of Fidel Castro's political prisoners. Just more hypocrisy from Code Pink. Peace is just an excuse for them to hide their real anti-US agenda. And, when you become a prop in Code Pink's propaganda you should be intelligent enough to do a little bit of research to see if you might be just a tad troubled by the hypocrisy behind what they claim to stand for.
There are those that say that I am a dumb ass for calling the members of the volunteer army "our children being sent to die". I'm sorry if it offends you, but I have children about the same age as many of the young Americans who have died in Iraq. They may be more mature and courageous than anonymous blowhards, but I can still call them "our children", because that is what they are. As far as the volunteerism goes, I think that almost any soldier you ask will tell you that he or she went to Iraq because he was told to go, and that was his job. If that isn't being "sent" then I don't know what is. Please try to be more civil in your comments, or refrain from the discussion.
peace,
jim
I don't know, gee when I joined the military, I knew I could be sent to war. And, I never complained when I was sent. And, I never viewed people like you as supporting me. In fact, I viewed people like you as supporting the people who were trying to kill me.
I don't need you to lecture me about civility, you associate yourself with a group that thinks they should be able to have no respect for decorum and should interrupt others any time. Jim, go and provide more support America's enemies! With all due respect you are an ignorant. You just need to feel like you are doing something. You are achieving nothing!
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