Can the folks at News Corp finally pull the plug on that veritable geyser of misinformation, the New York Post? (Horribly mixed metaphor, I know, fuck off) You know, the one that doesn’t even make any money, but which Rupert Murdoch, in his fiendish way, keeps afloat as if just to troll the whole world?
I mean, take this for example:
The op ed page at the Post is a crime against humanity. And who bears the brunt of it? Well, anyone, for example, with a father-in-law who relies on those pages for his only source of intellectual connection to world events.
God damn you, New York Post! God damn you to hell!
Pretty sure The Post has sucked ass far longer than 21 years.
I’m guessing it was 'aight back in Hamilton’s day. I picked 1993 because that’s when Turdy Murdy came along.
“The newspaper for people who like to read fast or have to read slow.”
74westy
September 16, 2014, 1:13am
5
Now I have scare quote fatigue.
andros
September 16, 2014, 1:19am
6
To quote the eminent scholar:
If you believe Cecil, it’s also the only newspaper whose headlines you can read via spy satellite .
The dumb opinion is based on what the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change has spewed.
What is that?
Spearheaded by the Koch brothers-affiliated Heartland Institute, which the Economist named “the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change,” the 9th International Conference on Climate Change is being held this July at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It coincides with the release of the latest volumes in the group’s “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)” report. Both the report and the conference are an attempt to pretend that denying the basic science of man-made climate change has any legitimacy (it doesn’t), as well as a handy excuse for the right-wing media to pretend it’s giving the issue balanced representation (it isn’t).
The IPCC report, it should be noted, is a collaborative effort by hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists. They volunteer their time (as in, no governmental or corporate entity is paying them to reach the conclusions they’ve arrived at), and each installment of the report goes through three thorough stages of review. The NIPCC report, in contrast, is compiled by paid contributors, funded by fossil fuel-backed groups and missing the rigorous peer review process.
The guys at VICE did a report on that Las Vegas meet, what was most important IMHO was the overall theme of the report; how the “luminaries” of the deniers are indeed aware of how discredited, useless or ignored they are becoming.
Only in meets like that they are somebody, and also recognized in front of the Republican politicians and dumb opinion pages.
It would almost be possible to dismiss this whole crowd as a bunch of sad cranks. Somewhere between 9/11 Truthers and homeopathic doctors. Not just snake oil salesmen but snake oil customers at the same time. Immune to the accumulating evidence that free market economics is not only responsible for the economic crash of 2008, but also the ever-closer ecological catastrophe.
They would just be sad sacks if they were not also influential. Among the delegates swarm the sharks just as surely as they do in the Mandalay Bay Hotel aquarium. Myron Ebell of CEI who once conspired with a White House insider to downplay climate in a seminal government report. Senator James Inhofe who, by video call, told the troops to ready themselves to take Congress in November. They also influence lower level officials.
During one dinner I sat next to Rod Wright, a brilliantly funny and apparently savvy Democrat state senator from the environmentalist hotbed California. Rod, one of only two black people I saw out of a claimed 600 attendees, told me how he became suspicious of renewable energy, and then climate science more generally.
These suspicions were confirmed by the avalanche of literature he received from the Heartland Institute. His colleagues deserted him but he was steeled by the support of the free market think tank. “You have to sift information through your own filter”, he told me. “Their funding does not devalue their information. Everybody got money from somebody. Jesus said, ‘Let he without sin cast the first stone’.” He smiles, before adding. “I have looked at some of their work on insurance and I think they’re full of shit.” (I read later that Wright has been convicted of voter fraud).
**They are full of shit. But they are having a real influence on American politics. **They are just one of the hundreds of Koch and Exxon funded think tanks and fake grassroots campaigns that have frustrated and blocked Obama’s administration at every turn. As I leave the conference I find it hard to reconcile what I have learned. These people are just cranks but they are perverting American politics. I did learn in Vegas that attacks from these people are not going to hurt me.
In the casino the tragedy of the American Dream continues. Hardworking Americans sit emotionless pouring their salaries into slot machines. Believing the dream. But investing every last dime in a desperate and, for the overwhelming majority, simply hopeless attempt to escape. I watch a guy burn $2,500 in 20 minutes during a spiral of roulette stupidity.
When you see the homelessness in Vegas, and the drug addiction, and you know there is no real welfare state over here, no safety net. These Heartland folk are just a few pay cheques from freefall. They’re not going to get headhunted by Stanford University any time soon. They believe themselves too educated to survive McJobs. They are clinging on. They’re hustling. That’s what you do in Vegas.
GIGObuster:
The austere setting reeks of respectability and scientific rectitude. Next year, the Quicki-Fucki So Long Big Boy Hourly Happy Days B & B in downtown Pattaya.
Still, I was intrigued by the headline in the Post:
**Miller’s Crossing type of dismissal, with some old Irish bruiser buffeting his subordinate out through the long corridors of City Hall.
The Post ? That is some pretty low-hanging fruit.