Cowboy Confessional

Noam got it wrong.

Before today I had no opinion about Chomsky.  My conservative friends tend to despise him and my liberal friends suddenly look nervous when his name is mentioned.  Swirling rumors about what he wrote and its relationship to propaganda theory and practice kept landing like drunken MIT co-eds in my mind (and there is nothing quite as amusingly amorous than a liquored-up geek girl).

I’m peddling a book to publishers on the very topic of agitprop.  Having invested a decade in exploding gun control myths I have encountered most every manifestation of misinformation.  Since gun control myths are a subset of propaganda proper, and since Noam wrote on the subject, all these rumors about Chomsky’s insights and how they might be currently leveraged by the left demanded I read into his work.

Can’t say I’m impressed.

I have to give Noam some windage here.  His Manufacturing Consent was penned before every teenager had their own blog and before newspapers began evaporating faster than the last wisp of rum from aforementioned co-ed’s breath (though I will confess that Myers taste better when slurped from her bellybutton).  Thus a fair amount of Noam’s noodling is non sequitur.

Some of it was plain wrong when written.

A primary premise in Manufacturing Consent was that the advertisers led the media by their financial noses.  Noam was metaphorically looking down the wrong end of the barrel (it would be a wonderful event if the barrel analogy were literal).  The media is a matchmaker, with the audience as client.  Any media outlet that creates content disagreeable with the consumer goes out of business.  The primary financial incentive is to give the public what they want, regardless of how bland, sleazy or repugnant it may be.  Without content consumers, the media ceases to exist and no amount of advertising money will enact resurrection.

This is why the main stream media is moribund.  In the 80’s and 90’s a few university journalism schools, paired with statisticians, measured media bias and quantified that the American media was slightly to the left of Fidel.  Given that the polled public perceived itself slightly right of center, there existed a daily disconnect between the media and the public.  What Ma and Pa witnessed day-in-and-out disagreed with what the media marketed.  Fox News has high ratings simply because their content provided something that an otherwise homogeneous media did not.

Chomsky contends that the media was subservient to the advertiser.  Having worked in marketing I know this to be less than half the story.  Advertisers want to reach people, and the editorial leanings of the media are nearly irrelevant.  If a television channel reaches millions of males between 18 and 32, and if the advertiser sells Girl’s Gone Goofy videos, they would not care if the media was a nexus for necrophilia (which may be the next NBS reality show).  Based on ratings and demographics the vendor could predict their sales volume and would buy ad space.  Indeed, the only thing that would stop an advertiser would be if the anti-necra lobby threatened to boycott stations that aired drunken co-ed videos.

Hence, the left-leaning nature of the old media.  In the absence of competing outlets (pre talk radio, internet and Fox) they had insufficient backlash from the consumers. Thus, advertisers were content with the available advertising venues.  Without corrective action from either end of the financial relationship, we see two realities:  First, Noam didn’t know what he was talking about.  Second, the bulk of news was thus controlled by the media and the government, not advertisers.

Forget the military-industrial complex.  The media-politician complex was and is the real threat.

I know enough reporters to confirm that they live for two things:  telling a good story and exercising power.  The former is only of interest to other writers, and we get it.  The later is understandable only in the context that some small and sinister part of the populace always wants to control other people.  Reporters, producers and media moguls are no exception.  Controlling information was a great way to push the public toward some journalists’ political ends.  ‘Was’ is the operative word.  Today everybody is the media – there are millions of board and bathrobed fact checkers armed with an online sea of information that would make an Alexandrian librarian faint.

The media is no longer in control of the conversation, something they have yet to realize.

Noam got the financial aspects of the media backwards.  He also undersold the motivations of the media itself, which have been both malignant and manic.  Too many times we have witnessed major media outlets sell what remained of their souls in order to assassinate a person, company, industry or cause.  NBC faked exploding pick-up trucks.  CNN used machineguns to misinform the public about the power of sporting rifles.  ABC staged impossible self-defense scenarios.  CBS bought or co-produced fake documents during an election.  And MSNBC can’t emit an electron without it being accompanied by misinformation.

Yet Chomsky does not see this as a major source for the manufacture of “consent”.  Willful blindness or purposeful obfuscation?  Don’t know, but either way it says volumes about the quality of his analytical abilities.  He possesses all the functioning cognitive capacity of a drunk co-ed, but with none of the giggling charm.

Chomsky also felt that reporters, as a subspecies, trusted governmental information sources more than private.  Here Noam was nearly correct.  Like humans in general, reporters believe what they want and many seek information that bolsters their pre-existing biases.  If a corporation, advocacy group or man on the street helps assault whomever a reprobate reporter wishes to journalistically bludgeon, that is who will appear on the evening news.  Since reporters have been measured to be more liberal and Democrat than the public at large, they will more often accept government’s guile than General Motors’ (not that there is a difference between those two entities any more).  Yet when the government or a particular politician is the target of a reporters wrath, then non-government sources of deception work just as well.

Ask Dan Rather, providing his meds are allowing him to talk coherently this week.

Noam’s neglectfulness centers mainly on the assumption that “the media” (a rapidly evolving complex organism) is a mindless machine that is easily manipulated.  He ignores the media’s motivations and members therein who are merely activists with press passes.  Therein was the true source of propaganda – an unchecked media with no competition on the sources and distribution of information.  In the bad old days, your world view came from three very similar network news programs and one or two local newspapers.  Now with 500 television channels, several 24×7 news networks and the entirety of the Internet, the old threat of media manufactured consent is mitigated if not eliminated.

Noam Chomsky may have influenced a few, but his depth of analysis betrays a shallow intellectual pond.  Now that everybody is the media, Noam can be ignored … again.

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After a needed delay, the footage of my interview on the NRA News stage is online.

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-facts-media-resources/video/nra-2010/nranews-2010-guy-smith.swf.html

Also, a recent interview on Armed American Radio

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“A lot of the things that have been said, they create a climate in which people who are vulnerable to violence because they’re disoriented, like Timothy McVeigh was, are more likely to act … and I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman.”

It is a bit surreal to see Bill “The Zipper” Clinton in action as I wrap-up edits on my next book, Catalog of Canards, that exposes how political lies are created and spread.  Though we accept that all politicians lie, few have proven to be as artful as the man from Hot Springs (which is his home town, not a nickname for his mattress).  Clinton possesses a rare combination of skills:  the ability to think strategically and blow smoke up skirts.

That’s when he is not inserting cigars there.

Over the weekend Clinton has made several statements wherein he attempts, rather elegantly, to associate the Tea Party movement with deranged mass murders.  His chain reaction of irrational reasoning is that if a Tea Party participant says something unkind about the government, it will cause the next Timothy McVeigh to head straight for the Ryder rental center.

This is, of course, patently insane and shows that Bill Clinton understands nothing about the minds of madmen (though given the number of ladies he has jilted, he may know a thing or two about mad women).  Every day, in every city of every country, people get into heated discussion and shouting matches that go no further than a spittle exchange.  You, your parents, your siblings, your boss, your neighbors do this often enough.  Yet rarely does anyone take action stronger than completing their tantrum.  Being ticked off at an abstraction such as government is even less dangerous.

Thus, the Timothy McVeigh’s of the world are by definition mad.  A rational patriot would not assassinate 168 people guilty of nothing aside from arriving at work on time, much less 19 kids younger than six.  The logical gulf between a group of concerned citizens attending a rally and a lone mass murder is as wide as Monica’s … well, let’s not go there.  We’ll leave it to say that cigars should not be inserted horizontally.

Stipulating that Clinton is no moron, we have to ask ourselves what is his motivation in making plainly inane comparisons.  Since fear is the primary tool of the politicians’ trade, Clinton sought to make people not familiar with the Tea Party fearful of them.  By shellacking Tea Party people and Tim McVeigh with the same brush, Clinton attempted to generate fear of the Tea Party itself.

Nice try Bubba, but no cigar.

People – not politicians or the media – are now in control of the conversation, as documented by Brian Patrick in Rise of the Anti-Media.  Clinton might cause a few skittish souls to shriek, but the average citizen, who likely knows one or more Tea Party members, is sadly amused at Bill’s buncombe and will say as much to his Facebook friends, on message boards, and via his own media outlets, be they blogs, YouTube videos or podcasts.  Whereas Clinton frets about citizens demonizing “the government or … its elected officials,” he stokes the process by being a visible symbol and advocate of elected officials and the government while demeaning The People.  By inappropriately and cynically associating Tea Party activists with lunatic bombers, he generates the distrust that he claims will motivate madmen.

“I want you to listen to me,” Clinton began.  “I’m going to say this again.  I did not have sexual relations with that woman … these allegations are false!”

Just keep that hysterical and historical moment in mind as Billy opines on the opposition.

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faith, n. Tactical truth avoidance.

As a writer and political junkie, I stand amused, bemused, offended and (very) occasionally amazed at the way my language is manipulated, manhandled and forcefully deflowered. Politicians – the world’s original liars – have desensitized me to all the common linguistic spin cycles, and it is a cold, cold day when I encounter semantic sophism that makes me sputter.

It took scientists talking like congress critters to redecorate my computer monitor this morning.

I have not written about Climategate because it was too predictable. Anyone with on-duty dendra has been skeptical about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). I even cut a cute little video about the buncombe. Through the back and forth of the warring factions, scientific ethics had been questioned. Select scientists resigned the IPCC – the United Nations scientific cesspool – in protest for their minority report being downplayed. Certain data and modeling criteria was not shared, an almost unheard of refusal among real scientists. Repeated problems in process, proportionality and programming were uncovered. Yet promoters of AGW leaned heavily upon suspect scientists and maintained momentum due to their alleged inalienable integrity.

So leaked emails showing they are as craven as their criminal cohorts in Congress were only minor surprises. After all, when you are riding a publicity wave and making more money than every other scientist you know, it is human nature to keep the canard going.

What floored me this morning was the nearly Senatorial scheisse scientists spoke. George Orwell looked up from his fifth ring-side seat in Hell and said “Good play old man.”

The initial utterance appeared when requests for core data were denied. It seems that temperature data presented to the public had been adjusted. This is not necessisarily criminal – occasionally data from multiple points needs to be correlated. What was curious is that the original raw data had been disposed of, leaving only the doctored dope. While attempting to explain missing raw data, a spokesdroid said:

“We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

Can you spot the two twists in this tragic testimony? First is the assertion that under-detailed mathematical changes to the raw data added value. “Value” is highly subjective. DuPont chemical plants produce value for the corporation and the people who use the products it produces, but the value-add to deformed peasant children living downstream may not be well understood … to them.

More inane and insane is the self-contradictory statements about dumping data (which in computerized form takes no real room) and “quality control”. ‘Quality’ and ‘control’ insinuate that one controls quality, and in scientific research this means being able to reproduce experiments and calculation on demand (and, ahem, allowing other people to review and attempt to duplicate the same). Thus the scoundrel speaking this sputum asserted that the quality of manipulated data was controlled, but there was no control over the quality of their data storage in general.

Somebody, please call the Gobbles Political Communications Institute – I found their new fellowship candidate.

This does raise one question: Can the original data be reconstructed? The villains in this story have not claimed that the adjustment process is unknown. Could the current “value-added” data have the adjustments removed/reversed and thus the original data be reconstituted? Who is willing to beg the question publicly?

In a somewhat related story, another marcom cretin claimed that their organization refused to share information as required by law, saying:

When he submitted a request for the figures under freedom of information laws he was refused because it was “not in the public interest”.

Odd. I have been under a life long assumption that scientific data, knowledge and validation were the public’s interest? I can only speculate that the policy makers herein are afraid that public access would add value. Interestingly, freedom of information legislation was invented to force disclosure because transparency is in the public interest, and it was the public who enacted the law. Any employee of the people who does not perceive this principle needs to pack-up their personal belongings and exit the building immediately, because they are too dense to hold any job aside from elected office.

Expect more of the same in the days to come. With the Copenhagen summit approaching, and with AGW agitators getting defensive, industrial level adulteration of language is assured. It will be as grotesque as Copenhagen Chew residue.

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Damn oceans.

If you had not noticed, this joint called Earth is a soggy place. Water covers about 71% of the surface and plunges nearly seven miles down, a depth slightly deeper and colder than Al Gore’s soul. If you stood every existing human side by side they would not cover a fraction of Lake Maracaibo, which is still a quarter of Al Gores growing girth.

Which may well explain why the planet is cooling and my green friends are in dithers.

Not that local San Francisco greenies need much motivation to fret, which is seemingly their very purpose in life. Aside from smoking vast quantities of medical marijuana, what has them most perplexed is that during the current decade our planet has cooled off a might. This contradicts United Nations climatologists and other enfeebled persons, and thus conflicts my green leaning associates.

Have a tofu burger. You’ll feel better.

Their confusion is understandable. After all, with China now the top producer of raw atmospheric pollution, with America not reducing its carbon footprint, and with India playing industrial catch-up, Al Gore’s canard clearly states that we should be roasting in our own juices. For the planet to cool while mankind is releasing more carbon than ever in our industrial history defies the theory.

Which means the theory might just be hokum.

But recent global cooling begs a couple of questions, namely why in Hell is it getting colder and who is going to pay my heating bill? Some scientists think the answer to the first question is that oceans are to blame. Maybe I can hit Gore up for the latter. After all he could produce enough hot air to thaw Rahm Emanuel’s heart.

Much of the problem with global warming theory is the inappropriate grafting of recent thermometer readings onto long term, proxy derived temperature estimates, and projecting just the new data into the future. Such bad methodology should be embarrassing to alleged scientists, but in pursuit of government grants even scientists can be dastardly. Most government generated schemes for dealing with the now inverted “global climate crisis” involve taxing somebody and giving the money to somebody else (i.e., theft). With trillions of dollars riding on such legislation, tossing a few quid to unethical or incapable academics is a good way to create public demand for the plan.

Which would work if it wasn’t for those damn oceans.

Some bright folk at Kiel University decided to see if all that water had any recurring effects (click the chart for a bigger one). After all, Mother Nature is a cyclic bitch. Most everything in nature moves in circles, cycles and recycling programs. Nothing nature does is linear with the possible exception of entropy, and I have my doubts about that. Mojib Latif decided to overlay oceanographic temperature data with United Nations scientific effluvium and see how agreeable the two were, discovering that they weren’t. Using a little sign wave logic, they show that the planet appears to be in the early phase of a nominal cooling cycle. Yes, my friend in Alaska – it will get much colder up there in the next 30 years.

Buy an extra parka.

This all makes intuitive sense, which is why United Nations scientists don’t get it. The industrial revolution began at about the same time the Little Ice Age ended. Depending on who answers the question, the Little Ice Age lasted between 200 and 600 years, bringing global temperatures well below average. The long term rise in temperatures from the mid 1800’s appears to be a recovery from excessive global cooling, slowed by those ornery oceans having to go through their cyclic variations.

There are a couple of grand takeaways from this analysis. First and foremost is the understanding that humans are a puny lot and our total effect on the climate doesn’t add up to that of a large lake. Equally important to understand is that if the trend cited by the oceanographers is correct, the worst we will endure this century is a 1/2oC rise in temperature, which might produce enough sweat to moisten Hillary’s dusty labia.

Foremost is shows that United Nations computer projections are buncombe and yet another reason for civilized countries to defund that intellectual brothel.

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