Why I Will Make Sure To Re-Elect The Marxist...By Mitt "No One Is Dumber Than Me" Romney!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Of course not, and I didnt think William was either -- he was reacting, "that is garbage, where did you get it?"

I thought he was just saying, "where did you hear that and why do you believe it?"

Carol,

Help me out here.

I'm having a little trouble following the consistency.

(OK--I'm gonna stop. This is getting too easy, and besides, I like you a lot.)

Michael

[syrakusos]

I read Carol plainly and rightly. It was a fair question.

I had no idea it was "widely reported" but only because I stay out of the mainstream media. (And I never read Salon and in fact stopped my subscription to The Well after Salon bought it.) I do have CNN.com has my homepage of my Windows machine and Reuters here on my Mac. That way I do not miss important news like Baby Boo-Boo and Lindsay Lohan's latest arrest and Duchess Kate being photographed topless. I like to stay abreast of current events, obviously. I did note the tragic death of Christopher Stevens and I commented on it here. After that, the story got buried in the cleavage or below the fold or something.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I read Carol plainly and rightly. It was a fair question.

Michael,

Who said it wasn't a fair question? (it was hostile with a nasty insinuation, but fair in terms of asking for sourcing.)

The problem came with the finger-wagging while making elementary errors to the fair answer...

Michael

[anthony]

... Kate being photographed topless. I like to stay abreast of current events...got buried in the cleavage...

"Topless - "abreast" - "cleavage"? Is there a thing or two on your mind, Michael?

Well, get it off your chest, then - make a clean breast of it.

(Wouldn't want you to get distracted, or anything.)

Either Freudian slips, or very clever puns...

[GALTGULCH8]

www.garyjohnson2012.com

Just to see what we will be missing. When you consider that a Johnson presidency will change the country in a way that constitutes a paradigm shift away from statism to individual freedom and stops the profligate spending and currency counterfeiting with balanced budgets stretching out into the future, you will appreciate that the Gary Johnson option does exist as he will be on the ballot in at least 47 states.

Remember a vote for Romney, who is destined to lose, is a vote for Obama. So don't think that a vote for Romney will kick Obama out.

The GOP is supposedly pleading with Ron Paul supporters to vote for Romney. But very few will succumb to that after the way the GOP treated those who supported RonPaul leading up to the convention, in the delegate selection, in the manuevering to keep Ron Paul from being nominated from the convention floor. The vast majority of Ron Paul supporters will not fall for the ruse of voting for ROmney to keep Obama out as is often stated. Not after the man who they worked so hard for was not even allowed to speak at the convention for fifteen minutes to the delegates and the country.

Polls showed that Ron Paul would beat Obama while Romney would lose to Obama. But the GOP was under the influence of forces behind the scenes who evidently still fear a ROn Paul presidency. Perhaps those forces involve the businesses which benefit from military ventures all over the world as those would certainly be affected if ROn Paul were elected. He would close most of the overseas bases and save one trillion dollars a year in that way. Perhaps those forces involve the private ownership of the Federal Reserve Banks which would be fully audited under Ron Paul as president and no doubt the printing presses would stop.

The country would be a much better, safer, affordable place with Ron Paul as president and neither Romney nor Obama offer that.

Gary Johnson still does offer us that option. No more IRS nor income tax. No Patriot Act. No NDAA. Still possible. NO Obamacare. Certainty will lead to jobs as the money being held will be used to hire.

www.garyjohnson2012.com

Remember every vote for Romney is a vote for Obama to be re elected. Romney will not defeat Obama. There is still time.

Gary Johnson for your freedom.

[anthony]

"Absurdly honest and smart", [GQ magazine]

Unbelievably (for a politician) I gather this is so.

Gulch, I admire your long battle, enough that I'd be fighting the good fight

with you if I were there. Redundantly, you have got to break out of that two-

party dilemma (false dichotomy, perhaps?). I predict steady increases for your party,

and I agree that Objectivists should throw their weight (however small, numerically)

behind it. Their intellectual weight would tell, I believe.

[Selene]

[Selene]

All [Obama] does is fund raise. The day the ambassador was raped and killed, he flew to Nevada for a fundraiser.

What the heck is this? "

The ambassador was raped and killed

."

Where are you coming up with this crap, Adam?

William:

As has been stated earlier, it was reported through many sources. And, the reason that I did not disregard these reports is that the same reports were out there about Gaddafi's demise.

"As GlobalPost reports:

A frame by frame analysis of this exclusive GlobalPost video clearly shows the rebel trying to insert some kind of stick or knife into Gaddafi's rear end.

GlobalPost correspondent Tracey Shelton said there is some question as to whether the instrument was a knife from the end of a gun, which Libyans call a Bicketti, or a utility tool known as a Becker Knife and Tool, which is popularly known as a BKT.

This latest video discovery comes as international and human rights groups call for a formal investigation into how the former Libyan leader was killed. In video clips that have emerged of his capture, Gaddafi can be seen injured but alive. Later he is seen with what appears to be gunshot wounds to his head and chest. According to the Geneva Conventions, however, abuse of prisoners under any circumstance is not permissible."

This is the Northern part of Africa William. Additionally, as you know, Libya is very tribal. I believe there are seven (7) major tribes with strict territorial zones.

Further South in the African continent sodomizing the enemy is a routine practice in inter tribal conflicts.

I am sure you are aware of this.

Adam

[Selene]

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

Photos of the dying or aldready dead Ambassador Stevens being carried through the street, while those walking alongside snapped pictures, were posted on a number of sites.

Since the State Department had now declared that the Ambassador was pronounced dead after being brought to a local hospital, these are quite credible.

There's no confirmation of anyone sodomizing him, or his corpse. These things do happen in Libya. On the other hand, Lebanon has become notorious as a source for planted stories, faked photos, you name it, they've got it.

Reasonable conclusion: his body was carried through the streets, and not everyone involved was doing so with helpful intent.

Reasonable conclusion: without further credible evidence, don't assume that he was sodomized.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

You are dreaming. Your "analysis" is a fantasy divorced from the physical nature of objective reality.This country did not elect Calvin Coolidge. A different country in the same place but another time did that.

Michael,

While our species continues to undergo biological evolution, it is not doing so rapidly. Nor are the selection pressures to which are presently subject primarily political, cultural, economic, or ideological.

Therefore, human nature has not been, and is not being radically or irreversibly altered by economic, political, cultural, or ideological conditions.

So I tend to take predictions of inevitable decline with a grain of salt.

If you want iron laws of irreversible cultural decline, Leonard Peikoff has some to offer you in his DIM volume.

Robert Campbell

[caroljane]

"Too full already is the grave

of fellows that were good, and brave,

And died because they were."

-AE Housman

Christopher Stevens, a good man and brave.

Rest in peace and eternal honour

[9thdoctor]

If you want iron laws of irreversible cultural decline, Leonard Peikoff has some to offer you in his DIM volume.

Or you could try Spengler's Decline of the West. From what I've gathered about DIM, Spengler has him creamed on raw facts accurately presented.

[caroljane]

I read Carol plainly and rightly. It was a fair question.

I had no idea it was "widely reported" but only because I stay out of the mainstream media. (And I never read Salon and in fact stopped my subscription to The Well after Salon bought it.) I do have CNN.com has my homepage of my Windows machine and Reuters here on my Mac. That way I do not miss important news like Baby Boo-Boo and Lindsay Lohan's latest arrest and Duchess Kate being photographed topless. I like to stay abreast of current events, obviously. I did note the tragic death of Christopher Stevens and I commented on it here. After that, the story got buried in the cleavage or below the fold or something.

The Stevens story was never widely reported in the mainstream media because it was never confirmed.

As to the Duchess, the consensus on royalwatching websites is, she should have known better than to ever be outdoors topless, still the photographer must be shot, and we now know that she is even more beautiful than anybody thought she was.

William is too furious even to write in his Diary.

[caroljane]

Who are the ones I hate and look down my nose at, Michael? Do you believe I hate you or Brant or Ninth Doctor or Baal or...who is it?

Carol,

Judging by your posts, probably jts for starters.

(You asked.)

Michael

I do not hate jts. I discern a puckish deliberate curmudgeon somewhere in him, which reminds me of my grandfather, although I am probably older than jts. He is deliberately contrary, "a character", exasperating, Sometimes very amusing, always a saving grace with me.

I am not a good hater,

[caroljane]

"Absurdly honest and smart", [GQ magazine]

Unbelievably (for a politician) I gather this is so.

Gulch, I admire your long battle, enough that I'd be fighting the good fight

with you if I were there. Redundantly, you have got to break out of that two-

party dilemma (false dichotomy, perhaps?). I predict steady increases for your party,

and I agree that Objectivists should throw their weight (however small, numerically)

behind it. Their intellectual weight would tell, I believe.

I hope Johnson gets a huge amount of votes. many people, me included, think the two-party system in the US has outlived its usefulness. Likeminded libertarians need a voice.

[anthony]

Carol, right - enough to be taken seriously on the political landscape, would be a start.

(And I've $20 wagered with an O.Onliner that they show an improvement come November...not

that that's anything to do with me shilling 'em - but keep it in mind guys.)

[Robert Campbell]

Or you could try Spengler's Decline of the West. From what I've gathered about DIM, Spengler has him creamed on raw facts accurately presented.

ND,

I have another 100 pages to go.

And I haven't read Spengler.

But I wouldn't recommend The DIM Hypothesis as a comprehensive source of historical facts.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

The Stevens story was never widely reported in the mainstream media because it was never confirmed.

You mean, like the story on John McCain's alleged extramarital affair—which ran in the New York Times?

Robert Campbell

[william.scherk]

All [Obama] does is fund raise. The day the ambassador was raped and killed, he flew to Nevada for a fundraiser.

What the heck is this? "The ambassador was raped and killed."

Where are you coming up with this crap, Adam?

As has been stated earlier, it was reported through many sources. And, the reason that I did not disregard these reports is that the same reports were out there about Gaddafi's demise.

"Many sources"? You have not cited or excerpted a single originating article, nor shown any indication that you looked at the chain of reportage. You do not seem to have discovered the original source, nor critically examined any source to establish baseline credibility of the original 'report.' This is, in my view, lazy-minded. To confidently accept a questionable source via second or third-hand 'reports' is sloppy thinking. To not understand the need for sustained rational inquiry and to not use its tools to discern crap from fact, this disturbs me.

I object to the casual epistemology, Adam. I object to any apparent habit of mind that does not closely consider information coming in. It further concerns me that Objective-ish folks sometimes dick around with this kind of rumour-formation and do not use assembled reason to understand how such a rumour was initiated and propagated.

I apologize for a tone that seems too aggressive for the circumstance in my earlier query, but strip out the exclamation and the word crap and the bolding and please forgive. Respond to the challenge and give us the information you used to put forth the rumour as fact.

Here are some interesting comments on the "all over the news" Raped Ambassador:

• I don't feel like investigating this further
  
• But as I said, the possibility was reported and discussed all over the news. And it was.
  
• Do you really need more links?
  
• How serious the speculation or investigation went, I don't know. I didn't look into it. I just skimmed headlines and a paragraph here and there
  

This stands plainly averse to inquiry. The poster does not feel like investigating. He gives "let me Google that for you" as a response to a query, and informs us that the Google search returns lots of links, so hop to it, he doesn't feel like assessing credibility.

Lots of links! Lots of stories! Even Salon 'reported' ...

Of course, the question remains, did Salon report that the Ambassador was raped? Is it enough to know that someone somewhere mentioned the rumour? Is it enough to get some Google hits? Is it okay to pretend that those hits support the original contention?

No. It is not okay. I don't accept slackening reason.

By accepting goods without inspection, we tend to abandon standards of reason clear and dear to us all here. If we later cannot see how shoddy goods -- unexamined -- entered play, and if we cannot accept responsibility for mistakes in assessment, how can we pretend to be cognitive gatekeepers and great experts at discerning reality? If we misidentify malicious tale-telling as Fact, what hope do we have of a proper evaluation or analysis of Value?

See, Adam, I like you. I can like you a lot without cutting you any slack on Reason. Take the challenge in good spirit, as a reminder to be vigilant, to check premises, to use critical faculties when examining incoming information.

But back to the LINKS we must go now, as I spank Carol thoroughly for her impertinence and her spirited comebacks. Carol, grab your club, we are going to the links!

What was the Salon link? Hmmm. Maybe it was this:

Rumor-mongering surrounds Chris Stevens' death

We will 'investigate' a little bit later -- it's a stupefied-by-Marxism online mag, after all, what would they know?

First, more links. I'll give you links, Ms Progressive Finger-Pointy Blah Blah Blah. This was all ovah da news. There was reports all up the wazoo, widder lady

Here:

US Ambassador Raped by Muslims Before Killing - Debbie Schlussel

Atlas Shrugs: US Ambassador to Libya Was Raped Before He Was Tortured

The Rape of Christopher Stevens | FrontPage Magazine

Is that enough for you, Carol?

If it isn't, hmmm, let us see what that sewage farm of vile bongo-playing cough reporters at Salon had to say, the beasts. Here follows the whole freaking Salon report, from some shyster named Jillian Fairfield Rayfield, or so they say. To hell with fair-use, here is their whole sorry MO and obvious bias resplendent in full-text with links, glorious links. Published Monday, Sep 17, 2012:

Since Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, there’s been no end of speculation about the exact circumstances of his death.

Here’s what we know: American officials are still investigating what happened between the time Stevens was separated from his security detail, and when he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

From the New York Times:

“Officials in Washington said they were investigating that blacked-out period, but as they conduct that inquiry, witnesses have emerged who said that Mr. Stevens had fled to a room in the diplomatic compound, hoping to find safety behind a locked iron gate and wooden door. But fires raged around the mission, and Mr. Stevens, unable to escape the smoke and heat, died of asphyxiation.”

According to witnesses, Libyan citizens carried Stevens out of a window and brought him to a Benghazi hospital. Pictures that emerged of Stevens during the attack show him being carried outside of the consulate. The caption, via Getty Images, describes the picture as showing Libyans who were trying to help.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both praised those Libyans who tried to help Stevens. But on right-wing blogs, and among pundits like Rush Limbaugh, there is no reason to believe that this occurred: “Then to add insult to injury, we have to listen this morning — honest to God folks — to Mrs. Clinton and Obama praise the Libyans for trying to save our ambassador,” Limbaugh said last week. “These pictures that you’ve seen with the ambassador upside-down, half naked, being carried over somebody’s shoulder? We’re told, ‘Yeah, our friends in Libya were taking him to the hospital.’ They paraded our ambassador around! Taking him to the hospital? How stupid do they think we are?”

The anti-Islam blog Gateway Pundit agreed: “It sure looks like a strange way to drag an obviously dead man to safety!”

On Monday, the New York Timesposted a video that purportedly shows Libyans trying to take Stevens to the hospital, which supports what American officials have said about the images.

The

shows the window where Stevens was pulled out, and according to the Times’ translation of it:

“I swear, he’s dead,” one Libyan says, peering in.

“Bring him out, man! Bring him out,” another says.

“The man is alive. Move out of the way,” others shout. “Just bring him out, man.”

“Move, move, he is still alive!”

“Alive, Alive! God is great,” the crowd erupts, while someone calls to bring Mr. Stevens to a car.

Mr. Stevens was taken to a hospital, where a doctor tried to revive him, but said he was all but dead on arrival.

Amid the questions about Stevens’ last minutes, there is another rather vile peripheral debate occurring in the right-wing blogosphere. Michelangelo Signorile from the Huffington Postsums up the various rumors:

1) Ambassador Christopher Stevens was gay; 2) that the Obama administration is responsible for his death because it had the supposedly terrible judgment to send a gay man to an Islamic country, or even did it as an intentional provocation, and; 3) that Stevens’ corpse was dragged outside and sodomized by an angry mob because that’s what Muslims do — they have sex with the dead bodies of gay men.

The gay rumors seem to have originated on Hillbuzz.com, the website of Kevin DuJan, who also believes that President Obama is gay. DuJan uses the very, very shaky sourcing of a “Serbian consulate employee [who] identified himself to me as ‘Dino’ and wouldn’t give me any more of a name than that, but told me it was no secret that Chris Stevens was gay and that ‘it was stupid to send him to Libya as the ambassador when he was a known homosexual.’”

The story was picked up by a number of right-wing blogs, including Breitbart.com, which offers this explanation for why Stevens being gay would be at all relevant: “It just seems like one more way the Obama administration needlessly enraged the passions of protesters in that part of the world.” A blogger for the Examiner even speculates that Stevens was sent by Hillary Clinton as an “intentional provocation” to Libya.

As for the claim that Stevens was raped, that seems to have originated from a story on the Lebanese news outlet Tayyar.org that erroneously cites the AFP, and that was picked up by the Washington Times. The AFP told TWT that the “report falsely quoted our news agency and has no truth whatsover to it.”

Twitter @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. Let's nail this beeyotch.

Edited September 20, 2012 by william.scherk

[caroljane]

But back to the LINKS we must go now, as I spank Carol thoroughly for her impertinence and her spirited comebacks. Carol, grab your clubs, we're going to the links!

Och no, Our Wullie, please! You knae well that the Stuarts cannae play the golf to save their lives!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It further concerns me that Objective-ish folks sometimes dick around with this kind of rumour-formation and do not use assembled reason to understand how such a rumour was initiated and propagated.

I apologize for a tone that seems too aggressive for the circumstance in my earlier query, but strip out the exclamation and the word crap and the bolding and please forgive. Respond to the challenge and give us the information you used to put forth the rumour as fact.

William,

This line could not be more fair--or correct.

Now you're talkin'...

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Great points by WSS.

We know that stories not factually verified may be found in the American conservative media, the American ultraconservative media, and the American hard-Left media.

Now, does anyone really think that only stories that have been factually verified run in the American legacy media?

Robert Campbell

[PDS]

It further concerns me that Objective-ish folks sometimes dick around with this kind of rumour-formation and do not use assembled reason to understand how such a rumour was initiated and propagated.

I apologize for a tone that seems too aggressive for the circumstance in my earlier query, but strip out the exclamation and the word crap and the bolding and please forgive. Respond to the challenge and give us the information you used to put forth the rumour as fact.

William,

This line could not be more fair--or correct.

Now you're talkin'...

Michael

I like WSS's term "assembled reason." I know exactly what he means, but haven't seen that formulation before--the sure sign of a good turn of the phrase.

[Selene]

Crony "capitalists" and Harry Reid ...