Stupid media issues

There are times when the media just shows it's colors, and you can't help but just feel the whiplash hitting you. Recently, Ann Coulter was at a conference and she made a statement where she wished that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens would be off the Court. Preferably by poison (http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060127121209990005&ncid=NWS00010000000001). There's only one problem:

She was joking. What she said, EVEN in the article, was "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."

But the liberal media (in this case, the AP) can't be bothered to separate their loyalties to the left from actually telling a news story, or in this case, a NON-news story. It's in essence, a hit piece on Coulter, which is nothing new. I may disagree with her on topics, but in this case, she's not doing anything. Her position was that she wants more conservative justices on the SCOTUS in order to overturn Roe V. Wade. And that the best way to do that is to get rid of the more liberal justices from the court. She's a constitutional lawyer, folks. She knows how the court's run- and that there will probably always be a mix of liberals and conservatives on the court. And she even said she was joking- and pointed out to the media that was what she was doing.

Knowing full well they'd run screaming off to the presses with her comments. And to top it off, the article's nothing but a "I really don't like Coulter, and SEE, SEE! Conservatives are EVIL!"type of piece. Why? This is how the article ends:

Coulter has made a career of writing and lecturing on her strongly conservative views.
At one point during her address, which was part of a lecture series, some audience members booed when she cut off two questioners. "I'm not going to be lectured to," Coulter told one man in a raised voice.
She drew more boos when she said the crack cocaine problem "has pretty much gone away."

Now, if the article was to be just about her views on SCOTUS and her remarks, that's fine. But to add this in tells me that the writer had NO intentions of portraying Coulter in a fair light. She wants the reader to join in the boos of the audience. She wants the readers to side with her on the crack cocaine issue. The writer- who, by the way, remains anonymous (conveinient, eh?)- The last two paragraphs have no standing as to the actual article's focus, and are just there to make sure that the reader gets their viewpoint about how evil conservatives are- and that a majority of people disagree with them (in this case, a clearly partisan audience). It's a bait and switch- making the reader feel as though more people disagree with her than really do.

Oh, and the article's link? It's "Coulter Wants a Justice Gone: See her Poisonous Remark"

And I don't think the AP was joking. It's no small wonder why people are tired of the mainstream media.

Pakistan-American issues; AQ on the run

What happened about 2 weeks ago in the remote border mountain regions of western Pakistan may well be a watershed moment for South Asia. What the media (outside of FoxNews) isn't telling anyone is that the American covert hellfire missile strike on a village in that remote region of Pakistan is that it targeted- and killed- top level Al Qaeda members (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1517986). We definitely got the head bomb-maker for AQ, Abu Khabab al-Masri (aka Midhat Mursi) and many of Zawahiri's (the #2 guy in AQ) top aides as well.

Of course, the media's playing up how Pakistan is all pissed off that the US killed "civilians" in their country, and how they were just "villagers". Bullshit. The Pakistanis have admitted that there were at the minimum 5 to 6 AQ members at the village. And on top of that, the early rumors were that the US did in fact kill Zawahiri, and then the Pakistanis backed off that claim, to revert to their "civilians" claim, and then switched that to what we're hearing now, about the mid-range AQ members being killed. Again, I smell a great deal of bullshit.

We know that the villagers pulled bodies out of the wreckage of the missile attack, and buried them elsewhere. That strongly smacks of them trying to hide something. And it also says that these "villagers" aren't really villagers, but rather, direct supporters of AQ. And their deaths mean nothing to anyone, since they were knowingly aiding AQ terrorists who would bring the wrath of the US military down on them if they were found out. And they were. And the Geneva Convention doesn't put the onus on us to protect these "civilians" but rather, for the terrorists and/or enemy combatants to take it upon themselves to protect them.

And on top of all this, we get two more things happening. The first is that Bin Laden himself issued a tape. In that taped speech, either OBL or someone pretending to be OBL (rumors about his death, which are very credible, have not been silenced with the tape), wanted a "long term peace" with the United States if we were to leave Afghanistan and Iraq. That says that he's realizing how badly he's gotten his ass kicked since 2001, and how badly Iraq has gone for him. To be honest, he may actually really be sincere about leaving Iraq, since he's lost ANY chance of getting that country back, even with us leaving. And he doesn't quite trust Zarqawi anymore, either. The other thing is, is that the tape comes on the heels of the Pakistani attack- and it may well be an indication of how badly AQ was hit there. It very well could be a PR offensive- make everyone think things are ok, swell, great, blah blah blah. He sees how the Dems are playing in Congress, and is hoping they'll force some sort of negotiations on Bush- but he misses that the President's now a lame duck and can care less about Congress, and that the American public is increasingly hostile to the Democrat's anti-foriegn policy.

The second thing is that Zawahiri made a taped speech, too (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060121/ap_on_re_mi_ea/al_qaida_zawahri). It could well be just an old tape someone put up online just to have it there, but it could well be AQ trying to say "hi, Zawahiri's sitll around, and we're all one big happy family". Why would they do that, especially after the Pakistani bombings? And why not before?

Zawahiri is probably dead, or at least his security has been compromised. We've just rendered him either useless as an AQ operative from a security standpoint, or we've turned him into goo. And AQ's basically sending signals with both OBL and Zawahiri's tape that we did just that. This hurts them badly, from a PR and manpower standpoint, since the people who are replacing them in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly what AQ had before. If they lose their heads, they'll probably splinter into different regional factions, all with their own funding and resource polls independent from one another. In fact, that's pretty much what happened in Iraq with Zarqawi.

And that brings it full circle back to Pakistan. I can understand why their gov't would be upset- especially if the US miiltary pulled the missile attack operation off without telling the Pakistanis. But odds are, the Pakistanis were in the know from the get go, and what they're doing is just trying to distance themselves from whatever fallout there is from the bombing. They get to have their cake and eat it, too. I really don't have a problem with that, since they ARE a soverign nation, and should by all rights bitch about whatever they want to. Musharraf has to walk a fine line in dealing with the moderate and radical segments of Pakistan in issues like these. As long as he doesn't go out of his way to really piss off the US, I don't have a problem with him eating his cake.

Of course, the media in general is trying to pretend that the US didn't kill any AQ terrorists there, and that they were only civilians. Oh, and they're playing up that the Pakistanis are rioting over it. Typical leftist-agenda-as-journalism reporting, with America as the big bad imperialistic bully who doesn't care about the little guy. Oh, and those lovely photos you're seeing from Pakistan, of the protesters? They claim it's in the thousands, but I saw a photo, if you look really closely (I'll try to track it down, it'll be hard) you see that the crowd ends down the street. Which means that most likely, the crowd numbered between 500-1000 people. Not "in the thousands". And since that photo, I've seen more and more photos go for the "close up in with the crowd, make it look like there's more than there really are" schtick.

No wonder the media's falling apart around us- they're too busy saying "gotcha! gotcha, you motherfuckers!" while everyone else is busy trying to fight- and win- a war. They're missing that there IS a war going on, and that instead, are pretending that everything the US military does is somehow wrong, without telling us why, or how to fix it.

Go fix yourselves media. Maybe you should start singing the "Battle Cry of Freedom" while we pound more terrorists into sand.

Wrestling notes

While we're not going to get the much anticipated fight between Chris Matthews and Zell Miller anytime soon (although political junkies would love to see it, left or right), there are some things I'd like to see happen in 2006 in the wonderful world of wrestling. Some of it's going to be pipe dreams, but some are likely.

- Since Edge is the WWE World Champion on Raw now, I'd like to see him hold the title until WrestleMania. It doesn't make sense for him to be a transitional champion. Use him. I don't particularly care about John Cena, the former champ, and they'd probably be better off just turning him heel and getting him away from the type of matches he was forced to put on as a face.

- With Edge as champ, they really should think about giving him RVD for WrestleMania. The WWE is going to face some serious competition from TNA now, and if they don't do something with RVD this year, they'd better be prepared to lose him to TNA. Give him the title, and let him run with it, or forget he ever existed. Since this is the WWE, the land of the giants, they'll probably forget RVD exists, and that'll be that.

-They'll never do the WrestleMania match I'd love to see, since they don't have the balls do to it: Edge vs. Matt Hardy, after Matt wins the Rumble. They botched that feud last year, and they won't really be able to get another shot at it. Plus, Matt's not what they want as title contender, since he's not big enough (but knows more about wrestling than most do).

- Angle as champ on SD is cool, but it feels very much like a transitional reign, a "we're sorry for fucking you over with John Cena. You were right, we were wrong." type of thing. I could see him losing it to Orton, or facing Rey at WrestleMania for the title. Or Rey/Orton at WM.

- The midcard sucks in the WWE. They're using stopgaps of Booker T, Randy Orton, and Chris Benoit (all former world champions) on Smackdown because they've failed to elevate any young talent, and the guys on Raw- Shelton, Carlito, Masters, etc., are all busy being buried and told that they have no talent. Shelton's a fantastic in-ring preformer, and probably the best pure athlete that the WWE has, outside of Kurt Angle. And Carlito's finally being allowed to do more than punch and kick someone. Masters just sucks. Oh, and the Cruiser division's a joke. TNA's headlining their X Division and the WWE can't be bothered to showcase anything other than plodding giants. Yawn.

- I'd at the least like to see the WWE give Carlito and Masters a tag title run, ease them into some sort of winning position. And get rid of Masters' entrance, it sucks. Push Chavo Guerrero on Raw, I'd love to see him get the recognition he (and his family) deserve with at least a Intercontinental Title run. I'd love to see a Shelton/Chavo feud. As for Smackdown, I'd like to see them do more with MNM, which is a really good tag team (and Melina's HOT). Continue to develop Lashley, even though he'll never be a Brock Lesnar nor a Bill Goldberg. Still, he's got potential.

- In TNA, I'd like to see title runs by Monty Brown and Christian. Both are long overdue, and ready for it. It's nice to have Sting in TNA, but they really should use him to build younger talent. Oh, and Abyss needs a strong title run- or at least feud- as well. He's been held down too long.

- As for Jarrett, give him a few title shots, but don't give him the title after he drops it. He needs to go without a title for a while, like Hunter in the WWE.

- TNA needs to sign Samoa Joe longterm. And while I'd like to see them pull out the Daniels/Joe feud, they should have Joe lose to another young X Division star.

- Continue to develop Austin Aeries, Alex Shelley, and Chris Sabin. I think Alex Shelley's the most polished of all of them- if only because he knows what to do before a live and videotaped crowd. Prehaps give Shelley or Aeries the title from Joe.

- Sign more young talent, TNA. They could develop the tag team division more by bringing in BJ Whittmer and Jimmy Jacobs, as well as Lacey's Angels (Izzy and Dixie) from Ring of Honor. It'd be a break from having only America's Most Wanted, Team 3-D, and The Naturals. Sign Jay Lethal before the WWE does- he's what Shelton Benjamin SHOULD be.

- No Hogan at WrestleMania. I'm not keen on a Shawn Michaels/Vince McMahon match for WrestleMania, either. My dream WrestleMania 22- Edge vs. RVD vs. HBK for the WWE title, Orton vs. Rey for the World Title, Hunter vs. Undertaker (possibly Hell in the Cell), Angle vs. Benoit, Chavo vs. Shelton IC title ladder match, MNM vs. Mexicools vs. Regal/Birchall Tag Titles, Booker T vs. Matt Hardy US Title Match, Lashley vs. JBL No Holds Barred Match.

-Something needs to be done involving Bret Hart- either in the WWE or TNA. Please don't have Dusty Rhodes as the new Raw GM. Someone needs to bring back Brock Lesnar.

-And I'd love to see more attention paid to with Ring of Honor.