Mission Accomplished!

Many conservatives have claimed recently that President Obama's trip to India will cost taxpayers $200 million a day. Prominent conservatives making this claim include

• Mike Huckabee,
• Michele Bachmann,
• Glenn Beck, and
• Rush Limbaugh.

Unfortunately for them, as Holly Baily reports, the claim is false:

The numbers evidently originate with the Press Trust of India, whose report was linked on the Drudge Report and picked up by Fox News host Glenn Beck. The news agency also wrongly said that the White House had blocked off the entire Taj Mahal Palace hotel for Obama's visit and that the U.S. was stationing 34 warships—roughly 10 percent of the naval fleet—off the coast of Mumbai for security reasons.

The agency attributed the $200 million figure to an anonymous Indian government official. It didn't attribute the warships claim to any source.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell called the warship claim "absolutely absurd." "That's just comical," he said at Thursday's Pentagon news briefing.  "Nothing close to that is being done."

The White House, meanwhile, issued a blanket statement that the $200 million figure "had no basis in reality" and was "wildly inflated." The press office declined to disclose the trip's actual cost, citing "security concerns."

If you're not inclined to believe the statements of evil Islamic socialist government officials, you can see what reasons FactCheck.org has for doubting the original report. You know, if you're interested in reasons and facts and stuff like that. 

This is yet another example of the conservative misinformation machine at work. Conservatives, whose primary goal is to attack the President, find a story that makes the President look bad, accept it because it confirms their preexisting bias against him, and report it without subjecting the story to any critical scrutiny whatever. Since their job is to produce bullshit for political purposes, they have little concern for the truth and consequently their beliefs are not guided by the truth. They confirm the biases of those who consume their product, however, and their product therefore remains in demand.

If you need evidence that Fox "News" is not a news channel, you need look no further. 

But the damage is done: no matter what evidence is presented, many people will persist in believing the original report. Mission accomplished!

Here's Anderon Cooper's treatment of the conservative feeding frenzy over this fabricated story.

Bertrand Russell, "A Liberal Decalogue"

What follows sums up my intellectual outlook well.  I endeavor to live up to this decalogue, though I am sure that I often fail.  This explains why I am so opposed to the responsibility-free talkers (and writers) and their ilk, for they routinely violate every single one of these commandments (in public, at least).  

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

"A Liberal Decalogue" is from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 3: 1944-1969, pp. 71-2.  

Source: http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/br-decalog.html

Three Questions

I just heard Michael Savage devote a segment to the following question:

If the Russians are our friends, then why did Obama sign a treaty to reduce the size of our nuclear force?  

He seemed to be thinking that such treaties are signed only at the end of hostilities, and we are obviously not at war with Russia.  

I would answer with another question:

If the Russians are our friends, then of what use is a large nuclear force? 

According to the Associated Press, "If ratified by the Senate and by Russia's legislature, the reductions still would leave both countries, by far the world's largest nuclear powers, with immense arsenals – and the ability to easily annihilate each other."

I guess it's pretty clear now that the purpose of Michael Savage and others like him is not to provide anyone with any useful information.  And if there is any question in your mind about this, then take it from Glenn Beck, who claims to be in the entertainment business.  So I guess that only one question remains:

How could anyone find that shit entertaining?