Thats enough bickering in this thread . Either drop it or take it to pm's If this continues this thread will be closed . Get it back on topic or it's done . Thanks
I can find no fault in that statement. :thumbsup
:lock
__________________
- Sam
The shackles of opression and dependence are most easily slipped on with a smile and kind words of hope.
me either but it still doesn't tell me why Ted Koppel's head is so big. I meam it's really, really big man! HUGE! It's freakishly large and everybody pretends he's normal! It's like a giant elephant sitting on the hood of your Mustang and you keep denying there's anything there at all! I'm getting to the bottom of this! Or would that be the top? Anyways, ....um , maybe I should start a new thread? A "why is Ted Koppel's head so big" thread......I mean it's really, really, really big! HUGE man!..........what's up with that?
__________________
Discipline is a small hinge that swings a big door .
I'm schizophrenic and so am I........me too........shut up.....
Thats enough bickering in this thread . Either drop it or take it to pm's If this continues this thread will be closed . Get it back on topic or it's done . Thanks
HOORAY for moderators! I've been wondering when one would say something.
__________________
Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan
Thats enough bickering in this thread .technically its NEVER been on topic, or at least the one i meant to start. Either drop it or take it to pm's If this continues this thread will be closed . Get it back on topic or it's done . Thanks
ive been begging yall to take this thread down for weeks. County i didnt mean to drag you back into that little argument, sorry bout that. Just using that as an example i wasnt really offendedby you saying that. My bad.
But i DO hope we keep arguing so that they close this down.
__________________
A man that gives up a little freedom, for a little security, will have neither, and deserves neither. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan
I don't have access to all the records Moore and Kopel have reference to - Not a journalist and can't use freedom of the press, nor do I have the resouirces to travel to Florida, Washiongton, etc. But Sirius does:
He's done the research full -time for 3-4 months now - Here it is:
Debunking the 59 Deceits: Deceits 1-2
by Anton Sirius
Tue Jul 6th, 2004 at 01:09:42 GMT
Foolishly, I've decided to take on a herculean task... analyzing and, where necessary, debunking Dave Kopel's Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 911. (Yes, 59; he's added three more.) (And yes, the title of the piece says '911', not '9/11'. If anyone out there feels like starting a 'Some Number of Spelling and Grammatical Mistakes in Dave Kopel's Work', consider that a freebie.)
The impetus for this effort was a) seeing the film a second time, and having a bit of an epiphany on why Hitch got it so badly wrong, and b) remembering Hitch's 'nauseating' comment about the Lila Lipscomb sequences, and needing to do something more constructive than tracking him down and punching him in his soulless face.
This'll be in many, many parts.
Here we go...
Diaries :: Anton Sirius's diary ::
Deceits 1-2
Fahrenheit 911 begins on election night 2000. We are first shown the Al Gore rocking on stage with famous musicians and a high-spirited crowd. The conspicuous sign on stage reads "Florida Victory." Moore creates the impression that Gore was celebrating his victory in Florida.
Actually, the rally took place in the early hours of election day, before polls had even opened. Gore did campaign in Florida on election day, but went home to Tennessee to await the results. The "Florida Victory" sign reflected Gore's hopes, not any actual election results.
This is probably going to come up a lot. 'Creates the impression...' It's important to keep in mind (this is the epiphany part) that Moore did not create the film for NRO writers, or for political bloggers, or for pundits or wonks. He created it for all the Lila Lipscombs and Sgt. Michael Petersons of the world.
That knowledge is absolutely crucial for debunking maybe 95% of the attacks on the film. When Michael Moore mentions, say, the Unocal natural gas pipeline plan, that reference will dreg up a whole wealth of related info in the mind of a political junkie, info that isn't actually in the film. It's important to focus on what Moore actually includes, not what a Google search on what he includes might turn up.
Anyway, back to Kopel. First off, I only saw one famous musician on stage (unless, like Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck has started a band... shudder), but that's just nitpicking. The Florida rally footage is part of Moore's 'dream sequence', and is separate from his election night coverage. If he 'creates an impression', it's that a Gore victory celebration is what should have happened, not what did happen. It is, after all, Moore's dream, right?
The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore. According to the narrator, "Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy... All of a sudden the other networks said, `Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'"
We then see NBC anchor Tom Brokaw stating, "All of us networks made a mistake and projected Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our mistake."
Moore thus creates the false impression that the networks withdrew their claim about Gore winning Florida when they heard that Fox said that Bush won Florida.
I was going to debunk this, but then I kept reading and found that Kopel had already done it himself!
In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the evening--before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.
The premature calls probably cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided, and many voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. (Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the West coast, the early concession was widely blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while West coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West.) Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold; depress overall turnout in the panhandle, and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes.
At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature Florida result? The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.
Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.
CBS had taken the lead in making the erroneous call for Gore, and had taken the lead in retracting that call. At 3:59 a.m., CBS also took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service.
So Moore said the other networks called it for Gore, then followed Fox's lead in calling it for Bush. Which part of Kopel's account disputes that, exactly?
Kopel also glosses over Bush first cousin John Ellis' role in starting the 'Florida goes for Bush' dominoes falling under the cover of the VNS. Kopel fails to explain how the data could have changed so much between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. -- or why networks, having made one mistake already, would be so eager to make another unless there was a little competitive peer pressure involved.
And oh, incidentally, those 'thousands' of disenfranchised Panhandle voters?
There are only nine counties in Florida entirely on Central Standard Time, and one (Gulf) which is split. The total voting age population of all 10 of those counties was 672,671. Given a turnout rate of 50.6% in Florida in 2000, that leaves 340,397 Panhandle residents (statistically) who would have voted. How many 'thousands' of those, do you figure, would have waited until the last 10 minutes -- no, wait, less than that, since they haven't even left the house yet if they're watching election coverage on TV -- to vote, instead of going to the poll before work? Or on the way home from work? Or on their lunch hour? Or any time in the middle of the day, if they weren't working?
Who's dreaming now, Mr. Kopel?
__________________
Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,his upper rooms by injustice,making his countrymen work for nothing...Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?Did not your father have food and drink?He did what was right and just,so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy,and so all went well...But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain,on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion. Jer 22:13, 15-17
Dude, let it go, the thread has been dormant for over a month now.
__________________
Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan
...Michael Moore shows a clip of CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin saying that if ballots had been recounted in Florida after the 2000 presidential vote, "under every scenario Gore won the election."
What Moore doesn't show is that a six-month study in 2001 by news organizations including The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN found just the opposite. Even if the Supreme Court had not stopped a statewide recount, or if a more limited recount of four heavily Democratic counties had taken place, Bush still would have won Florida and the election.
Actually, both Toobin and Kopel are wrong.
This is still the most illuminating example of the current partisan atmosphere. The results of the big follow-up vote recount was very, very clear:
If the votes had been recounted using the limited methods advocated by Gore, Bush still wins.
If the votes had been recounted using the Bush method (i.e. not), Bush of course wins.
If all the votes had been recounted, using any method (individual standards in each county, or uniform standards in all counties), Gore wins.
The Dems can't admit they botched the post-election fight. The Pubs can't admit their boy didn't actually win. Both sides look like losers, if Big Media would only tell the truth.
According to Fahrenheit, Bush cronies hired Data Base Technologies to purge Florida voters who might vote for Gore, and these potential voters were purged from the voting rolls on the basis of race. ("Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote count woman. And that her state has hired a company that's gonna knock voters off the rolls who aren't likely to vote for you. You can usually tell 'em by the color of their skin.") As explained by the Palm Beach Post, Moore's claim is extremely incomplete, and on at least one fact, plainly false.
...
Regardless, Moore's claim that the purge was conducted on the basis of race was indisputably false.
Oh please. Moore's claim? It's called snark. Black voters were disproportionately stricken from the rolls, and black voters are more likely to vote Dem. Period.
__________________
Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,his upper rooms by injustice,making his countrymen work for nothing...Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?Did not your father have food and drink?He did what was right and just,so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy,and so all went well...But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain,on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion. Jer 22:13, 15-17
* CNN filed a lawsuit against Florida's elections office last week for access to a list of possible felons whose names may be deleted from state voter rolls.
June 4, 2004 -- CNN filed a lawsuit against Florida's elections division last Friday for access to a list of almost 48,000 possible felons who may be deleted from voter rolls. The state forwards the list to county elections officials who determine which individuals are ineligible to vote. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...8765193.htm?1c
Posted on Wed, May. 26, 2004
Many voters not yet back on rolls
BY GARY FINEOUT
Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE - With less than six months to go before the presidential election, thousands of Florida voters who may have been improperly removed from the voter rolls in 2000 have yet to have their eligibility restored.
Records obtained by The Herald show that just 33 of 67 counties have responded to a request by state election officials to check whether or not nearly 20,000 voters should be reinstated as required under a legal settlement reached between the state, the NAACP and other groups nearly two years ago.
Some of the counties that have failed to respond to the state include many of Florida's largest, including Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach.
Those counties that have responded told the state that they have restored 679 voters to the rolls so far -- more than enough to have tipped the balance of the 2000 election had they voted for Al Gore. President Bush won Florida and the presidency by 537 votes.
The fact that many counties have yet to add voters back to the rolls comes at the same time that election supervisors across Florida are being asked to look at purging more than 47,000 voters that the state has identified as possible felons who are ineligible to vote under state law
Published Friday, August 20, 2004
Fla. Inquiry Alarms Elderly Black Voters
The smell of voter suppression coming out of Florida is getting stronger. It turns out that a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, in which state troopers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando in a bizarre hunt for evidence of election fraud, is being conducted despite a finding by the department last May "that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud."
State officials have said that the investigation, which has already frightened many voters and intimidated elderly volunteers, is in response to allegations of voter fraud involving absentee ballots that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. But the department considered that matter closed last spring, according to a letter from the office of Guy Tunnell, the department's commissioner, to Lawson Lamar, the state attorney in Orlando, who would be responsible for any criminal prosecutions.
__________________
Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,his upper rooms by injustice,making his countrymen work for nothing...Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?Did not your father have food and drink?He did what was right and just,so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy,and so all went well...But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain,on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion. Jer 22:13, 15-17
The Florida election was an absolute mess of conflict of interest and probably fraud. Kopel's speculation that "the net result of the 2000 purge fiasco harmed Bush" is frankly laughable, relying as it does on John Lott's dancing rate stats, and not the raw numbers of disenfranchised voters.
Number five I'll reprint in its entirety:
The movie lauds an anti-Bush riot that took place in Washington, D.C., on the day of Bush's inauguration. Moore continues: "No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inauguration day. And for the next eight months it didn't get any better for George W. Bush. He couldn't get his judges appointed; he had trouble getting his legislation passed; and he lost Republican control of the Senate. His approval ratings in the polls began to sink."
Part of this is true. Once Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican party, Democrats controlled the Senate, and stalled the confirmation (not "appointment") of some of the judges whom Bush had nominated for the federal courts.
Congress did enact the top item on Bush's agenda: a large tax cut. During the summer, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives easily passed many of Bush's other agenda items, including the bill whose numbering reflected the President's top priority: H.R. 1, the Bush "No Child Left Behind" education bill. The fate of the Bush bills in the Democratic-controlled Senate, as of August 2001, was uncertain. The Senate later did pass No Child Left Behind, but some other Bush proposals did not pass.
****
Umm, where's the deceit? Which part is untrue? Were judicial confirmations held up? Kopel says yes. Did Bush have trouble getting legislation passed? Kopel admits bills were stalled in the Senate. Did the Pubs lose control of the Senate? Kopel says yes. Did Bush's approval ratings sink? This will come up later, but for now Kopel offers no denial.
Where's the deceit?
*****
Fahrenheit 911 states, "In his first eight months in office before September 11th, George W. Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, forty-two percent of the time."
Shortly before 9/11, the Post calculated that Bush had spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route, including all or part of 54 days at his ranch. That calculation, however, includes weekends, which Moore failed to mention. -- Tom McNamee, Just the facts on `Fahrenheit 9/11', Chicago Sun-Times, June 28, 2004.
***
'Cause Presidents don't work on weekends...? Do they get overtime pay if they do? This is pathetic.
***
(Actually I pointed this one out already)
***
[T]he shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.
The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. -- Christopher Hitchens, Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore, Slate.com, June 21, 2004.
Hitch! My favorite misanthrope! First off, Hitch, a working vacation still counts as a vacation, and the picture in question shows Bush and Blair walking one of Bush's little canine friends, not pouring over intelligence reports. The weather is cold -- both are bundled up, but not too much. I'd guess it's early spring, given the weather at Camp David and the foliage visible. I got all that from the first time I saw the movie. Gee, I must be the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, given the brief millisecond Hitch says it appears on-screen.
(Just Googled the meeting... I was off a bit, it happened in late February. Oh well, no deearstalker hat for me.)
As for the golf course bit, maybe it is unfair, showing Bush being so smug and arrogant immediately after speaking seriously about terrorism, looking like he cares more about his stroke. Maybe if he showed up for work once in a while reporters wouldn't have to track him down on a golf course in the first place. Shucks. Incidentally, did you notice how Bush re-jiggers his backswing after the fact to make for a better pose for the photographers?
By the way, the clip of Bush making a comment about terrorism, and then hitting a golf ball, is also taken out of context, at least partially:
Tuesday night on FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume, Brian Wilson noted how "the viewer is left with the misleading impression Mr. Bush is talking about al-Qaeda terrorists." But Wilson disclosed that "a check of the raw tape reveals the President is talking about an attack against Israel, carried out by a Palestinian suicide bomber." -- "Cyberalert," Media Research Center, July 1, 2004, item. 3.
***
Really? It's clear the footage was taken before 9/11, and Moore more than once in the film makes the explicit point that Bush, Ashcroft etc. weren't paying enough attention to al Qaeda. Why would 'the viewer' think the quote is about al Qaeda? And why did Hitch miss this among F9/11's 'contradictions', if it's such an obvious deceit?
Maybe Kopel and Hitch should compare notes before going any further with this nonsense.
***
__________________
Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,his upper rooms by injustice,making his countrymen work for nothing...Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?Did not your father have food and drink?He did what was right and just,so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy,and so all went well...But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain,on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion. Jer 22:13, 15-17
The Florida election was an absolute mess of conflict of interest and probably fraud. Kopel's speculation that "the net result of the 2000 purge fiasco harmed Bush" is frankly laughable, relying as it does on John Lott's dancing rate stats, and not the raw numbers of disenfranchised voters.
Number five I'll reprint in its entirety:
The movie lauds an anti-Bush riot that took place in Washington, D.C., on the day of Bush's inauguration. Moore continues: "No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inauguration day. And for the next eight months it didn't get any better for George W. Bush. He couldn't get his judges appointed; he had trouble getting his legislation passed; and he lost Republican control of the Senate. His approval ratings in the polls began to sink."
Part of this is true. Once Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican party, Democrats controlled the Senate, and stalled the confirmation (not "appointment") of some of the judges whom Bush had nominated for the federal courts.
Congress did enact the top item on Bush's agenda: a large tax cut. During the summer, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives easily passed many of Bush's other agenda items, including the bill whose numbering reflected the President's top priority: H.R. 1, the Bush "No Child Left Behind" education bill. The fate of the Bush bills in the Democratic-controlled Senate, as of August 2001, was uncertain. The Senate later did pass No Child Left Behind, but some other Bush proposals did not pass.
****
Umm, where's the deceit? Which part is untrue? Were judicial confirmations held up? Kopel says yes. Did Bush have trouble getting legislation passed? Kopel admits bills were stalled in the Senate. Did the Pubs lose control of the Senate? Kopel says yes. Did Bush's approval ratings sink? This will come up later, but for now Kopel offers no denial.
Where's the deceit?
*****
Fahrenheit 911 states, "In his first eight months in office before September 11th, George W. Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, forty-two percent of the time."
Shortly before 9/11, the Post calculated that Bush had spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route, including all or part of 54 days at his ranch. That calculation, however, includes weekends, which Moore failed to mention. -- Tom McNamee, Just the facts on `Fahrenheit 9/11', Chicago Sun-Times, June 28, 2004.
***
'Cause Presidents don't work on weekends...? Do they get overtime pay if they do? This is pathetic.
***
(Actually I pointed this one out already)
***
[T]he shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.
The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. -- Christopher Hitchens, Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore, Slate.com, June 21, 2004.
Hitch! My favorite misanthrope! First off, Hitch, a working vacation still counts as a vacation, and the picture in question shows Bush and Blair walking one of Bush's little canine friends, not pouring over intelligence reports. The weather is cold -- both are bundled up, but not too much. I'd guess it's early spring, given the weather at Camp David and the foliage visible. I got all that from the first time I saw the movie. Gee, I must be the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, given the brief millisecond Hitch says it appears on-screen.
(Just Googled the meeting... I was off a bit, it happened in late February. Oh well, no deearstalker hat for me.)
As for the golf course bit, maybe it is unfair, showing Bush being so smug and arrogant immediately after speaking seriously about terrorism, looking like he cares more about his stroke. Maybe if he showed up for work once in a while reporters wouldn't have to track him down on a golf course in the first place. Shucks. Incidentally, did you notice how Bush re-jiggers his backswing after the fact to make for a better pose for the photographers?
By the way, the clip of Bush making a comment about terrorism, and then hitting a golf ball, is also taken out of context, at least partially:
Tuesday night on FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume, Brian Wilson noted how "the viewer is left with the misleading impression Mr. Bush is talking about al-Qaeda terrorists." But Wilson disclosed that "a check of the raw tape reveals the President is talking about an attack against Israel, carried out by a Palestinian suicide bomber." -- "Cyberalert," Media Research Center, July 1, 2004, item. 3.
***
Really? It's clear the footage was taken before 9/11, and Moore more than once in the film makes the explicit point that Bush, Ashcroft etc. weren't paying enough attention to al Qaeda. Why would 'the viewer' think the quote is about al Qaeda? And why did Hitch miss this among F9/11's 'contradictions', if it's such an obvious deceit?
Maybe Kopel and Hitch should compare notes before going any further with this nonsense.
***
I'm lost........What exactly is the point trying to be made?
__________________
Discipline is a small hinge that swings a big door .
I'm schizophrenic and so am I........me too........shut up.....
I'm lost........What exactly is the point trying to be made?
I was asked for a response to allegations that Moore lied. I'm posting them.
__________________
Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,his upper rooms by injustice,making his countrymen work for nothing...Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?Did not your father have food and drink?He did what was right and just,so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy,and so all went well...But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain,on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion. Jer 22:13, 15-17
I was asked for a response to allegations that Moore lied. I'm posting them.
OH!........Well, he definately does not represent the truth. This I think we can all agree on. Am I not right? Conservatism or Liberalism. Everybody knows this now. It's like a campaign ad. Spun, twisted and void of any real sincererity........It's a shame.
We are too good a people to be divided as such.
__________________
Discipline is a small hinge that swings a big door .
I'm schizophrenic and so am I........me too........shut up.....
