The silence is settled

Below is a fine example of good old-fashioned factual newspaper reporting; telling the story as it is…with a political sting in the tale.

Ouch!

In these corrupt days when much contemporary ‘journalism’ is hopelessly partisan and therefore editorialized, you’ve got to hand it to The Independent for simply laying out the facts, reporting speech and describing a professional expert’s explanation of the criminal motives for essential context.

Masterful.

I’m not sure quite why one or two irrelevancies were included among the otherwise crisp storytelling, such as the deceased’s place of birth and this self-widowing brute’s harsh attitude to her style of dress, but the names of some of those involved in this tragedy add a certain colour to the tale and nicely complement the Arabian Nights feel that hovers around the killer’s motivation. A Jinn, forsooth!

My only criticism of the article is that without a comments section there’s no opportunity for readers to discuss the inescapably feminist closing paragraph which makes (I’m sure you’ll all agree) one hell of a punch line.

Picture from here.

The old stuffed moose gambit

What could look more gormless than a stuffed moose?

Well, there’s this chap.

Let me explain.

'08 race worker held in damage to Minnesota Republican HQ
By Jessica Fender The Saint Paul Post

One of two people suspected of shattering 11 windows Tuesday morning at the state Republican Party headquarters has an arrest record and a history of helping a Republican political candidate, public records show.

How the conservative name is going to be mud in the States when this goes viral.

Police said that about 2:20 a.m., 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler, now in custody, and an at-large accomplice took a hammer to the picture windows displaying posters opposing President Barack Obama and his health care reform efforts.
Early Tuesday, Republican Party chairwoman Pat Waak said the damage to her building in Saint Paul's art district was a consequence of "an effort on the other side to stir up class envy."

She tempered her statement after Schwenkler's political history was revealed.

Oh, like that’s going to help the GOP get off the hook when every single news outlets barring Fox and talk radio megaphoning this story 24-7.

"What I've been saying is there is a lot of rhetoric out there from both sides of the spectrum," Waak said. "That's what's been disturbing to me. People are saying a lot of things not appropriate for civil discourse."

Oh, so previously we were arguing it was a commie plot, these conservative embarrassments, but it turns out to be one of our own and now we’re trying to say that EVERYBODY’S been shooting off at the mouth. No WAY are the networks, the Post, The Times, Time Magazine and all letting this bozo off with a change of message when we turn out to be the bad guys.

Bless them, but the American Right are always opening their mouths embarrassingly in advance of the facts being known.
Sigh.

For weeks, people on both sides of the health care debate have rallied across the country.
Schwenkler is charged with criminal mischief and is to make his first appearance in Saint Paul County Court today.
He is accused of doing an estimated $11,000 in damage and could face a felony conviction.
On the last day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, he was charged with misdemeanor unlawful assembly in Denver, Colorado.
Court records provided through the Denver Press show he was jailed about 2 a.m.
Schwenkler received $500 in November 2008 to walk door-to-door in support of Republican Mollie Cullom, who lost her race to Democrat state Rep. David Balmer of Centennial.
Waak, who was not involved with the group that paid Schwenkler, said she's never heard of the suspect and pointed out that just because he canvassed "doesn't mean he's a good Republican."

Not exactly a get-out-of-jail-free card, is it? ’Okay, so he’s one of us but he’s a bad one. So don’t blame conservative rhetoric against single-payer health care – it’s just nothing to do with us.'

The anchormen are going to crucify the Republicans and good on them, I’m ashamed to say.

Schwenkler was one of dozens of paid canvassers bankrolled by the Minnesota Citizens' Coalition, a political 527 committee.Schwenkler has worked for Republican causes funded by corporate groups and well-known, rich Right-wing donors.
In those disclosures, Schwenkler's address is listed as Regulators Harley-Davidson Enterprises, a private motorcycle company that operates just around the corner from the Republican headquarters. Multiple volunteers at the collective declined to discuss Schwenkler, though they said he was affiliated with the group.

Balmer said he suspects the vandalism might have been aimed at making the Democrats look bad.
"This sounds like the type of Republican tactic from the far Right trying to make Democrats look aggressive," Balmer said. "In this case, it blew up in their face. He was caught red-handed."
Schwenkler allegedly tried to conceal his identity while committing the crime by wearing a shirt over his face, a hooded sweat shirt and latex gloves, according to police descriptions.

Don’t my Republican brothers and sisters watch any version of CSI? No wonder the post-election GOP is leaderless and confused.

When a Saint Paul police officer on patrol spotted two people smashing windows, the suspects fled on motorcycles.
Schwenkler was arrested after a short foot pursuit, but the other suspect sped away, police Detective Vicki Ferrari said.

Just when it looked like things were going the Right’s way with the Town Hall protests and Tea Parties and the One’s numbers heading downstairs for a game of table football in the basement rec room, this jerk’s story is going to be plastered on every TV screen, you Tube menu, and mainstream newspaper in North America, plus it'll be yelled from every public radio station and no doubt sung from each minaret in the mainland USA. They’ll probably name a surfing fall or flunk after Schwenkler in the President’s home state of Hawaii.

We are so screwed…

unless, and it’s a long shot Professor...

we decide to use the Metalunan Interocitor and reverse polarity…

Truth dying out just about now...

The British soldiers of 2 Rifles had a mission: clear and hold Pharmacy Road.

FOB Jackson is currently home to Battlegroup headquarters for 2 Rifles. The area around the river is called the “Green Zone,” but just as appropriately could be called the Opium Zone. During season, the area is covered with colorful poppies, whose 2009 products are probably showing up by now on the streets in Europe. European money flows back here and buys fertilizer in the Sangin Market, which can be used to make bombs, produce more opium, get more money and make more bombs and grow more opium and make more money and bombs and grow more opium. Sangin is at once an ATM and weapons bazaar for the enemy. Nearly all fatalities in this unit have been caused by fertilizer bombs. The decision to mostly ignore the drug dealers has been a strategic blunder.

Via Calling England I learn that our bureaucratic Ministry of Defence has pulled the great battlefield photojournalist Michael Yon's 'embedded' credentials.
The same bloody wankers who've been buying new armoured death-trap vehicles for our troops to replace the old unarmoured death-trap vehicles have now pulled the plug on the only consistently honest down-and-dirty internet reporter about whom I know into operations within our defensive war against the jihadis.

He's supported solely by public subscription - in short, his honest non-mainstream media non snowjob reporting is all online and all financed voluntarily.
It's the essence of what the Internet and freedom-lovers the world over should be supporting.

But we're not supporting him, apparently, in sufficient numbers and he may have to stop reporting our side in September if we don't help.

So you can let the odious BBC and Newsweek and the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Guardian and the Independent and Sky and NBC, ABC, CNN and CBS go on monopolising the news war for their Islamist heroes, or you can help to maintain somebody who thinks that “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” He believes they are needed and do a job against all odds and including against their own worthless political class. He tells their stories and you can help him go on doing it here.

Please pass the news on.