Sunday, September 30, 2007

Fisking an Indian fan of Fisk

Funny that a day after I mention 'fisking', Tim Blair brings to notice an Indian columnist in awe of the great Fisk. That lost soul is Mukul Kesevan. Mr. Kesevan also goes for the jugular of the bloggers-
But, on the whole, blogging produces derivative and self-indulgent writing.

But when it comes to Fisk, he goes weak-kneed and is all coochie-coo -
It’s ironic that ‘fisking’, the blogger’s verb for aggressive or hostile fact-checking, is named after Robert Fisk, Britain’s most distinguished foreign correspondent, who has lived in and reported from the Middle East for the past quarter of a century. His trenchant critique of Anglo-American foreign policy has made him a byword for bias amongst right-wing bloggers. That a great journalist who has survived danger and risked death to live in the region he reports from, whose reportage has made him the doyen of Middle-Eastern reporting, should become the blogosphere’s measure of unreliability, tells us something about the frictionless sterility of the blogger’s online world.

Aggressive or hostile fact-checking? Perhaps or perhaps not, depends on the concerned blogger. A more universal definition is-
The term Fisking, or to Fisk, is a blogosphere term describing ruthlessly detailed point-by-point criticism that highlights errors, disputes the analysis of presented facts, or highlights other problems in a statement, article, or essay.
So, aggression is not a defining characteristic of 'Fisking' unless Mukul Kesevan thinks that any fact-checking of his favorites is inherently 'hostile and aggressive'. But I do understand. Some people don't take it well when their opinions and biases are questioned. Could it be that the fact-checking bloggers who keep MSM lazybones on toes can get on the nerves of the old-media journalists? Mr. Kesevan himself seems to think so-
Any error of fact, however small, made by me on my cricket blog is snouted up in a matter of hours, if not sooner. Bloggers learn to get their facts right because their peers and their readers are so unforgiving. Newspaper columnists used to get away with much more than they do now because there’s an army of unpaid fact-checkers cruising online who see it as their life’s work to ‘fisk’ sloppy opinion or reportage.
(Surprise! Mr.Kesevan is himself a blogger! If he needs regular fact-checking, as his comment seems to suggest, then I believe his old-media, sloppy Mr.Hyde dominates his blogging Mr. Jekyll)

One admires those one seeks to emulate. If true, then Mr.Kesevan is yet to reach the heights of his hero, the great Fisk who is on a different plane altogether.

Efraim Karsh points out the dubious quality of wisdom and facts emanating from the brain of the holy man -
It is difficult to turn a page of The Great War for Civilisation (Fisk's book) without encountering some basic error. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not, as Fisk has it, in Jerusalem. The Caliph Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, was murdered in the year 661, not in the 8th century. Emir Abdallah became king of Transjordan in 1946, not 1921, and both he and his younger brother, King Faisal I of Iraq, hailed not from a “Gulf tribe” but rather from the Hashemites on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. The Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, not 1962; Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was appointed by the British authorities, not elected; Ayatollah Khomeini transferred his exile from Turkey to the holy Shiite city of Najaf not during Saddam Hussein’s rule but fourteen years before Saddam seized power. Security Council resolution 242 was passed in November 1967, not 1968; Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, not 1977, and was assassinated in October 1981, not 1979. Yitzhak Rabin was minister of defense, not prime minister, during the first Palestinian intifada, and al Qaeda was established not in 1998 but a decade earlier. And so on and so forth.
(via Tim)

Fisk is now scaling even greater heights. Now he joins the extreme lunatic fringe in believing that Bush bombed the twin towers on 9/11.

Captain Ed takes down that over-inflated balloon with ease-
This puzzles me, because Robert Fisk claims to be a journalist, and one would expect a journalist to understand how to conduct research. Let's see if we can help Mr. Fisk with his questions, which unfortunately get spread throughout a paranoid harangue.
Then he goes on to demolish Fisk with incisive logic that is perhaps lost on those who wallow in the muck of hackery and mediocrity that is the mainstream media(MSM). Read the whole thing to savor and to realize just what Mukul Kesevan's hero is made up of.
Captain's conclusion-
Really, given the international stature of Mr. Fisk, it's hard to believe that he really could be this lazy. Perhaps he's just terribly unintelligent. Fortunately, the journalists and engineers at Popular Mechanics are neither, and their work speaks for itself, with real engineers and eyewitness testimony to answer everyone but the ravers and the conspiracy nuts ... and Mr. Fisk.


But Mr. Kesevan is a mere cricket writer, even if in the privileged and highly-paid world of the MSM. It is perhaps too much to expect him to comprehend that Fisk is an apologist for radical Islamists, terrorists, genocidal dictators, and a conspiracy nut!

But on the other hand, who am I but a mere right-wing blogger(if you consider libertarian as right wing)? Oh wait, I forgot- an aggressive and hostile right-wing blogger. So here goes-
Grrr, bow bow, grrr, snarl, bite, grrrrrrr!!!!!



More fisking of Fisk here.

(all emphasis mine)

Bump -Mukul Kesevan is actually spelt Mukul Kesavan.

Socialism -will it work on the moon?

The socialist utopia could never be achieved on Earth -not even with the bloodletting of millions in Soviet Russia, the communist China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea(and let's not even mention Pol Pot).
Even the peace loving collectivists(a rare breed indeed) of kibbutz have given up.

But will socialism work on the moon. Some people seem to think so-

For space scientists congregating at Hyderabad, it looks like we will have a colony up there soon. Space experts are mulling road maps on infrastructure comprising a communication network, including internet, a greenhouse, fuel production plants, and aspects of ethics and governance for human settlements on Moon, Mars and beyond.
-----------------------------------------------
Earlier, at a meet on Strategies to establish Lunar and Mars colonies, William Marshall of NASA spoke of lunar governance. He is for a ban on military bases and deployment of weapons in space and advocated against property rights over lunar land.


Can human settlements without property rights work out on the moon? It hasn't worked anywhere on this planet but when an expert from NASA says so, who am I to argue? CPM could then stand for the 'Communist Party of Moon', and of course they would be opposed to globalisation, er, I mean, planetisation. And no free trade between the earth and the moon -except with China

(emphasis mine)

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Coining a new expression -"to Ahmenijad homos."

"Steve", a commentator at this debate is perhaps the first to coin this verb and expression-
.....trying to Ahmenijad homos out of existence.

Could this make it big like 'fisking'? It sure deserves to, especially after Ahmadinejad declared that there are no homosexuals in Iran-

In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that like in your country. … In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.


Where have they all gone? Could this be the answer-
When Ahmadinejad told Columbia today that Iran doesn’t have homosexuals, he meant that the theocracy has done its level best to cleanse Iran of gays and lesbians. He also means that they’ll get rid of any more they find.

Or this-

hanging gays in IranTwo gay Iranian teenagers -- one 18, the other believed
to be 16 or 17, were executed the "crime" of homosexuality


Or this-
The Iranian government is executing gay and bisexual men under the cover of rape and kidnapping charges, according to a major new investigation by Simon Forbes of the UK-based gay and lesbian human rights group OutRage!

Mr Forbes’s nine-month investigation, published today by OutRage!, is based on information gathered from sources inside Iran. His research reveals:

- Lynchings by Iran’s security forces, and ‘honour killings’ by families in the south western province of Khuzestan

-Secret hangings in prison

- The method of hanging is designed to cause slow, agonising strangulation

- Internet entrapment of gay Iranians using foreign-based online gay dating agencies

- A pattern of framing gay people on charges of kidnap, rape and paedophilia, as the following five sample cases suggest:
- The Gorgan case where two men were publicly hanged for Lavaat (sodomy) in November 2005

- Details of the Kermanshah case where three men were hanged in prison in November 2005 for sodomy that was alleged to have taken the form of the kidnap and rape of a younger male

- The Arak case of two men sentenced to death for sodomy in August 2005, which also involved the alleged kidnap and rape of a younger male, the son of an officer

- Two cases of public execution for sodomy in Mashhad in December 2004 and July 2005 that involved suspiciously similar charges

- Claims of rape are sometimes made to save the family’s honour or to save the passive partner from execution, and are part of an Iranian government propaganda offensive to scapegoat and demonise gay people

- Comparisons with Saudi Arabia, where it is also suggested that bogus rape charges are levelled against gay men

- Hypocrisy of the mullah’s attitudes towards the abuse of young girls, the rape of both males and females in custody, and widespread sodomy in religious colleges
Now, a few good questions-
1) If Uncle Ahmenida--dina--ja--dad--whatever can lie about this, then can we trust him about his nuclear intentions?
2) He is a religious fundamentalist, a theocrat, head of a regime that imprisons and hang gays, oppresses women -so why do the leftists support him?

Let a non-leftist gay answer-

I must say it is still shocking to me that the American Gay Left views President Bush of more of an enemy to gays than Islamic fundamentalists who want to destroy Western Civilization with gays as the first in their crosshairs. Maybe American gay activists are so upset that Christianity is the foundation of America that they are willing to take their chances with Islamic rule? How tolerant, no? What it really makes me think is this: Choosing Islam over America in the War on Terror is the ultimate in being a gay who is self-loathing.


hat tip-Stop the ACLU

Note -that debate I referred is an extremely interesting one. The first salvo is here.

(emphasis mine)

Update -a very disturbing picture and account here.

public hangings in Iran

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

LNC Wedneday round up

Al Gore, keep away from Ugandan police!

The evil has landed.


Tim Blair-
The SMH’s Adele Horin, 2001:
More than a year after France legislated a 35-hour week, the economy is flourishing, unemployment is falling, consumer confidence has hit a historic high and most French say their lifestyle has improved.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, 2007:
I am at the head of a state that is in a position of bankruptcy.
I am at the head of a state that for 15 years has been in chronic deficit. I am at the head of a state that has not once passed a balanced budget in 25 years. This can’t go on.



Wishing for a mushroom cloud over Israel.


A view on inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Colombia University-
Yet the real issue is not about words but actions - actions with consequences in an ongoing conflict in which American soldiers are being killed and Iranian dissidents are being beaten and tortured every day. And what Bollinger's actions (as opposed to his words) reveal is that Columbia somehow considers itself neutral ground in the War on Terror.


Tavleen Singh-
Is there really hope if, despite having the worst infrastructure in the world, we can argue over mythical bridges and mythical gods? Is there hope if the Union law minister needs to say, “The government admits its mistakes and wants to remove any doubt whatever that it does not believe in the existence of Ram. The existence of Ram cannot be doubted. As Himalaya is Himalaya, Ganga is Ganga, Ram is Ram. Ram is an integral part of our ethos and cannot be alienated from our hearts.”

The honchos of the Hindustan Times fail to take their own paper seriously.

Scary stuff in the Hindustan Times from Ban The Moon-
Just a few days ago, scientists in the United States reported that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than ever thought possible. By their calculations, 40 per cent of the summer ice covering the Arctic sea will be gone by 2050. Earlier studies had predicted that this wouldn’t happen for another century.

-----------------------------

What we do not have is time. Travelling in Chad recently, I saw first hand the humanitarian toll of climate change. An estimated 20 million people depend on a lake and river system that has shrunk to a tenth of its original size over the past 30 years. In Africa right now, the worst rains in memory are washing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. These are signs of what is to come. The problems our generation faces will be worse for our children, particularly if we do not act.


Yet the newspaper fails to take the threat seriously. It is giving away a car everyday, adding more greenhouse gases to our overloaded atmosphere.

hindustan times gives away a car every day


So when the food begins to run out (don't they read their own paper?)-

Climate change is likely to trigger a "risk of hunger" in India by affecting cereal production by as much as 18 per cent because of floods and droughts, a UN agency has warned.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said India could lose as much as 125 million tonnes of its rainfed cereal production.

then can we whack the top honchos at HT for contributing to the starvation?

Can't they give away bicycles?

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Sunday round up

Girls in bikinis will save the world.
In your dreams!-ed

Is the mainstream media uninterested in radical Islamists in America?
Is this even worth asking?-ed

Belgian police brutalises peaceful demonstrators from a group called Stop the Islamization of Europe, including a member of the European parliament.(video here)

Indian government appeasing religious obscurantists once again.
So what is new? It's a habit -ed

Environmentalists and scientists misleading Americans about air pollution and climate change

Saturday, September 15, 2007

My manhood is bigger than yours.

What has Putin been running on -high octane testosterone?


No sooner is Putin back in the Kremlin than he sends Russian bombers over European air space, and British pilots scramble to see them off. Better that, I suppose, than murdering exiles like Alexander Litvinenko in London, and then covering up for the suspect wanted by Scotland Yard – that whole case has gone into abeyance. And the next step was to test out the biggest non-nuclear bomb ever manufactured, one that wipes out all life in an area of several square miles. That should impress the unfortunate Chechens, Georgians, Moldavians, Estonians, Ukrainians, and others for whom Putin is duly flexing those biceps and pectorals. At the same time, they have just launched a super-submarine, nuclear-powered and capable of staying submerged for twenty days. More impressive still, he’s just sold the latest anti-aircraft defence system to Iran.

About that Russian bomb-

RUSSIA has tested the world's most powerful "vacuum bomb", which unleashes a destructive shockwave with the power of a nuclear blast, the military said, dubbing it the "father of all bombs".

The bomb is the latest in a series of new Russian weapons as president Vladimir Putin tries to reassert Moscow's role on the international stage.

"Test results of the new airborne weapon have shown that its efficiency and power is commensurate with a nuclear weapon," Alexander Rukshin, Russia's deputy armed forces chief of staff, told Russia's state ORT First Channel television.

--------------------------------------

The report said the new bomb was much stronger than the US-built Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb - MOAB, also known as "mother of all bombs". "So, Russian designers called the new weapon 'father of all bombs'."



But there is a bigger d*** in town-
The U.S. has a 14-ton super bomb more destructive than the vacuum bomb just tested by Russia, a U.S. general said Wednesday.

The statement was made by retired Lt. General McInerney, chairman of the Iran Policy Committee, and former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

McInerney said the U.S. has "a new massive ordnance penetrator that's 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates ... Ahmadinejad has nothing in Iran that we can't penetrate."

He also said the new Russian bomb was not a "penetrator."

(via Ed Morissey. See below)


Ed Morissey points out-

I think this is a slap at Russian manhood, actually. It's the military equivalent of accusing someone of premature ejaculation. You explode on the surface, Ivan? Real superpowers go deep before explosion. Georgia laughs at you, comrade. Maybe Vladimir Putin should pay more attention to e-mail spam.

But then again, the Russian excitement over developing a fuel-air bomb seemed a little overblown, anyway. They only have one bomber that could actually deploy it, and unless one wants to flatten entire villages, it has few real applications. That kind of strategy ended in Vietnam, and even the Soviets didn't use those kinds of tactics in Afghanistan. The "daisy cutter" that the US uses has more flexibility and better tactical application. Unless the point is to penetrate into bunkers below the surface or to do some instant ethnic cleansing, it's literally overkill.

The Russians have relearned a lesson they forgot since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its better to wait on bragging until one is sure that the opponent has not already beaten one to the finish line. It saves on humiliation later.



(emphasis mine)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Dark Ages are making a comeback

At some future date, when India is a Hindu nation, and a large part of the world beyond may have come under the domination of that long pined for caliphate,


islam will dominate placard



when the freedoms won over the struggle of centuries have been lost,

freedom go to hell placard




when the inconvenient parts of the history have been rewritten and whitewashed

holocaust was a hoax placard




by those believing in a primeval ideology,

god bless placard




when even groveling appeasement of Europe has failed

europe is the cancer placard




and despite it's professed hatred of America, Europe is taught a severe lesson

europe take lessons from 9/11 placard




and the it's chattering classes and gutless intellectuals have been silenced(their America bashing will not save them) (not even the pope will be safe)

freedom of expression is western terrorism placard




and apostates have been dealt with with.....

apostates placard




.....with some violence

behead those who insult islam placard



in fact more than some,

exterminate those who slander islam placard





lots more likely,



behead those who insult islam





really lots,

butcher those who mock islam placard




then I fear the worst might happen -all over again.

be prepared for the real holocaust placard



Prepare for the religious wars of the 21st century. The Dark Ages are making a comeback.


Image sources (numbered according to the sequence they appear) -1, 2, 5 , 9 and 12, 3 and 8, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13
Cannot find the source for 6.



Bad luck, I am still alive!

The trouble with blogging is that reality intrudes. One has to go off and do something to make a living. Gotta eat, you know. God made us like that. Maybe that is why I don't believe in Him!

But, hey, it took me a while but I'm baaaack! Thanks to the couple of people who emailed to ask me if I was well.Bad luck guys, I am still alive.

This is one among other things I have been doing -sketching nudes:

nude sketches

Lucky me!

Crossposted at What the heck is art?