More LGF and Earthlink's Toolbar - Wow! It's Gotten Worse

The warning has gotten worse!

Now it says "This Web page is probably a scam. Proceed with extreme caution."

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Little Green Footballs a Scam? Earthlink's Toolbar Thinks So

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Hmm. I wonder how many liberals work in the Earthlink Toolbar department...

RSS and Blog Hijacking

It doesn’t take long before every cool new technology on the Web is stolen and put to nefarious uses by asocial loser pinheads who can’t get dates.

The latest victim of this trend?

RSS feeds.

Until recently, I have provided a link for RSS feeds to my posts so readers could conveniently subscribe to my blog.

However, my RSS feeds have been hijacked.

What does that mean?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. It is a technology that “syndicates” website content by providing that content to other websites and newsreaders, such as MyYahoo. The hijackers steal the content from the RSS feed, and put it on their own websites.

Check out what happens when I do a Blog Search on Google for my ongoing series, “It Will All Hit The Fan in 2007”:


(Click on the image to see it full-size.)

The search produces 24 results, all of which contain the contents of my posts, but only 1 of which actually links to my blog.

On 8/20, I published a test post (“It Will All Hit The Fan in 2007, Part 12”) with some key words and phrases to see how long it would take for RSS pirates to hijack my post. It took about a week.


(Click on the image to see it full-size.)

So, I will soon discontinue my RSS feed. You will now have to visit the blog manually to check out my new posts.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

PR

(Original link to this post: http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/08/rss-and-blog-hijacking.html)

Liberals and Abortion

A reader sent me the following comment regarding abortion. I don’t know if I necessarily agree, but it’s an interesting theory:

PR,

I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this abortion thing. I have a Machiavellian theory of why abortion should remain legal.

Since conservatives believe that abortion is morally wrong, we do not abort our babies. We have babies (often lots of babies) and raise them in conservative households.

Liberals, on the other hand, believe that abortion is a God-given right, and therefore tend not to have as many babies as conservatives.

Granted, I still believe abortion is evil and aborting a fetus is the same as murdering a baby. But I also believe in finding the silver lining in every dark cloud. In this case, the silver lining is - is it possible that liberals will eventually be bred out of existence, while we conservatives flourish?

It's an interesting theory, but I must point out the obvious flaw.

Just because children are born to a conservative household doesn’t mean they will be conservative when they grow up. Think of all the Baby Boomers who were born to conservative parents, yet became yesterday’s hippies and today’s ultra-liberals.

Besides, as you say yourself, abortion is evil and our battle must continue to teach people of its disgusting realities so the public’s viewpoint changes in our favor.

All the same, nice try. It’s good to know that my readers think outside the box.

(Original link to this post: http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/08/liberals-and-abortion.html)

It Will All Hit The Fan in 2007, Part 12

This is a test post.

Mortgage calculator.

ARM.

Adjustable rate mortgages.

Payment option.

Real estate.

Housing.

(Original link to this post: http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/08/it-will-all-hit-fan-in-2007-part-12.html)

It Has Begun - It Will All Hit The Fan In 2007, Part 11

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article entitled “Strapped Homeowners Start To Feel the Pain of Rising Rates”.

It talks about how people who bought homes using Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) are starting to feel the pressure as rising interest rates drive up their payments, often by dramatic amounts.

In the article, it tells the story of Luisa Cordova-Holmes, from Detroit:

Luisa Cordova-Holmes was looking to lower her monthly payments when she refinanced her $312,000 mortgage in 2004. Instead, she wound up digging herself into a ditch.

For their new loan, Ms. Cordova-Holmes and her husband chose a so-called option adjustable-rate mortgage, which carried an introductory rate of 2.35% and gave her multiple payment choices each month. "I had a lot of financial obligations," says Ms. Cordova-Holmes, an accountant who lives near Detroit.

Two years later, however, the interest rate on her loan has jumped to 8.75%, her loan balance has climbed to $324,000 and her minimum monthly payment has risen to $2,257. She says the terms of the loan weren't clearly spelled out.

Ms. Cordova-Holmes says she would like to refinance, but can't -- in part because her loan carries a prepayment penalty that would force her to shell out thousands of dollars if she did. Instead, she's trying to sell her home. But with Detroit's economy slumping, she hasn't been able to find a buyer. When she and her husband first put the house on the market last summer, they were asking nearly $400,000. Now they're willing to accept as little as $270,000.

"We're in a very bad situation," she says. "The payments are just killing us."

The article doesn’t specify Mrs. Cordova-Holmes’ introductory payments, but using a mortgage calculator, it works out to $1,209 a month ($312,000 at 2.35%, amortized over 30 years).

According to the article, her monthly payment has gone from $1,228 to $2,257!

But wait, they said “her loan balance has climbed to $324,000 and her minimum monthly payment has risen to $2,257.”

If I use the same mortgage calculator ($325,000 at 8.75%, amortized over 30 years), I get a payment of $2,557.

Why the discrepancy?

That’s because $2,257 is her minimum payment. Note that her mortgage balance has increased from $312,000 to $324,000. Mrs. Cordova-Holmes has taken out an “option ARM”, where she can choose how much to pay each month. Her payment can actually be less that the accrued interest for that month. The unpaid interest is added to the principal of the loan and her mortgage balance increases.

According to the article, Mrs. Cordova-Holmes “says the terms of the loan weren't clearly spelled out.”

Here’s the scary part, Mrs. Cordova-Holmes is an ACCOUNTANT.

You'd think she would have some knowledge of how loans work.

I don’t think I’ll be asking her to do my taxes anytime soon…


**********
Links to previous "It Will All Hit The Fan in 2007" posts:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4 (Addendum), Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

(Original link to this post: http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/08/it-has-begun-it-will-all-hit-fan-in_20.html)

Middle East Conflict Is About Failed Culture

Check out Victor Davis Hanson's column from August 7 (before the current ceasefire) entitled "Not Just Land - Middle East Conflict Is About Failed Culture."

This is my favorite part:

For about the last half-century, globalization has passed most of the recalcitrant Middle East by — economically, socially and politically. The result is that there are now few inventions and little science emanating from the Islamic world — but a great deal of poverty, tyranny and violence. And rather than make the necessary structural changes that might end cultural impediments to progress and modernity — such as tribalism, patriarchy, gender apartheid, polygamy, autocracy, statism and fundamentalism — too many Middle Easterners have preferred to embrace the reactionary past and the cult of victimization.

Oh, and I like this too:

When there is high unemployment, corruption, zero economic growth, endemic illiteracy and no freedom, mullahs, dictators and jihadists of the Middle East always seem to fault the ancient colonial power — Britain, France or Italy (though rarely Islamic Turkey) — that supposedly set them back over a century ago. Or they try blaming the omnipotent United States whose oilmen developed the riches of the Gulf and whose military has saved Muslims from Kosovo to Kuwait.

Good stuff.

(Original link to this post: http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/08/middle-east-conflict-is-about-failed_20.html)

Bias at U.S. News and World Report

Here’s another example of a headline/caption writer introducing bias into a news article, this time in the August 14, 2006 edition of U.S. News and World Report.

The article is entitled “Carrying Costs – Despite the burden of war, neither Israel nor Hezbollah folds easily.”

Not bad so far.

Yet, herein lies the rub.

There are four photographs in the article. One shows a man carrying an elderly woman in a Lebanese village and another shows Israeli soldiers returning from battle.

Those photos are fine.

It’s the other two photos that show the bias.

Here’s photo #3, showing the Lebanese side of the suffering:



Note the caption of this sad photograph:
“Lebanese rescue workers carry a dead boy from the rubble in Qana”.

However, we all know that Israeli children are also suffering, thanks to Hezbollah’s Katyusha rockets.

Here’s the photo showing the Israeli side of the suffering:



The caption reads:
“Medical personnel help a slightly wounded child in Nahariya, Israel.”

Wow. Israel must not be suffering as much as Lebanon, since Israeli children are only “slightly” wounded, while Lebanese children are dying.

Why, oh why, must the word “slightly” be added to the caption? It would be just as accurate if it read “Medical personnel help a wounded child in Nahariya, Israel.”

But no, the editor chose to add the word “slightly”.

I can only deduce that the word was added to minimize the impact of the photo and influence the reader into thinking that the only real suffering is on the Lebanese side of the border.

If our media wants to be taken seriously, they have to excise this type of manipulation from their articles. The fiasco at Reuters uncovered by Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has started a long-overdue examination into the dubious practices of the mainstream media.

It’s about time. Thanks Charles.

(Original link to this post: http://thephantomrepublican.blogspot.com/2006/08/bias-at-us-news-and-world-report.html)

The Power of Headlines

I've written before about how most people get their news by reading headlines, not news articles. An unfortunate aspect of this phenomenon is that it puts a lot of power into the hands of the people who write headlines.

Here is a case in point that appeared prominently displayed on the front page of Yahoo News.

The headline for this article is "Rockets hit Lebanon despite cease-fire".

When I first read the headline, I was interested, because I assumed that Israeli rockets were striking Lebanon. After all, Hezbollah wouldn’t bomb Lebanon, would they?

However, the body of the article talks about Hezbollah rockets hitting southern Lebanon.

Highlighting the fragility of the peace, Hezbollah guerrillas fired at least 10 Katyusha rockets that landed in southern Lebanon early Tuesday, the Israeli army said, adding that nobody was injured.

If I had been too lazy to open and read the article, I would have gone away with the (false) belief that Israel was still firing rockets into Lebanon, in violation of the cease fire.

As I'm sure the headline creator intended...


(I suppose the use of the word “rockets” instead of “missiles” should have tipped me off, since the media always talks about Hezbollah "rockets" and Israeli "missiles", but that’s a pretty subtle way of identifying weaponry.)

Priceless

I can't believe someone can actually blame the Seattle PI for being pro-Republican.

Check out this letter printed in Sunday's issue:

British personnel had better information

May I suggest that Seattle P-I editors begin listening to National Public Radio at lunchtime?

Instead of printing The Associated Press article on the front page, quoting "al-Qaida experts" from France, Singapore, Sweden, Rome, the Philippines and "national experts" FBI Director Robert Mueller and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, it would have been good to hear from the folks in Britain, who, according to NPR reporters in London, "are being very careful not to use the words al-Qaida."

If the British who made the arrests are avoided in this article, except for one unnamed source, it seems that the article was meant only to excite and inflame.

Is the P-I ready to start posting the daily red terrorism-threat level on the front page until after the November elections?

Dawn Blanch
Seattle

Wow. I've heard the PI called a lot of things, but for someone to imply that it's a Republican shill? And that the AP may be wrong?

Priceless.

Photos of Middle East Unrest

Check out this photo of pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protestors with their faces covered by headscarves during a rally in Beirut.


(courtesy of www.zombietime.com)

Did I say Beirut?

Oops. I meant San Francisco.

Check out the rest of the photos at zombietime.com.

More Liberal Conspiracy-Mongering

Here's a letter from this morning's Seattle PI regarding the recent foiled terrorist plot in Great Britain:

Sea-Tac scene makes reader more curious

I was at Sea-Tac Airport Thursday night to pick up my son and noticed the signs and fliers posted throughout about new travel restrictions. I was struck by the professional quality of the signs. They were clearly designed by a graphic artist, which makes me wonder:

1. When were the signs printed? How much lead time was necessary to design, publish and distribute such production-quality material?

2. If the signs were created substantially beforehand, what determined the timing of the announcement of the alleged "liquid explosives" plot?

What happened Thursday reminded me not so much of a terrorist plot foiled as a commercial product announcement, orchestrated to gain maximum publicity.

And it worked. News of Lebanon and Iraq was all but absent from the major media, and the reminder that "we are at war with Islamic fascists" had a context within which to play.

What really happened?

Ted Diamond
Seattle

Hmm...has Mr. Diamond ever heard of those new-fangled gadgets called "computers" with desktop publishing software and color printers? I know I'm always impressed with what Kinko's can do on short notice.

Yes, Mr. Diamond. It was a broad Republican conspiracy that not only included British and U.S. authorities, but also an army of graphic artists across the world.

And we all know how most graphic artists are known for their Republican, conservative values...

Great Summary of Reuters Manipulation

Here's a great summary at aish.com of how news organizations like Reuters and AP fall victim to sophomoric manipulation by biased photographers.

How can they be so gullible?

(Thanks to LGF for the heads-up on the video.)

The REAL Conspiracy

So there’s a buzz in the liberal/wacko/moonbat blogosphere that there’s a new right-wing conspiracy afoot.

Apparently, people think that the arrest of terrorists planning to blow up planes flying from England to the U.S. was perfectly timed to emphasize how foolish Connecticut voters were for choosing Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman in the recent Democratic primaries.

Personally, I think it’s more likely that the whole plot was concocted by Oliver Stone to promote his new movie World Trade Center. We all know how fond Mr. Stone is of conspiracies, so why couldn’t he create one of his own?

Sigh, everybody loves a good conspiracy, regardless of how unlikely it may be.

The Cheapening of the Comics

Here's an intriguing yet disheartening speech given a while ago by Bill Watterson of "Calvin and Hobbes" fame. He laments how syndicates have negatively influenced the quality of comic strips and suggests what can be done about it.

Yet Another Masterpiece by VDH

Another brilliant analysis of world events through the prism of history by Victor Davis Hanson at NRO.

Another Curious Reuters Photo

Check out this post on the Drinking From Home blog about a curious pair of Reuters photos. Pay close attention to the dates on the photos.

Condi Possessed?

Ah, the MSM. Always good for some laughs.

Check out Michelle Malkin’s post about a USA Today photo that shows Condoleezza Rice doing her best Linda Blair impression.

Photoshop Use Rampant in Mainstream Media

Reuters has gone from being the “Rolls Royce” of journalism to being the “rusty old Pinto with one pink door”.

It is the latest MSM news organization whose shoddy journalism has resulted in public embarrassment for a company whose business depends on diligence and maintaining public trust (e.g. Dan Rather and Memogate).

Reuters has fired one of their photographer, Adnan Hajj, after Little Green Footballs broke the story of how one of Hajj’s photographs was manipulated using Adobe Photoshop. The photo, which shows Beirut in flames, was altered to exaggerate the extent of the damage caused by Israeli bombing. (WARNING: The above link also contains another Hajj photograph showing a dead child.)

Here’s another look at Hajj’s photo before and after manipulation in Photoshop. (Thanks to Dorkafork at INDC Journal.)

Hajj was also responsible for one of the infamous “Green Helmet” photographs I discussed in an earlier post.

Here’s another doctored photo from Adnan Hajj. (Thanks to The Jawa Report.)

Here’s a third questionable Adnan Hajj photograph. (Thanks to Scott at Powerline.)

Hajj's photographs were published extensively by Reuters. Check out his portfolio here.

Did Hezbollah Manipulate the MSM?

Another great post at the EU Referendum blog regarding the Hezbollah staging of news coverage at the building collapse in Qana, Lebanon.

The post shows a progression of video caputures/photos and events through which the international media may have been manipulated by Hezbollah.

WARNING: The above link shows shocking and sad photos of death and destruction.