November 12, 2011
Journalism + Political Correctness = Waste of time
The local fishwrap, i.e., The Ventura County Star, ran a brief story today about a recent crime: Test drive in Ventura turns to kidnapping. It's little more than a rewrite of the press release from the local gendarmes, seeking the public's assistance in catching the crook.
Here's the version from the Ventura Police Department's website:
Kidnapping and Carjacking
11/10/2011
Incident: Kidnapping and Carjacking
Contact: Watch Commander, 805-339-4416
Location: Ventura Toyota, 6360 Auto Center Drive
Date/Time Occurred: November 10, 2011, 5:00 p.m.
Officer(s) Involved: VPD Patrol
Victim(s): Alejandro Collazo, 36 yrs, Oxnard Resident
Suspect(s): Hispanic Male, 35-45 yrs., short stocky build
Report #: 11-12495
Narrative:
On the above date and time, the victim, a sales associate at Ventura Toyota, was assisting the suspect who was inquiring about test-driving a vehicle. The victim walked away from the suspect to retrieve keys for the vehicle and when he returned, the suspect took the keys away from him and simulated that he had weapon in his waistband. The suspect then ordered the victim into the car and drove away from the dealership.The suspect drove to the area of Victoria Ave. and Gonzalez Rd. where he let the victim out of the vehicle. The suspect then left with the vehicle westbound on Gonzalez Road towards Harbor Blvd. The victim was not injured. The stolen vehicle is a Gray 2009 Toyota Camry Hybrid with California license plate 6FRH988.
Let's take a look at The Star's version:
What started as a test drive at a Ventura car dealership on Thursday turned into a kidnapping and carjacking, police said.
About 5 p.m., a man told a salesman at Ventura Toyota on Auto Center Drive that he wanted to test drive a Toyota Hybrid Camry, according to Ventura police. When the salesman returned with the keys, the man acted like he had a gun in his pants and told the salesman to get in the car, police said. He drove to the corner of Victoria Boulevard and Gonzalez Road before letting the man out, unharmed.
The 2009 gray Camry, license plate 6FRH988, was last seen headed down Gonzales Road toward Harbor Boulevard. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
As you may have noticed, the police offered a bit of information that did not appear in the Star's story: Suspect(s): Hispanic Male, 35-45 yrs., short stocky build.
The Star, like many newspapers staffed and operated by politically-correct "journalists," maintains that to provide a description of a suspect that is so general is to encourage and participate in "racial profiling."
Oh, the horror.
Allow me to disagree.
I disagree.
Let's start with the numbers. According to the 2010 Census, Ventura County has 823,318 residents. So we begin with more than 800 thousand potential suspects, assuming for the sake of argument that the crook was a local.
The Star helpfully identified the suspect as a man (which seems too general to be helpful under their own guidelines, but I digress). Men represent 49.7% of the populace, which is 409,189 potential suspects.
So, The Star has narrowed the pool of people we should be casting a suspicious gaze upon to a little more than 400 thousand men.
If we use the information provided by the police, we can drill down a little further: Adding Hispanic to the search, using the Census, gives us approximately 164,903 Hispanic Males, eliminating 658,415 people as "persons of interest."
If we then eliminate people over 65, and younger than 18, we're left with 61,673 -- a number that would be even smaller if I could narrow the search to the 35-45 age description provided by the police. The Census doesn't offer height-related breakdown, but "short and stocky" would also further narrow the field of suspects.
Every additional data point helps tighten our focus, enables us to better assist in apprehending a criminal.
But journalists -- or "journalists" -- refuse to provide us with that additional information, preferring to give us descriptions that are worthless.
To summarize, The Ventura County Star leaves us with more than 400 thousand suspects -- all of them males.
The Ventura Police Department narrows that down by almost 90 percent -- and if we factor in height, weight and narrow the age, I'm guessing we're down to less than 3 percent of the Star's We're-All-Guilty-Of-Something pool of potential criminals.
Back in the days when you didn't need a degree to be a reporter, the essential requirements for the job description were tenacity and the ability to gather the Who-What-Where-When-Why-and-How of a story.
Nowadays, the "Who" appears to be unnecessary, an inconvenient, uncomfortable fact to be hidden under the cushions for ideological reasons.
Pathetic.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:41 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 11, 2011
Every day is a bonus
This is the perfect Veterans Day video; it's five minutes that perfectly capture the dignity and grace of the now-aged men who once fought and bled alongside their friends -- fallen comrades forever young in their memories -- in the battle to defeat tyranny.
Take a few minutes to watch these men -- and the Americans who recognize and honor the heroes who still walk amongst us.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Remembering the Defenders of Freedom
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns fell silent, ending the greatest slaughter the world had ever known. For 21 years it was known as "The Great War" and "The War to End All Wars," until new tyrants forced us to begin numbering our global conflicts. Today, the second war might have been called The Great War Ver. 1.2, but our forefathers settled on World War II.
Today is the day we remember the Americans who sacrificed everything for us. It used to be called Armistice Day, to commemorate the end of the First World War, but somewhere along the way someone decided to go generic.
I like the old name better, because it reminds us of a specific conflict, and of the men who fought and died in one war. It's why I prefer Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's Birthday to the plainwrap Presidents' Day.
There's nothing wrong with having a generic Veterans' Day -- Hell, no! -- but let's not diminish the opportunity to remember each and every war, so that we may remind ourselves of the lessons to be learned from each conflict.
For those inclined to decorate their Volvos and Priuses with "War Is Never the Answer" and "Coexist" bumperstickers, a reminder: it is because of brave men, buried in cemeteries from Normandy to Arlington, that you enjoy the right to spout such nonsense. Had your philosophy prevailed, the Confederacy would still exist (as would slavery); and Hitler's Reich would be celebrating it's seventy-eighth anniversary in a Jew-free empire. Sometimes war is the answer, and coexistence with evil can prove impossible; that's when the soldier picks up his club, sword, bow, musket, or rifle and wearily marches into battle.
I salute the fallen, and the troops who answered the call, as well as my own personal trio of heroes: my father,
Petty Officer Second Class Gerald Lief, who served at sea in the Korean War; his father,
Cpl. Harry Wiener Lief, Troop E, 3rd Cavalry, USA, who went to France and fought in the War to End All Wars; and my uncle,
Sgt. Bernard Solomon, USMC, who fought at the Frozen Chosin and never forgot his pals who didn't come home. Semper Fi, Mac!
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 06, 2011
Boehner pushes back
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared on ABC's "This Week" today for a one-on-one interview with the always insufferable Christiane Amanpour. She was, as expected, mind-numbingly condescending, and Boehner was surprisingly combative, especially during the exchange dealing with class warfare and the so-called "fairness" issue.
She whinges on about "income inequality," which is what I'd expect from a socialist who loathes free-market capitalism and, by implication, a meritocracy. What does fairness have to do with income? Should the best player in the NBA make the same salary as, well, as me, a middle-aged short Jewish guy from Brooklyn with no discernible talent for shooting hoops?
What's that? I'm not as good at the job as Kobe Bryant? What does that have to do with anything?
Equality of opportunity is what has made America different from all other nations; "income equality" sounds a lot like, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," comrade.
AMANPOUR: Now, you obviously disagree with the idea of paying for this with extra taxes. Some 75 percent of Americans agree with a increase in tax on millionaires as a way to pay for these jobs provisions. Do you not feel that by opposing it, you're basically out of step with the American people on this issue?
BOEHNER: Well, over half of the people who would be taxed under this plan are, in fact, small businesspeople. And, as a result, you're going to basically increase taxes on the very people that were hoping will reinvest in our economy and create jobs. That's the real crux of the problem. And, secondly, I would point out this: we have a spending problem. We've done all this stimulus spending in the last couple of years and, clearly, it has not worked.
[...]
AMANPOUR: You talk about fairness, and of course a lot of the conversation in this country over the last year or so has been about spending cuts, getting the deficit under control. But it's sort of shifting, as you know now, to the whole big disparity in income, the income gap, the income inequality that people are talking about. Latest reports say that something like one in 15 Americans live in extreme poverty, which is defined as something like $11,000 per year for a family of four. Are you concerned that these budget cuts are going to hurt the people who can least afford it?
BOEHNER: No one here in this Congress, Democrat or Republican, wants to do anything about putting holes in the safety net for Americans. There are Americans who are poor. And I think it's the responsibility of the rest of us to ensure that they have food in their stomachs and they have a roof over their head.
You know, John Kennedy said some 50 years ago, a rising tide lifts all boats. We have to get our economy moving again. And until we get our economy moving again and we start producing more jobs, we're going to have all kinds of uncertainty, concern and, frankly, fear about the future.
AMANPOUR: You talk about a rising tide lifting all boats. And, of course, that is the American way. That's what all of us look to America for. And yet, not just income inequality has expanded, but also the idea of social mobility is kind of slowing down. It's even slower than in some other parts of the world. And clearly, the Republicans are being portrayed as the party that doesn't really care and are really, quote, unquote, the servants of the rich.
BOEHNER: Well, I think that...
AMANPOUR: Does that need to change?
BOEHNER: I think that's very unfair. Listen, I come from a family of 12. My dad owned a bar. I've got brothers and sisters on every rung of the economic ladder.
What our job here in Congress is to do -- and the reason I came here 21 years ago -- was to make sure that the American dream that was available to us is available for our kids and our grandkids. That -- most people don't believe that's the case today. And, frankly, I've got concerns that it may not be the case. We can't have government debt that's snuffing out the future for our kids and grandkids. We can't have a government that's taking in 30, 40 cents out of every dollar from our kids and grandkids to pay for government. That's -- you can't have both. And I do believe that my -- my job and my vision is to make sure the American dream is alive and well for everyone in America.
AMANPOUR: You look at Occupy Wall Street. I think you've said that you understand their frustrations. People such as, let's say, Eric Cantor, called them a mob not so long ago. Do you agree with that? Are they a mob?
BOEHNER: Listen, I understand people's frustrations. I understand their concerns. And, frankly, I understand that we have differences in America. We are not going to engage in class warfare. The president is out there doing it every day. I, frankly, think it's unfortunate.
AMANPOUR: You say…
BOEHNER: Because -- because our job is to help all Americans, not -- not to pit one set of Americans against another.
AMANPOUR: And do you think that's what's happening?
BOEHNER: The president's clearly trying to do it. And it's wrong.
AMANPOUR: You say class warfare. I asked Bill Gates last week about this whole notion. And he said, look, class warfare is when you've got people in the streets manning the barricades, you know, fighting each other. And that's not what's happening. It's not so much a redistribution of income that the president is talking about, but much more a shared and much fairer sense of sacrifice. And there doesn't seem to be the sense amongst people here that the sacrifice is being shared, because they point to taxes and tax cuts and who it benefits and who it doesn't.
BOEHNER: Come on. The top 1 percent pay 38 percent of the income taxes in America. How much more do you want them to pay? I'll tell you, well, let's take all the money that the rich have, all of it. It won't even put a dent in our current budget deficit, much less our debt.
Posted by Mike Lief at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack