satori001

Note to moderators (if necessary): everybody watches the news, and few really follow politics. In an effort to bring political influences in TV news out into the "open," the best place for doing so at Greasespot is probably the Open forum. This thread does not take a political position, but rather it makes an observation, several observations, with maybe more to come. Rather than have a food fight over who is more "biased," let's agree for discussion's sake, here and now, on the record, that Fox is the MOST biased of all. And that's pretty biased! The examples below illustrate that while the NY Times, CNN, CBS, and CNN again, may not be as BIASED as Fox, we may still ask, are they also biased, and if so, how much less so than the worst of all (Fox)? This is about TV news and life, not the particular political views. Again, it warrants the Open Forum, rather than either of the two mostly overlooked forums wherein political discussion is relegated. Lastly, to those who would pepper this thread with examples of Fox or "Faux" News, please don't. We already know how bad THEY are. After all, we hear about it all the time, on CNN, CBS, and read about it in the NY Times. Moreover, Fox News doesn't even try to hide it. They are conservative. This is about the other guys... Why Paul Krugman is a pessimist (for now): CNN reporting the facts, just add water and stir Andy to Dan: "Shhhh, don't be so obvious" Surge strategy? Bull? Another Israeli perspective, er, "good points, obviously battle lines are drawn between journalists as well." Really? Battle lines?

Baldwin doesn't seem to think Basinger is the problem. He's close enough to the picture to know who isn't answering the phone, even if he doesn't quite know how old his daughter is. He just can't conceive of, or accept, the reason why. He's too much of a narcissistic creep to allow himself that perception. The problem to Baldwin is simple, as he states it: an 11-year old girl is refusing to play by adult rules that validate him - and he is completely emasculated by that, humiliated, made a fool of. For that offense, he calls her stupid, and a "pig." For that, he is gonna "fly out there and straighten her out." You know, what bothers me is that he seems to be treating her the way an abusive jerk might treat a girlfriend when a relationship goes bad. It's as if he's forgotten that he's her father. He's yelling at her like he's her irate and "humiliated" boyfriend. I don't think that's evidence that he took it any further, but it suggests just how disturbed he really could be. Now, if mom was an over-possessive, controlling, mommy-dearest variety nut-job, Ireland could let any number of people know, directly or indirectly. She could tell Baldwin, and he would understand it wasn't her fault. Problem is, we already know he is a controlling nut-job. So mom doesn't have to keep Ireland away from the phone. She just doesn't want to talk to him. Does anybody (almost anybody, anyway) wonder why? If Basinger is equally at fault, how is she going to go to her father, when he's like that? Basinger married the SOB, so there must be something wrong with her too, but it doesn't mean she isn't a good mother, or at least, trying to be. I don't know enough about her. Baldwin's "message" is enough for any outsider to get the message about him.

If Baldwin had understood that, he might still be happily married to Ireland's mom. -- You can look at all the mitigating factors, and Krys brings up a good point about the custodial parent's responsibility. Regardless, this is not a man driven to the point of such exasperation he lashes out at an 11, no 12, no - whatever, who cares - year-old. This is about an adult's tantrum, about berating a child in the strongest terms, about an implied threat ("I'll straighten you out..."). Exasperation (and this jerk feels exasperation the moment he doesn't get his own way) is not a justification for browbeating a child. Sure, it happens all the time. But it is shameful, and let's heap shame upon anyone caught in the act, or risk condoning it. I keep wondering if Ireland herself didn't have a hand in this. Probably not, because a kid would favor MySpace over TMZ. Even so, she's bound to be a pretty sophisticated kid living in that environment, and it's conceivable she knows more than a few sympathetic/opportunistic reporters on a friendly basis. One other thought... does Baldwin call Ireland because he loves her, or does he call her to use her, to fight his fight with Basinger through his daughter, with all the mind games you might expect? If he truly hates Basinger, he may attack Ireland's relationship with her mother in a hundred subtle ways. The kid may just not want to deal with it. I'd like to think some professional third-party could listen in and nail him to the wall for that kind of thing, but it's just him (and you've heard him) and an 11-year old. Kids don't like adult mind-games last I checked. Head-games are toxic to kids, anathema, poison. Kids flee and hide if they hear it coming. If Ireland had a reason to love her father, you couldn't keep her away from that phone. But poor Alec is humiliated "time and time again," by an 11-year old girl. Isn't that pathetic? He makes me sick.

Whatever the mom's motives, there will be considerable attention from the court. If their celebrity status mattered before, it should matter little now. All that matters is the child. The court knows it is being watched too. This story is being talked about everywhere.

I think it was a good move to expose Baldwin. The daughter will get the support she needs because of it.

That, it did. Evan & Ron must have a lot of free time on their hands. -- As for Baldwin, here's a typical, rich leftist - 100% hypocrite. All that publically professed, moral nobility stops at his own front door. I have no doubt his humbris-laced show of liberal "compassion," giving money to kids with AIDS, etc, is nothing but a tax-deductible smokescreen to conceal (or make amends for) his true, low-life self. It's not just little girls that he bullies, though he prefers the odds in that sort of match. He's been a spoiled f-tard throughout his career, maybe longer. Didn't he promise to leave the country if Bush were re-elected? Maybe he needs more encouragement.

Belle, You're right. We should not expect the police to do anything but string yellow tape around crime scenes and tell people to "keep back" while they do a body count. "Strategic planning" is just too much to expect - especially when they had NO warning that something bad could happen there, other than those recent bomb threats and stuff. As for us armchair generals, we just need to accept that the authorities are always doing their very best possible, with no room for improvement, and any criticism from outside the law enforcement community is hot air. Sorry Belle, but much of what I know of law enforcement and security is from what law enforcement has done in the past. In other words, the precedents are there. We'll just wait and see though. Besides that, my criticism has been leveled against the school's administrators, not law enforcement (as you seem to say here), or the press (as Raf has suggested).

"Believing Equals Receiving"

In the 2nd part of this film, gun shots coming from one of the buildings can be heard.

While his adversaries never fail to disgust me, Bush never fails to disappoint me. I don't think this is so different from what's going on in Iraq. The forensic psychologists are saying the killer took his need for control to a monstrous extreme, murdering the people who did not live up to his expectations, beginning with his former girlfriend, and eventually killing anyone with a pulse and a mind of their own. In his last act of "control," he took his own life, so preventing the police or the courts or the victims' families from dealing with him. Are the genocidal Islamists so different? They want to kill whomever they can't control, and they'd prefer to die than give up any control to captors. They invite death, if by dying they can deny life to anyone who chooses to live on their own terms. There's some sick validation for you. Extremist Islam is a uncompromisingly controlling cult. This little murdering dang was just an extremist cult of one. I am just as disgusted by every car bomb reported out of Afghanistan or Iraq or Casablanca or Indonesia or Gaza - it's always the same, the innocent are slaughtered for the crime of "innocence."

Raf, I haven't even mentioned the cynical, irresponsible, biased, exploitive ("And how did you feel, Betty, when the killer's bullets hit your boyfriend in the chest, knocked him to the floor, and you watched him die in a pool of his own blood?") left-wing media jackals. What makes you think I have anything against the media? My criticism is for those responsible for implementing policies and procedures that ought to protect kids on a college campus. I haven't given the media much thought, except to suggest they have at times seemed more interested in the "opportunity" to promote the next gun-control initiative than in the facts. Solid journalism, that. It almost sounds as if the real killer was not the Korean student, it was the NRA.

Let's see. If he was in his dorm, and the lockdown occurred after the first two murders at his dorm, he would have been processed with everyone else. He would have been searched. His room would have been searched. If he was already away from his dorm by the lockdown, he would have been turned away from the classroom building, or told to evacuate. There would have been any number of armed, watchful cops in the area, possibly checking ID's, possibly separating out anyone from his dorm... If he'd gotten off campus, there might have been time to find evidence or witnesses and discover who he was before he could strike again.

About a year ago, there was a prisoner escape which resulted in the death of a VT policeman, I think. In the days leading up to this massacre, there were several bomb threats. On the morning of the massacre two people were shot to death on campus. It should have been a by-the-book drill by now. The school should have been closed. I think it will come out that somebody advocated the closure of the school, and the administration decided not to. It costs a fortune to shut a school of that size down. Somebody probably made an "intuitive" decision rather than adhering to the appropriate policy, and whether they ever admit it, cost was probably the underlying consideration. The impending violence was an unfathomable improbability, but that's why safety measures are put into policy. It's why you don't go back into a building after the fire alarm has triggered until the fire department has done a full inspection, even though everything "looks okay." Even the FD can miss something. The wire services had a story recently about a woman who smelled smoke, called the fire department, they came, inspected and left. A rapidly spreading fire killed two members of her family later that night. There was a school hit by a tornado recently and several kids were killed. The administrator knew if he could keep the school open just a little longer, he would not have to make up the day at the end of the year. Cost was the underlying consideration Err on the side of caution. Somebody, not necessarily the law enforcement, did blow it. Either they failed to institute a necessary procedure, or they failed to follow it.

Planetary Update, the Audio Interview:

More Victor...

Slapped silly...

Loud fellows of the bass-er sort...

Pali Annum

Just tryin' to help a damsel in distress. I don't expect a kiss, either. I consider it a public service.

Somebody must know! Somebody call the Way receptionist.

If they removed Eve's original sin from the class, it's no longer an explicitly present truth but a past truth, or emeritus truth - which is like, still honored but retired. Or, come to think of it, The Way of Abundance and Power (?) might now have to include the implicit, present subjunctive truth rather than the complicit present indicative; whereas it is that past indicative truth, rather than the past subjunctive, from which is revealed the present indicative and/or subjunctive truths alike. I remember when we thought it was the present continuous truth, which always conjugated seamlessly into the future perfect truth, but that's way in the past, presently. We were so naive back then. Just ask John Linder on the Good Morning thead, where he'll see it. He's got to be an expert on all the different truths out there, past, present and future, in order to detect the Adversary's ways, and protect the household, and especially to tell the difference between what he's for and what he's against, which is constantly shifting, though eternal. It must get harder and harder every year. John Linder! What say you, bro?

Hi John. Maybe you haven't seen it, but there's a good thread about lesbianism @ The Way going on here at the forum. Isn't "Linder" Dutch? That would make you the "Dutch boy." No wonder they keep you around.

Okay so they dropped the Eve-lesbian teaching. Sounds like Rivenbark is doing the best she can to undo some of the more glaring errors that Martindale was teaching. What else has she done lately? By the way, it's good to see some background material for the readers who might be wondering where this subject is coming from. Much of it was from 2003 however, when I think there was probably a different truth working. Do we know what the present truth on the topic is?

I think you'll be okay. This kind of thread can find itself on thin ice because it can easily become a gossip-fest. There are a number of posts that bear me out. Some posts report what someone has seen, and that is fine. And some ask reasonable questions, which is fine. But some are over the line, in my opinion. As despicable a person as she may be, people need to be explicitly informed or reminded before treating her as such. This thread discusses Rivenbark's sexuality. The ONLY justification for that kind of topic (and it's a good one) is how it substantively (is that a word?) relates to her position and authority at The Way. We can apply all the same rules we do to Martindale's past unethical and predatory behavior. I'd like to see the thread continue, but only if it can be a legitimate discussion of the TWI president's life in light of the standards they pretend to live by. If we can't do that, it's pretty sad. Then it becomes GossipSpot.