This and That...

[Warph]

SICK Video Of The Day

EXCLUSIVE: New Islamic State Video Shows Woman Being Stoned To Death By Her Father

The video is too graphic to post. Here are a few screenshots from the clip posted on the Internet today by activists in Raqqa.

The father and an ISIS commander condemning her to death:

He stands over his daughter refusing her pleas to forgive her:

The stoning begins.

ISIS blurs out the video during the most graphic scene where the father grabs the biggest rock he can find and pummels his daughter with it at close range.

[Warph]

Liberals, I hasten to add, are also an endless source of aggravation, terror and sheer nausea. But, really, if you can't laugh at them, you not only lack a sense of humor, but even the most basic of coping skills required to survive the current administration.

For instance, Joe Biden, who can nearly always be counted on to be unintentionally hilarious, recently told a crowd of sycophants in Joplin, MO, that we should never forget the 161,000 Missourians who lost their lives during the 2011 tornado that ravaged their town. Because everyone in the crowd and on the stage with him was a liberal, nobody pointed out to the Vice President that the actual number was 161. Joplin's entire population is only 50,150 and, no, Mr. Biden, it wasn't 211,150 before the tornado hit.

Even when Biden tells the truth, as he recently did at Harvard, when he pointed out that our alleged allies, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, have spent years financing Islamic terrorism, he wound up having to apologize for his unseemly candor. I'm sure Biden has learned his lesson and will never again tell the truth about anything.

Even the FBI's chief honcho, James Comey, made me laugh when he said that the Americans who have been fighting alongside the butchers of ISIL will be "closely tracked" when they return. The FBI couldn't even keep track of the Tsarnaev brothers before they blew up the Boston marathoners, the agency's excuse being that someone had misspelled "Tsarnaev" on a terrorist list.

To tell the truth, I didn't start laughing immediately because I assumed I was going deaf. You see, I so much expected him to say the homegrown vermin would be indicted, tried and sent off to be gnawed on by rats in a dungeon as soon as they stepped onto the tarmac at Dulles or JFK, I was simply caught by surprise.

As you may have noticed, Obama had refused for the longest time to give a name to the bombing mission in Iraq and Syria. Looking to correct that oversight, Free Republic.com suggested its readers give it a try. Some of the submissions were "Operation Too Little, Too Late," "Operation Just for Show," "Operation Pussyfoot," and "Operation Rolling Blunder." I would have suggested "Operation Nothing Ventured, Nothing Ventured." Just recently, Obama finally came up with (a drum roll, please) "Operation Inherent Resolve," proving once again that we're all better off when this administration does nothing than when it does something.

When asked why Obama elects to call the Khorasan Group by that name instead of calling it Al Qaeda, which it is in spite of Obama's having campaigned as the dude who wiped it off the map, a spokesperson for the President said, with a straight face, it was because that's what they call themselves. However, when it came to the butchers affiliated with the Islamic State, Obama insisted that no matter what they call themselves, they are neither a state nor Islamic. This is clearly a man who regards consistency, along with honesty, to be cardinal sins.

That reminds me that while I hate tooting my own horn -- always hoping that others will step forward and volunteer -- I must point out that three years ago, when Obama announced that Assad's days were numbered, I pointed out that everyone's days are numbered, but I was giving odds that Syria's despot would remain in power longer than our own. Unfortunately, I didn't have any takers because even then most people recognized that Obama was just a big gasbag.

Another funny thing about liberals is that they always fear guns more than they do the various thugs -- be they Muslims, blacks or illegal aliens – who misuse them.

But nowhere, not even in Washington, D.C., are liberals as hilarious as they are in Hollywood. This is ground zero for more lunacy than even I can keep track of, but, then, I lack the resources of the F.B.I.

For openers, this is the one place in America where even conservatives often have to pretend to be liberals in order to be employable and be invited to parties. This is the bizarre world where actors are every bit as likely as actresses to have a plastic surgeon on speed dial, and where starlets are so pumped up with silicone that even their own dogs can no longer recognize them.

Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence explained the existence of her nude photos by stating that she had been in "a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years, but it was a long distance relationship, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you." She added that she was as angry with those who looked at her nude photos as she was with the hackers who downloaded them because even looking constituted a sex crime.

Well, even though I didn't look at the photos, I think she was being unfair. I suspect that the various Peeping Toms imagined that they, too, were in a loving, healthy, great – albeit long distance –relationship with Jennie, if only for a few minutes.

Speaking of actors, one of my all-time favorites was the sardonic Englishman, Alastair Sim. Not only was he superb in "School for Scoundrels," "The Green Man," "An Inspector Calls" and "The Belles of Saint Trinian's," but he was responsible for yet another great comedic tour de force. It seems that Alec Guinness was so impressed by Sim's performance in "Dulcimer Street" that he confessed using it as the basis for his own memorable turn in "The Ladykillers."

Alastair George Bell Sim, as he was baptized, not only was a remarkable actor who had the distinction of having had four names, each of which was one or two letters shorter than the previous one, but he once said a very wise thing that, like Alec Guinness, I intend to adopt, perhaps as my own epitaph: "It was revealed to me many years ago with conclusive certainty that I was a fool. Since then, I have been as happy as any man has a right to be

....Burt

[Ross]

[Warph]

10 Things About The U.S. News Media That They Do Not Want You To Know

By Michael Snyder, on October 21st, 2014

Do you trust the news media?  Do you believe that the information that they are giving you is true and accurate?  If you answered yes to either of those questions, that places you in a steadily shrinking minority.  Yes, on average Americans watch approximately 153 hours of television a month, but for their news they are increasingly turning to alternative sources of information such as this website.  Big news channels such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are losing hordes of viewers, and they are desperately searching for answers.  Things have gotten so bad at CNN that they have been forced to lay off hundreds of workers.  The mainstream media is slowly dying, but they will never admit it.  They are still convinced that they can find some way to turn this around and regain the trust of the American people.  But it simply is not going to happen.  

The following are 10 things about the U.S. news media that they do not want you to know...

#1 The level of trust in the U.S. news media is at an all-time low.
According to a Gallup survey that was conducted last month, only 40 percent of all Americans have a "great deal/fair amount" of confidence in the mass media.  That ties the lowest level that Gallup has ever recorded.


#2 The news media is far more liberal than the American people.
We hear much about the supposed "conservative bias" of Fox News, but the truth is that overall the U.S. public considers the news media to be extremely liberal.  Gallup found that 44 percent of all Americans consider the news media to be "too liberal", and only 19 percent of all Americans consider the news media to be "too conservative".

And it is a fact that "journalists" are far more likely to give money to Democrats than to Republicans.  The following comes from an MSNBC report...
MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.


#3 Fox News is not nearly as "conservative" as you think that it is.
Fox News may be constantly promoting a "Republican agenda", but that does not mean that it is conservative.  This is especially true when it comes to social issues.  Some of their anchors are extremely socially liberal, one of the top executives at Fox News is a big Hillary Clinton supporter, and 21st Century Fox/News Corp. has given the Clintons more than 3 million dollars since 1992.


#4 MSNBC is in a death spiral.
After years of lying to the American people, the credibility of MSNBC is absolutely shot.  Pretty much all MSNBC does is endlessly spew establishment propaganda.  One study found that MSNBC only engages in 15 percent "factual reporting" and the other 85 percent is "commentary/opinion".

So it should be no surprise that only 6 percent of Americans consider MSNBC to be their most trusted source for news...
NBC News and sister cable network MSNBC rank at the bottom of media outlets Americans trust most for news, with Fox News leading the way, according to a new poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

In its fifth trust poll, 35 percent said they trusted Fox news more than any other outlet, followed by PBS at 14 percent, ABC at 11 percent, CNN at 10 percent, CBS at 9 percent, 6 percent for MSNBC and Comedy Central, and just 3 percent for NBC.


#5 Americans are increasingly turning to Facebook and other Internet sources for their news.
At least that is what one recent survey discovered.  It found that an astounding 48 percent of Americans got news about government and politics from Facebook within the past week.  The numbers for CNN and Fox News were just 44 percent and 39 percent respectively.


#6 Over the past year or so the big three cable news networks have lost an unprecedented number of viewers.
According to a Pew Research study, the number of prime time viewers for all three networks combined declined by 11 percent in 2013...
In 2013, the cable news audience, by nearly all measures, declined. The combined median prime-time viewership of the three major news channels—CNN, Fox News and MSNBC—dropped 11% to about 3 million, the smallest it has been since 2007. The Nielsen Media Research data show that the biggest decline came at MSNBC, which lost nearly a quarter (24%) of its prime-time audience. CNN, under new management, ended its fourth year in third place, with a 13% decline in prime time. Fox, while down 6%, still drew more viewers (1.75 million) than its two competitors combined (619,500 at MSNBC and 543,000 at CNN).
The decline was even more dramatic for the critical 25 to 54-year-old demographic.  From November 2012 to November 2013, CNN's ratings for that demographic plunged by a whopping 59 percent, and MSNBC's ratings for that demographic plummeted by 52 percent.


#7 The big news networks have a love affair with the Obama administration.
Yes, there are reporters that get annoyed by the petty press rules that Obama makes them follow and by their lack of access to the president, but overall there is a tremendously incestuous relationship between the Obama administration and the mainstream news media.

For example, did you know that the president of CBS and the president of ABC both have brothers that have served as top officials in the Obama administration?  And needless to say, Barack Obama does not care for the alternative media much at all. 

The following is an excerpt from a WND article...
NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd says President Obama was making it "clear" at the White House Correspondents' Dinner over the weekend how he feels about the rise of Internet news sites like Politico, Buzzfeed and ... well, WND.

"He hates it."

Appearing on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning following Saturday night's media, politics and celebrity soiree, Todd explained the president's disdain for independent online news sources was showing during his speech.

"It did seem ... I thought his pot shots, joke-wise, and then the serious stuff about the Internet, the rise of the Internet media and social media and all that stuff – he hates it, OK? He hates this part of the media," Todd said. "He really thinks that the, sort of, the buzzification – this isn't just about Buzzfeed or Politico and all this stuff – he thinks that sort of coverage of political media has hurt political discourse. He hates it. And I think he was just trying to make that clear last night."


#8 Newspaper ad revenues are about a third of what they were back in the year 2000.
Yes, you read that correctly.  As Americans have discarded the print versions of their newspapers, newspaper ad revenues have experienced a decline that is absolutely unprecedented...
It took a half century for annual newspaper print ad revenue to gradually increase from $20 billion in 1950 (adjusted for inflation in 2013 dollars) to $65.8 billion in 2000, and then it took only 12 years to go from $65.8 billion in ad revenues back to less than $20 billion in 2012, before falling further to $17.3 billion last year.


#9 News magazines are also experiencing a dramatic multi-year decline in ad revenues... 

Once upon a time, news magazines such as Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report were must reads.

But those days are long gone.

Ad revenues are way down across the entire industry, and any magazine that can keep their yearly losses to the single digits is applauded for it...
For a third year in a row, news magazines faced a difficult print advertising environment. Combined ad pages (considered a better measure than ad revenue) for the five magazines studied in this report were down 13% in 2013, following a decline of 12.5% in 2012, and about three times the rate of decline in 2011, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Again, hardest hit was The Week, which suffered a 20% drop in ad pages. The Atlantic fell 17%, The Economist 16%, and Time about 11%, while The New Yorker managed to keep its ad pages losses in single digits (7%).


#10 Even though the mainstream media is dying, they still have an overwhelmingly dominant position.
What would you say if I told you that there are just six enormous media conglomerates that combine to produce about 90 percent of all the media that Americans consume?

If you do not believe this, please see my next article entitled "Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read"?

This is why "the news" seems to be so similar no matter what channel you watch.

But we aren't just talking about control of the news media.  These giant media corporations also own movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, video game makers, music labels and even many of our favorite websites.

So we should be thankful that their media monopoly is finally crumbling.

Nobody should have that much power over what the American people see, hear and think about.

[Warph]

Who Owns The Media? 'The 6 Monolithic Corporations That
Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read'

By Michael Snyder, on October 4th, 2010

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.     

The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the "big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.  But even those areas of the media that the "big six" do not completely control are becoming increasingly concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States.  Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.
But it is the "big six" that are the biggest concerns.  When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think.  They don't call it "programming" for nothing.

Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media.  But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people....
In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. ... n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. ... n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. ... n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. ... [In 2000] AOL Time Warner's $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].
--Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi

Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest.  Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com.  The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own....

Time Warner
Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine


Walt Disney
ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books


Viacom
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1


News Corporation (founded by Rupert Murdoch)
Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan


CBS Corporation
CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Infinity Broadcasting
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
Westwood One Radio Network


NBC Universal
Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video


These gigantic media corporations do not exist to objectively tell the truth to the American people.  Rather, the primary purpose of their existence is to make money.

These gigantic media corporations are not going to do anything to threaten their relationships with their biggest advertisers (such as the largest pharmaceutical companies that literally spend billions on advertising), and one way or another these gigantic media corporations are always going to express the ideological viewpoints of their owners.

Fortunately, an increasing number of Americans are starting to wake up and are realizing that the mainstream media should not be trusted.  According to a new poll just released by Gallup, the number of Americans that have little to no trust in the mainstream media (57%) is at an all-time high.

That is one reason why we have seen the alternative media experience such rapid growth over the past few years.  The mainstream media has been losing credibility at a staggering rate, and Americans are starting to look elsewhere for the truth about what is really going on.

Do you think that anyone in the mainstream news would actually tell you that the Federal Reserve is bad for America or that we are facing a horrific derivatives bubble that could destroy the entire world financial system?  Do you think that anyone in the mainstream media would actually tell you the truth about the deindustrialization of America or the truth about the voracious greed of Goldman Sachs?

Sure there are a few courageous reporters in the mainstream media that manage to slip a few stories past their corporate bosses from time to time, but in general there is a very clear understanding that there are simply certain things that you just do not say in the mainstream news.

But Americans are becoming increasingly hungry for the truth, and they are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the dumbed down pablum that is passing as "hard hitting news" these days.

[redcliffsw]

"Fox News is not nearly as "conservative" as you think that it is."

O'Reilly and Hannity are a couple of Republican types that can't seem to ever connect with real American conservatism.  Neither is conservative and not worth watching unless one likes to view Republicans who think of themselves as 'conservative' and there's plenty of them around to observe here in Kansas besides FOX News.

[Ross]

[Ross]

[Ross]

[Warph]