I'm proposing a new page for newspapers ("Page Nine" regardless of the page it runs on), that covers stories afresh, not the way news rooms typically flavor things. It would help reduce the distrust so many readers feel. It could be the most read page in the paper.
Here's a casual sample. It might make you say, "We'll NEVER run that!" but the page is being built around ad revenues from clear-thinking mainstream businesses.
Alan Korwin, Author
Gun Laws of America
"The Uninvited Ombudsman"
PAGE NINE
The Uninvited Ombudsman Report, No. 22
by Alan Korwin, Jan. 3, 2007
Page Nine Is Now A Blog!
Sign up for automatic RSS feeds--
and make PUBLIC comments! http://www.pagenine.org
1- Third Hottest Year
2- Bush's Bump Lambasted
3- Virgin Birth Announced
4- Editorials Remain Alive
5- Government Waste Helpful
6- Jihadi Deaths Unreported
7- Louisiana Still Demolished
8- Special Guest Columnist Craig Cantoni:
Should government run pizza parlors? (BRILLIANT!)
9- Christmas Sales Questioned
10- Yes -- Counterintuitive Man examines history denial -- no?
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1- The lamestream media told you:
2006 was the third hottest year on record, further proof that global warming is advancing and threatens all life as we know it. Massive changes in your lifestyle must be enforced by government to save the planet, regardless of the effect on the economy or the American way of life, for the good of all peoples and children of future generations.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Earth has cooled down a bit, as the past year fails once again to take the record as the hottest ever, falling to only third place.
This casts further doubt on recent "global warming" theories, which predict Earth is getting hotter from continuously accumulating carbon dioxide, the gas plants need to thrive and produce breathable oxygen. The reason for the failure to reach new high temperatures was unexplained at press time.
In other news, although massive devastating hurricanes were predicted as a result of the controversial theories, none have developed at all since the beginning of hurricane season last September. Hmmm.
Widely publicized dire predictions months before the season began failed to materialize and have received no attention or followup stories, protecting the guilty. Environmentalists are reportedly still secretly hoping for storms to hit and do damage, to support their theories. Rumors that they are holding seances and invoking spells to produce tropical storms could not be confirmed.
In other news, Colorado has been blanketed in one giant blizzard after another, shutting down air traffic nationwide. Breathless news reports failed to mention a global warming link, or the fact that Colorado, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, is supposed to get giant blizzards in the middle of the winter.
The last storm to get national news attention was Ernesto, in August 2006, which Cox News Service headlined with lament, "What went wrong? Underachieving storm falls short of expectations," with a sub-head, "Federal meteorologists defended their handling of the storm." I am not making this up.
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2- The lamestream media told you:
First Lady Laura Bush underwent a secret operation to have a cancerous skin lesion removed, then failed to immediately notify the Associated Press, broadcast networks and other news organizations, reporters charged last week. White House press secretary Tony Snow defended the President's wife saying she is not an elected official and was under no obligation to do so. "It all seemed pretty shady," one reporter was overheard saying.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Feeling hurt and sorry for themselves, "news" reporters found an angle to attack President Bush last week because his wife Laura did not make a public spectacle of herself when she received routine private medical treatment for a common skin problem. A wide-held belief that reporters harbor animosity toward anything the current president does were flatly denied.
In a statement, Laura Bush announced later she originally thought the bump was an insect bite.
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3- The lamestream media told you:
Just in time for Christmas, a London zoo announced a virgin mother awaiting offspring -- for a Komodo Dragon lizard. The beast, which has been in captivity all her life and has never been exposed to a male, has achieved what is known as parthenogenesis, says Maria Cheng of the Associated Press.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
News of a virgin birth is even more bizarre sensationalism than the recent revelation of pregnant homosexuals, specifically lesbians. How a single, unwed, virgin animal got the missing DNA for a baby was unexplained, though it has been seen in 70 species, scientists say, and probably has been explained somewhere. No disparaging remarks about human virgin births were made.
A retired science teacher in the tiny berg of Strawberry, Arizona, pointed out that laying an egg that hatches is not exactly giving birth, but this point would clearly harm the story's intent. The paper delivered no correction.
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4- The lamestream media told you:
A new study indicates that most newspaper readers do not read the editorial sections of the paper.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
This is fine, since people get all the editorial they need from "news" sections these days. For example, a recent page one AP story began, "In a grim assessment of an unpopular war, President Bush said Wednesday...," confirming critics' claims that the AP no longer even pretends to hide its bias.
If you drop the blatant spin, you get: "President Bush said Wednesday," followed by, "I'm not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like," the future will require "difficult choices," and "the enemy is merciless and violent." He also said he wants a "specific mission that can be accomplished," before committing additional troops. The claims of "grim" and "unpopular" were unsubstantiated, but why let that stand in the way of a good slant.
No one at AP was charged with ethical violations, possibly because the story had no byline. "That's why they call them, 'stories'," one observer said.
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5- The lamestream media told you:
The Defense Dept. paid the Dept. of the Interior to help with its procurements, and wasted $1.7 billion, the Washington Post reported in an unbylined article on Christmas Day. Contracts were awarded without proper supervision, competition, checks on pricing, auditing, or adequate monitoring.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
In a development that surprised no one, huge government spending, handled by bureaucrats who have no direct responsibility for anything that goes on, proved once again to be less accountable than even lousy business managers in the private sector. Unlike federal agencies, profit and markets drive a need to make reasonable decisions in non-government operations, and consequences fall directly on the people responsible.
Relying on a story line as ingrained as fat on a good steak, the Washington Post called the expenditure of nearly $2 billion, "waste." The money however, taken by force from taxpayers -- which rarely raises any grumbling from the Post -- was not burned or destroyed or wasted in any traditional understanding of that word.
The money went to companies in the private sector who used it to pay salaries, buy supplies, create goods, provide services, and cover rent, electric bills, dry cleaning and all the other routine costs of being in business and part of a robust economy. Some went into savings accounts to send employees' children to college.
In that sense, the so-called "waste" returned to the people, where it belongs, after passing through the digestive system of government red tape, which itself consumes and wastes a significant portion of the collected funds. An unknown sum did turn into profit, the standard reward for people who take risks and run businesses in the first place.
How much money would be in the economy if it hadn't first been diverted into government before being spent is unknown. The fact that government is inefficient and more-or-less unaccountable is a given, and more properly termed "abuse."
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6- The lamestream media told you:
"The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has reached at least 2,974, one more than the number of deaths in the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, according to an Associated Press account today," Christopher Torchia of the AP reports.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
The number of dead Muslim jihadis, Iraqi insurgents, and Arab criminals released from Abu Ghraib and other prisons after the U.S.-lead invasion of Iraq, who have been taken out by U.S. forces, was unreported by the Associated Press.
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7- The lamestream media told you:
Despite billions in aid spent in Louisiana after the hurricane season of 2005, some of which was "wasted," (see item #5 above), much of Louisiana is still a desolate wasteland, with demolished buildings and wreckage strewn everywhere, especially in the hardest hit Ninth Ward.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
People who understand complex social issues, along with low-grade idiots capable of thinking in a straight line, realized from the start that rebuilding homes nine feet below sea level in a hurricane zone was a bad idea, would never occur, and should never have happened in the first place.
Wasting money cleaning up debris in deserted areas, which will be washed away by the next few storms or deteriorated by microbes in a 100% natural process, was also a poor use of public tax money.
Hurricanes Rita and Katrina turned out to be a boon to thousands of families, who used the storm's aftermath and gigantic infusions of wasteful federal funds, to permanently leave the depressed ghetto conditions and make a better life for themselves and their families in states with employment opportunities and housing not subject to instant erosion from forces of nature.
In other news, crime rates are inexplicably skyrocketed in areas where Katrina refugees have taken refuge, especially Houston.
No constitutional authority for blanket rebuilding the homes of people who move into disaster areas to obtain cheap rent could be found at press time.
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8- Special Guest Columnist Craig Cantoni
What if pizza parlors were centrally controlled by the government?
By Craig J. Cantoni
Before answering the question above, some background:
Most Americans were convinced long ago, in centrally controlled government schools, that centrally controlled government schools are better at delivering compulsory, publicly funded grade-school education than private schools operating in a competitive market with similar funds.
And many Americans believe that the problems with today's health care system are due to a market failure that can be fixed only by nationalizing the industry under an efficient central authority.
To believe this, these Americans must ignore the fact that America's college education system is the envy of the world -- yet it operates in a decentralized and competitive market where students spend their government loans and personal money at the schools of their choice.
These same Americans are not aware that there has not been a market failure in modern health care -- for the simple reason that there isn't a free market in health care. Government effectively killed that market 64 years ago.
These Americans DO know, however, that they can pick up the phone, order a pizza with the topping and crust of their choice, and have it delivered hot in half an hour.
The next time you're eating a pizza, think about what pizzas would look like if the free market didn't exist in pizzas, and the government ran the pizza industry from a central pizza agency.
Could such an agency deliver the goods for a product that is far less complex than grade-school education or health care?
First of all, the agency would have to perform a number of tasks that the pizza market now performs spontaneously without the aid of any central authority.
For example, after building a grand granite Central Regulatory Agency for / Pizza (CRA/P), headquartered in the highest-rent district in Washington, D.C., and hiring an Undersecretary of Pizza Interiors with a 1,000-member support staff, the agency would have to:
Determine how many pizza places to open around the country, the best location for the places, the decor of the places, the types of ingredients to buy, the quantities of the ingredients, consumer preferences in every hamlet and city, the number of employees to hire, the skill-sets of the employees, the wages to pay, the hours of operation, the temperature of the ovens, the thickness of the crust, the amount of oregano in the sauce, the number of telephone lines and hybrid delivery vehicles, and thousands of other details.
Then the agency would have to respond to political pressure. Brussels sprouts growers would lobby Congress to require that their product be included on pizzas. Cottage cheese manufacturers would demand that their product be given as much space on pizzas as mozzarella cheese.
Mexican-American activists would lobby for pizzas to be folded to resemble a large taco. The AARP would demand Viagra as a free topping. The Veterans of Foreign Wars would expect employees to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of their shift. And labor unions would begin 160 pages of national contract demands by restricting pepperoni specialists from handling sausage or anchovies, which would be the responsibility of the sausage and anchovy unions.
To smooth things along, the agency would decide to operate without the millions of price signals that today's pizza market magically synthesizes into action, from millions of transactions and ever-changing consumer preferences, and instead issue minimum-pricing decrees.
As a result, unable to match supply with demand to know how to price its pizzas, and to have the information to respond in time to changes in consumer tastes, the Undersecretary could simply apply one-size fits all CRA/P efficiency.
With CRA/P in charge, pizzas would cost $68.76, be delivered cold, be folded like tacos, and have Brussels sprouts, cottage cheese and Viagra on them. Disgruntled consumers would then write members of Congress to fix the agency.
Congress would respond by giving more money to CRA/P and by passing a No Pizza Left Behind law. At the same time, to stop private pizza places from springing up around the country, Congress would pass laws that would make it cost-prohibitive for entrepreneurs to get into the business, with prison time for black-market pizza makers.
In conclusion, a government-run pizza industry would suck. Yet many Americans prefer government-run schools and government-run health care to market competition. Their thinking sucks.
9- The lamestream media told you:
Retailers nationwide were disappointed with holiday sales volume, which was lower than expected, according to National Public Radio on Dec. 26.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Christmas sales increased in 2006 by at least 5%, which was considered solid growth, in an economy that is red hot, with such low unemployment and business opportunity it is the envy of most of the world. The number of entrepreneurs who opened successful new businesses grew for the umpteenth year in a row. A national retailers association said if Christmas sales come in at 6.6% growth, which the Wall Street Journal says MasterCard has announced, they would be, "ecstatic." Year-end sales, specials and clearances have not yet been tallied.
Rumors that NPR is anti-American, dislikes capitalism and Christmas, and has a distorted view of economics have been repeatedly denied.
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10- Korwin's new superhero idol, Counterintuitive Man, says:
Yes -- the two-day 30-nation convention sponsored by Iran to deny the Holocaust, which has yielded little serious outrage in the "news" media, is paving the way to an amazing tomorrow -- no?
Next, we could set the record straight by denying America's history of slavery before the Civil War!
Everyone knows blacks lived much better on beautiful southern farms than they ever did in the muggy African wilderness!
Sure the conditions on the voyage were less than ideal, but luxury cruise ships hadn't been invented yet -- and even they get diseases onboard!
Instead of being hunted and enslaved by other tribes, these people were protected by their new employers!
Getting eaten by wild animals came to a complete halt under the beneficial new system!
Murders and mistreatment of blacks was almost the same before the civil war as murders and mistreatment of women, children and other demographic groups!
Because the new black immigrants were economically important, they were fed, clothed and cared for by farm owners!
Despite highly publicized complaints, blacks who are here today because their ancestors were brought over long ago on ships, have no desire to go back to their so-called homeland!
So what if they weren't taught to read back then -- reading is highly overrated anyway! And many can read today!
Blacks prospered and multiplied under so-called slavery, and developed their own culture and music!
Many blacks found romantic partners of other races once they were in America and aren't even black anymore!
Even blacks in so-called poverty today have refrigerators, color TV, cell phones, fancy sneakers, furniture, beer and even cars (not available in all locations, some conditions apply)!
Yes -- everything about the so-called "slavery era" is subject to question, and who knows what the real truth is anyway -- no?
Yes -- if the world doesn't revolt against Iran's denial of the Nazi Holocaust, despite overwhelming evidence, why not deny anything -- no?
To wit:
Richard Stengel, Managing Editor, TIME Magazine: "I don't really think there is such a thing as truth." Oct. 4, 2006, Ethics in Journalism conference at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, broadcast on C-SPAN.
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If Constitution lovers all moved to one state and started running things the way America ought to be -- would you want to go there? Wait till you see how fabulous that state becomes, while the feds declare them in insurrection! Read "Molon Labe," the superb novel from Boston T. Party.
Book review here: https://www.gunlaws.com/books7novels.htm
Do something good for yourself -- get a book or two your school teachers would NEVER recommend: https://www.gunlaws.com
Thanks for reading!
Alan Korwin
The Uninvited Ombudsman
Page Nine Is Now A Blog!
Sign up for automatic RSS feeds
and to make PUBLIC comments! http://www.pagenine.org
Contact:
Alan Korwin
BLOOMFIELD PRESS
"We publish the gun laws."
4848 E. Cactus #505-440 <--- NEW ADDRESS
Scottsdale, AZ 85254 <--- NEW ADDRESS
602-996-4020 Phone
602-494-0679 FAX
1-800-707-4020 Orders https://www.gunlaws.com alan@gunlaws.com
Call, write, fax or click for a free full-color catalog.
If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you're reading this in English, thank a veteran.
==============================
Comments help keep me going. Alan. ==============================
Extra good edition, Alan; but do you ever get the feeling you are preaching to the choir? Actually, your column carried in all the newspapers is very, very good for the cause. These reach out to people who might not be aware of what is happening in their own country. Keep up the good work. Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hannukah! --Lucas Graywolf
Counterintuitive Man has a great ring to it. :) --ann
Alan I would sure like to recieve your "page 9" I guess this is how I sign up? --Greg Pettit. Thanks for all you do!!
Job well done, looks great, please ad me to your mailing list, thank you. --Richard Bastian
The Uninvited Ombudsman asks: "should politicians who violate their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution be removed from office or imprisoned?" BOTH --Pack Rat
Congratulations on adding Counterintuitive Man to Page Nine! --Charles Rozier, Accuracy in Media
Regarding Counterintuitive Man's comments on illegal immigration: Amen. Well written. Our political elite are not listening. They refuse to see what is happening to the divinely inspired nation, like no other. The majority are in violation of their Oath's of Office. --AZ State Rep. Russell Pearce
[Russell -- We're in total agreement. If there isn't a way to bring ONE person up on violation-of-oath charges then the oath means nothing. Who can be charged? Else -- point out the oath's TRAGIC worthlessness. Please say you have a candidate; He replies the charge would be impeachment, and politicians don't have the stones for it.]
About #7 (pregnant lesbians), It's not impossible, its called donor sperm and artificial insemination. Ain't science great? --John
[That was supposed to be humorous John. Of course there's sperm donation, but it's not clear what was done in Mary Cheney's case. The source has not been revealed, a wonderful step toward preservation of family values. Is there some "pure" form of lesbianism, which omits parenthood? Is a lesbian parent not exactly a lesbian? Maybe a loosebian? --Alan.]
Regarding Mark Foley's written notes: Actually, the truth is a bit more amusingly ironic. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 makes it a crime to discuss sexual acts with or solicit sex from anyone under the age of 18, using the Internet. This was signed into law on July 27, 2006: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060727-7.html
This law was written (in part) and sponsored by none other than... Mark Foley, who was present at the signing (at far right in picture): http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/images/20060727-6_p072606pm-0181-515h.html
I commented on this at my blog, pointing out that if he had had sex with the pages, he would not have been in violation of the law since the age of consent in D.C. is 16. But because he discussed sex with them and had "cybersex" with them using the Internet, he violated his own law (though I've seen nothing to indicate that he will be prosecuted). http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/10/foley-scandal-and-legal-inconsistency.html --Jim Lippard, lippard@discord.org, http://www.discord.org/
Hello Alan, While I appreciated your article on the often over zealous attention given to political correctness with the term queer or fag and that gay people use it like black people may use the word nig*er, I take exception to the attitude in your writing. I doubt you would have written something about the "N" word knowing there may be black people on this list. Well, there are gay people too reading this.
I can safely say that as a lesbian, we are the frequent victims of hate and I myself have been called foul disgusting things right to my face by straight young men and women of college age in public. So do I want to see these words used in print by straight people? NO! And it's about time we received equal consideration of hateful words.
Now with regards to #7 about Mary Cheney being pregnant, well, it seems heterosexual people know very little about the means utilized by lesbians to become pregnant.
As a lesbian, I write to tell you it is NOT impossible and there is plenty of information out and about on how to become pregnant without having physical heterosexual intercourse. Why even straight women use the same methods as some lesbians choose to take. This is not a secret neither it is a mystery nor an "immaculate conception".
This is rather upsetting to me as I do not need to read things putting down my sexual orientation. I've read it in Chris Cox's writing in American Rifleman and now here. Very, very disappointing.
Yours truly, --Colleen
Member, NRA, NYSRPA, and HRC, GLAAD
[Colleen, It's supposed to be humorous -- of course a woman can get pregnant without a man doing the horizontal mambo or immaculate conception. Even I know that. And yes, blacks, gays and aliens (both kinds) read my columns. Readers who need sugar coating should stick to The New York Times.
This "victim of hate" thing is another matter. People are free to hate whatever they like (now THERE'S an oxymoron).
False jessejacksonesque "victimization" though is destroying the country... if someone hates me (and there actually are some such people), that doesn't make me a vicitm. And no just power on earth gives me the right (or ability) to control them from feeling however they wish. I've been called all sorts of stuff, so what, that's the attitude to adopt, IMHO.
Now if they ACT on that, and HARM me, that's another matter. But my pointing out the naked emperor of racism, sexism, news bias and the rest, this doesn't make you a vicitm or me a victimizer. Rely on your own thick skin, or you'll suffer all sorts of otherwise harmless slings and arrows. Don't fall for the radical notion that other people are responsible for you.
For a newspaper to deliberately hide the paternity of a child undercuts values that make for a stable society, and is not ethical reporting. What else should they hide to spare someone's trumped up feelings? The Uninvited Ombudsman cannot let such travesty slide.
Hollywood, the media and some political factions are proposing that fatherless, motherless, parentless, unmarried and single-parented child raising is all just fine and dandy and harmless, a proposal that deserves a bit more thought.
Thanks for caring enough to write.
Alan.
[And Craig noted: Great reply, but her email to you explains one of the reasons why the mainstream media produces such bland grue l-- because they get hammered more by people who see themselves as victims than by those who don't.]
[And Colleen wrote back: Hi Alan, Thanks for emailing back. you are right, I need a thicker skin and did not take your commentary in the right light. I was fresh from reading another article sent to the NYC Pink Pistols Yahoo Group about folks with pistol licenses having their names published in a newspaper just because they had the licenses. Between emailing that reporter and reading your article I should have lightened up! Happy Holidays! --Colleen
Contact:
Alan Korwin
BLOOMFIELD PRESS
"We publish the gun laws."
4848 E. Cactus #505-440 ß- New Address
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
602-996-4020 Phone
602-494-0679 FAX
1-800-707-4020 Orders
https://www.gunlaws.com alan@gunlaws.com
Call, write, fax or click for a free full-color catalog.
Encourage politicians to pass more laws...
with expiration dates.
