Iran president vows no retreat on nukes - Iran- msnbc.com

MSNBC is spreading more propaganda. The headline states that Iran "vows" to seek nuclear weapons, "Iran president vows no retreat on nukes".

But Iran's president did not "vow" to make weapons, and the article itself does not even claim that is what he said.

First, the article admits that Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons: "The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power program. Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, denies the charge."

Next, MSNBC quotes Iran's president as stating that Iran will not retreat from its "nuclear right." If Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, then this nuclear right must mean nuclear energy.

Which is exactly what the articles tells us next: "Enrichment can provide fuel for power plants, which Iran says is its aim, but also material for bombs if refined more."

In MSNBC's universe, which is apparently devoid of logic, if Iran seeks nuclear power, and that nuclear power, once had, can be converted into a nuclear bomb with additional work, and if Iran explicitly states that they are not working on nuclear weapons, and if Iran explicitly states that they have a right to nuclear power, then what Iran was really saying was that Iran is trying to build a bomb.

Under that fantasy, Japan is building a bomb (55 reactors). And so are Switzerland, Slovakia, and Mexico. They all have more reactors than Iran, which has zero reactors.

Propaganda and deliberately misleading the public only makes this tense situation more difficult.

Shame on you, MSNBC.

Spreadshirt.com sold my email address to spammers

Like everyone else, I receive too much spam email. To help fight that spam email, I create a unique email address for each company I deal with. When I ordered from Spreadshirt.com, for example, I gave them a unique email address s_shirt@hunterthinks.com. If someone sends spam to that email address, then only one company could have sold my address to the spammer--Spreadshirt.com.

I have been doing this for years, and most companies have not sold my email address to spammers. Spreadshirt.com, however, has sold my email address, and I know they did because I have received spam emails sent to the email address that only they had.

Do not order from Spreadshirt.com--they will sell your email address. What is to prevent them from selling your other information, too? In fact, why will they not sell your credit card information to identity thieves?

Clearly, instead of making money by selling t-shirts, they would rather sell customer information to email scammers.

Iraq official presses U.S. for pullout plan - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

Iraq official presses U.S. for pullout plan - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com: "National security adviser says any security deal must contain timetable"

Iraqi leaders are publicly demanding a timetable for troop withdrawal. Over the past seven years, when an American, however, has demanded a timetable for withdrawal the Bush administration attacks the timetable as foolish or even favorable to the terrorists. Yet, last week the Prime Minister of Iraq demanded a timetable, and the national security advisor demanded one today. Are the Iraqi leaders asking for something that will help the terrorists? I doubt it.

Consider the following typical statement from President Bush when he was at a 2005 press conference with the Prime Minister of Iraq: (emphasis added)

There's not going to be any timetables. I mean, I've told this to the Prime Minister. We are there to complete a mission, and it's an important mission. A democratic Iraq is in the interest of the United States of America, and it's in the interest of laying the foundation for peace. And if that's the mission, then why would you -- why would you say to the enemy, you know, here's a timetable, just go ahead and wait us out? It doesn't make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you're -- you're conceding too much to the enemy.

The above quote is from 2005, but the policy has not changed; President Bush said only three weeks ago: "There should be no definitive timetable. I am confident that [British Prime Minister Brown], like me, will listen to our commanders to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won't be unraveled by drawdowns that may not be warranted at this point in time."

If it is true that timetables help the enemy, then the Iraqi leadership is supporting a policy that helps their enemy. That is absurd. The truth is that timetables, per se, do not help or hurt the enemy. The fact that the leaders of Iraq are calling for a timetable helps to prove this point. The Bush administration, and the right-wing press, need to stop asserting such a ridiculous claim.

In fact, now that the Iraqi government has called for a timetable, we must provide one because President Bush essentially promised to make a timetable if the Iraqis asked for one. (Thank you to Michael DeCrane for reminding me of this. See also Vote No on JOE (Knollenberg))

For the Iraqis, the main goal of the timetable is the complete withdrawal of US troops. Iraqi national security advisor, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said yesterday, "We're unambiguously talking about their departure." The President promised to leave when the Iraqis asked the troops to leave:


The Iraqi government wants the troops to leave and it wants a timetable for the withdrawal. President Bush promised to leave when asked, so he is honor-bound to provide a timetable.

Finally, President Bush's heated rhetoric about timetables is hypocritical: in 1999, Governor Bush demanded that President Clinton set a timetable for withdrawing from Kosovo.

Know your propaganda techniques

It is not a secret that the US government uses aggressive propaganda techniques. Furthermore, even when the US government is not directly manipulating the major news organizations, the media tends to support the official position. If the news organizations and the government are sometimes misleading the public, what can we do?

The first step to fight the propaganda is to know when we are being mislead. A recent Washingtonpost.com article provides an excellent example of blatant propaganda: Post 9/11 dragnet turns up surprises - Washington Post- msnbc.com.

The article is about the US government's efforts to fingerprint thousands (millions?) of people outside the US even if they are not suspected of a crime. This article masterfully demonstrates a number of effective techniques. I recommend reading the article first, then coming back to this blog post to study the techniques.

Propaganda technique 1: use ingroup/outgroup bias

Ingroup/outgroup bias is the natural, psychological bias we all have that favors people we perceive as part of our group: the "ingroup." Similarly, we all disfavor people that we perceive as being in the "outgroup." The article sets the stage by invoking this strong bias: "[T]he U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa . . ." The readers of the article are not from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Africa, so the people fingerprinted are part of the outgroup. Notice that the very first sentence admits that "ordinary people" are being fingerprinted, but by placing those "ordinary people" in the outgroup, the reader is less concerned by the obvious violation of their rights.

Propaganda technique 2: vilify

As readers, we are more likely to support fingerprinting bad guys than fingerprinting good guys or "ordinary people." To make it easier for us to accept violating the rights of others, the article builds on the outgroup bias and explicitly turns the outgroup into villains. Those that are fingerprinted are "insurgents" and "detainees" and "[t]hey have criminal arrest records in the United States." It is easy to support fingerprinting these terrible people. Notice that the government did not know that they were criminals until after they were fingerprinted. If the article described these people as "mothers, fathers, and workers", would you support the fingerprinting program as much?

Propaganda technique 3: use pejorative words, even if they are unnecessary or conclusory

All of the propaganda techniques are enhanced by the proper use of inflammatory words. Instead of saying that someone has an "arrest record", the article tells us it is a "criminal arrest record", as if they could have a "civil arrest record" or a "bake-sale arrest record." Adding the word "criminal" vilifies the outgroup more effectively.

Instead of proving something true, good propaganda will simply state the conclusion that it wants the reader to have. According to the article, the government fingerprinted a "suspected militant fleeing Somalia." He was "fleeing"? How do we know that? "And the man stopped at a checkpoint in Tikrit who claimed to be a dirt farmer but had 11 felony charges in the United States, including assault with a deadly weapon." (Emphasis added.) According to this sentence, if the US government charges you with a crime (but does not convict you), then you cannot possibly be a farmer. Notice how subtle it is to use conclusory words.

Propaganda technique 4: draw on highly emotional events

The point of propaganda is to influence what people think without using reasoning. It is obvious then to use highly emotional events to influence people. "The fingerprinting of detainees overseas began as ad-hoc FBI and U.S. military efforts shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." This directly connects the fingerprinting of the evil outgroup terrorists with the 9/11 attacks. The natural emotional response will be to support the fingerprinting because the evil terrorists caused the program to happen.

Propaganda technique 5: acknowledge counter-arguments but minimize them

If the propagandist ignores counter-arguments, then some readers will have lingering doubts. The best way to deal with this is to acknowledge the counter-argument, but to defeat it. The straw-man argument is very effective: state the counter-argument in a weekend form (a straw man) and then knock it down. In this article, "civil libertarians" (an outgroup) "raise concerns", but those concerns are vague. But do not worry about civil liberties, fingerprinting "is a boon for the government and the bane of privacy advocates." (Emphasis added.) Notice that fingerprinting is not the bane of "ordinary people" or law-abiding citizens or your family: it is the bane of the "privacy advocates" (an outgroup--are you a "privacy advocate"?). Therefore, any privacy problem here is minimal.

Propaganda technique 6: avoid providing evidence

Even if a claim can be substantiated with hard, easy to find data, avoid using it. A claim backed by data is a claim backed by reason. Propaganda is an appeal to emotion. Consider this amazing paragraph from the article:

"The bottom line is we're locking people up," said Thomas E. Bush III, FBI assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services division. "Stopping people coming into this country. Identifying IED-makers in a way never done before. That's the beauty of this whole data-sharing effort. We're pushing our borders back."

How many people were locked up? Where? By whom? What were they charged with? Were they convicted? How many people did we stop from entering the US? This is simple data to provide--if the program is actually working.

Propaganda technique 7: create improper connections between claims and evidence

If two ideas are close together in an article, then the readers will naturally connect the two ideas--even if the connection is nonexistent. The article has the following two paragraphs:

Already, fingerprints lifted off a bomb fragment have been linked to people trying to enter the United States, they said.

In a separate data-sharing program, 365 Iraqis who have applied to the Department of Homeland Security for refugee status have been denied because their fingerprints turned up in the Defense Department's database of known or suspected terrorists, Richardson said.

The first paragraph says that we rejected entry to bombers. The second paragraph implies that the total number of rejected bombers is 365. But that is not the truth. We have rejected a 365 applications from "known or suspected terrorists", and the article previously admitted that this list is not very accurate. These two paragraphs, however, convey to the reader that we rejected 365 applications based on irrefutable fingerprint evidence from bombs.

For each technique listed above, the article contains many more examples. As far as I can tell, every single sentence uses one or more of the techniques: it is a tour de force of propaganda.

Coda: this fingerprinting program is a disgrace

As described in the article, this fingerprinting program is a disgrace to the US. We are allegedly using war to spread freedom to the Middle East. Consider this passage from the article: "For example, a roadside bomb may explode and a patrol may fingerprint bystanders because insurgents have been known to remain at the scene to observe the results of their work." (Emphasis added.) Under this program, if you witness an attack on soldiers, then you can be fingerprinted. Said differently, if someone else with brown skin commits a crime, then you might be fingerprinted because you have brown skin and were in the area. Horrible.

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Wow.

A journalist struggles with math

I often get frustrated when newspapers, news websites, and media organizations (not individuals) make obvious and correctable errors. In an article attempting to answer the reader question, "Can I invest in the stock market without the aid of a stockbroker?", MSNBC stated the following: (emphasis added)

Mutual funds still carry the risk that the investment manager won’t pick the right stocks either. For every fund that beats the market average, there’s another one that fell short by the same amount. (By definition, only half of the funds can offer returns that are “above average.”) If you subtract the fees that mutual funds charge to pay the investment manager and other expenses, the average return of all funds is going to be less than the overall return of the market you’re investing in.

To see the error, imagine a small stock market that only has 100 people. If the definition of "average" is the median return on investment, then fifty investors must be below the median and fifty above the median.

Now modify our definition of the market, it has 100 people--fifty solo-investors and fifty mutual fund managers. Fifty people still must be below the median, but which fifty people? It could be any mix of solo-investors or mutual fund managers. All fifty of the managers might be below the median, all fifty might be above the median, or any other mix.

MSNBC's mistake was to not recognize that mutual fund managers are not the only investors in the stock market. It is not true that half of the mutual fund managers must be above the median and that half must be below the median. (It is true that if we compared mutual fund managers to only other mutual fund managers, then half of the managers must be below the median of the average mutual fund manager.) In fact, only 10% of all mutual funds are above the median. Said differently, 90% of all mutual funds are below the market average.

The MSNBC article overstates the performance of mutual funds, but that is not my major complaint. I think it is unacceptable that a financial advice article from a large news organization (with the resources to catch mistakes) makes such a simple error: misapplying the definition of median.

Postsecret, response

From the Sunday Secrets posted 20 June 2008 at PostSecret:


"The woman cop who investigated my rape case told me I wouldn't win in court because I hadn't screamed loud enough during the attack."

Dear Made-In-Japan,

1. Never take legal advice from a non-lawyer, especially a non-lawyer who is convinced she/he knows the law
2. Get a lawyer: it is safe now to scream as loud as you can
3. Be strong; the legal process is incredibly difficult