Category Archives: Media

Delingpole On Wiki Manipulation

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James Delingpole on Wiki manipulation…

“If you want to know the truth about Climategate, definitely don’t use Wikipedia. “Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy”, is its preferred, mealy-mouthed euphemism to describe the greatest scientific scandal of the modern age. Not that you’d ever guess it was a scandal from  the accompanying article. It reads more like a damage-limitation press release put out by concerned friends and sympathisers of the lying, cheating, data-rigging scientists

Which funnily enough, is pretty much what it is. Even Wikipedia’s own moderators acknowledge that the entry has been hijacked, as this commentary by an “uninvolved editor” makes clear.”

Which is just what we said a while back

here and here.

You get the scoop here…

Warren Buffett To Promote Paulson Book

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Now, we don´t want to read too much into this announcement, but, really, promoting Paulson´s book? What´s Buffett going to say?

I really really like that chapter where Hank had to take over the US government.…you know, after he pushed Bear Stearns and Lehman over with the help of his  hedge-fund buddies…and all but nationalized housing.

Or

Gee, Hank´s into that cap-and-trade collectivist boondoggle that just got outed as a total rip-off  and a fraud made up by climate change fanatics but hey, give the guy a break, will ya? We´re all capitalists here…..you know, like, state capitalists..wazza big deal?

Or

Yeah, I know. Vanity Fair, that bastion of free markets and free minds, already did its bit for Hank´s place in history when it got down on its knees and..um.. blew…up.. the guy into some kind of I´m-taking-on-the-slings-and-arrows-for-the-greater-good-profile-in-courage long before me, and yeah, Bethany  did her bit for Hank too.. but every little effort counts…

I´ve had my doubts about Buffett´s involvement in the bail-out.

This doesn´t make them go away…

Secretive Steve Cohen On Talk Show Discussing Relationship With Ex—

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I’d been avoiding mentioning the by-now famous clip of Steve Cohen on a talk show back in 1992, because it seems like a low blow. I mean, hit the guy over the head on insider trading, but don’t worm around in the trash can for dirt on him. Of course, he did put himself on the show…

But, either way, there’s one angle that is relevant.

If you’re billed as the most secretive guy in the hedge world, presumably because you’re a reclusive, crowd-shy financial genius, what does it say that you once got onto a TV show called Cristina of none-too-distinguished caliber to discuss intimate details of your personal life?

Hmm. That’d hardly what I call shrinking violet material.

Here, sans video (because we don’t drag people’s families in the mud on this blog) is the lowdown at New York Magazine:

“Shortly after they were married in 1992, Steve Cohen, the notoriously secretive hedge-fund manager at SAC Capital, and his second wife, Alex, went on the short-lived English-language version of the popular talk show Christina. The episode? “He Acts Like Her Husband!” The subject discussed? Steve’s too-close relationship with his ex-wife, Patricia Cohen, who recently filed a $300 million lawsuit against him.”

Think about that for a moment.

Psychologically, that doesn’t make any sense for a reclusive genius…

But, just suppose, what you have here is not a shy geeky genius (or maybe, I should qualify that – not solely a shy geeky genius) but a guy who was quite at home at a shady broker called Gruntal & Co. in the 1980s –  a broker that had ties to the Russian mob and to a whole set of players to whom ‘reclusive’ and ‘shy’ are the last words you’d apply. Just suppose what you have here is a guy who was a player in that crowd….making his way any way he could. And just suppose, that past is why he keeps a low profile…

Just suppose.

It’s at least a distinct possibility.

But what’s more like a high probability is that anyone who puts out an article on Steve Cohen like this one or this one by John Carney has lost quite a bit of his credibility on Steven Cohen and on a few things closely related like, say, insider trading…or naked shorting….

Carney’s explanation why Steven Cohen can have done no wrong? A SAC trader told him so. That’s why.

“The trader described the enormous, football field sized trading floor at SAC as “the cleanest in the biz.”

A SAC trader says SAC is 100 percent clean. Because?

Well, that part of it isn’t mentioned in the article, although a lot of other stuff which sure as heck sounds super close to insider trading is.

“When I was there, we put tons of pressure on our brokers to make sure they gave us any information they had fast and first,“

And what was that John Carney was calling Matt Taibbi only a couple of months ago?

Naive?

Wiki Whacking: Green Doctor Of Wikipedia

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“Lawrence Solomon at the National Post writes about a topic that WUWT readers have known about for a long time: How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.

We’ve known for some time that Wikipedia can’t be trusted to provide unbiased climate information. Solomon starts off by talking about Climategate emails.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

He then focuses on RealClimate.org co-founder William Connolley, who has “touched” 5,428 Wikipedia articles with his unique brand of RC centric editing:

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.”

My Comment:

As you know, wiki engineering is one of my recurring obsessions, having had to go through 3 rounds of wikipedia fighting to stay on it, and having nearly had some associates’ wiki pages wiped out because of their connection to me.

And what was I guilty of? Of nothing more dreadful than respectful, fairly carefully modulated writing on such hoary topics as Zionism, media corruption, racism, racialist ideology, banking, and the Federal Reserve. Never have I advocated anything that could remotely be called racist, foul, biased, or misogynist. I have simply been factual and rather indifferent to political codes or the particular form of brainwashing prevalent in the US – which is, if we don’t know about it, it ain’t worth knowing.

Whenever I suggested that wiki was manipulated, I was told I was being conspiratorial, that I was imagining things…and that that isn’t the way the world works.

But now…wiki-whacking has been exposed for all to see. If it’s this bad on climate-gate, think about all the other topics that have been skewed.

But that’s all going to change soon….little by little. Now that the whistle has been blown on these kapos, their come uppance is round the corner.

See this piece, that reports on the canning of errant wiki administrator, climatista Connolley.

“Scientific” Academies Need A Taste Of RICO Too

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Alan Caruba , a conservative writer and reviewer:

“Consider a letter dated October 21, 2009 and signed by the presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Association of Ecosystem Research Center, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Society of Agronomy, the American Statistical Association,

And the Botanical Society of America, the Crop Science Society of America, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Soil Science Society of America, the Ecological Society of America, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Together, they asserted that “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.” It went on to repeat all the usual scary scenarios of rising sea levels, urban heat weaves, wildfires, and other climate-related events.

In a footnote, the letter to U.S. Senators said, “The conclusions in this paragraph reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.”

We now know that the “science” being cited by these two entities was, at least in the case of the IPCC, totally rigged, but the presidents of these alleged science-based organizations took it on face value despite ample scientific evidence it was false. The revelations of emails exchanged between the perpetrators of the hoax have demonstrated the deceptions…….

In light of this, who can trust these organizations? And who can trust the “science” produced by NASA and other U.S. agencies that have benefited from billions in grants directed at so-called climate, i.e. global warming research?”

Sad SAC: Reuters Spikes Hedge Story On Complaints From Steve Cohen

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Via Finalternatives:

“Reuters opted against running a story about alleged insider-trading on the part of SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen after Cohen himself complained about the news agency’s coverage, a journalism blog reports.

Cohen repeatedly called Devin Wenig, CEO of Thompson Reuters Markets Division and the second-in-command at Reuters parent Thomson Reuters, according to Talking Biz News. The hedge fund boss reportedly complained that the story, which the University of North Carolina blog reports would have been an “incremental” advance in the story of alleged insider-trading more than 20 years ago, was part of a pattern of persecution on the part of Reuters.

Wenig forwarded Cohen’s complaints to Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, who in turn referred the story to editors. Those editors debated the story, written by Matthew Goldstein, before deciding to kill it after three days.

“We make decisions on whether or not to run stories purely on journalistic grounds,” a Reuters spokesman told Talking Biz News.

Goldstein was the first reporter to cite the unsealed court documents that include explosive allegations against SAC and former SAC portfolio manager Ping Jiang. Cohen’s ex-wife, Patricia, last week sued him for $300 million, accusing him of insider-trading, perjury and hiding assets from her and from the authorities.”

My Comment

Looks like more confirmation of the Deep Capture thesis – that major newspapers are bending over backwards…and forwards….for the big hedge funds.

I notice that Hedge World has picked this story up….as well it should, it’s a big one… and very kindly links this blog, as well as the ever-alert zerohedge – the only MSM-touted blog I truly dig, mainly because I dig the characters on it.

Earlier, I blogged that Steven Cohen was also having problems with a militant ex-missus, who has gone public with allegations that he perjured himself, hid money from the government (here we are on Stevie’s side), and did other sorts of naughty things, like insider trading, that reclusive billionaires really shouldn’t do, not if they want to stay either reclusive or billionaires.

We have much more sympathy for Mr. Cohen, of course, than we do for the self-important twits and petty tyrants who fly their bylines at major newspapers with little respect for the body politic. At least, we understand simple greed. But the weedy vanity of the pen-pushing mob needs to be exposed for what it is. 

Now comes Mr. Goldstein, who clearly suffers from the delusion that his job is to break important stories, no matter how exalted the net worth of the subjects. That didn’t sit well with his boss, and now the dirty laundry is out in the open.

Meanwhile, as if irate Sith ladies and spiked stories weren’t enough, there’s also a forced oral sex- cross-dressing- cum- sexual-harassment suit coming back from the past to haunt Sad SAC.

Who knew you could have so much fun without getting naked (shorted)?

Ilana Mercer On Subverting Natural Law

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“Oblivious to the cameras – or perhaps for them – Amanda Knox, 22, and Raffaele Sollecito, 25, exchanged a slow, sensual kiss in full view of world media. Not far from where the two kissed lay the body of Meredith Kercher, the English girl with whom Knox had shared student accommodation in Perugia, Italy. Her throat slit, Meredith had expired in slow agony.”

I´m sure that opening, from a piece by the always incisive Ilana Mercer, got your attention.

Mercer writes here about an American “media mafia” baying in full-throated support of the murderous Amanda, as an innocent abroad, caught in the toils of  Italy´s provincial justice system.

Now, we can always be counted on to get interested in anything at which media mobs bay…and this case proves to be interesting on other counts as well.

For one thing, I have  a long-standing interest, nourished by the late William Roughhead, in true crime….but this go round, it´s not the murder itself that strikes me, but this passage in Mercer´s piece:

“In American (positive) law, procedural violations can get evidence of guilt – a bloodied knife or a smoking gun – barred from being presented at trial. More often than not, such procedural defaults are used to suppress immutable physical facts, thus serving to subvert the spirit of the (natural) law and justice.”

Mercer, I suppose, means that sometimes technical details of  “how” trip up the more important objective of the law..which, she says, is to do justice. I´m tempted to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes to her (that it´s not the business of the law to do justice..however one construes that), but I´ll pass….

Instead, I´ll ask another question:

By distinguishing between procedural niceties of law and the ends of justice they ought to serve, isn´t Ms Mercer making a rather good argument for the use of extra-legal methods in conducting war….

And wouldn´t that allow for some tactics I am sure she´d condemn ,if they were taken up by one of her most frequent targets, Islamic terrorists?

Rick Ackerman On the Deflationary Argument

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From Rick Ackerman:

“Our grasp of deflation’s logic began with the 1976 book, The Coming Deflation, by the late C.V. Myers, and continued with Davidson and Rees-Mogg’s The Great Reckoning. Although Myers’ work was obviously premature, the concepts it emphasized are timeless, particularly this one: “Ultimately, every penny of very debt must be paid – if not by the borrower, than by the lender.”  This is the crux of the inflation vs. deflation debate, and because of the way Myers framed it, we’ve never had any doubt that the U.S. would eventually experience a catastrophic deflation. We were early in thinking the financial system would topple as a result of the allegedly “mild” recession of 1990-91 and its S&L crisis. In retrospect, it’s clear that we lacked the imagination to see that the huge amounts of Third World debt that threatened the global economy at the time were relative chump change compared to the galactic sums that Bush, Obama and the Federal Reserve have put into play in the last three years in hopes of saving the system.”

My Comment

I posted this to support my reiterated position that the recession  cannot possibly be corrected as simply as advocates of the stimulus programs like to argue.  It´s been in the making for more than a quarter of a century. Can a few months change everything so fast? I could be mistaken, but I don´t think so,…

I also posted the Ackerman piece to counter the establishment media spin that Nouriel Roubini was so much “ahead” of others in predicting the recession.

I call Roubini an establishment figure because of several things, including the fact that he does business with Larry Summers.  Here is Roubini warning about housing in 2006...

He himself said the earliest he predicted the housing crash was in July and August 2006.

But by then, even a layman, like yours truly had already done that, and done it earlier – July 2005

And I was, at least in part, drawing on my reading of Mises. org, Lew Rockwell, and The Daily Reckoning, when I wrote the piece…which is where they spotted me on the web, and offered me a gig.

(As I said, I´m always walking into synchronicities in my life..)

Compare that with what other experts were saying in 2005, which is,  there´s no housing bubble. That´s Ritholtz, by the way, who writes the excellent blog, The Big Picture (At least, Ritholtz also did say that housing was extended).

But then, in that same piece,  Ritholtz  also predicted that 2008 would be a good time to reenter the housing market. Oops. [Dec 12. On second thoughts,  maybe oops isn´t really warranted. Housing may not have bottomed out everywhere, but I´ll bet you could have picked up good bargains in a few places in 2008]

That shows that you can have very good number-crunching skills, but then miss some of the…..dare I say it?…big picture.…because the big picture has nothing to do with number-crunching but with perspective

And that takes a knowledge of history…. and not simply economic history either. It takes a broader knowledge of the world than professional money-managers usually have.

Meanwhile, compared to Austro-libertarians (see those cited above in Ackerman´s post), Roubini was some twenty-five years late in his analysis.

Yet the media studiously ignores Austrian theory and Austrian theorists (Mark Thornton, for example, called the housing bubble exactly on time and called gold $1200 back in 2005) and stamps approval on people who were either late or wrong…and turns to them for solutions.

Why is all that important? Because it shows the intellectual dishonesty that is at the heart of the corruption of the system.  Fraud and force go together, and for political and financial fraud to succeed, they need intellectual and academic fraud to cover their sins… and prep the soil.

Deep lack of trust of anyone who adheres to a rival political theory (or to a rival political party)…. and the arrogance of power…lead the establishment media to rewrite history…. and this intellectual dishonesty is the rag behind which the emperor (the state) hides his moral nudity.

Five-Minute Guide To Propaganda On The Web

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I´m noticing some hilarious (to me) propaganda efforts on the web. Unfortunately, newbie media watchers are liable to be misled quite easily by them.

Here, I offer a quick and handy guide to spotting a propaganda effort, especially one emanating from Wall Street.

1. Predominance of name-calling.  Does the writer offer arguments or name-calling? A few ripe names here and there are one thing. But if a piece is entirely devoid of reasoning and simply includes a list of epithets, such as, freak, weird, bizarre, crazy, loon, circus, tin-foil hat..it´s propaganda.

2. False Equivalence. Your man is caught committing an axe murder to which he ´fesses up on tape.  He´s also an embezzler, a pathological liar, and kicks his dog.  Their guy is an upstanding citizen on all counts, successful, philanthropic, intellectual, but he likes to party .. and got into a couple of fights once.  No equivalence.

Trying to make false equivalences is the hall-mark of propaganda. A kid´s theft of a five dollar trinket is not the same offense as the monumental thieving that got us into this financial crisis. Anyone who makes these kinds of equivalences isn´t smart enough or honest enough to be trusted.

3.  Talking points. When you hear the same set phrases tripping off the lips of everyone – then it´s propaganda. This doesn´t mean that a catchy phrase can´t be repeated quite innocuously. I´m also not talking about people who stay on message and keep repeating some thing to get it through to the public. I am talking about spinning things by choosing certain phrases. I´m talking about guilt by association. Say, you don´t have reason or evidence on your side. What do you do? You take a picture of  Ted Bundy (or Hitler, or any one else), and then try to associate your enemy with that person.

4. Same old, same old. Watch out for the same faces showing up all over again. Propaganda is usually spun by a few favorites and any sidekicks and newbies whom they can con into joining their team.  When you´re worried about someone´s honesty, try google. Go back and read the stuff they wrote. See when they wrote it. Do they have a consistent philosophy (changing your mind on a subject is a different thing). Do they have understandable positions..and a coherent intellectual frame work?

5. Separate the name-calling from the facts. Because some supposedly authoritative figure calls something a conspiracy, lies, or anything else doesn´t make it so. We´ve just seen from climate-gate how biased the peer review process is. Well, wiki is manipulated too. And some blogs, including this one, can show you hard evidence that publishing and the media are pretty much manipulated as well.

6. Look at the person´s record. There are a lot of late-comers to the scene claiming credit for things they didn´t discover, happen upon, or explain first. Revisionist history is all over the place. Look to see if the person credits  sources – including opponents, enemies, people on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and obscure sources. That´s the hall mark of intellectual honesty. If they aren´t intellectually honest, they´re unlikely to be honest in other ways. If they repeatedly misattribute and twist history (remember, partial truths are the worst lies), watch out.

7. Look at the level of emotion and reason. Emotion..even passion..is good. But emotion without the ability to retract, qualify, substantiate, source, question, analyze, synthesize, and accurately assess, is pointless, dangerous and a possible sign of propaganda, or, at least, sound and fury minus substance. How polite is the person if contradicted? Do they answer criticism? (I´m talking about legitimate criticism, not flaming or obstructionism).

8. Beware of accusations whose significance you can´t assess. Do you know enough about business, accounting, law, and history to judge which mistake is serious and which isn´t? If you don´t, consult people who do. Don´t consult one person. Talk to several experts and get a feel for the issue.

9. Beware of innuendo that lacks relevance. Having a drunk-driving violation doesn´t disqualify you from discussing subsidies for the auto industry.  Someone´s hairstyle, body type, love life, and hobbies are irrelevant. Anyone who harps on the personal stuff doesn´t have a case….unless the personal stuff is inextricable from their public professions. Even so, be wary of it.

10. Get to know the history of the players and the issues. Often, the same set of opponents go at each other over years. Don´t show up in year 10 and hope to figure out what´s going on.

11.  Research the subject yourself, reading both sides (and any other side, as well). Talk to professionals and experts, but also talk to people on the outside. Sometimes, as with Wall Street, professionals can´t see something because they´re steeped in the ideology of their job.

12. Ethnic and religious solidarity, professional ideology, provincialism, racism, gender bias, nationalism, imperialism…it´s taboo to check for these.  I do. When the advocates of a position all look a like, I ask myelf why. It´s not automatic that they´re therefore biased, but it could well be that they all see things the same way because they have in common the same life experience. Someone might use lofty arguments, but the real reason he picks on Greenspan, and not someone else, is because Greenspan is Jewish. And conversely, a Jewish person might pick on someone because he´s Catholic, and not for the reason he professes in public. This might be unconscious. Or it could be quite self-conscious but hidden under disingenous professions of transparence.

No one, especially not people in power, should be believed to be “above” this sort of bias. Major print, TV and online media are part of that power.

13. Money.

This, of course, should be number one on the list. Is the person being paid to say what they´re saying. If so, how much, by whom, and with what degree of disclosure. If they´re upfront, it might not be a problem. After all university professors are paid..but not all of them take positions in politics that have anything to do with their universities´positions. Also, there are many dishonest shills, friends, networks, and fellow travelers, who don´t get paid but still churn out reliable propaganda or PR on behalf of their favorite cause or person. I don´t mean that one should discount the testimony of friendly networks. Not at all. But if  a groupie or fellow traveler can´t show evidence and reasoning for their support, then their statement is no more than a testimonial.

Ultimately, all this boils down to  one thing. Skip the emotion and invective, and look for the evidence and logic. And don´t be intimidated by celebrity, “authoritative” sources,  the popularity of a position or anything else.

Example: A journalist attacks naked short-selling. The industry defends itself by saying short selling is a good thing. Duh.

No one´s objecting to short selling..so why the strawman? Maybe because an attack on short selling would be easier to knock down than one on naked short selling?

Example: Critics of anthropogenic global warming are often criticized for attacking global warming, or climate change. But AGW is not any of these things. And critics aren´t usually denying the existence of anthropogenic global warming. What they´re objecting to is the claim that AGW is large enough to be a problem and the idea that, if so, there´s something human beings could do about it in the way of policies and economic interventions. That´s an entirely different kettle of fish. But climatistas won´t ever spell that out..

Hedge-Fund Pays Naked Shorting Critic Byrne $5 Million

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Copper River Partners (formerly Rocker Partners), the short-selling hedge-fund of David Rocker and Marc Cohodes, and associated entities have settled a case brought against them in 2005 by Patrick Byrne, CEO of embattled internet retailer Overstock, according to  The Register.

Note: The suit doesn´t charge naked shorting, but defamation and illegal collusion with research analysts.

Copper River worked with a research firm, Gradient Analytics, that  employed well-known financial journalist Herb Greenberg, one of the central figures in the story of the “capture” (corruption) of Wall Street journalists by speculators. Hedge funds stand accused of engaging in illegal collusion with journalists to drive down stock-prices of companies.

Last year, Gradient settled for a figure between $1.5-$2 million and issued an apology. Now comes this further vindication.

Despite the relatively trivial amount won in the Rocker case, $5 million, it´s noteworthy that the settlement does all the things victory in an actual court trial does, without the risk of losing on a technicality.

It also underscores something I´ve been suggesting for a while.

That public interest blogging and journalism alone isn´t enough.

It´s necessary to actually sue or inflict damage of some kind to score victories in these things.

Unfortunately, that´s usually not worth doing for people who aren´t wealthy.  Vicariously, however, we “little people” can at least relish the spectacle of the behemoths of finance getting it in the rump.

And this case  could prove to be a model for similar lawsuits by other embattled companies.

Still to come is Overstock´s suit against 12 prime broker-dealers (including Goldman Sachs), which will go to trial in late 2010. The suit charges an illegal stock market manipulation scheme.

Also in the works, the SEC, which dropped its investigation of Gradient in 2007, has now turned its sights on Byrne. Given Byrne´s  charge of regulatory and media capture, there are some who see this as retaliatory.