Shannon Love

Was Michael Jackson Murdered?

by

I know I shouldn’t wallow in tabloid speculation but this profile of Michael Jackson [h/t/ Instapundit] suggests that he might have been.  

If the story is true, Jackson would have been worth more alive than dead to many people including his  entourage. If Jackson failed to perform due to ill health, the promoters of his upcoming series of 50 London concerts would lose all the money they put in. If he died, they could recover some or all of their investment from insurance. Someone in his  entourage  might have feared that Jackson would be sued and wiped out if the concert promoters had learned he had been too ill to perform when he made the contract. If he died, they at least would have the estate and children to pick over (or thought they would). His Nation of Islam  bodyguards  might be the obvious suspects because (1) no one can murder an individual easier than their own bodyguards and (2) they may have detested Jackson for his homosexuality.  

As I wrote before, we see in superstars like Jackson all the psychopathologies that used to afflict the absolute rulers of old.  Assassination  would be just one more parallel.  

Maybe we should issue an Intrade contract for when the first murder conspiracy book will be published. I’d put my money on 30 days.

Sauce for the People is Sauce for the Politicians

by

One of the greatest dangers of socialism is the creation of a  privileged  class of wealthy political insiders who live under different rules than the rest of the  citizenry.  

Ed Morrisey suggests that Obama had a “Dukakis Moment” when he refused to say that he would leave his own family dependent on politically-managed health care. [h/t Instapundit]

I don’t think we should leave him any choice.  

Read more

ABC “Only” 2/3 Biased So Far

by

I haven’t watched the ABC Primetime special yet but I did read ABC’s Web summary and I find it less biased than I feared.  

Because of the way human memory and cognition work, the most important parts of any text news story are the headline, the first paragraph and the last paragraph. Indeed one of the cannons of print journalism is that you can  summarize  a story with just these three parts.  

So let’s try that with this story:

President Obama Defends Right to Choose Best Care  
 
President Obama struggled to explain today whether his  health care reform  proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face.
 
“If the American people get behind this, this is going to happen,” the president said.

The headline is positive towards Obama. It says that Obama “defends the right to choose” which is obviously a positive statement. A more neutral headline would be something like, “Obama explained his ideas for health care reform.”

The first paragraph is negative in saying that Obama “struggled” and pointing out that he is a rich and powerful person who will never have to rely on the politically-managed health-care that he advocates for other people.  

The last paragraph is  positive  towards Obama because it gives him the final word and does so in a quote.  

So the  summarized  story that people will take away reads, “Obama defended people’s right to choose the best care, but he struggled to explain how that would work. The plan is going to happen.”

I was surprised by the opening paragraph. Given my dim view of ABC’s built-in bias, I can only assume that Obama really did struggle. Even so, ABC spun the story to Obama’s favor.