Davids Medienkritik

  • Davids Medienkritik: A Sane Voice About Earth Warming

    Politically Incorrect reports on an article (in German) by Dirk Maxeiner in the Swiss paper Weltwoche that contradicts some of the hysteria driven public discourse on the topic of global warming. Maxeiner describes the “self silencing” process of critics of the IPCC report.

    By chance, I found this interesting letter to the editor of Times Online:

    Sir, I listened on Thursday to Melvin Bragg’s excellent programme on Karl Popper. Afterwards I heard of David Milliband’s remark that the scientific debate on global warming was now closed.

    I am not sure if Popper would have laughed or raged — probably both. For him no scientific debate was ever closed, and he pointed out that the Newtonian “consensus” had lasted several centuries when Einstein came along and reopened the debate. Whether the “climate consensus” will last more than a few years before the debate needs to be reopened seems doubtful.

    As I understand it, the climate modellers are using Newtonian mechanics

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  • Davids Medienkritik: IPCC’s Doomsday Predictions Find Fertile Ground in the German Media

    I guess most of this blog’s readers are as appalled as I am by the doomsday predictions dressing as scientific climate research. Not to be outdone by anyone, BILD ran an article on man-like Mars creatures, who – according to “scientists” and an “author” – live in caves deep below the surface of the red planet because of a historical climate catastrophe, “same as the earth will witness”. You better get your light bulbs ready…

    No surprise that the German media eagerly transport the desired messages of the IPCC crowd. After all, if only George W. Bush would sign “Kyoto”…

    Using the “follow the money” analysis that has served me well during most of my lifetime, I detect these beneficiaries of climate hysteria:

    • Scientists (driven by an interest in funding of their research)
    • Energy industry (think CO2 free nuclear energy)
    • Insurance companies (aiming at premium rises for all types of risk insurance)
    • Computer companies (hey, you need supercomputers for these nice earth warming simulations…)
    • (feel free to add other branches)

    Here is a fascinating albeit somewhat depressing analysis by Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute:

    Seventeen years ago, I wrote a column for Weather magazine, expressing my concerns about the lack of honesty, integrity and humility of many climate scientists. “I worry about the arrogance of scientists who claim they can help solve the climate problem, provided their research receives massive increases in funding”, reads one line from my text. Unknown to me, my friend Richard Lindzen was working on his famous paper “Some Cooling Concerning Global Warming”, which appeared in the Bulletin of the AMS at the same time. This was early 1990. It is 2007 now, and I want to ring the alarm bell again. There is a difference, though: then I was worried, now I am angry. I am angry about the Climate Doomsday hype that politicians and scientists engage in. I am angry at Al Gore, I am angry at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for resetting its Doomsday clock, I am angry at Lord Martin Rees for using the full weight of the Royal Society in support of the Doomsday hype, I am angry at Paul Crutzen for his speculations about yet another technological fix, I am angry at the staff of IPCC for their preoccupation with carbon dioxide emissions, and I am angry at Jim Hansen for his efforts to sell a Greenland Ice Sheet Meltdown Catastrophe.

    I urge you to read the complete article.

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  • Looking for a Good Blog on Duesseldorf and More?

    Check this out: Duesseldorf Blog.

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  • Davids Medienkritik: This Week’s Spiegel Cover: Punish the Rich Little Blond Girl

    (By Ray D.)

    Der Spiegel Slams Germany’s True Enemy: The Wealthy

    This week’s SPIEGEL cover exploits a favorite set of issues that never fail to resonate with the readers: Class warfare – punishing success – Neidkultur. The only thing missing is a swarm of capitalist locusts and maybe Bush doing a Hitler salute:

    Der SPIEGEL 6/2007

    Der Spiegel: “Inheritance Instead of Work: Of the Unconscionable Luck of Getting Rich with Tax Breaks”

    The cover makes it seem as if the the few wealthy German heirs who still don’t have their money on a fast train to Switzerland or Luxembourg somehow pose a grave threat to society. A wealthy little girl is shown sitting on the grave of her benefactor as gold coins rain from the sky and fall into her nightgown. Talk about beating petty German class jealousies to death. The word “pathetic” comes to mind…

    Let us make one suggestion: Instead of pursuing its obvious obsession with punishing wealth and success, perhaps SPIEGEL should explore a true menace to the fabric of German society: The chronic dependence of much of the general population on welfare benefits and entitlements and the spiral of high taxes and shadow economies that inherently follow.

    A better headline would have read: Welfare Not Work: Germany’s Unconscionable Bureaucrat Class and the Dependent Society. Here’s a proposed edit: 

    Fire half the bureaucrats now and the other half later, slash the outrageous spa benefits, lower taxes and stop blaming everything on the wealthy and “society” for a change. I know – I know – most Germans will never go along with this. They seem to prefer elegant decay to real progress. You can always dream I guess. In the meantime, we can keep blaming Bush and America and the rich for all the world’s problems if we don’t feel good about ourselves.

    Changing the subject…: On January 11, 2007, SPIEGEL ONLINE published an article entitled, “New Iraq Strategy: Republicans Refuse to Follow Bush.”
    In fact, a more accurate headline would have included the word “Few”
    before the word “Republicans.” But in a world where reporting on the
    United States revolves around kicking Bush while he is down, reality
    can quickly blur into wishful thinking. Chuck Hagel, long a maverick
    Senator, suddenly came to represent “Republicans.” By contrast, the
    forty-plus Republican Senators who do not share his views were barely
    mentioned.

    For SPIEGEL ONLINE and the Democrats, reality
    has begun to sink in. Supporters of a resolution to oppose the proposed
    surge could not even muster fifty (let alone sixty) votes. So much for
    the political “earthquake.” The vote emphatically demonstrates that the
    vast majority of Republicans do not support Hagel nor do they support
    resolutions to condemn the surge or cut off funding. To its credit,
    SPIEGEL ONLINE has acknowledged the facts.

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  • Tragicomedy in the Bavarian Alps

    John Rosenthal has translated an interesting piece from Lizas Welt: Tragicomedy in the Bavarian Alps. It sheds light on some of the pecularities of German law…

    It is well known that anti-American jokes are in fashion nowadays here in Germany. Whoever, for example, pokes the usual fun at George W. Bush can be more or less sure to have the laughs on his side. And then those “Amis” have such absurd laws: in America, for example, one can sue the tobacco industry for damages if one gets lung cancer from smoking too much. The average German just shakes his head, because that he finds crazy. When, however, what goes on in his own country is far more bizarre, he barely takes notice. This although hardly anything could surpass the tragicomedy involved in three neo-Nazis who use the phrase “Glory and Honor of the Waffen-SS!” being acquitted of charges of having violated paragraph 86a of the German Criminal Code, which prohibits the “use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations,” while a declared anti-Nazi who wanted to distribute leaflets promoting a talk against Nazism and Islamism is found guilty on the very same charge. (…)

    Read it all…

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  • Anti-Americanism: Essential for European Identity

    This article from Andrei S. Markovits (professor of comparative politics and German studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor) is an absolute must read:

    (Update: Please note Pamela’s comment: “EXACTAMUNDO Professor Markovits!! Please, everyone, click on the link and read the entire article. The snippet provided here doesn’t begin to cover how sweeping his condemnation is. I’ve printed it so I can read it more thoroughly.”)

    Western Europe’s America Problem

    The future of anti-Americanism in Europe’s public discourse will remain deeply tied to the fate of Europe’s unification process, one of the most ambitious political projects anywhere in the world. Fundamentally, the European views about America have little to do with the real America but much to do with Europe. Europe’s anti-Americanism has become an essential ingredient in — perhaps even a key mobilizing agent for — the inevitable formation of a common European identity, which I have always longed for and continue to support vigorously, although I would have preferred to witness a different agency in its creation. Anti-Americanism has already commenced to forge a concrete, emotionally experienced — as opposed to intellectually constructed — European identity, in which Swedes and Greeks, Finns and Italians are helped to experience their

    still-frail emotive commonality not as “anti-Americans” but as Europeans, which at this stage constitutes one sole thing: that they are “non-Americans.”

    Anti-Americanism will serve as a useful mobilizing agent to create awareness in Europe for that continent’s new role as a growing power bloc in explicit contrast to and keen competition with the United States, not only among Europeans but also around the globe. Anti-Americanism has already begun to help create a unified European voice in global politics and will continue to be of fine service to Europe’s growing power in a new global constellation of forces, in which an increasingly assertive Europe will join an equally assertive China to challenge the United States on every issue that it possibly can.

    For the time being, there seem to be no visible incentives for Europeans to desist from anti-Americanism. Its tone is popular among European publics. Far from harming Europe and its interests, anti-Americanism has helped Europeans gain respect, affection, and — most important — political clout in the rest of the world. Anti-Americanism has become a European currency whose value fluctuates greatly, but whose existence does represent a chip that Europe will cash in with increasing gusto. By cultivating an anti-American position, Europe feigns membership in a global opposition of the downtrodden by America.

    (Hat tip Fred)

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  • FAZ’s Dishonest Smear Targets Malkin – Bloggers

    (By Ray D.)

    Nina Rehfeld’s Attempted Hit Job – Or How it Backfired

    A small German blog recently chronicled a particularly suspect article authored by correspondent Nina Rehfeld for the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – one of Germany’s most respected daily papers). The piece, entitled “Debacle for the Online Sniper” can only be described as a hit job gone terribly wrong. The “online sniper” in question is none other than journalist and top blogger Michelle Malkin:

    FAZ Caption: “Converted Blogger: Michelle Malkin”

    The FAZ piece reads as follows (our translation – this is the entire article):

    “Blogs
    Debacle for the Online Sniper
    By Nina Rehfeld, Phoenix

    A few days ago a witch hunt called out by conservative bloggers in the United States against the news agency AP came to an end. The starting point for the hysteria was an AP report according to which six Iraqi Sunnis were doused with gasoline by Shiites in front of a mosque and burned alive as Iraqi soldiers looked on. As a source, AP named a Baghdad police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein, but the American military and Iraqi Ministry of Interior denied for a long time that there was a policeman by that name. No one else could confirm the report, yet the story went around the world.

    In Internet forums doubts were quickly raised about the authenticity of the AP story and the reliability of sources in Iraq in general. But what should have been a debate about the pitfalls of reporting from war zones turned into a vanity fair. Led by the prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, the AP story was presented as proof that the “liberal mainstream media” were intentionally distorting the situation in Iraq to turn people against the Bush government: “MSM credibility, R.I.P.,” wrote Malkin.

    The Outcry is Silenced

    The talk quickly turned to “AP scandal”; All AP reporting on Iraq was brought into question. Liberal websites like Media Matters struck back at the “warbloggers.” And because the mainstream media in America leaves the field of reporting on the background details to the bloggers, they were able to smash journalistic porcelain undisturbed. In the meantime, AP stuck with the story that its reporters had spoken with Jamil Hussein.

    A few days ago the Iraqi Ministry of Interior confirmed the existence of Jamil Hussein and announced that he may be subject to a fine – because he spoke to journalists. The outcry is silenced. Michelle Malkin accepted a challenge to visit Iraq from CNN news boss Eason Jordan where she has meekly reported on danger, violence and corruption, but also on signs of hope in Iraq that the mainstream media is allegedly happy to overlook. Nobody is talking about the policeman Jamil Hussein anymore.“

    Memo to FAZ: The Outcry is Not Silenced

    Rehfeld would be right if the only aspect of the AP story brought into question by bloggers was the existence of source Jamil Hussein. In reality, there are two elements of the original AP story that remain controversial: The first, Mr. Hussein’s reported claim that four mosques were “destroyed” in sectarian violence, has been proven demonstrably false. The second, that six Iraqi Sunnis were burned alive as Iraqi soldiers looked on, remains uncorroborated and has been disputed by other sources. Bloggers continue to discuss both – Ms. Rehfeld completely fails to acknowledge the controversy surrounding either.

    In other words, this is neither a witch hunt nor is it “case closed” as Ms. Rehfeld clearly implies. In fact, the bloggers’ skepticism over the original AP piece has proven to be largely justified. Unfortunately, those inconvenient details are conspicuously omitted by FAZ.

    Because Rehfeld and her FAZ editors are clearly aware of Michelle Malkin’s blog (see caption above), it is hard to believe that they simply overlooked the two contested elements of the original AP story. This appears to be yet another case of a major German media outlet omitting and twisting facts to vilify those (conservatives – bloggers – Americans) it perceives as political enemies. The arrogant, frothing-at-the-mouth tone of the piece is, taken by itself, a clear sign of journalism gone bad. Beyond that, it is difficult to conclude that Rehfeld is anything more than a cynical liar. Her work is particularly disturbing because it is directed at a German audience that, with a language barrier and lack of alternative sources, will likely never know to what extent it has been defrauded and misled.

    This much is clear: To avoid future “witch hunts” and journalistic “debacles”, FAZ would be well advised to drop Ms. Rehfeld and her particularly destructive brand of character assassination. Instead of cutting Michelle Malkin down to size, Rehfeld has succeeded only in shooting herself and her publication’s reputation in the foot.

    (Hattip: Joerg)

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  • German Media’s Anti-Americanism Sinks to New Lows

    Not that it comes as a surprise. It’s just a logical forward step in the German media driven hate campaign against the U.S.:

    “Munich to US: Don’t Send Your CIA Thugs out to Europe’s Streets” is the headline of SPIEGEL ONLINE, taken from Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). Both media outlets have a long history of anti-American polemic “reporting”.

    The headline and the accompanying articles in SPON and SZ refer to 13 arrest warrants issued by Munich prosecutors against CIA agents in the case of the alleged abduction of Khaled Al-Masri. We have frequently quoted in our blog the investigation of John Rosenthal into the questionable activities and connections of Al-Masri. (Historians know: it’s not the first time the U.S. secret intelligence service meddled into German affairs…)

    Al-Masri reaches almost a saint status in the German media’s reporting (with very few exceptions) – after all, he is considered a victim of the evil American empire and it’s stromtroopers. Oops, mistyped: should of course read “thugs”.

    You may throw up now…

    Additional commentary from Ray: The most appalling aspect of this is that the holier-than-thou European governments issuing these arrest warrants almost certainly knew of and collaborated with the CIA’s covert action program of rendition from the very beginning. Furthermore, the German government has known about the Masri situation since at least 2004 and chose to remain silent until now. These warrants are little more than cynical moral grandstanding to win points with the electorate from a government that has repeatedly demonstrated that supporting human rights and confronting real “thugs” in places like Iran and Sudan take a backseat to German trade interests.

    As usual, the German media would rather focus on bashing the United States. After all, they wouldn’t want to dig too deeply into the dark dealings of their ideological allies in the former Social Democrat-led Schroeder government. Once again: Germany good. America bad.

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  • U.S. Fuel Efficiency Policies

    (see update at the end) Our reader Fred, a self-described Germerican, had problems posting this comment in response to our posting “It’s the profits, stupid“. So, here’s his comment in full:

    “I think most Germans realize that due to the different geography of the United States, Americans often have to drive longer distances than Germans. But judging from my acquaintances, although they pride themselves in being environmentally aware, and they often hear about the US and environmental issues from their news media, most Germans know practically nothing about the fuel efficiency policies of the US, because what they

    hear are often just more variants of “Bush didnt sign Kyoto” and the
    stereotypical “Americans all drive gas guzzlers”.

    Heres a little background information for the German readers.

    Interessante Fakten zum Amerikanischen PKW Kraftstoffverbrauch und zur Steuerpolitik:

    Beim Kauf eines “Alternativ-Brennstoff” Autos gibt es bis zu $4000
    Steuerrabatt.
    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax_afv.shtml 

    Beim Kauf eines  Hybrid Benzin-Elektro-Fahrzeugs gibt es bis zu $3400
    Steuerrabatt.
    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax_hybrid.shtml

    Beim Verkauf eines Neuwagens mit besonders hohem Verbrauch muss ein “gas guzzler tax” (Sprit Säufer Steuer) je nach verbrauch von $1000 bis $7700 bezahlt werden. Die Höhe der Steuer muss am Fenster angebracht sein.
    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/info.shtml#guzzler

    Auto Hersteller, deren verkaufte Autos im Durchschnitt zu viel
    verbrauchen, müssen “CAFE” (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Strafen zahlen.
    BMW, zum Beispiel, zahlte 2002 über $27 Million.
    Die Hersteller die die Untergrenze(27,5 mpg(=Obergrenze 8,6 l/100km))
    unterschreiten und Strafen zahlen müssen, sind hauptsächlich Europäische Hersteller. http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/CAFE/overview.htm

    Der Durchschnittsverbrauch von allen in 2004 verkauften PKW in den USA
    war 29,1 mpg (8,1 l/100km). In 2005 war es 30,0 mpg (7,8 l/100km). 
    http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/Vehicle%20Safety/Articles/Associated%20Files/SummaryFuelEconomyPerformance-2005.pdf 

    (Der Durchschnittliche PKW Verbrauch in Deutschland 2004 war 8,4
    l/100km)
    http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=de-de&FC2=/de-de/html/iwgen/news_and_library/press_releases/2004/zzz_lhn.html&FC3=/de-de/html/iwgen/news_and_library/press_releases/2004/pkwszenarien_26042004.html

    (oder 7,9 l/100km)
    http://www.umweltdaten.de/verkehr/downloads/rueckgang_kraftstoffabsatz.pdf   

    (Diese Verbrauchswerte sind nicht genau vergleichbar, weil sie
    unterschiedlich ermittelt wurden, aber sie sind ungefähr vergleichbar.)

    Bei allen Neuwagen ist es ist gesetzlich vorgeschrieben, dass bestimmte
    Kraftstoffverbrauchsinformationen am Fenster angebracht sein müssen.
    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ratings_description.shtml

    PS Your mileage may vary!

    Update: Fred has send us this update:

    Der Durchschnittsverbrauch nach der Berechnungsmethode des CAFE Gesetzes von allen in 2004 verkauften PKW in den USA war 29,1 mpg (8,1 l/100km). In 2005 waren es 30,0 mpg (7,8 l/100km).
    http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov /staticfiles/DOT/NHTSA/Vehicle%20Safety/Articles/Associated%20Files/SummaryFuelEconomyPerformance-2005.pdf

    Der Durchschnittsverbrauch nach EPA’s real world estimates von allen in 2004 verkauften PKW in den USA war 24,8 mpg (9,5 l/100km).
    http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420r06011d.pdf 

    Update: The EPA real world estimate, which is more appropriate for comparison purposes, has been added. Thanks to reader blue, for pointing that out.

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  • Why Amis have replaced Germans as the new Nazis

    (Article by guest author Benjamin Duffy)

    If there’s one thing that David’s Medienkritik does well, it’s pointing out some of the inconsistencies of German criticisms of the United States. Ray did an excellent job of exposing the Orwellian credit card snooping of the German government and then compared it to the American S.W.I.F.T. banking “scandal”. When the US government was “caught” watching a few thousand international banking transactions in an attempt to foil terrorist attacks, the German media was up in arms. When anti-child pornography units in Germany looked through a full 22 million credit cards in order to identify 322 suspects, it was hailed as a victory against child pornographers.

    I suppose it’s the natural tendency of human beings to want to scream “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black!” whenever confronted with criticism from abroad. In a cross-cultural dialog, this tendency works both ways. How dare you criticize us, when you have done the same or even worse? How dare you criticize our society when yours is even more rotten?

    I’m not sure that this tactic is wrong to use in every circumstance. When I hear from Germans that the United States is a racist nation in which minorities are not allowed to rise to the highest positions, I ask them why nearly every German CEO, Abgeordneter, cabinet member, and university scholar seems to have white skin and a nice German name like Merkel, Mueller, or Schroeder.

    In the United States, on the other hand, we have minority Senators (Barack Obama, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Daniel Inouye, and Daniel Akaka), numerous minority Representatives, as well as Presidential cabinet members Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State, former National Security Advisor) and Elaine Chao (Secretary of Labor). General Eric Shinseki, an Asian American, became the Army Chief of Staff, while a Jamaican-American named Colin Powell, born poor in New York City, rose to the level of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Clarence Thomas sits on the Supreme Court. And the United States is a racist nation? Heck, a recent article in Die Welt even used the word “Apartheid” to describe race relations in America. Look in the mirror, Germany!

    What irritates me the most about the constant harping of the German media is that they seem less concerned with what is wrong in their own backyard than with what is wrong with the United States. School shooting in Colorado? Big news. School shooting in Erfurt, Germany? Not really that important. Race riots in Los Angeles? Extremely newsworthy. Race riots in France? Not so much. It seems to spring from malice towards the United States, as if every news item is supposed to be a stick in our eye. It’s almost if they know who their enemy is (the US), and then intend to follow their enemy around and make sure that every slip-up (real or imagined) is shown to the world in the worst light possible. Then they wonder why we think that they’re anti-American.

    Still, sometimes you wonder if “two wrongs don’t make a right”. I remember the time that Ray came to speak at the University of Massachusetts on the topic of German media bias against the United States. I remember personally inviting a German lady I knew. Let’s just say that her political beliefs were fairly orthodox for a German. When I handed her the flyer for the event she seemed shocked—shocked!—that anyone would think that her nation’s media system was biased against the United States. With a frown on her face, she uttered the words that I would hear quite a bit in the following weeks—“I don’t think that the German media is biased. I think Fox News is biased.”

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Crop the existing Der Spiegel sidebar image so that the bottom 40% of the magazine cover is removed, keeping only the top 60%, with a clean, sharp horizontal edge at the new bottom. Preserve the same style and appearance, just with less height.
Trump 2024: Spiegel Goes Full MAGA

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