The dishonest waiter

A Happy Valentine’s Day To All, And To “A Friend,” A Gift!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Behold (below) yet another “smoking gun” delineating the bias and lack of objectivity and integrity of the New York Times. The paper is the very model of a modern “dishonest waiter”, for all of its double standards, contradictions and hypocrisy goes one way: to advance progressive agendas and Axis propaganda. See?

Yet for years now, self-banned commenter “A Friend” has comment section-bombed Ethics Alarms with defenses of the New York Times when it is criticized here, usually with posts beginning with “Come on, Jack!” These get sent to EA Spam Hell when they show up as soon as I see them of course, each one putting “A Friend” even deeper on the black list than he already is.

Today, however, to show my love for all of this blog’s readers, even the trolls, deranged and assholes, I will offer a symbolic temporary suspension of “A Friend’s” ban, if he offers a sincere, rational, defense of the Times’ “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” performance in this case.

Can he (or anyone) rebut my conclusion that the Times, forever allying itself with climate change confirmation bias victims, has proven that it will contrive an argument that literally any occurrence, statistics or phenomena is proof of the dire effects of climate change according to “scientists,” which often means to the Axis media of which it is a charter member, “some old guy with a duck on his head holding the Bozo Chair in Chemistry at Itawamba Community College that we found after searching for a week.”?

The offer will stand for 48 hours.

I’m expecting great things.

“The Dishonest Waiter” Strikes Again! [Corrected and Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I immediately thought of the “dishonest waiter” when I stumbled upon this story, about a month late. (How did I miss it? You readers are supposed to keep me up to date!) If someone asked Alexa, Amazon’s creepy “virtual assistant,” “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” “she” replied, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate.”

Continue reading →

In “Denial,” the film about the lawsuit by British Holocaust denier and fake historian David Irving against American Deborah Lipstadt, the late, great Tom Wilkinson as Lipstadt’s barrister Richard Rampton, in the process of excoriating Irving to the court where the case is being tried, evokes the analogy of “the dishonest waiter” in a memorable speech:

My lord, during this trial, we have heard from Professor Evans and others of at least 25 major falsifications of history. Well, says Mr. Irving, “all historians make mistakes.” But there is a difference between negligence, which is random in its effect, and a deliberateness, which is far more one-sided. All Mr. Irving’s little fictions, all his tweaks of the evidence all tend in the same direction: the exculpation of Adolf Hitler. He is, to use an analogy, like the waiter who always gives the wrong change. If he is honest, we may expect sometimes his mistakes to favor the customers, sometimes himself. But Mr. Irving is the dishonest waiter. All his mistakes work in his favor. How far, if at all, Mr. Irving’s Antisemitism is the cause of his Hitler apology, or vice versa, is unimportant. Whether they are taken together or individually, it is clear that they have led him to prostitute his reputation as a serious historian in favor of a bogus rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler and the dissemination of virulent Antisemitic propaganda.

I immediately thought of the “dishonest waiter” when I stumbled upon this story, about a month late. (How did I miss it? You readers are supposed to keep me up to date!) If someone asked Alexa, Amazon’s creepy “virtual assistant,” “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” “she” replied, “I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate.”

Continue reading →