The Left Hand and the Right Hand

First: Props to the Breitbart site Big Government for debunking the latest border panic.

Second: Shame on the Breitbart site Big Peace for uncritically repeating the same yarn.

[Update: Now Big Journalism is trying to keep the story alive. Big Hollywood has yet to weigh in.]

Comments

[libertymike]

Since when does a phone call to a LEO constitute "debunking" given the propensity with which LEOs lie?

[Tulpa]

I agree. In an anarcho-free-enterprise system, all lying would be done by private security forces.

[Spazmo]

I can't believed I laughed at one of Tulpa's jokes. I need to stop visiting this site.

[John Tagliaferro]

I thought the outlaw siege was false, until you introduced this doubt into my mind.

[TrickyVic]

""Since when does a phone call to a LEO constitute "debunking" given the propensity with which LEOs lie?""

Sure, point taken. But it's not true just because we see it on the Big Government web site either.

[hmm]

1) I'm not surprised about the conflict above.

2) It's Eric Hoffer's birthday.

3) It is the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts.

[Marshall Gill]

[Puts on tinfoil hat]

I have been telling everyone this and no one listens! How could those three things occur at the same time by mere chance?! You're not surprised AND it is Hoffer's birthday AND the 100th of the Boy Scouts?!! We are all so fucked.

[hmm]

I don't know about you. But I'm gettin laid. So one of us is fucked.

[Oswald Spengler]

The deputy that answered the phone there was less bemused, having also dealt with this rumor multiple times in a short amount of time.

The denotation of bemused has been conquered, declares defeat.

[?]

Did someone lay a "pot-smoking Republican" on you this week?

Get that dirt off your shoulder. Yo.

[mitch]

Breitbart contains multitudes.

[mitch]

Does Breitbart contradict himself? He contains multitudes.

[Yonemoto]

Fair and balanced, bitches.

[Mike G]

Well, you gotta give him this: his writers aren't coordinating everything on a behind the scenes email ist.

[Mike G]

List! Scheisse.

[Hugh Akston]

Foolish factuality is the hobgoblin of little minds.

[Jo denny]

Wow that really makes a lot of sense dude.

Lu
http://www.real-anonymity.at.tc

[Peanut Gallery Bot]

Totally bro

[Rick H.]

dude bro
0001010001111010100001
1001011001101010101001
bro dude
totally

[80sfan]

It's almost as if... he's playing a double game

SUCH INTRIGUE

[db]

When I read the word "debunking" I was expecting more than 3 paragraphs reporting on two phone calls to the local police.

I'm no border security nut, and I'm no conspiracy theorist, but this is not going to be resolved by a simple "I called the police and they said it's nothing" for many of these folks.

It'd be nice if we had any H&R'ers in range who could drive out to the suspect area (there are roads there), and look around for any such activity. It'd be nice to really put paid to one of these paranoid rumors, for once.

[Tulpa]

It's also a bit odd that they didn't attempt to contact the Border Patrol or the local sheriff, which are actually the agencies allegedly involved in the standoff.

[Jesse Walker]

He did contact the sheriff's department, actually. And the Laredo paper called the Border Patrol as well as the local cops.

[Tulpa]

From the Laredo Morning Times article, a summary of the agency responses:

Border Patrol: don't know
FBI: can't comment
Laredo PD: don't know
LaPaz Co Sheriff: can't confirm

Not much of a debunking. But yes, extaordinary claims require extraordinary proof and such.

[John Tagliaferro]

Did he bother calling the farmers in exile? Libertymike has a point.

[Tulpa]

Actually, they should try calling the ranches themselves. That would make for some great television/net video.

[John Tagliaferro]

"Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"

Good call.

[Jesse Walker]

Did he bother calling the farmers in exile?

The ranches in question have not been identified. Though we do have a broader statement from the San Diego Minuteman about the area in which they're allegedly located.

[John Tagliaferro]

I prefer Tulpa's idea to yours. Is that "broader statement" something like "DAMN IT, CALL THE CAVALRY, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!"?

[J sub D]

Breitbart has, in near record time, found a place next to Olbermann on my "People to be Assiduously Ignored" list.

I strongly encourage Reason to do the same.

[Tulpa wearing an MNG mask]

They're not even comparable. Breitbart produces actual news (albeit sometimes biased) while Olbermann just bloviates for an hour every night, recycling the talking points more enterprising liberals have come up with.

Yes, Breitbart needs to be fact-checked and taken with a grain of salt. So does every purported newsman. But at least he's done a few useful things, which is more than one can say for Dramatic Keith.

[Tulpa]

Oops, forgot to take off my mask.

[Warty]

Left hand, right hand.

[John Tagliaferro]

Two hands, one cup?

[Tulpa]

On one hand, this is terrible if it's true.

On the other, it clears the path for my immigration reform / border security plan (invading Mexico) to come into play.

[John Tagliaferro]

I like your plan. I can teach the Reason staff how to fly too, for aerial coverage. First lesson is atop the Epic Center at high noon, Wednesday.

[Tulpa]

Somebody else claims to have two sources inside the Laredo PD that confirm that there is a standoff at the ranches. So, somebody is wrong.

[Tulpa]

OK, considering that the second leading story from that site is "UFO near White House emits ray of light: horseplay, false flag or 'socially destabilizing' event?" with the lede:

A hyperdimensional UFO in over flight approximately one mile south east of the White House in Washington, DC appears to have fired a ray of light or directed energy beam in the vicinity of the White House.

, perhaps I'll discount that site's reporting...

[Jesse Walker]

I think examiner.com derives a lot of undeserved respect from people who confuse it with the Examiner newspaper chain.

[Tulpa]

Luckily I don't know anyone like that.

::bows head in shame::

[Rick H.]

Has anyone attempted to contact the UFO occupants to get the real story?

[John Tagliaferro]

That puts the UFO near Anacostia. No doubt Obama gave advanced technology to community organizers there.

[Tulpa]

Wait a minute, didn't UFOs visit some tribe in Kenya a few thousand years ago?

[John Tagliaferro]

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Who wants to start the outline for the series, ripped from today's headlines?

[Tulpa]

No, I was thinking of the Dogon tribe from Mali. It looks like Obama is not descended from aliens after all.

[Ice2]

A site called Big Peace with drawings of the american eagle and fighter jets and a revolutionary war soldier.

Yep, definately not going to be frequinting that site anytime soon

[Tulpa]

Why does Ice2 hate America?

[Cytotoxic]

Why does he hate fighter jets?

[Adonisus]

If you lived next to an Air Force Base like me, you'd start to LOATHE THEM.

[Cytotoxic]

+1

[Tulpa]

OT: Hugo Chavez threatening to cut off oil sales to the US if Colombia takes military action against rebels hiding in Venezuela.

Talk about cutting off your face to spite your nose.

[Cytotoxic]

It would be especially entertaining if Colombia just bombed those oil facilities themselves.

[DRM]

Let's do unto him before he does unto us. 40% of Venezuelan exports are to the US, while only 2% of US imports are from Venezuela. So let's ban them . . .

. . . unless shipped to the US from Colombia, as certified by Colombian officials. The Colombians can then charge, say, a 1% fee for re-export certification.

[DRM]

People are saying that, well, we're not hearing the truth because of a media blackout. Well, where are the reports of "I was stopped when I went out there to look, and they confiscated my cell phone when I tried to take photos of them stopping me", or "My brother went out there to take photos, and he never came back"?

If there's really been such a complete and a successful suppression of news about this, our country's got a much bigger problem than a handful of gangsters on a ranch.

[xenia onatopp]

People are saying that, well, we're not hearing the truth because of a media blackout. Well, where are the reports of "I was stopped when I went out there to look, and they confiscated my cell phone when I tried to take photos of them stopping me", or "My brother went out there to take photos, and he never came back"?

That's the rational reaction to most conspiracy theories that revolve around massive government cover ups. At some point in almost every episode of The X-Files an exasperated Scully asks Mulder what amounts to the same set of questions. Anybody who has tried this reason-and-logic approach to dealing with nutcases and true believers knows it's a losing battle, although Scully somehow never learns. Not that it matters-- she may be sane, scientific, and in touch with reality, but she's also wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Huh. I forgot about that last part. Never mind, then.

[Tulpa]

Uh, it wouldn't be terribly hard to cover up something that happened two days ago in a remote rural area.

Of course that doesn't mean the rumors are true, but under the circumstances is not totally unbelievable that a media blackout could be maintained for a couple of days.

[CE]

Who's Bret Bart?

[TrickyVic]

No John Galt.

[Christian Audigier]

P.S. there is nothing of value in Illinois politics. Wait until tomorrow morning to complain.