Today’s reading for ConCrimPro includes Samson v. California, 126 S.Ct. 2193 (2006), in which Justice Stevens writes in dissent: “Combining faulty syllogism with circular reasoning, the Court concludes that parolees have no more legitimate an expectation of privacy in their persons than do prisoners.”

What I read that sentence, my immediate conclusion was that “combining faulty syllogism with circular reasoning” would make a great slogan for certain blogs. For example… “Daily Kos: combining faulty syllogism with circular reasoning since 2002!” ;)

“We have all of our resources working this story.” –CNN anchor, referring to the Anna Nicole Smith story

The Indianapolis Star’s take:

And the Chicago Tribune’s take:

But the award for the day’s worst headline goes to the South Bend Tribune:

Huh? And an ugly layout, too!

More front pages after the jump, including several with puns on the word “rain” that actually make sense.

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Alternative title: “Don’t believe everything you see on TV… or in the newspaper… or in a press release …”

Alternative alternative title: “Multiple layers of fact-checkers and editors strike again!”

The local Fox affiliate here in South Bend, WSJV Channel 28, ran a brief story at the end of tonight’s 10pm news quoting something called the “Oxford Hair Foundation” as saying that redheads may be “extinct” by the end of the century. Supposedly, the recessive gene that gives people red hair will “die out.” Being a redhead myself, I thought this was interesting and potentially blogworthy — and I was also a little skeptical. Why would this be the case? Why now? Redheads have been around for all of human history; why would we suddenly die out? And what the heck is the “Oxford Hair Foundation,” anyway? They say that with a name like Smuckers, it has to be good… and I say, with a name like the “Oxford Hair Foundation,” you have to be skeptical.

On both of these points, the explanation in the TV report was grossly inadequate. But hey, that’s par for the course with local TV news. So I decided to investigate further. I went to Google News and did a quick search. Surprisingly, I only came up with one article, from the Sydney Morning Herald’s blog. Some of the language used in that article was darn near identical to what I’d just heard on TV (immediately suggesting that this is press-release “journalism” at work), and again, the scientific explanation was extremely thin:

Redheads beware! You may be headed the way of dodos, dinosaurs and Whitney Houston’s career. Britain’s Oxford Hair Foundation predicts that, by the end of the century, carrot-tops might have disappeared from the face of the Earth.

The foundation says that only 4 per cent of the world’s population carry the recessive gene for red hair and that, over time, brunettes, blondes and pepperheads will control human hair colour with their dominant genes.

Unsatisfied and still a bit skeptical, I decided to check out this so-called “Oxford Hair Foundation.” That’s when I got really skeptical. Take a look at their website. It contains an very unprofessional-looking message that states:

The Oxford Hair Foundation website has decided to transfer its information to P &G Beauty Science instead. Thank you for your visit.

Well, what the heck does that mean? What sort of “foundation” would “transfer its information” to another website? Specifically, a website run by Procter & Gamble — a company which, oh by the way, makes hair-care products? Curiouser and curiouser.

I next consulted Wikipedia, but they don’t have a page for the “Oxford Hair Foundation,” which made me even more skeptical. If I’m important enough to be on Wikipedia, surely a legitimate scientific organization would be, too. Right? So what gives?

At this point I moved out of Google News and back into regular Google searching — and guess what I found? A bunch of random, miscellaneous websites from various different dates parroting this same alleged study. Here’s one from November 2006, and one from March 2006. WTF? Even if this “study” is legit, how is it “news” if it’s months old?

But the final blow to the credibility of this “story” comes from a search on the new Google News Archive. Check it out… there are numerous stories from reputable news organizations, going back years, repeating the same bunch of crap. For example:

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Hot Air asks: “Is Bush about to repeat one of his biggest mistakes by fighting the post-surge war on the cheap? According to Gen. Jack Keane, who co-authored the blueprint Bush is using: yes.” From the latter link:

The military mastermind of President George W Bush’s new troop “surge” strategy for Iraq has hit out at signs that the Pentagon is watering down the proposal for political reasons.

“You cannot try and do this piecemeal. We have to implement the whole package,” retired Gen Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, who co-authored the “Choosing Victory” strategy paper, told The Sunday Telegraph.

He expressed his alarm after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, told congressmen that the troop build-up was expected to last “a matter of months” - rather than the 18 months proposed by Gen Keane.

Mr Gates also told hearings on Capitol Hill that the full deployment of 21,500 extra troops, announced by Mr Bush last week, might not be implemented. He suggested that only two or three of the five brigades proposed for Baghdad could initially be deployed, while the rest are held in reserve.

“That makes no military sense, although it might seem to make political sense,” said Gen Keane.

“We need all five brigades in Baghdad as soon as possible. It will take three to four months to clear neighbourhoods of death squads and insurgents, and at least the rest of the year to establish proper security for the population. If you only wanted to stage a clearance operation, you could do that in a few months. But if we left then, the militia would just return as they have in the past.”

In my previous post about the “surge,” I wrote that, given the disastrous consequences of failure in Iraq, victory is “worth one more shot, provided we’re going to really take a serious shot at it.” This latest report raises grave concerns about whether Bush’s “surge” is truly a “serious shot.”

On a related note, the Hot Air post, as well as this InstaPundit post, quote a UPI reporter as suggesting that the media isn’t asking the key question — “what happens if we lose? … If we lose, how are we going to mitigate the consequences of this?” — because “it seems that if as a reporter you do ask the national security question, all of a sudden you’re carrying Bush’s water.” As Glenn says: “Better that the story should be missed, and the country screwed, than that a reporter might look unacceptably friendly to Bush!”

Out: “botched jokes.” In: “bad typos.”

Remember CNN’s segment about confusion between Obama and Osama? Well, apparently not everyone at CNN watched it…

The network has apologized for what Wolf Blitzer calls a “bad typo,” and the Osama campaign has accepted the apology.

Er, the Obama campaign, that is. Sorry… bad typo. ;)

Obama’s press secretary did note “that the ’s’ and ‘b’ keys aren’t all that close to each other,” but said he nevertheless doesn’t “think there was any truly malicious intent.” My guess? It was an in-house prank gone bad, probably a private joke between interns or some such. Reminds me of the time a student newspaper ran a front-page article with the byline “By George W. Bush,” then ran a correction the next day explaning that it was an inside joke that accidentally went to press.

In other Obama-related news, Hillary Clinton thinks his candidacy will fade. Oh, snap!

Here is Dave Barry’s review of 2006. It’s very funny. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

Also via Insty, today is the blogosphere’s fifth anniversary.

The Wall Street Journal’s Joseph Rago bashes the blogosphere.

Dean Barnett responds. (Hat tip: Insty.)

More responses here.

If the NBA was going to have a(nother) big brawl, I’m glad it was at Madison Square Garden, just because the New York tabloids are so entertaining at times like these…

Heh.

The Post’s Andrew Marchand asks, “Is this the final straw for Isiah?” The Daily News calls it a new low, and News columnist Lisa Olsen writes:

It was offensive enough when they were falling into the Garden crowd, risking injury not just to themselves, but to innocent bystanders. This was criminal behavior perpetuated by both the Nuggets and the Knicks, and if David Stern had the cojones, he would expel their precious bodies into the next season.

As it was last night, 10 players were ejected, the NBA once again gave the impression it was a league perpetuated by thugs, and yet, the madness did not end there. It shouldn’t be that difficult to separate bravado from responsibility, machismo from reality, but there stood Nate Robinson nearly an hour after the blood had barely dried on one of the game’s worst brawls ever, talking about how it was all about “trying to protect family.”

Good Lord, what a way to pile shame on top of the disgrace. Had some masked man just broken through the window and stolen Robinson’s bling? Had his fancy ride been carjacked? At least the culprits involved in the Pistons fight against the Pacers two seasons ago in Detroit had the good sense to shut up.

There will be plenty of opportunity to dissect last night’s film from all angles, to replay again and again the sorry sight of Jared Jeffries going after Carmelo Anthony at midcourt, the pitiful images of Robinson and J.R. Smith wrestling atop the baseline crowd. There will be mammoth fines, lengthy suspensions. Psychologists will moan about the decline of sportsmanship, and they’ll be right. Robinson’s postgame justifications might even get lost in the roar, but they shouldn’t. Because the attitude precedes the actions, always.

Robinson and some of the other Knicks, including and most importantly their coach, actually had the audacity to suggest the Nuggets were at fault because their starters were still in the game late in the fourth quarter, when the Knicks trailed by 19. As if Thomas never had the killer instinct. As if that was reason enough to start chest-bumping and fighting.

“It was like a slap in the face to us,” Robinson said of the Nuggets’ strategy. He went on to add that never in his life, not in high school or in college, had any opponent done something so disgraceful, so dishonorable. “We just tried to come back from a deficit and they still had their starters in the game. It was a slap in the face to us, to the franchise.”

As I said in comments last night, those comments from the Knicks and — especially — their coach Isiah Thomas were just incredibly, unbelievably lame.

In the biggest cop-out since choosing Rudy Giuliani in 2001, Time Magazine has declared that you are the person of the year. Yes, you. And me. And everyone else who uses the Web.

The magazine’s new managing editor, Richard Stengel, explained: “If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people. But if you choose millions of people, you don’t have to justify it to anyone.”

Lame.

In what meteorologists are calling a once-in-a-decade event, a massive windstorm knocked out power to over a million households throughout western Washington and parts of Oregon, toppling trees and power lines and in some cases causing flash flooding. One woman became trapped in her basement and drowned after her area recieved over an inch of rain in less than an hour. At least two deaths have been confirmed due to falling trees.

Although power will be restored to many places within the next day or two, outlying areas might be powerless up to 10 days, taking them past Christmas. Various counties across both states have instituted emergency procedures. In King County (home of Seattle), the county executive has declared the county a disaster zone, after it took the largest brunt of wind damage. Power and relief crews are gathering from across the country to help restore power and provide food and shelter to families whose houses have been damaged beyond habitation in the cold winter conditions that have accompanied the storm. Many major corporations in the Northwest are largely closed as a result of the storm, including Microsoft and Boeing. The Seattle Times circulated only 13,000 papers Friday and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was unable to print for the first time since the 1930’s as their printing facility fell victim to the widespread power outage.

David Pogue, in his online blog, and what I imagine will be his email column for today: Whatever Happened to Online Etiquette?

When Google created Google News, it pretty much changed my life. :) Seriously, it’s amazing how often I use Google News to find stuff that ultimately goes on the blog. And as if Google News wasn’t enough, then came Google News Alerts, which, as I’ve explained before (here and here), are frequently a source of information for the blog.

Well, now Google added a new feature that I’m pretty sure will become indispensible in its own right: News Archive Search. It allows you to search for old news articles — some of which are available for free, others of which cost money, but the search resuls are always free — and then sort your results either by “timeline” or by the individual publication, if you wish.

For example, suppose I was looking for an article about the lottery shootings in Newington back in 1998. I could simply search for newington lottery shooting, narrow the search to articles published in 1998, and voila! Or maybe I’m looking for an article about that memorable Gonzaga-Arizona game in the second round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament. Search for gonzaga arizona, narrow it to 2003, and we’re good to go.

Yup… this is definitely going to be very, very helpful. God, I love Google.

In the second stabbing incident involving Newington High School in the last month, a 2006 NHS graduate was stabbed by a Wethersfield High School student at a hockey tournament in Newington yesterday. The Hartford Courant reports:

According to Newington police, two Wethersfield High students, including the suspect, went to the Newington fan section about 7:40 p.m. and started taunting people in the stands, using profanity and obscene gestures.

At that point, a small group of Newington fans confronted the Wethersfield students and a fight broke out, Lt. Stephen Clark said. During the altercation, the 16-year-old pulled out a spring-loaded clip knife and stabbed the 18-year-old once in the chest, police said.

The wound was more than an inch deep and required stitches, Clark said. The 18-year-old, a 2006 Newington High School graduate whom police did not identify, was treated at Hartford Hospital and released.

As police arrived at the center, the 16-year-old, whose name was also not released, was quickly identified by hockey fans and arrested, Clark said. Aside from the knife, the student was found with a marijuana pipe and 11 small bags of marijuana packaged for sale, police said.

He was charged with second-degree assault, carrying a dangerous weapon, breach of peace, possessing marijuana with the intent to sell and possessing drug paraphernalia. He was released after posting $10,000 bail and is scheduled to face the charges Dec. 22 in Superior Court in New Britain.

Police are still investigating, and more arrests are possible, Clark said.

WTNH quotes an eyewitness:

Lindsey DeJohn was there and says her 18-year-old friend who just graduated from Newington High was just sticking up for his school.

“One of the kids from Wethersfield pulled out a knife on him and stabbed him. It was completely crazy,” says Lindsey DeJohn.

As an aside, the quote from Ms. DeJohn raises an interesting question of journalistic ethics. The police chose not to identify the stabbing victim, even though he’s 18 years old. That’s their prerogative, I guess. But if Lindsey DeJohn is the victim’s friend, presumably she gave the reporter his name (or could have, if asked). So why didn’t WTNH publish it? He’s not a minor, so that’s not an issue. He’s not being accused of doing anything wrong, so there’s no libel concern. And he’s been treated and released, so this isn’t like a deadly car crash where you don’t want family members to hear the news on TV.

The only potentially valid reason I can think of is that the reporter didn’t want to rely on a “friend” to identify the victim — but why would that be? It certainly doesn’t seem like standard journalistic practice. If they trust Ms. DeJohn to be honest in giving her own name, why doesn’t that trust extend to her friend’s name as well? Besides, I’m sure they could have confirmed the name from numerous other eyewitnesses. And if they were worried about simple inaccuracies (as opposed to lies), such as spelling errors, once they had the name they could have used a phone book (or an NHS yearbook, if they could get their hands on one) to confirm the spelling. So “we couldn’t confirm the name” doesn’t seem like valid reasoning.

Of course, if the only confirmation you’ll accept is official confirmation, that’s extremely problematic, because that means you’re ceding your journalistic decision-making process to the government. And yet I think that’s precisely what’s going on here: the media is simply playing nice and obsequiously going along with the police’s decision not to identify the (non-student, non-minor) victim. What bothers me about this is, I wonder if the reporters even stopped to question what they were doing… if they even considered that maybe they ought to publish the victim’s name, given that they probably knew it or, if not, could easily have obtained it, and there was no clear justification for not publishing it. A journalist’s “default” setting should always be to release information, not withhold it; it should only be withheld if there’s a very good reason. And “because the police said so” is not, by itself, a good enough reason.

Anyway, enough journalistic ethics, back to the issue at hand…

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Okay, this is almost a year-and-a-half old, but thanks to the magic of YouTube, it’s new to me: apparently some “mischievous staffers” at Connecticut’s ABC affiliate, WTNH Channel 8, had a little fun at their own station’s expense, making a pair of fake promotional ads skewering the trend of overhyping meteorological bells and whistles. Warning: mild profanity.

LOL! Here’s the other, shorter one.