As IF Times

link World shocked by U.S. execution of Troy Davis – CNN.com.

No they’re not, not unless 24 people constitutes the world.   This is the default spin of outlets such as CNN, supposedly the balanced network.   While it is a  mystery to me why Pope Benedict would care about a cop killer, it’s not a mystery as to why the other luminaries are flapping their gums.  Jimmy Carter is hardly the voice of reason on any topic, but they still trumpet his utterances as if he were some sage wise man.   Let’s look at some of the other outraged parties.

Hmm, the French foreign ministry, they of the ‘let’s bomb Libya’ brigade.  The Guardian newspaper, a notorious lefty publication also chimed in with their tsk tsks.  Apparently the severe financial crisis gripping Europe which threatens to topple governments as well as banks is not as pressing as the fate of cop killer Troy Davis according to a spokesman for the EU.  Perhaps it’s true, the Europeans are more sensitive.

Coincidentally, there was another execution at the same time of another killer, who happened to be non black , which for some reason didn’t arouse the collective attention of the world’s bleeding hearts.   I’m sure that guy felt a bit slighted at the lack of support for his plight.  It’s not clear to me why the sovereign laws of the U.S. are any of the business of other countries which are barely hanging on as nation states.

As a matter of fact, when one does some research, we find that the amount of executions carried out in the U.S. falls far behind the stats yielded by some other well known countries.  According to The International Business Times, Iran and Saudi Arabia execute more of their criminals on any given year than does the U.S.   China outnumbers everyone combined although no firm numbers are offered.  The belief is that they number in the thousands.  On the other hand, executions in those nation states can be for ‘crimes’ which we in the west would consider only iffy social behavior at worst.  For instance, sorcery is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.  Not only that, but if you’re a woman, they’ll flog you for the heinous crime of driving a car.  Teenagers are not immune to execution.  In China, you can be executed for incompetence or corruption.  !!!  Hmm.  But here in the U.S., even with 30 witnesses, people are still squeamish about executing a cop killer.

Domestically, there are headlines proclaiming that Mr. Davis’s execution was a ‘clear wake up call’ to abolish the death penalty.  Perhaps in the minds of those few who feel that no crime can be heinous enough to warrant any punishment other than strong scolding.  The fact is, capital punishment has always been the penalty for a capital crime, especially when the murder of a law officer is involved.  If not for this, there would be open season on police officers nationwide.   Who would risk their lives to protect others when their own lives are not valued and in some way protected?   In this particular case, over 30 eye witnesses testified that Mr. Davis not only shot the officer, but stood over him and shot him again while he lay helpless.  This is not an O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony case where the evidence is mainly  “he said, she said” stuff.  These were living eye witnesses. They saw the crime being committed and they pointed him out in open court.

So in determining that the conviction may have been tainted and an innocent man executed because of questionable evidence implies that not only are the laws in error, it means that the 30 plus witnesses, many of whom were black, were also idiots and not credible.  If 30 eye witnesses finger a perp and the result is then seen as questionable, then there’s no point in proceeding with the whole charade of judicial justice as we know it.  They may as well put perps on stage and have them voted guilty or not guilty as in American Idol.

Justice should not only be blind.  These days it should also be deaf.

link CNN’s Piers Morgan Vows Format And Other Changes To Beat Fox News Competition: Promises “I’m Going To Be There To Win” And “It’s Time To Kick Some Ratings Butt” – Deadline.com.

A big As if on this story.  It’s possible that skewed entertainment may find an audience somewhere, but unless there’s hard objective news, our hero Piers Morgan will be voted off after season one.  Actually, it’s an ongoing curiosity that the competing channels to Fox News offer the kind of programming that they do.  The U.S. is a conservative nation, yet the public networks are populated with liberal mouthpieces, some of whom are borderline insane.  Anyone with a rational bone in their body can see that a guy like Keith Olbermann is just an outburst away from a fitting with the long armed jacket.

It’s a miracle that Larry King still managed to hold onto his show for as long as he did.  I can only suspect that the fossils who cared to watch him had actually died and left their TV’s on during his show, leading  the Nielson people to mistakenly count them as actual live viewers. 

The record so far for CNN is not good.  Over the past year, they’ve offered shows that were intellectually dishonest, like the recently axed Rick Sanchez and the equally flaccid Christiane Amanpour, to the intellectually vapid, like the Joy Behar show.  This is what they consider to be tapping into America’s interests and sensibilities.  Americans are quite different from Europeans and even from Canadians.  They do not like to be told what to think.  Virtually every network and cable outlet except for Fox has been pushing the same tired propoganda over the past few years.  Obama is a genius, Palin is dumb.  Democrats are sympathetic, Republicans are wing nuts.  People can pretty much figure it out for themselves  and if they determine that the truth is quite the contrary, all credibility is gone.

Consider this.  Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck, two of Fox’s star opinion purveyors actually have a tour in which they go around the country…just talking.   These are two pudgy, grumpy  middle aged guys.  And the shows sell out.  The message they convey is so compelling that people would pay to see them.  I cannot imagine any personality from any of the other networks who have that kind of drawing power. There’s an epiphany here  for the CNN’s, the CBS’s, the NBC”s and the ABC’s of America, people want to hear honest, positive things, not “progressive” agendas.  At the moment, Fox is the only source for objective news.  The rest may as well be part of The Colbert Report.