Tuesday, October 31, 2006

European Briefs - all the news I can stand to read from there

EU CONSTITUTION   The EU "constitution" got a setback yesterday when the German Federal Constitutional Court refused to rule on whether the draft conformed with German's constitution.  With no referendum mechanism in Germany, the German parliament voted for it in 2005.  However, it hasn't been signed and any ruling will be delayed until 2009.  Merkel had plans to promote the "constitution" - really a treaty to cede complete national sovereignty to a bureaucracy no one can challenge.

DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS    In the meantime, the EU has responded to the challenge of the demographic crisis Europe is facing by - you guessed it - holding a conference.  It, of course, keeps the politicos occupied.

LEFTIST WRITER INTERVIEWED  John le Carré is the pen name of David Cornwell.   Interviewed by Radio Netherlands.  Scroll to key quotes at bottom.  Dutch Radio is famous for their interviews, including one with Noam Chomsky.   Just once it would be nice if they interviewed someone who didn't hate the U.S.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION  Of 125 Chinese students admitted to Belgium on student visas, only 20 of them showed up at the University of Liège.   No explanation of what the DDAD filtering process is.  Not even Goggle had a clue.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Media Honesty Part I

American Press Institute has a scheme to save newspapers called NEWSPAPER NEXT: The Transformation Project. Along with Global partners AP, BBC, Reuters and Qualcomm, they, so they say, are "committed to a better-informed society." So, how come if they wanted us to be so much better-informed does their bio of a API discussion leader Shelby Coffey II fail to mention what is he is most famous for?

While editor of the Los Angeles Times Coffey issed a PC-empassioned directive to the newsroom that henceforth some 150 words were not to be used. Even the hypersensives in our society might have found the list far reaching. Don't take my word for it. Stanley Meisler, the cheerleading biogragrapher of Kofi Annan wrote:
A few years ago, the Los Angeles Times released a long list of diversity guidelines admonishing reporters not to use expressions that various peoples might find offensive. The condemned expressions included Dutch treat, welsh on a bet, and paddy wagon. News of the rules spread quickly throughout the country, and Times editor Shelby Coffey III, who released the guidelines to his staff with some fanfare, soon became a laughing stock of American journalism.
Meisler wasn't the only one who thought so. Unfortunately the best skewering of Coffeey's diversity directory was by Christopher Hitchens and isn't online. But it was puncturing as only Hitchens can be.

Not, of course, that that fiasco dimmed Coffey's career. But you would think integrity would demand a reality check. Apparently not, as Coffey took up writing about leadership. His prime prime examples of brilliance being Arthur Sulzberger, Ted Turner, and NBC News president Neal Shapiro. Last I looked, the New York Times sold less papers in their home town than the New York Post, Ted Turner had to be bailed out by Time-Warner, and NBC is nearly bankrupt.

Coffey is now a senior fellow of the Freedom Forum, "a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech, and free spirit for all people." Too bad they aren't committed to honesty.

In your dreams, pal

Human Rights Campaigners The Drive-By Media are agitating for a "small arms" treaty to be enacted by a U.N. treaty.  They are, of course, opposed by the evil U.S.   And then there's all those gun crazy American bastards.
The National Rifle Association in the past has strongly opposed UN efforts at crafting a treaty to curb private ownership of small arms.
It's an Associated Press story.   But it's echoed by AFP, Reuters, and Reuters.  And it's backed by all those Nobel Peace Prize Laureates!!!!  

The U.N. that wants to regulate small arms worldwide is the same one that stood by in Rwanda (800,000) and is twiddling in Darfur while the body count goes up daily.

This is the same organization whose Human Rights Commission was so disreputable that they had to disband it.

This is the same U.N. that would regulate small arms that allowed Yassir Arafat to addres them with a, you guessed it, a small arm strapped to his hip.

These are the same people who applauded and cheered Hugo Chave's insane rant.

And those Human Rights Campaigners who do not protest homocide bombers in Israel or scream in outrage at the daily bombing of innocents in Bagdad, well, they are indignant that people might, just might, have the means to defend themselves.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Voting irregularities

Missouri voting fraud.   What a surprise.

When I posted regularly to Lucianne.com I found a news story at a Florida law website.   It was written by a Clinton appointee to the bench.    I think he was in Orange County, California.   He bragged about how he and his family each voted 4-5 times in St. Louis elections for years and years.   I kid you not, a judge.   His whole family did.   It was a matter of pride and some amusement.   And it's a measure of our cynical, over-politicized times that the story made no splash.

Of course, the current worry about Missiouri voting fraud is that the Dems are not going to be able to have 110% of the electorate in St. Louis vote this time around.   Hence, the media concern.

BBC

Is the BBC biased? Yeah. They admit it.

Will it make a difference? Probably not. Like the Drive-By Media in the U.S. the BBC isn't constrained by the need to make a profit or demonstrate fairness. Or even pretend honesty. That's the trademark of the Left. Indifference to decency. In the name of the greater good, mind you!!!!

The End of 'Times'? Let's bloody well hope so

Eric Alterman, notorious Leftie, writing in The Nation, the ultra-left publication, on The End of Times?.  There's gloom in them thar newsrooms and in media conferences.  Except when the journos are reminded that they are Guardians of Democracy and an "intermediary and an interpreter between society and knowledge," as a Carnegie presenter in an "inspiring" lecture at the conference reminded them.  

I don't call that inspired.  I call it meglomania.   And then there are the excuses for the gloom.  It's the filthy profit margins demanded by Wall Street expectations that are costing jobs.   Not, of course, because those "consumers", ah, citizens, who resent the media assumption that they need an intermediary to knowledge just don't buy crap like The Nation (if you want to make a donation...) and the idiot savants like Eric Alterman.    Alterman works for MSNBC, the network that is hemorrhaging money like, as Dan Rather would say, a stuck pig on a buzz saw blade.  

Could it be that MSNBC is such a failure because of writers and thinkers like Alterman?  He seriously believes that every blog, every quasi-news outlet, every "fake" news site is parasitical on information gathered by newspapers and newsweeklies.  

Excuse me, but such outlets are the techno equivalent of the Letters to the Editor that used to -- used to -- provide the kind of feedback to newspapers and media outlets that made damn sure clueless meglomaniacs like Alterman never got beyond delivering the mail in the newsroom.  To better writers.  To people who could think.  To people who lived their lives outside of a Washington, D.C. cocktail party or a New York celeb event.

MSNBC is a colossal failure partly due to their reliance on the Eric Altermans and the Keith Obermann's who haven't a clue.  You can damn well believe that Alterman would want anyone, especially leftwing universities, buy out newspapers.  Lack of accountability is a trademark of both.  

Jack Shafer (see below) might have been responding to Alterman directly.

Endless love

Jack Shafer on Journalist's endless love -- for themselves
Newspaper people have enormous egos, if you get my drift, and don't mind massaging the big hairy things in public. Yet the press is hardly the sentry and bulwark of society that reporters imagine it to be. I don't mean to disparage reporters who put their lives on the line to file from Iraq, nor the sleuths who sift through databases to uncover wrongdoing by pharmaceutical companies, or any other enterprising reporter. But too many journalists who wave the investigative banner merely act as the conduit for other people's probing, as George Washington University professor and former investigative journalist Mark Feldstein suggests in a paper-in-progress titled 'Ventriloquist or Dummy?'
Turns out those investigative reporters are massaging government investigations and reports while simultaneously painting themselves as truth crusading investigative journalists and inferring that they are looking where the government isn't.  

And downsizing at newspapers only confirms what those who run and own newspapers think of the originality of that investigative report that -- isn't.

China bailing out Airbus

Airbus just got a bailout, only German's are calling it winning big.   China has ordered 150 A320 aircraft.  This follows a $10 billion order for Airbus planes last year that might or might not have been a firm order.   (Asia Times doesn't think so.   They say it was a "framework agreement".)  The Airbus deal also provides for plans for a plant in China with Airbus holding a 51% stake in the Tiajin facility.   A "long-term vision" thing with China.  

The fact that Airbus was intended to offer employment in the EU is moot, I guess.  "The agreement signed is for purchase of A320 family aircraft, but this family includes the A318, A319, A320 and A321, all of which are actually assembled in Germany except for the A320."   IHT (New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune) reports that French unions are not protesting opening a plant in China as they it will not take away jobs at the French Airbus facility at Toulouse.   Whether this is true, or whether the claim will prove to be true is something we can't know yet.  The IHT isn't known for their honesty.

The BBC, however, isn't too keen to look at the details.  

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Teaching - New Orleans style

It's a bold school experiment according to the Times-Picayne.   Or just maybe another indication of how poor the judgement of school administrators and teachers is in New Orleans.    Especially when it involves asking William Jefferson, D-LA, the indicted congressman, to speak at a high school class. It's a bigger picture to the Times-Picayne, though.
This week's teach-off highlights a newfound openness not just at John McDonogh but also in the Recovery District, which has given broad autonomy to principals at the 17 state-run schools.
It beats teaching. As the 2006 (GEE) Graduation Exit Examination results for McDonogh Senior High School shows. (Be sure to click on GEE to see what the scores mean.)

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Remembering Rwanda

In Rwanda public hearings are being broadcast live on radio on the complicity of France in the 1994 genocide. France has been long accused of having armed and trained those who were responsible for the killings.

Not that John Kerry or our Lamebrain Drive-By media will notice. They never noticed the killings, although how 800,000 died in the 100-day mass murder without public scrutiny is something no one can explain. Except, they didn't notice the 2 million who died under Pol Pot, either.

French ambitions     According to testimony, France, in Rwanda under a U.N. directive, had their own agenda.
Jacques Bihozagara -- a founding member of the Tutsi-led RPF, which is now the country's ruling party, and later Rwanda's ambassador to France -- said French policy was then driven by concerns about losing influence in Africa.

"France conducted a denigration and demonisation campaign against the RPF and its leaders," he told the panel in testimony aired live by Rwandan radio. The public hearings are the second phase of the probe.

Bihozagara said the policy aim was to support the French-speaking majority Hutu-led government in Rwanda against the RPF, which had bases in Uganda, an English-speaking former British protectorate.

"They thought a francophone country was being attacked by an Anglophone country" and believed "they had to rush to the rescue", Bihozagara told the panel in the one-time Belgian colony.
United Nations failure (again)   In the meantime, United Nations justice is, even now, stalling as it has done in Cambodia, as they wait for the clock to run out in order to avoid trying the guilty. In Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has -- get this enormous effort that has taken nine years and half a billion dollars -- since 1997 has tried and convicted a total of 25 ringleaders.

And lack of accountability   Of course, the real beauty of the U.N. tribunal is that the one most responsible for the tragedy - the United Nations - will not be subjected to tough questioning. No one will question Kofi Annan's role in the tragedy. As head of U.N. peacekeeping forces at the time, he ignored the problem. As did the First Black President, Bill Clinton.

Liberalism kills    The State Department under Bill Clinton refused to even acknowledge the "G" word. Then, as now in Darfur, the very label might compel them to act, as Steve Bradshaw, BBC Panorama correspondent, wrote.
The department's legal team feared that recognising the G Word would oblige the US to intervene because of the UN Genocide Convention. In fact the convention mandates no such thing, merely makes it a possibility. The lawyers knew this but politicians feared the public wouldn't follow such subtle reasoning.

Then, when the UN did decide to summon up an intervention force, the US delayed over the despatch of armoured vehicles. The arguments ranged from what colour to paint the vehicles to who would be paying for the painting.
That was Bill Clinton's State Department. That was Bill Clinton's part in the "Contract with Mutual Indifference." It's something Rwandan's aren't about to forgive.

Other witnesses to failure    But you dont' have to believe the BBC. General Romeo Dallaire, commander of the UN force wrote unflinchingly about on the failure in his book, "Shake Hands with the Devil".    Even the notoriously leftwing Guardian has nothing good to say about Bill Clinton's inaction in Rwanda.   Formerly classified documents reinforce the view that claiming ignorance isn't a viable defense

"Staying out of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objective," wrote Samantha Power in her lengthy "Bystanders to Genocide" Sept 2001 Atlantic Monthly series based on declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. There are a lot of familiar names in that report.

Of course, the best desciption of what did not happen was given by Clinton himself in an interview with Andrew Denton.
ANDREW DENTON: There must be a great sense of guilt about that. You can't put that in the abstract.

BILL CLINTON: I feel badly about it. I said so in the book. And the interesting thing was - and I don't hold anybody that worked for me more responsible than myself - but there was no particular call for it in the United States at the time, and not much clamour in Congress or in the editorial pages.
Knowing Clinton felt badly about it must be a great comfort to Rwandans. And the fact that our very own Drive-By media played a part in it is, well, just kinda forgotten, isn't it?

Monday, October 23, 2006

A sobering setback   For those holding out hope for stem cell research to be the magic cure, the reality is less than wonderful. Stem cell research may be no more than a cruel hoax.  

Or a political game.  Certainly, the Michael J. Fox video ad is a disgraceful and cheap political shot. In accusing the Republican candidate Senator Talent of wanting to criminalize stem cell research, Fox discredits himself and his organization.   He demeans himself.  As a poster to utube remembers, wasn't it John Edwards in 2004 who implied that if John Kerry were elected, Christopher Reeves would walk again because they would do the right things? Charlies Krauthhamer who does live in a wheelchair, was disgusted.
In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.
It's politics. Democrat politics.
Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot. It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there. But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the pale.
It was true in 2004.    And it is still despicable.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Fifth Columnists is a good choice of words.  Dailypundit on the New York Times apology.  He doesn't mince words.   (As Instapundit would say, HEH)

Saturday, October 21, 2006

It isn't a SNL skit.  It's just Miami.   
The Archdiocese of Miami apologized to Mark Foley for the priest who admitted that he had fondled Foley forty years ago.  The confession came from Anthony Mercieca, "who now lives on the Mediterranean island of Gozo".  Gozo???

In an apparently unrelated story, two Delray priests have led the good life.  In Las Vegas.

In the meantime, Barry Minkow of the 1980s ZZ Best Co. scam, is now a senior pastor at Community Bible Church in San Diego.    With some dubious friends.
German Irony   It's ironic when the Germans pass a law banning the import of seal products because the methods used to kill seals are brutal while German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with and dined with Vladimir Putin two days after the political assassination of a reforming journalist in Russia.   At the dinner, Putin predicted a bloodbath in Georgia, but that wasn't brutal enough to discourage Germans from buying Russian gas and oil.   After all, gas and oil is, well, money!

Strange bedfellows
(Shown) Steven Spielberg at a press conference in the Ukraine with "industrialist" and billionaire (#507 Forbes) Viktor Pinchuk who co-produced a documentary with Spielberg on the Holocaust in the Ukraine.

You might remember Victor Pinchuk, son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma. Victor was the happy winner in the privatization of Kryvorizhstal, one of the world's biggest steel plants and source of his fortune. He won the tender after beating out international rivals like LVM and US Steel who had offered twice as much. Kuchma has a lurid past, as reported by the BBC.
During his time in office, Mr Kuchma has lurched from one scandal to another, including being accused of complicity in the killing of an opposition journalist, over which he could face a jail sentence if he's charged and found guilty.
Then there was that nasty business of the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko.

The American drive-by media chose not to mention Viktor Pinchuk. Or Mr. Yushchenko. (shown below)
THE PR WAR AGAINST TRUTH AND LEARNING    Two versions of Egyptian President Mubarak's speech.

From Middle East Online,this rallying cry.
HEADLINE: Mubarak: Islam under 'ferocious attack'
SUB-HEAD: Egypt President calls for united response to offences to Islam, urges Muslims to correct wrong image.

CAIRO - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Thursday that Islam was under "ferocious attack" and called for a united response to offences to the religion.

"The Islamic world is facing a ferocious attack, painting Islam wrongly, offending Islam," Mubarak said at speech to mark the Muslim night of Leilat al-Qadr, the night the Koran is said to have come to the Prophet Mohammed.

"Arab and Islamic identity are under threat, following what happened and still happens in Lebanon, Iraq, the occupied territories and Afghanistan," he said.

"There is a need now, more than ever, to rally the efforts of the Islamic world and its people, to have one voice in the face of offence," he said.

Mubarak called on Muslims to "correct the wrong image and show the real face of Islam".

"We tell the world that Islam forbade racism and extremism. Nazism and fascism were not born on Muslim land," he said.

In August, US President George W. Bush said that a foiled bomb plot in London showed that the United States was still "at war with Islamic fascists."

"We do not accept offence to our holy beliefs with the excuse of freedom of opinion, expression or the press," Mubarak said.

"Insulting our beliefs increases feelings of anger and extremism and drags us all down dangerous slopes."

Caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed which were published in a Danish newspaper a year ago, and Pope Benedict XVI's speech in September in which he quoted a medieval Byzantine emperor who linked Islam with violence sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.

But Mubarak also called for introspection.

"It is time for an honest stand with the world, and a stand no less honest with ourselves," he said.

"Do we not, as Muslims, bear some of the responsibility for some of the wrong ideas about Islam, have we played our role in improving its image?," he said calling for a new religious dialogue based on "mutual respect."
The Associated Press story, however, shows signs that it was massaged by a PR consultant. Totally missing was this introspection obviously meant for European audiences as reported by the (New York Times-owned) International Herald -Tribune.
Mubarak said the golden age of Islamic civilization had retreated when creativity in Islam disappeared and people strayed away from the essence of the doctrine.

"We need a new religious approach that teaches people the correct things in their religion that gives greater value for interrelations, behavior, devotion and advocates principles of forgiveness and stands against exaggeration and extremism," he said.
Typically, we are supposed to accept the lack of a transcript of the speech.  

Thursday, October 19, 2006

This was predictable.
New York's highest court ruled Thursday that social service agencies run by the Roman Catholic Church and other faiths must provide birth-control coverage to their employees, even if they consider contraception a sin.
State law requires coverage for, among other things, prescription contraceptives.

And when gay marriage - not unions, but marriages -- is legal, you can bet that all churches will, despite their moral stance, be required to perform gay marriages. Or no marriages at all.
Bleak prospects in Europe Berlin is bankrupt with a 17% unemployment rate. Airbus is so cash strapped that they are talking about laying off workers despite their unions and political interference, so cash strapped that Russia bailed the company out by buying a 5% stake in EADS. Spain is swamped by illegal immigration, the only country to admit it.

Meanwhile, Europeans are going to save the world's climate after they clean up the mess they made in the Ivory Coast. The EU is turning to Russia for gas and oil amid worries about reliability (Russia cut off the Ukraine last winter and Europe was briefly without as a pipeline was shut.) and political costs. They're just now figuring out Russia isn't trustworthy and still might be communist. (Ya think?) France is looking at a increased mob violence threat from their unassimilated muslim youth.

Italy is run by a 9-party coalition that is rapidly losing support. Poland's coastguard fired warning shots at two German ships. German ship kidnapped 3 customs officers.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

When is war not a war? Pt 2 When the media say's it's a truce.

Like the "truce" amid "peace talks" in Sri Lanka, the "truce" in the Phiippines with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is largely paper. In an ongoing war since the 1960s, where 120,000 have died, Manila and the MLF and Manila have been, as Reuters (via The Scotsman) points, "talking for nearly a decade". Which ought to, if you think about it, be the point of the story. Forty years of talks and 120,000 dead.

That ought to be the headline instead of the silliness of a demand to have charges dropped against a terrorist leader.

But, then, the media, our own and international media, has no interest in solutions. No interest in the innocent victims of such eternal violence. T he media story is never the story of the victims, whether in Columbia, where the death toll is over 300,000 in their 40-year war with the Marxist FARC, or in Nepal where Marxist "rebels" as the media endearingly calls cold blooded killers are waging a Marxist war against the government. To the leftwing media, FARC is a "rebel army"

These are not "rebels" or "guerillas" or "insurgents" as the media likes to call them. They are murderers who work outside a democratic process in which they would never be granted authority by an electorate. They are anti-government. Calling them "rebels" is to endow them with respectability they do not deserve.

Hugo is Hopping Mad

Hugo Chavez must be gnashing his teeth after Spain pulled out of a deal to sell Venezuela 12 airplanes because of U.S. objections.

Maybe Hugo could get another hug from Cindy Sheehan instead.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Criminal Class

A commenter at The Scotsman, termed it "like bloody James Bond this." This being, the execution of business chief (or, Property Manager, depending upon accounts), of state-run Tass, found stabbed in his apartment.

Living in Russia is almost as dangerous as being a rapper, but at least they arrest people in Manhattan.
When is a war not a war? Over 65,000 have died in Sri Lanka, the result of a war fought since 1983 by the terrorist group the Tamil Tigers. This year alone, 2000 have died. On Saturday, 90 Sri Lankan soldiers died in a homocide bombing attack. In all, 29 countries list the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) a terrorist organization. Minor countries, like the U.S., Britain, India, Australia, Canada, the EU, etc. But, apparently, not Bill Clinton.

Typical of the media coverage is this story. In August 2006 eight men, including three Canadians who traveled to New York for the purpose , were arrested when they tried to buy surface-to-air missles. CNN notes that, in addition, they tried to obtain classified information and hoped to remove the Tamil Tiger group from the U.S. terrorist organization list. Oddly -- or maybe not so oddly considering the renown CNN bias -- CNN did not refer to the group as terrorist, despite the fact that they have been on the State Department list since 1997 and Madeline Albright chose to keep them there. So, both Republicans AND Democrats acknowledge the Tamil Tigers as terrorists but the media still refers to them as "rebels."

The Times of London open worries "How can the world bring Tamil Tigers back to table?" The question is why would you want to?
A terrorist disease A senior member of Hamas, another terrorist organization, and a spokesman for the Hamas-led government, Ghazi Hamad, openly wondered if violence is a Palestinian "disease" -- and then provided the answer.
Hamad wrote that 175 Palestinians had been killed by “Palestinian gunfire” since the beginning of the year.
Despite that, however, a search of news stories result in a focus on "Israeli clashes kill 7 in Gaza" as though the deaths were civilian. They were Hamas terrorists manning a rocket launching site responsible for sending rockets into Israel. To the always-biased Associated Press, the headline was "Israel ramps up Gaza offensive; 4 dead" No mention of the reason, that even the New York Times acknowledged as "Israel Steps Up Attacks to Halt Palestinian Rockets".
Another media blackout From the BBC, continued murder in Darfur and a confession none of the media will find important.
A former Janjaweed fighter 'Ali' now living in London has told the BBC that Sudanese ministers gave express orders for the activities of his unit, which included rape and killing children.

He told the Newsnight programme that Janjaweed fighters would go into Darfur villages after they had been bombed by the air force
.
Of course, there's no genocide there, according to the U.N. And no media outlet will criticize the Arab Janjaweed.
Multiculturalism NOTNO WAY

Monday, October 16, 2006

Travesty.   Found guilty of helping terrorists, the judge said Lynne Stewart "was guilty of smuggling messages between her client and his followers that could have 'potentially lethal consequences.' He called the crimes 'extraordinarily severe criminal conduct.' "   Before he sentenced her to 28 months.
A new newspaper model     Yet another article in praise of the non-profit, trust-funded newspaper model.    And, of course, there is the usual praise for the Leftwing The Guardian that is funded by the Scott Trust.  This time, the model is the St. Petersburg Times.  It, too, is funded by a trust, but not entirely.  Apparently the paper has to make a small profit to pay back the trust some money.

It's an admission that Liberal newspapers are not ever going to be profitable and they know it.  No one is buying their products, let alone their insistance that they are objective.  (Think Dan Rather, think Valarie Plame, think Jason Blair)  And it's another good sign that the marketplace has put them in their place.

Editor & Publisher warning of the new circ figures that show more circulation declines, was particularly inventive in explaining that newspapers were more interested in pruning circulation for their advertisers' benefit.   This is lip gloss reality, kinda shiny but not the real thing.  Newspapers have had to drop those "other-paid" subscriptions -- deeply discounted or free mass delivery to hotels or schools -- because advertisers became wise to the scam.

Friday, October 13, 2006

The truth, the whole truth    Three years ago, Peru's Shining Path was a "rebel group" and a "rebel movement...waging a war against the state" and an "insurgency."  Not once did the BBC refer to them as Marxists.  They did, however, caption a picture with: "Villagers were often killed by Shining Path rebels". (June 11, 2003)

Now that the militant group is largely defeated, however, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) is less cagey with it's description.
At its peak, the Shining Path had an estimated 10,000 armed fighters. The group wanted to replace the government with a Maoist peasant-centred regime.
Back in 2003, they were leftist rebels to the CBC.   You mean they were communists?   Oh yeah.

But did the media tell you that at the time?  No, and they still don't.
The Russiafication of Germany As Germany and France face economic pressures, the two countries are turning more and more to Russia to bail them out from their own misadventures. In particular, Germany, now headed by Angela Merkel, a former East German physicist is turning to the former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, to guarantee gas and energy supplies.
Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas monopoly, already supplies a third of Germany's energy and a quarter of all gas consumed in the European Union.
This, despite the unreliability of dealing with Russia and worries about last winter when Russia cut off pipeline supplies to the Ukraine, reneging on contracts with Shell and two Japanese investment firms and the outright seizure of Yukos and the assassinations including the director of Vneshtorgbank, the Russian state-owned bank that bought a 5% EADS stake.

In the meantime, Russia has helped to bail out the cash-strapped troubled EADS, the European aerospace parent of Airbus, by buying a 5% stake in EADS just in time to provide capital to keep the Airbus A-380 alive. Washington is said to be "dismayed" at Chirac's "complicity" in the sale. EADS is so in need of a cash infusion that Germany is considering buying a stake in EADS in a panicky attempt to preserve French and German jobs.

Even Germany's largest investor in EADS - DaimlerChrysler wants to cut their investment in EADS. Russia, however, has money to burn. Russia's newest German investment.

The story of the abject failure of the Airbus is equally the story of the failure of the European Union to curb corruption and political interference in every aspect of business, euphemistically called "corporate governance." It isn't, as the Guardian puts it, "European dream turns sour". It's a sour European dream - Socialism.

This is how the Associated Press reports the story.

And Gazprom? Well, Gerhard Schroeder, Ms. Merkel's predecessor, now works for the company that is run by a former East German secret police officer who was close to Putin in his KGB years. Small world, huh?
New Orleans Non-Recovery  
Fourteen months after Katrina, the city has yet to present a comprehensive recovery plan, many neighborhoods remain largely uninhabited, the school system is struggling to recover, there are questions about the future of the job market and violent crime has surged.
How come that isn't a major news item?  Just asking.
EU Recognizes Demographic Problem
The good news: the EU is finally noticing their demographic meltdown.
According to estimates provided by the commissioner, the number of Europeans of working age (between 15 and 64 years old) will shrink by 20 million by the year 2030, even taking into account 1.8 million immigrating into the EU every year.
The bad news: bureaucrats will, ah, consider the problem.
The even worse news: the immigrants will be muslim.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

International Socialism vs. the nation state   The European Commission is demanding all EU countries accept laws that will require drivers to turn on their lights during daytime.  In Britain, however, the Government had something to say about that!
The Government opposes the idea, but admitted this week that it was losing the argument and would be unable to veto a European directive.
Yes, complete capitulation. Let me understand.  You elect a government to represent you, but it can be overridden by Socalist bureaucrats with nothing else to do but ...   Oh wait, the government in Britain is Socialist, too. It's just an excuse to undermine national autonomy.

Next thing you know, the EU will be deciding how the government can build airplanes.  Oh wait, that's France and Germany.
Straining credulity    CBS News on Jordan Edmund's, ah, actions.
They met in person twice, including for dinner in San Diego in 2002. They went to Foley's hotel room but Edmund told agents he left after about 20 minutes and nothing untoward happened, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
It's looking more and more like Congressmen might have to be protected from predatory applicants.
Stuck in a time warp     Ken Reich runs a blog that advocates "taking back the [Los Angeles) Times -- the theory of which is that the Tribune ruined the paper -- has flashbacks.
I compared the Tribune executives to Richard Nixon, specifically mentioneding their inability, like Nixon's, to grow into a bigger job.
To his credit, he supports the war on terrorism, only with the kind of viciousness that epitomizes the Left, the perfect symbol of which is the mean-spirited, vicious and resentful Jimmy Carter. 

That's the weakness of the Left.  All emotion, no virtues.
We are supposed to emulate these people???    Whatever happened to "Sticks and stones can break my bones!  But names can never hurt me."?  In Germany, the German Football Association is investigating "racial abuse" after a complaint by England's Football Association complained that two British players claimed they were called "monkeys" by German players.  Yeah, that's racism to the Europeans. 

France is determined that massive deaths in Darfur isn't called "genocide" but passed a law in 2001 officially calling the Armenian massacres a genocide.   If Socialists get their way, it will be a crime to deny it.  Punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to EUR 45,000.   French law already outlaws revisionisn concerning the Holocaust as well.      Good thing for American Lefties that denying reality isn't a crime at the University of Wisconsin.

In the meantime, even Germans are wondering about the Airbus failure.  Deutsche Welle worries that "this most European of all companies have raised doubts about the construct's efficiency."  In the meantime, Merkel wants to reinstitute talks about an EU "constitution."   No one seems to connect the oh so obvious dots.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Page Scandal

While some are just beginning to notice Ken Silverstein's Harper's Magazine casual drop that two Democrat operatives had shopped the (non-explicit) e-mails in May, not only to Harpers, but to the St. Petersburg Times, the Miami Herald and a half a dozen others, the e-mails were party material even before that.

Washington Post, Oct 2, 2006 -
Also yesterday, a former House page said that at a 2003 page reunion, he saw sexually suggestive e-mails Foley had sent to another former page. Patrick McDonald, 21, now a senior at Ohio State University, said he eventually learned of "three or four" pages from his 2001-2002 class who were sent such messages.

[A correction at the top of the article clarifies: "An Oct. 2 article about inappropriate messages from Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to former House pages incorrectly said that former page Patrick McDonald had seen sexually suggestive e-mails from Foley. McDonald was merely present when recipients of the messages discussed them."]
So McDonald did not actually see any [non-explicit] e-mails but someone else claims to have.

Matthew Loraditch, who runs the now-offline U.S. House Page Alumni bulletin board, claimed he had known about the "creepy" messages "for years." They, according to him, were sent after the pages left and none were reported. He claims to have seen "cut-and-paste excerpts" of messages Foley sent to one of the three. And their reactions?
"Some went along with it, others cut it off," Loraditch said. "I'm pretty sure none met with him."

A day earlier, Loraditch was instrumental in creating this glaring headline:

Oct 1, 2006 ABCNews: GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001 Not only were the pages warned in 2001 about Foley according to Loraditch, but he said that some of the pages who "interacted" with Foley were hesitant to report his behavior because "members of Congress, they've got the power." Many of the pages were hoping for careers in politics and feared Foley might seek retribution.

Loraditch made the same claim in another ABCNews item (Oct 1, 2006 )

Former pages tell ABC News the pages involved with Foley were afraid to offend the powerful Republican congressman.

"So there would definitely be some hesitation especially for the people who want to move up in politics eventually," Loraditch explained. "You know, you don't want to get involved in something like that."
So not only were pages warned about Foley, they were afraid to offend him. Yet in an interview with Scripps Howard News Service. (Story dated Oct 1, 2006.) Loraditch had this to say about the reaction of the pages to the [non-explicit] e-mails.

"I've known about them (messages) for several years now," he said Saturday.
"It was more like, 'Hey, look at this,' " said Loraditch, 21, who served in the page program in the 2001-02 session. "I don't think the people in question felt that uncomfortable. It was more, 'Ooh, look at that creepy guy.'

"It was definitely crossing-the-line stuff. The instant message stuff, and stuff I've seen and heard about, definitely couldn't be misconstrued" as merely "friendly" or innocent, Loraditch said.
He then goes on to directly contradict his complaint that pages could not report Foley contacts for fear of retribution.
"The supervisors I worked with, if any of them had been told, it would have been dealt with at the time promptly," he said. "All of our supervisors were great people. They love pages. Half of them were former pages, and they've got kids of their own. If they had known about it, it would have been dealt with."
In another bizarre twist, shortly after the "pages were warned about Foley", Oct 2, 2006 - Loraditch backtracked from his ABC News contention. Pages were not warned. Did ABC make up the quote? Apparently not.

So how did Loraditch decide between one interview and the next that pages who were not "that uncomfortable" with the messages were suddenly victims who were unable to complain for fear of retribution? It would be interesting to find out.

It's hard to generalize about Loraditch, but hopefully the FBI will interview him. Under oath. Because it would be interesting to know which two former pages shopped the sexually explicit IMs. And whether they did so to protest their own innocence or whether they wanted to disapprove the actions of other pages who may have had voluntary explicit IMs with Foley.

In any case, few of the pages who have spoken publicly have been a credit to the page program.

Importing voters

Brussels, the non-European capital of Europe.

Latin Mass

The Latin mass is returning.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

A novelty

It's trivial, I know, but I nevertheless have to disagree with Laura Holson's claim that Animation films are losing their novelty as if "novelty" itself was the reason for their success.   And as if the banality in the case of the Tom Hanks (Warner Brothers) "The Ant Bully" and the lousy story and cheap animation of (Dreamworks)"Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" weren't factors. 

Let's face it, the lack of storyline, the repetitiveness of the "aren't animals cute", snarky over-the-top asides, and political correctness sank Disney Animation studios to the the point that they had to hire Pixar to make their films.  An eventual merger (not a buyout) left Pixar totally in charge of the Disney animation studios.

All of which says "novelty" isn't as much a factor as what is revealed by a quote from one producer.   "We just have to find a diversity of narratives." when what he meant was, we need better stories.  But, then, again, maybe he does want the diversity first.

We want a source

Well now we know it was a "Democrat operative" who shopped the non-illicit but creepy e-mails five months ago to the St.Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald and to Harper's Magazine's Ken Silverstein.  All of whom decided to pass on the non-story. 

UN stunt isn't well received

The United Nations isn't just corrupt.  They employ some of the dumbest people in the world.

Damned if you do

In Turkey, journalist Hirant Dink is to go on trial (again) for "insulting Turkisness" in writing about the 1915-1917 massacres of Armenians.  Previously he received a six-month suspended sentence for his writings.  Now it's likely he will be actually jailed for daring to refer to the massacre as genocide.

In France, in the meantime, they are considering a bill to make it a jailable offense to deny the massacre was genocide.  Dirk is opposed to that as well.
"This is idiocy," the Turkish-Armenian Dink said in remarks to the liberal daily Radikal. "It only shows that those who restrict freedom of expression in Turkey and those who try to restrict it in France are of the same mentality."
That's the soul of Socialism, however.  Free speech might lead to an inconvenient truth or, worse yet, a genuine dialogue. 

Victimhood bestows grievance.  Officially sanctioned Victimhood absolves the recipient of a need for personal responsibility or intellectual integrity serving to elevate the history, tragedy, or occurence to the political sphere so it cannot be debated, or disputed, or even considered.  It also makes for a wonderful continuity of conflict that is at the heart of the Marxist soul searching for eternal conflict, made all the more delicious for political elites to not only create victims but count on resentment from the non-sanctioned classes.   The American version of the European Socialist ideal is the Liberal Blame Plan.

Worth Remembering

I had forgotten about Mel Reynolds. In the comment section a commenter noted something I hadn't heard mentioned previously:
Underage? Get the facts straight...

The age of consent in the District of Columbia is 16, so neither this particular page or any other in the program were or are "underage" while within the limits of DC. The only time the age limit of 18 comes into play is if both parties are located in the same state which recognizes 18 as its age of consent, or state lines are crossed either by one of the individuals or the communication (assuming the CONTENT of which is criminal). The ONLY issues related to the information so far released involve a potentially improper and unethical (but not illegal) relationship between a senior and a subordinate and possibly some type of sexual harrassment claim which the page is clearly uninterested in pursuing. More information or evidence will probably come to light in the very near future, but in it's absence it would be nice to see this story accurately reported. Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way sorry that Mark Foley resigned his seat. But words such as "underage" and "pedophile" have no place in this story unless new evidence clearly supports their usage.
It's true

All the more reason why the Page program should be eliminated, DisneyNewsABC should apologize for the invasion of privacy in printing consentual IMs, and the Drive By media should just admit to a bias where Democrats actually have sex with campaign workers, interns, and pages without criticism and Republicans who don't are lynched.

It won't happen anytime soon. When the Democrats and the Drive By media are wholly supportive of a former KKK member in the Senate, you just can't expect decency.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Speculation Centers .. Does it ever!

It's typical of the Washington Post to play games with facts. Either that, or they really are dumb as dirt. Take the factual inaccuracies in this Elizabeth Williamson article (Sat Oct 7 Page A07). [Corrections to her story are in blue.] UPDATE appears at the bottom.
Likable and popular with female pages, [Conspicuous assertion on Jordan's behalf so that people will know he is NOT gay.] a committed Republican [This is yet to be proven.] who even as a teenager knew how to parlay chance meetings into political friendships, [Translation: he was a user.] Jordan Edmund has emerged as a key figure in the Foley page scandal.

The former House page has been targeted [Correction: identified] by conservative [Meaning that they are untrustworthy and less believable and have an axe to grind.] blogs as the young man on the receiving end [Corresponding for a whole year -- as his lawyer asserts (see below) -- is an indication that the exchanges were voluntary. The question is why?] of former representative Mark Foley's sexually explicit online instant messages, which have engulfed the GOP in a scandal that [We fervently hope.] could affect the outcome of the Nov. 7 congressional elections.

Edmund has hired a lawyer, Stephen Jones, [Formerly counsel to Timothy McVeigh but let's bury that in the depths of this article.] who will not acknowledge whether his client was the one who corresponded extensively with Foley for nearly a year. [This is new information and it suggests a long-term relationship that should be investigated.] Jones said he is going public with his client's name [ Correction: Those "conservative bloggers" actually revealed his name and the fact that the IM in question took place after Jordan Edumnd was no longer a page and when he was age 18.] to help Edmund fend off conservative attacks [An attack is a search for information that ABC conveniently failed to mention, such as Edmund's age at the time of the correspondence?] and a barrage of media inquiries. He said he will represent Edmund when he is interviewed early next week by the FBI.

"I did not discuss the messages with him," Jones said. "I'm not saying they're his. At this time I don't know." [I am representing him but haven't asked any questions.]

Jones declined to discuss his client's involvement in disclosing the instant messages to the news media. [His client might have been involved in disclosing the IMs to the media? Odd. If you even think of this you have to wonder. And new information suggests that Jordan posted info about the IMs a scant 6 minutes after the ABC story was posted, which suggests that Edmund was involved with the release of the IMs.]
Other Washington Post claims.

ASSERTED: Edmund contacted Jones.
ASSERTED: Jones is "a well-known Oklahoma City trial lawyer and Republican Party member." [Needs to be verified.]
FACT: Jones was appointed to represent Timothy McVeigh. [Verified.] link
DISTORTION: The message transcripts show a "humorous, sometimes self-conscious high school student". [Who was baiting an older man?]
ASSERTED: Another former page [Anonymous, of course, so bloggers cannot verify the story.] said Edmund was known for boasting of his friendship with Foley.
FALSE: Uninformed Washington Post staffer writes that "some blogs have published reports that the exchanges were a prank. [It was Drudge who reported that.]
ASSERTED: The lawyer claims "It was not a prank, not a practical joke that pages played on a congressman." [He knows this even though he has not discussed the IMs with this client?]

And why the title of the story? Speculation Centers around... If you conclude that Jordan Edmund released the IMs to ABC was it to persecute Foley or was it a desperate attempt to protect his own reputation?

UPDATE: The Washington Post titled their article "Speculation Centers around.." Newsday retitled it, "Figure emerges in Foley scandal". Meanwhile the Contra Costa Times claims Jordan Edmund was "chased off the internet by conservative bloggers" who are blaming him for Foley's downfall. The Contra Costa Times reporter is clueless about how Edmund's name became public. She asserts that Edmund's name appeared during an ABC news broadcast and was later posted by a conservative blogger. Michele R. Marcucci, writing for the Contra Costa Times, also asserts obliquely that Edumnds is straight with a [Edmunds] "a diverse array of interests -- including women -- but listed politics above them all."

Get real. You don't carry on a one year e-mail and IM conversations littered with gay sex references with an obvious gay like Foley if you're straight.

BRIEFLY

PALESTINIAN TERRITORY   The head of Palestinian intelligence is warning they are on the brink of a civil war. 

NORTH KOREA  Kim's message: War is coming to U.S. Soil, according to Kim Myong Chol ("Unoffocial spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North Korea.)   Scarey stuff.  He predicts He predicts after Korean tests that other anti-American countries will develop weapons.   He's right.

KOFI ANNAN NOT A HIT   Asia Times: Kofi Annan's tenure at U.N. was unqualified disaster.  Food for Oil, managed by Annan's UN Secretariat "possibly the greatest scam in history."  Even South Africans don't think highly of him.

SOUTH AFRICA    South African diplomat to London and his hellish children recalled to Pretoria.

MEXICO - "decapitation wave" as 15 murdered and decapitated in last few weeks.   (For daily news of the drug cartel war against the police, San Diego Union-Tribune is the best source.)

DENMARK   Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen addressed parliament saying today "a global battle of values" is being fought. 
'This isn't a battle of principles between cultures or religions, it's a battle between sensible enlightenment and fundamentalist obscurity, between democracy and dictatorship, between freedom and tyranny.
Do not look for the story in New York Times/Washington Post/ABC News anytime soon.

Dumb as dirt

Inept and soooooo revealing.
"This is how they show us the depth of their caring and support for US soldiers - by faking an image using a member of another country's military.
Democrat Party doesn't even know what an American soldier looks like.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Breathtakingly Stupid

If you think ABC was irresponsible with the release of consentual Instant Messages between Foley and Jordan Edmund, you haven't seen anything.  In San Francisco, John Mark Karr, the child pornography suspect who claimed to have killed JonBenet Ramsey was found wandering near the classrooms of a Catholic shcool when an employee called the police.   Shortly after, police stopped a limosene with Karr and two producers from ABC's Good Morning America" show. 

Jordan Edmund

Oklahoman reports some facts not previously known.

Jordan Edmund met with attorney Stephen Jones on Wednesday.  [Presumably to retain the lawyer at that time?]

Attorney Jones contributed $5,000 to the Istook [Rep. Ernest Istook, Republican] campaign.

Edmund described himself on MySpace.com as "deputy campaign manager for Istook."     And described himself as a U.S. House page from September 2001 to June 2002.  "He said he is straight."

Istook reportedly urged him "to cooperate fully with law enforcement" and the House Ethics Committee." and is quoted as saying "This is a young man who is bright and hardworking. He does not deserve the public embarrassment that he now faces. .. [ellipse theirs] What he needs and deserves is Christian compassion."   [Compassion for what?]

Jones claims "Jordan was a minor when the alleged events described in the media occurred." [What events?   The media-described (St. Petersburg Times, Miami Herald) "innocuous" e-mails? or?]

Why would the former page need a lawyer?   People usually need lawyers to seek damages, but Jones is a criminal attorney.  

Friday, October 06, 2006

Air America's Shady Beginnings

Two executives from Gloria Wise Community Center, a NYC charity that ran a school in the Bronx and youth and senior programs from government money and grants, have been indicted for misappropriating $1.2 million. They pleaded guilty.

Beside their "unusally large salaries" ($249,610 for Rosen and $185,217 for Aulenbach) the two, along with three others, took $290,000 for their own use.   Gloria Wise money provided the start up of $875,000 to Air America. 

[Page numbers refer to the NYC Investigation Findings, link found at bottom.]

According to the New York Sun, the facility was also found to have falsified student records to show pre-school children had been vaccinated when they had not to pass a health department audit.  (p 30)   There were also speech therapy schemes to bill for one-on-one therapy that sent children for a group session. (p 30)

Lorraine Corva, who oversaw the nursery school aimed at children requiring special education took more than $37,000 to cover car payments for two BMW's.  Her salary was $189,000.  The Dept. of Investigation report showed she improperly received over $60,000 via various schemes. (p 11)

Sinohe Terrero was Gloria Wise's Fiscal Director.  He left in 2003 to become Vice-President of Finance at Air America. 
New York City Dept of Investigation 37-page Findings.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

New Orleans

No longer a captive poor population, only some 187,525 live in New Orleans since Katrina, down 60% as this AP story reports.

Socialized medicine

Three women miscarried in the last three months while waiting for help in a Canadian hospital emergency room.

A culture of partisanism

The comments section (scroll down)at the Palm Beach Post in their hit piece editorial about Foley are eye opening.  Not that the partisan editorial staff would care a bit.
Lots of people have admitted to knowing about the emails, but the emails are not what got Foley in trouble. It is the IM's that are so disturbing.

As of today, the only person that we actually know had seen the IM's prior to last week, is Brian Ross. He says he knew about them in August, but was too busy to do anything about it.

So why don't I see Ross's name mentioned here? Or anywhere else? Why is there no anger towards the only person who has admitted prior knowledge about this?

I guess "(t)he only plausible explanation is that political values mattered more than American values."


Posted by: Kathy at October 3, 2006 02:07 PM
Good points, Kathy.

ABC Ups the Stakes

ABC will have to produce the three more pages they say accuse Foley.  After ABC initially lied about the age of the page in the first e-mail -- he was 18 -- and the deliberate and phoney implication that that e-mail should have been acted upon when the St. Petersburg Times, the Miami Herald, Fox News, the FBI, and every other organization who received it did not act -- ABC is hardly credible.

At this point we want proof.  More than the "verbal accounts" on sale by ABC.   Names.   Witnesses.   Hard copies.   And, most of all, we want Foley's computers to be in FBI hands.  And the three pages' computers too.

Drudge finds another blue dress

Passonateamerica explains how he found former page Jordan Edmund who, at this point, looks very very bad.

The big question is -- how come ABC didn't find this out?

Los Angeles Time shakeup (finally)

The Tribune Co. has finally "forced out" Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey Johnson finally taking charge of the paper.  David Hiller, publisher of the Chicago Tribune is expected to replace Johnson.

Press Release from Tribune
It's about time.  Johnson has reportedly refused to follow directives to lay off more useless Los Angeles Times staff.  It isn't that they are reducing journalism staff.  Tribune Co. has been whittling down the editorial staff - 200 in the last 5 years.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Fiddling while Rome....

Mark Foley engaging in IM sex is one of those feigns that allows the Drive-By media to distract, distort, and redirect.  It isn't telling you what to think.  It's telling you what to think about.   And what not to think about.

Darfur
Oct 4 2006 2006  Rice implores world to open Darfur to U.N.
Oct 4 2006   UN and muslims clash over Darfur

Iran Developing Nuclear Weapons
Oct 3 2006  Hoping to enlist French help

North Korea
Oct 3 2006 North Korea plans nuclear test
Oct 4 2006   China and South Korea warn North Korea against nuclear tests
Oct 4 2006 U.S. detects nuclear test site activity
Oct 4 2006   China tells North Korea to step back from brink

Cuba
Sept 17 2006  Czech Foreign Minister criticizes Cuba over human rights.
Sept 27 2006 U.N. expert cites Cuban censorship
Sep 28 2006  U.N. Official Criticizes Cuba's Human Rights Record
Sept 29, 2006   Russia extends $350 million credit to Cuba.
Oct 2 2006   Former President Vaclav Havel fights for human rights, especially in Cuba.

Human Trafficking
Sept 26 2006   Entertainer Ricky Martin works to combat Human Trafficking.
Sep 29 2006   Long Island woman gets 10 years for human trafficking
Oct 2 2006  U.S. Ambassador urges Manila to act on human trafficking.

Nicaragua
Sep 29 2006   Daniel Ortega, "former Marxist" on the comeback trail

Venezuela
4 Oct 2005   Chavez closed deal with Russia for $3 billion in arms
Oct 3 2006 Rumsfeld concerned over Venezuela arms build up

Russia
Sep 30 2006   Russia and Georga spy row spirals out of control

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Interesting

Business Investor's Daily asks what I have wondered. It especially makes you curious about a page terms an e-mail "sick" and sends it off last year to lots of interesting people as noted below.

From New York Times-owned International Herald this story about the e-mail.
Meanwhile, Florida newspapers — who were leaked copies of the e-mail with the Louisiana boy last year — defended their decision not to run stories. Both The St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald were given copies of the e-mail, as were other news organizations, including Fox News.

"Our decision at the time was ... that because the language was not sexually explicit and was subject to interpretation, from innocuous to 'sick,' as the page characterized it, to be cautious," said Tom Fiedler, executive editor of the Herald.   "Given the potentially devastating impact that a false suggestion of pedophilia could have on anyone, not to mention a congressman known to be gay, and lacking any corroborating information, we chose not to do a story."
If they didn't run with the story, why would the Republican leadership not feel the same way?

Foley Follies

The "F" word ("fairness") doesn't appear once in Paul Farhi's piece ("The Redder they are The Harder They Fall") in the Washington Post on how Republicans and Democrats are affected by scandal.  (Democrats aren't, with rare exceptions.)  It is, however, a great read.  (Just don't expect it to show up on Romensko's site.)

Don Surber weighs in on the Washington Times calling for the resignation of Dennis Hastert.  Heh

Viewspapers


First Michael Kinsley and now Frances Sellers, an editor at the Washington Post, writing in American Journalism Review advocating American Newspapers embrace the British newspaper model.  Not the broadsheets, however, but the Independent and the Guardian, both leftwing papers.

Of course, it doesn't help that Sellers describes the Independent (circ "only around 260,000") as "financially strapped" and "fourth out of the mainstream four" and the Guardian (circ 380,000) isn't economically viable and has to be funded by a trust.  Pointing to Robert Fisk as an asset is also revealing.  Fisk is so unreliable that to "fisk" something is to refute it step by step without much effort at all.  She actually admires the Independent's "promotion of views over news" fondly calling the two papers "viewspapers" and seems to admire their "business strategy".  (Being strapped is a business model?  Being funded by a trust is a business strategy?)

The one admission Sellers makes is that American papers are suffering "crises of trust" due to renewed "questions about whether American papers' claims of fairness are a cover for pushing a political agenda."   Nevertheless, she thinks U.S. papers ought to follow lefty British papers.   Like this.

We thought they already had.  

Miami Herald Shakeup

The publisher for the Miami Herald resigned after Cuban-Americans cancelled subscriptions, forcing the newspaper to reconsider the firing of two journalists and a freelancer for their popular stints on Radio Martiand TV Marti promoting democracy for Cuba.  

It is perfectly acceptable to write or broadcast for Voice of America but not advocate freedom for Cubans.  That was the crux of the problem.

More    Letter of Resignation

The Quiet Observer

The always thoughtful Michael Barone writing in the New York Sun on the "Disappearing us"
One of the salutary results of the Clinton administration, I thought, was that it got liberals and Democrats in the habit of using the first person plural. U.S. military forces in Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere were 'our troops.' NATO and Japan and Australia and all the rest were 'our allies.'

The second person plural used to come naturally to all Americans. G.I.s in World War II were 'our boys' (the second word now politically incorrect and also inaccurate), whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, from the North or the South, black or white. But the Vietnam War got liberals out of that habit. American troops were 'the military.' They were sent into Lebanon and Grenada not by 'the president,' but by 'the Reagan administration.' (Did anyone say that troops were ordered to Normandy or Iwo Jima by 'the Roosevelt administration'?) The Gulf War in 1991 was regarded by most Democrats and liberals as 'their war.'
The very reasonableness and decency of quiet spoken Barone makes his indictment of liberal and Democrats all that more compelling.

Monday, October 02, 2006

This story will have no legs

The Palm Beach Post is no fan of Republicans.   So it's curious that they would run a story that disputes a claim a former page made he said they were "warned" about Foley.   Especially when the former page posted his correction and near-retraction on the college social network, Facebook.com

Don't expect ABC to acknowledge that they overstated the case, or more correctly, eagerly pursued a non-story.

Sheeze

Panic at the Washington Times.   Unlovely.

They fired the editors, right?

From "no applause" to "11.44 seconds of applause."   Sheeze, those editors failed again!

Hattip: Harry's Place link

ABC News -- Isn't

From ABC World News (under the banner flashing "Say Good Morning America") nine pages of transcript of the instant messages between Foley and an anonymous page.

(The New York Times advertising link is totally appropriate.)

Reads like some young kid leading a sickly obsessed gay guy around.   The fact that the kid reportedly saved the messages is probably significant.   Equally significant is the BRIAN ROSS INVESTIGATES: "Do You Have Info About Foley's Contact With Pages? E-Mail Us Via Our Secured Server."

If Foley wasn't a Republican, he would be re-electable like Gerry Studds.   Or a celebrity like Robin Williams (fresh from alcohol rehab and proud of his cocaine and alchohol rahab in the 1980s.)   Or there's George Michael  (rearrested for drugs)   - no mention of the repeated gay sex trolling. Then there is the "Candid Chat with Mark Wahlberg" who
led a life characterized by incidents of petty crime, drug dealing and racism.

He harassed a group of African American school kids with racist epithets, and when he was 16, again using racist language, he attacked a middle-aged Vietnamese man and left the man blind in one eye. Wahlberg was arrested for attempted murder, plead guilty to assault, and spent 45 days in jail.
All forgiven because, well, he's a celebrity.   He didn't talk dirty to a page.   He only tried to murder someone and left a man blind in one eye.   The "racial epithets," however, was probably really bad to ABC.  To heck with the drug dealing, there's "Racism" and "using racial epithets" and "again using racist language."   The attempted murder.. well   heck, no big thing.

Every one of those stories was featured on the front page of ABC World News web site.   And only Foley was "irredeemable"   in "Running to Rehab" - "But experts caution that what might work for a celebrity might not work for others in the public eye."   Yeah.   Unless they are Republican.

Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee

The WashPo, no slouch when it comes to carrying vendettas worries a lot about bloggers. [Emphasis mine.]
Stan Collender, a public relations specialist at Qorvis Communications LLC in the District, said the potential for bloggers to damage the reputation of a business or person is a growing concern.

'It's like pamphleteering on the corner, only its cheaper, quicker and vastly more broad,' Collender said. 'But unlike the traditional media, it's completely unregulated in that there's no fact checking, no editing. It has all the potential for creating a lot of damage to someone's or something's reputation very quickly, and it's almost impossible to eliminate it. Any unsubstantiated rumor has a very good chance of getting out there.'
I guess those editors were hard at work at CBS looking over Dan Rather's shoulder.  And all that false information about Valerie Plame is still not corrected.   And there's the blatant falsification of stories by Jack Kelly of USA Today and Jason Blair of the New York Times.   I guess those editors got fired, right?

Where, I wonder, is the "traditional media" regulated?   Certainly not by subscribers who get fewer and fewer every year, who, having voted with their subscription cancellations, don't bother with even reading a newspaper.   Until the internet even advertisers didn't act as a check on the drive by media excesses.  What choice did they have?   Screw with newspapers and you get what the automobile dealers got when they protested the fraudulent subscription figures at Newsday.   They were told the paper wouldn't carry their ads.

So WHO exactly regulates the media?   Unlike the U.K. our media isn't even held responsible for libel anymore unless you can prove that there was malice.   The media can somehow discern hate in a crime against a protected political class -- oddly enough always Liberal groups -- but trying to prove malice on their part would require truth serum and plenty of lie detectors and an insider willing to testify.   Yet they are able to detect hate in everyone else.   Does anyone believe their malice doesn't exist?  

The reason for the hit piece is simple.  What bloggers do is function as a check against media excess, something they hate with a passion.   Bloggers are the Letters to the Editor the drive by media routinely ignores.  Bloggers act as the memory that is persistent and selectively faulty with the drive by media.

No one is supposed to have an opinion except the drive by media.  There's a wonderful tradition of pamphleteers in this country.  The Federalist Papers come to mind.   But, hey, if the Washington Post had their choice, those wouldn't be printed either.

Best of the Day

Clarice Feldman in an amazing post at The American Thinker asks people to Investigate This.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

The California the MSM Hides

Another insane bill Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed approved by the Democrat Assembly and Senate would have given California's electoral votes for president to the national popular vote winner no matter how voters in California voted.

Schwarzenegger also vetoed drivers licenses for illegal aliens.

But this fiasco is the real California.

Media War

Part of our war is against the Media War of Agression.

Duly noted

Good news:
Tourists from 22 European countries have long travelled to the United States relatively hassle-free and without a visa. But as of September 30, they -- along with visitors from five other countries -- will be digitally fingerprinted and photographed, according to a recent announcement by the United States' Department of Homeland Security.

SHAMELESS boosterism from Clinton's best friend, the BBC, includes:
- "hailed as the most gifted natural politician of his generation'
- "the unsinkable president of the 1990s, his own personal popularity weathering political setbacks and a sex scandal that ended in an impeachment trial."
[No mention that he was impeached.]
- "all but grabbing an interviewer by the scruff of the neck and shaking him on the conservative Fox News network's flagship Sunday morning show?"
[Really?   I've seen it twice on tape and didn't see that.]

No wonder the Brits are so politically uninformed if they depend on the BBC.  
They bury the important stuff.   (Scroll to the last sentence.)
WHERE is Yassir Arafat when Palestinians need him?   Indeed
JUST your typical New Jersey corruption.

Slimey California Politics

If you think PBS is Liberal and carries a message, you need look no further for the proof.

BACKGROUND:   KOCE-TV is a PBS station owned by Coast Community College.   It has been a losing proposition for years and the community college wants to sell it.   Only not to anyone, especially not on the open market to a televangelist network.

Daystar Television, a televangelist group, offered $40 million for the station.   The college trustees outright refused the Daystar offer and accepted a $28 million offer from the non-profit fundraising KOCE Foundation, only $8 million of which was cash.   The rest was in long-term loans, with interest.   The college sold the station to their own foundation in 2003.   Shortly after the sale they renegotiated with the Foundation and accepted an even lower offer that changed the 30-year promissory note to no interest.  Daystar sued and the sale was overturned twice. The court called the sale "the rankest form of favoritism."  [The decision was unpublished and only available online for a brief time. OC Blog comments on decision.]

This is where the California Assembly and Senate took over.   Both are dominated by Democrats who passed AB523 to make an exception to allow Coast Community College to sell to the lowest bidder.   State law requires such sales be cash, so the bill was essential to make an exception for KOCE.

The good news?   Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.   The lession:   the California legislature has, once again, been given cover by the Los Angeles Times.   Democrats claim Daystar's victory was due to representation by a former California Republican legislator, completely ignoring the "rankest form of favoritism" charge by an impartial court and the flat refusal of the California Supreme Court to review the case.