Low Earth Orbit

Beer mug academics

The Corner has highlighted a review of book by John Ogbu (the Brothers Judd were, as ill befits conservatives, ahead of the curve on this one). The review is excellent and should be read.

Ogbu studied a Cleveland suburb that was heavily integrated and well funded. Despite this, there was still a large disparity between black and non-black academic achievement. After a detailed analysis of the data, Ogbu condenses it down to a primary reason:

In this fashion, Ogbu gradually narrows the range of possible explanations until he comes to his own: "Observations and interviews in Shaker Heights and elsewhere suggested that Black Americans have what might be called 'a beer mug' model [of] school teaching and learning. In this model, students learn and perform well if the teacher pours knowledge well into students" (p. 235). The parents, in other words, "did not perceive themselves as active agents in the education process" (p. 236).

Not active agents in the education process. I agree, that says it all right there.

How S. Korea's view of the North flipped

The change in South Korean general attitudes about the North from 10 years ago (when they were the enemy) to today has been the result of a deliberate effort by the South Korean government and media [source, source].

To emphasize the building of trust [between the Koreas], the Kim government in the South has invested heavily in the North. It has also kept negative news and a steady series of embarrassing brushoffs by the North out of the South Korean media - a policy that continues.

"For five years now, the KDJ government has successfully changed public opinion toward North Korea and the US," says Kim Tae-hyo, a professor at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul. "The North is no longer regarded as an enemy. The North's nuclear program, the West Sea incident [where the North killed sailors], missile tests, the kidnapping of hundreds of South Koreans - it doesn't matter to ordinary people anymore. At the same time, you hear the US blamed more often."

One cited incident is involved the death of two school girls from a US military accident. This results in wide spread condemnation of the US in South Korea, but as mentioned above the kidnapping and killing of South Koreans by the North goes little remarked. I just have got to find out where these totalitarians get their PR agents.

THIS JUST IN: Al Jazeera infiltrated by Ba'ath

Al Jazeera's director general has been fired, The Times reports, following the discovery that he was working with Saddam Hussein's secret police. [source]

Clinton lost to the African Bush

Bob Geldof astonished the aid community yesterday by using a return visit to Ethiopia to praise the Bush administration as one of Africa's best friends in its fight against hunger and Aids.

The musician-turned activist said Washington was providing major assistance, in contrast to the European Union's "pathetic and appalling" response to the continent's humanitarian crises.

"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy," Geldof told the Guardian.

The neo-conservatives and religious rightwingers who surrounded President George Bush were proving unexpectedly receptive to appeals for help, he said. "You can get the weirdest politicians on your side."

Former president Bill Clinton had not helped Africa much, despite his high-profile visits and apparent empathy with the downtrodden, the organiser of Live Aid, claimed. "Clinton was a good guy, but he did fuck all."

   – [source, source]

Dowd for the count?

Maureen Dowd is being investigated for deliberately distorting a quote from President Bush. That makes three major ethical scandals at the NY Times in less than a month. Definitely the “paper of record”.

ICC fufills its purpose

The International Criminal Court is off to the expected start with a case against UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and various other members of his administration for war crimes in Iraq [source].

United Nations watch

The UN is on the job in opposing violence: [source, source]

There are women's bodies scattered in Bunia's main market place; a baby's body on its main road; two priests' bodies inside one church. Last week, a burning corpse was tossed on to the main UN compound's lawn, to show 700 Uruguayan peacekeepers what they were missing while they cowered under fire behind its razor-wire perimeter, unauthorised to intervene in the latest massacre of Congolese civilians

See, no evil Western imperialistic violence there! As the UN knows, only violence done by or sponsored by Western nations is real violence. Anything else is just local customs.

NY Times credibility watch

Mickey Kaus is finally, actually shocked at the shoddiness of journalism at the NY Times. I will quote extensively because Kaus doesn't have permalinks. That's shoddy in a different way.

The sensational news from yesterday's Editor's Note isn't so much that the New York Times' Rick Bragg fraudulently suggested he was present when a quaint oysterman spouted quaint, perfect quotes as he pushed his quaint boat over Apalachicola Bay (if, in fact, this ever happened at all). As Jack Shafer notes, Bragg has been an editor-protected scandalette-waiting-to-happen for years. But I'm genuinely shocked--not for-show shocked and not "shocked, shocked"--at the apparent complaints from other Times reporters that they're now confused because they routinely rewrite the reporting work of stringers (non-Times freelancers) and slap their own bylines at the top! Blair was arguably an aberration. This seems to be systemic. According to the New York Post's Kelly and Barack:

Many Times staffers said they were surprised by the note, since it is common for Times reporters to use material from stringers without giving credit.

"People write off memos filed by stringers a lot," said one insider. "The policy was that the person writing the story got the byline." [Emphasis added.]

[…]

It turns out we weren't reading the reporting of the famous, cream-of-the-profession Times employees, but the reporting of unidentified "stringers" we've never heard of. ... Conventional journalists sometimes sneer at blogs because there's no way for a reader to know whether what a random, unknown person says on his Web site is true. But it sounds as if the Times is not so different from a blog after all--what you are reading is really the work of random, unknown "legs" and stringers.

Then Kaus lets fly with the real zinger:

Of course, in other ways the Times and the typical blog are very different forms of jounalism. One obsessively reflects the personal biases, enthusiasms and grudges of a single individual. The other is just an online diary!

US forces raid Iraqi National Congress headquarters

Stupid is as stupid does. Clearly there has been a failure to communicate: [source, source]

Last night at 11 p.m. in Baghdad, heavily armed American soldiers in flak jackets and helmets stormed the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress, a pro-American group […] The raid was apparently carried out on the basis of a tip

[…]

The leader of the Iraqi National Congress, Mr. Chalabi, has testified before Congress and met with Vice President Cheney. The INC was authorized by the American government to receive Pentagon funds. Mr. Chalabi and his allies have fought for years to unseat Saddam at great personal risk.

The Americans were searching for illegal weapons which apparently were not found. I think there must be former DEA agents in the command structure.

Powell Watch

Our State Department in action, actively opposing the policies of the current administration. Will there be any consequences? That will be up to Colin Powell but the record on that speaks for itself. When confronted with this story, the State Department spokeman said that the meeting was supposd to be "off the record".[source, source]

Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met with a coterie of Israeli doves and Palestinian Ministers and officials under the banner of Peace Now at the U.S. Consulate in West Jerusalem. […] his response to left-wing Knesset Member Colette Avital who, according to the minutes of the meeting reported in The Jerusalem Post, "expressed reservations about the U.S. Conservatives, Christians and AIPAC," and alleged that these constituencies, "are lobbying to torpedo the road map and suggested that the Americans should help us [the Peace Coalition] to express our views to the American public."

[…] Burns stated his view that "the common sense of all peoples will override the Conservative and Christian viewpoints once they see the road map's potential." He told the anti-government group to continue with their political activities "as new peace attempts reflects the peoples will and will result in fundamental changes."

THIS JUST IN: Ba'ath faked deaths from sanctions for propaganda

Now that the Ba'ath regime has fallen, doctors, nurses and other care givers are revealing that the Ba'ath labeled all infant deaths as due to sanctions, go so far as to refrigerate the corpses until they could be used during anti-sanction parades. [source]

Under the sanctions regime, "We had the ability to get all the drugs we needed," said Ibn Al-Baladi's chief resident, Dr. Hussein Shihab. "Instead of that, Saddam Hussein spent all the money on his military force and put all the fault on the USA. Yes, of course the sanctions hurt - but not too much, because we are a rich country and we have the ability to get everything we can by money. But instead, he spent it on his palaces."

[…]

Doctors said they were forced to refrigerate dead babies in hospital morgues until authorities were ready to gather the little corpses for monthly parades in coffins on the roofs of taxis for the benefit of Iraqi state television and visiting journalists.

NY Times credibility watch

Andrew Sullivan lays out the open bias of the NY Times:

DOWD'S DECEPTION: Spinsanity picks up on this blog's early criticism of Maureen Dowd's deceptive attempt to say that president Bush declared that al Qaeda was "not a problem any more." He never said that. But Bill Press, Paul Begala, and other liberals on CNN repeated the canard. The New York Times has not run a correction. Dowd has not run a correction in her column either. Even after Jayson Blair, they're shameless. I'd say the real test of whether Raines is serious about improving the quality of the Times is whether the paper corrects Dowd's lie. We're still waiting.

Belgium exports toxic legal waste

Belgium has decided to refer the war crimes accusations against US general Tommy Franks back to the US. The publicity seeking delusional fool lawyer who originally filed the case claims that he will appeal the decision.

Journalistic Ethics

A great quote from Instantman:

How bad have things gotten? Bad enough that when you compare journalism to sausage-making, people write in to defend sausage-makers!

Powell Watch

One wonders if this kind of thing indicates an administration unable to get control of a rogue agency or profound disregard for a irrelevant agency. [source, source]

Walk the halls of the State Department's main offices in Washington these days, and you'll encounter an abundance of political cartoons — something you could not have found even three years ago. It's not that the diplomats at Foggy Bottom have suddenly developed a sense of humor, but rather a newfound contempt for the leader of the free world. The cartoons overwhelmingly lampoon President Bush as a simpleton who doesn't understand the "complexities" of the foreign policy.

Foreign Service sneering at a president is nothing new, of course, but such open disrespect for a commander-in-chief hasn't existed since Foggy Bottom's diplomats decried Ronald Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire." But at least then-Secretary of State George Schultz was able to keep something of a handle on his lieutenants and foot soldiers. Colin Powell has not.

So many holes the credibility doesn't know which way to drain

Yet more on the BBC fake rescue story gathered by Instantman. John Kampfner of the BBC has backed off the original claim of a fake rescue and now just accuses the Pentagon of generating propaganda from the effort. As Instantman says, “Duh!”. This is news? But the best statement is from Instantman read Bill Adams:

If the American forces arrived firing blanks and playing tapes of explosions to create a great p.r. film, where's the film? Kampfner complains that the U.S. suppressed the "rushes" and only supplied a "professionally-edited" final tape, but note the complete logical disconnect: that edited tape, the tape the military's press managers presumably wanted to put out from the get-go, doesn't show Americans firing wildly in response to explosion noises. So Kampfner's claim is—what?—that they faked combat in order to the fool the world, but then didn't show any of the fakery in order to fool the world.

Journalist ethics

CNN recently showed a segment on “assault weapons”. During the segment, they showed the results of firing at a cinder block with banned semi-automatic long arm (big holes) and with an unbanned semi-automatic longarm (no holes). However, it turns out that for the latter the shooter did not actually shoot at the cinder block. The question everyone has to ask about any CNN segment these days is “Are they lying, on the take or just stupid?”. [source]

French choice

Francoise Thom explains the reasons behind the apparently irrational diplomatic choices made by France. [source]

And therefore the goals that Chirac’s foreign policy has set for itself are the struggle against American unilateralism, the transformation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy from a statement of intentions to an institutional reality and the elevation of France to the status of a power whose voice is heard on the global stage.

In every one of these aims, France has obtained results that are the opposite of those it had been pursuing.

[…]

In its foreign policy, France has in a way put on the boots of the defunct Soviet Union:

• same obstructionist policy at the UN
• same third-world-ist demagoguery
• same alliance with the Arab world
• same ambition to take the lead in a coalition of “anti-imperialist” states against Washington

BBC Bias Watch

Instantman has articles on a claim by the BBC that the Pfc. Lynch rescue in Iraq was faked. The BBC apparently simply didn't do any actual fact checking on the story. Another post has a great quote:

Just look at the fact that the BBC recruits entirely from advertisements in the Guardian

Woops, what was I thinking? Clearly there's no bias there. More updates from Instantman about how the main witness for the BBC could end up with war crime charges if the standard story about Lynch is true (but not being an American, he's guaranteed objective and trustworthy).

FBI runs over suspect

The FBI has been conducting surveillance on Steven Hatfill, someone accused but never formally charged with involvement in the anthrax attacks in the US. Yesterday FBI agents ran over his foot with a car. Hatfill was issued a ticket for "walking to create a hazard". It's an open question of who is more lame, Hatfill with his bruised foot or the FBI with their bruised appearance. [source]

Americans are so cruel

The poor Dixie Chicks, suffering from people disagreeing them. Now, in Iraq, that kind of torture isn't done – instead singers who offend the political consensus are shot dead. [source]

Ann Coulter explains the NY Times

The New York Times is to be commended for ferreting out Jayson Blair, the reporter recently discovered making up facts, plagiarizing other news organizations and lying about nonexistent trips and interviews. A newspaper that employs Maureen Dowd can't have had an easy time settling on Blair as the scapegoat.

– [source, source]

Susan Estrich tells the Clinton Crew to shut up

The Democrats might have a chance of electing a new president if they could get the last one, and his defenders, to clear the stage. It doesn't matter if they're right or wrong. They should be history.

The Clintons suck up every bit of the available air. Nothing is left for anyone else. They are big, too big. That's the problem.

– [source, source]

Religious tolerance

The Palestinian Authority’s Mufti in Jerusalem is threatening that if Jews set foot in the Temple Mount, there will be a “bloodbath”: [source]

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a senior political advisor to Arafat, said: “This [non-Muslims visiting the Temple Mount] could be the trigger for a third intifada”

[…]

The PA Mufti in Jerusalem, Ikrimah Sabri, warned over the weekend that allowing Jews to enter the Temple Mount would result in a bloodbath.

NY Times hypocrisy watch

“[T]he move to hold top managers personally liable for any misrepresentations made to investors – which the new corporate oversight legislation also does – is a watershed worth celebrati…C.E.O’s will no longer be able to feign ignorance about the details of the companies’ accounting, as Jeffrey Skilling haughtily did early this year at a Congressional hearing on Enron’s implosion.”

— The New York Times, editorial, "Downsizing the Imperial C.E.O.," August 9, 2002

"But Mr. Sulzberger emphasized that as The New York Times continues to examine how its employees and readers were betrayed, there will be no newsroom search for scapegoats. ‘The person who did this is Jayson Blair,’ he said. ‘Let’s not begin to demonize our executives – either the desk editors or the executive editor or, dare I say, the publisher.’"

— The New York Times, news article, "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception," May 11, 2003

[source, source]

Accuracy and the NY Times announce final separation

Harvard Professor Alex Jones, a former NY Times journalist, is shocked that some Americans had already written off the Times even before Jayson Blair was exposed:

“The thing that shocked me was the reaction of people when they read about [themselves] in the New York Times and knew it to be false. Their reaction seemed to be a kind of shrug - 'What do you expect?'” Not one person whom Blair claimed falsely to have interviewed contacted the paper to point it out.

Turns out their attitude was entirely justified. And why would they bother pointing out mistakes? Any paper that made such errors in the first place isn't likely to do any better with a correction.

Besides, we now know that the NY Times suffers from what the paper's executives call a communications problem, which for people in the communications business should pretty much be a deal-breaker, careerwise. Can't communicate? Got problems knowing stuff? No idea what the hell is going on? Send your resume to the New York Times. [source]

Protest against GreenPeace pro-poverty policies

An African American civil rights group is planning a Saturday protest against Greenpeace, alleging that the environmental group has committed "eco-manslaughter" through its support of international policies limiting development and the expansion of technology to the developing world's poor.

"To serve its own ideological agenda, [Greenpeace] wants to keep the Third World permanently mired in Third World poverty, disease and death. So far, it has succeeded," said Niger Innis, national spokesperson for CORE

[source, source]

The chattering class in (in)action

The NGOs have sent a bunch of whiny self obsessed losers to Iraq to interfere with the reconstruction [source]. Some selected quotes:

The soldiers must doff their rifles and sidearms before they enter the area [where the NGOs meet] because the NGO folk - who depend on these men and women for their protection - object to the presence of firearms.

"All they do is complain," said a colonel who attends these meetings. "And you know what, I'm getting school supplies here with the help of my church at home quicker than all these NGO guys. A lot of units here are doing the same.

A little later, another informs the room that "we as an organization will adhere to humanitarian principles and not use any military aircraft. . . . It is unacceptable for humanitarian supplies to come in on military transport." [emphasis added]

NY Times publishes propaganda from the Iranian mullahocracy

In addition to not publishing Iranian dissidents, the NY Times has now published a news article by the representative of the Iranian mullahocracy to the UN without considering it worth mentioning this fact. The author was also, for those who care, involved in the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

The Chomsky trail of deceit

A good article on the trail of deceit left by Noam Chomsky as he supported some of the most terrible regimes in history [source].

Maybe we should wait on disbanding NATO...

This is a picture of a leading candidate for Secretary General of NATO. Take that, you Caliphascists! [source, source]

BBC Bias Watch

The former editor of the BBC's Today program wonders why the BBC can't handle the truth. [source]

You could see it at work during the war in Iraq. Now, I was opposed to the war but I was aware that the military campaign was carried out with devastatingly brilliant precision and speed. And yet, watching television — Channel 4 or the BBC or, for that matter, Sky — there seemed a determination to present at every juncture the worst-case scenario as if the war, because it was inherently ‘immoral’, could not therefore possibly be expedited with success.

NY Times Bias Watch

The NY Times claims that the Pentagon has kep the Iraq Reconstruction and Development Council (IRDC) “closely guarded” and “under wraps”. As part of this, the Pentagon has done interviews on the subject with (among many others) 60 Minutes, Al Arabiya and the BBC. But no fact can stand in the way of reporting at the NY Times. [source]

Oh, Canada!

From the National Post [source, source]:

Canadian soldiers are back in Afghanistan, but this time, they don't have any weapons to help protect them. In Ottawa's rush to put Canadian troops on the ground, 25 elite Canadian soldiers arrived in Afghanistan only to find that they are not allowed to carry guns. What makes the situation particularly embarrassing is that the troops have been assigned German bodyguards to protect them.

Stamping out unorganized play

[source, source]

But the Big Thinkers at the Neshaminy School District [PA] want to "restructure" recess

[…] kids will be encouraged to plan their recess activities. "Kids with nothing in mind before recess tend to get in trouble if they don't schedule their recess," Spigler said. "We want to offer lots of options on the playground. We want to say, 'Think about what you might like to do at recess.' "

“At least they're not living in Israel or America”

The latest suicide bombers in Israel were two Muslims from Britain. But in Britain today you don’t have to be a Muslim extremist to subscribe to an anti-Israel Zeitgeist. For instance, I was complaining to a highly intelligent and kindly black social worker about some administrative difficulties I was experiencing in giving correct medical treatment in the prison where I work.

“Well,” she said, “at least you can raise voice against them. After all, we’re not living in Israel or America.”

[source, source]

France provides escape route for Ba'ath rats

The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned.

Look on the bright side – they went to Europe where they're probably more pro-American than the existing population. [source]

Pole Position

Poland will be in charge of the northern section of Iraq.It will supply leadership and troops. Other nations, such as Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Albania will contribute troops to that sector. Poland has extensive ties with the Iraqi ex-patriate community which should be great value. In addition, Poland has been a supporter of the liberation from early on.

Europeans protest 1944 American invasion of Europe

At least they're consistent [source, source]:

The demonstration on May 25 is against the US invasion of Europe in 1944-1945, against the presence of US troops in Europe, and to demand the withdrawal of those troops. It is also directed against the American soldiers buried at Margraten: they fought as conquerors, to subject Europe to American values and American interests. They deserve no honour, and certainly no gratitude. They should be reburied in the US.

UN demonstrates self restraint

A crazed mob of diplomats angry at being made to wait for lunch because of striking restaurant workers rioted in U.N. cafeterias Friday and looted them of thousands of dollars in food, booze and silverware.

[source, source]

BBC Bias

RAGEH OMAAR, the BBC’s star correspondent in Baghdad during the Iraq war, developed a closerelationship with the director of Iraq’s Ministry of Information, who was responsible for controlling foreign correspondents.

[source, source]

Another small step

Germany reacted with dismay yesterday to America's decision not to return the 17,000-strong 1st Armoured Division to Germany, accelerating plans to relocate its troops to eastern Europe.

[source]

Journalist ethics

The US press is continuing to act as a public relations organziation for the Ba'ath by reporting almost exclusively on anti-US reactions, avoiding reporting on pro-US reactions and using as sources primarily those who were favored under the Ba'ath.

Indeed it's striking that while many of the troops I've accompanied find themselves feeling some sympathy for the inhabitants of "Typhoid Alley" and other destitute neighborhoods and their attempts to obtain fans, furniture, TVs, etc., the press corps often seems solidly on the side of those who grew fat under the Saddam regime.

[…]David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times, who like me is embedded with the 4th Battalion of the 64th Armored Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, recently accompanied my Scout platoon on a patrol. […] I was talking to Dr. Ali Faraj al Salih, a cardiologist trained at Edinburgh, when Zucchino, a fine, experienced foreign correspondent, walked over and began listening in. I asked Dr. Ali if he'd had any trouble with looters. "No" he replied, "I have guns, with license from the government. And I have two bodyguards." "Have you always had the bodyguards?" I asked him. "Oh yes," he said.

But Zucchino's April 22 article in the L.A. Times--headlined "In Postwar 'Dodge City,' Soldiers Now Deputies"--reports "Dr. Ali Faraj, a cardiologist, stood before his well-appointed home and mentioned that he has hired two armed guards," as if the doctor had been driven to this expense by unrest following the arrival of the Americans.

Prayer no longer criminal act in schools

New regulations from the Bush Administration on school prayer [source, source]

Public schools may not restrict or censor [students'] prayers on the ground that they might be deemed `too religious' to others. The Establishment Clause prohibits state officials from making judgments about what constitutes an appropriate prayer, and from favoring or disfavoring certain types of prayers -- be they `nonsectarian' and `nonproselytizing' or the opposite -- over others." [...]

Crushing of dissent

Instantman is reporting that an anti-Hollywood celebrity website is being shut down by the William Morris Agency, a major “talent” representation agency in Hollywood. After posting fiskings of statements by various celebrities their ISP received a letter threatening legal action and they're being shutdown.

Journalist ethics

Barry Rubin reminisces about past dinners with Tariq Aziz where he was castigated for being soft on Israel by US journalists: [source]

Aziz made a strong pitch for the United States to support Iraq in the Gulf.

At that point, though, Helen Thomas of UPI interrupted him, "Why didn't you retaliate" against Israel, she asked, "when [it] destroyed your nuclear reactor?" The foreign minister tried to brush away the question. Thomas did not find the response acceptable, "Just yellow, I guess," she complained. […]

He [Aziz] was just explaining why the Iran-Iraq war was the most important issue in the Middle East when Rowland Evans, co-author of the famous Evans & Novak column, interrupted him. "You must not talk like that!" he lectured the startled Iraqi foreign minister. Evans instructed Aziz to tell the US government that the Arab-Israeli conflict was the Middle East's central issue and that the lack of peace was all Israel's fault.