Facing heated protest, the United Nations on Wednesday defended Tunisia’s hosting of a U.N. summit about Internet access in the developing world, even though the north African nation has been repeatedly accused of rights abuses that include blocking Web sites it dislikes.
Of course! It’s the same organization that put Sudan and Cuba on the Human Rights Commission. The UN’s goal is control, not provision, of information services.
[source]
Yale University Press just sent us, Off Center : The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. which is sure to be a hit with the Looney Left. It’s kind of the inevitable sequel to What’s the Matter with Kansas — starting from the assumption that the election of Republicans to run Washington is an obvious error it goes on to the logical next step and argues that the exercise of power by those “elected” officials is per se illegitimate and ways must be found to stop them. […]
In short, what they see as obstacles to the kind of America they want to live in are: the American political system; the American people; and the elected government of America.
That’s been clear for a while. In some sense it’s good that the Modern American Left is finally openly admitting it.
A good photo essay on how a some good cropping of an image can change it’s entire context. The Old Media pictureis close cropped to slice off any inconvenient details, leading viewers to have a very different view of an event from what was actually going on.
[source]
Focus for Supreme Court Pick Is Said to Be on Diversity (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 9/22/05, NY Times)
Miguel A. Estrada, a partner at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington who has also been mentioned by Republicans as a potential nominee, was said by the strategists not to be interested in the position. Mr. Estrada, an assistant solicitor general in the administration of the first President Bush and the beginning of the Clinton administration, was nominated by the current President Bush to the United States
What a quaint way of describing these events:
Estrada withdrew his name twenty-eight months after being nominated. During the confirmation struggle, Estrada’s wife miscarried; in November, 2004, she died, of an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. The death was ruled accidental by the medical examiner. Rove said that Mrs. Estrada had been traumatized by the nastiness of the process.
Wasn’t there a movie on this theme?
[source]
But more important, Martian snow turns out to be rock hard. Worse, it is melting away at an alarming rate.
In fact, Mars may be in the midst of a period of profound climate change, according to a new study that shows dramatic year-to-year losses of snow at the south pole.
Global warming on Mars as well. Must be purely a coincidence, or the fault of Chimpy McBushitler.
George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power.
At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal basis with their male classmates.
There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women say that is not what they want.
Many women at the nation’s most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. . . .
For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation’s top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles.
“They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they’re accepting it,” said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and women’s and gender studies at Yale. “Women have been given full-time working career opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it.
“I really believed 25 years ago,” Dr. Wexler added, “that this would be solved by now.”
“Solved”, eh? Quite revealing. Apparently Dr. Wexler uses the word “solved” to mean “women doing what I think they should, instead of what they want to do”. Clearly feminism isn’t about freeing women to make their own choices.
Radio and television sermons by senior PA religious officials in the past week have presented the US as foremost among the “heretical” countries, and as an enemy trying to dismantle the Islamic world.
In the presence of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, one religious leader called for Iraqis to intensify terrorist uprisings against American soldiers.
This is right after the USA has agreed to give the PA $50 million. Now there’s a real question to ask President Bush: why are we giving foreign aid to people promoting the terrorists in Iraq? On the scale of “with us or against us”, where does such an organization fall?
Israel’s military does not envision major retaliation for Palestinian missile and rocket strikes from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli military sources said the General Staff has quietly assessed that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would not approve any major combat operation in the Gaza Strip. The sources said the government would instead appeal to the United States and the Palestinian Authority to halt the attacks on the Jewish state.
Because that technique has worked so well in the past.
The European Parliament has spent the past week arguing about a “sunshine directive” that would have made EU employers responsible for the health effects of sunlight on their staff.
This commentary intentionlly left blank.
Here’s a plan I can support 100%:
Every Congressman should give up a local project to benefit the victims of hurricane Katrina.
NEW YORK — Emergency officials who prepared Louisiana’s plan for responding to a major hurricane never guessed that one of their duties would be to protect aid workers from gunmen, one of the state’s senior disaster officials said Monday.
Speaking at a symposium in New York, Arthur Jones, chief of disaster recovery for Louisiana’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said he was caught off guard by the violence in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. [emphasis added]
Could that be the strongest signal yet that the recovery from hurricane Katrina is going wonderfully, if the chief of disaster recovery for the Lousianna state FEMA is taking some time to fly to New York City for a conference?
“In the name of Iraqi people, I say to you, Mr. President, and to the glorious American people, thank you, thank you. Thank you, because you liberated us from the worst kind of dictatorship.”
“Mr. President, you are a visionary, great statesman. We salute you. We are grateful to you. We will never forget what you have done for our people.”
— Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, September 13, 2005
It was perhaps an odd request to make of a man noted for his commitment to Israeli causes and his fierce criticism of the Palestinian Authority.
Please raise $14 million to help buy the Jewish settlers’ lucrative greenhouses in the Gaza Strip so that the Palestinians can take them over when the settlers are gone. Oh, and can you get it done by the weekend, before the pullout starts? If not, the settlers will destroy the greenhouses on their way out of Gaza to keep them out of Arab hands.
Last Wednesday, though, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, real estate magnate and publisher of The Daily News, received just such a pitch from his friend James D. Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank, current Middle East envoy for the White House and would-be broker of the deal.
[…]
So he in turn picked up the phone and called a few of his friends and fellow billionaires, who also happened to be prominent Jewish philanthropists.
[…]
Within 48 hours, Mr. Zuckerman said, he had his $14 million. And the Palestinians had a shot at inheriting relatively intact the greenhouses whose vegetables and flowers have been a major source of Israeli export income, and, not incidentally, about 3,500 desperately needed Palestinian jobs.
Palestinian police on Tuesday blocked off abandoned settlements and chased after scavengers in a first attempt to impose law and order after chaotic celebrations of Israel’s pullout from Gaza, but the overwhelmed forces were unable to halt looting of the area’s prized greenhouses.
The greenhouses, left behind by Israel as part of a deal brokered by international mediators, are a centerpiece of Palestinian plans for rebuilding Gaza after 38 years of Israeli occupation. […]
Just minutes away, crowds of looters in the Gadid settlement overwhelmed hundreds of guards trying to protect the greenhouses. Guards acknowledged that in many cases, they were unable to stop the looting.
Advisers appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims.
Some ask why being offensive to Muslims is considered sufficient reason to cancel a public day of remembrance. I think a better question is why is such a day considered offensive to Muslims? And note — these advisers are themselves Muslim, selected as representative of the Muslim community.
An old post but classic none the less — E. Nough explains how to improve Israel’s public image, with many real world examples.
A Modest Open Letter
Unsolicited advice for the State of Israel
Dear Israel,
It has become painfully clear over the past few days years decades that you, as a nation, have a severe image problem internationally. This problem is not just with openly hostile governments that have promised on many occasions to destroy you and murder your citizens wholesale; rather, it extends to inter-governmental assemblies such as the United Nations, progressive non-governmental organizations, the global press, and the academic intelligentsia, combining into what has commonly come to be called “world opinion.” I believe it would be of some benefit to consider the ways in which you can bring this world opinion to your side, and gain sympathy and respect, if not outright admiration, from nations the world over.
(Some may be tempted to ask why a sovereign nation should give any consideration to this “world opinion” to begin with. Some may even ask how this world opinion came to be considered a moral authority, especially given the rather shaky moral record of virtually all nations that presume to hold it. Such questions are beyond the scope of this letter. Suffice it to say that your UN ambassador probably does not enjoy being berated daily by virtually every country on the planet, including those that have more mass graves than your entire population.)
Let us consider the strategy you have employed for the past few decades: namely, to demonstrate your strength, but seek peaceful solutions instead, as with Egypt and Jordan; to strive to kill terrorists, but spare innocent civilians, as in Jenin; to occupy after being attacked, but not engage in genocide or ethnic cleansing, as in the West Bank; to give sworn enemies the benefit of the doubt and test their word, as with Arafat; to give all those within your borders citizenship and basic rights; to respect all your citizens’ freedom of speech; to discuss your flaws openly and honestly; and to admit imperfection, but expect the world to understand the difficulties you face; to protect reporters and their freedom of speech, expecting them to report honestly and contextually; to respect world opinion while expecting it to recognize your right and responsibility to your own citizens. In short, you have tried to do the right thing, and expected the world to reciprocate. This foolishness has to stop, and it has to stop right now. It has brought you neither love nor respect from your fellow nations, and it is unclear as to why you expected anything else. But we’ll get to that.
First, let us consider some suboptimal ways of getting on the good side of global opinion. These work, but the harm they do to your own nation tends to outweigh any benefit, so they aren’t particularly recommended:
Now that we have eliminated the false leads, we shall examine the actions you will have to take in order to receive positive press and start benefitting from friendly world opinion. As you consider these options, you will no doubt find that they violate your principles, and contradict your very strongly held morals. Well, frankly, you’ll just have to deal. When getting on the good side world opinion and the progressive intelligentsia, real morals are a nuisance you simply cannot afford. If you’re going to insist on something as silly as principles, and be bothered by something as trivial as rank hypocrisy, you’ll just have to hang out with the other pariahs, such as the U.S. and Australia. So forget it: just make like the French, and shrug it off. Principles are so simplisme.
The French actually have much to teach you about the benefits of moral flexibility: it has taken them successfully through World War II and the Cold War — to say nothing of the many crises in Africa and the Middle East since then — with virtually no damage to their economy, infrastructure, or reputation. The Americans, Brits, and Russians may have fought World War II to the bitter end, while the French surrendered after a few weeks and started working for the Germans, but guess who still ended up on the Security Council? That is skill, my friends!
Anyway, enough babble — on to the plan!
So let’s cut the crap. Close the West Bank and Gaza to journalists, and remove any who resist. Cut phone lines and satellite links; use missiles as needed on the rest. Isolate the West Bank and Gaza entirely; nothing, not even an SOS gets in or out of there without your say-so. Throw a couple of reporters in jail, just on general principle. Make it really clear that anyone who embarrasses the State of Israel can receive the same treatment; then make good on the threat. (I suggest using as examples reporters from respected but unimportant countries — New Zealand, say, or Belgium — you get the idea.) Make journalist visas nearly-impossible to obtain, and hold them as prizes. Demand to review all footage before it’s broadcast or taken out of the country. Hey, it works for Arafat and the Saudis; it’ll work for you.
This will obviously cause you some difficulty with your own journalists, especially the more left-leaning ones. Give them the same treatment as the foreign journalists. Remember: you are trying to be a respected member of the global community. Niceties like freedom of the press are not something you can afford.Simply following these guidelines should reduce to virtually nil the flow of negative publicity. That by itself is not enough, though: you need to get the world on your side. And as everyone from the USSR to the PLO to Saddam Hussein has demonstrated, you can’t do that without getting really nasty.
The point is, once you have control of a waterway so crucial the the Euroid economy, expect to see a radical change of tune from the French and the rest of Europe, especially the Old side. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, though: it’s probably best not to tweak the Brits this way, and I strongly suggest you give Americans perpetual free passage. As to the rest, you can pretty much do as you wish — and I suggest making it really clear that you intend to play favorites. It’ll certainly alter the calculus a bit: the Arabs may have oil, sure, but it still has to get to Europe somehow. And that’s really hard, especially what with all those sabotaged pipelines. What sabotaged pipelines? You figure it out.
Oh, please, don’t blanche at me now. This is global opinion we’re talking about. Just imagine how much the Europeans will love you once they realize their economies are now completely dependent on your whim. I predict a total love fest. Chirac will go nowhere without his yarmulke.As you can see, you’ve been going about this world opinion thing all wrong. Silly Jews, you’ve tried to do the right thing under difficult circumstances, and — oh the hilarity! — expected fair treatment from the same people who brought you the Crusades, the Pale of Settlement, the pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, the Holocaust, and exploding buses. Now you’ll probably just ignore me, stick to your silly morals and principles, and wonder how a Communist dictatorship manages to castigate your behavior without even a slight trace of irony.
You naive fools.
Just a quick reference to two posts about an internal review by the New York Times in which heavy bias of that organization is made clear in their own words:
even sophisticated readers of The New York Times sometimes find it hard to distinguish between news coverage and commentary in our pages
— Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times
[US Senator] Mary Landrieu (answer at 3:10 to 3:30): “I am not going to level criticism at local and state officials. Mayor Nagin, and most mayors in this country, have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, let alone … in front of a hurricane.”
If Trent Lott had said that he’d be on the front page of every major daily in the nation as “Racist in Chief”. Landrieu, of course, will get a pass.
Big website upgrade from Movable Type 2.64 to 3.2. I think everything’s working OK, although the formatting for the initial source links is off because I forgot to load my modified version of Textile. That should get fixed in the next few days.
[source]
THE PRESS WANTS TO SHOW BODIES from Katrina. It didn’t want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public.
I can only conclude that this time around, the press thinks it’s a good thing to inflame the public. What could the difference be?
I could understand amorality that just exploited the dead for its own purposes, but the active hostility of Old Media to the very social structures that permit it to exist is beyond me.
The House yesterday passed an anodyne resolution commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. It extended sympathy to the victims and survivors; honored the military, first responders, and others who helped; thanked foreign leaders for their support; declared that America is not waging war “on any people or any faith”; reaffirmed a commitment to the global war on terrorism; and vowed “never [to] forget the sacrifices made” on 9/11 or to “bow to terrorist demands.”
No one could disagree with that, right? Not quite. The House vote for the resolution was 402-6; here are the six far-left Democrats who voted “no”:
- John Conyers (Mich.)
- Barbara Lee (Calif.)
- Jim McDermott (Wash.)
- Cynthia McKinney (Ga.)
- Pete Stark (Calif.)
- Lynn Woolsey (Calif.)
One wonders, if these people can’t even agree with this kind thing, why do they persist in associating with the sponsoring organization?
By Newton Emerson
As the full horror of Hurricane Katrina sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if this is the end of George Bush’s presidency. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that every copy of the US Constitution was destroyed in the storm. Otherwise President Bush will remain in office until noon on January 20th, 2009, as required by the 20th Amendment, after which he is barred from seeking a third term anyway under the 22nd Amendment.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if the entire political agenda of George Bush’s second term will not still be damaged in some terribly satisfying way.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that the entire political agenda of George Bush’s second term consists of repealing the 22nd Amendment. Otherwise, with a clear Republican majority in both Houses of Congress, he can carry on doing pretty much whatever he likes.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if the Republican Party itself will now suffer a setback at the congressional mid-term elections next November.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that people outside the disaster zone punish their local representatives for events elsewhere a year previously, both beyond their control and outside their remit, while people inside the disaster zone reward their local representatives for an ongoing calamity they were supposed to prevent. Otherwise, the Democratic Party will suffer a setback at the next congressional election.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if an official inquiry will shift the blame for poor planning and inadequate flood defences on to the White House. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody admits that emergency planning is largely the responsibility of city and state agencies, and nobody notices that the main levee which broke was the only levee recently modernised with federal funds. Otherwise, an official inquiry will pin most of the blame on the notoriously corrupt and incompetent local governments of New Orleans and Louisiana.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush contributed to the death toll by sending so many national guard units to Iraq.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody recalls that those same columnists have spent the past two years blaming George Bush for another death toll by not sending enough national guard units to Iraq. Otherwise, people might wonder why they have never previously read a single article advocating large-scale military redeployment during the Caribbean hurricane season.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnist are asking how a civilised city can descend into anarchy.
The answer is that only a civilised city can descend into anarchy.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should be held responsible for the terrible poverty in the southern states revealed by the flooding.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody holds Bill Clinton responsible for making Mississippi the poorest state in the union throughout his entire term as president, or for making Arkansas the second-poorest state in the union throughout his entire term as governor. Otherwise, people might suspect that it is a bit more complicated than that.
As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should not be concerned by accusations of racism against the federal government.
The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody remembers that Jesse Jackson once called New York “Hymietown” and everybody thinks Condoleezza Rice went shopping for shoes when the hurricane struck because she cannot stand black people.
Otherwise sensible Americans of all races will be more concerned by trite, cynical and dangerous political opportunism.
As the full horror of that sinks in, this columnist is simply glad that everybody cares.
Normally, an event gets reported in very similar ways among different Old Media outlets because someone, early on, sets the “story” and everyone follows that because it’s easy. Old Media seems to have now taken that one step further and settled on the story “It’s Bush’s Fault!” for every negative event. Modern efficiency in action, I guess.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday he will veto a bill that would have made California the first state to legalize same-sex marriage through its elected lawmakers.
Schwarzenegger said the legislation, given final approval Tuesday by lawmakers, would conflict with the intent of voters when they approved an initiative five years ago. Proposition 22 was placed on the ballot to prevent California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries.
[…]
“Clearly he’s pandering to an extreme right wing, which was not how he got elected,” said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, one of the bill’s sponsors.
Pandering to “an extreme right wing” by supporting an initiative that got over 61% of the vote?
The latest in a series of debunkings of the putative killing of Muhammad al-Dura. This time, in turns out that the extra footage, over an hour, that backed up the original claims, doesn’t exist and never did. Moverover, archival footage from other cameramen in the area show numerous staged “battles” going, all obviously faked. Worth reading.