|
|
|
"CNN Is Reporting Saddam Hussein Has Been Executed"
By Ed Driscoll · December 29, 2006 07:12 PM · War And Anti-War
According to The Corner. In a heretofore unseen two flashing gumball light announcement, Drudge adds, "SADDAM: THE END... Saddam Hussein executed by hanging, according to Iraqi media reports. More soon...." As Mona Charen wrote when Saddam was captured by the US three years ago: Adolf Hitler deprived the Allies of the satisfaction of executing him. Josef Stalin died in his bed. Pol Pot died of natural causes. But Saddam Hussein, that vicious, depraved worm of a man, was plucked from his rathole. Ah the great warrior. The author of the Mother of All Battles. The man who claimed he would drive the "invaders" from Iraq. The man who forced thousands of Iraqis to sacrifice their lives so he could continue his squalid and luxurious spree in his many palaces.I'd say negotiations have successfully been concluded. Ed Morrissey adds: Three Arabic news stations and MS-NBC are broadcasting the report that Saddam Hussein has been executed this evening, right around 10 pm ET.For a brief overview of Saddam's blood-soaked curriculum vitae, click here and here. Not surprisingly, Pajamas HQ has an extensive round-up of links. Tim Blair notes that "Saddam’s half-brother Barzan Hassan and former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court Awad Bandar were also executed", and links to a quip by Mark Steyn: “Just in time for Eid, the Iraqis decided Saddam Hussein was one old acquaintance who really should be forgot.”But not by former Iraqis now living in Dearborn, Michigan, who are thrilled that their former tormentor is currently receiving his final judgment. As are Iraqis much closer to the situation, according to Ed Morrissey: MSNBC, which I'm forced to watch in my hotel room, now reports that the Iraqi witnesses to the execution were cheering and dancing around the body of Saddam Hussein.Can't say I blame them. Michelle Malkin includes a screen-capture of the handsome send-off CNN is giving Saddam on their homepage, and writes: Lots of readers are peeved by CNN's memorial tribute to Saddam. Reader Roger writes, "Did Gerald Ford get this much respect on CNN's home page?"No, of course not. But Jerry just didn't have that radical chic joie de vivre that Hussein had amongst CNN and its own totalitarian-admiring founder, Ted Turner. As for the other American television networks and Saddam, for a flashback as to how ABC and NBC breathlessly covered Saddam's "elections" (in which he routinely received 99.9 percent of the vote), click here. As for CBS, who could forget Dan Rather's infamously cozy early 2003 interview with Saddam, only one month before Saddam was finally, mercifully driven out of power and into his spider hole, by the US. Compare Michelle's screen capture of CNN's homepage with the graphic that populist champion Fox News is currently using on theirs. Meanwhile, Confederate Yankee explores "What Passes For Intellectual From--where else?--the Huffington Post". Jules Crittenden, city editor at the Boston Herald, is that seemingly rare commodity these days--a newspaperman who gets it: CNN reports a witness described "fear on his face." Good. We already knew he was a coward, and we know how many deaths a coward dies.Indeed. Hot Air dubs this "your quote of the year": Witnesses to the execution told NBC News’ Richard Engel that they were cheering around the body of Saddam after the execution.But, gosh, only four years ago, NBC and ABC told me Saddam was beloved by his people. Heh--Hugh Hewitt adds that Saddam should have filed his appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Why didn't Ramsey "Jesus was a terrorist" Clark think of that?! Last Update: "‘I Saw Fear, He Was Afraid’--In a NEWSWEEK exclusive, the man hired to videotape Saddam Hussein’s execution recalls the brutal dictator’s humble final moments", one of which is currently shown at the top of The Drudge Report. The Hanging We Kept To Ourselves
Tammy Bruce writes that the networks are "wringing their [hands] over whether or not to show any part of the Saddam execution video. I find this sudden concern, on CNN and Viacom's part especially, about showing an execution to be slightly disingenuous": Astounding, isn't it? Here's CNN, which had absolutely no problem airing terrorist propaganda featuring their murder of our troops, and yet they struggle with airing a hooded mass murderer being hung. Why is that? Because it will be an image which reminds Americans that progress has been made, and is an undeniable reminder that justice for Saddam's million-plus victims was made possible by the USA. Today's leftist media, CNN in particular, are loathe to resent it. It has nothing to do with decency, They've already exposed their inherent indecency when they worked with terrorists and aired our loved ones being murdered. This is about their deliberate agenda and how images of a dispatched Saddam does not help them.It's not the first time that they've demonstrated such a double-standard, (UPDATE: and here's a very similar double-standard by CBS in action) and it's a reminder of how politicized the news industry has come since the days of Ben Hecht's The Front Page, with a plot that hinged on reporters doing their damnedest to smuggle out a death-row interview of a soon-to-be executed convicted murderer. The original "if it bleeds it leads" school of tabloid journalism that inspired Hecht's play (and its innumerable movie versions through the years) was at least far more honest with its objectives--selling newspapers, any way possible--than today's journalists. Or as James Lileks once wrote: The first question in any J-school application ought to be “do you want to change the world?” And anyone who answers yes gets kindly turned away. Your job is to describe the way the world changes. Not pretend you’re there to nudge it along towards utopia.Or to oppose change when you didn't vote for the man causing it. Update: More on CNN and Saddam's execution in the next post. The Hanging of Saddam
It's apparently on for 10:00 PM EST tonight; Hot Air has the details as they emerge. Elsewhere, Dean Barnett writes that the New York Times--surprise!--question its timing: What’s especially odd about the Times’ editorial is that it doesn’t take issue with Saddam getting the death penalty. The Grey Lady’s only beef is the alleged haste with which the penalty is being meted out.As I said earlier today, Hypocrophobia strikes deep in the Victorian Gentleman. "The President's Watching. Let's Make Him Cringe And Squirm."
By Ed Driscoll · December 29, 2006 11:55 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Hollywood, Interrupted · Oh, That Liberal Media!
While late-1960s milestones such as Walter Cronkite's calling the Tet Offensive an American loss, and Hollywood's shift towards nihilistic movies such as Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy were considered the early signs of a culture war between what was then called "the new left" and mainstream America, a significant moment also occurred on April 17th, 1976, when Ron Nessen, President Ford's press secretary, hosted an episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live, during the show's first season, to attempt to show that the Ford Administration had a sense of humor about itself, and the ribbing that SNL's Chevy Chase gave Ford about his occasional stumbles. Nessen's appearance, along with a videotaped cameo of Ford saying, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night", marked perhaps the last time that most Republicans in office would ever fully trust the mainstream media. And even then, Nessen was concerned about being set-up by the show. What he didn't know was that the SNL production team had conceived a strategy of feinting left and running right, to paraphrase one of the show's then-writers, so that the sketches that Nessen appeared in were relatively tame. It was the rest of the show that was deliberately raunchy and over the top, even for SNL. Because, as Rosie Shuster, another of the show's writers, remarked, "The President's watching. Let's make him cringe and squirm." As Glenn Reynolds wrote earlier this week, "Personally, I think that Chevy Chase cost Ford the 1976 election. Well, part of it, anyway". But to understand exactly how badly SNL head-faked Nessen and Ford, here's the section devoted to Nessen's appearance of Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad's 1985 book on the early history of Saturday Night. (There's a lot of material below, which I scanned from my copy of Hill and Weingrad's book. I'm eschewing the usual block-texting so that it wouldn't all be in blue italics. And apologies in advance for any typos or missing words created by the OCR process.) Read More » That Was The News That Wasn't
Mary Katharine Ham takes a video tour of Things That Did Not Happen on the Duke Campus: More thoughts from MKH on the Duke Lacrosse case, here. 2006: "The Year Of Speaking Dangerously"
By Ed Driscoll · December 29, 2006 08:32 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · War And Anti-War
What happens when the Victorian Gentleman gets a severe case of hypocrophobia? Diana West looks back at 2006: Taking a whack at prognostication at the end of 2005, it wasn't hard to imagine, as I did, that 2006 would be a rotten year for freedom of speech. Both inside the Islamic world and, more alarmingly, outside the Islamic world, Shariah laws prohibiting criticism of Islam were already working smoothly. When in 2005 we watched the death-penalty-seeking prosecution of editor Ali Mohaqeq Nasab for "blasphemy" in U.S.-liberated Afghanistan, we could see we were dealing with a Shariah state. When in 2005 we watched the early stages of what later became known as "Cartoon Rage" in Denmark, we could see we were dealing with a Shariah state of mind. It wasn't exactly going out on a limb to predict things would only get worse.Read the whole thing. Best Viewed Through The CRM-114 Discriminator
By Ed Driscoll · December 28, 2006 09:20 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted
Stanley Kubrick bloopers, via Ann Althouse: Signs Of The Apocalypto
By Ed Driscoll · December 28, 2006 03:54 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted
Libertas wonders why Mel Gibson's Apocalypto was singled out by Variety for its lack of box office "legs", when other, much more expensive productions aren't performing any better: There are many disappointing box office stories to tell. Why this film (which exceeded expectations)? Why not the obvious ones? Variety can defend it’s choice by saying the article’s true. But that’s the last defense of the biased. Bias is more often found in what is and what is not covered. I’m no Gibson defender. I’m a bias hater. The real story this year is the poor box office results and audience rejection of left-leaning message films not disguised by animation.Not to mention Hollywood entertainers versus actually producing entertaining movies. Latest Blog Week In Review Podcast Now Online
By Ed Driscoll · December 28, 2006 03:06 PM · Podcasts · The Future and its Enemies · The New, New Journalism
This week, Austin Bay has an extended, one-on-one interview with Claudia Rosett on Kofi Anan, the Oil For Food Scandal, and the UN in general. It's great stuff, and very much worth a listen, particularly if you're not up to speed with incredible spadework that Claudia has performed to bring sunlight to the trainwreck that is the United Nations. Blunting America's 1970s Suicide
By Ed Driscoll · December 28, 2006 11:19 AM · Democracy In America
As this editorial in Opinion Journal notes, Gerald Ford arguably did as a good a job as possible, given the astonishingly weak hand he was dealt in the mid-1970s. As the Journal notes, the 1970s was the decade of "America's Suicide Attempt", as historian Paul Johnson dubbed it: It is true that Ford was something of an accidental President, the only one in U.S. history never elected as either President or Vice President. Before Nixon picked him to replace the disgraced Spiro Agnew as his Vice President, Ford had been contemplating retirement from his Grand Rapids, Michigan, House seat. But like another unlikely President from the Midwest, Harry Truman, he had reserves of honesty and fortitude that served him well.Yes--with the exception of villifying Richard Nixon (whose paranoia helped furnish his own noose), the playbook of the left for attacking Republican presidents has changed little since the days of Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, and certainly since Ike in the 1950s. And incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is living up to it; apparently he'd rather be exploring Inca ruins in South America than attending a former president's funeral. And Jules Crittenden writes: Last night we saw that Wonkette couldn't wait for the funeral to start bashing Gerald Ford.Not entirely surprisingly, Thomas DeFrank of The NY Daily News has a different take on Ford's opinions of Bush and Iraq than "the boring fabulist", as Peggy Noonan recently dubbed Woodward. Update: On the other hand, "Even if [Reid's absence during Ford's funeral] is deliberate, look at it this way — it gives Republicans cover to skip Dhimmi Jimmy’s canonization when that day finally rolls around". More: And speaking of the seventies and suicide! Meanwhile, it's probably time to call Ghostbusters--or at least Maceo Parker--as another seventies icon also disapproves of the Iraq War immediately after his death this week. "Why Can't The MSM Cover Iraq?"
By Ed Driscoll · December 27, 2006 07:51 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The New, New Journalism · War And Anti-War
Hugh Hewitt writes: My question is whether there is even one MSMer currently reporting from Iraq who was an Iraq or Afghan War veteran? Even one?Absolutely. Only a stasist would say that information diversification is a bad thing. Where Santa Vacations After Christmas
By Ed Driscoll · December 27, 2006 07:32 PM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
He hits the beach--literally--in India! Students join sand sculpture artists to create a 30-meter-long (100-foot-long) Santa Claus sculpture on the Puri golden beach, in the Indian state of Orissa on the eve of Christmas, Sunday, Dec. 24, 2006. Though Hindus and Muslims comprise the majority of the population in India, Christmas is celebrated with much fanfare.As TigerHawk writes, "The photograph and official wire service caption below are additional evidence that India is the 'natural' ally of the United States in the war against radical Islam. Also, it's really cool". Surf's up, Santa, Dude! Steyn And Bruce On Ford
By Ed Driscoll · December 27, 2006 06:57 PM · Democracy In America
As always, Mark Steyn is spot-on: So much of what ails us dates from the Seventies: It was the decade when the Continent fully embraced the social-democratic cosseting that's enfeebled its citizenry and the mass immigration necessary to keep it affordable, the decade when the petro-dictatorships of the Middle East realized the west would do anything to keep the oil flowing, and the decade which gave us the twin templates through which the media, the academy and the other American elites fit all major events, domestic and foreign - Watergate and Vietnam. Though it was a war he inherited from his three predecessors, it fell to Gerald Ford to preside over the final retreat from Vietnam and to bequeath to history the great emblematic image of American weakness and failure: the scrambling choppers over the US embassy in Saigon. As was plain then and is plainer now, the left saw American defeat as its own great victory. They enjoyed the pain the "long national nightmare" inflicted on national self-confidence, which is one reason they love to revive it at every opportunity. (See Pinch Sulzberger's pathetic self-regarding commencement address from last year.) Understanding the enduring damage Vietnam and Watergate would do to the body politic, Ford attempted to lance the boils. He failed, but it was an honorable effort by an honorable man. Rest in peace.Update: Tammy Bruce looks at Ford through a gimlet eye: "yes, I know he died, and I'm sorry for him, and his family. But there will be no Love Letter here". Read the rest--while I do think Ford was a good man, he was an exceptionally weak president, and as Tammy writes, Ford's ineffectiveness led directly to Jimmy Carter's dire four years malaise. Mass Protest In Britain
Over 300,000 defy England's hunting ban; as Glenn Reynolds writes: If that many British Muslims turned out to protest interference with their customs, the Blair government would be bending over backward to please them.Heh, indeed.TM Read the whole thing. (Via Maggie's Farm. Update: And speaking of Tony Blair.... The Blue Falcon Flies Alone
If you haven't seen it already, don't miss this photo of Senator Kerry in Iraq (aka "Jon Carry N Irak"), an image you would have never seen if Rago's MSM was still at its full, 1972-era power. Flying Back To San Jose Tonight
By Ed Driscoll · December 27, 2006 04:39 PM · Democracy In America · The Future and its Enemies · The New, New Journalism
I'm in the Admiral's Club at D-FW waiting for my flight back to San Jose, California; watch for regular blogging to resume tomorrow. In the meantime, Betsy Newmark and Pajamas have lots of thoughts and links regarding President Ford's death at age 93, and Hugh Hewitt has a devastating Socratic evisceration of the Wall Street Journal's anti-Blogosphere Joseph Rago, who fits Virginia Postrel's definition of a Stasist to a T. Now This Is Speaking Truth To Power
Blogger "One Angry Christian" links to an AP photo with a caption that reads: An Iranian student holds an anti-president placard, reading: 'Fascist President, Polytechnich is not your place', as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unseen, speaks at the Amir Kabir Technical University, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Dec. 11, 2006. Iranian students staged a rare demonstration against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday, lighting a firecracker and burning his photograph in the audience as he delivered a speech at their university, the state news agency said.Unlike America's "peace" (read: anti-Bush) protestors, there are real stakes involved for this fellow, as One Angry Christian writes: This guy, hands down, gets my "Man of the Year" award. There isn't a person who is closer to the evil that is destroying western civilization who is risking more than this guy.But of course, this Iranian would never be considered by Time--he's protesting a leader that the magazine recently dubbed a beneficient "global Everyman" and "Champion of the disposessed". (Via Hugh Hewitt.) Castles Made Of Sand
By Ed Driscoll · December 26, 2006 08:42 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · The Return of the Primitive
England's Independent receives a letter from a reader: Sir:Tim writes, "Any response will be published in full"; though I suspect that his letter will probably run about the same time that Cliff May's letter appears in the Washington Post. Churn 'Em And Burn 'Em
By Ed Driscoll · December 26, 2006 07:48 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · War And Anti-War
It's not just for stockbrokers anymore! The all-seeing Allah catches an AFP (Agence France-Presse) reporter recycling her three-week old story, titled "Iraq Quagmire Erodes Bush Confidence And Power", right down the exact same headline, and with only minor phrasing changes in the body copy. As Allah writes, "They’ve been recycling this metaphor for 40 years, why not recycle stories about it too?" Burying The News--In Okinawa
By Ed Driscoll · December 26, 2006 07:43 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Glenn Reynolds notes, "One might almost suspect that this story was timed for when it would get the least possible attention: Nonprofit Connects Murtha, Lobbyists". As Glenn writes, "Sounds like he needs to be spotlighted. And not just on Christmas Day", when the Washington Post ran their story. Earth To Bush
By Ed Driscoll · December 26, 2006 07:40 AM · War And Anti-War
In The Charleston Gazette, Don Surber writes, "Earth to Bush: We are winning". The 20 Biggest Stories Of 2006
By Ed Driscoll · December 26, 2006 07:33 AM · Democracy In America · Oh, That Liberal Media! · War And Anti-War
John Hawkins' round-up is here. Meanwhile, with plenty of material to choose from, Times Watch selects "The Worst Quotes of the Year from The New York Times". Update: Speaking of worst quotes of the year, get a load of this AP piece from August: When outsiders think of Cuba, it’s often the lack of political freedoms and economic power that comes to mind. Cubans who have chosen to stay on the island, however, are quick to point out the positives: safe streets, a rich and accessible cultural life, a leisurely lifestyle to enjoy with family and friends....For all its flaws, life in Castro’s Cuba has its comforts, and unknown alternatives are not automatically more attractive....Many foreigners consider it propaganda when Castro’s government enumerates its accomplishments, but many Cubans take pride in their free education system, high literacy rates and top-notch doctors. Ardent Castro supporters say life in the United States, in contrast, seems selfish, superficial, and — despite its riches — ultimately unsatisfying.More 2006 MSM idiotarianism, here. Santa’s Helpers Versus The Grinches
By Ed Driscoll · December 25, 2006 03:11 PM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Media Research Center has a pretty good scorecard for who stands where this year in the War For Christmas. A Year In the Life Of
By Ed Driscoll · December 25, 2006 12:26 PM · Bobos In Paradise · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
Michelle Malkin writes that 2006 was "The Year of Perpetual Outrage"; via Tim Blair, Gerard Henderson of The Sydney Morning Herald dubs it "the year of hyperbole". I'd say they're both right. Ethiopia At War With Somali Islamists
Tammy Bruce writes, "On this Christmas day, send your prayers to the Christians of Ethiopia who are now alone in the Horn of Africa fighting the enemy of all civilization". Related: "Yet Another Bethlehem Story". RIP, Godfather
By Ed Driscoll · December 25, 2006 09:01 AM · All You Need Is Ears
While I was shopping for Christmas gifts on Amazon, I gave myself a James Brown greatest hits CD--Foundations Of Funk: A Brand New Bag: 1964-1969, which documented Brown's revolution in R&B, creating a stripped down modal sound, much the same as Miles Davis had created in the jazz world just a few years prior. (MIles in turn would be inspired by Brown's funk on 1969's Bitches Brew.) I was actually listening to James Brown on my iRiver MP3 player on Satuday, driving around Texas. So I was doubly astonished to read that he passed away today at age 73. Merry Christmas!
By Ed Driscoll · December 25, 2006 12:01 AM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Posting will no doubt be a bit sparse on Christmas day. In the meantime, let me take this opportunity to wish everyone: ![]() Update:
![]()
Meanwhile, Neo-Neocon looks back on "'The Blogger's Night Before Christmas". More: Merry Insta-Christmas! Update From Texas
By Ed Driscoll · December 24, 2006 02:22 PM ·
Out hunting today--photo here. That's me on the left, along with my guide and our prey. The Thought Of No-Thought
By Ed Driscoll · December 24, 2006 01:59 PM · God And Man At Dupont University · The Return of the Primitive
Back in March, at the height of Yale's Taliban man debacle, blogger Penraker wrote: We now have the first generation of college students who have learned NOT to think; they don't even allow certain thoughts in their heads.Don't believe him? Then listen to Mark Taylor, religion and humanities professor at Williams College, and "Gagdad Bob", who runs roughshod over his zen-like thought of no-thought: The purpose of an elite university education is no longer to become educated -- to acquire a well-furnished mind and familiarize oneself with the best things that have been thought and said -- but to become stupid by elevating a means to an end. Thus, upon contact with his luckless students, Professor Taylor tells them “that if they are not more confused and uncertain at the end of the course than they were at the beginning, I will have failed.” In short, the goal of education is to make students as lost and confused as Professor Taylor, through the deification of man’s capacity to doubt anything.Via "Bird Dog" of Maggie's Farm, who asks: America's first colleges: King's College (Columbia now), Harvard, Yale, the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) - were all begun as places to mainly educate clergy, and/or religiously-interested lay people. Have they simply been co-opted by a new religion? Are colleges still doctrinal seminaries, with new doctrines?Yes. Different Sub-Species Of The Same Murderous Monster
By Ed Driscoll · December 24, 2006 11:45 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Liberal Fascism · The Future and its Enemies · The Gulag Archipelago · The Reich Stuff · The Return of the Primitive
Richard Miniter asks, "aren’t you tired of the whole 'you’re-a-fascist' line?" The Fascists and the Nazis are only on the right if you yourself are communist—and therefore, they are barely to the right of you on the political spectrum. To the rest of us, Fascists, Nazis and communists are different sub-species of the same murderous monster, a blood-drenched beast that believes in the power of the state and seeks to dismember or murder every individual and every group in society that refuses to bend to its will.Spot-on--don't miss the rest. Hey, Mahmoud, Who Killed Kenny?
"A photo of a shop you wouldn’t have expected to find in Esfahan, Iran". This Just In, II
David Irving, the man who in many ways, created the modern public conception of the Dresden bombing, is pretty darn copacetic with the language of both Mel Gibson--and Michael Richards. This Just In
By Ed Driscoll · December 22, 2006 04:27 PM · Muggeridge's Law
Surprisingly, having a Polaris Hawkeye four-wheel ATV land on you when you crash doesn't hurt all that much, provided (a) you land in soft dirt and (b) you're wearing a helmet. Ronald Reagan And The War On Christmas
By Ed Driscoll · December 22, 2006 12:19 PM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Floyd Brown reminds us that the left's assault on Christmas isn't a new development. Update: Via The Anchoress, here's the newest low in the War On Christmas, courtesy of, not surprisingly, CBS. Compare and contrast with CBS's mid-1960s Christmas fair. Orwellian Language Watch
By Ed Driscoll · December 22, 2006 11:43 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Newspeak Dictionary
The L.A. Times writes: President Bush quietly appointed television sitcom producer Warren Bell to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this week, overriding opposition from public-broadcasting advocates who fear the outspoken conservative will politicize the post.As opposed to its current state. From Deep Inside Sandy Berger's Trousers
Pajamas Media has made public the Inspector General's Official Report regarding Sandy Berger and his theft and destruction of classified national security documents. Greetings From Glen Rose, Texas
By Ed Driscoll · December 22, 2006 11:07 AM · God And Man At Dupont University · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Last year at Thangsgiving, I posted some thoughts on Rough Creek Lodge, an upscale hunting lodge and resort on 11,000 acres in Glen Rose, Texas, about 90 minutes outside of Dallas. As I was just telling Tammy Bruce and her radio listeners, my wife and I thought it would be a fun place to spend Christmas, and it certainly is--but blogging may be at a reduced pace over the weekend. The two breaking stories today are this truck crash, made more suspicious because of its cargo, and the Duke lacrosse case, with the D.A. dropping the main charge of rape. As I mentioned to Tammy, the timing of it--on a Friday afternoon, the weekend before Christmas--seems to imply that his office was attempting to minimize the damage to Mike Nifong's reputation as much as they possibly could. Will the remaining two charges against the Duke players be dropped during another quiet period in the news cycle--say, the weekend before New Years? Or will Nifong continue to try to string this out as long as possible? "The Christmas Link To Send, If You're Sending Only One"
By Ed Driscoll · December 20, 2006 01:06 PM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name · War And Anti-War
Tough to argue with Pajamas HQ's assessment of this video captioned by Scrappleface's Scott Ott: Airbrushing Out The Man Who Wasn't There
Flopping Aces writes that AP is touching up its articles referencing the world's most famous Iraqi police captain. Mainstreaming Jihad Chic
By Ed Driscoll · December 20, 2006 12:12 PM · The Gulag Archipelago · The Return of the Primitive · The Substance of Style · War And Anti-War
Pamela of Atlas Shrugs spots the perfect gift for the hip, young wannabe terrorist whose Che or hammer and sickle T-shirt is looking particularly ratty--for sale at the Las Vegas Urban Outfitters. Meanwhile, Mary Katharine Ham has some very much related gift suggestions. Notes From The Overfed
By Ed Driscoll · December 20, 2006 12:05 PM · Bobos In Paradise
I almost always enjoy French cooking. But I have my doubts about this Parisian chef's recipes. Wait'll Taranto Reads This One
By Ed Driscoll · December 20, 2006 10:04 AM · The New, New Journalism
![]() Opinion Journal, which, of course, publishes a superb blog-style daily update written by James Taranto, has a screedy, ill-tempered attack on blogs up today written by Joseph Rago, an assistant editorial features editor at Opinion Journal's parent publication, The Wall Street Journal: Blogs are very important these days. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution.Yes, there's no escaping Sturgeon's Law, is there? What I don't understand is the attack on the format itself. A Blog simply refers to a Web-based format that allows for instantaneous and automatic uploading of new post; its contents are as varied as can be imagined, from superbly logical 10,000 word essays from Steven Den Beste in the mid-naughts, to the video-oriented content of sites such as Hot Air. (All the way to the day-in-the-life fair that originally inspired the name "Weblog", of course.) Surprisingly, Rago is a man who sees bloggers as being virtually identical clones, despite working for a publication such as the Wall Street Journal, which published op-eds from early pioneer Glenn Reynolds during the 2004 election season. Ironically, though, Rago's piece is little indistinguishable from the the themes that tie together seven years worth of hit pieces on Internet-based journalists that I assembled last year. Update: Further thoughts on Rago's piece, media bias in general, and a reminder that diversification isn't just for mutual funds anymore, from Ed Morrissey. Time's Up
By Ed Driscoll · December 20, 2006 09:15 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Of Time magazine, Scott Hinderaker of Power Line writes: "No offense, but my man of the year is not You. My man of the year is John Bolton -- a model public servant, a stand-up man who deeply understands the nature of the war in which we are engaged." I think Steve Hayward has a great take as well: Watching the long, slow decay of Henry Luce’s once-great Time magazine has been painful. The beginning of the end might be dated to the ridiculous 1967 cover story, “Is God Dead?,” which was followed up with a 1989 cover, “Is Government Dead?” that was essentially the same story, only Time didn’t know it (government being the secular liberal substitute for God). Now Time has lost its faith in its own editorial judgment entirely. The selection of “You” as their laureate for 2006 represents the apotheosis of the modernist view that impersonal forces and mass processes drive history more than individuals, combined with a politically correct fear of naming an odious person like Iran’s Ahmaninejad as it did the past with Hitler and Ayatollah Khomeini.Jonah Goldberg expands on his thoughts from a couple of years ago, and further places Time's disastrous non-choice into perspective: Time's Man of the Year award was originally conceived as something other than the Mother of All Puff Pieces. Time founder Henry Luce swam against the stream of Marxist determinism which held that history unfolded according to cold, impersonal forces. He believed individuals - i.e. great men and women - matter. He said the original award should go to the person "who most affected the news or our lives, for good or ill, this year." That was the point of picking Charles Lindbergh as the first Man of the Year - because he, and he alone, seemed to be ushering in a New Age. Hitler was MOY in 1938 because he might have been ushering in a Dark Age. You are Person of the Year because the editors of Time want to live in a Feel-Good Age where everyone is empowered (hence Time's rationalizations about the people-power of the Internet).Betsy Newmark adds: The one thing Time has going for it is that they've united all of us people of the year in derision at their magazine.Which is no small accomplishment: It's been a long, long time since a news magazine united as many of its readers as Time has done this year. Last Minute Christmas Gift From Altair IV
By Ed Driscoll · December 19, 2006 03:17 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted
Glenn Reynolds writes, "Another cheesy yet iconic '60S TV show is out on DVD -- now it's The Time Tunnel. Though they've brought it out in two parts". That sounds like fun--I also tripped over this yesterday in Amazon, which I suspect the sci-fi geek in your life would appreciate even more: the deluxe edition of the new remastered DVD of Forbidden Planet, in an embossed metal case, complete with the second (infinitely cheesier) movie that Robby the Robot starred in immediately afterwards, scads of other bonus features, and a die-cast miniature of Robby himself. Judgment Day
By Ed Driscoll · December 19, 2006 02:46 PM · Bobos In Paradise
Robert Bidinotto spots "the latest Objectivist purge" from the Randians' inner circle. Soon Not To Be A Major Motion Picture Starring Barbra Streisand
Pat Conroy, the author of A Prince Of Tides, visits one of his classmates from the 1960s: When I visited my old teammate Al Kroboth's house in New Jersey, I spent the first hours quizzing him about his memories of games and practices and the screams of coaches that had echoed in field houses more than 30 years before. Al had been a splendid forward-center for the Citadel; at 6 feet 5 inches and carrying 220 pounds, he played with indefatigable energy and enthusiasm. For most of his senior year, he led the nation in field-goal percentage, with UCLA center Lew Alcindor hot on his trail. Al was a battler and a brawler and a scrapper from the day he first stepped in as a Green Weenie as a sophomore to the day he graduated. After we talked basketball, we came to a subject I dreaded to bring up with Al, but which lay between us and would not lie still.He did. Don't miss the rest, which foreshadows similar essays to be written in the coming decades about our current conflicts. "A Lib-Lib Romance"
By Ed Driscoll · December 19, 2006 12:10 PM · Bobos In Paradise
From the Daily Kos to the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey, Jonah Goldberg explores the growing romance between liberals (actually leftists, but that doesn't have the same easy flowing alliteration) and libertarians: What makes Lindsey’s overture significant is that he comes from the branch of libertarianism that actually matters: economics. Economic libertarians, under the leadership of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, have been so successful in the conservative movement — and the conservative movement has been so successful because of them — that “economic conservative” and “libertarian” have long been synonyms. But here’s Lindsey, an economic libertarian par excellence, trying to convince liberals that free markets are “progressive.” He wants liberals to accept the fact that libertarian means achieve liberal cultural ends. Rich societies become more tolerant of sexual freedom and civil rights, and invest more in education and the environment — and societies become rich by following the advice of the Friedmans and Hayeks. Lindsey proposes finding common ground with liberals on issues from agriculture subsidies (which are bad for the environment) to tax reform. His policy proposals would warm the cockles of any NR editor’s heart, and we should wish him luck.Read the whole thing. Rudy's Getting Ready
By Ed Driscoll · December 19, 2006 12:05 PM · The Making of the President
America's Mayor has an exploratory committee for his White House run: Join Rudy 2008. I Smell Bagels
By Ed Driscoll · December 18, 2006 09:08 PM · Muggeridge's Law
Did publisher Judith Regan pull a Mel Gibson last week? On The Beat With Baghdad's Most Famous Cop
Junk Yard Blog goes on the beat with the world's most famous cop (imaginary or otherwise), and writes, "Captain Jamil Hussein: he's everywhere!" Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds asks, "Has Marc Danziger found Jamil Hussein?": Possibly. Upside for AP: This would mean he exists. Downside for AP: A blogger operating from California finds a source in Iraq that AP itself couldn't produce.I guess Capt. Hussein emerged on the scene too late to be Time magazine's Man of the Year. Of course, in a sense, he is, anyhow! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Time's "Global Everyman"
By Ed Driscoll · December 18, 2006 05:16 PM · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · War And Anti-War
Speaking Of Time, I guess the magazine thinks the average "global Everyman" is a holocaust-denying madman seeking to arm himself with nuclear weaponry and wipe Israel off the map; get a load of their original caption for a photo of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a "Person of the Year" nominee. (And yes, picking him would have demonstrated far more chutzpah than their final decision--or lack thereof.) I'm Time's Man Of The Year!
By Ed Driscoll · December 18, 2006 05:00 PM · An Army Of Davids · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
And so are you! Talk about a cop-out; it's tough to argue with this assessment from Libertas's "Dirty Harry": Now, I’d prefer to be named Man of the Year, but we live in particular times.Elsewhere, Michelle Malkin expresses her disgust with Time's annual wimp-out in video form. Paraphrasing a quote oft-attributed to G.K. Chesterton, Rush Limbaugh adds, "When you believe in nothing, you will believe anything": And they farmed out the decision-making process! They had consulting groups made up of various kinds of people. It's almost like TIME Magazine was acting like Congress. Got a tough decision to make? Farm it out! Get some "blue-ribbon panel" in here of people that don't know what they're doing to make suggestions and then go with that rather than make the decision yourself. It's not that I care about the Person of the Year that much, but I'm a marketing guy. They have destroyed and made a joke out of what once was a very, very high honor: to be named Person of the Year. It's something people sought out. They just rendered it a meaningless joke. We're all winners! This is typical: We're all equal. They didn't have the ability to pick one person because that would signal everybody else out is a bunch of losers, or as un-worthies or what have you.A couple of years ago, Jonah Goldberg wrote: Time has no credibility. None. I don't care who they pick. That doesn't mean they won't get it right but that hardly means we should care much if they do. The magazine which had the guts to pick dictators and tyrants when they deserved it has, in recent years, gone the rout of People magazine. Even when they go in a controversial direction, it's invariably controversial in way designed to be not-too-controversial. "Now, Twice the Controversy But Half the Calories!" What was it a few years ago? Whistleblower women? And in 2001 when it deserved to be Osama Bin Laden, they went with Rudy Giulliani. How nice! I don't bash corporations much, but this seems to be one of those conventions that gets approved by a committee of suits before it goes anywhere.This year's "choice" makes it official: the shark has been jumped, the concept should be retired. It's pablum. Update: Mickey Kaus asks, is William Beutler "eerily prescient" or is Time "just preternaturally predictable"? Some Gift Suggestions
By Ed Driscoll · December 16, 2006 12:13 AM · Ed On The 'Net
You've heard us discuss many of these items over the years in various posts, and/or Blogcritics reviews. If you're looking for some gift ideas for Christmas, look no further... Read More » The Gathering Storm
Churchill’s phrase about the gathering storm - there was a storm gathering, but there were people in Europe who didn’t believe it and who didn’t take the periodic storm clouds and the squalls as a real threat. They thought they were transitory and, of course, paid an enormous penalty in treasure and life for their failure to understand the nature of that threat. I worry we are in a gathering storm and we do not, as a society, accept it. Many of the elites of our society, the key opinion leaders, are unwilling or unable to accept what an awful lot of people believe to be the case. The penalty for being wrong can be enormous.Last year, Jonathan Last explored just how similar "the elites of our society, the key opinion leaders" are to those of Britian in the 1930s. "Against Political Art"
Fernando Tesón, guest-blogging at The Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting post on political art as "a noteworthy case of discourse failure": Thanks to the emotional power of beauty, art can, at least sometimes, help noble ideals reach the general public. Many of these works have great artistic value (Picasso's Guernica, for example), and some of them have surely contributed to worthy causes.Read on for Tesón's thoughts; while he’s being largely slammed in the Volokh’s comments section for his dreaded use of “all”, this seems like a reaonable post to posit something I noticed when visiting the newly revamped and much-expanded Museum of Modern Art in New York this summer. There seemed to be much more anti-American political art on public display than when I visited there seemingly every other week in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then, the more propagandistic pieces were largely confined to less public areas, such as the small reference library that was then located on MoMA's third or fourth floor: Their library requires permission to use, and its material isn't allowed out of the room, and it isn't open to the general public. MoMA maintains a cool, professional face in its public spaces. But the walls of its reference library were festooned (at least at the time) with all sorts of anti-American and anti-Reagan (yes, I know--I was there around 1993 or '94, but this stuff was still proudly displayed) posters.Curiously, despite having plowed millions and millions of dollars into renovating the museum, and, presumably eager to get some return on their expenditures by keeping visitors happy and coming back, MoMA seems much more willing to let this type of stuff hang out there in the public these days. Or, maybe this is what visitors to MoMA expect to see these days, and they are keeping them happy. But it was certainly a noticeable shift in the new digs. All They Are Saying, Is Give Appeasement A Chance
By Ed Driscoll · December 15, 2006 12:12 PM · Bobos In Paradise · The Future and its Enemies · War And Anti-War
This week's HamNation is up: "Over 250 Sick After Eating At Indiana Olive Garden"
By Ed Driscoll · December 15, 2006 11:41 AM · Muggeridge's Law
Details here; no word yet if England's Guardian will be sending their crack staff to report on another Olive Garden in the States, as they did so memorably in 2003. Great Moments In Headlines
By Ed Driscoll · December 15, 2006 11:34 AM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Power Line Funkadelic
By Ed Driscoll · December 15, 2006 10:03 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · Podcasts · The New, New Journalism
This week's Blog Week In Review podcast is now online: This week’s program is a Blog Week special, with John Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson of Power Line. They talk about how and why they created their successful blog; the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report and its historical perspective as compared with Pearl Harbor, whose 65th anniversary was commemorated last week, and they predict next week’s events. As usual, Austin Bay hosts and moderates; Ed Driscoll produces.Click here to listen! Fitzgerald Never Met Eason Jordan
Before the crack-up (to coin a phrase), F. Scott Fitzgerald was a writer of towering abilities. But one of the most foolish things he ever wrote was that "there are no second acts in American lives". Certainly that's not the case for ex-CNN executive Eason Jordan. After having admitted that CNN allowed itself to be censored by Saddam Hussein, and then resigning from CNN less than two years later after getting caught claiming, on foreign soil, that the US military in Iraq was deliberately targeting reporters for execution, Jordan is on his third or fourth act with his latest scheme, "IraqSlogger". Or as Jules Crittenden writes: The great thing about this business is, you always get a second chance. To smack around a world-class moron.Kudos to Michelle Malkin for calling his bluff though--Jordan wrote: If Michelle Malkin wants to join the search [for Jamil Hussein] in Baghdad, IraqSlogger will pay for her trip, and I'd even be willing to accompany her. Stay tunedMichelle wrote back on her blog: I e-mailed my acceptance of Jordan's invitation this morning. No way should we just take the word of the guy who admitted covering up for Saddam Hussein and who resigned from CNN after baselessly slandering the U.S. military (maybe we'll find the Davos tape while we're on the search). Plus, it'll be an incredible opportunity to see Iraq and our troops firsthand. I have many friends, heroes, and contacts there I'd like to meet in person.Whille Glenn Reynolds writes that it's a no-lose scenario for her and Jordan ("Either they'll find him -- which is more than AP has managed to do -- or they won't, which will constitute calling AP's bluff."), The Anchoress reminds Michelle to look ahead a few moves: Should be interesting, but my antennae are up on this. Seems to me Jordan would not invite Malkin to Iraq to “look for” Hussein any more than a smart lawyer would ask a witness a question to which he does not already know the answer.I think that's exactly right. Jordan has demonstrated--twice--that wasn't to be trusted at CNN. I certainly wouldn't trust him in his latest venture. How We Got Here
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2006 07:42 PM · Bobos In Paradise · God And Man At Dupont University · The Return of the Primitive
A few years ago, David Frum wrote a book titled How We Got Here, which explored how many of today's societal trends had their roots in the 1970s. Today, Daniel Henninger writes: Chief Justice Warren Burger's long-forgotten dissent is relevant to a society today that vulgarizes simple conversation while euphemizing or banning its darker thoughts. Justice Burger defended the right of students to criticize their school or government "in vigorous, or even harsh, terms." But he called the student publication "obscene and infantile." A university, he suggested, is " an institution where individuals learn to express themselves in acceptable, civil terms. We provide that environment to the end that students may learn the self-restraint necessary to the functioning of a civilized society and understand the need for those external restraints to which we must all submit if group existence is to be tolerable."Meanwhile, Betsy Newmark writes: Roger Kimball has a column today about how some universities are turning down grants of money because the faculty doesn't want to have any sort of curriculum that might break away from the leftist ideology so prevalent on American campuses. They'd rather turn down grants of millions of dollars than chance having some program that doesn't denigrate western culture and history. His prime example is Hamilton College, a school that has had no problem inviting former prostitutes, a leder of the Weather Underground, or Ward Churchill to come talk or teach on campus. But try to found a center based on the contributions associated with the man whom the college is named after and the faculty balks.Does anyone still think of colleges, or at least their non-science, non-engineering departments as "institution[s] where individuals learn to express themselves in acceptable, civil terms"? Magic Hat Spotted
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2006 07:34 PM · Muggeridge's Law
Senator Kerry's legendary bonnet has nothing on the chapeau that this young lass is proudly undulating under! (Hat tip, so to speak, to the Professor.) Update: Far, far weirder YouTube weirdness observed here. Well, That Answers That
When Senator Johnson's (D-SC) stroke was announced yesterday, I thought to myself, who's going to be the first to posit that this is a BushCheneyRoveCo inside job? And here's the winner! (Or if not the first, at least the most visible.) Update: Related thoughts from Tammy Bruce. "Professional And Collegial"
During his daily briefing for the legacy media, Tony Snow addressed David Gregory: TONY SNOW: OK, before I get to that, I want to address something else. Because you and I had a conversation last week that got a whole lot of play in a lot of places, where I used the term "partisan" in describing one of your questions.Demonstrating his personification of both traits, here's a transcript of Gregory badgering Snow's predecessor after it was announced that Vice President Cheney accidentally winged his hunting partner back in February: Why was the White House relying on a Texas rancher to get the word of Cheney's hunting accident out over the weekend, asked Gregory, accusing McClellan of "ducking and weaving.''Technorati is currently tracking 62.5 million blogs, and since 9/11, there have been a host of other non-blog news-oriented Websites and opinion forums that have launched. When the last remnants of the mass media have fully atomized, how will history record their elites' behavior at the tail end of their monarchal reign as information gatekeepers? Update: Hugh Hewitt adds: NBC was the network of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Now they have Gregory and Keith Olbermann --the empty and the angry. Tony Snow's abilities so tower above those of Gregory that it is perhaps not fair for Snow to engage Gregory as other than a teacher would a somewhat slow and thus belligerent student. With that in mind, I understand the apology, as well as the way in which it was cloaked.Exactly. Neville Again
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2006 06:51 PM · Bobos In Paradise · The Future and its Enemies · The Gulag Archipelago · War And Anti-War
Mark Steyn appeared on Hugh Hewitt's show this afternoon: I think one of the horrible and contemptible aspects of our generation is that we're posers. You know, after 1945, everybody said never again. It's chiseled on the markers in front of concentration camps all over Europe. Never again. Never again. And we thought those words meant something. And in fact, the never again event turns up all the time. It turns up in Rwanda. It turns up in Darfur. it turns up when we sit by and listen to people like Ahmadinejad pledging to wipe Israel off the face of the map. And we think that that is just like a kind of rhetorical ploy in the opening of negotiations. We don't understand that he does mean it, that he wants a world, and certainly a Middle East, but preferably a world, without Jews. And I think we are morals posers, and these are perhaps the most hollow words of our time, those words, never again.Read, or, once the clips are up, listen, to the rest. How Final Exams Are Graded
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2006 12:57 PM · God And Man At Dupont University
Despite the endless dumbing down of the education process over the last 20 years or so, it's awfully reassuring to see that the same methods used to grade exams when I went to school are still being employed today. Scarred For Life
By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2006 07:47 PM · Muggeridge's Law
Mark Steyn once dubbed Mickey Kaus "the thinking conservative's thinking liberal"; but talk about old school--I had no idea until watching this week's episode of BloggingHeads TV how much of an an LBJ fan he is! License Revoked?
By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2006 06:54 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted
I enjoyed, with reservations, the latest James Bond movie, Casino Royale--it was definitely a notch above Bond's previous outing in Die Another Day, but that's not exactly setting the bar very high, of course. But this critic from the Times of London has a much more negative take: Craig actually looks like Gollum’s younger brother, and he charges around like the Terminator. The film aims to be a character-driven study of how 007 was changed by this mission and meeting Vesper. But as far as I can tell, it’s the story of how a sadistic psycho who hated women became a better-dressed and more professional sadistic psycho who hates women.Clive Davis reports having a similar reaction. While Ian Fleming apparently didn't think highly of 1950s America, Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, one half of the partnership who bought the film rights to his novels, was a Yank himself, and produced a product designed from the start to have broad appeal on this side of the pond. But perhaps the pendulum has swung so far that Bond has thoroughly alienated audiences in his own country. Or at least its film critics. "Have a Holly Jolly ... Something"
By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2006 12:25 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
I can't say that this is very surprising: In a new Business & Media Institute analysis, “Good Morning America” was the least likely of the network morning shows to refer to Christmas, mentioning it only about 31 percent of the time.Breaking the spirit of Leftivus in the overculture is still an uphill struggle. Sister Souljah Opportunities Abound
By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2006 12:04 PM · The Making of the President
U.S. Warns Of Threat To Satellites
By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2006 11:56 AM · Ed On The 'Net · The Final Frontier · War And Anti-War
The Bush administration warned Wednesday against threats by terrorist groups and other nations against U.S. commercial and military satellites, and discounted the need for a treaty aimed at preventing an arms race in space.Considering how much of the world's communication is carried via satellite, it's far from an idle concern. Heck, when I interviewed Alvin Toffler immediately after 9/11, he was discussing the threat back then. Ed Driscoll.com: Five years into the future! Err, sometimes, at least. Update: More here. Betsy's Page On The Big Lie
In the Middle East, Betsy Newmark writes, it's that "other Arabs really give two jots about the Palestinians"; she links to thoughts from Time magazine's Lisa Beyer, and for the psychological explanation, the Blogosphere's own Dr. Sanity. The Spinal Tap Media, Revisited
By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2006 10:38 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Back in February, Glenn Reynolds wrote, "With a nod to the movie Spinal Tap, I would say the media treatment of Bush administration scandals 'goes to 11'". Of course, that's far from its only excess, as Peter Kann, the chairman of Dow Jones writes: The media's short attention span. As the press hops from Baghdad to Beirut, Natalee Holloway to Valerie Plame, Super Bowls to Super Tuesdays, it justifiably can blame some combination of the nature of the news and the short attention span of the public. The public, meanwhile, bombarded and bewildered can blame a fickle and shallow press. There are too many instant celebrities. Too many two-day crises. Too many "defining moments" from people in search of instant history. In a world where everything is considered critical, nothing needs to be taken very seriously.Read the whole thing, as they say in the New, New Journalism. Update: Meanwhile, Bryan Preston has some thoughts on how the media operates in the Middle East: To point out that Reuters’ Parisa Hafezi has published, on Reuters’ byline, the closest thing to the Iranian government’s point of view that won’t show up on Mahmoud’s letterhead. A Google search on “Parisa Hafezi” turns up a mine of stories couched from that perspective, more or less. This is how Parisa Hafezi can continue to operate within the tyranny that is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and this is the product that Reuters puts out to its thousands of outlets around the world. Hafezi is useful to Iran, by publishing its perspective (though it’s often tin-eared and cluess, as in calling David Duke a “US academic”) as hard news.The good news is that, as Kann wrote above, fortunately, a reasonable percentage of the American public understands that. The bad news is that a large percentage of the population of the Middle East doesn’t, and tends to view AP and Reuters as quasi-governmental agencies themselves. Given the intertwining of the media and government in their own nations, why wouldn't they? More: Dean Barnett adds, "I’ve wondered if I would prefer newspapers that considered it their core mission to be sticking their collective thumb into the collective eye of domestic political forces that I don’t like. And you know what? I’d take a pass": Don’t get me wrong. I love journalistic endeavors with an agenda like The Weekly Standard and National Review. I’m even thrilled to contribute to them when they give me the opportunity to do so. But they’re not newspapers. They don’t pretend to gather “all the news that’s fit to print.” They print analyses of whatever strikes their fancies in any given issue. Christmas Trees Back At Sea-Tac
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2006 06:54 PM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
"That baby born in the manger prevails. He must know someone pretty high up", Tammy Bruce writes. This Week's Rumors Of Castro's Demise
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2006 06:17 PM · The Future and its Enemies
Has he finally kicked the bucket? The rumors circulate once again. "Attorney General Sunbeam"
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2006 03:34 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Muggeridge's Law · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
Ed Morrissey has some thoughts on California's attorney general-elect--Jerry Brown, who's now on his third or fourth E-ticket ride on the California political merry-go-round: Note that of all the priorities for law-enforcement facing California, Brown selects global warming as the most pressing. I guess issues like gang warfare, insurance fraud, and other crimes that cost Californians their lives and millions of dollars each year come in a distant second to ecopolicy. Californians might have gained the false impression that they elected an Attorney General instead of an environmental lobbyist.Of course, the outgoing A.G. is no picnic, either. The fascinating thing about California politics is how it positions Governor Schwarzenegger as the sane, rational, moderate, thoughtful member of the bunch--despite having some of the same obsessions as the incoming A.G. Most. Insane. Headline. Ever.
These guys do often run columnists whom I've enjoyed reading (but can usually find elsewhere), and they get bonus points for being an alternative media source on the Web several years before the Blogosphere came into existence. But then they run articles with headlines like this. (And no, it's not a parody. At least I think it isn't. But who can tell these days?) (Via Hot Air. "P.S.: Soy sauce is fine"! Jesus.) Update: Ed Morrissey adds: WND reminds me of the National Enquirer. It sometimes gets stories right, and most of the time has at least some elements of truth. More often than they should, WND relies on hyperbole and outrageous exaggeration to draw attention to its political agenda. Readers who know this can pick their way through the chaff -- but those readers know better than to waste their time at WND.Exactly. Psst--Read This Crib Sheet And Start Cramming!
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2006 01:10 PM · Democracy In America · Oh, That Liberal Media! · War And Anti-War
Hey, Congressman! Yeah, you in the navy blue flannel Brooks Brothers suit! Big test coming up? Say, an interview with Jeff Stein of The New York Times? Or simply taking over the House Intelligence Committee? Then this is the crib sheet for you. Pass it on when you're done. Rorschach Candidates, Then And Now
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2006 11:50 AM · The Making of the President
Betsy Newmark and John Podhoretz have some thoughts on Barack Obama: Podhoretz calls him a "Rorschach Candidate." People can paint him as representing all they ever wanted in a politician. He can give Kennedyesque candidate calling us to move beyond partisanship towards some sort of new politics. It's all cotton candy right now, but it sure is sweet.There's lots of truth there, and a reminder that voters from both parties have had their Rorschach Candidates. And as Podhoretz writes, one of the appeals of Obama to a number of voters over Hillary is that he's an unknown entity, where as Hillary has decades of baggage dredged up in the 1990s and still very much known by the public.The Rorschach Candidate is the one who provokes enthusiasm not because of the positions he takes but because of who he is. He doesn't seem like a politician; he seems to be better than a politician - fresh, new, different.He reminds us of similar waves of excitement for Republicans Jeane Kirkpatrick or Colin Powell. The Democrats had Wesley Clark for a brief moment before he actually opened his mouth. And then there was Ross Perot. Looking back to the last presidential election, perhaps one of the reasons why the Elite Media were (and are!) so furious at the Swift Boat Vets is that they grafted reality onto one of the great Rorschach Candidates of all time. The U.N.'s Long International Nightmare Is Over
By Ed Driscoll · December 11, 2006 06:52 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Democracy In America · The Future and its Enemies
James Lileks writes, 'John Bolton is out as U.N. ambassador, and many folks are singing hurrah: Our long international nightmare is over!" Bolton didn't realize the rules of the game, it seems. The object of the U.N. is not to advance U.S. interests. The object is assure a steady flow of money and excuses to various illiberal regimes, to issue gravely worded statements of concern when a member nation starts slaughtering its citizens in numbers that require two commas, and to condemn Israel.Read on. And don't miss Ed Morrissey's thoughts on Kofi Annan's farewell address to one his most important constituent groups, the editors of the Washington Post. Did A Representative Of ABC Really Tell A Viewer To F*** Off?
Rosie O'Donnell, class all the way; as of the time of this post this comment and Rosie's reply are still up on her blog: JP writes:(And no, the asterisks don't appear in the original.)Hey Roside, why aren’t you getting your head out your butt and be more sensitive to Asian-Americans.Don’t post this message and see how you are hiding your true facade.You suck and need to get off tv.go f*** urself jp Watch this receive absolutely zero traction in the MSM. On the other hand, how long will ABC allow her to post on her blog without running it past an editor first? Dictatorships And Double Standards
By Ed Driscoll · December 11, 2006 12:02 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · Radical Chic · The Gulag Archipelago
Newsbusters explores "Dictatorships and Double Standards in the NY Times". But it's not like this is a new development, of course. Dawn Of A New Vista?
By Ed Driscoll · December 11, 2006 11:09 AM · The Electronic Cottage
Mickey Kaus writes: I am so not excited about Windows Vista! ... And I was excited about Windows XP, because I thought its sturdier code would stop it from crashing. I was wrong, at least for the early version of XP that I bought. Now I can't see a thing Vista's going to do for me that seems worth braving the inevitable Microsoft early teething problems. [It says you can "spend more time surfing the web"!--ed No I can't.] ... P.S.: Needless to say, if everyone has this attitude Vista (and the need to buy new computers powerful enough to run Vista, etc.) won't provide much of a boost to the economy.I do think 64-bit computing (on Windows or otherwise) has some real possibilities, but it may be a while before it filters down deep into the Army of Davids/serious consumer level. Well, The Extra Pay Will Come In Handy Over The Holidays...
It's promotion time at the AP: Kim Gamel, who issued stories using [Jamil] Hussein as a source on June 1, June 5 and twice on June 6, has now been promoted to the newly-created position of Baghdad News Editor.Meanwhile, AP says it will be going with anonymous sources from now on. So I guess it's so long to Neither of these are approaches that seem likely to build credibility when reporting the news from Middle East war zones, but I guess, whether it's AP or Reuters, for the harried postmodern wire service, it's a case of whatever works. They Paved Paradise, Put Up The Movie Studio's Backlot
By Ed Driscoll · December 11, 2006 02:18 AM · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
National Review's Peter Suderman explores the mindset of the man behind Apocalypto: But Apocalypto is more than a high-velocity Hollywood adrenalin rush. It’s also, arguably, the ultimate reactionary movie, a savage rebellion against modernity that holds up technology and urbanity as poisonous to society. After warming his audience to the good-natured rural villagers, Gibson reverses this trick and paints their urban counterparts as ghoulish and decadent, almost inhuman. The captives’ journey into the city is filled with nightmarish sights — slave markets, sickly children, chalk covered laborers in a stone quarry looking like hollow-eyed ghosts — and capped off with a terrifying scene of ritual human sacrifice. Gibson films it all like an ancient macabre freak show, implicating the sin-filled city, with its suffering masses, devious leaders and enslaving inventions, in the desecration of the simple agrarian life he presents at the beginning.Wow, a Hollywood figure who's anti-modernity. Such a rare occasion that is! The Decade That Never Ends
By Ed Driscoll · December 10, 2006 02:49 PM · An Army Of Davids · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Return of the Primitive · The Substance of Style
"The wide collar, fat tie, and three-piece suit–please say the seventies aren’t coming back…" The seventies took a brief vacation from 1981 to about 1989--or to 2002 if you're really feeling charitable. Other than that, when did they ever leave? Apocalypto Now
"What could cause one of the greatest civilizations in history to disappear?" Saturday Night Live has some fun recaptioning Mel Gibson's new movie. Update: Number one at the box office this weekend, astoundingly enough. The Legacy Medium Is The Message
By Ed Driscoll · December 10, 2006 02:02 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media!
In 1990, Jeane Kirkpatrick wrote: I believe that it is terribly important that the same principles that concern limitations of arbitrary power apply to the media and in the domain of culture. It is very important to realize that the electronic media, which provide mass audiences, have made our culture much more manipulable than it ever was in the past. Typically, historically, cultures have been slow to change. Ideas about what's real, what's important, and what causes what, change very slowly in history. They are grounded in the experience of peoples, and respond only to additional, cumulative experiences of peoples.Read the whole thing. A Uniter, Not A Divider!
By Ed Driscoll · December 10, 2006 01:56 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Muggeridge's Law · The Future and its Enemies
"How does Jimmy Carter know when he's outstayed his welcome on the international stage? When even Jane Hall, the genial liberal of Fox News Watch, suggests it's time to turn him out to pasture." Oprah The Middle East
The Iraq Study Group Report is now in the hands of Mark Steyn, who commences careful study of said document before skewering the daylights out of it: Well, the ISG -- the Illustrious Seniors' Group -- has released its 79-point plan. How unprecedented is it? Well, it seems Iraq is to come under something called the "Iraq International Support Group." If only Neville Chamberlain had thought to propose a "support group" for Czechoslovakia, he might still be in office. Or guest-hosting for Oprah.You know what to do next. (And then check out the amazingly unflattering photo of Hillary reading the report that Time magazine bizarrely chose to run this week. Does this mean that even she doesn't appreciate its diagnosis, as well?) The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name...
The Sacrament Of Style, Revisited
Ann Althouse explores the crossroads between aesthetics and Puritanism: I simply do not believe that the so-called health side is really composed of people who are solicitous about everyone else's health. I can't prove it, but my intuition is that all the strength on the "health" side of this war comes not from people who really care whether other people are healthy, but from people who don't like having to see fat people. They are concerned about their own aesthetic pleasures, and they think fat is ugly.They wouldn't be the first to confuse aesthetics for religion. Update: Puritanism spreads to Australia! "Eat Your Vegatables" screams the front page of the Sydney Sun-Herald, in a headline that would make the previous generation of hard drinking, raw meat devouring newsmen around the world weep. Or break out in gales and gales of laughter. AP's Reputation: Suicide Is Painless
I'm willing to say that he may be jumping the gun, but Alabama Liberation Front is declaring Jamil Hussein a fake. He compares him to George Spelvin; given Hussein's paramilitary background, I'd personally say that if he is indeed a fake, he's closer to the intrepid Korean War vet, Captain Jonathan S. Tuttle. Update: According to our Movable Type interface, this is our 10,001st post. (But hey, I can quit whenever I want. I just blog to be social...) Thanks for being around for the ride! "The Garbage Going To Be Shrapnel"
Marathon Pundit has excerpts from the federal affidavit on Rockford terror suspect Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef, apparently yet another victim of Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Human Nature Has No History
Orrin Judd finds a revealing quote from Jeanne Kirkpatrick: Reflecting at a 2002 conference on her early career as a socialist, she said it had been "relatively short." As she read the works of various socialists, she said, "I came to the conclusion that almost all of them, including my grandfather, were engaged in an effort to change human nature. The more I thought about it, the more I thought this was not likely to be a successful effort."Eschaton-building seldom works. The War At Home
Daniel Henninger writes, "Baker-Hamilton won't stop Beltway bloodshed": Before this Sunday's talk shows use the Baker-Hamilton bulldozer to bury alive the Bush Doctrine and the "neoconservatives," let us suggest there is an alternative version of the Iraq narrative--one that is less a collapse of doctrine than simply the result of bad, possibly fatal, decisions the administration made in 2003.It sounds like Richard Perle would agree with that assessment. Sadly, No Martha Quinn References Here
By Ed Driscoll · December 8, 2006 04:28 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
More Top Ten mania, but sadly, no video, or MTV, MKH or Martha Quinn references here: "The Media’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2006". AP Circles The Wagons
Allah has some thoughts on AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll's latest defensiveness concerning Iraqi mystery man Jamil Hussein: Here’s an idea: instead of issuing these snide Friday broadsides, produce Jamil Hussein. Snap a few photos and put them on the wire. Or, if that would endanger him, arrange a meeting between him and someone from MOI. Or, if that would endanger him, between him and the Centcom press director. If Hussein feels safe enough to have himself identified by name, rank, and precinct in AP news reports, he should be willing to chat with an American officer for 20 minutes. It’s exceedingly strange and suspect that the AP has available to it hard evidence that would explode its critics charges, yet so far as we know it’s made no attempt to produce that evidence. Not once have they offered to supply anyone with concrete proof of Hussein’s existence. Why not?As he concludes, "to say it’s out of bounds to question the stringers is absurd. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire." Even reporters at newspapers that use AP as their primary wire service are beginning to notice. Update: In the New York Post, Robert Bateman writes: THE most powerful media institution in all of human history is the Associated Press. Its news feed is ubiquitous - used, directly or indirectly, by every U.S. newspaper and TV news program and a vast number of foreign ones, too. AP maintains the largest world-wide coverage, and its reader base is nearly immeasurable. Unfortunately, and repeatedly of late, this behemoth has not only been getting it wrong - but increasingly refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing.Bateman has direct experience of what happens when the AP swings into action against someone who questions their stories. From The Home Office In Turtle Bay
By Ed Driscoll · December 8, 2006 01:47 PM · The Future and its Enemies
Mary Katharine "Martha Quinn" Ham shares her Top Ten Rockin'-est John Bolton Moments: Bill Bennett recalls an earlier US ambassador to the UN with a similar viewpoint: It was early in the Reagan administration—a lot of the older-GOP guard was still a little distrustful of this neoconservative group, wasn't sure what to make of us, or even to trust us. Some of us were still Democrats after all (including Jeane and myself).But what is this MTV that MKH speaks of...? Jeane Kirkpatrick Passed Away
"When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich - convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand." --Jeane Kirkpatrick at the 1984 Republican National Convention. Kirkpatrick death at age 80 was announced today; Commentary has reprinted her landmark "Dictatorships & Double Standards" essay that brought her to the attention of Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s. and would eventually lead to her appointment by President Reagan as United States ambassador to the United Nations. Conjuring Democracy
By Ed Driscoll · December 8, 2006 11:15 AM · Ed On The 'Net · Podcasts · The Future and its Enemies · War And Anti-War
The latest Blog Week In Review podcast is now online: Panelists Tammy Bruce and Glenn Reynolds discuss—what else—the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Neither finds the report encouraging.Click here to listen. Darth Bloomberg?
Jim Geraghty writes that with the $500 million that he's prepared to spend on a third party run, New York City's Mike Bloomberg "can afford to have all of his speeches dubbed by James Earl Jones": The 2004 presidential campaign lacked something that the 2000, 1996, and 1992 campaigns featured: a significant showing by a third party candidate. Neither Ralph Nader nor H. Ross Perot came close to winning in those earlier cycles, but both garnered enough support to leave the ultimate winner with less than 50 percent of the vote – leaving the political world to debate whether a two-man race would have had a different winner. (Probably not, but you never really know...)Jim doubts that Bloomberg will sell outside of Manhattan, but a campaign with a $500 million war chest "is not likely to be amateurish". Hopefully this won't be the model for his campaign ads, though. Stuck In The Swamps Of The Potomac
Jim Hamlen, a frequent commenter on The Brothers Judd blog delivers a grim, but accurate sounding description of where we're at in the GWOT. Wake me when the president takes his finger off the pause button: The problem with the administration is that it was "out of gas" the day after the 2004 election. Other than Roberts and (belatedly) Alito & Bolton, everything since has been reactive. The President has given very good speeches, but nothing has happened. The political capital Bush talked about immediately after the election almost as immediately turned into a deflated balloon.I think Hamlen is being facetious in that last sentence--but the second half is dead-on: just as our failure to close the deal in Vietnam led to the Iranian Hostage Crisis, if the War On Terror grinds to halt in Iraq rather than moving forward, America's credibility in the world--certainly the Middle East--will be nil for a long time to come. Doolittle Versus Do Little
![]() One of Mark Steyn's readers (no, not this fellow) makes a point in a letter to Steyn that occurred to me recently as well: Remember when everyone was so shocked at Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam and the crocodile shame that rippled throughout?It's also worth noting the contrast symbolized by today's anniversary The Doolittle Raid occured in April of 1942. That meant that five months after Pearl Harbor, we had dusted ourselves off sufficiently not just from the attack, but from decades of isolationist slumber caused by a deadly combination of Wilsonian elitism and American First isolationism, to begin to assemble the most powerful arsenal of freedom ever assembled, so that an event like Pearl Harbor wouldn't occur again. On this week's Pajamas Blog Week In Review podcast (which I'm mixing down even as I type this), Tammy Bruce mentioned the timing of the ISG report. 65 years after Pearl Harbor, large portions of the American government (apparently not President Bush himself though, at least based on what he has said recently), want to resume America's isolationism--at least until another 9/11 occurs, and even then, they'll get back to us on whether or not we should take action--not just by neutering the American military, but more subtly, via its economy as well. Like the Maginot Line, the notion of Fortress America was exposed as a fallacy on December 7th (and even more so five years ago), but as Steyn's reader writes, "When faced with new problems that demand new solutions, we dumbly fall back on decades of what didn't work before". Update: Speaking of Steyn, he was on O'Reilly tonight, discussing the ISG along with AP and Bilal Hussein. Can You Deposit A PDF On The Grassy Knoll?
By Ed Driscoll · December 7, 2006 12:46 PM · War And Anti-War
I don't know what to make of this: Stratfor's morning letter($) is cloak-and-dagger even by their standards:Not sure how much I believe that there's a second report, but anything's got to be better than what was delivered for public consumption.The Iraq Study Group (ISG), headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, formally released its findings on Wednesday. Outlining a whopping 79 recommendations -- including resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and persuading Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria -- the report's recommendations are far-reaching. It essentially suggests resolving every U.S. foreign policy blunder in the region, all the compounded consequences of these mistakes and the centuries-old dispute over the holy land.Amen, and please, Lord, may the last point be true. A New Hope
"The country may have the rock n’ roll pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu, but it definitely is in the throes of a Kucinich fever". Boy howdy! No Passion For The Nativity Story?
By Ed Driscoll · December 7, 2006 10:14 AM · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Clive Davis asks, "A question for religiously-minded film fans: why is the new movie, The Nativity Story doing so badly when Mel Gibson’s version of The Passion did so well?" Maybe because it didn't arrive with such incredible controversy, and with a media superstar associated with it. (Remember the early, strange stories that began emerging from the set that Mel was spending his own money to shoot a movie entirely in Aramaic? And then the firestorm the week of The Passion's release?) All of that made The Passion go from being just another religious film to a cause celebre that everyone, pro or con, wanted to see to decide for themselves what the fuss was all about. And it sounds like Gibson is doing his damndest to recreate that same controversy with Apocalypto--even if the hype has little to do with the film itself, according to Michael Medved: Perhaps Gibson is so eager to transcend the humiliation of his drunk driving incident, and to bury the lingering suspicions that “The Passion” (despite its huge commercial success) was a right-wing, hate-filled screed, that he’s saying stupid things that he believes will endear him to the “progressive” Hollywood establishment.Anti-American and anti-Semitic? Mel will really be bathed in the French Ego Juice! Update: Thoughts on the film itself, here. Remember NBC's Contrarian Phase?
By Ed Driscoll · December 7, 2006 09:38 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media!
No, me neither. But Mickey Kaus spots Brian Williams asking the particularly hard-hitting questions "during his newscast's unctuous Iraq Study Group celebration": "Are we at our best when our best and brightest get together and hammer out a problem like this?"Kaus asks, "When did NBC Nightly News become such CW sludge?" When wasn't it? But hey, maybe Brian was just aggressively misunderstood! At least didn't try to compare the US to terrorists again. (Maybe because we appear so eager to negotiate with them.) Below that post, Kaus spots Jonathan Klein, the man who put us all into pajamas not exactly enjoying a ratings smash these days at CNN and Headline News. Mickey asks, "Whatever happened to storytelling?": Checking in with ... visionary CNN leader Jonathan Klein! Who knew, when Klein declared he agreed "wholeheartedly" with Jon Stewart's attack on what Klein called "head-butting debate shows,"--and when he pledged to "report the news" and not "talk about the news"--that what he really meant to give us was Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace! ... Ah, but that's CNN Headline News, you say, not Regular Pure Hard News Opinion-Free CNN itself. They're totally separate!** For the moment that's true. But thanks to Klein's visionary leadership, Regular Pure CNN has gone from being the second place cable network to being the third ... wait, make that occasionally fourth place cable network, behind a surging (opinionated) MSNBC and Head-Buttin' Headline News itself! ... If the "brash" head-butt format keeps delivering, how long before it infiltrates Regular Pure CNN? Sub-question: How much more expensive is it to produce Regular CNN than Headline News? Three times as much? Ten times? ... Bonus question: Whatever happened to storytelling?Apparently, that was last year's strategy. This year it's headbuttin' time! (I guess how the news is reported on TV changes faster than hemlines in Paris.) The ISG Tolls For Thee
James Lileks writes: The Bush doctrine has been dead for some time, but this was the funeral oration. I don’t believe in “rope-a-dope,” and I don’t believe in the miraculous Israeli strike, and I don’t think the momentum can be reversed. It’s as if we invaded France and spent three years getting their government back on their feet before proceeding to Berlin. Given this, the debate over the ISG’s recommendations is rather superfluous, but the report does tell you where some people’s heads have become permanently socketed.Lileks signs off, "Happy infamy day, by the way"; Victor Davis Hanson looks back on that seminal day, and then towards the future: And in those days, peace and reconstruction followed rather than preceded victory. In tough-minded fashion, we offered ample aid to, and imposed democracy on, war-torn nations only after the enemy was utterly defeated and humiliated. Today, to avoid such carnage, we try to help and reform countries before our enemies have been vanquished —putting the cart of aid before the horse of victory.Read the rest. Talking Points Memo
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 07:41 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · War And Anti-War
![]() Red State and James Taranto both link to a blog post by Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch, who writes: Even if the report [was] wrong, and I'm not convinced that it is, it was in the context of horrific--and demonstrably true--escalating violence in Baghdad. . . .Note the media groupthink implied by "our main talking points". In a post titled, "When Media Bias Slaps You In The Face", Red State's "Adam C" writes: And people wonder why most of the public does not trust journalists to be impartial. When reporters have "talking points" and liberals are overrepresented by large margins, it doesn't take a genius to realize that there is a credibility problem. Hopefully new media will help level the playing field, but until then we should be putting pressure on news rooms to stick to the facts and leave talking points to the activists and politicians.I'm not sure if bias is really the issue here. Given that Philadelphia is a fairly liberal city, it's possible that Bunch is simply telling the majority of his readers what they want to hear--and there's nothing at all wrong with that, as the New York Times' then-ombudsman conceded a couple of years ago. And it's safe to assume that were he or she honest, a person in a similar capacity at the Daily News would make an identical admission. (And maybe already has. It's been almost a decade since I left the Philly area.) But perhaps most significantly, James Taranto highlighted Bunch's concession that Reuters and AP both cooked the books in their Middle Eastern reporting. The Daily News relies heavily on AP for coverage of events outside of Philly; and to a lesser extent on Reuters. It's not every day that one of their reporters writes that both wire services relied on stringers who, to put it charitably, invented reportage, or to put it more plainly--lied. Insert Obligatory Dr. Strangelove Quote Here
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 07:11 PM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · War And Anti-War
Jules Crittenden looks at the Robert Gates confirmation hearings, and writes: As political matters go, I was more interested to hear a former CIA director still thinks we had to invade Iraq in 2003. That was also a relevant strategic issue, after all. The sanctions regime was falling apart and Saddam with a nuke would have become an even bigger problem than Saddam without a nuke. Every major intelligence agency in the world believed he had nukes, as did Gates himself. Let's hope this, unchallenged yesterday, will finally shut up the revisionist "Bush Lied" Left, though I'm not holding my breath on that.Didn't the New York Times resolve this issue recently? Abyssinia, Jim
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 03:13 PM · War And Anti-War
Hugh Hewitt weighs in on The Iraq Study Group Report: It totals 96 pages, not counting its introductory letter from Secretary Baker and Congressman Hamilton, the executive summary, and the many appendices, which includes such helpful information as the fact that the ISG talked to 15 senators (not one of whom was elected for the first time since 9/11, creating a generation bias in the interviews, one which appears replicated in the 10 House members interviewed.,) and that of the 21 foreign officials interviewed, only David Abramovich, the Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was consulted from the state most threatened by the Iranian mullahs and Syrian thugs the ISG demands the US appeal to.More thoughts, here, here and here. Update: Ian Schwartz notes (with the help of an accompanying video) that paranoia strikes deep with the ISG: During the coverage of today’s Iraq SurrenderHeh, indeed.TM On the other hand, the ISG members don't seem too reluctant to talk to conservative bloggers, at least. More: N.Z. Bear writes: So here are the keywords defined by the Iraq Study Group for their report:Hugh Hewitt writes:iraq study group report james baker lee hamilton co chairs middle east congress bipartisan strategies president bush america abroad military withdrawal troops civil war iraqi government sunni shia kurds christian sectarian violence conflict post-conflictYes, that's right. If you're looking for "withdrawal", this is the document for you. If you happen to be looking for "victory", however --- you are out of luck. John McCain shrewdly and quickly dismissed the ISG Report's recommendations. Any would-be GOP nominee should do the same and very quickly. The "victory option" remains at the center of the GOP, and no raft of Beltway paper will change that fundamental fact.Hope he's right. Benchmark Established
John Podhoretz spots "The Most Pretentious Piece of Writing in All of Recorded History": You know, at times, people come up to me randomly on the streets of New York and ask me, "Say, JPod, how exactly would you define the word 'pretentious'?" And I have to admit I am usually stumped and unable to sum up exactly the qualities of pseudo-thought that the word represents. That is why I am grateful today for the film critic of the New York Times, Ms. Manohla Dargis. A writer of uncommon self-important idiocy, Dargis has just published what is, I believe, the single most pretentious review, ever written, in any publication, anywhere, of anything. If you are brave, you will emerge from her description of David Lynch's Inland Empire a sadder but wiser person. You will have looked the horror of pretentiousness in the face and you will have survived. Take a deep breath. And begin. Here.Note: review (not to mention movie) could cause serious side effects. Do not take internally. Consult your physician if you begin running around in a circle screaming inarticulably. Freak Out In A Moon-Age Daydream
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 12:53 PM · War And Anti-War
Scrappleface boldly goes where no satirist has gone before. Asleep At The Wheel
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 12:47 PM · Bobos In Paradise
Charles Krauthammer dubbed the 1990s a "holiday from history"; James Taranto has a blast from the past from nine years ago on this day. (Scroll to mid-page.) Flight Crews Are The Last Line Of Defense
Brent Bozell has some thoughts on the Flying Imams and asks, "How many times, at how many airports, have there been these kinds of incidents that have not made it to the news desks?" I ask because I’ve been a witness to one such incident, from a distance of perhaps three feet, which never made it on the news.As Bozell writes, "Something is happening out there. And it’s not good". Meanwhile, Debra Burlingame (whose husband was a pilot killed by the terrorists on 9/11, who crashed his plane into the Pentagon), has an exceptional essay in Opinion Journal: Read More » It's Just A Little Bit Of History Repeating
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 11:47 AM · War And Anti-War
Fair is fair--this was the exact attitude of every boomer in 1972 as well. Fresh Start Called For
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 11:33 AM · The Making of the President
Jonah Goldberg writes: My hunch is that average Americans on either side of the ideological divide recognize their dilemma. Bipartisanship is overrated, but nobody wants day one of a new presidency to begin at the partisan equivalent of DefCon 1. America is now in the grip of Mutually Assured Demonization. If the GOP throws up another Bush (or, perhaps, a Gingrich), "Blue" America will turn its missile keys. If the Democrats trot out a Gore, a Clinton or a Kerry, Red America will respond in kind. How else to explain the enormous popularity of Barack Obama, whose anagram-like name seems to spell "fresh start" for millions of Americans who know nothing about him?While they're waiting for Hillary, another candidate with an extensive shelf life is feeling the media's love--at least for the moment. Redorkulation Spotted
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2006 11:20 AM · Muggeridge's Law
Karma happens: when you diss Mark Steyn's chops--and go anti-Semitic in the process--the writing gods punish you by making you write typos like this. Let's Watch Peter Gabriel Invent The Music Of The 1980s
By Ed Driscoll · December 5, 2006 08:50 PM · All You Need Is Ears
In 1980, Peter Gabriel somehow managed to combine just about all of the elements that would drive rock and pop music in the MTV era--and this was a couple of years before MTV was even born, of course. African polyrhythms, drum machines, gated drums, the Fairlight CMI synthesizer, sampling--it was all there on Gabriel's third and fourth album. It was around that time that England's South Bank Show did an episode which documented Gabriel's lengthy efforts to map out and record that fourth album, Security. Since we occasionally discuss home recording here, these YouTube clips are pretty cool stuff, especially when you realize how far technology has advanced since then: the Fairlight that Gabriel demonstrates here (particularly in the second clip) cost something like $30,000 back then; today the PC by your desk has much more computing power, and with the right software and soundcard, can do anything it could. (And can generate all of its preset sounds.) Read More » Zombietime: The Antidote To The Victorian Gentleman
Zombie Speaks! Shortly after witnessing the debacle outside the gates of San Quentin during Tookie Williams' much deserved execution in February, I dusted off Tom Wolfe's meme from The Right Stuff of the press as a hypocritical Victorian Gentleman and wrote: To easily see the Victorian Gentlemanly style in action, pick up a copy of a paper like the San Francisco Chronicle. (Or scroll through their Website of course, but it's even more obvious "on dead tree".) Read their coverage, of say, the protests outside the gates of San Quentin during Tookie Williams' execution. Then peruse the photos of the same event at Zombietime.I'm not sure if in the strictest definition, Zombietime is actually a blog, but it's very easy to say that Zombietime is one of the great additions to the Blogosphere. Its proprietor is interviewed here. Needless to say, read the whole thing. "McCain Stands Tall"
Larry Kudlow writes that at least when it comes to Iraq, John McCain gets it: “This is not Vietnam or Somalia or those places where you can walk away. If we just pull out, we will find ourselves back in short order", McCain said yesterday. Meanwhile, Michael Barone stresses the importance of character in 2008. Journalistic Problems Silly And Serious
![]() Hey, if the Florsheim fits: Jon Meacham, editor of "Newsweek," compared journalists to MTV’s teen morons Beavis and Butt-Head for the demands they make on public officials, and portrayed himself as understanding of negative public sentiments of the media:Meanwhile, Mark Tapscott looks at a much more serious and immediate problem in the MSM: how does AP begin to get its credibility back in light of Jamil Hussein?"One of the things people don’t like about journalists, reasonably, is that we’re kind of like Beavis and Butt-Head. You know, we demand people change, and then when they change, we kick ‘em in the shins and say ‘well, you didn’t change quick enough.'" You've probably not read much about it because only a handful of mainstream media outlets have covered it, but the Associated Press - for decades America's largest and most trusted wire news service - is at the center of a credibility crisis largely of its own making.Tapscott echoes Glenn Reynolds' "habeas corpus" request in the latest Blog Week In Review podcast: AP needs to produce Hussein or risk even further damage to its reputation. As Glenn mentioned, this story doesn't have the superstar figurehead quality that RatherGate had: Dan Rather is a household name; Jamil Hussein simply is not, and probably won't become one, no matter how hard the Blogosphere pushes. But all of these attacks on the media's credibility, including this latest one, have a drip, drip, drip quality to them, and added together, have seriously eroded public confidence in Big Media, as Jon Meacham's quote at the start of this post implies. Science Fiction Versus Science Fact
Allah explores Iranian science fiction and finds it blandly going where Mel Brooks has gone before. Me? I think this Iranian-born astronaut is far more interesting. As I wrote a couple of months ago: I wonder if the mullahs back home, and her fellow Iranian women are aware of these images, and the power of their symbolism.No wonder they'd rather crank out grade-Z sci-fi propaganda instead. Additional Photos Needed For Further Study
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2006 05:21 PM · War And Anti-War
Someone alert Kofi Annan and Jonathan Chait--here's one area where Iraq has undergone a positive transformation since the fall of Saddam: In December of 2002, ESPN ran a remarkable segment on television, "Blood On The Rings". It highlighted the unspeakable cruelty by which Uday Hussein oversaw Iraq's Olympic team. Perhaps surprisingly, its accompanying Webpage is still up. Take a minute to reread it. And then for a look at how things have changed since, click on Gateway Pundit's look at Iraq's efforts to, umm, expose democracy through sports: Iraq just happened to be the only Muslim nation out of 16 that entered into the women's volleyball competition at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.Just imagine how bizarre the words "Iraqi Volleyball Babes" would have been five years ago (probably about as bizarre as this headline). More team photos, please! Noir Nation
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2006 03:35 PM · The Future and its Enemies · The Gulag Archipelago · The Return of the Primitive
Is North Korea killing its citizens for the insurance money? I'm sure the L.A. Times will get right on this story. Bay City Blues
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2006 02:01 PM · Bobos In Paradise · The Return of the Primitive · War And Anti-War
Michelle Malkin calls for a troop withdrawal. Missing The Love
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2006 01:31 PM · The New, New Journalism
"Fox News: 'You Report, We Repeat' -- Without Attribution" Hillary-A-Go-Go! Obama-Rama!
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2006 12:43 PM · The Making of the President
Ed Morrissey has some thoughts on the chances in 2008 of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (whose middle name apparently must not be spoken). Update: Meanwhile, coming in a distant third (or more), Joe Biden sounds like he wants to take up where Howard Dean left off as "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks", as Dean himself said in one his more spectacular pre-YARRGH!!! gaffes. Another Update: Flash! Breaking news! This just in! Tom Daschle's decided not to run, in what must have been an agonizing decision for South Dakota's favorite son. Jamilgate Update
![]() Charles Johnson has a round-up of links for the latest on "Where's Jamil", including a New York Times report which is "a little more fair than I expected", considering all of the wagon-circling that's par for the course in Big Media when a scandal like this breaks out. As Charles writes: These people really do seem to think they’re a priestly class, immune to criticism, existing on some rarefied plane from which they hand down truth to the ungrateful masses.And word out of the Vatican is that the latest would-be clerics aren't looking so good, either. Update: speaking of wagon-circling, Allah writes: The media wouldn’t have circled the wagons for Fox if they were in the AP’s spot so Fox won’t circle the wagons for them. An attack on one isn’t an attack on all if you’re not regarded as part of the “all.”Click here for a video clip of a Fox interview with Boston Herald city editor/blogger Jules Crittenden on Jamilgate. OK, Now It's September 10th
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2006 11:10 AM · Democracy In America · The Future and its Enemies · War And Anti-War
Two words: Bolton Resigns. Make no mistake--this is not a casualty of the new Dem majority, the loss of Bolton is due to the incompetence and cowardice of the previous Republican majority. And they wonder why they got fired.And the sad thing is, by and large, they probably really do. Home Is Where The Virtual Hearth Is
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 09:48 PM · The Electronic Cottage · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Television long ago replaced the fireplace as the central gathering place in the American home, which adds to the layers of McLuhanesque irony hidden in the annual Yule Log video. Fortunately, the spotlight shines even brighter on the world's most famous log this year, as The New York Daily News reports: Generations have sat raptly in front of the television on Christmas Day, mesmerized by a holiday classic: "The Yule Log."Hopefully they'll put it up on YouTube in time for Christmas. In the meantime, the above clip should help get you in the mood, though you'll have to keep hitting play after its short run, rather than waiting for it to automatically loop. Charlie Got His Gun
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 06:56 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Return of the Primitive · War And Anti-War
Over at Pajamas HQ, Ron Rosenbaum buries a new Germany comedy--two words you rarely see combined--about Hitler that attempts to ignore centuries of cultural anti-Semitism by depicting Der Fuhrer as "a bedwetting drug addict who is making the world suffer for his beatings as a child", according to Der Spiegel. (Which sounds like a variation on John Cusack's 2002 Max, which explained away Nazi Germany's collective atrocities by suggesting if only young Hitler had been more appreciated as an artist...) Rosenbaum makes some perceptive observations about a much older comedy about Hitler, as well: And speaking of trivializing, there is no more trivializing, over-rated, treatment of Hitler than Chaplin’s dimwitted, laboriously unfunny Great Dictator. Yes Chaplin made some funny movies, but when he tried his hands at politics Chaplin made a movie that did nothing but help Hitler because he made him seem like an unthreatening clown just at a time, 1940, when the world needed to take Hitler’s threat seriously.He wasn't the only prominent Hollywood figure to do so during this period, of course. Update: Blinkered Thinker has some decidedly unblinkered thoughts on The Great Dictator. Hollywood's Inconvenient Sci-Fi
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 04:34 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Hollywood, Interrupted · Oh, That Liberal Media!
There's an article in Wired News by Jason Silverman, which starts with an interesting premise: the scarcity of good science fiction at your local movie theater. The writer correctly notes that because of the huge budgets required to provide the necessary WOW! factor that sci-fi movies require to blow its audiences out of their seats, it's that much more difficult to get a film like 2001 or Blade Runner green-lighted in Hollywood's current challenging environment: Why has Hollywood stopped making serious sci-fi? According to Gordon Paddison, New Line Cinema's executive vice president of new media and marketing, it is all about risk and money. Paddison described Hollywood financing as formula-driven: Films with the potential to travel well across borders score the highest points.Unfortunately, Silverman undermines his argument with a sentence that's a combination of both political correctness and an "Everybody Knows" mentality: As for the audiences? If they'll flock to the theaters for Al Gore's PowerPoint lecture, you'd hope they'd show up for good, smart, science-based fiction.But they didn't flock to the theater's for Al's PowerPoint lecture: An Inconvenient Truth grossed a paltry $23,808,111 at the box office, which the author could have found in about five seconds by simply by looking up the film in the Internet Movie Database. While that gross is no doubt a nice return on what is probably a tiny documentary budget, it's less than Tom Cruise's salary. In addition to the leading man's costs, there's the budget for the rest of the cast, Industrial Light & Magic's special effects, building the sets, location shooting, and a thousand other expeneses. Add it all up, and you reach the same conclusion that New Line Cinema's executive vice president makes in the quote above--that Hollywood is pricing itself out of business. Tthere's another element as well. Earlier this year, Libertas described one of Hollywood's current business models: Hollywood has recently perfected a formula whereby low-budget, indie-looking films generate good reviews, controversy, and oceans of free publicity (a lot of it coming from the conservative media) due to a film’s left-wing worldview. And all this free buzz gets translated into box office dollars.But that formula also tacitly demonstrates that while films like An Inconvenient Truth may keep the industry alive in some form for the foreseeable future, they make it that much more difficult to repeat, say, the summer of 1982, when Star Trek II, E.T., and Blade Runner all played in shopping mall multiplexes. Hollywood is alienating its Red State audiences with films like Gore's, which are not only comparatively little seen compared to the average blockbuster, but demonstrate to the moviegoers who don't count themselves amongst the faithful how predictably slanted to the left Hollywood has become. And in that long run that can't be good for business--or Hollywood wouldn't have had to adopt the Fahrenheit formula to begin with. Who Is Jamil Hussein?
He's the mystery man of the hour (well, half-hour, actually) on this week's Blog Week In Review, with Richard Fernandez, Glenn Reynolds, and host Austin Bay. At the beginning of last August, Ace of Spades brilliantly predicted the scandals involving Jamil Hussein, and his immediate predecessor, Adnan Hajj, Reuters' bumbling would-be fauxtographer: The American media is setting itself up for a massive scandal. One day, it will in fact come out that they are guilty of willful blindness and a deliberate avoidance of asking their stringers tough questions to maintain their own plausible deniability.Click on this week's podcast to explore the latest development in the MSM's faux journalism from the Middle East. Pot Meets Kettle--At Neiman Marcus
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 01:38 PM · Hollywood, Interrupted
"Don’t you love Hollywood lecturing us about consumerism?"--Libertas's rather negative review of Blood Diamond, starring legendary child actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Update: "I love the English lifestyle, it's not as capitalistic as America", Gwenth Paltrow notes--in between dinners in London with Madonna... (Barely keeping pace with the minimum wage, Paltrow earned a decidedly miniscule $10,000,000 from at least one picture's she's starred in.) Maybe Baker Should Check With Haskell Wexler, Too*
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 01:39 AM · Muggeridge's Law · The Future and its Enemies · War And Anti-War
Mickey Kaus notes that Tom Hayden is remarkably simpatico with Jim Baker's pullback plan. *Why yes, that was a Medium Cool homage... Update: "You Want Tough on Baker? I'll give you tough on Baker. Complete with Depends jokes": John Podhoretz lowers the boom. The Village, Revisited
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 01:08 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · From Bauhaus To Our House
"Corbusier" of Architecture And Morality explores the growing popularity of what he calls "Lifestyle Centers": Ironically enough, my town is investing lots of its own resources to build a brand new town-center along its waterfront, far from its historic town square. Why do our city leaders think this a good idea? For one thing, the new town center, while looking and feeling like a traditional urban street, is in reality more optimally planned for accomodating major commercial anchors. There is a cineplex at one end of the development and a brand new hotel and conference center at the opposite end, with "blocks" of retail, chain restaurants with views of the lake, and elegant fountains and walkways. There's even a landscaped amphitheatre for open-air concerts, and the new town center has recently proved to be effective in gathering large numbers of people to watch fireworks.I think Santana Row in San Jose would definitely qualify as a lifestyle center; I blogged about it last year--complete with cheesecake poster! Banned In Chicago!
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2006 12:39 AM · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Or something like that--Ed Morrissey reviews The Nativity Story; Govindini Murty explains why it's so controversial in the Second City.
Merry Leftivus!
By Ed Driscoll · December 1, 2006 10:11 PM · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Mary Katharine Ham explores how we arrived at The Holiday That Dare Not Speak its Name: James Lileks' Bleat from a couple of Christmases (oh no, he said it!) back is also worth reading for its historical perspective, as he rummaged through his newspaper's Christmas (he did it again!) archives over the course of the 20th century. Update: It sounds like St. Albans, North Carolina has a particularly impressive Leftivus display this time of year. Sometimes Life Should Imitate Scrappleface
I was on The Tammy Bruce Show this morning, discussing the Baker Report, the ABC Report, and Danny DeVito's drunken retorts. And I must say that Scott Ott has the best advice on how Jim Baker's recommendations should be implemented by President Bush. Mel Sure Likes To Keep The Red, Red Vino On Tap
By Ed Driscoll · December 1, 2006 11:55 AM · Hollywood, Interrupted
Immediately after viewing The Passion during the week that it opened, I wrote: Regarding the violence, it is a very violent film. I'm not sure how much of that reflects what Gibson felt audiences have come to expect of movies of all genres (ranging from slasher films, to cop films such as Mel's own Lethal Weapon movies, all the way to war films such as Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down), and how much he equates, as Andrew Sullivan wrote, Jesus' torture with the intensity of His beliefs and the importance of His mission. Sullivan:But The Passion arrived with its story already known by 99.99 percent of its potential audience. That's very different from Apocalypto--who knows what it's about? And in a post titled, "Buckets O' Blood", John Derbyshire writes that it's even bloodier--if that's possible--than its immediate predecessor: Back when Mel Gibson brought out The Passion of the Christ, I offered the opinion on NRO that Mel is much too interested in scenes of gruesome things happening to human bodies, and I suggested that as an added draw for his future movies, movie theaters might be rigged up with machines to squirt fake blood at the audience at suitable points in the story. (I had not, and still have not, seen Passion; my opinion was based on Mel's pre-Passion work.)Well, that gives me yet another reason to absent myself from Apocalypto, no matter how loudly Disney has cranked up the hype machine. Life Unworthy Of Life, The Sequel
By Ed Driscoll · December 1, 2006 11:42 AM · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
Steven Bainbridge checks in from post-Christian Europe: A recent report from the UK's Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine: ethical issues, concludes that "there are some circumstances in which imposing or continuing treatments to sustain a newborn baby's life results in a level of irremediable suffering such that there is no ethical obligation to act in order to preserve that life." Accordingly, the Council opines that physicians ethically may withhold or withdraw treatment from such infants. Indeed, while the Council claims not to accept active euthanasia as ethical, it invokes the principle of double effect to justify the use of "potentially life-shortening but pain-relieving treatments."And that usually works out well in Europe, huh? Star Wars Heating Up
By Ed Driscoll · December 1, 2006 10:07 AM · Democracy In America · The Final Frontier · The Future and its Enemies · War And Anti-War
Not sure how things are in Darth Vader's neck of the woods, but down here, Pajamas writes that a dueling battle over orbital defense is coming to planet Congress next year: "Democrats to Gut Missile Defense / Bush to Announce 'Orbital Battle Station'". Pelosi Names New Head Of Intelligence Committee
Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi tabs Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, for the job. As Mary Katharine Ham writes: Well, it ain't Alcee Hastings, which is kind of a downer when we're talking about entertainment value, but a major plus when we're talking security of the country. I'll take security in that choice.IndeedTM. She also has some thoughts on his voting record--and nepotism. As MKH writes, "Funny how we never heard much abou this stuff until after Dems took control". Go figure. |
![]() Since 2002, News, Technology and Pop Culture, 24 Hours a Day, Live and in Stereo! (And every Saturday on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.) What They're Saying
"Very polite. Smart man."--Nelson Guirado Navigation
Support the Site
Search
Archives
February 2009January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 Etcetera
![]() Bookmark Me! Blogroll Me! ![]()
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by
Site design by
|
Copyright © 2002-2008 Edward B. Driscoll, Jr. All Rights Reserved |