This blog is now read by more machines than humans: RSS robots, spam-laying insectopoids, echoes of blog-gathering .edu projects. This essentially is the state of affairs that all human activities w
Cleaning Up the Nation
Austin Bay:
If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt funding trail and cynical abuse of a poverty program would be front page news at the NY Times and full-time mega-scandal at
Rank Materialism
Freedom. I am now the proud new owner of a Gateway 6020GZ laptop, perfect for students and others with limited means. I can now go into a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble and look like I'm doing some
Fallujah Fonda
Uh-oh. From the Telegraph comes this exciting news:
Jane Fonda is returning to anti-war activism and embarking on a cross-country tour to call for an end to US military operations in Iraq.
Acros
John Pilger: Partner in Terrorism
In an outrageous piece of terrorist propaganda appearing on the cover of today's New Statesman, John Pilger puts the blame for the 7/7 London attacks not on the terrorists, but rather on Tony Blair:
Month 7/2003
BBC Etc.
Links to other stories available from the BBC's Saddam sons 'dead' page:
Saddam sons 'dead'
UK: Deaths a 'relief' for Iraqis
US cheers 'good' Iraq news
Nice, that last one. But how about:
'Pr
Mr. President, we need to know?
In my continuing role as the blogger grammarian, I'd just like to point out that Howard Dean's 16 Questions aren't questions at all but declarative statements with question marks tacked onto the ends.
...Damned if You Don't
MSNBC is reporting on the growing Calls for U.S. mission in Liberia:
"We’re dying here,” screamed some in the crowd, as two American servicemen in camouflage watched from behind bulletproof glass.
Turn and Face the Strange
ForNow, in comments to this post of mine, calls the format cool, but "forbidding". I can see that. Those buttons on the right seem to be multiplying like rabbits. So, in what is optimistically a clari
What the Hell is This?
Alright. I think I've got this horse dealy more or less how I want it. Well, okay- for now.
The interface is simple, and by simple I mean complex, though I hope it is also intuitive. There's a 'sta
Kerry's Lennon Gambit
NY Post: "Sen. John Kerry is distributing fliers in New York with a 30-year-old photo of him and Beatle John Lennon to woo anti-war presidential voters as he competes with rival Howard Dean in blastin
The Dean Problem
You know what Dean's main problem is? It's not his leftist take on the war. It's not the fact that his political experience was gained in a state smal
More BBC Crap
Safety measures. That's the header over the following two paragraphs in a BBC article about the July 9 protests in Iran.
The authorities had jammed the transmissions of American-based TV and radio s
Navigator Compliance is Here
Well, not totally. There remains a bunch features available on this page in Internet Explorer that you still don't have with Netscape Navigator. Like the swooshy animation and the keyboard-enabled int
Privacy vs. Equal Protection
The Lawrence decision. This is one of the best decisions to come out of SCOTUS since the Boy Scouts decision, ironically enough. Both rulings affirm human rights, in the first instance affirming (not
227!
OK. A day late. It's the though that counts. But just what is that thought?
The Stack
So Lileks writes this thing about a new paradigm- stacks- for online newspapers/blogs that he read about in a Weekly Standard article by David Gelernter, who in turn is involved with this company whic
BBC Crap
From a July 4 BBC article: "The United States has imposed sanctions on five Chinese firms and a North Korean company for selling weapons technology to Iran."
Quite noticably, nowhere does this arti
...Damned if You Don't
MSNBC is reporting on the growing Calls for U.S. mission in Liberia:
"We’re dying here,” screamed some in the crowd, as two American servicemen in camouflage watched from behind bulletproof glass.
One man held up a hastily scrawled sign: “Today G. Bush kill Liberia people.”
There's no doubt that the situation in Liberia is awful, and people are getting killed.
But this situation, when seen together with the situation in Iraq, shows the futility of the US trying to win the hearts of the global community, if there is such a thing. We're criticized for getting involved in Iraq where some say we shouldn't, and criticized for not getting involved in Liberia where some say we should. Often these are the same people.
Having as much power as the US has guarantees that the US will be criticized for how we use it or how we don't use it.
What may be as bad, and may even be the driver of the constant criticism, is the attitude of the press. When Bush says he wants to overthrow the Iraqi government, the press, looking for conflict, focuses their attention on those who strongly disagree. When Bush declines to send troops to Liberia, so far, the press again focuses on those who strongly disagree.
This isn't even about liberal or conservative slant. It's the philosophy of journalism: focus on the conflict, air all sides of any disagreement. The editorial decision to promote dissenting views, even when held by a small minority, can give the impression that the US is always on the wrong side of any decision it makes.
The main dialogue, as we get it from mainstream news, is the government says this and those that strongly disagree, say that. What may be lost is what the majority thinks about any given policy. I'm not sure this is the best way to conduct a democracy or a debate on foreign policy.
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Brian O'Connell.
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