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February 04, 2004

Background
: A coupla useful posts at Kos:
: How accurate have the polls been? "The verdict? Zogby has been stunningly accurate. SUSA and ARG have been pretty good. In fact, other than Iowa (and to a far lesser degree, South Carolina), the pollsters seem to have done surprisingly well."
: Democratic conventions through the ages. linuxant modem driver pirate

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Frozen
: Only 15 percent of Canadians would vote for Bush. The rest apparently realize that they can't vote for him because they're Canadian. linuxant modem driver pirate

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The Auschwitz of 2004
: Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post shames us on the lack of coverage and action regarding reports of concentration camps in North Korea. linuxant modem driver pirate

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NPR contemplates the BBC
: NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin contemplates the trouble at the BBC caused by reputed reporter Andrew Gilligan and, no, he doesn't try to whitewash them:

When it comes to investigative journalism, the dangers can often outweigh the promise. The BBC has discovered this to its sorrow. There are some lessons to be drawn from this misadventure for other journalistic organizations, including NPR....
Gilligan didn't let the facts get in the way of a good story. Lord Hutton concluded that his report was not based on any credible evidence.
Heads are rolling at the BBC with the recent resignations of the chairman, the director-general and the reporter himself.
But other reactions seem to indicate that journalistic defensiveness and denial are the operative responses.
Last week, BBC journalists walked off the job in solidarity with their disgraced leaders....
These reactions miss the point entirely....

Dvorkin goes on to give some very practical advice for the wrangling of investigative reporters. And then he deals with the question of the BBC on NPR, quoting letters from listeners who believe that the BBC's credibility is shot.

In my opinion, the BBC, like The New York Times, is still strong but damaged. Both are capable, I hope, of repair and learning from what happened....
For now, I'll keep reading the Times and listening to the BBC on my local public radio station.
But I am disappointed and more skeptical than before.

linuxant modem driver pirate

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The devil we know
: I turned on the radio on the drive home tonight and couldn't believe what I heard. Oh, I already knew that John Le Carre had lost it. But even so, I was amazed and what I heard him say and had to come home and listen again:

:I think that the fact that after we had ended the Cold War that we set about demonizing Islam, that we set about preparing ourselves for unlimited wars in the future, I continue to find that deeply depressing... I would long for more comprehension and a greater respect for the victims of our dreams.

What incredible idiocy.
Who demonized whom?
Islam -- or the crackpot, violent, murderous, tyrannical, fanatical edges of Islam -- demonized America and the West and modernism. They are the ones who came here to attack us.
Who demonized whom? They demonized us, you ass.
The victims of our dreams?
And how are they victims? Tyranny and repression are what have victimized them. Our dream for them is democracy. Their dream is democracy. Anyone's dream is.
The victim of our dreams?
What a horrid old fool you are.linuxant modem driver pirate

: And then I happened to read Dr. Helen Smith reviewing David Frum and Richard Perle's An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror at TCS.

As a forensic psychologist, what I found most worthwhile about the book was this unapologetic attitude toward terrorists and terrorism. I believe the authors are correct when they promote strong tactics in dealing with terrorists. In fact, I believe that the liberal stance of trying too hard to "humanize" our enemies is a mistake that will make the problem worse, and produce more violence rather than less....
In my private practice, I don't work with terrorists but I do work with violent people. I used to believe (as many of my colleagues still do) that empathizing with my patients and increasing their self-esteem would help them on the path to self-actualization. Of course, for some anxiety-ridden patients who need faith in themselves, the technique of empathy and support works. However, for those patients with serious violent tendencies, just the opposite is true. With those patients, I've found that setting clear boundaries and making judgments about their immoral behavior works like a charm.

Right. The criminals who attack us, those with serious violent tendencies, have to find clear boundaries set around their immoral behavior.
We are fighting them. We are protecting ourselves from them.
We aren't demonizing them. They already are demons. [Dr. Smith -- yes, that's who you think it is -- via Relapsed Catholic]
linuxant modem driver pirate

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Live, from Iraq
: Adam Curry is going to broadcast (and blog!) live from Iraq. linuxant modem driver pirate

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Can we make John Howard secretary of state?
: Australian PM John Howard stands firm:

John Howard does not stand off his decision to go to war in Iraq - and, faced with the same set of circumstances, he would do it all again.
Fending off calls for an independent inquiry into why weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq, despite pre-war intelligence reports that said they were there, the Prime Minister insisted yesterday the Middle East was a safer place after Saddam Hussein's removal.
"I'm not embarrassed because intelligence is an imprecise science. You have to make judgments on the material that you have available at the time," Mr Howard told ABC radio in Perth. "I don't resile one iota from the decision that the Government took," he said.

That's why we like Australians: Direct and right.
linuxant modem driver pirate

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Oh, grow up, America
: I would say this is getting ludicrous but, of course, it already was. It's getting ludicrouser and ludicrouser....

The NFL is changing the Pro Bowl's halftime show because of Janet Jackson's breast-baring at the Super Bowl.
Singer J.C. Chasez was dumped from the program at Sunday's all-star game in Hawaii after fellow N'Sync member Justin Timberlake's stunt with Jackson at the championship game.
The new Pro Bowl halftime plan includes hula dancers, drummers, conch shell blowers and local singers.

And that will be a big hit! Maybe the hula dancers should wear body suits and lots of grass. And the drummers better not use sexy jungle rhythms. And I don't know, but doesn't blowing a conch sound downright obscene?
Jeesh. Buddy Holly died 45 years ago this week. You'd think we'd have learned how to deal with sex 'n' rock 'n' roll by now.linuxant modem driver pirate

: And what's wrong with this picture: Janet Jackson is getting banned from the public airwaves and Michael Jackson isn't...linuxant modem driver pirate

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Narrowing the field
: The NY Times editorial page says today, and I agree:

It is important that future debates be limited to only two or three people. The time for inviting hopeless hopefuls is over. Voters have had a long and weary experience with crowded pseudodebates featuring seven, eight or nine candidates. If the point now is to see whether Senator Kerry can stand up under assault, he should be asked to go head to head with a serious candidate, beginning with Senator Edwards.

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Syndication
: Zeyad has a too-cool story today. You'll remember that he used his camera to shoot pictures of the Dec. 10 anti-terrorism demonstrations that were ignored by major Western media and the pictures got picked up by The Weekly Standard.
Now they've been picked up again:

This was scary. An American patrol was distributing leaflets in our neighbourhood today. This isn't an uncommon practice. But the pictures on the leaflets caught my eye, and I nervously picked one up and looked closely. The pictures were mine, the ones I took on Dec. 10 at the anti-terror demonstrations. The writing on the leaflet said:
"The spirit of tolerance between different religions, political organizations, sects, and ethnicities is part of the democratic society. All Iraqi citizens are equal and free to voice their opinions. Respecting others will help make Iraqi a better place for all Iraqis".
I sighed in relief. For a short moment, after recognizing my photos, I seriously thought the leaflets had to do with something from the blog and I was a bit anxious. I then started to get amused and I told one of my neighbours that the pictures on the flyers were mine, he smiled at me as if I was raving and said "yeah, sure they are". Arrgghh. I AM OUTRAGED! hehe... Can I sue the CPA for printing my photos without permission? LOL.
Here is a scan of the leaflet and these are the original photos I took two months ago.

Whoever's designing leaflets for the CPA has good taste in photos (bad taste in design) and owes Zeyad a syndication fee.linuxant modem driver pirate

: In a moment of international kismet, I had just finished telling a long-lost-friend the story of Zeyad and his camera at lunch today when she went to the rest room and I, geek that I am, whipped out my Treo to check my email. I saw a note from Tim Oren alerting me to Zeyad's post; pulled up in on the Treo, and read it to her. This, too, is cool. linuxant modem driver pirate

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Freedom of speech (and dress)
: Ernest Miller quotes Michael Powell saying that First Amendment protection should extend to broadcast TV, since it already extends to unregulated cable TV. That would mean that he couldn't be launching a Janet Jackson witch-hunt. linuxant modem driver pirate

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The next big thing
: Om Malik and Rafat Ali -- two of the best biz bloggers in the biz -- have started a new joint venture on the digital music business called NthOctave.linuxant modem driver pirate

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We're on top of that story
: When Janet Jackson's top came off, Adrian Holovaty saw more than a breast. He saw the future of news. And he's right.
He happened into the Super Bowl during halftime:

Well, we all know what happened during that performance. And I saw it -- live. Er, I thought I saw it. I wasn't sure. The camera cut away so quickly that I couldn't really tell what'd happened.
So I did what any self-respecting Internet-junkie would do: I flipped open my laptop and hit the Web.
CNN had nothing. MSNBC had nothing. Neither did the New York Times, Washington Post or Chicago Tribune. Google News didn't say anything about it, either. I checked a bunch of other big-media sites but couldn't find any coverage.
I began to think I'd just been delusional. Then I checked Fark.
Fark.com -- a deranged mix of quirky news-article links, hilarious Photoshop antics, incestuous user comments, and a healthy dose of porn -- had the story. In my estimation, it'd been less than 15 minutes since the halftime show ended -- and Farkers were already talking about it....
Read the archived comment thread to see the story unfold. There were first-person accounts of watching the event. There was background information. There was analysis and piecing-together of the facts. And, most importantly, there was an effort to distribute any and all raw information about the incident, mostly in the form of high-resolution TV-screen-grabs and video.
It was clear that all of this was fueled by a desire to get to the bottom of the story -- a desire not unlike that of a professional reporter.
Could this have been a glimpse of the future? Could a much more traditional news story be covered in the same way, given the right mix of a dedicated audience and enabling technology?

: Update: What goes around comes around. [via the comments]linuxant modem driver pirate

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Why I really want Dean to lose
: Because then his site will disappear off the Technorati Top 100 and all the rest of us will move up one.linuxant modem driver pirate

: Speaking of ego, I forgot to tell you that John Hawkins did a new version of his political blog power rating. He sifts through Alexa's top sites (which tracks a very limited sample of people who happen to use Alexa) and finds the top political blogs. linuxant modem driver pirate

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Ribbing
: Tim Porter sends us to the official transcript of a wonderful exchange between Bush and reporters at the Nothin' Fancy Cafe in Roswell (insert alien stonewalling joke here). I thought that Bush was pretty much humorless. Not so:

THE PRESIDENT: I need some ribs.
Q Mr. President, how are you?
THE PRESIDENT: I'm hungry and I'm going to order some ribs.
Q What would you like?
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever you think I'd like.
Q Sir, on homeland security, critics would say you simply haven't spent enough to keep the country secure.
THE PRESIDENT: My job is to secure the homeland and that's exactly what we're going to do. But I'm here to take somebody's order. That would be you, Stretch -- what would you like? Put some of your high-priced money right here to try to help the local economy. You get paid a lot of money, you ought to be buying some food here. It's part of how the economy grows. You've got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?
Q Right behind you, whatever you order.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm ordering ribs. David, do you need a rib?
Q But Mr. President --
THE PRESIDENT: Stretch, thank you, this is not a press conference. This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady's business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?
Q Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?
Q Ribs.
THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.
Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?
Q An answer.
Q Can we buy some questions?
THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people -- they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.

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More the merrier
: Red Herring has a blog.linuxant modem driver pirate

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Janet Jackson is a mensch
: Give Janet Jackson credit. She stood up and took the responsibility for her boob. Andrew Gilligan should have been half as honest to admit that he is a boob. Heck, George Bush would have been better off to admit his boo-boo. She's more of a man than either of them.linuxant modem driver pirate

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