Thursday, October 27, 2005
JOFFE-WALT UPDATE
A reader close to a Manchester Evening News staffer sends this note:
His paper subsidizes the Grauniad because they make a huge profit from their mainly working-class readership, while the Graun operates at a massive loss to its white, middle-class, left-on readers. Of course, all the folks at the Evening News hate the guts of the Grauns because of the massive salaries compared to their own more modest remunerations.
Anyway, he tells me that ...
”Benjamin Joffe-Walt is apparently suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, which explains his inaccurate account of what happened, and is now being cared for by the paper.”
Another possible explanation: Benjamin is a former human shield. Such folk may usefully absorb ordnance, but they’re hopeless reporters.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
PLASTIC TURKEYS EVERYWHERE
Utah talk-show host Tom Barberi:
That plastic turkey didn’t go over too well when the media compared it to a rubber chicken.
Someone call 97.5 FM Talk in Salt Lake City and set this idiot straight.
UPDATE. Lionel Mandrake:
Have any of you ever raised turkeys?
I thought not. But nevertheless you’re happy for other people’s turkeys to die in Iraq!
Damn turkeyhawks.
MAJOR SPEECH PREDICTED
An email arrives from johnkerry.com:
Dear Friend,
Later today, I will deliver a major speech on the war in Iraq.
It asks a hard and essential question: how do we bring our troops home within a reasonable and responsible timeframe, while achieving what needs to be achieved in Iraq?
One thing is certain. It isn’t by continuing to pursue the Bush administration’s “stay for as long as it takes” rhetoric.
Pretentious blowhard. If “achieving what needs to be achieved in Iraq” is key, how does one avoid the requirement to “stay for as long as it takes”?
“WHERE ARE THE GOOD JEWS TODAY?”
Henry di Suvero usually spends his afternoons writing “all sorts of things, including letters to the ABC protesting against its pro-Israeli news coverage.” That’s about what you’d expect from someone who, as a lawyer in the US, defended the Weathermen. Late in life, Henry has become a playwright. His latest work, pre-emptively hyped by the Sydney Morning Herald, is The Ballad of Rachel Corrie:
Corrie went to the Gaza Strip with a peace group called the International Solidarity Movement; she helped escort Palestinian children to school and wrote reports on what she saw happening in Rafah, where she was based. In March 2003 she and four other members of the movement spent the afternoon trying to stop Israeli tanks bulldozing a row of houses. Corrie was standing in front of one house, wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, as a bulldozer approached. Witnesses say it was obvious the driver and nearby soldiers could see her, but she refused to move. The bulldozer, fitted with a bucket designed specially to knock down houses, rolled on, crushing her. Its driver then stopped and reversed over her body, witnesses from the movement say.
Di Suvero has never been to Israel, but saw it all reported in the media ... The Ballad of Rachel Corrie is the second of a trilogy he is writing on the issue.
“My first play really asks the question: why do the Palestinians have to keep on paying for the Holocaust? This play moves on and asks: what is the utility of non-violence? The third play, which is about refuseniks, asks the question: where are the good Jews today?”
Calculate the odds of ever seeing this line appear, without condemnation, in the SMH: “Where are the good Muslims today?” Ballad is the second Corrie play; the gal’s becoming a franchise.
MOTHER DOWN
Mother Sheehan’s innovative chain whispering campaign—“Participants also did a ‘chain whisper’ in each other’s ear: ‘We honor Casey Sheehan and other fallen soldiers. Pass it on’”—hasn’t inspired widespread public response, possibly because Antony Loewenstein had all the whisperers shot as enemy collaborators. So she’s come up with another clever tactic:
Cindy Sheehan and other peace activists plan to “die symbolically” for the next four days outside the White House to represent the American soldiers who have died in Iraq.
Sheehan, whose son Casey died in Iraq last year, organized the vigil as the U.S. military death toll in the war neared 2,000.
“I’ll be laying down and not getting up,” Sheehan said Tuesday to a small crowd in which the number of journalists exceeded the number of protesters. “When they let me out, I’ll do the same thing if I get arrested.”
That’s if any cops bother turning up. What’s the police code for “prone moonbat activity in progress”?
LOADS O’ BOGOSITY
Jon Henke emails:
I assume you’ve heard about former Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson, who recently gave a speech in which he said—inter alia—that decisions in the Bush administration were often made by a secretive “cabal” that included Cheney and Rumsfeld. Our friends on the left have been salivating over that story for a few days.
Of course, there’s a lot of other stuff from that speech that they ... um ... didn’t mention. One particular treat: you know those aluminum tubes the administration got so much crap for calling a part of Iraq’s nuclear program? Guess who told us they could only be meant for a nuclear program? France.
Hit that link for more details. In other devious foreigner news:
The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France ...
His admission to investigating magistrates in Rome on Friday apparently confirms suggestions that—by commissioning “Giacomo” to procure and circulate documents—France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.
Italian diplomats have claimed that, by disseminating bogus documents stating that Iraq was trying to buy low-grade “yellowcake” uranium from Niger, France was trying to “set up” Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent.
Via American Thinker. Yet more bogus information news, from Stephen Hayes:
On June 12, 2003, when he first published a story about the matter, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus became the second journalist to have been used by Ambassador Joseph Wilson to peddle bogus information about his February 2002 trip to Niger.
Wilson told Pincus that he had debunked Bush administration claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. He was specific and apparently seemed credible. And Pincus bought it all.
And many—including some of the paper’s staff—are buying the story that the New York Times was led astray on Iraq’s WMD solely by wicked Judith Miller. Not so, points out Robert Kagan:
[T]he Times, along with The Post and other news organizations, ran many alarming stories about Iraq’s weapons programs before the election of George W. Bush. A quick search through the Times archives before 2001 produces such headlines as “Iraq Has Network of Outside Help on Arms, Experts Say”(November 1998), “U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production of Chemical Weapons in Sudan”(August 1998), “Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort” (February 2000), “Signs of Iraqi Arms Buildup Bedevil U.S. Administration” (February 2000), “Flight Tests Show Iraq Has Resumed a Missile Program” (July 2000). (A somewhat shorter list can be compiled from The Post’s archives, including a September 1998 headline: “Iraqi Work Toward A-Bomb Reported.”) The Times stories were written by Barbara Crossette, Tim Weiner and Steven Lee Myers; Miller shared a byline on one ...
As we wage what the Times now calls “the continuing battle over the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq,” we will have to grapple with the stubborn fact that the underlying rationale for the war was already in place when this administration arrived.
As with all the above-linked pieces, read the whole thing.
UPDATE. Perhaps you’re a simpleton, in which case this summary of Plame events may be useful.
TASER ME ELMO
The LAPD comes down hard on a member of the Puppet-American community:
The red and cuddly Sesame Street Muppet Elmo has learned a new lesson: ‘H’ is for handcuffs.
A man dressed as the character was one of three impersonators arrested last week for allegedly harassing tourists for tips after posing for photos on Hollywood Boulevard ...
Officers conducted a sting operation by posing as French tourists who didn’t understand English.
Consider the thoughts of an LAPD officer on being told: “Son, you’re now assigned to French Imitation Tourist Squad. Elmo division.”
UPDATE. Elmo fraternises with the criminal element.
NOT ANTI-WAR; JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE
Antony Loewenstein: “The defeat of America and its allies in Iraq is vital ...”
I guess that’s the last we’ll hear from Lowy. He’ll be off to join the heroic Iraqi resistance. That is, unless he’s some kind of ... chickenhawk.
UPDATE. At the link above, Currency Lad comments:
A member of my family is serving in Iraq. Lowenstein wants him to be killed. I’d love to see him say that to the person concerned. Or that person’s spouse. Or his mates in uniform.
I’d settle for him saying it to his recruiter in Syria.
BIRD VIRUS INCURABLE
Most plastic turkey conspiracists only mention the Great Magical Holy Bird of Bush’s Perpetual Idiocy once, lest repeated mentions tempt opportunistic relatives to have them committed. Even Mark Lawson, inventor of the legend, later revised the turkey down from “plastic” to mere “fake” (still wrong, but allowing at least a little wiggle-room). No such wimpishness from Mike Whitney; he decided the turkey was plastic back in April, and, by gum, ain’t no dang fancy-pants notions of “reality” gonna change his mind:
Rove’s job is to ensure that Bush looks presidential whether waltzing with a plastic turkey in Baghdad or gadding about in a Navy flight-jacket surrounded by Marines.
Brought to you by CounterLunch, edited by Alexander Cockburn and (best liberal name ever) Jeffrey St. Clair.
(Via Rob at SemiSkimmed)
BOB ON THE JOB
Picture Bob Ellis at his computer, tapping out another column for the weekly Byron Bay Bong Trader, stomach furrowed with concentration. Tap, tap ... sip ... tap ... gurgle ... taptap ... clink ... CLANK! ... oh no! Shiraz* all over the keyboard! Computer broken, and column due tonight! Must write column using trusty old wine-resistant typewriter. That’ll mean no internet-enabled fact-checking, but Bob’s pretty sure he’ll get his story straight:
It looks like it was wrong of Saddam Hussein to kill or approve the killing of 143 people some of whom had tried to kill him, and he should therefore (I suppose) hang by the neck until he is dead for his immoderacy.
This seems fair enough. But it also seems by the same measure, or a worse one, wrong of George Bush to kill or approve the killing of one hundred thousand people in Afghanistan because one or two, or ten or twenty of them, tried to kill him and his Congress on 9/11, and he should therefore, what, fry in Old Sparky ...
How many people were killed on 9/11? Can’t remember; let’s just leave that out. One hundred thousand dead in Afghanistan? Yep; no forgetting Lancet’s famous report. They should try something like that in Iraq! To stop readers flicking past to the Mostly Mao ads, Bob again bemoans the destruction of Saddam’s luxury yacht—a dark episode that has haunted Ellis for nearly two years. And to conclude, a brief examination of international trade:
How many deaths, how many divorces, how many ruined childhoods and fractured educations does globalism have to cause before we see it, and condemn it, as the pandemic it is?
Not to mention all the ruined yachts of dictators! Speaking of potential divorce causes, I wonder how baby Juliet is doing these days ...
(Via Ellis editor Raff)
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
TEXAS SMARTER THAN CALIFORNIA
Vermont is the smartest US state. Arizona is the stupidest. So claims a ranking system based, in part, on student-teacher ratios and percentage of children in public schools. Here’s the complete list:
1. Vermont
2. Connecticut
3. Massachusetts
4. New Jersey
5. Maine
6. Minnesota
7. Virginia
8. Wisconsin
9. Montana
10. New York
11. Pennsylvania
12. Nebraska
13. Kansas
14. Iowa
15. New Hampshire
16. Rhode Island
17. Wyoming
18. South Dakota
19. Maryland
20. North Dakota
21. Missouri
22. North Carolina
23. Colorado
24. Texas
25. Delaware
26. Indiana
27. Michigan
28. Idaho
29. South Carolina
30. Washington
31. Ohio
32. Illinois
33. Utah
34. West Virginia
35. Kentucky
36. Florida
37. Arkansas
38. Oregon
39. Oklahoma
40. Georgia
41. Tennessee
42. Hawaii
43. Alabama
44. Alaska
45. Louisiana
46. California
47. Nevada
48. New Mexico
49. Mississippi
50. Arizona
MASS BOOTINGS
It’s bloodletting time at Fairfax:
John Fairfax Holdings Ltd will slash up to 7.5 per cent of its editorial staff at its Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan newspapers as part of proposed cost cutting ...
Between 20 and 30 positions will be slashed at The Age and between 25 to 35 jobs will go in Sydney ...
In a memo to staff, Age editor Andrew Jaspan and Age managing director Don Churchill said the company would force redundancies if volunteers were not forthcoming.
Tuesday’s announcement comes after Fairfax last year shed about 45 editorial positions and 86 printing jobs.
Angry SMH and Age staff are currently meeting with their pointless union. Wonder how the 55 soon-to-be-unemployed Fairfaxers feel about recent online hire Andrew West, who’s contributed a mere 18 posts since joining the SMH in September.
UPDATE: “The latest round of redundancies is likely to target older journalists and editors ...”
UPDATE II. It just doesn’t make sense; 16 Fairfax journalists have won awards this year, yet still the company struggles!
COLUMN ISN’T FAMILY FRIENDLY
Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are sociology expert Michael Bittman, Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, John Howard, Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush, Philip Ruddock, and Bob Brown. Also in The Bulletin:
* Paul Toohey on the Falconio murder trial;
* Julie-Anne Davies on bird flu;
* Alan Deans and Nick Tabakoff on Fairfax;
* Laurie Oakes on new terror laws;
* and hot girl-on-girl kitchen action—soon to be replaced with a new Melbourne Cup-themed photo gallery. So click now unless you’re hot for horsies.
ARGUMENT ATTEMPTED
Oh, how cute! (Thanks to fan David Heidelberg.)
LONG WAIT AT AN END
Little Green Footballs has been monitoring the peace movement’s ghoulish anticipation of America’s 2,000th death in Iraq. That grim milestone has just been reached. Party on, peaceniks.