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A modest contribution to the debate between the media and bloggers… Thanks to Jon Stewart for pointing out yet another way in which the credibility and professionalism are the flavour of the day. Obviously. My favourite phrase: arbitrarily terrifying. via BuzzMachine August 6th, 2006 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The astonishingly skewed reportage relating to the Middle East, and the reactions to it on the internet, reminds me of the reportage in the aftermath of 9/11 and how that changed the way a great many people understood how news is reported. The reaction to ideologically or commercially motivated massaging of facts in the mainstream media, which claimed to be objective reporting, is what more or less created the pundit blogosphere as we know it today. The spotlight is once again on the reporters and networks who accept staged ‘photo-opportunities’ and rebroadcast them as factual ‘news’ (suitably edited). It is on the journalists who report every single Lebanese casually as ‘civilian’ even if they are members of Hezbollah (true but completely misleading). It is on the reporters operating within Lebanon under close Hezbollah direction and yet not adding a disclaimer to their reports pointing out this. It is on major western news agencies selling obviously photoshopped images of the aftermath of Israeli bombing. Of course not every journalist allows themselves to be used in return for a ‘sexy’ story, as this July 30th article shows…
So why is that not ‘front page’ news on the BBC or the hilariously named ‘Independent’? Could it be because it suggests that what the ‘Zionist entity’ has been claiming all along might actually be true? To quote the movie Network, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more”. We can fact-check your ass. August 6th, 2006 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
For those who missed this in the Samizdata comment section a few days ago, take a look at this and make of it what you will. Horray for Update: And that applies to still images as well. Reuter’s has its ‘Dan Rather moment’ as a picture of the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike is proven to be a Photoshop ‘enhancement’ August 5th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’ve been re-reading the report of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee – Identity Cards Technologies: Scientific Advice, Risk and Evidence in preparation for an interview this evening. It is full of wonderful sarcasm couched in parliamentary politeness, and I recommend it to you, if you care to understand how Britain is governed and/or have a taste for black comedy. MPs are as much bemused spectators as the rest of us. Nobody knows what the Home Office is up to, because it refuses to tell anyone – even select committees – any more than it can get away with. It does have 180-odd people now working on its Identity Cards programme. But I begin to wonder if they themselves know what they are about… In case you think I am exaggerating, this is from section 30 of the report:
August 5th, 2006 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of the pleasures of living in Texas is the vigorous gun culture – I have never lived anywhere else where people talked as openly in any setting about guns and shooting. We are also blessed with a reasonably sane concealed carry permit (you can qualify in one day of training) and self-defense laws. Having availed myself (along with my wife) of said permit, we are currently acquiring some hardware. Since my wife has what can be a longish walk to her car from her office, near a neighborhood that isn’t as savory as I would want, we outfitted her first with a dandy little 9. She already has a solid piece of German metal (my wedding present to her; romantic, no?), but it was a little too solid to lug around. Personally, I’m a .45 guy – I like a pistol that says “puts big holes in people”. My current hogleg could hardly be less portable, and there is a surprising dearth of truly portable .45s. Thank goodness Kahr finally came out with companion for the wife’s piece. August 5th, 2006 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of my sillier pastimes is doing the Radio Times crossword, the easy version. And last night I was stumped by one of the clues, and had to look at the upside down crib to learn the answer. And the answer was an outrage. The clue was “Lack of fairness”. Even when it was blank blank E blank U blank L blank T blank, I still did not get that the answer was “INEQUALITY”. Which is, as I say, an outrage. Fairness is absolutely not the same as equality, and under cross-examination, everyone – everyone – will admit this. Should a murderer be treated in an equal way to someone who commits no crimes at all? Of course not. Well, yes, of course, it would not be fair to treat murderers equally, but even so, equality, roughly and readily, still, sort of, means fairness. The principle is established, conceded, and then promptly forgotten. But I say that the murderer/good person contrast applies in a modified way to many other less outrageous, yet assumed completely fair, proposals for an equal outcome. What about people who work very hard, compared to people who do the same kind of work, but somewhat less diligently and effectively? Is it fair for those two to get exactly the same pay? Again, no. Equality is one thing and fairness is something quite distinct and different. Sometimes, as when dividing up scarce biscuits at tea time, an equal outcome makes the most sense. But when more is at stake and more needs to be taken into account, well, more is at stake and more needs to be taken into account. An argument to the effect that people who do unpleasant manual labour for a living deserve, on the grounds of fairness, to be paid more than people who work in nice clean, sweet-smelling offices, is at least using the idea of fairness in a reasonable way. But notice that this argument is likewise not about equality. It is being claimed that it would be fair for the unpleasant (as it were) manual labourers to be paid more than the occupiers of comfortable offices. So this argument isn’t saying that fairness equals equality either. My answer to this claim is that it might well, in some ways, be fairer for shit shovellers to be paid more than office drones, but that, at any rate in an approximately free society and free economy, it is not typically a good idea for people to be paid what a third party decides that they deserve. The world works better if people are paid whatever an employer freely agrees to pay them. Imposing ‘fairness’, whether defined (fatuously) as equality, or defined in some other far more reasonable way, is a bad idea. (Not least because those imposing this ‘fairness’ must clearly by unequally powerful, or they would not be able to make their decisions stick.) But that is a different argument. August 5th, 2006 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Richard Ehrlich asks whether the present vogue for celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Gordon (“the F-word”) Ramsay, Delia Smith, Nigel Slater, et al, is really based on any solid, honest talent. It is a good point he makes and there is no doubt a fair amount of flim-flam in some of the phenomenon. Even so, I think his article leaves a slightly sour taste (‘scuse the pun). Celebrity chefs may, even in a marginal way, have helped improve the quality of cooking or opened people’s eyes and hence their tastebuds to foods they would otherwise have never thought of before. It is also, let’s not forget, a part of the growth of “middle-class” habits among the population. Shortly after the war, there was nothing like this, except for drab government documents telling us how to make do on rations. Then along came Elizabeth David, the first proper celebrity cook who revolutionised British cooking by advocating the delights of Italian and French food. And we are all the better off for it. Celebrity chefs may annoy some folk and in some cases do not deserve their fame, but at least they seem to contribute something to the sum total of human happiness. Which is no mean feat. If Nigella Lawson wants to invite me over for supper, I am hardly going to turn her down (I hope my wife is not reading this). UPDATE: apologies for some spelling snafus in the original. August 5th, 2006 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
In accordance with their ongoing commitment to the principles of constant development and change and to show that the organisation remains determined to accurately reflect the ever-changing social and cultural landscape, the BBC today unveiled its new corporate logo:  (Courtesy of Prodicus) August 4th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
If your community is built around a terrorist organization, and relies upon that organization for infrastructure and funding, you should not be too surprised when that infrastructure gets ripped out by irate victims of said terrorist organization. And before anyone starts whining about ‘disproportionate force’ being used by the Israelis, I would encourage them to reflect on what force used in self-defense is supposed to be proportionate to. If someone attacks you with a knife, are you only allowed to use a knife to defend yourself, or can you pull your firearm and put them down with that? No one would say that a firearm is a ‘disproportionate’ response to a knife. And that is because force is only disproportionate if it is (far) in excess of what is reasonably necessary to bring the aggression to a halt. A solid case can be made that, far from being disporportionate, the Israeli response has fallen far short of what they are entitled, and perhaps even obligated (to their citizenry) to exert. August 4th, 2006 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
Perry in particular will be delighted to know of the existence of Moonbat Media – it is new to me anyway. Though they do not seem to be taking the definition very literally. August 4th, 2006 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Amongst all the the bad things about the French Revolution – the murders, the mutilations, the rapes, the robbery, the paper fiat money (and so on) there were some good things… and these good things happened during one session of the ‘National Assembly’ – a session about the time of the 4th of August 1789 (there was some night work – but there is no great need to complicate matters). Serfdom may have covered only a tiny minority of the French population and courts may not have been in the habit of enforcing it – but it was still good to have it abolished. The old taxes may soon have been replaced by worse taxes – but it was good to have so many of the old ones abolished. It was of course wrong to later rob the Church of its lands (and later to plunder other people of their land, and to rob a lot of other people of various things), but tithes were wrong – and they went in the August 4th session. Of course such things (that some books give credit to the Revolution for) such as religious toleration and the end of torture had been granted by Louis XVI long before the Revolution (and were soon violated by the Revolutionaries anyway), but it was nice to have formal statements about the end of ‘putting the question’ and freedom of conscience. If any day in the Revolution deserves to be celebrated (most of the Revolution being a matter of robbery and mass murder – mostly of ordinary people) it is August 4th. Certainly July 14th should not be celebrated. The Bastille contained about half a dozen people (including de Sade) and it was not ‘stormed’ at all. The Governor of the Bastille gave up the defence of the place when he was offered safe conduct – he was then promptly murdered. When talking of the French Revolution it is normal to make a nod to the Declaration of the Rights of Man – but I have read it (in translation) and the drafting does not compare very well to (for example) the American Bill of Rights. At first glance the French Revolutionary document looks like a defence of individual rights, but the more one reads it and thinks about the wording the less good it is. To put it American terms – the thing smells of Thomas Paine (not the libertarian a lot people think he was). August 4th, 2006 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is still no official word that statist Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has passed away, so any obituaries will have to remain on ice. It is not our habit at Samizdata.net to concede a thing to dictators, but one has to credit Castro for his tenacity in clinging on to power, especially after the collapse of his Soviet patron in 1991. One must never forget though that the Cuban people have had to pay the price for Castro’s tenacity. What to do about Castro has been a policy question that has vexed every US President since John F. Kennedy. Until the end of the Cold War, the US certainly could not ignore a violently pro-Soviet state on its doorstep, but after 1991, a policy of benign neglect might have worked to undo Castro. However, one of the features of US policy has been its vulnerability to poltics, in this case, the political wishes of the large Cuban exile population in the politically sensitive state of Florida. (For example, President Clinton felt he had to sign the Helms-Burton Act which regulates the US embargo against Cuba, in an attempt to secure the state for the 1996 Presidential elections.) Peggy Noonan has more on the political impact of Castro on America. I like her policy prescription as well.
Now that would be poetic justice. August 4th, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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