Saturday, February 12, 2005

Fisking Michael Standaert



Click here for AmazonThe LA Times' review of Hugh Hewitt's new book Blog is enlightening. The Times   selected a person named Michael Standaert, with whom I am unfamiliar. I do know this... he has literally set the standard for left-leaning MSM shills to follow. He will be hard to top.

I hereby call him out for a brisk fisking.

...this book is a sustained effort of partisan hackery aimed at further eroding trust in what the author Hugh Hewitt calls "mainstream liberal media," which for him means anything to the left of Rush Limbaugh. This regurgitated mantra, in the hands of skilled marketers, can be applied to the latest hot brand — in this case anything to do with blogs...


In a non-subjective, academic, and peer-reviewed study Tim Grose-Close and Jeff Milyo, of the University of Chicago and Stanford University, meticulously vetted the mainstream media. Their conclusion?

...Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree...


Michael, Stanford and U. of Chicago are hardly bastions of conservative thought. Methinks there is a rather large problem in asserting that the mainstream media is anything but biased. Unless, of course, you can provide a peer-reviewed study that mainstream media is biased to the right. I won't hold my breath.

[Hewitt is] ...a sort of right-wing Robin Hood stealing from the rich liberal mainstream media and giving back the correct information to the hinterlands...


Right wing Robin Hood? I can hardly detect even a scintilla of biased sarcasm there, can you? Standaert's agenda couldn't be more clear than if he electronically scrolled it over Times Square during rush hour.

...Hewitt has chosen the Protestant Reformation as a mirror on how blogging is leading a reformation against the mainstream media. He focuses largely on the case of "Rathergate" at CBS and how blogs were the first to point out the discrepancies in the documents CBS anchor Dan Rather said alleged that President Bush received preferential treatment during his National Guard service...


The lynchpin analogy of the book is startlingly accurate. And I've noticed that you, Mr. Standaert, have no answer to Hewitt's assertions. The Rathergate affair is, well, rather well-documented. Born in the bowels of the Free Republic message board, it resonated through the blogs at speeds the MSM could only dream of achieving.

[Hewitt's] ...fanatical fervor leads him down the path of triumphalist bombast...


When the entire world of the mainstream media has been demonstrably upended, such a statement is neither accurate nor even responsible. The only bombast I have detected thus far, is yours, Mr. Standaert: the imprimatur of the LA Times   is hardly a substitute for common sense. As experts have, on multiple occasions, already demonstrated.

...Without traditional media to feed off of, there would be little for most political bloggers to link to and comment on...


Ah, the centerpiece of the review. And amazingly, shockingly, startlingly wrong... as even the events of the last several days have demonstrated. The blogosphere first reported upon and then proliferated the story of the Eason Jordan affair in a manner reminiscent of... Genghis Kahn (sorry, couldn't help myself)... an uncontrollable wildfire, thanks to people like Mr. Hewitt.

...Lott's and Rather's own miscues and ethical lapses were what ultimately brought them down — not bloggers...


Hardly. One is left simply to wonder how many Rathergates and Easongates have occurred, unreported, over the years. It is an unsettling thought.

...It was up to USA Today, part of that liberal mainstream media, to uncover the scandal that journalist Armstrong Williams was being paid by the Department of Education to talk up the federal "No Child Left Behind" program — not bloggers...


Ah, the proverbial victory for the MSM over the new media. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time. The MSM has its place, but there is little question -- especially after the Jordan affair -- that the blogosphere now holds the leash on the poodle.

...The other fallacy is that blogging will supplant mainstream media and that the emergence of blogs will be similar to the outcome the invention of the printing press had on furthering the Reformation by giving common folk access to the Bible in their own languages. There are cases to be made about how the blogging revolution will change mainstream media habits and dissemination, but unfortunately Hewitt's "independent" position advocates right-wing, corporate or advertisement blogging...


Once again, reality intrudes into Mr. Standaert's artificially constructed world. The blogosphere is already leading the MSM around by the nose. One only need look at the circulation woes of the LA Times and its owners or the catastrophic ratings slide of CNN. Stories like the Swiftboat Vets and Eason Jordan burst from the blogosphere to Fox, not the other way around.

...Hewitt is a bit more forthcoming about the ethical dilemma faced among the top tier of political bloggers who may or may not get paid to advocate for causes, saying "bloggers should disclose — prominently and repeatedly — when they are receiving payments from individuals or organizations about whom or which they are blogging." But in the book, Hewitt describes how blogs should be used by opinion makers to get their points across through directly influencing the most prominent bloggers...


Because their credibility, the foundation of trust, is at stake. It's called accountability, and its a concept that has been foreign to the MSM... until now.

What Hewitt fails to see is that there already is a growing infrastructure of litblogs available that are independent, not beholden to a single publisher and not taking payola to promote or trash competitors' books.


Talk about a non-sequiter. Litblogs? You mean litblogs like this and this? That happen to be the tiny fiefdoms of one Michael Standaert? Outstanding, my friend. It's lovely that you've been able to embrace, even for just a few minutes (which this review could hardly have occupied), altruism and resist pitching your tiny genre of the blogosphere. Oh wait, you couldn't... and didn't.

The Times  and its brethren (the AJC and CNN among them) are still in denial, hoping that the good old days will return and that the importance of the blogosphere will somehow magically dissipate. Bad news, boys. It won't.

Attempting to tar bloggers like Hugh Hewitt in an attempt to win back credibility is not only pathetic. It's laughable. The circulation numbers and Nielsen ratings are cold, hard reminders that there's a new sheriff in town. Better get used to the idea.
 

Carter/Clinton Legacies: "Death Match with Terror"



Click here for AmazonThe "legacies" of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton keep growing in new and frightening ways. With North Korea's pronouncement that they do, indeed, possess nuclear weapons must also come a reassessment of the failed policies of non-proliferation agreements bound by promises and not actions.

In 1994, many observers had viewed Carter's visit to Pyongyang with skepticism. The trade seemed one-sided at the time: concessions by the U.S. in the form of billions in nuclear technology, oil and humanitarian aid in exchange for promises by North Korea to abstain from nuclear weapons development.

While Carter netted a Nobel Prize for his efforts, North Korea was able to surreptitiously pursue development of its nuclear arsenal. In March, 1999, the Washington Times   reported that North Korea had pursued uranium-enrichment technology for its nuclear weapons program, aided and abetted by none other than Pakistani nuke dealer A. Q. Kahn.

While Pakistan officially denied assisting the North Koreans, the LA Times    reported in August of that year that North Korean technicians were working in Pakistani nuclear labs as part of a secret agreement to exchange missile technology for nuclear know-how.

Well how about that? Kim Jong Il actually lied to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Who would have thought it possible? The problem with nuclear weapons nonproliferation agreements today is that they create the temptation to plan contingencies on the basis of intent rather than capability...

The alternative is to abandon the "sophisticated" view of a stable international order and understand that we are a planet in crisis; that in some meaningful sense humanity is in a death match with terror.


One can only hope that the appeasement mentality, with its centuries-old track record of failure, will be utterly and completely abandoned by politicians before it's too late.

Belmont Club: Death Match with Terror

There's a new Sheriff in Town



Click here for AmazonHugh Hewitt reported late last night that Eason Jordan resigned. The opinion storm had battered CNN's credibility to a point where there was simply no alternative for the cable news network and its honchos.

Michelle Malkin has the best recap of the Jordan affair, describing each milestone in exquisite, concise fashion. She concludes her terse recital with:

The shock waves that have overwhelmed CNN started with a single blogger and reverberated worldwide. I agree with Rony Abovitz that there should be no joy in watching Eason Jordan's downfall. But there is certainly great, unadulterated satisfaction in seeing the collective efforts of the blogosphere--citizens and professional journalists among them--produce the one thing the MSM has for too long escaped in its walled-off world: accountability.


I'll go one step further. As the MSM provably drifted left, its agenda frequently obfuscated rather than amplified the truth. Over the years, how many Rathergates and Easongates have taken place without our realizing it?

If nothing else, the pointy-haired media bosses on the coasts are beginning to come to grips with the new reality: there's a new sheriff in town, and it's us.

Update: Savor this New Sisyphus recap:

Message to MSM: you no longer control the news nor the agenda. You no longer dictate what is news and what is not. You no longer have the power to jam your liberal agenda down our throats.

Deal with it.

A good way to start may be by hiring a replacement for Eason who doesn't think that U.S. troops operate death squads targeting journalists or who doesn't think it's a good idea to gain cheap popularity with European elites by irresponsibly dragging our country's honor through the mud.


Michelle Malkin: EasonGate: a Retrospective

Friday, February 11, 2005

Mr. Jordan's Frying Pan



Click here for AmazonThe dike hastily constructed by the mainstream media to contain the Eason Jordan affair has all but collapsed. US Senators are involved, actively calling for full disclosure. Talk shows around the country are buzzing with discussion of Jordangate. And Jordan himself has gone to ground, hoping the storm will blow over (news flash: it won't).

The MSM coverage now spans the spectrum of left to right:

Atlanta Journal Constitution: CNN news chief clarifies comments on Iraq

New York Times: CNN Exec Clarifies Comment on Military

Al-Reuters: CNN Executive in Hot Seat Over Iraq Claim

CMAQ (Canada): CNN Executive says GI's in Iraq Target Journalists

National Ledger (Arizona): Christopher Dodd to Eason Jordan: Release the Tape

Washington Times: Stonewalling at CNN

New Hampshire Union Leader: CNN continues to slime and smear US troops


Click here for AmazonIt's gone down exactly the way Hugh Hewitt predicted:

CNN has hunkered down, hoping that the [State of the Union address] will cover the Jordan story. I don't think this will work, and the network is producing a second act to Rathergate.


What is truly amazing about this story is not the fact that the blogosphere bit into the story and wouldn't let go. It's the control over the MSM that the blogosphere now exerts! A serious story, vetted by observers, analysts and pundits (amateur though many may be), is pushed into every corner of the Internet until it can't help but escape into MSM, no matter how much stonewalling the bigs attempt.

If indeed the "the blogs are percolating into mass media," then the jomokes at CNN and NYT better buy some copies of Blog, and quick. Because they certainly don't seem to understand the opportunities represented by the blogosphere, nor the dire threats to their staid, sluggish, and stained institutions.

* * *

Click here for AmazonThe sole firsthand comments from Jordan himself (at least, that I've seen), regarding his pet -gate, were released by filmmaker Danny Schechter, in the form of an email:

...Eason, seemingly shaken by all the heat coming down on him for discussing something that many journalists and press freedom groups like the International Federation of Journalists has been discussing, began to withdraw from the controversy he stirred. He wrote...

I was not as clear as I should have been during the Davos panel discussion. I was trying to make a distinction between journalists killed being the victims of collateral damage and journalists being killed under different circumstances. No doubt most of the 63 journalist deaths in Iraq fall outside the collateral damage category. I have never felt and never intended to suggest, however, that anyone in the U.S. military meant to kill anyone known to be a journalist. As you will see in the Howard Kurtz Washington Post today, my comments were controversial. While I am pleased the spotlight is on the issue of journalist safety in Iraq, I intend to let others do the talking for a while after I gave several interviews and statements on the subject. I will let my colleagues know of Danny's availability as an on-air guest. I thank you and wish you well.- Eason.



Uhmm, yes, Mr. Jordan, it's getting hot. Real hot. Feel like jumping out of that frying pan yet, sir?

The Implications of Google Maps



Click here for AmazonI have been playing with the new, improved version of Google Maps and I couldn't have been more startled than if I saw Flava Flav and Brigitte Nielsen tongue-kissing. Oh, wait, I did see that last night on TV.

Anyhow, Google Maps has implemented a shockingly good user-interface -- without any use of Java applets, Macromedia Flash, ActiveX or any other thickish plugins. Using only Javascript, DHTML and "RPC's" marshalled on-the-fly via XMLHTTP, the maps are simply an order of magnitude better than the competition.

I certainly wouldn't advocate surrender on anyone's part, but if you're a Mapquest executive, you may want to call up your favorite headhunter and ask about any interesting opportunities.

Aside from the standard sorts of things you might expect in a mapping tool, Google Maps also provides:

  • Drag-and-drop user interface - explore without waiting for annoying page refreshes, simply move in any direction you want

  • Integrated, local searching - search for "Atlanta Wifi" or "Duluth Pizza" and get 3D-style indicators pointing to matching landmarks


  • I got to explore my neighborhood by panning and zooming... and literally found new sidestreets and routes that I otherwise would never have noticed. It is simply that groundbreaking of a user-experience.

    Google has, once again, redefined the limits of web applications when it comes to taking advantage of "pure web" technologies: Javascript and DHTML.

    As BenjaminM points out:

    ...this functionality was originally provided through the Microsoft XMLHTTP object from MSXML but Mozilla and Safari have copied it with an XMLHttpRequest object - who said that IE wasn't innovative?


    Microsoft has to be both proud and frightened with this turn of events. Google has taken their technologies and used it to mount a formidable threat to the conventional operating system.

    The implications for other applications is also, literally, shocking: why can't conventional database applications provide drag-and-drop scrolling through scrolling lists of line-items without having to refresh pages? Why can't new searches be integrated onto a results page with repaints?

    Google is transplanting the thick-client, desktop application user experience into the world of web browsers.

    A whole host of applications are ready and waiting to be migrated to this "leaps and bounds" better user experience. And Microsoft better start hustling, ASAP, to likewise improve the Windows' user experience in sea-change fashion. Otherwise, the risk exists that the browser will truly supplant the conventional notion of operating system. In which case, very few people will actually need Windows.

    A long way off, perhaps, but I'm sure the folks at Redmond are concerned.

    Thursday, February 10, 2005

    Senator Franken



    Click here for AmazonIn the immortal words of Animal House's Flounder, "Oh Boy, this is Great!".

    Al Franken is expected to run for the Senate seat to be vacated by brave, brave Sir Dayton (you may remember him, he's the courageous Senator (D-MN) who closed his office and scrammed from Washington, saying he'd read an intelligence report that made him fear for the safety of his staff. Dayton isn't running for re-election and Franken intends to fill that void.

    PoliPundit says this is great news: "Franken would be almost as weak a candidate as Dayton would have been. Meanwhile, the GOP will have a strong candidate in Congressman Mark Kennedy..."

    That sly Karl Rove... what will he think of next?

    Dean, Boxer, Kennedy, Kerry... and Franken... the ostensible thought-leaders of the Democratic party. Does it get any better than this if you're a Republican?

    Update: David Letterman and Conan O'Brien are P.O.'ed - Franken dropped out of the race. Bummer. There's goes the basis for a thousand punchlines.

    Franken to throw his hat in the ring

    "The blogs are percolating into mass media..."



    Click here for AmazonThe Eason Jordan affair, just as Hugh Hewitt predicted, is gushing into mainstream media like water through cracks in a busted dike. The fractures keep flexing and there's not enough patching compound in the world to keep the blackout intact.

    Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) reappeared on the Imus program this morning. He stated, in no uncertain terms, that Jordan needed to call for the release of the tape from the Davos people . Interestingly, the Jordan discussion was the first meaty item on the plate, even coming before discussion of John Kerry's bizarre assertions on Meet the Press and, later, on the Imus program.

    Glen Garvin of the Miami Herald is the latest to discuss Jordangate and, while adding little additional information, has some wonderful nuggets (hat tip: Powerline):

    ...more than 400 other blogs have taken up the cry. They located the first corroborating witnesses, pressed the World Economic Forum to release its videotape of the panel (Forum officials initially agreed, but changed their minds earlier this week and said the panel's ground rules prohibited any direct quotations) and taunted mainstream news organizations into covering the story.

    That finally happened this week with stories in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and other papers, as well as on CNN's rival cable news networks...

    This marks the second time in a few months that blogs have surfaced a major controversy over television news. Blogs were the first to accuse CBS' 60 Minutes of using forged documents in a story last year on President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service.

    Their claims eventually forced CBS to retract the story and launch an internal investigation that cost Dan Rather his anchor job and resulted in the dismissal of five other CBS staffers.

    Abovitz, for one, is impressed. He plans to start writing his own regular blog. ''The blog swarm is now percolating into mass media,'' he said.

    "This is a new era where you can't just make statements anymore. There are too many eyes. The blogs are like a million little cameras and tape recorders.'


    Miami Herald: Jordangate and the Blogs

    Orson Scott Card on Saudi Subversion



    Click here for AmazonA few days ago, Freedom House reported that Saudi hate material had been scattered liberally in mosques throughout the United States. The Saudi-based material espouses an ideology of hatred ("it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews"), denunciations of democracy ("democracy [is] un-Islamic") and an appeal to treat their residence in countries as "a mission behind enemy lines".

    I am sure that the vast majority of Muslims in the U.S. are neither aware of this material nor sympathetic to its endorsements.

    Orson Scott Card has ruminated on this topic for a few days:

    ...The only difference between the Saudi government and Al Qaeda is that Al Qaeda rejects cooperation with the West, while the Saudis think the more effective path is to cooperate with the West on the surface while proselytizing for Wahhabism, preaching hate for and murder of all opponents of Wahhabist ideology...

    ...It's that [media's] laziness [in translating Arabic material] that Yasser Arafat always counted on, when he said one thing in English and the opposite in Arabic, and expected not to be caught by the western media. He was rarely disappointed.

    ...Saudi Arabia is actively supporting murder, espionage, and sabotage in America. Remember that these publications weren't intercepted at the border. They were found in American mosques, where they were being distributed or at least made available, presumably to young Muslim men who are the ones most likely to embrace the romance of a holy war.

    In short, [the Saudis] are recruiting terrorists in America.

    ...I suspect most American Muslims regard these publications with contempt or embarrassment. But the point is, they are there. They are available.

    ...[Ironically, claims are made that the] subversive, anti-American activities [are] under the protection of the First Amendment. But as Abraham Lincoln pointed out during the Civil War: The Constitution is not a suicide pact. When our nation is under dire threat, and our enemies are using our very freedoms as a protection for their subversive activities, then we have to make temporary exceptions to those freedoms.

    ...a foreign government does not have a right to distribute subversive literature in America that is designed to recruit people for anti-American activities in time of war... Saudi Arabia is a foreign country. It does not have any freedom of the press within its own borders, and, not being a citizen of the United States, it does not have the right to distribute subversive, seditious, and criminal instructions to potential agents in our country.

    ...It's time for anyone -- a church or a group or an individual -- receiving funding from the Saudi government or from Wahhabist sources to be registered as agents of a foreign nation ... and publically listed... After all, American Christians wishing to operate as missionaries in other countries outside the West are invariably registered and must have the permission of the government to operate inside their borders. And those American missionaries are not advocating murder of apostates and subversion of the local government!

    ...It should be required that any publication imported into the United States in Arabic should have an accurate side-by-side English translation in the same publication. Publications in Arabic alone should be turned back at the border.

    ...Requiring openness will make it easier for moderate Muslims to act in large numbers to oppose these subversive publications. If they are not just individuals, but the large mass of American Muslims acting together, they can far more easily show that they have embraced the American Constitution and all its liberties by rejecting all such anti-American and criminal propaganda and ceasing to tolerate it within their mosques.

    ...There is nothing in the Constitution that should require us to allow foreign nations to recruit young American Muslims to "behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines" without at least demanding that they be open about what they're doing.

    ...Shouldn't we at least make it potentially embarrassing for our enemies to recruit Americans to join in their war against freedom?


    Orson Scott Card: Saudi Subversion

    Wednesday, February 09, 2005

    Steyn: Straightening out Europe



    Click here for AmazonThe Genius -- oops, I meant Mark Steyn -- rips another fastball out of the park. He points to Robert Fisk's continued muddled thinking regarding America's actions in the global war on terror:

  • Fisk's recent column title: "They are Waiting for the Rivers of Blood"

  • Fisk's coverage of the Afghan war ("Bush is Walking into a Trap")

  • Fisk's assertion that the Americans really weren't in the Baghdad Airport... they'd instead found an RAF airfield abandoned in the Fifties


  • ...and similar, wishful thinking on the part of the BBC, CNN, the Guardian and friends. Consistently wrong and continually braying anti-American screeds, the Euros are now chanting a new mantra: America will be consigned to the dustbin of history by China. Steyn points out that influential Europeans have been peddling this tripe since at least 1768 (e.g., dePauw and Kant).

    Steyn asserts that America doesn't want to turn cities like Basra into Vegas, but wish to provide succor to those who would reject Islamofascism in favor of greater personal liberties. And, as the vote has shown, the dead-enders are definitely not in the majority.

    ...the emergence of a moderate pluralist Shia-led federation in Iraq will be as devastating to the Teheran regime's long-term prospects as any Israeli-American strike on their nuke facilities. As the Arab networks' election-day coverage instinctively grasped, the American angle to this story will be increasingly peripheral.

    ...Anyone can hold an election: Mugabe did; so did Charles Taylor, the recently retired Psycho-for-Life of Liberia. The world's thugocracies have got rather skilled at being just democratic enough to pass muster with Jimmy Carter and the international observers: they kill a ton of people, put it on hold for six weeks and then, when the UN monitors have moved on, pick up their machetes and resume business as usual.

    I prefer to speak of "liberty" or, as Bush says, "freedom", or, as neither of us is quite bold enough to put it, capitalism - free market, property rights, law of contract, etc. ...the "war on terror" is more accurately a race against time - to unwreck the Middle East before its toxins wreck South Asia, West Africa, and eventually Europe. The doom-mongers can mock Bush all they want. But they're spending so much time doing so, they've left themselves woefully uninformed on some of the fascinating subtleties of Iraqi and Afghan politics that his Administration turns out to have been rather canny about...


    I hate to rain on Europe's parade, but …

    Ending Slavery



    Click here for AmazonFar, far from the halls of academia and the coffee houses of the lower east side, slavery still exists. The motive for slave-traders is strictly profit. But the stunning lack of a media spotlight on the issue -- in our own country -- contributes to this ongoing crime against humanity.

    In West Africa, children are bought by slave-traders in Benin and Togo for about $50 each. They are then sold into slavery as domestic servants or worse in oil-rich countries such as Nigeria for about $350.

    Former UK conservative leader William Hague reports that even now, in 2005, the slave trade is worse than ever:

    "The distressing truth is that there appear to be more slaves in the world today than there were transported across the Atlantic in the entire period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade."


    As Thomas Sowell points out, the conservative right fought slavery in the 18th century. As today's mainstream media and the left as a whole remain utterly, vexingly silent on this issue, it is up to the right to continue to act as a champion of freedom for today's enslaved peoples.

    To me the most staggering thing about the long history of slavery -- which encompassed the entire world and every race in it -- is that nowhere before the 18th century was there any serious question raised about whether slavery was right or wrong. In the late 18th century, that question arose in Western civilization, but nowhere else...

    A very readable and remarkable new book that has just been published -- "Bury the Chains" by Adam Hochschild -- traces the history of the world's first anti-slavery movement, which began with a meeting of 12 "deeply religious" men in London in 1787... The dozen men who formed the world's first anti-slavery movement saw their task as getting their fellow Englishmen to think about slavery -- about the brutal facts and about the moral implications of those facts.

    ...Even more remarkable, Britain took it upon itself, as the leading naval power of the world, to police the ban on slave trading against other nations. Intercepting and boarding other countries' ships on the high seas to look for slaves, the British became and remained for more than a century the world's policeman when it came to stopping the slave trade.

    ...The anti-slavery movement was spearheaded by people who would today be called "the religious right" and its organization was created by conservative businessmen. Moreover, what destroyed slavery in the non-Western world was Western imperialism.

    Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world. And if it doesn't fit their vision, it is the same to them as if it never happened.

    ...The review of "Bury the Chains" in the New York Times tried to suggest that the ban against the international slave trade somehow served British self-interest. But John Stuart Mill, who lived in those times, said that the British "for the last half-century have spent annual sums equal to the revenue of a small kingdom in blockading the Africa coast, for a cause in which we not only had no interest, but which was contrary to our pecuniary interest."

    It was a worldwide epic struggle, full of dramatic and sometimes violent episodes, along with inspiring stories of courage and dedication. But do not expect Hollywood to make a movie about anything so contrary to their vision of the world.


    Thomas Sowell: Ending Slavery

    Tuesday, February 08, 2005

    What Bin Laden Sees in Hiroshima



    Click here for AmazonThis isn't likely to help you sleep at night. Steve Coll, the WaPo's former managing editor, has a deep, learned background in researching the results of nuclear proliferation. Here are the "highlights" of a long, interesting and ultimately jarring story.

    At a conference on the future of al Qaeda sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory last month, I posed a dark question to 60 or so nuclear weapons scientists and specialists on terrorism and radical Islam: How many of them believed that the probability of a nuclear fission bomb attack on U.S. soil during the next several decades was negligible -- say, less than 5 percent?

    At issue was the Big One -- a Hiroshima-or-larger explosion that could claim hundreds of thousands of American lives, as opposed to an easier-to-mount but less lethal radiological attack. Amid somber silence, three or four meek, iconoclastic hands went up...

    This grim view, echoed in other quarters of the national security bureaucracy in recent months, can't be dismissed as Bush administration scaremongering. "There has been increasing interest by terrorists in acquiring nuclear weapons," Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world's chief nuclear watchdog, said in a recent interview, excerpts of which were published in Outlook last Sunday. "I cannot say 100 percent that it hasn't happened" already, he added, almost as an afterthought.

    ...At the center of their pessimism stands the unique figure of Osama bin Laden, still at large, still espousing his ideology of mass-casualty attacks against Americans, with a special emphasis on nuclear weapons -- an ideology that seems destined to outlive him...

    ...His inspiration, repeatedly cited in his writings and interviews, is the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he says shocked Japan's fading imperial government into a surrender it might not otherwise have contemplated. Bin Laden has said several times that he is seeking to acquire and use nuclear weapons not only because it is God's will, but because he wants to do to American foreign policy what the United States did to Japanese imperial surrender policy.

    Listening to him on tape after tape, it is difficult to doubt bin Laden's intent. There is evidence that he and his allies have experimented with chemical and biological weapons, typically low-level toxins. But in public, bin Laden talks mainly about nuclear bombs...

    ...Unlike states, which so far have proved deterrable by the threat of retaliation even when led by madmen, [a terrorist] cell may be utterly indifferent to and beyond the reach of the traditional mechanisms of nuclear deterrence.

    ...President Bush's pledge after 9/11 to make "no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them" does not seem likely to intimidate a future jihadi nuclear cell. If it had been discovered that the A.Q. Khan network intended to carry out a direct attack on the United States, who in its ranks would be deterred by Bush's threat? The government of Pakistan, which today claims it did not know what Khan was doing? Khan himself, who seems to have been in it for money and glory? His business partners in Malaysia and Dubai, with no political assets to defend? ...


    WaPo: What Bin Laden Sees in Hiroshima

    EEEEEEARARAARRRRRRRRGGHGGHHGHHHHHHHH



    Click here for AmazonFirst, the ostensible thought-leader of the Democratic party, Teddy Jo Kennedy, sounded the rallying cry for appeasers everywhere, insisting on immediate troop withdrawals, a fixed schedule for drawing down American forces, and a willingness to negotiate with terrorists. Oh, yes, and American troops are an occupation force -- not a force of liberators -- and... quagmire... Vietnam... *hic*.

    And what, pray tell, did Teddy Jo Kennedy, freedom-advocate extraordinaire, say about Afghanistan's elections last year?

    Afghanistan still faces fundamental threats to the casting of ballots on Saturday, let alone its long-term stability and prosperity. Elections are vitally important to the process of rebuilding a free country, but they are not a panacea for the myriad problems that face the people in Afghanistan.


    Yes, it's true, Teddy Jo has continued his flawless track record of foreign policy blunders and misjudgments. From opposing Reagan's arms buildup, to appeasing the Communist Sandanistas, from his countless attacks on the American defense budget to his utter incapability of recognizing evil for what it is... Kennedy has proven himself an expert at poor decision-making, appeasement, surrender and negotiation with despots and murderers.

    Now, Howard Dean takes the mantle of Democratic party leadership. Timothy Roemer, the last contender for the role, dropped out yesterday.

    Roemer says the GOP is in the most dominant position they've been in since the early 20th century. He, rightfully, posits that the Presidential Election was not about Ohio -- but about Democrats losing "97 of the 100 fastest growing" counties in the nation.

    Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Howard Dean: this is today's Democratic party in action. Moving further to the left, with the likes of Dean at the helm of the U.S.S. Donkey, is certain to do nothing but grow the Republican party.

    For it's a wanton path of self-destruction that the Dems are on, exhibiting a casual disregard for the American center and Middle America.

    Update: I heard Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) on the Imus show this morning. Now, that is a Democrat I could vote for: committed to traditional Democratic social issues but concerned primarily with the security of America in the GWOT.

    Monday, February 07, 2005

    Snippets



    Click here for AmazonThough Orkut began life a year ago as a venue for Silicon Valley's digerati, now nearly two-thirds of registered users are from Brazil. Google said one explanation for this seemingly inexplicable phenomenon was that Brazilians are quick to adopt new technologies.


    Hate messages on Google site draw concern

    Bruce Schneier: "Security is a chain; it's only as strong as the weakest link. Currently encryption is the strongest link we have. Everything else is worse: software, networks, people. There's absolutely no value in taking the strongest link and making it even stronger."


    Quantum crypto firm charts way to mainstream

    My Speculation on Gbrowser



    Click here for AmazonThe G2 seems obvious: Google is building a browser. It's hiring Firefox developers and has acquired the GBrowser domain name. What I haven't seen is speculation on the sort of browser Google might build. Here are some quick, speculative thoughts:

  • Built on the Firefox platform and completely open sourced (all changes released back to Sourceforge)

  • Aside from the inherent support for Google search (i.e., the Firefox/Google toolbar), News, Groups and Shopping search will also be integrated from the default install

  • More importantly: complete integration with Gmail (i.e., toolbar icons to indicate a new message was received, etc.)

  • More importantly: new blogging wizards will provide the ability to instantly create a hyperlinked blog post to blogger.com and other Google blog-capable properties

  • Complete integration with Picasa and its data storage format (upload/download from various photo hosting and printing sites)


  • In other words, GBrowser will expose an integrated, thick-client desktop to all of the mostly browser-based services at Google's massive server farm.

    Will you even need Windows after you install GBrowser? Remember, GBrowser will run on almost any platform imaginable. So the answer is probably: no, you won't need to run Windows once you've been hooked on Google's server crack.

    That's why Microsoft is hitting back hard with their own extensive offerings patterned in the Google image. Too little vision, too late for Microsoft? Unlikely. Microsoft is nothing if not persistent, rich and combative. So it should be a heck of a war.

    I, for one, plan on sitting back, watching, and enjoying all of the free services while they last.

    Sunday, February 06, 2005

    The Chink in Google's Armor



    Click here for AmazonA little-publicized court ruling in France may have exposed a serious chink in Google's armor. CNet is reporting that Google lost a trademark infringement suit brought by Louis Vuitton Malletier. In a related, troubling development on January 24, Google also lost a similar case to Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts.

    The ruling in the Vuitton case was for about $250,000 in damages. A Vuitton spokesman issued a statement describing the company's position on Google's "leasing" of their trademarks:

    It was absolutely unthinkable that a company like Google be authorized, in the scope of its advertising business, to sell the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties, specifically to Web sites selling counterfeits...


    He has a point. The unfortunate news for Google is that (a) the trend in international court rulings is clearly against the company and (b) LV and LM represent just the tip of the iceberg. And the problem is not simply that of an international nuisance. Here in the U.S., Google is facing a wave of similar threats beginning with that filed by American Blind and Wallpaper Factory.

    Click here for AmazonThe Google AdWords program accounts for 98% of its revenue. Of that, 35% is generated from international sources.

    Google's market cap is around $56 billion, exceeding that of General Motors and Alcoa combined. Investors in GOOG, already riding an extraordinary, gravity-defying premium (140 times trailing earnings) for their shares, have another reason to be cautious.

    Saturday, February 05, 2005

    Topics the MSM Should be Covering... but Aren't



    Click here for AmazonI've missed the mainstream media's stories on the following topics. Perhaps one of my kind readers could point me to a URL on any of the following:

  • The Iraqi election means that the people of Iraq have already rejected Wahabbism.
  • The Eason Jordan Affair (although the Captain points out that the dam is cracking)
  • John Kerry's bizarre assertions on Meet the Press that he was running guns to the Khmer Rouge
  • John Kerry's promise to sign his Form 180 to release his full military dossier

    I also haven't seen any reporting on Iraqi election commentary from the Arab world. Consider, for example, the Arab News' Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed:

    In spite of everything, the Iraqis voted. They did so with a passion and a seriousness that gives the lie to the cliché that Arabs are not ready for democracy. One myth down, a thousand to go.

    Everyone says that this is the first free elections in Iraq for fifty years. That is another lie. There has never been one single free election in the long history of the Arabs ever. This is the first one. It took the Americans to conduct it and force it down the throats of dictators, terrorists, exploding deranged humans, and odds as big as the distance between the USA and the Middle East...


    The breach between reality and the grist promulgated by the MSM continues to grow wider. By its own volition -- its refusal to cover major stories that happen not to align with its obvious agenda -- its relevance continues to fade. Senior management (no, not dimwitted moonbats like Eason Jordan, I mean the board members and executive leadership teams) are demonstrating continued irresponsibility. It's one thing to pursue a partisan agenda. It's another to blithely preside over a catastrophic destruction of shareholder value.

    Oh, there will be hell to pay.
  • The Blanket of Silence



    Click here for AmazonI'll point it out again: nary a peep from the mainstream media regarding CNN executive Eason Jordan's assertion that the U.S. Military deliberately targeted and killed journalists. In fact, the Washington Times is the only old-line media outlet to even mention the incident and it did so only in describing Hugh Hewitt's Weekly Standard column.

    In other words, the proverbial blanket of silence has been thrown on the Jordan fire and the MSM is doing their concerted best to stamp out any stray embers. And that's not the only interesting story being scrupulously and carefully ignored by the MSM:

    ...John Kerry's extraordinary interview with Tim Russert last Sunday. There's a lot to absorb here, including Kerry's assertion that he did indeed run guns and CIA men into Cambodia on secret missions--and to aid the Khmer Rouge no less!

    What is really remarkable is not Kerry's whoppers--he couldn't have meant the Khmer Rouge, right?--or his almost certain not-to-be-fulfilled pledge to sign the form 180. It is the set of questions Tim Russert posed.

    Russert is generally regarded as the toughest interview in television, and he did bleed Kerry a bit during the campaign; afterwards Kerry never again came close to Russert's set before November 2.

    But if the questions posed by Russert on January 30, 2005--on Kerry's fantasy life in Cambodia, on the sequestered records, etc.--were legitimate and useful inquiries after the votes have been cast, why then did no one pose them to candidate Kerry when they might have made a difference in the election? The blogosphere and the center-right media were full of such demands from August 1 forward, but not a single reporter from mainstream media bothered to pose even one of the Russert questions prior to the vote.


    Permit me to rephrase the question: if these questions were important enough to have been asked on Meet the Press this week, why couldn't a single journalist ask the same questions of Kerry prior to the presidential election? Or a single debate moderator?

    Because the media, to their detriment, is still very much in the pocket of the Democratic party. Hugh calls this skewed landscape a "lunatic imbalance". It is at least that. Activist cranks like Mary Mapes are permitted years to pursue partisan Democratic agendas while nary a reporter can be spared to ask Kerry about deliving weapons to the... Khmer Rouge? Or about his unreleased military dossier?

    Russert's questions highlight, in bold relief, old-line media's absurd disconnectedness from its audience. And that is why the blogosphere -- left and right -- continues to ascend, unburdened by myopia, and laying waste to what remains of the old guard.

    Weekly Standard: Media Notes

    Friday, February 04, 2005

    Passing Array Data through PHP 5's SOAP Engine



    Click here for AmazonI'd been looking hi and lo for an example of array passing using PHP 5's new SOAP engine. SOAP, for those of you non-techies who haven't passed out from boredom, is a standard protocol used for communicating from one system to another. Best of all, its underlying technologies are web-based, so devices like firewalls and routers usually don't interfere (too much) with these transactions.

    There are positives and negatives to using an XML-based transport. The obvious one is size. XML is an incredibly wordy language (and that problem is being worked by a separate standards committee) when compared to a binary protocol like, say, ASN.1. With verbosity comes potential performance issues: namely, a lot of redundant data gets passed over the wire.

    In addition, if you've got a couple of chatty systems, then you have the network overhead of TCP connections. TCP is the underlying IP protocol used by HTTP. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol, meaning packets have to be reassembled in the correct order on a destination machine. And the destination box may ask for retries if doesn't get a particular packet. UDP, a connectionless protocol, could have been used (that's what, say, voice-over-IP or VOIP uses)... but the firewall and router issue comes into play with UDP.

    The bottom line is that there are some significant benefits associated with SOAP, even though the drawbacks are obvious.

    So, how to overcome the drawbacks? Caching is one way. Let's say I wanted to transmit database data accumulating on one machine to another. I could do it rapidly - as fast as I could detect the tables changing. But the twin overhead issues of size and chattiness may hamstring the process. Caching helps address both issues.

    I let, say, 30 seconds worth of changes accumulate in the cache and then *boom*, every half a minute I flush the cache to the other box via a single SOAP call. I now have a single envelope (rather than many) and a single TCP setup and teardown. Problem solved.

    Problem was, I couldn't find a good example of array support compatible with PHP 5's new SOAP engine. It didn't seem to like the WSDL (definition of the service) files I'd copied from Java projects and such. Oh, it read them, it just didn't understand the complex array type.

    Anyhow, for those of you googling for an example of how to pass array data through a SOAP call, here's a simple WSDL file, client and server that demonstrates how you might do this.

    === texter.wsdl ===
    <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
    <definitions name='texter'
      targetNamespace='http://127.0.0.1/texter'
      xmlns:tns=' http://127.0.0.1/texter '
      xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/'
      xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
      xmlns:soapenc='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/'
      xmlns:wsdl='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'
      xmlns='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/'
      xmlns:xsd1='http://127.0.0.1/texter'>  

    <types>
       <schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
          targetNamespace="http://127.0.0.1/texter"
             xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
             xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">

             <complexType name="ArrayOfString">
                <complexContent>
                   <restriction base="soapenc:Array">
                      <attribute ref="soapenc:arrayType"
                      wsdl:arrayType="xsd:string[]"/>
                   </restriction>
                </complexContent>
             </complexType>

      </schema>
    </types>

    <message name='texterRequest'>
      <part name='code' type='xsd:short'/>
      <part name='text' type='xsd:string'/>
      <part name='arra' type='xsd1:ArrayOfString'/>
    </message>
    <message name='texterResponse'>
      <part name='text' type='xsd:string'/>
    </message>

    <portType name='texterPortType'>
      <operation name='texter'>
        <input message='tns:texterRequest'/>
        <output message='tns:texterResponse'/>
      </operation>
    </portType>

    <binding name='texterBinding' type='tns:texterPortType'>
      <soap:binding style='rpc'
        transport='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http'/>
      <operation name='texter'>
        <soap:operation soapAction='urn:xmethods-texting#texter'/>
        <input>
          <soap:body use='encoded' namespace='urn:xmethods-texting'
            encodingStyle='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/'/>
        </input>
        <output>
          <soap:body use='encoded' namespace='urn:xmethods-texting'
            encodingStyle='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/'/>
        </output>
      </operation>
    </binding>

    <service name='texterService'>
      <port name='texterPort' binding='texterBinding'>
        <soap:address location='http://127.0.0.1/texter.php'/>
      </port>
    </service>
    </definitions>
    === textclient.php ===
    <html><body>
    <?php
      $client = new soapclient("http://127.0.0.1/texter.wsdl");
      $aTemp = array(
        "This is a test",
        "This is, too",
        "So is this!"
      );
      print($client->texter(33, "This is a test message to be written", $aTemp));
    ?>
    </body></html>

    === texter.php ===
    <?php

    //    Write an individual line of text.
    //
    function writeText($nCode, $text) {
        $r = 0;
        do {
            //
            $sTextFile = $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"];
            $sTextFile .= "/text/";
            $sTextFile .= "file.txt";
            if (($f = fopen($sTextFile, "a")) === false) {
                $r = 1;
                break;
            }
            if (strstr($text, "\n") === false) {
                $text .= "\r\n";
            }
            $text = date("Y-m-d H:i:s ").$text;
            fwrite($f, $text);
            fclose($f);
        //
        } while (0);
        return ($r);
    }

    //    Text demo (demonstrates writing of the simple string
    //        data type as well as the complex array to a file).
    //
    function texter($nCode, $sText, $aTemp) {
        $r = 0;
        do {
            //
            writeText($nCode, $sText);
            for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($aTemp); $i++) {
                writeText($nCode, $aTemp[$i]);
            }
        //
        } while (0);
        return (($r) ? "Err" : "OK");
    }

    //
    ini_set("soap.wsdl_cache_enabled", "0"); // disabling WSDL cache
    $server = new SoapServer("texter.wsdl");
    $server->addFunction("texter");
    $server->handle();
    //?>

    Free Iraqi



    Click here for AmazonThe inimitable Ali of the Free Iraqi blog is complaining about the situation in Iraq. A citizen of Baghdad, he just discovered that a local newspaper ("Al Sabah") published a photo from his blog, without crediting or compensating him.

    The story, as an aside, was about the massive reconstruction efforts occurring in the area. Oh, also Ali reports that multiple parties have corroborated this story:

    Citizens of Al Mudhiryiah (a small town in the "death triangle") were subjected to an attack by several militants today who were trying to punish the residents of this small town for voting in the election last Sunday.

    The citizens responded and managed to stop the attack, kill 5 of the attackers, wounded 8 and burned their cars. 3 citizens were injured during the fire exchange. The Shiekh of the tribe to whom the 3 wounded citizens belong demanded more efforts from the government to stop who he described as "Salafis".


    It looks like the coalition and the Iraqi police aren't the only ones killing terrorists these days.

    Free Iraqi

    Scoble to Gates: Start Blogging!



    Click here for AmazonIn the tradition of Hugh Hewitt's Blog, famed Microsoftie Robert Scoble has told Bill Gates that he needs to starting blogging... now! Oh, plus, Windows Media Player needs to be open-sourced. And Microsoft needs to come up with an iPod killer.

    Hi Bill. I've been thinking about how to make Windows Media cool. You know, cooler than wearing white headphone cords. Open source the product development. Yeah, you're gonna be hearing a lot about "open source this" and "open source that" in 2005...

    We have five months to come out with a great new set of music players and get a great marketing campaign going. Why is that? It's called back to school. If we don't get something going by June then we lose another generation to the iPod. Do you want to let that happen?

    So, here's my idea:

    1) Start a weblog. NOW. Get the person who runs the team to start a blog. NOW. Or fire him/her. I'm serious...

    4) Get the blogosphere involved. Take advice from the leading podcasters. Adam Curry, Dave Winer, Dawn and Drew, Carl Franklin, Doug Kaye, etc. Make sure that at least five ideas from the online crew makes it into the product...


    Scobleizer: Open Letter to Bill Gates