Feather Christmas Trees

Tinkerty Tonk: Everything old is new again.

Cyber Love from Syria

This site is now being attacked by some folks in Syria, IP is 82.137.247.132. RIPE output is as follows:

person:          Samer AL Nashef
address:         1 Mazza Autostrad Damascus, Syria. P.O.BOX 11774
phone:           +963 11 6122240
fax-no:          +963 11 6121240
e-mail:          alnashef@scs-net.org
nic-hdl:         SAN26-RIPE
source:          RIPE # Filtered
person:          Maizer Ibrahim
address:         Memo
address:         Baghdad Street 31
address:         Alazbakia
address:         P.O. Box 8254
address:         Syria
phone:           +963 11 2311293
fax-no:          +963 11 2319975
e-mail:          memo@hamshointl.com
nic-hdl:         MI424-RIPE
source:          RIPE # Filtered
person:          Rouda Al Amir Ali
address:         Syrian Telecommunication Establishment
address:         1 Mazza Autostrad
address:         P.O.BOX 11774 Damascus
address:         Syria
phone:           +963 11 373 9701
e-mail:          sytld-tech@net.sy
nic-hdl:         RAAA1-RIPE
source:          RIPE # Filtered

Nice to know I've made so many friends. Syria as a whole no longer reads Blue Crab Boulevard. Pity. We were becoming such good friends. (Bashar still has no appreciable chin).

About Jamilgate

Despite a lot of looking and a lot of people actually risking life and limb, nobody appears to be able to produce "captain Jamil Hussein" of the Iraqi police. The Associated Press has gone on the attack against bloggers and into the bunker on Jamil Hussein. A lot of people are wondering why. Some other people are apparently trying to fall back on the "fake but accurate" mantra. "Iraq is a mess, so the details don't matter," appears to be the mantra.

Here is why this matters. Read this from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

The reporter recognized a fundamental compact between journalists and the public: We try to get things right, and when we goof up, we’ll let you know as quickly and as honestly as we can.

The public doesn’t see newspapers, or other media, living up to that compact.

In a 1998 national survey for the Journalism Credibility Project, Urban & Associates found that nearly half of the public sees factual errors in their newspapers at least a few times a month. More than half noticed mistakes in spelling or grammar at least a few times a month.

“Each misspelled word, bad apostrophe, garbled grammatical construction, weird cutline and mislabeled map erodes public confidence in a newspaper’s ability to get anything right,” the report said.2

People also draw broad conclusions from factual mistakes. They may even ascribe motives.

“Even seemingly small errors feed public skepticism about a newspaper’s credibility,” said Christine Urban, president of Urban & Associates.3

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism list verification as one of nine elements of journalism.

“The essence of journalism is a discipline of verification.

“In the end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from other forms of communication — from entertainment, propaganda, fiction or art. … Journalism alone is focused first on getting it right.”4

No wonder members of the public are likely be skeptical of a newspaper’s broad commitment to the discipline of verification if they regularly see grammatical or factual errors in print.

Of course, newspapers will always contain errors.

They inevitably happen when a new employee arrives or someone in the newsroom takes on a new assignment. Or when the newspaper undergoes design or content changes. Or when news breaks out all over the place. Or when developments require new expertise — a war in a faraway place, a technological or scientific advancement, a new fad or trend — which is all the time.

But inevitability doesn’t account for every mistake. Errors also happen when newsroom staff members don’t have the training and resources they need to get it right. Or when staff members do not fully understand their responsibilities. Or when the copy desk is too overloaded to catch it all. Or when top editors don’t stress accuracy as a priority and spell out expectations. Then a fundamental value of journalism may be run over by the pressure to produce.

What I do here is commentary, not reporting. Not a lot happens here where I live that anyone, including the people involved in whatever incident I reported on, would find to be of any interest. But if a major news source is either fabricating news or using fictional sources to report the news, there is a major, major credibility problem. And it will damage the organization that produces it. The AP does not get that, or thinks the public doesn't. Bad bet either way.

He Should Have Been Jailed

This is a disgrace. Not just the fact that he stole classified documents, but that the justice system let him get away with it.

 WASHINGTON (AP) - Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday.

The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.

Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.

The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger - who had been President Clinton's national security adviser - was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of 2003, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.

Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years…..

…."Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)."

Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.

If someone of "lesser" stature did this, how many years in Federal prison would they still be serving?

If someone of "lesser" stature did this, how many years in Federal prison would they still be serving?

UPDATE: Others:  Captain's Quarters, Riehl World View, The Political Pit Bull, The Astute Bloggers, Power Line, UrbanGrounds, Daily Pundit,

Mutant Mexican Marijuana

Mexican troops raiding against drug cartels operating in the Western State of Michoacan have discovered a new, mutant strain of marijuana is being grown. This stuff can't be killed with herbicides, grows very quickly, produces enormous yields and can be planted at an time of year. Call it super marijuana. And it has been genetically engineered.

Soldiers fanned out across some of the new fields Tuesday, pulling up plants by the root and burning them, as helicopter gunships clattered overhead to give them cover from a raging drug war in the western state of Michoacan. The plants' roots survive if they are doused with herbicide, said army Gen. Manuel Garcia.

"These plants have been genetically improved," he told a handful of journalists allowed to accompany soldiers on a daylong raid of some 70 marijuana fields. "Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it's taken out by the roots."

The new plants, known as "Colombians," mature in about two months and can be planted at any time of year, meaning authorities will no longer be able to time raids to coincide with twice-yearly harvests.

The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers Michoacan, a remote mountainous region that lends to itself to drug production.

Yields are so high that traffickers can now produce as much marijuana on a plot the size of a football field as they used to harvest in 10 to 12 acres. That makes for smaller, harder-to-detect fields, though some discovered Tuesday had sophisticated irrigation systems with sprinklers, pumps and thousands of yards of tubing.

Although this sounds very aggressive against the drug cartels, the article reminds us that Vicente Fox also acted very aggressively early in his presidency. That kind of petered out with the passage of time. The existence of these plants reminded me of The Day of the Triffids, though. If this stuff starts walking, we got problems.

In the story, the narrator speculates on the plants' origins. He dismisses claims that they evolved naturally, or arrived from space, or were sent as punishment from a deity. Instead, it is suggested that they were bioengineered when he was a child, possibly by real-life biologist Trofim Lysenko in the Soviet Union. The story does not explain with what information the narrator formed these suspicions.

Robots Are People, Too

So says a "forward-looking" paper commissioned by the British government. The paper envisions giving robots rights comparable to humans in society. No, really.

The next time you beat your keyboard in frustration, think of a day when it may be able to sue you for assault. Within 50 years we might even find ourselves standing next to the next generation of vacuum cleaners in the voting booth.

Far from being extracts from the extreme end of science fiction, the idea that we may one day give sentient machines the kind of rights traditionally reserved for humans is raised in a British government-commissioned report which claims to be an extensive look into the future.

Visions of the status of robots around 2056 have emerged from one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King, the UK government’s chief scientist. The paper covering robots’ rights was written by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos Mori, the opinion research organisation.

“If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,” said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

They go on to ask if it would be acceptable to kick a robotic dog if we can't kick a regular, garden variety pooch. Of course, most people are aware that robots already have completely equal rights. Al Gore made his movie, didn't he?

The Iron Hand Of The Food Police

John Stossel lashes out at the nannies of New York City who have decided to ban trans-fats. He points out that this is nothing more than invoking the iron hand of government to take away your right to choose for yourself what is best for you.

New York City has ordered restaurants to stop selling food made with trans fat. "It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient," says the health commissioner. Gee, I'm all for good health, but shouldn't it be a matter of individual choice?

A New York Times headline about the ban reads: "A Model for Other Cities."

"A model for what, exactly?" asks George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux. "Petty tyranny? Or perhaps for similarly inspired bans on other voluntary activities with health risks? Clerking in convenience stores? Walking in the rain?"

Trans fats give foods like French fries that texture I like. They are probably bad for me, but Radley Balko of Reason points out that "despite all of the dire warnings about our increased intake of trans-fats over the last 20 years, heart disease in America has been in swift decline … So, if they're killing us, they're not doing a very good job."

But that's not the point. In a free society the issue is: Who decides what I eat, the government or me? It's not as though information about trans fats is hard to come by. Scaremongers like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) are all too happy to tell you about the dangers, and they have no trouble getting their declarations of doom on television and into newspapers.

As always, Stossel is clear, concise and devastating. The entire idea that someone has the authority - nay, the self-granted right - to take away your choice over what you do with yourself is diametrically opposed to what America is supposed to be about. This is prohibitionism and we would do well to remember the unintended consequences that Prohibition brought to the US.

Deadly Attack On Santa

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have reported previously on the deadly weapon known by the harmless-sounding name of "mince pies". Even the British government has recognized the threat, requiring risk assessments for Christmas parties at which the "food" is being served. While the so-called mince pies are not as deadly as the fearful WDD (Weapon of Digestive Destruction) called "fruitcake", they are nonetheless lethal.

Especially when thrown at Santa's head.

LONDON (Reuters) - Father Christmas was forced to swap his traditional red and white hat for protective headgear after children pelted him with mince pies in Scotland.

Santa was hit on the head by pastries thrown from a balcony as he handed out gold chocolate coins at a shopping centre in the town of Paisley, near Glasgow, at the weekend.

"Health and safety is paramount," centre manager Andrew MacKinnon said on Wednesday. "We issued him with a yellow hardhat equipped with a pair of reindeer antlers to make it look more festive."

I wonder if they have filed a risk assessment on the addition of antlers to the hardhat. According to the story, this year's mince pie attack is actually an improvement. Last year the yobs attacked him directly.

Militant Monks Mount Mayhem

Greek Orthodox monks in the Mount Athos monastic community got together to hold the first annual Christmas Brawl in a chapel there. Apparently, one particular group of monks refuse to acknowledge the Ecumenical Patriarch as the head of the Orthodox faith. The other 19 monasteries want them evicted as a result. When monks were sent to forcibly remove the holdouts from a chapel, a fight broke out.

The monks of the Esfigmenou monastery, which has broken away from the 19 other monasteries on the male-only community and refuses to recognise the Ecumenical Patriarch as the head of the Orthodox faith, said they had come under attack.

"We were inside the chapel when a group of monks broke in with sledgehammers and crowbars and attacked us," Father Methodios, the abbot of Esfigmenou, told state television.

"How could they do this during this time of peace, days before Christmas?"

He said the opposing monks had been appointed to replaced them by the community's top administrative body. Three of those injured belonged to the alleged attackers.

The chapel belonging to the monastery was in Karies, the capital of the community in the mountains of northern Greece.

This situation has been going on for years according to the report. The monks have also duked it out with the local police. More about the Mount Athos region here. It is an autonomous theocratic region within the Republic of Greece. No women are allowed there. More about the Esfigmenou Monks here.

The Contempt Of Fools

We are less hurt by the contempt of fools than by the lukewarm approval of men of intelligence.
Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues (1715-1747)

Read the incredibly pompous opinion in the Opinion Journal by Joseph Rago and see which category you think he fits into. Mr. Rago has an utter contempt for blogs, bloggers and pretty much anything to do with the interwebby tubes.

Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . .

The way we write affects both style and substance. The loquacious formulations of late Henry James, for instance, owe in part to his arthritis, which made longhand impossible, and instead he dictated his writing to a secretary. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope–though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog's being is: Here's my opinion, right now.

Yessirree Bob, or Joseph in this case. Here's my opinion right now. It's completely contained by the quote that leads this post. As you point out in your piece, nobody wants to be an imbecile.

We forgive you.

UPDATE: Others suitably impressed with Mr. Rago: QandO, Ace of Spades, Gun Toting Liberal, News Busters, Joe's Dartblog, PoliBlog, EU Referendum, Protein Wisdom, Ed Driscoll, The Moderate Voice, Decision '08, Fraters Libertas, Daily Pundit, Polimom Says, Beltway Blogroll, Balloon Juice, snapped shot, BizzyBlog, Seeing the Forest, The Astute Bloggers, Junk Yard Blog, Penraker,

“Don’t Sell Us Out”

An Iraqi Kurd writes an op-ed in today's Washington Post. Masrur Barzani, the director of the Intelligence and Security Agency of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and a high-ranking member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, reminds Americans that they have been down this road before. They have risen up against the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein because of promises by America, only to find themselves abandoned by "realists" like James Baker. He begs the US not to do it again.

IRBIL, Iraq — The Iraq Study Group's recommendations will accomplish nothing in Iraq. Its expressions of "gratitude" to those of us Iraqis who fought on the battlefield for freedom and liberty ring hollow. The report ignores our accomplishments, dreams and sacrifices in favor of a concern for those whose ultimate goal is the destruction of democracy.

Our federal constitution, which the majority of the Iraqi people voted for, is treated flippantly, as though it were a negotiable document rather than the hard-fought result of lengthy negotiation among those willing to participate in the new Iraq. Further, the study group's approach is driven by the concerns of the countries in this region rather than by the concerns of the Iraqi people.

Many Iraqis, especially the Kurds, are justifiably concerned about this. No one from the study group visited Iraqi Kurdistan, which the group admits is safe and pro-American, and where there has not been a single U.S. casualty since the war. Kurds not only fought alongside Americans but lost some of our best men to American friendly-fire incidents. Yet we staunchly support the work of the coalition and are eternally grateful for the sacrifices the American people have made for our future.

The report is right to acknowledge that part of the problem in Iraq is America's inability to distinguish friend from foe. Unfortunately, Baker-Hamilton fares even worse in this regard. This comes as little surprise, since it was partly written by those who orchestrated the saving of Saddam Hussein in 1991.

It is a powerful letter. The Kurds have, indeed, formed a very safe and strong autonomous region. Michael Totten has visited that area and was stunned at how normal - how suburban America - it looked. These are people who stood up beside the US when we called only to be abandoned. We must not do that to them again. More importantly, we must not do that to ourselves. The Iraq Study Group report is nothing more than an attempt to provide another "decent interval" between our withdrawal and the collapse and bloodshed that will result. The last time that happened was Vietnam. Henry Kissinger has his hand in the ISG report as well as the Vietnam "decent interval".