July 21, 2003
Copies of forgeries
Linuxman Greg points us to scans of the forged documents about the uranium from Niger.
July 21, 2003
Linuxman Greg points us to scans of the forged documents about the uranium from Niger.
Ken asks eight questions of the candidates with regard to their Internet and telco policies. The questions are excellent, each wrapped in a paragraph of exposition. I doubt he’ll get answers at the same level of detail since his questions are the type of things campaign staffs (staves?) write policy papers about, and it’s still early in the campaign.
July 19, 2003
Steve Johnson suggests that we ought to take our cue from our president when forced to lie. For example: “The British government has learned that those pants don’t make you look fat at all.”
July 18, 2003
I thought the comments (21 so far) on Gov. Dean’s latest blog entry on the Lessig site are generally cogent and Yahoo-free. Maybe the trolls weren’t getting the response they wanted. Or maybe they’re just taking the night off. Anyway, it’s a good discussion of issues around how to widen broadband access and the role of wifi.
July 16, 2003
There are at least two types of arrogance. One is rooted in a belief in one’s own moral superiority. The other is rooted in an inability to recognize ambiguity as a fact of the world rather than as a failure of the intellect.
If I had to guess, I’d say George W. Bush’s arrogance is of the second kind while his administration’s arrogance generally is of the first kind.
July 15, 2003
Eric Umansky argues in today’s “Today’s Papers,” Slate’s daily news roundup, that headline writers are forsaking accuracy in order to soft pedal the Bush administration’s problems with the truth. He cites an article in the Washington Post that document’s the administrations contradictory statements about how Bush came to lie in his State of the Union. The latest statement from Bush is that the CIA didn’t doubt the evidence until after the speech, which is false and inconsistent with the rest of what his administration has said. The headline of the article is: “PRESIDENT DEFENDS ALLEGATION ON IRAQ; Bush Says CIA’s Doubts Followed Jan. 28 Address.” Umansky suggests a more accurate headline would have been: “WHITE HOUSE OFFERS CONTRADICTORY EXPLANATIONS FOR INTEL CLAIMS.”
He continues:
Another example of why the papers should consider sending their headline scribes to journalism reeducation camp: The NYT’s David Sanger…reconstructs the path the bogus intel took and details how the White House’s various stated defenses don’t hold up: “Many are still asking how a White House aware of the doubts could have shown such caution in October, and thrown it to the winds in January.” The mushy headline, “A SHIFTING SPOTLIGHT ON URANIUM SALES.” Headline writers—typically copy-editors—have an obligation to give readers the most accurate sense possible of an article’s conclusions, regardless of how poorly those conclusions reflect on our nation’s leaders. They’re frequently failing.
July 14, 2003
Republicans for Sharpton is a pretty funny site.
And the video in the upper right of this page is somewhat satisfying to the likes of me. (Thanks to Jean Camp for this link.)
July 13, 2003
Larry Lessig is going on vacation and Howard Dean will serve as a guest blogger for a week starting on Monday.
July 9, 2003
Michael O’Connor Clarke has had a poem burst fully formed from his forehead. Make sure you get to the punchline.
July 7, 2003
Joe Conason does a number on Coulter’s defense of McCarthyism. (It requires a subscription to Salon.)
That we are even discussing why McCarthyism was a bad thing is pretty depressing.