Run That Particular Mainstream Media Principle By Us Again, Will Ya?

"We are very relieved that our New York Times colleague escaped safely, and this episode has ended happily," said AP Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski [about the escape from Afghan captivity of David S. Rohde]. "It was an unusual and difficult news judgment to withhold reporting on his abduction, but our practice is to avoid transmitting stories if we believe they endanger someone's life."

They avoid transmitting such stories, that is, if the stories endanger the life of a specific individual (or two) with a human face and (therefore) with a compelling backstory (who, in addition, happens to be a colleague).

However, the mainstream media's practice is not to avoid transmitting stories if they "merely" endanger national security as well as the lives of faceless American servicemen and, incidentally (therefore), faceless American civilians in general… (Although, of course, there may be some slight change in this attitude during the reign of the Anointed One and of any other Democratic president…)

Real Presidents

Socialized Medicine: A Foot in the Door

A Hollywood actor by the name of Ronald Reagan speaks up…

Lost Without their Insoluble Nihilism

Members of the ‘sad but real’ German-cliché community should be passively resigned. Herrmann is thus observed:

Actress Tilda Swinton will be biking along the same ex-Berlin Wall route she and filmmaker Cynthia Beatt took ten years ago when they filmed the wall that wasn’t there then, either. This Gesamtkunstwerk (total art form) will then be put together in a piece to be called “Cycling the Invisible Frame.”

Whatever. But if I were her I would take it easier on myself and travel along what used to be the Berlin Wall on what used to be a bike – and take a car instead.

Got that? They’re so set in their ways and ideas that they’re reenacting an old schtick. Why is that?

“The title refers to the fact that most of the wall has been torn down, though many Germans still speak of an invisible wall in the minds dividing east and west Germany.“

Blah, blah, blah. Another complaint about the intangible for the sake of art. Unanswerable questions, demand that you prove a negative. Whatever. You’re, like, so deep, that you can’t seem to walk off of the plantation yourself.

In other words, hanging onto an old world view, and an old agony as if you’re ability to wallow in self-loathing depended on it.

Go ahead, connect the dots. After all, it’s not like they can! They MISS it. It gave them the ulcer that made their lives dramatic, let them think that that alone imbued some meaning in it, and gave them a pass on dealing with themselves.

What’s sad about the stunt, is that it mocks the people I knew who preferred their mental health to this high-school-angst and actually DID tear down that Berlin Wall in their heads, and it didn’t require attention-seeking behavior or revival shows of something they did 10 years ago.

The Wages of Statism

The sad thing about America’s leftist ‘cultural overseers’ is that they look to Europe as a model of how a society should operate. It’s more likely that they opt for the ‘manageable failure’ option out of mere sentimentality. The Perfesser blows a hole in them:

If socialist health care is so preferable, with the power of the state to mandate preventative health care, why do Europeans smoke far more than Americans? On cultural issues, such as politely forming lines, or not defacing monuments with graffiti, or yielding to pedestrians, or driving with concern for others, I think supposedly selfish Americans are light years ahead. But how so, when our capitalist system breeds ‘me first’? And what exactly once created the European genius that we see expressed in the beauty of Italian architecture and the zest for excellence throughout the art and literature of old Europe?

Earth to elites: we are NOT Europe. For the most part they are a comparatively miserable and unhappy population. Quit trying to make us into them. The social ‘equity’ they tout is an act.

Hey! It’s Wrong to Judge!

Have you ever wondered what those peasants with warm-hearted looks in National Georgraphic photo layouts were really doing?

Respect!

Aviation's Debt to the French

The [Wright brothers] knew [Louis] Blériot well, having traveled frequently to France since 1905, where interest in their airplanes was far more intense than in their home country

writes Nicola Clark.

The brothers flew in exhibitions all over France and even set up schools in Pau and Le Mans, where pilots trained on Wright machines. “There was a kind of competition and mutual motivation” among the Wrights and the French air pioneers, which included Mr. Blériot, Gabriel Voisin, Henry Farman and others, said Patrick Guérin, co-author of Le Ciel en Heritage (Heritage in the sky), a history of French aviation.

(Not to downplay Guérin's credibility — and not that it necessarily means anything — but for what the news is worth, he is also the author of books on… magic!) Nicola Clark, again:

By the time of the outbreak of World War I, the airplane’s usefulness in the battlefield was clear, and French manufacturers, among the few who were able to build planes in large numbers, became by default the main suppliers to foreign military forces, including the U.S. Army. By 1914, French aircraft were being produced at a rate of around 50 a month, principally by Mr. Blériot and Mr. Farman. By the time the armistice was signed in 1918, the French were churning out more than 2,700 planes a month.

…Today’s aerospace manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic are postwar creations in terms of their corporate lineage. Yet their debt to the achievements of aviation’s pioneers a century ago is unquestioned.

Friday Ha-Has

Enjoy, frail humanoids.

A French Mentor of Obama's Economic Model Is Awarded the AEA's John Bates Clark Medal

Antoine Reverchon has an article in Le Monde about Emmanuel Saez, the first Frenchman — "un pur produit de l'élitisme scolaire hexagonal" who lives in Santa Cruz — to receive the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association.

En traitant ces centaines de milliers de chiffres, Emmanuel Saez a reformulé la théorie économique de l'effet redistributif de l'impôt sur les revenus, démontrant que sa progressivité était un facteur-clé de réduction des inégalités, fortement aggravées par les cadeaux fiscaux consentis aux hauts revenus par Reagan et Bush (père et fils) à partir des années 1980. Sa réussite est saluée par le monde académique dès la parution des premiers résultats, en 2003. "Les papiers de Saez sont maintenant au programme des meilleurs départements d'économie fiscale aux Etats-Unis", confirme James Poterba, directeur du National Bureau of Economic Research, qui a été son directeur de thèse au Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

…Lycée de Bayonne, puis classe préparatoire à Bordeaux, et ce brillantissime élève qui a la bosse des maths entre à l'Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) de la rue d'Ulm. Là, il découvre l'économie. "Les inégalités produites par le capitalisme, c'était abordé quasiment tous les jours à la table familiale, où on était plutôt engagés à gauche. A Ulm, j'ai compris que les maths pouvaient aussi être utiles pour comprendre scientifiquement cette réalité sociale."

…Il est embauché par Harvard et, deux ans plus tard, débauché par Berkeley. Et n'envisage plus de rentrer : il s'est marié à une Américaine il y a trois ans, et dit ne pas connaître de Français qui n'envient pas le système universitaire américain après l'avoir vu fonctionner.

…Surfeur et économiste de talent, il est aussi ravi d'avoir participé au débat politique américain. Les conclusions de Saez et de Piketty figurent dans le projet de loi du budget 2009 présenté par le président Obama au Congrès. Emmanuel Saez brandit volontiers un article du Wall Street Journal du 12 mars 2009, où Daniel Henninger, un éditorialiste conservateur, reproche à Barack Obama d'avoir choisi comme pierre de Rosette de sa politique fiscale le travail de deux "économistes français, rock stars de la gauche intellectuelle".

…Barack Obama a même adressé dès son arrivée à la Maison Blanche un Memorandum on Scientific Integrity aux départements et agences de son administration, les enjoignant de respecter et de s'inspirer des résultats de la recherche académique pour piloter leurs décisions. Une autre façon de rompre avec l'ère Bush brouillée avec le monde de la recherche.

Provence on Two Wheels

Provence on Two Wheels

Peak Molybdenum?

An article to set the pulses racing for some:

Geologists have found deposits of the rare metal molybdenum in the Erzgebirge mountain range in eastern Germany. The valuable find has triggered a gold rush mentality in the economically depressed area.

Just when we think man has mastered Gaia utterly, she throws us yet another curve.

Vacuousness is the new Seriousness

« Famous women conquer European Parliament »

With all of the real issues out there in the world to tend to, isn’t it funny just when and in what context you hear Europeans using assertive or martial sounding tone?

EU commissioners, impressive justice campaigners or just young and splashy, they are the famous women who scored big in the European elections.

She always wears Dior and has made a name for herself as France's first justice minister with an immigrant background.

You guessed right: when they can attack straw-man type authority figures in their own society, knowing that they can enjoy that hostility without any actual consequences to it. Something for nothing: ‘tis the superior continental way.

The Fuse is Lit! (No Pasaran)

"La France, on n'en veut plus. Partez ! Laissez le Gabon tranquille !"

Jamais sans doute Nicolas Sarkozy ne s'était heurté si abruptement aux ambiguïtés de la "Françafrique"

reports Philippe Bernard from Omar Bongo's funeral in Libreville, Gabon, contradicting those NP detractors whose favorite mantra is that France and all that she represents is nothing if not beloved — nay, revered — all over the planet.

"La France, on n'en veut plus. Partez ! Laissez le Gabon tranquille !", hurlait une quarantaine de jeunes manifestants à son arrivée aux obsèques d'Omar Bongo, mardi 16 juin.

L'accueil houleux réservé au chef de l'Etat français semble avoir reçu la bénédiction des autorités gabonaises : l'incident a eu lieu dans l'enceinte filtrée du palais présidentiel et en présence de nombreux représentants des forces de l'ordre.

Two readers of Le Monde write:

un dictateur de moins que la patrie des droits de l'homme, la France, soutenait, engraissait depuis tant d'années. Sans compter que les parons des grandes multinationales vont être très tristes de ce décès, mais faisons leur confiance, elles ont du trouver son remplaçant à la tête du Gabon afin de continuer les petits arrangements entre amis !!!!

Un de moins! Encore un d'ailleurs qui a seulement tenu si longtemps parce que la France l'a soutenu. Et après il y en a qui diront que "l'Afrique n'est pas assez rentré dans l'histoire". Bien entendu, on fait comme si les interventions postcoloniales et les marchés biaisés n'existaient pas. Elle est belle la France-Afrique et tous ceux qui s'offusquent qu'on reproche quoi que ce soit à la France. Mais bien sûr, la France a payé toutes ses dettes et l'Afrique est abondamment traité à l'école ...

Iraq's Prime Minister Bashes Bush, Hails Obama, Praises the UN, and Pays Respect to Iran

Besides hailing the Apologizer-in-Chief (while betraying his predecessor) in an interview with Le Monde's Patrice Claude which appeared on Tuesday (the French mainstream media, like the American, only pays attention to Iraqis when and if they bash Bush, directly or indirectly, which is why so few of them — why so few of the Iraqis — have appeared in the MSM's pages and on their broadcasts over the past six years), Iraq's starry-eyed prime minister, Nouri Al-Maliki, claims that Iran's meddling in Iraq's affairs has come to an end.

Nos relations sont bonnes. Elles doivent rester marquées par le respect mutuel et la non-ingérence. Un grand vide politique s'est créé en Irak après l'intervention armée étrangère en 2003. Cela a produit, c'est vrai, beaucoup d'ingérences de divers pays de la région dans nos affaires. Toujours sous prétexte de protéger leurs propres intérêts nationaux bien sûr. Mais depuis le rétablissement de notre souveraineté et de l'ordre civil dans le pays, nous y avons mis un terme.

Well, it seems like Iraq can be joined to the leftist or left-leaning countries (such as Obama's U.S.) whom Iranian democrats should refrain from counting on for help, to paraphrase Dennis Prager's words…

A primary reason America is "waiting" and "watching" and "monitoring" while Iranians are beaten in the streets of Tehran is that the country is led by the left.

…The world is "closely following the situation," just as it followed the situations of the Jews during the Holocaust, the Ukrainians, the Chinese under Mao, the Rwandans, the Cambodians, Tibetans, and so many others.

Les journalistes français ont tendance à mélanger faits et commentaire, et sont trop enclins à raconter la misère du monde

In his book Are French Journalists That Bad?, François Dufour answers oui, stating that (in the words of Xavier Ternisien's book review)

French journalists tend to mix facts and commentary, are too urbane [trop parisiens], too occupied in copying each other, and too inclined to talk incessantly about misery on the planet.

If "political opinions predominate over facts", the problem comes from the fact that they are too far to the left:

One quarter on the far left, one half on the left, one quarter in the center and on the right

The huddled masses of Iranians yearning to breathe free think hope and change means something more; But the new American colossus stands silent

Stop fawning over the mythological Muslim street only when it hates America, and look to the real Iranian street at the moment of its greatest need, when its heart may be open to loving America

Jonah Goldberg implores the Apologizer-in-Chief.

During the campaign you mocked those who belittled your rhetoric as "just words." Well, what you've offered so far is less than just words. You've put a fresh coat of whitewash on Iran's sham "democracy." On Monday, you proclaimed yourself "troubled" by the events in Iran, before hinting that you'd negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad no matter what an official investigation into his "landslide" victory found. (Would you trust Mafia internal audits, too?)

Before the sham election you cheered Iran's "robust debate." But that debate has been robust only if you are grading on a curve. Ahmadinejad's main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was an accidental reform candidate. The mullahs had disqualified about 400 others, leaving in the race only four presumed hacks deemed pliant enough not to rock the boat. Mousavi's popular support and the robustness of the debate he ignited were an unintended consequence of a rigged election and a clerical politburo indifferent to its people's desires, not the intention of a democratic regime.

Reportedly, you are biding your time, waiting to see what happens, as if it is a great mystery. Your campaign lived and breathed YouTube. Check it now, check it often. You and your team promised "soft power" and "smart power." How about moral power? Because by not clearly picking a side, it appears you have chosen the wrong side.

Do you fear antagonizing the powers-that-be in Iran? That ship has sailed. Though I am sure they're tickled by your eagerness not to roil the seas around them. Is it because you think "leader of the free world" is just another of those Cold War relics best mothballed in favor of a more cosmopolitan and universal awe at your own story?

"Enough about those people bleeding in the street. What do you think of me?" Is that how it is to be?

…So far, "hope and change" has meant spending trillions we do not have on expanded government we do not need. Meanwhile, the huddled masses of Iranians yearning to breathe free think hope and change means something more. But the new American colossus stands all but silent, her beacon dimmed, her luster tarnished.

Please, Mr. President, prove me wrong. Stop voting "present" on democracy.

The Penalty That the Prosecutor Asks For Killing Three (of One's Own) Newborns? Ten Years Behind Bars

Asking the jury not to "demonize" Véronique Courjault, the mother who, over four years, killed three of her newborns, the prosecutor asked the jury to sentence her to ten years in jail — or three and 2/3 years per murder.

Pretty soon, protests towards — no, not the leniency — the severity (!) of the prosecution's (!) demand (not even the jury's final sentence) started appearing on Le Monde's website! One (male) reader offering this piece of immortal philosophy:

Vanité de l'homme qui croit connaître le vivant, juge et condamne. Quand est ce que l'homme acceptera de regarder ce qu'il est : Rien ou si peu. De quel droit le genre humain se permet il de juger du comportement de ses freres de race alors qu'il ignore TOUT de lui même.

Another voice joining the chorus thought she had it all figured out when she said that

Le Code civil a été écrit par des hommes, et il s'agit d'une femme

That (female) reader felt compelled to add this piece of heroic prose:

Liberté pour cette femme, notre soeur, notre doute, notre terreur à toutes

What’s the Matter? We Thought you Cared about them.

Funny just when it is that one can call yourself a ‘crusader’. It’s also amusing to see just where and when it is such adamant ‘crusaders for justice’ themselves have to fess up to their own adolescent ardency:

A Guantanamo Bay inmate said he wants to live in Germany because he has "good memories" of the country. So far, though, Germany's Interior Ministry has no plans to accept a request from Washington to take two prisoners. Berlin fears the men, who allegedy trained at terror camps, could be dangerous.

It turns out that these men are dangerous? Maybe it’s because they were ‘created by America’, or are really CIA flunkies!

Following his time in Germany, Hami moved to Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to the files the US has collected, he attended a paramilitary training camp -- a claim he disputes. They also state that he moved to Kandahar in Afghanistan in 2001 to study Islam. During interrogations at Guantanamo, al-Hami admitted to having received weapons training in the al-Qaida camp Khalden.

Maybe this former drug-dealer, like every other detainee, was just ‘inspecting charities and new mosques’, much as any gathering targeted by the US military in Afghanistan, turns out to be a wedding attended only my militant males without fail, and accepted as such by an unquestioning press.

Here we find after nearly 8 years of hectoring America, some tiny little hint in the Euro-mind that there might have been a reason to pick up ‘charity and mosque inspectors’. Perhaps even some time in the next decade, the notion that there is something wrong with them being dangerous might even sink in too.

In fact the very reason the Bush administration couldn’t comply with the Europeans ardent demands to close Gitmo, it largely because they wouldn’t take their own nationals, and largely ignored the idea that just because they demanded that the remainder weren’t remanded to places where they REALLY WOULD be tortured, they want the US to remand them to places where they didn’t have to deal with the torture that they would be remanded to.

Berlin's skepticism about the two men echoes its recent reluctance to take in a group of Uighurs, members of China's Muslim ethnic minority.

Of course that ethical maze has a different set of causes, respecting a sacred philosophical epistemology called the “cha ching”.

The Ladies in Red

Seems as though "the people" do not dig what they have to say:

Guardian Media Group is set to report an operating loss for the financial year to the end of March, the company said today.

This will be the first time GMG has posted an operating loss for several years. The company's national newspaper division, Guardian News & Media, which publishes the Guardian, the Observer and the guardian.co.uk website network – including MediaGuardian.co.uk – will report a loss of about £35m in the year to the end of March 2009.

GMG Radio and GMG Property will both report operating losses. The regional newspaper division, GMG Regional Media, will make an operating profit of less than £1m, down from the previous financial year's operating profit of £14.3m.

Other than that, all is well. The above rather informs the true motivations behind this closely linked story:

UK newspaper publishers, in their latest plea for regulatory reform, want to be allowed to collectively lobby Google for story payments. It was among a litany of woes Guardian Media Group CEO Carolyn McCall, Johnson Press CEO John Fry and Trinity Mirror CEO Sly Bailey—sitting at the same table together—reported to the House of Commons’ culture, media and sport select committee’s inquiry on the future of local and regional media on Tuesday. Newspapers have made the Google-should-pay case before but this is the first time publishers have publicly discussed collaborating to tackle the Google problem, and it says everything about how pressing their problems are.

As for the Guardian's American cousin and editorial soulmate, well that is a well-known story by now:

Update: Likewise

It’s Why They’re Called Social Movements

as opposed to scientific movements. One fact that jumps out is that as soon as the loony left grab onto something in a big way, you’re sure to garner demonization and the factual basis of their entire argument crumbles.

For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend "climate change". In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.

There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in Saudi Arabia. At least in the southern hemisphere it is winter, but snowfalls in New Zealand and Australia have been abnormal. There have been frosts in Brazil, elsewhere in South America they have had prolonged droughts, while in China they have had to cope with abnormal rain and freak hailstorms, which in one province killed 20 people.

Crumbling to the point where all they have left is the abuse of reason solely to appease activists.

It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world's food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU's biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn't persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that.