tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51974972011-04-21T20:41:44.560-07:00BlipvertA more constructive outlet for all those times I rant at the TV.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comBlogger411100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1107019397477582402005-01-29T08:05:00.000-08:002005-02-20T06:59:28.863-08:00A triumph of democracy
Watching an unusually defensive David Brooks spin the Iraqi election on the Newshour today was rather revealing. Even Brooks has long abandoned any pretense of a healthy election process in Iraq, instead arguing that the significance of the election lies in it occuring at all -- especially if things go badly. Call it the "dancing dog" theory of nation building. As Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1107014673720288692005-01-29T07:58:00.000-08:002005-01-29T08:04:33.720-08:00Third time lucky
New years resolution: to keep up the blog.
It's not that I don't have anything to write about. It's more that there's so much to write about that it's overwhelming; an endless tsunami, of outrages, tragedies and wry observations, all streaming in from every corner of the datasphere. And in any case, where does anyone find the time? And at the end of it all, what makes meJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1100157772982278032004-11-10T22:42:00.000-08:002004-11-10T23:22:52.983-08:00"No more Mr. Nice guy...
I'm no military analyst, but permit me to sound a note of skepticism over the "success" of the assault on Fallujah.
Despite all the rhetoric about surgical missile strikes and the new face of warfare, overwhelmingly the key has been a US advance behind a hail of old fashioned massed artillery and mortar fire -- spotting and accuracy improved, doubtless, by modern Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099581064121176122004-11-04T07:00:00.000-08:002004-11-04T07:11:04.120-08:00Cloud cuckoo land, part 2
Andrew Sullivan quotes an email from a reader:
"I'll tell you, being a 16 year-old gay kid in Michigan just got a hell of a lot worse. When I woke up this morning and saw the anti gay marriage proposal had passed, I was shocked. I realized the situation I'm faced with everyday in school - the American people have just shown my classmates that it's perfectly fine Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099577698871478762004-11-04T06:01:00.000-08:002004-11-04T06:44:30.996-08:00Bitterness is my right
You're going to hear a lot about "left-wing bitterness" in the following weeks. We should "accept the result", "embrace Bush's new mandate" and get over it.
Just like the right did when Clinton won in 1996.
Oh wait, they didn't. Instead they spent the next 4 years character assassinating the president and using every possible means to undermine and destroy him. Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099572461125974572004-11-04T04:27:00.000-08:002004-11-04T04:47:41.126-08:00Cloud cuckoo land
Libertarian bloggers still don't get it...
Glenn Reynolds writes:
NICE BUSH SPEECH, TOO: I hope the conciliatory mood lasts. I listened on NPR, and was happy to hear the NPR folks saying that Bush's popular vote majority erased any concerns about legitimacy from 2000.
HOW CAN BUSH DEMONSTRATE MODERATION? What better way than to nominate Eugene Volokh for the Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099570542988147742004-11-04T04:05:00.000-08:002004-11-04T04:16:31.310-08:00Nothing has changed...
The LA times
In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.
...
The senior intelligence official said there was no order for any unit to Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099475932815132672004-11-03T01:46:00.000-08:002004-11-03T01:58:52.816-08:00I'm so used to being kicked in the teeth with election results...
That I get over it fast now. I've been through denial. I've been through forlorn hope. I've been through despair. I accept the verdict and am ready for four more years of George W. Bush.
I also accept that there's definitely still a very, very slim chance of Kerry pulling a victory out from here. "Pressure to concede" beJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099331974337698432004-11-01T09:26:00.000-08:002004-11-01T09:59:34.336-08:00Go Kerry!
Over the course of the US election campaign I've concluded that John Kerry is a man of many virtues, the chief of which is that he is not George Bush.
However, I've been more than usually inspired by the man himself. Although I am supremely cynical about politicians, I like Kerry on a personal and a principled level. I like him for the very same reason that, in the current Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1099329876081868332004-11-01T09:02:00.000-08:002004-11-01T09:25:55.933-08:00Let's see -- how wrong can you be?
John R. Miller of The Corner predicts Bush in a comparatively easy victory: If these results hold--no vote-splitting in Maine, no faithless electors, etc.--then Bush wins 300 [electoral votes] to 238.
When "Corner" blowhards are defiantly insisting on anything other than an absolutely razer-close race, you know wishful thinking has taken over.
ElsewhereJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1098855031120373392004-10-26T21:56:00.000-07:002004-10-26T22:30:31.120-07:00The scandal of Abu Ghraib
Phillip Carter, writing in the washington monthly, makes a compelling case that of all the scandals to come out of Iraq, Abu Ghraib will end up costing the US the most.
If his piece focuses much more on the pragmatic consquences of the atrocity than on moral principle, well, that's only to be expected from a former US army officer and current writer on national Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1098851917180576972004-10-26T21:07:00.000-07:002004-10-26T21:55:07.413-07:00Real journalism versus blog journalism
Tegan Goddard gives Kerry the Gore treatment with her piece wondering how on earth John Kerry could have made game 6 of the baseball world series playoffs on October 25, 1986, when a Boston Globe story puts him at an awards banquet at the time.
Turns out, according to a Kerry spokesperson, he attended both events, reaching the Red Sox game in progress.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097388767456700082004-10-09T21:36:00.000-07:002004-10-10T00:19:31.570-07:00Losing the media war
If by some miracle I cared enough about the Labor party to offer them some free advice, and by some even larger miracle Labor cared enough about me to listen to me, I would point out that suffering a sufficient number of tactical defeats is evidence that there's something wrong with your core strategy.
What has been the Labor party's core strategy for the past, oh, Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097325417000675252004-10-09T05:15:00.000-07:002004-10-18T06:44:51.276-07:00Making a mockery of our democracy
Is Glenn Druery, who pioneered, in 1999, the practice of "preference harvesting" on the NSW legislative assembly paper.
His technique? According to the ABC, register endless numbers of "micro-parties", supposedly independent, but all mysteriously directing their preferences to help Glenn Druery. They clutter up the ballot and attract donkey and impulse Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097323563058891502004-10-09T04:55:00.001-07:002004-10-09T05:06:03.056-07:00The swing to the Liberals
Of 3.2 percent is almost exactly the amount by which One Nation is down now that it's a basket case (3.1 percent).
Is this pure coincidence? But those extra votes came from somewhere, and it didn't come from Labor (vote steady.)
One Nation and now the preference power of Family First. The redneck god-bothering vote sure makes this a fine country to live in.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097323185956299252004-10-09T04:55:00.000-07:002004-10-09T04:59:45.956-07:00Latham's concession speech
Worst... concesssion speech... ever.
He just doesn't have the ticker, does he?
I've gone from disliking to detesting Latham in just one hour.
If he sticks around I'll probably work my way up to disliking him again... but only because Costello will probably be in by then and the prospect of Costello as PM makes Latham look like Winston Churchill.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097322067899811442004-10-09T04:30:00.000-07:002004-10-09T04:41:07.900-07:00FUCK!
I can handle Labor losing the election -- I'm used to that -- but for the Coalition to come within a bee's dick of taking control of the Senate as well....
Unacceptable, Latham. Simply unacceptable.
I'm sure if Beazley came back I'd remember why it was that he was kicked out of the leadership in the first place... but the fat(ter) man is looking pretty good from this standpoint.
Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097309171890743782004-10-09T00:56:00.000-07:002004-10-09T01:06:11.890-07:00Pre-count lassitude
I'm hoping for the best and prepared for the worst in tonight's election count. Although what the worst result actually is is hard to say; Latham seems to be in a competition with Howard to appear to be the most conservative populist. Whoever gets in I expect a fairly right-wing flavor, which isn't, as you might gather, to my taste. Leavened, of course, with ample Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1097307386081805832004-10-08T23:57:00.000-07:002004-10-09T21:39:19.816-07:00No two people ever sees the same debate
It's strange watching the American reaction to the second US presidential debate. If my reaction to the first debate tallied with the pundit bloggers (a decisive win to Kerry, acknowledged (albeit tacitly) even by National Review Online), my reaction to the second seems way off the curve. Rather than the CNN instant poll sample, who scored it 47 Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1096958408215197782004-10-04T22:58:00.000-07:002004-10-04T23:47:23.160-07:00Time for naked partisanship
Everyone knows that Australian newspapers are far from unbiased in their political coverage. But today's newspaper gabfest on Labor's forest policy has to set some kind of record for naked, unvarnished partisanship on free display....
Sydney Morning Herald
Labor will save the forests
Mark Latham will protect "the overwhelming majority" of Tasmania's old Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1096937916548588502004-10-04T16:52:00.000-07:002004-10-04T17:58:36.546-07:00Most demoralising election campaign ever
The Australian election campaign has been the kind of election campaign that turns people off and makes them cynical about politics. Both sides have embraced the wedge and the pork barrel and both sides are relying on relentlessly negative campaign tactics. But special credit must be given to the Coalition for setting much of the tone -- Howard Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1096904758003405082004-10-04T08:32:00.000-07:002004-10-04T08:54:47.010-07:00Kerry Cheats
What better way to break a blogger silence than with a Matt Drudge related post.
Only Drudge is brave enough to expose the latest cover-up by the Liberal media; that Kerry cheated to win that debate against George Bush on national security on Thursday.
Drudge's forensic video analysts reveal that John Kerry pulled a mysterious object from his coat shortly before taking the Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1088908892115984112004-07-03T19:11:00.000-07:002004-10-09T23:22:43.866-07:00Disney: Craven, or simply venal?
When Disney ordered Miramax not to distribute Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, there were two versions of the reasons for the decision. Michael Moore's version is that Disney did it because it was afraid of angering Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is in a position to grant tax concessions that the company is eagerly seeking. Disney's version was Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1088902979274932792004-07-03T17:38:00.000-07:002004-07-03T18:02:59.273-07:00I watch Entertainment Tonight too
Budding teen queens Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen... Oh, I can't even spit it out.
I admit it: I'm an ET gossip fanboy. And so it was particularly perplexing to watch the reports that Mary Kate Olsen was in rehab for anorexia. Try as I might, I couldn't figure this out. Not because, looking at Mary Kate Olsen, I can't believe that she's anorexic. No, the Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1088887085185958522004-07-03T12:29:00.000-07:002004-07-03T13:38:05.186-07:00"Fisking" goes mainstream?
Is it just me, or is this column from Frank Devine the most pathetically strained piece I've read on the Internet for, oh, at least the past week?
Frank Devine is carrying the torch for the "ABC is biased" brigade. But I don't think the ABC has much to worry about if this is the best he can come up with. In the spirit of Devine's "peer-review", let's "peer Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1088880820812142082004-07-03T11:37:00.000-07:002004-07-03T11:53:40.813-07:00A decline in values?
While deeply ashamed to admit I read Hollywood gossip sites, I think there's something telling about this NY Post item on sex worker Dessarae Bradford's insta-book "My S/M Romp with Alec Baldwin", which details a single session in 2002 involving a vibrator and a hershey bar.
The claims in the book are, of course, completely unverifiable. But think of the implications Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1088373520391857672004-06-27T13:16:00.000-07:002004-06-27T14:58:40.390-07:00One of the few readable righties in the world, PJ O'Rourke, wonders why trying to persuade people is out of style:
I tried watching The O'Reilly Factor. I tried watching Hannity shout about Colmes. I tried listening to conservative talk radio. But my frustration at concurrence would build, mounting from exasperation with like-mindedness to a fury of accord, and I'd hit the OFF button.
PJ Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1087602551720852482004-06-18T15:22:00.000-07:002004-06-18T16:49:11.720-07:00The backstab blogger: would anyone give a fuck?
After what I imagine was a long day sitting blankly at the keyboard, Hugh Hewitt of the Weekly Standard finally thought of a way, however strained, to give blogs some cultural cachet.
Similarly, the inevitable backstab blog has to be on some political consultant's mind. Get it started and growing as a pro candidate X blog. Build an audience Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1087571401723533802004-06-18T07:14:00.000-07:002004-06-18T08:23:42.016-07:00Obesity hitting prime time
Obesity is hitting the prime time, which means that it's time for politicians to propose modestly paternalistic measures against it while vested interests splurge on a propoganda offensive against the "Nanny State."
Mark Latham's proposal to ban junk food advertising during children's TV programs is a reasonable one. Junk food vendors spend millions marketing Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1087567952797396772004-06-18T06:29:00.000-07:002004-06-18T08:48:07.530-07:00Notes from a non-addicted blogger
Stephen Dawson, of Australian Libertarian Blog, wonders
Is a Tim Blair or an Andrew Sullivan a balanced individual or an addicted blogger? I don't know either personally. But who cares (aside from them, themselves, and their loved ones)? All the rest of us benefit from their 'addiction'.
Duh. Does Dawson even have to ask? At the moment Andrew SullivanJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1086339968910447302004-06-04T01:38:00.000-07:002004-06-04T02:06:08.910-07:00Blaming the victim
Troppo Armadillo wonders what crime Joanna Lees comitted to have her private life dragged through the mud:
Her crime? The Yorkshire lass who set off for the trip of a lifetime had the misfortune to become a victim of crime, then a victim of media speculation.
What’s worse, she didn’t take a media handling course before she was catapaulted into this extraordinary Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1086283861810456902004-06-03T10:11:00.000-07:002004-06-03T10:35:09.613-07:00Logic watch
On the sentencing of Islamic terrorist Jack Roche, conservative journalism student Gareth Parker writes, or cites (it's never very clear) the following:
Every critic and blamer, every detractor and accuser, who continues to make the case [..] that our status as a target of terrorists is the fault of the Australian government must read this judgement. Because it spells out Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1086275806995436782004-06-03T07:14:00.000-07:002004-06-03T08:21:13.726-07:00We're still not ready for "Heather Has Two Mommies"
Whether or not you regard Play School's decision to air a segment
about a child of a lesbian couple as political seems to depend very
much on your politics. Such families exist, so why not show them?
Clearly, only if you believe that such a family ought not to be shown.
40 years ago, showing a mixed race couple would have been just asJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1086272010919152862004-06-03T07:08:00.000-07:002004-06-03T07:13:30.920-07:00Time flies
My God. Has it been a month since I last posted? It's unbelievable. I haven't been idle in the time; I have a stack of back-posts to put the finishing touches on and put up in the next few days. Some of them are rather stale by this point, but since at the moment I'm mostly writing for my own amusement, this isn't much of an issue. I might try exploring retroposting in order Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1083670866081779712004-05-04T04:40:00.000-07:002004-05-04T05:00:10.733-07:00Film commentary: Kill Bill Vol 2
It's difficult to write any criticism of "Kill Bill Vol. 2" that Quentin Tarantino himself wouldn't regard as a compliment. Yes, it is an obscenely violent, completely amoral, cynical revel in relentless, brutal sadism. But that is, by now, the signature of the Tarantino aesthetic. You know what you're getting, and if that sort of thing is the sort of thing Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-108348869983102022004-05-02T00:34:00.000-07:002004-05-03T09:03:13.466-07:00Moral Clarity, Part 4
Let's recap. What was your reaction, upon seeing those awful, appalling photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison?
a) Oh my God! That's awful! Thank God the story is out, so we can punish those responsible!
b) Oh my God! That's awful! How dare the media publish those photos which will only encourage more terrorist acts against us!
If you picked b, you've just Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1083435945492899032004-05-01T11:14:00.000-07:002004-05-01T11:34:15.153-07:00More moral clarity
A taxonomy of negative responses in CBS's mailbag on CBS's coverage of the prisoner abuse story, ordered by rationalisation.
Look over there! Why don't you report something positive?
I find it very wrong that our soldiers mistreated confined Iraqis. What I find even more destructive is that you do not find the time to report what has been accomplished with what the Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1083428132183682872004-05-01T09:15:00.000-07:002004-05-01T10:33:37.436-07:00Moral Clarity, part two
The scandalous revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib are a challenge to any
dedicated ideologue for the cause. Most right-bloggers didn't try
to defend the indefensible. But some just couldn't help dissembling.
How does right-blogger Tim Blair deal with the issue? With transparant
evasions from the standard right wing blogger playbook.
In the first attemptJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1083419854570145142004-05-01T06:57:00.000-07:002004-05-01T10:34:57.483-07:00Moral Clarity, Part One.
The revelations of horrendous prisoner abuse by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison have drawn universal condemnation from all sides. President Bush describes himself as "disgusted." General Kimmit says that he was "appalled." So I'm glad to see, in the face of this chorus universal condemnation, that the readership of the dean of Australian right wing blogging, Tim BlairJasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1083391987859250672004-04-30T22:22:00.000-07:002004-05-01T10:40:01.250-07:00Some shocking photos
Being in Australia, I have had a rare privilege to be at least one step ahead of the American news cycle on the explosive story of prisoner abuse by US military guards at Abu Ghraib. Although they aired on CBS's "60 minutes 2" first, they hit Australia in time for the evening news. Moreover, while the Australian media quickly picked up the story, the American media, and Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5197497.post-1083388689533755802004-04-30T21:12:00.000-07:002004-04-30T22:25:46.310-07:00An introduction
I started a blog once.
It was going to be a sandbox for myself alone. It would be therapeutic: every time I read something in the paper, or saw something on the news, that I didn't like, instead of ranting about it to whoever I know who would listen, I'd blog it. Or if I did like something, instead of recommending it to anyone who'd listen, I'd blog that too. I'd write Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365297812546780012noreply@blogger.com