Officer.com reported The Bixby Police Department is the first in Oklahoma to use a telephone service that can alert a thousand residents a minute to sexual offenders moving into their neighborhood.
The program made its debut this month when police alerted residents within a half mile of the new addresses of two sexual offenders, police Lt. Paul Tryon said.
Bixby police are using a free service provided by the Florida-based nonprofit organization A Child Is Missing. A recorded message from the police department says: ''We have an important message for you. We want you to be aware that there is a sexual predator living in your neighborhood.''
The message then gives the offender's name, address, age, race, height, weight, gender, eye color and hair color. The recording also indicates the person is not wanted and that the information shouldn't be used to harass anyone, vandalize property or commit any crimes.
Tryon said the department goal is to notify neighbors within 10 days of the offender's move.
''If they feel they have a right to know, well, that's good,'' said Agustus Christenson, 26, a convicted sex offender who moved in with his family about two months ago. ''It also creates an uneasiness with me and to an extent it does anger me. I can see their side of it, needing to have a desire to protect their child.
''My side of it, well, it's like, I don't have the bubonic plague.''
Christenson served prison time for first-degree rape and indecent proposal to minor children, records show. Records also show he had sex with a 13-year-old girl five or six times and made the proposals to boys ages 6, 10 and 11.
He said he has a job working in the kitchen of a Tulsa restaurant. He's also in counseling.
Calls in Bixby also have been made to neighbors of Bassil Abdi, 51, who was convicted of sexual battery of a person over 16 in 2001.
''We weighed the public safety issues with issues that the offender might be targeted,'' Tryon said. ''If the offender is harassed or targeted then we will take steps to protect the offender.
Tina Izadi, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, said although the ACLU is not opposed to providing information about dangerous sex offenders, she thinks the real solution is to dedicate adequate resources to treating offenders and educating the public.
''Everyone cares about keeping children safe,'' Izadi said. ''But alarmist notification messages, for example referring to offenders as 'sexual predators,' are not the answer because they are ineffective.''
Sixteen states are using the service to alert residents of neighbors with sexual records, said Sherry Friedlander, founder and chairman of A Child Is Missing. She hopes to expand the service, which federal and private funds pay for, to other Oklahoma cities. Some already use the company to locate missing children.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Bixby Police Notify Residents
College more liberal than thought
WaPo reported College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.
By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.
The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.
"What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field," said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. "There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It's a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you'd expect to be dominated by liberals."
And this came as a surprise?
I wonder if they will do another study and find that the MSM leans very far to the left.
Hugh Hewitt blogged "By their own description 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative." Which makes universities and colleges significantly more inclusive of conservatives than major media.
Betsy Newmark blogged Gee, what a surprise this study's result is. Maybe universities will decide that they need to have a "critical mass" of conservatives on campus just like they need such numbers of minorities so that people feel comfortable.
Rickheller @Centerfield blogged Being a sometime fiction writer, I've noticed that English lit departments have a heavy representation of Marxist ideas long discredited in Marx's original domains of economics and politics. As far as religious studies departments, I assume that the conservatives are all in seminaries.
A strange way to say thank you
NYT reported The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.
"These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"
S.Z. blogged Remember when I said that I was cynical enough to believe if you signed a petition or donated money at RightMarch to "save Terri," you would be added to Phil Sheldon's mailing list, which he rents out to other groups and to politicians? Well, per the NY Times, this has already happened.
Pudentilla blogged Everyone copes with his grief in his own way. Perhaps next the religious radicals could sell her clothes on ebay, citing John 19:23-24. or would that, at last, be a sacrilege.
Whatever you believed should have happened with Terri Schiavo, i.e. whether you thought Michael was right, and that she would not want to live that way, or whether you thought the parents should have been allowed to take care of her, and whether you are on the left (like the above two bloggers) or whether you are on the right (as I am) I would assume you would agree that this is absolutely outrageous.
Don't Fear the Blogger
Giving every indication that he's read a lot of stories about bloggers but not that many actual blogs, Shaw disparages the form as the error-filled rants of amateurs in his piece, "Do Bloggers Deserve Basic Journalistic Protections?" It's a "solipsistic, self-aggrandizing journalist-wannabe genre," Shaw writes.
Without naming a specific offender—except Matt Drudge, who he acknowledges really isn't a blogger — Shaw generalizes about bloggers for 1,300 gassy words. He writes:Many bloggers—not all, perhaps not even most—don't seem to worry much about being accurate. Or fair. They just want to get their opinions — and their "scoops" — out there as fast as they pop into their brains. One of the great advantages of the Internet, many Web lovers have told me, is that it's easy to correct an error there. You can do it instantly, as soon as the error is called to your attention, instead of having to wait until the next day's paper.
These nameless bloggers don't deserve the "same constitutional protections as traditional print and broadcast journalists," Shaw writes. Specifically, he opposes their right to use state shield laws to protect their confidential sources when subpoenaed, as are three bloggers who are facing down Apple Computer in a trade secret case.
By wanting to get their opinions — and their "scoops" — out there as fast as they pop into their brains, would he include Dan Rather and his urge to get his story about memos (which subsequently proved to be false) on CBS in time to try to influence the 2004 Presidential Election?
Michelle Malkin blogged I have only one point to add--namely, that the neat division between "bloggers" on the one hand and "journalists" on the other is not as cut and dried as Shaw seems to think. As Radley Balko has noted, most of the top bloggers have one foot firmly planted in traditional print or broadcast media:
At the same time, a number of TV commentators--e.g, Keith Olbermann, Linda Vester, Greta van Sustren, and Larry Kudlow--have blogs, as do an increasing number of newspapers and magazines, such as the New Republic, the Seattle Times, and the Dallas Morning News.
Rich Glasgow blogged I have no delusions that my little baby blog has any influence whatsoever on anyone, but of course, the Times piece lumps all blogs into a wishful little lump of irrelevance. The arrogant MSM would love it if Drudge (8 to 11 million visits/day, depending on the news cycle) were irrelevant. They hate him. They would love it if the big bloggers like Power Line, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Captain's Quarters, Hugh Hewitt, and so many others, (not to mention the talk radio power houses a la Rush who paved the way for the countless internet sites) weren't breaking stories and causing iconic anchors to leave in ignominy, or actually calling to account the Old Gray Lady when bogus stories appear.
CQ blogged Shafer also notes that the so-called legitimate press makes plenty of mistakes that never get prominent corrections. In fact, Shafer takes his examples from such prominent stories as 9/11, Monicagate, and the granddaddy of all press achievements, Watergate -- and shows how the revered Walter Cronkite and CBS ran a seriously misleading story without checking the facts. Does anyone remember the white van with the bomb on 9/11 that the FBI supposedly found on an NYC bridge? Jack Shafer does, even if the newspapers and broadcasters who pushed that story have forgotten it.
Jay Rosen blogged
Stirling Newberry blogged Shafer's piece takes on the naked fear of people who are paid to write opinions have of peopel who are not paid to write opinions. This is an example of the analog/digital dynamic. The analog world protected soft property by making it hard to copy, by placing large capital barriers in the way of entry. The digital world breaks down the barrier to entry, without necessarily providing the values that the soft property had. In journalism the capital intensiveness is gathering news - one must truck the protons in real people around the world and get them to observe, interview and write. This capital intensiveness protected the soft virtue of getting the story right.
Kent blogged I have a lot of ideas for how to create a new model for journalism, but it doesn't seem like the newspapers are in any rush to fundamentally change their business practices. Jay Rosen comments "No R & D rush. No large investment in the future. No siren call to find the new model."
I've been independently doing this R&D work through the process of making my documentary on the failures of the mainstream media leading up to the war in Iraq. I hope to provide a proof of concept of these models through the production of my film. I submitted the following comment to Rosen's site in the hopes that I can gain more awareness and institutional support for what I'm doing. I'm working on an implementation roadmap.
Jim Romenesko blogged Jack Shafer spanks David Shaw for saying bloggers don't deserve the same constitutional protections as traditional print and broadcast journalists. Shafer writes: "I suggest that he ... research the history of the First Amendment. [He'll] learn that the Founders wrote it precisely to protect Tom, Dick, and Matt, and the wide-eyed pamphleteers and the partisan press of the time. The professional press, which Shaw believes so essential in protecting society, didn't even exist until the late 19th century."
Dean Esmay blogged Jack Shafer gets it right. Thanks for understanding and respecting the first amendment, Jack. Unlike some people.
Patterico blogged Jack Shafer whacks David Shaw. And deservedly so. I have whacked Shaw once or twice (or thrice) myself. But I am happy to see Shafer pile on. Shaw deserves no less.
People that work for newspapers assume
Neither assumption is true all the time.
I dont know whether one can call my blogging Journalism, but at least I try to link to my sources whereever I can (so my readers can check for themselves whether or not I have distorted what others have said, and I try to use TrackBacks whereever they are available, so that the site quoted will know I have quoted something they said, and they have a chance to see whether I am quoting them properly. Fellow Tulsa blogger Michael D. Bates trys to do the same thing, and the local print newspaper did not like him quoting what they said when he criticized them.
Tuesday, March 29
This Day In History
- 1790 John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, was born in Charles City County, Va.
- 1847 U.S. forces led by Gen. Winfield Scott occupied the city of Veracruz after Mexican defenders capitulated.
- 1848 For the first time in recorded history, Niagara Falls stopped flowing. An ice jam in the Niagara River above the rim of the falls caused the water to stop.
- 1867 The North America Act was passed by the British parliament, creating the dominion of Canada.
- 1882 The Knights of Columbus was chartered in Connecticut.
- 1914 Seven papers joined together to distribute the first newspaper rotogravure section. This meant that the first picture section was developed.
- 1917 Man o’ War, the famous American race horse, was foaled.
- 1932 Comedian Jack Benny appeared on radio for the first time. He agreed to join then newspaper columnist, Ed Sullivan, on his radio interview show. Benny got a real taste of radio two months later when he got his own show on the NBC radio network.
- 1943 Rationing of meat, butter and cheese began during World War II.
- 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of passing atomic secrets to the Russians and were sentenced to death.
- 1962 Jack Paar left his highly successful late night TV talk show after five years. He left behind a salary of $250,000 and an estimated audience of eight-million people. Fill-in hosts were used, including one who would ultimately win the coveted position of host of "The Tonight Show". He was Johnny Carson.
- 1971 Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was convicted of murdering at least 22 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre. (He spent three years under house arrest.)
- 1971 A jury in Los Angeles recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. The sentences were later commuted.
1973 The last U.S. troops left South Vietnam.- 1974 Eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted on charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University. The guardsmen were later acquitted.
- 1992 Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton acknowledged experimenting with marijuana ''a time or two'' while attending Oxford University, adding, ''I didn't inhale and I didn't try it again.''
- 1995 The House of Representatives rejected a constitutional amendment that would have limited terms to 12 years in the U.S. House and Senate.
- 1999 The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 10,000 for the first time, at 10,006.78.
- 2002 Israel declared Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat an enemy and sent tanks and armored personnel carriers to fully isolate him in his Ramallah, West Bank headquarters.
- 1790 John Tyler (10th U.S. President [1841-1845]; the first president to marry while in office; married to: L. Christian, J. Gardiner [8 sons, 7 daughters]; nickname: Accidental President; died Jan 18, 1862)
- 1927 John McLaughlin (TV host: McLaughlin [CNBC Network]; editor, columnist)
- 1945 Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier (Basketball Hall of Famer: Southern Illinois Univ. All-American; NY Knicks [1967-1977/NBA championship teams: 1970, 1973/NBA all defensive first team: 1969-1975/all-star: 1970-1976/MVP: 1975], Knicks’ all-time assists leader: 4,791; Cleveland Cavaliers; lifetime average of 18.9 points per game in 825 regular-season games, 20.7 points per game in 93 playoff contests; nickname [Clyde] taken from the folk-hero robber Clyde Barrow)
Monday, March 28, 2005
Blog Advertising
But many companies are wary of putting their brand on such a new and unpredictable medium. Most blogs are written by a lone author. They are typically unedited and include spirited responses from readers who can post comments at will. Some marketers fear blogs will criticize their products or ad campaigns. And, like all new blog readers, companies are just learning how to track what's being said on blogs and which ones might make a good fit for their ads....
The vast majority of the 8 million or so blogs currently in existence have few if any ads. Many are run by hobbyists or armchair commentators, some of whom sign up to carry tiny text ads from a large pool of advertisers through a service from Google Inc. The ads generate revenue only when a visitor clicks on the ad. Most bloggers, like Ronni Bennett, a former television producer who lives in New York's Greenwich Village and writes about aging on TimeGoesBy.net, can't even offset the cost of her Internet access. Her site gets between 1,200 and 1,500 page views a day, bringing in all of $50 since December 2004.
Ideoblog blogs Maybe the big problem is that blogging is still too “unpredictable,” and that advertisers will come around when the risks look more manageable. Then, of course, advertisers will sort according to market niches. A nice thing about blogging is that it permits micromarketing, as I discuss here. There might also be sorting between the “cable” approach of no-advertising blogs (like mine) and the “broadcast” approach of advertising blogs.
BlogAds did a survey, and if you are interested in Blog Advertising, you should check it out.
There can be dangers in accepting blog advertisements. Initially Captain's Quarters thought that Google had dropped his blog from their search engine, but later SayAnything revealed that he had been fooled into accepting $300 a month for the use of a subdomain off of his “sayanythingblog.com” domain. He would point the subdomain to a page of advertising hosted on their servers and they’d send him the money via Pay Pal. He checked out the advertising and there was no porn or anything involved so he agreed. Seemed like a good deal to him and with hosting costs rising as his page gets more and more popular he was not much inclined to turn down opportunities to make money from this page.
Turns out this was a mistake. This company is involved in something called link farming, a practice Google frowns upon. They frown upon it so much, in fact, that Say Anything has now been removed from that search engine’s indexes.
As NetMechanic said A link farm consists of sites that link to other sites for the sole purpose of increasing their link popularity score. Unlike perfectly valid links to sites with related information, sites that participate in link farming contain links to totally unrelated sites. This practice is also referred to as link stuffing.
Google hates link farms and labels the links they generate as spam. In fact, Google gates them so much that some sites get removed from the index if they're affiliated with link farms. Spooked, some webmasters are considering removing all outbound links from their sites.
That's an overreaction that decreases the site value to visitors and hurts the Web in general because cross-linking is a basic tenet of the Internet. Links are fine - even encouraged - if they are related to your topic, but link farms rarely provide useful content to visitors.
Coinciding almost exactly with SayAnything's removal from Google was an email from Business Barn stating that they were ending the arrangement together. Which makes perfect sense. They were after his Google page rank. Now that he have no Google page rank his blog is of no use to them.
The strange thing is that as likwidshoe commented If you got delinked from Google because of this episode, ask them why the company in question is still linked
GoogleGuy said Hi, I can confirm that it was spammy urls like .... that led to this spam penalty triggering for your site–and it looks like there were links from your main site to this info subdomain. It looks like these urls have been removed or the DNS has been updated for info.sayanythingblog.com, so I’d expect your site to return into Google index quite quickly (probably within 1-2 days).
PowerPundit was targeted by the same scam, but they did not agree to it, because when they checked there were links to porno sites. The advertiser removed the links, but fortunately PP did not fall for the offer.
Blog Ads can bring in revenue to offset hosting fees, but a blogger needs to be very careful what sort of ads they accept. One alternative would be Google AdSense, however it's payout depends on the uniqueness of the material on a blog (or on a website). For example, if you are the only one with a blog (or webpage) on a particular subject, and if there are advertisers that want to reach people interested in that subject, they may pay a lot per click with AdSense, but if there are thousands of blogs (or webpages) covering a subject, the amount per click paid by AdSense is much much lower. For example one day I had 116 people see a particular page, and 1 person clicked on it, and I earned 3 cents, but another page had 71 page views, and 1 click through, and I earned 43 cents. I have a friend that reported that his site (which is much rarer than mine, sometimes earns $1.00 or more per click through
Update 3/28 9:26 CQ said I received an e-mail from Business Barn ending our current relationship -- perhaps because my Google ranking disappeared overnight -- but offering me a new deal with free hosting and unlimited bandwidth. I have turned it down and deleted the subdomains that caused the problems with the Google search engine. I also replied to the comment that Google left on my original post explaining what happened -- and they were kind enough to send this response: "Thanks for letting us know; I'd expect captainsquartersblog.com to come fully back into the index within 1-2 days."
So just to make sure everyone knows, Google didn't delete CQ from their search engines for political reasons, and they've actually been very good about letting me know what the problem was and responsive to my solution. I'll be looking forward to visitors from Google searches later this week ...
Economics of Blogging
ProfessorBainbridge blogs Larry Ribstein offers a typically interesting series of posts on the economics of blogging, which starts here. The subsequent post on, inter alia, why people blog is particularly provocative.
I highly recommend all bloggers, and potential bloggers, read Larry's posts on The law and economics of blogging on Ideoblog, whose motto is "A blog about ideas. Ideas are not beliefs or opinions":
It is not a part of the above mentioned series, but I recommend you also read McCain-Feingold and bloggers
Left Feels Left Out
Sean Paul blogs on The Agonist: We, the undersigned bloggers, are very concerned about how liberal bloggers are being systematically under-represented in the mainstream media, academic settings and media forums. By being segmented away from these venues, we are effectively pushed out of the discourse of opinion-leaders. The result is that the conventional wisdom becomes a feedback loop framed by the Conservatives and their media allies.
RawStory reports Seeking to bypass government-pre-packaged news and the mainstream media’s lack of substantive reporting, a group of news sites and blogs have teamed up to asks citizens to print, copy, and leave news wherever they go from Mar. 27-Apr. 9–leaving the leaflets in doctors’/dentists’ offices, the DMV, subway walls, bulletin boards, community centers and anywhere else someone is likely to read them.....
The Paper Chase was created as an antidote to the lack of critical information making its way to average Americans. Although the Internet has proven a useful tool, there remain millions of people who either have no Internet access, are unaware of the sites that promote such information, or do not refer to the Web for their daily information needs. The goal of the Paper Chase is to show them that what they are missing is the truth....
The Paper Chase is currently sponsored by The Raw Story, BradBlog, Watching the Watchers, Newsfare, Political Strategy, The Agonist, A la Gauche, Radiofreeblogistan, Rayne Today, and Radio Left.
The article said “Nothing could be more important than the truth,” says Watching the Watchers’ Anthony Levensalor. “Regardless of your political leaning, background or history, we must base our decisions on real news, not trumped up propaganda.”.
I am happy to see they say we need to do this "regardless of your political leaning", but it certainly appears to me that the participants range from the left to the far left. Why are they concerned about getting the MSM to listen to them? They have the MSM in their hip pockets.
A New Site for Anyone, Anything
Mr. Wales's closely held company Wikia Inc. has begun promoting its first for-profit endeavor, an ad-supported site called Wikicities.com that is based on the concept behind Wikipedia. Through Wikicities, groups of Web users can create their own free Web sites and fill them with, well, nearly anything. Among the topics being discussed on the nascent site: Macintosh computers, college hockey and real-world cities like Los Angeles, Beijing and Calgary.
Any visitor can easily change a wiki's appearance or the information it contains using tools included on the site. Later, if another user disagrees with a change, he can cancel it just as easily with the click of a mouse. Changes appear instantly and are tracked in a "history" tab on the page. Each topic is overseen by an administrator, who has the power to block users who have records of contributing little more than vandalism. Still, for the most part, democracy rules.
To the uninitiated, that free-for-all approach to editing sounds like a recipe for chaos. But it's a model that has made Mr. Wales's better-known project, Wikipedia, one of the most-visited sites on the Web. In the past year, traffic to Wikipedia has doubled to 5.3 million unique visitors in February, topping such well-known destinations as the Drudge Report, Yellowpages.com and Craigslist.org, according to research firm ComScore Networks Inc.
Wikipedia now has more than 1.3 million articles in several languages and is constantly updated by its visitors, from addicts who spend hours a day adding pages to casual Web surfers who correct spelling errors, then move on.
Jeff Jarvis blogged It's just starting so it's hard to tell whether this will work as well as Wikipedia. I think that wikis work best when they try to gather the ongoing wisdom of the crowds on lasting topics; they work when they hit a critical mass of interest, people, contributions, and time. That's why I remain dubious that Wikinews will work; it's too transient: By the time enough people swarm around a topic to add their collective wisdom, the world has moved on. Wikipedia did, in fact, do a good job collecting news during the tsunami, but that had enough interest, people, and time to make it work. WikiCities is a third model: A portal where people can create free, ad-supported special-interest wikis. On the one hand, I wonder whether people won't just do that on their own sites, in their own communities. On the other hand, perhaps special-interest wikis need a portal to gather that critical mass of contributors. We'll see...
On this blog Derek commented Seems to me that one of the more under-utilized functions of blogs is the local blog---a blog writ small. I live in Ann Arbor, MI. A local blog of events, politics, and news, etc., with reader reviews and reporting, would be a great service and widely read in a blog-friendly town like this. Certainly less centralized an approach than wiki....
But how does a local blog get attention and recognition in the wider, louder blogoshpere? Certainly word-of-mouth. But a portal for local blogs with links would be more effective. Suggestions?
Iraqi forces seize 131
ABC reported Iraqi soldiers, backed by US helicopters, are reported to have seized 131 suspects in a dawn raid on insurgents planning attacks on the holy city of Kerbala. The Defence Ministry says troops also retrieved tons of explosives. The Defence Minister, Hazim al-Shaalan, described it as a very successful operation based on intensive surveillance.
Several suspected militants were reported killed in the operation, which began late on Friday and culminated in the dawn raid just outside Kerbala, about 100 kilometres south-west of Baghdad. Officials say say those arrested included foreigners using fake Iraqi identification papers.
Jan Haugland: blogged Good news. Speaking of which: Arthur Chrenkoff's Good News from Iraq part 24 is out. It begins with the shopkeepers.
CQ blogged Next week brings an expected large pilgrimage to Kerbala for Arbain, one of the mourning rites of the Shi'a. Undoubtedly, the Wahhabist Sunni foreigners expected to cause a civil war by butchering Shi'ite pilgrims during one of their major observances. With the foreign networks already declining due to significant leadership losses and the general contempt for them that has grown tremendously in Iraqi society, the loss of 131 terrorists signifies a tremendous blow to their operative capacity.
I wonder if Joe Biden and the editorial board of the New York Times, who spent so much oxygen eight weeks ago telling Condoleezza Rice that the Iraqi security forces had zero credibility, might be considering that their own credibility has dropped farther into negative numbers with each successful operation they conduct.
On this blog Vulgorilla commented Joe Biden and the New York Times? - Does anyone even pay attention to them any more? Are they still consuming oxygen on this planet? Gads! I hope not. What a waste! and Gary commented If Sen. Biden had better political instincts, he'd start changing his tune but we know that he's another senator who's tone deaf. Don't expect his tune to change. Instead, expect the MSM to change the conversation in an effort to hide Biden's ineptitude..
Good job
Ambassador helped Osama
While the American government was engaged in a number of “black” or covert intelligence activities to locate Al Qaeda leaders, Mr. Kirk said, the “white” or public efforts — which have succeeded in the past in leading to the capture of wanted terrorists — were effectively shut down in the months following the September 11 attacks. Mr. Kirk discovered Ms. Powell’s unusual order in January 2004 and, over the past year, launched a series of behind-the-scenes moves that culminated in a blunt conversation with President Bush aboard Air Force One, the removal of the ambassador, and congressional approval for reinvigorating the hunt for Mr. bin Laden.
Ace blogged The elected representatives of the United States decided to make capturing OBL a top priority, but an idiot bureaucrat who thought she knew better queered the whole deal. On this blog someone commented the bimbo still has a job at State. she should be supersizing the fries. the congressman who discovered the problem was clever and resourceful. he avoided publicity and did not shoot his mouth off in front of the cameras. he quietly put his case together and waited for a chance to present it to GWB. the american people were well-served..
The Big Trunk blogged I find this to be an almost unbelievable story -- a reductio ad absurdum of the State Department's occasional resistance to the administration's objectives. The ambassador at issue was a Bush appointee who was not a career diplomat. Moreover, Miniter reports no facts suggesting a motive for the ambassador's actions in this case. However, Miniter is a terrific reporter with excellent sources for this story. We would be most interested to hear from our State Department or foreign service readers with any knowledge of the case.
This is just one example of how our State Department ignored the wishes of the President when Powell was Secretary of State. I am glad that Condi is now in charge. I can't imagine this happening under her watch.
Monday, March 28
This Day In History
- 1797 Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patented a washing machine.
- 1834 The U.S. Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
- 1854 Britain and France declared war on Russia during the Crimean War.
- 1898 The Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen, and therefore could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
- 1930 The cities of Constantinople and Angora changed names to Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey.
- 1939 The Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to the forces of Francisco Franco.
- 1941 Novelist and critic Virginia Woolf drowned herself near her home in England at age 59.
- 1943 Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff died at age 70.
- 1964 The most violent earthquake (9.2) in the United States struck Prince William Sound, Alaska.
- 1969 Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, died in Washington at age 78.
1979 Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.- 1987 Maria von Trapp, whose life inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ''The Sound of Music,'' died in Morrisville, Vt., at age 82.
- 2000 Supreme Court rules unanimously that an anonymous tip does not justify a stop-and-frisk action against a person.
- 2002 The Arab League, meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, agreed on a peace plan that offered Israel normal relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from war-won lands and a Palestinian state.
- 1944 Ken Howard (actor: The White Shadow, The Thorn Birds, Country Girl, Oscar)
Sunday, March 27, 2005
For Army Recruiters, a Hard Toll From a Hard Sell
A recruiter in New York said pressure from the Army to meet his recruiting goals during a time of war has given him stomach problems and searing back pain. Suffering from bouts of depression, he said he has considered suicide. Another, in Texas, said he had volunteered many times to go to Iraq rather than face ridicule, rejection and the Army's wrath.
According to USA Today Jim Murphy is a "counter-recruiter," one of a small but growing number of opponents of the Iraq (news - web sites) war who say they want to compete with military recruiters for the hearts and minds of young people. (Related story: For Guard recruiters, a tough sell)
"I don't tell kids not to join the military," says Murphy, 59, a member of Veterans for Peace. "I tell them: 'Have a plan for your future. Because if you don't, the military has a plan for you.' "
Since the advent of the all-volunteer military three decades ago, the armed services have used an array of tools, from recruiting in schools to TV advertising, to successfully sell careers in the military. But with ground troops in Iraq still under fire, the Army and Marines are struggling to get enough enlistments.
The armed services need many recruits each year - the Army and Army Reserve alone need more than 100,000 - and less than 10% come knocking on the door. The rest must be recruited.
Anti-war activists such as Murphy charge that to fill their quotas, some military recruiters make promises they can't guarantee, such as money for college or training in a particular specialty, and give misleading descriptions of military life.
Cori Dauber blogged The question is, is so much pressure being put on the recruiters that quality is being endangered. Or is the question the quality of life of the recruiters as an issue in and of itself.
Here's what doesn't help: cluttering the article with one extended metaphor. We get it, we get it, the recruiters are military personnel, they aren't in a combat zone, and yet they feel pressure.
James Joyner blogged One suspects George Patton would slap these guys silly with a glove. We've got soldiers in Iraq getting killed by terrorists with IEDs and these guys are having ulcers and going AWOL because they're getting strongly worded memos?!
There's no doubt the recruiter's job is hard, let alone during wartime. Making the transition from soldier to salesman is not easy. And, surely, the leadership should realize this and desist sending threatening letters to recruiters not meeting their arbitrary quotas when it's an across-the-board problem. But, geez.
Google and Captain's Quarters
I frequently refer to Captain's Quarters blog, in fact I refer to them so often I just say CQ. Imagine my surprise when I read this on his blog: Have I Angered The Google Powers That Be?
While Charles at Little Green Footballs and Michelle Malkin point out that Google refuses to acknowledge their sites as "news" despite Google's linking to other, less savory sources as news, it appears that Google has stopped recognizing Captain's Quarters' existence on the Internet altogether.
Bill Hennessy blogs The leftists at Google aren’t waiting for the FEC to ban conservative blogs. No way. Google is going all out to prevent anyone from reading blogs it disagrees with while pandering to terrorist organizations.
Bloggers should Contact Google and urge that CQ, LGF, MM, and other popular conservative blogs should be included as News Sources and definitely should appear in searches.
Update 3/28 4:00 p.m. It appears from SayAnything and PowerPundit that the problem was a dishonest advertiser involved in something called link farming which Google does not like.
Google Advertises Hamas
YnetNews reports Terror organizations are advancing their recruitment and public relations methods: Internet surfers who enter the word “Hamas” in Arabic in the Google search engine, will view, in addition to the search results, an AdWord message that links directly to the website of the organization’s military faction Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The link also appears in a search of several other words, such as the “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Jihad.” This indicates that a Hamas source has paid Google, the most popular search engine on the web, for the advertisement....
According to The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Hamas and other international terror organizations utilize the Internet to distribute terror-enticing messages and to maintain contact between the different organizations and their target audiences with almost no supervision or censorship.
Hat Tip to LGF
Comment by ronaldusmagnu on LGF Google may differ with your accusation about their supposed lack of recognition of Easter, a holy day for billions of people around the planet.
Go to Google News and you can see clearly that the lead U.S. story for Easter is about the resurrection. It's titled:
"Did It Really Happen?"
That's how Google recognizes Easter - by running stories that doubt it.
Good grief.
Comment by ronaldusmagnus on LGF Google also commemorates Easter today with photos.
Go to Google Images, type in easter and you get to see a picture of the butts of 4 naked toddlers, decorated with paint in easter egg fashion. It's titled "Happy Keester"
On this - they highest holy day of the Christian calendar.
Google - irreverent slobs.
Comment by Cornholio on LGF I always thought Google's motto "do no evil (see #6)" just meant they were conceited. But advertising for Hamas . . . wow, Google literally is "doing evil"
2006 Ohio Governor's Race
In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year.
The initial goal is to elect Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a conservative Republican, governor in 2006. The group hopes to build grass-roots organizations in Ohio's 88 counties and take control of local Republican organizations.
"The establishment of the Ohio Republican Party is out of touch with its base," said Russell Johnson, the pastor of the Fairfield Christian Church and the principal organizer of the project. "It acts as if it lives in Boston, Mass."
Orrin Judd blogged Mr. Blackwell's ties to Evangelicals make him a more likely first black president than Barack Obama or Condi Rice.
Here is Ken Blackwell's Campaign Web Site
Dan Williamson in Columbus Monthly (Feb 2005 issue) said If the Republican Party were to draw up a dream candidate for governor, he might look something like Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. His experience in municipal, state, national and even international government makes him uniquely qualified for the job. He’s as smart and savvy as any of his potential rivals—and far more charismatic and eloquent. His far-right politics would appeal to the Republican base, while his African-American heritage could win him votes from black Democrats. Ohio Republican insiders should be pinching themselves over the prospects for a Governor Blackwell.
The trouble is, they can’t stand him....
Who then actually likes Ken Blackwell?
Well, voters seem to.
Annan Depressed
Depending on the findings of the report, by a team led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, Annan may have to choose between the secretary-generalship and loyalty to his son....
One close observer at the UN said Annan’s moods were like a “sine curve” and that he appeared near the bottom of the trough.
CQ blogs The report seems like an attempt to paint a sympathetic portrait of a man torn by circumstances between his career and his family rather than the natural progression of the revelation of Annan's incompetence and corruption.... It has always been about Annan's "feelings", since the UN has steadfastly shown that the assembly intends to do nothing about holding Annan accountable for the multitude of corruption and abuse uncovered during his leadership. The only two ways Annan would leave his post early were either by resigning or dying, a fact everyone knew after the revelations of the Oil-for-Food Program in 2003 and the multiplying sexual abuse scandals in 2004.
Kevin Aylward blogs One thing the various UN scandals have made abundantly clear is that corruption runs wide and deep at the UN. Throwing out the "Help Wanted" sign for a new Secretary General won't fix those problems, but it's a start...
DiggersRealm blogs Excuse me while I shed a tear for the corrupt, inept leader of a worthless organization.
SayAnything blogs Kofi Annan’s reign as Secretary General has brought unprecedented amounts of shame, scandal and corruption to the UN. Its time for him to step down and turn leadership of the World Body over to somebody else.
Michelle Malkin blogs Hurry up and go, already, Kofi. The world has suffered enough. In Congo. And East Timor. Liberia and Namibia. Bosnia. Sudan. And Iraq. Get the picture? Please go now.
SlightlyLoony blogs I can't best Michelle Malkin's forthright plea: Kofi A. Annan, will you please go now?
Betsy Newmark blogs My opinion is that there is a reason why Hercules cleaning out the Augean Stables is a myth. There's no way that this particular stables, in its present form, with dictators having the same input as democratically elected leaders, will ever be cleaned. But it certainly won't be cleansed by Kofi Annan and his crew. They're part of the problem, not the solution. He should just pack up his Nobel Peace Prize (for UN peacekeeping - what an irony that is today!) and go home.
LoFlyer at LGF blogs I am trying to think of who would be the next Secretary General of the UN, Maybe they will pick Sadaam because of his stirling human rights record. Whomever it is, I am sure they will be as anti-American as Kofi was.
Well the Telegraph is suggesting Free Saddam and jail Blair? so he would be available, but I don't think that is going to happen. (I certainly hope not).
Instead of appointing John Bolton as US Rep to the UN, let's push for him to take Annan's place, and REALLY clean that place up
Will the first blogging president be... Iranian?
Unless you can read Farsi in script you won't be able to tell too much by checking on the blog but it was up when I checked it. Since Iran is not known for it's tolerance for contact from the outside, I wonder what the secret police (are they still called the Savak like they were under the Shah?) will think when they see all of these Westerners checking out the blog.
Hoder (a blogger born in Tehran but now living in Toronto, Canada) said I'm really happy that our efforts and time we've spent to promote weblogs is paying off and now more and more Iranian politicians are turning to blogging. This is good for both them and us. It makes them more aware of what people want which in turn make them different rulers. I only wish that Iran's Supreme leader, Khamanei, had a blog, or at least were reading weblogs. because, as I've usually said, he would rule differently.
Mr. Behi (an Iranian blogger blogging in English) said Dr. Mostafa Moein is known as one of the pioneering reformists in the cabinet of President Mohamad Khatami. When he relinquished his position of minister of Science, Research and Technology as a result of pressure from the conservatives, the hope for success of the reformists to truly confront the conservatives was already being perished.... It is not clear to me why he is running for presidency anyway as his team have already demolished the hope for effectiveness of the reforms and it is clear that they are handicapped by the rest of the "selected" wings of the government. I would only miss the reformists for (almost) open-minded decisions they made for letting some freedom in expression and social activities to flow (Conservatives did their best to click on ”Undo” and they were smarter than normal, they sometimes even undone further back from the original state).
Corporate blogging policy
Rex Hammock blogged about Michael Hyatt, president of the Nashville-based and publicly-traded corporation, Thomas Nelson Publishers, the world's largest publisher of Bibles and Christian literature, posting a draft of a "corporate blogging policy" on his blog and inviting comments, not only from Thomas Nelson employees, but from the blogosphere.
It is encouraging to see companies setting guidelines for employee blogging, and even being willing to devote company resources (a new feature on the company's website that will aggregate any feeds from employees who wish to be included) for employee blogs that follow the guidlines.
Here are the company's ten guidelines (each is explained in greater detail in the policy):
Those are good guidelines for all bloggers.
Corporate bloggers should also consider this
How the Blogosphere Spreads News
Steve Rubel blogged If you're not using BlogPulse's Conversation Tracker, please stop reading this post and go bookmark it now. Using the Conversation Tracker, you can enter in any blog post URL and get a snapshot for how the meme is spreading through the blogosphere. Here, for example, is how word is spreading about the art museum caper I blogged about yesterday
I must agree with Steve. This looks like a very useful tool for bloggers. I like to refer to what other bloggers have said whenever I comment on a news item, and until now I have had to rely on memeorandum, TrackBack, and checking the RSS Feeds from some of my favorite bloggers, but now I have another way to look for what other bloggers have said.
Also by checking out his TrackBacks I identified some other blogs that I will be checking from time to time to see what other new goodies they have discovered.
