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Sunday, September 30, 2007

Burma Bloggers On The Run

As with many things, we tend to take blogging for granted in America. And while what bloggers accomplish here matters from time to time, it's hard to compare it to something like this. Read it all.

Having failed to stop the cyber-dissidents broadcasting to the world, the authorities have simply switched off the internet.

Now Ko Latt and his blogging comrades have abandoned their keyboards and gone underground, sleeping in a different place every night, watching and waiting to see if the democracy movement has been truly crushed or is simply on hold. “When things were hot on the streets, we were not the main worry,” Ko Latt says. “But as the situation cools down, they will follow us. They know who we are, they know we are bloggers, and I am afraid.”

Romney Up In South Carolina?

From the American Research Group. It's interesting in that he wins among Republicans and ties McCain for first among Independents. What will be nice is when we get beyond this polling stage and get to see some early returns from the first primaries. They may go a long way to establishing who the Republican nominee ends up being.

Some Christian conservative leaders are making a lot of anti-Rudy noise, though it's unclear if that flows down through the rank and file. Their talk of a third party candidate, if genuine, is sure to raise some eyebrows. But it seems to me the candidates, including Romney, have done more than enough to re-assure them. Perhaps the leadership fears a lack of influence within a Giuliani administration. Once elected, candidates often resort more to form, than past promises in governing.

So, Only Our Dead Count?

This recent post by Crooks and Liars sort of sums up the dilemma of how impossible it is to gain any support for the war from the hapless Left. First the post:

This Week with George Stephanopolis notes the passings this week including the official Pentagon count of 10 troops from Iraq.

then the comment. A six to one ratio in any war is remarkable and a clear sign that staying the course is basically all that's required to secure victory. Since the anti-war Left refuses to accept that some wars do indeed need to be fought and also won, they've no choice but to make the worst of every bit of news out of Iraq. If we can't question their patriotism, we can at least expose their lack of logic and dedication to failure. It's also difficult to comprehend how they can claim to support the troops, when they undermine the military command structure which supports them at every turn.

Right now the news is announcing that the USA killed 60 insurgents in Iraq. Something similar is announced every few days. But they never once explain how they determined that each and every one of the 60 was an ‘enemy’ during their post-mortem. It seems very odd that the media takes the military’s word characterizating these body counts

Nuns Of The WWF

Good Lord, as they say:

A convent in southern Italy is being shut down after a quarrel among its last three remaining nuns ended in blows, press reports said Sunday.

Sisters Annamaria and Gianbattista, reportedly upset about their mother superior's authoritarian ways, scratched her in the face and threw her to the ground at Santa Clara convent near Bari in an incident in July that was kept quiet until now.

Archbishop Giovanni Battista Pichierri tried to reconcile the nuns but finally decided in late August that they had "clearly lost their religious vocation" and asked the Vatican for permission to close the convent.

Sisters Annamaria and Gianbattista moved to another convent, but Sister Liliana barricaded herself inside, refusing to leave, the reports said, adding that she suspected Battista Pichierri of planning to cede the convent to another community.

Liliana has been at the convent since its founding in 1963.

Carol Ann Gotbaum: Pol's Daughter Dies After Airport Arrest

Story updated here.

Carol Ann Gotbaum, the mother of four who died in a cell at the Phoenix Airport, is the daughter-in-law of NY's Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum. The family is said to be monitoring the investigation.

PHOENIX (AP) - A woman late to her plane became irate, was put in handcuffs and was later found dead in a holding cell, police said. Authorities were investigating Saturday if the woman choked herself while trying to get free from the handcuffs.

Carol Ann Gotbaum, 45, of New York, was arrested Friday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after a conflict with gate crews who refused to allow her to board a plane, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Rudy Item: Can You Really Blame Him?

Crooks and Liars informs us that: Rudy Would Rather Be with Bo Derek than Addressing the Concerns of Black America and features juxtaposed images of Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson and Bo Derek, who I believe is somewhat conservative.

Okay, so can you blame him? I think I know what choice I'd have made given the same options.

Deathbed Conversions

This one is just sad:

The interview, which included the revelation that (McCain's) ... talking to his pastor about undergoing a full-immersion baptism after the campaign, sent Beliefnet's irreverent "God-o-meter" spinning.

Did Times Select Make America Smarter?

Two New York Times items in the news today, Thomas L. Friedman tells us 9/11 is Over and the attack made us stupid. Crittenden responds to that bit of nonsense here. At the same time, in Jena, O. J. and the Jailing of Black America, Orlando Patterson does slightly better in at least acknowledging that many of the issues in urban-Black America are problems with urban-American Blacks, that is until he gets to the cause and solution.

As is always the case with Liberals, it's money that they love and more of it to support failing institutions and fund destructive behavior that they crave. Apparently in his view, young single mothers shouldn't need to be concerned with something as irrelevant as work and the notoriously corrupt and failed inner school systems run by liberal Democrats simply don't have enough money to siphon off in political perks. Patterson falls way short of informing us of how simply throwing more money into a failed system is somehow going to finally improve it, despite millions and millions of wasted dollars and years of trying. He simply can't bring himself to point his finger of judgment at people who trap themselves in dysfunctional systems by believing the lie that more subsidization will somehow help. In his view family values begins and ends in DC, not the home or the neighborhood.

I think I preferred it when much of the New York Times was walled off behind the failed Times Select firewall. And I'd wager it made America smarter, too. I think we'd all be better off if they plopped the whole liberal rag back behind it, but then the Times would probably discover the right for a business to make money in the Constitution and start lobbying for a government grant to survive.

The circumstances that far too many African-Americans face — the lack of paternal support and discipline; the requirement that single mothers work regardless of the effect on their children’s care; the hypocritical refusal of conservative politicians to put their money where their mouths are on family values; the recourse by male youths to gangs as parental substitutes; the ghetto-fabulous culture of the streets; the lack of skills among black men for the jobs and pay they want; the hypersegregation of blacks into impoverished inner-city neighborhoods — all interact perversely with the prison system that simply makes hardened criminals of nonviolent drug offenders and spits out angry men who are unemployable, unreformable and unmarriageable, closing the vicious circle.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Burma: Murder, They Filmed

Seems pretty clear what the Burmese police were engaged in wasn't simply managing civil unrest. This may be a sort of Tiananmen Square moment when it comes to reporting on events in Burma, assuming the world wants to pay attention.

Footage capturing the last, terrible seconds of Kenji Nagai’s life has been aired on Japanese television – horrifying a nation and raising official suspicion that the 50-year old photo-journalist was murdered by Burmese troops (writes Leo Lewis in Tokyo).

The shaky, indistinct moments of footage appear to show Nagai, who was on the edge of a crowd of panic-stricken demonstrators, shoved violently to the ground by a soldier and shot dead at point-blank range.

No Newt Is Good Newt

I like and respect Newt, think he has a great mind for issues and wouldn't at all mind seeing him in an administration - just don't think he'd play well on a ticket. Looks as though he doesn't think so, either.

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday.

"Newt is not running," spokesman Rick Tyler said. "It is legally impermissible for him to continue on as chairman of American Solutions (for Winning the Future) and to explore a campaign for president

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