Over on Right Wing News (no link, I'm rolling; look below for links) a commenter suggested keeping track of Al-Newsweek's bodycount.

I'm game.

"Sixteen people have died since Bush declared an end to major offensive operations in Iraq Al-Newsweek ran a thinly-sourced and incidiary charge against the American military."

Updates will follow, unfortunately.

Dave From Garfield Ridge Says We're Missing the Point: He has no doubt that Al-Newsweek deserves all the grief that's coming to it, but he cautions that the blame for violence must be placed squarely on those actually committing the violence.

True enough. But...

One can hold lunatics accountable for going on a murderous death spree while simultaneously castigating those that gave them the knives with which to do so.

Six Meat Buffet makes similar observations. And I got the Garfield Ridge link from him, too. So click 'im.

Sometimes It's Not So Egregious to Desecrate Religious Symbols Update (CORRECTED): I'm not sure if this clearly cuts the way I'd like it to cut, but Cliffs of Insanity notes that Newsweek ran a cover featuring a photo by Andre Serrano in the past, who is of course most notorious for "Piss-Christ," a shot of the crucifix submerged in urine..

I'm sure Newsweek made nods to acknowledge the "controversy" surrounding this anti-Christian bit of outrage posing as "art." However, I'm also quite sure that just about everyone at Newsweek considered this a tempest in a piss-pot and didn't really see why the religious loonies were so offended by it.

So I guess I'm a little perplexed at how Newsweek considered the flushing of the Koran down the toilet -- not for the sake of art, but to crack a terrorist and gain crucial intelligence -- so outrageous as to require running with the story before nailing it down.

Correction! Quick as Lightning! The Warden writes me to let me know that Newsweek featured a photo by Serrano, not the infamous "Piss-Christ" itself.

Bodycount for my error: Thus far, zero.

Hitting Them Where It Hurts Update: Radio stations are now beginning to cancel, or at least put on hiatus, some sort of Newsweek radio talk show I never heard of and which probably got zero ratings anyhow.

Some Stories Run Without Confirmation; Some Are Spiked With Full Confirmation; It's All So Curious To Me Update: From Howard Kurtz:

The item was principally reported by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek's veteran investigative reporter. "Obviously we all feel horrible about what flowed from this, but it's important to remember there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here," he said. "We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment. . . . We're going to continue to investigate what remains a very murky situation."

Isikoff, a former Post reporter, gained national attention in 1998 when the magazine held his report on an independent counsel's investigation of Monica S. Lewinsky's relationship with President Bill Clinton. More recently, Isikoff and Barry won an Overseas Press Club award for their reporting on Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Funny about which stories get spiked and which don't, huh?

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (26)
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A nice little graphic that demonstrates the unintended consequences of trying to ram controversial social engineering through the courts rather than through the difficult and frustrating (but ultimately legitimizing) democratic means of pressuring legislatures.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (12)
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...with out-of-state wine purchases:

Wine lovers may buy directly from out-of-state vineyards, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, striking down laws banning a practice that has flourished because of the Internet and growing popularity of winery tours.

The 5-4 decision overturns laws in New York and Michigan, which supporters said were aimed at protecting local wineries and limiting underage drinkers from purchasing wine without showing proof of age. In all, 24 states have laws barring interstate shipments.

The court said the state bans are discriminatory and anticompetitive.

"States have broad power to regulate liquor," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "This power, however, does not allow states to ban, or severely limit, the direct shipment of out-of-state wine while simultaneously authorizing direct shipment by in-state producers."

"If a state chooses to allow direct shipments of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms," he wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Antonin F'n' Scalia. Seriously, this guy is right on just about every issue.

I'm wondering about the conservative/statist judges who disagreed. Rehnquist, the normally sensible Thomas... Guys? You're supporting restraint of interstate trade? On what possible conservative grounds?

Surely not because "Demon Wine" threatens the fabric of society.

Thanks to Ogre Gunner.

Perhaps Thomas Has a Point Update: DaveJ scolds me for assuming that laissez-faire economics and libertarianism ought to trump clear Constitutional authority.

Thomas argues here, in a dissent to the decision, that the 21st Amendment affords states the right to "regulate" alcohol sales.

Well, yes, but... another part of the Constitution would seem to forbid economic barriers to interstate trade.

So does that part of the 21st Amendment cancel out the Commerce Clause? Or should it be read as applying to intrastate restrictions on the sale of alcohol (remember, counties and states are still permitted, if they wish, to be "dry," i.e., forbid alcohol sales entirely) which must yet comport with the Commerce Clause -- e.g., pass whatever laws you like about booze, but you still can't descriminate against out-of-state booze in favor of homegrown hooch?

Read it and decide for yourselves. If you care to, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (23)
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I think the language is a little hot, but PoliPundit is quite unhappy with Newsweek:

On a serious note, the media has gone from being an undeclared enemy to being an actual, overt, and hostile combatant in the global war against terrorism.

That overstates things by quite a bit, I think. I'm pretty firm that liberals ought not to use such language with respect to domestic political rivals; the language of war should be used for actual war, not for scoring rhetorical points.

But...

There is little question that Newsweek went with this story -- dubious sourcing be damned -- because 1, their precious scoop was more important than a prudent regard for human life and American security, and 2, because it reinforced the institutional biases of one of America's shoddiest and most liberal "news" magazines.

They say they want two sources for every fact. That's not quite true. In a perfect world, they want two sources. But one of those "sources" can consist of the "in the gut" feeling of the liberals running our media that the story "feels right."

And if the gut-level political response of our liberal media is that a story is false -- like, for example, that George Bush is not, in fact, retarded, or that we're actually making solid progress in the War on Terror -- they're going to need more than two sources for that assertion, the extra sources needed to counter their political feeling that the story isn't right or isn't "good for America."

And even then they'd prefer to bury it or ignore it entirely, if possible.

And let me be perfectly candid: I don't strongly doubt that perhaps, maybe this happened. I haven't hidden my thoughts on tough interrogations, including actual torture for confirmed terrorists, to pry life-saving (or terrorist-killing) information out of these bastards. I can't with a straight face claim that I cannot believe any CIA or military interrogator would never stoop to desecrating the Koran, if he or she believed that doing so might get a terrorist talking.

The question isn't whether or not this happened, or whether it's plausible it might have happened. Well, that is a question; just not one that particularly interests me.

The question I'm interested in concerns these multiple-layers of fact-checking and painstaking verification I keep hearing so very much about.

If Newsweek can shoot from the lip and run a thinly, anonymously sourced story just because it "feels right" to them-- then why the fuck can't I?

Al-Newsweek's reckless manipulation of the intelligence it received now has a bodycount, and untold consequences for US security.

The liberal media is very big on exposing hypocrisy-- demolishing Bill Bennet's reputation as a moral man, for example, because he went a little batshit crazy when he saw the blinking lights of the slot machines.

It's about time they dug into their own hypocrisy. They hold themselves out as truth-tellers and as professionals with a strong code of journalistic ethics that would never, ever allow them to run a story just because they're on a deadline or just because it will get attention or just because it pleases them to believe its true.

They hold themselves out as such, but they are repeatedly exposed as hypocrites on this issue.

Physicians, heal thyselves. I'm tired of hearing how fucking unprofessional I am when highly-paid reporters and large editorial and fact-checking staffs keep getting this crap wrong.

And always wrong in the same fucking way. I.e., almost always in a manner that hurts Republicans, the military, America, and American foreign policy and national security.

The media is still gnashing its teeth and furrowing its brows that Judith Miller of the New York Times wrote stories, based on the best available intelliegence at the time, that Saddam had much greater stockpiles of WMD's than he now appears to have had. Okay-- there's an example of erroneous reporting that aided Bush and the case for the War on Terror.

And they're all still yammering about it.

How about the dozens of mistakes that have run the other way? Will Mark Whitaker be demonized as Judith Miller was?

Somehow I doubt it. Good intentions mean an awful lot to our liberal media, and "everyone knows" Mark Whitaker was on the side of angels. Oh, his reporting wasn't all that good, but "sensible centrist moderates know" his unverified smear was ultimately "good for America," as it "raises all sorts of questions" that need to be answered.

And so it goes.

Roger L. Simon Thinks There'll Be An Accounting Update: He opines:

here is a strong argument to be made that this is more serious than Rathergate. This is journalism at its most insidious and dangerous. Newsweek may end up having to fire some of its editorial staff, as well as the reporters involved.

I like Mr. Simon a great deal, but his Hollywood bias is showing here. Not a liberal bias, but a romantic bias in his heart that justice will actually be done.

Nope.

The assault on the MSM by the Shadow Media has two contradictory results. The first is that, sometimes, the media is forced to confess its errors and attone, although in a very passive-voice "mistakes were made" sort of way where no one is really to blame, just abstract intangibles like the pressure to print or a faulty "system" for verification.

The second result -- and the one we'll be seeing more of -- is that the more the media is exposed for the shoddy liberal Spirit Squad it is, the less willing it will be to patrol its ranks for incompetents and hacks. Simple self-preservation begins to dictate they they observe the Mafia's omerta code of silence.

They just can't go through another "blue-ribbon internal review panel." They can't. Their credibility is hanging by fewer and fewer threads, and they dare not risk cutting another.

Thanks to National Journal's Blogometer for some of the quotes/reactions cited in this post.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (18)
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Again, this is of primary interest to bloggers, but I suppose anyone interested in seeing a business model that will help the, err, Shadow Media compete with the MSM might want to read Right Wing News' interview with Marc Danzinger of Pajamas Media:

John Hawkins: Now the banner ads wouldn't be competing with blogads. I've had banner ads and blogads on my blog for more than a year, for example. But, the side ads would. So it would be fair to say you're competing directly with blogads right out of the blocks?

Marc Danziger: For that real estate, perhaps. But, people run Google ads and blog ads in sidebars without anyone's brains melting, so I assume we could, too.

...

John Hawkins: Want to give any general idea of what sort of rates you think you can get or is it too early?

Marc Danziger: Too early, but we've been talking to major ad-serving companies and international advertising agencies and haven't been laughed out of the room.

...

John Hawkins: Last question: When does Pajamas Media go live?

Marc Danziger: Depends. We have ad contracts ready to sign. The limiting issues right now are two: we need to get the various investor groups to sign off on the actual contracts we will be sending out for blogs to sign and we need to get insured. We're being underwritten, but we're different enough from the traditional ad networks that it's a bit of a pain. So the soonest date would be a week from Monday (we'd go out with contracts and code to insert ads) and start running ads within days after that. Worst case is about ten days later barring some disastrous news.

This Probably Means Something But I Don't Know What Update: The Hundred Percenter finds that overall blog readership has increased 13% in the first quarter of this year, after falling off steeply after the elections.

I've gained 13%, apparently. Which puts me right where I want to be. Average. A solid C-student and damn proud of it.

Among those losing the most readers are Andrew Sullivan and Oliver Willis. Wizbang, a partner in the Sullivan Freak-Out Advisory, also lost a lot of readers, but that's because he had monster traffic in January.

Well, okay, Willis appears to have had a monster January, too.

Blog traffic, for all but the biggest blogs, is highly volatile, as the difference between a monster week or month is just a couple of nearly-random links from bigger blogs. So, I'm not sure how much to read into any of this.

Posted by: Ace at 08:10 AM | Comments (6)
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Not really any cute, hack conservative-tilting point that can be made here, except for something broad about restricting the power of the state. This is really more up liberals' alley, but it's pretty shocking.

In a, yes, American eugenics program aimed at keeping the undesirable from reproducing, 65,000 Americans were sterilized without their knowlege under state (not federal) programs from 1929 to 1974:

The procedures that were done here were done to poor folks," said Steven Selden, professor at the University of Maryland. "They were thought to be poor because they had bad genes or bad inheritance, if you will. And so they would be the focus of the sterilization."

[Elaine] Riddick was raped and became pregnant at the age of 13. Social workers labeled her promiscuous and too feeble-minded to ever be a responsible parent. So, after giving birth in 1968, Riddick was sterilized without being told.

She learned the truth years later, when she married and tried to have more children.

"They took so much away from me," Riddick said. "They took away my spirit and my soul."

North Carolina sterilized close to 8,000 women in hospitals across the state.

Some think it's time to make amends:

Even though the practice ended more than 30 years ago, some say the time has come to make amends. North Carolina was one of the first states out of 33 that once practiced sterilization to offer an apology. State Rep. Larry Womble is crafting a bill to provide financial reparations.

Some wonder where the state will get the money. "They say, 'Well, we can't afford it,' " said Womble, a Democrat. "Well, we cannot not afford it."

Riddick went on to earn a college degree and raise the son she had at 14. He now is an engineering consultant.

"I thank you, God, for giving me my child," she said.

No lesser light than Oliver Wendell Holmes upheld the practice of forcible sterilization in Buck v. Bell (though I don't believe the case dealt with secret sterilization) for the "feeble-minded" (i.e., retarded) in a case involving a mentally challenged woman born of a mentally challenged mother, herself also born of a mentally challenged woman. "Three generations of imbeciles are enough," he snapped.

The creepiest aspect of all this is the secret part. Forcible sterlizations are a very controversial thing. One can imagine that in some cases a state-ordered sterilization might be defensible -- an irredeemable crack addict who's given birth to multiple premature/brain-damaged babies due to her refusal to practice birth control or stop smoking crack, a severely mentally challenged woman who doesn't understand sex or pregnancy, etc. -- but doing so without informing the intended patient is frankly un-American. Nazi-esque, really.

Posted by: Ace at 07:45 AM | Comments (27)
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Yeahp, the line that (I think) appears in every single Star Wars film captures my feelings about the upcoming final prequel. I had allowed myself to gain a New Hope about the possibility of the series' redemption, but now I fear it will be another attack of the clones.

Someone at NRO (forget who) said the movie was bad, bad, bad, and that critics had simply become so pussified that they couldn't bear to be on the wrong side of mass opinion (or Hollywood power) and thus claimed the film to be far better than it is.

The New York Times reviews the movie fairly enthusiastically... however, the review tends to praise the film for its technical achievements while denigrating the acting and scitpt. I remember that that's the same sort of "rave" Ebert gave the first Star Wars prequel. Trouble is, while special effects and major technical accomplishments are nice and everthing, a movie is only as good as the story it tells, and most of the positive reviews of the first prequel (and, I'm guessing, this one) neatly avoid that whole troublesome "story" thing.

Lucas is increasingly comfortable in his liberalism (having more money than all the Hutts in Huttspace will do that), and increasingly desperate to atone for the supposed proto-Reaganite cryptomilitarism that animated his original trilogy. ("Animated" is the right word, because that's what made the movies fresh and gave them life.) As in his previous two entries, he obliquely comments on modern-day politics, and I don't think many of you are going to like his newest shit:

More than that, the trajectory of the narrative cuts sharply against the optimistic grain of blockbuster Hollywood, in that we are witnessing a flawed hero devolving into a cruel and terrifying villain. It is a measure of the film's accomplishment that this process is genuinely upsetting, even if we are reminded that a measure of redemption lies over the horizon in "Return of the Jedi." And while Mr. Christensen's acting falls short of portraying the full psychological texture of this transformation, Mr. Lucas nonetheless grounds it in a cogent and (for the first time) comprehensible political context.

"This is how liberty dies - to thunderous applause," Padmé observes as senators, their fears and dreams of glory deftly manipulated by Palpatine, vote to give him sweeping new powers. "Revenge of the Sith" is about how a republic dismantles its own democratic principles, about how politics becomes militarized, about how a Manichaean ideology undermines the rational exercise of power. Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders. At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Obi-Wan's response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." You may applaud this editorializing, or you may find it overwrought, but give Mr. Lucas his due. For decades he has been blamed (unjustly) for helping to lead American movies away from their early-70's engagement with political matters, and he deserves credit for trying to bring them back.

Eh, what the hell. It's space-fantasy. I guess I can put up with this sort of aging-boomer pablum to see an army of Wookies.

But really-- I've got a bad feeling about this.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 PM | Comments (67)
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Yeahp, the line that (I think) appears in every single Star Wars film captures my feelings about the upcoming final prequel. I had allowed myself to gain a New Hope about the possibility of the series' redemption, but now I fear it will be another attack of the clones.

Someone at NRO (forget who) said the movie was bad, bad, bad, and that critics had simply become so pussified that they couldn't bear to be on the wrong side of mass opinion (or Hollywood power) and thus claimed the film to be far better than it is.

The New York Times reviews the movie fairly enthusiastically... however, the review tends to praise the film for its technical achievements while denigrating the acting and scitpt. I remember that that's the same sort of "rave" Ebert gave the first Star Wars prequel. Trouble is, while special effects and major technical accomplishments are nice and everthing, a movie is only as good as the story it tells, and most of the positive reviews of the first prequel (and, I'm guessing, this one) neatly avoid that whole troublesome "story" thing.

Lucas is increasingly comfortable in his liberalism (having more money than all the Hutts in Huttspace will do that), and increasingly desperate to atone for the supposed proto-Reaganite cryptomilitarism that animated his original trilogy. ("Animated" is the right word, because that's what made the movies fresh and gave them life.) As in his previous two entries, he obliquely comments on modern-day politics, and I don't think many of you are going to like his newest shit:

More than that, the trajectory of the narrative cuts sharply against the optimistic grain of blockbuster Hollywood, in that we are witnessing a flawed hero devolving into a cruel and terrifying villain. It is a measure of the film's accomplishment that this process is genuinely upsetting, even if we are reminded that a measure of redemption lies over the horizon in "Return of the Jedi." And while Mr. Christensen's acting falls short of portraying the full psychological texture of this transformation, Mr. Lucas nonetheless grounds it in a cogent and (for the first time) comprehensible political context.

"This is how liberty dies - to thunderous applause," Padmé observes as senators, their fears and dreams of glory deftly manipulated by Palpatine, vote to give him sweeping new powers. "Revenge of the Sith" is about how a republic dismantles its own democratic principles, about how politics becomes militarized, about how a Manichaean ideology undermines the rational exercise of power. Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders. At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Obi-Wan's response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." You may applaud this editorializing, or you may find it overwrought, but give Mr. Lucas his due. For decades he has been blamed (unjustly) for helping to lead American movies away from their early-70's engagement with political matters, and he deserves credit for trying to bring them back.

Eh, what the hell. It's space-fantasy. I guess I can put up with this sort of aging-boomer pablum to see an army of Wookies.

But really-- I've got a bad feeling about this.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 PM | Add Comment
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I was hot to use that as the headline for a post, but Michelle Malkin beat me to it. And wrote a kick-ass post linking a lot of great commentary.

Newsweek and the whole of the media demanded that Bush apologize for his "errors" regarding WMD, and that people be fired or resign or otherwise "take responsibility."

Anyone think anyone will be taking responsibility at Newsweek?

Anyone imagine that the media will dig into this vicious and murderous "error" at all?

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 PM | Comments (39)
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Over at NRO's The Corner, Warren Bell complains about the term "the blogosphere," stating he'll never write it again, and asking for an alternative.

Meanwhile, I've had a similar problem. "Blogosphere" strictly refers only to blogs proper -- i.e., not Druge, not MRC, not FreeRepublic, not TownHall, etc. -- and yet I often wish to refer to the entirety of the internet-based media. Or the alternative media generally. And yet "alternative media" sounds sort of stupid to me. It conjures up images of Morrissey from the Smiths hosting a PBS news program, or a media-criticism show featuring the percussion section of The Waterboys.

I've tried my own coinage -- "Young Media" -- but no one seemed to like that very much.

Reading through Brian Anderson's excellent and fun South Park Conservatives, I found a quote by John Fund that may offer an acceptable term:

For John Fund, the best blogs and news and opinion sites are "building a shadow media infrastructure that will become an significant component of the media in the twenty-first century."

The Shadow Media. That is what this is, after all, isn't it? Not the actual media, but its dark doppleganger, waiting to take its place when the time is right.

So, there you go, Warren. The Shadow Media.

Cost to you: nada. Well, a link would be nice, pal.

PS... Brian Anderson will be discussing media bias, and perhaps why Cartman's mom is such a dirty whore, on this Tuesday's Hoist the Black Flag webcast show.

He'll be joined by a second guest of such importance and excitement that... well, so important and exciting that we haven't been able to book him or her yet.

It'll be someone. I think. Either that, or Karol and I will just pad the ending of the the show by discussing what the hell happened to Billy Squier and the Greg Kihn Band.

PPS: We still need a replacement for the too-cutesy "fisking."

E-buttal?

Probably best to have kept my stupid mouth shut.

Posted by: Ace at 11:05 PM | Comments (31)
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