This is a very dicey issue.

As in many questions of free information in a national security context, the problem is that Americans have the right to know but that it's dangerous for Americans for our enemies to know.

Yes, there are obvious political reasons the government has for wanting to suppress this stuff. And when the government has a political investment in suppressing information, one should be pretty careful about granting their desire for secrecy.

However: We all know what happened at Abu Ghraib. Andrew Sullivan writes about it every other day. There have been a lot of pictures released; just not all of them. We certainly have enough information as citizens to make informed judgments about this matter.

Given that, there seems to be little incremental value to Americans in having access to these pictures and videos. But a very great value to America's enemies -- including jihad-pornographers like Al Jazeera -- in running these pictures and videos constantly.

The judge erred. It is right and good to be suspicious of the government. However, one must also be suspicious of America's enemies.

The left is quite good about the former. Regarding the latter... not so much.

Posted by: Ace at 09:48 AM | Comments (47)
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Interesting essay, knocking Goldberg for 1) joining the MSM in rumormongering and 2) blaming "the blogosphere" for joining in said rumormongering, when, in point of fact, it was largely the Corner itself going bananas over these reports.

(PS, I'm quite sure I have a post reporting these rumors, too, but only one or two. I didn not, as Golstein charges of the Cornerites, "lose my shit.")

I think Goldberg was compromised on this early, because he made some sort of snarky remark about the Superdome being the Thunderdome, and was taken to task by the "How dare you!" crowd. Thereafter, he (and some of the other Cornerites, I guess) had to prove his/their empathy by talking about how terribly terribly horribly terrible all of this was. He wasn't really in a position to start debunking.

The other day I accused the media of racism in being so credulous about reports of black folks becoming Reavers from Firefly in just a few days of chaos. I was only half-serious; I was mostly just using their tactics against them.

But I don't think they regurgitated these reports out of racism, or at least not out of conscious racism. More like "helpful liberal racism," the bestest racism in the world. By claiming that New Orleans was, uhhh, the new Bartertown (it's now safe to use Mad Max analogies), reporters thought they were helping po' blacks. By exaggerating the problem, they thought they were doing the Lord's Work in setting the table for a Big Time Governmnet Solution. The more tragedy, mayhem, and baby-rapin' they reported, the bigger the government payout in the following months, and the sooner the end to black poverty, because, you know, nothing cures black poverty faster than Big Government Checks.

Hey. Give the Great Society some time. It hasn't even been forty years.

The reporters and MSM as a whole seem to have gotten their wish-- there will be money poured into New Orleans, much of it in the form of non-competive contracts, which I'm sure will pose no problems in squeaky-clean politically-hyegenic Louisiana.

There's a backlash brewing against that, but the forces in favor of just spending willy-nilly are too strong. I trust that George W. Bush will continue to demonstrate his compassion by spending our money like a drunken sailor.

Posted by: Ace at 09:10 AM | Comments (13)
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A year ago he was slamming the Stalinist tactics of the Angry Gay Left as they shred the personal privacy of any homosexual who had the temerity to disagree with them.

Now he seems to be on board with that program.

What a guy.

Posted by: Ace at 07:56 AM | Comments (31)
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Another quarter of better than 3% GDP growth. 3.3%, actually, and these numbers tend to get revised upwards.

The 3.3 percent growth rate for the April-to-June quarter was unchanged from an estimate made a month ago. That performance met analysts' expectations. In first three months of the year, the economy grew at a healthy 3.8 percent pace.

In the aftermath of the two hurricanes, however, economists are predicting that production and hiring will take a hit, slowing overall economic activity in the second half of this year to a pace of around 3 percent. Before the hurricanes, second-half growth was expected to top 4 percent.

The Labor Department, in a separate report issued Thursday, said the number of Americans thrown out of work by Katrina climbed by another 60,000 last week, pushing the total number of unemployed workers seeking jobless benefits because of the storm to 279,000.

The economy will need a boost. We've cut taxes. How about Republicans acting like real-life Republicans and cutting wasteful porkbarrel spending?

Why is it the "party of fiscal responsibility" and "party of limited government" seems to have no interest at all in saving a trillion dollars over ten years? And letting that money stay in the pockets of citizens, where they claim they'd like it to stay?

Posted by: Ace at 07:22 AM | Comments (30)
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It gets weirder:

The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open.

Colombian police chief Gen Jord Alirio Varon said the four- to five-month-old foetuses could have been intended for use in Satanic rituals.

Gen Varon said the foetuses were found alongside crucifixes and medals.

Look, before any of you judge, Karl Rove's mind control over the voters just doesn't happen by itself, you know.

Posted by: Ace at 07:09 AM | Comments (4)
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From a citizen journalist at zombietime, who explains bias in the media in graphic terms.

Check it out.

Thanks to scott.

Posted by: LauraW. at 05:48 AM | Comments (49)
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Citing too much controversy, George Pataki finally pulls the plug.

Geroge Soros will have to find a new site to host his Museum of Anti-Americanism.

More at Mark in Mexico, noting that Hillary!'s opposition to the project helped get it scotched.

It's a sad day when Hillary! is quicker to oppose something like this than a Republican governor.

Posted by: Ace at 07:26 PM | Comments (17)
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Ever wanted your own sentry gun?

I see the beginnings of a very cool burglar alarm system!

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 07:21 PM | Comments (14)
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This is quite interesting.

New laws allowing terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for two weeks could be extended to three months, with the Government hinting the move might prove necessary.

Three months. No charges.
They're also talking about being able to detain people pre-emptively, or using electronic tags, or barring suspects from going to certain places or talking to certain people for a specified period of time.

"These laws are about people who are about to commit or who are prepared to commit terrorist offences in our country," Mr Keelty said. "They are in no way directed at the Islamic or Muslim community."

OH.

They must be talking about those anti-Aborigine folks. Nevermind. Bad post. Clearly I misunderstood what they were talking about.

Posted by: LauraW. at 05:19 PM | Comments (7)
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These people are a wonder.

PETA people can work nudity into any protest. They have to shock the normals, you know.
Get the point across by shattering our fragile sensitivities.
Then, devastated by their >GASP< nudity, we'll be open. Then we'll listen.

Plus, they get to show their tushies to the world!

At least in this case they're better looking than that inflated-scrotum guy.

Posted by: LauraW. at 04:54 PM | Comments (21)
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