Link: http://www.thepoorman.net/2007/03/02/a-style-guide-to-civility-and-seriousness/

The media and talking heads in the USA are apparently fixated on civility, at the expense of accuracy, content and intent. It appears that implying that a Democratic presidential candidate is a "faggot" is sort-of-OK, and suggesting that somebody might like to poison a Supreme Court justice is unremarkable, but using swear words is Really Really Awful.
Here is a helpful table for those of you who wonder what the relationship might be between "naughty" words and malevolent, potentially violent suggestions...

Link: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23387466-details/Young+Blair's+obscene+gesture/article.do

This article in a London web site shows the Wonders of Photoshop, as a well-known obscene British hand gesture is magically removed from a photo of Tony Blair's college class.
Leaving apart the sneaky revision of history (I am going to pull out my copy of Photoshop and see if I can make my college photos look more sexually alluring and intelligent...), the amusing thing is how the class manage to effortlessly look like a bunch of pretentious, smug, upper-class, adolescent drunkards. I am reminded of the "Upper Class Twit Of The Year" sketch from "Monty Python".

Sometimes frustration forces you to write something...
After grinding my teeth for months about the sheer laziness, ineptitude and general lack of basic professionalism and intelligence being shown by a lot of people working in established mainstream media, I was finally prodded into action by Joe Klein's latest articles on Swampland where he produced a long list of strawman characteristics of what he terms "left-wing extremists".
The list is pretty much an extreme caricature of that end of the political spectrum, but no matter. It's time to respond in kind.
Below is my list of Characteristics of a Media Doofus. I am ignoring any questions of political or ideological bias in compiling this list, since I believe that bias implies an initial ability to understand facts before you decide to ignore or distort them, and I am not convinced that many media folk even get to the stage of understanding those facts.

- Believes that the media should be believed because, well, we’re the professionals here
- Believes that the media requires access to the great people in around those white buildings in big cities like Washington D.C., therefore the best policy is to print all political press releases immediately and present them as if they were fact without checking their veracity
- Believes that “the blogosphere” is a fetid cesspool of wingnuttery, stupidity and incivility, populated by People Who Hate Us, and is therefore unworthy of being taken seriously by Professionals Like Us
- Believes that any topic, subject or issue that cannot fit into a 45 second soundbite is way too complex for ordinary folk to understand, and therefore needs to be either simplified or cut back to make way for that really interesting Anna Nicole Smith story down in…where is it…er, the Bahamas?
- Believes that checking assertions and researching context, background and facts are optional activities
- Believes that readers do not have to be listened to or respected because…why should I have to justify my writings to you? Who do you think you are – a customer?
- Believes that civility is more important than content and intent – calling somebody a “wanker” is a disgraceful lapse of humanity, but suggesting that (for example) a Supreme Court justice might be poisoned is merely an inconsequential expression of opinion
- Believes that ad hominems, appeals to inappropriate authority, false equivalences (and other logical fallacies) and the use of selective amnesia are perfectly valid communication and debating tactics, and therefore should not be commented on or pointed out when reporting
- Believes that correcting misleading, inaccurate or false stories is not necessary- after all, the story came out 2 days ago, it’s not news any more, and my editor wants the space for the latest Britney story about how she shaved her head with an axe…
- Believes that one should never embarrass a government politician or official by asking awkward questions and demanding a straight answer because that might, well, make them pissed at us and then they might stop sending us press releases and inviting us to press conferences and…
- Believes that unattributable sources are always revealing something Really Interesting that deserves to be printed as if it were fact without much (if any) prior verification
- Believes that opinion writers and “pundits” can be consistently wrong about almost everything but that does not matter or diminish their credibility because, well, we have to entertain as well as inform, and you have to admit it, they are fun to watch

Link: http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/03/since_you_asked.html

For the last few months, some of the journalists at Time magazine have been dipping their toe into blogging via their Swampland website.
This is proving to be an interesting and often frustrating experience for those of us who drop by Swampland every so often. Jay Carney, the Washing Bureau chief of time, tends to post infrequently and, given his past tendency to impale himself on the inconsistencies and inaccuracies of his own writings, I can understand that.
Karen Tumulty and Ana-Marie Cox appear to have the blogging approach understood. Their postings are short, to the point and usually fairly accurate.
Joe Klein is courageous enough to wade in and post frequently, expressing strong opinions. Unfortunately, as his most recent posting shows, he hasn't quite gotten the hang of this blogging idea yet. He has yet to notice that if you post poorly-written articles, containing half-assed arguments, you tend to very quickly find your ass handed back to you on a plate. Not only that, but Klein appears to have a very thin skin. Note his peurile and childish response tacked on to his original posting after the original posting was analyzed by some commenters and found wanting.
As I said in a comment I posted on the Swampland thread, Joe Klein is overmatched at present. Instead of foaming at the mouth like a petulant child about these snide, disrespectful bloggers, he needs to ignore the occasional insults thrown his way and accept the challenge of sharpening his arguments and improving his writing. If not, he will continue to have his articles eviscerated, and will be forced to maybe spend more time on television, where it appears that people can be relied upon to nod sagely at whatever he says without spending much time derermining how correct, well-argued or useful might be.

Link: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Disclaimer - I do not have time to read this at present, howeverm it does look interesting.

Link: http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/02/hillary_on_iraq.html#comments

On Swampland there is a short article by Joe Klein in which he expresses amazement at the groundswell demands for contrition from Hillary Clinton over her vote in favour of the campaign against Iraq in 2002. He writes:

I don't think she has anything to apologize for--but I disagree with (David) Brooks: sooner or later, she's going to have to admit that her vote to authorize the war was, historically, the wrong thing to do. This is a silly requirement. I think her "If we'd known then what we know now, it never would have come to a vote" is a perfectly adequate explanation.

Joe once again misses at least 2 points. First and foremost, a lot of people don't need or want her to apologize. I happen to believe that an apology is usually a poor substitute for modifying your behaviour.
Secondly, one of the most damning features of the Bush administration has been its 100% refusal to admit to any error, no matter how small. They seem to adhere to the authoritarian maxim of "never apologize, never explain". Since all humans are fallible, it is totally unauthentic to present yourself as a totally infallible source of guidance and knowledge. This is BS, and those of us who have been on the planet for a reasonable amount of time know this. So, when a leader (or a leadership candidate) has erred, but persists in avoiding any questions about that error, and does not offer any mea culpa or explanation, my BS detector snaps into action and marks that person as having limited credibility.
Franco summarizes it very neatly in his comment to the story at Swampland:

I don't give a rat's patoot about whether she apologizes or not. I want an answer to the following question:

How can you criticize George Bush for going to war based on faulty intelligence but use that same faulty intelligence to excuse your approval of said war?

To my mind, any candidate who voted in favor of the war doesn't get disqualified, but they sure have to offer a better explanation than blaming George Bush. They didn't get elected to get bamboozled by the neocons, they got elected to think for themselves. They neglected their constitutional role as a check on the President's authority because they didn't have the guts to stand up to him when his popularity was high.
Republicans in Congress abdicating their responsibility does not excuse Democrats who did the same. Given the mood of the country, Bush's popularity and the fact that HRC represented New York, it would have been extraordinarily difficult for her to vote against authorizing the war. It's not as if she was the only one. But such votes are what separate statesmen from politicians.

This summarizes one of the reasons why I would not vote for Hillary Clinton. She appears to be running for office on the DLC principles of sitting on the fence, triangulating on every possible policy position and saying as little as possible about anything. Her approach reminds me of the great line in "Yes Prime Minister" when an exasperated Jim Hacker, having questioned Sir Humphrey at length about the apparent lack of a government policy on an issue, finally asks him to explain the policy after Sir Humphrey insists that there is a policy. After a pause Sir Humphrey says, "Prime Minister, our policy is to have no policy". That is where I think Hillary Clinton would like to live while running for office. The fact that a number of would-be voters have demanded a better response and she has ducked and weaved every time, has led me to conclude that she has inssufficient authenticity and credibility for me to consider her seriously as a candidate for the Presidency. After 8 years of mendacity, imperial arrogance and deceit, the country needs and deserves a much higher level of openness, honesty and humility from the next President.

Link: http://myespn.go.com/conversation/story?id=2766213

...who I have to confess I have never heard of until today, informed a TV channel that he hates gay people. (Hardaway is a retired NBA player). He stuck to his remarks even after being challenged on them by his interviewer. Strangely, he has since disavowed the remarks, for reasons that are not clear.
The article on this incident in ESPN contains a large number of comments. Sadly, from reading the last 50 or so of the comments, it appears that a significant number of the commenters appear to be suffering from various combinations of the following:
(a) they have no understanding of science, biology or sexuality
(b) they appear to be graduates of a Bible Quote-mining school somewhere (they like the bits in the Old Testament about homosexuality being an abomination, but they appear to be less concerned about the idea of adultery being punished by death, or being able to sell other family members into slavery)
(c) They cannot assemble an argument of any sort that contains more than a tenuous resemblance to fact or truth

Reading the comments was a depressing experience...if this level of reasoning and intellectual acuity is representative of the electorate in the USA, it does not bode well for the future of representative democracy as we know it. Many of the commenters, on the evidence of their comments, are intellectually stunted.
For the record, I have no problem with Tim Hardaway expressing an opinion. I do have a problem with why he should consider that anybody else should be interested in his opinion on this topic in the first place. Other people's sexuality (if kept private and not directed towards him) is none of his damned business. He also needs to pause for thought and remember that he is a member (by birth, not by choice) of the African-American community, which has suffered greatly from arbitrary discrimination in the past. He therefore needs to appreciate the fundamental paradox (some people might call it hypocrisy) of him uttering impertinent and intolerant comments about another group in society who have themselves been the victims of discrimination and hatred.

Link: http://www.socialscrutiny.org/comments.php?id=141_0_1_0_C

...to further disguise Al Quaeda operatives....

...is one of the biggest events of the off-season, and we're barely into February. However, I remain amazed that this did not happen sooner. By their own admissions, both Schottenheimer and Chargers GM A.J. Smith have not had a positive working relationship for years.
Most of the culpability lies with ownership, for the following reasons:

1. Working Relationships
Dean Spanos, by all accounts, tried on several occasions to persuade Schottenheimer and Smith to stop fighting each other, and instead focus on beating external opponents. Clearly, that approach did not succeed, which begs the question of why Spanos did not fire both men. When two senior leaders will not work together in a constructive fashion, the right answer is to fire them both. It takes two to make an argument, and AJ Smith cannot kiss off accountability. I remain suspicious that Smith is accountability-shy, whereas Marty does not seem to deny accountability.

2. Contract extensions
When the decision was made to continue with Schottenheimer in the aftermath of the Chargers' exit from the playoffs, the team offered him a 1-year extension to his contract (which had only 1 year to run) to take him to the end of the 2008 season. Not only was the extension only a 1 year deal, but the team added a $1m buy-out to it. In other words they could still effectively fire Marty after the 2007 season for the cost of the 2008 year plus $1m.
Schottenheimer turned the extension deal down, which apparently displeased AJ Smith and Spanos, but my question is: what did they expect? By only offering a 1 year extension they were effectively giving Schottenheimer a limited vote of confidence as in "we intend to keep your rope short". I would have refused to sign an extension like that also. Either a team wants you or it doesn't. Sort-of-wanting somebody is not good enough.
With only 1 year left on Schottenheimer's contract, and with rumours that Pete Carroll is waiting to assume command of the Chargers, it is obvious why all of the coaching staff would be interested in other jobs. They would not want to work for a "lame duck" coach, only to find themselves being replaced or evaluated by his replacement come January 2008. That would take them out of control of their destiny. Hence the departure of both co-ordinators and several other assistants.

Right now, most of the head-coaching candidates have already found other jobs. However, given the quality of the roster, with many marquee players signed to long contracts, the Chargers will certainly have a queue rapidly forming. Mike Martz, for example, might be salivating right now at offensiver personnel that remind him of "The Greatest Show on Turf" group that he coached with the Rams from 1999-2002.
The big challenge, however, is whether a prospective head coach can co-exist with AJ Smith. Schottenheimer's departure may send a signal that Chargers ownership will expect a new head coach to defer to Smith on personnel matters. (Of course, Marty's insistence on hiring his brother was always going to cause fireworks, which makes me wonder whether he looked at the threadbare coaching staff remnants and then decided to provoke his own departure...)
I fail to see why Pete Carroll would want to assume control of the Chargers. Although he might get full control over personnel, the decision record of the Spanos family does not inspire confidence. By all accounts, this is not the first time that they failed to stop a coach from locking horns with a GM; it previously happened between Bobby Beathard and Bobby Ross.

Link: http://anonymousliberal.com/2007/02/paranoia-and-authoritarianism-at.html

This posting from Anonymous Liberal shows how perjorative accusations made by a government official are amplified via a process of megaphoning, despite attempts by more sensible people to inject reality into the debate. The accusations made against lawyers defining detainees are unsupported by evidence, and appear to be driven by a vindictive desire to eliminate any debate about minor and suddenly inconvenient ideas written into the U.S. Constitution such as due process, protection from unreasonable search and seizure etc.
As Glenn Greenwald neatly summarized it today:

It is only those who are losing a debate who have a desire to suppress it.