July 31, 2003

Corporate Relocation Update

The Tennessean reports that Lousiana Pacific is also looking at Richmond, Va., and Charlotte, N.C., as a possible new home for its HQ, now located in Portland. The Portland Oregonian newspaper had the story yesterday - and notes that Charlotte "offers a plus for LP: The company already has a sales and marketing office, with about 60 employees, in the Charlotte area." So don't be surprised if Nashville doesn't land this company. On the other hand, given Nashville's recent track record, don't be surprised if it does.

July 30, 2003

Another Big Corporation Relocating to Nashville?

NashvillePost.com says a big public company based in Portland, Oregon, is thinking about relocating its HQ to Nashville. You can read the details if you have a subscription to the site, which is - hands down - Nashville's best source for breaking business news. Free 30-day trial subs available. NashvillePost.com also weighs in on the governor's efforts to accelerate economic development and recruiting across Tennessee - and quotes from/links to recent coverage here at HobbsOnline.

Now, why would a big public company move its HQ outta Portland? I thought Portland was a paradise. Lots of liberals say its paradise. Nashville Chamber of Commerce types went there to study the city so they could copy its "good" points. Why would Louisiana Pacific, a leading manufacturer of building materials in North America, with facilities throughout the United States, Canada, and in Chile, with more than 40 manufacturing facilities in North America, want to leave?

Drumbeats II

I wrote two days ago at length [link] about the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission – the commission charged with studying the state's tax structure and making reform recommendations, and is supposed to be doing so with an open mind. Their next meeting is tomorrow - and the agenda indicates the panel will hear presentations from two presenters you need to know about.

The first is the organization called "Tennesseans for Fair Taxation." You know who they are. They favor higher taxes. They support creation of an income tax. They view taxation as a way to redistribute income, and they are backed by the most socialist, Left-leaning organizations in the state.

The other is Susan Pace Hamill, a law professor at the University of Alabama, who will present a nearly hour-long presentation titled "Tax Reform from a Moral Perspective." Hamill teaches on Business Organizations and Taxation of Business Organizations, accroding to the UA law school's faculty listing.

You need to know more about Ms. Hamill – who she really is and what she really stands for.

In Alabama, where Gov. Bob Riley has thrown his "fiscal conservative" credentials in the trash can, a la former Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist, and is pushing for a massive tax increase, Ms. Hamill has come to be called the "High Priestess of Tax Reform." And in Alabama, as it did in Tennessee, tax "reform" meant massively higher taxes for massively larger government.

Dan Bowden, who was a law student at Alabama and sat through a class Ms. Hamill taught on federal income tax law, files this report on her real views of taxes and business. They are, in a word, wacky. Here's some excerpts:

I had Susan Hamill as a professor. Hamill, of course, is the “High Priestess” of Alabama tax reformers (why does "reform" always seem to mean "increase"?). She's the one stumping the state promoting her idea that according to "biblical principles," Christians should support tax increases to help the poor. In other words, "What would Jesus do? RAISE TAXES!"

In 2002, I had the dubious pleasure of having Hamill teach my introductory course on federal income tax. Loud? You don't know the meaning of the word. She is like a megaphone with lipstick. I sat in the back of the classroom, and still sometimes felt the urge to cover my ears to protect my hearing.

Prof. Hamill filled our class in on a little of her background. She had worked for a private law firm in New York, and later, for the IRS. … What really clued us in on her thinking was when she referred to the IRS as "the cops, the good guys," and to private businesses as "robbers." A more twisted view of reality can hardly be imagined.

This was before Riley's election, and before he had revealed his true colours, those of a big-government, tax-raising liar. "Constitutional reform" was the buzzword at the time (look for this issue to reappear). Hamill was then putting the finishing touches on her paper arguing for her pro-tax arguments. She then revealed to our class her true motivations. She said that she had evaluated the political and social climate in Alabama, and seen that traditional arguments for tax increases would go nowhere here. She said that in order to sell pro-tax arguments to the masses in Alabama (the actual term were more like "hicks" or "religious boobs"), she would have to cloak such arguments in Biblical rhetoric. In other words, the Bible-thumping morons in Alabama could only be gotten to swallow the bitter pill of higher taxes if it was disguised in a sweet-sounding Sunday sermon. That, she said, was the reason she had decided to get a degree from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University.

A final question: Why is the Tennessee press corps not providing wall-to-wall coverage of the meetings of the Tax Structure Study Commission? I haven't seen much in the newspapers about it – yet the presentations at the meetings have, judging from what's posted on the Commission's website, been informative and useful. And the Commission's work is certainly newsworthy, given the last four years of political debate over the state's tax structure and budget. The Tennessee press corps will report on the Commission's final report, no doubt. Wouldn't it better serve the public if the process of creating that report was also reported?

Here's a story in the Baptist Standard, a newspaper for Texas Baptists, that mentions Hamill's role in pushing for a $1.2 billion tax increase in the guise of "reform" in Alabama. Note, please, the excellent comments of John Giles in that article.

July 29, 2003

Lance Armstrong and Iraq

Five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is a Texan, a friend of George W. Bush - and he opposed the Iraq war. As Washington Post sports writer Sally Jenkins - who co-authored Lance's autobiography - put it recently:

"They are friends and both are loyal sons of Texas and both are amicable, swaggering smart alecks, but Lance is deeply self-educated and his politics are different. For instance, he's in favor of choice and gun control. And he opposed the Iraq War."

So here's a question: Why is Lance toasted as an American hero by people like me, and by Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs, but when the Dixie Chicks or various Hollywood celebrities make statements in opposition to the war, we treated them with derision? Why hasn't Lance Armstrong become a lightning rod for criticism for those who supported the war?

Answer: Because Lance doesn't treat his celebrity status, derived from being a fast and indefatigable bike rider, lead him to think he should be treated as an expert on foreign policy, or lead him to use his public stage to take cheap shots at the President. Did you know Lance was opposed to the war in Iraq? Probably not until right now.

Lance has said he told Bush of his opposition to the war: "He's a personal friend, but we've all got the right not to agree with our friends," Armstrong told Britain's Observer newspaper. Ironically, that paper tried to whip up anti-Armstrong/anti-American hostilities among the French before the Tour de France began, but the French seem now to have embraced Armstrong. You just know, too, that George W. Bush will invite Lance Armstrong to the White House in honor of his fifth straight Tour de France win.

July 28, 2003

Drumbeats

You can hear the faint sound of distant drumbeats for an income tax in this Q&A with Nelson Andrews, chairman of the "independent" Tax Structure Study Commission that is studying Tennessee's tax structure. As writer Tim Chavez comments, "The commission carries baggage because of who established it: the same state leaders who tried to pass an income tax against the wishes of a majority of Tennesseans. One commission member is former state Sen. Bob Rochelle." Rochelle, of course, tried to ram a state income tax through the Senate. Andrews, a former state education commissioner is also on record as a proponent of the income tax. So is commission member Gary Poe, an executive with Eastman Chemical Co.

What Nelson said: What is not debatable is that there is no way that the current structure will be able to sustain the current level of services into the future.

What Nelson meant: We need an income tax.

Andrews argues hard for the commission's neutrality and credibility, but he's singing a song few are buying. As Knoxville News Sentinel columnist Tom Humphrey said back in January:

For the most part, the members represent various special interests that are at least comfortable with the concept of tax reform, including an income tax. Thus, the deck is arguably stacked. The appointees so far include more folks with a history of supporting an income tax than opponents.

It was created by the legislature, but I will certainly read it carefully. I was asked by some people who were thinking about serving on it what my attitude was, and did I think they were wasting their time. I said if they're taking an objective look at the tax structure and how to correct taxes and not thinking how could we quickly raise another billion dollars of revenue, then it could be useful. If what this thing is, just to bring the income tax again two years down the line, I just feel I ran for this office on a promise not to implement an income tax in my first term, so don't look at it as something which is going to box me into a corner. I will certainly listen to what they say with respect, and I think it will be a useful contribution for discussions.

I'm also trying to determine the identity of the "five extraordinarily talented academicians" Andrews mentions. There are none on this list of ten of the board members, but I haven't yet found a full list of the commission members. (Update: I found the list. The five academicians are non-voting members of the commission. More details and link below…)

UPDATE: The membership of the commission was expanded from 15 to 19 by the legislature last session. Here is a story listing the four additional members appointed after the board was expanded. I don't know if any of these four are on record supporting an income tax, but if any of my readers find out, please pass it along to me.

UPDATE: Here is the website of the Tax Structure Study Commission. Its membership list is here, but very unhelpful - no bios, just names. One name is very worrisome - Dr. Bill Fox, a University of Tennessee economist and long-time shill for the income tax, is a non-voting member and one of five academics who are serving as economic advisers to the panel.

Minutes to past commission meetings are here. The page offers links to many of the PowerPoint presentations that have been shown at commission meetings.

The Tax Structure Study Commission's upcoming meetings are listed here. Its next meeting is July 31st . (TSU - Avon Williams Campus, 310 10th Avenue - Room 353).

A list of "Resource Links" on the commission's website indicates the direction the commission is leaning on the question of recommending an income tax. One article considered a valuable resource by the commission is this June 2001 article from the National Conference of State Legislatures, titled Principles of a High-Quality State Revenue System, which argues in favor of states taxing incomes:

There is merit in the notion that states and local governments should balance their tax systems through reliance on the "three-legged stool" of income, sales and property taxes in roughly equal proportions, with excise taxes, business taxes, gaming taxes, severance taxes and user charges playing an important supplemental role.

Meanwhile, what I said here back in early April holds true: Even if the Tax Structure Study Commission is indeed independent and open-minded and not just another dog-and-pony show to shill for the income tax, it's still studying the wrong thing. Unfortunately, the Tax Structure Study Commission as it exists now is set up to ignore half of the equation: It is not authorized or ordered to examine the state's archaic and uncontrolled spending structure that has long been the primary cause of the state's chronic budget crises. Its budget, then, is just another example of wasteful spending.

A shorter version of this is posted at PolState.com.

July 25, 2003

Sao Tome Update

The coup in Sao Tome is over. Reuters reports coup leader Major Fernando Pereira says he lead the coup to safeguard democracy and wipe out corruption, and they report it with a straight face, as if they actually believe the guy. No scare quotes or anything. Voice of America, meanwhile, has a much better story suggesting the tiny nation's potential oil wealth motivated the coup plotters.

Africa expert Alex Vines, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, the peaceful resolution of the coup in Sao Tome is very much in the tradition of the country's manner of dealing with such tension. "Sao Tome has traditionally dealt with disputes peacefully anyhow," he said. "There was a coup in the mid-1990s that was similarly resolved as this current one - peacefully."

In addition, Mr. Vines points out that a delegation of mediators is lauding the amicable end to the coup as a triumph for regional politics. An international delegation of African, Portuguese and U.S. representatives traveled to the region after the coup to facilitate talks between the ousted president and the coup leader.

Mr. Vines says the main motivation for the coup was Sao Tome's eagerly anticipated oil earnings. "The expectancy of oil is a very important factor here," he pointed out. "Sao Tome is a tremendously poor country, but everybody is dreaming of future wealth if oil is found and that's the key here. There's been no oil found in Sao Tome yet, it's all speculative, based on seismic and talking up. But we are coming up to bidding round for nine off-shore blocks from Sao Tome and each bloc is likely to carry a $30 million bonus payment. That's a lot of money for a poor country like Sao Tome."

A Q&A With Hewitt

John Hawkins interviews Hugh Hewitt, a rising radio talkshow host who blogs. Hewitt has some very good comments about blogging and the future of talk radio, the Democrats and the future of the country, North Korea and the next stage of the war on terror, the California gubernatorial recall, and why the Left can't succeed in talk radio. A very good Q&A. Who says the blogosphere doesn't do real journalism? An enlightening interview. (For my Tennessee readers, Hewitt is not on the air anywhere in the state except for Bristol, where he's on from 6-8 pm Monday-Friday on WPWT 870 AM. Lucky Bristolians. Here's Hewitt's station list.)

Amen Brother, Preach On

Jeff Jarvis sez the media establishment doesn't "get" weblogs. And then he proves it, with a comparison of a story he wrote about weblogs for Nieman Reports, a quarterly pub produced by Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and the same story after the blog-clueless editor got hold of it. Hilarious. And dead on.

Jarvis:

Journalism still needs to escape its closed, think-tank think and get out there and use the tools the audience is using. They need to read what the audience is writing. They need to listen. That's what is so damned exciting about weblogs. Weblogs give you the chance to hear your audience and what they really care about - if only you are ready to listen.

Grudgingly, they correct a mistake now and then - but bury the tiny corrections deep in the paper so nobody finds them. Formulaicly they publish each day a few selected and heavily edited letters from readers, to create the impression they care what readers think. But they don't. They want you to shut up and listen to them. They don't want to listen to you.

But now, increasingly, you aren't listening to them either. Good. That's healthy.

Now I believe that blogs will increasingly become journalism. Right now, most news-oriented blogs are punditry rather than reporting, though some of the better blogs do sometimes provide original reporting. I've done original reporting here, most often related to the state budget and tax debate over the last four years, digging out and reporting facts and data ahead of the mainstream media on many occasions. I suspect over time bloggers will increasingly add original reporting to their blogs to go with the large helping of punditry.

I can see a day coming when your local newspaper faces real competition from an Internet-only publication, a newsblog if you will, that carries reporting as well as commentary. It will be updated continuously as developments warrant, include digital pictures and audio and video reports created in the field by reporters on the scene and posted instantly to the newsblog via wireless Internet access. It will combine the immediacy of TV with depth of print - and, newsblogs will not face the space limitations that newspaper editors face each day, allowing newsblogs to publish offer longer, more in-depth reports more frequently. Newsblog reports will be heavily linked to source documents and materials - cyberfootnoting that will instantly enhance readers' perceptions of credibility (and put pressure on reporters to get the facts right). And it gets better. The newsblogs will allow readers to comment and interact with the writers and each other - a feature newspapers can't match. It will be cheaper to produce than a newspaper, and cheaper to distribute. And offer a much better reading experience. And as newspapers continue to see their circulation shrink, newsblogs will thrive.

If we're lucky, newsblogs won't change traditional journalism. They'll replace it.

UPDATE: Michael Williams says newsblogs need a feasible business model.

July 24, 2003

CNN: Complicity News Network

CNN covered for Saddam's murderous regime for many years - its top news executive Eason Jordan admitted several weeks ago. (Link takes you to NYT archive abstract - for free coverage of the Eason admission that CNN had been covering up some of Saddam's crimes, go to my April 2003 archives and scroll to the entries around April 15-17.) Eason still has his job. And now CNN is covering for the tyranical mullahs who oppress Iran. If you love freedom - heck, if you just sort of like freedom - you won't watch CNN anymore. It's the news network that deserves to die becuase it's the news network that was willing to cover up torture and worse just to keep its precious bureau open. But what good is a news bureau that doesn't actually report the news? It certainly isn't doing the oppressed people of Iran any good.

UPDATE: Kevin L. Whited has some more thoughts about CNN.

July 23, 2003

Another Non-Scandal

The Left is in a tizzy over a charge that top Bush administration officials illegally revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent in an effort to discredit her husband, the author of a report that appeared to discredit claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger. In the weird world of Washington DC scandals, this is as inside-baseball as it gets.

It's also probably a load of bunk, but that isn't stopping the Lefty side of the blogosphere from going on the attack.

The first four paragraphs of this Newsday article show the Democrats in full attack mode:

Democrats yesterday denounced the alleged disclosure by administration officials of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, and members of both parties indicated a congressional investigation is likely.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), an Intelligence Committee member, said it plans to investigate who revealed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, who is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. In a move that sparked the current controversy over allegations that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Niger, Wilson revealed two weeks ago that he had warned the Bush administration the reports were unfounded.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the intelligence panel, called the disclosure of Plame's identity "vile" and "a highly dishonorable thing to do; highly, highly dishonorable." He, too, said a probe is probably necessary and accused the White House of strong-arm tactics aimed at those who question their policies. "To go after him [Wilson] is one thing, but to go after his wife is another thing," Rockefeller said.

Former intelligence officials joined in denouncing the release of Plame's name by "two senior administration officials" to conservative columnist Robert Novak.

It appears that Corn, a Lefty who writes for the very left-wing magazine The Nation, sliced and diced a paragraph from a Robert Novak column in order to manufacture the scandal. His article was the first to make the allegations that the Bush administration illegally outed Plame as a CIA undercover operative, in order to discredit her diplomat husband.

The core of the mini-scandal is the charge that "two senior administration officials" told Novak, a famous conservative political columnist and commentator, Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. But that is not what Novak wrote. You see, I'm not just a reader of the news, I'm a journalist with a very inquisitive mind - and an Internet connection. And I've got Google. So I did what those Lefty bloggers apparently didn't do before swallowing Corn's version hook, line and sinker. I Googled and found Novak's article. Here is what he wrote, verbatim and in its entirety, about Valerie Plame:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me his wife suggested sending Wilson to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

Corn, conspicuously, does not quote Novak's entire paragraph anywhere his piece - and Corn's piece is the foundational article of the entire "scandal." Corn does assert that Novak told him that "government officials" told him of Plame's real job, but it is telling that the words Corn said Novak uses are "government officials," which could be virtually anyone in the government. And Novak's piece does not source Plame's identity to the "senior administration officials," as Corn implies it does. In Corn's piece, in fact, the allegation that it was "administration officials" seems to rest on a claim by Corn that Wilson told Corn that Novak said so. That's third-party. It's hearsay. It would not be admissible as evidence in a trial. And Wilson, remember, has an ax to grind.

Yet the Lefty bloggers are grabbing Corn's spin and claiming they have "confirmation" and "official" proof that the White House released Plame's identity as a smear against Wilson. (How, exactly, it is a smear, I don't know...)

Did administration officials "out" Plame? The evidence is rather lacking. In fact, it is increasingly clear that Wilson is the one who is revealing his wife's identity as an undercover agent - if indeed that's what she really is. As even Kleiman unwittingly admitted in his blog item I linked to above, when he said this: Joseph Wilson, who had previously been slightly cagy about the role of his wife, Valerie Plame, has now publicly charged on NBC that the Administration deliberately blew his wife's cover as an a act of intimidation. In doing so, he implicitly confirms that she was in fact a covert agent.

UPDATE: The anonymous blogger of Seamole has some more background on Plame and Wilson. Start here. Then go here and here. Would it surprise you to know that Wilson once worked for Al Gore? Would it surprise you to know that Wilson delivered a keynote speech at a June conference of an activist group that opposed the Iraq war and blamed Iraq's misery on U.S. compliance with U.N. sanctions rather than on Saddam's refusal to comply with U.N. resolutions?

UPDATE: Don't miss Donald Luskin's coverage of this non-scandal. In part of it, he wonders how Corn could know that Plame was an undercover CIA operative, "since he (Corn) says Wilson wouldn't tell him 'whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee,' and he cites no other sources." So, perhaps it is Corn who outed Plame?

Also don't miss Tom Maguire's coverage over at his Just One Minute blog. He's been covering it since the Corn article first appeared, and is doing a better job of it than I am. An excerpt:

The distinction between "administration" and "government" officials haunts this story. TIME clearly makes a distinction, and so does Mr. Corn here. My impression is that "Administration" means what it says; "government" is non-White House executive branch. In this story, the CIA would be "government", and White House officials would be "Administration".

So, when asked directly by Mr. Corn, Mr. Novak says his sources for the key personal information are "government". This agrees with the TIME formulation. The phrase "and its accurate" may suggest, to deep de-constructionists, that Novak got independent verification from a second source.

And Mr. Wilson's description of Mr. Novak's discussions with him? We know that Mr. Novak claimed some "administration" sources in his own column, so the fact that he also claims that with Ambassador Wilson is not news. Since the specifics of his conversation with Ambassador Wilson are not available, I deem this to be inconclusive.

However, Mr. Corn was surely eager to get Mr. Novak to admit to "administration" sources, and could not...

Novak was coy in his original column as to sources, but there is a lot to suggest he got a lot of his details from the CIA. TIME pretty probably had CIA, or at least "government" sources, for info similar to Novak's. Consequently, the headline for this scandal may one day be "CIA in Disarray - Feud Outs Agent". If the fallout from the Iraqi war includes a politicized and divided CIA, that is bad for the nation.

But it may better for Bush than the alternative, which is that his own aides outed a covert agent and compromised national security in order to punish a political opponent. For Bush supporters (hey, that includes me!) the choices seem to be bad, and worse.

A Reader Reminds Me: The first commandment for Presidents ought to be, "Don't Pick a Fight With The CIA".

Scroll up for a follow-up from Luskin....

July 21, 2003

Let Reporters Blog!

Michelle Nicolosi, editor of Online Journalism Review, says newspapers should encourage their reporters to write weblogs.

More papers should think about setting up reporters with blogs. Working on them should be optional - not mandated - and reporters should be given the freedom to have a little personality in their blog, to link offsite, to post pretty much as they see fit. If they do a bad job, cancel it. But if you try to control it too much, the blog will not really be a blog - it'll be briefs. Newspaper style briefs are boring. They don't have the same appeal and won't draw the same kind of crowd as a personality-driven insider's look at a given topic.

Why? Because newspapers are organized around a model in which the newspaper controls the flow of information - it decides how to portray a 3-hour public hearing in 8 inches of copy, for example, or how to report the details of a hundred -page government document in 15 column inches. The newspaper model demands the reader trust the newspaper, sometimes on little more than blind faith.

Blogs gain trust by extensive linking to source documents, which few newspapers do either online or with footnotes in print..

Bogs represent a level of uncontrolled information flow that makes your average newspaper editor very nervous. And blogs linking to actual source documents gives many editors the willies. After all, if your readers can read the original documents, they'll more easily be able to spot the bias, the errors and the incomplete-ness of the 12-inch story.

Read the whole interview with Nicolosi - plenty of good insights about the Internet and the democratized digital future of journalism. [Hat tip: Corante.com

July 18, 2003

Sao Tome Update

Click here for the latest news on the coup that ousted the democratically elected pro-American president of a small oil-rich non-Islamic African country.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing has an answer to the question I posed at the end of this post.

UPDATE: Looks like the coup perpetrators may be backing down.

July 17, 2003

Sao Tome Update

The Voice of America is reporting the Bush administration "is working diplomatically to restore Sao Tome's elected government, which was ousted by officers in the country's military Wednesday."

The State Department says Washington is consulting other African countries and Portugal on how to resolve the crisis. Portugal is the former colonial ruler of Sao Tome and Principe. The American diplomatic effort is being led by the U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Kenneth Moorfield, who also has the responsibility for Sao Tome. The United States, as well as Nigeria, Mozambique, Portugal and France joined U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in condemning the coup.

Also Thursday, African Union (AU) officials hinted that military intervention may be considered to restore the government of ousted President Fradique de Menezes. A spokesman for AU chairman, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, said this is one option under consideration. Mr. Chissano flew to Abuja, Nigeria, Thursday to consult with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Mr. De Menezes, who was in Nigeria when the coup took place. Mr. Chissano said Wednesday's coup is condemnable and unacceptable to the AU. Nigeria, Sao Tome's northern neighbor, has hinted at possible military intervention in the small country of 150,000 people. Sao Tome's deposed President de Menezes has ruled out a possible military intervention by Nigeria but says he may welcome such action by the African Union.

Other bloggers blogging about Sao Tome:

Andrew Apostolou at Apostablog, who favors intervention if that's what it takes to end the coup, and notes that, Of course, the "it's all about oil" brigade will soon start up. To be sure, the coup appears to be motivated by a desire to grab future oil revenues. If the Sao Tomese win back their freedom because of oil, then this natural resource will have been of some use to them.

Adam at Karmic Inquisition, who provides a very long and insightful post and comments, That the US (warts and all) endeavors to keep the world's oil supply in a diverse set of hands is a good thing for democracies around the world, IMO. Only 1 of the 6 companies trading Iraqi oil is US. Hardly a US grab. Just the same, the US should "take the sticks away" of her critics by simply insisting that public oil trusts be established for protectorates in cases where new oil wealth is found (Sao Tome) or where it had been nationalized prior (like in Iraq).

OxBlog. OxBlog is one of the finest blogs in the blogosphere and I'm honored by the link. Thanks for noticing! More importantly, thanks for caring about Sao Tome.

It's worth noting that many of those in the political arena who are calling for the U.S. to intervene in Liberia, which has no oil and is not of any real strategic interest to the United States, are not calling for U.S. intervention to restore democracy in Sao Tome.

What's the difference, Howard Dean?

Sao Tome Coup Update

Here's an excerpt of the transcript of the July 16 State Department press briefing by spokesman Richard Boucher in which the coup in Sao Tome was discussed:

QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the coup?

MR. BOUCHER: We have reports now from our Embassy in Libreville, Gabon, as well as from the media, that Prime Minister Maria das Neves and some other government officials were put under arrest about 3:00 a.m. local time in Sao Tome. We deplore these actions. We strongly urge those involved to release the arrested government officials. President Menezes was out of the country on a visit to Nigeria. The Prime Minister and some other government officials are, as I said, reportedly under arrest. Early reports indicate that all of approximately 25 U.S. citizens, including our U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Moorefield and other staff from the Embassy in Libreville who were visiting Sao Tome, are safe and unharmed. We understand that four of these individuals worked for the Voice of America, four were Embassy Libreville staff, and the remainder were private U.S. citizens. There are no reports of any injuries or deaths that we know of at this point. The United States does not have a resident embassy in Sao Tome, but Ambassador Moorefield is accredited to Sao Tome, as well as to Gabon. That is what we know of the situation now.

QUESTION: Are we doing anything to try to help the president return to power?

MR. BOUCHER: At this point, we are following the situation closely. I would say we are monitoring developments. We are also, I think, looking at our assistance programs to determine what we need to do with those, and we will review those programs and take the appropriate action once the facts have become clear.

Meanwhile, ABC News is following developments in Sao Tome.

July 16, 2003

A Coup in Africa, and the War on Terror

What does a military coup in a tiny impoverished African country have to do with the war on terror? Plenty. A military coup in Sao Tome & Principe, a tiny island nation off the west coast of Africa, has big implications for the United States and deserves a lot more attention than it is getting. I've written about Sao Tome, its untapped oil, and its friendly overtures toward the United States before (start here and follow the links).

Here's a Voice of America report on the coup, plus coverage from the BBC, looking at oil's importance to Sao Tome, and a Forbes report on how oil has brought conflict to neighboring nations. CBS News' web story on the coup has lots of background on the tiny nation.

In this report, VOA says the government of neighboring Nigeria swiftly condemned the coup and "warned the military not to threaten or harm Nigerians living in Sao Tome." Mozambique also denounced the coup."

Sao Tome, made up of several small islands, has a population of about 150,000 people. VOA: It is one of the world's poorest countries, but potential oil reserves in its coastal waters have increased political tensions. Arguments over oil have fueled political instability in recent months. In January, President de Menezes dissolved parliament and called early elections because of a dispute with lawmakers over oil negotiations. The president later reinstated parliament and a new constitution was approved this year limiting the powers of the presidency.

Seven months ago, I wrote that Sao Tome, a largely Roman Catholic former Portuguese colony, was "a democracy, and a stable one at that." It was - and the Bush administration should move immediately to make it so again.

A military coup in Sao Tome in 1995 was ended, and democracy restored, when the United States and the European announced they would cut off vital foreign aid. A similar response is needed this time. It is in the United States' vital national interest that Sao Tome and Principe's President Fradique de Menezes be restored to his office, and democracy reinstated. part of winning the war against Islamist terrorism is to de-fund it, by shifting U.S. oil importation to non-Islamic countries as much as possible. Sao Tome is one such country.

July 15, 2003

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The contemporary Christian music industry is taking a different approach to try to curb illegal music downloading. Rather than preparing to sue thousands of its fans, the industry is "responding to the problem by appealing to their customers’ faith and moral values," reports Nashville City Paper:

The Christian Music Trade Association has formed an anti-piracy task force that is meeting weekly to develop ways to spread the word to Church groups and CD buyers that downloading is not only illegal, it violates one of the key tenets of the Christian faith: Thou shalt not steal.

The Nashville-based trade group and affiliated Gospel Music Association reported earlier this month that sales of Christian CD units are down 10 percent the first half of this year over the same time last year, compared to an 8 percent decline in the overall music industry.

"Clearly one of the culprits is the fact that so many people are downloading music without paying for it and burning CDs illegally. It is causing economic harm to everybody in the food chain involved in music, from the songwriters to retailers," said John Styll, president of both groups. "We felt like in the Christian community, there is, beyond a legal obligation, also an ethical and moral obligation. We think in the Christian community, we can appeal to that side."

UPDATE: Michael Williams says the Christian bands he's acquainted with 'prefers the additional exposure that pirating brings to whatever marginal revenue is lost in sales." That's probably accurate. Independent and not-yet-huge artists and bands often have a more accepting view of music file-sharing, figuring it expands their audience even though it brings them no direct revenue on CD sales, and a larger audience translates to a bigger market for concert tix and future CDs.

July 14, 2003

A Democrat Surveys the Field

Roger L. Simon, a Hollywood screenwriter and lifetime Democrat says the current field of Democrats running for president is a pack of "low-rent losers" and John F. Kerry is a big fat liar. 'cept he wrote it better than that:

The idea that someone who can?t even be truthful about his background wants to be President while going around accusing others of dishonesty is creepy to me. That is why I have said before and no doubt will repeat that the Democrats should start looking for some more interesting candidates than the pack of low-rent losers they are presently proffering?. Or this lifetime Democrat is going to sit this one out. (And I'm certain I won't be the only one.)

Go visit Simon's blog. And while you're there, scroll down to this rather amusing post.

Blogs: Reviving Journalism's Lost Spirit

Orlando Sentinel columnist Kathleen Parker on blogs vs. journalism:

I'm not an expert on blogging, but I am a fan. As a regular visitor to a dozen or so news and opinion blogs, I'm riveted by the implications for my profession. Bloggers are making life interesting for reluctant mainstreamers like myself and for the public, whose access to information until now has been relatively controlled by traditional media.

I say "reluctant mainstreamer" because what I once loved about journalism went missing some time ago and seems to have resurfaced as the driving force of the blogosphere: a high-spirited, irreverent, swashbuckling, lances-to-the-ready assault on the status quo. While mainstream journalists are tucked inside their newsroom cubicles deciphering management's latest "tidy desk" memo, bloggers are building bonfires and handing out virtual leaflets along America's Information Highway.

The best bloggers, who are generous in linking to one another - alien behavior to journalists accustomed to careerist, shark-tank newsrooms - are like smart, hip gunslingers come to make trouble for the local good ol' boys. The heat they pack includes an arsenal of intellectual artillery, crisp prose, sharp insights and a gimlet eye for mainstream media's flaws.

July 12, 2003

Thank You

To the person or persons who just dropped something in my tip jar: a heartfelt thank you. It's always surprising when that happens - and never taken for granted. I think, therefore I blog - and it's nice to be appreciated for doing so.

July 8, 2003

Blogging Behind The Windows

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a report on how Microsoft treats employee-bloggers. Robert Scoble, a "technical evangelist" for the next version of Windows, "is one of a growing number of Microsoft employees who maintain their own weblogs," says the P-I:

Blogs, as they're known, are a phenomenon across the Internet, but for big companies such as Microsoft, they bring both opportunity and risk. Employee blogs can put a human face on a monolithic corporation, giving outsiders new insights into a company's culture and building a sense of community around its products. But corporate traditionalists also worry when employees express their personal thoughts about work in a public venue, without so much as a quick read by the PR department.

The P-I interviews a handful of blogging Microsoft employees and reports that, while technical subjects and the company's products are frequently discussed, "Microsoft bloggers say they're particularly careful not to post sensitive or confidential information. Often, though, blogs provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of life at the Redmond software company."

I post a lot more items related to blogging at my work blog.

July 7, 2003

Yeah, That's About Right

Cox & Forkum explains the blogging cycle:

Not that it matters, but I do have a tipjar.

Unholy, Indeed

Unholy, Indeed
I rarely watch The Agency, a CBS drama set inside a fictionalized Central Intelligence Agency, but this week's episode, a rerun called "Unholy Alliances" caught my attention.

In it, the head of the CIA is paid a visit by head of the Palestinian Authority's intelligence service, asking for help in cracking down on Hamas, the Palestinian terror group. Interesting, I thought, and kept watching.

Shortly, the head of the CIA is also visited by the head of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, demanding to know why the American intelligence chief has been meeting with the PA's intelligence chief. The CIA director then concocts a plan to set up a meeting between the head of the Israeli and Palestinian intelligence services. To make a long story short, some Americans are wounded and some Israelis killed in a terrorist attack shortly after arriving in Israel, and operatives from the CIA are sent to Israel to track down the perpetrators.

At this point, the viewers are lead to believe that Palestinian terrorists are behind the attack, clearly an effort to sabotage efforts to bring the PA and Israeli intelligence services together in a joint effort to wipe out Hamas.

There are, no doubt, some Palestinians who would like to put an end to Hamas and its terror tactics and negotiate a real peace with Israel. And this episode of The Agency seemed to be headed toward a somewhat balanced message: Israel and right-thinking Palestinians ought to work together to wipe out terror groups like Hamas.

But that's not where the episode ultimately took viewers. No, viewers were instead treated to an anti-Israel polemic, a piece of propaganda that Yasser Arafat and his terror goons must have loved.

As the story evolved, the terrorist attack on the Americans and Israelis was perpetrated by Jews, while almost every single Palestinian portrayed in the show was a model of moderation. The only Palestinian "terrorist" in the episode is a young boy, who seems hardly threatening at all, while the head of the Mossad is seen as a revenge-minded crazy who doesn't want to even talk with his Palestinian counterpart, let alone help him. The head of Palestinian intelligence is shown as a dapper, well-dressed, urbane moderate who just wants peace, and when he is killed in a car-bomb explosion, the perpetrators are not members of Hamas, trying to sabotage attempts to wipe out Hamas, but Jews who don't want peace with Palestinians. And not just any Jews, but members of the top echelon of Israeli intelligence. And not only do they not want peace, they want to push every single living Palestinian out of the West Bank in the pursuit of creating a "Greater Israel."

Talk about turning reality on its head. In the real Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is the Palestinian Authority that continues to coddle those who want to see Israel completely eliminated, while it is Israel that has repeatedly offered generous land-for-peace deals that aim for side-by-side existence of Israel and a Palestinian state. In the real Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is Palestinian terrorists who use car bombs and suicide bombers to blow up Jews.

But not on CBS.

UPDATE: Charles Johnson over at LGF has a post on anti-Israel propaganda at the New York Times, in the form of a cartoon series. In the post-September 11 world where, as GWB so accurately defined it, "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists" construct, where, exactly, is the NYT?

UPDATE: AN LGF reader comments: I taped that CBS show Staurday night expecting to see an intelligent episode, yet I was treated to an anti Israel polemic. All Israelis were portrayed as hard lined ideologues and the Palis were shown to be really reasonable nice guys. The whole premise was ludicrous - that Israeli right wing Jews and Hamas would coopreate to destroy the phony "peace process" and that fantical Jews (Yigal Amir types) could infiltrate into the highest echelons of the Israeli security serives. The show was absolutely terrible! Amen to that.

UPDATE: The Agency is produced by Wolfgang Petersen, a German-born director who now works in Hollywood and has produced or directed such movies as Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, Air Force One and The Perfect Storm. He once said this of In the Line of Fire: "I like to tell big stories, but I don't like those that are too simple, too predictable. I like characters that aren't stereotypes and one-dimensional, and correspond to the reality of our increasingly complex world." Oh. Really?