November 24, 2003

There WAS No Mob

There WAS No Mob
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal has some words of praise for Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's approach to crafting the state budget - via meetings open to the public.

The budget hearings send an appealing message after years of acrimony over state finances. Bredesen says the public hearings are intended to show taxpayers that no fiscal plots are being hatched behind closed doors. The people who pay the bills have a right to see that. Public confidence in state government hit a low point in summer 2001, when a mob protesting an income tax proposal broke windows in the State Capitol building. Protesters egged on by talk radio hosts circled the Capitol complex with car horns blaring. It has been a long, slow climb from that dark day to the tentative harmony that now exists.

THERE WAS NO MOB.

I know because I was there. Familes were there with children, with babies in strollers, waving flags and placards and, yes, loudly yelling in protest of the proposed income tax, and in protest of the fact that the Sundquist administration was using state troopers to bar the public from the state capitol building while allowing lobbyists in to lobby legislators on the eve of a potential vote on the tax. One protestor, knocking hard on a locked capitol door, cracked a window. She paid for the repair.

The Sundquist administration claimed that a window in the governor's office was broken by a thrown object, but that allegation has never been substantiated with physical proof. In fact, the allegation has been undermined by the ever-changing story as the allegedly broken window was alleged to have been broken by a stick. No, it was a rock. Er., it was a brick. Yeah, a brick. That's the ticket.

But a rock is not a stick is not a brick, and though the media reported the rock landed at the feet of a legislator who was in Sundquist's office chambers, the media never showed a photo of the rock. Or the stick. Or the brick. Which strikes me as exceedingly odd - a news media bent on portraying noisy-but-peaceful protestors as a "mob" wouldn't have missed the chance to show the world the rock or brick or stick the "mob" used to break that window. (Now that I think of it - I don't recall seeing a news report showing the broken window, either...)

Yet the claim that the window had been shattered by rock-throwing mob was used as the trigger to call out dozens of state troopers and Metro Nashville police, who barred the public from accessing the capital and blocked streets to make it difficult for people to get to the capital.

But ... no rock, stick or brick was ever produced. I doubt there was a rock, brick or stick. There was no mob, either, and no one who was there and is honest claims otherwise.

UPDATE: The July 13, 2001, edition of The Tennessean carried a story titled "Crowd hurls rocks, rhetoric to protest tax," a headline that implies many rocks were being thrown, though the story admits in the lead that only one rock was tossed.

The story says it landed at the feet of a state representative who was in the governor's office chambers.

Rep. John Mark Windle, D-Livingston, said he sought refuge in the governor's suite of offices after sensing the crowd's angry mood. "All of a sudden, a big rock came through a window and landed at my feet," the legislator said. Security officers directed him and the governor's staff to another room.

More articles covering that "mob" that wasn't really a mob here.

This isn't the first time I've said I don't believe the rock/brick/stick exists. I made the same charge back on May 23, 2002, when I wrote this:

Of course, the administration claims riot cops were necessary because of last year's "riot" in which a window was broken by a protestor. Count me a skeptic. The administration has at various times described the "weapon" as a brick, a rock, and a stick. It allegedy landed at the foot of some lawmaker inside the governor's office. But where is the rock or brick or stick? Surely, if such a crime was committed, the witnesses would know if it was a rock or a stick or a brick, and the evidence would have been collected. The rock ... or brick ... or stick ... would be in investigators' hands. We would have seen a photo of it. But we haven't. Why? Until there is solid evidence otherwise, my guess is: because it doesn't exist. The Sundquist administration claims it exists, however, and so the media has bought the story without really questioning it...

November 18, 2003

Comparative Religion

Message on a local Islamic mosque not far from where I work: "Charity suppresses the wrath of Allah."

Huh. So, Allah is angry and to calm him down you have to give to charity out of fear, in order to keep Allah from dropping the holy hammer on you. But of course it only works for a little while and then Allah is angry again, and if you don't do something good for someone else, the threat is always hanging over you that ol' Allah will drive a holy car bomb into your life.

My religion is different. My God doesn't threaten me.

In Christianity, charitableness is motivated by gratitude for God's blessings, by thankfulness for one's salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Those who properly understand how Christian salvation works understand that you do not do good works and follow God's teachings and live a moral life as best you can in order to try to earn salvation - you do good works and follow God's teachings and live a moral life as best you can because you have been given the free gift of salvation.

Fear is a lousy motivator.

The sign reminded me of the sermon I heard last Sunday. You can read it here or listen to it here. Excerpt:

Do you really think the best way to call people to Christ is by preaching the fear of hell? To the contrary, John believed and taught that the love of God is more powerful as a motivation to righteousness than the fear of hell.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also (4:13-21).

The fundamental message of the gospel is not that Christ saves from hell but that he embodies the Father’s love. The driving force for new life in Christ is not the fear of hell but the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. And the sustaining power for faithfulness until Christ’s return is not the fear of judgment but the assurance and boldness that result from living in a supportive community of authentic Christian love.

UPDATE: Do NOT miss Michael Williams' posts, God - Good or Evil? and Real Faith - or Donald Sensing's Beware the compassion police: Why compassion cannot be a basis for public policy.

On Blogging

The Tacoma News Tribune explores "the Seattle-area blogopolis" and finds that "when you dip your perceptive mask below the surface of the cybersea, … a whole other planet comes into view" that is "teeming with a young species in love with itself, but not in an annoying way. Web log keepers - bloggers - write about their lives in online diaries. Others open and read the diaries, click on 'send a comment,' and create a community, buzzing with common interests, experiences and questions." The paper calls blogs a "parallel universe, running on two basic human impulses: self-exploration and curiosity about others."

Meanwhile ...

the Christian Science Monitor has a good story today on how some employees use blogs to let off steam, and why some legal experts "warn that blogs can lead to problems for both employers and employees." John Lawlor, a business blogging strategist and author of the upcoming book Blogging Matters, says: "Blogs can be valuable for storing business communications, collaborating with colleagues, and sharing information with clients and vendors." But Christopher Wolf, a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Proskauer Rose, advises clients not to start internal blogs and to keep a close eye on external blogs that mention the company's name.

November 17, 2003

The Future of Blogs in Journalism

Uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan says blogs will replace traditional editorial pages.

Sullivan said his web site now has a larger audience than The New Republic. He said bloggers are taking power away from editors and publishers, and that traditional media's way of expressing opinion will be outpaced. "The op-ed column is a dinosaur as a genre," Sullivan said. "I think that in the future, newspaper editorial pages will have five bloggers rather than five columnists."

Blogs offer users the opportunity to pick sources they trust and come to respect, forcing writers to be personally accountable information they post online. One of the ways blogs enforce this is through web links that appear with each entry. Sullivan said this is important so that readers are given the tools to form their own opinions. Sullivan believes the public is often skeptical of traditional media, which he referred to as "the man behind the curtain."

Sulivan made the comments during remarks at the Online News Association's 2003 Conference and Awards Banquet in Chigago. Here's a web page listing more coverage of blog-related ONA events. Some of the stories were written by students in the journalism program at the university where I work. This wasn't one of them, but I suggest you read it if you are interested in the future of blogs in journalism.

The Real Iraq

Ordinary Iraqis don't care about the whereabouts of the WMD. And they don't want Americans to leave, says New York Times reporter John Burns in an illuminating article today.

And Iraqis want an end to the "Ali Babas," the bandits who terrorize neighborhoods and the roads outside Baghdad. After a narrow escape of my own from six masked, Kalashnikov-brandishing Ali Babas who leapt on the highway about an hour north of Nasiriya on Tuesday night, I could see their point. Only the swift reflexes of Abu Karar, the Iraqi driver who had helped me deal with Mr. Hussein's enforcers before the invasion, saw us through. He switched off our vehicle's lights and drove straight at the Ali Babas at 100 miles an hour, causing them to jump back from the road.

But then there is the bottom line, and it is accessible to anybody who stands on a street corner, as I did in the hours after that near-miss, covering the bombing of the Italian military police compound in Nasiriya. Gesturing toward the smoking hulk of the headquarters where at least 19 Italians and 13 Iraqis died, I asked the crowds if they thought America and its allies should pack up and go home. In the clamor that followed, I asked for quiet so that each man and boy could speak his mind. Unscientific as the poll was, the sentences that flowed expressed a common belief.

"No, no!" one man said. "If the Americans go, it will be chaos everywhere." Another shouted, "There would be a civil war."

"If the Americans, the British or the Italians leave Iraq, we will be handed back to the flunkies of Saddam, the Baathists and Al Qaeda will take over our cities," another man said.

Nobody offered a dissenting view, though many said it would be best if the Americans achieved peace and left as soon as possible. These people, at least, seemed concerned that America should know that the bombers, whoever they were, did not speak for the ordinary citizens of Iraq.

Five Lies about Internet Taxation

Dave McClure, president of the US Internet Industry Association, examines what he says are the five big lies being told by opponents of making permanent the federal ban on Internet access taxes, in this excellent piece at TechCentralStation.com. McClure's association is lobbying for making the ban permanent. Among the five lies McClure debunks are two false themes pushed by U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee:

#1. This is an issue of state's rights that the federal government should not trample. Internet services are global in nature, and clearly fall within the realm of interstate commerce. According to Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution, the individual states have no right to regulate, tax or tamper with interstate commerce. Denying the states the right to tax the Internet is a cornerstone of what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution.

#3. Banning Internet Taxes is an illegal "Unfunded Mandate." In the Republican "Contract with America," Congressmen and Senators pledged they would not pass laws that required the states to spend money unless they also provided for reimbursement of that money. Nowhere in that pledge did they give the states a right to plunder the pocketbooks of working Americans. Nor does the pledge promise that the federal government won't step in to keep the states from acting in a way that harms national interests, such as taxing Internet access.

Alexander portrays the issue as one of states rights versus federal mandates, but that's a red herring. There's no federal mandate involved, simply a federal ban on a certain kind of taxes. The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution clearly gives Congress the right to make laws governing interstate commerce, and the Internet clearly involves interstate commerce.

Read McClure's entire TCS article for the other three lies.

Denton's Growing Blog Empire The

The New York Times profiles blogging entrepreneur Nick Denton and his growing collection of blog-publications. The Times says Denton's blogging venture "is catching the attention of millions of visitors a month and, increasingly, the interests of venture capitalists and New York's media elite - despite Mr. Denton's best efforts to at least feign a desire to remain under the radar."

November 16, 2003

Sunday Sermon

Michael Williams writes about "real faith." Bonus: It'll take less time to read than listening to a 30-minute sermon.

It Looked Like a Wal-Mart Job Fair

But it wasn't. Hundreds of illegal aliens showed up an a Nashville high school to meet wth officials from the Mexican consulate in Atlanta to get ID cards. Why was the INS not there to round them up and send them back to Mexico? And why does a major daily not ask why a major federal agency is failing to do its job?

November 15, 2003

Dumb and Dumber

This story in today's local paper says illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants" can get an ID card from the Mexican consulate, and that some 40,000 of the cards have been issued to illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants" in Tennessean and some nearby states in recent years. The story also says there would be about 1,000 illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants" lined up to apply for the ID cards today.

The Mexican Consulate in Atlanta is setting up shop in an Antioch high school cafeteria today to distribute an identification card that has been the subject of controversy in Tennessee and nationally.

The so-called ''matricula consular'' cards are sought by undocumented immigrants who have no other legitimate form of identification. More than 1,000 people are expected to stand for five hours in lines today at Glencliff High School to apply for the card.

I just have one question. Because, you know, I pay taxes and I want my government agencies to be effective. So, where is la migre? Why doesn't the INS bring a few chartered buses to these events and take these illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants" back to Mexico? Wouldn't it have been a lot cheaper to round up 1,000 illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants" at this event today, than to do all the undercover work necessary before that raid on Wal-Mart a few weeks back that netted only a few hundred illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants"? I'm, you know, just wondering.

State Revenue Surplus Update

The Tennessean covers the state revenue surplus.

The budget is based on projected revenue growth of 3.32%. The growth rate for the most recent three-month period is 8.34%. If the trend for all tax collections continues, the state will end the fiscal year June 30 with about $110 million more than anticipated.

At its current rate of revenue growth, Tennessee could accumulate a $110 million surplus this fiscal year. Sadly, as I reported here Nov. 4, the governor and his administration are already planning to spend the surplus instead of save it in a "rainy day" reserve fund or rebate it to taxpayers. If Tennessee had a Colorado-style Taxpayers Bill of Rights, that kind of big-government fiscal irresponsibility couldn't happen.

Update: The Knoxville News Sentinel's Tom Humphrey reports on the surplus. Humphrey's piece raises an important point: comparing first-quarter revenues to first-quarter revenues in the prior fiscal year is not quite an apples-to-apples comparison because the state sales tax rate was increased two weeks into last fiscal year. The higher rate has been in effect for the entire 13 weeks of the first quarter of this fiscal year.

For a true apples-to-apples comparison, consider just the second and third months of this fiscal year with the second and third months of the last fiscal year. Sales tax collections in September were up a strong 4.31 percent over September 2002, and, as we noted yesterday, sales tax revenue was up 6.58 percent in October compared to October 2002. Bottom line: We have $27.6 million in extra revenue - surplus - after three months of the fiscal year and strong sales tax revenue growth has generated well over half of it, $21.1 million.

Idiot

Slate's Jacob Weisberg says President Bush "never served in the real military, only in the Texas Air National Guard." Darren Kaplan notes that members of the same unit that Bush served with were deployed to Iraq, so it would seem that Weisberg is wrong. As I've noted in posts before, the day Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard to learn to fly fighter jets, pilots from the Texas Air National Guard were flying combat missions in Vietnam.

As I wrote back on May 7, in the first of a series of posts debunking the Left's "Bush was AWOL" charge:

Incidentally, Bush flew with the 111th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which was attached to the 147th Fighter Wing, based in Houston, Texas. While Bush's unit never got called to Vietnam, the 147th was. From 1968 through 1970, pilots from the 147th participated in operation "Palace Alert" and served in Southeast Asia during the height of the Vietnam War. The 147th came off runway alert on Jan. 1, 1970 to start a new mission of training all F-102 pilots in the United States for the Air National Guard.

Bush enlisted as an Airman Basic in the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group at Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, on May 28, 1968 - at a time when the 147th was actively participating in combat in Vietnam. However, one can not train overnight to be a pilot. Bush completed basic flight training and then, from December 1969 through June 27, 1970, he was training full-time at Ellington to be an F-102 pilot.

Bush volunteered to serve in a unit at the very moment it was seeing combat in Vietnam, and only a restructuring of the unit's mission before he completed his flight training made it unlikely he would fly in combat.

Explosive, If True

A memo disributed to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee outlines evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda - including links to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and, possibly, the September 11 attack.

The New York Post has the story. [UPDATE: The Weekly Standard broke the story and its story is the definitive story on the memo.]

The memo goes far beyond the alleged but unproven meeting of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and Saddam's intelligence chief in Prague in April 2001.

The relationship between Saddam and bin Laden continued to grow in the aftermath of the Cole attack when two al Qaeda terrorists were deployed to Iraq to be trained in weapons of mass destruction and to obtain information on "poisons and gases." CIA reporting shows the Saudi National Guard went on a "kingdom-wide state of alert in late December 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia," the memo says.

There's more on the memo here from Rantburg, and here from NRO. Exceprt of the latter:

According to the memo--which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points--Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which in some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.

The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent "emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials." At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, "Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to al Qaeda." The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, "bin Laden wanted to expand his organization's capabilities through ties with Iraq."

UPDATE: Some critics will try to say this is after-the-fact justification of the invasion of Iraq. But it is not. As the Weekly Standard makes clear, the memo outlines classifed pre-war intelligence:

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies.

November 14, 2003

Tennessee Surplus Update

As usual, you get the news of the Tennessee's monthly revenue reports first here at HobbsOnline. After three months of tax collections for the current fiscal year, Tennessee state government has a surplus of $27.6 million, of which $24 million is in the state's general fund. That's down slightly from the $30.2 million accumulated surplus one month ago, but the decline can be attributed to the state refunding excess franchise-excise taxes from businesses last year.

According to the October revenue data just released at 11 a.m. today by the Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration, the Department of Revenue collected $643.4 million in taxes in October, which is just $2.6 million less than the budgeted estimates.

The much-maligned sales tax - blamed in recent years by income tax proponents for cause revenue shortfalls - turned in another surplus in October with collections totaling $4.1 million more than the estimate. October revenue is based on September retail sales. For the first three months of the fiscal year, the sales tax has produced $21.1 million in surplus revenue.

Data from F&A shows that sales tax revenue was up 6.58 percent in October compared to October 2002, and is up 7.85 for the first quarter of FY 2003-04 compared to the same three months at the start of FY 2002-03. The monthly increase is a pure apples-to-apples comparison, with the state's recent sales tax rate increase being in full effect in October 2002 same as in October 2003 - hence, the 6.58 percent growth in sales tax revenue reflects not only more sales tax revenue growth than the state's panel of economist advisers had anticipated, but also reflects a state economy that is growing faster than anticipated.

Total revenue from all taxes was up 7.21 percent in October compared to October 2002, and up 8.34 percent for the three-month period.

At its current rate of revenue growth, Tennessee could accumulate a $110 million surplus this fiscal year. Sadly, as I reported here Nov. 4, the governor and his administration are already planning to spend the surplus instead of save it in a "rainy day" reserve fund or rebate it to taxpayers. If Tennessee had a Colorado-style Taxpayers Bill of Rights, that kind of big-government fiscal irresponsibility couldn't happen.

UDPATE: Here's the press release from the Tennessee Department of Revenue. The F&A press release and accompanying Excel spreadsheet, which together provide detail not included in the Department of Revenue press release, is not posted online. It should be.

The Revenue press release does have more detail on the growth in sales tax revenue, indicating that sales tax revenue was up in all significant sectors of the economy including retail sales (up 7.4 percent) over October 2002, auto dealers and service stations (up 8.2 percent), building materials stores (up 21.3 percent), general merchandise stores (up 7 percent), miscellaneous retail stores (up 8.6 percent), eating and drinking places (up 6.6 percent), apparel and accessory stores (up 10.3 percent), and more. This, clearly, is a broad-based economic recovery under way in Tennessee.

November 12, 2003

A Worthy Cause

AK-47 in Baghdad: $80

Plane ticket from New York-LaGuardia to Amman, Jordan, via American Airlines and Royal Jordanian Airlines, $1,847

Bus ticket from Amman to Baghdad: $600 to $1,000

Sending the loathsome Ted Rall to join the "Iraqi resistance forces," and never hearing from him again: Priceless.

I'll chip in.

UPDATE: Michael J. Totten calls Rall "The Ultimate Wingnut." Also, in comments below Totten's post, someone named "Tim" who, it seems, also writes at a blog called Four Right Wing Wackos, writes

If Rall =really= believes this stuff, and if he =really= supports the violent "Iraqi insurgency", and if he is in the United States penning this dreck, does that make him a chickenhawk?

November 11, 2003

Sinking Hopes

Dean Esmay weighs in on the media's one-sided portrayal of combat in Iraq - focusing only on dead American soldiers and not reporting on how many of the enemy are being killed or captured, and isolating each death as a separate event rather than reporting on events in a strategic light. In a comment below his post, one wag tried to revive the "Vietnam quagmire" meme by commenting, "I seem to recall another conflict where we had a good 'kill ratio': Vietnam."

But the point of Esmay's post and mine about the media ignoring enemy deaths in Iraq isn't to track the "kill ratio." The point is the media focuses on only one side of each battle.

These are photos of the USS Yorktown taken during the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942, during World War 2 in the Pacific. You can click the photos to see larger images.

The first photo shows the Yorktown as it is under attack by Japanese torpedo bombers:

The second photo shows the Yorktown ablaze:

The Yorktown sustained a lot of damage. The second photo shows the scene on board shortly after she was hit by three Japanese bombs. The dense smoke is from fires in her uptakes, caused by a bomb that punctured them and knocked out her boilers. The Yorktown was still burning an hour later while crew attempted to make repairs.

Salvage crews pushed guns, aircraft and other removable weights over the side, counterflooded the ship to reduce the list and did many other things to try to save the ship. The USS Hammann, a destroyer, stayed alongside Yorktown to provide power, water and other assistance.



Midday June 6, however, an undetected Japanese submarine fired four torpedoes, hitting Hammann and Yorktown amidships on their starboard sides. The Hammann sank in minutes, and many of her crew were killed or badly injured in the water when her depth charges exploded as she sank. Yorktown remained afloat, however, lasting through the night despite large torpedo holes on both sides amidships. But as the sun rose on June 7, 1942, the Yorktown slipped beneath the waves and sank three miles to the bottom of the ocean.

Imagine if the press had reported that, at the Battle of Midway only that the Japanese had attacked and sunk the USS Yorktown. Americans reading and hearing that press coverage, not knowing that the U.S. had sunk four Japanese carriers and wreaked great damage on the navy of the Empire of Japan, might have begun to lose hope in the war effort.

If all you know of the Battle of Midway is the sinking of the Yorktown - if all you know of the Battle of Midway is these pictures - then you don't know the truth about the Battle of Midway.

You don't know that the Japanese lost four of the six aircraft carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor - the Akagi, the Kaga, the Hiryu, and the Soryu, sent to their deserved final resting place - and more than one hundred of Japan's best pilots. You don't know that the United States victory at Midway derailed the Japanese offensive in the Pacific, postponed their plans to invade New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, and turned the tide in the Pacific. You don't know that, in a strategic sense, the United States started to win World War 2 in the Pacific at the Battle of Midway.

I understand why the press covers the deaths of even a single American soldier in Iraq. In a war where we have accomplished so much at so small a cost in human lives, each death of an American soldier is news precisely because we have lost so few. Can you imagine Dan Rather reporting from the Battle of the Bulge, or Normandy on D-Day, or Iwo Jima on the death of one American soldier? Of course not.

During past wars, the death of one soldier was not news as it happened hundreds and even thousands of times a day. But if the press is going to report each death of an American soldier in Iraq, it should be fair and put those deaths in context. And part of that context is how the enemy fares after attacking U.S. troops

We lost the Yorktown at Midway. But we started to win the war that day, too. Just like we're winning today in Iraq.

The big difference? Back then, the American press wasn't ashamed to be on our side:

UPDATE: Darren Kaplan has some related thoughts.

UPDATE: A ton of phenomenal Battle of Midway/Yorktown photos here - and a real nice shot of the Hiryu burning, with a huge hole in her flight deck. And this page provides details on the destruction of the Japanese cruiser Mikuma at the end of the Battle of Midway.

UPDATE: I have deleted this photo from this post, purporting the show the Yorktown having rolled over shortly before slipping beneath the waves, because there is growing evidence the photo is not of the Yorktown and that the Yorktown did not roll over before sinking.

UPDATE: Here's a story about the Battle of Midway through the eyes of some men who survived it.

The U.S. lost two ships, and 147 carrier and land-based aircraft at Midway. Japan lost five ships, and 322 carrier-based aircraft. 362 Americans were killed in the Battle of Midway, along with an estimated 3,057 Japanese.

Midway survivor Airman Lee McCleary: "I'm not a hero. The heroes are the guys who didn't come back."

You're wrong, Mr. McLeary. You are a hero, too.

November 10, 2003

Blogging Polticos ... and "Microjournalism"

Wired.com looks at the new "community" blog resource planned by Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark. I don't care for Clark's politics, but his campaign's approach to using the Internet and blogs is certainly interesting.

Also in the same topical vicinity - blogs - is this from MediaPost.com, which examines the role and impact of blogs and "social networking" software on the news business. MediaPost.com is a new addition to my blogroll, under the "Media" category.

And Editor&Publisher has a story on blogging freelance journalist Chris Allbritton, who raised donations via his blog to fund a reporting trip to northern Iraq, where he reported on the war and its impact on the Kurds.

is coverage of the war was very different than that of traditional embedded journalists. His blog spends ample time musing on the future of Iraq and his observations on the transitional society he sees around him. Further, Allbritton uses his intense personal interest in the plight of the Kurds to discuss their ordeal in great detail - an issue he feels the mainstream press is uninterested in and often ignores.

"The Kurds were our best allies," Allbritton said. "They had 70,000 troops [in the American-led coalition], the Brits had 30 or 40,000."

Allbritton faults the "absolutely awful" war coverage by television outlets, but feels that newspapers, particularly The New York Times and The Washington Post, did an admirable job of covering the war. Allbritton also insists coverage such as his, which he believes benefited from its independence from the influence of editors and corporate-owned newspapers, should not be a substitute for more established media outlets.

"I feel that this type of microjournalism, or guerrilla journalism, should really be an addition to your media diet," Allbritton said. "Maybe the vitamins or the garnish rather than some kind of replacement for The New York Times. No one has a monopoly on the truth. It's usually better for readers or the public to go to several different sources and try to get as much of the mosaic of the truth as possible. I was part of that. I felt it was important to have someone in there without adding any kind of filter."

Allbritton says he utilized his close contact with his readers to create a more interactive style of journalism: "My readers e-mailed me and asked me to investigate stories. They would suggest story ideas. I didn't have one editor to answer to, I had thousands. And that was a new way of doing journalism."

November 5, 2003

The View from Iraq

Want to know what's really going on in Baghdad? Read the blog of an Iraqi doctor named Zeyad. Here's an excerpt. Caution - strong language ahead...

You see a handful of teenagers dancing in front of the camera celebrating dead Americans, and you judge an entire people, you start whining about pulling the troops out of Iraq and giving the Iraqis what they deserve. Are you people really so close-minded? It is the fault of your news agencies that show you what they want, its certainly not ours. If you want us to go out and cry for your dead soldiers and wave American flags, then don't count on it either. We are losing way too many innocent Iraqis daily to be grieving over dead soldiers who have actually made a decision to come here. What about the thousands of dead Iraqis who were not as lucky to have a choice? Did you cry for them?

According to a poll by an Iraqi agency, only 3% of Iraqis want Saddam back and less than 40% want the Americans to leave immediately. Did you even hear about these results?

If you think that Iraqis aren't doing enough, then you're being mislead by your media. Thousands of people are applying to be members of IP, FPS, and the civil defense force. They are begging for the security to be in their hands. We know how to handle those scum. The Americans are more interested in being nice and all about human rights and free speech and stuff. We have our own Law and court systems which we can use but the CPA won't allow us to. They are being too lenient and forgiving on our expence. If you think that is what is required to build a successful democracy then you're too deluded. You don't know the first thing about the Iraqi society.

Iraqis are providing intelligence to the CPA hourly. Just ask the soldiers here. Iraqis are cooperating in every way they can. They're losing their lives for it goddammit. If you aren't seeing it on tv, it isn't my fucking problem.

Imagine yourself living in a neighbourhood with a large number of ex-Baathists/Wahhabis/extremists like I do. Would you go out and denounce the Jihadis/Ba'athists openly for everyone to see, and then get back from work one day to find your brother kidnapped or a threat letter hanging on your door? A friend of mine was standing in front of his house with his kids when a car drove by and emptied a magazine of bullets into them. You know why? Because he was working with the CPA in reconstructing Baghdad Airport. What do you think he did? He stubbornly refused to quit his job and bravely returned to work after spending a week in hospital. Would you do the same? Of course not. We expected most of the IP would simply leave their jobs after last weeks bombing, well they didn't. In fact there were thousands of parents volunteering to carry arms and protect the schools which their kids attend to allow the IP to do their real job.

Bookmark Zayed's blog. Read it often. And suggest your leftist co-worker and your local newspaper editor do the same.

Taming the Tax Monster

In Colorado, citizens get to vote on tax increases. Yesterday they voted a very loud NO...

Coloradans defeated by a 3-to-1 ratio a plan that would have raised property taxes on homeowners across the state. Amendment 32, which would have repealed the state's current property tax system, went down early. "It's such a decisive statement by the voters of Colorado. They clearly saw through this, and they said they're not interested," said Ron Stewart, of Citizens for Fairness in Taxation, the group opposing Amendment 32.

The amendment would have repealed the Gallagher Amendment, the popular measure passed by voters in 1982 that drove down residential property tax assessment rates every year since the late 1980s.

November 4, 2003

Governor Already Making Plans to Spend Tennessee's Surplus

If you ever wanted more proof that Tennessee needs the basic protections afforded by a Colorado-style Taxpayers Bill of Rights, just read this news analysis by columnist and former AP statehouse reporter Phil West. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's top budget chief says that, on the one hand, the state's $30 million surplus after two months "does not a year make," but on the other hand he ticks off a list of things the Bredesen administration apparently is planning to spend it on.

For those of you who don't know, the Colorado Taxpayers Bill of Rights requires surplus revenue to be returned to taxpayers via direct rebates or tax rate reductions. The government can't spend it unless it first gets voters' permission in a statewide referendum on a plan that outlines specifically how the money would be spent.

You can learn a lot more about the Taxpayers Bill of Rights here.

Here's an excerpt from West's column...

Just two months into the 2003-04 fiscal year, Tennessee's tax collections are more than 8 percent higher than expected. At this rate, Gov. Phil Bredesen could send us a nice little tax refund next July. Of course, Tennessee's fiscal structure doesn't allow for tax refunds to individual taxpayers, but wouldn't that be nice?

So why is Bredesen asking his department heads to prepare budget requests that are 5 percent lower that what they're getting in this year's $21.5 billion spending plan?

Bredesen has to deal with the usual, nagging commitments like the $100 million contribution to the state employees' retirement fund that is financed by taxpayer dollars. Then there's $57 million to fund growth in the Basic Education Program, the 1992 law that overhauled Tennessee's education system.

Settling the teacher pay equity lawsuit is expected to cost around $50 million a year, from this point forward.

"When you pile up all the new things we need to pay for this year, the amount outstrips the amount of new revenue we have coming in," Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz says.

Despite a weak economic recovery, state tax collections in the first two months of the 2003-04 fiscal year are well ahead of projections.

"Two months of revenue does not a year make," Goetz warns. "People who have money are spending, but there's not that many jobs being created. People have given up looking for work. It's not like we've entered a full-blown economic expansion."

That's true. But two months of tax collections accounts for more than 16 percent of the tax collection year. That's a pretty good trend.

The previous administration called surplus revenue "unbudgeted dollars" and promptly spent them. This administration hasn't gone that far - but Goetz is trying to blur the line between fiscal years.

The increased spending Goetz listed is for the next fiscal year's budget, and should be paid for out of the next fiscal year's tax revenue. Implying there's no surplus this year because we have more expenses next year is disingenuous. There IS a surplus. You ARE paying more taxes than the state really needs. And until Tennessee has a Taxpayers Bill of Rights, bureaucrats WILL find reasons to spend it, and WILL come up with rhetorical tricks to pretend the surplus doesn't exist.

UPDATE: Michael Williams blogs about the distinct possibility that Gov. Schwarzenegger will propose a spending cap for California, with links to an item at Sacramento Bee blogger Daniel Weintraub's blog, which itself links to a Sacramento Bee story about the proposed spending cap that says, accurately, "The mechanism is intended to prevent the state from committing revenue windfalls to ongoing programs, one of the causes of the current fiscal crisis."

Williams says: "If you're familiar with the California budget debacle, you'll know that the cause of our shortfall wasn't a lack of revenue, but reckless spending. There are only 3 numbers you need to know to back up this assertion." And then he gives you those three numbers.

By the way, reckless spending was the cause of Tennessee's budget problems in the past four years too. And it will be again in the future if Tennessee doesn't adopt some sort of cap on governmental spending growth.

November 3, 2003

Hollywood Wouldn't Have Written This Script

This post from Sofia Sideshow via Instapundit will remind you again why you should be proud to be an American - and very proud of our troops over in Iraq.

November 2, 2003

Don't Believe Everything You Read

Washington Post story on hunt for Saddams WMD filled with, uh, factual inaccuracies. [Hat tip: Instapundit]