Race in California

The LA Times carries an opinion piece today by UCLA emeritus professor James Q Wilson, who comments on a proposal due before the California state legislature in October.

The Racial Privacy Initiative would

prohibit any government agency in California from collecting data on race, ethnicity, color or national origin and using it to classify those involved in public education, public contracting or public employment.

The RPI is being promoted by University of California Regent Ward Connerly, who wants California to stop being obsessed with race. Wilson shares Connerly’s desire for a color-blind society but in his view:

the initiative would aid those who want to continue to obsess about race because, no longer privy to the facts, we would invent them.

Wilson argues that the initiative would prevent the collection of racial statistics and make it difficult for social scientists like himself to assess the effect of anti-discrimination laws and other social policy initiatives.

Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the state categorizing people according to race. I find the idea somehow unnerving, even when I’m told it’s for the good of the people.

Blogging the Beeb

I haven’t been following the Gilligan/Kelly story this week. I think we’ve had all the revelations we’re going to get and the whole thing will now be slowly chewed to death by the Hutton inquiry.

I hope the BBC learns a lesson from all this (less hubris and more journalism would be nice) but I’m not optimistic.

The British press are, by and large, still critical of Gilligan and the BBC, though there are dissenting voices, and the Guardian suspects dark forces may be at work.

But never mind the press, read the blogs!

Biased BBC stands constant watch but others at times have seemed not far behind: David Steven has been hard at work (start here and scroll down) and Nzpundit has had a field day recently, take a look at his archives.

Andrew Sullivan thinks the BBC is on the ropes and Patrick Belton at Oxblog has an example of the kind of thing that put it there. Instapundit noticed the Oxblog post and warns that the BBC has learnt to cover its tracks.

Jane Galt is amazed by the BBC’s profile of North Korea, Stephen Pollard has had enough of their John Humphrys, and Oliver Kamm has Rageh Omar under observation.

Meanwhile, somewhere Down Under, Tim Blair previews the forthcoming BBC documentary on the Jessica Lynch story. Even LGF gets in on the act with a reference to Mark Steyn’s piece about the BBC's coverage of Mussolini's death.

Bias? What bias?

The Independent is known for its anti-Americanism. Home of the eponymous Fisk, many of the Independent’s articles are now protected from the attentions of American bloggers by a subscription firewall.

But not Andrew Buncombe’s article, which appears on-line today. It’s a fine example of the artful rewrite and anti-American bias at the Independent.

Buncombe is attacking the American Provisional Authority in Iraq:

America's desire to rebuild Iraq in its own image even extends to setting up a mobile phone network that only works for US phones. A Bahraini company that established a network accessible to those without American phones has been forced to scrap its plans after a week.

The Independent’s angle on the story is that Batelco, the company involved, is a regionally based operator, which has stepped into the breach to provide Iraqis with the essential services they need. And things were going well until the Americans moved in and crushed the initiative.

The writer is in no doubt about the motives behind the American move, nor does he seem to admire the methods used to enforce Batelco’s compliance.

mindful of its desire to set up a tender for the country's mobile network, the US authorities apparently started to put pressure on Batelco, threatening to confiscate its equipment. "They applied enough pressure for us to push the button," said Rashid al-Snan, the company's regional operations manager.

Buncombe ends the article saying, "The provisional authority declined to comment on the alleged threats to Batelco."

On the contrary, the American authority has had quite a lot to say about Batelco and network licensing, Duncombe just hasn't included the statements in his report.

The Batelco story was covered last Thursday in an article by AP business writer Brian Bergstein, which appeared in the Washington Post. The Guardian also ran Bergstein’s story the same day. The article in the Independent appears to be mostly a rewrite of the Associated Press reports but with some of the key facts taken out.

Key facts! What key facts?

You can find them in the original article in the Washington Post and in an update of the story by Adnan Malik in the Washington Post on Monday (emphasis added).

The company, known as Batelco, boldly spent $5 million in the past five weeks setting up its own wireless network in Baghdad without seeking permission of the U.S.-led occupation authority.

Batelco didn't seek permission from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq because it didn't appear such approval was necessary. "There have been enough signs for us to go ahead and do it," al-Snan said.

Al-Snan said Batelco received a letter from U.S. authorities two days after the service started, saying the company needed a license to operate in Iraq. Batelco responded with a request for a license, but was told to stop the service and that provisional authorities were still working out a licensing regime.

[Batelco’s] operations interfered with the signal of MCI, the U.S. company that provides mobile service to officials from the authority, the United Nations and some government departments.

Batelco[‘s] stakeholders include Bahrain's government with 36 percent and Britain's Cable & Wireless

It's clear that Batelco is not an innovative local company trying to provide essential services in Iraq, as the Independent would have us believe. It’s a Bahraini government backed venture, with support from a major British telecommunications company, trying to take advantage of the post-war situation in Iraq to steal a march on the competition.

The Washington Post has this quote from an American official:

“there is that mentality in the region that now is the time to get in and create facts on the ground, and hope that will strengthen their hand when licensing and other things are required."

As Salam Pax said on Tuesday of last week “The Battle for the Iraqi frequencies has started”.

In this context, it looks to me like the American authority acted firmly and responsibly to try and maintain a level playing field, and not because America wants "to rebuild Iraq in its own image" as Duncombe has it.

Of course, I couldn't have come to that judgement if I'd only read the article in the Independent because Duncombe omits many of the relevant facts. But then who can blame him? None of them fitted the story he wanted to write.

Thanks to Mahmood for the link to Salam's post.

Baghdad syndrome

Stockholm syndrome refers to the tendency shown by people taken hostage to identify with their captors, becoming progressively more sympathetic to their cause, even to the extent of becoming willing accomplices in criminal acts.

The syndrome was first identified in 1973. During a six-day siege at a bank in Stockholm, a number of the hostages actively resisted attempts to free them and later refused to testify against their captors.

In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, a new variant of the Stockholm effect has been recognized.

Baghdad syndrome refers to the tendency for journalists sent to report on murderous tyrants to over-identify with them, becoming progressively more sympathetic to their cause, to the extent that they are willing to overlook horrendous crimes and, even afterwards, refuse to admit the truth.

The first cases of Baghdad syndrome have already been well documented. But, as with Stockholm syndrome, the challenge is not only to identify those affected but also to make sure that sufferers are offered the help and support they need.

Awareness is increasing but little is actually being done. Months after the end of the war, the first recorded case of Baghdad syndrome, Peter Arnett, has still not received the treatment he so desperately needs.

Meanwhile, more cases are being reported; the latest is Patrick Graham. Roger L Simon read a recent article by Graham in the Observer and immediately recognized the symptoms.

This article's despicable nostalgia for fascism brings to mind nothing so much as those reminisces about the good old days in pre-war Berlin when "refined" Nazis were drinking champagne and listening to Wagner.

It’s a textbook diagnosis.

More cases will undoubtedly come to light and a number of journalists are presently under observation. The big question is: does Baghdad syndrome affect only journalists or are the general public susceptible? There are already concerns that the syndrome may be spread by contact with certain types of newsprint.

The immediate problem however, is those who are already suffering. The original victims of Stockholm syndrome had access to the best psychiatric care the Swedish medical system could provide.

It is a sad indictment of our society that the victims of Baghdad syndrome, people like Patrick and Peter, are not getting the kind of treatment they deserve.

Banned! Banned! Banned!

Banned! Dalai Lama’s birthday party

Banned! Book that mentions cheating

Banned! Police recruits with unusual tattoos

Banned! Daredevil in Malaysia

Banned! Eleven year-old boy for racist language

Banned! Women teachers in northwest Pakistan

Banned! Perfect lawns in Europe

Banned! Newsweek in Pakistan

Banned! Ice-cream for Pentacostalists

Banned! Liberian from visiting Paris

Road to nowhere

Michael Totten’s latest piece at Tech Central Station, The Globalization of Gaza, looks at progress towards peace in the Middle East in light of recent terrorist attacks around the world, and asks,

Is it possible to support a Palestinian state without encouraging terrorists elsewhere?

It’s a well argued article that makes a strong case for discarding the road map to peace and adopting a much more hard-headed approach to the problem.

The road map offered a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. But everyone who knew the players involved and the history of the region also knew the road map didn't really represent an achievable solution. It looked like a political concession: America would support, diplomatically and financially, the creation of a Palestinian state.

To some the road map may have been seen as a wise move in the run up to the war in Iraq, a small concession: little would probably come of it but it would please the Europeans and make America look a little better to the Arab world.

However, as the article points out, it was a concession under duress:

George W. Bush is the first American president to use the words "Palestinian" and "state" in the same sentence. Bill Clinton never went so far. Bush didn't do this because the Palestinians are suddenly more deserving of a homeland. He did so because they violently demanded it.

More and more, it looks like attempting to implement the road map has done little other than embolden those organisations working hardest for a Palestinian state. That would be fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that those groups are not democratic political parties, they are terrorist organisations with an agenda that goes far beyond the two-state solution.

As Michael Totten says,

We can fight and discourage terror and also work toward a two-state solution. But we can't do both at the same time. And we certainly can't make a Palestinian state the priority.

I think he’s right.

Tony Martin released

The BBC reports that Tony Martin has been released from prison.

In April 2000 Martin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for shooting dead a burglar who had attempted to enter his isolated rural home. The verdict was reduced to manslaughter on appeal and the sentence cut to three years.

The news of Martin's release has been accompanied by reports that police are providing twenty-four hour security at his Norfolk home.

He may well need the protection. The family of Fred Barras, the sixteen year old killed by Martin, are reported to be furious at his release and there are rumours that friends of Barras are offering money to have Martin killed. Given the background and character of Barras’s known associates, this seems not at all unlikely.

At the time of the trial, the case of Tony Martin aroused a lot of interest both over here and in the United States.

Discussion of the case brought up issues around crime and violence, rural policing, gun ownership and the right to self-defence but the investigation came to focus on Martin’s state of mind at the time of the incident.

Martin had been subjected to repeated break-ins at his property and it was said that he had sat up through the night, gun in hand, waiting for someone to break in. It was argued he had formed an intent to wound prior to the event and he could not therefore claim to have been acting wholly in self-defence. It was this, rather than the question of whether of not he used unreasonable force (none of the burglars had a gun) that resulted in the murder charge against him.

I'm pleased he's out but, to my mind, he should never have been jailed in the first place.

The BBC has a timeline for those unfamiliar with the story.

The American way

In an article for the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, summarized on-line, Max Boot provides a summary of the main combat phase of the operation in Iraq in order to demonstrate that America no longer fights wars of attrition.

It’s a long and interesting article in which Boot describes the new “American way of war” and considers how this change in doctrine is affecting military planning and procurement in the information age.

Here's something I found interesting.

U.S. forces used 30 times more bandwidth in Operation Iraqi Freedom than in Desert Storm

But it was what Boot had to say about the A-10 Warthog that really caught my attention and seems to me to make a lot of sense.

Congress should repeal the absurd law that prevents the army, with some minor exceptions, from fielding any fixed-wing aviation of its own. If the air force does not want the A-10, let the army take it over to supplement its helicopters, the vulnerability of which to ground fire and plain old mechanical malfunctions was once again demonstrated in Iraq.

The A-10's role is to provide close ground support. Consequently, the ground-pounders love it and the flyboys hate it. To the Air Force the Warthog is an ugly duckling, it’s slow and it flies too close to the dirt. There’s not enough of that “wide blue yonder” feel about it for most pilots and, as the United States Air Force is run by pilots, they'd like to scrap it.

Why my interest in the A-10?

Well, next to the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, the story of the war that said the most for me about the modern American military was an A-10 sortie over Baghdad and the experiences of the pilot who flew it.

Mercury News ran a story on her.

Eye in the sky

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency, was launched in 1990. Originally scheduled to complete its mission in 2005, NASA extended the project to 2010.

Now, as Dennis Overbye writes in the New York Times, a number of scientists are pleading for Hubble to continue at least until 2013 and possibly beyond.

I wish them luck. Hubble has revolutionized modern astronomy and spurred important research in a number of key areas. Observing from high above the obscuring effects of Earth’s atmosphere, Hubble has been able to provide images of unmatched clarity of a range of celestial objects.

Brown dwarfs, black holes and lensing clusters, the HST has seen them all.

If you’re interested in learning more then hubblesite is probably the best place to go, particularly for their showcase which features some of the awe-inspiring images that Hubble has provided us with over the last thirteen years.

You can also get wallpaper there, as well as facts and figures, HST news and activities for the kids. Well worth a visit.

Broken dreams

There’s another post up on aspects of black identity over at cut on the bias that links to an article in the City Journal about the negative effects of hip hop on black culture. It’s an interesting article whatever your views on contemporary music.

Susanna says she doesn’t really want to focus overly much on race but I’m glad she’s highlighted these issues because they’re worth some thought. Then again, most of time I’d rather not talk about race either and I’ll tell you why.

When I was young we never really talked much about racism as such. Mostly we used words like prejudice and discrimination. Then, as now, you could find people who were prejudiced against all sorts of people: black people, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, gays.

In my family we divided people who were prejudiced into one of two camps, they were either ignorant or bigoted. The difference being that the ignorant people didn’t like black people, Jews, Catholics, immigrants and gays, whereas the bigots hated them and thought of them as inferior and unworthy of civil rights. Of course if you were on the receiving end, the distinction didn’t matter much, the behaviour was the same.

Except there was a difference, generally speaking the ignorant had arrived at their views by absorbing them from their parents and peers. Their views were the kind of conventional un-wisdom that gets handed down from generation to generation.

If they were intelligent ignorants you could talk to them, discuss things and maybe, just maybe, sometimes get them to understand that their views were irrational, based on myths and stereotypes and just plain wrong. Of course most times, even if you could get these people to agree with you, they would still end the conversation by saying “I don’t care, I just don’t like them”.

In contrast, it was never worth trying to discuss things with a bigot. If talking with the ignorant would sometimes make me feel sad that otherwise decent people could hold such ugly views, conversing with a bigot just used to make me angry. They held to hate for hate’s sake alone and nothing would budge them.

Nowadays it seems to me that there aren’t so many ignorant people about as there used to be and the bigots mostly either keep quiet or keep to themselves. But it still seems that race is a big issue in America. Sometimes I think I understand it and sometimes I know I don’t, but it always makes me sad.

I grew up in the Sixties; too young to really understand, I heard the words of Kennedy and King and I watched Neil Armstrong take that giant step. And, in my innocence, I imagined that one day America would be a raceless society and we could all go to the moon.

1441 or fight!

I was asked my reasons for supporting the invasion of Iraq.

I honestly don't know why some people still think it's a relevant question. Maybe we have different priorities.

Let's get the job done and our people safely home.

Showbiz newz

Arnie stalls over terminator role in Recall 2003

Iraqis start buying new Bros video

USMC to help with band aid for Liberia

BBC thinks Campbell ready for solo career

Tour cancelled! Cuban group has visa problems

Why I hate the French

Alistair Cooke has been filing his weekly “Letter from America” since 1946 and every Sunday morning BBC Radio dutifully broadcasts it to the nation.

A learned 94 year old, Cooke seems to carry all of history in his back pocket. English born, a graduate of both Cambridge and Yale and an American citizen since 1941, he embodies the special relationship.

In this week’s despatch, the power of the phrase, Cooke talks mostly about that other special relationship which once existed between France and the United States, and traces its decline to the French sale of fighter jets to Gaddafi’s Lybia in the seventies.

Of Pompidou, the French president who authorised the sale, he says:

it must be a melancholy consolation to his old admirers that in this country his principal footnote to history will associate him not with any high deed of political derring-do but with the contemporary fashion in architecture otherwise known as the outdoor plumbing style.

It is vintage Cooke. Rambling and mellifluous, he touches first on the “uranium from Africa” affair before rolling steadily on through a succession of memorable anecdotes to Lafayette and the French.

If Cooke’s sly teasing is not to your taste then you might like the lyrics to That’s why I hate the French.

It’s only words

Andrew Marr, the BBC’s political editor, is always incredulous of accusations that the BBC is anything but fair and balanced in its reporting.

Unfortunately, Andrew is not as yet offering cash prizes to anyone who can give him a good example of BBC bias; his desire for continued solvency presumably outweighing the loyalty he feels towards his employers.

Here’s a small example of BBC bias from its report on the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein.

US officials said the bodies, each with more than 20 bullet wounds, had undergone post-mortem "facial reconstruction" to make them appear more like they did in real life.

The new footage came a day after US forces released graphic photos showing the mutilated bodies of the men - a move defended by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

What’s wrong with that Andrew might ask? Straightforward presentation of the facts isn’t it?

Well for a start, those quotation marks around the phrase “facial reconstruction” look odd to me. What are they doing there? Mark Steyn, writing in today’s Telegraph, thinks it’s a problem with the keyboards the BBC uses, whereas I think the problem is most likely the chair-keyboard interface.

And notice the article doesn’t say that photos of the bodies had been released, it talks of “graphic photos” of “mutilated bodies”. All quite innocent you might think. After all, many nouns have adjectives that seem to follow them around: photos are often described as “graphic”, bodies as being “mutilated”. Fine. Until you ask who mutilated the bodies.

Who mutilated the bodies? The Americans mutilated the bodies.

Now defenders of the BBC and all right thinking people everywhere might say: “Oh come on! The BBC didn’t mean to imply that the Americans had deliberately mutilated the bodies. The reporter was only trying to get across the fact that the bodies of Uday and Qusay had been grotesquely wounded in the fire fight in which they died.”

But mutilation doesn’t mean grotesquely wounded in combat, it refers to the deliberate disfigurement of a body, usually after death or shortly before. The BBC is aware of this and is normally most careful to use the word correctly.

For example: if you look at the thirty-two other references to “mutilated bodies” on the BBC News site, they refer exclusively to deliberate and gruesome acts, horrific crimes carried out mostly on innocent people.

I know it’s only words, but they matter. Because some people might come away from that story thinking that American forces mutilated the bodies, desecrated the remains by “facial reconstruction” before parading them in front of the Iraqi people and are now looking for somewhere to quietly dump the bodies.

Now that would be culturally insensitive.

Thanks to Tim Blair for the link to Steyn's article in the Telegraph.

Splitting news

Looks like the democratic left in America is splintering again.

It used to be what divided American liberals was their stance on the war in Iraq. They were either hawks or doves.

Now it seems you can divide the left according to their response to the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein.

A couple of days ago Joe Katzman at Winds of Change put the word out for liberal bloggers who were pleased with news of the deaths. Today he publishes a link-filled list of the good guys.

But, as Michael Totten points out, some on the left have sneered at the news.

Well I wouldn’t call it gloating but I’m pretty pleased they’re dead.

The gypsy scholar

David Adesnik, who has provided some incisive analysis of international affairs in his posts at Oxblog, has now returned to the States to take up a fellowship at Harvard.

The good news is that he will continue to contribute to Oxblog.

He has a post up today in fact. Jet-lagged and glad to be home, David has some interesting things to say about his time in England, as well as anti-Americanism, globalisation, life in Israel, cultural differences, American idealism… I told you he was jet-lagged, right?

It’s a piece of free writing that covers a lot of subjects but it’s also a revealing account of David’s experiences as an American in England over the past three years.

It’s not easy being an American overseas these days, even in England, and David describes a common method many of us sometimes use to avoid unnecessary confrontation.

The political differences that divided Britian and America after September 11th helped me to place all sorts of other Anglo-American differences in context. For example, my occasional Australian accent was a product of my first, pre-Sept. 11 year at Oxford. But the anonymity it provided became something entirely different after the Towers fell.

Pretending to be Canadian is the usual choice for Americans travelling incognito but an Australian accent, if you can master it, provides much the same protection.

I know some people back home who used to balk when they heard about this kind of thing. But the reasons for keeping a low profile when travelling abroad have never been more compelling.

Because every encounter is an international relation. Because the curiosity, awe and resentment that American provokes transforms every encounter into a social experiment. Like it or not, every American has to stand in for America.

That’s certainly been my experience in England and I hear things are worse for Americans in France and Germany.

Oh and David, get back to the analysis, you’re making me homesick.

Second thoughts at the BBC

The death of David Kelly and the revelation that he was the sole source for the story on the Iraq weapons dossier have turned the spotlight firmly on the BBC.

I wondered earlier in the week how this would affect the BBC’s board of governors and whether they would continue to support Andrew Gilligan as strongly as they have done up to now.

This report in Thursday’s Guardian suggests that at least some of the board may not be entirely comfortable with the BBC’s current position.

Plans to publish details of Andrew Gilligan's controversial second appearance before the foreign affairs select committee have been postponed indefinitely following an intervention by the chairman of the BBC.

The FAC chairman, Labour MP Donald Anderson, today said he had "reluctantly" agreed to shelve plans to publish the transcript following a written request from Gilligan and a "private communication" from the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies.

Gilligan's request, which only emerged today, appeared to contradict his insistence last week that the transcript of his FAC hearing be published to show what he claimed was the "deliberate misrepresentation" of his evidence by MPs on the committee.

It sounds like the BBC is starting to recognise that Gilligan’s performance in front of the foreign affairs committee was not a resounding success.

A BBC spokesman said Dr Kelly's death and the setting up of Lord Hutton's inquiry had resulted in a change of heart about the publication of the FAC transcript.

We were urging the publication of the transcript as early as possible last Thursday night. Given the intervening tragic events and the setting up of Lord Hutton's inquiry, it is surely more appropriate that this transcript is made available during the course of the inquiry," she added.

The BBC has reasons to be cautious.

The death of Dr Kelly and the circumstances surrounding it have become the subject of a judicial inquiry, a much more serious proceeding than the Commons committee that previously examined the BBC’s story.

The BBC‘s refusal to confirm that Kelly was the source for the story during the committee’s investigation provided a refuge from some difficult questions. There will be no such refuge from the Hutton inquiry.

The report by the foreign affairs committee left the original story in tatters and the BBC looking shoddy. Under heavy questioning Gilligan had seemed to squirm and Donald Anderson, the committee’s chairman, came to regard him as an unreliable witness. The BBC’s governors may well be wondering how well Gilligan will stand up in front of Lord Hutton.

There must be some people at the BBC who wish this story had never been born.

Day by day

This news just in.

Chris Muir’s on-line strip day by day will be back Monday.

Chris was temporarily out of the game for medical reasons but things have gone so well that he’ll be back at the drawing-board sooner than expected.

Glad to hear it. Welcome back Chris!

I read the strip every day and they're all good but this one from March 17 is one of my personal favourites.

Dude, you're getting a gale!

I don’t want to generalize and I’ve no wish to promote national stereotypes, you can get that kind of thing elsewhere, but…

A couple of things I’ve long admired about the English are their phlegmatic reserve and genius for understatement.

Not sure what I’m talking about? Go listen to the Shipping Forecast.

The seas around Britain might be churned by gale force winds, waves higher than a four-storey house, visibility down to less than zilch and a hurricane on the way; it wouldn't make any difference, the report would still be given in the same calm, reassuring tone.

And now a general report for all areas
West or Southwest 7
Increasing gale 8 to storm force 10
Perhaps hurricane force 12 later
Occasional thundery rain
Poor

It’s mesmerizing, undecipherable on first hearing and characteristically English.

Race and social identity

I mentioned earlier that Susanna over at cut on the bias has an interesting post up about black identity and attitudes towards the police.

I didn’t add much when I posted the link because, although I connected with the story, I’d already mailed Susanna with my reaction to it.

Susanna has included my response in one of her recent posts. If you’re interested you can go read it here and while you’re there take a look at some of the other stuff she's writing about.

Especially the black Camaro. Some of us were surprised.

Praying for an Instalanche

Mmmm.

George Junior was two weeks old yesterday and still no sign of a link from Instapundit.

I tell you, this: “Write it and He will come” thing just ain’t working for me.

Anyone for cricket?

If you are an American visitor to England, and you’re thinking of attending a cricket match here this summer, there are a couple of things you should know.

Cricket in England is more than just a sport, it’s a method of irrigation.

Cricket and precipitation have become so inextricably linked that, even at the height of summer, spectators wear stout waterproof shoes and carry umbrellas and plastic macs.

Most cricket matches last at least a day and can go on for four or five, so it seems reasonable to assume that some matches will be interrupted by the weather. However, the incidence of rain at cricket matches is much greater than can be explained by chance. Indeed, the effect is so dependable that, in the event of drought, matches between the English counties may be hastily rescheduled and rain brought swiftly to the affected areas.

You should also be aware that the English regard the fact that we can’t beat them at cricket as remarkably funny. That is to say, they will remark on it and you are expected to find it funny.

I got tired of playing that game a long time ago. So now, I just look them straight in the eye and tell it like it is.

We used to play a fair amount of cricket in the US.
The first ever international cricket match took place between the USA and Canada in Manhattan in 1844 and the first overseas tour by English cricketers was to Canada and the USA back in 1859. John Wisden (the almanac man) was one of the touring players.
We produced some good cricketers too, like Robert Newhall who bowled W G Grace first ball. Grace immediately presented Newhall with his bat, which is now kept at the CC Morris Library at Haverford College just outside Philadelphia.
And some good sides: In Guyana in 1888 the US team beat the West Indies by nine wickets on the first day of a two innings match. In their first innings, which lasted less than an hour, the West Indies scored only 19 runs, their lowest score ever in international cricket.
Seems like we weren't bad at the game back then. Who knows what might have happened had we been allowed to continue playing at international level?
Unfortunately, in 1898 the MCC founded the Imperial Cricket Conference and countries outside the British Commonwealth were excluded from international cricket.
I wonder if that was the point at which we decided as a nation that we were temperamentally unsuited to the game.
If you ever wonder why America is "the only one of our former colonies that can't beat us at cricket" maybe it has something to do with the fact that we were banned from competing.

The blockquote is an edited comment originally posted at Across the Atlantic.

Talking turkey

Home thoughts from abroad

Summer in England and my thoughts always turn to Thanksgiving. Will we be back in the States for it this year? Probably not. This November, as last, it looks like we’ll be staying put here in England.

We’ll still have Thanksgiving of course; turkey and cranberry sauce, potatoes and candied yam. Mac will make apple pie and afterwards we’ll all sit down in front of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and I’ll fall asleep in the chair.

But it won’t feel like Thanksgiving. It never does when your neighbors aren’t celebrating it. I never really thought about it before but a big part of Thanksgiving is knowing that your neighbors are doing the same thing. It’s comforting, kind of like being in the middle of a large herd - safe from harm and surrounded by friends and family.

I was home for Thanksgiving in 2000 and again 2001. Before 9/11 it was just like it had always been, afterwards it would never be the same again. We went out to the holiday sales, United We Stand signs everywhere and you couldn’t get a flag for love nor money. Sold out.

Now, when I watch the news and read the papers, visit blogs or talk to people on the phone, it looks and sounds like we’ve become a deeply divided nation. Seeing that, I sometimes think it’s better that we’re not going over this year.

I’d rather remember that earlier Thanksgiving in America when, perhaps because we had been so recently wounded, we shared the brief illusion that we would get through this thing together.

Everybody's doing it!

First the revelation that Andrew Gilligan kept a weblog while he was in Baghdad covering the war for the BBC.

Then today the Telegraph publishes what looks like an extract from Andrew Marr’s blog.

Andrew, who is the BBC's political editor and a nervous fellow at the best of times, seems worried by talk of resignations close to home. He was ok when it was politicians being called on to resign but the thought of journalists losing their jobs has made him skittish.

Everyone should resign. Tony Blair; Geoff Hoon; Alastair Campbell; Alastair Campbell's missus; all spin doctors; the BBC governors; Gavyn Davies; Greg Dyke; Andrew Gilligan; Andrew Marr - indeed, everyone called Andrew at the BBC - the foreign affairs select committee; the editor of The Times; the Madonna of the Pinks... all these people must, for the sake of the nation, go.

If anyone has a link to Andy’s blog drop by and wish him luck. He could do with some right now.

Thanks to Tony Blyth for the link in today’s round-up of views from the Telegraph over at Biased BBC.

Smoke and mirrors

The BBC has revealed that it has an audiotape of Newsnight science editor Susan Watts speaking with Dr David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of the Iraq weapons dossier story.

The Guardian (whose story was on-line shortly before the BBC’s) has this to say about the news:

The BBC believes the tape is the "smoking gun" that will exonerate Andrew Gilligan.

The tape's existence explains the corporation's determination to stick by its story under the onslaught of criticism from No 10.

This suggests to me that the BBC thinks it has just pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

It hasn’t of course. Nevertheless, I am sure the BBC will work hard to convince us that the tape provides corroboration and supporting evidence for Andrew Gilligan’s story and somehow justifies the decision to publish the original reports.

If the BBC gets a pass on this then we should expect an avalanche of big, important, “This will change the world if it’s true!” stories, all beginning with the words: “I got back from the pub last night and someone had left this message on my answering service…”

There are a thousand stories in the naked city and this is just one.

Some of them are interesting, few of them are true and not one of them is worth the BBC’s reputation.

Fair and balanced

Susanna at cut on the bias has a post up about a dispute at the Hartford Courant between the staff cartoonist and the paper’s ombudsman. It’s about a cartoon the Courant published but it’s also about black identity and attitudes towards the police in crime-ridden communities.

It’s called "He sucks, but I respect him" and it's well worth the read.

There’s something you should know: cut on the bias is one of my sidebar links. Susanna and the other people I link to in the sidebar are there because I read them, not because I agree with them or because they represent my picks for “Best of the Web”.

I suppose if they represent anything it’s a kind of coalition of the willing: American, English and Australian, men and women, with a range of political opinions. There are probably few things they would all agree on.

Of course Instapundit is there because he’s Instapundit, the rest because they are good to read, not because they are fair and balanced.

Oh and by the way, don’t be fooled by those doggy pictures Rachel Lucas puts up now and again. When Rachel’s hot and bothered about something she writes piquant rants full of sassy impudence.

Small but perfectly formed.

The Jayson Gilligan Affair

Reading some of the stuff the BBC has put out over the last two days I have despaired of Andrew Gilligan and Richard Sambrook ever resigning, if only for “for the good of the collective”.

But every now and again, I detect a glimmer at the BBC that may well be the dawning of self-awareness. This was Andrew Marr (whose work I admire) writing on Sunday and thinking the unthinkable.

But if it turned out that Mr Gilligan was wrong - because that is the accusation being made in effect, that he sexed up what Dr Kelly said and broadcast an inaccurate report, and then the whole weight of the BBC hierarchy, right up to the governors swung behind him and his judgement - if that turned out to be wrong - and I say if - that would be extremely serious for the BBC all the way up.

And this piece from Nick Higham on Monday was revealing, it restates the BBC’s case while providing an insight into the groupthink required to build a house of cards.

For an organisation which sets great store by its reputation for accuracy and impartiality this is potentially immensely damaging. It helps to explain why, ever since Andrew Gilligan's controversial report was broadcast on the Today programme on 29 May, the BBC has so steadfastly resisted government pressure to retract or apologise. There is simply too much at stake.

But then, right at the end, Higham goes and gets the fundamental question wrong.

For the BBC the fundamental question is still this: did the two journalists accurately report what Dr Kelly said - even if Dr Kelly himself later denied saying it to the foreign affairs select committee?
But of course there is a wider question as well. If he did say what Mr Gilligan and Ms Watts alleged, was Dr Kelly right?

For God’s sake people! This is not epistemology.

Andrew Gilligan wrote a story that might have been the biggest story of his career, if he could have substantiated it but he couldn’t. All he had was a single source, Dr Kelly, whose reliability even the BBC now seems to be questioning.

The story should never have seen the light of day.

The fundamental question for the BBC is: what is Greg Dyke going to do about it?

North of the border

I was trawling the net over the weekend looking for reactions to Blair’s speech before Congress when I came across this piece by Gerald Warner in Scotland on Sunday.

I don’t know what I expected when I clicked on the link but what I got was a sketch of two American Congressmen talking about “Tony B Liar, President of the United Kingdom” in funny (?) accents. This is followed by Warner’s analysis, which includes references to “Dubya” and, wait for it, “dimpled chads”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think foreigners with funny accents in newspaper columns can be hilarious. I laugh when Mark Steyn does it, but the point is you’ve got to be good to get away with it.

And the dimpled chad thing? Well, there may still be some demented Florida Democrats walking around mumbling to themselves about all kinds of chads but we’re closer to the next election than the last and Gerald Warner looks to be facing the wrong way.

Sometimes it seems to me that large parts of the British press don’t listen to a word their prime minister says; they hear the words all right, but refusing to attribute either sense or meaning to them, they simply ignore them and carry on with what they were going to write anyway.

Just like the papers back home.

Pinhead politics

I'm glad I wasn't on this flight.

John Gilmore boarded a British Airways flight to London but was asked to leave the aircraft shortly before take-off when he refused to remove a lapel pin he was wearing that said “suspected terrorist”.

Presumably concerned that it might unnerve the other passengers, a flight attendant who noticed the pin asked him to remove it, John refused to do so and the captain was called. The captain also asked him to remove the pin but John maintained his principled stance and again refused. So they turned the plane around and took John, and the three hundred other passengers on board, back to the departure gate, where John, his pin and sweetheart Annie disembarked.

I’m with Michele on this one:

Gilmore's wearing of that button was nothing more than him stating "Hey, look at me, I'm here to cause controversy!" That was most likely his only statement. I do understand the sentiment behind the words "suspected terrorist," in a way everyone is suspect these days. But I have better sense than to disrupt everyone around me in order to make my views known.

On second thoughts, if John is so attached to that pin maybe they should be allowed at least one plane-ride together. Because I’d like to see John and that pin of his on a long-haul flight, sat between Misha and Kim du Toit, two guys who share John’s interest in American freedoms.

I feel sure there would be a lively debate.

How bad is it?

Pretty bad.

I’ve been reading British press reaction to the news that David Kelly, the British scientist who committed suicide last week, was the BBC’s source for their story on the “sexed-up” Iraq weapons dossier.

The Times goes for “BBC in crisis as Blair mood swings”
The Guardian has “BBC under fire as it admits Dr Kelly was source”.
The Independent runs with “BBC chairman under fire after admitting Kelly was key source”.

Even the BBC has been forced to acknowledge that it has now become the key focus of the story and has helpfully provided a round-up of press reaction

Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist who wrote the original story, has been forced to deny that he made the whole thing up and the BBC’s director of news, Richard Sambrook, has issued a statement saying that, once again, he stands by his man. It remains to be seen whether this time round Greg Dyke, Gavyn Davies and the rest of the BBC’s board of governors will be so eager to join him in endorsing Gilligan’s journalism.

Those who have been watching the BBC carefully in recent times (Biased BBC for example) will have known something like this was on the cards. Second-rate journalism, poor editorial judgement and sheer bad management at BBC News have unfortunately provided a steady stream of bad examples for anyone with an interest in journalistic standards and media bias.

It’s good to see that other bloggers, both back home and Down Under, are starting to comment on the story: Jeff Jarvis has a mammoth post up that speaks directly to the issues involved and Nzpundit hits the nail on the head with a couple of posts yesterday and another one today.

The David Kelly Story

Some people are already saying that the tragic death of David Kelly is the beginning of the end for Tony Blair. David Carr at Samizdata thought Blair was in deep trouble even before the news of Kelly’s death and Iain Murray thinks we may now have reached a tipping point.

It’s clear that an increasing number of people are actively seeking Blair’s downfall. The New Statesman for example, which described Blair as a “psychopath” last week in a string of bizarre articles. The knives are certainly out; it’s just that, for the most part, they are poorly fashioned weapons wielded incompetently by the usual suspects.

The news of David Kelley’s tragic and untimely death will no doubt add considerably to the government’s difficulties but it is hard to see how it will do serious damage to Blair himself, unless he comes to be regarded as in some way culpable.

Much has been made of Kelly’s treatment at the hands of the Commons foreign affairs committee. The judicial inquiry that is to be set up under Lord Hutton will examine this, and will no doubt look again at the committee’s findings. People will quite rightly want to know how Kelly's employers, the Ministry of Defence, treated him after he came forward and how closely the government was involved. The Sunday Times is already asking serious questions.

Whatever the final judgment on the government’s handling of this matter, and regardless of the spin put on the story, I doubt whether anyone is going to seriously believe that Blair was somehow responsible for Kelly’s death. I make an exception for Glenda Jackson, the British Labour MP and theatrical dame, who is already calling for his resignation.

David Kelly will, I am sure, be lionised in some quarters as a courageous whistleblower. But what exactly did he blow the whistle on? The foreign affairs committee found the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan to be an “unreliable witness” but otherwise found nothing of substance. Kelly himself admitted that he hadn’t said many of the things attributed to the anonymous source in the BBC’s original report.

To my mind, the key question in all this is not how much responsibility Tony Blair will shoulder for David Kelly’s death, but whether or not Kelly was the source for the BBC’s story.

The answer to that question may yet do more damage to the BBC than to Tony Blair and his government.


If you’re looking for some background to this story the BBC has a timeline of events and if it's conspiracy theories you're after Tim Blair has some choice excerpts from Indymedia. I’ve also previously commented on the story here and here.

UPDATE
The BBC reports: "The BBC has disclosed that Dr David Kelly was the principal source for its controversial report claiming Downing Street "sexed up" an Iraq weapons dossier."

French anti-Semitism

In a Memo to Everyone Eric Alterman says that although the French are “mildly anti-Semitic”…

“It’s not the ultra-rightists and neo-Nazis” who are responsible for the latest attacks on French Jews but members of the country’s “North African and Arab immigrant community” and therefore “the best way to ameliorate it would be for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.”

According to Alterman, the perpetrators of these crimes don’t hate their Jewish victims, they are just unhappy at Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

I thought we were looking at hate crimes, turns out it’s just another another kind of intifada.

Michael Totten is fed up with this kind of thing and Jeff Jarvis thinks Alterman has made the “moral mistake of the age”.

Thanks to Roger L Simon for the links.

Tedious parlour games

I had a nightmare last night.

I dreamt that I’d been kidnapped by a gang of Blue Meanies. They locked me in this big old crumbling house and made me play Trivial Pursuit, except all the questions were about weapons of mass destruction and the reasons for war in Iraq.

Even when I got a question right they’d just laugh at me and say “That’s not what’s written on the card!”

Mr Blair goes to Washington

It sounds like the British Prime Minister’s speech to the joint meeting of Congress on Thursday was a bravura performance.

Porphyrogenitus records it
Joe Katzman garlands it
Lileks sums it up

I’ve heard it said that Tony Blair prefers a North American audience because we are less critical of him.

This may be because we are not engaged with him in the grubby pragmatism of domestic politics and are therefore more willing to believe that he is driven by reasoned principle and sincere conviction.

Does the wide Atlantic add perspective or just obscure the view?

UPDATE
Alain E Brain has a link to C-SPAN’s video coverage of the speech.

Who's on first?

The world is divided into two types of people: those who like Abbot and Costello and those who loathe them.

Me, I’m a fan. I used to have an audiotape featuring some of their sketches including the “Who’s on First” routine. I was pretty peeved some years ago when I realised I’d lost it, probably while moving house one time.

I moved house a lot in my twenties and I lost a lot of stuff in the process. Boxes and boxes of stuff: old photos, tapes, albums (large round vinyl things in cardboard sleeves), all manner of sports equipment and a host of strange artefacts that carried college memories.

Like I said, boxes and boxes of stuff.

That final scene in Indiana Jones where they crate up the Ark of the Covenant and lock it away in a huge warehouse; the rest of the crates in there are mine. Carefully packed and diligently undelivered.

Anyway, I don’t know why but I never thought to look for that old Bud and Lou sketch on-line. But Mac did, and last night she found it for me.

LOL!

Chocolate mouse trap

New Scientist magazine reports that researchers at Warwick University have developed a chocolate-based trap to capture rodents.

Sorex Ltd, the UK company planning to manufacture the trap, say that when offered the choice of chocolate, cheese or vanilla, most mice choose chocolate.

What does the BBC stand for?

It’s a question I often ask.

Tom Baldwin in an article at Times Online has some suggestions:

the BBC does not stand for principle but Blundering Bombastic Cynicism. Is the corporation becoming the Blair Baiting Campaign or is it a case of Blinkered Bosses Cornered? Maybe both. Bye Bye Credibility.”

The strange case of Andrew Gilligan and the single anonymous source, which I commented on last week, is looking more and more like it’s capable of doing real damage to the BBC.

It didn’t have to be this way. The BBC could have backed down early on and hung Gilligan out to dry. Instead, they trotted out their mandarins like Russian dolls to stand by Gilligan and his story. Perhaps they were hoping that the appearance of successive layers of BBC management would somehow blind us to the facts.

If this story continues to run, and it shows every sign of doing so, then by this time next week I think some people will be looking for a sacrificial victim. It is becoming increasingly obvious, to everyone but the BBC, that there are no plausible candidates for this role on the government side.

Link via Instapundit.

UPDATE
The BBC reports: “A body matching the description of Dr David Kelly - the weapons expert at the centre of the Iraq dossier row - has been found at a beauty spot close to his home in Oxfordshire.”

Early morning waking

Up before the sun today. No, not insomnia as such, just a disturbed sleep pattern. The result of spending too much of yesterday dozing on the couch in between coughing fits.

I’m ok now but for a while yesterday I was worried I’d succumbed to blogger’s bane.

No one talks about it much but it’s out there. The condition takes a variety of forms and can strike at any time. New bloggers and those who have recently revamped their sites are amongst the most vulnerable but no one it seems is immune. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, loss of employment, loss of health and serious computer problems.

Cycling through my links this morning I see from Vodkapundit that Andy over at The World Wide Rant is the latest victim. He's been down-sized.

Andy is a process improvement consultant, with experience in process work, change management, customer care strategies, and a whole lot more. If you know of any openings click-on over and let him know.

And if you have any spare change to offer up there’s a doey button on his sidebar that’ll take care of it for you.

george junior is unavailable

george junior is just that
george junior is there to reform these guys based on a token economy set to change character
george junior is available once more
george junior is claire's husband
george junior is the most dangerous puppet on the planet
george junior is suggesting a pre
george junior is the wealthy huckster guru of high
george junior is now trading with the enemy
george junior is coming to an end and he could return to michigan if he so chooses
george junior is the only son of george and vera
george junior is a son listed
george junior is the first born son of george the california desert tortoise i have had for about 40 years
george junior is not big on vision
george junior is an exact
george junior is finishing off his father’s business
george junior is president i have noticed that you never do see any pictures of the back of his head
george junior is simply following out his father's promises
george junior is now using
george junior is in
george junior is no mental giant
george junior is no slouch when it comes to shady deals with the bin laden family and other crooked interests such as drugs
george junior is determined to
george junior is taking revenge on the wrong man
george junior is unavailable

Light entertainment

Andrew Marr, the BBC's political editor, is well known for his use of colourful metaphor and strange simile but he surpassed himself this evening.

Speaking live from the Houses of Parliament on tonight’s News at Ten, he was called to comment on Tony Blair’s recent spirited performance in the Commons.

The Prime Minister, Marr said, had been “popping up like Tigger on amphetamines”.

Frank! Are you writing this guy’s material?

I missed it

David Adesnik over at OxBlog says VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE! reminding us all that Monday was Bastille Day.

Wisely steering away from any “snide remark about the vanity and hypocrisy of modern-day France”, David chooses instead to criticise Benjamin Franklin for this take on the French:

always play to their pride and vanity by constantly seeking their opinion and advice, and they will admire you for your judgment and wisdom.

Benjamin Franklin was, as I think Fireside Theatre once pointed out, the only president of the United States never to have been president of the United States. So I have nothing but respect for the great man.

I’m inclined to believe that there may still be some wisdom in what Franklin said, however injurious it may be to French vanity.

I agree that Franklin’s observation cannot serve as the basis for a resilient alliance and we should “remind ourselves and the French that our nations are founded on shared ideals.”

But I also think that any alliance founded on ideals rather than on the interests of states is likely to fail the first time it's put to the test.

Philistines and theorists

Michael J Totten takes a swipe at both for their approach to art appreciation and illustrates the dangers of “political dogma that uses art as a prop” with a link to a story in the LA Times.

The piece by David Weddle lifts the veil on film studies at UCSB and lambastes the glass bead game that passes for modern film theory.

David’s daughter is majoring in film studies at UCSB so this is also an epic tale of parental intervention.

I’m only going to say this once.

Go read the whole thing.

Liberal Arts

Do you ever have the feeling that some people just don't get your favourite movies?

Tidal wave of brilliance

Alice Bachini overwhelmed.

Never mind the tidal wave of brilliance, what about the insignificant microbes?

Score upon score, lurking unlinked in the darker reaches of the Blogosphere.

Almost forgot!

That felafel recipe is here.

Maple Leaf Rag

Late to the keyboard today after an extended shopping trip.

I’m cooking felafel tonight (the boys call them Chick-pea McNuggets) and I was out shopping for ingredients when I got into a long conversation with one of the local store owners.

She’s a very nice lady and it was a pleasant conversation but something she said made me smile: “Oh you’re an American are you? I’ve met a lot of Canadians but I’ve never met an American.”

What amused me was, chances are, some of those “Canadians” she’d met were Americans travelling incognito.

I don’t know whether this is common knowledge outside the States (so maybe I shouldn’t be sharing it) but pretending to be Canadian is the traditional method of avoiding anti-American sentiment when travelling overseas.

I’m not knocking it, just saying it happens. And it can be very effective, particularly when combined with a maple leaf t-shirt and an odd lilt.

Retractions you can trust

Drudge reports that the New York Times is preparing to retract a story they ran last week about Steven Gottlieb, founder and president of TVT Records.

Times business reporter Lynette Holloway, writing in last Monday’s print edition, said that Gottlieb had lost control of the company. Turns out he hasn’t.

Drudge notes that Richard Friedman at Fox was all over the story on Friday. And, if lines like this are any guide, having some fun with it too.

This was in the New York Times so maybe people believed it.

Brightblogger Watch

I had thought this bright idea had gone off to paddle in the shallows but then the New York Times published an op-ed on the subject by Daniel Dennett and now it looks like we’re going to have another round of blogging.

Deane Esmay is
Pejman isn’t
Calpundit was ready to sign up on Friday but by Sunday he didn’t sound so sure
Andrea Harris definitely isn’t

Me? I’m staying out of it. There’ll be another meme along in a minute.

Is race real?

Vodkapundit links to an op-ed in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof.

It’s an interesting article that makes a number of good points but I take issue with Kristof when he says:

It's hard to argue that ethnicity is an empty concept when one gene mutation for an iron storage disease, hemochromatosis, affects fewer than 1 percent of Armenians but 8 percent of Norwegians.”

No it isn’t. Variations in the distribution of genetic mutations in the human population are to be expected between geographically separated or otherwise isolated groups.

Ethnicity is simply not a meaningful category in genetics. Sociologists might find the term useful in understanding and describing processes leading to the isolation of particular groups within a population but, as Bryan Sykes says in the article, “There's no genetic basis for any kind of rigid ethnic or racial classification at all”.

I had thought this fact was universally acknowledged but Kristof refers to “the raging scientific debate about whether there is anything real to the notion of race”.

I’d be worried if I thought any of those raging debaters were geneticists.

Out and about

Last weekend we took the boys over to The American Museum in Bath.

They had a number of special events organised including a display by The Crown Forces of 1776: scarlet coats, Brown Besses and a short six-pounder that seemed to shake the whole valley each time it was fired.

When we arrived the Red Coats were already drawn up on the lawn in front of the Great House engaged in diverse drills. Second Son, his blood up and a sparkle in his eye, suggested we go stand in the tree line and take pot shots at them.

Unfortunately we’d left our Kentucky Long Rifles at home.

Lacking the wherewithal to harass and impede the enemy’s maneuvers we retired to the terrace for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

What he said

Kerry Buttram expresses his thoughts on the BBC.

Were we lied to?

Lt Smash doesn’t know whether to be “amazed or amused” by the latest hullabaloo over President Bush’s State of the Union address.

I take his point but I think it’s important that we find out whether or not we were deliberately misled by these people.

Two quotes from their report give me cause for concern:

casualties among children will be in the thousands, probably in the tens of thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands.

And

The UN estimates that a war could lead to more than 1.4 million refugees and as many as 2 million internally displaced persons.

On second thoughts, I'm inclined to be charitable and attribute both to a lack of intelligence.

Today I am reading...

If you know someone who reads popular science books, is interested in those ideas that dance around the periphery of acceptable research and has a birthday coming up then they might appreciate

"The Scientist, The Madman, the Thief and Their Lightbulb” by Keith Tutt.

Keith and I worked together briefly nearly twenty years ago before life took us our separate ways. He is a talented and charming man and it’s nice to see him and his wife Hannah doing well.

Caveat scriptor

Instapundit links to a fine example of the dangers of using a single source even if it’s someone you “know” and “trust”.

Remind me what that first B stands for

these days.

Never go out on a limb unless you are sure it will bear your weight

The spat between the BBC and the British Government over the Iraq arms dossier brings to mind the image of a whole lot of people up a too small tree.

It didn’t look safe to me when Andrew Gilligan was up there on his own but when the rest of them climbed up to join him: I watched in silent disbelief. This is not one of those situations where there’s safety in numbers.

Now we’ve got Gilligan, Richard Sambrook and Greg Dyke along with Gavyn Davies and the rest of the BBC’s board of governors all sitting on a single anonymous source.

Maybe the rules are different for the BBC these days but I always thought one of the cardinal principles of good journalism was the bigger the story, the stronger and more numerous the sources you needed to back it up. And most times, no matter how big the story might be, if you can’t corroborate it you don’t run with it.

No matter how much you want to.

Life or Death?

Susanna over at cut on the bias has a couple of long but interesting posts on the death penalty.

The first deals with capital punishment in general and offers suggestions for reform while the second addresses the use of mitigating circumstances in sentencing by reference to a real murder trial and the deliberations of the jury.

Fascinating and disturbing reading.

Personally I’m against the death penalty, not because I’m soft on crime (I’m not) or because I think execution is a cruel and unusual punishment (I don’t) but because human fallibility, as Susanna rightly acknowledges, means that every so often we execute people who are innocent of the crime for which they were convicted.

A Fourth without fireworks

Americans in England on the Fourth of July might consider following the State Department’s advice to Americans overseas to keep a low profile.

Not that we’re in danger of attack, it’s just that around the Fourth some of the English can get a bee in their bonnet about things American.

Peter Cuthbertson’s take on the day over at Conservative Commentary is a case in point.

So, although we make a big deal of Thanksgiving, being mindful of the sensitivities of our hosts, we celebrate Independence Day quietly at home and (much to the disappointment of the boys) no fireworks.

Even those who wish us well often can’t resist a bit of leg pulling.