If a tree falls in a forest and the press doesn't see it, did it actually fall?

An exercise by the New York Times in solipism and delusions of grandeur:

If an important meeting takes place in the Oval Office and there are no television cameras to record it, did the meeting matter? [This line makes me want to slap the "journalist."]

ABC, NBC and CBS all led their evening news programs with the Sept. 11 commission's meeting with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday. Yet no television news program had images of the encounter. A paranoid conspiracy theorist could conclude that the much-anticipated White House interview never took place.

There were no pictures of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney sitting side by side in front of the Oval Office fireplace. There was no tape of the president or Mr. Cheney greeting or talking to commission members at the White House entrance.

[...]

On a day when viewers could watch American marines battling rebels in Falluja and see Jayson Williams squirm in his courtroom seat while awaiting a verdict on manslaughter charges, the blackout at the White House was striking.

[...]

CNN and other cable networks had to resort to showing, over and over, an archival tape from a 2003 interview that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney gave while seated in armchairs in front of the Oval Office fireplace. The closest most viewers got to the Oval Office yesterday was watching "The Wayne Brady Show," whose guest was Dule Hill, the actor who plays a White House aide on "The West Wing."

[...]

The White House's insistence on a private, no-tech meeting made political sense — the president's aides have no interest in allowing pictures that might make him look vulnerable under questioning or overly reliant on his older vice president. But the nonvisual event was so anathema to television that at one point, the CNN anchor Daryn Kagan said it seemed as if "the event took place in the 18th century."[All emphasis mine]

Forget bias, this arrogance and obliviousness is the real reason people don't like mainstream media.

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Article first seen at Amish Tech Support.

Web games

Via Michele.

GRAB THAT BOOK
Via half the Internet, it’s the latest crazy random words game:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

After a few sorry years, "New Math" (which was already over a hundred years old) was dropped from the syllabus.

The Millenium Problems, by Keith Devlin.

Also from Michele:

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title.

When I wake up early in the morning
lift my head, I'm still yawning.
When I'm in the middle of a dream
stay in bed, float upstream--
float upstream.
Please don't wake me
no don't shake me
leave me where I am.
I'm only sleeping.

This song is so funky.

Hint: The band that made this album only made five after it.

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Yes, I'm evil.

Yes, I've realized that I haven't posted in over a week

So, a roundup:

Rantisi has been executed (Warning: graphic images in link). I think the same sentiments that I had for the death of Yassin apply. He was on my ATS Dead Pool roster, so I move up to 6th place in the Dead Pool. You know what, I might actually win something in this.

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"Officials Seize Giant Snails From Schools"

Need I say more? (Yes.) [Godammit!]

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"Burning Down the House," by the Talking Heads is just plain awesome, for many reasons, mostly the friday before last. Good times...

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No visible means of support
and you have not seen nothing yet.
Everything' stuck together.
I don't know what you expect,
from staring into the tv set.
Fighting fire with fire!

Random weblog report

Laurence: "It's Thursday, so that means it's Queri Threatens To Quit Day..."
[Nahhh...he's too much of a stooge to quit. And if he does he won't be there to get taken out when the revolution comes. Come on, top five!]

This is just frightening. (It involves AllahPundit and Star Wars.)

Also, the prime suspect for the adware incident is Revenue.net. Owned by Oversee.net. Owned by the mysterious and shadowy "Henry Chan." Hmmm...

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"Help us Obi Don Rumsfobi!"

Update: Adware

I have discovered there was also a small dog. Also, my computer does not feel the need for speed. And finally, Quizilla is highly suspect in the perpetration of these crimes. Alert the authorities.

Laurence Simon Opens His Heart to The Readers of ATS

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For those curious, the reason for the lack of a follow-up to the mosque bombing is either a) the media is hoping that this isn't exposed as a lie that got halfway around the world before the truth got its boots on, b) no one has written an original story about it yet, c) My computer aquired a nasty adware virus that installed several dozen adware programs on it and hijacked my browser (damn you ActiveX!), or d) b and c.

Also, here are two hatchet-jobs/articles from Slate on the Condi Rice testimony, and I think that these engage in so much tunnel vision, snarkiness, and prejudgment that it would be a waste of my time to do anything but say that Fred Kaplan has sunk extremely low for someone who had been a cogent and informative columnist. I saw the major pieces of the Condi testimony excluding the Kerrey part and the very opening, and from these writings it seems like they saw a completely different hearing.

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Continuing about the adware, I also got this, and the MSView version of this. And even this, which was practically created yesterday. A few germs. (Actually that first one is pretty blatant spyware, being absolutely useless to the user if they don't subscribe.) The random "respectable" web utilitities. This, and yet another actual internet company producing spyware/adware. And last but not least, a whole lot more crapola from a company that calls itself "aBetterInternet." (Actually its just a front for this, or this if you don't get that.) The usual name for this adware/spyware is Transponder.

Ashcroft, forget about pr0n. Go after these ass----s.

(Goodnight.)

West Bank Press Syndrome

One of the biggest problems with international reporting in third-world countries, especially in areas of combat, is that very often the reporters are nowhere near the event that has happened and say whatever they hear from others with no assesment of the credibility of the source, or simply report events without telling how they found out about it. Sometimes they even pull out their reporters and make no mention that all their info is secondhand from government or organzational sources. The results, respectively, are repeating official propaganda and disinformation from "witnesses" as happens every day in the West Bank and Gaza, or Rwanda, where the international media left during a lull in the fighting and the world never heard local media reports that mass killings were occuring because the international press wasn't even reporting the official line because the government leaders were dead.

What's happening in Iraq is West Bank Press Syndrome, not Rwanda Press Syndrome. (Iran at its "elections" and possibly Syria a few weeks ago was Rwanda Press Syndrome. Or pro-dictatorship bias. I'm inclined to believe in ineptitude over evil.)

Take for instance these four reports. Take a look at them now, because I'll compare them to each other and to a later report tomorrow. All I'll say now is that half the world has headlines saying that the US killed 40 people in amosque based on just some "witnesses." (And an AP reporter, Abdul-Qader Saadi, (who goes anonymous in far too many stories, when the objectivity and reputation of the reporter is the only basis for the credibility of these media reports) who claims to have seen "at least three cars leaving, each with a number of dead and wounded" or "cars ferrying the bodies[,]" and said "the minaret was standing, but damaged" or "the mosque building itself was not damaged.")

"'40 dead' as US rockets hit Fallujah mosque" (Independent, UK)

"Iraq rocked by fiercest fighting since war?s end" (MSNBC.com)

"U.S. Hits Mosque Compound; 40 Said Killed" (Fredericksburg.com, AP wire report co-written by Abdul-Qader Saadi)

"U.S. forces carry out raids in Fallujah, hit mosque compound" (Boston.com, Boston, AP wire report)

First-hand account of a U.S. soldier surrounded by Sadr's rebels for 21 hours

Hard to Believe I Missed This

I picked "Abu Ala" because he appears to me to be a clueless stooge who will be the first to be taken out by some one climbing the ropes to Palestinian political authority when Arafat dies. Looks like he's more likely to be taken out by poor health first.

Recommendation

Go read A Small Victory. It's fun to read and interesting.