Here’s another lesson in not assuming what people in other countries would want, based on our Western notions. As Iraq gets cell networks up and running, the towers need to go somewhere – and Iraqis are glad to be picked by the companies to put them on their houses: 1-The phone company would pay the house owner (the host) 500 $ per month for allowing the company to install the tower in on his house’s roof or in the garden. 2-The deal would also include installing a diesel power...

The LA Times comes in for criticism regularly in the blogosphere, but a couple recent mistakes on their part deserve closer scrutiny. LA-based Patterico shows Times editors removed (from the Reuters wire story) possibly the most noteworthy development in the shooting of the car in Iraq that killed an Italian agent and the newly free Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena – the car’s speed as measured by satellite: The Reuters story reported that investigators using satellite footage of...

The group Free Muslims Against Terrorism is leading a rally in DC on Saturday, May 14: Join us in sending a message to radical Muslims and supporters of terrorism that we reject them and that we will do all we can to defeat them. We also want to send a message of hope to the people of the Muslim world and the Middle East who seek freedom, democracy and who reject radical Islam that we are with them and that we will do all we can to support them. The rally is open to people of all and no faiths,...

Law student Steve Barnett has a manageable and eye-opening history of the filibuster, as well as current law surrounding its use on certain subjects. Forget that it was racist legislators who utilized the filibuster most effectively, to block civil rights legislation; and forget that the earliest filibuster landed the national capital in “a humid swamp now known as Washington, D.C.,” where I have the misfortune of living now. Read the whole thing, but especially see this section on...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals just can’t get a break. They’ve been shut down by California’s high court on their false advertising suit against the state Milk Advisory Board, which has the bad taste to show “happy cows grazing in lush green pastures” in its commercials. I’d put this in the same category as fast-food restaurants’ depictions of their food in commercials – only fleetingly connected to the actual reality, but everyone knows...

You’ve gotta love the judgment of newspaper photo editors. This story about the murky rules surrounding filibusters in the Constitution features that Dick Cheney “Shut the f— up or I’ll cap your ass” photo. It makes him look ruthless, imposing and intolerant, but most likely he was calling on a reporter near the back of the room for a question. The choice gives evidence that, regardless of whether you think media bias exists, journalists have preconceptions like the...

Has anyone else seen the webcast interview show “Off the Record” by the Republican National Committee? I reviewed it a month ago, basically objecting to 1) the nonsensical title (which I think shows the GOP’s low estimation of their base’s intelligence) 2) the flat delivery of the hosts, “Mindy & Katie” 3) Mindy’s presence at all; Katie is much better looking and has a certain glow. In the first episode I reviewed, Katie was interviewing Ari Fleischer;...

I wrote earlier this week (and linked here) that Washington Post political reporter Dana Milbank was just a little too opinionated for his stated role at the paper, given his intelligent but somewhat nya-nya coverage of Karl Rove’s speech on media trends. I also faulted the Post for giving Milbank leeway with the euphemistic “Washington Sketch” heading for the column. Now a prominent mainstream media writer (not “reporter,” so we’re clear) adds his backing to...

As Joe noted below, Dana Milbank has an good piece on Karl Rove’s speech on media shortcomings at a Maryland college. But just as interesting as Rove’s thoughts is Milbank’s less restrained style of writing here, considering he’s supposed to be a straight-news reporter. His column is a good example of what I call cop-out journalism – not necessarily dumb, but pretending to be something it’s not.

David Brooks has a good column about sex – playfully published on the least sexy day – and its simultaneous expansion in public and significant shrinkage (pun and allusion intended) in private: You could get the impression that America’s young people are leading lives of Caligulan hedonism. You could give credence to all those parental scare stories about oral sex parties at bar mitzvahs and junior high school dances. You could worry about hookups, friends with benefits, and the...

A worrisome demographic explosion is on the horizon…

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson is expanding from his role as the first openly gay bishop in America to the new religious spokesman for a prominent interest group, but I think it’s a bad move for him – and the gay people he claims to represent.

Supporters of Howard Dean usually have the stereotype of hard, uncompromising stances on the issues of the day – war, taxes, health care, etc. – but a new Pew poll shows they are more likely than Democrats in general to shift their positions on arguably the most important issue of last year. Matt Yglesias explains: Not surprisingly, Dean folks are essentially unanimous in their view that invading Iraq was a bad idea. More surprisingly, Dean activists are much more likely than Democrats...

Convicted murderers get new trials for all sorts of reasons, but this is the first button-related reversal I’ve heard. Not surprisingly it comes from the 9th Circuit, whose decisions over the years have been “novel” to say the least.

The New York Times has a baffling piece on a gay Republican political consultant marrying his partner in a civil ceremony in Massachusetts. By most standards of the newsworthy – time to pull out your first-year journalism notes – this story has no reason for being. The wedding was in December; he lives in Massachusetts, so it wasn’t a trek; his sexuality has been known for several years at the least (40 years with the same partner); he’s a self-described libertarian who...

Prescription painkillers seem to be falling by the wayside in the FDA’s wake, but how do regular users feel about their most effective drugs getting pulled?

I can think of alternate uses for this personal technology. Fortunately I’m not an early adopter.

Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group on my blogroll, just released nominations for freedom blog awards. Jeff Jarvis has two bones to pick with them: only one Iraqi blog, Riverbend, which doesn’t do reporting and is very anti-American: Now if they want to nominate her, that’s fine; I get it. But then for Reporters Without Borders to not nominate the many bloggers who have actually reported news in Iraq — but aren’t so anti-Ameerican — is ridiculous…...

Is the Tim Allen grunting oaf popular again with women? (And am I the lamest 25-year-old for using Tim Allen as a cultural reference?) A new poll – fittingly commissioned by Dodge Trucks – gives mixed and somewhat ambiguous results: •75 percent of women said their ideal man buys his grooming products at a grocery store or drugstore, not a salon. •72 percent of women said their ideal man spends his free time doing home-improvement projects. •41 percent of...

…abortion, that is. My college newspaper colleague Steve Barnett, now a law student in Oregon, describes his Con Law session on abortion law: We went silent because we knew blood was going to be shed. We knew after that day some of us would no longer would be friends. We knew passions would boil high, and our voices would be the piercing whistles telling others that we had reached the boiling point. But to his surprise, the discussion stayed civil, the professor kept him on his toes when...

It’s funny because it’s plausible! (Via Lost Remote.)

Blogger Michael Totten (Oregon pride!) and Spirit of America founder Jim Hake are in Beirut to help the Lebanese opposition raise money to fight the Syrian occupation: We’re focusing our efforts on the residents of the semi-permanent tent-city that has been built on Martyr’s Square, a mere two blocks from Parliament, where the opposition leaders say they will continue to reside until their country is a sovereign liberal democracy. They need food. They need bottled water. They need blankets....

Remember that alleged memo from “party leaders” to Republican senators on the “great political issue” that was the Schiavo case? It generated lots of buzz, but the original reporters are backing off the implication…only so much.

Female genital mutilation is going down in Senegal, formerly a hotbed of the activity, and setting an example in the region: Campaigners have tried for decades to bring an end to FGM. But their tactics of providing alternative employment to the circumcisers, introducing alternative rites of passage for girls, or demanding legislation to outlaw the practice have all failed to make a dent: an estimated 2 million girls in about 26 African countries are circumcised every year. The sea-change in Senegal...

I’ve been pretty outspoken here and on my site about the Schiavo case, which is nominally over. Allow me one last post that I’m sure will get attacked by Joe’s new coalition of states-rights libs and cons. If we’re judging social policy by polls, can we please get some out-of-the-box pollster to test public knowledge of the key facts in the Schiavo case? Most people will know she was judged to be in PVS and the courts tended to side with her husband. But did they know her...