A Tale of Big Media- Remember Hutton? What was seen then was a commonsense judge with forensic skill deciding who had fulfilled their responsibilities in relation to a man at the centre of a storm, and who hadn't.

Dyke took it all very easily, until the judgement came in.

I felt a similar kind of feeling reading this article by Thomas Lifson concerning the fake photo in the New York Times. The American Thinker was the first online source to rumble the fake. The Times editor came out carelessly, roused by the ripples from the blogosphere, swaggering like a real Goliath; and Lifson was ready with some smooth stones. It's a great exchange, as Lifson's aim is true.

French offensive

Interesting that Chirac's saying France would nuke a country that attacked it using terrorism and WMD at the same time as his troops are holed up in their bases in the Ivory Coast - 4000 of them, along with 7000 UN troops, decidedly on the defensive.

The Beeb, naturally, has laid all the emphasis on the UN troops and ignores both the French instigation of the intervention, and the French presence. EU Ref is not so helpful to French pretensions.

I liked the way this blog covered Chirac's unilateral declaration:

'“That response could be conventional, it could also be of another nature,"

Stinky cheese at 30 paces! En Garde!! Allez!! '

:-)

Update: Seee also the EurRef comments, where Richard North makes a vital point one should take note of:

'This is actually why, in the grander scheme of things, the Ivory Coast issue is so important. It is a taste of things to come where, as part of the European Union with its military ambitions, we could get drawn into situations not of our making which run wholly contrary to our interests, our principles and against the interests of peoples whom, in different circumstances, we would have supported.'

Simon Jenkins: the intellectual runny nose of the British establishment.

I read Simon Jenkins' article about Iran after hearing about it in various places. He's such an inveterate con(descension) artist I knew what to expect. With Jenkins you can expect sub-BBC rumination, vacuous high-sounding intellectual abstraction, and lists of undistinguished assumptions. You end up feeling sorry for the poor deluded sod. And that's how it was.


Jenkins gets off the mark in his opposition to anti-Iran action 'The very talk of it - macho phrases about "all options open" - suggests an international community so crazed with video game enforcement as to have lost the power of coherent thought.'

This is absurd, when as he usually has no difficulty in pointing out, the US has been losing real lives in Iraq next door. One moment he doesn't like on the ground movements, next it's video-game enforcement he's down upon. It also seems that he thinks the non-macho thing (the right thing, natch), would be to have no discussion of options, for there are none.

Next up, Jenkins shows why he's one of Britain's foremost black columnists when he says:

'Iran is a serious country, not another two-bit post-imperial rogue waiting to be slapped about the head by a white man.'

No, they're waiting for a token white figurehead to come and lick their arses, after which they'll treat them the way they treat other objects of their affection, like their women.

One senses the baleful ghost-writing of Beeb hack John Simpson here:

'Iranian politics are as complex and sophisticated as any I have observed around the world.'

er, evidence?

And Iran, serious? What does Jenkins mean by that? They're serious about only one thing- nuclear weapons- and about the rest they're completely nutty, from stoning unfaithful women to proclaiming their intent to uproot anglo-saxon culture everywhere.

Next up is such a classic piece of liberal piffle it needs posting in full:

'All the following statements about Iran are true. There are powerful Iranians who want to build a nuclear bomb. There are powerful ones who do not. There are people in Iran who would like Israel to disappear. There are people who would not. There are people who would like Islamist rule. There are people who would not. There are people who long for some idiot western politician to declare war on them. There are people appalled at the prospect. The only question for western strategists is which of these people they want to help.'

He seems to be saying that anything we say about Iran is true. Well, that certainly makes intel a lot easier. But his conclusion is that we throw some clumsy gestures into this melange. No distinctions, just vague good intentions required, and no action.

I prefer to use some discrimination, and say that it's obvious the nutters are in charge in Iran, and they're tightening their grip; moreover, the anti-western rhetoric is not to appeal to the beast within the Iranian people, but to intimidate the pro-western ones into believing that the grip of the hardline is iron-like, and there is no help coming from the West. It's the inactivity of the West in the face of this that makes such a line plausible.

Moving on we find some piffle about nuclear proliferation. The question is this: is Iran actually threatened by any nation with regard to nuclear weapons. Answer, unequivocally, no- unless they unleash mass destruction themselves. Nukes are just the ultimate in insurance policies for the Iranian high-wire Islamofascist playboys.

But lacking an argument, what's a girl to do but lie? Jenkins is no exception. He knows this is wrong, but that his Beeb-o-GUardianista readers will lap it up:

'But given the inaccuracy of American bombers, the death and destruction caused to Iran's cities would be a gift to anti-western extremists and have every world terrorist reporting for duty.'

Don't you love the 'given' here? So lazy.

Jenkins tries to bolster his argument by saying that the current President of Iran is not secure, and that the Islamic revolution has been a failure. As for the former point, Ahmadinejad is working on that one. As to the latter, Ahmadinejad agrees with Jenkins, and that's why he's working to bring home the revolution.

All of which leaves Jenkins ploughing the wrong way down shitcreek with only his hands for paddles.

I love the way she just keeps me hangin' on... I laugh more and more every time I go to the lady's site and find this post. Surely, she speaks for us all.

Since writing at Macleans, Steyn has had a new kind of line. It's great.

Anton V and me. Well, I enjoyed the exchange, anyway.

But really, how inspired is this biblical story? It really hearts me. (to be less cryptic, I was questioned over my spelling of Al-Qaeda)

Pure genius from BlameBush (the wonderfully ignored blog): God Switches Teams.

Faked photos.

Powerline points out that a photo of the aftermath of the airstrike in Pakistan was staged.

I suggest you follow the link, and, before reading the post, just look at the photo. Obviously posed- a young boy, slightly fair and western looking, in what looks like it may be his best cardigan, stands in one corner of the photo. Opposite him, an old man, beturbanned, white-bearded, tribal looking. Both have shocked expressions. Between them, poised on its base, a shell sits atop a crumbling wall. It's so obviously set up, it must have taken half and hour or so to get this appearance, with mother carefully dressing and grooming son for the camera, and old man arranging himself to look interesting- and of course finding a nice spot for that shell.

Of course that's not the ultimate problem, as Powerline make clear, but one can see how the game is being played- with the flair of a Hollywood studio, but not as explicitly anti-Bush or lacking in credibility.

Incidentally, does anyone know if this photo was on the BBC? I thought I recognised it from there, but since the authenticity of it crumbled I haven't been able to find it.

May I recommend...

Cerdic, who's a true blogger. He's set up a number of sites including the delightfully named 'Dock Green' (of Dixon fame- Dad loved 'im). All of them link me, it seems, which is even more delightful, but somehow strange (no laughing, please, at this point), since I'm as far in style from the little gnomic utterances which fill ascerbic Cerdic's blogs as can be. I will however get round to linking all of Cerdic's sites- they're invigorating- more permanently. There's something very poetic about little wedges of truth lined up in neat columns.

Every day Cerdic dutifully updates his site with tales of the absurd (that is, of the British- stifled laugh, nod to the forefathers- justice system). The greatest part is, no links, alongside no blather. Go figure, he seems to say. What? You didn't notice? Surprise!

BBbbbut- I thought it was all genetically programmed? Mr FM majored on the money wastage caused by the inmate's indecision, but a flawed understanding of gender is at the root of it.

At last- a BBC article I can recommend- they're reviewing US soldier's books, and aren't even snarking about it. OTOH- I think it suits the BBC to build up the sense of an 'Iraq war era'.