 after he's written this?
The root fallacy in the War on Terrorism is the idea that we have no choice but to fight people who won't rest until they destroy us.
I think it was Kathy Kinsley whom I first noticed distinguishing between those 'on their own' and 'still on BlogSpot.' Bill Quick explained his reasoning for the distinction. It makes a lot of sense.
But I still feel so ghettoized.
Wednesday, March 20, 2002- - -
"Archaeology is the imaginative recapture of the past within the hard boundaries of the evidence, the steering between the Scylla of fantasy and the Charybdis of unrelieved fact .." Gordon Willey An Introduction to American Archaeology
Of course, some days you don't so much steer as ping around like a pinball. In the literature, it's truly amazing how a fact most unrelieved can morph into fantasy in the retelling.
I don't think I was nearly as aware of this phenomenon before I became a blogger. Now I've become acutely aware of how difficult it is to give an accurate brief synopsis of someone else's ideas. Many times I've done the 'link, summary, comment' routine only to go back and reread the original article and realize that I hadn't captured its essence and thus, that my comment had in some fashion missed the mark. Usually a little tweaking will fix the problem [I hope. Only you can judge.], but I've occasionally dumped the whole thing rather than post on something I simply didn't have a handle on.
Thanks to this newfound awareness I've become considerably more skeptical of what other writers say that someone else has said. Of course, this makes me even more glad for the blog format that allows one to effortlessly read the original author. While blogging may yet be proven a passing fad, at the least the on-going adoption of links in online publications should bring a more measured and consciously honest discourse to the mainstream media. In some cases, that in itself is revolutionary.
How about that. Cathy Young's Reason Online take down of Nicholas Kristof's guns and terrorism article, which I linked yesterday, has been picked up by the Boston Globe of all places. (Via the InstaPundit.)
That just gladdens the cockles of my heart. Perhaps things are changing.
Update: I've read the Boston Globe article and it looks like they printed it straight up as it appeared in Reason Online. The Globe article also notes that Ms. Young is a regular contributor to the Globe. How interesting.
Yes! This is an area of great promise for the developing internet. To provide an education beyond that offered by our education establishment. Or despite it as the case may be.
I see that Mrs. Sese-Seko is getting desperate. Would someone please take her $30 Million so she'll quit spamming me? Or at least get a more original scam going?
Oh Oh. Must have been something I said. I see I've been summarily purged from the up-front favorites at Samizdata. I'd have thought they'd put me in their "Havens of fluorescent idiocy" category from the start, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Actually, I suspect that their favorites list was becoming terribly unwieldy, so I'll forgive them - someday.
Today's Christian Science Monitor has a good outline of the Cobell v. Norton Indian Trust case, with a brief bio of Elouise Cobell.
Have you ever wondered what the IRS would do to you if your accounting was on par with that of the Department of the Interior? What if you just refused to keep records on Millions of dollars in income? They'd be on you like spots on an Appaloosa.
Now consider this: The DOI manages the mineral estate of enormous tracts of land out here in the 'empty quarter.' Only a small portion of those holdings are held in trust for the Indianz and the proceeds from the Indian Trusts supposedly amount to roughly $½ Billion per year. The vast majority of the mineral estate is held in trust for all of us. With that much cash flying around and DOI accounting procedures being what they are, the potential for corruption is clearly enormous.
Why do you suppose that the DOI is so very reluctant to provide an accounting?
Where does the money go?