Aurora Borealis

From Antartica, via "75 Degrees South". There's a nice collection of aurora borealis photos posted there...

Click for a larger view.

Ann nails Newsweek

Ann Coulter has a new column ("Newsweek dissembled, Muslims dismembered") that brilliantly exploses Newsweek's hypocrisy on the "flushed Qu'ran" story. Read the whole thing (linked above). Here's her conclusion:

No matter how I look at it, I can't grasp the editorial judgment that kills Isikoff's stories about a sitting president molesting the help and obstructing justice, while running Isikoff's not particularly newsworthy (or well-sourced) story about Americans desecrating a Quran at Guantanamo.

Even if it were true, why not sit on it? There are a lot of reasons the media withhold even true facts from readers. These include:

# A drama queen nitwit exclaimed she'd kill herself. (Evan Thomas' reason for holding the Lewinsky story.)

# The need for "more independent reporting." (Newsweek President Richard Smith explaining why Newsweek sat on the Lewinsky story even though the magazine had Lewinsky on tape describing the affair.)

# "We were in Havana." (ABC president David Westin explaining why "Nightline" held the Lewinsky story.)

# Unavailable for comment. (Michael Oreskes, New York Times Washington bureau chief, in response to why, the day The Washington Post ran the Lewinsky story, the Times ran a staged photo of Clinton meeting with the Israeli president on its front page.)

# Protecting the privacy of an alleged rape victim even when the accusation turns out to be false.

# Protecting an accused rapist even when the accusation turns out to be true if the perp is a Democratic president most journalists voted for.

# Protecting a reporter's source.

How about the media adding to the list of reasons not to run a news item: "Protecting the national interest"? If journalists don't like the ring of that, how about this one: "Protecting ourselves before the American people rise up and lynch us for our relentless anti-American stories."

It's classic Ann Coulter: witty, provocative, and dead on target.

Tech quote for the day

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build better and bigger idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

   Rick Cook

Quote for the day

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

   Abraham Lincoln