Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Yes Melanie Phillips' is crazy here but it doesn't look like it is being picked up by the usual suspects. It's yet to reach the levels of madness the left got to. Truthout etc. Maybe it will though.
Technorati is showing page after page of winger blogs taking it seriously, quite a few of them crediting Powerline with the tip. It seems well on the way to becoming an article of faith.
Let's not forget that three US Congressmen have already touted this story (before, presumably, realising that Graubatz is a paranoid, racist, lunatic) and that there's a whole conference full of crazy people convening behind it soon.
-
Glenn Reynolds doesn't sound particlularly convinced -
"I FOUND SADDAM'S WMD BUNKERS:" Er, wouldn't this be news if it were true?
Maybe there's other evidence but it doesn't appear to have been embraced that much.
You left off the last line of Reynolds' post:
Maybe not, these days. . .
Ellipsis points and all, thats' Reynolds' usual passive-aggressive linking style. As Instaputz responded: "Er, wouldn't it be news if they found Bigfoot?"
And this is what Powerline actually said:
"MEET DAVE GAUBATZ -- The current issue of the (UK) Spectator has some extremely interesting articles. . . . . none surpasses Melanie Phillips's "I found Saddam's WMD bunkers" in interest. Phillips's article tells the story of Dave Gaubatz, an agent in the US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations who searched Iraqi WMD sites after the fall of Saddam."
Not exactly dismissive, is it?
-
Michael Moore peddled a Left wing conspiracy theory about 9-11 that went down pretty well with many on the left. That was far more influential than Melanie Phillips' craziness
The part about flying out the Saudis on Sept 13, on account of the Bush family's links to the Saudi royal family? I had a quick search and found that claim being damned TomPaine, Juan Cole in Salon, History News Network, etc. Salon has also been very hard on Loose Change and other 9/11 deniers.
And frankly, in terms of scale and sheer out-and-out craziness, the Phillips conspiracy has it all over anything Michael Moore has alleged in his career. An all-consuming cover-up and conspiracy involving the entire American government? A secret pro-China sect in the State Department? Russia and China building the Islamic bomb?
And you have the major online winger commentators (including Time magazine's former "Blog of the Year") apparently giving this tosh the time of day, and The Spectator printing it. Neil, these people are so desperate not to be horribly wrong they'll buy anything. They have truly jum[ped the shark.
-
Heh. I just emailed Andrea Haggitt thus:
Hi Andrea,
I see your takedown request to YouTube has been successful, and in my view this was the proper way for you to assert your rights.
I have also deleted the posting on our site given that there is now no file to link to.
But I am unable to offer any future guarantee of my actions, as requested in your letter. As a journalist, this would be an inappropriate thing for me to do.
I must reiterate that I did not post the original link to the clip, and, indeed, I was not even aware of it until your email arrived.
I have summed up events for our readers today, and noted the presence of another YouTube parody of the Air New Zealand campaign, in respect of which you will doubtless consider your options. I don't intend to revisit the issue in my weblog and consider the the issue closed.
I would like to thank you for the relatively amicable tone of our correspondence. Have a good weekend.
Regards,
Russell Brown
And got back this:
Thank you for your email. I am out of the office on Friday 20th and Monday 23rd.
I am back in the office from Tues - Friday. If your query is urgent please contact Liz Lawless on 336 XXXX and she will direct you to another member of the legal team who can assist you.
Kind regards
Andrea Haggitt
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mailShe's a greenie!
-
I generally like the style of Steyn's writing. I did think he was stretching that article a bit.
By the way, if you don't like Steyn's journalistic ability (and I rate that higher than anything I've seen on this blog), then why do you read the stuff?
Steyn is a bigot afforded a veneer of respectability by the fact that he is sometimes used by respectable newspapers (although his relationship with the Daily Telegraph only lasted as long as the presence of his sugar-daddy Conrad Black), and that nasty little effort was all too typical of his "style". I honestly think he is a loathsome and mendacious commentator.
But are you suggesting I should only read people I agree with?
-
I really like the strictly allocated .au domains.
For example, looks how neatly organised this local council web address is:
www.richmondvalley.nsw.gov.au
And not to mention that .com.au domains are only available to registered Australian companies.
This order pleases me greatly, but I still like the free-for-allness of .coms and other TLDs.
Aarrggh! No! Australia's domain name policy has been a study in pointless little-Hitlerism.
Fortunately, in 2002 they relinquished some of the more absurd restrictions, like only allowing one domain name per entity per year, and ruling that a domain name had to contain exactly the same words (or letters in the case of an acronym) as the name of the legal entity registering it. So Australians can now do something as basic as registering domains for their individual brands.
But you still have to be a legally registered entity to get a goddamn domain name, and there are various other restrictions - you can't register a name containing any place name that has a postcode, FFS.
I much prefer the NZ approach of being agnostic about the major domains, and having individual moderators for the .govt, .mil, .cri and .iwi 2LDs.
Maybe someone should start the .gen revival.
-
.x
.xx
.xxx
.xxx_but_ugly_chicks
.xxx_gay_blokes
.xxx_but_arguably_arty
.xxxx_frankly_puke_inducingThat should drive up our mistaken Google search counts quite nicely.
-
The other thing that struck me about Darth's column were his emotional appears to neighbourliness and good manners. When Fiona did The Panel with him once, he was basically a dreadful old bugger. They were sitting a metre away from each other and he barely even acknowledged her presence.
Given that she is, to my certain knowledge, the nicest woman in all creation*, that seemed more than a little rude.
* First equal with my mum, that is ...
-
In cases like RB's, where the lucky sod does something he loves and is good at, and gets paid for it too, well that's fantastic. But I think the ongoing pleasure derived has a lot to do with the autonomy i presume RB has managed to build into his professional life.
Good point. Even in my last real job, which lasted five years, I went home for the power crisis, forgot to come back and spent the last two and half years working from home.
I do work pretty hard, but a really core appeal of this gig is being able to write what I want, how I want. That, and being able to go and buy fish when I need to.
-
awful in another way...
i see Garth Vader is leaving town. seems Auckland is nolonger what is was since they stopped 6 o'clock closing and he's off to somewhere the buffalo still play.
That column is hilarious. He really dos live inside his head.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 2172 2173 2174 2175 2176 … 2279 Older→ First