Vox Popoli

This weekend’s Blogstar will be Amigo’s Place. Send it into me on Friday, 1k words or less….

From Drudge:

NEWSWEEK’s top executives and editors are standing firm behind reporter Michael Isikoff after the magazine retracted his story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran.

“Mike was told he would not be sacrificed, we are standing behind him 100%,” a top magazine source told the DRUDGE REPORT. “We do not, I repeat, do not let this White House, any White House, make our staff decisions for us.”

The top NEWSWEEK executive claims an emotional Isikoff offered to resign from the magazine over the weekend, in a gesture to cool off the international situation. Isikoff’s Guantanamo article was blamed for inciting riots in the Muslim world, where at least 17 people were killed in the ensuing violence.

Of course, Newsweek executives will likely feel considerably different if the pressure starts coming from rioting Muslims. I have a feeling that they might sprain their ankles in a hurried rush to leap from their high horses.

Isikoff shouldn’t resign because of pressure from the White House. He should resign because his shoddy, albeit typically journalistic decision to print unsubstantiated rumors in an attempted political jab led directly to bloodshed around the world.

I find it interesting how journalists are quick to boast about how their careful fact-checking and editorial supervision sets them above the blogosphere, but every time they report a provable fiction as fact, all we hear is that mistakes are inevitable. And that comes only after several days – or sometimes weeks – of denying any possibility of error or falsehood.

I had a rather encouraging conversation with my publisher yesterday. It seems they finally got around to reading THE WRATH OF ANGELS, which I turned in about a year ago, and liked it enough that they increased the print run four-fold over the previous book. It’s a little more conventional fantasy than the two books that preceded it in the series and less likely to be confused with dark fantasy (lite horror) than THE WORLD IN SHADOW.

The short description is that the Shadowstalkers, a sort of Divine dirty-tricks squad, are planning to put a hit on an insane fallen angel prince who rules a post-Christian land, lest Europe descend into a second Holocaust. The challenge is that their powerful target rules a realm protected by legions of demonic guardians and is rumored to be all but indestructible.

The Almighty’s ironic sense of humor is revealed as He selects a self-absorbed teenage girl, whose three most deadly weapons are lipstick, eyeliner and a curling iron, to be His chosen instrument of retribution.

From the NYT review of the Revenge of the Sith:

At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, “If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.” Obi-Wan’s response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: “Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.”

I seem to recall reading that someone else once said something to the effect of “he who is not for me is against me.”

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me” strikes me as being more than a little absolutist too.

Pat Buchanan writes on WND:

From a May 11 report in the Washington Times, the Palestinian Authority might postpone July’s parliamentary elections. Why? The PA fears Hamas will sweep into power…. To abort a Hamas victory, the Palestinians are preparing to postpone the July elections, perhaps for a year….

Thus, Hamas, which Bush has branded a terror organization, looks with enthusiasm to the elections Bush has championed, while Israelis and moderate Palestinians fear Hamas will win, vault into power, and take over the leadership and negotiating portfolio of the Palestinian people.

Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. Most people like to think they do, but at heart do not. The truth is that nearly all democracy, even the strictly limited, bifactional, sub-judicial quasi-representational form that we have in the United States, is a sham. This truth is revealed every time that the will of the people expresses a desire for something outside the bounds of what their government deems permissible; one way or another, the popular law is declared unconstitutional, the referendum is overturned on specious grounds and the election is delayed or canceled if necessary.

Until you understand that democracy is little more than a release valve for popular pressure, you cannot possibly even begin grasp the great tide of world events occurring around you.

The London Times demonstrates how Michael Isikoff of Newsweek incited Muslims to riots and murder:

Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran: Claim that the Holy book was defiled by US guards at Guantanamo Bay has incensed Muslims

AT LEAST nine people were killed yesterday as a wave of anti-American demonstrations swept the Islamic world from the Gaza Strip to the Java Sea, sparked by a single paragraph in a magazine alleging that US military interrogators had desecrated the Koran.

Powerline explains how, to top it all off, Isikoff got his facts wrong. “So Isikoff relied on a telephone call with an anonymous government official paraphrasing a forthcoming report, confirmed by placing a draft of the Periscope item before another anonymous government official. Isikoff never saw the underlying report or even had it read to him.”

Nice work, Michael. Hope you sleep well tonight.

Did he intend it? I can’t imagine so. But what sort of moron doesn’t realize that this sort of thing is bound to happen? Now, if the reported event had been true, the subsequent riots would be merely the usual tragic stupidity common in that part of the world. Isikoff’s decision to risk inspiring this level of violence over something that may never have happened is irresponsibility of a shocking degree.

NRO’s K-Lo receives email regarding the appointment of an ambassador:

Your article’s headline was — Bolton’s not the problem , the U.N is the problem! Well , obviously you are one of the strong supporter of John Bolton! I’m sure IF that STUPID John Bolton read your article , he can really cry on your shoulders these days!

OK , Kathryn , let me suggest you something here — since you are such fan of that extremely UGLY , extremely bullying and extremely STUPID John Bolton , maybe you should work with John Bolton for a few months , to see how much you two get along! It seems to me , you two may just make the perfect working couple! GOOD for you , my dear!

OK , here’s my opinion about that John Bolton — when I first saw John Bolton’s picture , my first reaction was —- GOSH , this guy is SO DAMN UGLY!!!!!! And he looks like A JERK!!!!!!!!! And the more I know about him , the more I think he’s nothing but A JERK!!!!!!!!!

I could not care less about Bolton – wake me up when we pull out of the UN, otherwise forget it – but I’m beginning to think that if the Democrats simply began running Hollywood actors for President, they’d be unstoppable. Or maybe they should just go right to the male models. I know a staunchly Republican woman who once confessed to me, more than a little embarassed, that she’d actually worked for the JFK campaign when she was young simply because he was so handsome.

And lest I forget —- GOSH , NICE PUNCTUATION!!!!!!!

If you want to try to hurdle the bar set by Khross next week, throw in your BLOG NAME and its URL. Voxologisti only.

In other news, three new blogs join the blogroll this week. Well, two new blogs, whilst one of my favorite names, FEEDING RAINBOWS TO UNICORNS has transformed into the rather more dubiously titled MIND FISTS. Check them out if you are so inclined….

Mind Fists
In Deo Veritas
Political Mexican

Avoiding marriage appears to work:

Spurned Girlfriend Awarded $10 Million: Woman Awarded Huge Judgment After Breakup. After two weeks in court, a jury in April 2004 found Hubner liable for an astounding $10 million, plus the apartment she was living in, and her legal bills. It was one of the largest awards ever in a case like this. But if the jury’s decision is upheld, it could send a signal to other wealthy couples whose relationships — and finances — aren’t defined in legal documents.

“If this case prevails … it gives us some guidance as to what to expect in the future for people who fall into the trap of believing that someone will take care of them without that little piece of paper,” said attorney Lynn Gold-Bikin, an expert on family law.

Naturally, the media took the wrong lesson from this silly award, which will almost surely be reduced significantly on appeal. $10 million is a lot of money, and indeed, seventeen years of service indicates that Miss Horvath’s various services were worth $1,611.60 per day. Since I have it on excellent authority that Heidi Fleiss’ girls went for $1,500 daily, it seems that Mr. Hubner is assumed to have been paying Miss Horvath $40k per year for her home management responsibilities.

But $10 million is not a significant portion of Hubner’s net worth and had Hubner married Horvath, he would likely have been forced to pay out far more, perhaps as much as 25 times more. Instead of being required to maintain an apartment for her, he’d probably have lost at least one house as well.

If this award is upheld, I suspect it will be the high-class escorts who will profit most in the end, because if avoiding marriage does not suffice to economically protect high-income single men from a parasitical family court system, they will increasingly adopt the triple-F rental imperative. No doubt many women and more than a few men will rightly find this offensive for moral and other less valid reasons, but as even the Soviet Union finally learned, not even brutal totalitarian rule will suffice to prevent men from acting in their economic self-interest in the vast majority of circumstances.

I do not find it to be a coincidence that in today’s divorce culture, the status and popularity of porn stars and other women-for-hire has risen substantially. Consider the fact that a few years ago, a poll in a country far more steeped in the dual malaise of spiritual apathy and rampant divorce showed that the number one profession sought by Russian schoolgirls was “hard-currency prostitute”. As always, the Law of Unintended Consequences remains in effect and it appears increasingly likely that the unintended consequence of female-initiated divorce and the economic penalization of men is the sexual commoditization of women.

Now, there’s little doubt that Hubner is more than a bit of an ass. No decent employer will let a secretary or a janitor of 17 years service go without making sure they are compensated reasonably. But his apparent lack of decency does not change the fact that he had made no contractual commitments to his long-standing mistress.

And finally, “that little piece of paper” is called a contract, without which no legal obligation exists. Inventing one out of thin air is not only ridiculous, it holds dangerous implications for the American legal system. Ms Gold-Bikin’s attitude demonstrates the inherent distrust, even disdain, that far too many women have for the most basic element of human rights and capitalism, the right to property.