OKAY, CLAIRE BERLINSKI IS TAKING REALPOLITIK a bit farther than I would. But there’s a certain symmetry to it.

BOGOSITY ALERT: McDonald’s is allegedly coming under fire for introducing its “McAfrika burger” at a time when Africans are starving:

The concoction of beef, cheese, tomatoes and salad in a pitta-style sandwich is said to be based upon an authentic African recipe and is being sold to Norwegian consumers for about £2.80.

But aid agencies trying to raise funds to stave off a famine in southern Africa say that the timing of the McAfrika marketing campaign is insensitive, crass and ill-considered and have demanded remedial action from McDonald’s.

“It’s inappropriate and distasteful to launch a hamburger called McAfrika when large portions of southern Africa are on the verge of starvation,” Linn Aas-Hansen of Norwegian Church Aid told the newspaper Aftenposten.

My African acquaintances and quasi-relations hate Western stereotyping of Africa as a place where people spend most of their time starving and waiting on Western aid. They regard such stereotyping as, basically, racism. Yet the Norwegian aid community seems unashamed to engage in such behavior.

McDonald’s is treating Africa as if it’s just another part of the world, instead of like a pariah continent distinguished chiefly by disease and helplessness. That’s a good thing, and the Norwegians — who are basically peddling stereotypes in order to get attention and raise money (“trying to raise funds” is the key phrase in the above passage) — should be ashamed. Why aren’t they looking at the real causes of starvation in Africa?

UPDATE: Here, from McDonald’s own Norwegian site, is the McAfrika in all its splendor. Looks yummy.

And for a non-victim example, take a listen to Afrigo, a Ugandan band that my record label does production and distribution for. (We don’t get any money for it; it’s part of our foreign-aid program, which also involves giving computers and music software to Nigerian musicians). They even have a song on the virtues of privatization (“Today for Tomorrow”), which Virginia Postrel liked so much that she bought the CD. (No, really.) These guys have managed to sell a half-million cassettes and CDs in Uganda and surrounding countries, despite everything that’s happened there. And they’ve managed to do it without help from self-promoting Norwegian aid groups who see them only as victims to be sloganized over.

ANOTHER UPDATE: There’s more on this, from Big S Blog, (“McDonald’s burgers I’d like to see:” — list includes the “McFisk,” “McEuro” and “McArafat.”), Steven Chapman, (“I’m looking forward to McDonald’s releasing a ‘McNorway’ burger in Africa (two all-whale patties, special sauce, lettuce, textured soya protein, pickles, onions on a GM-free sesame seed ciabatta), and this being criticised by the Zimbabwean Red Cross as being ‘insensitive…at a time when 12 million Norwegians are facing obesity in southern Oslo.'”), and Bill Quick (“Good thing they have nothing more important to worry about.”). Then there’s this from Bjorn Staerk: “Can you imagine anything worse than having your entire continent trademarked by Norwegian Church Aid?”

TALKLEFT RESPONDS to my post below on Ashcroft’s apparently nonexistent prison camps by saying:

What number should it take, 25, 100, 500? Should the number of beds at the first such facility be the determinative factor of whether it is a camp? Could it serve as a model for future facilities? If 50 such facilities were contemplated, would they be camps?

We don’t know if Ashcroft is planning camps or not. But if it looks like a duck…..

Well, at the moment, it doesn’t look like a duck, or even a duckling. It’s bad to imprison American citizens without due process, as I’ve said repeatedly. But that’s a far cry from the Ashcroft-is-planning-camps-for-us-all hysteria that has sprung up in response to Turley’s article, and which Turley’s article seems designed to inflame.

I’d rather live in a country that is too sensitive to such matters than one that is not sensitive enough, of course. But if you cry wolf — or even duck — too often, it won’t be that kind of a nation any more. Turley overstated his case, and the result is that the next time somebody raises the issue it will be harder to get it taken seriously.

For those who are really paranoid, of course, that could be part of the plan. . . .

UPDATE: Dan Perkins puts it well: “Reality is scary enough by itself these days.”

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE: I was hard on Ted Turner during the St. Helena Island Gullah-land-grab incident. But it looks like he’s doing something right here — though whether the uranium in question is really “weapons grade” (as the Guardian story states) without further enrichment is doubtful. I’m unaware of any reactor fuel rods that use truly weapons-grade uranium, though I don’t pretend to universal knowledge, and an “research reactor” might be an exception; I know of research reactors that use plutonium at high degrees of enrichment.

Regardless, this is money well spent, and Turner is the one spending it. Bravo.

SELF-FISKING: ROBERT FISK WRITES that it’s not his job to provide evidence in war-crimes trials.

Yeah, he’s kept too busy making unfounded accusations. He’s got the part about journalism being a “masquerade” right, though.

UPDATE: Okay, one more thought. Isn’t it odd that national sovereignty, and a whole raft of individual protections under international (and American constitutional) law can go by the wayside in the effort to prosecute war crimes, but that anything that might make a reporter’s life more difficult is obviously beyond the pale?

Okay, it’s not really odd that a reporter would think that. What’s odd is that anyone else would take it seriously. Then again, it’s not at all clear that anyone else does.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests that Fisk may be unwilling to face pejury charges:

Isn’t it rather obvious why Fisk refuses to provide his “evidence” in war-crimes trials? Standards of truth and accuracy are much higher in a courtroom than in a newsroom. Fisk can exaggerate and outright lie about American and Israeli “war crimes” in print; but put him under oath where his statements can be challenged and they’ll crumble like month old soda crackers.

Possibly.

UPDATE: Oh, read this, too.

ANOTHER INTERNET RUMOR? John Hawkins investigates Jonathan Turley’s claim (via a Los Angeles Times op-ed) that Ashcroft and the Justice Department were planning prison camps and finds it wanting.

I think Hawkins is right to call this hype. I looked at the Wall Street Journal article that Turley claims (via email) was the basis for his oped and it’s really a bit of a stretch to view it as indicating that plans for massive incarceration are underway. The article appeared on August 8, and is entitled: “White House Seeks to Expand Indefinite Detentions in Military Brigs, Even for U.S. Citizens.” Here’s the key section:

The White House is considering creating a high-level committee to decide which prisoners should be denied access to federal courts. The Goose Creek, S.C., facility that houses Mr. Padilla — mostly empty since it was designated in January to hold foreigners captured in the U.S. and facing military tribunals — now has a special wing that could be used to jail about 20 U.S. citizens if the government were to deem them enemy combatants, a senior administration official said.

A special wing holding 20 people isn’t exactly Manzanar, yet in Turley’s oped it becomes a “proposed camp plan” (there’s nothing in the Wall Street Journal story about any prison “camps,” but the term appears repeatedly in Turley’s piece). There’s a minor disclaimer that Ashcroft isn’t planning anything on the scale of the Japanese-American internments of World War Two, but Turley never makes clear that we’re talking about fewer than two dozen individuals. Perhaps Turley has more information than the Journal article contains, but if so he hasn’t mentioned it.

I’m opposed to the imprisonment of American citizens without trial. Unlike the imprisonment of foreign citizens, it is almost certain to have a deeply corrupting effect on American politics. But Turley’s hype does a disservice.

As I mentioned in my original post on Turley’s piece, bogus rumors of government prison camps have been around for decades. If this stuff is hyped when it’s not true, what will people say if it ever becomes true? I’ll tell you what they’ll say: “There goes Turley, crying wolf again.”

JUST FINISHED READING ERIC FLINT’S 1633. (Well, Eric Flint & David Weber’s really.) I went over to Blogcritics and lo and behold, there was this review by Bigwig. The review is spot-on. I, too, was struck by the patriotism in the books. And Eric Flint, a former union organizer, is the kind of lefty that, well, the left needs more of in place of people like Susan Sarandon and Noam Chomsky.

Congratulations to Eric Olsen for getting Blogcritics off the ground so smoothly.

MAX SAWICKY GENTLY CHIDES ME (no, really, that’s what he does!) over this post. Sigh. He’s probably right. I just couldn’t help noticing the resemblance between that mail and mail I get from a lot of antiwar folks.

And surely being called a warmonger by Nazis is something to brag about.

SKBUBBA is channeling John Prine at the expense of a certain government agency.

NICK DENTON has great insight into the difference between Americans and Brits: “American workers think of themselves as middle class; and the English middle class think of themselves as workers.” Scroll down for an interesting post on U.S. / European relations.

MITCH WEBBER of the YalePundits is very unhappy with Congressional Black Caucus chair Eddie Bernice Johnson’s (D-TX) anti-semitic remarks about the McKinney election.

I don’t agree that such statements are too vile for First Amendment protection, but I agree that they’re too vile to let pass.

HERE’S A SIDE OF JIHADISM that you don’t see that much about, but probably should:

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) – Four times in the last four years, Bashir Butt tracked down his son at training camps for Islamic extremists in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and begged him to come home.

On Aug. 9, police arrived at the Butts’ modest home here and told them their son Kamran, 21, was dead. He died while attacking Christians leaving a church in Taxila about 30 miles west of Islamabad. Three Christian nurses were killed and a fourth was mortally wounded.

Bashir Butt, however, remembers his son as a shy boy who never caused trouble in the neighborhood and who “had a great respect for his fellow human beings.”

“We never thought that one day he would become a terrorist,” Bashir Butt said. “We never even imagined. … These cruel jihadis made him a terrorist.” . . .

To Kamran’s family, however, his death seems pointless. It has left his family deeply bitter over the extremist groups and what they had done to him.

“I hate these jihadi organizations,” said Bashir Butt, a 48-year-old widower with two other sons and a daughter. “I hate these so-called jihadi leaders. “They are the killers of my son.”

I’ll bet that there are more people who feel this way than get reported.

Of course, if a Palestinian said this, he’d be dead.

CHARLES JOHNSON REPORTS that the Hizbollah website has been hacked.

Yeah, but what’s there isn’t that impressive. Remember: disinformation and/or intelligence-gathering are a lot better than lame insults. I appreciate the effort, but nasty remarks about Arabs don’t really do the job.

I THINK THAT THIS GUY is working for Homeland Security now. . . .

(Via Blogs4God.Com).

EVER WONDER WHY THERE ISN’T A BLOGGING TV SHOW YET? Neither have I. But here’s someone who’s given it some thought.

BTW, I am working on Radio Instapundit. You can see a beta (well, actually it’s more like an alpha) site here.

MORE ON MILITARY RECRUITMENT: Ernest Miller writes from Yale, in response to my earlier post about Harvard Law allowing military recruiters back on campus:

I was in the military for nearly 12 years. As a senior (first classman) at USNA in Annapolis, I challenged the SecDef (Cheney at the time) on the policy discriminating against gays. As a midshipman and an officer I always argued against the policy when it came up in discussion. I also quashed homophobic remarks among those under my leadership, just as I quashed racist or sexist remarks.

When military recruiters came to Yale Law I always attended their sessions and made sure that those being recruited were aware that they had the option of speaking out against the policy … that they should not be afraid to be true to their conscience, if they believed the policy to be wrong. I see no reason why students at Harvard should not attend the military recruitment sessions and make the same points.

This makes sense to me.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the memo from Harvard’s Dean Clark.

IT’S ALL ABOUT OIL, RIGHT? John Hawkins has the numbers.

Personally, I think that it’s all about crazed murderers who want to kill us, and the loser despots who support them.

THE RIAA’S INFLUENCE SEEMS TO BE SPREADING:

Washington DC – William Ford Jr., CEO of the Ford Motor Company testified before Congress about the nationwide problem of ride sharing. Ford cited ride swapping as the number one reason for the the company’s declining revenue. “These ‘pool pirates are depriving Ford of rightful income. Three sometimes four people are sharing rides. Less wear and tear on the cars means fewer new car purchases. That’s revenue that’s being robbed from Ford.”

A recent study by the Gartner Group supports Ford’s claims that ride sharing runs rampant across the US. The study showed showed that children under the age of 16 were the biggest offenders. Almost 99% of children in that age group said they had shared a ride in the past week. The study also showed that ride sharing had spread to the Internet in the form of “Car Pool” message boards where the “Road Robbers” set up their swaps.

Many Representatives questioned Ford’s claim that consumers used ride sharing to put off purchases of new cars for 3 or even 4 years. “You’re telling me that people don’t receive new cars as gifts from lobbyists every year? I find that allegation preposterous,” asked a Representative from Virginia.

Satire that’s a bit too close to the truth.

IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE SO ALREADY, go read Lileks.

ROBERT MUGABE says that criticism of his thuggish regime is just a racist effort to undermine Zimbabwe’s independence. Tim Blair replies: “Zimbabwe would be a whole lot more independent if it stopped murdering people who grow food.”

WANT A NON-WARBLOG? Here’s one by Jen Hayward, recommended by Aziz Poonawalla. Then there’s Annatopia, which says right at the top that “this is not a war blog!”

WOW. I was pretty sure traffic was trending upward, but then I looked at this and it was obvious. You’d think I’d have done that before, wouldn’t you?

BLOGOSPHERE FAVE Claire Berlinski emails that I should link to this column — so naturally I have. Excerpt:

The old-time commies at least used to go to a bit of effort to tell the Western leftie intellectuals what they wanted to hear. The Islamists, by contrast, cheerfully piss all over every cherished Western progressive shibboleth. Women? The Taleban didn’t just ‘marginalise’ women, they buried them under sackcloth. But Gloria Steinem still wouldn’t support the Afghan war, and Cornell professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg argues that the ‘beauty dictates’ of American consumer culture exert a far more severe toll on women. Gays? As The New Republic reported this week, the Palestinian Authority tortures homosexuals, makes them stand in sewage up to their necks with faeces-filled sacks on their heads. Yet Canadian MP Svend Robinson, Yasser’s favourite gay infidel, still makes his pilgrimages to Ramallah to pledge solidarity with the people’s ‘struggle’. Animals? CNN is showing videos all this week of al-Qa’eda members testing various hideous poison gases on dogs.

Radical Islamists aren’t tolerant of anybody: they kill Jews, Hindus, Christians, babies, schoolgirls, airline stewardesses, bond traders, journalists. They use snuff videos for recruitment: go on the Internet and a couple of clicks will get you to the decapitation of Daniel Pearl. You can’t negotiate with them because they have no demands — or at least no rational ones. By ‘Islam is peace’, they mean that once the whole world’s converted to Islam there will be peace, but not before. Other than that, they’ve got nothing they want to talk about. It takes up valuable time they’d rather spend killing us.

Yeah, but to a certain set of Western intellectuals that’s just a guarantee of genuineness.

JOSH CHAFETZ has responded to TAPPED’s criticism of his Maureen Dowd debunking. Conclusion: “[W]e here at OxBlog know all about irony. But we generally think it should be used in service of a point, not in lieu of one.”

READER JASON STRAUSS writes from Harvard Law School to report that the law school has decided to open up to military recruiters. The memorandum from Dean Clark, which he shared, speaks in terms of legal necessities and federal funding, but I can’t help wondering if this is Larry Summers’ influence.

While I’m opposed to the armed services’ discrimination against gays, I’m also opposed to the anti-military policies of Ivy League schools, so I regard this as a good thing.

(I actually tried to call HLS to get a reaction, but spent literally 5 minutes being bounced around by a phone tree that kept sending me back to the main Harvard operator, or to a recording that the number I had selected was no good. How lame.)