Archive for 2015

July 12, 2015

HOW TO STOP A CENTRALIZED BUREAUCRACY: MATH.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12th, 2015

START WITH CHAPPAQUA: Obama touts plan to press communities to integrate.

Obama spoke out after anti-police riots in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore about the need to address what he referred to as the root cause of tension between cops and residents of poor neighborhoods: frustration over poverty and lack of opportunity.

“The rule that was announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is an example of the kind of rule that will make it more likely that every American has access to quality, affordable housing in this country,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.

So add Stanley Kurtz’s talk about Obama’s war on the suburbs to the list of negative predictions about Obama that came true.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12th, 2015

FOIA REFORM: A bit too much transparency for journalists?

From The Washington Post’s Lisa Rein comes news that the federal government is launching a six-month pilot program with seven agencies to post online documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “So if a journalist, nonprofit group or corporation asks for the records, what they see, the public also will see,” writes Rein. . . .

“As a matter of regular practice, EPA notifies the requester at the time that the response is posted on the foiaonline website. We believe that the posting of the information advances transparency.”

And, perhaps, penalizes those who go to great lengths to fetch it. “I do share the concern of other journalists that this could hurt the journalist who made the original request,” writes Washington Post Investigations Editor Jeff Leen via e-mail. “It could also affect long-term investigations built on a number of FOIA requests over time.”

“FOIA terrorist” Jason Leopold has big issues with the approach. “It would absolutely hurt journalists’ ability to report on documents they obtained through a FOIA request if the government agency is going to immediately make records available to the public,” writes the Vice News reporter via e-mail. Leopold has already experienced the burn of joint release, he says, after requesting information on Guantanamo Bay. The documents were posted on the U.S. Southern Command’s Web site. “I lost the ability to exclusively report on the material even though I put in all of the work filing the requests,” he notes.

Hmm.

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12th, 2015

July 11, 2015

HOW GOOD ARE A RALLY CAR’S BRAKES? THIS GOOD.

Posted at 8:02 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 11th, 2015

WHAT DID OMAR SHARIF THINK WHEN HE PLAYED CHE GUEVARA? Michael Ledeen fondly reminisces about great times with his friend, Omar Sharif:

One day in the mid-sixties I was on a Pan Am 747 from London to Chicago, sitting next to my then-employer, Omar Sharif.  I was a member of the “Omar Sharif Bridge Circus,” an unlikely assemblage of professional card players from France, Italy, Egypt…and, given my presence, the United States.  We played high-stakes exhibition matches against local teams in front of hundreds of spectators.  Mostly my role was pure show-biz;  I explained what the players were thinking, told anecdotes…you know, entertainment.  Every now and then they even let me play a few hands.  Life was spectacularly good,  not least because Omar was such a good fellow, a real buddy well met, easy to be with, easy to laugh with, a very fine card player, a gambling addict, and man did he know his red wine.  And race horses.  The big downside was that no woman was going to pay me the slightest attention.

After a few hours of catching up on sleep, Omar fished a paperback out of his carryon and turned pages quite rapidly.  It was the autobiography of Che Guevara.  He had never discussed politics with me and I was surprised, but it turned out he had agreed to play Che in a movie (1969).  What did he think?  “What an idiot!”  And that’s the way he played the failed revolutionary in the film.

Read the whole thing. As Michael writes, “Ciao Omar, may eternity bring you even more pleasure than you gave us.”

Posted at 4:32 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 11th, 2015

THE NEW YORK TIMES QUIETLY BREAKS OUT THE AIRBRUSHES:


And many more revisions beyond that:

As Ann Althouse writes, “I know, you’re going to say, why are you surprised? It’s the New York Times. Why do you even read it? But put the usual reflexive retorts aside for a moment and take a look at how bad this example is. It’s a news report, not an opinion piece, and it assumes, over and over, that Pao is the victim of sexism (even though her downfall had to do with her involvement in the firing of another woman).”

UPDATE: Background on Pao’s resignation here, for those coming in cold to the story:

Pao told media outlets that she was not fired, calling her departure a mutual decision because she disagreed with the Reddit Board about the site’s growth potential. But in a sarcastic parting shot at her critics, Pao told the Wall Street Journal that she won’t miss the constant criticism of her within Reddit’s user community, which dogged her throughout her unsuccessful sexual discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins and continued to grow over her involvement in the site.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 11th, 2015
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