From the blurb to NYT contributor Randy Kennedy's commentary: "Mistletoe, yes. Sleigh bells, sure. Chestnuts, why not. God, no thanks."

   more »

The former U.S. secretary of state has gone a bit further than saying he's not pleased with the level of success in Iraq: Colin Powell said the U.S. is losing -- albiet it hasn't lost yet.

   more »

Just in time for Christmas for the military geek on your list: The U.S. military has released its first new counterinsurgency manual in at least 20 years.

   more »

From the BBC:

Up to two million people are thought to have died under Pol Pot

A documentary film dealing with the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime is opening in Cambodia.

The film, Waiting To See The Truth, includes interviews with Cambodians who describe the forced labour, starvation and mass killings under Pol Pot's rule.

But it also shows footage of young Cambodians who do not believe stories of the atrocities of the late 1970s. (emphasis mine - BD)

The period is not taught in schools, and the producers plan to screen it to children to boost awareness. ...

Throughout the film older Cambodians describe the horrors of life under the Khmer Rouge, when up to two million died because of the regime's brutality.

The camera then pans to giggling teenagers who declare that they do not believe a word of what their relatives have just said.

Addendum

If you're interested in this period in history and want a cinematic experience, track down the 1984 film The Killing Fields.

Check out the scene where the Dith Pran character is nonchalantly addressed in French by a KR commander, who clearly enjoyed the look of terror that spread across Dith Pran's face.

To be caught speaking French under the Khmer Rouge would mark you for death. For that matter, so would wearing eyeglasses. Both were symbols of the intellectual class hated by the psychopathic Maoist peasants of the KR.

But the KRs had a sense of fun too. Sometimes an unsuspecting victim would be served an elaborate meal while top KRs looked on. When they had finished eating, the KRs would asked them if they enjoyed the meal. When the person answered yes, they would be garroted and the KR brass would laugh as they watched the life being choked out of their victim.

Here's some links for more information:

Yale University: The Cambodian Genocide Project

Cambodian Genocide Group

Wikipedia: Cambodia under Pol Pot

Beeb reporter Frances Harrison on how Holocaust deniers at the conference in Iran were happy to see her and praised her coverage.

   more »

From globeandmail.com:

Bell is being dropped from the name and logo of the media company that owns The Globe and Mail and CTV, reflecting an ownership restructuring that began late last year. Starting in January, CTVglobemedia Inc. will replace Bell Globemedia as the company's name and logo, though Bell Canada owner BCE Inc. still owns 15 per cent of the business. In the restructuring, BCE reduced its stake in the operation and the Thomson family's Woodbridge Co. Ltd. increased its holding to 40 per cent. The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan bought 25 per cent and Torstar Corp. picked up the remaining 20 per cent. The media company is in the midst of buying the radio and television assets of CHUM Ltd. in a $1.4-billion deal.

From the BBC:

Pakistan's Supreme Court has blocked a fresh attempt to enact a Taleban-style law to enforce Islamic morality in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The court instructed the provincial governor not to sign the bill, which is opposed by President Pervez Musharraf.

North West Frontier Province, which is governed by an alliance of religious parties sympathetic to the Taleban, passed the legislation last month.

Last year a similar bill was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The federal government's decision to go to the court exposes their claims that they believe in democracy Asif Iqbal Daudzai, NWFP information minister

President Musharraf, who says he wants Pakistan to espouse an enlightened, moderate form of Islam, has denounced the bill as fundamental breach of human rights.

Correspondents say it is almost unheard of for the same bill passed by a provincial assembly to be challenged twice in the courts by the federal government.

Here's the breakdown of how Americans are projected to spend their media consumption time in 2007:

1,555 hours watching television, up from 1,467 in 2000. The estimate includes 678 hours watching broadcast TV and 877 watching cable and satellite.

974 hours listening to the radio, up from 942 in 2000.

195 hours using the Internet, up from 104.

175 hours reading daily newspapers, down from 201.

   more »

A new website, Iraqslogger.com,  promises to provide 24-hour-a-day coverage of the Iraq conflict. Its creator? Eason Jordan, late of CNN.

   more »

The Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias on how the ownership of public space by private corporations is impacting documentary makers.

   more »

From AP via globeandmail.com:

In a controversial ruling involving Canadian folk singer Loreena McKennitt, a British court of appeal effectively set limits Thursday on what may be written about celebrities and other public figures.

Agreeing with a lower court's decision, Lord Justice Buxton of the Court of Appeal in London said a 2005 book, Travels with Loreena McKennitt: My Life as a Friend, had breached a duty of confidence.

The three-judge appeals panel said portions of the self-published memoir, by former Montrealer Niema Ash, a long-time friend and associate of Ms. McKennitt, were intrusive and insensitive.

Effectively defining the boundaries of such disclosures, they said they were covered by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights,which governs the right to respect for private and family life, and not by Article 10, which enshrines the right to freedom of expression and “to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority ... regardless of frontiers.”

From AP via CTV.ca:

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Suddenly and shockingly, Belgium came to an end. State television broke into regular programming late Wednesday with an urgent bulletin: The Dutch-speaking half of the country had declared independence and the king and queen had fled. Grainy pictures from the military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane.

Only after a half hour did the station (RBTF) flash the message: "This is fiction."

It was too late. Many Belgians had already fallen for the hoax.

The NYT's Virginia Heffernan on Amanda Congdon, who has jumped -- after being pushed from Rocketboom -- to being the video blogger for ABCNews.com.

   more »

Timothy Garton Ash keeps score of the Bush administration's record in the Middle East. By his count, Dubya is basically batting not far above zero.

   more »

The interview guest on the Daily Show Thursday night was Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Life inside Iraq's Green Zone.

I was puttering around and didn't listen to the whole thing, but what I did hear left me aghast.

Chandrasekaran, a Washington Post editor who spent 18 months in the Green Zone after the invasion, told what should be a mind-boggling tale. The Bushies essentially sent an army of party hacks to rebuild Iraq, using vetting questions like whether the candidate had voted for Dubya in 2000, even asking them their views on Roe v. Wade.

As a result, some sterling hires were made. A 24-year-old with no experience whatsoever in the financial business was put in charge of relaunching Iraq's stock exchange.

A 21-year-old, who hadn't graduated college and whose previous job experience was driving an ice cream truck, got put on the team in charge of Iraq's interior ministry.

It sounds unbelievable. Here's part one and here's part two.

A caution: There are some blurbs promoting his book on the website. At least two are from Washington Post colleagues of Chandrasekaran (Steve Coll, David Maraniss) -- although they aren't identified as such.

The Daily Show's Samantha Bee took a look under Al-Jazeera English's hood and found it wanting. A sample question:

Will Stebbins, bureau chief, A-J English: "We're looking to produce a journalistically quality product."

Bee: "Aren't you trying to appeal to an American audience?"

Stebbins: "Well, the principle behind the structure of Al-Jazeera English is a recognition that culture and geography clearly affects one's view of the world."

Bee: "Yes, congratulations: Your mom and dad are watching. I get it."

She offered some suggestions for sexing the network up to make it more palatable to the average American. Media junkies may well find her efforts amusing and sadly true.

Here's the 'Newsweak' link.

As a special two-for-one offer, also see Jon Stewart's item on Les Newserables, the new France 24 satellite news network.

Hmm. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and that it was out to turn his citzens into slaves.

Here's what editorialists in the two countries have to say about it.

Update

Pakistan announced on Friday that it had arrested 500 Taliban in the past year and had turned most of them over to Afghanistan.

Watched a DVD last night, accompanied by beer and popcorn.

Crunched away on the popcorn, and then, hit a kernel and cr-a-a-a-c-c-k-k-k!!!

Using my tongue, I could feel a jagged edge on the inside of an upper back molar.

Cost of repair: $171.10

Rising incomes in Asia will mean changing transportation patterns. And that means greenhouse gas emissions there could treble over the next 25 years.

Actually, a report commissioned for the Asian Business Development Bank thinks that could even be an underestimate.

   more »

The British authorities are saying that Princess Diana died in an accident, and that there was no conspiracy to kill her.

But they would say that, wouldn't they? Why can't they just come out and say it was the Royal family in cahoots with the freemasons. Or the Illuminati? Or al Qaeda? Or somebody?!?!

People demand a conspiracy explanation! It's the authorities' responsibility to provide one!!!

   more »

From AP via Yahoo! News:

SAN'A, Yemen - A court Wednesday sentenced an editor and journalist from a weekly newspaper to four months in prison for reprinting the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
 
It was the third sentence against journalists handed down in recent weeks over the controversy. The cartoons were first printed in Denmark, then in several European papers, raising outrage in the Muslim world because they satirized Islam's prophet as violent and backward.

Several Yemeni newspapers also printed the cartoons, apparently to show what the controversy was about.

The court sentenced editor Abdel Karim Sabra and journalist Abdel Rahman Al-Abed, both from the weekly Al-Hurriyah, to four months in prison for "defaming the prophet" and forbade them from writing for two months.

Earlier this month, Mohammed al-Asaadi, editor of the English-language Yemen Observer, was fined $2,500 for printing the cartoons and ordered detained until he paid the sum.

On Nov. 24, Kamal al-Aalafi, editor of the Al-Ra'i al-Am weekly, was sentenced to a year in prison and closed the paper for six months. He was later released on bail.

At least 100 journalists in Yemen have faced various forms of harassment in the past year, ranging from beatings and arrests to kidnappings and a letter-bombing that wounded a newspaper editor, according to Yemen's Center of Training and Press Freedoms Protection, a non-governmental watchdog.

The Politico,  a political newspaper-website venture in the U.S., is starting to draw some more old-media talent.

   more »

The NYT has archived a number of columns and features on "ways in which the world is, and is not, moving toward a more energy efficient, environmentally benign future." The ongoing series is called The Energy Challenge.

This BBC feature briefly profiles five of the key players in the Alexander Litvinenko case.

Duh-oh!

From the BBC:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appears to have come close to admitting that his country has nuclear weapons.

Speaking on German TV, he said Israel did not threaten "any nation with annihilation" while Iran openly threatened to wipe Israel off the map.

"Can you say that this is the same level, when they [Iran] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?" he said.

Israeli officials later denied it was a change of policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Update

Here's a follow-up story.