An NYT story on how places like New York and Boston are becoming out of reach to middle income earners. Economists say that's not necessarily a bad thing, but social scientists beg to differ.

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The nutty anti-obscenity rules in the United States are working their magic on master documentarian Ken Burns' new PBS project: A soldier's-eye view of the Second World War.

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Beirut's party people -- and ordinary citizens too -- are trying to put on a brave face by continuing to go out for cocktails or a meal amidst the bombing.

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This NYT story looks at how the U.S. wants to break up the alliance of convenience between Syria and Iran and get Syria to dump support for Hezbollah by getting the U.S.'s client states to put the word out.

Good luck to them! :)

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An NYT story about how Israelis are expressing themselves online about this current conflict to each other -- and to the Lebanese.

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Haaretz profiles Amir Peretz, Israel's relatively dovish defence minister who backs the very hard line being taken in Lebanon.

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From the NYT:

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.

This BBC story looks at the skyrocketing stock of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah amongst the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.

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Daniel Pearl, deputy editor of Newsnight, in a BBC editor's blog posting:

... Also, we know what you are saying about us (really, we do).

If you write anything about Newsnight, or about me, on a blog, I'll probably find it via Technorati. So for example, I know that there's a whole debate going on about Ming Campbell's performance on Newsnight - the question being asked is whether Ming is the Lib Dems' Iain Duncan Smith... see here or here.

The thing I find strange about all this is that often people who write blogs, or contribute to them, somehow think that they are involved in a private forum.

I recently came across a comment claiming Jeremy disliked recording his weekly podcast. I posted a response and the blogger seemed appalled - "the BBC's watching us - spooky" was his reply. But if you write something about us on the internet surely I have every right to read it and respond - that's not spooky.

I had to confront this the other day. We often have students with us on work experience. Twice in the last 6 months I've come across blogs in which people trailing the programme have written things about the team. When I approached one of these people, her reponse was that the blog was supposed to be just for her and her friends!

It wasn't the confidentiality issue that bugged me, but that anyone would think that we as programme makers don't have as much right as everyone else to read what you're all writing, especially if you are writing about us. So, what do you think? Stick it on your blog and I'll respond.

OK. Here goes nothing:

Hi Daniel:

I think we can agree that blogs are part of the public sphere, and that if someone makes a comment about the Beeb, the Beeb (or its designate) has a right of reply.

Now, for argument's sake, let's say I said something unkind about the Beeb, like: "BBC Online couldn't carry CTV.ca News's lunch."

And then, to my horror, I then found myself the subject of a withering Panorama investigation: "Bill Doskoch: A snow bubble collector exposed."

In terms of a response from the BBC, would that be going too far? :^)

Cheers

Bill Doskoch
CTV.ca News wage slave in Soviet Canuckistan

Some wag out there thinks I would easily fit into this picture. :)

Har, har, Mr. Speicher. :)

Vivian Smith is a veteran journalist, now a j-prof in Victoria, B.C. She used to be a columnist on the side for the Victoria Times-Colonist, a CanWest newspaper.

But earlier this month, she got sacked after writing a column that made fun of local commercial tourist attractions and listed things people could do for free. Tourist operators who advertise in the paper were not amused.

There was a small error in the column: The paper ran a front-page correction (?!?!) about a misreported price of a children's ticket to one local commercial garden. But one suspects that if Smith hadn't otherwise agitated advertisers, that would have been forgiveable.

Now Lynne van Leuven, a colleague of Smith's at the University of Victoria, has quit writing for the Times-Colonist in protest of its treatment of Smith. For more see this Canadian Journalist post or this one from Public Eye Online.

Here's the first Canadian Journalist post on this topic.

Conrad Black, the poster boy for embattled plutocrats, has some explaining to do over how he continues to live a posh lifestyle. U.S. prosecutors accuse him of violating his bail bond conditions by hiding his sources of income (thanks, Kevin!).

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Ta Mok (born Chhit Choeun), one of the most brutal Khmer Rouge commanders and its last leader, has died in a military hospital at age 82. That leaves Kaing Khek Iev, a KR prison commander, as the only leader from that band of ideological psychopaths left to face trial in Cambodia, according to this BBC story. There's also an obit about Mok.

Justice delayed is justice denied. :(

And the KRs committed their crimes against humanity between 27 and 31 years ago, yet only now are they on the verge of coming to trial. Three of the biggest fish left alive -- Ieng Sary, Khieu Sampan and Nuon Chea -- have immunity.

Here's an interesting story on the guy.

Just got off the phone with a friend of mine.

She was talking to a personal injuries lawyer the other day who was absolutely livid that the media wasn't paying more attention to the tilting cruise ship in Florida, particularly when it came to publishing the names of injured Canadians.

And why were those names so important?

Potential clients, of course!

We all gotta make a living, I guess. :^)

From The Globe and Mail's Review section:

C'mon, everybody loves a good fart joke

Maclean's columnist Paul Wells rebuts some of Stephen Harper's pronouncements about the media dogs who, in the PM's mind, nip harder at the heels of Conservative prime ministers than Liberal ones.

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From a series of BBC vignettes with a Chinese dissident, journalist and filmmaker about the impact of the Internet on them:

Li Xinde is a 43 year old journalist. He used to work for a state-controlled newspaper. But thanks to the internet, now he feels like a "real journalist."

He has gone freelance; criss-crossing China by train looking for injustice and digging up scandal.

In China, news organisations like papers and magazine are subject to strict censorship - the media is manipulated by the Party.

What does that mean? It means the media is the Party's mouthpiece. All reports have to comply with the Party line. This is why I quit the job of the official media.

My benchmark is the truth. A journalist once asked me whether I dared to report a case related to a provincial level leader. I said all I care about is if there is evidence. With concrete evidence, I am not afraid to report any case; even if it touches senior officials.

India's ISPs have blocked 17 websites on government orders, and one of those is Google's Blogger.com. India's bloggers say this is an attack on freedom of speech and have filed a challenge under the country's new freedom of information act.

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Beeb foreign affairs analyst Paul Reynolds takes a look at who seems to want what in the Lebanon crisis.

For a quick guide to who's who, check out this feature I did for CTV.ca ("Programs! Programs! Can't tell the players without a program! :) ).

The Beeb's Paul Danahar on the problems created by the zany growth in TV news in India.

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The Wall Street Journal is asking itself why it doesn't run ads on its front page; ads that could bring in tens of millions of dollars per year. And the NYT is trying to leave more green in its jeans by cutting the size of the paper, which will mean a five per cent reduction in the newshole.

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From an NYT editorial:

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

One result has been a frayed democratic fabric in a country founded on a constitutional system of checks and balances. Another has been a less effective war on terror.

From a CP story on CTV.ca:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured the First World War battlefield at Vimy Ridge on Tuesday where he quipped that the enemy now carries news cameras, not guns.

Harper made the comment during a photo-opportunity at a front line Canadian trench, just metres from the opposing German line.

"These were sand, not cement," Harper said of the reconstructed sandbags.

"And the enemy carried guns, not cameras," he added, looking directly over the lip of the old trench at a small clutch of Canadian TV and still cameras.

Critics have not been kind to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, yet it keeps rolling merrily along at the box office. The NYT's A.O. Scott offers a few thoughts.

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If you click on this CTV.ca story, you can find the video of Dubya talking affairs of state through a mouthful of bun with his best pal Tony. This NYT story also has a really good play-by-play.

The Beeb's Roger Hardy tries to see the method in Hezbollah's madness with respects to bringing the wrath of Israel on its head.

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When does a news story getting boring online: Two hours after posting? Four hours? Wrong.

A new study finds it's actually 36 hours.

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The BBC, which has revenues of about $5.5 billion US per year, is finding that it's just not enough in these times of technological change. But its detractors are saying enough is too much.

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A tiff over editorial independence has grown into a full rebellion at the Santa Barbara News-Press in California.

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Parenting writer Ann Hulbert tackles the current social crisis du jour that Americans are running short on emotional confidants.

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In an NYT feature about the decline of the CD store is this:

The neighborhood record store was once a clubhouse for teenagers, a place to escape parents, burn allowances and absorb the latest trends in fashion as well as music. But these days it is fast becoming a temple of nostalgia for shoppers old enough to remember “Frampton Comes Alive!’’

I, uh, guess it amused me because I am old enough to remember Frampton Comes Alive! :)

But it was pretty ubiquitous back in the day. After all, if it wasn't a defining article of 1970s North American suburban teenage culture, it wouldn't have gotten a reference in Wayne's World 2. :)

Relations have been gradually warming between Pakistan and India, but the Mumbai bombings may have changed that, finds this Beeb analysis.

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The Beeb's Paul Reynolds looks at previous clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

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