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May 28, 2004

The Indictment of Abu Hamza ("Captain Hook")

Apparently we flipped two of his disciples -- two of the Portland-area Al Qaeda.

Alphabet City has some first-class reportage, digging through the indictment, linking together all the conspirators.

Ramzi Yousef, inevitably, makes a cameo. He's turning out to be as to Al Qaeda what Allen Dulles is to JFK conspiracy theories, or what the Knights Templar are to medieval/church conspiracies -- he's just always popping up somewhere along the way.

First I thought Alphabet City was cutting and pasting a professional dispatch, but no, it appears he's written this up himself.

This post is great for two reasons. For one, it's just a good backgrounder. It digests the indictment and reports all the most important facts, and then it hyperlinks the stuffings out of all the major players.

But it also demonstrates that there's no particular reason that a blogger, given sufficient discipline and craft, can't produce dispatches on par with anything from AP.

It's not that Alphabet City's backgrounder is so much better than what you'd read on AP (although it's better than what you might read most of the time).

It's rather that there's no discernable difference between a professional backgrounder and Alphabet City's.

And this kind of piece is an important part of the news. It's not talk-to-a-source original reportage (so far as I can tell; if I'm wrong, I trust I'll be corrected). But a lot of articles in the newspapers are digests of indictments and court opinions and the like. It's a big part of the function of reporters, if not their main function.

There are some genuine deep thinkers in the blogosphere. Den Beste, for one; the Volokhs; and even Mickey Kaus, when the mood strikes him, and when he can restrain himself from using exclamation points every second sentence.

So, as far as opinion and analysis, the blogosphere has produced some important players.

But it hasn't produced actual reporters, fact-finders, digesters, and backgrounders, at least not consistently. (And not to my knowledge; I'm not an expert on the blogosphere. I'm not really an expert on anything, to tell the truth.)

As the blogosphere begins producing pieces like this more consistently-- what, precisely, is left for the mainstream media?

Actual talk-to-a-source reportage will probably remain their turf alone; there's a steep entry barrier to that function. You need a lot of time and a lot of connections and a lot of time to work your connections.

Still: two out of three ain't bad. Once the blogosphere can compete in terms of both opinion/analysis essays and overview/context pieces, the reporters will be left with nothing much to do but report on actual breaking news...

...which is sort of the job they're actually supposed to be doing, anyway.

Note to self: Stop churning out slapdash buffoonery. There's a better way.

Note to self: Lean on "Deep Stoat" to tip me as to the upcoming jobs numbers.

posted by Ace at 03:10 AM

Comments

Thanks for the kind words, Ace.

I put the piece together because I couldn't find anything that did the same. I also thought the flip angle was a great substory illustrating the success of our interrogation of Islamists in light of the Abu Ghraib overkill.

Keep dunking those waterboards fellas.

Posted by: Robert Stevens on May 28, 2004 04:11 AM

Not so fast, my friend. There is an important place for slap-dash buffoonery.

There remain many people and events that cry out for ridicule and humiliation. Satirist's have often been an extremely important force for advancing the social discourse. Inflated egos demand the pen prick of the sharpened voice.

When you can write as you did about the Wonkette and Whoreingtonienne episode, your voice is sorely needed. At a time when the level of acromony between the political sides is at a historic high, one who can provoke laughter at the richly deserving is a valuable prize indeed.

Keep it up. You are needed.

Posted by: bigdiogi on May 28, 2004 04:30 AM

Another choice shot of Ayatollah Hook:

http://www.antiwar.com/photos/hamza.jpg

Is he blind too? As near as I can tell, he doesn't have pupils.

On the subject of photos, the Lara Flynn Boyle pic is wearing very well. I never seem to tire of it.

Posted by: Nicholas Kronos on May 28, 2004 11:28 AM

Speak for yourself Nick. It's getting old.

Anybody hear from Allah lately? I can't believe he didn't have a photoshop using pics from Gore's blowout the other day.

Posted by: lauraw on May 28, 2004 12:03 PM

Whatever happened to Him (may his glorious name be praised) must've been pretty serious. His goodbye note was rather terse. Maybe he got in a rumble with Zeus and Vishnu.

Posted by: Smack Remembers Personal Info on May 28, 2004 01:06 PM

Allah's around, it seems, just not posting. He's gotten a handful of hat tips at LGF his week.

I'm happy Ace is here to take up the slack.

Posted by: keggin on May 28, 2004 02:05 PM

Speaking of deep thinking bloggers, Wretchard from the Belmont Club has been dissecting the moves made by our military with incredibly insightful detail, in ways that I NEVER read in the regular media.

I make the argument that some of the blog deep thinkers are years ahead of the self appointed big media pundits...

Posted by: Tman on May 28, 2004 02:43 PM

Lauraw,

Yeah, I think I've had it up for way too long. All of the guys really seem to want me to keep it, but I'm looking to switch.

Posted by: ace on May 28, 2004 02:55 PM

Wretchard rocks.

Posted by: Nicholas Kronos on May 28, 2004 03:26 PM

Perhaps you could replace her with Natasha Henstridge or something. To be more fair to the female readers (or Andrew Sullivan), maybe you should alternate the fine looking ladies with some fine looking men.

DISCLAIMER: this suggestion is made purely out of a natural desire to gratify the female readers (and Andrew Sullivan) and should in no way be construed as indicitive of Smack's own sexual orientation or proclivities. Thank you.

Posted by: Smack Remembers Personal Info on May 28, 2004 04:05 PM

Let's have the crazy Indian guy with the gun to his head.

Posted by: rdbrewer on May 28, 2004 04:51 PM

Or the Gore-bot with his head obviously and badly photoshopped onto the body of a gyrating male stripper.

Orange sockhatted Deaniacs in the foreground waving dollar bills.

Posted by: lauraw on May 28, 2004 04:58 PM

The Lara Flynn Boyle picture makes it a little tricky to read the site while at work. Just try to keep that in mind when selecting your next picture. Thanks.

Posted by: Aaron on May 28, 2004 05:24 PM

Aaron,

Sorry about that. I made a judgment call on it; I figured it was racy, but not obscene. I apologize if the picture was a bit over the line for some.

I haven't posted cheesecake pics here before, and I don't intend to make a habit of it. It was just that I found only a three or four pics of LFB, and this pic, while a little racy, was the only one that really showed her looking good.

Everyone should speak up about stuff like this. The only people who commented immediately about the pic were those saying, "KEEP THAT PICTURE FOREVER."

Posted by: ace on May 29, 2004 03:14 AM

>Spyware Removal - Net Cop - Spyware Removal

Posted by: Net-Cop on February 15, 2005 05:31 AM

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Top Headlines

Ryan Long goes to the No Kings rally to pick up young liberal hotties and is greatly disappointed in the quality of the mish
thanks to stevey

You know we "joke" about the GOPe just "conserving" leftist things?
David French just posted:

Populists ask what conservativism has ever conserved?
Well its about to conserve birthright citizenship!
Posted by: 18-1

I couldn't hate this queen of the cuck-chair more if it paid seven figures and came with a corner office.

TJM definitively ranks the films of John Boorman.

Kid punks CNN chump by speaking truth to retard

Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]