A Tipping Point?

I haven’t been tracking the news from Ukraine closely, but this seems like big news, and good news.

Journalists on Ukraine’s state-owned channel – which had previously given unswerving support to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych – have joined the opposition, saying they have had enough of “telling the government’s lies”.

Good News From Iraq

Zarquawi is running scared:

For his part, Al Zarqawi has also expressed concern over the U.S. military operation against Fallujah, Mosul and other insurgency strongholds.

On Wednesday, an audio tape posted on an Islamic website and purportedly from Al Zarqawi accused Muslim clerics of failing to support the insurgency in Iraq.

“You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy,” the message said. “You have stopped supporting the holy warriors. Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence.”

“Hundreds of thousands”?

Is such exaggeration really helpful to his cause? If I were an incipient Jihadi, I might have second thoughts about joining up upon hearing that. If, that is, they subscribe to bin Laden’s “strong horse” theory (that is, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”). The message is, “we’re losing, folks.”

Let Us Give Thanks

…that at least one major MSM publication, The Economist, seems to actually understand the blogosphere.

The erosion of the old media establishment probably does entail some shift to the right, if only because so many of the newer voices are more reliably pro-Republican than Mr Rather. But the new media are simply too anarchic and subversive for any single political faction to take control of them. There are plenty of leftish bloggers too: such people helped Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. And the most successful conservative bloggers are far from being party loyalists: look at the way in 2002 that they kept the heat on the Republicans’ then Senate leader, Trent Lott, for racist remarks that the New York Times originally buried. It is a safe bet that, if the current Bush administration goes the way of previous second-term administrations and becomes consumed by scandals, conservative bloggers will be in the forefront of the scandal-mongering.

Mr Rather’s passing does not mean that the liberal orthodoxy is about to give way to a new conservative one. It means that all orthodoxies are being chewed up by a voraciously unpredictable news media, which is surely all to the good.

Giving Thanks

Instapundit has a list of sites where you can support our troops, for whom we should be thankful not just today, but every day.

And here are a couple sites that you can go to to support our allies, the British troops. Given the current anti-war mood over there, they may not be getting as much support from home as ours are.

If anyone knows of any similar sites for the other members of the coalition, please let me know.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!