Both Alex Knapp and David Carr use the Congo volcanic eruption to take amusing jabs at overregulation. However, it’s distressing to see that while the media is now paying attention to this natural disaster in the Congo, that even now, there has been very little noting of the fact that this benighted country has been suffering from the largest and most unreported war on the planet for several years now. And it’s not clear which disaster will ultimately ever be amenable to human intervention–magma buildup, or the equally dangerous accumulation of tribalism, corruption, and failed socialism (thank you, decolonialists!) that continues to ravage much of the African continent.

[Update on Tuesday afternoon]

David Carr informs me via email that I misread his post (to be honest I just gave it enough of a glance to see that it was about the Congo eruption, and satirical):

I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t, in fact, a dig at overregulation but rather to send up the quixotic nature of the EU.

I know it’s just a quibble but I really, really don’t want the EU escaping even one pixel’s worth of my contempt.

Well, let it never be said that I am in any way derelict in my sacred duty to avoid shielding the EU from contempt. (Parse that! I dare you!)

Both Alex Knapp and David Carr use the Congo volcanic eruption to take amusing jabs at overregulation. However, it’s distressing to see that while the media is now paying attention to this natural disaster in the Congo, that even now, there has been very little noting of the fact that this benighted country has been suffering from the largest and most unreported war on the planet for several years now. And it’s not clear which disaster will ultimately ever be amenable to human intervention–magma buildup, or the equally dangerous accumulation of tribalism, corruption, and failed socialism (thank you, decolonialists!) that continues to ravage much of the African continent.

[Update on Tuesday afternoon]

David Carr informs me via email that I misread his post (to be honest I just gave it enough of a glance to see that it was about the Congo eruption, and satirical):

I just wanted to point out that it wasn’t, in fact, a dig at overregulation but rather to send up the quixotic nature of the EU.

I know it’s just a quibble but I really, really don’t want the EU escaping even one pixel’s worth of my contempt.

Well, let it never be said that I am in any way derelict in my sacred duty to avoid shielding the EU from contempt. (Parse that! I dare you!)

It just occurred to me that there is at least one way in which webloggers can take the credibility high ground vis a vis “traditional media,” particularly of the dead-trees variety. When the NYT or WaPo makes an error (even assuming that you can get them to admit it), they will publish an erratum, perhaps days later, in small print, in some area of the paper usually unrelated to the original crime.

When bloggers screw up (or at least when I do), the erratum becomes part of the post, for posterity. For instance, in my post of a couple posts back, in which I mistakenly confused Bill Jones for Bill Lockyer, while I corrected the original post, I also now have an erratum describing the original error and what I did to fix it. It will remain there until the bits have decayed off the server (or until, in a fit of new media hubris and desire to emulate the professional journalists, I delete it and send it down the memory hole…)

Newspapers might have more credibility if it didn’t seem so much like pulling unanaesthetized teeth to get them to admit fallibility…

[Update at 1:12 PM PST]

Apropos the above comments, I see that Opinion Journal has picked up on The Nation’s screwup in the Bush/Enron story, as I pointed out on Thursday (advantage, Transterrestrial!).

And note that The Nation didn’t issue an errata. First they just tried to change the offending paragraph, hoping nobody would notice, then, when they realized that it was flawed beyond editorial repair, they simply deleted the entire article. As I said, down the memory hole…

Professor Reynolds has a brilliant suggestion this morning.

I think it’s time for the United States to begin a massive public-education program, starting with distributing a lot of translated copies of The Federalist Papers. Most world leaders will probably hate that, which only adds to the fun.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to start in our own country. Perhaps even in Congress, though I’m not sure what language that you could translate them into that would have any hope of penetrating their statist skulls…

Professor Reynolds has a brilliant suggestion this morning.

I think it’s time for the United States to begin a massive public-education program, starting with distributing a lot of translated copies of The Federalist Papers. Most world leaders will probably hate that, which only adds to the fun.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to start in our own country. Perhaps even in Congress, though I’m not sure what language that you could translate them into that would have any hope of penetrating their statist skulls…

Professor Reynolds has a brilliant suggestion this morning.

I think it’s time for the United States to begin a massive public-education program, starting with distributing a lot of translated copies of The Federalist Papers. Most world leaders will probably hate that, which only adds to the fun.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to start in our own country. Perhaps even in Congress, though I’m not sure what language that you could translate them into that would have any hope of penetrating their statist skulls…

Nicholas Stix tears into Tina Brown, calling her a spoiled, serial killer of magazines. He’s not much easier on all of the softheaded liberal moneybags who continue, inexplicably, to worship and fund her (though maybe Talk will be the last straw).

When poor folks think the world owes them a living, we call that a welfare mentality. And when rich folks think the world owes them a living, I call it a … welfare mentality.

First New York, now California. The folks over at Free Republic have a name for people like Michael Bloomberg and Dick Riordan–Republicans In Name Only (RINO).

In today’s LA Times, Mr. Riordan, who is running for the Republican nomination for California governor, opines that “you can’t live on minimum wage.” I expect this kind of nonsense from a Democrat, but when a so-called Republican says it, I wonder what the point is of having two parties. In fact, as much as I think that Gray Davis is a political abomination, I’m wondering in what way that Dick Riordan would be an improvement. I suppose it doesn’t matter, because even though I own property in California, I don’t vote there. Unfortunately, I do pay property taxes, and I’m sure that I’ll eventually regret the outcome, either way. I was encouraged to see Rudy Giuliani endorse his former assistant Bill Simon in the race, but I suspect that such an endorsement will be of more benefit in the general election than in a Republican primary, since Rudy is somewhat of a RINO himself…

Oh, and why was what Riordan said nonsense, you ask? First of all, because it’s not true, there are places where one can live simply but comfortably, even in California, on the minimum wage.

But more to the point, no one is supposed to live on a minimum wage. If you have to support yourself, or a family, it is your responsibility to improve yourself, through education. experience and/or skills development, so that you’re worth more than that. No one is entitled to a given wage simply because they can fog a mirror.

What driving up the minimum wage does is throw people out of work whose labor is only worth minimum wage or less, (e.g., teenagers after school). When one considers the devastating unemployment rate of African Americans in the inner city, the minimum wage should be properly viewed as a racist plot to keep young blacks and hispanics out of the job market and force them into drug pushing and prostitution, where no one in Sacramento worries overmuch about their wages. I’ve never heard that argument made in either the LA or New York Times, though…

And in this corner…

Today’s Opinion Journal has a little story about a wiccan who’s suing a congregation of the Unitarian church for, among other things, calling her a “humpbacked, toothless, redneck hillbilly witch.” (Hmmmm…wonder what she names her place?).

They were upset with her because she refused to teach them wiccan rituals, and also because she refused to conform to their new-age feminist stereotypes. Pretty amusing stuff if you’ve ever had much dealings with Unitarians. I used to be one until I realized (in my youth) that, in many ways, their (non)religion was the wackiest of them all.

Both Matt Welch and Glenn Reynolds go after Wyche Fowler for his extreme Saudi apologia. Actually, he’s doing about what I’d expect. What’s noteworthy to me is the utter lack of tough follow-up or challenging with facts by the reporters in the various interviews that Matt cites.

Hmmm, on second thought, maybe that’s not particularly noteworthy either…