News site registration

For those who don't know about it, BugMeNot.com is a life-saver. It has a bookmarklet you can put in your browser that connects you to a database of news site logins so that you don't have to create your own.

I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a while: If I have no issue with using someone else's login for everything I do on a site, and people have no problem sharing their logins, the site can't be providing much value to registrants. I wish all these sites requiring useless registrations would take the hint. I also wish I knew what percentage of people provide fake data. Maybe if sites realized that around half of their registrants provided bogus data they'd give it up.

Permalink | 1 Comment | id 6161

17:43 (utc-5)
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Yahoo! News - Nearly Half of Britons Unaware of Auschwitz -Poll

Yahoo! News - Nearly Half of Britons Unaware of Auschwitz -Poll, via Charles, who writes, "This may be one reason why the “Bush=Hitler” inanities fall so easily from the mouths of the Euroleft":

LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly half of Britons in a poll said they had never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in southern Poland that became a symbol of the Holocaust and the attempted genocide of the Jews.

"We were amazed by the results of our audience research," said Laurence Rees, a producer on the series, "Auschwitz: The Nazis & the 'Final Solution."'... "It's easy to presume that the horrors of Auschwitz are engrained in the nation's collective memory, but obviously this is not the case," Rees said.

The survey found that 45 percent of those surveyed had not heard of Auschwitz... Among women and people younger than 35, 60 percent had never heard of Auschwitz

Unbelievable.

Permalink | 5 Comments | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6152

14:07 (utc-5)
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Marc Rich, Clinton, and Oil for Food

Clinton is just the gift that keeps giving. One of the scores of people Clinton pardoned (why did Clinton know and owe a debt to all those criminals?) in the last month of his presidency immediately went and got in on the Oil for Food corruption (via Jayson at PoliPundit).

I guess you got to hand it to him... he knew where the getting was good.

Update: More on Marc Rich, via Roger Simon.

Permalink | 1 Comment | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6150

13:32 (utc-5)
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Yahoo! News - Diplomats: U.N. Lacks Right to Inspect Sites in Iran

U.N. Lacks Right to Inspect Sites in Iran, via LGF:

Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog would like to visit a military complex in Iran that an exile group said housed a nuclear weapons site, but they lack the legal authority to go there, U.N. diplomats said.

...several military sites inspectors would like to inspect are legally off-limits to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which only has clear rights to visit facilities declared to it as nuclear sites. Access to other facilities must be negotiated and can be highly problematic.

"The IAEA simply has no authority to go to sites that are not declared nuclear sites," a diplomat close to the IAEA inspection process told Reuters... He said the agency needed Iran's permission to inspect undeclared sites.

So, inspectors can only go where Iran tells them to go. This is beyond a farce.

And, Europe is feckless as usual:

Diplomats and weapons experts said the IAEA inspection process had been dealt a severe blow this week when France, Britain and Germany gave in to Iranian demands that a clause demanding Iran grant the IAEA "unrestricted access" to sites in Iran be removed from a draft resolution.

The article also mentions the NCRI, who have been telling us where some of Iran's nuclear sites are, yet the toothless IAEA can't inspect there, and now Iran knows so they're stripping those sites clean anyway.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6149

13:25 (utc-5)

 

The New Republic Online: An Argument for a New Liberalism

The New Republic Online: An Argument for a New Liberalism (to read):

Today, three years after September 11 brought the United States face-to-face with a new totalitarian threat, liberalism has still not "been fundamentally reshaped" by the experience. On the right, a "historical re-education" has indeed occurred--replacing the isolationism of the Gingrich Congress with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's near-theological faith in the transformative capacity of U.S. military might. But American liberalism, as defined by its activist organizations, remains largely what it was in the 1990s--a collection of domestic interests and concerns. On health care, gay rights, and the environment, there is a positive vision, articulated with passion. But there is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.

When liberals talk about America's new era, the discussion is largely negative--against the Iraq war, against restrictions on civil liberties, against America's worsening reputation in the world. In sharp contrast to the first years of the cold war, post-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions--most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn--that do not put the struggle against America's new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world. As a result, the Democratic Party boasts a fairly hawkish foreign policy establishment and a cadre of politicians and strategists eager to look tough. But, below this small elite sits a Wallacite grassroots that views America's new struggle as a distraction, if not a mirage. Two elections, and two defeats, into the September 11 era, American liberalism still has not had its meeting at the Willard Hotel. And the hour is getting late.

Via InstaPundit and PoliPundit.

Update: Also see this response from a Democrat (via IP). Scroll down to "the voice of the Democrats".

Update: Roger Simon has comments, and Glenn has accumulated much more on his post linked above.

Update: Patrick Spero has excellent comments:

Beinart's equation completely misconstrues his variables. During the Cold War, dropping the communist elements strengthened the public's view of the party. In other words, the public writ large was anti-communist, while the Democratic Party was ambivalent towards a minority faction of their party. Today, a large portion of the party is what would be the equivalent of 'communist' in Beinart's equation. Take away Michael Moore and MoveOn, and you take away a major portion of your party and potential strengthen the Green Party or other party.

Another substantive point to consider is that Beinart treats liberalism as ascendant once they dropped their ambivalence towards communism. But considering history, such a narrative belies his argument. Just think McGovern and Carter versus Reagan. Just think that since Truman only one Democrat won a second term. Certainly Democrats dominated the Congress, but it strains the imagination to consider all these Democrats as traditional 'liberals.' Lastly, Beinart's argument that Democrats argued for a strong defense build-up is just flat wrong when you consider their opposition to Reagan's defense plans.

All in all, Beinart paints a nice story and I do hope the Democratic Party considers reshaping their foreign policy. I absolutely agree with the argument that Michael Moore hurts the party more than helps it. However, I do not know if Beinart's history matches the reality that played out the past 25 years.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 6147

09:53 (utc-5)
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