Antiwar.com Blog

“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain

Expanding on what Eric just said, I would like to lend a hand to good ol’ Schwartz. Since he seems to lack basic Web understanding, here’s a good definition from wikipedia (They have all kinds of evil links there, Schwartz.) Follow that link and read the entire thing very, very carefully. Especially this part;

One can then follow hyperlinks on each page to other documents or even send information back to the server to interact with it. The act of following hyperlinks is often called “surfing” or “browsing” the web. Web pages are often arranged in collections of related material called “web sites.”

Now, Schwartz, repeat after me, anchor hypertext reference equals”universal resource locator” text to display close anchor. If you don’t understand that, you’re not in the game, and you should take Twain’s advice.

In response to Justin Raimondo’s article today, Stephen Schwartz has written a letter, from which I excerpt a key portion:

You have no right to misuse a copyrighted photo of me. Remove it from your links forthwith.

We did not run a photo of Mr. Schwartz, we merely linked to a photo on the Website of The Atlantic.

On the the other hand FrontPageMag did run a copyrighted photo of Justin on their front page accompanying the article by Mr. Schwartz attacking Mr. Raimondo.

Two years ago Mr. Schwartz threatened to sue Antiwar.com for linking to a San Francisco Examiner article which talked about his arrest for writing graffiti on a wall. The article explained that Mr. Schwartz was responding to grafitti that said “Stephen Schwartz is the Philosophical Whore of North Beach.”

Mr. Schwartz’s lawyer and I had a long conversation in which I explained to him the difference between linking to an article and actually running the article. Since his lawyer had no email address and had never been on the Web, he was grateful for the clarification. No legal action was forthcoming, of course.

Now that we are in the 21st Century, you would think that Mr. Schwartz would have learned the difference between publishing something and citing it, but some people are just slow.

For his own education, I would like to point out that Mr. Schwartz’s photos can be viewed here, here, and here.

The Hollywood Liberal videotaped Justin Raimondo’s talk to the Whittier Law School on Tuesday (which his Wednesday column is a transcript of). The talk is available in four parts, in both high- and low-bandwidth.

• Part 1 High-Speed
• Part 1 Dial-Up
• Part 2 High-Speed
• Part 2 Dial-Up
• Part 3 High-Speed
• Part 3 Dial-Up
• Part 4 High-Speed
• Part 4 Dial-Up

Many thanks for THL.

Justin Logan on Eugene Volokh’s paean to public torture:

If this guy’s a libertarian, I want out.

Arthur Silber’s take:

It strikes me as nothing more than everyday, commonplace sadism.

You know, you guys are, like, so judgmental. What’s so bad about sadism, anyway? Who are you to rule it beyond the pale for libertarian debate?

Time for yet another attack on my favorite adversary: The Pentagon. Their new project is not quite as silly as their numerous others. This one represents a legitimate and serious threat to the survival of the species. According to a new story carried here by the Washington Post, the Pentagon is ready to test a launcher for;

an unmanned maneuverable spacecraft that would travel at five times the speed of sound and could carry 1,000 pounds of munitions, intelligence sensors or other payloads.

The story goes on to say;

The use of space “enables us to project power anywhere in the world from secure bases of operation,” says the Pentagon’s national defense strategy, which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed on March 1. Among the key goals in the strategy paper are “to ensure our access to and use of space and to deny hostile exploitation of space to adversaries.“

That sounds like a ‘space war’ to me. There’s virtually no way to shoot something like this down (The US may already have a hypersonic spy plane called the ‘Aurora’. If so, it would have been in service for at least a decade without having been shot down.). Five times the speed of sound? And in sub-orbital space? Put yourself in the position of one of the US’s ‘enemies’; You have to find some way to defend against this thing. Now suppose that this hypersonic space glider is armed with nuclear bombs or tactical missiles. How can the Bush administration’s systematic militarization of space fail to start a new and fantastically dangerous arms race?

From today’s presidential press conference:

QUESTION: Mr. President, earlier this year you told us you had wanted your administration to cease and desist on payments to journalists to promote your agenda. You cited the need for ethical concerns and the need for a bright line between the press and the government.

Your administration continues to make the use of video news releases, which are prepackaged news stories sent to television stations, fully aware that some or many of these stations will air them without any disclaimer that they are produced by the government.

The comptroller general of the United States this week said that raises ethical questions.

Does it raise ethical questions about the use of government money to produce stories about the government that wind up being aired with no disclosure that they were produced by the government?

BUSH: There is a Justice Department opinion that says these pieces are within the law so long as they’re based upon facts, not advocacy.

BUSH: And I expect our agencies to adhere to that ruling, to that Justice Department opinion.

This has been a longstanding practice of the federal government to use these types of videos.

The Agricultural Department, as I understand it, has been using these videos for a long period of time. The Defense Department, other departments have been doing so.

It’s important that they be based upon the guidelines set out by the Justice Department.

Now, I also — I think it would be helpful if local stations then disclosed to their viewers that this was based upon a factual report and they chose to use it.

BUSH: But evidently in some cases that’s not the case.

QUESTION: But the administration could guarantee that’s happening by including that language in the pre-packaged report?

BUSH: You mean a disclosure, “I’m George W. Bush and I… “

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Well, some way to make sure it couldn’t air without the disclosure that you believe is so vital.

BUSH: You know, Ken, I mean, there’s a procedure that we’re going to follow and the local stations ought to — since there’s a deep concern about that — ought to tell their viewers what they’re watching.

In other words, we’ll continue to lie, and it’s your responsibility to catch us in the act. Which brings to mind some interesting words from another time:

I am struck by the high level of arrogance that often exists among those who maintain that there is no truth except what they would have us believe. They redefine our words and our lives for us, and expect us to go along. They rewrite the past and are shocked when we object. And this arrogance is often combined with an amazing lack of thought to the consequences of what they are preaching. … Nor should we overlook the moral consequences of insisting that reality is nothing more than what we create. If history is only an invention, then we never have to admit to even the most grievous error; we can simply revise it out of existence. …

The idea of responsibility – of being accountable for one’s actions – has no meaning in a world where there is neither truth nor reality, but only endless interpretation.

– Lynne Cheney, Telling the Truth, 1995