Guardian Unlimited: Newsblog

The Guardian Unlimited: Newsblog is covering the London bombing live.

Statement of Prime Minister Tony Blair on London Bombings

From the 10 Downing Street Press Office:

I am just going to make a short statement to you on the terrible events that have happened in London earlier today, and I hope you understand that at the present time we are still trying to establish exactly what has happened, and there is a limit to what information I can give you, and I will simply try and tell you the information as best I can at the moment.

It is reasonably clear that there have been a series of terrorist attacks in London. There are obviously casualties, both people that have died and people seriously injured, and our thoughts and prayers of course are with the victims and their families.

It is my intention to leave the G8 within the next couple of hours and go down to London and get a report, face-to-face, with the police, and the emergency services and the Ministers that have been dealing with this, and then to return later this evening.

It is the will of all the leaders at the G8 however that the meeting should continue in my absence, that we should continue to discuss the issues that we were going to discuss, and reach the conclusions which we were going to reach. Each of the countries round that table have some experience of the effects of terrorism and all the leaders, as they will indicate a little bit later, share our complete resolution to defeat this terrorism.

It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, and the long term problems of climate change and the environment. Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack, or a series of terrorist attacks, it is also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8. There will be time to talk later about this.

It is important however that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world.

Multiple blasts hit London transport system

Multiple blasts hit London transport system .

Sad news of another presumed terrorist attack.

Judith Miller Goes to Jail

The New York Times reports on its reporter's jailing in DC.

Some ironies:

Miller was relentlessly criticized by the left as a pro-Bush agitator for the Iraq war.

The New York Times demanded a special prosecutor to find out who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's idenity to Robert Novak.

Miller's jail time might give her the chance to write another best-seller...

BTW Powerline has a good discussion of the case here.

Why Bush is Losing, Continued...

Mohammed Zahid's article gives one reason: Islamist extremists think they are winning...

London Gets the 2012 Olympics

According to the IHT (via Instapundit). Curiously, when I was there, every Londoner I met said they didn't want them. Talk about British understatement . . .

Still, I hope Moscow tries again.

Spielberg Reportedly Making Anti-Israel Film in Malta

The not always reliable DEBKAfile , basing their report on the not always reliable New York Times, says Spielberg will be in Malta shooting the story of Mossad agents who hunted down and killed Palestinian assassins in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics. The film will be critical of the Israelis, and feature their "troubling doubts." Debka advises Spielberg to be careful while filming in Malta, since his Hollywood production might become a target for Islamist terrorists, itself.

John Bolton for the Supreme Court

From OpinionJournal:

A lot of worthy names have been floated for the impending Supreme Court vacancy, and we'd like to add one more to the list: a distinguished public servant who graduated from the prestigious Yale Law School and is an expert in international law, an area that is particularly important in wartime.

We refer, of course, to John Bolton.

OK, it's a long shot, but wouldn't it be worth it just to see Voinovich cry again?"

That'll teach 'em . . .

Edinburgh G8 Rioters Appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court

The Scotsman has the story on the hearing for those arrested in the violent anti-capitalist demonstrations in the Scottish capital; interestingly, in the land of Adam Smith, the inventor of Capitalism.

The sad fact is that these latter-day Brownshirts only survive because of the sympathetic treatment they get from the press. If they were treated as they deserve by the media--as retrograde reactionary wreckers and thugs, whose nihilist vision would create a dystopic world no better than the one fought for by the Ku Klux Klan--their movement would shrivel up and die in an instant.

But they've been given a pass, because they act out the hateful adolescent fantasies of a lot of repressed writers and academics who get vicarious cheap thrills of the sort the Weathermen, Huey Newton and Abbie Hoffman once provided. It's too bad that they were able to smash up Seattle and Edinburgh, among other nice towns, in orgies of public idiocy.

UPDATE: Via Powerline, this link to Josh Trevino's Edinburgh G8 Blog.

New York Times Reputation Sinking Fast

This Reuters story says the legendary newspaper of record is now in 6th place, down from first place in 2003--behind the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde, and Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

It's worse than the Washington Post, too, IMHO.

I love my new phone!

It's a Nokia 3220 Phone, from T-Mobile.

I hate to sound like Glenn Reynolds talking about his cameras, or Ann Althouse talking about her car, but my phone is driving me crazy with joy. It is like having a mini-disco, tv and photography studio, tape recorder, and it even synchronizes with my Outlook according to the program I just downloaded from the Nokia website. I took some great pictures of the fireworks last night on the National Mall, and already used it for the Central Asian blog I contribute to, to take some pictures at a Senate hearing. What else can it do? I wonder...

Is Your Boss a Psychopath?

Peter Carlson's magazine column in the Washington Post today led us to this article from Fast Company magazine:

One of the most provocative ideas about business in this decade so far surfaced in a most unlikely place. The forum wasn't the Harvard Business School or one of those $4,000-a-head conferences where Silicon Valley's venture capitalists search for the next big thing. It was a convention of Canadian cops in the far-flung province of Newfoundland. The speaker, a 71-year-old professor emeritus from the University of British Columbia, remains virtually unknown in the business realm. But he's renowned in his own field: criminal psychology. Robert Hare is the creator of the Psychopathy Checklist. The 20-item personality evaluation has exerted enormous influence in its quarter-century history. It's the standard tool for making clinical diagnoses of psychopaths -- the 1% of the general population that isn't burdened by conscience. Psychopaths have a profound lack of empathy. They use other people callously and remorselessly for their own ends. They seduce victims with a hypnotic charm that masks their true nature as pathological liars, master con artists, and heartless manipulators. Easily bored, they crave constant stimulation, so they seek thrills from real-life 'games' they can win -- and take pleasure from their power.

Having run into this type of character in a number of situations, ranging from politics, to business, to personal life, I found Alan Deutschman's story fascinating reading . . .

Happy Independence Day!

Sandra Day O'Connor and Me

It's not the best story in the world, but it is still a story that tells you something about the strong personality of America's first female Supreme Court Justice...

Now that she's retiring, I can finally tell about my close encounter with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

A few years ago, I was invited to attend a preview screening at a movie theatre in the basement of Union Station. I forget the film, but I remember there was a crowd. And a long line to get in. As I made my way to the entrance, a petite older lady determinedly strode through the crowd, making her way to the front. In my opinion, she cut in front of me. I was incensed. "Who does she think she is?" I asked myself. I tried to get a look at her face--and saw she was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

We both got in.

Ed Klein v Hillary Clinton

John LeBoutillier analyzes the meaning of the new biography of the former First Lady:

The stunning news that Ed Klein's book, THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY, has reached the coveted number 2 spot on the prestigious New York Times bestseller list for July 10 is a huge victory for some - and a shattering defeat for others.

Let us examine:

Winners:

1) Ed Klein, the author, who has been relentlessly trashed by the Clinton Spin Machine, has now been vindicated by the smashing success of his book. A completely honorable man and a credible journalist, the pro-Hillary camp had tried to discredit him and his book. And even some prominent conservatives - with their own selfish agendas - aided this trashing. But getting to number 2 on the Times's list has vindicated Ed Klein.

I'm no friend of Klein's. When my documentary "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?" came out a quarter of a century ago, he ran an article by historian Lucy Dawidowicz in the New York Times Magazine designed to discredit my work, so nasty and sneaky in my opinion that it didn't even mention the name of the film, yet sought to undermine my key points . So I've never liked the guy, and really do sympathize with Bill and Hillary on a personal level.

Nevertheless, Klein's not the world's greatest writer, and as John LeBoutillier says in this column, it might have been a better policy for them to just ignore the book. After all, if the Kennedys can take it from Klein, so can the Clintons...

The New Sisyphus

I found the New Sisyphus via a link on Diplomad's old weblog. It's sort of interesting, though not as good as Diplomad, in discussing American foreign policy and the Bush "Democracy" doctrine. It has this quote from President Bush that bears thinking about:

So we made a decision to protect ourselves and remove Saddam Hussein. The jihadists made a decision to come into Iraq to fight us. For a reason. They know that if we're successful in Iraq, like we were in Afghanistan, that it'll be a serious blow to their ideology. General (John) Abizaid (Commander of US forces in the Middle East) told me something very early in this campaign I thought was very interesting. Very capable man. He's a Arab-American who I find to be a man of great depth and understanding. When we win in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's a beginning of the end. Talking about the war on terror. If we don't win here, it's the beginning of the beginning. And that's how I view it.

Friends Don't Let Friends Conduct CPB Bias Studies...

News reports say CPB chairman Ken Tomlinson gave $14,000 to his buddy Fred Mann to jot down the political angle of PBS and NPR shows. For those who want to read what all the media hype is about, NPR links to an Adobe Acrobat version of Mann's study. Now Tomlinson's reaping the whirlwind, under a barrage of criticism from the press and politicians, charging political interference and demanding his resignation.

Would it have made a difference if Tomlinson's content analysis had come from a more respectable source?

Maybe.

In 1992 Dr. Robert Lichter of The Center for Media and Public Affairs released a scientific study providing documentary evidence of a liberal bias in PBS documentaries. PBS and NPR supporters denounced that report, also.

Nevertheless, Congress reduced the appropriation for public broadcasting in the aftermath.

US Plans Space Fireworks Juty 4th

Radio Free Europe reports on the upcoming planned crash of the "Deep Impact" space probe into the Tempel 1 comet.

The Strange Case of Judith Miller

Time agrees to name confidential sources / Magazine editor cites 'duties under the law' as reason reads today's headline in the San Francisco Chronicle. Which means that Judith Miller alone faces jail in the CIA leak probe. The question is, if the judge already has the name in question, why Judith Miller?

I was interviewed by Judy Miller while she covered the NEA controversy for the NY Times. I found her reporting to be accurate, something pretty unusual. So I read her book "God Has 99 Names," an analysis of radical Islamism as a political force. It was excellent. When "Germs" came out, about the dangers of Germ warfare, her publisher permitted my website, The Idler, to run a sample chapter. The anthrax attacks after 9/11 gave that book great credibility.

So, what is the back story here? Why is Miller at the center of a controversy over Bob Novak's column?

I don't know, and she's not talking. But there may be more to this than meets the eye--the demands of the case has taken perhaps the best reporter on the CIA/Terrorism beat out of circulation--a reporter attacked by Edward Said in almost pure anti-Semitic terms.

One hopes Judy Miller will write a book about her ordeal to explain it to us, perhaps she will have some time in prison...

Fourth of July Celebrations Database

Here's the history of the Fourth of July, from American University.