Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

September 14, 2004

Ryder Cup

Filed under: Golf — Bunker @ 12:45 pm

Ryder Cup 2004 / The 35th Ryder Cup Matches will be played this week. I’m really not as interested as I once was. The match has lost some appeal to me because it has become far more a commercial entity than it was in its first 30+ incarnations. Marketing the matches themselves seems a bit out of character with the concept.

I did get to see Hal Sutton’s press conference. He was, as I would expect, very direct. He was asked about the chance of his team “misbehaving” this year, and was quick to shut that down. “We’ve been apologizing for five years. We won’t do it any more. It’s time for you in the press to take some responsibility, yourselves.” Not exact quotes, but to the point.

I enjoy the Ryder Cup matches because they are match play format, four-ball, foursome, and individual. It is something we seldom get to see, and the strategy of play is different from that normally played on tour.

I’ll pull for Team USA, but I always get wrapped up in watching someone play really well, regardless of team.

Busy Diplomats

Filed under: International — Bunker @ 5:44 am

Chadster has been following the Oil for Food scandal involving virtually everyone in the UN Secretariat, but there’s been little to post recently. He links to this article about some of the ties to our “allies”:

One was a company – Galp International Trading Corp., linked to a Liechtenstein firm, ASAT Trust – that has been identified by the United Nations itself as “belonging to or affiliated with al-Qaida.” The other was a Geneva-based subsidiary of a Saudi company, Delta Oil, which had close financial ties in the 1990s to the Taliban, which provided safe haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

I’m sure the folks at the UN are consumed with other issues, and have no time to deal with the scandal. I know they’re really, really, really busy with the problems in Darfur. I just heard an update this morning. The UN is deciding whether to debate whether to appoint a commission to determine whether there is, actually, genocide being visited upon non-Muslims so they can debate whether some form of sanctions should be imposed on Sudan.

Now that’s busy!

September 13, 2004

Democratic Underground

Filed under: General Rants — Bunker @ 8:05 pm

I’ve never visited their site, but took a look tonight. Wow.

The backpedaling is a ruse, and Rather/Hodges are playing the other media networks like a fiddle. This is much more likely. Rather knew that the wingnuts would accuse the documents of being forgeries instead of addressing their contents, so he set them up. Let them cry forgery for a few days, let the rumors spread, then have his “top source” Bobby Hodges accuse CBS of fraud to fan the flames. Then, release other documents, prove the Killian memos are authentic and watch Bush/Rove go down in flames.

Is this an admission by the hard-core Democrats that Dan Rather in is league with the Kerry Campaign? Tin foil hats.

John Carroll redux

Filed under: Media — Bunker @ 6:54 pm

Hugh Hewitt takes aim at something said by LA Times Editor John Carroll, a reprise of something I mentioned at the time. Of course, I wasn’t the only one.

Hugh takes us step by step through Carroll’s speech to compare the words then to the CBS situation now. His conclusions are, shall we say, obvious:

How many think old media has been serving “the reader, the listener, the viewer” in “good faith?” That many are real journalists.

How many are reading the blogs, sifting through them for leads and facts that must be accounted for, accounting for persuasive arguments from credentialed experts? These are the real “future journalists.” And given the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the forged docs, and using Carroll’s own standards, there are precious few “real” journalists at the Times these days, and thus far, the editors –speaking from their editorial page– are not among them.

I don’t claim to be a journalist. I comment on what I read and hear. But I believe that makes me a better journalist than many of the “professionals” drawing a paycheck from the likes of CBS News and the LA Times.

Another Letter

Filed under: Media — Bunker @ 5:58 pm

Wallace certifies this as a Real Bush Memo retrieved by his wife from her personal files. She once worked for Dubya, and was being sure to save such information just in case he decided to run for reelection.

blogshares

Filed under: General Rants — Bunker @ 4:36 pm

This is interesting, although I have no clue what it means. The best I can determine is that a Texas compatriot is buying up all my stock!

Hmmm… I wonder what kind of dividends I should expect.

Files

Filed under: Media — Bunker @ 4:09 pm

When the story first broke, I didn’t know what to think of it. Then someone made a comment about the memos being from someone’s personal files. At first, I assumed they meant personnel files. Wrong.

Personnel files are treated like low-level classified material. They are “For Official Use Only”, and are controlled. When someone moves from one duty station to another, they are either forwarded to the gaining unit, or are sealed in an envelope for the individual to hand-carry. When you leave the military, these records are sent to a government repository. At one time, it was in St Louis. I don’t know where they go, now.

Personal files, on the other hand, are folders of material an individual may keep on his own. When you leave a unit, either by transfer or discharge, you either carry these with you or destroy them as no longer needed.

Assuming these personal files weren’t destroyed, the only logical place they could have come from is Lt. Col. Killian’s family.

I don’t think that’s the source.

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