Tui of the week

Image stolen from Scoop, who have some commentary on the whole Holmes affair, as well as an informal survey. Why not send them your opinion as well?

New Fisk

A lesson in obfuscation. Just don't mention the oil. Or ask about the victims

Leaks

The American blogs seem to be all busy this morning commenting on whether the Bush administration leaked the name of a CIA agent. For those who haven't been following the story, it goes something like this:

• The CIA sends former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Nigeria to check out claims that Saddam is trying to buy Uranium. He concludes that "it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had taken place".
• Bush uses the Nigeria claim in his State of the Union address anyway.
• Wilson publicly says the Nigeria claims are false.
• Columnist Robert Novak reports that Wilson's wife "is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report".

(I guess I should point out that exposing an undercover agent carries serious criminal penalties in the United States).

The story has simmered away for the past two months, then suddenly hit the news in the last few days when the Justice department announced an investigation. Meanwhile, all those American pundits who were so quick to call "TREASON!" on those who opposed the war are making excuses as to why this isn't a big deal...

For more commentary see Mark Kleiman, CalPundit, Crooked Timber or Atrios.

Looking for pickled people?

If you've come from Damian Christie's blog in search of pickled people, try here

New Fisk

Missiles Strike At Heart Of US Occupation
Lies, Mischief And The Myth Of Western Intelligence Services

Why I hate HR proles

Because they advertise a position seeking a maths or stats degree, and then reject you saying they were after "National travel certisicates [sic] level 3 & 4".

This raises a number of issues. Firstly, given that HR professionals are supposedly paid to manage the recruitment process and ensure that the candidates they get are a good match for the position, you'd expect them to at least advertise it correctly so as to avoid wasting everybody's time. And secondly, I'm shocked that anyone can charge $2000 and take 23 weeks to teach this bullshit.

What next? People will actually be paying to get a Bronze Swimming Certificate?

Meteorite wrecks houses in India

Fortunately it was only a small one; a bigger rock would have done a lot more than merely injure twenty people.

Murderers

US soldiers have killed another four civilians in Fallujah And they wonder why people hate them...

New Fisk

Bomb destroys the media's illusions and claims another nameless victim
Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter, Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath

Double jeopardy

US prosecutors plan to dismiss charges against Zacarias Moussaoui (the alleged "20th hijacker"). The BBC says that this is part of a legal ploy to appeal both the dismissal and the judge's ruling that Moussaoui be allowed to call witnesses in his defence (in particular, witnesses the US government has disappeared and is interrogating - like Khalid Shaykh Mohammed). But the real ploy is that if the US court system does its job and stands up for the rights of the defendent, the prosecution will accept the dismissal, and then promptly put Moussaoui before a military tribunal - where they can sentence him to death, without having to worry about those pesky technicalities like standards of evidence or impartial juries.

This is double jeopardy of the worst sort, and a perfect illustration of how far America has sunk since september 11th.

New Fisk

Brutal reality that fans the flames of hatred in Iraq

Monkey business

Something for the phil of biology / phil of mind / evolutionary ethics geeks: a recent experiment seems to indicate that monkeys have a sense of fairness

Individuals were drawn from two large, well-established social groups of captive brown capuchins from colonies at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and paired with a partner. Pairs were placed next to each other and trained to exchange with human handlers a small granite rock within 60 seconds to receive a reward, in most cases, a piece of cucumber.

[...]

Partners of capuchins who made the swap either received the same reward (a cucumber slice), or a better reward (a grape, a more desirable food), for the same amount of work or, in some cases, for performing no work at all.

Brosnan said the response to the unequal treatment was astonishing: Capuchins who witnessed unfair treatment and failed to benefit from it often refused to conduct future exchanges with human researchers, would not eat the cucumbers they received for their labors, and in some cases, hurled food rewards at human researchers.

Those actions were significant. They confirmed that not only did capuchins expect fair treatment, but that the human desire for equity has an evolutionary basis.

It's easy to see how reciprocal altruism would create evolutionary pressure for both "cheater detectors" (for which there is apparantly some evidence) and mechanisms to ensure you're not getting a crap deal and being played for a sucker (of which the above is a great example). And the existence of such detectors in monkeys would suggest that they evolved fairly early on (though we'd need further experiments with other primates to confirm that).

Of course, we can't draw any sort of moral conclusion from this (that would violate Hume's principle of "no ought from is"). But what it is useful for is

• adding more evidence to the growing pile that suggests that humans are not rational utility maximisers, as presupposed by economists; and
• pointing out that unfairness makes people unhappy. If we independently value happiness in our moral scheme, then this gives us added reason to value equity.

Crooked Timber has some typically thoughtful comments as well.

People don't want to work with a racist

Samoan on Holmes team quits

What an actual live Iraqi thinks of the sale of Iraq.

DPF Responds

DPF has responded to my post on Holmes. And to be honest, I'm perfectly satisfied with his consistency on the matter. The real target of my ire is NZPundit, who through his response to the Corkery affair set himself the standard that grossly offensive broadcasters must be fired - and is now spectacularly failing to apply it.

Good

A group of Israeli pilots is joining the refuseniks and refusing to fly assassination missions.

It's good to see members of the military listening to their consciences rather than giving in and following immoral orders.

Vileness continued

So, Holmes has apologised. NZPundit, in the meantime, accuses me of "moral relativity" for

[seeing] no difference between a broadcaster joking about the Secretary of the UN being a 'darkie' and a broadcaster joking about a victim of terror being mailed back to his family in pieces.

I think that - and the repeated jibes on his site today about very cheeky and uppity "darkies" - provides an answer to yesterday's question. NZPundit finds such blatant racism perfectly acceptable, at least when it is directed at his political enemies. But then, did we really expect anything different from someone who supports ethnic clensing?

Meanwhile, DPF has called the comments "stupid" and speculated on Holmes' sobriety. Possibly, but I find Damian Christie's emailed speculation that the whole thing was a ratings stunt cooked up months in advance to be more compelling. Though if true, it would make the whole incident doubly despicable. Racism is not something that should be pursued as a business strategy.

This is scary

Bush doesn't read the papers. Instead, he gets the news from his aides. Who of course never tell him what he wants to hear...

No wonder US policy is so fucked up. They have an illiterate moron who is fundamentally uninterested in having his preconceived notions contradicted at the helm. No wonder he seems like he's on another planet half the time...

New Fisk

Iraqi broadcasters risk being closed if they put Saddam's voice on air

How absolutely vile

On his show on Newstalk ZB, Paul Holmes repeatedly referred to Kofi Annan as a "cheeky darkie":

"That Kofi Annan, I have got to say to you, he has been a very cheeky darkie overnight," Holmes said.

"It is all very well giving a darkie that secretary general's job. We will only take so much, I am sorry. We will only take so much. We are not going to be told how to live by a Ghanaian."

I'm appalled that Newstalk ZB would tolerate this sort of racist display on air. Worse, as he works for a state-owned broadcaster, Holmes' position will be interpreted as the NZ Government's position overseas.

Holmes must be made to resign or he should be fired - immediately.

Observant readers will by now have figured out that I'm taking the piss out of DPF and NZPundit's hysterical reaction to recent comments by Pam Corkery. Still, it does raise several questions - like why DPF hasn't condemned this disgusting display by another of our TV personalities, or why NZPundit's reaction is of amusement rather than howls for blood. Could it be that they find such racism acceptable? Or is it simply something they're willing to ignore as an "unnecessarily gratuitous insult :)" [sic] because Holmes is slagging off the UN?

I'd like to see the pair of them front up and explain why Paul Holmes's being grossly offensive merits amusement, while Pam Corkery's got moral outrage. But somehow, I doubt they will.

Oh, and if anyone actually wants to emulate the right and complain to TVNZ about something Holmes said on the radio, then DPF has a great letter of complaint you can steal and rework...