Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

It would appear that the Citgo boycott movement is gaining some traction. Notice the HUGE ad that appeared this morning on Mickey Kaus's blog at slate.com:

Would a company that isn't being affected by the backlash from its Venezuelan ownership spend the money it takes to run these ads? They obviously feel it's necessary to paint themselves as "an American success story" rather than the bankroll for a third world, Central American tin-pot Castro wannabe.

I don't think I've ever bought a nickel's worth of gasoline at a Citgo. There are only a few in my neck of the woods. However, if the choice was between giving my money to Hugo Chavez to fund his anti-American screeds and walking, I'd be doing a lot more ambulating.

Congrats to Nikon

It's good to see Nikon getting recognition for what has been an excellent year or so for them design-wise.

After jumping out to an early lead in digital SLRs with the D1, Canon had pretty much cleaned their clock with more innovative models in recent years. Their pro-level models are excellent, and are second to none in ergonomics and logical ease-of-use. However, the lower models in the range, while good performers, lacked the breadth of the Canon line.


But beginning with the release of the D200 about 18 months ago, Nikon has been on quite a roll, introducing winnner after winner with the D80, D50 and now the diminutive but great performing D40. All of the new models have been extremely well reviewed and have resulted in much improved financial performance for Nikon as well. There's nothing like stiff competition between number one (Canon) and number two (Nikon) to fuel innovation and keep the price/feature relationship moving in the right direction.

Some questions to ponder...

...while continuing to wonder why anyone still listens to a old socialist, America-hating fool like Jimmy Carter.

So, how is it that nobody else ever seems to get called on the carpet for their lies and exaggerations? How is it, for instance, that every liberal from Ted Kennedy to Jesse Jackson can get away with pretending that American blacks are still living like slaves, and that four decades after the Civil Rights Act, the only thing keeping blacks out of the cotton fields are Democrats in Washington?

Can you think of a single human being who has been on the wrong side of more issues in the past thirty years?

And, finally, how is it that Jimmy Carter, that sanctimonious phony who was a disaster during his four years in the White House and a disgrace in the quarter of a century since, can pass himself off as equal parts statesman and saint? While most of us wished that he would simply slink back to his peanut farm after Ronald Reagan whupped his butt in ?80, we hadn?t realized how starved he was for the spotlight.

Please Jimmy, do us all a favor in this season of joy and reconciliation. Go back to Plains, teach Sunday school, build the occaisional Habitat house and never, ever speak or write publicly again. That is all.

Addressing the problem

I'm still not a fan of their editorial POV, but it's good to see Reuters trying to do something about the serious problems they've had with doctored photos.

Tom Glocer, chief executive officer of Reuters, has announced that his wire service is working with Canon and Adobe to create a system that will allow photo editors to view an audit trail of changes made to a digital image. The record of editing changes will be permanently embedded in the image file itself.

This is something that's sorely needed in the digital photography age. It's simply too easy to alter a photo and, if you're any good with Photoshop, probably get away with it. At least initially. Fortunately, the more egregious incidents have been uncovered by enterprising internet readers doing the job Reuters' editors should have been doing.


Tx, Rob Galbraith

Even a blind sqirrell...

It's nice to see the occaisional moment of clarity (not to mention intellectual honesty) from a paragon of the mainstream media:

It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.

Funny, though, how you don't read about magistrates in Spain or elsewhere inidcting Castgro as has been done to Pinochet. If you're a lefty or socialist you'll have no shortage of sycophantic politicians, media types and actors who'll suck up to you and excuse away virtually any atrocity.