Woven into this tapestry of Western MSM fecklessness is an implicit (though it'd be heatedly denied) assumption that Muslim culture is, overall, less civilized than that of the West, that of Judeo-Christianity. That it is intolerant, predisposed to violence and not at all predisposed to what we call Western pluralism and tolerance. (Emphasize the violent part.)

The ruling philosophy in most of Western MSM is that of collectivist liberalism, lacking any devoted attachment to the real ideals of Western Civilization: democracy; justice under the impartially applied rule of democratic law; freedoms of religion,speech and press. AND a willingness to defend these hard-won attributes of our Civilization.

Their attachment is to an evolving collectivist nanny-state, which among other things, absolves the individual of personal responsibility.

All this being the case, "a good news story" is justification enough, without any real consideration of moral consequences of reporting, not reporting or how it's reported.

Posted by: Dave at February 10, 2006 11:03 AM

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What?! They ran out of packages of 72 virgins??!!

Posted by: Jonny_eh at February 10, 2006 11:22 AM

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I wonder if shipping & handling is included.

Posted by: Ade at February 10, 2006 11:28 AM

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Talk about more equal! We are reaping what has been sown. How much more ludicrous can this situation get before some common sense takes over? Rushdie knows the power of a jihad--that iw what this promise of gold is--and it is disseminated through the media. Different strokes for different folks--you gotta love the multi-culti smell of this. My group trumps your group--it would be funny if it were not so sad.

Posted by: George at February 10, 2006 11:42 AM

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"The rule not to use the media to put people's lives in danger seems to be selectively applied."

Very true....the recent rash of firear,s burglaries has occured after the media has made theives aware that thay can get their shopping lists from government ammo lists or by hacking the lame gun registry DBase...before registration and it's security weaknesses was widely publicized by the Star in their gun ban fanaticism, break-ins that directly targeted large collections were virtually unheard of.

Posted by: wlyonmackenzie at February 10, 2006 11:48 AM

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So what's the difference with MSM reporting Bush having a what $25 million bounty on OBL?

Posted by: tomax at February 10, 2006 11:52 AM

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So what's the difference with MSM reporting Bush having a what $25 million bounty on OBL?

You tell me. The cartoons, the bounty. Both liable to get someone killed. Do you not report them? Why excoriate editors over the cartoons?

Posted by: Steve Janke at February 10, 2006 12:13 PM

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Dave, I agree. Believe there is an inherent racism/classism in the MSM that comes from the majority of reporters, editors, and owners/publishers having lived within insulated community of classic liberalism all of their lives - no soldiering in other countries, no sacrifice, no challenge to the intellectual status quo.

Tomax - no difference, except those could collect the bounty don't read English all that well, or read at all - Afghanistan and the Waziri Pakistan have exceptionally low literacy rates, which in my experience made them extremely susceptible to anyone who could read the Qu'ran and the Hadith. This Talib announcement was meant for Muslims who read and subsequently pass on word of mouth to those that can't.

Posted by: DaveO at February 10, 2006 12:20 PM

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Indonesia's president today warned that the gulf between the west and Muslim east, is widening.

He right, the gulf is widening. I don't find this particularly threatening, its just a fact of life. I think the threat is to the Islamic countries, that don't embrace democracy, will become increasingly violent. As they become increasingly isolated, and impoverished.

Posted by: Curtis at February 10, 2006 02:08 PM

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That sounds like a stupid rule to begin with. All you then need the prevent criticism of any position is a rabid gang of terrorists to make death threats. Ya, that's what I call a free press...

Posted by: Jeff at February 10, 2006 02:14 PM

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If the press didn't print stories that could possibly get someone killed, it would be an awful thin newspaper.

The $25 million reward on Osama, is over kill. The people who maybe tempted by the reward have no concept of how much money that is...

Also redeeming gold. (Maybe its different in Iran) but if you have gold, and want to sell it, do you know how difficult that is? Pretty difficult.

Posted by: Curtis at February 10, 2006 03:12 PM

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Thank God, Allah, Nanabijou, the Grand Poobah or whoever.... that those two great big oceans are there...

Posted by: Raymond Hietapakka at February 10, 2006 03:53 PM

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Raymond: oceans don't matter when terrorists are already reside on this continent. With the NSA's monitoring program undergoing modifications, and the slow but steady purge of the CIA and DoS, authorities may not be in time next time.

What will be interesting will be how the MSM and the ACLU handles next year's holiday season - if MSM gags itself over Islam, but expresses its usual disdain over Christianity, Christian activists should be able to take the MSM and the ACLU to court and win. Either win, or strip away the masque certain groups wear and demonstrate their hatred of Christianity.

Posted by: DaveO at February 10, 2006 04:03 PM

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UBL declared war on westerners. The cartoonist didn't declare war on anybody.

See the difference yet?

Posted by: Paul O at February 10, 2006 05:29 PM

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Paul O. Yes definately there is a difference, just fishing.

But I agree with Curtis, $25M is overkill. When I first heard it, I thought "well that is dumb, because these folks have no clue how big that is".

Why couldn't the US instead promise to build schools, hospitals, offer to pave the main highways from one end of the country to the other?

Or buy new uniforms for the cops, chicken in every pot type thing, goat herds for life, anything that would relate to the general populace.

cheers
tom

Posted by: tomax7 at February 10, 2006 05:54 PM

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I don't know if people know about a level headed Muslim blog named "the religious policeman".

Very good reading.

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/

Posted by: tomax at February 10, 2006 06:06 PM

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I always felt that signature giving lottary corporations the right to post your name and photo was the equivalent of an advertisement for con men, hit men, gold diggers etc. But thats why they call them News Papers.

Posted by: TrustOnlyMulder at February 10, 2006 06:36 PM

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I disagree with the idea that "these folks" have no idea how much $25 million is. They've been in the opium business for a couple of centuries - they can quote rate exchanges on the dollar rather accurately. That is fact in Afghanistan.

The tribesman is not going to go against his culture - he may know where OBL is, but he's not going to alert anyone unless: the village elders in coordination with their iman okays AND the tribals leader on orders from their warlord okay how the money will be split out - which usually means the warlord will get the lion's share. In exchange for giving the warlord all of the reward money, the warlord buys new motor vehicles, medical care (not unheard of in Afghanistan for a warlord to send a tribesman's sick child to another country, even Europe, for medical care.

Feudalism still exists to this century. Had the US not gone on a bent on stemming the opium trade, the warlords would have more agreeable to accepting the pure pocket change that US$25m is, and turned over OBL.

Posted by: DaveO at February 10, 2006 06:41 PM

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Isn't this called a "jihad?" Ask Salman Rushdie after he wrote the Satanic Verses. They went after him with a vengance. Nothing has changed.

Posted by: On-Tory-O at February 10, 2006 07:48 PM

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Some nit-picking Steve, 100 kg = 220.46 lbs

Posted by: Don at February 10, 2006 10:32 PM

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how many ruddy "O's" do we have in this place?

;-)

Posted by: tomax at February 10, 2006 10:47 PM

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