Freedom of the Press...

From Brit Hume’s Special Report:

And the journalism advocacy group "Reporters Without Borders" has issued its Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. The U.S. came in tied for 53rd — with the group saying federal courts threaten journalists and refuse to recognize the media's right not to reveal its sources.

Denmark, which is listed in the 19th spot, brought charges against two reporters accused of publishing state secrets in a series of stories about pre-war intelligence.

And in Lithuania, which was 27th, the government shut down a newspaper's Web site, confiscated all 15,000 print copies of the paper, and arrested the editor — for running a story alleging political corruption.

Ah, I see. The US press is “less free” than that of Lithuania, who arrested an editor and shut down the paper’s web site. Look out, NYT…they’re comin’ to get ya! It's only a matter of time.
/sarcasm.

Soo…speaking of the press and such, I was looking for a way to diss this survey (What would we do without surveys?) and came across Norm Geras’ lil piece, of which I’ll give you the opening grafs:

This afternoon I'm ambling home from an appointment with the Singing Christians of Kingsway and I'm accosted not far from my gate by a young whippersnapper in mauve pantaloons and holding a clipboard and modern recording device.

'Sir,' he says, thrusting a mic towards me, 'Do you think The Guardian is the greatest threat to world peace today?'

Me: 'Well, no. I do have my quarrels with the paper, but it isn't the greatest threat to world peace.'

Him (disappointed): 'Oh...'

Not being the nosy sort, I thought I'd hang around a bit anyway to see if he was putting the same question to others, so I crouched behind my gatepost in a way that rendered me altogether invisible to the passing throng, and the thronging thring, and I waited. Sure enough...

I just can’t improve on what Norm did. No way.

(By way of full disclosure: I’m a big fan of British understatement and their dry, wry, wit. I’m much less a fan of The Guardian.)

A short follow-up to yesterday’s Green Wackos post… From an op-ed in today’s Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Anyone who attempts to debunk doomsday predictions is shouted down by the radical greens. Europeans Bjorn Lomborg and Phelim McAleer, loyal foot soldiers in the green movement, conducted their own research to support their causes -- and were shocked to learn how wrong they were. Mr. Lomborg, a professor, dismantled the core "truths" he once believed (including global warming) in his book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist," and now must employ bodyguards when he gives speeches. Mr. McAleer, a journalist, went to Romania to film a documentary about an evil mining corporation seeking to rape the landscape at the expense of peasants, and instead found radical environmentalists spreading lies about the project to keep thousands of people in extreme poverty. Today Mr. Lomborg and Mr. McAleer are viewed by many of their colleagues as traitors.

[…]

The punch line to all this? The British report acknowledges that even if the United States, England, Japan and all of Western Europe cut the ignition on every internal combustion engine forever, the developing economies of China and India -- granted exemptions from the Kyoto accord -- will still produce more than enough pollution to make up the difference.

For all this, the United States should cripple the world's largest and most productive economy? A better alternative is to tell the environmentalists spreading this global warming panic to get in touch with nature -- by jumping in a lake.

Not everyone have lost their marbles, thank God. We need a few more good heretics. Just sayin’.

Today’s Pic: A view towards Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech Republic. Taken during the Great European Divorce Tour, June, 1998.