I've been elsewhere trying to figure out what's going on? The Mr. big bad Wolffe's in the world help?

A public auction was once held at Sotheby's in London where the sale estate from the bibliomaniac Richard Heber took place. It took the Sotherby's staff 200 working days to stack, sort, and label before the public sale. I thought of this and Salon's 'letters' with respect...And Mr. Wolffe and us all can do better? Wordswolffe.

Heber's fortune had enabled him to stockpile enormous numbers of English, volumes of Greek, French, Latin, and many other languages he could (holy portuguese ?-dis-geese-table) not read. He spent his waking hours not reading them but to be famed as a famous rich bibliomania. In bought with a strange passion books from Oxford, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent.

Sad, but in his collection was a book he never read, "The Complete Gentleman" (1622).

*Henry Peachman observed in "The Complete Gentleman" this interesting comment that made me think about the warmonger maniacs...blogs too...pee-yuze's.

*"To desire to have many books, and never use (read the proper-spirit behind the words) them-books, is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping."*

A letter much earlier in this thread stayed with me and struck me as profound -- so much so that I had to go back and find it today. I know facts are anathema to the Authoritarian Right, and therefore serious news channels (BBC and CNN International) are the true opposites of Faux News and the Echo Chamber. I know MSNBC and U.S. CNN assist Bush-Cheney by distracting America with the Missing White Woman and Meaningless Celebrity Court Case of the Month But it wasn't until Paul Rosenberg's "Sorry Glenn but the Facts are Partisan" that I was able to take the final step and see clearly that serious fact-based news providers (to the extent they still may be found in the U.S.) are indeed partisan, in the Bush-Cheney "if you're not with us you're against us" sense. By daring to report the facts such providers are actively defying the Neverland world view and acting as "liberal" partisans in an Orwellian '1984'-ish sense. To the Angry Authoritarian Right, GOP propaganda is truth, and the truth has become Lib/Dem propaganda. Very scary.

Wow, great stuff, Glenn. I particularly enjoyed reading your discussion with John Harris about political bias in “mainstream” journalism. It’s fascinating to see the way that these subtle influences on a reporter’s world view – and the way they justify giving in to those influences – translates into demonstrable political bias on a macro scale. Harris makes what seems on the surface to be a reasonable defense of The Politico, though I detected an unmistakable air of condescension in his responses to you. It’s like looking at pebbles and grains of sand through a magnifying glass; but then when you step back and take a wider view, you realize you’re looking at El Capitain. Can these guys really be so clueless about the blatancy of their bias? I would like to respect these people and give them the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t like to think that there’s any intent to deceive here. But, really, after the Clinton-era witch hunts (which Drudge played such a huge role in), the intentional fraud and deception of the Iraq war, the Swift Boating of John Kerry, and so forth, how can Harris not be aware of his personal role in essentially deceiving his readers? But I do appreciate that he entered into this dialog with you. It’s one of the most interesting on-line discussions I’ve read in a long time, and a matter of huge importance to this country.

Waxman recently requested the pleasure of Rice's company at an upcoming committee hearing. Subject: the yellowcake fraud.

Yes, there has been some reporting on this issue. But that reporting has not resloved the issue of who conducted this fraud, how it got through US intelligence, and how it got into a SOU address. I hope it is accurate to say that the left-blogosphere has been way out in front of this, when compared with traditional journalism community. And don't tell me that a definitive yellowcake expose wouldn't sell a ton of newspapers. It most certainly would.

So why doesn't the general public know about this story? It is core not only to our going to war, but also it is fundamental to the Plame case.

Finally, let me vent flame upon John Byrne at Rawstory. For his headline "Democratic Committee requests deposition from Secretary of State".

Democratic Committee? Really? Political parties now have oversight powers? Can anyone envision how such headlines might give the public the impression that this is all just insignificant political nitpicking?

Byrne (or Rawstory--if this is one of their 'gems') should get his head out of his ass.

Yesterday I was going to say that Paul Rosenberg is using "partisan" kind of how Darwin meant the term.

"About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!" - Charles Darwin

I think that encapsulates what Paul is getting at. And I think it also highlights why this administration is the most anti-science administration in US history. The moment - I mean the EXACT moment that I notice that the Bush administration was manipulating science I was of a mind that Bush should be removed from office, because I knew that that the rampant ideological manipulation of science was a sign - smoke - and that where there is smoke there is fire (read: subversion of democracy).

I didn’t have time yesterday to read GG’s excellent post & the typically insightful comments. The “common sense” angle is instructive, I think. At the beginning of each semester, I ask my students to estimate (anonymously) the racial/ethnic composition of the US population. Over the past ~10 yrs, they have consistently presented the following “portrait”: Asian ~ 8-10%; African-Amer ~ 25-30%; Hispanic ~ 15-20%; and White < 50%. (Note: my interests are pedagogical, not traditional research; this portrait is an impressionistic aggregation of their responses, not a precise calculation. This pattern of responses, however, has held now for several thousand undergraduates at a regional state university across 10 yrs +.) I then present current Census Bureau data to try to get them to assess critically their perceptions vis-à-vis an empirical reality (based on best-available data).Two pieces of Census data tend to produce audible surprise: a Black pop ~12-15 %; a White pop ~ 65-70% (I purposefully use ranges to dissuade getting “hung-up” on over/under counting arguments). The pedagogical point is not their individual responses, but why there is such consensus w/i the class on such demonstrably incorrect answers; therefore, where are they getting the “information” on which their largely shared perceptions are based. The typical first answer to my question: an undifferentiated “the media” (since it’s a favorite target in the US); then we pursue what they’re watching (it ain’t the News Hour!!) and the internet rarely gets mentioned in this context. I’d speculate that when they’re on-line, they ain’t reading Salon—or the Census Bureau website, obviously!!

Rather than get too much longer here, I conclude the (longer activity) by introducing the “Thomas Theorem” (W.I. Thomas, sociologist): “if [people] define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences.” The application of Thomas in the context of the population question: if they have defined (based on whatever “source”) the population to be already < 50% white, then the real consequence is their belief that “they” have “taken over” already (especially from the perspective of an 85-90% White classroom; but African American students do no better with their estimates, and are more likely to embrace a “blacks are under-counted” argument). Then I use Alfred North Whitehead’s (alleged?) response to the student’s question, “Which is more important, facts or ideas?” The professor responded, “Ideas…about facts.”

Considering that only about ~25% of the adult population in the U.S. is college educated, and that most people continue to get their “news” from tv (see the link on pg 12 to the Pew research on where Americans get their news; sorry, don’t remember who provided the link), and that only about half of US households are internet connected anyway, it is at our own peril that we ignore the MSM’s continuing prominence, whatever low opinion of the MSM we “intelekshuls” might have. With apologies for the length of this submission, let me close w/ the now clichéd notion that we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. Assuming Whitehead was correct, we can best expect to affect ideas by carefully examining (and sometimes exposing) the facts —“ours” and “theirs.”