Iranians protest the recent election results.

In the 2004 documentary Control Room, an Al Jazeera producer explains that rumor and conspiracy theory often pass for journalism in the Middle East. If a water main breaks in Damascus, he explained, the papers there will find a way to blame Israel or America. Indeed, Western observers often note how casually conspiracy theories are taken as actual truth, but the recent election in Iran shows that suspicion and whispers are not solely the province of the Middle East.

The re-election of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sparked an outcry not only in Iran, but in many other countries, where the media seem quick to assume the vote was rigged. How could it be, these outlets demanded to know, that a majority of the Iranian public would re-elect an angry, right-wing demagogue, who carries little support among Iranians who live in the West an appear on CNN? The elite papers asked the same question after George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004. So disconnected and self-assured are these editors, that they arrogantly dismiss another inconvenient possibility: that a majority of Iranian voters actually prefer Ahmadinejad.

Too many outlets have been quick to accept the opinions of Ahmadinejad’s opponents, including Iran’s well-off, Tehran’s students, and well-to-do Iranian émigrés, who proclaim that the re-election victory was a complete fraud. If one were to listen only to these opinions, one might get a skewed view of the world. Americans living abroad overwhelmingly voted absentee for John Kerry, but the preference of jet-setting ex-pats does not a democratic majority make!

Two think-takers published their Iranian opinion poll in today’s Post proving that Ahmadinejad does command wide support throughout Iran. Furthermore, those questioned openly expressed  supposedly seditious opinions, such as the view that their government is too secretive and that the Supreme Leader should be elected. If those polled were willing to say these things to strangers on the phone, they certainly must have felt comfortable to express their presidential preferences freely.

We are not fans of Ahmadinejad, but Westerners should end their condescending disbelief and face the possibility that a majority of Iranian voters have a different view of what’s best for Iran.

We have noticed that the ads on the New York Times website have become increasingly intrusive on the home page.  Look at this imperial ad by Apple:

One must scroll so far to find the opinion section!

We were about to curse the Gray Lady but then remembered that we read it for free.  Such is the life of a freeloader.

Just when you thought every journalist had already published a piece lamenting the decline of the newspapers, Maureen Dowd, the shrillest voice at the Gray Lady, prints her own J’accuse blaming Google.

We always enjoy watching the ink-fueled spats that ensue when one member of the Establishment (Google) subverts another member (New York Times).

If there’s one thing New York Times columnist Tom Friedman likes more than name-dropping, it’s churning out puzzling metaphors.  Two of his book titles, The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat, illustrate this pastime of his— the former book comparing financial regulatory frameworks to computer software.  We doubt how helpful it is, though, to compare one complicated abstraction to another and expect the general reader to better understand global finance, but his books sell well.

After many rhetorical misses, Friedman finally makes a hit in contrasting today’s geopolitical problem children (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea).  Using a metaphor of pulleys and levers, Friedman divides these four countries into two groups: those who promise to “pull levers”, only to find the levers breaking off the wall (Afghanistan, Pakistan), and those who grope around with much fanfare only pretending to pull levers (Iran, North Korea).

Needing a change of scenery. Image source: The Office, NBC

The Post today reports on the phenomenon of “ecomigration”, the resettlement of people due to environmental factors.  The Post article misses some important points, but also shines light on the climate hysteria gripping small numbers of paranoiacs in rich countries.

First, the Post fails to mention that people have migrated due to changing environments since the dawn of mankind.  Rivers dried up, people moved.  Volcanoes erupted, people moved.  Soils were exhausted, people moved.  Wild game disappeared, people moved.  This is not a new phenomenon.  What is new is the global movement based on the actual consequences (or the fear of consequences) of global warming.  Global warming’s consequences are far more gradual than those of the more immediate ecological catastrophes of history and pre-history.

The story mentions that the president of the Pacific archipelago of Kiribati is considering the wholesale resettlement of his countrymen to another, preferably higher, country (the Netherlands need not apply).  Though Pacific islanders in Kiribati may want to relocate to escape a slowly rising ocean, the Post fails to acknowledge the bigger story of the past century: huge numbers of people, particularly in poorer countries, have abandoned the countryside to seek riches in low, coastal cities.  No place is this more true than in China, where cities such as Shanghai draw migrants from rural, inland provinces.  For these millions of Chinese, ecomigration stands for economic migration and these cities’ locations at sea level have not deterred the domestic movement.  I suppose the Post has tired of writing stories about Chinese urbanization, though.

Instead, the article relates the story of the Fiers, a Montgomery County family so afraid of climate change that it moves to…  New Zealand.  Huh?

Fier, 38, a computer security professional who used to work at NASA, said he thought hard about the risks of global climate change. He knew moving to a new country would be difficult but thought that the dangers of staying in the United States were worse. Several years ago, he drew up a list of countries and studied how they might fare over the next century. He examined their environmental policies, access to natural resources and whether they would be safe from conflict. He decided that New Zealand would offer a comparable quality of life, has an excellent environmental record and is isolated from global conflicts by large tracts of the Pacific Ocean. Its tropical, subtropical, temperate and arctic zones also offer a variety of “bioenvironments” as a hedge against the vagaries of climate change.

I wonder if this move was really rationally decided or if the Fiers are privy to a crystal ball the rest of the burgeoning Washington area is not. Aside from national and county parklands, Montgomery County is far above sea level, so the Fier family’s fear must be based in something other than climate.  One must suspect the move was more of a political statement.  New Zealand is becoming the new Canada.

Fier offers some sophistries to rationalize his irrational move:

[Fier] argued that people who do nothing in the face of risk are the ones who are being irrational: If even a fraction of the consequences of global climate change that scientists are forecasting come true, disasters such as Hurricane Katrina might become the norm, not the exception. In a world afflicted by overpopulation and environmental degradation, he asked, is the irrational person the one who acts or the one who says the future will look after itself?

It’s impossible to see how moving to New Zealand protects one from environmental harm.  New Zealand has less arable land per capita than does the U.S. and its isolation makes the importation of food an expensive endeavor.  Furthermore, although New Zealand has its virtues, it is hardly a cultural, cosmopolitan mecca of the world.  The Fiers’s move to New Zealand is somewhat reminiscent of the white flight from American cities in the post-war years.  Fearing perceived dangers of the urban core (read: minorities) and aided by government subsidies for highways and housing, white Americans of means fled city centers for culturally homogeneous idylls in suburbia.  One can’t help but suspect the Fiers are motivated by a similar fear of what they perceive to be vile forces beyond their control.

More shocking is the tone-deaf callousness of the academic quoted for the story:

“The guy who moves from here to New Zealand is no different than the guy who moves from the lowland in the Philippines to the highland, or from El Salvador to Honduras,” said Rafael Reuveny, a political economist who studies ecomigration at Indiana University at Bloomington. “Down the road, probably sooner than we think, we are facing major environmental changes. These changes have started to occur and are moving relatively slowly, but the pace of change will accelerate in our lifetime.”

It seriously strains credulity to state that the family that moves from one of the richest counties in the richest country on earth is “no different than the guy who moves from the lowland in the Philippines to the highland”.  The former moves by choice as a fashionable political statement, whereas the latter moves when he finally has no other choice as the putrid swamp water laps at his rusted door.  Only from callousness or startling ignorance can one equate these two situations.

Furthermore, the article curiously states that “[w]ithin the United States, regions that are vulnerable to hurricanes appear to be producing the greatest number of domestic ecomigrants,” citing the gulf coast as a prime example:

Thomas Hoff, 50, of Lakeland, Fla., may soon be an ecomigrant. He said he has come to regret moving to the Sunshine State from Michigan a quarter-century ago and is exploring his options.

“The snow is looking better every cotton-picking hurricane that comes through now,” Hoff said. “I am constantly watching the tropics every hurricane season. You don’t know what is going to happen.”

The grass is always greener on the other side for some (for Mr. Hoff, it’s fondly icier on the other side).  The article conveniently forgets to note that while Mr. Hoff may be nostalgic for the Great Lakes State, the tide of recent history is against him: Florida’s population grew an astonishing 14% from 2001 to 2007.  And “safer” Michigan?  Only one percent.

A story on ecomigration should highlight those who are truly displaced by the environment, and not the middle-class ennui of Americans looking for an entertaining change of scenery.

CNN never fails to remind me why I don’t take it as a respectable news source.  One article today states that

Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May compared with a year earlier, according to a report Monday from the Federal Highway Administration.

However, there is not a single mention of what the number was one year earlier.  Was it 50 billion miles, 500 billion miles, or 15 billion miles?  The denominator can make a huge difference but since CNN’s journalism is often an product by the brain-dead for the brain-dead, readers of the story will never know whether this drop is significant or minuscule.  Just toss out a big number the public is supposed to infer a vague “bigness”.

Such shoddyness.

Obama Claims Historic Presidential Nomination
Becomes First Black Candidate To Head Major-Party Ticket

If our society were truly as “post-racial” as Obama supporters wish it to be, today’s Washington Post headline would have to be rewritten thusly:

Obama Claims Historic Presidential Nomination
Becomes First Black Candidate To Head Major-Party Ticket

But in a Democratic nomination campaign defined more by style than by substance, frivolous details such as the candidate’s race make the headline.