Links from around the web: 2006-10-07

Some oldies but goodies.

• A Roadmap to My Search For A Home on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity

  As many of the more frequent readers have known, I recently went through the daunting process of searching for a home, obtaining financing for a home, and then actually purchasing a home. The entire process was documented as it progressed (my ignorance is most obvious in the earlier posts) and so now, after the journey has concluded, a nice summary map of the entire trip would be helpful. I'll just give a brief "executive" summary of the post and hopefully everything won't be as disjointed and confusing. This is a very long post.

  It is a very long post, and well worth reading for new home buyers.

• USNews.com: Mortimer B. Zuckerman: A question of balance (2006-08-28)

  An excerpt:

  The world's information media seem either incapable of or unwilling to apprehend what's now going on around the globe. Al Manar, Hezbollah's TV station, has always been devoted to hate. Al Jazeera, the other Arab cable network, likes to proclaim its integrity but demonstrates nothing of the kind. These two propaganda channels have inflamed the Arab masses with anti-Israel, anti-American propaganda. The American media, of course, have presented the war in a more balanced fashion-but the "balance" of on-the-one-hand, on-the-other reporting is bogus. Truth simply doesn't always reside in the middle. If that sounds odd, try this: The Japanese, on the one hand, were wrong to bomb Pearl Harbor, while the Americans, on the other, were wrong to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such "balance," in the Middle East, ignores some rather important facts:

  1. that if Hezbollah laid down its arms, there would be no war, while if Israel laid down its arms, there would be no Israel;
  2. that this was not a war waged by Israel against innocent Lebanon but a war against Hezbollah;
  3. that it was not a fight to occupy but merely to protect Israel's right to exist within recognized, legitimate borders.

  Context, context. That's precisely what's missing in the media's "balanced" reporting of the conflict.

• Joke of the Day (Chicago Boyz)

  The World Court, an organization with neither legitimacy nor accountability, condemned Israel, a democratic country, for building a security fence that is saving lives every day.

• Jeremiah Denton

  Was Vietnam veteran Admiral prevented from speaking before the California Assembly on Independence Day?

• EUROPEAN ANTI-AMERICANISM