Sunday, July 4, 2010

Fourth of July, 2010

Today is the Fourth of July: America's Independence Day. On the whole, I'd rather live here in America than anywhere else.

As someone, it may have been Paul Harvey, pointed out, America is one of the few countries people are trying to break into.

Related posts:

2 comments:

Rehman Pakistani said...

You're right. But in some countries, like Pakistan, the secret agencies can accuse anyone, like journalist Habib R. Sulemani, as an “American agent” and harass him/her... don't forget our establishment get billions of dollar from the U.S. administration! For details, you can see THE TERRORLAND blog, click: http://theterrorland.blogspot.com

Happy Independence Day, our American friends!

Brian H. Gill said...

Rehman Pakistani,

Thanks for contributing.

I'm slightly aware of what conditions are like in Pakistan: A recent post, "Pakistan's Bosses Diverted Money Earmarked for Military: No Surprise, But Quite a Disappointment" (October 5, 2009), addresses one (regrettable) example of what's happened to American dollars in Pakistan.

And, there's a link to some Pakistan-related posts in the label cloud.

My description of Pakistan's leadership hasn't been entirely positive - or entirely negative. As a result, at least one person in India seems to think that I'm blindly supportive of the Pakistani 'terrorists' - and I probably am not very popular with folks who think that the current leadership in Pakistan is wonderful.

In reference to journalists and national leaders: I discussed the "Impunity Index" about two years ago ("Committee to Protect Journalists Unveils the Impunity Index" (April 30, 2008)), and have returned to that subject a few times since then.

On the whole, I'm glad that the function which journalists serve - collecting and distributing information and views - is now performed by journalists: and by almost any interested person with access to the Internet.

Today, it's much, much harder to "manage" the news. Which, I think, is a good thing.

(Another self-promoting link: I discussed what journalists do, and what they're supposed to do, in "Mainstream Media, Wikileaks, Reputation and Reality"(July 1, 2010).)

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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.