At the risk of being called a whiner, I have to point out that an appearance on the O'Reilly show is a lot more like torture than it is like being in a debate. As the guest you are completely at a disadvantage. Rather than face the host of the show you are isolated ina dark room, waiting your turn, at which point a glaring light is turned on, and his voice begins the line of questioning via an earpiece. Media 'hosts' are trained to make their 'guests' look like fools, and make up with aggression what they lack in fairness or accuracy. So it makes sense not to make these kinds of shows an arena for an exchange of ideas.

It is amazing to me that giving the other party their say is considered to tantamount to total identification with them in the minds of so many Americans. This may be a reflection of the culture of overstatement that characterizes the media. TV and radio are designed to sell, and oversell.

Meanwhile China has come up with its own computer simulated version of what happenend in the skies that fateful day in April. Computer simulation can be used to create an impression in the viewer's mind that enters the mind as fact even though it is only a projection of one of a number of possible sequence of events. It struck me how the American computer simulated version was being played on the major news networks before the crew of the US spy ance had been debriefed. It also struck me as curious that the conversation between the captain of the spy plane, Lt. Shane Osborne, and Donald Rumsfeld was taped but not available as a transcript. I also found it interesting that the debriefing rooms are sound-proof. Why the secrecy?

The arming of Taiwan has, predictably enough, been increased. April 26th's Washington Post headline reads "President Pledges Defense of Taiwan" but does not mention that this is the largest arms sales to Taiwan that the US has ever made or that offensive weapons are included. With this the US violates its commitment under the Third Sino-US Communique to gradually reduce sales of arms to Taiwan, a signed treaty with China that has been nullifed by the Taiwan Relations Act. The US rationalizaion of the Taiwan Relations Act is that domestic law takes precedence over international treaties.

Meanwhile in a Peruvian report on the downed Cesna plane of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, the surviving passengers along with ABWE officials, say that not only had the Cessna filed a flight plan they had also radioed a nearby tower and had the organizations' name clearly painted on the side of the plane. The devil is in the details, of course, or in the case of this as in so much reporting in mainstream American media, the devil seems to be in the lack of those details.

P.S> I also want to thank all those writers who support Globalspin and what it is trying to do.