Mediawatch World Mar 29: Pakistan Exempt from Earth Hour, Hilary Deathwatch, Close Gitmo, On Cleanliness, Pushkin, Why Blog?

Pakistan is exempt from Earth Hour today courtesy WAPDA and KESC. They are doing far more than all the nations in G8 combined. And the irony is no one notices it or rewards them for being such good global citizens.

Dozens of Canadian cities, towns and communities will fade to black Saturday night, switching off their lights to mark a global effort dubbed Earth Hour. Aimed at promoting electricity conservation and lowering carbon emissions, Earth Hour will take place between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time around the world. More than 240,000 people and almost 18,000 businesses in countries as far-flung as Botswana, Vietnam and Denmark have signed up as participants this year via a website groaning under the strain. The number of people marking the event is expected to be far higher, however. Earth Hour

Yesterday, Slate published a 1,733 word adapted-extract from Eric Lichtblau’s upcoming book, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice. The section, while full of other interesting nuggets, is notable for its insider account of the tense moments leading up to The New York Times’s belated decision to publish Lichtblau and James Risen’s blockbuster December 16, 2005 story on the Bush administration’s warrantless NSA wiretapping program. What Can be Learned from Lichtblau?By Clint Hendler

Hillary Clinton is as good as dead. This became the consensus over the past week, when the media awoke en masse to the dual reality that 1) Clinton can't close the pledged-delegate gap and 2) Obama has her beat in the popular vote. But the Clinton campaign shows no signs of slowing—she said herself she's prepared to compete for at least three more months. So the question now is not just "How dead is she?" but "When will she realize it?" The Hillary Deathwatch- By Christopher Beam, Chadwick Matlin, and Chris Wilson


ATHENS — Five former U.S. secretaries of State said Thursday the next president should move quickly to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That single act would improve America's dismal reputation in the world immediately, agreed Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. Former secretaries of State: Close Guantanamo


It is not then that Hindus have no notion of dirt, except that it is different from the way it is viewed in the West and in medical books. Most of us do not realise that every civilisation has its own understanding of both dirt and hygiene, strange as it may sound to outsiders. As the ideology of caste runs across religious divides in the subcontinent, it is not surprising that Forbes magazine should have found so much dirt in Dhaka, Karachi and Mumbai. We Do Things Differently- Dipankar Gupta

Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy. As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration (No, it's not a terrorist attack -- that was 2001! No, it's not a catastrophic war -- that was 2003! No, it's not a drowning city -- that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he's attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be? By David Michael Green

Some years ago, I was awakened early one morning by a phone call from a friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend she still loved and was desperate to justify her decision. “Can you believe it!” she shouted into the phone. “He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!” It’s Not You, It’s Your Books - Rachel Donadio

Readers discover stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, like it and forward links to their friends, who forward them to lots more friends. Newspaper columnists mention it, stealing — er, quoting — some of the better jokes. By the end of February, the NPR program “Talk of the Nation” runs a report on it, debating whether the site is racist or satire. And then on March 20 Random House announces that it has purchased the rights to a book by the blog’s founder, Christian Lander, an Internet copy writer. The price, according to a source familiar with the deal but not authorized to discuss the total, was about $300,000, a sum that many in the publishing and blogging communities believe is an astronomical amount for a book spawned from a blog, written by a previously unpublished author. Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal

From Paul at the RealNewsaul Jay and The Real News Network te

Climate changing faster than predicted? Dr. Walt Meier on the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse, an indication of accelerating climate change view Iraqi demonstrators call for Maliki's resignation Mounting anger focuses on Prime Minister al-Maliki as fighting spreads across sections of Iraq view Monk protest disrupts media visit State-organized trip to Lhasa interrupted by monks who talk to media view Seven days not in Tibet Guardian: Chinese police blocking attempts to verify different claims made by Chinese State and Tibetans view