*国内メディアは報じないのだけれど、最近の飴のジャーナリスト業界で話題になっているものに、「JournoList」という 左翼ジャーナリストのメーリングリストがあって、これはWaPoのスター・ブロガーであるEzra Kleinの作った(主要な)メディア に於けるリベラル陣営の相互連絡のためのリストといった趣のあるもの。これは同じくWaPoのお抱えブロガーであった David Weigelの解雇事件に際して明らかになったプライベートなメーリングリストであるのだけれど、バーンズ曰く:
This week, Mr. Carlson produced a series of JournoList emails from April 2008, when Barack Obama's presidential bid was in serious jeopardy. Videos of the antiwhite, anti-American sermons of his Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had surfaced, first on ABC and then other networks. JournoList contributors discussed strategies to aid Mr. Obama by deflecting the controversy. They went public with a letter criticizing an ABC interview of Mr. Obama that dwelled on his association with Mr. Wright. Then, Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent proposed attacking Mr. Obama's critics as racists. He wrote:
"If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them?Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares?and call them racists. . . . This makes them 'sputter' with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."
All of which is apparently linked to the fact that of the three major vessel classes included in the index, the Capesize sector (Handymax and Panamax being the two others) shows a particularly strong tendency to decline in the second quarter? largely due to its reliance on only a handful of key raw materials.
As they note: Indeed, as illustrated in figure 2, statistically the likelihood of iron ore trade volume declines on a month-on-month basis are greatest during the second quarter. Events so far this year have supported such ideas; Chinese iron ore imports declined in June for the third month in a row to little more than 47Mt, nearly a 12Mt drop since March. So, not only have Cape-owners this year been fighting against this ‘cyclical tide’, but they have also had to contend with a concerted effort by the Chinese ? the key iron ore buyers ? to rein in their massive stimulus spending.