thursday, august 31 2006
the real cabal
The Armitage revelation and way he and Colin Powell handled it—in the most self-serving way possible, with maximum damage inflicted on the administration—demonstrates what the real cabal in the first Bush administration was. It was Powell and Armitage, and their minions like Lawrence Wilkerson and Carl Ford.
These people spent countless hours sitting around and figuring out how they could leak and use anonymously sourced hits within the press to undermine Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove (and, later, when he was up for the UN job, John Bolton). Powell was always very shrewd about it and left no fingerprints. Since Powell and Armitage didn't have strong policy motivations, they turned everything into a personal turf war, which went a long way to embittering and making dysfunctional the first administration.
Yes, Bush and Rice should have stopped it, but a lot of the blame goes to Powell and Armitage for engaging in this kind of bureaucratic tribal warfare in the first place. Of course, the story in the press was always that Powell and Co. were the embattled, innocent victims—but that was partly because they were feeding so many of the reporters. It's outrageous that because this small group was so adept at leaking and so adept at working the press that they managed to get the administration's "neo-cons" portrayed in the media as an out-of-control cabal.
a tale of two tribes, a gang and a militia
Omar of Iraq the Model relates a personal story that sheds light on what's up in Iraq today.
the couric diet catches on
"no rising tide"
Oh brother, can you name a dime's worth of difference between NBC and the DNC? Newsbusters finds Today shilling for the Democrats again.
If the Today show were ever to air the opinions of a think tank founded, say, by a former Reagan administration official and free-market economist Milton Friedman, and funded by large corporations, it's inconceivable that the show would fail to identify the organization's conservative leanings.
Yet Today didn't feel the need to do the obverse when relying extensively on a liberal think tank founded by a former Clinton official and far-left economists and largely funded by Big Labor.
From a New York Times editorial to a Boston Globe political cartoon, the MSM has been beating the drum this week to talk down the economy in the face of more good economic news. The liberal theme du jour has been that wages haven't risen along with corporate profits.
Doing its bit this morning, the Today show weighed in with a segment it entitled "Work More for Less Pay."
Today relied heavily on comments from an Economic Policy Institute spokesman. But NBC/Today failed to disclose that the EIP is a highly-partisan, largely union-funded operation. It was founded by leftist Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and other left-wing economists including Lester Thurow and hyper-partisan Boston Globe columnist Robert Kuttner. Matt Lauer introduced the segment, narrated by NBC's Kevin Tibbles, by stating that "a rising tide is not lifting all boats."
americans hate their fabulous economy
Economic facts don't jibe with economic "feelings." If you wonder why, see above. But read this for good commentary.
wednesday, august 30 2006
impresarios as well as terrorists
What are we seeing when we watch events from the Middle East on our television screens? Is it news or is it terrorist theater?
Let us observe two media events which occurred on Sunday in Gaza. Sunday afternoon released hostages and Fox News journalists Steven Centanni and Olaf Wiig spoke before the cameras. The fact of their release and their statements were reported by more than 1,000 news organizations throughout the world.
At the press conference, Centanni and Wiig, who were forced by their Palestinian captors to convert to Islam, praised the Palestinians. Centanni said, "I just hope this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover this story because the Palestinian people are a very beautiful, kind-hearted and caring people that the world need[s] to know more about." Wiig similarly praised the Palestinians.
While their remarks were covered extensively, no one seemed to think that the fact that their first post-release statements were made at a Palestinian Authority sponsored media extravaganza in Gaza was significant. No one noted that the men were flanked by Palestinian "security forces," and stood next to Hamas terrorist leader and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
associated press puts words in rumsfeld's mouth
Q&O compares what Rumsfeld said and what the AP says he said.
ambulance chasing
HotAir video on terrorist use of ambulances, and more.
galt versus gladwell
An argument over the Celtic Tiger. Read the comments for some pungent criticisms of Blink and The Tipping Point. A sample:
If Gladwell (or most other business writers for that matter) were to write about how, say, to make a fortune in the stock market, his formulaic approach would no doubt start by taking a piece of ancient advice that everybody has heard, but that nobody (including Gladwell) has any idea how to execute consistently, such as: "Buy low, sell high."
Then Gladwell would dream up a new buzzphrase that means the same thing but uses that trendiest element in grammar, the present participle—as in his recent mantras "The Tipping Point" and "Thin-Slicing”. Buy low, sell high could be Gladwellized into "Investing Down, Divesting Up ©™®"
Gladwell would pad his book with inspiring but contradictory anecdotes about people who got rich following this amazing strategy. Finally, he would cash in big by giving speeches at $40k a pop on how you too should employ the power of Investing Down, Divesting Up ©™®.
It's not that Gladwell is unique in selling out for piles of money, it's just that he once had potential to do better work than what he is now doing.
girlie man gov. signs girlie man bill
Let's say you're a devout Christian attending a religious college. Would you expect the state of California to compel you to be taught by a man who wears women's clothes? Would you expect "The Governator" to sign a law doing just that?
He did. The bill, soon to become law, is SB 1441, meant to protect gay rights. A key provision:
11135. (a) No person in the State of California shall, on the basis of race, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, color, or disability, be unlawfully denied full and equal access to the benefits of, or be unlawfully subjected to discrimination under, any program or activity that is conducted, operated, or administered by the state or by any state agency, is funded directly by the state, or receives any financial assistance from the state.
"Any program" could easily include the Cal Grant program that provides college tuition. My objection isn't to gays or transvestites (I'm a big fan of Eddie Izzard) but the meddling/bullying of the state into moral affairs -- by the very whiners who cry about their civil liberties.
Gov. Arnold, worrying about winning reelection, wimped out.
JB
legal hilarity
Who said this?
"Be it at the gas pump, the pharmacy or in our courts, these politicians in Washington are putting corporate profits ahead of the health and well-being of their constituents," association spokeswoman Chris Mather said.
Trial lawyers. Yes, those parasites who inflate the cost of healthcare through lawsuits, who chase doctors out of practice, whose greed acts like a hidden tax on our economy, are pretending to care by targeting Republican office holders.
Bullshit. The Democrat party is beholden to the Trial Lawyers special interest, and the GOP is not. It's that simple.
plame out
Hitchens writes the epitaph for the non-scandal. It would be funny if Scooter Libby were not out of a job and millions in legal fees. Libby is facing trial for allegedly lying to investigators.
Sandy Berger stole classified documents from the National Archives, destroyed them in his office and lied about it to investigators. He got two years probation and a $50,000 fine.
san francisco hit (x 15) and run
At least one is dead and 15 are hurt when a man in San Francisco intentionally targeted pedestrians with his SUV in San Francisco this afternoon:
One person was killed and at least 14 others injured when a rampaging man intentionally targeted pedestrians with his sport utility vehicle in San Francisco and Fremont on Tuesday afternoon, according to police.
The driver, a man from Fremont, was in San Francisco police custody. His name was not immediately released by police, but California Department of Motor Vehicles records show the license plate on the black Honda Pilot SUV is registered to Omeed A. Popal of Fremont.
An aide to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter was under investigation, told the Associated Press that Popal was the suspect in custody.
The spree apparently began around noon in the East Bay, where Fremont Police Sgt. Chris Mazzone said the driver struck and killed a 55-year old man walking along the side of the road on Fremont Blvd. near Ferry Lane.Witnesses said the driver, Omeed A. Popal, did not slow down during his rampage.
stifling free speech
McCain-Feingold strikes again.
Federal election regulators refused to ease limits on political advertising Tuesday, blocking an effort to let interest groups run radio and television ads mentioning elected officials within weeks of an election.
The Federal Election Commission voted 3-3 on a proposal that would have allowed such ads as long as they addressed public policy issues and did not promote, support, oppose or attack a sitting member of Congress. Supporters of the change said they wanted to strike a balance between campaign ad restrictions and constitutional free speech guarantees.
The measure failed on a tie vote with the commission’s three Democrats voting against the proposal and the three Republicans backing it.
If porn and Nazi marches through Jewish neighborhoods are covered by the First Amendment, surely political speech should be -- that's why it was written. But no....
tuesday, august 29 2006
katie couric gets the photoshop diet
Oh, how slimming it can be. And we're supposed to buy the argument that CBS didn't pick her for her looks?
HT Instapdundit.
unloved
...America bashers might try a thought experiment in which they imagine a world in which the USA never existed and played no current role. Would Belgium and Canada have somehow pooled their mighty military machines and succeeded in rescuing humanity from Naziism – and Communism? If not for the United States, which nation might have inspired the world to pursue self-government and human rights?
Remember, the famous French Revolution proved so feckless in this regard that the frog-eaters anointed an all-powerful Emperor (Napoleon) less than twenty years after they guillotined their king. In terms of commercial activity and living standards, the United States remains the indefatigable engine that drives the world economy, with productivity and ingenuity as indispensable to sustaining global prosperity as American agricultural bounty is essential to feeding all of humanity.
The irrational nature of America Hatred comes into clearest focus with the realization that this destructive passion flourishes most spectacularly among those who have benefited most conspicuously from the existence of the U.S. You’ll find such festering resentment in Western Europe in general (France in particular), Islamic nations especially dependent on American aid, support and trade (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, for example), among pampered, privileged stars in the entertainment industry, and on elite university campuses in the United States and around the world.
shotgun baptism
The gang of Palestinian primitives that kidnapped Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and his cameraman forced them to convert to Islam at gunpoint. As Best of the Web noted yesterday:
The New York Times reports that Centanni and Wiig "were released unharmed on Sunday after being forced at gunpoint to say on a videotape that they had converted to Islam." That is a curious way of putting it. Isn't a forced religious "conversion" a form of harm?
One suspects the Times would not describe as "unharmed" the al Qaeda prisoners who supposedly have endured insults to their religion by U.S. interrogators. For secular Westerners, taking religion seriously is an act of condescension toward "victimized" groups.
Indeed, remember the media hysterics about a Koran supposedly flushed down a Gitmo toilet? The report was false, but sufficient to spark riots (with deaths) in certain mideast cities. So to underline the point:
- If you're doing your job as a journalist and get kidnapped, held for two weeks and forced to adopt a religion upon threat of of death, that's okay.
- If you're a terrorist captured in the battlefields of Afghanistan and held at Gitmo where a drop of pee pee accidently drifts through an airduct and soils your Koran, that's torture.
don't hold your breath
...if you're expecting to see a Katrina anniversary story about the grossly incompetent news coverage of the natural disaster. As Jonah Goldberg noted:
As I’ve written before, virtually all of the gripping stories from Katrina were untrue. All of those stories about, in Paula Zahn’s words, “bands of rapists, going block to block”? Not true. The tales of snipers firing on medevac helicopters? Bogus. The yarns, peddled on Oprah by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the New Orleans police chief, that “little babies” were getting raped in the Superdome and that the bodies of the murdered were piling up? Completely false. The stories about poor blacks dying in comparatively huge numbers because American society “left them behind”? Nah-ah. While most outlets limited themselves to taking Nagin’s estimate of 10,000 dead at face value, Editor and Publisher—the watchdog of the media—ran the headline, “Mortuary Director Tells Local Paper 40,000 Could Be Lost in Hurricane.”
If the storm had been in, say, Martha's Vineyard, do you think the networks would have been so ready to believe the tales of rape and murder? Just who's racist?
In all of Louisiana, not just New Orleans, the total dead from Katrina was roughly 1,500. Blacks did not die disproportionately, nor did the poor. The only group truly singled out in terms of mortality was the elderly. According to a Knight-Ridder study, while only 15 percent of the population of New Orleans was over the age of 60, some 74 percent of the dead were 60 or older, and almost half were older than 75. Blacks were, if anything, slightly underrepresented among the dead given their share of the population.
This barely captures how badly the press bungled Katrina coverage. Keep in mind that the most horrifying tales of woe that captivated the press and prompted news anchors to scream—quite literally—at federal officials occurred within the safe zone around the Superdome where the press was operating. Shame on local officials for fomenting fear and passing along newly minted urban legends, but double shame on the press for recycling this stuff uncritically. Members of the press had access to the Superdome. Why not just run in and look for the bodies? Interview the rape victims? Couldn’t be bothered? The major networks had hundreds of people in New Orleans. Was there not a single intern available to fact-check? The coverage actually cost lives. Helicopters were grounded for 24 hours in response to media reports of sniper attacks. At least two patients died waiting to be evacuated.
Furthermore, the media missed the big picture: a hugely successful rescue operation.
Largely ignored by the agenda-driven national media, one of the largest rescue operations in history saved more than 50,000 people by boat and helicopter. In this Dunkirk on the Mississippi, Coast Guard and other military units, volunteers, and state and local first responders delivered thousands from death by drowning, dehydration, heatstroke, fire, starvation, and disease. The three goats of Katrina — FEMA’s Michael Brown, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and Mayor Nagin — had little if any role; in fact, because local communication was wiped out by the storm, they may not even have known about the scale and success of the rescue operation.
Others did know. Orleans Parish civil sheriff Paul Valteau saw a part of this massive effort close up, when he pulled off the Franklin Ave. interstate exit at 3 p.m. on Monday, August 29, shortly after the storm had passed and levees had broken. “They were screaming and hollering everywhere,” he recalls. Submerged homes and businesses stretched into the distance. Survivors stood on rooftops, water up to their waists and rising. Desperate pounding and shrieking came from attics. One man, a double amputee, clung to a tree as water surged around him. “I saw things I never saw in 23 years as sheriff,” Valteau says. “I saw things I never want to see again.” But he also saw Coast Guard helicopters dodge power lines to winch the endangered to safety. He joined one of the ad hoc rescue crews launching boats from the off-ramp. “We weren’t alone. Hundreds of people who had boats showed up at interstate exits and launched their boats Monday afternoon.”
Meanwhile, at least three dozen helicopters from the Coast Guard and the Louisiana National Guard had already swarmed into the city, tracking right behind the storm and fighting 60 m.p.h. winds. Unlike befuddled city and state officials, the Coast Guard’s man in charge, Rear Admiral Bob Duncan, was literally on top of the situation: He flew in with the first crews, watched the first rescue himself, and spent the day in the air observing and directing operations. “People are most in need right after the storm goes through,” he explains. “When they feel comfortable going up on the roofs of their houses, we hope a big orange helicopter is waiting.”
Absent those early rescues, thousands would in fact have died, in line with the mayor’s prediction. With all communications knocked out, says Sheriff Valteau, “it was a reasonable estimation. . . . The mayor didn’t know what was going on in the field. It was impossible for him to know how many hundreds of citizens were out there saving people.”
Shortly after the hurricane, Dan Rather proclaimed that this had been media's finest hour. Perish the thought.
monday, august 28 2006
snootycrats vs. wal-mart
The stupid politics against successful companies.
Attacking oil companies for allegedly price-gouging is unquestionably good (if grossly opportunistic) politics. What Wal-Mart perpetrates, however, is price-gouging in reverse. It sweats every inefficiency out of itself and its suppliers so it can pass those savings on to consumers. Attacking the company for that isn’t populist, it’s perverse. A mom struggling to make ends meet might be angry at spending another $2-a-gallon to fill up at the pump. She’s not going to be so exercised by getting a great deal on diapers.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware declared at a recent anti-Wal-Mart rally in Iowa, “I don’t see any indication that they care about the fate of middle-class people.” Who does Biden think is strolling the long aisles of the nation’s Wal-Marts? It’s not the malefactors of great wealth. Wal-Mart prices make the most difference for exactly those families spending the greatest portion of their budgets on the basics. One estimate is that Wal-Mart saves the average household as much as $2,300 a year. That’s nothing to big donors to the “Biden for President” campaign, but for most families, it’s real money.
terror tv
Michelle Malkin is as perky anyone named Katie, but delivers a stronger message. Watch this latest installment of Vent to see how Al Manar dishes up hate to its mideast audience.
secrets and lies
A fascinating look (video) at how anti-Israeli sentiments were manufactured by manufactured news. This may seem like ancient history (2000) but consider how such propaganda figures into decisions by say, the Presbyterian church to side against Israel.
long arm eye of the law
A Texan foils a Liverpool burglary via webcam.
LONDON: An American helped foil a burglary in northern England whilst watching a Beatles-related webcam over the internet, police have said. The man from Dallas was using a live camera link to look at Mathew Street, an area of Liverpool synonymous with the Beatles and home to the Cavern Club where the band regularly played.
you need a swiss army
...to handle this 2-lb, 85-tool Swiss Army knife.
history on repeat mode
Viking Pundit notes a creepy juxtaposition in yesterday's Boston Globe, one an historical account of the Mao's cultural revolution with an account of repression in Chavez's Venezuela.
a terror bump
Michael Barone notes that the British terror plot has made American voters think twice about Democrats.
There seems to have been a change in the political winds. They've been blowing pretty strongly against George W. Bush and the Republicans this spring and early this summer. Now, their velocity looks to be tapering off or perhaps shifting direction.
When asked what would affect the future, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said: "Events, dear boy. Events." The event this month that I think has done most to shape opinion was the arrest in London on Aug. 9 of 23 Muslims suspected of plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic.
No wonder, when you have Sen. Harry Reid cheering "we killed the Patriot Act!"
victory lap interrupted
Hezbo Honcho Hassan Nasrallah, humbled by the slow burn settling in among the Lebanese as they survey the wreckage of their nation, has changed his tune about defeating Israel and offered a lame apology.
In an exclusive interview given yesterday to the Lebanese television station New-TV, Hizballah Chairman Hassan Nasrallah spoke for the first time since the ceasefire took effect and says that had he known what the Israeli response would be, he would have not kidnapped the Israeli soldiers.
In a somewhat apologetic voice, much different from his usual bravado, Nasrallah said that the response to the kidnapping by Israel was not even one percent of what he had thought it would be. “We didn’t estimate that the kidnapping will bring on such a response, as this kind of war has never happened in the history of wars,” Nasrallah said.
Victory lap begun
As the fog of war burns off and the fog of media manipulation/malfeasance comes to light, Israel comes out looking pretty good.
Contrary to what is now the accepted wisdom in the media, Hezb’allah in its recent offensive against Israel neither “badly bloodied the Israel Defense Force,” nor “fought it to a standstill” in Southern Lebanon. In fact, the opposite is the case. By any legitimate measure Hezb’allah was handed a resounding military defeat by the IDF in the recent fighting, and while the cancer that is Hezb’allah was not cured by Israel’s soldiers, it was put into remission.
Read it all.
sunday, august 27 2006
fallen art
An animation, but not your Disney/Dreamworks stuff.
beautiful dreamers
Iran and Hezbollah turn on the lights. Europe blinks! Seriously!
who said this?
“Now, let’s imagine the future. What if [Saddam] fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?
Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who’s really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.
If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.”
Click here for the answer.
struggling against reality
Did you hear the latest horror (HT Dr. Sanity) about the two journalists kidnapped by the Palestinian animals? According to the story, they were videotaped in long Muslim robes reading a statement announcing that they had converted to Islam.
If it weren’t so serious, what with two men’s lives at stake, you would almost have to laugh at the preposterousness of this stunt. It’s like a bad Monty Python skit. Imagine the brilliant discussion that went into it, probably not dissimilar to the dozen or so leftist revolutionaries in Life of Brian who spend the movie plotting how they are going to overthrow the Roman empire. In one scene, in the interest of diversity, they debate whether a man should be able to call himslef Loretta and have babies:
LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.
REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! -- Where's the fetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: [crying]
JUDITH: Here! I-- I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What's the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
****
PALESTINIAN #1: Let’s kidnap some journalists and force them to convert to Islam on video!
PALESTINIAN #2: What's the point?
PALESTINIAN #1: What?
PALESTINIAN #2: What's the point of forcing someone to convert?! No one’s going to believe it.
PALESTINIAN #1: It is symbolic of our struggle against occupation!
PALESTINIAN #2: Symbolic of your struggle against reality.
root causes and other nonsense
NPR this morning featured a report about a change in the laws on shoplifting in the UK. From now on, there will be no risk of jail time for shoplifters. Their crime will be handled in the same manner as traffic violations unless there is a particularly high value item involved. Naturally, shop owners are distressed by this devaluation of their property but that apparently counts for little.
I am not terribly interested in determining the optimal punishment for shoplifting, but I was struck by the explanation for the change. The reporter explained that the change came about as a result of a typical (mis)application of the "root cause" concept. Since the "root cause" of most shoplifting is drug addiction (sic), and jail time does not address the "root cause", then jail time for the offense is not warranted. I suppose in such thinking, jail time would be a "disproportionate response."
While the particular offense involved is shoplifting, the logic, if this kind of thinking can be dignified with such a word, is familiar. The rubric of "root causes" as an explanation for manifest behavior, especially criminal behavior, remains one of the most egregious misuses of Psychoanalytic concepts that our psychobabble addled age has been heir to. It represents a classic inversion of the meaning of Freud's work and completely distorts and perverts the entire enterprise of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. It also leads to a "reductio ad absurdum" that renders the use of the concept literally nonsensical.
Freud's theory of the mind was revolutionary because he proposed the existence of a dynamic unconscious and formulated the concept of compromise formation and multiple determinants.
inside the deranged liberal mind
Which is not to say all liberals are deranged. But plenty are, and one named Russell Shaw wrote on the Huffington Post that he'd allow a terror attack on America because it would help restore Democrats to power. His logic is that the loss of life from terror would be more than compensated by the lives saved under a Democrat regime.
Just how? Here's a sample:
Block the next Supreme Court appointment, one which would surely result in the overturning of Roe and the death of hundreds if not thousands of women from abortion-prohibiting states at the hands of back-alley abortionists;
I am ambivalent on abortion. But it's not unreasonable to regard it as the taking of life. By that token, some 24 million lives have been lost to abortion since Rowe v. Wade. That's a real number.
Back-alley abortion deaths? Speculative.
Anyway, ACE at Polipundit has sliced and diced this poor clown's screed thoroughly and entertainingly. Have a read.
saturday, august 26 2006
beautiful libraries
nasrallectomy
"I feel I've been searching for Nasrallah with my eyes, heart and mind," writes an Egyptian woman columnist about the chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. "I feel Nasrallah lives within me."
It's a regular epidemic in the Arab world, this sudden hero-worship, and I predict that this poor woman –- who by the way is identified by the AP as a "strongly secular columnist" -- will soon be seeking a Nasrallectomy.
Here's another such sufferer, a male columnist in Kuwait. Lebanon, he wrote in a recent column, "was victorious in the battle of dignity and honor."I don't think Arabs can stand many more such victories. Southern Lebanon -– the area ruled and protected by Nasrallah -- has been reduced to rubble. More than a thousand Lebanese civilians are dead (an unknown number of them because Nasrallah used them as shields). Hundreds of thousands are homeless and without means of earning a living. The infrastructure and economy of Lebanon (and perhaps its democracy, too) have been smashed. All this has been accomplished to advance Iran's dreams of becoming the region's hegemon, and Iran is a country that has traditionally held Arabs in contempt. Oh, thank you, Hezbollah!
I've heard all I care to hear from Arab nationalists about "dignity," "honor," and especially about "victory." Iraqis have experienced precisely such victory. Saddam proclaimed himself the winner in the first Gulf War, remember? Western foreign-policy "realists" sought to "contain" him with sanctions, with the result that the West impoverished Iraqis even as Saddam massacred them. For years, we tried to try to tell Arab nationalists that the lives of Iraqis were a daily horror. What did they tell us in return, these people so profoundly dedicated to dignity and honor? They told us that Saddam Hussein was a great leader of the Arabs, and that we should stop whining.
hezbollah lost
...writes Lebanon Daily Star editor Michael Young. Ditto, writes Amir Tehari.
friday, august 25 2006
mean streets
So in the last few days WaPo ran a story asserting that "the debate is over" and the Iraqi Civil War is officially raging, and the NYT ran a story claiming that "by almost all measures," Iraq's insurgency is getting worse. So how is it that people in Baghdad are telling ABC News that they feel safer than they've felt in a long time?
“I’m happy because we’re safe,” said a man who lives in Dora, a Baghdad neighborhood. “Stores are open and we can move around freely.”
Turns out that, news of the Apocalypse notwithstanding, there's apparently been a significant decline in Baghdad street violence this month, including both criminal and political attacks. At least that's what U.S. and Iraqi officials are claiming. While it's reasonable to take a skeptical view of such claims like these, it's just as reasonable to be skeptical of the U.S. media's reports about the state of the city. As for me, I put my bet on the Baghdadis.
Here's what's going on. The U.S. military has increased its presence in Baghdad in order to rein in the murders, kidnappings and other criminal violent activity that has been plaguing the capital. (This security program does not address car bombings.) Some 5,000 extra troops moved in two weeks ago, and joined with thousands of Iraqi troops to do door-to-door sweeps in a series of dangerous neighborhoods.
yakushima forest
Click the image to see it enlarged.
thursday, august 24 2006
democrats: what part of terror war do they support?
...Assuming against all logic and reason that the Democrats have some serious objection to the war in Iraq, perhaps they could tell us which part of the war on terrorism they do support. That would be easier than rattling off the long list of counterterrorism measures they vehemently oppose.
They oppose the National Security Agency listening to people who are calling specific phone numbers found on al-Qaida cell phones and computers. Spying on al-Qaida terrorists is hampering our ability to fight the global war on terror!
Enraged that the Bush administration deferred to the safety of the American people rather than the obstructionist Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, one Clinton-appointed judge, James Robertson, resigned from the FISA court in protest over the NSA spying program.
Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold called for a formal Senate censure of President Bush when he found out the president was rude enough to be listening in on al-Qaida phone calls. (Wait until Feingold finds out the White House has been visiting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "MySpace" page!)
Last week a federal judge appointed by Jimmy Carter ruled the NSA program to surveil phone calls to al-Qaida members in other counties unconstitutional.
Democrats oppose the detainment of Taliban and al-Qaida soldiers at our military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Democrats such as Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have called for Guantanamo to be shut down.
The Guantanamo detainees are not innocent insurance salesmen imprisoned in some horrible mix-up like something out of a Perry Mason movie. The detainees were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. You remember -- the war liberals pretended to support right up until approximately one nanosecond after John Kerry conceded the 2004 election to President Bush.
But apparently, imprisoning al-Qaida warriors we catch on the battlefield is hampering our ability to fight the global war on terror.
gullible media exposed
Remember the dastardly attack by Israeli rockets on a Red Cross Ambulance last month? It had a major impact on world opinion. But was the story true?
One blogger produced an extensive examination of the news coverage and the facts. Be sure to watch the ITV 4-minute broadcast. If nothing else, observe how they repeat a sound bite of an Israeli officer saying that they did not/do not target civilians to mean just the opposite.
Whew.
how do shia and sunni tell each other apart?
Slate has the answer.
brits scoff at our gerrymander
The British Economist shows how gerrymandering has subverted US democracy.
In a normal democracy, voters choose their representatives. In America, it is rapidly becoming the other way around.
IMAGINE a state with five congressional seats and only 25 voters in each. That makes 125 voters. Sixty-five are Republicans, 60 are Democrats. You might think a fair election in such a state would produce, say, three Republican representatives and two Democrats.
Now imagine you can draw the district boundaries any way you like. The only condition is that you must keep 25 voters in each one. If you were a Republican, you could carve up the state so there were 13 Republicans and 12 Democrats per district. Your party would win every seat narrowly. Republicans, five-nil.
Now imagine you were a Democrat. If you put 15 Republicans in one district, you could then divide the rest of the state so that each district had 13 Democrats and 12 Republicans. Democrats, four-one. Same state, same number of districts, same party affiliation: completely different results. All you need is the power to draw district lines. And that is what America provides: a process, called redistricting, which, through back-room negotiations too boring for most voters to think about, can distort the democratic system itself.
self-applied handcuffs
The Homeland Security Department has neither the legal nor technical tools to match the British capture of terrorist operatives before they were about to blow up passenger airliners.
Officials said U.S. law would not have allowed the FBI to conduct the type of surveillance that led Britain to uncover the al Qaeda cell and capture what could be the network’s chief. They said the department also does not have the funding to detect new types of bombs used by al Qaeda.
''What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information,'' Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
Officials said British authorities have greater powers of surveillance and investigation, which facilitated the capture of more than 20 suspected al Qaeda plotters. In contrast, they said, Congress has been reviewing the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program and military tribunals.
wednesday, august 23 2006
who pays for healthcare
I found this paragraph on Kevin Drum's blog, but I'd wager something similar could be found on half the liberal blogs out there with a little bit of searching:
GM's management faces higher costs than its competitors in other countries because it has to pay its employees' healthcare costs and Toyota and Volkswagen don't. GM's workers are no better off: their pension benefits are at risk because their continued existence depends on the health of one company, rather than the health of an entire country. So who benefits from this lopsided system? No one except the insurance and financial services industries that administer these plans.
This is a persistent meme on liberal sites, and with good reason: the logic is compelling. The only problem--and it is a slight one--is that this meme is not true. In both Japan and Germany, workers at large corporations get their health insurance via joint contributions from employeer and employee, just as they do in the United States. Big corporations in both countries also have pension schemes, just as in the United States, and higher social security contributions.
To be sure, their health care costs are lower, in large part because they are administered by the government, which rations it more strictly than GE can. But their pension fund deficits are often worse than ours.
Where does this idea come from that the Japanese and German corporations don't have to pay any costs to cover their employees' health and retirement? And why hasn't anyone bothered to check it?
jihad and euro multi-culti
The jihadists are clearly winning their battle over the British people. In the UK, the Labour government has shown that it is more than willing to jeopardise national security in favour of its oppressive multicultural agenda. Violent Muslims – a hotchpotch of infantile soul-searching converts, theocratic barbarians and permanently incensed and uneducated nobodies – who are supposed to be living as British citizens are intending to kill the people they live among. Clearly, the European multicultural project is failing to such a degree that citizens not only possess a visceral hatred of one another but they are now at war with one another.
Western European multicultural programmes, which traditionally structured themselves around a liberal governance of individuals regardless of religion, race, colour and creed, are no longer sustainable for the societies they govern. They are gently becoming the human societies fit for different herds of religious savages, equipped with rights but not responsibilities, provided with authority but no elective legitimacy, administered with intensive social policing without a true realm of private activity, filled with a countless number of illegal and unmeasured migrants far removed from common social mores of both work and leisure. Such societies seemed condemned to tragedies on an apocalyptic scale.
what if bush listened to his critics?
God forbid, says Tony Blankley.
movers and shakers
The midterm election looms, and once again efforts begin afresh to increase voter participation. It has become standard wisdom in American politics that voter turnout is synonymous with good citizenship, justifying just about any scheme to get people to the polls. Arizona is even considering a voter lottery, in which all voters are automatically registered for a $1 million giveaway. Polling places and liquor stores in Arizona will now have something in common.
On the political left, raising the youth vote is one of the most common goals. This implicitly plays to the tired old axiom that a person under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart (whereas one who is still a liberal after 30 has no head). The trouble is, while most "get out the vote" campaigns targeting young people are proxies for the Democratic Party, these efforts haven't apparently done much to win elections for the Democrats. The explanation we often hear from the left is that the new young Democrats are more than counterbalanced by voters scared up by the Republicans on "cultural issues" like abortion, gun rights and gay marriage.
But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.
point of no return
It is hard to think of a time when a nation -- and a whole civilization -- has drifted more futilely toward a bigger catastrophe than that looming over the United States and western civilization today.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and North Korea mean that it is only a matter of time before there are nuclear weapons in the hands of international terrorist organizations. North Korea needs money and Iran has brazenly stated its aim as the destruction of Israel -- and both its actions and its rhetoric suggest aims that extend even beyond a second Holocaust.
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
This is not just another in the long history of military threats. The Soviet Union, despite its massive nuclear arsenal, could be deterred by our own nuclear arsenal. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred.
Fanatics filled with hate cannot be either deterred or bought off, whether Hezbollah, Hamas or the government of Iran.
The endlessly futile efforts to bring peace to the Middle East with concessions fundamentally misconceive what forces are at work.
Hate and humiliation are key forces that cannot be bought off by "trading land for peace," by a "Palestinian homeland" or by other such concessions that might have worked in other times and places.
Humiliation and hate go together. Why humiliation? Because a once-proud, dynamic culture in the forefront of world civilizations, and still carrying a message of their own superiority to "infidels" today, is painfully visible to the whole world as a poverty-stricken and backward region, lagging far behind in virtually every field of human endeavor.
There is no way that they can catch up in a hundred years, even if the rest of the world stands still. And they are not going to wait a hundred years to vent their resentments and frustrations at the humiliating position in which they find themselves.
Israel's very existence as a modern, prosperous western nation in their midst is a daily slap across the face. Nothing is easier for demagogues than to blame Israel, the United States, or western civilization in general for their own lagging position.
Hitler was able to rouse similar resentments and fanaticism in Germany under conditions not nearly as dire as those in most Middle East countries today. The proof of similar demagogic success in the Middle East is all around.
tuesday, august 22 2006
hezbaloney
Much has been made of the "fauxtography" that made its way into such esteemed media as the New York Times and Reuters. Here is an example of how Hezbollah blatantly lies (gosh, no!) about its military prowess. Like Al Gore it lies artlessly, in ways that are easily fact checked.
So look at the photo that appeared in a Hezbollah website showing how they'd blown up an Israeli war ship.
Impressive, no? But wait, as Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun points out, the photograph actually shows a decommissioned Australian destroyer-escort being destroyed, by the Aussies, as target practice in 1998. Original below.
Inventing one's own reality is nothing new in the Muslima world, as Amir Tehari noted:
So, who won the latest war between Israel and Hizbullah? The question is at the center of a hot debate not only in the Arab media and political circles but also in the informal groupings where much of Arab opinion is shaped.
The fact that the question is asked is a novelty in Arab politics.
Traditionally, no Arab would admit that any war had ever ended with an Arab defeat. The few Arabs who would disagree would be quickly ostracized if not actually treated as "agents of the enemy."
This is what happened to Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba in 1967, when he politely suggested that the Arabs might have lost the Six Day War. The late Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser never used the word hazima (defeat) to describe the result of his 1967 adventure. Syrian despot Hafez Assad also banned the word from his political lexicon. As for Saddam Hussein, the fallen Iraqi tyrant, he was sure that he had won the war against Iran in 1988 and the war against the US-led coalition in 1991. Since he is now in jail, it is hard to know what he thinks of the 2003 war that ended his regime. However, it would be no surprise if he claimed that he had won that round, too.
During the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, Mohammed at Iraq the Model noted:
I wish the world could see what we are watching here and know the truth about this war, if what you outside the middle east are watching is news, know that here we are getting lies, deception, propaganda and slogans in the outfit of news and analysis, all for the purpose of keeping the region and especially Arabs in the seemingly forever lasting dream that is directed to keep them on the same side with terrorists and , sooner rather than later, collapsing regimes.
Our media and its dishonorable message is cornering the citizen in his home 24/7/365, it portraits all others as enemies and terror as resistance, it alienates the other voice and reflects only one perspective in a horrendously similar manner as if all media networks signed the same code of no ethics, as if all of them are only a changing face of one entity. The Arab media is one that approaches sentiments and ignores facts in order to foster a feedback that contains more hatred and less reason.
why republicans are dogs and vice versa
The fabulous P.J. O'Rourke wrote the definitive "Yes, Virginia" piece a while back, explaining why God is a Republican (He exists) and Santa Claus is a Democrat (he's fantasy). More recently it has been noted that liberal places such as Seattle and San Francisco have more dogs than children, while conservative places tend to have more children than dogs.
You'd think this was prima facie evidence that dogs are actually democrats. I believe that the true explanation is "opposites attract". Also, it says something about the nature of liberals that they are more attracted to dogs than to children. Dogs give and children take. Real adults want to give and nurture, love and be loved; while immature adults cannot commit and need nurturing themselves. So conservatives are happy to give to their children AND take from their dogs. Liberals....well, you get the picture.
We all know why dogs are so appealing. They are loyal. They are selfless. They are undemanding. They truly love you just the way you are, exhibiting the ultimate in actual, as opposed to politically defined, tolerance. 99% of the time, a dog has no agenda except yours. They believe in hierarchy, structure and law. They understand the sanctity of the young and would kill or die rather than allow a child or puppy to be hurt. They live in the moment and appreciate every small beauty of life.
Now let's compare these traits to current, well known behaviors and solidify the classification of dogs as Republicans. Loyal: Bush I and Bush II's marriage vows or Clinton's Oval Office playtime in the recess? Selfless: Churches resettling Katrina victims or the Democratic apparatchiks of Louisiana? Undemanding: Shit kicker Redneck Babes or New Jersey Princesses? Unconditional love: The Salvation Army or NOW? Helping you with YOUR agenda: NRA or NEA? Hierarchy, structure and law: ROTC or Women's Studies Programs? The sanctity of the young: Hezbollah and Planned Parenthood or the Boy Scouts? Live in the moment: Bowling League or Junior League?
So we know dogs are Republicans. Then why do liberals find them so indispensable, more necessary in fact than their own children? In a word, compensation. Reality intruding on political fantasies. It's the same dynamic that leads liberals to do in their private lives what they exhort other people NOT to do in public - think of the Clintons sending Chelsea to private school, Rosie's kids protected with guns, Huffington advocating for small, energy saving cars while driving a tank and living in a palace.
Think how insecure and spiritually poor the good liberal's life must be. How disjointed his days and years. Today he must be actively outraged and diligently harassing people about global warming, while just a few years ago it was recycling or Alar in apples or peanuts in the school lunchroom. Goddess only knows what he'll be required to be passionate about tomorrow, and how meaningless it will be to him the day after that.
Read it all.
excuse after excuse
What makes two-dozen British Muslims want to blow up thousands of innocent passengers on jumbo jets? Why does al Qaeda plan hourly to kill civilians? And why does oil-rich Iran wish to "wipe out" Israel ?
In short, it's the old blame game, one that over the past century has taken multiple forms.
Once, a tired whine of Islamists was that European colonialists and American oilmen rigged global commerce to "rob" the Middle East of its natural wealth. But they were pretty quiet when the price of crude oil jumped from around an expensive $25 a barrel to an exorbitant $75.
Recently, oil exporters of the Middle East have taken in around an extra $500 billion each year in windfall profits beyond the old lucrative income. It is one of the largest, most sudden — and least remarked upon — transfers of capital in history.
Another old excuse for Islamist anger was the claim the West had favored autocrats — the Shah, the House of Saud, the Kuwaiti royal family — in a cynical desire for cheap gas and to prop up strong anti-communist allies.
Some of that complaint was certainly accurate. But since September 11, America has ensured democracy in Afghanistan , spent billions and over 2,500 lives fostering freedom in Iraq , pressured Syria to leave Lebanon , and lectured long-time allies in Egypt and the Gulf to reform. For all this, we are now considered crude interventionists, even when our efforts may well pave the way for radical Muslims to gain legitimacy through plebiscites.
Read on.
monday, august 21 2006
remembering communism
38 years ago today the Soviet Evil Empire sent in tanks to quash the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. Watch the video.
Aug. 21, 1968 -- Dozens of people have been killed in a massive military clampdown in Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact countries.
Several members of the liberal Czechoslovak leadership have been arrested, including Prime Minister Alexander Dubcek.
The Soviet news agency, Tass, claims "assistance" was requested by members of the Czechoslovak Government and Communist party leaders to fight "counter-revolutionary forces".
But in a secret radio address, Czechoslovak President Ludvik Svoboda condemned the occupation by Warsaw Pact allies as illegal and committed without the government's consent.
US President Lyndon Johnson said the invasion was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter and that the excuses offered by the Soviet Union were "patently contrived".
The UN charter violated. Imagine that.
culture of corruption: harry reid
Harry and Nancy Pelosi should not have thrown stones:
... the valley — an hour northeast of Las Vegas — is on its way to becoming a real estate development of historic proportions, with as many as 159,000 homes, 16 golf courses and a full complement of stores and service facilities. At nearly 43,000 acres, Coyote Springs covers almost twice as much space as the next-largest development in a state famous for outsized building projects.
By comparison, Irvine Co., one of Southern California's largest developers, controls about 44,000 acres in Orange County.Helping make Coyote Springs come alive was an alliance between a multimillionaire developer and one of the highest-ranking members of Congress: Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader and a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
The relationship between developers such as Harvey Whittemore and politicians such as Reid is especially close in Nevada, home to a small fraternity of movers and shakers, powerful demands of rapid population growth and a huge amount of federally owned land.
Over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help the developer, Nevada super-lobbyist Whittemore, clear obstacles from Coyote Springs' path.
At one point, Reid proposed opening the way for Whittemore to develop part of the site for free — something for which the developer later agreed to pay the government $10 million.
As the project advanced, Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore. The contributions not only went to Reid's Senate campaigns, but also to his leadership fund, which he used to help bankroll the campaigns of Democratic colleagues.
mission unaccomplished
Most U.N. resolutions don't have the shelf-life of a gallon of milk, which isn't always a bad thing. But in the case of Resolution 1701--the cease-fire agreement for Lebanon and Israel adopted unanimously this month by the Security Council--things seem to be going sour even faster than that. And that is cause for serious unease.
On Thursday, Jacques Chirac confirmed a Le Monde report that his government was prepared to offer only some 200 combat engineers (in addition to the 200 French troops already in Lebanon) to what is supposed to be the resolution's centerpiece: A 15,000-man U.N. force that will help the Lebanese army patrol their southern border and ensure that Hezbollah will no longer use the area as a staging ground for future attacks against Israel.
Given that the French contingent was supposed to be at the vanguard of this enhanced force, it's unclear whether other nations will be willing to chip in with troops of their own. All of this after the French used the promise of a robust, French-led international force to get the U.S. and Israel to agree to a cease-fire and withdrawal. Even less reassuring is the insistence by French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie that her troops will remain in the lead only until February, after which, apparently, it's salaam and adieu.
Then there is the delicate matter of disarming Hezbollah. Although the terrorist militia is so far abiding by the cease-fire, its leader Hassan Nasrallah made a televised statement last week insisting it was the "wrong time" to discuss disarmament. "Who will defend Lebanon in case of a new Israeli offensive?" he asks.
The answer, presumably, is the Lebanese Army. By the terms of the 1989 Taif Accord that ended Lebanon's civil war, all domestic Lebanese militias should have long since disarmed or been folded into the regular army. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 of 2004 makes the same demand, as does 1701.
But the U.N. resolutions are dismayingly vague about just who, other than Hezbollah itself, is supposed to do the disarming. "I don't think there is an expectation that this [U.N.] force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told USA Today last week. "You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of a militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily."
That's some "hope" on Secretary Rice's part. Emile Lahoud, the pro-Syrian Lebanese President who is nominally commander-in-chief of the army, has described the notion of disarming Hezbollah as "disgraceful": "How can they ask us to disarm while the blood of the martyrs is still warm?" Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has been less explicit but little better. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that he has entered into negotiations with Mr. Nasrallah to arrange a modus vivendi between Lebanese troops and Hezbollah fighters still operating in the south of Lebanon.
nano-technology: big argument over small stuff
At Popular Science.
five years after
I happened to be in the Australian Parliament for Question Time last week. The matter of Iraq came up, and the foreign minister, Alexander Downer, thwacked the subject across the floor and over the opposition benches in a magnificent bravura display of political confidence culminating with the gleefully low jibe that "the Leader of the Opposition's constant companion is the white flag."
The Iraq war is unpopular in Australia, as it is in America and in Britain. But the Aussie government is happy for the opposition to bring up the subject as often as they want because Mr. Downer and his Prime Minister understand very clearly that wanting to "cut and run" is even more unpopular. So in the broader narrative it's a political plus for them: Unlike Bush and Blair, they've succeeded in making the issue not whether the nation should have gone to war but whether the nation should lose the war.
That's not just good politics, but it's actually the heart of the question. Of course, if Bush sneered that John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi's constant companion is the white flag, they'd huff about how dare he question their patriotism. But, if you can't question their patriotism when they want to lose a war, when can you?
At one level, the issue is the same as it was on September 11th: American will and national purpose. But the reality is that it's worse than that — for (as Israel is also learning) to begin something and be unable to stick with it to the finish is far more damaging to your reputation than if you'd never begun it in the first place. Nitwit Democrats think anything that can be passed off as a failure in Iraq will somehow diminish only Bush and the neocons. In reality — a concept with which Democrats seem only dimly acquainted — it would diminish the nation, and all but certainly end the American moment. In late September 2001 the administration succeeded in teaching a critical lesson to tough hombres like Musharraf and Putin: In a scary world, America can be scarier. But it's all a long time ago now.
sunday, august 20 2006
moral vanity on parade
A bill is working its way through the California law-making mill that is, in essence, a unilateral Kyoto protocol in which California, all by its lonesome, will mandate cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.
"I don't see this as much as a responsibility as an obligation to do something and take leadership in making sure that we protect our planet," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles. "We know this is a real problem, and yet we have not done what we need to do."
Maybe it is a real problem, maybe not. Beyond dispute is that Fabian's law will cost California jobs.
California Portland Cement Co. had planned to build more plants this year but put its expansion on hold as it awaits a decision by state lawmakers that the company says could force it to cut production.
Cement manufacturers represent just one of several industries that would be required to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit under a bill that would make California the first state in the nation to impose such regulations on businesses.
Unlike other industries, which might be able to comply by implementing energy-efficient practices or using alternative fuels, much of the carbon dioxide emitted by cement plants is a byproduct of the chemical process.
"That's just the way cement is made," said Rick Patton, a vice president of the Glendora-based company. "If you limit the amount of carbon dioxide that can be produced, what you're doing is limiting the amount of cement that can be produced."
Let's assume that Al Gore and his Green Scare squad are right: global warming is a man made problem and a disaster unfolding before us. The dirty secret is that even if Kyoto were "enforced to perfection, atmospheric concetrations of greenhouse gases in 2050 would only be 1 percent less than without the treaty" says a report from the Brookings Institution.
So with this in mind, does it make any sense for one US state to pass such a law, one that will hobble its industry and hurt the little guy? Only if you care more about parading your superior "greenness" than serving the public.
The public? Let 'em eat tofu cakes.
dollars to donuts
John Stossel writes how 9/11 led to government subsidized Dunkin' donuts. And worse.
steyn profiled
...down under:
"I'm basically pessimistic about the big questions which I think are hard ones to grapple with … I think we're in for incredibly fast changes and our odds are not good at weathering a lot of those changes.
"I'm often accused of being a racist, but I define 'our' fairly expansively, not just America, Britain, Australia, Canada, but there are lots of people in Japan and India and Pakistan and even people in the Middle East who are going to be adversely affected by these changes. My view, really, is that people forget what a rare moment (in history) the last 60 years have been. People assume it's a permanent feature of life. It's not."
His message, in part, is encapsulated in populate or perish. Little wonder he admires Treasurer Peter Costello's "stirring call — a boy for you, a girl for me, and one for Australia", as he puts it. In essence, old Europe is in trouble because "they've given up breeding", claims Steyn, and have evolved into bi-cultural societies.
"Parts of the Western world are dying and, in Europe, the successor population to those ageing French and Dutch and Belgians is in place … The New Europeans will be observant Muslims instead of post-Christian secularists, but they still will be recognisably European."
Which is all very well, says Steyn, except civil liberties and freedoms do not generally flourish within Muslim majorities, so who's to say with confidence that advanced societies will sustain long-cherished basic rights with such a dramatic shift in their character and the possible advent of a pan-Islamism, categorised by Steyn as presenting a "profound challenge to conventional ideas of citizenship and nationhood".
california drowning in laws
...We are drowning in 47,000 new laws enacted since 1966, covering everything from the size of typeface on official notices on employee bulletin boards to the arcane timing dictating when you must use your windshield wipers.
You couldn't know this, but it's illegal to throw away your cell phone. Lawbreaker!
What a contrast to the early 20th century, when Big Laws addressed, often for the first time, everything from redevelopment to fair employment practices. After that, we got mired in pocket laws, obscurities and nitpickery. Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian added roughly 1,500 new laws yearly; Pete Wilson and Gray Davis about 1,000 annually.
Scary.
But in 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made news. He vetoed 311 bills. His vetoes caused legislators momentary pause. They sent him “only” 961 laws in 2005. Arnold let 729 become law — a “record low” in our times.
...
Now, the Legislature is frenetically considering up to 1,700 extra laws before its Aug. 31 deadline — an embarrassing brew of self-serving special-interest claptrap that's intrusive, abusive, regressive or downright offensive.
Assembly Bill 2641 by Democrat Joe Coto of San Jose, with scads of bipartisan coauthors, is the Legislature's greedy bid to lure campaign riches from multimillionaire tribes who back the bill. It lets the “Native American Heritage Commission” delay any ground-disturbing activity in California — think of the possibilities! — that unearths remotely arguable “burial” items. It lets this commission, promoting tribal interests, decide what's a “burial ground” and halt projects.
In this bad dream, landowners must negotiate with designated “descendants” of bones. This “commission” should have no more power over your land than the chamber of commerce. With huge Assembly support, 42-2, it heads to the Senate floor.
the "youtube election"
Politicians say stupid things. Now they end up on the Internet.
paging terry wrist and al kyder
Aussie prank, on video.
saturday, august 19 2006
terror plot in germany
Last month...a suitcase bomb on a train...kept quiet ...an arrest today.
we'll let you know if things change
The United States said it had no plans to invade Cuba, after its communist interim leader, Raul Castro, said he had ordered a mobilization to counter a US invasion threat.
Advice to Raul: don't flatter yourself.
photo of the day
I took this photo on Wednesday at Montana de Oro State Park, which is just south of Morro Bay, California. The sun was shining brightly a half-mile inland, but the coastal marine layer was clinging to the shore, thus the overcast skies.
harry and ted try comedy
Knighthawk notes Senators Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy wrote a letter to President Bush:
According to today’s New York Times, it was reported that Administration officials are “beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq’s democratically elected government might not survive” and that “senior administration officials have acknowledged … they are considering alternatives other than democracy.”
If true, we are deeply concerned that your Administration would even consider abandoning democracy in Iraq.
Read Knighthawk heap on the well-deserved scorn.
wednesday-Friday, august 16-18 2006
a pre-cambrian post
We're off to Cambria (California) for two days to celebrate 32 years together. Be back on Saturday.
JB
how to be charming
jolt
Photo of lightning yapping a boat.
pepsi ceo gives usa the finger
So much for the glass ceiling. Indra Nooyi, a woman, is the new soda pop CEO.
She also is a bit of a snot:
Ms. Nooyi began to compare the world and its five major continents (excl. Antarctica and Australia) to the human hand. First was Africa - the pinky finger - small and somewhat insignificant but when hurt, the entire hand hurt with it. Next was Asia - the thumb - strong and powerful, yearning to become a bigger player on the world stage. Third was Europe - the index finger - pointing the way.
Fourth was South America - the ring finger - the finger which symbolizes love and sensualness. Finally, the US (not Canada mind you) - yes, you guessed it - the middle finger. She then launched into a diatribe about how the US is seen as the middle finger to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees us as an overbearing, insensitive and disrespectful nation that gives the middle finger to the rest of the world.
According to Ms. Nooyi, we cause the other finger nations to cower under our presence. But it is our responsibility, she continues, to change the current state of world opinion of the US. It is our responsibility to make the other fingers rise in unison with us as we move forward. She then goes on to give a personal anecdote about some disrespectful US business women in an Asian country and how that is typical of Americans overseas.
No talk of what the US has done for the world throughout its history. No discussion about the ills that have been cured and the rights that have been wronged by the US. Just how wrong we are for the way we are perceived and how right they are in their own perceptions of the United States.
Good ole Coca Cola.
if not now, when?
Nasrallah: The Disarmament of Hizbullah Should Not Be Discussed Now.
the most ancient virus to affect the soul
ANTI-SEMITISM IS NOT A SIGN, A SYMBOL, A BULLET, OR A GAS, IT'S A VIRUS. It is the oldest known virus to attack the human soul. The existence of Israel masks the existence of the virus by renaming it ("anti-Zionism"). Through the renaming of this ancient disease as a “political problem,” many people now become infected through their friends, families, at their schools, from their community, church, or nation, or from exchanging infected fantasies with infected ideologues. By changing the name of the disease it has become possible for many to deny that they have contracted the virus. This facilitates the current outbreak. It is a clever virus and this shape-shifting is one of its oldest methods of perpetuating itself.
The origin of the virus is unknown, but many suspect the area to be Bablyon and Sumur with an early leap across borders into Egypt. It was later transmitted through not-so-casual contact to much of the world by traders out of Northern Africa and the Roman Empire.
During the period following the fall of Rome, the virus found traction in early Christianity as a common carrier. In this host it thrived, and was able to survive and spread for many centuries. Of late, many parts of Christianity, now that it has become fragmented, have rejected the virus and those who host it, but strains of the virus can still be found at the center of many subsets of the Christian faith today.
Read on.
no there there
If you needed another reason not to listen to artists, consider that Gertrude Stein, an intellectual Jew, thought Adolf Hitler should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
Scholars of the life of Gertrude Stein were recently startled to learn that in 1938 the prominent Jewish-American writer had spearheaded a campaign urging the Nobel committee to award its Peace Prize to Adolf Hitler. This was disclosed by Gustav Hendrikksen, a former member of the Nobel committee and now professor emeritus of Bible studies at Sweden's Uppsala University, in Nativ, a political magazine published in Israel. (Reports about this appeared in the New York Jewish community weekly Forward, Feb. 2, June 14, and Oct. 25, 1996.)
Hendrikksen, an avowed friend of Israel who is now in his late 80s, recalled that the Nobel committee rejected Stein's proposal "politely but firmly, citing among their reasons the attitude of the Nazi regime toward the Jews."
In the decades before her death in 1946, Stein was a widely acclaimed literary icon. As monarch of the "lost generation" of American expatriates in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, she cultivated and influenced such literary figures as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as such artists as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Her Paris home was a mecca for writers and artists. Stein's own "modernist" novels, memoirs, lectures and plays -- once celebrated as stylishly avant garde -- have not aged well. Today she is remembered almost as much for who she was as for what she wrote.
Born in Pennsylvania of a wealthy German-Jewish family, she was raised in the United States, and attended Radcliffe and Johns Hopkins universities. But it was during her years of expatriate living in France that she made her lasting mark.
Stein's seemingly paradoxical views about Hitler and fascism have never been a secret. As early as 1934, she told a reporter that Hitler should be awarded the Nobel peace prize. "I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace ... By suppressing Jews ... he was ending struggle in Germany" (New York Times Magazine, May 6, 1934).
Whew. By that logic, Hezbollah, should they drive every Jew into the sea, deserve the Nobel nod for bringing peace to the mideast.
mike wallace got punk'd
The man is 88 years old. While his mental faculties have diminished, his ego remains vigorous. So when the nut-job president of Iran specifically invited Mike to come interview him, Mike didn't see he was being played for a sap. No no, after all he's big, intimidating Mike Wallace, the "60 Minutes" reporter who makes grown men cringe.
The cringing now comes from embarassment. All Ahmadinejad needed was to seem normal, not wacky-scary. Mission accomplished. Hang the banner. One cannot imagine Mike being quite so polite to Mel Gibson in a one-on-one. But there he was grinning and being obsequious to a very dangerous man.
Joel Rosenberg writes about the questions that Mike Wallace did not ask:
1. Mr. President, you are telling colleagues in Iran that you believe the end of the world is rapidly approaching. Why do you believe this? How are these views shaping your foreign policy?
2. Could you tell us more in the West about your belief that the “Twelfth Imam” (or “Hidden Imam”) will soon reappear and why you believe that the way to hasten the coming of this Islamic messiah is to launch a global jihad against Israel and the U.S.?
3. Mr. President, in Islam, Jesus Christ is considered a great prophet and teacher. In your lengthy letter to President Bush earlier this year, you talked a lot about Jesus Christ. You criticized the president for, in your view, not following the teachings of Jesus. What are some of your favorite teachings of Jesus? Do you believe Jesus was Jewish? Do you believe that He lived and taught and did His miracles in Israel? Do you believe Jesus wished for Israel to be wiped “off the map?” In the current crisis, what would Jesus do, in your opinion?
4. You have told colleagues that when you were speaking at the United Nations last fall, you were surrounded by a light from heaven and that for about 25 or 26 minutes everyone in the General Assembly was mesmerized by your speech — that not a single person blinked for that entire time. Would you describe that experience for us? Do you believe that God or an angel was with you at that moment? Do you believe Allah has chosen you to be the leader of Iran at this moment in history?
5. You say that the era of bombs is over. Why then did you sign a $1 billion deal with Moscow last December to buy Russian missiles and other arms? Why are you sending missiles, bombs and $100 million a year to Hezbollah? Why are you sending bombs and bombers into Iraq?Iran is the new Germany. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new Adolf Hitler. Radical Shiite Islamic jihadists are the new Nazi storm troopers. The pursuit of the Twelfth Imam is the pursuit of the new Third Reich. CBS News had both the opportunity and responsibility to help the world truly understand this regime and the danger it poses. It failed miserably, and we are all poorer for it.
tuesday, august 15 2006
channeling orwell at the dnc
Democrats, fearing the latest terror plot might remind Americans that the terror threat is no figment of George Bush's imagination, are busy trying to score political points. On an Bush administration success.
Remember, the British airline plot was foiled. So far.
The memory of 9/11 faded quickly for Democrats, who soon made Bush the enemy. With the New York Times serving as the party's house organ, they've leaked and politicked about terror fighting tool Bush has put into play. And many that preceded him as well.
In their lust for power, they concluded that anything that hurts Bush -- "he's eavesdropping on your phone calls!" -- is good, regardless of how much it undermines the nation's security.
Now, they're upset because their dangerous, petty game has been exposed. And sure enough, they're crying politics. Said the Times:
It comes like a punch to the gut, at times like these, when our leaders blatantly use the nation's trauma for political gain. We never get used to this. It never feels like business as usual.
Oh, please. Revealing the methods for tracking financial transactions wasn't political? The data mining story wasn't political? Someone, please punch Pinch.
Meanwhile, Hillary the Schemer is trying to position Democrats as tougher on terror and Bush as, yawn, incompetent:
"We've done some things right," the New York senator said at a community event in Schenectady. "Obviously we've beefed up airport security in some ways, but as we've learned over the last week not in every way that matters. We still have not done what we need to do to protect our ports, our borders, our bridges, our transit systems, our rail lines, it's a long list."
Her list will no doubt grow.
Ms. Rodham-Clinton knows it is physically and fiscally impossible to guard every bridge, train, cargo container, etc. against a terror attack. By publicly listing such potential targets she can then say "I told you so" should any of them get hit.
Astute observers will remember that just two months ago, the Democrats called for a New Direction for America and listed six priorities, including cutting college costs. Terrorism did not make the list.
So it's dissemble time again. Harold Ford, running for Bill Frist's open Senate seat:
“The president told us that the British attacks are a stark reminder that the nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom,’’ Mr. Ford said, “yet his administration has dismantled the very infrastructure that is responsible for catching those terrorists.”
This is galling, but funny. But not so funny if the MSM convinces enough voters to swallow this line of crap. Then the joke will be on us.
Jim Bass
Extra credit: to see the Democrats craven use of terror as political tool, read the 2003 MEMO.
a date to remember
Aug 15, 1945 -- Japan has surrendered to the Allies after almost six years of war.
There is joy and celebration around the world and 15 August has been declared Victory in Japan day. The end of war will be marked by two-day holidays in the UK, the USA and Australia.
After days of rumour and speculation, US President Harry S Truman broke the good news at a press conference at the White House at 1900 yesterday.
He said the Japanese Government had agreed to comply in full with the Potsdam declaration which demands the unconditional surrender of Japan.
Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur will receive the official Japanese surrender, arrangements for which are now under way.
Later, in an address to a crowd that had gathered outside the White House President Truman said: "This is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor. This is the day when Fascism finally dies, as we always knew it would."
But he warned that the task of creating a lasting peace still lay ahead.
Indeed, the task was great. But the so-called (by liberals and assorted anti-Americans) imperialist United States forked over billions of dollars to help rebuild Europe. And, instead of seeking revenge against the Japanese, we helped them become a stable democratic nation. And our ally today.
it used to be a chicken in every pot
Cardin, a Democrat from Baltimore County, gathered with cancer survivors and doctors in Lutherville to detail his efforts to expand cancer screening and his plans to fight the disease.
"We are going to lick cancer by 2015," Cardin told a group of 15 people at the HopeWell Cancer Support Center on Falls Road.
skinny size me
Merab Morgan, a construction worker from North Carolina lost 37 pounds - eating only McDonald's for 90 days.
not so funny
A writer for the Ali G show visits the Edinburgh Arts Festival and gets a shock:
...Stand-up comedy is as good a prism as any through which to look at the changing attitudes in our society. If my past few days are anything to go by then it is becoming increasingly acceptable to hate the Jews. Again.
I’ve seen two comics so far who have been happy to amuse their crowds with Holocaust gags. I’m not sure which to be the more concerned about.
One was a left-leaning angry Australian conspiracy theorist, Steve Hughes, whose show The Storm is an assault on all things Western. “I want to bash Condoleezza Rice’s brain to bits and kill that f****** Jew Richard Perle.” Hughes is the one at the Pleasance Courtyard while Perle is an adviser to George W. Bush as he was to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton on foreign affairs.
The second was a far more charming African-American comic who for much of the show was thoughtful, funny and even quite sweet. But he seemed to have a problem with Jews, too. Reginald D. Hunter is doing sell-out shows in the new E4-sponsored venue, the Udderbelly. Three hundred come along every night to see Hunter’s Pride and Prejudice and Niggas. You should see the poster.
I was laughing along until he announced that he was about to be extremely controversial and break the last taboo of stand-up comedy. Long silent pause. "Jeeeeews" Another long pause with some giggles from the audience. "You see, you’re not allowed to say that."
He went on to say how its illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria. He has a good mind to go to Austria, stand in the street and say the Holocaust didn’t happen so that he could get arrested and tell the judge he was talking about the Rwandan holocaust. Whether or not he thought there should be a law against going to Rwanda and denying that genocide, he didn’t say.
By claiming that making a joke about Jews