tuesday january 31, 2006
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whisky ted's race card is a joker
Anything can hapen in the bizarro world where the likes of Sen. Ted Kennedy gets to lecture others on morality. But yesterday's booming performance [video here] provided an extra-rich diet of irony:
- Ted foams up over the "march of progress" that he admits was only possible by actions from the courts. That is, policies he adores could not pass democratically elected legislatures. You need liberal judges making law for that.
- He smears Samuel Alito as a closet racist/sexist/elitist eager to undo civil rights legislation and screw the "working people." What's more elitist than being a spoiled rich kid who gets a young woman killed and then uses family connections to escape punishment?
- He claims that the Senate has a "responsibility to take this [nomination] to the American people." No, actually the Senate is charged with advice and consent, not the electorate. He then goes on to insult said electorate by saying they've just now starting paying attention to the nomination.
- Ted's speech was calling for a filibuster. The filibuster was the tool Senate Democrats used to block civil rights legislation for decades, forcing liberal judges to legislate from the bench. Al Gore's daddy voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So did Bill Clinton's mentor, Sen. William Fulbright.
national guard enjoys recruiting boom
National Guard officials yesterday said recruiting has accelerated so much in recent months that they expect to expand the Guard even as the Bush administration proposes to shrink it.
For the first time since 1993, the Guard exceeded a quarterly recruiting goal, signing up 13,466 recruits in the final three months of 2005, up from 12,605 the previous fall, said the National Guard Bureau, the Pentagon office that administers the Guard.
Mark Allen, a National Guard Bureau spokesman, attributed the 7 percent improvement to a new advertising campaign, a large increase in financial incentives and a near doubling of the number of recruiters, from 2,700 to 5,100.In a statement released yesterday, the Guard said it is "aggressively working" to reach the 350,000-troop level that it is funded for by the end of the current budget year on Sept. 30, despite Mr. Bush's call to cut the force next year to its current level of 333,000 troops.
It is unusual for a military organization such as the Guard Bureau to publicly suggest that it is moving in a direction that appears to differ from the administration's. Any talk of cutting the Guard is politically sensitive because Guard units are controlled by governors, except when they are mobilized by presidential order.
fly the plane, serve the drinks: what's the diff?
Canada serves as a canary in the PC coal mine: if you want to see where the American Left wants to steer our country, just look north. To liberals, everyone should be paid the same, hence:
The Canadian Union of Public Employees began the case in 1991, arguing that the airline discriminated because it paid attendants differently "for what it argued was equally valuable work performed by mechanical personnel and pilots."
Air Canada held that the three groups should be treated separately in legal terms because they worked in different establishments. The human rights commission agreed, but two court cases followed, which delivered split decisions.
Any waitress could learn to be a flight attendant. Heck, even I could be a flight attendant. But I'd make a lousy mechanic. And flying an airliner filled with human being takes more skill and training than opening cans of Pepsi from a drink cart.
Thus Canadians expose a commonly held Liberal fallacy: equal opportunity means equal outcomes.
child-like fantasy realm
In my remarks, I mentioned that the primary reason for the Arab-Israeli conflict was that the majority of Palestinians wanted Israel destroyed.
A woman who introduced herself as "a peace activist" walked over to me afterward and said I was wrong, that, in fact, the majority of Palestinians wanted peace with Israel. I asked her to go over to the Arab students who were attending a counter protest against Israel and ask them if they accepted the right of a Jewish state of Israel to exist. I bet her $5 they would say "no." She took the bet.
Fifteen minutes later, she came back to me.
"Well, who won the bet?" I asked.
"I don't know," she responded.
"What do you mean you 'don't know'? What did they say?"
"They all asked me, 'What do you mean?'"
Though not one Arab student answered "yes," she still didn't get it.
This peace activist, like other "peace activists" and just about everyone on the Left, lives in a state of wishful thinking. As director Steven Spielberg, commenting on the Arab-Israeli dispute, recently told Time magazine, "The only thing that's going to solve this is rational minds, a lot of sitting down and talking until you're blue in the gills."
On just about every issue, the Left lives in a childlike fantasy realm.
blogger helped paul martin out the door
On Monday, Canadian voters elected a new government, led by Stephen Harper and the Conservative party. Without the Internet, Paul Martin and the Liberals might still be ruling Canada.
Last year, Canadian Judge John Gomery was conducting an investigation of a money-laundering and kickback program in which the Liberal government had given $85 million to Montreal advertising firms. Rather than spending the money on advertising for government programs, the money was apparently distributed as payoffs to political allies. Gomery allowed the public to attend the public court hearings on the scandal, but forbade publication of events at the hearing. He hoped to be able to prevent the public from becoming prejudiced about the matter in the event that some of the alleged perpetrators were put on trial.
But a Canadian citizen who attended the hearing provided accounts to Minneapolis Web logger Ed Morrissey (who blogs at www.captainsquartersblog.com).Morrissey then published reports on his Captain's Quarters Web site. Canadian media continued to obey the publication ban, but Canada's CTV reported on the existence of Morrissey's site, which soon was attracting hundreds of thousands of readers daily.
wapo pokes paul martin
Whatever their feelings about Mr. Bush, most Canadians probably agree with that sentiment. Canada sells 85 percent of its exports to the United States and depends on it for security as well as prosperity -- a fact that Mr. Martin opportunistically overlooked when he refused to join the U.S. missile defense program. His grandstanding merely gave Mr. Bush an excuse to ignore Canada's legitimate complaints about tariffs on softwood lumber and the impact of new border controls due to take effect this year.
Mr. Harper can be expected to stop the self-defeating flow of bile, to offer more cooperation on defense, and to seek to be heard on trade and border issues. If he is wise, Mr. Bush will make an effort to listen, and find compromises, as he did this month with Ms. Merkel. Foreign political leaders who stick to a platform of friendship and cooperation with the United States in the teeth of anti-American mudslinging ought to be visibly rewarded. As for Mr. Martin, perhaps he will be tempted again by the example of Mr. Schroeder, who has taken a job as an agent for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Does Hugo Chavez need another lobbyist?
clinton's list
You might excuse Bill Clinton for failing to grasp the terrorist threat pre-9/11 (I don't) but today? John Leo writes:
Bill Clinton thinks terrorism is an overrated threat. Last fall he said terrorism is less important than global warming. That was at the Clinton Global Initiative, his personal New York version of Davos, the annual big-think fiesta in Switzerland for world leaders and Hollywood stars.
Last week at the real Davos, Clinton demoted the terrorism threat from No.2 to No.3, behind economic inequality around the world as well as global warming. Most informed people think that climate change is very ominous and that poverty is of course a serious problem. But Clinton does not seem to think the possibility of New York or Washington disappearing in a nuclear blast is a very big deal.
Michael Crowley of the New Republic, reporting on the New York talkathon last September, wrote that "Clinton cast the war on terrorism as a blip on the radar of history."
Many Democrats seem to think this way. Fretting about racial profiling at airports and the turning over of library records of suspected terrorists is a much bigger deal than doing all we can do to avoid an apocalypse on American soil. I was distressed to see Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic, more or less join the pack of those taking terrorism less seriously than politically aware adults should.
the people's cube
Has a few words for Der Googlemeisters:
Dear Messrs. Brin and Page:
May we take this opportunity to applaud your decision on accepting technical guidance from the Communist Party of China in your creative Google China project, and to extend our admiration for your recognition that search technologies are best left in the hands of responsible government entities (the U.S. imperialist government doesn't fall into that category, of course).
Be sure to check out their Google logo with the tank from Tieneman Square.
end of the month pith
Some reading for those with the time and interest.
First, there is The Rise of the West, a website dedicated to J. Needham's Grand Question: Why was modern science invented in Western Europe, and not in India, or China?
Then Chicagoboyz' Lexington Green offers a reading list for those eager to know more about military history.
monday january 30, 2006
bush breaks "brokeback" silence
President Bush, from a humorous speech at the Alfalfa Club:
"Lynne Cheney and Laura were out of town recently, so I called up Dick and said, 'Why don't we go to a movie?'
"He said, 'Great idea, let's go to a cowboy movie.'
"Yep, finally we went to see Brokeback Mountain. Let me tell you, whooo-eee.
"Dick sat through the movie, didn't say a word. We came out. After a while he says: 'Nice horses.' I say 'Yep.'
"Then he becomes real quiet again and kind of serious. I knew something was on his mind. Finally he turned to me and said: 'You don't suppose the Lone Ranger and Tonto …"
On Alito, he had this:
"Martha Alito won America's heart," Mr Bush said. "What a warm and wonderful woman. I talked to her. You wanna know what really caused her to cry at those hearings? Boredom."
Hillary: americans impatient for a woman pres
Americans are growing 'impatient" as they wait for a woman to be elected president, 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Saturday night. "People are saying,' Well, at least we're ready,'" Clinton told interviewer Jane Pauley, as the two held a public chat for charity in San Francisco.
But Americans are patient enough to wait out Hillary: a Gallup poll found last week that 51 percent of Americans had already made up their minds not to vote for her.
They also don't want Geena Davis:
"Commander in Chief” started out as the season’s most talked-about new show, but the initial hype didn’t translate into solid ratings – and ABC has shelved the White House drama.
The network announced over the weekend that it is pulling the show – which stars Geena Davis as the first female president – until spring to make way for a new comedy, "Sons & Daughters.” The "Commander" show will be off the air for at least six weeks, the New York Post reports.
medicine as diplomacy
Democratic Senator Patty Murray from Washington caught hell in 2002 for telling a group of high school students terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is popular in poor countries because he helped pay for schools, roads and even day care centers.
"We haven't done that," Murray said. "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"
Murray was just plain ignorant. As Robert Kaplan's "Imperial Grunts" makes clear, we have military groups all over the globe (Mongolia, Phillipines, Yemen, etc.) serving, as one person put it, as the "Peace Corps with guns."
Often these are tiny Special Forces teams who assist locals by digging wells and holding medical and dental clinics. By becoming close to people, they are offered intelligence on the enemy without ever asking. Lest anyone think this is new, it's a method developed the US Army 100 years ago to fight insurgencies in the Phillipines.
US Navy battle groups were also at the forefront of relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami, and US forces are still helping aid the Pakistani quake victims. But that's just the beginning:
In the confusion of this post-Cold War, terrorist-troubled world, Congress is betting more and more foreign aid dollars on fighting that one common foe everyone can agree upon: infectious disease.
"Medicine can be a currency for peace" says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon and a force behind the change. Today that "currency" is near $4 billion -- almost triple in real dollars what the U.S. was providing per year in 2001.
That increase parallels -- and is energized by -- efforts by private philanthropists like billionaire Bill Gates, who pledged Friday to triple his contributions to fight tuberculosis. Democrats have almost uniformly backed the shift. More striking has been rising support from Republicans, drawing in both the religious right and old-line fiscal conservatives who long have opposed more traditional development programs.
Mr. Frist's personal influence is significant, on the White House and his colleagues. The past 12 months have been difficult politically for the Tennessee Republican, but the emphasis on global health care will be a highlight of his legacy when he leaves the Senate at the end of the year.
Perhaps Dennis Kucinich might be made to understand why we don't need a Department of Peace.
barking dogs on the left
...want Democrats senators to use wounded soldiers as political props. (HT Instapundit.)
be a bollywood director
Choose a clip, write your own subtitles and smell the curry. (Be patient, movies load slowly.)
bbc on bush
I was hearing the other day about a woman who went to the White House Christmas drinks party.
You are allowed to bring a friend and the two of you get to pose for a 10-second photo-op (they call it a "grip and grin") with the leader of the free world.
But this woman had no friends available that evening and queued up to see him alone. When her turn came she explained to the president, "I couldn't get a date."
With a charm and wit worthy of Ronald Reagan he pulled her close and asked - mock earnestly - "Nothing I've done I hope?"
sheehan, chavez to speak for dems
Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who parlayed the death of her soldier son into a successful public speaking and writing career, will join Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Tuesday night to deliver the Democrat response to President George Bush’s State of the Union address.
“Our choice of Cindy and Hugo demonstrates our commitment to diversity, and personifies our platform for the future,” said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democrat National Committee (DNC). “Plus, they’re among the few well-known progressives who didn’t vote to support the war in Iraq while publicly attacking the Bush administration for its policy toward Iraq.”
and beautiful atrocities on "citizen superstar"
Globetrotting citizen / superstar Cindy Sheehan says she'll run for Senate against Dianne Feinstein if the bitch doesn't toe the line & call the troops home yesterday! Apparently that Idiotarian of the Year award went straight to her head. Cindy's already got DiFi jumping around like a trained seal: when she threatened to run if Di didn't support a filibluster, Di immediately fell in line. You go, girl!
In between bullying senators & slipping the tongue to Hugo Chavez, Cindy posted her latest scribbles at Huff Post about ‘matriots’, which is not a kind of marsupial but patriots with ovaries. Cindy's screed - which includes the words sputum, nefariously, matriotic, & spit - makes a stunning point:
"There is one universal truth that no one can dispute no matter how hard they try: Everyone has a mother!"
exposing free riders
Dear President / Prime Minister / Chancellor:
You, along with the leaders of many other nations, have morally condemned the United States’ treatment of our terrorist prisoners. It’s true that we use much harsher interrogation techniques on terrorists than we do on ordinary domestic criminals. But regardless of your criticisms we will continue to use these techniques when questioning terrorists about future attacks on the U.S.
Many of the terrorists we have captured, however, are involved in planning attacks on targets outside of the U.S. Up until now we have done our best to gather information on all potential terrorist objectives. But we realize that using rough interrogation to expose possible attacks on your country might taint your moral purity. We therefore offer you the following choice:
When asking terrorists about potential future attacks on your country would you prefer that we:
A. Use the exact same harsh interrogation methods we have previously been using, or
B. Use only the softer interrogation methods that we use on ordinary domestic criminals?
If you don’t respond to this question we will assume your choice is B. Please be aware that choosing B will expose your country to significantly greater risk of attack as our rough questioning has generated information that has allowed us to thwart many international terrorist atrocities.
Sincerely,
President George W. Bush.
The overwhelming military might of the U.S. has allowed many of our allies to become free-riders. They spend relatively small sums on their own military confident that in a crisis we would protect them. If, for example, Berlin were attacked by terrorists based outside of Europe the German armed forces could not possibly retaliate. Yet terrorists are somewhat deterred from attacking Berlin by the knowledge that if they did the U.S. armed forces would hunt them down. But being mere financial free-riders is not enough for many of our allies. They are now becoming moral free-riders.
To expose their hypocrisy President Bush should send the above letter to the leader of every nation that has morally criticized our war on terror. These leaders want the U.S. to protect them from terrorism but they also want to wallow in their supposed moral superiority because we but not they use unpleasant methods to combat terrorism. They are like meat eaters who condemn their own butcher for murdering animals.
words and music
by Burt Prelutsky
I have spent my entire adult life as a professional writer. Along the way, I have been a humor columnist; a book, TV and movie critic; an advertising copywriter; a celebrity profiler; a TV writer; and, of late, an essayist. It’s sort of like being the literary equivalent of a one-man band. The variety has certainly helped prevent burn-out, but it has also made me feel at times as if I were juggling dishes while tightrope walking.
Frankly, I would never encourage anyone to pursue a writing career. Pursue is the operative word. As a matter of fact, when addressing groups of aspiring writers, I do everything in my power to discourage them. I consider it a good deed on my part. However, I’m all too aware that those afflicted with the writing virus are immune to my sage counsel. People who feel the need to get their thoughts down on paper are as driven as any other group of addicts. Why else would they continue writing when every sane person in their lives is warning them to stop before they hurt themselves?
It’s true that a few writers -- people like Rawlings, King and Grisham -- become wealthy. A somewhat larger number earn decent livings. But for all the others, writing only provides a miserable hand-to-mouth existence, filled with frustration and, occasionally, humiliation.
When one considers the odds against succeeding as a writer, it probably makes more sense to invest heavily in lottery tickets or betting on the ponies.
In my case, if I had it to do all over again, I probably would have become a lyricist. Of all the writers, I believe they have the best deal. That is to say, I think they’re the only wordsmiths in the world who are actually over-paid.
It has always amazed me that a lyricist shares equally with the composer in the revenue generated by a song. I have heard that the great Jerome Kern insisted on a 60-40 division with his collaborators, but I think even he was getting short-changed.
It’s one thing when George Gershwin split 50-50 with his lyricist, for inasmuch as the guy was his brother, the money at least stayed in the family. Giants such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Frank Loesser and Stephen Sondheim, avoided settling for 50 cents on the dollar by writing the words as well as the music.
Even though I have never composed a single note, I simply can not fathom why the composer should have to fork over half the loot. The music, after all, is the thing that grabs us, the tune we whistle, the memory that lasts. In some cases, in fact, the instrumental versions, with their often banal lyrics removed, are much better than the vocal renditions.
I recall hearing an anecdote about the wife of a lyricist who, upon hearing the composer’s wife claim that her husband had written, let us say “Some Enchanted Evening,” announced, “No, your husband wrote la-la-la. My husband wrote ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’”
The lady was right, and I don’t wish to diminish the lyricist’s contribution. Without the words, singers would have to hum. But to me, the cut should be more like 80-20. The composer’s contribution is far and away the greater part of the whole. The music, after all, is always able to stand on its own, whereas without the music, most lyrics would be second-rate poetry, and the author would be lucky to get five cents-a-line from some college quarterly.
It’s true that there have been a handful of brilliant lyricists. Such people as Lorenz Hart, Johnny Mercer, Oscar Hammerstein, and Alan Jay Lerner, spring to mind. But it’s also true that, except for the Italians, nobody understands the lyrics to the arias of Puccini, Bizet and Verdi, and nobody except maybe the lyricists’ wives seems to care that it’s all la-la-la.
sunday january 29, 2006
condi's revolution
Ralph Peters:
OSAMA'S latest plea for attention suckered the media into blowing last week's real story: Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice's declaration of war on her dysfunctional department.
In a speech at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where students are deformed into diplomats, Condi cancelled the tea party. Her message was revolutionary and essential. As a result, she may go down in history as the SecState most hated by Foggy Bottom bureaucrats.
Here's what "Killjoy Condi" had to say:
- Diplomats can no longer build careers by hiding behind desks in comfy capitals. They'll have to accept dangerous assignments and serve in hardship posts; develop regional expertise in at least two areas; and speak at least two relevant foreign languages (French waiters need not apply). That ain't going to make Rice popular with diplos accustomed to rotating between Rome and Northwest D.C. on their way to ambassadorships. Yet, it's vital if we're going to convert our failed, 19th-century- model State Department into a useful tool for the 21st century.
- Ouch! Condi really put Paris and Berlin in their places — pointedly noting that "we have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people, that we have in India, a country of 1 billion people." Cancel that order for the big schnitzel, Mr. Ambassador. You're going to be eating some development vindaloo. (Delicious, too, that la Rice smacked down Old Europe just as Jacques Chirac threatened to hurl nukes at terrorists to prove that France remains relevant.)
- Crucially, Condi named China, India, South Africa and Brazil as countries of the future while declaring that an initial 100 diplomatic slots would migrate from Europe immediately to countries that actually matter. More reassignments will follow, with even Moscow demoted to the international enlisted ranks — while Indonesia gets promoted (Double ouch!).
al-qaida is losing
...says Christopher Hitchens.
more bad news for detroit
China is getting into the auto business big time.
101 dumbest moments in business
...for 2005, a catty list from Business 2.0.
threat tracker
Here's an interesting Java applet that visualizes connections between people in terror networks. Take a moment to read the instructions because it's not a gimme. And once you get elements in the graph, click "expand" to see the connections grow.
an act of hygiene
QUEBEC--Remember the conventional wisdom of 2004? Back then, you'll recall, it was the many members of George Bush's "unilateral" coalition who were supposed to be in trouble, not least the three doughty warriors of the Anglosphere--the president, Tony Blair and John Howard--who would all be paying a terrible electoral price for lying their way into war in Iraq.
The Democrats' position was that Mr. Bush's rinky-dink nickel-and-dime allies didn't count: The president has "alienated almost everyone," said Jimmy Carter, "and now we have just a handful of little tiny countries supposedly helping us in Iraq." (That would be Britain, Australia, Poland, Japan . . .) Instead of those nobodies, John Kerry pledged that, under his leadership, "America will rejoin the community of nations"--by which he meant Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, the Belgian guy ...
Two years on, Messrs. Bush, Blair, Howard and Koizumi are all re-elected, while Mr. Chirac is the lamest of lame ducks, and his ingrate citizenry has tossed out his big legacy, the European Constitution; Mr. Schroeder's government was defeated and he's now shilling for Russia's state-owned Gazprom ("It's all about Gaz!"); and the latest member of the coalition of the unwilling to hit the skids is Canada's Liberal Party, which fell from office on Monday. John Kerry may have wanted to "rejoin the community of nations." Instead, "the community of nations" has joined John Kerry, windsurfing off Nantucket in electric-yellow buttock-hugging Lycra, or whatever he's doing these days.
saturday january 28, 2006
real world vs. government world
Los Angeles has a homeless problem. New York made theirs better. So 30 (yes 30) LA politicians flew to the Big Apple to learn NY's big secret. Could they not use a phone? Or send one person to file a report? Can you picture a corporation sending 30 employees off to do basic research?
how to make a fool of yourself on the 'net
James Lileks has tips.
iraqi army getting stronger
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - With American help, the Iraqi army is emerging as a lightly armed counterinsurgency force that may control more of the country than the U.S.-led coalition by this spring, U.S. military officials say.
But in coming years, the Iraqi army will remain too weak to defend the country and will be reliant far into the future on America to guarantee Iraq's sovereignty, experts say.
''They're not going to be the 101st Airborne anytime soon,'' said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, spokesman for the military transition command in Baghdad. ``But in 2006, this is the year that the majority of Iraq will be secured by Iraqis.''
But the Pentagon is also grappling with designing a force that assuages the worries of countries victimized by Saddam Hussein's military.
''There is a concern in the region about giving them an offensive military capability,'' said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of planning for the U.S. Central Command.
The dilemma for Washington, which wants to hand off its counterinsurgency duties and depart as soon as possible, is that a weak Iraqi army could leave U.S. forces providing security for Iraq for many years, said Mustafa Alani, a military analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.
Besides Jordan, who else should we worry about? Syria? Iran suffered the most from Saddam, but who cares what they think about Iraq?
what if wiretaps work?
From the New Republic:
Lawyers who are busily debating legality without first trying to assess the consequences of the program have put the cart before the horse. Law in the United States is not a Platonic abstraction but a flexible tool of social policy. In analyzing all but the simplest legal questions, one is well advised to begin by asking what social policies are at stake. Suppose the NSA program is vital to the nation's defense, and its impingements on civil liberties are slight. That would not prove the program's legality, because not every good thing is legal; law and policy are not perfectly aligned.
But a conviction that the program had great merit would shape and hone the legal inquiry. We would search harder for grounds to affirm its legality, and, if our search were to fail, at least we would know how to change the law--or how to change the program to make it comply with the law--without destroying its effectiveness. Similarly, if the program's contribution to national security were negligible--as we learn, also from the Times, that some FBI personnel are indiscreetly whispering--and it is undermining our civil liberties, this would push the legal analysis in the opposite direction.
Ronald Dworkin, the distinguished legal philosopher and constitutional theorist, wrote in The New York Review of Books in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks that "we cannot allow our Constitution and our shared sense of decency to become a suicide pact." He would doubtless have said the same thing about fisa. If you approach legal issues in that spirit rather than in the spirit of ruat caelum fiat iusticia (let the heavens fall so long as justice is done), you will want to know how close to suicide a particular legal interpretation will bring you before you decide whether to embrace it. The legal critics of the surveillance program have not done this, and the defenders have for the most part been content to play on the critics' turf.
friday january 27, 2006
a short history of pork
Daniel Henninger explains how "reform" got us the pork barrel spending everyone decries and the lobbyists with too much influence:
...Congress planted the seeds back in the '70s for what is revolting you now with two enactments--the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. Both were marketed as reforms.
The first law turned political Washington into a trillion-dollar industry camouflaged as the federal budget. The second ensured that sitting members of Congress and K Street lobbyists would become the entrenched management of that industry. Compared to this, Enron is a kindergarten game.
This is a history worth knowing and retelling. It all came to life amid another famous scandal, Watergate, and the most famous such name of all, Richard Nixon.
Nixon's impeachment is wholly linked in history to the Watergate scandal. But in fact, his battles with the Democratically controlled Congress over spending authority also greased his fall. As had Presidents Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, Nixon tried to control Congress's spending by "impounding"--refusing to spend--specific appropriations.
Congress itself had tried various gimmicks to stanch the Great Society's costs, such as "spending ceilings." None worked, as indeed no gaggle of legislators will discipline themselves. Nixon resorted to the blunt club of impoundments. Congress went bananas. This battle, fought inside the partisan cauldron of the Vietnam War, led to the oddly named 1974 Budget Control Act, which purposely eviscerated presidential control over individual spending items, such as an earmark. To kill a "bridge to nowhere," a president has to veto the entire highway bill. Ditto defense pork and so on.
The 1974 act did give the president "rescission" authority--a request not to spend money on a project. But the law also said that if Congress never took a vote to affirm the rescission, the money went out the door. Absurd, but that's current law. Congressional Quarterly, in a 1982 study of the struggle over spending control, quoted a budget official then predicting the future: "What we're talking about here is congressional government--and chaos."
But they weren't done. In 1974--the start the Long Era of Chaos in our politics--Congress claimed it was curing the abuses of Watergate by mandating that no individual could contribute more than $1,000 to a candidate per election. So of course candidates were going to need a lot of "individual" contributions to finance a modern campaign. Thus was born the current co-dependency between members of Congress who hold the power to confer federal spending and Washington lobbyists who have the power to bundle campaign contributions in PACs and such for incumbent earmarkers.
silver lining
Contrary to initial responses, Hamas’s projected victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections is a positive development. Not, as its apologists claim, because the proximity of power will favor a process of cooptation into parliamentary politics, and therefore strengthen the pragmatic wing of Hamas. There is no pragmatic wing in Hamas, and all differences within the movement — the armed wing and the political wing, Palestine Hamas and Hamas in Syria — are arguably tactical differences. No, the reason is, as Vladimir Ilich Lenin would put it, "worse is better."
Hamas’s favored outcome was not victory, but a strong showing that would leave Hamas with the best of both worlds: It would remain in opposition (or would be invited to join a coalition as a junior partner) but would impose severe limitations on the Fatah-led government on how to manage its relations with Israel. Hamas could thus claim to reject Oslo, decline to recognize the Palestinian Authority and its commitments under the Oslo accords and the roadmap, and continue to use its rising political clout and its military strength to sabotage any effort to revive the moribund peace process.
What victory does to Hamas is to put the movement into an impossible position. As preliminary reports emerge, Hamas has already asked Fatah to form a coalition and got a negative response. Prime Minister Abu Ala has resigned with his cabinet, and president Abu Mazen will now appoint Hamas to form the next government. From the shadows of ambiguity, where Hamas could afford — thanks to the moral and intellectual hypocrisy of those in the Western world who dismissed its incendiary rhetoric as tactics — to have the cake and eat it too. Now, no more. Had they won 30-35 percent of the seats, they could have stayed out of power but put enormous limits on the Palestinian Authority’s room to maneuver. By winning, they have to govern, which means they have to tell the world, very soon, a number of things.
quote of the day
White House Spokesman Scott McClellan, on John Kerry’s pathetic call for a filibuster of Judge Alito’s nomination:
I think it was a historic day yesterday. It was the first ever call for a filibuster from the slopes of Davos, Switzerland.
charles krauthammer's eulogy to his brother
Wonderfully touching.
big gains
In job growth, but it never makes headlines. Betsy Newmark weighs in.
not such a small world
Astronomers say that by virtue of the ceaseless shifting of the billions of stars in the Milky Way and a trick of Einsteinian physics, they have briefly glimpsed the most Earth-like planet yet to be discovered outside the solar system.
It is a ball of rock and ice only about 5.5 times as massive as Earth, smaller than any of the 160 previously discovered exoplanets, and is orbiting a dim reddish star 21,000 light-years from here.
saddam general says wmd flown to syria
Let's see how MSM ignores this story.
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.
"There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."
unhinged (again)
It must be tough being a war critic and a liberal like Al Gore. Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair -- all supporters of liberating Iraq get reelected. Germany's Schroeder? Gone. Now Canada's Paul Martin has been voted out. So what's a lib to conclude? Conspiracy, natch.
Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has accused the oil industry of financially backing the Tories and their "ultra-conservative leader" to protect its stake in Alberta's lucrative oilsands.
Canadians, Gore said, should vigilantly keep watch over prime minister-designate Stephen Harper because he has a pro-oil agenda and wants to pull out of the Kyoto accord -- an international agreement to combat climate change.
"The election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta," Gore said Wednesday while attending the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
And the financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election . . . and to protect their interests."
Darcie Park, spokeswoman for oilsands giant Suncor Energy, said she's taken aback by Gore's remarks and hopes they don't resonate with Canadians.
"Our company just doesn't do business that way. We're really puzzled about where these comments came from," she said.
"Canadians understand how elections work in Canada and understand there are these very tight restrictions around what individuals and companies can contribute to individual parties or campaigns."
thursday january 26, 2006
Under the Radar
From Polipundit:
Sometimes it’s the small stories which say the most about our nation’s politics:
President Bush on Wednesday nominated Superior Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant to the [Connecticut] federal bench, where she would be the first black woman to serve in New England.
Wait a minute. Hold the phone.
You’re telling me that over the course of eight years Saint Bill Clinton – the nation’s “first black president” – never seated a female black district or circuit court judge anywhere in New England?
Yet Chimpy McBushitler is poised to do so before the end of year six???
Man, next thing you’ll tell me is the Prez also nominated: (1) the first black female on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, (2) the first black Secretary of State, and (3) the first female black Secretary of State.
Oh, right.
Continuing:
A Republican from Avon, Bryant is Bush’s second nominee to Connecticut’s federal bench.
Hang on a second. There are female black {gulp} Republicans???
Do the Katie/Oprah blocs know about that? Does Kayne West? Do the young librulz in the media and on campus know that?
What do you think, Ted Rall?
-- Jayson
jacques chirac finally wakes up
...to the reality of Islamic terrorism:
"All of our nuclear forces have been configured in this spirit." Although Mr. Chirac did not name any specific countries, which might be targets of a French nuclear attack, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the likely targets. These include Iran, as well as Arab countries in the Middle East.
What is so surprising is that Mr. Chirac's government has in the past favored an approach of conciliation or even appeasement toward Iran and the Arab nations. He was, after all, the vociferous foe of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and a hard line against Iran. That approach benefited French companies that were able to obtain lucrative contracts in competition with corporations based in the land of the great Satan. So, what happened?
There are two contributing factors. The first is the civil unrest in France several months ago, which involved nightly riots and a myriad of car burnings in many areas of the country. This violence had the same kind of impact upon Mr. Chirac and the French government that September 11 had upon the United States.
In his speech, Mr. Chirac bluntly declared, "In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilizations." Mr. Chirac now understands the problem. The jihadists are attempting to capture town by town, areas within Western Europe. As one French government official put it, "This is more than a clash of civilizations. It is a cancer within our country that if unchecked will destroy all of France."
Imagine that.
dr. coburn goes to washington
Republican Senator Tom Coburn is a doctor and a trouble maker of the best kind. In November 2005, National Review wrote:
The self-described citizen-legislator kept his promise to serve only three terms, and went back to practicing medicine for four years before running for the Senate in 2004. In that race, he promised to serve only two terms, and to keep in touch with the people of his state by continuing his medical practice.
Before he was sworn in, however, the Senate Ethics Committee informed him that this would not be allowed. Under chairman George Voinovich, the Ethics Committee has decided that Senator Coburn’s request to treat patients runs afoul of a Senate rule holding that members shall not “receive compensation for practicing a profession which involves a fiduciary relationship.”
So Senate ethics rules would keep him from keeping his medical practice. Meanwhile, other senators earned outside income in less noble pursuits. For example Barbara Boxer published a novel she didn't write.
(George Voinovich, you might recall, is the Republican who wept after speaking out against the confirmation hearings of John Bolton as UN Ambassador.)
But Coburn has bigger fish to fry. Tim Chapman writes:
When Oklahomans elected Dr. Tom Coburn to the United States Senate they knew that they were sending a man to Washington who would not dance the D.C. two-step. But Beltway types have underestimated the determination of this man not to go along to get along.
Very soon, that will change.
According to Senate aides, Dr. Coburn has notified his colleagues that he intends to challenge every earmark—or pork project—on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Coburn, who has been a champion in the fight against wasteful federal spending, believes that the congressional earmarking process is the genesis of the current Abramoff-related lobbying scandals.
Coburn’s threat will dramatically slow the appropriations process because he will demand many more votes and more debate than normal on all spending bills. The added debate will allow senators to learn the merits (or lack thereof) of each earmark and affirm or reject.
According to one GOP Senate aide, many of the old-bull appropriators are not taking the threat seriously and are confident in their ability to apply pressure tactics and parliamentary maneuvers in order to ensure business as usual on spending bills. But that aide points out Coburn’s commitment, “It will take a lot of votes on one or two appropriations bills before the appropriators figure out that [Coburn] means business.”
Once they do figure out that Dr. Coburn isn’t bluffing, they will understand why some outside observers have affectionately dubbed the Oklahoman “Senator Train Wreck.”
John McCain has railed against pork barrel spending for years. Why didn't he do what Tom Coburn is planning to do?
"i wish bush spied on me"
A hilarious call for help.
hardwired
Talk about hot-button issues. Political opinions are forged in the brain by heated emotions rather than reason, according to a study released yesterday by Emory University.
Magnetic resonance imaging revealed that emotional centers in the brains of a group of staunch Republicans and Democrats "lit up" when confronted with ideological messages, prompting these partisans to hear the same information but reach opposite conclusions.
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory, who led the study. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up."
wednesday january 25, 2006
only in san francisco
If you saw The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, you'll know one of the players in this story. Whose tree is it anyway? It's a good movie, by the way.
bush's focus
From his speech at Kansas State:
...I understand my most important priority, my most important job, is to protect the security of the American people.
I knew right after September the 11th, though, that the attack would begin to fade in people's memories. I mean, who wants to constantly go through life thinking that you're going to get hit again? Who wants to kind of relive those days in your memory?
As a matter of fact, I asked the American people to go on about your life.
But given the fact that it's human nature to kind of forget or try to put in the past, put the pain in the past, I want to assure you and our fellow Americans, I'm not going to put it in the past. The threat to the United States is forefront my mind. I'm knew that at time people would say: You know, it may be an isolated incident; let's just don't worry about it.
Well, for me, it's not an isolated incident. I understand there's still an enemy which lurks out there.
And so part of my decision-making process, part of these -- as you see, when I begin to make decisions to protect you, to do my number one priority, rests upon this fact: that there is an enemy which is relentless and desirous to bring harm to the American people because of what we believe in.
ucla studies media bias
...and finds 18 of the top 20 media outlets are left-of-center politically.
hugh hewitt vs. joel stein
Hewitt has a keen mind and an prosecutor's skill at asking questions. Joel Stein is unmasked as -- to use John Goodman's phrase from Barton Fink -- "a tourist with a typewriter."
reid between the lines
Yesterday, after a party-line vote (the first since 1916) sent Samuel Alito's nomination to the full Senate, minority leader Harry Reid said his party was planning to muster as many "no" votes as possible as a protest.
"I think it sends a message to the American people that this guy is not King George, he's President George," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said.
Was President Clinton king? Republicans voted overwhelmingly to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg despite her hard left leanings. They did so because Clinton was duly elected and had the constitutional authority to choose justices, just as Bush does. Just who is being divisive in Washington, anyway? And petty?
Far from demonstrating independence, the Democrats' behavior underscores their lock-step allegiance to interest groups such as People for the American Way and NARAL. Knowing they've lost the Alito battle, they plan to assuage their radical masters with words:
...Democrats plan to stage a talk-a-thon on the nomination. It appears that each of the Senate's 45 Democrats will use the Senate's tradition of unlimited debate to talk for quite a while on Alito — a kind of non-filibuster filibuster that could make for several days of talking. At some point, Frist will have to file for cloture, that is, to begin the process of cutting off debate so that an up-or-down confirmation vote can be held.
But according to Senate rules, once Frist files for cloture, he has to wait three days before holding a vote. And if he wants the Senate to confirm Alito before the president's State of the Union address next Tuesday, he will have to file for cloture soon — before Democrats have actually had a chance to talk for very long. On the other hand, if he waits to file for cloture until it is clear that Democrats are just talking for the sake of talking, then there can't be a vote until after the State of the Union address.
tuesday january 24, 2006
protein wisdom 1, joel stein 0
Stein tries to kick up some controversy, gets kicked by Jeff Goldstein.
open letter to glenn whipp
(Glenn Whipp is a film reviewer for the Los Angeles Daily News.)
Dear Glenn,
Today your paper published an interview with the maker of "Why We Fight" a documentary film that argues that America's military interventions of the past 50 or so years were motivated, not by the cause of freedom, but rather to satisfy its merchants of war.
By devoting space to this interview, you tacitly take his position. If that rankles, consider your description of the film as a "sobering look at the unimpeded growth of the American war machine in the past half-century."
Josef Stalin killed 22 million people. Mao killed more than 70 million. Pol Pot killed 1.8 million North Korea more than 3 million. Fidel Castro has killed in the hundreds of thousands. So, was there not a moral principle behind the long sustained military effort we call the Cold War?
Who else but the US was in a position to stop Stalin and international communism from enslaving the world? No one. We did the hard work and the world is a better place for it. Just ask the Poles, the Czechs, the Baltic peoples, the Hungarians, the Romanians etc. who suffered under the communist dictatorships. (Why do you think Vaclev Havel was so vocal in support of liberating Iraq?)
Look at the poverty of today's Cuba, then look at the prosperity of the exile Cubans in South Florida -- the architects, bankers, professors, musicians and politicians. Black and white. Look at the condition of East Germany compared to West Germany before the Berlin Wall fell. Black and white.
Without our "war machine" our world would be a lot blacker today. So please, spare us the Marxist-lite tropes about capitalism and war.
In your interview you ask:
Why Eisenhower would be alarmed if he were alive today.
"He would say that at a time when you see America printing textbooks and building viaducts in Iraq, even our own children are undereducated and drowning in the streets of New Orleans, that you have a problem here with our priorities. The balance of how money is spent in this society is broken and out of line with our democratic ideals."
Liberals once stood for human rights and idealism. Liberals right after 9/11 demanded we send foreign aid to lift the mideast out of poverty so Muslims would no longer hate us (this was defined as treating the root causes).
So what's wrong with helping Iraq onto its feet? Did we not fund the Marshall Plan to do the same for Europe, and did that not make a better world for millions? And is not liberating 56 million people from tyranny something we should be proud of? (scroll down two items to see what Iraqis and Afghanis think.)
Or do you think America should shrink from the world? If 9/11 proved nothing else, it proved that isolationism is a form of suicide.
You enjoy a pretty cushy life, watching movies and writing up your opinions. Before you get glib about our military you might consider this quote from George Orwell:
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Your cushy life exists only because rough men are protecting you. I recommend you read "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground" by Robert Kaplan, a writer for Atlantic Monthly. Perhaps it will open your eyes to the dangerous world we live in. You might even find it humbling.
Yours truly,
Jim Bass
hugh hewitt on columbia school of journalism
Hugh profiles CSJ, regarded as the finest journalism school in the country. Excerpt:
The 16 students are not evenly split--there are 14 women and just two men. Two-thirds of the M.S. class this year are women, a reflection of what Lemann calls the "feminization" of journalism programs across the country. Robert Mac Donald, the assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, ran down the demographics for me: The average age of an M.S. student is just shy of 28, the mean is 26, the youngest is 20, and the oldest is 63. Whites make up 69 percent of the new class; 11 percent are African American, 7 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian, 3 percent Middle Eastern, and 4 percent South Asian.
The school doesn't yet keep stats on religious background, though Mac Donald believes there has been a significant increase in Muslim students post 9/11. A fifth of the students are from the New York area, and between 37 to 40 percent are from "the corridor"--from Boston to Washington. Another fifth are from the west coast, and 10 percent are foreign. It is a pretty "blue" student body, and willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of their credentials. A year at CSJ--tuition, living expenses, incidentals--comes to $59,404 according to Mac Donald, though 85 percent of the students receive some financial aid, with packages ranging from $1,000 to $50,000. The average scholarship is $5,200, which means that these students are putting a lot of money into the program.
The "blue" nature of the student body is further confirmed by my polling of the class I attended, done with the permission of Shapiro. Six of the 16 were English majors, two studied history, and the balance spread across the humanities. No one had a background in the physical sciences. No one owned a gun. All supported same-sex marriage. Three had been in a house of worship the previous week. Six read blogs. None of them recognized the phrase "Christmas Eve in Cambodia"--though Shapiro not only got the allusion but knew the date of the John Kerry Senate speech in which he made the false claim about his Vietnam war experience.
Three quarters of them hope to make more than $100,000 as a journalist, 11 had voted for John Kerry, and one for George Bush (three are from abroad and not eligible, and one didn't vote for either candidate). I concluded by asking them if they "think George Bush is something of a dolt." There was unanimous agreement with this proposition, one of the widely shared views within elite media and elsewhere on the left. The president's Harvard MBA and four consecutive victories over Democrats judged "smarter" than him haven't made even a dent in that prejudice.
evil bush spreads optimism
Iraqis and Afghans are the among most optimistic people in the world when it comes to their economic future, a new survey for the BBC suggests.
Italians join people in Zimbabwe and DR Congo as the most downcast about their future, according to the poll of 37,500 people in 32 nations.
...
In Afghanistan, 70% say their own circumstances are improving, and 57% believe that the country overall is on the way up.
In Iraq, 65% believe their personal life is getting better, and 56% are upbeat about the country's economy.
conservatives take canada
A SAD day for Michael Moore. In the event of a terrible tragedy, the corpulent anti-corporate crusader is wont, like the Queen and Kofi Annan, to issue a formal statement to the world. And his "Michael Moore Statement On Canadian Election" made distressing reading: "Oh, Canada - you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right?"
Well, no. In a very Canadian kind of revolution, we rose up yesterday and threw the bums out but gave them a soft, fluffy landing, nevertheless installing in office a minority government that somehow managed to get itself elected despite having the word "Conservative" in its name.
For Tories, it was a good night, if not a great night. But, given that the party was reduced to two seats in the 1993 debacle, after 12 years in the wilderness most Canadian conservatives will take a strong minority government as a spectacular landslide. We'd be dipping our voting fingers in maple syrup and triumphantly waving them at the UN observers if they hadn't all fallen asleep 20 minutes into the thrilling election-night coverage.
For the past century, Canada's ruling Liberals have been the democratic world's most consistently successful political party. This time round, mired in a series of scandals that were turning Canada into the G7's first Third World kleptocracy, the flailing Trudeaupians adopted an even more ferocious version of their usual strategy: scare the voters back to Nanny. As the Liberals warned Canadians - or, rather, shrieked at them - Stephen Harper will take away "a woman's right to choose"! The unwanted boys you'll be forced to have will grow up to be Bush cannon fodder in Iraq, and the unwanted girls will be sold as white slaves for Halliburton corporate cocktail parties round the pool at Dick Cheney's ranch.
culture girl
"Democrats have a better idea that will not force hard-working students to pay the price for the Republican culture of corruption that favors special interest over the needs of America's children."
And hardworking students love the rich, chocolatey taste of Ovaltine. One non-sequitur deserves another.
one last dig
...at Hillary. This from Kathleen Parker:
Unlike her husband, who was tagged "America's first black president," Hillary Clinton ain't got "all that" -- that soul thang that her husband has in, um, diamonds.
When Clinton said, "and you know what I'm talking about," what she was thinking, of course, was, "and you know wuddumsayin?" She wisely censored herself, but her slightly stuttered body English suggested juuuuuust a hint of ebonics. A little roll here, a little hand there. Oy vey, I've still got muscle cramps from cringing.
Watching Clinton's soul-sister moment was like watching a whiffed high-five, embarrassing as watching middle-aged white guys playing air guitar. Stop it.
monday january 23, 2006
oh, it's crying time again...
The LA Times Calendar section leads today with a story about Munich, the movie. It begins:
Can a movie be Swift-boated?
Swift-boated means smeared by right-wingers. In fact, despite contrary belief among liberals, most Swift Boat charges about John F. Kerry were true. But never mind that, just appreciate the whining tone.
Unfortunately, the political pundits who took swipes at the movie very early on set the course for the movie that's been difficult to overcome," says producer Kathleen Kennedy. "That was set by people who hadn't seen the movie, speculating what the movie was. That's been frustrating. We always knew, given this subject matter, there were going to be people who were not going to be open to a discussion. Unfortunately, they've found a louder voice than the people who've supported the movie.
Yeah, this weekend Timmy and Susie chose Underworld II over Munich after reading Charles Krauthammer. Sure. And they snacked on carrot sticks instead of popcorn because they read carrots are good for you.
"We live in a time where there is a very loud and strong right-wing constituency that is hellbent on suppressing any of this kind of dialogue. I've just been surprised at Hollywood and our own industry. It reveals more conservatism than I thought was there."
Making a counter-argument is suppression? Only in Hollywood.
"Munich" certainly wouldn't be the first movie subject to a takedown by the nation's political press. Indeed, movies as diverse as Oliver Stone's "JFK," Michael Mann's "The Insider" and Oscar winner "A Beautiful Mind" have generated blitzkriegs by the truth police, critics enraged by what they see as Hollywood filmmakers taking liberties with the facts.
Oliver Stone's JFK was fact-free, except that there was once, in fact, a President named JFK. By the way, End of the Spear grossed more per screen than Munich, despite going unreviewed in LA newspapers. And all the awards and news stories aren't going to turn Brokeback Mountain into a date movie, either.
apple's worm
It never hurts to flatter your customers when hawking product.
No one need explain that to Steve Jobs, who's convinced a small contingent of loyalists that Macs are not just computing machines, but proof of their non-conforming hipness. With a Mac, you almost don't need to get pierced.
Thus we have Apple's latest TV commercial, announcing that Macs now have the same powerful Intel chips that Windows computers have had for ages. In this Apple is crying uncle. But using Orwellian double-speak (ironic given Apple's notorious Big Brother commercial), Apple is pitching its capitulation as liberating the Intel chip from those boring gray boxes (PCs), freeing them to do exciting cool things. Oh, please.
An honest campaign would be:
"Macs: Not the slugs they used to be."
-- or --
"Macs: Same chips as PCs for twice the price."
Apple makes nice looking stuff. Sometimes gorgeous stuff. Sometimes it's awful technology, such as the original iMac, with it hockey puck mouse and 15-inch monitor (at a time when vanilla PCs shipped with 17-inch monitors and cost much less.)
I have one of those, which I call the iSquint. To make it usable I shelled out $35 for a Microsoft Mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel and threw away the hockey puck. Sheesh. I use ole Squinty for making cross platform CD-ROMs in my business, and not much else.
Apple's OSX is a modern operating system with much to admire. Their machines exude style. Yet choosing a Mac in a world where 96% view the Internet via Windows can leave you left out. I can't count the number of times I've sent a video link to a Mac user and heard back, "Couldn't get it to play." And despite the often superior Mac monitors, web images optimized for Windows look washed out on Macs.
With Apple's move to Intel chips, we're probably looking at a future where your computer can swing both ways (Mac or PC) depending how you boot it. Sort of a transgender 'puter.
Jim Bass
squirm hillary, squirm
Saturday Night Live mocks Hillary for her plantation gambit. Follow the link for video.
Shelby Steele on Hillary
When political pandering goes awry, it calls you a name. On an emotional level, many blacks will hear Hillary's remark as follows: "I say Republicans run the House like a plantation because I am speaking to Negroes--the wretched of the earth, a slave people--who will surely know all about plantations." Is this a tin ear or a Freudian slip, blacks will wonder? Does she really see us as she projects us--as a people so backward that our support can be won with a simple plantation reference, and the implication that Republicans are racist? Quite possibly so, since no apology has been forthcoming.
...
And she knew the drill--white liberals and Dems whistle for the black vote by pandering to the black sense of grievance. Once positioned as the white champions of this grievance, they actually turn black resentment into white liberal power. Today, Democrats cannot be competitive without this alchemy. So Mrs. Clinton's real insult to blacks--one far uglier than her plantation metaphor--is to value them only for their sense of grievance.
Read the whole thing.
the damage done
Byron York writes in the Jan 30. National Review (print only) about the consequences of the New York Times blabbing about NSA intercepts and the Washington Post revealing the existence of secret prisons for terror suspects.
While both papers made a big deal about the threat to national security vis-a-vis Valerie Plame, both gladly violated state secrets with real consequences to national security. York notes:
- Although terrorists knew that their phone conversations might be tapped, they often got sloppy. One NSA source told him, "It's amazing in intercepts how often people will say, 'We really shouldn't be talking on this line.'" Now, thanks to the NYT, they are not.
- The WaPo story about secret prisons probably did the most harm. One, our allies in Poland now feel a bullseye has been painted on them, making them a likely target for a Madrid-type attack.
- Worse, the Polish government, and other governments who might want to help us in the future, now fear that the United States cannot keep a secret. And that's a hurt with long-term consequences.
no sunburn with these spf 50 bathing suits
Made in Australia, but not what you'd expect to see an Aussie babe wearing. The ultimate anti-thong. Via Tim Blair.
band on the run
The location of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda in Iraq’s commander, and the state of the Islamist insurgency have been recent topics of conversation. Late last year, ThreatsWatch stated the focal point of the insurgency has shifted from Anbar province to the regions north of Baghdad. Today, Coalition forces believe Zarqawi is currently operating “in Diyala province near Baghdad…If his presence in Diyala is confirmed, it will reinforce the belief that violence follows him around Iraq.”
The Sunday Times: reports that, according to “a leading insurgent who met [Zarqawi] two weeks ago”, Zarqawi “goes to sleep every night wearing a suicide belt packed with explosives,” and provides clues as to Zarqawi’s questionable status in relation to other insurgency groups. During a meeting designed to forge alliances with other Islamist insurgency groups, Zarqawi is reported to have “put on a show of humility at a two-day meeting to secure the co-operation of the Army of the Victorious Sect and other groups with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.”
sunday january 22, 2006
how saddam came to trial
The LA Times has the story of how a New York National Guardsman, an attorney, helped bring the first case against Saddam.
...Heintz described how he and his colleagues, many of them New York police officers and firefighters sent to help stabilize and secure the area around Dujayl, wound up helping unearth the crime.
"I went there as an infantry officer," said the stocky father of two, dressed in full military uniform for a police officer's funeral. "We went there to do raids and ambushes and train the Iraqi National Guard…. I did not go there to do [legal] work."
Before he arrived in Iraq, Heintz had little idea of what awaited him in Dujayl. As soon as the troops got their marching orders, his political advisor, Sgt. John Byrnes, did a Google search on the small town. He came up with an article that referred to the 1982 assassination attempt against Hussein and the retribution that followed. Heintz and his guys stored the information away.
dim bulb
Star Jones (a hopeful name, that) opens her mouth to reveal a shallow mind.
glory road
Betsy Newmark has a comprehensive look at the new film, supposedly about breaking racial barriers.
deconstructing jacques
Professor teaches his college a thing or two. HT Instapundit.
Jacques Pluss has accomplished the impossible. He has managed to get himself hated by everyone.
Nazis, socialists, lefties, righties, academics, nonacademics -- if they have any feeling about Pluss, those feelings are negative.
I may be the only person in America who appreciates what he has done. And what he has done is to single-handedly expose the myth of academic freedom in America.
saturday january 21, 2006
democrat dirty tricksters cop a plea
In an unexpected twist in the Election Day tire slashing trial, four former Kerry-Edwards campaign staffers, including the sons of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) and former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, have agreed to plead no contest to misdemeanors.
The plea agreements came in the middle of jury deliberations after an eight-day trial on felony property damage charges that carried potential 3 1/2 year prison terms upon conviction.
oprah osama book pick
Radical America-hating author (an American, natch) gets a boost from Osama bin Laden.
perfect for sierra club steering committee meetings
The seven seat bike.
giant grasshoppers!
I prefer Jack-a-lopes, but these are pretty compelling, too.
HT Museum of Hoaxes.
turning urban legend into corporate cash
Remember the story about millions of people flushing their toilets at the same time during Superbowl halftime? Scott toilet paper company cashes in with halftimeflush.com. They have games and a video from Mike Ditka.
method to iranian madness?
The question, of course, is what exactly the Iranians are up to. They
do not yet have nuclear weapons. The Israelis do. The Iranians have
now hinted that (a) they plan to build nuclear weapons and have
implied, as clearly as possible without saying it, that (b) they plan
to use them against Israel. On the surface, these statements appear to
be begging for a pre-emptive strike by Israel. There are many things
one might hope for, but a surprise visit from the Israeli air force is
not usually one of them. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the
Iranians seem to be doing, so we need to sort this out.There are four possibilities:
1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, is insane and wants to
be attacked because of a bad childhood.
2. The Iranians are engaged in a complex diplomatic maneuver, and this
is part of it.
3. The Iranians think they can get nuclear weapons -- and a deterrent
to Israel -- before the Israelis attack.
4. The Iranians, actually and rationally, would welcome an Israeli --
or for that matter, American -- air strike.
Read it all.
friday january 20, 2006
osama: bush's tool?
CNN's Jack Cafferty, echoing Walter Cronkite last year, thinks Osama is helping Bush. Bush Derangement Syndrome knows no bounds.
Meanwhile, Helen Thomas (a one woman argument for forced retirement) questions whether there are terrorists in Iraq.
sister, you been pink'd
Publius Pundit caught Code Pink lying with Photoshop (LWP).
The top image comes from Code Pink's web banner. As you can see, they lifted an image of an Iranian anti-mullah protestor, squeezed up her chin, painted her lips pink and changed her message.
Unbelievable. Code Pink, an anti-American, anti-Iraqi-freedom, anti-Iranian-democracy full-Sandalista nuisance group, has taken to photoshopping photographs of Iranian freedom babes brave enough to protest against the monstrous mullahs of Iran, and used their beautiful images as recruiting tools for their own odious, anaphrodisiac cause. This cause just happens to be cut-and-run from Iraq, so that mullahs will be free to oppress women in ‘peace.’ That’s Code Pink’s cause! It is so disgusting!
Read the rest, including the original post, to see how much these shrill pinkos betrayed the Iranians.
reading between bin laden's lines
American Digest figures Bin Laden wants to run for office.
AFTER A RECENT SERIES OF HIGH LEVEL MEETINGS with ranking Democrats at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, ranking honorary Democrat Osama Bin Laden of Rat Hole, Pakistan, emerged from seclusion with some of the International Democratic Party talking points for the 2006 US election.
Although the Aljazeera ("Bin Laden offers Americans truce") translation was spotty at best, our analysts here at American Digest have prepared an annotated version to help our readers discern where Bin Laden's positions and those of his new cohorts in the Democratic party overlap.
OBL: "The new operations of al-Qaida has not happened not because we could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared and you'll see it in your homeland very soon."
[TRANS: Indeed, we have almost penetrated your security measures, and are only waiting for our friend Teddy Kennedy to remove the last barrier, the Patriot Act. He has promised us that only a few weeks remain. We await this with keen anticipation.]
OBL: "We do not mind establishing a long-term truce between us and you."
[TRANS: Us -- lonely and a bit cold here in the Afghan/Pakistan mountains with only a replica-kit dialysis machine to keep us warm.
You -- a shapely US senator from San Francisco with a yen for masculine Arab men with skeevy beards and a large endowment. Let there be peace between you and us that our planned cruise to Cancun can unfold, and that I may pluck your fragrant desert flower.]
OBL: "This message is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end those wars.
[TRANS: You bugger off. We stay. By the way, thanks for the ammo, the airbases, the improved roads, the armor, and the freshly trained and equipped armies. They will make my old friends in Saudi Arabia sit up and take notice, I tell you. The resulting tumult will, as I have agreed with MoveOn and George Soros, cause my Saudi Arabian oil to rise to $150 a barrel and bring on the alternative fuel boomlet the Democratic environmentalists have been yearning for. After all, as they told me just last week, "When oil is outlawed, only environmentalists will have recumbent bicycles."]
indian country
From Der Spiegel:
In the United States a growing number of white people are discovering their Native American roots. Some are doing so for financial gain, but most are just looking for the meaning of life.
A few weeks, Betty Baker was still just a white housewife. But now the woman, with her piercing blue eyes, goes by the name "Little Dove" --and has jettisoned her apron for an elaborate deerskin dress.
"I am an Indian and I've sensed this my whole life," says the 48-year-old Baker, who lives in a wooden house on the edge of the small town of Pinson, Alabama.
hidden in plain sight
Current economy vs. Clinton economy, from Polipundit:
New claims for jobless benefits last week were 271,000, with the four-week moving average falling under 300,000. (See here.)
What were those numbers back in mid-January 1998, you ask?
341,000 and 322,000. (See here.)
Yeah, that’s right, more people were getting laid off from their jobs back in Jan. 1998 when compared to the present day.
Go figure.
What do you think about that, Krugman-Dobbs?
good night irene, good night
Peggy Noonan on the demise of the media monopoly:
I don't think Democrats understand that the Alito hearings were, for them, not a defeat but an actual disaster. The snarly tone the senators took with a man most Americans could look at and think, "He's like me," and the charges they made--You oppose women and minorities, you only like corporations and not the little guy--went nowhere. Once those charges would have taken flight, would have launched, found their target and knocked down any incoming Republican. Not any more. It's over.
Eleven years ago the Democrats lost control of Congress. Then they lost the presidency. But just as important, maybe more enduringly important, they lost their monopoly on the means of information in America. They lost control of the pipeline. Or rather there are now many pipelines, and many ways to use the information they carry. The other day, Dana Milbank, an important reporter for the Washington Post, the most important newspaper in the capital, wrote a piece deriding Judge Alito. Once such a piece would have been important. Men in the White House would have fretted over its implications. But within hours of filing, Mr. Milbank found his thinking analyzed and dismissed on the Internet; National Review Online called him a "policy bimbo."
hot black air
...Citing Katrina as a case-in-point, some environmentalists say global warming impacts minorities and the disadvantaged harder than other groups. If global warming gets worse, many African-American communities will be more vulnerable to breathing ailments, insect-carried diseases and heat-related illness and death. But asking Black folks to give up gas-guzzling SUV’s and other bling is a tough sell.
"Black folks" drive SUVs and drench themselves in bling? What a stereotype.
“It has been ingrained in our heads that to be anything, you must have everything,” says EJCC steering committee member Nia Robinson. “Because some of us have a big car and a nice house, people aren’t seeing that racism still exists. But Katrina showed that racism is alive and well in America. Now that people have that idea, I think we’re in a really critical stage to organize, educate and mobilize people.”
All Katrina showed is that racism remains a potent political weapon, regardless of the facts. And that there are plenty of scoundrels in the media and the Democrat party willing to wield it.
THURsday january 19, 2006
you go, girl!
Condoleeza Rice begins reforming Foggy Bottom:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps that she has dubbed "transformational diplomacy."
The State Department's culture of deployment and ideas about career advancement must alter now that the Cold War is over and the United States is battling transnational threats of terrorism, drug smuggling and disease, Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University. "The greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them," she said. "The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power."
As part of the change in priorities, Rice announced that diplomats will not be promoted into the senior ranks unless they accept assignments in dangerous posts, gain expertise in at least two regions and are fluent in two foreign languages, citing Chinese, Urdu and Arabic as a few preferred examples.
Rice noted that the United States has nearly as many State Department personnel in Germany -- which has 82 million people -- as in India, with 1 billion people. As a first step, 100 jobs in Europe and Washington will be immediately shifted to expanded embassies in countries such as India, China and Lebanon. Many of these diplomats had been scheduled to rotate into coveted posts in European capitals this summer, and the sudden change in assignment has caused some distress, State Department officials said.
Three days after Martin Luther King Day, with all its attendant race-baiting speeches (Hillary's "plantation" and Ray Nagin's "chocolate city"), a black woman begins reforming one of the clubbiest bureaucracies in the nation.
Actions trump words every time.
one taco over the line
Mexico's fattest man (1204 pounds).
canadian media playing down polls
...favoring the surging Tory party. What else is new?
bin laden extends olive branch
Osama bin Laden warned that al Qaeda was preparing new attacks inside the United States, but said the group was open to a conditional truce with Americans, according to an audio tape attributed to him on Thursday.
Here are the conditions:
- all homosexuals must be sent to Camp for Joy Boys
- women must remain barefoot and pregnant. All driver's licenses to females must be immediately revoked.
- convert the National Cathedral into the National Mosque
- Sharia is the new super-duper precedent/litmus test for Supreme Court nominees
- any ideas not mentioned in Koran are henceforth banished from the public square
- etc.
ISRAEL VERSUS THE MEDIA
VDH Private Papers reviews The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy, by Stephanie Gutmann:
Gutmann believes that Israel has been steadily defeated on the media front, and with deadly consequences. In March 2002, for instance, Israeli army planners were preparing a full-scale assault against West Bank terrorist networks. But they recalled the public-relations pummeling the country had endured during the previous two years, in which the United Nations, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, and others routinely condemned Israel for “excessive force.” And so, instead of lightning air strikes, Operation Defensive Shield relied on door-to-door raids, resulting in the deaths of 23 Israeli soldiers. Military superiority over its enemies is no advantage if Israel is continually dissuaded from using it.
In the media war, Israel has three disadvantages. The first is an open society, which allows reporters (and filmmakers and activists and human-rights observers) the freedom to roam, record, and interview in first-world comfort. This has saddled Israel with what may be the world’s highest per capita concentration of reporters. Jerusalem is host to 350 permanent foreign news bureaus, as many as New York, London, or Moscow; the volume of reportage on Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank is 75 times greater than on any other area of comparable population. This obsessive attention necessarily distorts, by casting the Israel-Palestinian war in a theatric, world-historical light.
In the last decade, around 4,500 Israeli and Palestinian lives have been lost to the fighting. The Russo-Chechen war has killed 50,000 (11 times as many), the Darfur crisis has killed 180,000 (40 times as many), and the Congolese civil war has killed 3.5 million (778 times as many). But very few Americans can call to mind images of the ghastly violence in Chechnya, Sudan, or Congo—or even identify the warring parties—b