Musings Archive January 2003
Friday, January 31, 2003 MANDELA'S ATTACK ON BUSH: Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist and first post-apartheid president of South Africa, has earned his place in history. This does not make his recent foreign policy pronouncements any less harebrained. Of all the outlandish charges he makes against President Bush, according to this UPI report, perhaps the most reckless is that the administration is somehow disregarding the United Nations because it has a black secretary general.
First of all, Bush endorsed Koffi Annan for another term as secretary general, even though some conservatives urged him not to do so. Second, such leading Bush adminstration officials as Vice President Dick Cheney have certainly criticized the U.N. when it had white secretary generals. Third, whatever you think about a war against Iraq, this administration has bent over backwards to work within the U.N. on these issues. This is despite the fact that the U.N. is a body that puts in charge of its disarmnament comission, Libya in charge of its human rights commission and behaves as if the U.S. and Israel are worse than your run-of-the-mill Third World dicator.
Is there any policy question left where conservatives don't find the race card played against them?
Posted by antle @ 11:47 PM EST [Link]
~ DUBYA: A BIG SPENDER, BUT NOT THE BIGGEST SPENDER: Both Steve and I took President Bush to task on this blog for the amount of spending he proposed in his State of the Union address. So I suppose it is only fair to note that the National Taxpayers' Union has reported that Bush proposed the smallest spending increases of the most recent State of the Union addresses.
Of course, given how bloated the government's budget is, why propose new spending at all? This half-hearted attempt at spending restraint doesn't placate this fiscal conservative, but I guess I can at least console myself with the fact that it could have been worse.
Posted by antle @ 11:12 PM EST [Link]
~ NON POLITICAL, COOL STORY: Was I repeating myself there? There's a 54 year old mystery in Baltimore. Every year since at least 1949 on Edgar Allan Poe's birthday a mysterious stranger clad in a black cloak visits the writer's grave and leaves three roses and half a bottle of cognac. For the past several years people have watched him from surrounding buildings perform the ritual and then quietly leave.
No one has ever approached him, his nickname is the uninspiring "Poe Toaster", and some people are fiercely protective of him and his secret identity.
Read on. For more info on Poe's grave visit here.
I'll bet Bayliss and Pembleton would have found out who he was...but they wouldn't have revealed his secret. If you get that reference, you have good taste.
Posted by steve @ 04:24 PM EST [Link]
~ GIVING THE FISK TO THE NYT: Andrew Sullivan positively hammers the New York Times over a recent editorial calling on Dubya to delay military action for...well, no one is exactly sure why. The newspaper trips over its own thoughts in laying out its "case".
Posted by steve @ 02:01 PM EST [Link]
~ SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT THE FRENCH: Says Mark Steyn, but don't call them wimps.
"What's not in it for France is that America should emerge with its present pre-eminence even more enhanced. France is in the business of la gloire de la republique, and right now the main obstacle to that is the post-Soviet unipolar geopolitical settlement. They are not temperamentally suited to being anyone's sidekick: If Tony Blair wants to play Athens to America's Rome, or Tonto to Bush's Lone Ranger, or Sandy the dog to Dubya's Little Orphan Annie, fine. The French aren't interested in any awards for Best Supporting Actor."
Posted by steve @ 01:24 PM EST [Link]
~ IS SADDAM DUMB OR CRAFTY?: Asks Steven Den Beste. His answer? Dumb.
One of the lines of defence he plans to employ are trenches, or as Den Beste refers to them, pre-dug graves.
"The solution to trenches is cluster bombs or thermobaric weapons. Cluster bombs burst relatively high and distributes what amounts to hundreds of hand grenades over a wide area. They fall into anything, including trenches and foxholes, and then explode and kill anyone nearby. They can be dropped by heavy bombers or fighter-bombers or be delivered by MLRS.
"And everyone now knows about thermobaric weapons (sometimes called 'Fuel-Air Explosives') which generate an immense concussion in a huge area, and not incidentally consume all the oxygen there. Anyone not blown apart by the shock, or incinerated by the flame, has a good chance of smothering afterwards. And a trench is no defense. (Or, if you want to fight on the cheap, you use napalm.)"
Posted by steve @ 10:12 AM EST [Link]
~ I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS: But Enter Stage Right's Musings now apparently has an RSS feed. That's the little red button with XML on it to your right.
At any rate, it's all due to the incomparable David Janes. If you have a blog without an RSS feed, find out how to get yours here. Thanks Dave!
Posted by steve @ 09:56 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE FIGHT, REASON NO. 963: The BBC reports that al-Qaida was successful in making a dirty bomb, a crude conventional bomb designed to spread radiation. The real bad news: No one knows where it is.
"British intelligence agents infiltrated the network and found documents that showed Al Qaeda members had built the device near Herat in western Afghanistan, the BBC said, citing unidentified British government officials."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:38 AM EST [Link]
~ FRANCE IS SO LOVED...WELL, MAYBE NOT: Filing this under the category of "Pictures that say a thousand words", protestors in the Ivory Coast illustrate what side they are on in the France v. U.S. debate. (pop-up, 29K)
Posted by steve @ 09:33 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have in today's Vancouver Province an op-ed concerning the massive invasion of privacy that Canadians may be subjected to in the coming years thanks to federal legislation post September 11.
Posted by steve @ 08:46 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, January 30, 2003 REDUNDANT SELF-PROMO ALERT: The Jerusalem Post has run my piece on America's Arab allies.
Posted by steve @ 10:23 PM EST [Link]
~ RUMSFELD'S EUROPE: A joint letter by eight European leaders backing the United States on the crisis with Iraq highlighted the European Union's divisions on Thursday, rubbing salt into the wounds of its stumbling foreign policy.
European vacation spots: Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Denmark, plus future EU members Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Posted by steve @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]
~ BORDER SECURITY TESTED: And the results weren't impressive.
"Government investigators armed with fake IDs and fictitious names had no trouble getting past U.S. border guards who didn't even bother to check the false papers in some cases, the General Accounting Office says."
Posted by steve @ 02:14 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT WAR AIN'T OVER YET: U.S. soldiers hit a cave complex and found cooking oil, food, boots and rockets in caves high in a southeastern Afghan mountain today.
Posted by steve @ 01:21 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: Hot off the presses baby! American Prowler just minutes ago posted my piece about America's new allies in the upcoming war against Iraq: Muslim nations.
Now off to finish a freelance piece about Canadian privacy rights.
Posted by steve @ 12:11 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, January 29, 2003 WHY VOTING FOR ZELL MILLER WAS NEVER A MISTAKE: "We now have the biggest, most expensive federal government in history. Federal employees are thicker than maggots on a rotting carcass. So, why not start by abolishing vacant positions in every department except Defense and Homeland Security. Congress could set the example by cutting our own staff to show that we are willing to stop feeding the hungry beast. [We] need that tax-cutting Texan to also become a budget-cutting president. We need more members of Congress to decide that now is the time to cut taxes and at the same time tighten our belt. It's simple: Collect fewer dollars; spend fewer dollars." -- Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga)
It's a shame that he never switched over to the Republicans...an even bigger shame he's leaving politics.
Posted by steve @ 11:54 PM EST [Link]
~ JESUS SELLS: Jeremy Lott has a good piece over at Reason about the significance of the Christian cultural industry.
"In fact, the economic embrace of Christian pop culture by mainstream producers may be straining the original Christian cultural scene. Now that evangelical novelists can be published by secular presses, they can avoid relatively stifling moral guidelines that have been constraining them (no swearing, no sex out of marriage unless it has disastrous consequences, the requisite amount of God talk, etc.). New Christian music acts are now routinely courted by secular record labels. That allows them more freedom to inject their faith into the mainstream culture in a way that simply wasn’t done by secular labels before, even while removing the more popular groups from the Christian labels’ lists. Christian publishers are being squeezed at both ends as bookstores demand steeper discounts while increasingly influential mainstream agents secure better contracts for Christian writers. In turn, Christian bookstores face new competition from secular bookstores."
Posted by steve @ 11:49 PM EST [Link]
~ BART SIMPSON. People, I have never seen a full episode of "The Simpsons." I am assuming some (one of you?) have. If so, can I get a description of the kid, Bart. My impression is that he is a naughty underachiever. Is that correct?
Posted by izzy @ 07:48 PM EST [Link]
~ PIPES SPEECH TAKES PLACE AT YORK UNIVERSITY: After a struggle to find a spot to hold the speech, Daniel Pipes' talk about the Middle East went off without a problem at York University yesterday though there were, predictably, protesters.
"The source of this kind of hostility against freedom of speech invariably comes from three forces: not the right but the left; not the Christian right but the Islamists; not the pro-Israel activists but the pro-Palestinian activists," said Pipes.
"These are barbarians who would close down civilized discussion."
Well said.
Posted by steve @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
~ PREDICTING FOOTBALL IS LIKE PREDICTING THE WEATHER: That which should happen sometimes does not. Gregg Easterbrook goes over the predictions made by noted sports columnists and finds that nearly all came up very short. Special bonus: picture of the babes fighting in that Miller Lite commercial. As much as I tend to hate beer commercials, I rather dug that one.
For the record, I made money this year but my Super Bowl pick was quite wrong. Lucky I didn't get a chance to wager on that one.
Posted by steve @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]
~ ISRAEL'S OTHER ELECTION WINNER: Was a party called Shinui, says Jacob Sullum.
"Shinui's main issue is the separation of synagogue and state: It wants to end special subsidies to religious organizations, military service exemptions for yeshiva students, and laws that coerce religious observance. If Likud, with 37 seats, forms a government with Labor, which has 19, Shinui would make it possible to put together a majority bloc that excludes the religious parties, which have long used their leverage as crucial coalition members to extract favors."
Posted by steve @ 01:27 PM EST [Link]
~ SO INSANE IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN AT THE UN: "Iraq will chair the United Nations' most important disarmament negotiating forum during the panel's May session.
"At the rules-minded United Nations, it's not a country's status with international weapons inspectors, but the letters in its name that determine which member state chairs the Conference on Disarmament."
It ain't April Fools Day and this ain't a joke. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SOME GOOD NEWS: That got overshadowed by last night's SOTU. Israeli voters yesterday re-elected Ariel Sharon.
"Sharon's Likud doubled its strength, from 19 to 37 seats in the 120-member parliament. Likud's political rival, the centre-left Labour, posted its worst-ever showing, dropping from 26 to 19 seats.
"Sharon profited from the Israeli electorate's shift to the right in response to 28 months of fighting with the Palestinians. Many Israelis are angry at the Palestinians, believing they lied about wanting peace and responded to a reasonable offer with violence. Voters blamed Labour, which led the failed peace negotiations, for the country's troubles."
Posted by steve @ 09:59 AM EST [Link]
~ COSH DISCUSSES DUBYA'S SPEECHIFYING: Rather than address the main points of Dubya's SOTU, Colby Cosh spares some thoughts for his speaking style.
"If you're looking for instapunditry on the SOTU address you've come to the wrong place. However, can I say--since I was just talking somebody's ear off about it and I felt it was a good pretext for updating the weblog--that Bush is certainly the best American political communicator since Reagan? It may sound funny to say this of a man who can't pronounce 'nuclear' correctly, but it occurs to me that he probably knows perfectly damn well how to say the word."
Posted by steve @ 09:38 AM EST [Link]
~ DEN BESTE ON THE SOTU: Steven Den Beste wasn't pleased at all by the foreign policy aspect. Warning, some cuss words are used.
Posted by steve @ 09:23 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS ON SOTU: He doesn't much care for State of the Union addresses ("Everything’s basically copacetic but it could be 7% more copacetic if we pass these carefully calibrated bills, and let me now point to that person up there who vaguely symbolizes something that made us sad for a week but now fills us with hope, etc.") but he did like Dubya's speech.
"Compared to last year, an underwhelming speech - but the more I think about it the less that bothers me; it’s probably the right speech for the time. Hard bones to gnaw, not fresh meat you can chomp and bolt. This will be seen as the first of four speeches - the SOTU, the Bush/Blair speech, Powell’s UN speech, and Bush’s address from the Oval Office the night the war begins. I think it was written with that procession in mind, which might explain its tenor."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:15 AM EST [Link]
~ STEVE'S THOUGHTS ON THE SOTU: After reflecting on it for a while, I've decided to give Dubya's State of the Union Address a B-. Not as stirring as some of his earlier speeches but I think that was the point.
Domestic: Here I give Dubya a C because of the spending spree he's promised the American people. Unlike Reagan, Dubya has a Republican controlled Congress which means he doesn't have to spend in order to get his tax cuts passed and yet he decided to fall off the fiscal restraint bandwagon and shovel big money into medicare reform, drugs for AIDS victims across the world (State of the World Union?), hydrogen powered cars and the like. Disappointing was that he made no mention that I remember of reforming Social Security, one of the priorities he has to undertake if his domestic agenda is to be judged favourably by history. More positively, he spoke out against partial birth abortion which even a nominally pro-choice person like me finds to be a completely repulsive thing.
Foreign: As expected the foreign aspect of his speech pretty well dealt with Iraq. Unfortunately there wasn't much new there. We already knew about the mobile WMD labs and the only really new tidbit of information was the name of the al-Qaida cat from Jordan that intelligence sources say spent time in Iraq after September 11. That said, he did make an effective case -- at least in my mind -- about the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein and why military action was necessary. One touch I particularly liked was his mentioning Iran and it's unfortunate population. I give this side of his speech, which completely overshadowed the domestic agenda by its sheer weight an A-.
Overall: No memorable lines though it was nice to hear him use the word evil. If the glove fits...
Lines of the night: "Free people will set the course of history." and "The course of this nation does not depend on the decision of others." Essentially extended middle fingers to the UN and the Axis of Weasels.
Good speech overall though I thought it was deficient in some regards.
Posted by steve @ 09:07 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, January 28, 2003 AXIS OF SPENDING: I'm hearing a lot of spending from Dubya right now...and tax cuts. Didn't he learn from the example of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s?
Posted by steve @ 09:33 PM EST [Link]
~ THE FINAL TMQB OF THE SEASON: And SUV-hating Gregg Easterbrook discusses the Super Bowl and names his cheerleader of the week. I have disagree with his number one pick (he picks two in a "bipartisan spirit"). While Danielle Dolen is pretty fine, Rebecca Guerrero of the Oakland Raiders or Angie Rameriz of the San Diego Chargers should have won hands down.
Posted by steve @ 03:34 PM EST [Link]
~ POWELL WINS: Andrew Sullivan says Colin Powell's strategy of taking the Iraq issue to the United Nations, though risky, has born fruit. Hans Blix's report shows that Iraq hasn't been forthcoming about its WMDs and the Bush administration has come out on the right side of the issue.
"Blix's report is a devastating blow to those who still hold out hope that appeasing Saddam or attempting to contain him diplomatically will solve the problem we face."
Posted by steve @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY ORWELL MATTERS BY CHRISTOPHER...ERRR....ORRIN JUDD: Brother Orrin over at Brothers Judd Blog posts a great essay about George Orwell that is a response to Louis Menand's assertion that what we commonly believe about the great writer is "a distortion of what he really thought and the kind of writer he was." That includes a hatred of the middle class that Menand says Orwell carried.
"Mr. Menand is right then to call him a middle class intellectual, but wrong that he hated the middle class, and, more importantly, fails to consider that the very term 'middle class intellectual' is an oxymoron. In any economically healthy democracy with a reasonably broad franchise the middle class will be the ultimate source of power in the State, simply because they will be, overwhelmingly, the largest group in society. This will necessarily tend to make the middle class conservative, in the very broad sense that will try to conserve the basic structures, traditions, etc. of the state they control. The powerful just don't tend to be risk takers where their own power is concerned. The philosophy of the middle class then, its intellectualism, tends to be rather conservative, traditional, and opposed to change or experimentation with a system that's working pretty well by their terms."
Brother Orrin says, to paraphrase Ayn Rand, Menand ought to check his premise about who he thinks Orwell was and what he believed. I'd write in support of Orrin but what would the point be? He nailed his points admirably.
Anyone who thinks blogs are a waste of time doesn't read the ones captained by cats like Orrin Judd.
Posted by steve @ 02:02 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH IS A COWBOY?: Only if you ignore reality, says Christopher Hitchens.
"To have had three planeloads of kidnapped civilians crashed into urban centers might have brought out a touch of the cowboy even in Adlai Stevenson. But Bush waited almost five weeks before launching any sort of retaliatory strike. And we have impressive agreement among all sources to the effect that he spent much of that time in consultation. A cowboy surely would have wanted to do something dramatic and impulsive (such as to blow up at least an aspirin-factory in Sudan) in order to beat the chest and show he wasn't to be messed with. But it turns out that refined Parisians are keener on such "unilateral" gestures—putting a bomb onboard the Rainbow Warrior, invading Rwanda on the side of the killers, dispatching French troops to the Ivory Coast without a by-your-leave, building a reactor for Saddam Hussein, and all the rest of it."
Posted by steve @ 01:07 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT WOULD STOP IRAQ FROM ATTACKING THE US?: It's no secret that back during Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush sent a back channel message to Saddam Hussein about the use of biological or chemical weapons against coalition forces during the war. If you use a WMD against, the U.S. will respond with a nuclear attack. Despite the fact that we know Hussein possessed these weapons, he didn't use them because he knew that U.S. doctrine considered all NBC attacks as equivalent for the purposes of response.
Steven Den Beste says that it's no different in 2003. If Saddam Hussein is insane enough to launch a NBC attack in the U.S., Iraq will be turned into a lake of blood and fire.
"Our doctrine is that there is no difference between biological, chemical and nuclear weapons for purposes of calculating escalation, and if anyone uses chemical or biological weapons against us then we would not consider a nuclear response to be 'first use'."
As he points out, it's a doctrine that goes back to World War II when the U.S. warned Germany not to use nerve has against its soldiers. The response would be a massive chemical attack against German soldiers and possibly cities.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:56 AM EST [Link]
~ TWO MEN I LIKE: One I knew I liked, the other I wasn't so sure about. Golfer Greg Norman yesterday came out swinging for America during a press conference when unprompted he declared his support for the United States and Australian involvement in a war against Iraq.
"We've been side by side with the Americans in every war America has fought. We are great, loyal allies. It is what Australia has to do. Wherever America goes, Australia is going to be with it, a la Bali. We should be there [in Iraq], absolutely ... we have to be with them," said Norman.
"We have a lot of what democratic society gives us, our freedom of speech. If we lose that ..."
Now Ron Silver I was never a particularly big fan of but I admired his skill at acting. That said, Silver is a liberal that makes Hollywood liberals like conservative. During the Davos summit in Switzerland yesterday, Silver took on Patrick Cox, the president of the European Union parliament, for hinting that America wanted to be an imperial power. I copy this straight from today's Bleat by James Lileks/Wall Street Journal.
"In formal panels, in corridors and at normally genteel dinners, tempers flared. At one dinner of poached salmon, Patrick Cox, the president of the European Union parliament, blasted the US for its go-it-alone approach. 'The real Europe has values,' he said. 'Our imperial days are over, and thank God for that.'
"Ron Silver, the US actor and political activist, jumped up from a table across the room to retort that if it weren't for the US, hundreds of thousands more civilians would have died in the Balkans, while Europe sat idly by. The US had no interest in that region other than humanitarian, he said. 'We are not an imperial government, Mr. Cox,’ he said. 'You know that, and everyone here knows that.'"
Damn right. Congrats to both men for getting it.
Posted by steve @ 09:32 AM EST [Link]
~ U.S. SOLDIERS/AFGHANS FIGHT BATTLE WITH REBELS: U.S. and Afghan forces battled rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar today in the largest-scale fighting in Afghanistan in 10 months.
"Hekmatyar was a key guerrilla commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan. Later, in the civil war that paved the way for the Taliban takeover, Hekmatyar's men pounded the capital, Kabul, with daily rocket barrages. He lived in exile in Iran during the five years of Taliban rule, and returned after U.S.-led forces ousted the hardline militia. Western intelligence agencies suspect he is getting money from Iran."
Along with fighting Hekmatyar's friends, this is a good argument to begin the rapid destablization of Iran.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:18 AM EST [Link]
Monday, January 27, 2003 WHY AMERICA MUST FIGHT: Great essay of why America must fight Iraq.
Posted by steve @ 08:17 PM EST [Link]
~ LOLITAS. A disturbing article (with photos) about a dreadful trend: Little girls who are obsessed with improving their looks. Nothing wrong with adding a little flair to your appearance but when young teens dream of growing up to be "topless dancers," the Republic is in crisis.
In the circles in which I travel, I meet girls and teenagers who prefer modest dress, are smart, and prize character. It's a shame they don't merit a high-profile photo exhibit. I need to write an article about this counterculture, but it will likely be an 'unsexy' read. Sigh.
Posted by izzy @ 03:55 PM EST [Link]
~ USING JAMES EARL JONES FOR VOICE OVERS STILL RULES THOUGH: "This week marks an anniversary the people at CNN would prefer be observed quietly -- very quietly.
"It was one year ago that Fox News Channel first beat CNN in the ratings, toppling the network that invented cable news and had enjoyed a monopoly for most of its existence."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:32 PM EST [Link]
~ WHO NEEDS THE AXIS OF WEASEL: When the U.S. has allies like Britain, Australia, Jordan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
Huh?
It's true. Even as weasel nations like Germany and France do everything they can to obstruct the United States, Arab and Muslim nations are lining up alongside the Americans.
"Until recently, Arab leaders had been the most vocal in criticizing Washington's talk of war. Saudi Arabia had said it would not allow its military bases to be used in any such effort, while Jordan's monarch warned of a Middle East 'Armageddon' resulting from a U.S.-Iraq war.
"But now, most of them are falling in behind Washington. Despite their fears of political instability in the wake of an Iraq invasion -- which could threaten their own hold on power -- they seem to have decided that they cannot afford to jeopardize their all-important relations with the United States by remaining on the sidelines."
Pity a couple of "old Europe" powers haven't realized that. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:39 PM EST [Link]
~ I GUESS WE KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS: "After hearing a new assessment of Iraqi cooperation from the chief U.N. weapons inspectors, the Bush administration said Monday that Iraq was not in compliance and the United Nations needed to reassess its approach to the situation."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:32 PM EST [Link]
~ $14,000 TO TAKE A BULLET
I received this in an email newletter. Forgive me for posting the entire thing, but I could not find a link to the piece.
Keeping the Super Bowl in Perspective
"Super Bowl battle is dwarfed by what band of brothers faces"
by Bryan Burwell
St. Louis Post Dispatch
1/22/2003SAN DIEGO - It was just around midnight Tuesday night, and the outdoor
courtyard at Dick's Last Resort was throbbing with the rowdy energy of a
spring break bacchanal. There was loud rock music blaring out of the stereo
speakers, and the air was filled with the distinct and somewhat revolting
aroma of deep-fried bar food, cigarette smoke and spilled beer.Dick's is the sort of bar-restaurant ideally suited for Super Bowl week
mischief, because it has a down-and-dirty roadhouse feel to it. The waiters,
waitresses and bartenders are charmingly rude, and the wood floors are
covered with sand and all sorts of indistinguishable debris. The clientele
on this evening is a fascinating mix of twenty-something college kids,
thirty-something conventioneers and 40-something Super Bowl high-rollers.Yet there was one table in Dick's courtyard Tuesday night that was
noticeably different from the others. There were six young men at the table
and one young woman, and while they were drinking like everyone else in the
room, there was something all too serious going on at this table that let
you know that their thoughts were a long way from the mindless frivolity of
Super Bowl week.Maybe it was the close-cropped "barracks haircuts" that gave them away. All
the men's heads were cut in that familiar look of a professional soldier,
skin-close on the sides, and on top a tight shock of hair that resembled new
shoe-brush bristles."We're Marines," one man told me. "And tomorrow we're boarding a ship for .
. . well . . . I really can't tell you where, but you know."Of course we knew. In less than an hour, they would report back to a ship
docked along the Southern California coast, then on Wednesday head across th
e Pacific Ocean, bound for a potential war in Iraq. So this was no Super
Bowl party for them. This was their last night out on the town. One Marine
was saying goodbye to his wife. The others were not so lucky. They all just
sat around the table, throwing back beers and wrestling with the sobering
uncertainty of the rest of their lives."We're going to war and none of us knows if we're ever coming back," said
another Marine, a 28-year-old from Southern Illinois. They all requested
that I not use their names. "Just tell 'em we're the men of (Marine Aviation
Land Support Squad 39)," they said.On Super Bowl Sunday, the men of MALS 39 will be watching the game from the
mess hall of their ship. "That is, if we're lucky and the weather is good
and it doesn't interfere with the satellite signal," said the Marine with
the bald head and burnt-orange shirt. "But I gotta tell you, I'm not that
big a sports fan anymore. It's going to be the first pro football game I've
watched in . . . I can't even remember."Why is that?
"Well, here's my problem with pro sports today," he said. "I don't care
whether it's football, basketball or baseball. Guys are complaining about
making $6 million instead of $7 million, and what is their job? Playing a
damned game. You know what I made last year? I made $14,000. They pay me
$14,000, and you know what my job description is? I'm paid to take a
bullet."When he said those words, it positively staggered me.
Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.
Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of what a wonderful life I lead. I
am paid to write about sports and tell stories on radio and television about
the games people play. But sometimes, even in the midst of a grand sporting
event, something happens to put the frivolity of sports into its proper
perspective, and this was it.Fourteen thousand dollars to take a bullet.
As I sit here writing from my hotel room, I can look out my balcony window
and I see a Navy battleship cutting through the San Diego Bay, heading out
to sea. I can see the sailors standing on the deck as the ship sails past
Coronado Island, the San Diego Marina and the downtown Seaport Village, and
I wonder if any of the men from MALS 39 are aboard.It was only 12 hours ago that I was sitting at the table with my guys,
buying them beers, and listening to their soldier stories. The Marine from
Southern Illinois who sat to my right pointed to the bald Marine in the
orange shirt who was seated to my left. "You know, I don't even know this
guy, can you believe that? We just met a few hours ago when we came into
Dick's. Oh, I've seen him on the base, but I've never met him before
tonight. But here's what's so special about that man, and why I love that
man. He's my brother. Semper Fi. I know a guy back home, and he is my best
friend. I'm 28 years old and we've known each other all our lives. But
today, that friend is more of a stranger to me than that Marine sitting over
there, who I've never met before tonight. That's why they call it a Band of
Brothers."The little Marine in the orange shirt lifted his glass toward the Marine
from Southern Illinois and nodded his head. "That's right," he said. "That's
my brother over there, and I'm gonna take a bullet for him if I have to."He said it with a calm and jolting certainty. There was a moving, but
chilling, pride in his words.All around them, people were drinking, shouting and laughing. The college
kids and the conventioneers and NFL high-rollers were living the good,
carefree life. Across the street, a storefront that was vacant two weeks ago
was now filled with $30 caps, $400 leather jackets, $40 mugs and $27
T-shirts with the fancy blue and yellow Super Bowl XXXVII logo embroidered
on it.From every end of the streets of downtown San Diego's fabled Gaslamp
Quarter, Super Bowl revelers toasted the Raiders and the Bucanneers with
grog-sized mugs filled with beers and rums. But just around midnight in the
middle of the courtyard of Dick's Last Resort, a far more deserving toast
was going up to the men of MALS 39. We clicked our glasses together, and a
few minutes later, they quietly slipped out the courtyard gates.Suddenly, the Super Bowl didn't seem so important anymore.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 08:59 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece today in Tech Central Station on why it is self-defeating for proponents of tax cuts to sell their proposals as a specific dollar amount. I've made this point repeatedly in these pages over the years - if you're going to try to sell a tax cut, the worst thing you can do is take misleading static estimates of how much it is going to cost and make that the primary identifier of your proposal. That shifts the entire debate too far in favor of those who oppose any real pro-growth tax reductions.
Posted by antle @ 08:29 AM EST [Link]
~ LIBERAL BEGINS SCREWING UP REASON MAGAZINE: I was wary when I heard that Tim Cavanaugh, ex- of Suck.com, had been hired to work at Reason's web site. I wish libertarians would stay away from both liberals and conservatives. Little good ever comes of it.
Eugene Volokh isn't too happy with Cavanaugh right now. Seems Cavanaugh decided to slam the U.S. government on the grounds that once a war starts "the state will advance when it gets seriously down to the business of stealing everything in Iraq that isn't nailed down."
Like Volokh, I take it that "the state" in question is the U.S. government. Responds Volokh:
"Huh? What exactly is the evidence for the very serious accusation that the U.S. government is likely to try to 'steal everything in Iraq that isn't nailed down'? Conventional wisdom is that the war and the reconstruction of Iraq will be a net cost to the government, not a net benefit (and this is an argument sometimes made by anti-war forces), and here I think the conventional wisdom is right."
Read all of Volokh's response to Cavanaugh here and hope that the once great Reason isn't flushed down some liberal toilet.
Posted by steve @ 04:40 AM EST [Link]
~ I HATE THE OSBOURNES TOO: James Lileks didn't think much of the Superbowl advertising this year. Unfortunately, Global television owns all the rights to airing the broadcast in Canada so they stuck their own commercials on top of ABC's so I didn't get a chance to see many of them. The commercial for The Hulk disappointed me but I am psyched to see The Matrix Revisited.
At any rate, on a more important matter, Lileks also responds to his newspaper's surveying of Minnesotans' attitudes towards terrorism. It ain't pleasant. Read it all here.
And no, I can't sleep, hence the bizarre hour that this is being posted at. My eyes are falling out from fatigue but everytime I lie down my body feels electric. The ying and yang of sleep deprivation I guess.
Posted by steve @ 04:25 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, January 26, 2003 AMERICA'S TRUE FRIENDS: Germany and France may be blading (it's a military term that means stabbing someone in the back -- you'll hear it in basic training if you screw someone over) its friend the United States, but there are some countries that are standing up and offering their help. "New Europe" is with America even as "old Europe" becomes ever more irrelevant.
Well, not completely, as the Guardian story points out, New Europe's leaders are pro-American but their peoples are more reserved in their opinion.
Posted by steve @ 05:58 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, January 25, 2003 WHAT DID HE KNOW?: "Three Iraqi scientists -- who Iraq said it had instructed to talk to arms inspectors -- have refused to hold private interviews with the U.N. team searching for weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi officials told CNN."
The meat of this story is in this paragraph:
"The news came on the day two men -- one carrying three knives, the other a notebook and shouting 'Save me!' -- tried to enter the U.N. inspectors' Baghdad compound in separate surprise incidents."
What was in that notebook? We'll probably never know. He was dragged away by Iraqi security. I'm reasonably sure his body will fill a hole somewhere in the Iraqi desert pretty soon.
Posted by steve @ 05:22 PM EST [Link]
~ STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF A GIANT: Thank you Orrin Judd for bringing this to my attention! Bill Keller has penned a piece in the New York Times Magazine that compares George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. It is one of the best essays I've read in the past few years. (Free registration required)
Bush's seeming invincibility to bad news may be exasperating to Democrats, but it was no surprise to Michael Deaver, the shrewd public relations man who played Karl Rove to an earlier president, Ronald Reagan. When Deaver was handling spin for Reagan, one frustrated Democrat described the scandal proof chief executive as the Teflon President. This time around, Deaver watched the White House twirl and sidestep through the serial crises of December with deep professional admiration. To Deaver there was nothing mysterious about it, no Teflon. It was just the relentless discipline of a president who consistently defies the expectations of people who think they are smarter than he is.Like a lot of Republicans who have watched both Reagan and Bush at close hand, Deaver sees uncanny similarities between them. The presidents are alike in their outlooks and career paths, in their agendas of tax-cutting and confrontational deployment of American power, in the ideological mix of their advisers. (Whatever you read about the president's inheritance from his father and Gerald Ford, the Reagan DNA is dominant in the staffing, training and planning of the Bush administration.) More than that, there are important similarities of character and temperament. And both are simple men who have made a political virtue of being -- in Bush's word -- ''misunderestimated'' by the political elite.
That Bush is Reaganesque is a conceit that some conservatives have wishfully, tentatively embraced since he emerged as a candidate, and one that Bush himself has encouraged. The party faithful have been pining for a new Reagan since Reagan, and for Bush the analogy has the added virtue of providing an alternative political lineage; he's not Daddy's Boy, he's Reagan Jr. The comparison has only gained currency since Bush entered the White House. Some Republicans speak of the current era, with the culmination of Reagan's ballistic missile defense and the continuing assault on marginal tax rates and, especially, the standing tall against global evil as the recommencing of the Reagan ''revolution.''
''I think he's the most Reagan-like politician we have seen, certainly in the White House,'' Deaver said. ''I mean, his father was supposed to be the third term of the Reagan presidency -- but then he wasn't. This guy is.''
Posted by steve @ 04:49 PM EST [Link]
Friday, January 24, 2003 OBJECTIVIST IN TRAINING?: My niece Alexandria, now 1 year and six months of age, never fails to amaze me. Yesterday, Alex used a word I had never heard her say before. Me. She proudly pounded her chest and kept saying "me". If I dared to point to my chest and say that, she would quickly correct me by doing it again.
Oh, and she already dances better than I do, which isn't hard.
Ayn Rand would be proud.
Posted by steve @ 04:48 PM EST [Link]
~ STEVE PICKS THE SUPERBOWL WINNER...GET TO VEGAS NOW!: It's a truism in sports that a good defence beats a good offense. That will be tested on Sunday with Tampa Bay's 1st rated defence against Oakland's 1st rated offence.
According to conventional wisdom, Tampa Bay will be able to shut down Oakland's offence -- or at least limit it to a great degree -- with Brad Johnson winning the game with a couple of touchdowns. Look what happened to Michael Vick and Atlanta when Tampa Bay played them. They stuffed the line and forced Vick to throw to a sub-par core of receivers. That's conventional wisdom of course, and you don't hear too many people arguing it do you? That's because Oakland ain't Atlanta and Rich Gannon isn't Michael Vick. Steve's (and I guess most people's) wisdom says that Oakland's passing game -- and I predict Rich Gannon will be changing his last name to Canon on Monday -- is going to be in full force this weekend not because Tampa Bay will shut down the running game, but because Gannon loves to throw the ball and he's damned good at it.
With the offensive weapons that Gannon has access to he won't suffer the same problem as Vick did. He's going to throw the ball so many times they'll have to replace his shoulder from being worn out. I don't expect them to run too often just because they don't want to.
The official line on the game favours Oakland by 3.5 points which I consider to be a little low. Steve's prediction? Oakland 24, Tampa Bay 10.
Now run out and put your entire lifesavings on a bet based on that prediction. It's your lock of the week.
(Disclaimer: The information in this post is simply meant to show how stupid Steven Martinovich is and should not be construed as advice in placing wagers with legally sanctioned gaming authorities. Statements within this posting are forward looking and may not reflect what actually happens in Super Bowl XXXVII.)
Posted by steve @ 04:26 PM EST [Link]
~ HE'S RIGHT ABOUT THE MASSIVE LOSSES...WRONG ABOUT WHO WILL SUFFER THEM: Insane son of Saddam Hussein, Uday, today warned the U.S. that it would sustain massive losses if it tried to invade Iraq.
"Because if they come, September 11 which they are crying over and see as a big thing will be a real picnic for them, God willing," he stated. "They will be hurt and pay a price they will never imagine."
I want an invasion now just for the hell of it.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ CONCORDIA II: Daniel Pipes is being barred from speaking at a York University student centre next week over fears of rioting like that which greeted Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University some months ago.
"But the university administration said Thursday it is considering whether it can find another place on campus for Daniel Pipes, who has been invited by the Jewish Student Federation at York, to speak at an open event next week.
"Mr. Pipes, a Middle East expert and director of the Middle East Forum, is described in his biography as 'one of the few analysts who understood the threat of militant Islam.' He is the creator of Campus Watch, a controversial Web site that details what he calls pervasive anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments on college campuses across the United States."
If you're looking to find freedom of speech the last place you should be is at a university.
Posted by steve @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]
~ AXIS OF WEASEL: as a meme is spreading. The New York Post uses it on their cover today:
You have to love it. A joke by ScrappleFace that has gone on to a life of its own. If you haven't checked out the web site, I'd urge you to now. With stories like "Kennedy to Search Iraqi Rivers for WMD" and "289 Million Americans Avoid Peace Rallies" you'll laugh for hours.
Posted by steve @ 01:18 PM EST [Link]
~ CAN WE MAKE UP OUR DAMNED MINDS ABOUT THIS?: After publicly stating that Canada would not join any attack on Iraq unless the United Nations approved it, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said yesterday that Canada could join an attack but only if the evidence was strong that Iraq was a bad boy.
"If the Americans or the British have great evidence that Saddam Hussein - he's no friend of mine - is not following the instructions of the UN, if the proof is made of that, of course Canada will support an activity there. But we're not there yet," he told reporters.
You think the Americans or the British really gives a rat's behind about Canadian involvement? If you aren't sure of the answer, it's "No."
The day Chretien retires I plan on holding a massive party...that or have a couple of drinks at home to celebrate. I'm tired of being embarassed by this man.
Posted by steve @ 10:23 AM EST [Link]
~ LOMBORG DEFENDS HIMSELF: Bjorn Lomborg had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that formally responds to the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty report accusing him of scientific dishonesty.
"I am Danish, liberal, vegetarian, a former member of Greenpeace; and I used to believe in the litany of our ever-deteriorating environment. You know, the doomsday message repeated by the media, as when Time magazine tells us that "everyone knows the planet is in bad shape." We're defiling our Earth, we're told. Our resources are running out. Our air and water are more and more polluted. The planet's species are becoming extinct, we're paving over nature, decimating the biosphere.
"The problem is that this litany doesn't seem to be backed up by facts. When I set out to check it against the data from reliable sources--the U.N., the World Bank, the OECD, etc.--a different picture emerged. We're not running out of energy or natural resources. There is ever more food, and fewer people are starving. In 1900, the average life expectancy was 30 years; today it is 67. We have reduced poverty more in the past 50 years than we did in the preceding 500. Air pollution in the industrialized world has declined--in London the air has never been cleaner since medieval times."
Your humble editor defended Lomborg as well in the pages of The American Prowler last week.
Posted by steve @ 09:52 AM EST [Link]
~ IT'S STILL COLDER HERE DAVE: David Janes argues that wind chill doesn't matter "unless you get stuck outside without clothing" which isn't completely true but just true enough. That said Dave, the actual low temperature here in Sudbury is still nearly always lower than Toronto's temperature with or without the wind chill.
ESR's editor at large, Steve Lendt, who currently lives in Toronto did email me, though, to say that Toronto's cold is different. Steve, who lived in Sudbury for many years before turning to the dark side, reported to me yesterday that Toronto's cold gets inside your bones. Now, Steve was born in Toronto before moving here so my theory is that no matter how long he lived here, he's still a Torontonian. You know what that means right? Exactly.
Posted by steve @ 09:47 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, January 23, 2003 FOOTBALL FANS LOVE READING STUFF LIKE THIS: It's no secret that Oakland Raiders players love Rich Gannon's leadership on the field. What are they less than in love with? Everything else about the man.
"Heaven knows no Raiders player wants to come out and say anything critical about the league MVP, whose exceptional performance this season was largely responsible for the franchise's first Super Bowl berth in 19 years. They appreciate what Gannon does, even if they sometimes aren't thrilled with his methodology."
Good stuff in Michael Silver's column...
Posted by steve @ 11:44 PM EST [Link]
~ GEORGE CLOONEY, YOU'RE LIKE SCHOOL IN THE SUMMER. NO CLASS: George Clooney showed what kind of man he was on Monday when he used Charlton Heston's illness to insult the veteran actor. Here's a tidbit that I copied off the IMDB.com web site.
"Movie veteran Charlton Heston has fired back at George Clooney after the hunk mocked his Alzheimer's condition on TV in America on Monday night. A ranting Clooney appeared on The Charlie Rose Show to attack both President George W. Bush's war policies and National Rifle Association president Heston's pro-gun stance. But an ill-judged joke about Heston's illness has left the Ben-Hur star firing back - using Clooney's dead aunt Rosemary Clooney. Clooney quipped, 'Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's.' And Heston hit back, 'It just goes to show that sometimes class does skip a generation.' Meanwhile, Clooney's comments have re-sparked a war of words between him and American broadcaster Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly attacked Clooney after his post-9/11 TV telethon, accusing him of not making sure funds went to right places - and now he's upset about 'insensitive' comments made about Heston. On his show The O'Reilly Factor, the newsman lashed out, 'If this had been George Clooney's first mistake I'd just mock him and forget about it, but he's clearly out of control. I believe most Americans will find these remarks meanspirited. Just imagine if someone mocked Christopher Reeve's paralysis. The Hollywood press and the elite media would go nuts, but very little has been said about Clooney's insensitivity.'"
I'm a betting man and I'd love to see an at-his-prime Heston take on a similar Clooney. You don't bet against Judah Ben-Hur if you want to keep your money.
Posted by steve @ 11:36 PM EST [Link]
~ FOR ALL FOUR OF OUR CANADIAN READERS INTERESTED IN LEFTIST POLITICS: I have been given the assignment (alright, alright, I assigned myself) of covering for this website the New Democratic Party Leadership Convention at the National Trade Centre here in balmy, tropical Toronto. It'll be three glorious days of socialist gladhanding, fatuous speeches from people 90% of Canadians have never heard of, and pie-in-the-sky resolution-making by the raving-left party base (repeal Free Trade, anyone????), but someone has to do it. Also, I need something to fill out my resume, given the massive employment prospects one can expect to go along with a honours degree in Literary Studies and Philosophy, even if it is from my beloved University of Toronto. Unfortunately the NDP will not have the honour of being the first "blogged convention," since I believe in writing reports up in article form. The esteemed editor of this site, Steven Martinovich, has agreed to taking on the considerable inconvenience of posting my daily dispatches from the convention on the main website, so if you care, just check it out. The first dispatch should be up on Saturday morning. As well, I plan to cover the Progressive Conservative Party Convention at the end of May, before moving on to the political year's climactic Paul Martin Coronation Party in November, thanks to all three parties' decision to locate their respective leadership conventions here in Toronto. That is one bandwagon I'm glad everyone managed to jump onto.
Posted by Barton @ 06:19 PM EST [Link]
~ WE'RE NUMBER 80!: At least according to John Hawkins' ranking of political websites which uses Alexa (for some problems with Hawkins' methodology, see Jonah Goldberg's entry here). Yes, it's very, very nice to see that this humble website is more popular than Newsweek, but I just can't bring myself to believe it (does anyone interested in reading Newsweek not have internet access?) And some of the rankings are just plain odd. Are there really enough crazy people out there (and people interested in craziness) to make What Really Happened the 19th most popular political website (and 7562nd most popular on the entire internet), putting it ahead of The Nation (26th), The Weekly Standard (29th), and Reason (32nd)?
Posted by Barton @ 05:42 PM EST [Link]
~ CONDI ON IRAQ'S LIES: Condoleezza Rice argues in today's New York Times that the Bush Administration knows that Saddam Hussein is lying about his WMD programs.
"Instead of a commitment to disarm, Iraq has a high-level political commitment to maintain and conceal its weapons, led by Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay, who controls the Special Security Organization, which runs Iraq's concealment activities. Instead of implementing national initiatives to disarm, Iraq maintains institutions whose sole purpose is to thwart the work of the inspectors. And instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie."
Read on. (Free registration required)
Posted by steve @ 01:30 PM EST [Link]
~ I'LL TAKE AN "S": Fox News has announced that Pat Sajak will host a program starting this spring.
Posted by steve @ 01:28 PM EST [Link]
~ I STILL THINK TORONTONIANS ARE WIMPS: I'm watching Breakfast Television on City TV this morning (more for Liza Fromer then anything else) and their "cold snap" was a balmy -24C with wind chill. It was -31C with wind chill here this morning. Last night it went down to -43C with wind chill.
Don't worry Dave, I won't hold you to our high standard.
Posted by steve @ 01:11 PM EST [Link]
~ I CAUGHT A MEME ONCE: Laid me up for weeks. David Janes has a nice insightful little analysis of why blogdom should stop using Nazi as the name for Hitler's boys and call them by their real name: National Socialist. Why? Read his entry and find out.
Posted by steve @ 01:07 PM EST [Link]
~ WHEN WILL THE WAR BEGIN?: Steven Den Beste says January 31 or February 1.
"I'm becoming extremely confident in the prediction that the beginning of hostilities will be the 1/31 or 2/1. (I still lean towards 2/1 but Jan 31 is possible).
"Australia just ordered a troop ship to move to the Gulf region. British forces are on the move. The US just ordered two more carrier battle groups to deploy."
Posted by steve @ 09:23 AM EST [Link]
~ I'D BE WORRIED IF THE FRENCH WERE ANGRY AT THE U.S.: French leaders wigged out today in response to U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld referring to France and Germany as "old Europe."
Read on.
Although everyone is downplaying the recent hard feelings that the U.S and several European nations are expressing towards each other it's hard not to look at it as the continued reorganization of global politics in the wake of September 11. As Rumsfeld pointed out, Europe is literally shifting towards the east with the addition of several former Warsaw Pact members to NATO, essentially making Germany and France far less important in when it comes to America's foreign policy. The Bush Administration knows the continued intransigence of nations like Germany and France in expanding the war on terror, one those two nations have largely sat out, spotlights two competing views of the world.
One of those views is literally of "old Europe" which resembles the appeasement of Adolph Hitler. Instead of looking the other way as nations were annexed by the Third Reich, we now have those countries attempting to appease Arab nations so lucrative trade isn't disrupted and the large Arab populations in those countries don't get overly antsy. The other view is more Churchillian, that evil must be combated.
Rumsfeld was right, Germany and France are "old Europe."
Posted by steve @ 09:14 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS LIKES ED HARRIS THE ACTOR: But he doesn't have much use for him when it comes to looking for someone to define manhood.
Posted by steve @ 05:22 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, January 22, 2003 NO ONE-WAY RACIAL DEBATE: Lawrence Henry has a great piece in the American Prowler taking issue with a William Rasberry column. He is right that the debate on issues like affirmative action, hate crimes legislation and social welfare spending is geared to suppress conservative arguments by automatically assigning bad motives to them. In order for there to be any progress on these issues, this needs to stop.
Posted by antle @ 06:06 PM EST [Link]
~ JESUS and the CANDY CANES. The writer's block kinda lifted, so here's the column I penned about the teens who got suspended for going evangelical.
Posted by izzy @ 01:37 PM EST [Link]
~ NOW IF THEY'D DO THE SAME THING TO THOSE SMOKING LAWSUITS: A U.S. federal judge today tossed out a lawsuit that alleged McDonald's was responsible for making people obese.
"Where should the line be drawn between an individual's own responsibility to take care of herself and society's responsibility to ensure others shield her? The complaint fails to allege the McDonald's products consumed by the plaintiffs were dangerous in any way other than that which was open and obvious to a reasonable consumer," Judge Robert Sweet said in his ruling.
The kicker in this sentence is from the father of an overweight child who was a part of a lawsuit: "I always believed McDonald's was healthy for my children."
Read on.
ESR has dealt with this stupidity in the past here and here, among other articles.
Posted by steve @ 01:11 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY ARE GERMANY AND FRANCE SO OPPOSED TO AN IRAQ INVASION?: Steven Den Beste does some blue skying and wonders if it's because they have something to hide.
"And suppose, once we've done so, and have occupied Iraq and have full (really full, not UN full) access to Iraq's records and can truly find what they have, that we find that everything we've been saying about their WMDs is really true; that they have chem and bio weapons and banned delivery systems, and are near to developing nukes, which I also think is extremely likely.
"One more and the most important: suppose that the records also show that during the 1990's companies in France or Germany (or both) actively and deliberately broke the sanctions and sold equipment and supplies to Iraq which helped it to create these things, and that the governments of Germany and France knew and approved of this and actively helped. That's the biggest and most speculative suppose."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:31 AM EST [Link]
~ ONE FOR CHUCK B. Story about a dad who may be facing jail time for using an unlicensed gun to protect his family. Click here.
Thanks to Stevie and Jimmy A. for coming up with the 'bios for bloggers.' Photos. I want photos of you guys. You never know when one of my single gal friends may want to meet one of you.
Posted by izzy @ 02:46 AM EST [Link]
~ DAVE MUNGER JOINS THE BLOGOSPHERE: Thanks to Jeremy Lott, Dave Munger has joined the blogosphere with his blog called The Hand Of Munger. If you go to his personal web site, The Centre for the Advancement of Dave Munger, you'll find a page dedicated to ex-MTV VJ Kennedy, a Republican babe only one year younger than I. Good taste Dave!
Posted by steve @ 01:40 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: Townhall.com has linked to my piece this week in its selection of articles on the 30th anniversay of Roe v. Wade, albeit a link to another site.
Posted by antle @ 01:12 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, January 21, 2003 PAT BUCHANAN AND THE LUDDITES: I'm not as down on The American Conservative as most of my fellow libertarian-flavored conservatives are. They've actually run some great articles, such as J.P. Zmirak's cover story "America the Abstraction" and some other stuff that approaches things from a much, believe it or not, fresher perspective than the conventional Republican-oriented conservative magazines.
But everytime I get ready to publicly praise TAC, they do something off the wall, like run a laudatory interview with anti-American nutjob Norman Mailer as a cover story. Or they run a neo-Luddite piece of nonsense like this. Conservatism's a big tent, I know, but to me this borders on self-parody.
Posted by antle @ 06:42 PM EST [Link]
~ BABES AND FOOTBALL...WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT: (Besides that freedom stuff of course): Gregg Easterbrook spouts off about this past weekend's football games, the Superbowl and babes in this week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Posted by steve @ 01:36 PM EST [Link]
~ JOIN AMERICA!: Says one Canadian writer. Why would they want us, responds Mark Steyn.
"A North American 'confederation' is never going to happen. Not now, not in 50 years. Europeans, living on a continent of mostly failed nation states that rewrite their constitutions every generation as they lurch from Third Empire to Fifth Republic, have concluded understandably enough that supranational institutions are the way to go. Equally understandably, Americans have no interest in diluting either sovereignty or democratic accountability in transnational bodies."
I have to admit that I'm torn. I don't really want to be an American because I like being a Canadian. I mean, after all, hockey is on primetime here whereas in the U.S. I'd have to (try and find it and) watch it on Fox Sports 2 or something. On the other hand, I wish Canada was a lot more like the United States.
Posted by steve @ 10:18 AM EST [Link]
~ ALLY?: France is promising to veto any UN resolution that would authorize military action against Iraq.
"If war is the only way to resolve this problem, we are going down a dead end," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters. "Already we know for a fact that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are being largely blocked, even frozen. We must do everything possible to strengthen this process."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:51 AM EST [Link]
~ PROGRESSIVE PARASITES: Stephen Stanton has a great TechCentral Station piece on the misnomer "progressive taxation." Of course, this Marxist concept leads to nothing approaching progress. Pay special attention to his point about the percentage of Eron's common stock that was owned by management for a look at where the U.S. as a country may be headed today.
Posted by antle @ 01:02 AM EST [Link]
~ KIND OF PUTS THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE: "One of the last living links with the American Civil war of the 1860s has been broken with the death of the last known widow of a soldier who fought on the Union side."
Posted by steve @ 12:21 AM EST [Link]
Monday, January 20, 2003 I HATE BABY BOOMERS: No, really I do. You are a plague that has destroyed Western culture and replaced it with dead-end nihilism. You are the most self-important generation ever. You laud yourselves for every evil that you foisted on us. I don't hate you, but I do hate your age cohort.
What's got me so riled up? Some 50-year old hump is suing the producers of "American Idol", a show I must confess I have never watched, because they told him he was too old to try and be a teenage idol. The hump in question, a college professor named Drew Cummings (what a typical baby boomer name) whines that, "According to record industry statistics, 55 percent of all record sales and 65 percent of all concert tour revenues were dominated by artists over the age of 40."
No kidding, you stripped of us of our music and replaced it with prefab confections like Britney Spears. Who the hell wants to see her in concert? Thanks boomers.
This statement is what got me though:"If by filing these charges I become the poster child for baby boomers' and age discrimination rights, that's fine with me."
Baby boomer rights? You locusts have devoured everything and crushed two generations that came after you and you claim you have no rights? Damn you.
Rant over. I feel much better.
Posted by steve @ 10:08 PM EST [Link]
~ KING’S LEGACY: The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a subject of some debate among conservatives and libertarians each year around the federal holiday – signed into law by Ronald Reagan – that commemorates his birth.
Some argue that King should not be honored due to his ideology and defects in his character. They argue that his was the beginning of the identity politics we today identify with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, rather than a true movement for legal equality. This position asserts that King was essentially leftist, anti-American and opposed to the American Republic’s founding ideals.
Others argue that Dr. King’s views were in fact fundamentally conservative, based on faith in God and derived from the highest principles of the Founding Fathers. This view claims that King’s work actualized the principles this nation claimed to uphold in the abstract, promoting true equality and justice.
Which view is right? Well, as this excellent article demonstrates, King actually held a number of positions that would validate both arguments over the course of his life. He certainly did drift to the left toward the end of his career. But I think many of King’s critics, even though they do sometimes raise valid criticisms, miss the most important point. First, his work was responsible for largely ending a systematic denial of opportunity to a large percentage of Americans that was based on skin color and accident of birth. Second, he won the moral argument for racial equality – and the equality under the law that blacks were denied under Jim Crow – on the basis of the Declaration of Independence and fundamental tenets of the American creed.
He wasn’t perfect, but what great American truly was? The civil rights movement at its best was a moral movement and all Americans are better off because of its positive contributions.
Posted by antle @ 05:36 PM EST [Link]
~ VAZSONYI RIP: I can't believe I didn't hear about this until today. Balint Vazsonyi died on Friday, January 17. We traded emails once back in 1996, one of my first Internet brushes with famous conservatives, and I've admired him since. He will be missed. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ WIMPS REDUX: Torontonians are once again whining about it being cold there today.
Current temperature in Sudbury: -21°C (-6°F) (colder than last night's Toronto temperature with wind chill). With wind chill: -30°C (-22°F). And we don't even consider that cold. I recall a day once when with wind chill the temperature was -45°C (-49°F).
Posted by steve @ 01:59 PM EST [Link]
~ IOC INVESTIGATES CLAIMS OF IRAQI ATHLETES BEING TORTURED: The IOC has confirmed that it is investigating reports that psychopath son of Saddam, Uday Hussein, has been torturing Iraqi athletes in an attempt to inspire them.
Read the story and a profile on Uday, a man Saddam's former body double says is even less human than his father.
Posted by steve @ 01:39 PM EST [Link]
~ I DON'T USUALLY PROMOTE MUSIC BUT...: Kathleen Edwards is a woman you're going to hear a lot about in the coming weeks. Her debut CD was released on January 15 (entitled "Failer") and it's absolutely fantastic. I happened to catch her play live on a CBC Newsworld faux-cool show called "Play" earlier this month and she absolutely blew me away. Think Lucinda Williams but nowhere near as depressing -- though as talented. I believe she was on Letterman last week but I didn't get a chance to see it.
You can find the CD at Amazon.com if you're interested -- complete with clips of a few songs. You can also find her web site here.
Posted by steve @ 10:04 AM EST [Link]
~ A NEW DREAM. This is the holiday to remember what Martin Luther King III (Dr. King's eldest son) proclaimed: "The kind of things homeschoolers are doing may be the saving grace of our nation."
MLK IIIPosted by izzy @ 09:15 AM EST [Link]
~ THE ONLY THING I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE WEEKEND'S ANTI-WAR PROTESTS: I'm sure some of you were wondering why no blogging about the protests took place on Musings. Frankly, I didn't care about them. They were a bust and I had more important things to do like watching Tampa Bay shock Philadelphia (a football expert at my local watering hole predicted that one). Besides, I live in Canada and don't have access to C-SPAN so I couldn't watch live coverage. At best I could watch the news reports telling me about the "massive" anti-war protests that -- as Glenn Reynolds pointed out -- had fewer people than the crowd looking over the new SUVs at the Detroit Auto Show.
In truth, the people who protested reminded me of Amy Madigan's character in Field of Dreams. There's a scene where a PTA meeting is discussing the banning of some book that the local do-gooders feel is a threat to children so she launches on an impassioned tirade about the First Amendment and the like. After the crowd takes her to its collective bosom and defeats the evil rightwingers she leaves the gym and proclaims to hubby Kevin Costner, "Man, that was just like the 1960s!"
And that, in a nutshell, is what many of the weekend's protesters wanted to recreate. Regardless of whether the Vietnam War -- or any war in Iraq -- was immoral, the protesters never offered anything outside of sophomoric platitudes that contained zero answers. Richard Nixon was evil? I'm fairly sure living under Ho Chi Minh was worse. George W. Bush is a warmonger? He's never tortured members of his country's soccer team for losing games or employed rapists to molest the wives of dissidents. "No blood for oil" is about on the same intellectual level as "1,2,3,4, we don't want your !&^#ing war!"
My editorial on the protests will simply consist of a link to this picture (pop-up, 20k). How can you take this seriously?
Posted by steve @ 09:04 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, January 19, 2003 SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece in today's Jerusalem Post explaining why it makes sense to attack Iraq and not North Korea. I wrote the piece a while ago but they just got around to running it now. Oh well.
Posted by steve @ 03:26 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, January 18, 2003 ROE AT THIRTY: On the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade (and its companion decision Doe v. Bolton), Ramesh Ponnuru takes a look at where public opinion now stands on the abortion issue.
Ponnuru, one the most thoughtful new conservative commentators and an especially eloquent pro-life advocate, sees new opportunities and challenges. The public is more supportive of the pro-life position and various abortion restrictions now than in previous years. The president and the leadership of both houses of Congress are pro-life and there are many abortion restrictions under consideration that win support from moderately pro-choice voters and politicians. The post-Roe abortion regime benefits both from the fact it is the status quo as well as the fact that most people on both sides of the issue are loath to talk about abortion. But its assumptions about the nature of abortion are not widely supported and thus that regime now finds itself in a precarious position.
Yet there are new challenges for those believe pre-born life should be protected. From human cloning to embryonic stem-cell research, there are issues that don’t pit such life against the bodily integrity of another human being, but against other human beings’ needs and various noble ends. These are difficult questions and Ponnuru deserves praise for so clearly spelling out his view of their implications.
Posted by antle @ 05:59 PM EST [Link]
~ REPLACING ONE QUOTA SYSTEM WITH ANOTHER?: Steve Sailer has some interesting observations on President Bush’s statement siding against the University of Michigan’s quota-based admissions policy. I don’t agree with everything he says in the piece and I think his tone is more than necessarily negative, but I think he does raise some valid points, particularly regarding the type of programs the Bush administration would replace racial preferences with.
Conservatives should take a closer look at proposals to replace the type of explicit racial preferences practiced by schools like the University of Michigan with a preference for students who graduate within the top 10 to 20 percent of their high school graduating classes in a given jurisdiction. Championed by George W. Bush both as president and governor of Texas and his brother Jeb in Florida, this may seem like a good way to get rid of quotas once and for all without entirely scuttling diversity. But I see three major problems with what Sailer describes as the “X-percent solution.”
First, this new program is still intended to racially discriminate. Sure, since race is no longer an explicit admissions criteria, it might end up benefiting some socioeconomically disadvantaged whites as well. But the purpose of this proposal is to insure that minority students who would not qualify under ordinary guidelines are still admitted for reasons other than individual merit. It is also nearly certain that this means that slots will be denied to otherwise qualified applicants. X-percent solutions are thus likely to do more covertly what existing racially conscious affirmative action programs already do somewhat more openly. As Allan Bakke’s Supreme Court victory over a decade ago proved, making racial preferences less obvious and more amorphous does not help end them. Instead, it only serves to entrench them further.
Second, the minority students admitted under the X-percent solution may be even less qualified than the students being admitted through quotas. This is because states’ worst school systems would be counted in the top 10 to 20 percent graduating class criteria. At least under systems like the University of Michigan’s, the most qualified applicants from each group are admitted. The X-percent solution would have colleges admitting students from horrible schools that do not truly prepare students for college-level coursework. This is likely to increase the mismatch between minority students and the educational institutions they attend, which in turn will further depress their graduation rates. Thomas Sowell and others have documented the extent to which this happens already: Colleges and universities benefit from the additional diversity body count, but many minority students end up failing at schools they were academically unprepared for when they would have succeeded elsewhere. Walter Williams likes to compare this approach to minority educational advancement with teaching someone to box by throwing them in the ring with Mike Tyson: With proper training, the would-be boxer could have succeeded, but in the ring with Tyson they will be knocked out before they learn how to bob and weave.
Third, like affirmative action as it exists today, the X-percent solution seeks to treat symptoms of problems while ignoring their root causes. Too many minority students will remain victims of what President Bush has described as “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” School choice is needed in order to free students from the very worst government schools and to introduce competition that might end up developing new and improved teaching practices. Remedial programs aimed at improving skills needed in college or the job market ought to be adopted for those who have been deprived a quality education. Colleges should no longer be expected to correct the mistakes made by a substandard K through 12 education; public schools must be held accountable if they graduate students who can barely read or write. Failure should no longer be rewarded with increased budgets. And of course, in neighborhoods plagued by crime and social catastrophe, providing any kind of education at all can be a daunting task.
I’m not as tough on President Bush (at least on this issue) as Sailer. I think he is genuinely trying to grope his way to a solution that seeks to actualize equality of opportunity without abandoning equality under the law; he is looking for a way to get rid of unjust and unconstitutional government race-consciousness without looking at minorities and saying “tough luck.” It isn’t easy, and we should understand that a desire for representation in a diverse society isn’t the same as quotas. I’m just not convinced that the president and his aides have found the correct answer.
Posted by antle @ 05:44 PM EST [Link]
~ EATING FOR PEACE?: It's been a while since I've linked to a Christopher Hitchens piece. This one is a sheer marvel of intellectual beauty. It seems that people in Seattle are holding "Potlucks for Peace" to protest any American war against Iraq. Hitchens tells them why they are out to lunch.
Posted by steve @ 04:32 PM EST [Link]
~ DADDY'S HOME: Steve Den Beste says it isn't a question of if there will be a war against Iraq, but when. Why? The US Navy provided the clues.
If you pray, spare some thoughts for the soldiers of the allies.
Posted by steve @ 03:43 PM EST [Link]
Friday, January 17, 2003 SELF-PROMOTION ALERT: I sounded off on George Ryan and the death penalty this week in Ether Zone.
Posted by antle @ 05:59 PM EST [Link]
~ SO WHAT DID HE WANT THEM FOR?: "The government charged a Texas Tech University professor with lying to investigators Thursday, saying he accidentally destroyed 30 vials of plague bacteria then claimed they had vanished from his laboratory."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 PM EST [Link]
~ RELIGION V. STATE: The U.S. isn't the only country that has declared war on religion. In Greece, a bunch of Greek Orthodox monks -- the religion I was born into by the way -- are being evicted from their 1 000 year old monastery as punishment for their bitter opposition to reconciliation between orthodox Christians and the Roman Catholic church.
Read on.
There are some elements of the Orthodox branch of Christianity that are real old school...like 1054AD old school. These guys represent that wing of the faith.
Posted by steve @ 02:30 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT THE FALKLANDS WAR TAUGHT THE WEST: Mark Steyn has a perceptive piece in today's National Post about what the Falklands War taught the west after two decades of caving into the Soviet Union.
"The Falklands War is the decisive war of the last quarter-century, if only because it's the one the world -- like Galtieri -- never expected. It marks the dividing line between the free world's territorial losses of the Sixties and Seventies and its gains in the Eighties and Nineties. Galtieri wasn't an ideological enemy: He was, in the shorthand of the time, a 'right-wing' general and he had plenty of pals in Washington. But, when you're perceived, as the West was, as weak and paralyzed by self-doubt, you're anybody's fool. The Commies were gobbling up real estate all over the globe, so were the Ayatollahs; why shouldn't some bargain-basement caudillos get a piece of the action?"
Posted by steve @ 02:14 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT KIND OF APOLOGY IS THAT?: Lebanon's ambassador to Canada, Raymond Baaklini, "apologized" over the controversy regarding remarks he recently made -- that Canada's media is 90 per cent controlled by Zionists and that's why Canada banned Hezbollah.
"After being called before Bill Graham, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, over his 'unacceptable' remarks about Canadians, the Lebanese ambassador said yesterday he regretted he had caused offence and controversy.
"But Raymond Baaklini did not apologize or retract his comments concerning the 'Jews or Zionists' that he said control '90%' of the media and dictate policy in Ottawa."
Read on.
If Jews really did dictate policy then we'd at least have a coherent one and certainly much more friendly to Israel. If Ben
