Musings Archive March 2003
Monday, March 31, 2003 IRAQ...THE DEMOCRACY: (Via Brothers Judd Blog) This week's poll is on whether it's likely that Iraq can be turned into a democracy after Saddam Hussein is deposed. According to Eric Davis, Iraq might actually be as successful as some European nations.
"Americans share two misperceptions of Iraqi politics and society. One is that ethnic conflict is endemic to Iraqi society. Another is that Iraqis lack a tradition of civil society, cultural tolerance, and political participation. Both perceptions are contradicted by the historical record. These faulty premises lay behind Washington's unwillingness to support the Iraqi uprising of 1991, which came close to ousting the Ba'athist regime. It would be a great tragedy if the United States were to make the same mistake in 2003."
If we could turn a nihilistic death worshiping culture like Germany's into a society of freedom lovers (well, the European version of it anyway), we can turn a nihilistic death worshiping culture like Iraq's into the same thing (well, the Arab version of it anyway).
Posted by steve @ 07:06 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY'RE LOSING AND LOSING BADLY: Glenn Reynolds has a good piece on TechCentralStation today on the horrible losses sustained by one group in the war in Iraq.
"Despite all their vaunted technology, and months of prewar planning, they've looked disorganized and unimpressive since the actual fighting started. They seem bewildered, behind the curve, and slow to respond to unanticipated developments, too smug about their superior performance in Gulf War I to take the challenges of this one seriously. It's beginning to look as if they've been sucker-punched by an old foe who's thought several moves ahead."
Who is it? Hint: He's not referring to either the coalition forces or the Iraqi military. Find the answer here.
Posted by steve @ 03:57 PM EST [Link]
~ PATHETIC: I don't read the newspaper for one weekend and I miss an exceptionally disgusting story. Canada's memorial to its September 11 victims is in a room that can't be accessed by her citizens. The incomparable Christie Blatchford tells all.
Posted by steve @ 03:31 PM EST [Link]
~ THE DIRTY JEWS DID IT OF COURSE: In what has to be one of the most sickening essays I have ever read, John Sutherland in The Guardian argues that the photos showing Rachel Corrie tearing up a paper U.S. flag was manipulated. The angel killed by an Israeli bulldozer was being smeared by the dirty yids! Don't believe me? Here's the money sentence:
"Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored."
There are two photographs that Sutherland is referring to. Both are part of the Reuters archive, an organization so hostile to the U.S. and Israel that it still states that Osama bin Laden was alleged to have ordered the September 11 terrorist attacks. The one can you see here (it's the link to the pop-up), was proudly displayed on the web site of the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (original link). If that name doesn't mean anything to you, it's the group that Corrie herself belonged to. So proud of her are they that she's featured prominently on the top level page of the web site.
Funny thing though, they don't display either of the two Reuters photos.
Posted by steve @ 03:15 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?: "Years before Saddam Hussein became an enemy to the United States, he was reportedly seen as a friend and made an honorary Detroit citizen. "
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:40 AM EST [Link]
~ HE'S GONE MAD...AGAIN: Former CNN reporter Peter Arnett appears on Iraqi television yesterday and tells the audience that the U.S. war plan has "failed."
"The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan," Arnett said. "Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces."
How many times can this guy shill for the Iraqi government and still be employed?
Posted by steve @ 03:19 AM EST [Link]
~ FEED YOUR HEAD: A couple of interesting sources for information on the Middle East can be had at two web sites: U.S Committee for a Free Lebanon which you can find at www.freelebanon.org and Middle East Intelligence Bulletin at www.meib.org.
Posted by steve @ 01:10 AM EST [Link]
~ PACIFISTS AND THEIR REAL WAR: (Heads up courtesy of Steve Lendt) Cinderella Blogger translated a Le Monde article by Robert Redeker on pacifism. Interesting article by Redeker and insightful commentary by the blogger.
Posted by steve @ 01:05 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, March 30, 2003 IF HE DOESN'T ALREADY HAVE A NICKNAME, HE'LL GET ONE NOW: "A Royal Marine Commando who was shot in the head four times has lived to tell the tale of his lucky escape."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:17 PM EST [Link]
~ ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS: The Iraqi regime sent a number of its stooges onto talk shows and press conferences to bray about its humane treatment of coalition POWs. Those were the words. The actions? The Red Cross has yet visit those POWs because the Iraqi regime won't let them.
Posted by steve @ 07:39 PM EST [Link]
~ THE NEXT TARGET FOR REGIME CHANGE: (Via Brothers Judd Blog) While the rest of the world has been entranced with the war in Iraq, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been very naughty.
"Mugabe appears to be taking revenge on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for organising a successful two-day general strike last week - and also trying to intimidate MDC supporters planning further mass action.
"Mugabe is also trying to prevent MDC voters from voting against him in two parliamentary by-elections in the Harare townships this weekend, the MDC believes."
Posted by steve @ 04:21 PM EST [Link]
~ SUICIDE BOMBINGS AND THE WILL TO FIGHT: Let's face it. While war with Iraq has manifestly not been a "cakewalk," and it is going to continue to be very costly and difficult, America has vastly greater military strength and the ability to defeat this enemy. So if you are Saddam Hussein, the only option still available to you is to dig in and try to drive up casualties to the point that the American people will decide that it is not worth it and push for a withdrawal. This is more or less what happened in Vietnam.
Our reliance on air power over the last decade may have fostered the illusion that nearly casualty-free war is possible. In this case, it is clearly not. American casualties will become the antiwar movement's number one argument for a U.S. withdrawal.
However, if the Iraqi regime believes that the monstrous acts of suicide bombings and murdering American and British POWs will facilitate this goal, I believe they are sorely mistaken. When soldiers die in combat, people back home are more likely to ask questions about the rightness of the war and blame the government if they decide the war wasn't worth the loss. But executing unarmed POWs or launching suicide bombing attacks reinforces the public's perception that we are fighting an enemy that needs to be vanquished. Rather than criticize the government for an unjust war, they will expect the government to defeat those responsible and avenge the victims. After 9/11, I do not believe that what has happened to military personnel in Lebanon and elsewhere over the years at the hands of terrorists will be tolerated again.
Not only are Iraqis loyal to Saddam's government behaving in an evil manner - they are acting stupidly even from the perspective of their own self-interest. Which is all the more reason that Saddam is eventually going to fall.
Posted by antle @ 02:30 AM EST [Link]
~ DERBYSHIRE ON THE WAR: If you haven't seen John Derbyshire's NRO piece "10 Points on the War," I suggest you check it out. Particularly worth reading is point #1.
Posted by antle @ 02:10 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, March 29, 2003 I HATE TO GET ALL KLINGON HERE: But the Iraqi military and the regime itself have no honour. I always knew it, but the suicide bombing earlier today and the regime's response to it confirmed it yet again. Rather than consider the suicide bombing in Najaf an isolated incident, Iraqi's vice president says that they are official policy and there will be more.
I guess if your a brutal regime that considers the lives of your fellow citizens to be worthless, it's easy to see why. The coalition will be more careful dealing with people who appear to be civilians and it may prompt coalition forces to accidentally kill civilians, creating a propaganda victory for Saddam Hussein, assuming he's still alive of course. It also tells me that the use of chemical or biological weapons are now a certainty. Not only against coalition forces, but civilians as well.
Not that Taha Yassin Ramadan has any problems murdering civilians indiscriminately. He's the same savage who murdered his way through southern Iraq back in 1991 putting down the Shiite rebellion.
Perhaps I'm old fashioned. I realize that war is not a game of cricket, as Col. Saito told Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai. There are "rules" governing a profoundly uncivilized act like war, but only western nations seem to respect them. Maybe that's why I just don't understand the savagery of the Ba'athist dictatorship. The lack of honour on the battlefield by the Iraqi military and the regime is just something beyond what I consider human.
Posted by steve @ 07:53 PM EST [Link]
~ BUCKLEY AND DIVISIONS ON THE RIGHT: In light of all the recent internal conservative arguments over paleocons, neocons, foreign policy and the rest of it, it is interesting to read this interview with William F. Buckley, Jr. in Human Events. Buckley's latest book is a fictionalized account of some of the divisions in the early conservative movement. In this interview, he talks about the mainstream right's break with Robert Welch and the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand and the objectivists and Murray Rothbard, the libertarian economist who inspired the writers of LewRockwell.com - including Lew himself.
Posted by antle @ 05:13 PM EST [Link]
~ ALAN CARUBA PROFILED: No, not by the FBI as part of some homeland security thing, but by Insight Magazine. You can read it here.
"Caruba relishes exposing what he sees as hoaxes perpetrated daily in the name of science. He laments the pervasive ignorance being created by an educational system that he regards as woefully inadequate and growing worse."
Coincidently enough, the Brothers Judd have also weighed in on Caruba, specifically his recently released book Warning Signs. Read their fun review here. The opening paragraph is pure money.
Posted by steve @ 03:02 PM EST [Link]
~ SCREW YOU SADDAM: Air strikes earlier this week may have not whacked the probably already dead Saddam Hussein, a coalition spokesman said Friday, but they did get his luxury yacht.
Boo yaa!
Posted by steve @ 05:22 AM EST [Link]
~ FIVE US SOLDIERS KILLED ON SUICIDE BOMBING: "A car bomb exploded Saturday at a U.S. military checkpoint in Najaf in central Iraq, a source with U.S. Central Command said."
Read on.
The entire ESR family sends its condolences to the families who suffer today.
Posted by steve @ 05:15 AM EST [Link]
~ IRAQIS SURRENDER TO CANADIAN JOURNOS: I'm surprised the Canadian journalists didn't surrender first. Read on and ignore the shame I feel about my country.
Posted by steve @ 05:03 AM EST [Link]
~ AMERICA? HERE'S A MESSAGE FROM SOME CANADIANS: WE BACK YOU: Rallies will be held across Canada this weekend to announce to our American brothers and sisters that some Canadians are in support of America.
Read on.
None of the protests are anywhere near where I live but I did write a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush announcing my support. A single letter means little but I do want you Yanks to know that some of us Canadians up here love you dearly.
Posted by steve @ 04:55 AM EST [Link]
~ IS SCOTT SPEICHER STILL ALIVE?: "Citing unspecified reports, a U.S. senator said Friday that an American pilot missing since the 1991 Gulf War may have been seen alive and in the custody of Iraqi authorities in the past month."
Read on.
God help those bastards who have kept this man from his family for over a decade. I'd have no mercy for them.
Posted by steve @ 04:45 AM EST [Link]
Friday, March 28, 2003 WHAT AMERICA IS ABOUT: Orrin Judd over at Brothers Judd Blog has a great entry about Pfc. Joseph P. Dwyer, a medic made famous by a picture showing him carrying a wounded Iraqi child to safety.
Dwyer enlisted after September 11, 2001 after he found out that his brother, a police officer, had not died when the World Trade Centre collapsed. Grateful, he joined up to make a difference.
"An almost perfect metaphor for America: we're attacked; he wants to do something; he ends up saving a child of our enemy. We fight that one day soon an Iraqi version of Pfc. Dwyer may return the favor for another oppressed people somewhere in the world," writes Orrin.
Damned right. That's why I love America.
Posted by steve @ 07:34 PM EST [Link]
~ ANOTHER ADDITION TO THE AXIS OF COOL: Cyclist Lance Armstrong today came out in support of U.S. President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.
"What I will say, and have said many times, is that NOBODY wants a war. Not me. Not President Bush. Not Tony Blair. No one... but sometimes it may be unavoidable. I absolutely support the President and absolutely support our troops. Enough on this..."
First Wayne Gretzky, then Tiger Woods. Who's the next athlete to become a member? I also wonder what Lance's reception will be like the next time he participates in the Tour de France.
Posted by steve @ 04:41 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQI TERRORISTS ARRESTED: Maybe that Orange level alert had some basis after all. Reuters reports that two Iraqi sleeper cells preparing to attack U.S. interests have been arrested recently.
Posted by steve @ 04:36 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S NOT OVER YET .... A newspaper columnist named Steve Greenhut pens a bold response to Frum.
Posted by izzy @ 10:35 AM EST [Link]
~ THIS EVEN WORKS IN VERMONT
Dealing with Peaceniks
When you are confronted by an anti-war protester, here are the proper rules of etiquette:
1.) Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation, if necessary, and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.
2.) In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.
3.) When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.
4.) Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a non-violent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.
5.) Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.
6.) As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.
7.) Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid an argument he/she is making.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:15 AM EST [Link]
~ UNREPENTENT SOCIALIST
Walter Cronkite has shown again why "The Most Trusted Man in America" should not be trusted. In an appearance at Drew University, Cronkite called President Bush arrogant, and compared him to a chimpanzee. The story can be read here.
Cronkite is another celebrity who is given frequent opportunities to bash America and American ideals. His understanding of sovereignty, freedom and liberty is severely lacking. His activities in recent years, especially with the World Federalist Society indicate that he would rather see a European-style socialist welfare state in the US, run by a world government such as the United Nations.
His opinions are worthless at best, and dangerous to a free America at worst.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:24 AM EST [Link]
~ HOW DO YOU KNOW THE COALITION IS BOUND FOR VICTORY?: Slate's Jack Shafer says just wait for New York Times reporter R.W. "Johnny" Apple Jr. to declare that the coalition is losing. Sure enough, Apple is praising the effectiveness of the Iraqi military. You know, the one that's been driven back repeatedly over the past week.
Shafer lays out the four parts of the news cycle concerning wars that people like Apple and his minions continue to perpetuate.
Posted by steve @ 02:19 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, March 27, 2003 I HOPE THEY DON'T CALL THEMSELVES AMERICANS: (Via ESR contrib. Trey Wickwire) I really wish I hadn't blocked out cursing on this blog right now because I feel like unleashing a torrent. Fox News reports that a female National Guardsman was attacked by rock throwing teenagers last week in Vermont.
"The teens blocked the sergeant as she went into a store and again on the way out, yelling obscenities at her along the way, Roosevelt said. The group also threw small stones at her car as she drove away, he added.
"The sergeant said she believed the protesters had taken part in an anti-war demonstration in Montpelier that day. National Guard troops are often deployed to such events to help keep the peace."
Well, I actually know a couple of words that might make it past the language filter...
Posted by steve @ 08:26 PM EST [Link]
~ I WAS WONDERING WHEN HE'D OPEN HIS YAP: If your like me, you've just been waiting for Jesse Jackson to open his mouth about the Iraq war. Wait no longer!
While meeting with UN Sec. Gen. Koffi Annan, Jackson called for a truce in the war to get aid to Iraqi civilians.
"Perhaps there could be the Olympic Truce, where at least both sides agree to stop the shooting to allow food and medicine to get in and water can be turned back on," Jackson said.
Sure Jess, but you might want to clear with an enemy to your country who has executed soldiers who share your citizenship, have fired at its own civilians, forced its civilians to act as human shields and may be preparing to use chemical or biological weapons. As the generals say, the enemy gets a vote on any plan you come up with.
The article also notes the cravenness of the Iraqi Christian clerical community calling the war an "aggression against the Iraqi people." And people wonder why I'm an athiest. Principles are to be died for, not given up because of threats. It's funny to note that Iraqi civilians are now battling their own government while the religious community continues to mouth the words of the Ba'ath Party. I only hope that Iraq's Catholic community does what many in Germany's Catholic community did during the Second World War: mouth words of homage to the pontiff and then ignore him and help the persecuted.
Posted by steve @ 05:50 PM EST [Link]
~ IF YOU OWN A DVD PLAYER, CRITERION IS THE ONLY NAME FOR DVDS: Truly Criterion are the masters in restoring and presenting the classics on DVD. Their current featured DVD is Henry V, a movie I discussed some months back on this blog and one I can hardly wait to get my hands on.
For an unemployed guy it might be a questionable action, but I ordered Criterion's version of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. It had to be done. I'm fighting the urge to get Rashomon, Inagaki's Samurai trilogy, Yojimbo...heck, even Alexander Nevsky.
Posted by steve @ 03:31 PM EST [Link]
~ DEPLETED URANIUM: PLEASE DON'T EAT IT: Ronald Bailey has a good article in yesterday's Reason about the myths surrounding depleted uranium.
"A Department of Defense-sponsored review of the scientific literature by the RAND think tank concluded that 'there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf.' One need not be a conspiracy theorist to believe that the Defense Department's analysis and reporting on the substance's health and environmental consequences might be biased. But many independent organizations and scientists find little to worry about either."
You have to believe that anything Ramsey Clark is against, you have to be for.
Posted by steve @ 03:05 PM EST [Link]
~ GLENN REYNOLDS IS IMPRESSED: I'm not. He's happy that Canada's Parliament voted unanimously to try Saddam Hussein for war crimes.
The motion urges the Canadian government to "bring to justice Saddam Hussein and all other Iraqi officials responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes - including through the formation of an international criminal tribunal."
Here's the part that makes me wary: international criminal tribunal. Under who's auspices? I can only imagine what could happen if the UN runs the show.
Posted by steve @ 02:58 PM EST [Link]
~ PUT YOUR PRINCIPLES WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS: The denizens of Free Republic have launched a petition for Michael Moore to go on a hunger strike against the war in Iraq.
"Moore recently said, 'The majority of Americans do not want to see our young boys killed, and the majority of people didn't vote for the man sitting in the White House, and I'll keep saying that until he's out of there.' If the 300 lb. Moore is honest about his outrage against the President and America's liberation of the Iraqi people, he should prove the point by his deeds not his words. No more hot air, Mr. Moore. It's time to put up or shut up. In order to determine the sincerity of Moore's support for America's enemies, we request that he go on a hunger strike immediately."
Sounds fair to me. You can sign it here.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ TEAR DOWN THAT FLAG ... that's the title (I hope!) of a column I am writing about the United Nations Flag that is currently flying in front of Amherst (Mass) Town Hall. If any of you want to offer one of your "Ten Things I hate about the UN," I am all ears.
Posted by izzy @ 01:32 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S WITH THIS NUT?
Scott Ritter, the former Marine, UN weapons inspector and current propaganda mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein, says that the US will lose the war with Iraq.
"The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we can not win," he told private radio TSF in an interview broadcast here [Lisbon] Tuesday evening. And why won't we win? "We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable," he said.
I just wonder whose payroll he is on. You can read the story in a South African paper.
Posted by clbloomer @ 01:23 PM EST [Link]
~ AMERICAN LEADERSHIP: Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), one of the good guys in Congress, has a guest column in NRO talking about the storied history of American leadership, which is always derided by critics as unilateralism. He also makes the point that this is not the first time America and Great Britain have stood together to confront challenges others were unwilling or unable to.
Posted by antle @ 10:58 AM EST [Link]
~ MORE BALKO: This time Radley weighs in on the Iraq war on the FOX website. His views sound similar to someone else's I know...
Posted by antle @ 10:41 AM EST [Link]
~ OLD LIBERALISM, R.I.P: Steven Hayward writes that old New Deal liberalism died with Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He may well be right. The old liberalism was wrong-headed about government, but it was pro-American, patriotic, rooted in traditional values, optimistic and capable of uniting a nation. The liberalism that has replaced it is a much uglier creed.
Posted by antle @ 09:39 AM EST [Link]
~ THE NEW PROHIBITIONISTS: Radley Balko has a great Tech Central Station piece on neo-prohibitionists seeking to tax and regulate alcohol based on dubious claims. Many of the old prohibitionists were motivated by their pro-temperance morality; the new prohibitionists seek to impose a therapeutic nanny state.
They can have my beer when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Posted by antle @ 09:03 AM EST [Link]
~ WHAT IF WE WERE ON RED ALERT?: The American Enterprise's Eli Lehrer explores this question in NRO. I think this chilling sentence is the key: "While DHS won't word it this way, Red Alert has clear implications: Major terrorist attacks have already taken place or top homeland-security planners consider them unavoidable."
Posted by antle @ 08:48 AM EST [Link]
~ EVEN THE UN KNOWS ITS IRRELEVANT: Although he couldn't resist lecturing the U.S. and Britain, Kofi Annan had to explicitly concede the U.N.'s failure to deal with Iraq, while implicitly conceding its waning relevance.
Although predicting the world body's demise may be premature, that result has gone from being beyond the pale just a couple of years ago to a real possibility now. Will the last one out please turn off the lights?
Posted by antle @ 08:32 AM EST [Link]
~ 1000 STICKS INSERTED INTO NORTHERN IRAQ: The northern front is one step closer to being opened after 1 000 members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted early this morning into northern Iraq to take an airfield.
Posted by steve @ 04:48 AM EST [Link]
~ TIGER SUPPORTS TROOPS: Joining Wayne Gretzky in the Axis of Cool, Tiger Woods issued a statement yesterday lending his support to America's soldiers in Iraq and the actions of U.S. President George W. Bush.
"Obviously, no one likes war. Our Congress and President tried hard to avoid the use of force, but ultimately decided it was the best course of action. I like the assertiveness shown by President Bush and think we owe it to our political and military leaders, along with our brave soldiers to be as supportive as possible during these difficult and trying times."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:44 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY THE UN IS IRRELEVANT: "A resolution presented Wednesday to the top U.N. human rights body does not include a condemnation of Cuba's record, a rare move that immediately drew protests from rights campaigners."
This after Cuba spent the last week arresting dozens of dissidents.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:41 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece on how the international Iraq war debate demonstrates the continued relevance of the nation-state on VDARE.com. I thought I'd point it out because even if people don't feel like arguing over the point of my article, my co-bloggers are usually up for arguing about the site that ran it!
Posted by antle @ 12:35 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, March 26, 2003 MICHAEL MOORE IS A BIG FAT IDIOT: Or so Lee R. Shelton IV - boy, what kind of pretentious person has a roman numeral in their name - says in Toogood Reports.
Posted by antle @ 10:12 PM EST [Link]
~ THE SALAM PAX STORY...CONTINUED: HotWired does a story today about the "Dear Raed" web log, written by someone who uses the pseudonym Salam Pax. You've probably seen him referenced on other web sites like Instapundit and in news stories from CNN and MSNBC.
The story covers a little imbroglio over the massive amount of traffic he's receiving and how it affects another service that hosts his photos. Near the end, and this should interest you, are links to other people who wonder whether Salam Pax is real or a CIA propaganda tool.
I'm undecided. I know people like Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit (and one lass who says she got snail mail from him) believe Salam Pax is real and blogging out of Iraq but I'm still not sure.
Posted by steve @ 07:50 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REALLY WORRIED ABOUT?: (Via The Corner) Interesting press release from Amnesty International today entitled "Iraq: Fear of war crimes by both sides".
They open their parade of war crimes by condemning the coalition attack on Iraq's main television station. They then slam the Iraqi government over alleged shelling of civilians in Basra and reports of Iraqi soldiers dressing as civilians.
One of these things is not like the other. Can you guess? If you said attacking the television station, you were right!
Indiscriminate attacks on civilians and dressing regular army in civilian clothes are war crimes, whereas bombing a government owned television station (it is not "civilian" as AI states) is not.
Quiz question number 2: In their list of alleged war crimes, what did AI forget to mention? If you said parading POWs on television and allegedly executing captured American soldiers in front of civilians, your right again!
Another thing to note, if you read the press release, the attack on the television statement takes up several paragraphs. Iraqi war crimes? Two paragraphs composed of three sentences.
Posted by steve @ 07:30 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S JUST BLOOD IN THE WATER: U.S. Marines have discovered a September 11 memorial in Nasiriya. A mural depicted a plane crashing into a building complex resembling the World Trade Centre.
"The plane's logo and coloring resembled that of Iraqi Airlines, said Getty Images News Service executive Brian Felber, based in New York."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:14 PM EST [Link]
~ "AND ANY TIME YOU GOT AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLCHILDREN AND CANADIAN ARCHITECTS AGAINST YOU, YOUR TIME IS UP!:" Remarkably clueless antiwar letter (scroll down to "Architects Against War") from a "Joseph Baker, FRAIC, PPOAQ" (is that suppose to impress us?) of Montreal, which I happen to find in the pages of the March 2003 edition of Canadian Architect magazine. I believe Mr. Baker's letter speaks for itself:
Architects Against War.
Like many others, I have watched with increasing dread and helplessness the drive to war against Iraq and its people. The devastation and horrific loss of life predicted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Oxfam and other NGOs stand in stark contrast to the equanimity with which political leaders and our national media regard the preparations for military action.
Nightly we are regaled with images of colossal aircraft carriers, their payload of jets taking off and landing with precision, house to house battle rehearsals. These images will soon be replaced with those of shattered homes, broken bodies and terrified children. The WHO places the number of Iraqi civilians that would be wounded at 100,000 and a further 400,000 hit by disease after the bombing of water and sewage facilities and the disruption of food supplies. Fleeing the cities for the open countryside, 3.6 million will need emergency shelter. This is the true face of war, UN-approved or not.
Architects and educators in architecture cannot regard this picture with detachment. We adhere to a discipline dedicated to the creation of liveable cities, the building of friendly communities, of decent housing, of healthy and safe environments in which children may grow and learn. Many of us have no doubt written to our MPs, joined the March for Peace in our hometown, urged the adoption of anti-war resolutions on our city councils. Such a resolution passed by the City of Vancouver was drafted by Lawyers Against the War. Associations of physicians, of nurses, of writers--impelled by the principles of their calling--have made public their opposition to the U.S. and British administrations' drive to war. No less bound by the very nature of their creative role, Canadian architects, architectural faculty and students must find voice to express their own dissent with the terrible threat to Iraqi cities and their inhabitants. We have a national organization, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. It could be the platform from which the voice of Architects Against War is heard.
Joseph Baker, FRAIC, PPOAQ
Montreal
baviz@cam.org
Posted by Barton @ 03:31 PM EST [Link]
~ THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE: Instapundit and the Weekly James have already covered it, but this Reuters video of a peace riot in Sydney staged by Australian schoolchildren and organized by the "Books Not Bombs" organization is simply grotesque. Yes, they do burn a American flag, and yes, they do stamp on its torn-up remnants, and yes, there's a lot of cheering. No wonder they carried placards saying, "We are ready to fight, world peace is our right."
Posted by Barton @ 02:50 PM EST [Link]
~ AT THE NEW YORK PRESS, WE GO OUT OF THE WAY TO HATE EVERYBODY: The recently revamped New York Press (the best little alternative newspaper out there) has published its first annual "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers" list. You have to be one of those self-absorbed New York City media types to be familiar with a lot of the names, but in looking over the list, at least the New York Press guys prove themselves to be equal-opportunity haters with no sacred cows to protect.
Speaking of hatred, former New York Press owner, Russ "Mugger" Smith, has posted up his review (scroll down to "Card-Carrying Man") of Eric Alterman's polemic against the "myth" of liberal domination of the news media, "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News." It's a wonderful, poisonously funny hatchet job of a review with Smith speaking in Alterman's persona:
I am Eric Alterman: Unfortunately, you’re not.
Although an honorary gay person of color and progressive champion of the people, I’m an affluent white, heterosexual journalist with degrees from Cornell, Yale and Stanford. I write for The Nation, run a weblog ("Altercation") for MSNBC.com, and have contributed articles to Worth, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Elle, Mother Jones, and the World Policy Journal.
In 1992 I wrote the book "Sound and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy," and then became a pundit.
I’m friends with Bruce (Springsteen to you) and my book about him, "It Ain’t No Sin to Be Glad You’re Alive," won the 1999 Stephen Crane Literary Award. On my Web site I educate my followers with backstage tidbits of Bruce-lore and jot down the list of songs he performs at concerts.
But enough about me.
Wait! In my rage over the unelected president’s illegal invasion of Iraq, I momentarily forgot the purpose of this message. You probably already know about my new book, "What Liberal Media?" especially if you log onto "Altercation" daily, where I’m compelled to promote it and give the itinerary of my book tour. Still, just in case you’re a literary challenged person who watches Fox News, it’s my duty to enlighten you... And so forth. It's great stuff.
Posted by Barton @ 02:26 PM EST [Link]
~ YOU MEAN THEY DON'T ALL STARVE TO DEATH ON THE STREETS?- Headline I just submitted to Opinion Journal's "Best of the Web Today" for its "You Don't Say" category of news headlines which state the mind-bogglingly obvious:
"Most families better off after quitting welfare, says StatsCan."
Posted by Barton @ 01:56 PM EST [Link]
~ CAKEWALK? WHAT CAKEWALK?- From David Frum's Diary today:
“Cakewalk”
Some of the anxious are saying that they’re entitled to fret because the war isn’t the “cakewalk” they claim President Bush promised them. Well, I never heard President Bush promise a cakewalk. He made no promises that the war would be easy – and when he spoke about the war in private, he always stressed that digging Saddam out of power would be a bloody business...
From the transcript of President Bush's televised address to the nation right after the "decapitation strike" was launched at the Iraqi leadership last Wednesday:
The enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military. In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality. Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military -- a final atrocity against his people.
I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.
Now, you might argue that every U.S. president has to warn against overinflated expectations among the American people given their trust in the absolute superiority of the American military, but I dare Bush's critics to find any instance when he promised that any potential invasion of Iraq would be extremely easy. As we can see in the above remarks, Bush and his speechwriters even predicted what kind of tactics the Iraqi forces would use to try to delay the American advance: the placement of "Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military." Of course, that prediction has come true in spades and it has indeed delayed the American invasion, so don't say Bush didn't warn you all about this in advance...
Posted by Barton @ 01:45 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE FRUM FALLOUT: David Keene takes up for Robert Novak in a piece that appears today in FrontPage Magazine and originally appeared in The Hill. I think Novak has on occasion said some pretty dumb things about Israel, but to call him a paleo renders the term as meaningless as many paleos have rendered "neocon." These terms are quickly losing any relevance as actual ideological descriptions and being reduced to insults.
The interesting writer J.P. Zmirak offers his own insights into Frum on LewRockwell.com. I don't think he gives Frum enough credit, but I think the piece overall is a good critique of conservative writers who confuse empty Republican partisanship and posturing with serious conservative thought. And as a campus conservative columnist during my student days - who succeeded another controversial conservative columnist - the bit about Frum and Zmirak's conservative noismaking in Yale's campus papers was intriguing.
I think the overall point that Frum was trying to make in his National Review cover story was basically sound: There some people on the right who have become so alienated as a result of their marginal political views that they no longer feel any love or patriotism toward America as it actually exists (and maybe as it ever existed outside their own imaginations). I also find it a little ironic that a faction that consistently rails against other less "true" conservatives with which they substantially agree is wailing so loudly about being the victims of an ideological purge. But I do think Frum painted those who disagree with him on the right with a bit of a broad brush. And wherever possible, he sidestepped serious debate of their ideas in favor of oversimplified cariactures. Rather than engaging or refuting any of their points, he simply restated them as if they were self-evidently scandalous, frequently digging for the most controversial things he could find in print by the writers he was criticizing.
But the article has definitely made a lot of the conservative sites more interesting to read. I can hardly wait to see how they respond in the next issue of The American Conservative!
Posted by antle @ 08:37 AM EST [Link]
~ NO MORE "DAYS OF SADDAM'S LIVES"?: "Just before dawn Wednesday, Saddam Hussein's command and control capabilities were destroyed with an airstrike on Iraq's state-run television station, U.S. Central Command said."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:58 AM EST [Link]
~ WHERE LIBERAL TALK RADIO SUCCEEDS: ESR friend Lawrence Henry has a very perceptive piece in The American Prowler that points out many conservatives are missing the mark on liberal talk radio. It is true that liberals have flopped in commercial radio markets and any liberal who tries to ape Rush Limbaugh's style - that is, to be the much-ballyhooed "Limbaugh of the left" will likely fail.
But, as Larry notes, liberals have succeeded in the taxpayer-funded world of public broadcasting. The left-leaning commentary that appears on NPR does attract an audience. It provides liberal views with a forum more in tune with the format its target audience prefers than those which thrive on commercial radio. So it is not the case that there are no liberal voices on the radio - it is really more that NPR is saturating the market.
Also running in yesterday's Prowler, by the way, was a book review by someone else who might be familiar to ESR readers.
Posted by antle @ 12:09 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, March 25, 2003 HUSSEIN BUNKERS IMPOSSIBLE TO DESTROY, SAYS YUGOSLAV: Lt. Col. Resad Fazlic (Ret.) told Reuters that the bunkers that were built for Saddam Hussein are all but impossible to destroy.
"'I believe that if Saddam does not leave, and I think he has nowhere to go, they will find him in one of these facilities -- if he does not find a way out by then,' retired Lt. Col. Resad Fazlic told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. 'These bunkers can resist a direct hit of a 20 kiloton- strong bomb or atomic bomb impact and keep those inside independent of the outside world for six months," said Fazlic, who oversaw the building of the bunkers in the late 1970s.'"
Posted by steve @ 11:14 PM EST [Link]
~ REGIME CHANGE NEEDED IN CANADA AS WELL: U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci said today that America is disappointed that Canada did not support the war in Iraq, stating that while the U.S. would be ready to answer any threat to her northern neighbour, Canada wasn't behind her old friend.
"It's disappointing to us and a lot of people in Washington are upset that Canada is not fully supporting us here," he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien responded by saying it was all a big misunderstanding (or misunderestimation if you will), Canada really is behind the U.S...well, sort of.
"I don't want Saddam Hussein to win. We always said that Saddam Hussein was doing a lot of things that we were not in agreement with. We oppose this intervention but now that it is on, we hope that it will be short with a minimum of victims." said Chretien.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham then told reporters that he's spoken to "many" of his American peers and a lot of them said that "understand and respect" Canada's decision. Bill, in case you hadn't heard, Democrats don't control the White House or either side of Congress. Just who were you talking to? The State Department? That would make sense then.
I can only pray for the day that the Liberal Party is thrown out on its rear and these jackasses have to find what resembles real work for a living. Then we can embark on the 20 year program to rid Canada of its Trudeau inspired idiocy.
Posted by steve @ 08:35 PM EST [Link]
~ GRETZ SUPPORTS DUBYA: I'm a little late to this story -- I've been concentrating on a book I want to finish for review -- but Canadian hockey great Wayne Gretzky announced his support for George W. Bush yesterday.
"All I can say is the president of the United States is a great leader, I happen to think he's a wonderful man and if he believes what he's doing is right I back him 100 per cent," said Gretzky, in Calgary for a news conference for Ronald McDonald Children's Charities.
"If the president decides to go to war he must know more than we know, or we hear about. He must have good reason to go and we have to back that."
I was never a big Gretzky fan growing up -- I preferred my hockey players a little more gritier -- but full props to The Great One on this one.
Posted by steve @ 08:11 PM EST [Link]
~ U.S. MARINES GIVEN "JOYOUS" WELCOME: CanWest reporter Matthew Fisher reports somewhere near Baghdad (he can't give his exact location though it was from the south that they approached) that Iraqi civilians have been given the U.S. Marines a "joyous" reception as they move towards the city.
"All along the road, for many kilometres, Iraqi civilians and soldiers waved, blew kisses and gave the thumbs up to passing marine vehicles. Many of the Iraqi soldiers have thrown away their combat boots and parts of their uniform, either to show they are no longer combatants or to exhibit their displeasure with leader Saddam Hussein."
Posted by steve @ 08:01 PM EST [Link]
~
COOLEST PICTURE OF THE DAY: An amazing picture taken by Reuters of a dolphin employed by the Americans to hunt mines near Umm Qasr.
The caption for the photo states in part: "K-Dog, a Bottle Nose Dolphin belonging to Commander Task Unit leaps out of the water in front of Sergeant Andrew Garrett while training near the USS Gunston Hall in the Gulf, March 18."
The article goes on to say that the dolphins will be given restaurant quality food and vitamins and are being treated very well by the military. Further, the dolphins have been trained not to swim up to a mine, but rather to place a marker a short distance away.
Posted by steve @ 07:46 PM EST [Link]
~ AH, THE UNIVERSITIES...STILL OUR CENTRES OF LEARNING: Think that no peaceniks are actively yearning for an American defeat? Think again. Absolutely outrageous conversation today with an antiwar friend of mine at the Best University In Canada as we were discussing the current crisis:
FRIEND: You know, it's getting to the point where I think that Iraq is the lesser of two evils.
ME (thinking I had misheard): What's that you say?
FRIEND: I said, Iraq is the lesser of two evils.
ME (babbling in astonishment): You mean you want the Americans to be defeated? You want Saddam to win? You want the Republican Guard to win?
FRIEND (with no hesitation): Yes.
ME (seething; trying to restrain myself from shouting, while a thousand counter-arguments race through my mind. Finally, I decide if he's that far gone, it's hopeless, so I say): Well, if that's what you think, then I'm afraid I can't even talk with you about this. Your position is a moral disgrace.
I was also told by this friend of mine that Bush had asked for absolutely no money for Iraqi reconstruction after the war in his $74.7 billion budget supplemental. I had no reply to this since I didn't know the details, so I checked it out. Gee, I wonder what the heck this is:
The bulk of the request, $62.6 billion, will support U.S. troops both in Iraq and other operations related to the broader war on terrorism.
The request also provides $4.2 billion for domestic security and about $7.8 billion for aid to Israel, Afghanistan and other United States allies and money to increase security for American diplomats abroad.
The rest of the money will go to humanitarian aid and reconstruction in a "free Iraq," the president said.
"This nation and our coalition partners are committed to making sure the Iraqi citizens who have suffered under a brutal tyrant have the food and medicine needed as soon as possible," Bush said of the Iraqi people. (snip)
In the chunk of change assigned to the Pentagon, $30.3 billion goes to "coercive diplomacy," $13.1 billion is for military conflict, $12 billion for stability and transition and $7.2 billion for reconstitution, according to an official breakdown given to reporters by defense officials. (snip)
Some money will go toward making sure a stable post-Saddam structure is put in place. That structure will be dictated by internal resistance and the level of support the coalition receives from the Iraqi population. The $12 billion also includes $489.3 million for oil field and facility repair and firefighting.
The $7.2 billion will go mainly to depot maintenance, spare parts, and, in some respects, replacement of materials expended during the conflict.
Before that conversation, I had another conversation with a guy who insisted that Bush was going to lose the 2004 election because the American economy had been, quote, "shrinking" for the last three years. He said that Bush was going to lose no matter how well the war went. I asked him to name any one of the Democratic presidential candidates. He shrugged and said that while he couldn't name one, it didn't matter, Bush was a goner anyway. To this, I replied, "So, you mean Al Sharpton has a chance of beating Bush?" He guffawed and admitted that that was an unlikely possibility.
I also learned today that you shouldn't trust literary studies professors when they try to give you a potted history of the Cold War, given that some of them don't seem to know the circumstances of the Greek Civil War, when Communist partisans tried to take over the country, nor do they seem aware that a lot of the funding for anti-nuclear and peace movements during the 1980s (such as the World Peace Council) came from the coffers of Soviet intelligence. When I noted this in class, I got the distinct impression everyone thought I had just spewed out a conspiracy theory that was about as creditable as declaring that aliens controlled the White House.
Posted by Barton @ 06:23 PM EST [Link]
~ HEY GUYS, REMEMBER THIS?: I'd just like to remind our Canadian readers out there, that the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada is presently holding a leadership race. You know, just in case you care...
Posted by Barton @ 05:44 PM EST [Link]
~ WE LOVE SADDAM! WE LOVE...SUCKER!: Civilians in Basra are reportedly battling the Iraqi army today.
"Juliet Bremner, a correspondent with the British network ITV with troops outside the city, said the commanders told her they had seen groups of 40 to 50 citizens at various locations on the streets and that British forces had taken out an Iraqi mortar that had been firing on the apparent protesters."
I hope Iraqi civilians are thrifty with their lives...I want them to live to see the day Saddam's body is dragged through the streets.
[Update - 7:39pm] Fox News has a better report on the uprising, one confirmed by a Shiite group based out of Iran.
Posted by steve @ 03:06 PM EST [Link]
~ WANT TO MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL??
This week's ESR piece by Peter Schwartz contains a great deal of truth about the nature of the so-called "anti-war" movement.
The "anti-war" rallies are generated not by any love for Iraq, but by a hatred for America -- or, more fundamentally, for the principle America represents. The protestors oppose the individualism that lies at America's foundation. They despise the idea of a capitalist system, in which the individual is sovereign, free to live his own life and pursue his own values, irrespective of the wishes of "the public." And they therefore despise the derivative idea that, as a free nation, America has the sovereign right to defend its self-interest, irrespective of the wishes of the international community.
David Horowitz, in his email newsletter The War Room reveals the same truths. Horowitz gets specific:
The Nature of the Threat: It would be unwise not to take the threat posed by this organized attack on American policy and American security seriously. The misnamed "anti-war" movement is led and organized by leftist vanguards who proclaim their solidarity with terrorist states, including North Korea and Cuba, and terrorist organizations in the Middle East (2). One banner raised by activists in San Francisco read: "We Support Our Troops When They Shoot Their Officers." A photo of this banner is proudly portrayed on a leftist website that has played a key role in organizing the demonstrations (and is funded in part by a foundation headed by PBS commentator Bill Moyers).
The banner referenced by Horowitz can be seen here.
I will refrain from using the language I used when I first saw this picture. But as a retired Navy officer, I found it absolutely disgusting (to put it mildly). I'm considering making a sign the same size that reads "I support our cops when they shoot anti-war protesters".
And to think that I fought in war to defend their right to be insensitive and stupid.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:44 AM EST [Link]
Monday, March 24, 2003 SUFFERING FROM THE "VIETNAM SYNDROME:" No, not the American military and with the exception of the peaceniks, not the American people either (found via Instapundit), but the press? It's looks like they've come down with an acute case. And the cure? Well, a healthy dose of Donald Rumsfeld has never hurt anybody before. The U.S. Defense Department has finally posted up the transcript of the great briefing Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers gave on March 21st, a few hours after the "shock and awe" air campaign had begun. First of all, Rumsfeld decides to personally shoot down any comparisons with Dresden:
Rumsfeld: Before we do, let me make one comment. Just before coming down, after the air campaign began in earnest about on 1:00 [p.m.], I saw some of the images on television and I heard various commentators expansively comparing what's taking place in Iraq today to some of the more famous bombing campaigns of World War II. There is no comparison. The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of in a prior conflict -- they didn't exist. And it's not a handful of weapons; it's the overwhelming majority of the weapons that have that precision. The targeting capabilities and the care that goes into targeting to see that the precise targets are struck and that other targets are not struck is as impressive as anything anyone could see. The care that goes into it, the humanity that goes into it, to see that military targets are destroyed, to be sure, but that it's done in a way, and in a manner, and in a direction and with a weapon that is appropriate to that very particularized target. And I think that the comparison is unfortunate and inaccurate. And I think that will be found to be the case when ground truth is achieved.
But it's the following exchange that got all the attention. Remember, it's been barely half a hour since the real war began and already the first symptoms of the "Vietnam Syndrome" are beginning to manifest themselves:
Q: You mentioned earlier the allusions to bombing campaigns in World War II and that they were an inappropriate historical analogy.
Rumsfeld: Those were dumb bombs and they were spread across large areas.
Q: Can I finish my point?
Rumsfeld: These are very precise weapons.
Q: All right. But one thing that characterized those campaigns and the bombing of Haifa -- of Hanoi was that the public, their spirit did not diminish; they hunkered down, they pretty much resisted the bombing. What makes you so certain that in this case, even though it's precise, that "shock and awe" won't just force the Iraqis to hunker down and wait it out like the Brits, the Germans, the Vietnamese, and the Japanese in World War II, and in Vietnam?
Rumsfeld: Well, for one thing, the people here are a repressed people. And anyone there, I think, while it has to be a terribly unpleasant circumstance, will have an opportunity to see the precision with which we're going about this task, and that the targets are military targets, and that we -- this is not an attack on the Iraqi people, it's not an attack on the country of Iraq. It's an attack on that regime that has refused to disarm peacefully.
Myers: Could I just add to that? The secretary is absolutely right. This is about their military capability. And we have the capability, in a reasonably precise way, to go after those military targets that are going to diminish their capability over time. And so we think that, combined with what -- the other things you see going on -- I think I mentioned in my remarks the folks that have entered in southern Iraq, we have folks in western Iraq, we have folks in the north, their sights are set on other objectives; they're not going to stay where they are. So this is a combined issue -- we're not counting on just the air piece.
Mark Wickens also has a post up on another great Rumsfeld exchange this weekend, this time with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Posted by Barton @ 11:31 PM EST [Link]
~ WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM FOR A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR...MALE CHAUVINIST AFTERSHAVE!: Well, it looks like my fellow bloggers have the doom-and-gloom war front covered, so I'd like to lighten the mood a bit by pointing you to this little gem of an article from today's National Post about the bad products hall of fame in Ithaca, New York. Do you have a craving for To-Fitness Tofu Pasta? Cucumber Antiperspirant? Chocolate-covered Ritz crackers? Well, they got it all there, along with 80 000 other consumer bombs. This shouldn't be too surprising because according to the article, out of the 25 000 new consumer products released in North America each year, there's an astounding 95% failure rate (yes, 95%). My favourite disaster is Heublein's infamous "Wine & Dine Dinner," a foodstuff which was obviously developed by well-paid marketing whizzes unfamiliar with the KISS Principle (as in "Keep it simple, stupid"):
Back in the mid-1970s, Heublein Inc. introduced this upscale product, consisting of an entree along with a small bottle of wine creatively displayed in a cutout box. The pre-packaged vino was actually salty, spicy cooking wine. Consumers were supposed to mix the wine with the food during the cooking process. Most people did not read the directions; they simply assumed the wine should be taken straight (even though a pictograph on the bottleneck indicated otherwise). After one ghastly gulp of the plonk, Wine & Dine was toast.
Posted by Barton @ 09:22 PM EST [Link]
~ UDAY...SADDAM'S PERFECT SON: Sports Illustrated carries a story in their March 24 issue available online about Uday Hussein, accused of murdering and torturing Iraqi athletes that fail to meet his standards.
"THE BUTCHER'S BOY, as he is sometimes called, is reputed to be the most brutal member of Iraq's notorious ruling family. As an infant he reportedly played with disarmed grenades. By 10 he was accompanying his father to the torture chamber at Qasr-al-Nihayyah (the Palace of the End, where many political enemies, including deposed King Faisal II, were killed) to watch Saddam deal with dissidents. By 16 he bragged of committing his first murder, telling classmates he had killed a teacher who had upbraided him in front of a girlfriend."
Posted by steve @ 06:39 PM EST [Link]
~ LONGBOW PILOTS CAPTURED: CNN has reported that the two pilots from the Longbow helicopter discovered in an Iraqi field this morning south of Baghdad were captured and displayed on Iraqi TV. They looked to be in good health, perhaps the Iraqis learned from the storm of criticism they provoked from the day before.
Be strong lads...you'll be home soon.
[Update - 6:36pm] - An A-10 pilot nicknamed "J.R." out of northern Kuwait just told Gary Tuchman of CNN that America's pilots will "get back at Iraq" for any mistreatment of U.S. POWs. I wouldn't get those pilots mad.
Posted by steve @ 06:32 PM EST [Link]
~ ADD DAVID FRUM TO THE LIST: Frum is the latest in a string of mainstream conservative pundits who have essentially stated that "coalitions of the willing" are preferable to working through the U.N. He does so in an op-ed piece urging Great Britain to take this approach rather than be further absorbed by the European Union.
Not bad to see someone criticizing the relevance of two supranational organizations that conservatives should at the very least be highly suspicious of.
Posted by antle @ 08:45 AM EST [Link]
~ IT'S JUST SITTING THERE: Iraqi TV is showing footage of an AH-64D Apache Longbow chopper sitting in a field about 50 km south of Baghdad. No sign of the crew and no apparent damage to the frame. It appears that the chopper did see some action as at least four Hellfire missiles are missing.
I may be wrong but I was under the impression that Apache helicopters have a self-destruct feature so that the classified electronic systems aren't captured.
[UPDATE: 4:19am] - Military expert currently on CNN is wondering why the Longbow hasn't been bombed to ensure the technology isn't captured by the enemy...and then advises the Iraqis that standing by the Apache may not be the wisest thing.
Posted by steve @ 04:15 AM EST [Link]
~ I THINK HE SHOULD HIRE DAVID FRUM: Because I'm watching Saddam Hussein's speech on Iraqi TV right now and I'm struck by how lame it really is. He's essentially repeated the same ten sentences but phrased them differently. Apparently, judging by his comments, the Iraqi forces have convincingly thrown back the "Zionist and imperialist" aggressors and have moved so fast that they are sitting just outside of Washington, D.C.
"We will be victorious against our enemies."
Time to get on that Saddam...time's running out to make it reality.
Posted by steve @ 03:22 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: My review of Back to the Drawing Board: The Future of the Pro-Life Movement appears in The American Prowler today. Also, note that this is the first edition of the Prowler merged with the website of its parent, The American Spectator.
Posted by antle @ 01:21 AM EST [Link]
~ THE HEAVIEST FIGHTING OF THE WAR: James Lileks has a great piece on the weekend's war reporting -- especially the noxious stupidity of the BBC.
"Well, that’s it. War’s lost. It’s amazing how fast things change; in Afghanistan, it took three weeks before someone whispered 'Quagmire' and all was forsaken; this time it took but five days before an intrepid reporter stood up at a briefing and asked the military spokesman whether the specter of Vietnam loomed again over the swaggering, clay-footed giant of American power. Right now on TV some reporter is interviewing some bulky pink ex-general about BLACK SUNDAY, noting that everything was going magnificently on Friday, and now we’re meeting - are you ready for this? - resistance."
Posted by steve @ 12:45 AM EST [Link]
~ BUSH 41 INTERVIEW: Newsweek has an interesting interview with George H.W. Bush on his son, the French and the war in Iraq in their March 31 issue. Read an excerpt here.
Posted by steve @ 12:17 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, March 23, 2003 SADDAM'S SENSE OF STYLE: Fun article from the National Post detailing what you would have been liable to find if Saddam Hussein had ever invited you into one of his fifty or so palaces, many of them built from the profits of illegal oil sales (hint: "storeys of screaming kitsch" and lots and lots of lavishly furnished underground bunkers). My favourite little decorating factoid? Apparently, the Great Dictator has a soft spot in his heart for the colour pink, which means Saddam has more than his fair share of cheap pink plastic fly swatters and (even more ghoulish) lots of "boxes of hot pink facial tissue." Well, they do say that Hitler liked animals and little children...
Posted by Barton @ 11:35 PM EST [Link]
~ MY RESPECT FOR AARON BROWN IS GROWING: Right now CNN's Aaron Brown is truly hammering Al-Jazeera Washington bureau chief Hafez al-Mirazi for showing a 6.5 minute tape of American POWs and the bodies of Marines killed today in southern Iraq.
Al-Mirazi attempted to defend showing the footage, grisly enough that Brown didn't even want to describe it, but came across looking like a fool.
Is this a new CNN?
Posted by steve @ 10:41 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S NOT TRUE BECAUSE HANS BLIX DIDN'T FIND IT: The Pentagon has confirmed that coalition forces have found a massive chemical weapons plant about 90 miles south of Baghdad. You know, the type of facility Iraq didn't have any of.
"The chemical plant is described as a '100-acre complex,' surrounded by an electrical fence. The plant was also apparently camouflaged to avoid aerial photos being taken.
"It is not yet known what chemicals were being produced at the plant."
Posted by steve @ 09:08 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW COULD A MAN DO THAT?: Earlier this week I wrote that soldiers tend to fight for hearth and home, not their political leaders. They fight to defend their wives and children. It is with that thought in mind that I have to wonder about reports that Iraqi soldiers are herding women and children into the war zone to act as human shields. How could a man do that? How could they fundamentally fail at their most sacred mission as soldiers, to defend the innocents of their own nation? What kind of man does that?
Posted by steve @ 09:02 PM EST [Link]
~ THANKS FRIENDS: The U.S. has formally protested to the Russian government about the sale of military equipment to Iraq.
"On Friday, the official said, when U.S. intelligence discovered that employees of one of the Russian companies in question -- Aviaconversiaya -- were still in Baghdad helping Iraq use what's described as 'highly sophisticated' electronic jamming equipment which can interfere with global positioning equipment used by ground forces and aircraft."
I can almost guaruntee you'll see similar protests to the French and Chinese governments.
Posted by steve @ 06:46 PM EST [Link]
~ THE RIGHT IS WHERE THE REAL DEBATES ARE: Of course, blogger and ESR contributor Paul Cella points out in a piece for Tech Central Station, among many other observations, that the real debates are all taking place on the right anyway.
Case in point: "Part of the problem here is the profound intellectual poverty of the Left. The whole debate about this massive, this ancient, this hugely complex threat to Western civilization, this clash of civilizations, is, for all intents and purposes, being hashed out on the Right. The best arguments against war come from the Right; the best arguments for it come from the Right. The Left chicanes and heckles, enfeebles and distracts; it says almost nothing of value, except when it adopts polemical postures hammered out in earnest by those it regards as monstrous."
I think Paul is on to something here.
Posted by antle @ 05:27 PM EST [Link]
~ NAME OF SOLDIER WHO KILLED HIS OWN: Sgt. Asan Akbar. Name of the dead: Cpt. Christopher Seifert, 27. Seifert was married.
Posted by steve @ 05:23 PM EST [Link]
~ PALEOS VS. NEOCONS: Another debate where there is a great deal of irrationality and disdain for the truth on both sides is the latest spat between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives. I myself am neither - I like to think of myself as an old-school fusionist Frank Meyer conservative. I agree with the paleos on some issues and the neocons on others, and on others still my views are too nuanced to fit into either category. I read and enjoy National Review both on-line and on dead tree, Chronicles, The Weekly Standard, The American Conservative and many other journals associated with one or the other side.
I agree with paleoconservative writer Lawrence Auster that Frum's article "was mostly justified." Some paleos, particularly paleolibertarians, have allowed their anti-statism to morph into anti-Americanism. I also think many people - though not everone - on the anti-war right have been as hapless as the anti-war left in terms of coming up with a realistic model for an alternative in dealing with terrorism. The United States cannot suddenly become Switzerland.
But I think Frum, who is one of my favorite writers, does at times cariacture his opponents' positions and lump too many people together under the "paleo" banner without distiction. In his otherwise excellent book Dead Right, the weakest chapter was on the paleos, who he then lumped together as "nationalists."
A real internal conservative debate that focuses on ideas is overdue on many questions: immigration, balancing individualism and community, post-Cold War foreign policy, the proper uses of the military, the centrality of constitutionalism and a whole host of other issues. Unfortunately, up to this point debates between paleos and neocons have been centered on professional ambitions and jealousies. Paleos are angry that they have had trouble getting published in neocon journals and jobs at neocon institutes (or that they've been fired from such journals and instititutes). The neocons are angry that the paleos have set up their own rival journals (especially on the web) and instititutes that are starting to effectively compete with theirs for influence and audience. Too much of this intrudes on these kinds of debates. Which unfortunately makes them a whole lot less worthwhile than they could be.
Posted by antle @ 05:00 PM EST [Link]
~ SURPRISES OF THE DAY: 1. The Iraqi Army violates the Geneva Convention.
2. Meanwhile, CNN reports that "Iran believes a missile that landed inside its border last week came from Iraq and not the United States."
Can we call Saddam's regime "evil" now or would that just be too "simple-minded" of me? (Via NRO's The Corner)
Posted by Barton @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ GEORGE W. BUSH: A "ROOT CAUSE" OF ANTI-SEMITISM: The always-interesting, if not always right Steve Sailer is someone else (see below) who doesn't quite march in lockstep with the Beltway Right. That's OK. What isn't OK is this little piece of sophistry in which Sailer explains that one of the main reasons for rising anti-Semitism today is, guess what, the Beltway Right! Noting the weakness and outright intellectual fraudulence of some of the arguments on the pro-war side, Sailer goes on to write that:
But, this kind of irrationality and disdain for the truth on the part of some on the pro-war side just fosters irrationality on the other side. And that has ugly consequences. When so many of the reasons given by pro-war forces are bogus, it leads to searches for the secret, "real" reason -- like, oh, the Elders of Zion must be jerking the puppet strings. Anti-Semitism has been latent in every society known to history, and sometimes it doesn't take much to bring it out. I fear that the Administration has done much to worsen anti-Semitism around the world. [Editor's Note: scroll down to the entry entitled "I want to apologize to Rod Dreher."]
Note the causal sequence that Sailer constructs here: the bogusness of some pro-war arguments "fosters" irrationality on the antiwar side. One of the main root causes for some of the antiwar side's explicit expressions of antisemitism is our "irrationality and disdain for the truth." Anti-Semitism, while not excusable, is certainly understandable under the circumstances given that "Anti-Semitism has been latent in every society known to history," especially no doubt in Arab societies in particular. Quite frankly, this is chop-logic at its worst.
Granted that both the antiwar and pro-war sides have used at times arguments that are weak and irrational, then I could just as easily reverse Sailer's premises and conclusions. The "irrationality and disdain for the truth" that Sailer attacks is not just the singular property of the pro-war people. If bad argumentation leads to expressions of ugly sentiment, then surely I could say, using Sailer's logic, that the idiocy of some of the peaceniks is the "root cause" for any anti-Arab racism out there. Say I was driven so insane with rage at the drivel being spewed out by the antiwar side and other apologists for Islamofacism (and there is a lot of it), that I went out and stabbed two Muslim boys I just saw on the street, should I then explain to the police that "Ramsey Clark made me do it." And note Sailer's odd kind of sociological determinism, when he writes that "Anti-Semitism has been latent in every society known to history" as if we can't ultimately blame all these racists if they suffer from their own ignorance and bigotry. In the end, Sailer cannot seem to bring himself to do something very simple: just blame the anti-Semite for his or her anti-Semitism. After all, Sailer seems to be arguing, if anti-Semitism is a kind of gasoline which is everywhere in society and always will be, we must do our best as to not set a match to it, but if we do, then we can have only ourselves to blame. How is this not just another variation on the criminal's plea to the judge before sentencing that he "had a bad childhood," or that "Society is to blame for my murderous ways?" Sailer might be an intelligent man, but his dislike for the Neoconservative Right is blinding him to his own "irrationality and disdain for the truth."
Posted by Barton @ 03:25 PM EST [Link]
~ YOU CAN ALMOST SMELL THE BITTERNESS: Peter Brimelow up at VDARE has a halfway-interesting response to David Frum's recent National Review piece slagging the paleoconservative Right. Unfortunately, you have to get past this remarkably stupid opening paragraph to get to the interesting bits:
One of many blessings of being liberated from my book on the teacher union is that I get to surf the web more, particularly in response to repeated requests that VDARE.COM establish some sort of weblog. Recently, I actually had enough time to waste a few minutes looking at National Review Online’s The Corner. The girlyboys seem to spend a lot of time congratulating each other there – and, of course, making frequent fawning references to William F. Buckley. The curious overall impression is of a band of baboons combing through each other’s fur for fleas, while gibbering and casting nervous glances at the dozing alpha male.
Truly childish name-calling aside, is Brimelow so historically ignorant as to not know that one traditional tactic of anti-Semites through the ages is to animalize the figure of the Jew, in particular stressing their supposed resemblence both in thought and looks to simians, like say, baboons? I'm not accusing Brimelow of anti-Semitism here, but when you're specifically responding to an article by David Frum and you're the editor of a website which obsessively calls the National Review, the "Goldberg Review" as if Goldberg was playing Richelieu to Buckley's Louis XIII (a concept that boggles the mind to no end), you'd think you would have a bit more, um, tact.
Posted by Barton @ 02:35 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, March 22, 2003 DON'T DO IT, HITCH!: Kathy Shaidle points us to a Washington Times article about Christopher Hitchens' break with the Left and possible move to the Neoconservative Right. For the sake of Hitchens' future career as a public intellectual, I hope to god that he does not do such a foolish thing. One David Horowitz is more than enough. Or here's another possible role if Hitchens wants to sign up for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy:
Here comes Christopher Hitchens again, blasting religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular in Slate. He's irritated by their antiwar stance and heaps tons of vitriol upon them, reminding me of why I think Christopher Hitchens has a terminal case of Intellectually Arrogant Brit Disease. I find that some English folk of fairly humble origin, or even of the Guardian-reading middle classes, tend to be terribly socially insecure and often try to convince themselves that their university degree and their career achievements make them just as good as anybody, even an aristo (who these people always hate). Then some smug, rich, good-looking know-it-all from Cambridge puts them in their place, but good, and they find out that the Old European side of Britain will only let a person rise so far on merit. This is when they go through their militant Socialist phase, which may last a lifetime but often doesn't; in Hitchens' case, he's still not finished with it. Their militant Socialist phase is often accompanied with a healthy helping of reverse snobbery and an unconvincing working-class accent, along with a conviction that they are somehow culturally and intellectually superior, which makes up for their sometimes conscious and sometimes sublimated knowledge that they are socially inferior.
I just read a collection of Hitchens' pieces from the early '90s. He's a lot of fun to read, all right, but he seems like a real prick as a human being, and his articles are always based on hectoring, ad hominem accusations, innuendo, comparing apples with oranges, making up historical "facts", manipulating statistics, and just generally being arrogant toward everyone. We don't want this guy on our team. I vote we throw him over the side after the war's over and his utility has expired. The Nation and his old pals on the British hard left won't take him back, and he'll be forced to cravenly adopt the politics of his hated social superiors, always happy to co-opt authentic working-class voices. Five years from now he'll be writing for the Telegraph and voting Tory--and not liberal Thatcherite Tory, either, more like Auberon Waugh Tory. Can you say "Paul Johnson", everyone?
Yep, I prefer the Hitchens we have right now, neither of the Left or Right, but as the title of his recent (and highly recommended) book says, an unclassifiable "Contrarian." The type of guy who'll vote for Bush, say how much he admires Margaret Thatcher, support the "War on Terrorism," and still say that Henry Kissinger is a bloody war-criminal based on little or no evidence, all the while still dressing like some sort of homeless flasher (just look at the cover of "Letters to a Young Contrarian" to see what I mean). As the above post and Norman Podhoretz' comments in the article reveal, it's not like everyone on the Right is prepared to forgive Hitchens for his previous thought-crimes. Anyway, since when was it ever in Hitchens' personal interest to go all predicable on us now?
Posted by Barton @ 07:57 PM EST [Link]
~ GIVE THEM ENOUGH ROPE...: If you have not seen Evan Coyne Maloney's short satirical documentaries on two recent peace rallies in New York and San Francisco, then I suggest you do so now. All Maloney does is ask the prostestors some straightforward questions and then he lets all the resulting illogic, incoherence, and spluttering rage speak for itself. Which cities' peaceniks are more nutty, I'll let you decide for yourself (though I'd pick New York). And then there's his interview with famous San Francisco madman Frank Chiu, which takes things to a whole new level of insanity. The most striking part for me is this question from Maloney's FAQ:
1. There are many articulate and intelligent people who oppose war against Iraq. Why didn't you show any of them?
There are undoubtedly principled people who can eloquently present an intelligent case against the war. I know a few such people myself. I just didn't happen to run into them at the protest.
Posted by Barton @ 07:04 PM EST [Link]
~ OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU: "Six British crewmembers and one American were killed Saturday when two British Navy Sea King search and rescue helicopters collided in mid-air over the Persian Gulf, UK Central Command in Qatar said."
Your families won't care much but lads you are in the hall of heroes now. If there is a heaven, we shall greet and thank you for your sacrifice. Fior go bas.
Posted by steve @ 03:42 AM EST [Link]
~ HELLO, GLOBAL WARMING FIENDS?: "Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to a NASA funded study.
"'This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change,' said Richard Willson, a researcher affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute, New York. He is the lead author of the study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters."
Thanks for coming late to the party.
Posted by steve @ 03:32 AM EST [Link]
Friday, March 21, 2003 A COMIC OPERA DICTATORSHIP: Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saaed al-Sahaf called the United States today "a superpower of villains. They are a superpower of Al Capone." He also declared that Umm Qasr was "completely in our hands," adding: "They failed to capture it." I might find al-Sahaf's claims slightly more credible if the Iraqi Interior Minister hadn't been standing right beside him the entire time, waving around a rifle.
And judging from other photos here and here, al-Sahaf might take the few remaining days left to the Iraqi regime to hire a good media consultant to work on his "visuals." After all, a dictator's spokesperson has to work extra hard to look good before the world press, especially during wartime. Might I suggest these guys? They sound like a perfect fit with the Iraqi dictatorship: both are incompetant and free of any excess personal charm.
Posted by Barton @ 07:38 PM EST [Link]
~ PRESS CONFERENCE FOLLIES: Both Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Jean Lopez have complained in NRO's Corner about the White House Press Corps' weird obsession with whether Bush watched TV today, possibly on the assumption that had the president seen what frightening televisual effects his "shock and awe" air war had initiated, he might hesistate to use such awesome firepower against Baghdad in the future. NBC's Brian Williams actually said that today's bombing of Baghdad "looks like Dresden." Well, here's the exchanges with Ari Fleischer that illustrate what Goldberg and Lopez are talking about. Just marvel at the educated stupidity of it all. It begins innocently enough with a question from ABC's Terry Moran:
Q Ari, has the President watched any of this, the unfolding events in Baghdad, do you know?
MR. FLEISCHER: Obviously, the President, having authorized the mission, was aware of the mission, knew when it would begin, et cetera. And I don't think he needs to watch TV to know what was about to unfold.
Then NBC's Campbell Brown gets in on the act:
Q Just to clarify Terry's question. You said the President doesn't need to watch TV to know what's going on in Iraq, but you're telling me -- these are pretty astounding images -- he doesn't have a television on somewhere, he's not watching what's going on?
MR. FLEISCHER: The President, again, understands the implications of the actions that he has launched to secure the disarmament of the Iraqi regime to liberate the people.
Q Right, right, right. The question, though, is he watching TV, or not?
MR. FLEISCHER: The President may occasionally turn on the TV, but that's not how he gets his news or his information.
Q I'm not suggesting it is; but we just want to try to get an image of --
MR. FLEISCHER: From time to time, he might.
Fleischer seemed amused by all this at one point, but the press didn't get the joke:
Q Let me first follow on Campbell's question. The resolution that --
MR. FLEISCHER: I thought you were going to ask about watching TV.
Q I may....
And downhill it went from there:
Q And can I ask one more question about television, just a very direct question? Did the President not see the pictures on television this morning, the very dramatic pictures of the bombs and the explosions over Baghdad? He did not see those?
MR. FLEISCHER: I was with the President just as the operation was beginning, at about 1:00 p.m., and he was not watching TV at that time. I wasn't with him for the duration of it, so I couldn't answer in all instances about it. I probably shouldn't answer a question like this in this room, but the President does not watch a lot of TV.
Q No, but they were very, very dramatic pictures. It's hard to imagine the President of the United States who had ordered this attack did not see any evidence of it.
MR. FLEISCHER: Elizabeth, I don't know that the President needed to watch TV to understand what it means to authorize military force and to know that the mission has begun and the mission is underway.
Q So the answer is unclear, we don't know if he saw them?
MR. FLEISCHER: I've just described to you where I was with him, but I wasn't with him for the entire duration of what you all saw on TV. (snip)
Q And on another subject, back onto the television watching. You say President Bush doesn't watch much television. Is he not watching the "shock and awe" today because he's getting military video, U.S. video of the events there?
MR. FLEISCHER: April, he is not doing anything differently today than he would typically do. The President does not typically watch a lot of TV, to get his news from TV. I know I shouldn't say it in this room, but that's not what he does.
The President receives briefings that give him the information he needs to do his job in totality. The President approaches this in a very serious fashion about receiving the best, most up-to-date briefings from the best, most expert officials. And that's how he approaches his job.
Q But isn't it understandable that as the American public is watching the bombardment, turning to nighttime sky into light and seeing the gravity of the situation, that he might need to understand what America is seeing and see it with them so he can speak effectively to the American public?
MR. FLEISCHER: The President of the United States did not need to watch TV to understand what the American people think about the decision to use force to disarm the Iraqi regime. He understands what the American people understand, that there are risks involved, that lives may be lost -- but the cause is right, the cause is just, the goal is disarmament to protect our people. And he has a deep understanding of all that.
Finally, Flesicher got just a bit cheesed off at the absurdity of it all and put a definitive stop to the continued idiocy:
Q Ari, the President may not watch the war on TV, may not need to watch it on TV, but a lot of people around the world will. And is this the image that he wanted them to see, of the "shock and awe" campaign, of the war? And did he weigh the possible effect on public opinion that those images might have?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, have you seen an effect on public opinion? I'm not sure -- are you saying it's -- what effect have you seen?
Q I'm offering that as a possibility. But they are pictures that a lot of people will use to judge how the war is going, how it's being carried out.
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me make sure everybody understands what I have said about the President's TV watching habits. I explained that the President does watch, but he does not depend on TV for his source of all news that he receives. He will watch things, from time to time, as I made clear. I was asked specifically, where was the President at 1:00 p.m. today, was he watching TV from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. or so. And I explained that I was with the President at the beginning, he was not watching it at that time, and I can't speak for what he did when I was not in the room with him.
In terms of the public, the President believes that the public understands what is at stake here when military force is used. The public has seen the use of military force before. And the American people are always regretful if it has come that force must be used to achieve an objective. And in this case, as regretful as the American people are that our military has to be engaged in combat -- risking the lives of Americans, let alone anybody else -- the American people understand what is at stake is protecting the American people from Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The American people also saw September 11th on TV, and the American people and their President never want to see a scene like that again on our shores. One of the best ways, in the President's judgment, to make certain that that scene is no longer -- is never seen again is to make certain that enemies who would gather across oceans are not able to gather, in the form of receiving weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime that they could then bring to attack us once again.
Posted by Barton @ 07:14 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT THE SOLDIERS IN IRAQ THINK OF FRANCE AND GERMANY: Spiegel Online runs a picture of a U.S. soldier with a very clear message for France and Germany. Warning, bad language! See it here. (pop-up, 13.7 Kb)
Can't say I disagree with the message either.
Posted by steve @ 06:27 PM EST [Link]
~ HMMM, MAYBE I SHOULDN'T WANT A NY TIMES COLUMN: Mark Steyn was right to warn me against wanting to appear in the New York Times. Boris Johnson has a funny -- and scary -- piece in The Spectator about his experience placing a piece in the NYT.
"It is a measure of our natural deference to America, cultural and military, that when the New York Times rang up and asked for a piece, I was thrilled. The New York Times, I thought. Three million registered readers in the most powerful country on earth! All the news that’s fit to print! You betcha. So I sat up for an hour or so, cracked out an article on Blair, Bush and Iraq, and fired it off to the charming NY Times op-ed editor, whom I shall call Tobin, because that is his name.
"Tobin and I spoke the following day, after a long surgery in Henley town hall. 'Booris,' said Tobin, 'we love it! Everybody loves it. But we have, uh, a few issues of political correctness that I have to go through with you.' There followed a bizarre hour-long negotiation with New York, as I sat in the Grays Road carpark, and Tobin read out the politically correct version of my piece. I want to stress that Tobin was at all times a model of humour and cordiality."
Posted by steve @ 06:14 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY AREN'T SURRENDERING: MSNBC is reporting that hundreds of Iraqis are surrendering to coalition forces not out of sadness, but out of happiness.
"Waving white flags and raising their hands to the sky, hundreds of Iraqi soldiers quickly surrendered to coalition forces in southern Iraq — and some even tried to give themselves up to Western journalists. One Marine traffic control unit manning an intersection in southern Iraq accepted at least 45 soldiers’ surrender by sundown Friday."
I would like to say this: these soldiers aren't surrendering. They are doing the honourable thing. They aren't dying for Saddam Hussein. They are living for their country. A coalition victory is their victory.
Forgive the Latin if it's grotty but it has been nearly seven years since I was in class: Iraq victoria!
Posted by steve @ 05:57 PM EST [Link]
~ PROTESTERS OR CRIMINALS?
War protesters trashed the grounds around a northern New Mexico home owned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, placing "No War" stickers and throwing children's clothes around the property, authorities say.
But no arrests were made.
The story is at FOX News.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 04:19 PM EST [Link]
~ REGIME CHANGE NEEDED AT UN
Thomas Jipping at World Net Daily argues that, in addition to a regime change in Iraq, the UN will have to change if it is to remain relevant. He points out that the UN Security Council has done absolutely nothing about Iraq over the past twelve years except to pass 17 redundant resolutions.
Jipping's arguments, added to the blog entry just preceeding this one, show that the UN is rapidly becoming absolutely worthless.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 01:20 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S FRENCH FOR "UTTERLY RIDICULOUS?:" The United Kingdom's Sky News, sister network to Fox News, gives us yet another example that President Jacques Chirac has gone completely insane:
FRANCE'S NEW VETO THREAT
France would block any UN resolution giving the US and Britain the power of administration in Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac has declared.
He said France would still not support a resolution backing war at this stage and would also oppose a resolution giving Washington and London administrative power in Iraq.
"This idea of a resolution seems to me to be a way of authorising military intervention after the event, and so is not, in my point of view, fitting in the current situation," Mr Chirac said at a news conference in Brussels."France would not accept a resolution that authorises military intervention and gives the United States and Britain administrative powers in Iraq."
The UN is being used as a stick to beat the US with. After the events of the past few months, I'm slowing coming around to Charles Krauthammer's view: break the stick.
Posted by Barton @ 12:27 PM EST [Link]
~ RENAISSANCE MAN: Kathy Shaidle replies to my defense of spending tax dollars on the Prince Edward Viaduct:
Why Barton, I'm shocked. Here you are a conservative libertarian type, and yet you really think that a)people should be protected from themselves; b)tax dollars should support 'public art' and c) that we must 'think of the children!'
Methinks I hear the four horsemen galloping ever closer!
I'm well aware of the bridge's legendary status. I'm also convinced that anyone determined to kill themselves will do so, wherever and whenever. (I'll refrain from quoting Scrooge here...)
A few things:
*the taste of Canadian architects, as evidenced all around us, is poor, and any award they bestow no doubt reflects that;
*"My little sister's school' is a promising start to an urban legend, but less so a basis for public policy. Closing the curtains is cost effective and utterly practical, the Occam's Razor solution to the problem. Just another argument for home schooling if you ask me. My elementary school's open concept classroom boasted only one small window at each far end; whether or not that has done me any harm I'll leave others to decide.
And what is wrong with keeping the curtains closed anyway? What are the children doing looking out the windows when they should be looking at the blackboard? (ooops, I meant the non-racist 'chalkboard' of course). Or busying themselves with their Earth Day projects.
Honestly Barton, you're entitled to your perfectly reasonable and sensible beliefs on this issue. I guess I fail to see how they jibe with your usual politics... :-)
Confused,
ksThat's because I'm one of those right-wing hypocrites who actually believe that money should be spent on Toronto's "Cultural Renaissance" (here's David Janes' argument against and a good defense saying that we're actually making up for being robbed of our fair share of tax dollars in previous years). Why? Well, because I live here and my philosophy is what's good for Toronto is good for me. Which is why I'm such a big enthusiast for things like FDR-style work programs like Superbuild (which was started by that arch tax-and-spend liberal Mike Harris), expansion of the Toronto Island Airport and a bridge to there, as well as demolishment of the Gardiner and mass expansion of the subway system to York University, Pearson Airport, and extension of the Sheppard Line to Scarborough Town Centre (I have to continue to have some excuse not to drive). My heart swells with pride when I see the long, long list of our cultural institutions which are now being rebuilt, expanded, renovated: Roy Thomson Hall, Dundas Square, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Ontario College of Art and Design, our new Opera House, the Ontario Science Centre, the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization, the National Ballet School, etc. Not to mention the massive building programs going on in all our provinicial universities to accomodate "the Double Cohort" and the planned building of a world-class biomedical district at the corner of College and University. I cannot see how any right-winger can stand in front of any Toronto audience in say, 2010, and proceed to lambaste all this building, once the public has seen what the results are, unless of course, things have gone disasterously wrong (always a possibility). Which is one of the main reasons why, for all their faults, I'm still going to be voting Progressive Conservative in the next provincial election. I trust them to be financially prudent in presiding over the enormous amounts that are going to be spent in building this "Cultural Renaissance" and in the last few years that programs such as Superbuild have been going on, I have not seen any evidence that the Tories have less than normal efficient selves. Yes, it's arrogant, self-centred, and hypocritical (welcome to Toronto, guys!), but I'm like one of those new types of citizens that Robert D. Kaplan talks about in books such as An Empire Wilderness and The Coming Anarchy, someone who as he increasingly loses faith in the nation-state, grows increasingly loyal to his polis. In the end, I know this stand must seem ideologically inconsistent, but civic pride is not a feeling that is to be trifled with.
Posted by Barton @ 12:14 PM EST [Link]
~ DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
Michelle Malkin explains that we have more to be concerned about than just Islamist terrorists. She reports that the militant Earth Liberation Front (ELF) has issued a call for terror against US military and commercial interests. Her piece is online at World Net Daily.
The ELF and its ilk are high on my reasons for supporting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 11:28 AM EST [Link]
~ I NEVER WATCH THEM ANYWAY
The Academy Awards will air this Sunday, but I won't be watching. I never do. This year I fear I won't be able stomach the liberal bilge that will spew forth.
Over at CNS News, David Horowitz questions celebrities' patriotism. So do I.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:12 AM EST [Link]
~ MORE REACTION TO DIXIE CHICKS
I got this in an email newsletter and just had to share it. The author, Chuck Muth, had published Natalie Maines' web and email address a couple of days ago. Natalie certainly rubbed teh wrong people the wrong way!
Free Speech for Me But Not For Thee?Uh-oh. Y'all did it again. Just a few hours after I published the web address for Ditzy Chick Natalie Maines' guestbook...she shut it down. I guess her commitment to free speech only applies to HER speech on foreign soil against our president, not your speech telling the nitwit to shut up.
However, before this bimbo closed her "Comments" page down, yours truly took the time to copy a few of the more entertaining entries. And heeeerre they are...
"You GO girl! And I mean that in the literal sense. Go to 'the other side' where your treasonous big butt belongs. I hope you get the worst case of PMS in the history of the world."
"I am a Proud Marine Mom. My son, who is 20 years old, is currently serving as a Lance Corporal in the United States Marines Corps. His life is on the line so that people such as yourself can continue to practice the freedom of speech. . . . I am sorry that you are ashamed of President Bush. I do know how you feel though, because I am ashamed of you."
"What a lowlife thing to say. I just dare you to say that in front of a USA audience...that is, if anyone ever shows up."
* "While I support your freedom to feel and say whatever you wish I find it unconscionable that you don't have the courage to say it here in the US. You are a gutless coward. You should thank God that the chemical weapons that will be confiscated from Iraq won't be sold on the open market and set off on American soil killing your last fan. Please stay in Europe and shut up. Just so you know, we are ashamed you are from Texas and the USA."
"(F)rankly your opinion and the opinions of the extreme liberals are of as much value as a used piece of toilet paper."
"I do NOT support this war. Never have. I am NOT a flag waving right wing nut. Your comments are, nevertheless, despicable."
"To think that a singer in a band has the requisite knowledge of the facts and the savvy to determine appropriate international policy is laughable. Natalie betrayed the support of the fans by over-reaching her role. Her head has gotten as big as her butt."
"Natalie, it's one thing to disagree with the American government & what it does, & the right to do so is one of the freedoms we enjoy, BUT: for god's sake woman, keep your mouth SHUT when you're on foreign soil. . . . Now pardon me, I have a few Dixie Chicks CDs to cast into the fireplace. No room for ANYONE in my music collection that badmouths MY President in a foreign land."
"Hey Nat, four friends and I used your CD's for skeet shooting Monday. My wife burned our concert tickets (with my blessing) to your show. It was worth the money."
"Ms. Maines and Company, Today I returned your new CD I had bought my daughter for her birthday. I served in the Marine Corps for eight years and left early last year. What you've done is given the enemy ammunition to convince his people our troops won't have the stomach for a fight...in other words you've helped give the enemy forces more resolve. That's treason. You and Jane Fonda should be deported and never heard from again."
"The Vichy Chicks should move to France."
"Thank you for supporting the cause, Natalie. Sincerely, Saddam Hussein."
*
*
Published by Citizen Outreach
Chuck Muth
Editor/Publisher
611 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, #439
Washington, DC 20003-4303
E-mail: chuckmuth@earthlink.netcb
Posted by clbloomer @ 08:57 AM EST [Link]
~ MORE RACHEL CORRIE NEWS: Vicky over at Liquid Courage blogs a little entry about Rachel Corrie, the American girl accidentally run over on Sunday by an Israeli bulldozer.
Seems some people aren't being entirely truthful about some pictures they've posted about her standing up to a bulldozer. Learn more here.
You'll be happy to know who she earned the endorsement of as well.
Posted by steve @ 03:01 AM EST [Link]
~ HEY, THAT'S ME!: Some cat has started a new group called Canadian Friends of America.
"Canadian Friends of America was started as an ad-hoc campaign against increasing anti-American sentiments in Canadian public debate. It is inspired by Norwegian Friends of America. We wish to support the good bi-lateral relationship between Canada and the USA by highlighting the political and historical kinship between our two nations."
If you be a Canadian, and you be friend 'o America, I suggest you join. I did.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 AM EST [Link]
~ WHO'S THE IDIOT: Croooow Blog has one of the funniest pictures I've seen in a while. Seems an anti-war protester wanted to chain himself to a federal building. Looks like he made a mistake.
Posted by steve @ 02:38 AM EST [Link]
~ ENOUGH ALREADY II: Can we stop with the videophone reports from the field? CNN's guy with the 7th Cav boasted about presenting live, for the first time in history, video images from the front line as the units scouts raced ahead of the division.
What did I see? Heavily pixelated images of what could have been M1 Abrams tanks and something that could have been sand.
I turn the channel and NBC's hump is showing me the same thing except from the 3rd's advance northward. Slightly less pixelated because they weren't moving at the time.
Sometimes technology doesn't solve a problem.
On my earlier peeve...it would appear everyone is using "embedded" now.
Posted by steve @ 02:31 AM EST [Link]
~ OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU: The prayers of the entire ESR family go out to the families of the 16 American and British soldiers killed in Iraq due to the crash of a CH-46 helicopter.
Posted by steve @ 12:09 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, March 20, 2003 WHO REALLY ARMED SADDAM: (Via VodkaPundit) I hate antiwar protesters because they generally know nothing and since CNN is showing a lot of the antiwar protests in places like Chicago and (gasp! Can it be?) San Francisco, you'll probably hear some moron announce that the U.S. created Saddam Hussein.
StrategyPage says otherwise.
Posted by steve @ 08:59 PM EST [Link]
~ BETTER DO IT BEFORE WE KNOW HE'S DEAD: Over at Penmen you can put Saddam Hussein into a shredder.
Posted by steve @ 05:15 PM EST [Link]
~ ENOUGH ALREADY: Am I the only one becoming terribly annoyed by CNN's continual use of the word "embedded" when it comes to their reporters tagging along with the troops?
Posted by steve @ 04:45 PM EST [Link]
~ SENATORS UNITED/REPRESENTATIVES ACT LIKE CHILDREN: The Senate has a resolution praising the U.S. military and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in particular (who else would they praise, Jean Chretien?). The House? Well, Democratic representatives are refusing to vote for a similar resolution because it contains a line praising U.S. President George W. Bush for his "firm leadership" in conducting the war against terrorism.
Democrats in the House! Listen up! You're bitches. Nothing less. Nothing more.
Posted by steve @ 04:42 PM EST [Link]
~ VICTORY CONDITIONS: Glenn Reynolds lays out what he thinks the victory conditions in Iraq should be.
Posted by steve @ 04:38 PM EST [Link]
~ DID WE GET HIM?
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated at a news conference Thursday he was not convinced that Saddam Hussein survived a preparatory U.S. cruise missile strike on a Baghdad compound in the opening salvo of the war.
The story is at CNS News.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:10 PM EST [Link]
~ YOU STILL DON'T GET THE $30 BILLION: The Turkish parliament today voted to allow the U.S. to use its airspace in an attack on Iraq. The Americans will not be able to use any airfields to land or refuel however.
The $30 billion, or $15 billion according to the story, in aid offered by the US is off the table so Turkey's out of luck. They are hoping for a new offer though...like I'm still expecting a raise from my old job.
Posted by steve @ 11:52 AM EST [Link]
~ YOU ANNOUNCE THIS AFTER THE FIRST ATTACK?: The governments of Japan and South Korea came out today in support of an attack on Iraq.
Me thinks they're hoping there's another attack...on a nation a little closer to them.
Posted by steve @ 11:48 AM EST [Link]
~ THE DESTRUCTION HAS BEGUN
Oil Fields Flaming; 'Dark, Dusty, Deafening'
(CNSNews.com) - The Pentagon confirms that Iraqis loyal to Saddam Hussein are setting fire to their country's oil fields -- an anticipated development, but one the Bush administration really hoped to avoid. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters he has seen "indications and reports" that the Iraqi regime may have set fire to as many as three to four oil wells in southern Iraq. He called it a "crime" for anyone to try to "destroy the riches of the Iraqi people." In another development, Fox News reporter Rick Leventhal told viewers he was "watching the horizon light up" as coalition troops fire on an unspecified target in an unspecified area, apparently in Iraq. He said the explosions going off in the distance were "deafening," and he commented that, "The air campaign has begun." Wire reports said U.S. troops have been told to prepare for combat -- right now. But Rumsfeld told reporters, "You don't have the war plan." He made a plea for people to be careful about leaking information that might jeopardize U.S. troops.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 11:46 AM EST [Link]
~ REMEMBER FOLKS, THE FIRST WAR ISN'T OVER: American troops launched a large campaign in southeast Afghanistan aimed at al-Qaida and Taliban personnel.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:41 AM EST [Link]
~ DID WE GET HIM?: I was too busy watching a rerun of Ken Burns' Jazz on PBS to watch Saddam's speech (yes, that is a weird sense of priorities, but why should I waste my time listening to the mother of all irrelevent tyrants?). From what I've read though on the blogs, there's a lot of suspicion out there that it was in fact a Saddam lookalike who actually delivered the speech responding to the start of the war (see the comments section to Stephen Green's post on the speech here). Even if Saddam is still alive, what kind of demoralizing effect can that have on the ordinary Iraqi soldier? There you are, some underfed, underequiped conscript about to face the wrath of the mightiest military power ever in world history determined to stick it out while three-quarters of your colleagues run for the hills, and your beloved leader sends some tired-looking clone wearing Groucho Marx glasses to deliver a purely rhetorical riposte to the American bombing of your capital. If Saddam's dead or badly injured, you'd think they'd at least try to send a lookalike that actually resembled the person he's supposed to look like. It's not like they were lacking in variety here. According to MSNBC, he has at least three. Add to that, little niggling details such as the fact that the speech was obviously taped and not live and "Saddam" never actually specifically referred to tonight's bombing and suddenly the word "FAKE" comes through loud and clear. This definitely ain't chess, heck, this isn't even checkers; the Iraqi leadership seem to be playing at a Tic-Tac-Toe level of geopolitical strategy.
Posted by Barton @ 01:50 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, March 19, 2003 WAR RUMINATIONS: Tuned into CTV at 11:30 pm for local news only to find continuous Iraq crisis coverage.
Jonathan Gravnor in Vancouver reported that a thousand plus antiwar protestors have coverged on the tent city they had set up in front of the American consulate. When Lloyd asked if the protestors felt helpless and angry, Gravenor replied that no, they now felt "empowered." Their goal was they wanted make sure that "while George Bush might win the war, he isn't going to win the war in public opinion." I don't know about this empowerment business, since all the protestors looked like they were partying. Apparently, "everyone" in Vancouver is invited to walk out tomorrow during the lunch-hour to protest the war. Great, it's "General Strike" time!
Alan Fryer at the State Department said that with the exceptions of Great Britain, Australia, and Spain, America's allies were insignificent. "The list begins with Afghanistan and ends with Uzbekistan, which should give you some idea of the 'coalition of the willing.'" This sentence was delivered in the snidest possible tone of voice.
On the other hand, Tom Clark in Kuwait said that there were reports that two entire divisions of Iraqi troops had surrendered and that Basra might already have fallen into American hands.
Posted by Barton @ 11:58 PM EST [Link]
~ SQUISH SQUASH: My friend Jeremy Lott responds with his usual thoughfulness to my annoying demands that he lose the ambiguity and articulate some clear position on the Iraq war issue. With that and James Antle's recent defense of his own "war squishiness," I think I'll stop with the nagging.
Posted by Barton @ 09:54 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS IS WHAT CANADIAN FASCISM LOOKS LIKE (NOT): Attacking Rolston in two consecutive posts might seem unfair, but I can't let his hysterical characterization of my beloved Ontario Conservatives as having "crossed the line over into fascism" pass. As a card-carrying member of the Fascist Party (more on that fiasco later), my initial thoughtless reaction to the announcement that the provincial government would be disregarding the legislature and delivering the budget from a television studio was this: "This is so idiotic." After some time and thought had passed, I revised my judgement of the government's decision: "This is still idiotic." Michael Bliss has summed up the reaction of a lot of Conservative voters in a devastating editorial in Monday's National Post.
That said, does that sound even remotely like "fascism" to you? If it is, it must be a very peculier kind of "fascism," since we voters will get a chance to vote the fascists out this very year and replace them with either the Liberals or the NDP, an event which Rolston seems to characterize at the end of his post as "a resurgence of communism." Rolston also seems unfamiliar with the idea of a "good news budget," which this will surely be, since he writes that the Premier will be planning to "tell me how my taxes just went up, to support the unaccountable expenditures of The Leader." Taxes will not be going up; they will be going down because last year's tax cuts were differed to this year's budget or has Rolston forgotten this? Even the Conservatives know that raising taxes in good economic times and on the verge of an election is political suicide. Finally, Rolston writes that webcasting the budget is "Orwellian." Does this mean that the screen of Rolston's laptop computer starts watching him everytime he turns it on?
Posted by Barton @ 09:22 PM EST [Link]
~ CHEAP SHOT TIME: Alright, I'll readily admit that fellow University of Toronto-blogger Bruce Rolston (AKA "Flit") is a far better (and important) man than I. Rolston is the guy who makes sure that when you type in "www.utoronto.ca," you get a beautiful website, instead of an error message. I, on the other hand, am just one among 60 000 (!) undergraduate and graduate schmucks toiling away for a degree. Not only does he know more about military matters than I ever will, he's also a Canadian army reservist. So, you could say that I admire him. That said, this is the blogosphere and he is ripe for a touch of criticism. I just couldn't help but find this series of schizophrenic Rolston posts on the moral character of George W. Bush rather amusing:
Meanwhile, George "Weeks Not Months" Bush has decided to wait another week, meaning his silly press conference last week can now officially be considered devoid of all content. So much for a March war, then... how's everyone's April looking? The Star, meanwhile, in speculating why Bush has now not been seen in public since that conference, runs William Kristol's recent quote in Esquire on the influence of re-election planner Karl Rove on the president's thoughts: "Karl thinks X. Bush thinks X. Clearly, it's a very complicated relationship." Complicated? There's a lot of words for this kind of relationship. "Ventriloquism" comes to mind. So does "Richelieu." "Complicated," however, is not one I'd have chosen, personally.
Bruce Rolston, Thursday, March 13, 2003, 11:05 A.M
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
More on good ol' "President "Days-and-Weeks": "No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote... You bet. It's time for people to show their cards... read my lips..."
No, wait a sec, that last one was Dad...
UPDATE: In other news, no longer bothering to make much sense at all, Mr. Days-and-Weeks today praised the appointment of a Holocaust denier to share power with Arafat as a good step forward for the region. [Editor's note: Tony Blair's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, warmly welcomed the Holocaust denier as "a respected advocate of peace." In diplomacy, sometimes you just have to smile at the cards you're dealt.]
Bruce Rolston, Friday, March 14, 2003, 2:08 P.M.
...Oh, and nothing's going to happen (at least nothing we'll hear about) before 8 p.m. tonight. Bush is a man of his word, if nothing else. [my emphasis] This willingness to entertain the idea he's now going to cut that 48 hour deadline short after just making it is more a sign of blogger bloodthirstiness than any rational evaluation of the likelihood.
Bruce Rolston, Wednesday, March 19, 2003, 5:13 A.M.
Posted by Barton @ 08:50 PM EST [Link]
~ KATHY SHAIDLE KNOWS WHAT SHE LIKES- Here’s the text of an e-mail I just sent to Kathy Shaidle (AKA “Relasped Catholic”):
Dear Kathy,
A bemused protest in response to one of your posts. You write of your trip “across a bridge that's become so popular with suicides that the city is now encasing it with expensive, hideous jumper-proof wiring.” First of all, you might not know how serious the suicide problem at the Prince Edward Viaduct (made famous in Michael “The English Patient” Ondaatje’s high-school curriculum novel, "In the Skin of a Lion") really is. It is the second-most popular “suicide magnet” in North America, just trailing San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. My little sister’s high school’s library overlooks the bridge and they’re forced to keep the curtains closed there all the time for fear of what the students might see. As for the hideousness of the suicide barrier, well, I would wait until the thing was finished and turned on. The design of the barrier (which is called “The Luminous Veil”) won the 1999 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence (there’s a good picture in the link of what the finished barrier will look like) and will be one of the largest pieces of public art ever erected in North America. I am betting that it will look just beautiful as it illuminates the night. In this case, I would say that this was taxpayer money which was well-spent.
Yours Sincerely,
Barton Wong
Posted by Barton @ 08:12 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: Mark Kingwell, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and token liberal columnist (really token; he appears once every two weeks) at the National Post, is the closest thing that Canada has to an intellectual celebrity. Kingwell is probably best-known by our readers for the recent flagellation Mark Steyn delivered to him in the editorial pages of our esteemed national newspaper for this second-hand column espousing the superiority of us Canadians over you Americans. Recently, we at the University received the sad news that Professor Kingwell was trying to leave us by joining a bid for the presidency of the University of King's College in Halifax. Fortunately for us (if unfortunately for him) Kingwell failed. However, Kingwell's attempted escape prompted this retrospective of his, uh, colourful career as a famous public intellectual. Some literary studies undergrad by the name of Barton S. Wong (sic) remembers the reaction Kingwell prompted in his young female charges well:
Barton S. Wong, a literary studies undergrad noted “the propensity of females to gather around professor Kingwell, especially when he was noting special events at which he appeared. For example, when he gave out little bookmarks advertising his lecture at the OCAD a veritable mob of people mostly of the female persuasion seemed to storm the stage in eagerness to receive the precise information of where the lecture was being held.”
I also humbly suggested to the author some sources she could use and I'm glad to see that she made use of them. By the way, I can thank my professors in the literary studies program for the pretentiousness of my diction. I talk like that all the time now.
Posted by Barton @ 07:33 PM EST [Link]
~ WRONG AGAIN: I wrote last night that "up to fifteen percent of Iraqi forces positioned against any American attack from Turkey had already deserted." I'm sorry, I actually meant, "seventy-five percent." (Via Andrew Sullivan)
Posted by Barton @ 07:05 PM EST [Link]
~ MAYBE YOU COULD HAVE SAID THAT EARLIER: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today blamed Iraq for any way that erupts.
"My hope is that the Iraqi government will realize the seriousness of the situation in which it put itself in -- and us in," Mubarak said in a nationally televised address today. "And that the different international forces will realize the dangerous repercussions of any military action on the safety and stability of the Middle East region -- as well as on the safety and stability of the world as a whole."
For all those billions in annual aid you receive Mr. Mubarak, you might have said something earlier.
Posted by steve @ 06:44 PM EST [Link]
~ AMERICANS READY TO USE NEW BOMB: No, it's not that new MOAB. Rather, it's an "e-bomb".
"The highly classified bomb creates a brief pulse of microwaves powerful enough to fry computers, blind radar, silence radios, trigger crippling power outages and disable the electronic ignitions in vehicles and aircraft."
It really isn't that new. The Yanks did use them in limited numbers against the Serbs back in 1999 as part of the "liberation" of Kosovo.
Posted by steve @ 06:42 PM EST [Link]
~ UNPATRIOTIC CONSERVATIVES: David Frum lays the mother of all beat downs on conservatives who are against a war with Iraq.
"These conservatives are relatively few in number, but their ambitions are large. They aspire to reinvent conservative ideology: to junk the 50-year-old conservative commitment to defend American interests and values throughout the world — the commitment that inspired the founding of this magazine [National Review] — in favor of a fearful policy of ignoring threats and appeasing enemies."
That's about as kind as he gets.
Posted by steve @ 06:16 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY HAVE STARTED ALREADY
Iraqi Soldiers Defect on Kuwaiti Border
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Fox News
KUWAIT CITY — Seventeen Iraqis defected on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border Wednesday, turning themselves in to American troops as coalition forced prepared for an invasion of Iraq.
Capt. Darren Theriault of the headquarters company of the U.S. Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division told journalists accompanying his unit that the Iraqis had been turned over to Kuwaiti custody.
A Kuwaiti official who declined to be identified said only three or four Iraqi soldiers had defected and that they had turned themselves over to the Kuwaiti army.
A U.S. Defense official noted that the Iraqi soldiers who came over the line to give themselves up should properly be said to have defected, rather than "surrendered," because there was no state of war at the time.
cbPosted by clbloomer @ 05:16 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW TO RUIN YOUR CAREER IN 11 WORDS OR LESS.
Dixie Chicks Drop in the Charts
(CNSNews.com) - The Dixie Chicks' recent criticism of President George W. Bush ("We're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas") apparently has hit them where it hurts. Billboard magazine reports that the Dixie Chicks' "Travelin' Soldier," which was No. 1 two weeks ago, dropped 15 percent last week. Nearly all the decline came after Natalie Maines's made her comment before an audience in London, USA Today reported.
As Neal Boortz calls them, "The Ditzy Chicks".
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:49 PM EST [Link]
~ HANS BLIX IS SAD
Blix Expresses 'Sadness' at Interrupted Inspections
(CNSNews.com) - Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix expressed disappointment that the United Nations weapons inspection process has come to an abrupt end. Addressing the U.N. Security Council Wednesday, he said: "I naturally feel sadness that three and a half months of work carried out in Iraq have not brought the assurances needed about the absence of weapons of mass destruction or other proscribed items in Iraq; that no more time is available for our inspections; and that armed action now seems imminent. At the same time, I feel a sense of relief that it was possible to withdraw yesterday all the United Nations international staff... I note that the Iraqi authorities gave full cooperation to achieve this." He said his team worked diligently and "did not neglect any identified disarmament issues."
The prospects of being unemployed would make anybody sad. Maybe Steve can give Hans a few pointers.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:29 PM EST [Link]
~ "WHO NEEDS FRANCE?" continued some more.
After misguiding themselves over a cliff, France is trying to backpedal in order to minimize the damage it has caused. The story appears at CNS News.
The French feel they are being made scapegoats because they have opposed the war against Iraq. In actuality, they are responsible for their own actions and the consequences for those actions. When one takes a stupid position and holds tenaciously to that position, one is not a scapegoat, but simply stupid.
This part of the story confused me.
'Addressing the National Assembly on Tuesday, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin defended French-American relations. "It is not because we don't want to participate in this war that we are at war with the United States," he said.'France is "at war with the United States"? Did I miss something? No one in America believes that we are at war with the French. Besides, how does Rafferin's statement defend French-American relations?
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:19 PM EST [Link]
~ THE CAPITAL OF THE FREE WORLD HELD HOSTAGE -- by a single disgruntled farmer.
The local story of interest here around the nation's capital is the standoff between an unbalanced tobacco farmer and police that has entered its third day.
'Tobacco Farmer, Not Terrorist, Shuts Down Washington
(CNSNews.com) - Critics are wondering about homeland security, as the capital of the free world awakens to a traffic nightmare for a third day on Wednesday. An obscenity-spouting tobacco farmer from North Carolina continues to hold police and federal agents at bay. The man -- apparently mentally ill - drove a tractor into a pond near the Washington Monument Monday afternoon. He claims to have explosives -- ammonium nitrate -- and police immediately closed busy Constitution Avenue as well as several nearby buildings, just in case the man detonates the explosives he claims to have. Traffic in downtown Washington has been snarled since Monday afternoon, and many Washingtonians are grumbling about how long it's taking to subdue a rogue farmer on a tractor who wants the world to feel his pain. He says he's making a statement on behalf of other tobacco farmers. Rep Tom Davis (R-Va.) expressed concern that one man on a tractor could shut down a city that's supposedly well-trained to deal with terrorists threats.'
Give me 4 water cannons and I'll resolve this in less than 30 minutes. But then, I'm competent. The Park Police are good at closing off streets, misdirecting traffic, and ticketing litterbugs.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:36 AM EST [Link]
~ THE COPPERHEAD COALITION
Hugh Hewitt has a great piece at World Net Daily that clearly exposes the animosity of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. The little man from South Dakota is truly little.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:27 AM EST [Link]
~ "SO WHO NEEDS FRANCE?" continued.
The French Foreign Ministry says that they could help the US-led coalition against Iraq if chemical weapons are used. France's ambassador to the US also volunteered the help. According to FOX News
'Ambassador Jean-David Levitte also did not specify what kind of help France could offer, saying only, "We have equipment to fight in these circumstances."I guess it's good that the French are willing to sort of, maybe, kind of willing to help in some way, after their despicable performance on the UN Security Council. But if I were President Bush or SECDEF Rumsfeld, I'd say "Thanks, but no thanks. We can deal with this."
The French fear being left out of any position of influence and contracts to rebuild Iraq after Saddam is eliminated. Tough luck.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:16 AM EST [Link]
~ NO PRIVACY FOR SMART FAMILY: Again, I must ask if all this is really necessary? Isn't it accepted practice not to report on these details when dealing with minors and victims of sexual assault? Or do we throw that out the window when it is a sensational national news story?
I fully understand that some details are going to leak out on the basis of what charges are filed against the kidnappers and the case that is laid out against them when they go to trial. But out of concern for Elizabeth Smart and her family, I would have hoped that there would have been more of an effort on the part of the press - and the prosecutors - to try to be a little quieter about all this. There is such a thing as privacy. I'd fault the media less if it wasn't readily apparent to me that they've been trying to get the gory details from day one.
Posted by antle @ 08:41 AM EST [Link]
~ I'll PICK DOOR NUMBER TWO: Well, it seems Saddam has decided to pick option two (AKA "the stupid option") of staying put and going down in a blaze of glory from Monday's list of five possible scenarios, which proves that I'm not getting appointed to the Bush administration any time soon (I was betting on abdication). The invaluable John Keegan writes in the Daily Telegraph on why exile is impossible for Saddam and speculates at the end that if Saddam (as it looks likely now) stays defiantly in Baghdad, "The interesting question is whether it will all end, as it did for another tyrant in 1945, with a lonely pistol shot."
Oh, what happened on campus today? Absolutely nothing. Everyone seemed resigned to the war and the inevitability of American victory, whether they liked it or not. There's a walkout planned for three tomorrow with a march to the American consulate at five, but I don't think President Bush is quaking in fear at that prospect. The only explicit mention roday of the impending war came when one of my literary studies professor said it was so timely that we were just beginning the study of Christa Wolf's Iliad-inspired novella Cassandra at this very historical moment, but that was more of a "See! Studying literature is relevent!" moment then anything else. I declared at the lunch table today that the war was over even before it had begun, citing this report of Iraqi soldiers trying desperately to surrender to the British in Kuwait even before a shot has been fired and another report (which I read on some blog yesterday, but I can't find right now) saying that up to fifteen percent of Iraqi forces positioned against any American attack from Turkey had already deserted. Those two examples got big laughs.
Posted by Barton @ 02:58 AM EST [Link]
~ HOLLYWOOD COMES THROUGH: A few weeks back there was talk of the organizers of this Sunday's Oscars attempting to arrange things so that the possibly four-hour plus ceremony would not turn into one long anti-war, Bush hatefest. Cries of "McCarthyism," "blacklisting," and "censorship" have predictably followed. Well, freedom of speech fans, fear no more:
On Sunday night, the Academy Awards will allow all winners to make a political speech -- if they choose to do so -- of between 45 seconds and one minute in length.
"As long as it's in good taste, we're happy to let these citizens speak their minds. Obviously our government doesn't care about what they say, or else we wouldn't be going to war," says a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in New York. (snip)
"I'm sure the Bush people and right-wingers like Limbaugh will make a big deal about this, and will probably try to make money off of this, but we're citizens too," says the screenwriter. "We have a right to say what we believe and we have a forum to make a difference. Other Americans aren't so lucky, so we won't waste it."
Ah, a glorious victory for free expression, you say. But read on:
Further to ensuring an all-anti-war, all-the-time event, Oscar producers and parent ABC are said by insiders to be devising a seating chart that would prevent "pro-war" celebrities from gaining a forum. Hawkish celebrities like Bruce Willis, James Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others are not scheduled to serve as presenters.
Meanwhile, Academy producers have made of point of inviting chronic protester Susan Sarandon to serve as a presenter.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Hollywood.
Posted by Barton @ 02:17 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE FIGHT (INDECISION) - A SQUISH'S MANIFESTO: Barton raises some interesting questions about those of us who found it difficult to arrive at a position for or against war with Iraq. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I thought I would offer a bit of an explanation.
My squishiness stems from my general outlook on national defense. I favor a military that is strong and well-funded but used sparingly. I believe in using force overwhelmingly, but only in cases where the United States' (or in some cases, an ally's) security or some vital national interest is clearly and directly threatened. To put in terms of the internal conservative debates over these issues, this puts me in between the paleocons/paleolibertarians who would use force rarely if ever and the neocons who beleive that most if not all of the world's major problems can be solved by the aggressive projection of American power.
Thus, I would find a preemptive war against another country to be justified if there is we have evidence of an imminent threat to the United States. This would include evidence that such a country is plotting an attack against us or is conspiring with those who would commit terrorist acts against us or some other direct threat to be carried out in the future that a preemptive strike may be able to avert. In the case of Iraq, we found ourselves in a more ambiguous position. Here we have a country that is hostile toward the United States that posesses weapons of mass destruction and may be working toward acquiring nuclear capabilities. This is undeniably a bad thing and it does raise valid concerns that this country may use such weapons to threaten the U.S. or some other country in the region. But it falls short of any specific imminent threat.
Pre-9/11, that would have been enough for me to oppose war with Iraq outright. In any event, I still wrestled with it for some time. But I could not help but wonder if in today's world, where international terrorism threatens and has taken American lives, my criteria for a preemptive war no longer offered us an adequate guarantee of security. If we want to avoid gaping holes in downtown New York City, or even the obliteration of an entire city, maybe something more aggressive might be in order. After all, if it is plausible to assume that Iraq would use WMD against Americans, why risk a mushroom cloud over one of our cities before we act against the threat? Throw in all the legitmate concerns about the precedents we'd be setting and the fact that both the sensible hawks and the sensible doves raised plausible risks of inaction and action, respectively, and that is why I became a squish.
Having said all that, now that the decision has been made I fully support President Bush and our troops. It probably is good that indecisive commentators aren't running America's foreign policy. I fervently hope for the swiftest and most overwhelming American victory possible. And I think that may well be what we get.
Posted by antle @ 12:20 AM EST [Link]
~ IN THE GOOD BOOKS: TRAVIS TRITT: Country singer Travis Tritt says no matter what side your on, a war with Iraq will happen and it's time to get behind both the soldiers and Dubya.
"The bottom line is ... what's going to happen is going to happen. To be a good American — regardless of which side you're on — you have to get behind President Bush. More important, you have to get behind the troops," he said.
He also has some harsh words for the Dixie Chicks and how they can make amends for a recent overseas comment denigrating Bush.
Posted by steve @ 12:06 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 THE HUMAN SHREDDING MACHINE: Everyone has linked to this article that appeared in The Times today so I'm doing so as well in case you hadn't seen it. Think we can negotiate with Saddam Hussein and his maniac murdering sons? Ann Clywd doesn't agree.
"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders."
Perhaps the UN Security Council can persuade them to be nicer...
Posted by steve @ 11:56 PM EST [Link]
~ FIRST SHOTS FIRED IN IRAQI WAR: (Via Brothers Judd Blog) At least one Iraqi has been killed in a skirmish off the waters of Kuwait.
"The first clash occurred in the mouth of the Khawr al-Zubayr river, a few miles south of the port of Umm Qasr, when a Kuwaiti gunboat challenged a flotilla of about 25 Iraqi dhows. The boats failed to respond and the Kuwaitis opened fire. It was unclear whether the dhows had laid any mines."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:35 PM EST [Link]
~ THE ONLY GOOD BUG IS A DEAD BUG: I'm jazzed baby! I just won a Starship Troopers DVD on eBay. Back in early January I described the movie as one of my favourites (not the least of which because Dina Meyer is in it) and I despaired somewhat that people missed its point. It was delicious camp and absolutely anti-fascist. Did I mention Dina Meyer was in it?
Posted by steve @ 07:36 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS PAYS ME TO READ THE NATIONAL POST MORE OFTEN: Because I missed a great Mark Steyn column on Donald Rumsfeld on Monday. If you haven't seen it, find it here.
"Other politicians sweat for weeks over a major 90-minute policy speech, hire the best writers, craft memorable phrases, and nobody notices. If you want to 're-shape the debate,' as the cliché has it, all you need is a casual aside from Rummy. The concept of 'old Europe' barely existed until Rumsfeld used it as a throwaway line a month-and-a-half ago. Within a week, it became the dominant regional paradigm. Belgium -- Old Europe. Bulgaria -- New Europe. The entire map of the continent suddenly fell into place for the first time since the Cold War. Even those who indignantly huffed about this unacceptable insult seemed unable to do so without confirming the truth of it: There was M. Chirac telling New Europe they'd missed a perfect opportunity to shut up. Instead, emboldened by Rummy, New Europe let rip."
Posted by steve @ 06:57 PM EST [Link]
~ PEACE AND FREEDOM ARE NOT FREE: Nicholas Stix has a good Toogood Reports article on the price of peace.
Posted by antle @ 06:39 PM EST [Link]
~ SO WHO NEEDS FRANCE?: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced today that 30 nations are behind the U.S. on Iraq with several outside of Britain contributing personnel.
"Most of the nations named by Powell would not have a combat role, but have allowed the United States to base troops on their soil and to let U.S. planes overfly their territory. Others have offered expertise in dealing with possible chemical weapons attacks."
Hello, M. Chirac? What was that about unilateral actions?
Posted by steve @ 03:57 PM EST [Link]
~ ARE THESE PEOPLE AS STUPID AS BASEBALL TEAM OWNERS?: NFL owners are considering a plan to expand the playoffs next season.
"The playoffs would increase from six teams to seven per conference if the plan is approved next week, the newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources. The current playoff format has been in place since 1990."
I'm actually in favour of reducing the scope of the playoffs, and I love football. To show how smart these morons are, they're also opposed to changing overtime rules to give each team a possession.
I always thought the owners of Major League baseball teams were absolute idiots (with NHL owners -- Mike Illich excepted -- a close second) but it turns out that NFL owners are capable of dumbness as well.
Posted by steve @ 01:20 PM EST [Link]
~ AMERICANS ALSO SUPPORT DUBYA: Poll numbers released today by the Washington Post show that a large majority of Americans support Bush and his handling of the Iraq crisis. Not surprisingly, 75 per cent are none too pleased with the United Nations.
"Not in Our Name" apparently doesn't include much of the American population.
Posted by steve @ 01:00 PM EST [Link]
~ IRONY OVERLOAD INDEED: Glenn Reynolds cuts up Janet Reno good:
"JANET RENO SAYS that you don't deal with a crazed, weapon-accumulating, charismatic leader by sending in tanks."
Read his response here.
Posted by steve @ 12:55 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQI SOLDIERS SHOWING GREAT DEAL OF "CONSTERNATION": About an impending war. Intercepts of Iraqi military communications show that regular and Republican Guard soldiers aren't too eager to fight a U.S. led invasion.
I don't blame them. First, I suspect a number of them heard Bush's speech last night and believe that allied forces will allow them to surrender. Second, doubtless a large number of the current Iraqi army either have older brothers or remember personally the 1991 Persian Gulf War with an allied force that literally ran over Iraqi military units. Finally, it's no secret in Iraq that America's crushing victory in supposedly invasion-proof Afghanistan shows that the allied force's military might is far more powerful than anything Iraq could muster. It's suicide to fight.
There's a scene in John Wayne's The Alamo which has always stuck with me. It's just after the Mexicans' first assault against the mission. Showing an utter lack of respect for the Texicans and Col. Crockett's men, the Mexicans attack on one side of the mission and employ no flanking attacks. Predictably, they are slaughtered by the hundreds before withdrawing. After the requisite cheering by the Texicans, they reflect on what just happened.
"Sure killed many a brave men today," one says, staring at the carnage just outside of the walls.
"Funny, I was proud of them, even while I was killing them, I was proud of them," responds another. "Speaks well for men that so many ain't afraid to die because they think right is on their side. Speaks well."
It is honourable, as the men say, to fight and die for something you truly believe in, something you think is worth dying for. It's said that men don't fight for their nations or their leaders, they fight for their wives and children. That's worth fighting for. The men of the Iraqi army? They know they fight for Saddam Hussein. As George W. Bush said last night:
"It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed. I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life."
If Iraqi units surrender on masse, let us not mock them. Let's remember that these men made a choice: returning home to their families or dying for a brutal dictator. Which one would you do? They would not be acting dishonourably. Fighting for hearth and home is honourable, fighting to perpetuate the tyranny of a man who so willingly slaughters your brothers and sisters is not.
Posted by steve @ 12:45 PM EST [Link]
~ WHO'S POPULAR IN BRITAIN?: None other than George W. Bush. The Guardian reported yesterday that Dubya is supported by 53 per cent of Britons. And the numbers aren't too bad for Tony Blair either. Finally, support for a war is growing rapidly.
"Public opinion has shifted dramatically towards military action against Iraq, with the anti-war lead in the Guardian/ICM opinion poll narrowing from 23 to only six points in the past month."
You can get all the data here. (PDF format)
Posted by steve @ 11:39 AM EST [Link]
Monday, March 17, 2003 TO STEP ON OR EAT?: Talking about people who are unable to decide (see below), I was watching NBC's coverage of the Bush speech (yeah I know, I should have been watching a Canadian network) and after Tim Russert's analysis and Barry McCaffrey's invasion predictions, they immediately switched back to regularly-scheduled programming, which turned out to be Fear Factor. I stuck around long enough to see the contestants being offered a choice between eating broken shards of glass or stepping on them. Suddenly, the reasons why some people hate American popular culture so much became a lot clearer to me.
Posted by Barton @ 09:38 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH'S SPEECH: No, it definitely was not "perfect" as Ramesh Ponnuru insists nor was it "magnificent" as a salivating Rod Dreher seems to think. Glenn Reynolds hits it on the head in his assessment: "one of Bush's better performances...entirely adequate to the occasion." Bush had that annoying "deer in the headlights" gaze of his, as if he was startled to see a camera in front of him the whole time. But what was clear was that unless Saddam and the boys clear out within 48 hours, it's war. Bush was sending the message loud and clear, to France, to Russia, to Kofi Annan, to Saddam, and to the antiwar protestors: I ain't gonna back down. I can foresee five scenarios now:
1. Saddam and family flee within the proscribed time to Libya or some country like that, leaving Tariq Aziz or some other hapless flunky to "negotiate" terms for an Allied occupation (this is what I'm betting on).
2. Saddam stays put and decides to go down in a blaze of glory.
3. Saddam stays put and decides to go down in a blaze of glory and orders an immediate attack of US forces in Kuwait and Turkey (along with possibly Israel) with everything he has, including any chemical and biological weapons he might have hiding, deciding that the best defense is a good offense. This scenario would more than justify any war, but it is by far the most bloody, which is why I'm scared he might just be crazy enough to gamble on it.
4. Saddam tries an "Iranian Hostage Crisis II" scenario, by not allowing UN weapons inspectors or any foreign nationals to leave the country and forcing them to act as involuntary human shields for key strategic installations and/or threatening to hurt them if the Allies begin bombing. I tell you, if I were Saddam, I'd actually try this.
5. A wave of terrorist attacks is launched against US military bases, installations, embassies, and citizens throughout the Arab world and possibly, Europe and the United States itself (this could happen in conjunction with the above four).
I cannot wait to get back to the university tomorrow, since the last time I heard, the campus peaceniks (who are actually really nice and polite about it) were planning a mass walkout and teach-ins as soon as war was announced. This should be interesting.
And one more thing. Bush's deadline of 48 hours finally forces self-described "squishes" such as my friend Jeremy Lott to decide if they're for or against this war (c'mon guys, you've had over a year now to decide). I've had a number of respectful, non-screaming match-style debates with antiwar folks down at the campus, most of whom might be misguided, but they're smart people for the most part and their positions are well-argued and intellectually sound, if unrealistic in our present geopolitical climate. It's the Hamlet-types who seem to want to have it both ways, who want to square the circle or try to act above it all that I can't stand. To use a pseudo-Hegelian analogy ("pseudo" because it never actually appears in Hegel's work) war squishes act as if the pro-war types are the "thesis," anti-war types are the "antithesis," and they are the optimal and all-encompassing "synthesis." As David Brooks says, we should be glad most of the commentariat are not in charge of the United States for they seem to suffer from a perpetual "certainty crisis." C'mon squishes, make a choice. If you decide to attend a candlelight vigil in front of the nearest US consulate while singing "Give Peace A Chance," (notice that I was helpful enough to provide the lyrics) as they did last night here in Toronto, then go right ahead, I'm not going to stop you. If you decide that you can't wait for the bombs to start dropping, then welcome to the club. Get off the fence and take a stand for once in your foggy, ambivalent existence!
Posted by Barton @ 09:26 PM EST [Link]
~ MAY THEY HAVE NOT SUFFERED AT ALL: Jeffrey Kluger over at Time reports on what likely happened during the final minutes of the lives of the Shuttle Columbia pilots. The latest timeline? The shuttle had been in a death spiral for 20 seconds before breaking up meaning everyone onboard knew...well, you know.
Posted by steve @ 06:48 PM EST [Link]
~ YEAH? BUSH ONLY CHOKED ON A PRETZEL, NOT WHEN IT CAME TO A DEFINING MOMENT IN MODERN HISTORY: "A French Web site is urging people to send pretzels to U.S. President George W. Bush, who fainted and fell off a sofa in January 2002 after gagging on the salty snack."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:39 PM EST [Link]
~ MY FAVOURITE HOLLYWOOD LIBERAL: There's no doubt about it, actor James Woods is a liberal. What I admire about him though, is his commitment to honour and truth. Alone of Hollywood liberals (and most conservatives for that matter), Woods excoriated Bill Clinton not only for what he did in the White House, but that he had turned a young woman's name into a joke. Who else expressed concern over the reputation of a woman during that whole embroglio?
Woods also gets the war on terrorism. He was on a plane with several of the September 11 hijackers weeks before the attacks. He saw the eyes of the men who killed his countrymen. He understands why America is at war and why Bush is doing what he is.
And now he stands up to the plate to defend one of the heroes of September 11, former NY Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
"The actor, concerned that a 'lunatic liberal' Hollywood would vilify Giuliani or present him as overly conservative, says he insisted on approving the script for 'Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story,' before agreeing to play the part."
Later on in the same story:
"Woods says he agrees with every action Giuliani took as mayor, citing Giuliani's public scorning in 1999 of 'The Holy Virgin Mary,' a portrait of the religious figure decorated with a daub of elephant dung, at Brooklyn Museum of Art."
'"He, as a Catholic, was genuinely and rightfully offended that someone should have a sacred icon of his religion created out of excrement,' Woods said. 'Can you imagine the reaction in this town if the artist had created a Star of David out of excrement?'"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:36 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO II: I have a piece today on the media's treatment of black Republicans in the Washington Dispatch.
Posted by antle @ 05:19 PM EST [Link]
~ NOSY PRESS: I am alone in thinking that we don't need to publicly go into the details of what happened to Elizabeth Smart over the last nine months? I don't see how it helps her or why it's any of our business.
Posted by antle @ 04:57 PM EST [Link]
~ GUESS G-TIME: That is, go-time. Dubya is addressing the American people tonight. Tony Blair has asked Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to be in Buckingham Palace this week. Robin Cook has resigned. Kofi Annan has ordered all UN personnel out of Iraq.
Record your guesses for the actual start of the war here! My guess is Wednesday, 3:00am EST.
Posted by steve @ 03:28 PM EST [Link]
~ CONTROL ISSUES: A reminder of my former life came in the mail today. A few weeks ago I ordered the URC 8910. It's not a new piece of ordinance that the U.S. military is testing, but rather the mother of all remote controls.
With the addition of the DVD player I had five remote controls to control the home theatre, a bit of a pain in the rear. So I ordered the URC 8910, a nearly foot long, heavy remote that could probably brain you if I swung it hard enough. It's complicated enough to merit its own LCD screen...
I suppose I have plenty of time to learn how to use it now.
Posted by steve @ 02:43 PM EST [Link]
~ JOSEPH COORS, R.I.P.: Joseph Coors, heir of the Coors family brewing fortune, is dead today at the age of 85. Best known for the beer that bears his family name, he was actually a major financial supporter of the American conservative movement.
Coors was a financial backer and advisor to Ronald Reagan from the California governor's mansion to the White House. He helped also create the Heritage Foundation, which has since become a major fixture not just on the right but in the nation's policy battles. His dedication to our values and patriotism will be missed.
And while there are many better flavors of beers, you do have to admit that a few cold Coors Lights go down nicely on a hot day or at a ballgame.
Posted by antle @ 09:12 AM EST [Link]
~ WE'D BE LOVED AND FEARED IF ONLY DEMOCRATS WERE RUNNING THE WAR: Fellow Iraq war fence-sitter Jeremy Lott has a great column in The American Prowler on liberals who would be in favor of regime change in Baghdad if only their own party was in charge.
Sort of like all those who were hawkish on Iraq when Bill Clinton was in power, but now are either doves or want to wait for extended periods of time for U.N. approval now that George W. Bush is president - including some of the most senior members of the Clinton administration.
Posted by antle @ 01:12 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have weighed in on the whole debate over Ether Zone's decision to replace Bush-Cheney with a ticket headed by Reps. Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. Whatever the ticket, I argue that it is best for conservatives to work within the Republican Party.
Posted by antle @ 12:59 AM EST [Link]
~ PC WATCH: New blog recently opened up for business documentating political correctness. Run on over to PC Watch and learn about deaf people angry at TV show Survivor, U.S. Navy commanders worried about offensive tatoos and beer schools in Australia.
Posted by steve @ 12:54 AM EST [Link]
~ YOU ARE A LITTLE GIRL: (Heads up from regular Musings reader Cody) An absolutely hilarious MP3 of an Iraqi immigrant to the United States arguing with an American peace activist on KVI, illustrating just how stupid some antiwar activists really are. So worth a listen.
Posted by steve @ 12:49 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, March 16, 2003 YOU GOT JOE ANGRY. THAT'S NEVER WISE: I have a good friend Joe, the Croation Abbot to my Serbian Costello, who just emailed me breathing smoke and fire. He just heard a woman on CBC Radio opine that war is all organized murder. Now I can't post the email because the software would kick in and block the numerous curses that were included but he did make a good point:
"Saddam hasn't done anything in ten years? Neither has Charles Manson. In about 4 years [Canadian rapist and murderer] Paul Bernardo will have done nothing in 10 years. Let's get him out of jail too."
Joe also pointed out that her comment would paint any Allied veteran of the First and Second World Wars murderers.
"The brave are always the first to die, and the gutless sit back, wait till it's over and call them murderers?"
Well said.
Posted by steve @ 04:20 PM EST [Link]
~ MOVING INTO UNCHARTERED TERRITORY ON IRAQ: This Washington Post story does a good job at presenting the various viewpoints on a war with Iraq that is not explicitly sanctioned by the U.N. President Bush's course of action here is the biggest roll of the dice voluntarily taken by a president in recent memory.
The moment of truth is fast approaching. It is during these times that people would do well to remember the high stakes that leaders have to deal with.
Posted by antle @ 04:08 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S SAD BUT WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?: A 23-year old American was killed today in Gaza protesting Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes. Rachel Corrie wasn't killed by a bullet or bomb, she was killed by a bulldozer.
I feel for the Corrie family but anyone who engages in these types of protest should expect to be killed and should be thankful when they aren't. What do you expect when you stand in front of a bulldozer? That occasional accidents don't happen? That you can take a risk to make a political point and never have to pay a price? When you engage in dangerous protest you shouldn't be surprised the day when your number is called.
[Update - 4:00pm] Ms. Corrie has a bit of a history in the Middle East. Here is a picture (pop-up, 24K) of her burning an American flag. I love the look of hatred on her face. That's the face of anti-war activists.
Posted by steve @ 03:55 PM EST [Link]
~ M. CHIRAC: YOU ARE 4 1/2 MONTHS TOO LATE: French President Jacques Chirac stated earlier today that he would be willing to support a 30-day deadline for Iraq to disarm providing it was endorsed by Hans Blix.
"One month, two months, I am ready to accept any accord on this point that has the approval of the inspectors," Chirac said in an interview broadcast on CNN
M. Chirac's latest attempt to protect France's dealings with Iraq and access to oil are meaningless. To quote U.S. President George W. Bush in the Azores this afternoon: "Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world."
Posted by steve @ 02:51 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, March 15, 2003 WHY PEOPLE THINK ART IS A WASTE OF TIME: Allison Moore is excited by the fact that her painting is provoking fierce criticism. What does the painting depict? George W. Bush wearing a cowboy hat, with the twin towers extending from his unzipped pants.
Of course, it's all happening at Concordia, the centre of Canadian anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:53 PM EST [Link]
~ SOME PEOPLE LIKE BOTH ALEC BALDWIN AND THE DIXIE CHICKS: Me, I could care less for either. Tabloid Column takes aim at both of them.
Posted by steve @ 05:40 AM EST [Link]
Friday, March 14, 2003 A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, BUT NOT FAR ENOUGH
Moran Resigns House Democratic Leadership Post
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) stepped down on Friday as Democratic regional whip in the U.S. House as a result of the furor over remarks he made that seemed to blame America's Jewish community for the looming war with Iraq. The resignation came at the request of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who said Moran's comments made last week with anti-war activists "were not only inappropriate, they were offensive and have no place in the Democratic Party." While leaders from the Jewish community and fellow Democrats called on Moran not to run for re-election in 2004, conservatives criticized a perceived double standard regarding the Democratic leadership's response to Moran's remarks and those made by then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) last year.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:42 PM EST [Link]
~ GOOD DAY: That's it for blogging from me today. My newly unemployed self is going to slack off for the rest of the day and have an exceptionally good time tonight. I'll drink so much that any children I father will be born with gills. Relax, it's a joke I'm paraphrasing from a movie I watched.
Posted by steve @ 02:34 PM EST [Link]
~ FORGET THE U.N., EUROPE IS OVER: Says Mark Steyn. France "frenchified" Europe and now the place is going to hell. The solution? Attempt to "frenchify" the world.
"Best case scenario: The EU winds up as Vienna with Swedish tax rates. Don't get me wrong, I love Vienna. I especially like the way you can stroll down their streets and never hear any ghastly rockers and rappers caterwauling. In the record stores, the pop category's a couple of bins at the back and there's two floors of operetta. All very pleasant, though not if you're into surfing the cutting edge of the Zeitgeist. I quite like Stockholm, too -- well, I like the babes. But they're gonna be a lot wrinklier by 2050, and Sweden's already got a lower standard of living than Mississippi. Its 60% overall tax rate is likely to be the base in the Europe of 2020 and fondly recalled as the good old days by mid-century.
"Worst case scenario: Sharia, circa 2070."
I like the babes in Sweden as well.
Posted by steve @ 02:32 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S ALL OVER FOR THE U.N.: Says Janet Daley. If only.
"The UN has been revealed to be not a talking shop, as its dismissive critics have always claimed, but a diplomatic souk in which bribery, vanity and manipulation are the currencies. Can anyone claim to have been edified by the pantomime of the past few days, with the foreign ministers of the great nations flying around Africa with metaphorical suitcases full of money to 'persuade' tinpot dictators to support their position in the Security Council? The French and the British, whose political cultures gave the world modern democracy, are now vying for the favour of Guinea, whose corrupt, totalitarian government is conducting an auction of promised favours."
Posted by steve @ 02:27 PM EST [Link]
~ "ALLEGED" GUN BIAS: Speaker of the House for Canada's Parliament Peter Milliken is facing charges of bias after writing a gun control critic (who happens to be a police officer) in 1998 and calling him "pig-headed" and "half-brained." Milliken also stated that he's in favour of a total gun ban.
Why is this important?
"Mr. Milliken has increasingly been asked to resolve conflicts over the Liberal government's handling of the controversial gun registry. In recent weeks, he has sided with Cabinet in his rulings, and is to deliver two more related rulings as early as next week."
Wow, shocking, a Liberal MP in favour of gun control. And let us not forget that back in the late 1990s then Justice Minister Anne McLellan publicly stated she believed only the military and the police should be possession of firearms so it's not like Milliken is the first Liberal to say these sorts of things. Thanks to the Liberal government, not even the military has firearms.
Posted by steve @ 02:26 PM EST [Link]
~ UMMM LADIES, COUNTRY FANS TEND TO BE CONSERVATIVES: The Dixie Chicks are in a little hot water over remarks they made about George W. Bush in London.
"Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas," said Natalie Maines.
The band and Maines have released a half-assed apology in response to a flood of angry phone calls from fans.
What is about celebrities that they can only make critical remarks when they are overseas?
Posted by steve @ 01:13 PM EST [Link]
~ COULD LIFE GET WORSE?: I was just laid off two minutes ago effective Monday for an indeterminate period of time.
Sounds like I have an added reason to drink tonight. Of course, since I'm now a member of the newly poor, I can't even afford to get savagely drunk. Or pay my credit card bill. Or ESR's bills. Or much of anything. Ah, life is good.
Posted by steve @ 11:20 AM EST [Link]
~ BIGGER THAN EVER: Residents of La Habra have rebuilt the September 11 memorial trashed by "peace activists" recently, bigger and better than before.
"Supporters - including parents, schoolchildren and war veterans from across Orange County and from as far away as Pasadena and Riverside - adorned the chain-link fence memorial with more than 200 new flags, replacing the 87 flags burned and ripped up by vandals over the weekend."
Of course, one of the people who originally trashed the memorial showed up to berate the people who helped rebuild it.
"[Jennifer] Quintana, who identified herself as a Fullerton College student, argued over the memorial with a crowd of about 25 people when she showed up at the site.
"'It's an American flag, obviously it has everything to do with the war,' she told the crowd. 'There should be no war, just peace and togetherness.'"
The peace activist later grabbed the woman who originally built the memorial and was arrested for suspicion of misdemeanor assault. Lucky for Quintana I neither live in Orange County and that she's a woman.
Posted by steve @ 09:22 AM EST [Link]
~ COLORADO TO LOOSEN GUN LAWS
Two pieces of legislation to loosen gun restrictions in Colorado will soon be presented to the governor for signature. One is a "shall issue" law that requires sheriffs to issue concealed carry permits to qualified citizens, the other preempts local laws. Both are good news for gun owners.
Not surprisingly, opponents are still using nonsense arguments to oppose the new laws. For example: '"This will mean more guns on the streets, and more guns on the streets mean more gun violence," said Cynthia Stone of the anti-gun coalition Colorado Ceasefire.' Opponents believe that if they say it enough times, it will become truth.
The story is in the Denver Post.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:09 AM EST [Link]
~ I HAVE TO GET RID OF THIS DVD PLAYER: It turns out it's been the worst thing for my productivity since I discovered Crown Royal. Instead of churning out pieces like I usually do, I lay in bed like a slack-jawed yokel and watch movies all week.
This week it was Goodfellas (a masterpiece and even better on DVD), Party Girl (I am in love with Parker Posey and I make no apologies for that), Insomnia (Interesting, I'd like to see the Norwegian version), and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (how could Guy Ritchie make this movie and Snatch and then remake Swept Away?).
Last night I wanted to write a piece on Canadian judicial activism but Insomnia and the DVD extras took up the whole night. I may write it before I go out clubbing tonight but something makes me think Road to Perdition is on the menu instead.
Posted by steve @ 08:56 AM EST [Link]
~ THE AMBLER RETURNS: Shockingly, Kevin Michael Grace only drank once this week after being fired by the Citizens Centre Report but he has a good line about drinking: "The pain of being a man would be intolerable without drink."
All you editors out there reading this: KMG is a fantastic writer and I urge you to contact him if you need some freelance assignments.
"I am a clever, versatile and facile writer (as an examination of this site will prove) and a talented editor. Let every employer know, whether he or she wishes me well or ill, that I shall swot any subject, bear any burden, meet any deadline, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of me. This much I pledge—and more."
Posted by steve @ 08:46 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, March 13, 2003 FRENCH WORRIED ABOUT ECONOMIC BACKLASH, AMERICANS STILL DRINKING FRENCH WINE: Because of French opposition to any war in Iraq, French companies are worried that Americans are going to stop buying their products. It's even moved Sofitel hotels to remove a French flag from the Sofitel Hotel in downtown Manhattan and replace it with the Stars and Bars.
"Sofitel spokesman Paul Charoy said the company last week decided to remove the French flags in front of all eight of its hotels in the United States as a 'precautionary' measure and replaced them with a combination of the American flag and city and state flags."
I would like my American brothers and sisters to know that I too am participating in a boycott of French goods. No more French women for me until France renounces its stupidity.
Posted by steve @ 07:39 PM EST [Link]
~ COOL SCIENCE STORY OF THE DAY: "Three early humans, fleeing down the steep slopes of an erupting volcano in southern Italy more than 325,000 years ago, left a record of their flight in the mountain's volcanic ash, and now modern scientists have traced their path for the first time.
"The Stone Age-era tracks mark the oldest human footprints ever found, the scientists say, although fossilized prints of far earlier ancestors -- dating back more than 3 million years in the long hominid lineage -- were found in Tanzania by the famed Richard and Mary Leakey in 1977."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:25 PM EST [Link]
~ PIPES ON DUBYA ON ISRAEL: Daniel Pipes explores Dubya's apparent indecision over the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
"Consistency and predictability are core strengths of George W. Bush as a politician. Be the issue domestic (taxes, education) or foreign (terrorism, Iraq), once he settles on a policy he sticks with it. There is no ambiguity, no guessing what his real position might be, no despair at interpreting contradictions. Even his detractors never complain about 'Tricky George' or 'Slick Bush.'
"But there is one exception to this pattern. And -- couldn't you have predicted it? -- the topic is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Here, Bush not only seems unable to make up his mind but he oscillates between two quite contrary views."
Posted by steve @ 01:55 PM EST [Link]
~ AH, WE FIGURED THIS OUT LAST WEEK: Jack Shafer comes very late to the party to explain why U.S. President George W. Bush didn't call on Helen Thomas during his press conference last week.
"Bush ignored Helen Thomas because she is no longer the Helen Thomas of yesteryear, a deadline artist writing news for tens of millions of UPI readers. She left the waning wire in silent protest, after convicted felon Rev. Sun Myung Moon's News World Communications rescued it from collapse in 2000, and took a job at the Hearst News Service. There, Helen Thomas the Pundit writes a sharply partisan syndicated White House column about what she thinks—as opposed to Helen Thomas the Reporter, who wrote about what she'd learned."
While I didn't point out Thomas' long absence from actual reporting in my blog entry the day after the press conference, it's hardly a secret that Thomas is no longer a journalist. To think, I could have wrote something up that note and sold it to Slate for a song. Note to self, no more procrastination.
Posted by steve @ 01:39 PM EST [Link]
~ UNLEASH THE DOGS OF CRITICISM: The British government has given its ministers full reign to criticize France in retaliation for its threat to veto the proposed UN resolution on Iraq.
"At prime minister's question time, Mr Blair, whose aides have repeatedly ducked invitations to condemn French conduct, allowed himself a show of irritation with the French president, Jacques Chirac, when he said he was working 'flat out' to achieve a UN solution 'on the basis of a compromise'.
That goal was 'complicated when one nation is saying that, whatever the circumstances, it will veto a second resolution' - a clear dig at Mr Chirac's TV appearance on Monday night."
Posted by steve @ 01:18 PM EST [Link]
~ HONEST! ISRAEL AND THE JEWS DON'T CONTROL AMERICA!: I really wish Colin Powell hadn't even answered the charges that Israel and Jews are engineering America's standoff with Iraq.
"'It is driven by our own national interest,' Powell said under questioning by the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Arizona, who said he wanted to clear up media suggestions that American supporters of Israel -- and Israel itself -- were driving U.S. strategy."
All it does is prompt clowns to believe that if someone of Powell's stature is denying the suggestions then it must be true.
Posted by steve @ 01:15 PM EST [Link]
~ 9/11 MEMORIAL TRASHING UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds links to a couple of stories updating the story of antiwar activists trashing a September 11 memorial.
Posted by steve @ 01:12 PM EST [Link]
~ NOTES FROM A WEEK OF FALSE PEACE: Good little entry today from James Lileks on explaining "freedom fries" to a Frenchman, protestors and the UN Security Council.
Posted by steve @ 10:35 AM EST [Link]
~ STOP TRYING TO APPEASE THE APPEASERS
'France Rejects British Proposals
(CNSNews.com) - While Britain scrambles to salvage a proposed U.N. resolution that could lead to war, France is having none of it. On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin issued a statement rejecting the six new proposals put forward by Britain. "It's not a question of giving Iraq a few more days before committing to the use of force," the statement said. "It's about making resolute progress toward peaceful disarmament, as mapped out by inspections that offer a credible alternative to war." France says it will veto any resolution that contains ultimatums and a trigger for war. "France backs the efforts of all the countries of the Security Council who want to give Iraq a realistic timeframe to disarm effectively in line with the spirit of Resolution 1441," de Villepin said.'
I have a question for M. de Villepin -- Is 12 years not a "realistic timeframe"?
If France is going to summarily reject every proposal set forth by the US or Britain, we should just stop trying to appease them and get on with the task at hand -- disarming Saddam and liberating Iraq. And while we are at it, we should withhold from our UN dues the amount it costs us to do so.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:45 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 I FIGURED IT OUT: I now know when the war in Iraq will begin. The U.S. will be allowed to launch its attack after a major city in America is hit by an unexpected terrorist attack that kills thousands and causes massive economic damage.
That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.
Posted by steve @ 08:24 PM EST [Link]
~ HEY MAN, A GIRL ONCE DEDICATED THIS SONG TO ME: The Chinese government has ordered the Rolling Stones not to play "Let's Spend the Night Together" when it tours China in April.
Also verbotten due to sexually charged lyrics are "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Woman," and "Beast of Burden".
Read on.
Any government afraid of music is doomed to eventually fall.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ BIN LADEN NOT ARRESTED, SAYS PAKISTAN: The government of Pakistan denied this morning that Osama bin Laden had been arrested.
"This is absolutely unfounded and absolutely baseless," Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters.
I'm opposed to torture but if they do capture him (assuming he's still alive of course), and something does happen to him repeatedly, and it hurts very badly, I won't mind and I'm willing to be called a hypocrite if it turns out to be torture.
Posted by steve @ 10:49 AM EST [Link]
~ FAKE CHOKER CHECKS HIMSELF INTO MENTAL HOSPITAL: Well, earlier this week Musings blogged about a Punta Gorda, Florida man who attempted to attract women by pretending to be choking and then having his life "saved" by them.
The 36-year old married man has apparently checked himself into a mental hospital for treatment and counselling.
Posted by steve @ 09:48 AM EST [Link]
~ I'LL MOVE TO CANADA
"If a (Democrat presidential candidate) favorite other than (Al) Sharpton doesn't become obvious by late fall, look for a strong effort to draft Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. . . . The Iowa Democratic Party is already thinking that. We hear it wants Clinton as the featured speaker at an annual fall event - an invite that's irked Sen. John Kerry."
- Columnist Paul Bedard, "Washington Whispers," U.S. News & World Report
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:33 AM EST [Link]
~ A SENSE OF HUMOR AND HONOR
"U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, chairman of the Committee on House Administration, has ordered that all references to 'French Fries' be replaced with the words 'Freedom Fries' wherever they appear on the menu in the restaurants operated in the Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn House office buildings. . . . Ney also ordered that the phrase 'Freedom Toast' be used in place of the traditional 'French Toast,' in a letter to the U.S. House's chief administrative officer, who oversees the operations of the food service facilities."
- Peter Roff, UPI's Capital Comment, 3/11/03
CB
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:31 AM EST [Link]
~ MARK STEYN HAS A WAY WITH WORDS...AND SENSE
Ugly Protests Against Naked Aggression
"Many of my fellow warmongers have mocked the nude protests mounted by the women of California's Marin County, cruelly pointing out that many of the bits on show are excessively saggy. But I'll take what I can get. If we have to have an incoherent, anti-Western 'peace' movement, then women showing off their hooters in support of a culture that would stone them to death for showing off their ankles is about as good as it's gonna get."
- Columnist Mark Steyn
via an email newsletter
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:28 AM EST [Link]
~ HOW MANY MORE TESTS DOES HE GET?: British PM Tony Blair has proposed a series of tests for Saddam Hussein to pass or military action will commence.
• Handing over supplies of anthrax, or documentation proving they were destroyed;
• Allowing Iraqi scientists and their families to travel outside the country to be interviewed by inspectors; and
• Accounting for unmanned drones that the United States and Britain say can be used to spray chemical or biological weapons.
For God's sake, how many more chances does Hussein need? I mean, it's only been 12 years since the Gulf War which in part was launched to disarm him. At this rate I'll be retired before something happens.
Posted by steve @ 09:16 AM EST [Link]
~ DJINDJIC ASSASSINATED IN BELGRADE: Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, along with Democratic Party VP Boris Tadic, was today assassinated in Belgrade, possibly by organized crime.
My father wasn't a big fan of the man, he does know the politics of his former homeland better than I, but in my mind Djindjic deserves praise for leading the peaceful protests that brought down Slobodan Milosevic. Importantly, he was also a friend of the West and someone trying to clean up a huge mess left for him.
Posted by steve @ 09:11 AM EST [Link]
~ YOU HAVE TO ADMIRE HIM: I prefer women who wear Donna Karan or Giorgio Armani but I have to admit that I won't look down at a lady who wears Jean Paul Gaultier.
This past weekend, Gaultier held a fashion show in Paris. He must have known it was going to happen so he was ready. The moment an anti-fur protester jumped on stage, Gaultier's security guards were ready for him.
"When the first one jumped onto the runway in Paris on Saturday he got a surprise. Two security guards immediately leapt aboard and wrapped him in a big fur coat, before dragging him off."
As the story states, "[I]t was the perfect rude response to a rude protest."
And the funniest response possible. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:03 AM EST [Link]
~ RENDER IS THE RIGHT WORD: I decided that I'm going to fill out my taxes tomorrow and the yearly ritual of abuse always causes me to think of the old biblical saying, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's..."
It didn't hit me until this afternoon at work how accurate the word "render" is in that context. One of the definitions of the word is: "To reduce, convert, or melt down (fat) by heating."
What is paying taxes if not reducing, converting or melting down of fat (that is, money the government believes I don't need and therefore fat) under pressure of the state? We are being rendered.
Time to go to sleep.
Posted by steve @ 12:35 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 ANTIWAR, OR ANTI-AMERICAN?: (Thanks to Tracy Malik for the heads up) It's truly one of the most disgusting things I've ever read. Antiwar protesters burned and ripped up flags, flowers and patriotic signs at a September 11 memorial that residents erected on a fence along Whittier Boulevard days after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and have maintained ever since.
Here's where it gets even more unbelievable:
"However, although officers witnessed the vandalism Saturday afternoon, police did not arrest three people seen damaging the display because they were 'exercising the same freedom of speech that the people who put up the flags were,' La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said Monday.
"'For this to be vandalism, there had to be an ill-will intent,' he said."
I'm not a police officer or a lawyer, but attacking a memorial to your nation's dead would seem to indicate ill-will intent. And does this mean that we no longer have to honour the police officers who died? Perhaps Rees can tell us that.
Posted by steve @ 06:49 PM EST [Link]
~ GOD HELP THE MEN WHO LAY UNDERNEATH THAT: That's a line from Lawrence of Arabia. Omar Shariff observes in the distance a massive British artillery attack on a Turkish position and is moved to be sympathetic to an enemy he hates. After today's test of the MOAB, American soldiers may say the same thing in relation to their Iraqi counterparts.
"MOAB, privately known in military circles as "the mother of all bombs," has been under development since late last year. The bomb carries 18,000 pounds of tritonal explosives, which have an indefinite shelf life. It replaces the Vietnam-era 'Daisy Cutter,' a 15,000-pound bomb with 12,600 pounds of the less-powerful GSX explosives."
A mushroom cloud 10 000 feet tall was expected....
Posted by steve @ 06:31 PM EST [Link]
~ WELL, I GUESS ECHELON CAN DO SOME GOOD: Good Guardian story of how a big bribe and the Echelon global spy network helped catch Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
I still don't like Echelon but I guess it does work. Well, actually, no guessing about it.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ WOLFOWITZ LAYS OUT AMERICA'S CASE: (Heads up from John Lankford) US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz gave a marvelous speech at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. to the Veterans of Foreign Wars about America's new war.
So the global war on terror goes on. But it will be a long struggle -- because it is not about one man or a single terrorist network. It is about intersecting networks of terrorist groups and the support that they get from terrorist states.
Our successes in recent months in capturing terrorists demonstrates that the effort we have mobilized to disarm Iraq’s weapons of mass terror has not distracted us from the hunt for Al Qaeda. But make no mistake, these are not separate issues. Disarming Saddam’s weapons of mass terror is a second front in the same war on terror.
We know that terrorists are plotting greater catastrophes than the attacks of September 11. And we know they are seeking more terrible weapons – chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons. In the hands of terrorists, these so-called "weapons of mass destruction" should be more properly called "weapons of mass terror." They present us with a threat that could be orders of magnitude worse than September 11, involving tens or even hundreds of thousands of innocent casualties.
The diplomatic debate centers on Iraqi non-compliance with 12 years of U.N. resolutions, that have required Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass terror and abide by the agreements it signed back in 1991. In the years since, there has been no real compliance and no genuine cooperation. Instead, we have had delay, dishonesty, and deception.
Some people may be impressed, but the U.S. Government is not. We know what real disarmament looks like. In recent years, we assisted other countries – including several former Soviet republics -- that wanted to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Those governments took the initiative. They were cooperative and helpful. That has never been the case with Iraq.
Posted by steve @ 01:09 PM EST [Link]
~ I AM A PAECEMAKER!: John Hawkins of Right Wing News and his friend Hadez pranked someone good recently. Hadez -- who put Iraq down as his home country in ICQ as a joke -- was ICQed by some cat from Brazil who began asking him anti-American questions. Hadez passed him onto Hawkins and he then engaged "Doug" in two separate and hilarious conversations.
Here's the transcript of Hawkins' first chat. Link at the bottom of the page to the second conversation.
I've long supported the United States but I will have to withdraw it. Your use of robot monkeys is inexcusable.
Posted by steve @ 10:20 AM EST [Link]
~ THEY MAY NOT BE PERFECT: But rapper DMX and coach Bobby Knight are in my good books this morning.
DMX has stated that he's retiring from the rap world to concentrate on reading the Bible and spending time with his children.
"I got kids, and one of my children is at that stage where you have to be around. He's 8 months, and I don't wanna be a stranger to my children. That's more important to me than all this."
Over at Texas Tech, Knight is refusing his $250 000 paycheque because he thinks he didn't do a good enough job to earn it.
"I'm just not at all satisfied with what transpired with our team in terms of our fundamental execution," Knight told The Dallas Morning News for its online edition. "I don't think it's anybody's fault but mine.
"You heard me talk after games all season long about missed opportunities and how we didn't see things. Those are things that have got to be taught. Learning those things is just as much a responsibility of the teacher as the ones learning those things."
Tech is the seventh seed in the Big 12 conference tournament. TT will likely need to win the conference tournament to make the NCAA field for the second straight year.
Posted by steve @ 10:14 AM EST [Link]
~ UN STILL RELEVANT?
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is trying to argue that the UN is still a player in the Iraqi situation. The fact that he has to make the argument shows just how desperate he is. His threats, posturing, blathering, and blabbering are not very convincing.
World Net Daily has the story.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:32 AM EST [Link]
~ ANTI-SEMITISM ALIVE AND WELL IN US CONGRESS
Congressman Jim Moran (D), who represents Alexandria in Northern Virginia showed his true colors recently at a town hall meeting.
"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should," Moran told constituents on March 3.
Several Jewish leaders called for Moran's resignation, but, of course, Moran refused. He "apologized", so that makes it okay. Do I smell a double standard here?
The Washington Times has the article.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:17 AM EST [Link]
~ WHAT IS THIS, AN EXODUS?: Kevin Michael Grace has been fired from the Citizens Centre Report, formerly The Report, formerly Alberta Report, after eight years on the job.
I have a bit of a connection to KMG. Jeremy Lott, who resigned from the magazine last week, was my introduction to the The Report -- which then became the Citizens Centre Report -- which led to a review of mine being published last month. Kevin was my editor for the piece.
He had some problems with my review and during a half hour phone conversation he went paragraph by paragraph giving me hints for future reviews, something I really appreciated. I hope he gets back on his feet quick.
Now I know people get prickly when I mention drinking here but KMG stated he was going to get drunk last night because of this news. I have always felt that a man had no other obligation than to drink after being fired or laid off from a long-term job. The next day, though, you pick yourself up and look for a new job though. It's part of being a man.
Posted by steve @ 09:08 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY SOME NATIONS TRUST THE US: (via Brothers Judd Blog) Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz said yesterday the reason why Portugal was behind the US on Iraq is because it knows that if anything ever happened to it, it would be the United States to come to its defence.
"Let us suppose Portugal, proper or its archipelagos, faced a threat, who would come to our rescue? The European Commission, France, Germany?
"I think it would be NATO who would come to our rescue, in other words, it would be the U.S., no one else would defend us. For instance, during the 1996 mission in Bosnia, operations took place with the support of 20 satellites, of which only one was European," he said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:53 AM EST [Link]
Monday, March 10, 2003 COMMENTS FORMAT CHANGE: I've decided that the comments that you can attach to our blog entries will now go in descending order (i.e. oldest at the top, latest closer to the bottom) instead of the goofy ascending order system I've been using. It makes more sense that way.
I'm off for the night to partake in my now weekly "Monday is for relaxing and a movie" night. Tonight's feature? The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I know, it's still in the theatres, so your probably wondering how did Steve get a copy of it when it's still at least six to eight months away from a DVD release? Let's just say those "For Your Consideration" Academy of Motion Picture Arts copies that are supposed to only go to voters for the Oscars don't always stay in the community.
And if I have time: Goodfellas. Perhaps the finest mob movie ever made.
Posted by steve @ 06:37 PM EST [Link]
~ EEUUWWW. GROSS. Robert Reich, former labor secretary, is posing sans clothes in a calendar. Give him the "Old Fool" award.
Click here if you have digested your most recent meal.
Posted by izzy @ 06:17 PM EST [Link]
~ BOB DOLE: A man of many paradoxes... Why did he do better debating Bill Clinton on "60 Minutes" than in 1996? Why can all sorts of companies use him to successfully sell products - ranging from Pepsi to Viagra - but the Republican Party could not sell him to the American people?
Perhaps we'll never know...
Posted by antle @ 06:01 PM EST [Link]
~ STEVE AND BARTON, GET WITH THE PROGRAM: I know you are both happy to have your letters posted on Mark Steyn's website, as I would be, but the always interesting Steve Sailer suggested last week (go to the right-hand side and scroll down to where he starts talking about Paul Krugman) that great as Steyn is he may someday be surpassed by Colby Cosh.
Could this be the next Mark Steyn? If so, just remember that you heard it here second (as far as I know).
Posted by antle @ 04:38 PM EST [Link]
~ COOL SCIENCE STORY OF THE DAY: A shuttle mission in 2000 captured some cool photos of the Chicxulub crater, located partly on the Yucatan Peninsula, caused by a asteroid or comet that slammed into the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs and 70 per cent of all living things on the planet.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:33 PM EST [Link]
~ JIMMY CARTER SEZ:
Never mind. Nobody cares what Jimmy Carter says.
Well, maybe somebody might. Fox News is reporting on it, so it must have at least a shred of socially redeeming value.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 02:27 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW MUCH DID HANS BLIX FORGET TO MENTION?: Seems to me that his presentation to the UN Security Council was curiously short on all the stuff that contravenes the original resolutions passed back in 1991. First we hear about the drone that Blix didn't mention on Friday but was buried in the report itself and now we have news about an Iraqi rocket "apparently configured to spread bomblets filled with chemical or biological agents over large areas."
Read on.
I guess Blix was right. There is significant progress being made. Problem is, it's by Iraqi weapons engineers and not the weapons inspectors.
Posted by steve @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
~ PROBABLY WORKS BETTER THAN WHAT I'M DOING: "A short, dumpy man has been going around town [Punta Gorda, Florida] faking choking episodes, apparently to get attention from women.
"He flails his arms, coughs and sputters. After a woman rushes over to help, he showers her with gratitude, hugs and kisses."
Read on.
And here I am, like a sucker, wearing nice clothes and trying to engage a woman with entertaining conversation. I too could fake this, get "saved", and then dreamily look in her eyes and remind her that since she saved my life, it now belongs to her.
Of course, with my luck, she'll tell me I can have it back.
Posted by steve @ 02:06 PM EST [Link]
~ CAUGHT UP WITH YOU BARTON!: Last week Mark Steyn wrote a column detailing how the New York Times had offered him a chance to write a piece on Canadian/American relations he none too politely told them to $&^# off as he had an earlier unpleasant experience with the newspaper.
I wrote Steyn and jokingly told him that the next time the Times called to give them my email address and he actually responded with a kind note thanking me for so relentlessly hyping his book everywhere.
Well, it turns out that he decided to post the part of my letter on his web site. You can find it here (scroll 2/3rds of the way down or just search for "Steve Martinovich"...ummm, or read it below.
---------------------
Re: Steyn of the Times
IF YOU'VE GOT THE MONEY, HE'S GOT THE TIMES
"Well, first, there was clearly a booking error. If your initial choices are Frum and Steyn, it's obvious even the Times is looking for something other than the usual Canadian self-congratulation. That in itself is a measure of our deluded Dominion's shrinking reputation down south."For God's sake, next time give them my email address. I like American money and I need the exposure.
Steve Martinovich
Editor, Enter Stage Right---------------------
Now I and Barton are tied in number of Steyn letter appearances :-)
Posted by steve @ 01:16 PM EST [Link]
~ WELCOME TO THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY: Afghanistan, where the Internet was banned during the rule of the Taliban, will formally launch its .af domain for Afghani Web sites and e-mail addresses today, the United Nations said.
Glad to have you cats on board.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:37 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, March 9, 2003 SAG AWARDS/BARF BAG ALERT. I watched a portion of the Screen Actors Guild presentation. Melissa Gilbert, of Little House fame, is the SAG prez, and she took a few minutes to praise the U.S. Troops. Nice! Unfortunately, the moment was ruined by the lukewarm applause the Hollyweirdos delivered. They didn't even have the grace to act appreciative. As far as I could tell, only Jack Nicholson stood up to clap.
Posted by izzy @ 10:53 PM EST [Link]
~ FINALLY, SOME HELP WITH THOSE LEGAL BILLS: Newsweek's website is reporting that Chelsea Clinton will start a six-figure consulting job with McKinsey & Company upon her graduation from Oxford. I've always felt that it was out of bounds for conservatives to attack Chelsea, no matter how low my opinion of her father. Just as I think some of what has been said and reported about the Bush daughters is beneath contempt.
But if her last name was "Bush" rather than Clinton, I'd bet we'd be reading a few outraged liberal op-eds railing against privilege and nepotism. Don't hold your breath for any such commentary now.
Posted by antle @ 08:45 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: My friends over at The Libertarian Enterprise have run my piece on the recent progress Libertarians have been making in Massachusestts, which originally appeared at Tech Central Station.
Posted by antle @ 05:12 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQI SOLDIERS ATTEMPT TO SURRENDER: (via Little Green Footballs) Three Iraqi soldiers recently attempted to surrender to British soldiers because they thought a war had already started.
"The Paras are a tough, battle-hardened lot but were moved by the plight of the Iraqis. There was nothing they could do other than send them back.
"They were a motley bunch and you could barely describe them as soldiers - they were poorly equipped and didn't even have proper boots. Their physical condition was dreadful and they had obviously not had a square meal for ages. No one has ever known a group of so-called soldiers surrender before a shot has been fired in anger."
That's why I don't laugh at this. The Iraqi army is little different from the Iraqi people. They too have been brutalized by Saddam Hussein.
Posted by steve @ 02:16 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY?: Why is it that everytime I look at a clock the time is 9:11. It could be AM or PM but since September 11, 2001, I've seen 9:11 on a clock what seems like hundreds of times. It happened tonight again before I went out carousing and I had to take a couple of seconds to switch back into normal Steve mode. I hate thinking about that day twice a day every day.
I'm not even an American.
Posted by steve @ 04:29 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, March 8, 2003 TWO BROTHERS SPLIT ON THE WAR: The Associated Press has a story about two brothers, both in the Army, who have come to different conclusions about war with Iraq. One is a willing participant who is already in Kuwait. The other is strongly antiwar and has applied for conscientious objector status.
I support the right to be a pacificist and I have no quarrel with categorizing people as conscientous objectors and exempting them from military service. But I do question why someone would join the U.S. Army if they were a pacificist. Even if your recruiter didn't mention the possibility of war and killing to you when you signed up, isn't it fairly obvious that both could be a possiblity? Wouldn't you have given some thought to what the military is used for before you decided to join?
I'm not saying that I doubt Travis Burnham's sincerity. He may well be a pacifist who wants out of the Amy for principled reasons. But I do think this highlights the problem of selling military service as a way to pay for school, build character, etc. - without emphasizing the obligation on the part of the person who will be receiving all these benefits due to their service. My view is that if you don't believe in war - that is, the rightness of any war, not just this particular one - you should not be collecting an income as a member of the armed forces.
Posted by antle @ 10:39 PM EST [Link]
~ CONSERVATIVES AGAINST BUSH: My colleagues over at Ether Zone - I'm a contributor to their pages - have come out against President Bush with both barrels blazing and endorsed Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) for president and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) for vice-president. Neither Paul nor Tancredo are actively seeking either of these offices to my knowledge, but both men are popular among disenchanted conservatives and people have talked (wished?) about the possibility of a Paul/Tancredo ticket before.
Obviously, I am not nearly as down on Bush as the authors of the three articles - one of them being occasional ESR contributor James Hall, aka SARTRE - outlining Ether Zone's position are. But I do disagree with the president on some of the issues that they mention and I like Paul and Tancredo. Almost a year ago, I wondered in these pages whether Bush was vulnerable on the right and whether his conservative critics might find someone to challenge him for reelection, either in the Republican primaries or as a third-party candidate. The two possibilities I mentioned were Ron Paul and Alan Keyes. Keyes has since receded into the background a bit, but Paul obviously remains a potent force among conservatives who oppose Bush. With many competing third parties that tend to cancel each other out vying to get to the right of the GOP, Paul has the advantage of a following within several of them - the Libertarian, Reform, America First and Constitution parties.
But even the combined vote for all these parties is not enough to seriously threaten the president's reelection prospects. My own view is that Bush is opposed by most paleoconservatives and a large percentage of right-libertarians, but overwhelmingly supported by conservatives of every other stripe. So I am not sure how far a challenge from the right would go. Paul didn't do particularly well the last time he ran for president, on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988. Neither did Pat Buchanan, a far better known conservative with an even larger national following, when he ran against Bush on the Reform Party ticket in 2000. Veteran conservative activist Howard Phillips has never gotten any traction in his three presidential bids. Unless things go badly in Iraq or the Bush administration adopts anti-terrorism measures as draconian as its critics on the left and right predict, I doubt that there will be a much better showing in 2004.
Bush shouldn't take conservative support for granted, but any observer would have to notice that he does have an awful lot of it.
Posted by antle @ 06:16 PM EST [Link]
~ BLIX TRIES TO COVER UP FOR IRAQIS: The U.S. is angry over Hans Blix's presentation to the UN Security Council yesterday. It seems the chief weapons inspector tried to bury word of an undeclared Iraqi drone in his report.
"US officials were outraged that Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, did not inform the Security Council about the drone, or remotely piloted vehicle, in his oral presentation to Foreign Ministers and tried to bury it in a 173-page single-spaced report distributed later in the day. The omission raised serious questions about Dr Blix’s objectivity."
Only for people who believed he and the UN was objective in the first place. Anyone with a gram's worth of sense knows that this whole exercise by the UN is about preventing a war whether it is justified or not. It was never about disarming Iraq.
Posted by steve @ 03:47 PM EST [Link]
~ COLLEGE TO APOLOGIZE TO BUSH: The president of Citrus College will send a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush to apologize for a teacher who gave students extra credit for writing anti-war letters to him.
Posted by steve @ 03:30 PM EST [Link]
Friday, March 7, 2003 HATE THE FRENCH?: Who doesn't. I just got email from Mike Krempasky from Pave France about my love affair with the brunette (she's very conservative!) and he tells me he's looking for other people to join in on the France bashing.
Are you interested in blogging about the hated cheese-eating surrender monkeys? Hit Pave France and tell them your interested. Now, damnit!
Posted by steve @ 02:38 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE FUN FROM PAVE FRANCE: Unfortunately, it isn't more pictures of that brunette anti-France protester. Rather, Pave France has opened a new gallery of photoshopped posters mocking France.
Posted by steve @ 02:31 PM EST [Link]
~ SUBSTANTIAL DISARMAMENT?: Iraq's destruction of its Al Samoud 2 missiles constitutes a "substantial measure of disarmament,'' Hans Blix reported to the Security Council this morning.
''The destruction undertaken constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament. We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed.''
What about all that stuff you didn't find?
Colin Powell responds and calls the report a ''catalogue of non-cooperation'' by Iraq.
If I hadn't blocked the ability to post expletives I'd tell you exactly what I thought about the UN today. Jim, remember what you called PETA in that email to me? Ditto for the UN.
Posted by steve @ 02:08 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT IS CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP: Mark Steyn has a classic column in the National Post about what Canadian citizenship really means.
In the future Mark, send the New York Times my way. I really need the money.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ HOLY SET THE VCR FOR THIS ONE!: Adam West and Burt Ward appear in the movie "Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt" airing Sunday at 9 p.m. EST on CBS.
"In the two-hour movie, West, 74, and Ward, 57, are forced to relive their past to find clues to recovering the Batmobile after it's stolen from a Hollywood charity event.
"When a bystander suggests calling the police, West in his best deadpan says, 'This is a job for actors. We'll find the Batmobile.'"
Read on.
It's unfair that West was typecast as Batman. He's actually one of the funniest guys around and a good actor. It's legend in Hollywood that in the early 1980s West made a television pilot for a comedy involving a hapless private detective. People who have viewed the pilot say it's one of the funniest shows they've ever seen but for some reason the network didn't bite and now the tape reportedly circulates among the comedy elite who appreciate how good it is. It probably would have gave West a whole new career.
Posted by steve @ 01:28 PM EST [Link]
~ EVEN I SUPPORT CALLING CHRISTMAS BY ITS NAME: "A Catholic Church leader is outraged by the Royal Canadian Mint's decision to poll Canadians on whether they were offended by a festive ad jingle that dropped 'Christmas' from a traditional carol to sell coins."
"The mint was barraged with more than 1,300 angry calls and letters last December when television ads began heralding the 'Twelve Days of Giving.'"
The forces of political correctness have even managed to strip a religious holiday of its religious nature.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:20 PM EST [Link]
~ HAVE THEY SEEN SADDAM HUSSEIN?: A new report by Richard G. Klein says that Neanderthals and modern humans ever mixed in substantial numbers which means their genes are not part of ours, as previously speculated.
"He said modern studies of mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthal fossils suggest that the modern humans and the Neanderthals had a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago. But he said the studies do not support the notion that there was interbreeding after modern humans evolved in Africa and invaded Neanderthal habitats, starting about 45,000 years ago."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:17 PM EST [Link]
~ BIN LADEN ARREST WATCH CONTINUED: Unconfirmed reports state that two of Osama bin Laden's sons have been arrested in southeastern Afghanistan in an joint operation involving U.S. forces.
"'They were arrested from Rabat area in Afghanistan,'' Sanaullah Zehri told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. He did not identify the sons, but said seven other al-Qaida men were killed in the operation.
"Zehri refused to identify which forces were involved in the operation."
I thought Iraq was supposed to be a distraction?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:02 AM EST [Link]
~ PREPARATIONS: Steven Den Beste gives an update of troop movements around Iraq.
Posted by steve @ 10:03 AM EST [Link]
~ I EXPECTED MORE: From last night's press conference by U.S. President George W. Bush but overall I was satisfied by his performance. He remained on point despite some amazingly stupid questions by the press and bent over backwards to maintain the integrity of the UN, something I wouldn't have bothered with.
What I did love was his assertion that nothing (UN, he's talking to you!) would stop him from protecting Americans from weapons of mass destruction. Translated into plain speak: Vote any way you want UN Security Council, but the U.S. led invasion of Iraq will go ahead. Make yourself into the League of Nations Mark II if you want but the war is going to happen whether you like it or not.
James Lileks also offers his take on the speech.
"I think the best way to characterize the President’s press conference was 'on message.' You could have asked him about the merits of Coke vs. Pepsi, and you would have been informed that the issue is not cola preference, it is disarmament."
[Update - 10:04am] While watching the Q&A portion of last night's press conference I was struck by the fact that Helen Thomas didn't ask a question. According to the Washington Times, she wasn't in the first row like she traditionally is and the president didn't even bother to look her way. Beautiful!
Posted by steve @ 09:57 AM EST [Link]
~ IF BIN LADEN WAS CAPTURED, NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT IT: CNN reports today that it's not even a given that people are actually looking for Osama bin Laden in northern Pakistan.
"U.S. officials on Thursday had said the search for bin Laden has been narrowed to a few Pakistani provinces in the northwest including Waziristan, and tribal and frontier provinces to the north of it.
But on Friday Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid denied the report. 'There is no operation going on, there is no search going on, and we don't know where is Osama,' Rashid told CNN. 'If somebody knows [his whereabouts] let us know.'"
I won't for a second claim any authority about northern Pakistan but if bin Laden is alive, it would make sense for him and al-Qaida personnel to hide out in Baluchistan. In Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, Mary Anne Weaver reports that the region is devoutly Muslim and many of the village chiefs have no great love for the Pakistani government. Add to that its remoteness and inhospitable terrain and you have a nice place to go to ground.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:56 AM EST [Link]
~ HOW IMPORTANT IS KHALID SHAIK MOHAMMED?: Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias thinks that the Americans have bumped up the importance of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for propaganda purposes.
Bruce over at Flit takes issue with that, stating (entitled "MORON WATCH: THE STAR'S ANTONIA ZERBISIAS" -- permalink currently not working) that Mohammed's importance was established early on by the U.S.
"In December of 2001, when Osama bin Laden, also on that list, had the bounty on his head raised from $5 million to $25 million, only three others on that list were elevated with him: Mohammed, right hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri and Al Qaeda security chief Saif al-Adel."
Posted by steve @ 08:53 AM EST [Link]
~ OSAMA ARRESTED?: The PakTribune reports today that Osama bin Laden may have been arrested near the Pakistan-Afghan border.
"They maintained that at least one 'very important' Al-Qaeda man (who may be Osama Bin Laden or his son) was also among the detainees.
"The sources suggested that the operation near Chaghi could well be the follow up of reports that arrested Al-Qaeda suspect Sheikh Khalid Mohammed had told investigators about the whereabouts of Osama."
Sounds fishy but if it's true I'd like to volunteer my services in questioning him.
Posted by steve @ 01:07 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, March 6, 2003
ONE MORE HERO PASSES ON: The last Canadian who served as an infantryman at Vimy Ridge, one of the most famous battles in military history, passed away this weekend at the age of 103.
Although Charles Reaper wasn't the last Vimy Ridge veteran, he was the last one alive who had climbed out of the trenches that horrifying day on April 9, 1917. On that day, 20 000 Canadian soldiers, all four divisions of the Canadian Corps, launched an attack against German positions. French and English soldiers had attempted to take the position before but failed and so the Canadians were given little chance to succeed.
Three days later and after 3 598 dead and 7 699 wounded, the Canadians took the hill.
Nations are often born of war and Canada was no exception. Though Canada formally became a nation in 1869 with the passing of the British North America Act, it wasn't until the horrific slaughter of Vimy Ridge, a piece of land France later ceded to Canada in perpetuity, that people began to think of themselves as Canadians. Reaper was our last link to a battle that literally created the notion of being Canadian.
There are only one dozen Canadian veterans of the First World War still alive. If you ever get a chance to meet one, thank him not only for what he did on the battlefield, but also for creating your nation.
Rest in peace Mr. Reaper. Thank you and God bless you. If there is a God and Heaven, then may all the soldiers of all the wars sit together as brothers in eternal peace.
Posted by steve @ 07:27 PM EST [Link]
~ ISRAEL PROTECTS PALESTINIANS FROM PALESTINIANS: A 21-year old Palestinian homosexual is facing deportation out of Israel back to the Gaza strip. He fears, justifiably, that if he goes back he will be killed.
"Mr [Shaul] Gonen said the man fled from Gaza to the West Bank four years ago after escaping from Palestinian police custody, but his own family tracked him down and tried to kill him, so he ran away to Israel.
"Now, he said, his life is in danger again.
"'In the West Bank and Gaza, it is common knowledge that if you are homosexual you are necessarily a collaborator with Israel.'"
Remember, Jews are bloodthirsty butchers who would gladly kill any Palestinian they came across.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:08 PM EST [Link]
~ NO TEARS FROM ME: John Walker Lindh was reportedly attacked in prison earlier this week by another inmate.
"Walker Lindh, 21, was not seriously injured in the attack Monday at the federal prison in Victorville, California, officials said. The prison is about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
"FBI officials declined to give details of the incident because of their ongoing investigation."
According to an anonymous caller to the San Bernardino County Sun, Lindh was attacked by a white supremacist. You can't cheer for either side but you can't be displeased about the attack either.
Posted by steve @ 03:42 PM EST [Link]
~ LIES LIES LIES: (via Brothers Judd Blog) Tony Horwitz, who's last book Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before we reviewed this past fall and loved, has a good piece in today's Sydney Morning Herald about the lies surrounding a potential war in Iraq.
Posted by steve @ 02:44 PM EST [Link]
~ SHOW ME THE MONEY: The National Post argues that now is not the time to forget about Afghanistan and its desperate need for money.
"In recent months, however, the world's attention has become increasingly focused on Iraq, and it appears the West is beginning to forget about Afghanistan. Washington has offered Turkey approximately $40-billion in grants and loan guarantees if Ankara permits U.S. troops to deploy against Iraq from that country. Yet during budget discussions this January, the White House failed to press Congress for a single dollar for new aid to Afghanistan. In the end, Mr. Karzai's regime will get $435-million in fresh funding this year -- but only because Jim Kolbe, the Republican head of the House of Representatives' foreign aid allocation panel, acted on his own initiative. That compares poorly to the $1.3-billion the United States allocated last year to rebuilding Afghanistan (some of which, we should acknowledge, carries over into 2003)."
Damn right. Do we need Afghanistan to collapse and turn into another...well, Afghanistan?
Posted by steve @ 01:42 PM EST [Link]
~ "NEW EUROPE" KNOWS WHO ITS FRIENDS ARE: Alexandra Richie says those friends don't include France and Germany.
"For the past few decades France has had the European Union just where she wanted it -- but not for much longer. Someone should have told French President Jacques Chirac that the sort of anti-Americanism taken for granted in France is simply unacceptable east of Berlin. Here, it is not Gorbachev (and certainly not the French) who are lauded as the heroes who brought down Communism, it is Reagan and Thatcher and Bush. If the United States wages and wins a war in Iraq, one of the first casualties may well be the French vision of Europe."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:39 PM EST [Link]
~ SO NOW HE'S ALIVE: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed says Osama bin Laden is alive, in good health and living in northern Pakistan.
Personally I think this is just disinformation.
Posted by steve @ 01:05 PM EST [Link]
~
ANTI-FRENCH PROTEST IN DC: The French Embassy was the scene of another anti-French protest yesterday. Georgetown residents appear not to have been too impressed but "truck drivers and construction workers passing by exhibited a decidedly more positive response."
Why am I showing this picture above the other 65 that Pave France has on its web site? If you have to ask...All I want to know is why don't the protestors ever look like her on those rare days when I pick up a picket sign.
Elle est trčs belle.
[Update - 2:20pm] More pictures from the protest (pop-ups, between 45 and 55Kb): Her again. Her yet again. "Chirac the Chicken".
It's funny to note that her pictures are amongst the most viewed...
Posted by steve @ 09:30 AM EST [Link]
~ WHAT TO DO ABOUT NORTH KOREA: A lot of people are complaining that the Bush administration is focusing its attention on Iraq and ignoring what's going on in North Korea. Steve Den Beste says Dubya is doing the right thing: nothing.
"But I think the Bush administration is actually doing the right thing, which is to say doing nothing. North Korea has spent the last few months attempting to create a crisis in order to create pressure that would force us into urgent action to defuse said crisis, at which point they would be able to wring major concessions out of us to get them to shut up. And initially their lunatic ravings did make a lot of the nations in the region extremely nervous and there were rather strong demands that we (the US) engage in bilateral talks with the North Koreans (with the strong expectation that we'd buy them off).
"The Bush administration pretty much ignored those demands, and is playing a waiting game. UPI posts an analysis which says that Kim Jong Il is crazy like a fox and is doing all this deliberately. But it concentrates mostly on all the ways in which the situation is troubling for us. It pays little or no attention to the fact that Kim's government is in extremely deep trouble and is hanging on by its fingernails."
Posted by steve @ 01:03 AM EST [Link]
~ TIME TO BUY SOME CHARLIE DANIELS ALBUMS: Charlie Daniels pens an open letter with a beautiful line of how he feels about anti-war Hollywood celebs.
Posted by steve @ 12:51 AM EST [Link]
~ I AM SO JEALOUS: Lee over at Right-Thinking from the Left Coast got the coolest present ever. After blue skying whether he could get his URL on a bomb that will be used in Iraq, some cats in the field have made his wish come true.
Lee also reports that Martin Sheen has also been honoured by America's soldiers...
Posted by steve @ 12:45 AM EST [Link]
~ FISKING PETA: Meryl Yourish gives a good fisking to PETA over the letter they sent me a few days ago.
Posted by steve @ 12:41 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, March 5, 2003 ANOTHER VICTORY FOR JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY: "A man employed by CBS News to speak the words of Saddam Hussein during his interview with Dan Rather last week reportedly adopted a fake Arabic accent."
Personally, I would have used a cool accent...perhaps something resembling the late British actor James Mason.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:08 PM EST [Link]
~ CONTEST TIME?: I just had one of those thoughts you get when you're bored at work. The ESR "How Long is this War Going to Last?" Contest. I think I'm going to gin up a form tonight and a page with guesses that will ask you how long you think the American-led war against Iraq will last. Winner receives a....well, nothing just yet. I have nothing to give away unless the winner is a conservative woman. Well, even if she's a liberal for that matter.
I think that's tonight mini-project. The contest that is...
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ WHO'S THE REAL MORON?: Mark Steyn has the answer when it comes to Canada and the United States.
Posted by steve @ 02:35 PM EST [Link]
~ HE SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING BEFORE: Turkey's powerful military chief, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, said today that the army backed the deployment of U.S. troops in the country for a war in neighboring Iraq.
"The statement by Gen. Hilmi Ozkok helped boost support for a proposal to introduce a new bill that would allow deployment of U.S. troops, said Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, a deputy chairman of the governing Justice and Development Party."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ AND IN OTHER NEWS, AMERICAN SOLDIERS WILL FIRE THEIR RIFLES: The Associated Press shows its war reporting mettle today by announcing that the U.S. will heavily bomb Iraq during a war. Duh.
"If Bush orders the invasion of Iraq, the powerful airstrikes with thousands of bombs and missiles would be combined with quick ground assaults — a combination aimed at overwhelming President Saddam Hussein's defenses, keeping him from mustering catastrophic retaliation and convincing his forces they can't win, Pentagon officials have said."
In technical terms, it's called "shock and awe." In grunt terms, it's called "Forgive me father for I have sinned..."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:57 PM EST [Link]
~
KAUFFMAN VS. BOWMAN. "Mr. Lincoln said he liked his speeches short and sweet, so here it is: The new Warner Brothers picture Gods and Generals is not only the finest movie ever made about the Civil War, it is also the best American historical film. Period. Writer-director Ron Maxwell's prequel to his epic Gettysburg (1993) is so free of cant, of false notes, of the politically conformist genuflections that we expect in our historical movies, that one watches it as if in a trance, wondering if he hasn't stumbled into a movie theater in an alternative America wherein talented independents like Maxwell get $80 million from Ted Turner to make complex and beautiful films ... " (Bill Kauffman, American Enterprise Magazine)
Posted by izzy @ 11:51 AM EST [Link]
~ IRAQ EXPECTS KUWAIT TO BE A FRIEND?: Someone needs to be hit by a clue-by-four I think. Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri today accused Kuwait of being "traitors" for cooperating with the United States.
"That comment prompted the Kuwaiti representative to stand up and protest, to which Ibrahim countered, 'Shut up, sit down you small agent [of the U.S.], you monkey!'"
You have to laugh. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:28 AM EST [Link]
~ BREAKING NEWS: France, Russia and Germany say they will not allow U.N. resolution that clears path for war with Iraq. I don't mind Russia doing what they're doing but France and Germany go on the permanent ban list.
Posted by steve @ 09:24 AM EST [Link]
~ 11 KILLED, 40 WOUNDED IN ISRAEL: Yet another suicide bomber is finding right about now that there aren't any virgins waiting for him in Heaven after a suicide bomb killed at least 11 and injured 40 in an attack on a bus in Haifa.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:17 AM EST [Link]
~ YOU CAN JUST BUY COBRA ATTACK HELICOPTERS?: Two Taiwanese businessmen have been indicted for conspiring to buy U.S. weaponry for Iran, federal authorities announced yesterday.
The shopping list for the mullah's? Early warning radar, Cobra attack helicopters and U.S. spy satellite photos.
Remember: Axis of Evil.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:12 AM EST [Link]
~ IZZY, YOU'RE A MEMBER OF A VERY SPECIAL MINORITY!: The people who sat through all three-and-a-half hours of Gods and Generals and came out of the theatre liking it. I'm as big a fanatic of war films as you'll find (I spent most of my childhood in my uncle's military library), but let's just say that doubts begin to creep in, once a film gets 9% at the Tomatometer (for any neophytes out there, that means 9% of all 93 recorded reviews of Gods and Generals at the Rotten Tomatoes website recommended the film). James Bowman, who's as conservative a film reviewer you're going to get, has this to say in his review of the film:
After three and a half hours, you will stagger out of Gods and Generals, Ronald F. Maxwell’s prequel to Gettysburg, stupefied with pathos. From the start, it offers the full Ken Burns treatment of the Civil War, with weepy violins and catch-in-the-throat personal commentary of a highly authentic character, and it never lets up. As Oscar Wilde said of the death of Dickens’s Little Nell, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it. For where Burnsian schmalz was endurable for an hour, with a week to recover before the next dose, it is quite intolerable spun out to this length and administered in one sitting. The whole movie takes place on an emotional fortissimo that becomes merely wearisome where it is not laughable.
Posted by Barton @ 01:59 AM EST [Link]
~ COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: Left-wing Canadian feminist novelist and poet Margaret Atwood pens an article on military history that acts as a warning against American overconfidence in Iraq that has been published in the right-wing and very British Daily Telegraph. Atwood seems to be not very subtly drawing parallels between George W. Bush and Napolean Bonaparte:
Napoleon was a brilliant soldier who rose like a bubble during a time of unrest and blood-letting, won many battles, and was thus able - like Julius Caesar - to grab near-absolute power. He got hold of Italy and Austria and Prussia and Spain. He replaced the French Republic with an emperor - himself - thus giving rise to much impressive furniture with eagles and columns on it. He also brought in a legal code, still somewhat admired today. He had laudable motives, or so his spin doctoring went: he wanted peace and justice, and European unity. But he thought it would be liberating for other countries to have their stifling religious practices junked and their political systems replaced with one like his. To this end, he scrapped the kings of other countries and created new kings, who happened to be members of his own family.
As well, Atwood compares an American invasion of Iraq with the French Empire's "Spanish Ulcer" and with Napolean's fatal 1812 invasion of Russia. Her conclusion?:
The occupation of Japan after the Second World War has been proposed as a model for Iraq. It's not a helpful comparison. First, the religious fervour of the Japanese soldier was attached to the Emperor, who thus had the power to order a surrender. Iraq will have no such single authority. Second, Japan is an island: no Russian-style, Afghan-style retreat was possible. Third, the Japanese had no neighbours who shared their religious views and might aid them. They had only two choices: death or democracy. Iraq on the other hand has many co-religionist neighbours who will sympathise with it, however repugnant they've previously found Saddam. A foreign occupation - not immediately, but in the long run -is less likely to resemble MacArthur in Japan than Napoleon in Spain.
Atwood forgets that
a: The Iraqis are the most secularized people in the Islamic world and decades of rule by Hussein have kept it that way. I hardly think the Iraqi people are going to be so hateful of the American occupation that they'll be driven into allying themselves with the crumbling Mullah-led regime of Iran, a country with which they had a decade-long war with not so long ago.
b: There seem to be a lot of press reports out there saying that the Iraqi people are yearning for the Americans to invade and free them from their dictator (of course, if the American troops do end up acting like brutal occupiers, they'll get the bloody guerilla war they'll deserve, but I rather doubt that's going to happen).
c: The idea of comparing the fanatical Japanese Army of 1945 to the demoralized and under-equipped Iraqi Army of 2003 is, well, rather doubtful.
d: Atwood's application of military history is, to put it charitably, insufficient. Napolean's invasion of Russia did not work because huge masses of Russian peasentry were conducting scorched-earth tactics before his advancing army, all the while launching hit-and-run attacks against the French troops which eventually destroyed them. The Arab world seems to be more interested in buying up Iraqi real estate in anticipation of an economic boom after liberation right now. As well, Napolean failed and his troops starved because his logistics did not adequately take into account both the infamous Russian winter (I do not think that will be a problem in Iraq) as well as the sheer vastness of Russia. This is why Napolean's capture of Moscow was strategically meaningless; the Russians had a lot more land to retreat into than Napolean had soldiers to occupy it with. Iraq, on the other hand, is the size of a large US state.
e. Most of what Atwood could say to throw cold water on an American invasion of Iraq (the Napolean-style "imperialism," the religious fanatics who will never give up the struggle and have many willing allies in neighbouring nations, the hostile terrain and people, the threat of endless guerilla warfare, etc.) could have equally been said of the American occupation of Afghanistan.Why is the Telegraph treating Atwood as some sort of military expert? Well, one of the main characters of her novel, The Robber Bride, is a military historian (at my university, no less) and I do believe Atwood did write a poem once about the travails of being a female military historian. All this time I'm left wondering what the Telegraph's Defence Editor, the eminent John Keegan, would make of all this?
Posted by Barton @ 01:39 AM EST [Link]
~ NATIONALISTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE: Or so says Nicholas Stix. A good piece from Toogood Reports.
Posted by antle @ 12:41 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, March 4, 2003 FOLLOWING STEVE'S EXAMPLE. I just saw "Gods and Generals." By the time the movie had finished, I had grandchildren. (Well, it did seem that long.)
The short review: I loved it! It was edifying, and it was classy. Great acting, dialogue, and the war scenes were not especially gory. Go Ron Maxwell!
Posted by izzy @ 07:41 PM EST [Link]
~ PETA RESPONDS TO FORM LETTER WITH FORM LETTER: So I'm not particularly offended. Here's a letter I sent to PETA (text provided by Meryl Yourish) regarding their new campaign comparing the Holocaust to killing animals for food.
"Dear PETA,
I found your new ad campaign, "The Holocaust on your plate," offensive and outrageous. But I don't expect your organization to suddenly develop any sense of tact or human decency, so I thought I'd tell you what your campaign has wrought:
March 15th has been designated "International Eat An Animal For PETA" day. On that day, I'll be chowing down on a juicy steak, or chicken, or perhaps I'll have lobster—fresh, of course, chosen from the tank specifically for me. Maybe I'll have a plate of ribs at my local barbecue restaurant. Then there's that great seafood restaurant with the poached salmon and the delicious crabcakes. I could take my family there.
America's a free country, and you have the right to say what you want, no matter how offensive I think it is. But as a result of your insensitivity to those millions of people who died in the real Holocaust, and to the survivors and their descendants, I and my family will show PETA the same kind of insensitivity.
And have a great, meat-filled dinner, while we're at it.
Chew on that.
Steve Martinovich
P.S. Personally, I'm leaning towards also having a club sandwich that day too....turkey and bacon!"
(Click on "More" to read the pathetic form letter response that essentially commits the same error the campaign did...if some Jews approve of it, it must be alright.)
[more]
Posted by steve @ 07:27 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: (Thanks to Jim Antle who noticed it!) My review of Phyllis Schlafly's latest book is running in today's American Prowler. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:29 PM EST [Link]
~ ANYONE WANT TO BUY ME ONE?: I really need this.
Posted by steve @ 11:12 AM EST [Link]
~ THANKS JAY: Jay Nordlinger links to our interview of...well, Jay Nordlinger in his column yesterday. Thanks Jay!
Posted by steve @ 10:02 AM EST [Link]
~ SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THEN OTHERS: The socialist New Democrats are the current government of Manitoba and are among the biggest supporters of the Kyoto Accord, probably because the province has no oil. Part of their pro-Kyoto tirades have included slamming SUVs every second.
So who's driving those SUVs? Why members of the socialist, pro-Kyoto NDP cabinet of course. One member defended his choice of ride saying, wait for it!, that some people needed to drive SUVs.
Conservation (!) Minister Steve Ashton, who drives a 2001 Chevy Blazer, has "ordered a more fuel-efficient Pontiac Vibe which should be arriving this spring. But he said politicians who live in rural and northern areas generally need four-wheel-drive vehicles because of poor driving conditions."
Message to Ashton: Most of Manitoba is rural.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:29 AM EST [Link]
~ OF COURSE SHE'S SORRY: Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish appeared in the very boring talk show "Open Mike with Mike Bullard" last night and essentially negated her apology about calling Americans "bastards".
"I was thinking it, it just came right out of my mouth," Parrish said.
"The studio audience cheered their support when television monitors showed the now-familiar clip of the MP walking away from reporters Wednesday after expressing frustration about the likelihood of war in Iraq and saying: 'Damn Americans, I hate those bastards.'"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:21 AM EST [Link]
~ EVIL AND WAR MONGERING AMERICA: James Lileks as an excellent as usual blog entry about "Hedgehog Khalid", George Clooney and the notion of evil and the propaganda the Minneapolis public school system wants you to teach your children.
"Tell your children that what we put our energy into is what we get. Over the past 70 years or so, our country has become very focused on war. Huge amounts of our financial resources, technological advances, and intellectual energy have gone toward developing the ways of war. We have neglected creating the ways of peace. If we put as much energy into developing the ways of peace, we would stop seeing war as the only option.
"Yes, that’s America: focused on war since 1933.
"This is what the public school system in Minneapolis wants me to tell my 2 1/2 year old daughter."
Posted by steve @ 09:16 AM EST [Link]
Monday, March 3, 2003 A WEIRD, PATHETIC LITTLE MAN- Roman Polanski does not come off very well in Mark Steyn's slightly sneering profile of the (formerly) great director. I'll have to disagree with Steyn's assessment of Polanksi's work for the last quarter-century as all "junk." Death and the Maiden is a cool, detached, but fascinating moral conundrum and exploration of political guilt, even if you are an obdurate defender of the Pinochet dictatorship. The climax on the cliffs with Sigourney Weaver holding a gun to Ben Kingsley's head, while Kingsley pours his heart out in an attempt to save his life is emotionally draining. And Polanski can act as well and not just in bit parts like when he famously sliced Jack Nicholson's nose in Chinatown. He steals every scene he has (opposite Gerard Depardieu no less) in A Pure Formality in which a confused writer suffering from amnesia (Depardieu) has mind games played on him by a Javert-like inspector (Polanski) during a nightmarish interrogation while he is being inexplicably kept prisoner in a dank, leaky rural police station. What seems at first to be a grim Kafkaesque allegory about totalitarianism turns out to be by the end a lot more bizarre than that (sorry, I think I'm starting to sound a blurb-writer...).
Posted by Barton @ 08:20 PM EST [Link]
~ GOODBYE FOR TONIGHT!: One of my new resolutions is that I take one night a week and just relax. Tonight I watch the first DVD I have ever bought, the incomparable Five Fingers of Death. I saw this a couple of years ago and it has remained one of my Kung Fu favs. Did you know I was a Kung Fu movie junkie?
"An old Kung Fu teacher, Shen Wu, is assaulted by a group of thugs from a rival school. He fights them off, but is concerned after the attack. There is an upcoming prestigious martial arts tournament and Shen Wu does not want his rivals to win. So Shen Wu sends his best pupil, Chao Chi-hao (Lo Lieh), for additional training at the respected martial arts school run by master Shen Jin Pei. Chao Chi-hao also happens to be engaged to Shen Wu’s beautiful daughter, Ying Ying (Wang Ping). Chao Chi-hao and Ying Ying say goodbye, and he leaves to make the journey to Shen Jin Pei’s martial arts school."
It's no Shaolin Temple (aka Death Chamber) -- a masterpiece in Kung Fu cinema that stars the late Alexander Fu Sheng -- but it's still a good one. Both happen to have been directed by Chang Cheh who died last summer in Hong Kong.
[Update - 7:20pm] Before I leave, a lot of the Kung Fu classics (including the ones above and others like Five Deadly Venoms, which I have on VHS widescreen only unfortunately, and Five Masters of Death -- again, directed by Chang Cheh) were made by Shaw Brothers Studios. They went bankrupt in 1984 but someone has set up a fan site here.
Posted by steve @ 07:06 PM EST [Link]
~ PITY: Good ESR friend, and the man who directly helped me get my first Canadian magazine appearance -- Jeremy Lott -- has left The Report aka Citizens Centre Report due to creative differences.
We wish Jeremy the best of luck though he hardly needs it.
Read on
Posted by steve @ 06:47 PM EST [Link]
~ 2000 YEAR OLD VILLA, LIBRARY REVEALED TO VISITORS: The long-buried Villa of the Papyri, one of Italy's richest Roman villas famed for its library of ancient scrolls, opened to the public this weekend almost 2 000 years after it was submerged in volcanic mud.
What makes me sad is that I had an unofficial minor in classical history in university. It was always my dream to get my doctorate in Roman history (probably specializing in either military history or culture) and do this sort of thing. Oh well, the dreams of youth give way to the regrets of adulthood.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:41 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE LOVE THE NUGE: Ted Nugent appears at a Wisconsin bow hunters association meeting and tells it like it is.
"Nugent, who looks fit and healthy at 54, said he doesn't drink or smoke, a message he shares with schoolchildren. Nugent also criticized the idea that vegetarianism is an alternative to killing for food."
Like Winston Churchill, though, I have to confess I'm always a little distrustful of a man who doesn't drink. Smoking I'm ambivalent on.
Posted by steve @ 06:36 PM EST [Link]
~ NBC NERVOUS ABOUT MY ANTI-WAR PROTESTING: Martin Sheen says that NBC executives are worried about his anti-war activism.
"Sheen, who plays fictional U.S. President Josiah Bartlet on the NBC series, told the Los Angeles Times for a story Sunday that the show's staff has been '100 percent supportive' but top network executives have 'let it be known they're very uncomfortable with where I'm at' on the war."
Sounds like to me that Sheen is racing to find a plausible excuse for the big decline in ratings that the show has seen this year. The problem for him is that the decline began before his anti-war activism began in earnest. Pehaps Sheen could come to grips with the fact that The West Wing is failing with audiences because they find it boring.
Posted by steve @ 09:45 AM EST [Link]
~ CATO'S CASE AGAINST IRAQ WAR: William Niskanen briefly outlines his case against going to war against Iraq. His views neatly dovetail my own, with a caveat: What would the consequences of a nuclear-armed Saddam be?
This is the reason for my ambivalence. Should we simply hope that his past record of only supporting regional terrorists is an adequate guarantee that he will never in the future back a terrorist group of global reach? Would increased capability possiblity make him willing to make that extra step?
Those who say he would not risk suicide by doing so may have a point, but they ignore the example of North Korea. Surely, if North Korea were to go through with its threats to unleash a "horrifying" nuclear attack, its Stalinist regime would surely invite its own destruction. Nevertheless, the U.S. is very reluctant to pursue anything approaching a military solution to this crisis. Why? For the obvious reason that even though we are ultimately able to destroy North Korea, a nuclear attack on ourselves or an ally is too steep a price to pay. If was a nuclear power, the U.S. would similarly be reluctant to use force if Saddam against became aggressive.
So my inclination is to side with the more sensible Iraq war skeptics on the right. But not without doubts. And of course, I do tend to wonder if the Bush administration has intelligence info giving it reason to believe the threat is more imminent than it would appear judging from the publicly available information.
Posted by antle @ 09:12 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, March 2, 2003 NOT SURE HOW I MISSED THIS: David Frum weighed in on Carolyn Parrish for NRO.
Posted by antle @ 05:37 PM EST [Link]
~ TRADING NOTES ON KUCINICH: I caught Radley Balko's Fox News column on left-wing congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's sudden abortion conversion. In an email exchange, I pointed him to my American Prowler piece on the same subject, which he was kind enough to link to on The Agitator.
Incidentally, I think he is dead on about the Democrats being the party with a real litmus test on the issue. Go through the mental exercise of naming major politicians who differ from their party on abortion, and I'll be you'll come up with more pro-choice Republicans than pro-life Democrats. And I bet the imbalance will become even more pronounced if you try to come up with pols who differ from their party on abortion and actually talk about the issue.
Posted by antle @ 05:16 PM EST [Link]
~ I LOVE BACON: More than you can know actually. It is the perfect food. Doubtless you've heard about PETA's incredibly disgusting anti-meat campaign that equates the killing of animals for food with the Holocaust. Meryl Yourish has declared March 15, "International Eat an Animal for PETA Day."
"It's like my father taught me: Don't get mad. Get even."
Now this is a protest I can get into! Meryl has thoughtfully provided a sample letter you can email to PETA to inform them of your intention to eat a nice juicy steak on March 15.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:24 PM EST [Link]
~ JESUS, SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRINCIPLES: Most of the British human shields who went to Iraq to try and prevent allied bombing of Iraqi targets have left the country.
Why? They thought it was too dangerous to continue. Ah, weren't you cats supposed to be there for precisely that reason?
Posted by steve @ 03:49 AM EST [Link]
~ ESR HONORED: I received an email today from Connie J. Wilkins and Mark J. Fournier from Free Dominion (think Canada's version of Free Republic) asking me to the Free Dominion Principled Conservative Awards banquet in April. It seems they want to present me with the New Media award for all the work I've done with ESR.
I haven't written Connie and Mark back yet because I don't know if I can make it (I'm poor, what do you want?) but I figured I'd publicly acknowledge the honour on behalf of all the people who have truly made ESR possible.
I may be the person who's responsible for this little online effort but it wouldn't exist in its present form without all the great people who've been with this magazine since 1996, and that includes you, the reader. They may be presenting me with this award but it belongs to all of you. I'm just the guy who throws it all together every week. You guys, writers and readers, make it all possible and worth doing.
Thank you.
Posted by steve @ 03:33 AM EST [Link]
~ DEATH IS TOO GOOD FOR HIM: Good LA Times story about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the savage captured yesterday morning in Pakistan.
Read on. (Free registration or use name: esrmusings pass: coffee)
As I said on another web site, I'd give him the rack.
Posted by steve @ 03:22 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, March 1, 2003 THE DEMOCRATS NEEDS A MCCAIN: New Republic editor Peter Beinhart says the Democrats need a John McCain, not an Al Sharpton.
There are some points I'd quibble with, but Beinhart is correct that it will hurt the Democratic Party if it attempts to govern a country concerned about national security by appealing to race-baiters and antiwar protestors.
Posted by antle @ 10:26 PM EST [Link]
~ LIEBERMAN SUPPORTS BUSH IRAQ POLICY ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Interesting Manchester Union-Leader coverage of Sen. Joe Lieberman, the least offensive of the Democrats running for president.
It's somewhat misleading to say that Lieberman is the only Democrat supporting the president on Iraq - Richard Gephardt has also been strongly supportive of using force to oust Saddam Hussein, while John Kerry and John Edwards also voted for the resolution authorizing force - just as it is somewhat misleading to label him a "conservative" Democrat, as some are wont to do. But he has been the one who qualifies his support of the president with the fewest digs. It will be interesting to see whether the few areas where Lieberman has actually broken with liberal party bosses will be the issues that doom his presidential bid.
Posted by antle @ 06:40 PM EST [Link]
~ A VERY POOR DECISION: Steve Den Beste says the Turkish Parliament's refusal to allow American soldiers to operate out of Turkey against Iraq will have serious repurcussions.
"What it does is to mean that there will be a war anyway, and that Turkey's economy will sustain all the damage which was expected, only without the benefit of any huge aid package from the US. That deal for billions of dollars of direct aid and even more in loans just became waste paper.
"It means that the current government of Turkey will discover it no longer has a sympathetic partner in Washington. The US will no longer use its influence for Turkey's benefit with the IMF. We also won't be pushing the EU to admit Turkey."
Posted by steve @ 06:13 PM EST [Link]
~ TOP AL-QAIDA OPERATIVE CAPTURED: The man believed to be the key planner of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- and nearly every al Qaeda attack in the last 10 years -- one Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was among three terrorism suspects arrested early this morning in a house outside the Pakistani capital.
Read on.
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