Musings Archive July 2003
Thursday, July 31, 2003 STALIN WANTED THE DUKE DEAD!: Think how different my life would have been. According to HotWired:
"John Wayne was an anti-communist from the word 'go,' and that apparently so enraged Josef Stalin, the Big Red himself, that he ordered the actor's assassination. At least that's what Wayne's latest biographer, Michael Munn, is claiming in John Wayne -- The Man Behind the Myth. According to the book, several plots to eliminate the Duke failed before Nikita Khruschev, who succeeded Stalin and was a fan of Wayne's movies, rescinded the order."
I knew that Nikita wasn't that bad of a cat even with that shoe thumping...
Posted by steve @ 04:44 PM EST [Link]
~ VX MISSILES AIMED AT ISRAEL: Ha'aretz reported today that Syria has at least 100 missiles equipped with deadly VX gas aimed at Israel.
A senior Israeli defense source told Foreign Affairs that the missiles are equipped with VX, the most lethal nerve gas, and that the Syrians have now
achieved their aim of balancing Israel's nuclear advantage.Meanwhile, a senior U.S. official told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Syria today is incapable of stopping the activities of terror organizations operating in south Lebanon or the flow of money and military supplies from Iran to the area,
Israel Radio reported Thursday morning.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece in today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record about Sheila Copps' campaign platform. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I wasn't impressed and declared it a return to Trudeau era politics.
It's online but unfortunately the Record no longer allows free access to their site. Buy a copy, which will surely appreciate in value due to my appearance, and look for the piece in the op-ed section entitled "Copps' platform takes us back to the worst of the Trudeau era."
Posted by steve @ 02:06 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, July 30, 2003 A BUREAUCRAT'S DEFENCE: Mr. Janes also writes: "My taxes are thousands of dollars higher than they were two years ago because the PCs realized they could pay for the Common Sense Revolution — tax cuts in 905 and 613 — from Toronto property taxes." This simply isn't true. Yes, I can repeat the party line and blame both underfunding from the Federal government and the general incompetence of Mad Mel and his gang, but the "Common Sense Revolution" did occur. It wasn't simply a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
One statistic alone should be enough to prove this. As part of my preparation before starting work with the provincial government, I did some research on the structure of the bureaucracy. During that time, I came across this startling fact: in spring of 1995, at the very end of the Peterson/Rae reign of terror, "there were approximately 81,250 employees and 1,925 senior management staff working in 457 branches of [the provincial] government. In the spring of 1999, there were approximately 64,000 employees and 1,686 senior management in 332 branches." Doesn't sound like that much, right? Well, consider this: in 1970, the province of Ontario directly employed 62 000 people. And I can tell you from direct experience that the number of people now employed with the province is even lower than it was in spring of 1999, somewhere around 60 000. This is actually quite an amazing achievement: our province in 2003 has a provincial bureaucracy which is below the staffing levels it had in 1970. All this was achieved through a campaign of downloading, outsourcing, early retirement, not bothering to hire for positions that became empty, combining positions, and outright cutbacks. How amazing is this? It's so amazing that I, a Mike Harris Tory, after working for the bureaucracy for two summers now, have come to the conclusion that the provincial government is now chronically understaffed.
Have I gone native? Hardly. I work in an office tower in which the province owns twelve floors of space. There are parts of four ministries there: Citizenship, Labour, Tourism and Recreation, and my home, Culture. Back in the bad old days, the Ministry of Labour had all twelve floors to itself. It now has six. My Ministry has something like 80 full-time, non-political staff in total and our mandate is to supervise the cultural institutions of the entire province. I'd write more, but I think I'd be violating my oath of secrecy (yes, they made me swear an oath).
Posted by Barton @ 11:30 PM EST [Link]
~ SHE WAS MURDERED: Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi admitted today that a Canadian journalist who died in Iran last month was murdered.
Iran's vice-president said Wednesday that the Canadian freelance photojournalist who died in police custody earlier this month was murdered, the first time an official has admitted that Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death.
Earlier statements, including a report from a presidential committee, had acknowledged that Kazemi died from injuries sustained from a blow to the head, but suggested it could have been an accident.
"The murder was caused by brain hemorrhage due to a blow inflicted on her (head)," Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:16 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: In tomorrow's edition of the Christian Science Monitor you can find my review of Paul Hoffman's Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight. You can access it now by visiting here.
Posted by steve @ 11:08 PM EST [Link]
~ CANADIAN POLITICS...STILL FUN!: Hey, I'm back from the dead, if only temporarily. No posts recently because firstly, I'm suffering from a profound case of the summer blahs and secondly, the work at the Ministry of Culture really takes the wind out of me by the end of the day. But this post by David Janes on the disillusioning paralysis that is modern Canadian politics caught my eye. I cannot help but think that such a feeling mainly stems from the fact that this is a Toronto-based perspective and thus on all three levels of government, administrations are winding down their mandates and each one of them somehow seems beleaguered and threadbare. Municipally, we're in the last days of Mad Mel. Provincially, my beloved Tories (who are not and never will be popular in Toronto) are trying to outwait the polls. And of course, federally we're in the midst of Jean Chretien's one-and-half year long farewell tour with an non-existant race to succeed him and an opposition that dishonours the word "weak." Even so, with four parties in contention, according to the most recent poll, 51% of Torontonians are supporting the Liberals, which of course means that they're going to take every seat in the GTA for the fourth time in a row. This is by far, the strongest bastion of Liberal support in the entire country. Pretty hopeless picture, isn't it?
Well, I don't quite buy into it. Alright, I openly admit to being a partisan Ontario PC hack, but I remain convinced that the upcoming provincial election will be a rerun of 1995 with good, ol' Dalton playing the role of the Premier-in-waiting who gets the stuffing knocked out of him. Remember Lyn Macleod? A bland, affable, centrist with no ideas. A strawperson whose support was the proverbial miles wide and inches deep. That's Dalton McGuinty. Contrary to what Mr. Rolston, Mr. Janes, and yes, occasionally me, believe, Premier Eves consistently outpolls his own party as the most popular out of all the provincial leaders. Personalize the race, make it an Eves vs. McGuinty match-up ignoring the various scandals of the last year and focussing solely on leadership qualities and the "trust factor," and we'll win. Make this referendum on the "Common Sense Revolution" or the government of Ernie Eves (as opposed to the personality) and we lose. The Liberals however just can't get around the problem that at the very heart of their campaign is a big, boring void. If Eves can bring out the weird, off-putting Al Gore-like qualities of McGuinty, especially in the debates (which I am convinced that he is more than capable of doing), then all the Chris Stockwells and mismanaged budget stagings in the world will not save the Liberals. Ontariens are not prepared to entrust the government of this province to an non-entity. Especially a Liberal one. Which brings me to my second point of why we're going to win the next provincial election.
Imagine it's 2004 and Barbara Hall is Mayor, Dalton McGuinty is Premier, and Paul Martin is Prime Minister. All three levels of government are now held by Liberals. Such a monopoly of power in the hands of one political party will look utterly unacceptable to the general public, if we Conservatives are actually smart enough to point this out. For example, a fear of over-reaching single party political dominance is one reason why the very liberal state of Massachusetts has elected Republican governors four times in a row, even while returning two Democratic Senators and an all-Democratic congressional delegation to Washington and giving the Democrats veto-proof majorities in the State House and State Senate. Obviously, the Liberals are going to romp home for a fourth mandate federally and right now, the Premiers are just about the only decent opposition the Federal govenrment is receiving. Does Dalton McGuinty seem like someone ready to stand-up for Ontario interests and defy a Prime Minister Paul Martin to you? I don't think so. All Premier Eves has to do is ask whether or not Ontariens are ready to hand over the reins of the most populous and wealthiest province in all of Canada to the Liberals, at a time when their federal counterparts are not only unchallenged, but growing increasingly arrogant, controlling, and lazy, precisely because of such a lack of real political opposition. I think we all know the answer to that question.
The greatest fear among us Ontario Conservatives is not really a Dalton McGuinty-led majority government. It is a Dalton McGuinty-led minority government with the NDP backing it up. I ask you, do you want the socialists returning to the halls of power through the back door? Don't you remember that golden age of 1990-1995? Does the term "Rae Days" stir up any nightmares? Just a few more reasons why you should vote Conservative in the next election.
P.S. In direct answer to Mr. Janes, no, it wasn't us Tories who put-up that wind turbine (which I actually think is kind of neat-looking). It was Toronto City Council at the direct urging of Jack Layton. I should know, since when I listened to Layton's first official speech as NDP leader from the convention floor last January, he kept blathering on about it and how he would build fields upon fields of the things across the country eventually.
Posted by Barton @ 10:25 PM EST [Link]
~ "VESSEL WENT DOWN IN 12 MINUTES. DIDN'T SEE THE FIRST SHARK FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR.": (Via Brothers Judd Blog) Those are, of course, words from Quint (Robert Shaw) from the movie "Jaws" in describing how the U.S.S. Indianapolis went down on July 30, 1945 after delivering the atom bomb and the horrific fate that awaited the men who entered the water. Of the 1 114 men onboard, 900 survived the sinking. A few days later only 321 were pulled from the water. Sharks and exposure took the rest. Today is the anniversary of that tragic event.
One of the finest books to cover the story is Doug Stanton's In Harm's Way which we reviewed back in April 2001. The rumour is that Mel Gibson bought the rights to the book and will make a movie about it.
Posted by steve @ 08:53 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT'S OPTIMISTIC: The first person to hold Iraq's rotating presidency said today that Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to Iraqis. He's right...now American soldiers on the other hand...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:25 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: A piece I wrote about a proposed national identity card for Canadians is running today in the Windsor Star. No online link unfortunately but if you live in Windsor please feel free to pick up a copy, one that will surely appreciate in value because of my appearance.
Posted by steve @ 04:49 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH BURNISHES SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE CRED: Social conservatives everywhere must have had a pleasant surprise this afternoon when George W. Bush announced that he believes marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman.
Bush said it is "important for society to welcome each individual," but administration lawyers are looking for some way to legally limit marriage to heterosexuals.
"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or another," Bush told reporters at a White House news conference. "And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that."
An idea I've long believed and was recently discussed on this blog is the concept of civil unions.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:34 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT, YOU DIDN'T NOTICE BEFORE?: Ken Adelman writes on FoxNews.com today that "they" -- being the Saudis -- are against the U.S. Why does he come to that conclusion? Because Saudi Arabians privately finance terrorist groups like al-Qaida to the tune of tens of millions every month.
What’s new in official documents -- the report’s real zinger -- is being hidden from the American public. Were I a scandal-monger, I’d pull out the gold-minted “C” word of scandals.
But it’s not a cover-up -- at least, not an effective one.
For someone slyly gave a glimpse to a New York Times reporter, who lead the newspaper Saturday with: “Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, according to people who have read it.”
If true, this means Saudi Arabia is “against us” -- big time, since it’s the spigot for the terrorist resources.
Dude, if you consider that a "zinger" than you should be ashamed. It's been common knowledge for years that Saudis directly finance terrorist groups.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:24 PM EST [Link]
~ HE DID HATE HIPPIES: I doubt it will inspire a book buying binge in Lowell, Mass. but the first 1 000 fans at a game between the Lowell Spinners and Williamsport Crosscutters of the Class A New York-Penn League will receive a bobblehead doll with the likeness of Jack Kerouac.
A lot of cultural conservatives love to hate him for indirectly inspiring the hippie movement but it should be noted that he was a Beat writer, not a hippie. Kerouac, in fact, disliked the hippie movement. And any man who could write the following has a warm place in my heart:
"Those books! If only I had time to read them, and more...I went to the University Library itself, and do you know, there were hundreds of thousands of books there I honestly felt I should read! And the ideas that rush through my mind. The impatience I feel! The time running off like sand." -- Orpheus Emerged
And sure to please Kathy Shaidle and Jeremy Lott, Kerouac once wrote: "I'm not a beatnik, I'm a Catholic."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:47 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, July 29, 2003 DUH: The BBC has come to the conclusion that the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist.
"[A] team used 600 separate sonar beams and satellite navigation technology to trawl the loch, but found no trace of any monster, the BBC said in a television program broadcast Sunday.
"Previous reported sightings of a large beast in the grey waters of the lake led to speculation that the loch may contain a plesiosaur, a marine reptile which died out with the dinosaurs."
Of course, the reason why the team didn't find Nessie is because Monty Burns captured him a few years ago and brought him to Springfield.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:48 PM EST [Link]
~ KEEPING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE:
"About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail (Arizona) have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.
"On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks. 'It feels like you are in a furnace,' said James Zanzo't, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 1/2 years. 'It's inhumane.'
"Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, is not sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told the inmates: 'It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths.' "
- Associated Press, 7/28/03
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS IS WHY I ONLY OWN A CELL PHONE: Telemarketers are suing the American government over it's wildly popular "Do Not Call" list, already containing 28 million phone numbers, because they say it will devastate their business and cost up to 2 million jobs.
The American Teleservices Association, an industry group that sued the FTC in January to stop the list, asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to reject new regulations set by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC added its authority to the list to close regulatory loopholes and block calls from certain industries, including airlines, banks and telephone companies.
"This truly is a case of regulatory overkill," said Tim Searcy, ATA executive director.
I agree that I don't care much for a government to be running this sort of service but at the same time my compassion for the telemarketing industry is non-existent. Their industry depends on using a service that I pay for, my telephone line, and is done at a time, dinner, that will ensure that I'm interrupted. While I feel poorly for all those that could lose their jobs I doubt a majority of Americans will miss being called about long-distance plans or deals on carpet cleanings. People in the industry don't seem to understand that I don't want to be bothered...if it takes them loosing their jobs to understand that, so be it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:23 PM EST [Link]
~ ADMITTING THE TRUTH: An anti-sanctions activist admits in the Summer 2003 issue of Middle East Quarterly that he and his group covered up information that would make portrayed the Iraqi government in a bad light.
I intended to use the knowledge I acquired in my academic work to aid my "real" job as an anti-sanctions activist. But I got derailed when I realized that in order to return to Iraq with the group I represented—the Chicago-based "Voices in the Wilderness"—I and other group members could not speak publicly about issues that would embarrass the Iraqi regime. These included its horrendous human rights record, its involvement with weapons of mass destruction, and the dictatorial nature of the regime. We were allowed to speak only of one thing: the deprivations suffered by ordinary Iraqis under the sanctions regime.
This one-dimensional depiction of life in Saddam's Iraq was pure Baath propaganda, and I (as well as other group members) knew it. As I came to see this as a complicity and collaboration with one of the most abusive dictatorships in the world, I tried to get the rest of my group to acknowledge that our close relationship with the regime damaged our credibility. I failed to persuade them, so I quit. Unfortunately, it seems that my former colleagues have regarded this decision as a kind of political "defection," and it has cost me several friendships, which were apparently contingent on my continued willingness to toe the (Baathist) line.
Since then, I have returned to university with the objective of becoming a professional historian of Baathist Iraq. I am no longer a political activist, and it will likely be some time before I assume that role again, if I ever do. In this article, I wish to look back at this rather peculiar aspect of the American peace movement and offer an honest and firsthand account of how it worked from the inside.
I'm happy that Charles M. Brown has come to acknowledge the truth but I'm more damned happy that we didn't rely on people like him for the truth.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:11 PM EST [Link]
~ CANADIAN MILITARY BEGGING FOR PILOTS: Treat people like garbage and no one will come to your birthday party. Thanks to decades of budget cuts, obselete equipment and poor support, the Canadian Armed Forces is facing a dire shortage in pilots, formerly the job that people would kill for.
Recruiters last year succeeded in signing up only about a quarter of the number of new pilots needed to replace retiring aircrew.
"This is one of the best times in history to be applying to become a pilot in the Canadian Forces," said Lieutenant-Colonel Russ Konyk, the head of the Air Force Retention Office in Ottawa. "There are cockpits available."
Lt.-Col. Konyk said that this past year, only 48 new recruits interested in pilot training came through the Canadian Forces' recruiting system. The air force had set a target of 184.
"We are trying to get a grapple on why ... [but] we aren't getting the people through the door we anticipated," he said.
I think the good Lt.-Col. is being polite...it's fairly easy to know why people aren't joining the military these days.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:07 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT: The Democratic Leadership Council warns Democrats that George W. Bush will be virtually impossible to beat unless Democrats are able to increase their support from white males, the Washington Post reports today.
The gloomy prognosis came despite evidence in the poll and in the assessments of Democratic elected officials attending the DLC's "national conversation" here that the economy alone makes Bush vulnerable for reelection. But Mark J. Penn, who conducted the poll, said that the party's image has regressed since former president Bill Clinton left office and that those weaknesses put Democrats in a weakened position.
Penn said his polling indicates that since Clinton left office in 2001, more Americans believe Democrats are the party of big government and higher taxes and he said Bush's handling of the war on terrorism has opened up a huge gap with Democrats on who is more trusted on issues of national security.
Let's hope Americans don't notice whose been ramping up spending...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:08 AM EST [Link]
~ EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS OUT OF IRAQ: U.S. raids in Tikrit have resulted in the arrest of Saddam Hussein's bodyguard and two of the ex-murderer's associates, a U.S. military official said this morning.
"The primary target was achieved," according to Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division. "This man was a close associate of Saddam Hussein."
According to Russell, the Army captured all the people targeted in the raids.
"Saddam's close associates seem to be very desperate," he said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:14 AM EST [Link]
~ GOOD NEWS OUT OF IRAQ: The Pentagon had some impressive news on Monday.
"The Pentagon announced again today that its raped-by-Uday count remained at zero for the sixth day in a row. About 11 million Iraqi women have not been raped by Uday Hussein since he, and his brother, were killed by American troops last week."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:09 AM EST [Link]
Monday, July 28, 2003 COOL ROMAN STORY OF THE DAY: Archaeologists excavating an area soon to be a shopping mall/apartment complex in London that was a major Roman temple about 2000 years ago have found a box with what may be face cream or face paint. It's so well preserved that the fingermarks of last person to have used it are still present.
I would have been poor as an academic but the chance to find stuff like this would have made up for it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:43 PM EST [Link]
~ THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: This time it looks like it's for real. There was a scare a few years back when it was falsely reported that the great entertainer Bob Hope had died. Sadly, there will be no correction this time. His publicist Ward Grant has announced that Mr. Hope has died of pneumonia. At least he made it to his 100th birthday.
Nobody lives forever, yet this is a sad day nonetheless. Hope was one of the last of the great ones. A pioneer in the forms of stand-up comedy we enjoy today, friend to U.S. presidents, tireless supporter of our troops and a great American patriot. He made us laugh and he made a difference. He will be missed. R.I.P., Bob Hope.
Full story here.
Posted by antle @ 09:53 AM EST [Link]
~ THEY STILL THINK THEY WERE A SERIOUS PROJECT: I almost feel sorry for John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten, ostensible leader of 1970s punk group The Sex Pistols. It's common knowledge that the band was essentially a promoter's idea of a joke and yet the surviving Pistols strut around as if they were a genuine cultural artifact. It's kind of like the way you smile when you hear anyone from The Monkees argue that they really did make a cultural contribution.
At any rate, the Sex Pistols will be touring the U.S. this summer and Lydon talks as if it's the second coming.
So why reunite now?
"Who says we reunited?" Lydon asks. "We never separated. We don't need a reason for anything. Let the copycats sit around and come up with reasons for things."
Still, Lydon seems to think the time is right to spread a little anarchy in North America. "There is a vast amount of disenfranchised in America," he says. "It's important to let them know we're still here."
Right. They did make a couple of cool songs, perhaps the best of them being Pretty Vacant, which although it isn't rocket science does rock.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:38 AM EST [Link]
~ I KNOW JUST WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT: Colby Cosh ruminates on the straitjacket that weekends are and how hard a freelance writer's life is. On the plus side, the National Post paid him promptly for the two pieces of his that they ran.
I know some people regard slow processing of freelance invoices as a sign of poor health in a newspaper organization, so I'd like to state for the record, assuming it's not some sort of breach of etiquette, that Canwest paid me super quickly for my first two National Post op-eds.
I wish I could say the same thing about some other major Canadian newspapers. One owes me for a piece they ran in April while others owe me from early last month. It's impossible to manage a budget or even to budget at all when you have no idea when the money is supposed to come. Then again, I fell into this way of life so I supposed I have to take the pain.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:49 AM EST [Link]
~ FROM THE STUPID PARTY FILES - RESCUING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY AGAIN: As Jeremy Lott notes in a great American Specator On-Line piece on the Gray Davis recall effort, California Republicans seem to be intent on blowing a once-in-a-lifetime second chance to reclaim power and oust the nation's worst governor. The GOP is failing to coalesce around a single candidate while a whole host of spoilers jump in who might actually make Davis look good. When Lott says California's politics are so dysfunctional they're practically Canadian, I'm not sure whether Canadians or Californians should be more insulted.
It's hard to believe that I was once a huge booster of Jack Kemp. He seemed to me like a great conservative who could broaden the Reagan coalition across racial lines. I'm almost embarrassed to say that if you had asked me back in the heady days of 1994 what my dream ticket for the GOP in 1996 would be, I would have answered Kemp and Colin Powell.
That said, I'll be very surprised if he runs for governor. When he was in Congress, hee wouldn't run for a higher leadership position than House Republican Conference chairman even though his colleagues wnated him to. He wouldn't run for governor of New York when the party asked him to in either 1990 or 1994. Ditto when he was asked to run for Senate. He wouldn't run for president when he was the only conservative who could have conceivably united the right and beaten Bob Dole in 1996. And he wouldn't lift much of a finger to help Dole win when he was nominated for vice president that year. The Chavez thing is just the latest example of bizarre political instincts from him since that disastrous run.
Posted by antle @ 01:40 AM EST [Link]
~ ISRAEL WITHOUT APOLOGY: In addition to the fine article spotlighted earlier that is appearing in City Journal you can find "Israel Without Apology" by Sol Stern.
Three decades ago, I was a Berkeley New Leftist with a political and personal problem. I had been born in Israel, and, though I didn’t consider myself a Zionist, I certainly didn’t want to see the Jewish state disappear. Yet my comrades on the Left were starting on a long march whose ultimate objective was to demonize Israel and turn it into a pariah among the nations. At Bay Area meetings, I heard Israel denounced as an imperialist aggressor that had “ripped off” the land from the native population and had aligned itself with the most reactionary forces in the world. The Arabs, on the other hand, were the truly victimized, the wretched of the earth, right up there in the pantheon of our movement’s other heroes, the Cubans and the Vietnamese.
None of this made much sense to me. All you needed was a map to see that Israel was a little sliver of a country, surrounded by more than a dozen retrograde, tyrannical Arab regimes. In June 1967, Egypt’s dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had thrown the U.N. force out of Sinai, sent his army to Israel’s border, closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and called on his brother Arabs to join in a war to exterminate the Jews. Israel had no international support after its only ally, France, abruptly switched sides. Even President Lyndon Johnson offered only the mildest protest to Egypt’s aggression. After standing alone and routing three Arab armies, Israel had immediately offered to trade “land for peace.” But the Arabs, gathered at a summit in Khartoum, emphatically announced three noes: “no recognition, no negotiations, no peace.”
In arguing these elemental points with my fellow leftists, I realized I didn’t know enough about the country that I now felt morally compelled to defend. So in the summer of 1970, I left for Israel—my first visit since immigrating to America as a three-year-old in 1939. In just three weeks, I saw almost the whole country, from the Lebanese border to the Negev desert in the south, from the Mediterranean coast to the Jordan River in the east.
Read on.
Find more articles from the Summer 2003 issue here.
Posted by steve @ 12:19 AM EST [Link]
~ IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH YOU HAVE TO SIT: And when you can't do it, you get little work done. I've been sitting on reviewing Douglas Coupland's new novel, Hey Nostradamus!, for two weeks because of my bad back. I can't sit down, either at my PC or with my laptop, without being forced to lie down again and push off the work to another day. Along with Coupland I have Robert Bove's book of poems, Tucker Carlson's upcoming book and Daniel Ryan's book on economics that have yet to be written up. How long can a strained/pulled muscle be strained/pulled?
Posted by steve @ 12:07 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, July 27, 2003 MICHAEL MOORE IS A BIG FAT IDIOT: Kay Hymowitz has a terrific piece taking apart Michael Moore in the City Journal, dwelling at length on his dishonesty, hypocrisy and best of all moral simplicity. You know the kind that according to Berkeley researchers characterizes conservatives. Link via Toogood Reports.
Posted by antle @ 09:21 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR TRUSTING THE SWISS: Screw jobs that the Swiss pulled on the British and Americans earlier this year is a good reason for "Buy American" laws, Rep. Duncan Hunter told Bill Gertz on Friday.
A Swiss company's refusal to provide critical parts for the Pentagon's flagship Joint Direct Attack Munition during the Iraq war shows the need for "buy American" laws, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said yesterday.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, also said Switzerland, a neutral nation, blocked delivery of grenades to British military forces during the conflict because it opposed the war.
"The British went into battle in Iraq without a full grenade load," Mr. Hunter said in an interview.
Regarding the JDAM parts, Mr. Hunter said Swatch Group AG, and its Micro Crystal division in Gretchen, Switzerland, refused to send key components used in the bomb guidance equipment used on the JDAM after the Iraq war began.
I've always been distrustful of those "Buy American/Canadian/blah blah" campaigns but when it comes to military hardware I can understand it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:43 PM EST [Link]
~ Q&A WITH HITCH: Fox News publishes a portion of a Christopher Hitchens interview on Iraq.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:37 PM EST [Link]
~ FLORIDA ALL OVER AGAIN: The Democrats are hoping to turn the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis into a rallying cry like the hanging chads of the close 2000 Florida election. Selected, not elected all over again. Just one problem with this approach: If Davis is in fact recalled, and this made the ballot because more than 1.3 million voters were willing to sign the petition qualifying it, it will because the voters decided.
Posted by antle @ 03:01 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, July 26, 2003 TOP-TIER DEMOCRATS TRY TO LOSE "DEAD MEN WALKING": The Washington Times reports that the leading Democratic presidential candidates, apparently supporters of Sen. John Kerry in particular, are urging the bottom-tier aspirants to get out of the race to clear the field for the eventual nominee.
While this desire is understandable, I don't really see how Kerry or any of the other leading candidates would benefit significantly if Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Mosley-Braun and maybe even Bob Graham all dropped out of the race. John Edwards dropping out would at least free up some of the trial lawyers' financial contributions to go to other candidates who are polling better, but I'm not sure that even his withdrawal would have any real impact on the polls. The problem isn't really the glut of candidates at the bottom, who aren't raising any real money or polling higher than the low single digits. The problem is that there is no clear front-runner, just a glut of candidates nipping at each other's heels in the top tier.
Kerry hasn't been able to shake Howard Dean, particularly in New Hampshire. Dean has emerged as a serious candidate for the nomination, but not someone leading Democrats are comfortable could beat President Bush. Richard Gephardt and Joe Lieberman are not doing as well as they should be and both have had fairly disappointing fundraising totals. But they are also both hanging on to the top tier. Gephardt still leads in Iowa, albeit by a reduced margin, according to most polls I've seen and might be in the top three candidates in New Hamsphire. Lieberman still tops some national polls and is strong in South Carolina. The dynamic of the race is only likely to change if one of these candidates decides they can't win and decides to get out.
But there are reasons to believe that might be unlikely to happen. Gephardt's political career is over if he doesn't win the nomination. If Kerry loses to New Hampshire to Dean, his bid may flounder and any of the rest of the top-tier candidates - and maybe even John Edwards - could see their viability renewed if pressed into service as a "stop Dean" candidate. Edwards might not be able to hold onto his Senate seat, so he has an incentive to stay in the Democratic presidential race as long as he can continue to draw trial lawyer contributions. Even if he loses, somebody might pick him for veep, which they won't do if he is a floundering candidate for reelection to the Senate. And although he is unlikely to have any impamct, Sharpton is exactly the kind of candidate who would stay in the race regardless of viability.
The Dems may just need to get used to waiting for Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to determine their front-runner.
Posted by antle @ 04:04 PM EST [Link]
~ HOWARD DEAN, MEET PETER BRIMELOW: Although we often hear about how the "gender gap" and a failure to "reach out" to minority voters hurts Republicans, one of the biggest obstacles Democrats have faced in recent years is their abysmal standing among white males, particularly of the working-class variety that formed the backbone of their party for decades following the New Deal.
In the latest issue of The American Conservative, executive editor Scott McConnell argues that Dean - an insurgent candidate popular among the antiwar left and first-time voters who nevertheless intrigues many nonliberals - could avoid the fate of, say, George McGovern if he rectifies this situation. How to do it? By embracing immigration reform.
It's an interesting thesis and a helpful reminder of the good liberal arguments for reforming and reducing immigration. But I don't think the issue will work for Dean for three reasons. First, he is trying to get the nomination by appealing to some of the most politically correct folks in the Democratic Party. To do so, he is going to have to live down the fact that he was something less than a fire-breathing liberal as governor of Vermont and that he has a record on gun control that won him high ratings from those gun-toting bogeymen in the NRA. He simply can't afford to take another risk with the left by opposing them on immigration. Yes, there are solid old-time liberal arguments for limiting immigration but, as Peter Brimelow observed in Alien Nation, today's liberals are differently motivated.
Second, like Ralph Nader Dean is already a candidate with an appeal to white liberals but no strong ties to the minority voters who today form the Democrats' most crucial constituency. There is a powerful case to be made that American minority groups would benefit from immigration reform. But it is very easy to botch this case, especially in the context of trying to increase white male support, and in the process alienate minorities rather than make common cause with them. Third, and perhaps most importantly, it assumes that a single issue - immigration - can take precedence over all the other issues that have driven white males away from the Democrats toward the Republican Party. Dean is to the right of his national party on guns, but he isn't going to be able to run to the right of President Bush. He is a quintessential East Coast cultural liberal. And the very positions on war and foreign policy that make him interesting to The American Conservative make him seem weak on national security to the groups Dean would be trying to win over by becoming an immigration reformer.
For these reasons, I doubt Dean will take McConnell's advice and I'm not sure it would work for him if he did.
Posted by antle @ 03:31 PM EST [Link]
~ I KNEW THIS WAS FAKE: The mayor of Las Vegas (What happens there, stays there) confirms that the "Bambi Hunt" -- shooting naked women with paintball guns -- was a hoax. Duh.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:05 AM EST [Link]
Friday, July 25, 2003 THAT THEY ACTUALLY THOUGHT THEY COULD WIN WAS FUNNY: Uday Hussein's bodyguard has given an interview that relates life during wartime for the Husseins.
In an exclusive interview with The Times of London, the bodyguard claimed that, far from fleeing Baghdad, the three men held out in the capital for at least a week after its fall.
He said that they evaded repeated American attempts to assassinate or capture them, and even appeared in public under the noses of U.S. troops.
During a three-hour interview in a house in a town an hour northwest of Baghdad, the bodyguard said that Saddam and his sons had remained in the capital throughout the war, convinced they could hold the city.
When the first bombs fell on a house in a southern suburb, where the Americans believed Saddam and his sons were meeting, he and Uday were on the other side of the city in one of dozens of safe houses belonging to trusted friends and relatives through which the three men were to pass in the weeks to come.
The bodyguard said the Americans’ next “decapitation” strike came a lot closer, and that Saddam survived only because several safe houses had come under attack and he suspected there was an informant within his camp.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:00 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT STARTED MY ADDICTION: Milk is the gateway drug to everything and for me, it led to clothes. I'll freely admit that I'm a clotheshorse. It's embarassing for a 32-year old man to admit but I have to.
It all started with J. Crew in university. You have to remember that in high school I had the clothing style of a homeless man. Early on when my mother was buying I looked like a dork and later on I did a complete 180 and started dressing in Ocean Pacific T-shirts. I went from chess club president to slightly dorky Jeff Spicoli wannabe in four years. During the final year of high school my sister told me about a company called J. Crew which sold preppy style clothing at fairly reasonable prices.
I still remember the first jacket I bought from J. Crew...their famed barn jacket. That was followed up by a multi-colored rugby shirt (which I still have) and then a light blue chambry Oxford button-down (which I lamentably no longer have). Soon my credit card was being roughed up like a guy who owes Tony Soprano money. Within the year my entire wardrobe was J. Crew and I strutted around Laurentian University dressed like someone who looked like he should be playing touch football with members of the Kennedy clan at Hyannisport. I bought so much that I still have a number of shirts, two pairs of chinos and a jacket. I still replace each worn barn jacket with a new one -- I believe I'm on number four now.
As Queen once sang, nothing lasts forever. The grunge era in music made it's impact in the clothing world and J. Crew was no different. Preppy offerings gave way to "distressed" clothes and plaids. Eventually I stopped buying from them and armed with a job that could pay for my addiction I moved on to local stores that carried designer clothes. I kept receiving the catalogues out of hope that one day things would change.
And it would appear that they finally have. The latest J. Crew catalogue, which I have been receiving for nearly a decade now, arrived this morning and features an orange curdoroy jacket over a green sweater and pink shirt -- not my look but different from what J. Crew has been pushing recently. Opening it up I see clothes in there that I haven't seen in years (the white cableknit is back!). They're once again pushing a preppy look!
I'm not the only one that noticed. The New York Times ran a piece (free registration or use account: esrmusings, pass: cookie) this week about J. Crew and other clothiers trying to "reimagine" themselves in the face of falling sales.
To win its share of such money, J. Crew — now under the guidance of Millard Drexler, the former Gap chief executive — says it is returning to a tradition of preppy, quality goods that in recent years has been diluted. It is adding pleats to the backs of its shirts and having them made in Italy instead of China. Shoes are being made in Italy, too. Trousers will fit better.
Finally. There was a noticable decline in quality in recent years. Unfortunately their prices are going up. The legendary barn jacket, which I never paid more than $99 for, is up to $148.
I won't buy from J. Crew again, I've moved on to other things now. But I like to hope that some dorky kid in some town in North America called the company on a larf and is now sitting with the catalogue. He's imaging new possibilities for himself. He's wondering if J. Crew carries a JFK-style windbreaker...just be careful kid...it can be expensive.
Posted by steve @ 04:48 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S DUBYA REALLY UP TO: A lot of people are puzzled by the fact that George W. Bush is pushing this roadmap to peace thingy for the Middle East and even arguing that he's making a huge mistake by trusting the Palestinians. Barbara Lerner argues today that Dubya's doing the same thing with the Palestinians that he did with the United Nations over Iraq.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:17 PM EST [Link]
~ AHH, SWEET ELIZABETH: If you've been following this blog for a while you'll remember that I'm in love with actress Elizabeth Banks (her web site hasn't been updated in a long time), who appeared very briefly as Betty Brant in the last Spider-Man movie. Banks will be appearing in the next Spider-Man movie (which features Dr. Octopus!) and is currently appearing in Seabiscuit.
Unfortunately she never responded to an email (classy and not libidinous...I am a conservative even if I'm a rock and roll conservative) I sent her after seeing her in Spider-Man.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, July 24, 2003 WHY CANADA CONTINUES TO SUFFER: Say you're a 19-year old high school student. You maintain an impressive 91 per cent average and you even went to Rome to participate in scientific research on Alzheimer's disease. This isn't some gopher work as reward for having won a high school science fair, this is legitimate research that landed you on the cover of a national current events magazine.
So you graduate high school and apply to Canadian universities. You are certain that they will fight tooth and nail for you as they should. Imagine then, to your utter surprise, that you are rejected by all three. You are rejected although you maintained a stellar average, have garnered international acclaim and will be one of the bright lights of medical research in the years to come due to one small matter: You did not complete all the courses required for admission and you have no mid-term marks, all required by Ontario's centralized university application centre.
Sounds like something made up? Eva Vertes would disagree. It happened to her.
Rather than sit around waiting for Ontario to make an exception, the young woman decided to accept a scholarship at Princeton.
"I went to visit Princeton and I fell in love after five minutes," said Ms. Vertes, who is spending her summer researching Lou Gehrig's disease at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. "They are doing excellent biomedical research, and it's accessible to undergraduates."
Thank God we lost another Canadian thanks to bureaucracy.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:43 PM EST [Link]
~ THE ONLY FREE PRESS IN THE ARAB WORLD: If you don't know, shame on you. It's Iraq. Since the American-led liberation deposed Saddam Hussein over 85 newspapers and magazines have been launched. Already a vibrant media scene, the outlets are debating everything that's going on in Iraq.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:19 PM EST [Link]
~ THE MOST CONSERVATIVE TEAM IN BASEBALL: It's a little known fact that the New York Mets may be the most politically conservative team in professional baseball. In an interview a couple of years back Mike Piazza (who's currently dating a Playboy Playmate) told the interviewer that many of his teammates were conservatives and they regularly held bull sessions on issues of the day. Too bad the NY Mets, my favourite squadron, suck.
At any rate, on the news that Uday and Quasay Hussein were killed the Mets cheered. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:14 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, July 23, 2003 COMING FROM A PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY DID PULL OFF MASS MURDER...: According to a new poll, nearly one third of Germans below the age of 30 believe that the U.S. may have sponsored the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Almost one in three Germans below the age of 30 believes the U.S. government may have sponsored the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll published on Wednesday.
And about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, a survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit said.
It also said 68 percent of all Germans felt the media had not reported the full truth behind the attacks, in which some 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Yeah, my title for this blog is a cheap shot...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:15 PM EST [Link]
~ CHILL OUT, CLINTON TELLS DEMS: Bill Clinton came out in support of George W. Bush last night over the uranium flap.
"I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying 'we probably shouldn't have said that,' " Clinton told CNN's Larry King in a phone interview Tuesday evening.
"You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president," Clinton said. "I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in awhile. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That's what I think."
I guess it takes a president to know a president. One Sudanese aspirin factory for one yellow cake story.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:22 PM EST [Link]
~ PRESS RELEASE
Satan hails new additions to Hell
Hell, July 23, 2003 - Satan, Master of Hell, today hailed the latest additions to his organization, Uday and Quasay Hussein. The sons of Saddam Hussein, late of the plane of Earth, recently joined Hell after leaving positions in Iraq's government due to a management change.
"While it's true that the skill set that the Hussein brothers bring to Hell is already well represented," said Satan, "We believe that Hell's core mission demanded that they be included in the workforce."
Satan states that the brothers will be required to undergo a lengthy orientation process to prepare them for their new positions. The brothers (bios are included in the attachment to this statement) will work their way down the various levels of Hell, from Purgatory to Cocytus, until they have been qualified in the unique work that the organization carries out. The standard length of training, which the organization defines as unending torment in a lake of burning fire, generally runs eternity.
Satan also states that he has not decided on a permanent set of positions for the Hussein brothers, adding that he would likely take his inspiration from the Koran. Quoting al-kahf 18:28-30, Satan stated, "For the wrongdoers We have prepared a fire which will encompass them like the walls of a pavilion. When they cry out for help they shall be showered with water as hot as molten brass, which will scald their faces. Evil shall be their drink, dismal their resting-place."
"It's been a good year for us on the recruitment front, one that we believe can only improve. We hope to add Idi Amin to the team in the near future," concluded Satan.
-30- For further comments or to arrange an interview please contact Joseph Goebbels, Director of Public Relations.
------------
This news release may include statements about expected future events that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Future events and results may vary substantially from what Hell currently foresees.Posted by steve @ 05:08 PM EST [Link]
~ MORSE VS. FRANK GOES NATIONAL: Longtime ESR contributor Chuck Morse's bid for Congress against Barney Frank is the subject of a column by Ben Shapiro on Townhall.com. It will be an uphill battle, but Chuck has been getting some national exposure.
Posted by antle @ 01:43 PM EST [Link]
~ MFUME AS ARAFAT: Interest take on President Bush's decision to address a gathering of the Urban League in the Washington Times. Bill Sammon discusses the president's efforts to reach out to black Americans and compares his working with more moderate groups like the Urban League as opposed the rigidly partisan NAACP with his efforts to engage the Palestinians through relative moderates like Abbas instead of Yasser Arafat. I'm uncomfortable comparing Americans to the Palestinians in the context of the current goings-ons in the Middle East, and even comfortable comparing particularly obnoxious liberals with a supporter of terrorism like Arafat. But I'm not sure the analogy is totally inapt.
Posted by antle @ 08:52 AM EST [Link]
~ C--KS----R ISN'T HOMOPHOBIC IF YOU'RE A LIBERAL: Michelle Malkin on the nutcase that is Congressman Pete Stark.
What's even more damning is the way his boorish talk is accepted by otherwise easily offended liberals who would be up in arms if the same things were said by Republicans. It just goes to show you that much of what these groups say is utter nonsense and that all they really care about is promoting the left wing of the Democratic Party. Read here. Warning: Some salty language.
Posted by antle @ 08:45 AM EST [Link]
~ MATTHEWS PLAYS HARDBALL WITH KUCINICH: Nothing delights me more than seeing a self-righteous pol hoist on his own petard. Erstwhile pro-lifer Dennis Kucinich is working overtime to atone for his past position so he can cement his status as the leading left-wing nutball in the Democratic race for president. He has taken to suggesting that there are members of Congress who are trying to put women in jail for having abortions. Matthews, in a withering exchange where he pretty much kicked the stuffing out of the congressman from start to finish, pressed Kucinich to name even one. After some hemming and hawing, he finally named Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey.
This came as a surprise to Congressman Smith, who Matthews invited to state his actual position. Kucinich is just pathetic. Read the transcript at the bottom of this LifeNews.com article here.
Posted by antle @ 08:30 AM EST [Link]
~ GIBSON SCREENS THE PASSION IN D.C.: A pretty elite group of people in Washington, D.C. were treated this week to a preview of Mel Gibson's The Passion. Reaction was positive across the board but some people are angry that they weren't invited. Specifically, members of Jewish groups.
I like to think that my pro-Jewish credentials are up to date. I'm an athiest Zionist and I've been accused of being a neo-con Jew-loving traitor to conservativism. Members of the Buchanan Brigade hate me. So when I say the following I really hope people don't take this the wrong way. Will Jewish groups just shut the hell up about this movie? Seriously, you're embarassing yourselves in the same way members of the Christian right embarassed themselves when they protested The Last Temptation of Christ.
I can completely dig that you're sensitive about how you're portrayed in the movie. Christians have used the fact that Jews were involved in getting Jesus Christ crucified to justify the most abhorent anti-Semitic ideologies and actions throughout history. I hate that that's happened but reacting to any attempt to chronicle Christ's life by demanding that it's sanitized is simply ridiculous. As one commentator wrote a few days ago, the pendulum has moved from only blaming the Jews for the crucifixtion to now total absolution. Let's be honest: A few Jews, for religious and political reasons, gave the Romans cause to arrest and crucify Jesus Christ. This does not mean that all Jews carry a mark of shame, it only means that some people a real long time ago did something that Christians didn't like. I believe that's what will be portrayed in The Passion. If I'm wrong than this movie will be justifiably savaged and Mel Gibson will never make another movie due to public outrage.
Rant off.
Read about the screening here.
Posted by steve @ 03:59 AM EST [Link]
~ NOT EVERYONE IS SAD: While the rest of the world and nearly all Iraqis are celebrating the amazingly quick trip to hell that Qusay and Uday Hussein enjoyed in first class ("Please move your seats to the locked and upright position!") not everyone is sad. Steven Den Beste collects some of the reaction to the news in the blogosphere and the media that Saddam's rapist murdering sons were killed.
Not surprisingly it's prompting quagmire-esque predictions and conspiracy theories.
Posted by steve @ 03:15 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, July 22, 2003 A LETTER FROM IRAQ: A letter from a soldier in Iraq has written a letter that has been posted on Free Republic. Is it real? Seems so and he tells of what's really going on over there.
I'm no longer baby-sitting the pukes from CNN and the canned hams from the networks, but have a combat mission coordinating a bunch of A teams, seeking, finding and rooting out the mostly non-Iraqis that are well-armed, well-paid (in U.S. dollars) and always waiting to wail forthe press and then shoot some GI in the back in the midst of a crowd.
The only reason the GIs are pissed (not demoralized) is that they cannot touch, must less waste, those taunting bags of gas that scream in their faces and riot on cue when they spot a camera man from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN or NBC. If they did, then they know the next nightly news will be about how chaotic things are and how much the Iraqi people hate us.
Some do. But the vast majority don't and more and more see that the GIs don't start anything, are by-and-large friendly, and very compassionate, especially to kids and old people. I saw a bunch of 19 year-olds fromthe 82nd Airborne not return fire coming from a mosque until they got a group of elderly civilians out of harm's way. So did the Iraqis.
A bunch of bad guys used a group of women and children as human shields.The GIs surrounded them and negotiated their surrender fifteen hours later and when they discovered a three year-old girl had been injured by the big tough guys throwing her down a flight of stairs, the GIs called in a MedVac helicopter to take her and her mother to the nearest field hospital. The Iraqis watched it all, and there hasn't been a problem inthat neighborhood since. How many such stories, and there are hundreds of them, never get reported in the fair and balanced press? You know, nada.
The civilians who have figured it out faster than anyone are the local teenagers.
Read on. Warning, some spicy language.
Posted by steve @ 07:22 PM EST [Link]
~ I MAY NOT KNOW WHAT ART IS BUT I KNOW WHEN I LIKE IT: Soldiers with the 3rd Infantry Division took an interesting picture recently. Find it at Little Green Footballs.
Posted by steve @ 07:17 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY WERE REASONABLY CERTAIN THEY WHACKED SADDAM TOO: The Pentagon said today they believe that Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed in a firefight today.
If this is true, hopefully this destroys some of the anti-American leadership that has been prompting all of those terrorist attacks.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:23 PM EST [Link]
~ Q&A WITH SILVIO: Silvio Berlusconi undergoes questioning by Time Magazine.
The U.S. has taken a lot of criticism in Europe lately. What are the important things about America that some Europeans do not understand?
Some Europeans don't understand that the world changed radically after Sept. 11. On Nov. 10, 2001, in the most beautiful piazza in Rome, we organized a rally in solidarity with an attacked and offended nation and flew the U.S. flag. We were the only ones to do it, and we are proud. I think we are making some headway, though, with the idea that anti-Americanism and anti-globalization are not progressive politics but are pure ideological trash.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:14 AM EST [Link]
Monday, July 21, 2003 FRANKLY RIGHT NOW I WISH THAT MEDICAL MARIJUANA WERE A REALITY: For the past eight days I have been in pain. Last Friday, in a manner I won't reveal, I severely strained my lower back and since then I've been hurting quite badly. I thought after a week that the pain would subside but it is, in fact, more severe today than any day previous. Even some very serious prescription only pills aren't blunting this at all.
I don't tell you this for sympathy, frankly the mood I'm in I wouldn't notice any such expressions, but as advance explanation for the reduced volume of blogging that will occur over the next couple of days. I plan on not moving from my bed this week in hopes of recovering.
Posted by steve @ 04:03 PM EST [Link]
~ CANADIAN QUESTIONED QUESTIONED FOR DOZENS OF HOURS BEFORE MURDER: Canadian Zahra Kazemi was questioned for up to 77 hours before the fatal blow that killed her, an Iranian inquiry into her death has found.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:53 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: The Ottawa Citizen has run a piece by me criticizing the Chretien government over the issue of economic freedom in Canada. They chopped it up quite a bit but hopefully my sense of outrage still comes across.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:50 PM EST [Link]
~ WANT EQUALITY? THEN GET OUT OF MY STATE, RACIST!: Longtime Congressman John Dingell (D-Mich.) had some choice words and Orwellian logic for the courageous color-blind crusader Ward Connerly. Connerly is promoting a state initiative to abolish racial preferences in Michigan, modeled after his successful referendum questions in California and Washington state. Dingell's response? To send Connerly a nasty letter telling him he is unwelcome in the state and illogically calling a proposal for race-neutrality "black and white politics" and "divisive racial politics" motivated by "hate, fear, division and destruction."
Connerly has penned a blistering response to this ridiculous garbage posted over at FrontPage Magazine. Read the whole exchange here.
Posted by antle @ 09:54 AM EST [Link]
~ USE TALCUM POWDER FOR THAT: Regular ESR contributor Bernard Chapin joins the blogosphere with The Chapin Nation! Make sure to visit him and drop him a line!
Posted by steve @ 02:25 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, July 20, 2003 DEATH IS TOO GOOD FOR HIM: Former dictator and alleged part-time cannibal Idi Amin is in a coma and may die soon.
Amin, a Muslim who rose to rule Uganda in 1971, received sanctuary in Saudi Arabia after his ouster in 1979, according to the CIA World Factbook. Amin's "dictatorial regime" was "responsible for the deaths of some 300,000 opponents," the factbook said.
The Ugandian government turned down a request by Amin's family to have him buried in his homeland. I'd leave him out for the wolves.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:54 PM EST [Link]
~ WILL THE SOX EVER BE THE GREATEST TEAM?: (With thanks from Orrin Judd) I say no but now that Dan Duquette is gone perhaps the team has a shot at finally winning the American League. Orrin Judd sends me a New Yorker story about one of the Sox's new weapons, baseball stat master Bill James.
The once proud and conservative Red Sox, by hiring James to be their Senior Baseball Operations Adviser, have joined the ranks of those teams—such as the Oakland A’s and the Toronto Blue Jays—which are now emphasizing the principles of “sabermetrics” as an alternative to the steadfast reliance on weather-beaten scouts with radar guns, hunches, and cigars. (The term, which James coined two decades ago, echoes the acronym for the Society for American Baseball Research, and denotes “the search for objective knowledge about baseball.”) The Red Sox have not merely sided with the brainiacs; they’ve enlisted the help of the founding nerd.
James is a man of many seeming contradictions. He is an English major who has made a name for himself as a math whiz. He has been called the Sultan of Stats, despite arguing that you should “never use a number when you can avoid it.” He is a self-described “scientist,” who frequently reveals little concern for precision, a relentless counter who can’t be bothered with individual sums. James is a rigorously organized thinker who is hopelessly disorganized when negotiating mundane daily responsibilities. He is, he says, a “completely ethical person,” and yet he is obsessed with crime. (“Why the justice system doesn’t work better than it does is to me a topic of great fascination.”) He has long been revered by rationalists for promoting the virtues of objective analysis, and yet, after an extended hibernation from writing about contemporary baseball—during the nineties, he focussed mainly on the history of the game—he reëmerged on the statistical scene with a new metric to define the over-all contribution of each player, whose formula has a built-in “subjective element,” allowing him to adjust the numbers more or less as he pleases. And, after so many years of presenting himself as the consummate outsider, he has now, in middle age, gone inside.
Although I'm a Mets fan (remember what happened in 1986 Boston?) I do wish James luck.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:42 PM EST [Link]
~ PAT ROBERTSON DOES IT AGAIN: Fresh from defending Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, now the religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has decided to launch a "prayer offensive" aimed at getting at least three liberal Supreme Court justices to retire. He argues that he is not praying for them to die or get sicker, just that God will persuade them it's time to leave the Court.
I'm a Christian and a social conservative, but I must say that this kind of nonsense is why social conservatives generally and the religious right particularly face such obstacles. Not only do so-con leaders have a tendency to reflect something very much the opposite of charity and love, but they repeatedly want to communicate to a secular world in terms it will not identify with. Then they are astounded when people don't seem to understand or agree with them. Lately, Robertson and Jerry Falwell especially come to mind.
Posted by antle @ 04:10 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, July 19, 2003 I HOPE HE IS INNOCENT: Professional sports stars have never been saints and it is probably wrong for them to be considered role models. But the reality is that they are held up as role models and many children view their favorite athletes as heroes.
As somebody who grew up in Boston with the Larry Bird-led Celtics, I've been dismayed by what the NBA has degenerated into over the last decade or so. Players engage in behavior that is classless on the court and far worse off court. Coaches being choked, trash talking and bad attitudes have become a part of professional basketball to a degree I never could have imagined years ago. Partly, this is because of an idealized past, but also I do believe there has been a real collapse of standards in the NBA. Pro basketball no longer adequately enforces acceptable standards of behavior among players.
One player who has stood out as something different, as an example of the class and positive image that some of his colleagues have been missing, is Kobe Bryant. That is why it would be a shame if he is guilty of sexual assault. The revelation of adultery is disappointing enough. I hope he is innocent of the charges as he claims and his wife Vanessa appears to believe. Otherwise we will be faced with another sad reminder of what the NBA has become - and of why children should look elsewhere for role models.
Posted by antle @ 06:06 PM EST [Link]
~ LIBERIA DETERIORATES: Liberian dictator Charles Taylor insists he is going to hold on until an international - and presumably U.S.-led - peacekeeping force enters Liberia, but CNN is reporting that rebels are just minutes away.
Posted by antle @ 05:47 PM EST [Link]
~ UMMM, THAT'S A FAIR TRADE: For years Canadian doctors, nurses and other high-end professions have been fleeing Canada because of the government run health system, taxation, unfriendly business atmosphere, etc. for the United States.
During the Vietnam War, U.S. emigration to Canada surged as thousands of young men, often accompanied by wives or girlfriends, moved to avoid the draft. But every year since 1977, more Canadians have emigrated to the United States than vice versa - the 2001 figures were 5,894 Americans moving north, 30,203 Canadians moving south.
Well, thanks to Bush's conservatism, some Americans are considering fleeing to Canada. What are we going to get in return for all those doctors and business people? Leftist puppeteers, lawyers and people seeking same sex marriages. Umm, thanks. That's a fair trade.
So what we have here is immigration for political reasons. Canada is increasingly becoming more liberal (probable) while the U.S. is becoming increasingly more conservative (debatable). If this is true, my life will become a living hell as this country increasingly turns into a neo-European socialist state. I'm serious. Is there anyone willing to sponsor me in a move to the United States?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:21 PM EST [Link]
~ IS THE WHITE HOUSE TARGETING REPORTERS?: Here's a story that makes me uncomfortable. The Bush administration is apparently targeting reporters who are filing stories that it doesn't like. Jeffrey Kofman may be one of those reporters.
ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman's stories on plummeting U.S. troop morale in Iraq have apparently angered the Bush Administration to the point that the White House reportedly put the word out to Republican-friendly media pundits that Mr. Kofman is a homosexual and, worse yet, from Canada.
A headline on Internet gossip-monger Matt Drudge's Web site Wednesday evening blared ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT WHO FILED TROOP COMPLAINTS STORY IS OPENLY GAY, CANADIAN.
Despite White House denials, Mr. Drudge himself said Bush officials handed him the information on the ABC reporter.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:14 PM EST [Link]
Friday, July 18, 2003 DEFICITS AS METAPHOR: Bruce Bartlett makes an excellent point about the real political significance of the federal budget deficit. Few in either party really care about deficits as such. Both parties use the deficit as a metaphor: Republicans as a metaphor for spending being too high, Democrats for taxes being too low. The main characteristic of Democratic "fiscal responsibility" isn't preventing red ink - it is making sure taxes are never significantly cut and paving the way for future increases. This is how the party of big spenders became the party of big-spending deficit hawks (had there ever previously been such a thing?) from the 1980s on.
Posted by antle @ 05:53 PM EST [Link]
~ GRAHAM RAISING THE DEMOCRATS' NEW BANNER?: Bob Graham's presidential bid is going nowhere fast, but I think the two issues he has raised in published news reports today will have some staying power among Democrats.
First, he raised the possibility of impeaching Bush. Second, his proposed 40 percent millionares' tax returns the Demcrats of raising taxes - but just on the rich, wink, wink. I think both of these ideas will reasonate among Democrats. I think if the controversy over intelligence continues, an impeachment drive could start gaining steam on the left. And raising taxes on the "rich" is a Democratic staple.
Posted by antle @ 11:52 AM EST [Link]
~ HE LIKED IT TOO: James Lileks was as impressed as I was with Tony Blair's speech yesterday in Congress.
Impressive speech by Blair today. I wonder how much press it will get. It sounded not at all like a Bush peroration, but when you pare away the accent you realize that both men are best suited by words that are tart, blunt, stark, and resolute. Not to say there aren’t differences - Blair’s speeches sound like the work of a keen and fierce intellect that has come to a certain conclusion by logical deduction. His heart has been informed by his head. In the case of Bush I think it’s the other way around. I suppose that’s the difference between being the leader of a nation that was attacked, and the leader of a nation whose ally was assaulted. What I found most invigorating about the speech was the tenor - the tune, not the notes. It was a speech sung in the key of War, and reminded us that we are just midway through the end of the beginning. If that.
Blair is, at heart, a socialist; I’ve no time for half the stuff he wants and most of the stuff he’d agree to. But he’d get my vote. We can argue about the shape and direction of Western Civ after we’ve made sure that such a thing will endure. I haven’t heard every single speech Tony Blair has made since he popped on to the political scene; I don’t know if he argues for increased license fees for domestic gerbils with the same passion and force. But today he sounded like a man who knew things, who knows that the threat is still grave, and cannot understand why others seek transient political advantage in exploiting those sixteen words. The people are worried, your majesty! "Oh, let them eat yellowcake."
I doubt I'd vote for the cat but if I were an English conservative I'd at least be proud of the man. He knows who his eternal friends are and who his eternal enemies are. The English should be proud of this man even if they disagree with him.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:03 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, July 17, 2003 HITCH AT WAY: Angua points to an audio recording online of Christopher Hitchens' appearance at the Hay literary festival earlier this year. Find her blog entry about it here.
If you are really going to go Angua, I'll go with you. If I had a choice between a hot tub party with supermodels or one of the world's biggest literary festivals I don't know which I'd attend. Okay, I could choose pretty easily but you get how much I love literary stuff.
Posted by steve @ 11:40 PM EST [Link]
~ BLAIR SPEAKS: A complete transcript of Tony Blair's speech to Congress earlier today. All in all, a pretty good speech. If this guy was a conservative he'd be the next Margaret Thatcher. He also had some funny bits:
Mr. Speaker, sir, my thrill on receiving this award was only a little diminished on being told that the first Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to George Washington for what Congress called his "wise and spirited conduct" in getting rid of the British out of Boston.
On our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show me the fireplace where, in 1814, the British had burnt the Congress Library. I know this is kind of late, but sorry.
Actually, you know, my middle son was studying 18th century history and the American War of Independence, and he said to me the other day, "You know, Lord North, Dad, he was the British prime minister who lost us America. So just think, however many mistakes you'll make, you'll never make one that bad."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:47 PM EST [Link]
~ HE LIED!: It's been a while since I linked to a Mark Steyn article, a sin in my books, so I will attempt to make up for it now. Steyn hammers the idiotarians who believe that Dubya lied about the uranium story.
Anyway, the other day for the umpteenth time in the last week some anti-war type demanded to know how I felt about uranium in Niger. Well, I have no strong views about it. I would not number it with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens among my favourite things. But then I never said I did. And neither did George W. Bush, despite the best efforts of the anti-war crowd to assert that he led us into an ‘illegitimate war’ over uranium in Niger. ‘Bush Lied Over Niger Uranium Claims!!!’, as a good couple of dozen emails a day scream from my in-box.
I wrote a gazillion pieces urging war with Iraq, and never found the time to let the word Niger pass my lips. And, if it had passed, my lips would have said ‘Ny-juh’ and not ‘Nee-zhaire’. But here’s what the President had to say, when he ‘LIED OVER NIGER URANIUM CLAIMS!!!!!!!!!!!’ back in the State of the Union address in January: ‘The British government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.’
That’s it: 16 words. Where’s the lie? Though the CIA director George Tenet now says his boys shouldn’t have approved that sentence, Tony Blair is standing by it. The unusual attribution to Her Majesty’s Government might have been because Bush was only mired in all this multilateral justification-shopping as a favour to Blair and his wobbly Cabinet. Or it might have been because of the source: under the rules governing intelligence-sharing, the British were unable to pass the direct evidence on to the Americans because they got it from the French, and the French wouldn’t let them give it to Washington. Niger’s uranium operations are under the supervision of the French Atomic Energy Commission.
But, whether or not that’s true, I repeat: where’s the lie? Why isn’t it merely a good-faith mistake?
If I wrote half as good as Steyn I'd be writing for the best papers in the world.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:44 PM EST [Link]
~ IT REALLY IS A PITY THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS OVERTHROWN: Soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division have found yet another mass grave, this one containing the bodies of up to 400 Kurdish women and children. Of the bodies removed so far, all had a bullet hole in the back of the head.
Since the end of the Iraq war, at least 60 mass graves, some with hundreds of corpses, have been discovered. The United Nations is investigating the killing or disappearance of at least 300,000 Iraqis believed murdered during Saddam's regime.
Remember this when someone says "Bush lied" or it was "All about ooooiiillll!"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:35 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT'S THE BEST THEY COULD COME UP WITH?: Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said today that a Canadian journalist who died of a brain hemorrhage while in custody may have "fallen or had an accident."
And all those battered women keep walking into doors...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:32 PM EST [Link]
~ JUSTICE MFUME: Via The Corner, Joe Lieberman floats an interesting trial balloon or makes a ridiculous attempt to ingratiate himself to his audience, depending on your perspective. Reported by The New Republic.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 05:28 PM EST [Link]
~ ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER SADDAM TAPE: Can we expect this from every idiot on the run? Murky tapes proclaiming jihads? Today is the 35th anniversary of the Ba'ath Party coup and there is yet another Saddam Hussein tape. Hussein calls for a holy war but today has been quiet so far.
Of course, the money shot in this story has nothing to do with Hussein or jihads and if you thought so you don't follow the media enough. Here's the paragraph with the most interesting sentence. See if you can spot the real point of this story:
American helicopters filled the Baghdad skies late Thursday afternoon, presumably as security for Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy secretary of defense, who will tour the country to see U.S. commanders and increasingly demoralized soldiers.
Increasingly demoralized soldiers? AP then goes on for two paragraphs about the number of American soldiers killed since the war began. After a quote by Wolfowitz the story jumps right back into the Saddam tape story.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:49 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece in today's Vancouver Province and Ottawa Citizen blasting a proposed national ID card for Canadians. You can find it online at the Province's web site.
Of course as Colby Cosh says, buying the newspaper in either Ottawa or Vancouver would make for a wonderful keepsake that will be worth money in the future!
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS GETS A BOOST: Hugh Hewitt wonders aloud why James Lileks isn't on the op-ed pages of your local newspaper.
At least we hope you've never heard of him, or his blog, The Bleat, because otherwise you have no excuse for having denied him to your readers while peddling Ellen Goodman or some other old-as-the-planets and dull as dirt culture-war left-over. Lileks is quite obviously the best generally unknown columnist in America, and among the top two in North America when you add in Canadian Mark Steyn. (I won't choose between these two because both are featured weekly guests on my radio show, and if either gets really upset with me, I could end up a featured item in one of their columns, which is not good for one's reputation. --HH)
It is hard to be funny. Genuinely funny writers can be listed quickly: Dave Barry, P.J. O'Rourke, Christopher Buckley. We'll include Joseph Epstein and Calvin Trilling on our list--though their humor is of a very elevated sort--and Chris Erskine, Matt Labash, and Larry Miller deserve a spot on the "certain to make you smile" log.
Steyn and Lileks are laugh-out-loud writers and pundits with punch. Lileks, incredibly, delivers five mirth-inducing reads for free each week on his website. His Sunday column for the Strib is a homey, chatty, and unfailingly amusing look at the ordinary absurdity of life--a welcome break from the sermons and raised eyebrows of the opinion sections and book reviews. It is written for an audience of Minnesocoldians, but it absorbs the attention of even jaded California denizens. Like his Newhouse columns, Lileks's Strib work could run in every paper in America.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:15 PM EST [Link]
~ GAY MARRIAGE AROUND THE WORLD: The gay marriage debate in the U.S. and Canada does not have to take place totally in the abstract. There are some concrete examples to point to and evaluate Steve Sailer has an interesting piece for UPI on such examples, and the legal status of homosexualtity generally, in various places around the world.
Among the interesting findings: The Dutch government agency Statistics Netherlands reported in late 2002, "Same-sex couples do not seem to be very interested in marriage. Statistics Netherlands estimates that there are about 50,000 same-sex couples in the Netherlands, of whom less than 10 percent have married so far." This could be taken to bolster the claim of same-sex marriage opponents that gays will neither strengthen the institution of marriage nor have more stable relationships because they are eligible to marry; or it could be interpreted as proof that it is no big deal. In either case, this much is clear: If there are numbers to be crunched on a subject, Sailer will crunch them.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 08:13 AM EST [Link]
~ QUEER? YEAH! AND THAT'S ANOTHER THING. IT'S OUR WORD FOR MAKING FUN OF YOU: Relax, it's a Homer Simpson line (click on "More" for the full exchange). Speaking of my rant earlier today about "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", there's UPI article about the show here.
[more]
Posted by steve @ 03:50 AM EST [Link]