Musings Archive August 2003
Sunday, August 31, 2003 IF THIS IS TRUE, GOD HELP SAUDI ARABIA: Gerald Posner's book Why America Slept is the standard "Why did September 11 happened" entry into a growing genre of books...all except for Chapter 19. According to Time Magazine, it contains explosive allegations about what Abu Zubaydah told his interrogators.
Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk. When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.
Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, "his reaction was not fear, but utter relief." Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.
If this is true...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:24 PM EST [Link]
~ A TICKET OF DERANGED MODERATES: George Will has an interesting column on Howard Dean, Wesley Clark and what they mean for today's Democratic Party.
Posted by antle @ 08:02 PM EST [Link]
~ BOZEMAN'S BIG TEN. One Judge Wyckman, in this Montana city, has a stone tablet featuring the Ten Commandments on the wall of his courtroom. Interestingly, nobody has complained to the Anti-Christian Civil Liberties Union about the display.
Here is the story.
Posted by izzy @ 07:35 PM EST [Link]
~ BIG BROTHER AT THE MALL: Robin Wallace discusses all the information that retailers are asking for these days even if your making a simple purchase.
What many Americans don't realize is that their enthusiastic consumerism does a lot more for the interests of national security than keeping the economy strong. Long after credit card bills are paid and checking accounts replenished, the information retailers collect about customers in those increasingly intrusive mini-interrogations at the cash register--zip codes, phone numbers, purchases, even point of purchase requests for email addresses and Social Security numbers--remains bouncing around networks of computer databases, permanently traceable and trackable by the government.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:00 AM EST [Link]
~ FROM THE INVENTOR OF THE INTERNET: I predict that it is only a matter of time before Al Gore claims that he and Tipper were the inspiration for the famous MTV Video Music Awards kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears. No word on who will be credited with inspiring Christina Aguilera.
Posted by antle @ 12:47 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 30, 2003 SPEAKING OF FIGHTING BETWEEN LIBERTARIANS AND CONSERVATIVES: A few days ago, the paleolibertarian writer Karen De Coster took ESR to task for being a “flaming, Republican-neocon-worshipping website,” and accused us – or, more specifically, Izzy Lyman and me – of “LewRockwell.com-bashing.” This appears on her personal blog - scroll down to August 25.
Since Ms. De Coster, who has written for us, could not see who the authors of the posts were, she can be forgiven for not noticing that she was citing a Pat Buchanan-supporting home-schooling activist and a persistent critic of big government conservatism who also supports immigration reform as evidence of ESR’s alleged neocon credentials. But something needs to be said for the record on some other points.
Since Izzy, aka Person #1 is more than capable of defending herself, I’ll confine my remarks to my own post as Person #2.
As should be plain from my original entry, I did not criticize paleoconservatives because, as Ms. De Coster says, “the paleos criticize neocons,” nor did I single them out for criticism. Instead, I took a more balanced view of the debate and offered some criticism of both sides. I also linked to several paleo-oriented pieces in the post and fail to see where I “bashed” any of them.
In fact, I expressed my desire to see a more civil paleocon-neocon debate and contended that the reasons for its absence were as much personal as ideological. You don’t think that the disputes between, say, David Frum and Robert Novak, or Frum and Taki are every bit as much about personal issues as political ones? De Coster selectively quotes me on this point, repeating my assertion about being paleocons resenting the relative lack of influence that has attended their being shut out from many of the major mainstream outlets for the right but not mentioning my reference to neocon fears of paleocon competition to those outlets from such growing publications as LewRockwell.com and VDARE.com. She incorrectly infers that I was talking about Paul Gottfried’s situation with Catholic University. As I thought was clear from the context, I was referring to the debates and battles for various positions of influence within the conservative movement during the 1990s. As I noted, Peter Brimelow would probably not be running VDARE.com if he had been retained as a senior editor at National Review. Furthermore, The American Conservative might not exist if Pat Buchanan were still close to Bill Buckley and executive editor Scott McConnell had not been ousted as editorial page editor at the New York Post. (The third leading editor, Taki, is still on NR’s masthead as a contributor.)
This isn’t a criticism of these gentlemen, as some of them and their strongest supporters have also pointed out these facts, or a call for them to renounce their principles. It is simply an explanation of the dynamics of this debate and why it has taken on the tone that it has. I recognize that many of the players in this debate have very legitimate personal and professional grievances with each other, and as human beings that can’t help but influence the way these debates sound and play out. I just wish we could focus more on the ideas being debated and less on airy, ideologically charged dismissals – like “unpatriotic conservatives” on the one side and “flaming neocon-worshippers” on the other.
Posted by antle @ 09:26 PM EST [Link]
~ U.S. SPONSORS SAFER WEB SURFING FOR IRANIANS: The U.S. government has paid The Anonymizer an undisclosed amount to set up a web site for Iranians to surf the Internet without interference from their government.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:32 PM EST [Link]
~ LIBERTARIANS, THE RIGHT AND THE LEFT: I've written a lot lately about the growing rift between conservatives and libertarians. Many libertarians seek to secede from the right, by either forming a libertarian political "third way" or by entering into an alliance with the left. Some of the latter are even considering voting for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004. At least one major liberal magazine has an article in the works on this very subject.
Jim Henley sums up the problem this way: "Two factors are at work here: the issues on which conservatives and libertarians have never agreed have become more salient, and on the issues where conservatives and libertarians traditionally have agreed - taxes, trade, federalism - conservatives increasingly suck. Having abandoned the substance of limited government since early in the Gingrich 'revolution,' conservatives increasingly eschew even the rhetoric of limited government." I for the most part agree with his analysis.
Yet Colby Cosh argues that the left is more viscerally totalitarian than the right. Although Nick Weininger over at The Agitator raises some good examples of statist impulses on the right, I think Cosh nails it. Yes, the value that conservatives - myself included - attach to law and order, a strong national defense and traditional morality at times lead the right to take coercive, big-government positions. But the modern left has adopted an inherently coercive view of practicing politics and often aims it at fairly normal activities (such as making and selling Big Macs, for example).
For better or for worse, most people on the right have more libertarian tendencies than do most people today on the left. The left is viscerally attracted to government solutions to all problems and to nanny statism to a degree that conservatives just aren’t. Most grassroots conservatives – to distinguish them from the Beltway establishment right – enter politics not to change the world but because the government is screwing with them in some respect – by taking away their guns, over-regulating their businesses, overtaxing their families or mocking their religious faith – or because the government is failing in its basic constitutional functions. Grover Norquist has described the right’s base of taxpayers, small businesspeople, gun owners and home-schoolers as the “Leave us Alone Coalition.” Not only would it be impossible to imagine a similar coalition among the left, but I even remember highbrow liberal pundits tut-tutting the very idea of being governed by a coalition so motivated. The right is far less presumptively pro-government than the left and, as Cosh notes, tends to go through all kinds of philosophical gymnastics to justify why their particular exception on issues like drugs and pornography are different.
By contrast, the left believes that the government should be utilized to stamp out such normal activities as smoking and the making and selling of Big Macs. They are presumptively in favor of bigger government and only support limiting government in the rare cases where it would undermine traditional social institutions outside of the state like the family. I’m not saying the right is perfect, or that libertarians are either. But I do think libertarians who hope the left will turn out to be better in the long term than the right are setting themselves up for some disappointment.
Posted by antle @ 05:17 PM EST [Link]
~ 19 ARRESTED IN IRAQ BOMBING: And many of them are foreigners with links to al-Qaida.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two Iraqis and two Saudis grabbed shortly after the Friday attack gave information leading to the arrest of the others. They include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports. The remainder were Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.
May the last face they see be that of Iblis.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:22 PM EST [Link]
~ MARRIAGE MATTERS - LET'S MAKE IT MATTER MORE: Want to reverse the social pathologies that ruin lives and land so many people - particularly young black men - in jail? Jim Wooten of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says rebuild the marriage culture.
Full story here.
Posted by antle @ 03:39 PM EST [Link]
Friday, August 29, 2003 MASCULINE vs. METROSEXUAL. The September issue of The American Enterprise - which Maureen Dowd mocked in a recent column - is about "real men." Several neocons, paleocons, con cons, and femme cons offer their opinions and expertise about the very hot topic of masculinity.
My Ironman husband makes an appearance in this issue (courtesy of a column I wrote).
Posted by izzy @ 10:51 PM EST [Link]
~ DO YOU HAVE A ACME 5X24 SERIES TIME TRANSDUCING CAPACITOR WITH BUILT-IN TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT?: If this sounds familiar to you, then you've probably received an email asking for people to help a person named "Bob White" build a time travel machine.
Brian McWilliams reveals the story behind the spam here.
Posted by steve @ 06:47 PM EST [Link]
~ URBAN SPRAWL HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: A couple of studies are bemoaning the hazards of living in the suburbs compared with living cheek-by-jowl in cities. Suburbanites are more likely to be overweight, and more likely to get hit by a vehicle when walking or cycling. This is serious enough that the Center for Disease Prevention and Control is worried that we may see an epidemic of surburban obesity among baby-boomers.
Of course, neither of these studies looked at the increased risk of rape, murder, assault or other violent crimes that comes from living in "neighborhoods that work for people."
I'd rather be fat and drive an SUV for my daily errands than be a victim of urban crime.
The story is here.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 12:15 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSTAMENTE STILL DIGS MECHA: California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, hoping to be the next governor of California, has refused to denounce MEChA (we blogged a link to Tacitus asking about it here).
Instead, Bustamante, who is running to be governor of California, praised the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, or MEChA, and said he still supports it.
"The students who are in MEChA today are just like the students when I was there, pretty much they are trying to get an education," Bustamante said during a press conference in which the first three questions related to his ties to the group.
"I think the actuality of what takes place in those organizations is to provide student leadership. For me, and many, many others, we were running for student government. That's how I got here today."
As the article points out, many believe that MEChA are no less racist than the Ku Klux Klan...and yet the media doesn't talk about it. Oh well, why do that when you can keep talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger's father.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:25 AM EST [Link]
~ LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN MISSING A LOT OF WORK LATELY/I WOULDN'T SAY I'VE BEEN MISSING IT BOB!: Movie night at Fort Sinatra tonight was the 1999 comedy Office Space starring Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Ajay Naidu and David Herman.
Office Space, directed by King of the Hill's Mike Judge and based on a series of cartoon shorts that aired on Saturday Night Live during the mid-90s, wasn't what we would call a success when it first appeared but it quickly gained a cult following among people who work in cubicle farms and software firms. Three workers, tired of their boss and their programming jobs, decide to pull a scam on their company. It's easy to see why some people are fanatic about this movie; it captures the monotony of corporation not terribly interested in you to the point where you can be downsized at a whim and procedure is often more important than the result.
To a certain extent it's been supplanted by the BBC series The Office (which can be seen on the BBC's satelite service) but Office Space is still one of the best of the genre. It certainly reminded me of the job I was laid off from back in March.
If you ever meet someone with a red Swingline stapler on their desk and they say, "We're not in Kansas anymore!" you know you've met an Office Space fan.
Posted by steve @ 12:48 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 28, 2003 FOOTBALL IS THE SPORT OF MEN...WELL, BESIDES HOCKEY: I and Orrin Judd have fought a low intensity war over the last day or so over his contention that football is "anti-American/anti-human"
Orrin responded yesterday with a web link to a 1987 Washington Post article that had Thomas Boswell's list of 99 things that make baseball better than football. It was a silly list but when I felt needed responding. And so I did. Here is my response to every one of Boswell's items.
I would like to state for the record that I do not hate baseball. It is a fine sport despite the fact that my New York Mets are so abysmal these days. I merely argue that baseball is not as good as football.
When I think of football I think of the fall...of that smell in the air you get that time of year, of red and yellow leaves coating the ground, of blonds wearing varsity jackets and afternoon light pouring through the windows. I think of that feeling I got when I first ran onto a football field in high school. I think of traditions at places like Notre Dame. I think of the incredible grace shown in a game derided as being violent.
Well, I can't put into words my feelings about football...
Posted by steve @ 02:38 PM EST [Link]
~ LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: Fox News reports that a couple has named their six-week old son "George Bush" to show their appreciation to Dubya for liberating Iraq.
"He saved us from Saddam and that's why we named our son after him," the baby's mother, Nadia Jergis Mohammed, told the Associated Press Television News. "It was George Bush who liberated us; without him it wouldn't have happened."
Before we all go celebrating this, let's remember that there are plenty of 12-year old kids named George Bush in Kuwait and that didn't stop Kuwaitis (including those parents who named their kids after Bush the Elder) from hating the U.S. in recent years. That said, we wish long life and prosperity for little George Bush Abdul Kader Faris Abed El-Hussein.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:22 PM EST [Link]
~ CONSERVATIVES CRITICIZE MOORE: Some heavyweight Christian conservatives had some criticism for Judge Roy Moore over his refusal to have the Ten Commandments monument removed from the rotunda at the Alabama Supreme Court.
Several leading voices on the religious right -- including Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist minister Richard Land, legal strategist Jay Sekulow and Free Congress Foundation chairman Paul M. Weyrich -- have criticized Moore for undermining "the rule of law."
Other figures with a nationwide Christian following -- including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Coral Ridge Ministries evangelist D. James Kennedy -- have praised him for placing "God's law" above the changing judgments of human beings.
No offense Mssrs. Dobson and Kennedy, but any man who presumes to know what God would want is a man to be ignored. The last thing in the world we need are judges who refuse to follow the law. We already have judges who make up the law. Do we really need to excerbate the problem of judicial activism?
Read it here.
Posted by steve @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
~ MIGHT BE TIME FOR THE WEST TO 'TEST' ITS NUKES: North Korea announced today that it is about to declare itself a nuclear power and may test nuclear weapons.
The question from the U.S. administration standpoint, the official said, is "whether this is a serious and irreversible statement or part of their past pattern of starting every conversation by being threatening to see if it wins them something."
And judging by recent history, it will win them something and they'll declare and test. Then South Koreans will blame the U.S. for 'backing' North Korea into a corner again.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
~ MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WITH JUDGE MOORE: Popularity is no proof of correctness but a CNN-USA Today-Gallup released Wednesday shows that 77 per cent of Americans disapproved of moving the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of Alabama's state judicial building.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:20 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 27, 2003 LISTEN TO RUSH ON STEVE'S ARTICLE: You can find it on Rush's web site here. (Windows Media Player needed)
Posted by steve @ 09:20 PM EST [Link]
~ I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER: (Via The Corner) Today is the anniversary of the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the international treaty that outlawed war. The world has been a boring place since 1928...all peaceful-like....
Read the treaty here.
Posted by steve @ 04:27 PM EST [Link]
~ HE DISSES MY BEARS BUT HE DOES HAVE A PICTURE OF LAETITIA CASTA: Gregg Easterbrook unveils his pre-season look at the NFC -- and rightfully hammers my Chicago Bears -- and has three pictures of attractive women, a far better ratio then last week's TMQB column.
Interesting Laetitia Casta fact: She was chosen to represent Marianne, the traditional symbol of French womanhood, and then promptly established a residence in Britain to avoid onerous French taxes. Not only is she a babe, but she's smart enough to get out of France as well.
Read TMQB here.
Posted by steve @ 04:21 PM EST [Link]
~ RUSH LIMBAUGH VALIDATES STEVE MARTINOVICH AS A HUMAN BEING: I just got the most amazing phone call a couple of minutes from Jeffery Anderson at FSB Associates, a publicity firm that handles books. It appears that Rush Limbaugh read my review of Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith with the Poor Clares on his show this afternoon. I don't know where he found the review (either here -- unlikely -- or on The American Prowler -- more likely) but I have to admit it was way cool to hear.
Posted by steve @ 03:45 PM EST [Link]
~ BETTER BORKED THEN....: Daniel Pipes wrote an essay for the New York Post on the attacks made against him since the Bush administration nominated him to the board of the United States Institute of Peace. Would you be surprised that many of the attacks against him were distortions of his words and work? Yeah, we weren't surprised either.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 PM EST [Link]
~ CANADIAN SMILE POLICE NEXT?
If you are Canadian and about to get a passport, don't smile when you get your pictures taken. According to this article, the new passport guidlines prohibit exhibiting a smiling face. Maybe the Passport Smile Police are tired of people not taking Canada seriously.
I have known some Canadians, and most of them were friendly, happy types. Why do they put up with such idiotic government pronouncements? Do the bureaucratic weenies that issue passports think it is inappropriate to smile and look like a normal person on your passport? What about driver's licenses? Must one be "neutral" for those pictures,too? Will there soon be a prohibition against smiling in public places? One never knows when smiling might offend someone.
As Jim Traficant used to say, "Beam me up".
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 26, 2003 USING THE "H" WORD. It's been a bit, since I brought up the topic of homeschools. (Here's the part where you get to groan.) Back-to-School days seems like an appropriate time to revisit this theme.
My latest article is titled: "Keeping Homeschooling Private."
Posted by izzy @ 11:57 PM EST [Link]
~ SO WHICH IS IT?: Domenico Bettinelli brought up a good point this morning. When John Geoghan was charged with molesting his way through his congregation's children the usual suspects argued that his crimes had nothing to do with homosexuality. Now that Geoghan was killed by a prisoner that has a pathological hatred for gays these same people are arguing it was an anti-gay hate crime.
Now I'm not arguing that homosexuals are pederasts but I would like to see some bloody consistency from people. If Geoghan's death was an anti-gay crime then that means that his crimes were a gay crime. If his original crimes weren't related to his homosexuality then that means his murder wasn't an anti-gay crime. Period. You can only take one path.
Posted by steve @ 01:51 PM EST [Link]
~ HERE WE GO AGAIN: I think CNN should really be called CNN: The Passion considering how many stories they've run in the last month alone on a movie that won't be released for eight more months. According to the folks at CNN, Jews and Christians are fighting in the streets over the movie. What, you didn't notice?
The latest line? The movie is straining the tight friendship between Jews and evangelical Protestants. It's funny, but all the quotes come from the same people we keep hearing from in every story...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:43 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece running at Tech Central Station today on the rift between conservatives and libertarians with the advent of "big government conservatism." It's a theme I've written about in the pages of ESR as well.
Posted by antle @ 12:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: The American Prowler/Spectator Online is running my review of Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith With the Poor Clares. Find it here.
Posted by steve @ 01:05 AM EST [Link]
~ STEVE'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: I have a confession to make. I've always had a bit of a crush on singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega. I know, I know, what's a rock 'n roll conservative doing liking a lefty folk singer like Vega, especially after my semi-famous rant back in February blasting folk music. The heart wants what it wants.
At any rate, Vega has a cute piece in yesterday's New York Times about getting her driver's licence at the age of 43. Interesting fact: Over half of New Yorkers don't have a driver's licence because it's easier to go without a car in the Big Apple...or so I've been told.
Everybody says: "Don't learn to drive in the city. It's crazy." But as the song says, if you can make it here, and so forth.
And I really wanted a driver's license. I was 43, had my learner's permit and had failed the test once already - but that was in Riverhead, on Long Island. I'm an urban girl. This time, I would learn how to drive in the city. My city.
But my quest, like driving in New York (and like life), was full of stops and starts, unexpected dead ends and mysterious spirals (like the streets of Greenwich Village). In the end, my pursuit of the elusive New York State driver's license became about much more than a divorced woman's learning to drive for the first time.
Read on. (Free registration or use Acct: esrmusings3 Pass: cookie
Posted by steve @ 01:02 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 25, 2003 IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE: (Sent to me by email from Orrin Judd)
Dan Rather, Jesse Jackson, Cokie Roberts from National Public Radio and a Marine were hiking through the jungle one day when they were captured by cannibals.
They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the chief. The chief said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and eat you, do you have any last requests?"
Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili."
The chief nodded to an underling, who left and returned with the chili.
Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."
Jesse Jackson said, "You know, the thing in this life I am proudest of is my work on behalf of the poor and oppressed. So before I go, I want to sing 'We Shall Overcome' one last time." The chief said, "Go right ahead, we're listening." Jackson sang the song, and then said, "Now I can die in peace."
Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job til the end."
The chief directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."
The chief said, "And, Mr. Marine, what is your final wish?"
"Kick me in the ass." said the Marine.
"What?" said the chief. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"
"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass." insisted the Marine.
So the chief untied the Marine, shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.
The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from his waist band, and shot the chief dead.
In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his haversack, pulled out an M16, and sprayed the cannibals with gunfire. In a flash, the cannibals were all dead or fleeing for their lives.
As the Marine was untying the others, they each asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"
"What!?" said the Marine, "And have you jerks call me the aggressor?"
Posted by steve @ 09:35 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY USED TO BE CALLED FOPS: Felix Salmon has some interesting thoughts about 'metrosexuality' and links to a lot of interesting articles which I've read recently but didn't feel like blogging myself. Now you can read all of them yourselves.
I think this whole concept of the metrosexual is all a bit silly unless you work in the advertising industry. There has always been a class of men that has strived to be fashionable (without being anything like Carson from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). Heck, watch an old movie...did you ever see Cary Grant look anything less than perfect? The idea that a man is a metrosexual if he has a salmon colored shirt in his closet (I have one close to that, if that makes me one then I am guilty as well) is plain 'ole dumb.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:59 PM EST [Link]
~ WE HOPE HE WINS: The Associated Press is reporting that Johnny Cash is a favourite to win some awards at the MTV Video Music Awards this week thanks to a powerful video for the song 'Hurt', a remake of the Nine Inch Nails song.
As you may remember, I raved about Cash's last album American IV: The Man Comes Around -- on which 'Hurt' appears some months ago. If there is any justice in this world then Cash will take home some trophies.
Read the news story here.
Posted by steve @ 04:30 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS CERTAINLY PROVES THERE IS NO BIAS AT THE BBC: BBC1's controller apparently went a little nuts today and called mogul Rupert Murdoch a "capital imperialist" who hates everything that the BBC stands for.
Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch's continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people "have a National Health Service, a public education system" and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit.
It's so easy when your enemies are morons.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:52 PM EST [Link]
~ DYNAMITE!: (Via The American Mind) Jimmie J.J. Walker, AKA Kid Dynamite!, has his own blog. The man who once painted Black Jesus -- one of the funniest episodes of Good Times ever -- is rather conservative on some topics, notably affirmative action.
Find it all here.
Posted by steve @ 03:48 PM EST [Link]
~ HOW HILLARY CLINTON INCREASED UNEMPLOYMENT: NY Press argues that Hillary Clinton's Living History has directly cost 75 people their jobs. How did it happen? The ludicrious $8 million advance that Clinton received from Simon & Schuster.
The layoffs were announced in a memo emailed to all staff on July 21, exactly six weeks after the June 9 publication date of Living History, when Simon & Schuster likely cut Sen. Clinton a check for the remainder of the gigantic advance. Sixty of the people axed were employed stateside. New York staffers who’d been let go were clearing the last of their personal belongings out of offices when the memo hit and were saying their good-byes when the press was getting wind of the news.
If you read on, Margaret Menge explains how one -- the advance -- lead to the other -- the layoffs. I'm not blaming Clinton for those job losses. Heck, if Simon & Schuster offered me an $8 million advance I'd take it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ NOW WE'LL FIND OUT IF THE SAUDIS ARE AMERICA'S FRIENDS: Iran's national news agency Irna has reported that a number of Saudi al-Qaida members hiding out in Iran have been extradited to Saudi Arabia.
Irna quoted Tehran's ambassador to Riyadh as saying the Al Qaeda members had been arrested in Iran after the US-led war on Afghanistan, but did not name them, or say how many had been extradited or when they had been handed over to Saudi Arabia.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:02 AM EST [Link]
~ WELL SAID COLBY: Colby Cosh obviously thinks little of the campaign against fast food and I love the fact that he ties these and similar campaigns with public health care. The theory, which I thought I was the only one to have argued, is that when the government becomes involved in providing health care it in effect takes over your body. If you accept public health care then you must accept the argument that the government has to do what it can to maximize its investment in your health and that means barring you from doing things that will cost it more money.
Read his rant here.
Posted by steve @ 03:07 AM EST [Link]
~ A CAMPAIGN WE CAN AGREE WITH: David M. Brown over at the Crunch Report urges everyone to freep a poll which asks if Florida's minimum wage should be raised. Why is he interested in this project? He hates unscientific polls.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:47 AM EST [Link]
~ SPEAKING OF JUDGE MOORE: Here's some moore (aren't I clever?): Rachel Alexander takes on the issue over at Intellectual Conservative.
If the ACLU and other organizations that have been historically hostile to religion disagree with Justice Moore’s views, they need to organize voters to remove him from office democratically. Using the court system to remove a monument that is symbolic only, and probably not noticed by 90 percent of the people who come through the court building each day, is not a solution, it is harassment. However, the ACLU knows it can’t win democratically and fairly, because, as they assert on their website, it is well known that the reason Justice Moore was elected was precisely because of his convictions, which include putting the Ten Commandments on the wall inside his courtroom and allowing clergy to say a prayer before trials.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:44 AM EST [Link]
~ THE BEST STRIP BAR IN SUDBURY WOULD PROBABLY BE SOLID GOLD: Just went over the logs for the past week and I'm always amazed at some of the search terms people use to get to ESR. Among the more interesting ones:
* "strip bars in sudbury" (Via Ask Jeeves) - Like I said, Solid Gold
* "is walter cronkite a republican?" (Ditto) - Isn't it obvious he is?
* "worm_sobig.f" (Via Google) - It shows up as the third result when you search Google and links to a blog entry I made about the virus
* "skillet or inanimate or gandhian or resynchronization or transposing" (Via AltaVista) - Eh?
* "baseball wives and how they met their husbands" (Via iWon) - For the record, I don't know how they meet
* "brooke adams governor" (Via Yahoo!) - I support her
* "france and germany are has beens" (Via InfoSpace) - We agreePosted by steve @ 02:34 AM EST [Link]
~ LESS IS MOORE: Just in case you haven't heard enough about Judge Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments in Alabama, I have a piece on the subject in Toogood Reports likely to offend people on both sides of the issue.
Posted by antle @ 12:55 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 24, 2003 I PAID MORE IN TAXES LAST YEAR: Dennis Miller asks Arianna Huffington some big questions about her financial statements.
Hey, get this...I want to talk about Arianna Huffington, the smart Gabor.
Huffington is running for governor of California and she just released financial records which show she's paid about $700 in federal taxes and $0 in state taxes over the last two years on her earnings as an author and a lecturer. To put that in perspective, she paid less in taxes than the clerks at Borders who spend their days stacking the remainder shelf with her latest opus.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 AM EST [Link]
~ FREEDOM COMES EVERYWHERE: "The U.S. Army opened the first unrestricted Internet access in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit on Saturday in a bid to convince skeptical Iraqis their occupation will bring tangible benefits."
People of Tirkit. Have no fear! Websites with pictures of Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson can be found easily.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:03 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE LOVE CONDI: "Admirers have called her one of the country's best and brightest and the President's secret weapon. At a June 4 meeting with Jordanian, Palestinian Authority, and Israeli leaders, President Bush called her "my personal representative" and said she would work closely with the parties to help bring about peace. Her significance in shaping American foreign policy is hard to overstate."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 23, 2003 I HAVE A DREAM: Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, one of the highlights of the civil rights movement. In those remarks, King stated unequivocally that Americans - human beings - should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Then and only then will America fully live out the meaning of the creed laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
In some ways we have come so far since then, yet in others we still have so much to do. We celebrate this anniversary months after the Supreme Court indefinitely upheld the concept that the state should be allowed to categorize people by the color of their skin and assign them penalties and benefits on that basis. Jesse Jackson and other speakers at this rally in honor of the "I Have A Dream" speech will argue that this is a good thing and that the problem is that racial preferences don't go far enough. Paleoconservative critics of Dr. King contend that such policies were always an inevitable result of the color-blind civil rights movement. As the United States becomes more racially diverse, some level of racism still exists among all racial groups.
Yet the color-blind message of Dr. King's speech remains the ideal that all Americans of good will must seek, and the one that offers the most promise for our country. For people all over the world, it is one of the most important messages of our times.
Posted by antle @ 06:04 PM EST [Link]
~ SUPPORT FOR BROOKE ADAMS CAN ONLY GROW: Bill Simon announced today that he's dropping out of the race for the California governorship.
"I come before you today to announce that I am withdrawing as a candidate for governor," Simon said in a videotaped statement recorded in Sacramento. "I strongly believe the desire of Californians must come before the aspirations of any single candidate. There are too many Republicans in this race and the people of our state simply cannot risk a continuation of the Gray Davis legacy. For these reasons, I think it is wise to step aside."
Good move. He couldn't beat Gray Davis two years ago and he was only drawing support away from Brooke Adams...and some guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brooke's numbers can only grow now! Vote Adams!
Posted by steve @ 05:30 PM EST [Link]
~ CAN'T SAY I CARE: Proving that people who prey on children are really unpopular in prison, former Catholic priest John Geoghan was killed this afternoon after an "incident" in the big house.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:24 PM EST [Link]
~ GOD REST THEIR SOULS: "Three British servicemen have been killed and another seriously wounded in Iraq's second city of Basra, a British military spokesman said."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:35 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 22, 2003 MOORE SUSPENDED OVER TEN COMMANDMENTS MONUMENT: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended for ten days today after refusing to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments.
After Thompson's deadline had passed, Moore's eight associate justices on the state's high court on Thursday ordered the granite marker taken out of the rotunda. But court officials were still trying to determine where it might go in the building and if the area would allow proper security.
About 40 demonstrators remained outside to support Moore, who installed the monument in the rotunda where visitors can easily see it and refused to move it even after Thompson ruled that the public display violated a constitutional ban on government promotion of religious doctrine.
Moore contends it is a proper acknowledgment of God and the moral foundation of American law.
"What this federal judge has said is that we cannot acknowledge God," Moore told Fox News on Friday. "My battle is not with the justices of the court, my colleagues, my battle is with the federal government, who has come in and told us how to think, who we can believe in."
I have to admit that I'm fairly ambivalent about this. Even though I'm an athiest, I've never been offended by public displays of religious belief or expression, whether it was singing Christian Christmas songs in school or seeing a nativity scene on city property. I dig that Canada and the U.S. were founded by Christians and that Judeo-Christian ethics informs and influences our society in ways that no one can ignore. Moore is right, the Ten Commandments are part of the foundation of Western law.
That said, after Moore's peers ruled that the monument had to be moved, Moore should have had it moved. Moore's job as a judge means he must acknowledge and follow the law and right or wrong the ruling is what it is.
There are a lot of athiests out there who give athiests like me a bad name.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:29 PM EST [Link]
~ ENVIRONMENTALISTS ATTACK SUVS: Several dealerships were vandalized and dozens of SUVs at a warehouse were apparently destroyed by arsonists today, with ELF taking responsibility.
"With all the evidence ... it's highly likely it's an arson fire," said Rick Genovese, fire marshal for West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb.
Duh.
My family is an SUV family and they love their vehicles...the last person that messed with a vehicle in my driveway was hurt badly. If you're going to run, run faster than I can...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:19 PM EST [Link]
~ EVEN I THOUGHT THAT FOX NEWS SHOULD LOSE: A federal judge ruled this afternoon that the title of Al Franken's book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, did not violate Fox's trademarked slogan "Fair and balanced."
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, after listening to about half an hour of oral arguments, said the lawsuit was "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."
Well said. In order to salvage it's reputation, Fox News should now dump Bill O'Reilly...everyone would immediately forgive the silly lawsuit.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:13 PM EST [Link]
~ THE GLOVES ARE OFF: Israeli officials say that Hamas leaders are now targets of opportunity. Ismail Abu Shanab likely won't be the only guy to get wacked by the Israelis that that isn't stopping from other Hamas members from taking his spot.
Speaking at Abu Shanab's funeral in Gaza City, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who survived an Israeli rocket attack on his car in June, said if the Israelis kill him and other top militants, a secret leadership is ready to take over.
"They think that targeting leaders will stop jihad (holy war). They are mistaken," he said. "All of us in Hamas, from top to bottom, are looking to become like Abu Shanab."
Something makes me think members of Hamas will end up exactly like Abu Shanab whether they want to or not...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:36 PM EST [Link]
~ I WAS A MIDDLE-AGED BLOGGER. My column about bloggin' was recently published in my local newspaper. I have posted it at this blog which allowed me to mention ESR, among other things.
Posted by izzy @ 02:27 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 21, 2003 ARIANNA THE AWFUL: Aside from Gray Davis himself, it is hard to imagine a worse candidate in the recall debacle than the hideous conservative-turned-liberal columnist/opportunist Arianna Huffington. Fortunately, there have been some great articles skewering this political diva published over the years. One was penned by Ramesh Ponnuru for National Review. Our fearless leader Steve Martinovich contribute another.
This column by Democratic strategist Susan Estrich joins Steve and Ramesh's piece in the anti-Arianna hall of fame. Via Hit & Run.
Posted by antle @ 10:46 PM EST [Link]
~ THIS MAKES ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT AH-NULD: Ever since he got into the race for governor of California, I have been waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the front-running Republican, to throw me a bone to show that, from the perspective of a crusty conservative like myself, he is better than Gray Davis.
He just might have done the job. Larry Kudlow reports.
Posted by antle @ 10:30 PM EST [Link]
~ WHERE ARE IRAQ'S WMDS?: Ion Mihai Pacepa says to ask the Russians. Pacepa happens to be the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc and he believes that the Russians either helped Saddam Hussein hide or destroy his weapons of mass destruction before the war.
The Soviet Union and all its bloc states always had a standard operating procedure for deep sixing weapons of mass destruction — in Romanian it was codenamed "Sarindar, meaning "emergency exit." I implemented it in Libya. It was for ridding Third World despots of all trace of their chemical weapons if the Western imperialists ever got near them. We wanted to make sure they would never be traced back to us, and we also wanted to frustrate the West by not giving them anything they could make propaganda with.
There's some blockbuster allegations in Pacepa's article including thoughts on that Russian "delegation" that was fired upon by U.S. forces early in the Iraq war. Pacepa says they were there to "sarindar" Hussein's WMDs.
In the immortal words of Boney M, "Oh, those Russians..."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:27 PM EST [Link]
~ I ALWAYS LIKED 'COMICAL ALI' BETTER: The U.S. military said today that Hassan al-Majid, aka 'Chemical Ali', had been captured several days ago and is in U.S. custody. Al-Majid was No. 5 in the U.S. deck of Iraqi cards.
Al-Majid is best known for mass murder in the town of Halabja where thousands of Kurds were killed by chemical weapons.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:18 PM EST [Link]
~ GILLIGAN'S REPORT WAS GARBAGE, SAID KELLY: David Kelly, the scientists who killed himself last month and who was accused of "sexing up" the British government's WMD report on Iraq, apparently told a Sunday Times reporter on July 9 that Andrew Gilligan's reports were "bull&#!@". Things ain't looking good for the BBC.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:14 PM EST [Link]
~ COOL TOOL OF THE DAY: Bookblog has a "Gender Genie" which analyzes text and determines whether the author was a male or a female. To test it out, I submitted my review of Stalking the Divine. The result? It guessed right.
Try your own here.
Posted by steve @ 01:48 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 20, 2003 FORMER COMMUNIST TURNED WEALTHY REPORTER: (via Relapsed Catholic) Shark Blog has a good response to a Robert Scheer column which attacked 1978's Proposition 13, a ballot measure which strictly limits property tax increases. Stefan Sharkansky says that Scheer resorts to class warfare to make his point, interesting considering that Scheer owns at least three homes and is quite wealthy himself...oh, and has had some difficulty paying his own property taxes in the past.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:28 PM EST [Link]
~ WORDS MEAN THINGS: (Via Little Green Footballs) Interesting little story in today's FrontPage Magazine by Rachel Neuwirth.
In late July, I contacted Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman and director of communication at the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). When he returned my call, he presented his point of view about the Arab-Israeli conflict and militant Islam. When I reminded him about CAIR's record of openly supporting Hamas, Hizbullah, and other organizations deemed by the government to be terrorists, he replied by telling me that "CAIR does not support these groups publicly."
That about says it all.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]
~ OPPOSED TO JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AND GAY MARRIAGE?: Then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien considers you nothing less than evil.
Chretien spoke to a crowd of Liberals in North Bay Tuesday evening, just an hour or so away from Fort Sinatra, and declared that those opposed to gay marriage were playing into the hands of the Canadian Alliance, Canada's only mainstream political party. Support gay marriage and you automatically oppose the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"The Canadian Alliance has attacked the courts for years," he said. "They attacked so-called 'judicial activism.' It is code for their profound opposition to the Charter of Rights.
"So I urge you all to give this careful consideration at the appropriate time. To cool the rhetoric. Not to fall into traps set by the Opposition."
The CA, and many Canadians, are opposed to judicial activism because they know the danger. First, the federal government loves when the courts decide an issue because they're off the hook for any controversial decisions. Vast societal changes – whether beneficial or not – must not be made in the courts unless they are an absolute last resort.
The only way to avoid that is for politicians to stop relying on the judiciary to make new law and for the judiciary to end their practice of reading new meanings into the Charter. If the Charter's words can be twisted to mean anything, then the document which protects us all ends up containing no meaning at all. Chretien apparently does not realize that.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:28 AM EST [Link]
~ WHATEVER: After a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 18 and injured more than 100 Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority is cutting all ties to Islamic militant groups and will also crack down on them to prevent future attacks.
Dude, wasn't the PA supposed to do that years ago? And what happened to this "truce" announced in June?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:52 AM EST [Link]
~ PROMOTING OTHERS, PROMOTING MYSELF: Immigration reformer and columnist Joe Guzzardi is running for governor of California. I have a column in Ether Zone on his candidacy.
Posted by antle @ 12:12 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 19, 2003 GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS: Saddam Hussein's vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was captured today...and a suicide bomber hit the U.N. headquarters and killed the top U.N. official, along with about 20 others and injuring another 100.
Posted by steve @ 08:25 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY I HAVE MULTIPLE SAFEGUARDS ON MY PC: Why do I have a firewall, two virus checkers and a utility to block foreign applications from installing themselves on my PC? Just checking my mail a couple of minutes ago I received 18 email messages with the WORM_SOBIG.F virus included, for a total of about 50 today. Fortunately my overlapping protective measures means that the attachments were blocked by the firewall before they even got to my mailbox to be flagged by the virus checker.
People, invest in a firewall and a virus checker.
Posted by steve @ 07:49 PM EST [Link]
~ LOOKS LIKE THAT FLY PAPER STRATEGY IS WORKING: (Via The Corner) The Financial Times is reporting that thousands of Saudi men are missing and maybe in Iraq planning a holy war against coalition troops.
Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned.
A senior western counter-terrorism official on Monday said the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq was "extremely worrying".
A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda was broadcast on Monday by the Arab satellite television channel al-Arabiya. It claimed the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the leader of the Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime Mullah Mohammed Omar were still alive. But it also asserted that recent attacks on US forces in Iraq were the work of jihadis.
Frankly I don't believe Saudis are involved. They are America's allies in the war against terrorism, aren't they? Well, if they really want to die for their god, let's give them that chance.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:15 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S TRUE...ARNOLD NEVER HAS RENOUNCED HIS CONNECTION WITH THEM: Al-Bawaba reports today that Arnold Schwarzenegger has extensive ties with a community...which community? The Jews of course!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:57 PM EST [Link]
~ TMQB IS BACK!: Gregg Easterbrook weighs in with a pre-season Tuesday Morning Quartback though it's a little light on football and has absolutely no pictures of cheerleaders. On the plus side, there's a truly horrific picture that makes Steve's Gen X sweetheart/shoplifter Winona Ryder look truly gruesome.
Posted by steve @ 03:47 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 18, 2003 VOTE BABE FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: The Corner prints an email from a reader that urges Californians to vote for Brooke Adams for governor. She's 25, a total babe and more conservative than Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm sold. It would be unfair for me to issue a recommendation on behalf of ESR so I'm just going to do it as a smitten foreign national: Vote Adams!
Visit Brooke's web site here.
Posted by steve @ 09:06 PM EST [Link]
~ I'M SURPRISED THEY DIDN'T BLAME THE ENOLA GAY FOR PEARL HARBOR: The Smithsonian unveiled the Enola Gay today as part of a public exhibition that begins in December. After creating an "interpretative" display a decade ago that painted the Japanese victims of U.S. aggression, the Smithsonian this time decided not to be politically correct and tilt history.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ HOLIDAY ROAD: Well, I and the rest of the ESR staff are officially on vacation! Well, at least from our ESR related duties. We'll return on September 1 with a fat new collection of articles for your reading pleasure.
So what is Steve going to do over this next week? I'm glad you asked. A lot of reading, a lot of writing and a lot of socializing. Work and play. I'll still be blogging of course...I can't let the place get any cobwebs...
Posted by steve @ 12:13 AM EST [Link]
~ NEW LOVE INTEREST FOR STEVE: Not only is she attractive, but she has the coolest name out of Russia in a while: Elena Dementieva. (Pop-up, 18Kb picture)
Posted by steve @ 12:03 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 16, 2003 FAIR IS FAIR: Some people have been busting Arnold Schwarzenegger's chops for his 1980s support of Kurt Waldheim which is fair enough given what the ex-Austrian president did during the Second World War. Tacitus then wants to know why no one has been going after Cruz Bustamante for being a former member of MEChA.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:31 PM EST [Link]
~ MEL GIBSON'S MOVIE AROUSING "PASSION:" Steve Greenhut, who writes some fine editorials for the indispensable Orange County Register explains what makes him so passionate about the debate over Mel Gibson's new movie in a column for LewRockwell.com.
Posted by antle @ 05:10 PM EST [Link]
~ FIRST LIMITING DRINKING, NOW BANNING SMOKING?: Andrew Stuttaford has a post in The Corner on Ireland's creeping prohibitionism.
Posted by antle @ 04:30 PM EST [Link]
~ POLITICAL JUNKIES WITHOUT POWER: My friends over at Toogood Reports poke some fun at themselves.
North-east blackout cuts off ToogoodReports staff from site. Forces them to think about something other than politics. Withdrawal pains experienced!
Posted by antle @ 04:24 PM EST [Link]
~ PROMOTING OTHERS, PROMOTING MYSELF: In my zeal to fend off viruses and recover servers at work made unavailable by blackouts, I forgot to thank Mens News Daily for republishing my piece on marriage and me. A feisty, up-and-coming conservative website that supports the burgeoning father's rights/men's movement.
Posted by antle @ 04:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SCREW THE MELTING POT: In a perceptive Atlantic Monthly essay, David Brooks says we prefer the congealing pot. Black and white, liberal and conserative, rich and poor, religious and secular, we all tend to congregate among those most like us.
Maybe somewhere in this country there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostal minister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who lives next to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professional golfer, who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and a cardiovascular surgeon. But I have never been to or heard of that neighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves.
Read on.
Posted by antle @ 04:06 PM EST [Link]
~ BAD NEWS FOR ARNOLD: A new poll in California shows that Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante leads Arnold Schwarzenegger in the recall election, 25 to 22 per cent.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:56 PM EST [Link]
~ ENJOY HELL!: "Former dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murders of tens of thousands of Ugandans in the 1970s, has died in a Saudi hospital, medical sources say.
"Amin, who had lived for years in exile in the port city of Jeddah, had been on a life-support machine since July 18."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:46 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 15, 2003 "WELL, THIS CALLS FOR MORE ALCOHOL:" Twenty-four hours into the Great Blackout of 2003, I'm alive, well, and with power. For us at the Ontario Ministry of Culture, the lights went out at 4:11 p.m., just as me and my supervisor were in the middle of proofreading and revising a Ministerial decision note that was due by the end of the day. This type of document takes something like 15 drafts and two-to-three weeks worth of work before being sent to the Minister's office and we were just about finished our final, final, final changes, when (poof!) there goes the power. Arrrgh...
So how did our provincial bureaucrats react? Well, a lot of them, in very clear and very loud voices, started blaming the energy policies of Premier Ernie Eves and predicting the imminent doom of our present Conservative government. Um, wrong. The second theme of woe from my colleagues was the fact that with no power, none of them now had air-conditioning. Nearly everyone in the office started lamenting this as well and for the last twenty-four hours, the radio waves have been filled with similar tales of the horrors of life without air-conditioning. As I hastened to note to my colleagues (and with just a touch of superiority), in the twenty-plus years of life that I've had, my family has never, ever, ever owned an air-conditioning unit. Heck, it wasn't until the spring of last year that we actually got around to buying an air-conditioned car, let alone something for the house. And being the evil person that I am, I went around lecturing people in an half-joking manner, "Those among you who use air-conditioning [which was just about everyone], you ought to hang your heads in shame, RIGHT NOW!" And would you know it, some of them did.
Being temporarily trapped downtown, with no way out except for rare, overcrowded buses and taxis crawling through jammed streets, I got a ride to Spadina and Bloor and then hiked to Yonge and Bloor to wait out the outage in my uncle's condo. My uncle lives on the thirty-fifth floor, so I prayed that A: he was there and B: the elevator was working. Thankfully, the condo's emergency generators were on. My uncle turned out not to be alone, for his friend the Film Critic had joined him. The Film Critic had the same problem that I had, he lived way out in the suburbs and had taken the subway to work out at his downtown gym, when the blackout had hit. Not knowing what to do, he then decided to crash at the home of his only friend he knew that lived downtown. When I entered the scene, it was pretty clear that they'd been downing the Gin and Tonics for sometime. I didn't get much rest. My uncle, being as news-ravenous as me, immediately asked me in a very needy, wheedling sort of way, would you please go back down, walk to the overpriced grocery store across the street, and buy a nine-volt battery for my radio, so I can find out just what the hell is going on? Oh, and here's twenty dollars. Alright, I said, swinging open the door and being met in the hallway with....pitch blackness. Great, I thought. The elevators, which I had just used all of ten minutes before were also in a non-functional state. My uncle, non-plussed, then asked me in an even more wheedling voice, could you please, please go down the thirty-five floors of stairs and buy me a nine-volt battery? Please. Oh, and here's a flashlight for your troubles. Quite naturally, I asked him if I could get back up, once I got out of the building. Of course, he replied and off I went. Well, I did eventually get outside to street level and closing the door to the emergency stairs behind me, I noticed too late that while there was a handle to the door on the inside, that feature was rather conspicious in its absence on the outside (which, when you think of it, is commonsense, given that you don't want intruders getting in through the stairs and bypassing the concierge). This meant that I was now trapped at street level, with no working elevators and no access to the stairs. And all too predictably, when I finally did get a chance to quiz the grocery clerk standing guard at the entrance, after waiting in a line-up for twenty minutes in the hot summer sun, I found out that they had long ago sold out of nine-volt batteries...
Making my way back to the lobby, I found quite a crowd milling around in the darkness. Two security guards came by, noted that there was no power in the lobby, and after making that grand observation, promptly withdrew. Well, after half of hour of this, I finally got the bright idea of checking to see, if maybe, the door to the stairs could somehow be opened. When I went to see, well, lo and behold, someone had thoughtfully propped the door open, allowing access. Now, came the hard part. We gathered ourselves together and since I was the only person armed with a flashlight, I became defacto leader, guiding my little group of condo-dwellers up thirty-five floors in one long, long game of Follow-The-Leader. If it weren't for that flashlight, it would have been impossible to get up the stairwell because it was pitch-black. So I found myself shouting out floor numbers ("22!" "34!"), slowing down to make sure that no one at the back of our group got lost, and all-in-all, getting a great chance to play Boy Scout in the dark. Well, after that nightmare was over and I'd helped everyone in our group get home (naturally, I was the last person), I went back to tell my uncle of my failure. He didn't seem to take the news very well and when he asked me how long I thought the blackout would last and I replied that I had heard on the radio that it might last up to three days, he said something which made the most sense out of everything I had heard that long afternoon. "Well, this calls for more alcohol," he announced and promptly downed two rums with orange juice. He didn't offer me any.
I did get a measure of revenge on the poor man as we sat there idling over the next few hours. It turns out our Film Critic friend is a bit of a film snob who loathes mainstream studio productions and so am I, whereas my uncle is an utter philistine (well, according to us, at least). After I told the Film Critic that my uncle's idea of a good summer movie was Pirates of the Caribbean, I then spent a very enjoyable few hours discussing the subject of my uncle's general tastelessness with the Film Critic (you mean he doesn't find The Royal Tenenbaums funny??? You mean he actually liked Bad Boys II??? You mean he's not going to see Dirty, Pretty Things???). Well, after two-and-half hours of subtle and not-so subtle putdowns, with the traffic finally beginning to clear and the alcohol in his bloodstream beginning to thin, my uncle finally decided to drive me and the Film Critic home. Long story short, I got home, had a look at the stars (first time ever I got to see them in the city), ended up sleeping on a bamboo mat on the floor of my basement, and at 3:45 a.m., nearly twelve hours after the blackout began, the lights finally came back on and they've stayed on ever since. As for my uncle, as of this writing, he still hasn't gotten his power back. In fact, he's actually at my house right now, dumping his not-so frozen chickens into our freezers in an effort to save them. I'd like to think there's a measure of cosmic justice in all this. I really would.
P.S. Just now, my uncle's told me that he bought some nine-volt batteries this morning. As it turns out, his radio doesn't take nine-volt batteries...
Posted by Barton @ 05:00 PM EST [Link]
~ SO TRUE: "A widespread electrical power outage affected some 20 million North Americans tonight, but none were so hard hit as writers of so-called weblogs, a kind of online journal."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:04 PM EST [Link]
~ THE GREAT POWER OUTAGE -- WHAT HAPPENED AT STEVE'S HOUSE IN SUDBURY, ONTARIO: Try and figure out which of these scenarios occurred last night:
Scenario A: Steve gazed out of his window, shocked that the fabric of society could collapse so quickly. The roving mobs had moved up and down the street, desperately looking for anything that could power their PDAs and high-end bread makers.
Whether naturally or by choice he saw them wheel towards his home. He calmly reached beside him and picked up his M-16 (pop-up, picture), inserted a magazine and then chambered a round. He took aim at the man who looked to be leading the mob. Steve estimated the distanced at 50 metres. He smiled. In the military he had qualified several times that distance easily.
"Don't do it," Steve whispered.
Suddenly a shout rang out and rounds begin to impact against Steve's home. They must have seen him. Steve quickly dropped the leader and began scything the mob with rounds. Amazingly, they didn't break and run even as their peers dropped in front of them. Collectively they must have watched too many action movies where the hero brazenly stood in the open and traded fire with the enemy. That was stupid.
Two or three of the mob separated and began to move to Steve's right, hoping to circle around to the back of his house. Steve's smile grew broader. They would soon find out why he had dubbed his home Fort Sinatra.
"They'll regret that..."
* Scenario B: Steve gazed out his window, amazed by the sight of a city forced to live by the rhythms of the planet. He placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, creating a reflection in the window of the scene behind him.
On the couch sat Czech supermodel Daniela Pestova (pop-up, picture). Steve's eyebrows raised. She was wearing the black Yamamoto party dress he had bought her. It had cost him dearly but as they say in the movies, all the money was on the screen. She looked stunning.
Steve returned to his reverie and heard Daniela pour what appeared to be generous portions of wine.
"Come to the couch and keep me company," she said, her voice pregnant with suggestion.
Steve took his place next to her and accepted the glass of wine.
"You know Steve," she said in slightly accented English, "during that power outage in New York years ago, they experienced a baby boom nine months later. We could do the same...or at least practice."
Steve smiled.
"Yes we could," he responded.
Daniela's dress all but slid off her lithe form and the two began kissing...
* Scenario C: Steve gazed at his computer screen at 4:14pm wondering if his house was the only one without power. After surfing the net on his cellphone he learned of the magnitude of the outage.
For the rest of the day, bereft of power, Steve spent a bored existence trying to fill the hours. Finally, he went to sleep.
* Which one do think happened at Fort Sinatra? Guess and you could win a legendary No Prize!
Well, the power finally came back on here in Sudbury, Ontario at about 9:45am (though my DSL Internet access took longer). You know, I have to admit that while it was an inconvenience, it wasn't all that bad anyway from a societal point of view.
I noticed something odd last night after dinner in my working class neighbourhood. People were walking down the street. Children were playing. Families sat in their backyards and talked. Freed of the grip of the unblinking eye of television, people actually spent time with each other. It must have been like this before television or electricity. It was nice to see.
Don't get me wrong...I don't think I need this as a regular occurrence and it's not like I was in New York City where people were forced to sleep in their office buildings because there was no way to leave the city.
Posted by steve @ 11:23 AM EST [Link]
~ TRYING TO CURE THE "IRISH DISEASE"
In a bold display of nanny state government, the Irish government has passed a law that tries to address the alcohol consumption of the Emerald Isle.
According to the Washington Times, "A sobering new law that takes effect next week targets the center of Ireland's social life: its 10,000 pubs. Politicians are hoping the Intoxicating Liquor Act of 2003 will reduce heavy drinking, public drunkenness and underage drinking by limiting the number of pints that patrons may drink."
Having my own fair share of Irish blood, I doubt that such an idiotic law will convince my cousins to lay off the sauce. Prohibition did not work in America, and it won't work in Eire.
The story is here.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:32 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 14, 2003 WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN IN THE CITY: Alright, I got the idea to quote that Journey song in a blog entry from a guest blogger on Radley Balko's The Agitator. It is now being reported that power is returning to New York City and the metro area may be somewhat back to normal by morning.
Boston for the most part was unaffected, but NYC and a lot of areas were thrown into something approaching chaos. Even though I kept my power at home and at work, I still have to deal with a servers at work that are based in New York that went down because of this. Being stranded during your evening commute, without air conditioning in this heat and humidity, and otherwise deprived of the creature comforts of modern life is always a highly irritating and inconvienient thing. But as a reminder of how the world has changed at least somewhat since 9/11, people's initial reaction to this outage was a different kind of panic. Stories of an explosion at a power plant made people immediately think of terrorism. The scenes in the New York City streets, the grounded flights, the confusion over what exactly was going on reminded people of when America was under attack.
In the end, it was nothing of the sort. A friend of mine from the Big Apple said that many people spilled into bars, still lit by early evening summer sun, and turned the event into a party. Unlike 9/11, things will go completely back to normal. Yet even if it was just for a few seconds, today we got a reminder of how post-9/11, some things will really never be the same.
Posted by antle @ 11:45 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY ARREST HIM?: Riduan Isamabudian, aka Hambali, has been captured. Al-Qaida's top planner in Southeast Asia, Isamabudian is believed to have planned last week's bombing in Jakarta and last year's Bali bombing.
Maybe I'm bloodthirsty but I would have captured him, gotten any information, then left him for men in uniform -- take your pick of the elite branches -- who solve problems quickly. Them or relatives of the victims of the bombings...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:07 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S ALWAYS THE DAMNED FRENCH: I'd like to state for the record I had a stronger word then "damned" when I wrote that.
France is holding up the settlement for families of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, because it wants Libya to pay more for the bombing of a French UTA airliner in 1989, a U.S. official said Thursday.
Wednesday, lawyers for Libya and for families of the 270 Pan Am victims agreed on a framework for $2.7 billion in compensation.
As part of the deal, Libya was to send a letter to the United Nations officially accepting responsibility for the bombing and agreeing to pay compensation to each family in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against the country.
But France has "intimidated the Libyans" into delaying the delivery of that letter, a Bush administration official said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:02 PM EST [Link]
~ AMERICA AND EUROPE...DIFFERENT PATHS: (Via The Corner) Ralph Peters has an interesting op-ed in the New York Post about the different paths the U.S. and Europe are taking into the future.
Life may not be predictable, but Europeans are. If we criticize them publicly, they splutter, outraged that we don't recognize their perfection. They can dish it out abundantly, but continental Europeans can no more take criticism than their welfare armies could have taken Baghdad.
The only thing you can get for free from Europeans is advice. And they're always ready to give us plenty of it, as they've been doing for more than two centuries.
Still, behind the easy pleasure of poking fun at European pretensions, there are serious - and hardening - differences between Americans, who embrace the future, and the French or Germans or Belgians who cling to the past.
None of those differences go so deep as our opposing concepts of freedom.
For Europeans - excluding the Brits, who are more like us than they sometimes find comfortable - "freedom" means freedom from things: from social and economic risk, from workplace insecurity and personal responsibility, from too much competition in the marketplace or too much scrutiny of governing elites.
Peters is right on but I'm not sure I'd say that Britons are really that much more like Americans than most people think. The Blair government is no less socialist then any on the continent and I don't believe the war in Iraq really garnered much support among the British population. Finally, British society is more classist and less dynamic than American society. That said, I'd have a Briton beside me if I needed some help sooner than any person from the continent. British Steel isn't just a Judas Priest album...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ "THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY THIS WILL HAPPEN.": Time speaks with Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi in their latest issue and discuss a settlement with the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing and whether the U.S. might decide to take him out like they did Saddam Hussein.
Like I said earlier this month, Gaddafi sounds remarkably sane when you talk to him until he goes off the rails.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: If your in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, pick up the KW Record today and read the brilliance that is Steven Martinovich on the collapse in support for the federal firearms registry. They make great gifts! That or click on "More" below and read the unedited version here. [more]
Posted by steve @ 02:15 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: The American Spectator Online (formerly known as The American Prowler) is running a piece of mine detailing the progress the Bush administration has made against terrorism thanks to the war in Iraq.
It's ironic that at about the same time the peace movement -- which apparently still hasn't heard that the coalition was victorious in Iraq -- launched a new round of protests in the United States over the war the Bush administration released a 25-page report, largely ignored by the media, documenting its successes over the past few months. The peaceniks' renewed claims about the illegitimacy of the war were answered before the paint was dry on their new "No Blood for Oil" signs.
Entitled "100 Days of Progress in Iraq," the administration's report lays out a hundred positive developments in Iraq since the fall of the Hussein régime. Among the achievements are signs of cultural rebirth, improvements in the lives of women (although the administration surprisingly doesn't mention the end of the Hussein rape gangs), democratic reforms, internal security and economic renewal, among others.
The section labeled "10 Ways the Liberation of Iraq Supports the War on Terror" may be the most important, at least from the perspective of Western security, especially since terrorism was one of the primary reasons why the U.S. led coalition went to war. Contrary to what critics of the war claimed, Iraq earned its reputation as one of the U.S. State Department's seven state sponsors of terrorism. Its links with terrorist movements, suspected before the war, have been fully exposed.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:46 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 13, 2003 DID YOU FIND HER YET?: The forensic biologist leading the effort to identify the human remains from the World Trade Centre said today that as many as 1 000 people who died September 11, 2001 may never be identified.
The city medical examiner's office has identified slightly more than half of the 2,792 people killed in the attack -- only about 100 of those in the last year, as technicians struggled with DNA degraded and damaged by fire and the elements.
Robert Shaler, chief of forensic biology, had once hoped to reach 2,000 identifications, but he told The Associated Press he no longer considers that a realistic goal.
Now, Shaler said he hopes for about 1,700 identifications -- 1,800 at the outside -- by the time the office exhausts available DNA matching methods within a year. City officials recently notified victims' families of the outlook.
I can't even imagine the pain of losing someone so permanently that not even their body exists.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:39 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY GROWN MEN CRY OVER SPORTS: I missed this story when it appeared last week, surprising since it involves my beloved but horrible New York Mets. It's the story of a 28-year old rookie named Joe DePastino.
Joe DePastino began making the phone calls around 6 p.m. Monday. Amy, his wife, was at his parents' ice cream parlor in Sarasota, Fla., and she took one look at the caller ID on her cellphone and immediately thought something was wrong. Class AAA Norfolk's game at Richmond was about to begin, and her husband should have been on the field.
When Rich DePastino answered his phone, he quizzed his younger brother on his whereabouts and heard him say he had good news. Rich DePastino, instinctively knowing what the news was, became so emotional that he told his brother he would have to call him back.
"I must have cried for 30 minutes," Rich DePastino said today by telephone.
After 11 years in the minor leagues, including 5 in Class AAA, Joe DePastino, 28, was calling his loved ones to let them know his long wait was over, that he was finally headed to the major leagues. And one night later he made his big league debut, pinch-hitting for the Mets in the ninth inning of their 10-1 victory over the Houston Astros.
Never give up on a dream.
Read on. (Free registration or use Account: esrmusings Pass: cookie)
Posted by steve @ 06:31 PM EST [Link]
~ ALL YOUR FRIENDS LOOK LIKE YOU: David Brooks has a great piece in the September issue of The Atlantic dismissing the notion that Americans are fond of diversity, and that goes for liberals as well as conservatives.
Maybe it's time to admit the obvious. We don't really care about diversity all that much in America, even though we talk about it a great deal. Maybe somewhere in this country there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostal minister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who lives next to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professional golfer, who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and a cardiovascular surgeon. But I have never been to or heard of that neighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves.
Human beings are capable of drawing amazingly subtle social distinctions and then shaping their lives around them. In the Washington, D.C., area Democratic lawyers tend to live in suburban Maryland, and Republican lawyers tend to live in suburban Virginia. If you asked a Democratic lawyer to move from her $750,000 house in Bethesda, Maryland, to a $750,000 house in Great Falls, Virginia, she'd look at you as if you had just asked her to buy a pickup truck with a gun rack and to shove chewing tobacco in her kid's mouth. In Manhattan the owner of a $3 million SoHo loft would feel out of place moving into a $3 million Fifth Avenue apartment. A West Hollywood interior decorator would feel dislocated if you asked him to move to Orange County. In Georgia a barista from Athens would probably not fit in serving coffee in Americus.
It's a shame that we only feel comfortable with our own. There's so much to learn out there...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:02 PM EST [Link]
~ MOVIE NIGHT AT FORT SINATRA: It's movie night at Fort Sinatra and tonight's feature will be 1957's Kumonosu jo, better known to Western audiences as Throne of Blood. Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood sees William Shakespeare's MacBeth shifted to the feudal Japanese world of the samurai.
As with many Kurosawa movies of that period, it stars Toshirô Mifune. It also features a number of regulars from other Kurosawa movies like Takashi Shimura, Hiroshi Tachikawa and Minoru Chiaki. A lot has been written about the relationship between Kurosawa and Mifune...heck, there's even a book about it entitled The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshirô Mifune.
Sadly, there's less talk about the relationship between Kurosawa and Shimura. When asked who is favourite actor was, Kurosawa would always reluctantly name Mifune but then go on to talk at length about Shimura.
Western audiences know him best as Doctor Yemane in two Godzilla movies but Shimura was a participant in some of the finest movies ever made. Shimura, who was generally a character actor, was typically the "Guy Who Kept Everyone Together", best typified by his character Kambei Shimada in The Seven Samurai (that's him to your left). His characters were often the older experienced warrior who calmed everyone else down and inspired them to act as a team.
Shimura came into his own in Kurosawa's 1952 masterpiece Ikiru, (which also sees Minoru Chiaki) a deeply touching story of a government bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and realizes that he has done nothing with his life. Realizing he has wasted his life Watanabe embarks on a mission to make one small difference in people's lives. I wish I could afford the DVD. It's a shame that Shimura isn't better known to the West...
Hmm, I'm watching Throne of Blood and ended up talking about Shimura and Ikiru.
Posted by steve @ 05:11 PM EST [Link]
~ BLAH BLATHER. Hey, what gives? Last week it was Rush deconstructing blogging, now it's Mo Dowd. Blogs are becoming establishment??
Posted by izzy @ 03:54 PM EST [Link]
~ IS CNN ENRAPTURED WITH THE PASSION?: I ask because this is the third story in a week on their web site reporting on the debate over Mel Gibson's The Passion.
In reaction to the controversy over his film about Jesus Christ, called "The Passion," Mel Gibson is planning to convene a series of meetings with religious leaders to "invite their dialogue, their feedback," said a Gibson spokesman.
"We are very concerned about this [critical] feedback, and we are processing that feedback, and we have always planned on inviting this kind of dialogue," said Paul Lauer, director of marketing for Gibson's Icon Productions, on CNN's "NewsNight with Aaron Brown."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:43 PM EST [Link]
~ CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT: A bunch of left-wing-nut celebrities (including major wing-nut Walter Cronkite) are protesting a proposed windmill electricity generating "farm" on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. These are the same wackos that whine about global warming and pollution caused by fossil fuels, and the supposed dangers of nuclear power. They preach about so-called "renewable" energy sources such as the very same windmill generation systems that they now want to protest.
This sounds more like a case of "not in my backyard", or "not near my fancy resort area that the unwashed masses can't afford". I suppose this is what you get when you believe in situational ethics.
Aren't liberals amazing? You can read the AP story here.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 12:17 PM EST [Link]
~ INCOMPETENT CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY - EXAMPLE # 729: A Canadian who had been arrested in 2000 in Saudi Arabia after a British engineer working there was killed by a car bomb, blamed by Saudi authorities on a turf war among Western liquor dealers, repeatedly told Canadian officials that he was being tortured.
The government's response? Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham (who especially deserves a spot in the loudest and sweatiest part of Hell) in the past said they weren't convinced. Why?
"We always took the position that any Canadian being in a foreign prison has to be treated properly," Graham said. "What assurances we were given by Saudi authorities was that any torture was contrary to the Qur'an, and would be contrary to their religious beliefs, and therefore no torture would be used, but we still raised it with them."
As the Zahra Kazemi and this case points out, God (or Allah I suppose) help you if you're arrested in the Middle East and hold a Canadian passport. Your government isn't going to do anything to help you.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:22 AM EST [Link]
~ HASN'T IRAN LEARNED A DAMNED THING?: Saudi officials have confirmed that Iran is holding several key al-Qaida members, including Osama bin Laden's son Saad. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said this morning that he will not allow the U.S. to question the terrorists.
I'm always amazed every time a nation Just Doesn't Get It.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:08 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 12, 2003 SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILE SMUGGLED INTO U.S.: The FBI pinched a couple of cats who attempted to smuggle a Russian SA-18 surface-to-air missle in the U.S.
FBI agents arrested a British citizen of Indian descent Tuesday afternoon in Newark, New Jersey. Law enforcement sources said he was an independent arms dealer and had sold weapons to al Qaeda in the past.
Authorities also arrested two Afghans who work as gem dealers in Manhattan. The law enforcement sources said they were to be the "money launderers" of the plot, taking care of the cash between the buyer and the seller.
The arrests came at the end of an undercover operation in which U.S. agents posed as terrorists seeking to buy a shoulder-launched missile from the British man, who advertised his ability to buy such weapons, U.S. government sources said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:05 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH TO AVOID SENATE AND NAME PIPES: "Over objections from some Muslim American groups, President Bush is expected to sidestep Congress and appoint a Middle East scholar who has been derided by critics as anti-Muslim to a federally funded think tank, congressional sources said on Tuesday.
"Bush's recess appointment of Daniel Pipes could spark a backlash from some Muslim Americans and Democrats in Congress, who oppose his nomination to serve on the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which was created by Congress to promote peaceful solutions to world conflicts."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:51 PM EST [Link]
~ ARNOLD: THE WEB SITE: The official Arnold Schwarzenegger election web site is up though it has yet to be completed. Check it out here or risk fiddling, fumbling and failing to know more about where Schwarzenegger stands on the issues. Well, when he gets around to announcing all that stuff anyway...
Posted by steve @ 04:00 PM EST [Link]
~ IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR TAXES THEN DON'T PAY THEM: (Via Hit & Run) Vernice Kuglin just plum didn't understand her federal taxes. After finding 'contradictions' and attempting to ask the IRS questions, Kuglin just decided to stop paying those taxes.
Kuglin, a pilot for FedEx since 1985, said she had paid taxes like anyone else for most of her life. But about 10 or 11 years ago, she began to question the federal tax system. She began to read court documents, legal opinions and the federal tax code.
She said she found what she felt were contradictions. She wanted to know where in the federal tax code it said she was liable for taxes.
Kuglin wrote the Internal Revenue Service twice in 1995 with questions but said she didn't get a response.
What happened to her? Read on and find out.
Posted by steve @ 02:47 PM EST [Link]
~ IS SIMON A HOUSEHOLD NAME?: Bill Simon, who lost to Gray Davis just two years ago, said today that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a political unknown.
"He's known from the standpoint of name identification, but... from the standpoint of where he stands on the issues, from the standpoint of what his priorities are, he's a blank slate," Simon told CNN's American Morning. "We need to hear from Arnold."
I like how even how Republicans are now calling him 'Arnold'. Back in my day, it was considered polite not to call someone by their first name until they had allowed you to do so.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:42 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have an article in The American Prowler today on Boston's ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.
Stanley Kurtz was kind enough to mention my last Prowler piece on privatizing marriage in The Corner. It was previously blogged by ESR friends Paul Cella and Bernard Chapin.
Posted by antle @ 11:08 AM EST [Link]
~ HOW ARNOLD KEPT THE SECRET A SECRET: Everyone who plays at being the big brain in the pundit world was shocked when Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he was in fact running for governor. How did he fool everyone? Easy, reports Deborah Orin, he lied.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:01 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 11, 2003 CONSERVA-HOTTIE OR CONSERVA-FRAUD?: (Via Relapsed Catholic) One-time Conservative Babe of the Week and tart-tongued Canadian conservative commentator Rachel Marsden (who has appeared in Enter Stage Right through commentaries provided by the Free Congress Foundation) was eviscerated in a National Post story this past weekend.
It seems Ms. Marsden has made some claims about her past -- and it's a storied past to be sure -- that Brian Hutchinson has exposed to be somewhat exaggerated.
If her name seems familiar, however, it is not likely to do with any piece of commentary she may have written. In 1996, while attending Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, Marsden alleged the school's swim coach had raped her. In 1997, following an internal SFU inquiry, the coach, Liam Donnelly, was fired.
He was soon reinstated, however, after putting forward evidence that cast doubt upon Marsden's credibility. Marsden admitted to having frequently sent Donnelly gifts and sexually explicit e-mails. She claimed they were intended to draw him into a discussion of his alleged sexual harassment. According to Donnelly, Marsden had been stalking him for months.
It was a dark episode in SFU's history. The school's president resigned over it, citing depression. Several cases of false accusations by other SFU students subsequently came to light; compensation to teachers previously disciplined over false harassment claims totalled hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Marsden was later accused of harassing the former head of SFU's own harassment office, Patricia O'Hagan, and, later, SFU criminology professor Neil Boyd.
Last fall, Marsden was charged with criminal harassment of former Vancouver radio personality Michael Morgan, 52.
None of this appears on rachelmarsden.com, Marsden's personal Web site. Her homepage does feature a sexy self-portrait; Marsden is shown reclined on a chair, her bare legs dangling from a flimsy pink dress.
There are two things you noticed about Marsden's web site immediately. 1) She's attractive. 2) A couple of pages are missing. As Hutchinson's article points out, Marsden's CV has some exaggerations and one of the pages missing is the one listing her resume. The other page contains her photographs. Along with the questions of what happened at SFU there are also questions about her work history.
The media has a grand time questioning conservative women because most journalists can't believe that women are anything but Soccer Mom's who vote Liberal. I don't know Rachel Marsden but I do know that when an ostensibly conservative newspaper like the National Post tears you apart that it isn't good for any conservative woman. If Marsden is a fraud then it hurts all conservative women. Hopefully we'll hear her side in the coming days.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:58 PM EST [Link]
~ GETTING THE AMERICAN STREET ANGRY: I missed this lengthy post by Steven Den Beste this weekend so I bring it to you now. Seems our "friends" in France are noticing a large decline in American tourists visiting so they're taking steps to woo Americans. Tourism France has launched a new campaign and Patrick Goyet of the French Government Tourist Office has penned a letter to Americans trying to convince them to spend some green backs across the pond.
I would first like to emphasize that Americans have always been and will always be welcome in France. The relationship between Americans and the French, France and the United States is one of longstanding friendship and mutual appreciation that dates back to La Fayette’s key role in the American Revolutionary war. The Statue of Liberty, offered by France to the United States in 1886, is a symbol of friendship that represents shared values and ideals. It is a tribute to the United States—a beacon of liberty and hope. We will never forget the United States' instrumental role in WWI and WWII and will always honor the American soldiers who fought and died to restore our liberty.
The level of denial or outright lies it takes to write a paragraph like this is stunning but I'll let Den Beste do the work of cutting up the letter and France.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:28 PM EST [Link]
~ WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND: Not in Iraq unless those reports that the Bush administration is going to make a major announcement next month are true. Chinese officials claim that drums of what may be mustard gas left by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War seriously injured several people after they came into contact with them.
The accident occurred last week when construction workers found five metal barrels. One was opened, causing an oil-like substance to spill into the soil, according to the official China Daily.
Workers later cut the barrels into pieces and sold them to a recycling facility. Polluted soil from the building site was then moved to other locations as part of the construction work, the paper said.
Japan's war-time record in China is a regular source of tension between the two governments, and popular Chinese anger.
Large quantities of chemical weapons were left behind by the retreating Japanese army, some of them buried or concealed.
You can hardly prove who the mustard gas, if it was that, belong to thanks to the convenient destruction of the drums but if this is Second World War-era WMDs, this should illustrate how hard it is finding stuff that has been buried. For all I know Iraq's WMDs are buried in my backyard. It would certainly explain those brown spots on the lawn and some sad looking onions in the garden...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:17 PM EST [Link]
~ SEND HER TO JAIL: One of the clods who was stupid enough to go to Iraq earlier this year to serve as a human shield (and ran away before the war started) is in some hot water with the U.S. government.
A retired schoolteacher who went to Iraq to serve as a "human shield" against the U.S. invasion is facing thousands of dollars in U.S. government fines, which she is refusing to pay.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a March letter to Faith Fippinger that she broke the law by crossing the Iraqi border before the war. Her travel to Iraq violated U.S. sanctions that prohibited American citizens from engaging in "virtually all direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq."
Fippinger faces a fine of at least $10 000, one which she refuses to pay because she "will not contribute money to the United States government to continue the buildup of its arsenal of weapons." I well and truly love these people for their entertainment value alone.
Read it all here.
Posted by steve @ 06:08 PM EST [Link]
~ STEVE MARTINOVICH AN EXPERT?: (Heads up via Kathy Shaidle at Relapsed Catholic) Apparently Cliff Kincaid thinks so. Mr. Kincaid was kind enough to utilize me as a source for a piece he wrote on Hollywood Communists and the Red purges in connection with a run in that Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly had recently.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:58 PM EST [Link]
~ JOURNALISTM AS A JOKE- NO BLAIR MOVIE REVIEW: After the story hit the news, Esquire decided to cancel the review it commissioned of the movie version of Stephen Glass' The Fabulist, to be written by fellow disgraced ex-journalist Jayson Blair. Editors say it was intended to be humorous, but taking away the element of surprise ruined "the joke." That's apparently what magazines do now - run articles as jokes.
A joke, indeed. Story found via The Corner.
Posted by antle @ 08:54 AM EST [Link]
~ ANOTHER SOLUTION TO THE MARRIAGE QUAGMIRE - LET CANADA TAKE A HIT FOR THE TEAM: Steve Sailer asks why we're in such a hurry to introduce gay marriage here in the United States. After all, Canada and the Netherlands have already volunteered to play guinea pig on this front. Let's just watch the results for 20 years and then decide.
Note: Although they don't perfectly isolate each entry, Sailer's blog now has permalinks.
Posted by antle @ 08:45 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 10, 2003 POLL NUMBERS STRONG FOR SCHWARZENEGGER: A poll conducted by CNN/USA Today/Gallup finds very strong numbers for Schwarzenegger.
He leads the long list of hopefuls, with 42 percent of poll respondents saying there is a good chance they would vote for him. To win -- if voters agree to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis -- a candidate needs only a plurality of votes.
In addition, 72 per cent of respondents said his campaign should be taken seriously.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:46 PM EST [Link]
~ THE BODY HAS ADVICE FOR THE AUSTRIAN OAK: Former SEAL turned wrestler turned actor turned governor Jesse Ventura has advice for former skinny runt turned body builder turned actor turned prospective wannabe governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Arnold, what the heck are you doing? You're getting out of Hollywood to go into politics? Well, then forget agents and studio bosses—now you're dealing with real predators. But since your mind is made up, I hope you won't mind a little advice from someone who's been there.
Now, I know you're a Republican, but I hope you won't go out on the trail and act like a politician. Republican or Democrat, it makes no difference: people don't like politicians. Which is completely understandable, since most of them act like cyborgs, robotically selling the latest talking points from party headquarters.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:55 PM EST [Link]
~ IS IT ANY MORE OFFENSIVE THEN SELLING COMMUNIST INSPIRED CLOTHES?: A Hong Kong store is finding itself in some hot water after unveiling a clothing line inspired by Nazism.
The company's marketing manager, Deborah Cheng, said the Nazi-themed decorations and clothes were not intended to cause an outcry and may be withdrawn. She said the company had received a few complaints from customers.
"We're seriously considering removing the displays. But before we take them off, we have to find a replacement," she said.
Cheng added that the designer wanted the clothes to have a military theme and did not realize that the Nazi symbols would be considered offensive.
You really have to wonder about some people.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:48 PM EST [Link]
~ I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT: Liberian President Charles Taylor has recorded his farewell address to the nation in preparation for stepping down on Monday. Haven't we heard this before? His remarks come complete with a "challenge" to President Bush.
Posted by antle @ 05:37 PM EST [Link]
~ GREGORY HINES, R.I.P.: The dancer and entertainer Gregory Hines has died of cancer at age 57. He was a sort of Sammy Davis, Jr. meets Fred Astair, very talented.
Posted by antle @ 05:32 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE DEBATE ABOUT NEOCONS AND EMPIRE: But this time the critics aren't paleocons. They are traditional conservatives and foreign policy realists. People like C. Boyden Gray, the Cato Institute's Chris Preble and Dimitri Simes of the Nixon Center, as opposed to Pat Buchanan, Tom Fleming and Justin Raimondo.
The United States' role in the world raises questions for conservatives. Will the project of limited government be doomed by widespread military intervention all over the world? Or is such intervention the only way to secure a world of liberal democracies in which peace and freedom can flourish? Will intervention make us safer or just create new enemies? Should conservatives side with the constitutionalist principles, or their belief in a strong national defense?
Full story here.
Posted by antle @ 05:12 PM EST [Link]
~ PRESIDENT'S COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM, PROS AND CONS: I won't say that you heard it here first, but National Review editor Rich Lowry has a great piece in the Washington Post of the pros and cons of compassionate conservatism. In particular, Lowry writes about how the president's aversion to debate on cultural issues is depriving conservatives of opportunities and impoverishing our democracy by narrowing debate.
I mentioned similar good and bad tendencies of compassionate conservatism in a recent piece for ESR.
Posted by antle @ 04:15 PM EST [Link]
~ HERO WORSHIP II: Meanwhile, for you Canadian readers out there, guess who's written a 912-page biography to be published in October 2003 of Franklin Delano Roosevelt entitled Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom? Guess who's decided that "FDR was the most important person of the twentieth century, transforming his nation and the world through his unparalleled skill as a domestic politician, war leader, strategist, and global visionary?" And to think, this guy was once the demon-figure of the Canadian press.
For those FDR-haters among you (and I know you're out there!), I highly recommend Thomas Fleming's grand demolition, The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II, which in the words of R. Emmett Tyrell Jr., "exposes the assembled world-savers as more inept, brutal, and devious than college students have been taught these past fifty years." In my humble opinion, you can never get enough revisionist history.
Posted by Barton @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
~ HERO WORSHIP: There's a funny thing about journalist Lou Cannon's career. Cannon, for you non-Reaganphiles out there, was the reporter for the San Jose Mercury News who in 1960s was practically the first person in the California political press to recognize that Ronald Reagan was a substantial gubernatorial candidate and potentially serious threat to then Governor Pat Brown. He then went on to cover Reagan in Sacramento and later followed him during in his "wilderness years" (1975-1980), becoming an expert in Reagan's political style and substance at an time when most journalists in Washington assumed he was an unelectable extremist and puppet of the usual sinister right-wing interests who had blown his only chance at the presidency when he lost the Republican nomination to Ford in 1976. Cannon later became the Washington Post's White House Correspondent during the Reagan years and since then has dedicated his post-journalistic career to, well, all things Reagan. Cannon recently wrote a coffee-table biography of Reagan, which is pure hagiography. His definitive book (well, until the sequel to Steve Hayward's The Age of Reagan, 1964-1980: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order comes out) on Reagan's presidential years, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime which was orginally published in the early 1990s and is far more critical, was reissued in April 2000 in a revised version in which Cannon scrubbed out a lot of the criticisms and pushed his assessment of Reagan's presidency substantially upward. Now, in September 2003, comes what appears to be a definitive study of Reagan's governorship from Cannon, Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. I believe we can pre-judge the overall tone and conclusions of the book by what kind of language the publisher, Public Affairs, gives us in its blurb:
Written by the definitive biographer of Ronald Reagan, this new biography is a classic study of a fascinating individual's evolution from a conservative hero to a national figure whose call for renewal stirred Republicans, working-class Democrats, and independents alike.
Reagan-worshippers are, of course, legion on the Right (one thinks of the recent studies by Dinesh D'Souza and Peggy Noonan), but there even seems to be shifting opinion on the left as well. Cannon is (was?) a typical journalistic-class liberal who appears to be prepared to dedicate his life's works to this most conservative of presidents. Another liberal journalist, Richard Reeves, who once wrote a book entitled The Reagan Detour, which argued that "Reagan won the presidency on the strength of a set of ideas that...represents a temporary detour in the evolution of American liberal democracy. Liberal ideas and issues...will prevail ultimately," is now said to be working on a book explaining why Reagan's ideas have seemingly prevailed ultimately. Paul Kengor in Policy Review writes how Reagan's handling of foreign policy, at least, is now gaining credence even in the swamps of academia. On a rather lesser plane, December 2002's Esquire called him, "the greatest living American" (it should be noted however, that in the same issue was an introductory essay on leadership in America by Bill Clinton!). And of course, there's the most egregious example of all: Joshua Green's cover story for January/February 2003 issue of the neo-liberal Washington Monthly entitled, "Reagan's Liberal Legacy," complete with an illustration of Reagan looking like his old hero, FDR. Green's reassessment concludes with this cheery sentence, "An honest portrait of Reagan's presidency would not diminish his memory, but enlarge it," except in Green's judgement what "enlarges" it, are all the liberal aspects he happens to find Reagan's legacy. So, Reagan was both a conservative and a liberal or as Green puts it:
In fact, however often unintentionally, many of his actions as president wound up facilitating liberal objectives. What this clamor of adulation is seeking to deny is that beyond his conservative legacy, Ronald Reagan has bequeathed a liberal one.
Wasn't F. Scott Fitzgerald's definition of a first-rate intelligence one that had the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time? If that's so, then in Green's reassessment, Reagan more than meets that standard. Yet again, Reagan exceeds everyone's expectations.
Posted by Barton @ 02:02 PM EST [Link]
~ GEPHARDT SUPPORT RISES 0.1 PER CENT: Dick Gephardt formally received the support of the 1.4 million strong Teamsters union Saturday night, a move which will still result in his devastating loss.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:09 AM EST [Link]
~ SKAGGS ON GAY MARRIAGE AND IRAQ: Country singer, and Christian, Ricky Skaggs addresses the issues of gay marriage and the war in Iraq here.
Posted by steve @ 02:06 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 9, 2003 WHY CONSERVATIVES SHOULD VOTE ARNOLD: If you thought I was a little tough on the Terminator here on Musings earlier - in a response, as Izzy noted, to my own blog entry - read Hugh Hewitt's take on why conservatives should vote vote for Arnold. Scroll down to August 8, since he doesn't have permalinks. His reasons are all plausible enough, though I'd still like to see Schwarzenegger take a couple of more traditional Republican stands.
Posted by antle @ 10:16 PM EST [Link]
~ LIMBAUGH VS. THE BLOGGERS: Rush Limbaugh responds to David Hill's contention that bloggers will never equal the importance that El Rushbo has acrued in the last 15 years. A number of prominent bloggers disagree with the man with talent on loan from God.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:24 AM EST [Link]
~ NAACP CAT QUITES OVER JUDICIAL NOMINEE: "A Democratic champion of the left has resigned as a member of the NAACP, saying officials tried to strong-arm him into dropping his endorsement of a controversial Bush judicial nominee.
"Los Angeles civil rights attorney and radio talk show host Leo Terrell , who has made headlines in recent years for defending friend O.J. Simpson, and speaking out against the Bush administration, accused the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of "an old-fashioned backdoor power-play," and vowed to use his weekly radio show to incriminate the 94-year-old civil rights organization."
'"How dare the NAACP tell me who I can or cannot endorse on an individual basis. That is the part that makes this so outrageous,' Terrell told Foxnews.com. 'I am going to tell the whole world what the NAACP did to me.'"
"Terrell said he has been a vocal supporter of California judge Carolyn Kuhl, nominated by President Bush to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Senate vote on her confirmation was postponed until September by Democratic opponents who cite legal briefs she wrote in the 1980s under the Reagan administration to suggest her record is too far to the right on privacy, civil rights and abortion."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:11 AM EST [Link]
~ I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN MARRIED BEFORE THIS FORMULA CAME OUT: (Via Wired News) "Whether newlyweds can expect to enjoy a happy marriage or not is a matter of algebraic certainty, says a University of Washington mathematician. Prof. James Murray says his two formulae have a 94 percent success rate when it comes to forecasting whether a couple will stay together. His 10-year study involved observing 700 new couples during a 15-minute conversation, which covered such topics as sex, child-rearing and money. Positive and negative responses were given numeric values, and the point totals converted into algebraic terms that allowed the authors to make divorce projections. The results were fed into two equations -- one for the husband and one for the wife. The couples were checked every two years and the model predicted which marriages failed with almost complete accuracy."
Posted by steve @ 03:55 AM EST [Link]
~ SO THE WHITE HOUSE WAS IN DANGER AFTER ALL: All those people who argued that Dubya was a fraidy cat for not flying back to the White House on September 11 may have to eat their words now.
Terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was part of a team of al Qaeda operatives that intended to fly a plane into the White House, possibly on September 11, 2001, federal prosecutors alleged at a closed-door court hearing January 30, according to newly released court documents.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:09 AM EST [Link]
~ IN MEMORY. Kristopher William Eggle was a national park ranger stationed at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. Exactly one year ago, Kris was ambushed and murdered by the fugitive he was attempting to apprehend. Panfilo Murillo Aguila shot him with an AK-47.
An Eagle Scout and high-school valedictorian, Kris had a reputation for going the extra mile. He would ask his father, Bob, to help him repair the border fences destroyed by lawbreakers. Only 28 years old when he died, Kris Eggle is as much an American hero as any of the young soldiers killed in combat in Iraq.
Kris "wanted to be part of a team that was able to help stem this horrid tide of illegals, criminals, drugs, weapons, and whatever else is being brought over to this country. On August 9, 2002 he still gave his best (and last) effort to keep the evil out," says Bonnie Eggle, his mother.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) has movingly talked about Kris in his Special Order speeches. President George W. Bush signed into law a bill that renames the visitor center at Organ Pipe Cactus NM the Kris Eggle Visitor Center. This weekend the Eggle family, who live in Michigan, are in Arizona remembering their son.
Click here if you would like to learn more about Kris Eggle and his courageous parents.
Click here to learn why Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is rated the most dangerous park in the nation.
Posted by izzy @ 12:34 AM EST [Link]
~ I CAN BE A PRAGMATIST, TOO: Or at least a partisan. Yes, in my article this week I had repeated the conventional wisdom that Ahnuld was not going to run for governor of California. Opinion writers hate it when real life contradicts their prounouncements on that kind of stuff. So far he hasn't shown that he's that much of a conservative (or libertarian) - most of his positions so far, insofar as they are not to vague to discern, are more Riordan than Reagan. Tom McClintock is far closer to an ideal candidate - he is conservative, a proven vote-getter who came closer to winning than any other Republican running statewide in California in 2002, a budget hawk and he has actual proposals on the table to deal with the budget crisis. If I criticize Dubya's conservative credentials from time to time, I can hardly be enamored with the Terminator.
So what was my reaction when I read that Schwarzenegger was running in the closed-captioning while out with some friends for a night on the town? I pumped my fist in the air and yelled, "Yes!" like I had just watched my team score in a sporting event. Why? Because I actually think there's a chance he might win. I guess there's still some Republican Party reptile in me after all.
Posted by antle @ 12:23 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 8, 2003 AHNULD AND NAZISM - ROUND II: The attempt to link Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nazism continues unabated today though Timothy Noah is more clever than to simply remind people that the Black Plowman's father was a member of the Austrian Nazi Party (though he does that as well).
In today's Slate, Noah asks why Schwarzenegger hasn't repudiated his 1980s support of Kurt Waldheim, former president of Austria and former Wehrmacht intelligence officer in Germany's Army Group E. Waldheim had been in Bosnia, where my mother's family is from, when Army Group E committed mass murder. As Noah points out, "Waldheim's name appears on the Wehrmacht's 'honor list' of those responsible for the atrocity."
Noah is right, Schwarzenegger shouldn't have endorsed Waldheim in 1986 but what he apparently doesn't know is the incredible controversy that continues to rage in Austria over its war time record. Most Austrians of a certain generation, (i.e. those old enough to remember the Second World War) are incensed by claims that Austria was a willing partner in Adolph Hitler's plans. They view Austria as Germany's first victim, frankly something I find to be completely laughable although there was considerable opposition to Germany by Austrians, and tend to view the world and history through that prism. Waldheim's alleged crimes are evil but given that Austrians had little choice, the thinking goes, it seems unfair to hold him to the same standard as Germans who willingly participated in atrocities. Lothar Hobelt covers these issues in his recently released book Defiant Populist: Jorg Haider and the Politics of Austria which I reviewed last month. Haider is in many ways symbolic of the struggle between Austria's past and its future and embodies the complex debate that continues between Austrians.
Rather than blast Waldheim outright, Schwarzenegger has chosen to promote Holocaust awareness, something that has earned him considerable praise from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. That, alas, isn't enough for some people and hence the continued attempts to link Schwarzenegger with Nazism. It's cheap, but from the left you should expect no less.
That said, Schwarzenegger should have renounced him years ago.
Posted by steve @ 01:59 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE NEOCON VS. PALEOCON SNIPING: Somewhat along the lines of Izzy's post about criticism of WorldNetDaily over at LewRockwell.com, we seem to have entered into a second season of sniping between neocons and paleocons.
Over on the front page of VDARE, there are no fewer than three articles criticizing neocons. Perhaps the most noteworthy is the publication of J.P. Zmirak's remarks at an America's Future Foundation discussion of this intramural dispute. Fellow participant Ramesh Ponnuru, a National Review senior editor, was not amused. Using somewhat less inflammatory language than "Vichy-con," Peter Bradley pronounced the Beltway Right bankrupt and cataloged the issues on which it was effectively AWOL.
What does it all mean? At the risk of offending everyone in this debate, I am neither a paleocon nor a neocon. I think paleocons have a tendency to live in an unrecoverable past while neocons prefer to live in an imaginary unattainable future. In my opinion, certainly not shared by everyone at ESR, paleocons have sounder instincts on constitutionalism and immigration. Neocons are better on defense spending and trade policy. Both do a fine job of criticizing the others' excesses, although the debate has unfortunately not gone much farther beyond that. Both are bad for limited government in different ways. Much of the debate revolves more around personal grievances than substantive political disagreements, although such disagreement is real and at times substantial.
But let's face it. As I've said before, the shrill tone of the paleocon-neocon bickering occurs for a simple reason. Many paleocons are resentful of the neocons for getting all the cool jobs at respected magazines, think tanks and talking head television programs (a few of them are resentful because they once had such jobs and attribute their loss of them to neocon influence). Many neocons are fearful of the paleocons because their alternative media (LewRockwell.com, VDARE and to a much lesser extent The American Conservative) are gaining on, and in some cases surpassing, the mainstream right's outlets. The politics of National Review have been a major focus because when John O'Sullivan was editor, the magazine did a good job of keeping both paleocons and neocons on board. The current editor, Rich Lowry, appears to be less interested in doing so. If O'Sullivan were still NR's editor, VDARE, to name just one example, probably wouldn't even exist. Peter Brimelow would still be working at the magazine.
I'm not minimizing the slights that various players in this debate have received at all. Some incredibly nasty things have been written; job loss and a reduction in prestige is a legitimate source of grievance. But I do think this debate would be a lot more interesting if it centered more on the differing philosophies between the two camps. Or if people would even bother to define "neoconservative" and "paleoconservative" as something more specific than "a right-of-center person who disagrees with me."
Posted by antle @ 12:09 PM EST [Link]
~ THE JOYS OF BEING UNEMPLOYED…there aren’t any.
At least not after the first week.
Being unemployed was a new experience for me. I spent over 27 years in the Navy, never worrying about what I did for a living, who I did it for, and where my paychecks were coming from. After “retiring” (I qualify that because, even though it’s called “retiring”, very few of us actually retire after leaving the military), I went a few months without a job, but I had personal affairs to attend to and eventually went to work. And I had planned ahead.
The most recent job loss was not a surprise, but was short notice. The loss of the job didn’t bother me because I didn’t like working for that company anyway. The worry started after I had sent out over a hundred resumes with no responses. The worry comes in two forms – first is the financial concern; second is the psychological feeling that no one wants you. It is surprising how much of our egos are tied up in our profession.
After 300 resumes and seven weeks of idleness, I got 3 interviews, one that led to a job. I feel much better now having been back in the employment column for 6 weeks. Naturally, having a steady paycheck is a relief. But just as important is my feeling of self-worth. I know it sounds like psychobabble, but my ego and self-esteem are much improved.
One day I may be ready to really retire, but not anytime soon.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:30 AM EST [Link]
~ THE GLAM GREEK vs. THE AUSTRIAN OAK. Learning a foreign language, as an adult, is a humbling, hard feat. My dear parents, who arrived in the United States in their twenties, both speak English with pronounced accents. On occasion, they are self-conscious about this fact. But since the California gubernatorial race could likely be a face-off between the Terminator and Ms. Huffington, I hope they will feel cutting-edge for a change. Arianna and Arnie sound so charming when they talk, even if they have rapidly mastered politician-speak - a foreign language in its own right.
Meantime, Michael Huffington, the ex-husband, says he supports Arnold. Whoops!
Posted by izzy @ 09:35 AM EST [Link]
~ THE DEADLY NEWSPAPER LOOPHOLE!
Another group of lunatic gun-grabbers is targeting newspapers to get them to stop taking legal want ads from legal private sellers of legal guns to other legal private citizens. They even have a looney name -- National Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole.
Give me a break! I'm certain that terrorists and criminals spend a great deal of their time reading newpaper classified ads so that they can take advantage of the massive "newspaper loophole".
Read the story at CNSNews.com.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:26 AM EST [Link]
~ I DIDN'T VOTE FOR AYN RAND EITHER: James Lileks has a good piece about Arnold's announcement that he's running in California and David Hill's piece about why bloggers will never compete with Rush Limbaugh (which we covered here).
Speaking about Arnold:
Listened to much radio commentary today on the Arnie candidacy, and as usual there was much lamenting and rending of garments on the ironclad right; he’s not this, he’s not that, he said this, he sleeps with a Shriver, etc. I am always mystified by people who would rather die pure than live with imperfections. Every candidate will always disappoint, somehow. Any candidate with whom you agree 100% is probably unelectable. If your bumpersticker says DON’T BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR AYN RAND I'm not particularly impressed. ‘Cause she’s dead and none of that stuff is going to happen. Doesn’t mean we can’t keep the ideas in play, but if you don’t vote because no candidate vows to privatize the sewage systems and disband the Food and Drug Administration, don’t come crying to me when your marginal tax rate hits 71 percent.
Well said...and even Rand supported Barry Goldwater who hardly was an Objectivist.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:44 AM EST [Link]
~ WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON FLIGHT 93?: "U.S. investigators now believe that a hijacker in the cockpit aboard United Airlines Flight 93 instructed terrorist-pilot Ziad Jarrah to crash the jetliner into a Pennsylvania field because of a passenger uprising in the cabin.
"This theory, based on the government's analysis of cockpit recordings, discounts the popular perception of insurgent passengers grappling with terrorists to seize the plane's controls."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:17 AM EST [Link]
~ I'D BETTER NEVER RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE: A little known secret about the Martinovich clan: I have a distant relative who served as the equivalent of a legislator in Yugoslavia's communist government and I have an aunt who was a member of that country's communist party.
That means, my friends, that I am now obliged never to run for public office since that is "baggage." If you think I'm the devil, what about poor Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Journalists normally fret about negative campaigning and condemn attacks that dig out personal baggage in a candidate’s background. Just as long as the candidate doesn’t threaten a Democrat, apparently, since on this morning’s Today Katie Couric didn’t hesitate to beat Democratic operatives to the punch and remind viewers that Schwarzenegger’s father was a Nazi.
She began a question to a California Democratic strategist Darry Sragow: "Let me ask you about his, his baggage, if you will. He's admitted smoking marijuana, using steroids during his body-building career. He's the son of a Nazi Party member...”
Quite the morning greeting from NBC News.
So Ahnuld's pere carried a membership card that had a swastika on it? That means Ahnuld himself is a target...What was that old saying about sons not suffering for the sins of their father?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:10 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 7, 2003 AN EDITORIAL DRIVE-BY SHOOTING: Journalistic standards and ethics are a cutting-edge topic, because so many "non-professionals" are Internet columnists, bloggers, or news site operators. Newbies need the how-to information. But so do vets, as the New York Times scandal demonstrated. Using humor, Christopher Manion goes after one of the "big boys." He chastises WorldNetDaily for their lack of editorial integrity. These are fairly serious charges, and I wonder if Mr. Farah, et. al., will respond.
But several of the regulars at Lew Rockwell could use a non-nonsense editor to fine tune their work. The site, which I read, does have a knack for showcasing know-it-alls who blather on and on. Writers, who are so enamored with their words and can't bear to cut their precious copy, are a bore. They are like selfish people who talk your ear off.
Truthfully, brainy, aloof libertarians haven't been terribly successful at selling their ideas to the tax-paying public given how few of them get elected to office. WorldNetDaily, in fact, dropped Lew R's column because it wasn't well-received. A spoonful of sugar (humor, empathy, humility) makes the medicine, and provocative ideas, go down. WND has its faults, for sure. But, for now, it does possess the populist, conservative touch that connects with many readers.
Posted by izzy @ 04:47 PM EST [Link]
~ WELL SHE WAS HOT: I was playing with my niece last night in the living room when I noticed that a documentary on the Spartans was playing on PBS. Well, actually, that's not true. What I noticed was how hot the presenter was, one Bettany Hughes. Turns out I wasn't the only one to think so. The Elder over at fraterslibertas.com strongly agreed with me.
Perhaps I'm a bit of an odd duck but for me there is something incredibly titillating about a statuesque, dark haired vixen with a British accent talking passionately about The Peloponnesian Wars.
Then I'm an odd duck as well because I had the same thought.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]
~ NOW SHUT THE HELL UP: If there's anything that riles the geek community it's the arrest of one of their own. The cat who cracked DVD protection, hackers who break into systems and any of the rest of their unwashed clique who pop up on the radar doing some naughty automatically get defended.
One of their pet causes was Maher "Mike" Hawash, an Intel software engineer who was charged with conspiracy to wage war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida and conspiracy to contribute services to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
This was government out of control! How dare the Bush administration and that evil John Ashcroft target a hardworking geek? Well, on Wednesday Hawash pled guilty to conspiring to provide services to the Taliban and will spend seven years in prison. Proving that he was no simple keyboard tapper, Hawash will also testify against other suspects. Presumably if Mr. Hawash knew nothing he couldn't make the deal.
Of course, conspiracy theorists (I can't wait to see the inevitable Slashdot posts) will say that the U.S. government forced him into this and that his testimony will prove to be useless because he doesn't know a damned thing.
Read on.
[Update - 4:24am] Well, I should have checked Slashdot before wondering if they would address it. There's a thread about it here and not surprisingly some people are voicing doubts about whether Hawash is guilty.
Posted by steve @ 04:14 AM EST [Link]
~ I'D LIKE TO DECLARE A MORATORIUM: I am officially calling on Hollywood to stop making movies about adults and children who switch bodies. The latest is Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, which is a remake of a1976 movie, starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster, of the same name.
All of the movies in this genre have the same basic plot points: Harried and hassled adult who's "lost touch with their inner child" switches bodies with young person, usually one of their children. Both proceed to learn more about each other by walking in each other's shoes (but not before some fun hi-jinks occur!) and by the time the movie ends normalcy is restored. Child learns that parent who has a rod up their butt that has a rod up its butt isn't that uptight, just concerned and loving and unable to show it. Adult has learned that cutting loose is occasionally fun and that the child isn't a bad seed, just being a kid.
Enough. I beg you. Enough.
Posted by steve @ 01:46 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS IS BACK: And he discusses Ahnuld's run in California, his daughter's birthday party and why he hates that openly gay priest who got elected to bishop.
This story has irritated me from the start, and it has nothing to do with Rev. Robinson’s sexual orientation. The guy left his wife and kids to go do the hokey-pokey with someone else: that’s what it’s all about, at least for me. Marriages founder for a variety of reasons, and ofttimes they’re valid reasons, sad and inescapable. But “I want to have sex with other people” is not a valid reason for depriving two little girls of a daddy who lives with them, gets up at night when they're sick, kisses them in the morning when they wake. There's a word for people who leave their children because they don't want to have sex with Mommy anymore: selfish. I'm not a praying man, but I cannot possibly imagine asking God if that would be okay. Send them another Dad, okay? Until you do I'll keep my cellphone on 24/7, I promise.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:33 AM EST [Link]
~ AND ENTER STAGE RIGHT IS NO EIB: Dr. David Hill says that as much as bloggers like to consider themselves the cat's meow, they will never compare to someone like Rush Limbaugh.
That brings us to the potential “next big thing” in political communications, blogging. For the uninitiated, blogging is the publication of personal journals, commentary and opinions on Internet sites known as weblogs. With some journalists and politicians starting to take the phenomenon seriously, should Rush and other talkers start to worry about competition from the “Blogosphere?”
There is no doubt blogging is something to think about. Blogcount has estimated that there are more than 2 million blogs, though many never touch on politics. Although estimates are that just 4 percent of the online community reads blogs, they are followed by a better-educated and more upscale, influential audience than that for talk radio. Bloggers claim that their musings and influence over journalists indirectly forced Trent Lott to resign as GOP Senate majority leader after his Strom Thurmond remarks.
Although it is never safe to predict with any confidence what will happen over the next 15 years, I doubt that blogging or any specific bloggers will match Limbaugh’s record-setting pace for gathering influence in the political process. Blogging lacks four key elements in Limbaugh’s formula for success.
A lot of bloggers are going to get bitchy about Hill's commentary but if you read his essay you'll find a lot of what he says is the truth. The vast majority of bloggers fail to do some basic work before they begin typing. That said, the blogosphere has been instrumental in breaking stories, fact checking the major media and dispelling myths promoted by the mainstream press.
Of course, comparing anyone -- whether it's Glenn Reynolds or Andrew Sullivan -- to Limbaugh is hugely unfair. He's easily the most influential radio personality in the last 20 years. And for you readers who haven't been around since 1996, Rush is the single reason why you are reading Enter Stage Right and this blog. He's the man who completed my conversion to conservatism.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:35 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 6, 2003 I THOUGHT THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA BECAUSE THEY HAD EDITORS: Because it's well known that the blogosphere casually passes off blatantly false stories without ever even bothering to check if they are true, unlike the mainstream media right? Then can someone explain to me people like Robert Scheer or Maureen Dowd? How about the constant stream of BS that spills out of the BBC?
Well, today Spinsanity takes on Scheer for once again passing off falsehoods. Hopefully they'll devote some time to the other regular suspects.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 08:46 PM EST [Link]
~ AHNULD TO RUN!: On a day full of surprises comes a big one. Literally. The Austrian Oak, better known as Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced today that he is indeed running for the governorship of California.
The announcement came during an afternoon taping of NBC's "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno which is scheduled to air Wednesday night.
I can't wait to see how long it will be before someone accuses him of being a RINO or Rockefeller Republican.
Read on.
[Update - April 7, 12:40am] - Brendan Loy has a list of headlines that some headline writer somewhere will likely use.
Posted by steve @ 08:24 PM EST [Link]
~ I ALMOST WISHED HE HAD RUN: "Talk show" host Jerry Springer announced this afternoon that he will not run for the Senate.
"For me to be heard, I could no longer be doing the show. There has to be separation between the show and my entrance into politics in the elective arena," Springer told reporters at a press conference. "That separation obviously has not taken place and certainly would not take place in time for this election."
Had he actually ran it would have proved that politics really has fallen to the lowest common denominator.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ THE DAY THE INTERNET RUINED DEMOCRACY: A lot of people are looking forward to the day that voting over the Internet comes to pass. Voting rates, they say, will shoot up because people no longer have to leave home to vote. Just a trip over to the computer or like device and blammo, all voting is complete. People will be able to garner any information they need about candidates and causes...it will be a renaissance of democracy!
Or the end of it.
Eugene Volokh had a brilliant blog yesterday about what he calls "guided voting," something he believes may make politics even more beholden to special interests or lobbies.
Most voters know little about which way they really want to vote in most election races, especially for primaries, nonpartisan races, and many initiatives and referenda. This is what economists call “rational ignorance”: Even given occasional events like the November 2000 Florida presidential race, your one vote is highly unlikely to affect the election, and thus to give you much personal benefit. But the many hours you’d need to educate yourself on every race is a real personal cost. So people therefore don’t spend the time to learn much about the issues.
Instead, they rely on signals, such as party affiliation, endorsements, or the identities of the people signing the arguments for or against an initiative. These signals aren’t perfect: Few of us agree entirely with any party or endorser. But they’re the best we have, given that we’re not going to figure everything out ourselves.
Unfortunately, today even this rough data is not that easy to gather from all the articles you read and mailers you get; and if you forget your cheat sheet at home, you might just not vote on some issues, or make a very rough guess. Say, though, that some trusted nonpartisan organization sets up a central site -- let’s call it http://suggestedvote.com. When you go to the site, you can click on the names of various interest groups you agree with: the National Organization for Women, the National Rifle Association, the ACLU, Operation Rescue, and so on.
The site will then consider the endorsements provided by all the groups you’ve marked, and give you an aggregate recommendation. If the groups disagree, the site can tell you which side got a majority of the group endorsements; or you might tell the site which groups’ endorsements it should count more heavily than others when giving you the aggregate result.
Now here’s the key technological feature: This site will then download and execute -- on your request -- a small program that places the recommended votes right into your electronic ballot form. Then one more click by you, and your filled-in ballot gets sent to the elections board. A few clicks, and you’ve voted. No need to read voluminous campaign literature, or pore through printed recommendations.
Read Volokh's essay here.
People -- mostly techno-evangelists -- poo-poo this kind of thinking. They say that it's arrogant to assume that the average person will participate in slate voting simply because someone they trust or admire will 'recommend' who they should vote for. Unfortunately, those people also forget one basic fact about humanity: People are lazy.
We live in an age where the power of the World Wide Web delivers an unprecedented amount of information into our homes. If knowledge truly is power, then even the relatively poor of North America are more powerful than any king that has sat on a throne. Within seconds we can research any topic, learn any publicly available bit of fact, be apprised of breaking news from anywhere in the world. We can learn about communities that were closed to us before. We can learn about things that we never could have learned before. A tidal wave of information pours across us every second of every day.
And therein is the problem. Picking through information to find the relevant or trustworthy bits can take time. For people like me, who earn a living doing it and presenting it to the world, it's not a chore but a pleasure. For the average person, who has to do this in addition to all of life's other items on their to-do lists, it's easier to sit on the shore rather than ride the wave.
So even with access to all this information (at home), including voting records, policy statements, backgrounders and commentary the average person is likely to take the path of least resistence. It's much easier to vote for a slate than it is to go over information for as many as several dozen candidates. It's even easier when a little program will do it for you. After all, the NRA/NOW/GLAAD/NARAL/NORML/ACU/etc. represents you, right? Why not let them help you vote?
Of course, this scenario assumes that a good hunk of the population is concerned with a single issue or slate of very related issues. NRA members only care about the Second Amendment, GLAAD members will only vote for politicians with a strong pro-gay agenda and ACU supporters are conservative across the board. In reality, most people aren't like that. Occasionally an election is defined by a single issue but most of the time a variety of issues are in play. Also, it's unlikely that any one lobby/special interest would garner enough support to be a de facto political party itself. Even if every single voter was a single issue voter, one would assume issues would dilute other issues, that is to say it would be difficult for any one single issue to become one that dominates a majority of voters and inspires mass guided voting along a single road.
Of course, one does not need a majority to be successful given that a plurality of votes got Bill Clinton and George W. Bush elected.
Is Volokh's concern realistic? The cynic in me, which turns out to be more right than I like to admit, says he's on the money. Guided voting is a danger even if the voter is explicitly picking which road to be guided down. It will be an era of even more uninformed voting and more powerful interests and lobbies. Not a pretty picture.
Posted by steve @ 03:24 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT MEANS WE HAVE TO LISTEN TO HUFFINGTON NOW?: Sen. Diane Feinstein has announced that she will not seek the governorship of California.
"After thinking a great deal about this recall, its implications for the future, and its misguided nature, I have decided that I will not place my name on the ballot," she said.
That means it's likely that Arianna Huffington will run and we'll be treated to having to listen to that twit for the next couple of months.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:13 PM EST [Link]
~ EXIT STAGE LEFT II. Click here to scope out Musings competition.
Posted by izzy @ 01:34 PM EST [Link]
~ PRAISE FOR THE FRENCH ARMY?: We here at Musings have taken so many shots at the French that it only seems right to throw them some props occasionally. AP reports that French soldiers on helicopter patrol over Congo stopped a massacre in progress.
The attack began before dawn when Lendu tribal fighters armed with automatic weapons and machetes raided this tiny village of the Hema tribe from two directions, chief Nguna Manasse said.
The attackers came in two waves, Manasse said. The first, dressed in military uniforms, fired on fleeing villagers; the second in civilian clothes hacked the wounded with machetes.
"There were so many of them, I could not count because we were running," Manasse said after he and other residents ventured back to the village 12 miles south of Bunia, the capital of troubled Ituri province.
The sound of the helicopters drove off the attackers, he said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:11 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 5, 2003 ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Fritz Hollings' retirement can't be anything but good for the Republicans' chances to retain the Senate.
Posted by antle @ 11:55 PM EST [Link]
~ MARK CUBAN CONFIRMS THAT HE IS AN IDIOT: Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban apparently believes that the Kobe Bryant sexual assault trial is good for the NBA. He makes a good case as to why it might be good for the ratings of, say, ESPN or Court TV, since people are interested in the coverage. But the idea that this is somehow good for professional basketball as a whole is simply ludicrous. Fans are sick of misbehaving millionare athletes. But then again, this moron seems to think the O.J. Simpson trial was good for professional sports, too.
Unbelievable. NBA Commissioner Donald Stern has released a statement criticizing Cuban's comment. No word on whether he is finally going to crack down on badly behaving NBA players.
Posted by antle @ 11:52 PM EST [Link]
~ YOU PROBABLY THINK THIS SONG IS ABOUT YOU: And at this rate it could be. It seems a fellow has paid $50,000 to find out who Carly Simon was singing about in her 1972 hit "You're So Vain." Yet he is unwilling to share this tidbit with the rest of us, other than one hint: The person has an "e" in his name.
Which means that it could be Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger or James Taylor. In other words, all of the men people have always speculated it could be. Thanks a lot.
Posted by antle @ 11:43 PM EST [Link]
~ ONE KHOMEINI WHO DOESN'T THINK AMERICA IS THE GREAT SATAN: Ayatollah Seyed Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (yes, that Khomeini) says he rather likes the U.S. and believes in the concept of the separation of church and state.
''America is the symbol of freedom,'' said Ayatollah Seyed Hassan Khomeini. ''The best example of freedom in our life now is America, especially its Constitution.''
You have to admire the cat's bravery. You know certain people would love to get their hands on him for saying this stuff out loud. He's currently in Iraq trying to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen there that happened in 1979 in his homeland.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:58 PM EST [Link]
~ IT KEEPS MY NEIGHBOURS AWAY FROM ME: On another blog, Angua's First Blog if I remember right, I dissed the idea of Israel's security fence -- a $600 million project that will separate Israel from Palestinian territory -- as "silly." The idea that a fence would provide security against terrorists or even minor confrontrations, I believe, is misguided.
Amitai Etzioni doesn't agree. In tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor he argues that fences can make for good neighbours.
While not a panacea, solid walls can at least offer temporary relief from situations of drastic conflict.
So far, few have noted the fact that the Sharon government's agreement to build the fence sends a clear signal - better yet, creates facts on the ground - that most Israeli settlers will have to leave the West Bank. These settlers are on the "wrong side" of the fence.
Theoretically, they could live under Palestinian rule, the way millions of Palestinian Arabs live in Israel, but the settlers are very unlikely to do so. They are hard-liners who view the West Bank as God-given Israeli territory. If Palestinian rule commenced, these hard- liners would surely leave for Israel proper.
There are those critics who argue that the fence amounts to an Israeli land grab. Actually, it follows fairly closely the Green Line, the one road map champions envision as the future border between Israel and Palestine. In other parts, one can argue it should be built a few miles to the West - without needing to oppose the whole thing.
I still don't know if I agree but I have to admit he makes a good case for it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:17 PM EST [Link]
~ DISARMING WFB: William F. Buckley, Jr.'s gun permit has been yanked by the NYPD. Slate has the story of gun control and bureaucratic inertia.
Posted by antle @ 04:30 PM EST [Link]
~ I'VE BEEN EMBARASSED FOR A LONG TIME: Mark Proudman reacts to a pathetic column written by Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum whining that Canada's small military means that it must focus its efforts.
One point comes through clearly nonetheless: The Chrétien government, like most Canadian governments, thinks of defence policy as a source of talking points. At no stage do Canada's leaders sit around a table and seriously debate how to defeat the West's enemies. Instead, Canadian governments consider the impact our military deployments will have upon two audiences -- the internal political audience on the one hand and the external allied audience on the other. Our defence policy has an essentially theatrical character. It is designed only to create political perceptions among these two groups.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:34 PM EST [Link]
~ POLITICAL GROUP BACKS DAVIS: The AFL-CIO announced today that it is backing California Gov. Gray Davis and is asking other Democrats not to run against him.
"We are united against the recall of Gov. Davis and urge all potential Democratic candidates to stay off the recall ballot and join with us in support of the governor," said a three-paragraph letter sent to Democrats in Congress and the state Legislature, as well as statewide elected officials.
"United we will defeat this ultraconservative coup attempt."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:13 PM EST [Link]
~ THE SMUTTY VERSION OF JESSE VENTURA?: Larry Flynt, a man who has never missed an opportunity to promote himself, has announced that he will run to replace Gov. Gray Davis.
"I may be paralyzed from the waist down," he said, "but unlike Gray Davis, I'm not paralyzed from the neck up."
You have to agree with that.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:04 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 4, 2003 RE-ENTER STAGE RIGHT? - POWELL UPDATE: The State Department is denying that Colin Powell has made any firm plans to step down in 2005. Somehow, I am less than convinced.
Posted by antle @ 05:49 PM EST [Link]
~ COURT JESTER. This critique of Bob Hope is less superficial than the Hitchens one.
Posted by izzy @ 02:39 PM EST [Link]
~ MUST REMEMBER TO USE THIS LINE IN FRONT OF VEGETARIANS: London's Daily Telegraph interviews Jimmy Carr, "horrendously offensive" comedian, who is going to appear at one of the great theatrical events in the world, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, crazy younger brother to the venerable Edinburgh International Festival (just compare the websites). Said Mr. Carr talks about how amazing it is to witness what jokes the audience will get offended at, especially if those jokes involve animals and especially if the audience happens to be English. Quite naturally, the interviewer begs for an example, to which Mr. Carr replies:
" 'A cat has got nine lives - which makes them ideal for experimentation.' I've had people come up and say, 'I don't really like that.' But the previous joke was about beating a baby, and they didn't object. I just thought, well, your morality's just all over the shop, bless you."
Hey, it made me laugh.
Posted by Barton @ 02:21 PM EST [Link]
~ THAT'S SOME REAL GOOD HEADLINE WRITING THERE: So, I'm lazing around on the couch watching CTV Newsnet, when this headline on the news ticker catches my attention, "Montreal becomes Canada's immigration hot spot." Now this is deeply disturbing to a loyal Torontonian like myself. One of the glories of this city is the fact the just under half of all immigrants to Canada settle in the Toronto area (exactly 49% the last time I read) with Vancouver and Montreal trailing behind somewhere in the late teens. If this very sudden and very drastic reversal were true, this meant that we in Toronto were in very big economic trouble, since immigrants are quite obviously attracted to high-growth areas. I rushed downstairs to the iMac to get the details as I wondered what the heck could have caused such a dramatic decline? A temporary blip because of SARS? Mad Mel's misgovernance? Well, here's what the story actually says:
MONTREAL — Montreal, buoyed by a robust economy and aggressive recruitment strategies, vaulted past Vancouver last year among top Canadian destinations for immigrants.
It's the first time since 1993 that Montreal has occupied second place behind perennial leader Toronto -- a further sign of the economic turnaround on Quebec's island metropolis.
The Montreal region received 33,004 immigrants in 2002, compared with 29,922 for Vancouver, according to numbers released in June by Immigration Canada.
Toronto continued to attract more new arrivals than any other Canadian city by far, with 111,580 in 2002, or 48.7 per cent of the national total.
But while Toronto and Vancouver's numbers were both down from the previous year, the opposite was true for Montreal, whose numbers rose by two per cent between 2001 and 2002.
And according to the Canwest version of the story, Montreal's two per cent gain of immigrants in 2002 from 2001 means an increase of almost...700 people. Upon such successes are "hot spots" made.
Posted by Barton @ 12:01 PM EST [Link]
~ POWELL TO EXIT, STAGE LEFT: The Washington Post is reporting that Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage has signaled to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that he and his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, plan on stepping down at the end of this term even if President Bush is reelected.
This is an excellent promotion opportunity for Condi, although some will prefer uberhawk Paul Wolfowitz instead. Powell is reportedly leaving not because of any dissastisfaction with the Bush administration's foreign policy, but rather because he promised his wife he would serve only a single term. Don't expect that to stop partisan carping that this demonstrates how extreme and irresponsible Bush's policies are.
Posted by antle @ 08:37 AM EST [Link]
~ THIS GUY ALMOST MAKES J.C. WATTS SOUND LIKE A CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS REPRESENTATIVE: Republican congressional candidate Vernon Robinson, a second-term Winston-Salem city councilman, is a pretty hard-line conservative. According to FOX News, he "supports a strong national defense, enforcement of immigration laws, traditional family values and abolition of racial quotas."
Predictably, some are urging Robinson to moderate the views that won him reelection with 70 percent of the white vote and 20 percent of the black vote. Currently running second in the nine-candidate contest to succeed Rep. Richard Burr, this will be a race to watch.
Read the full story here. Notice one glaring inaccuracy: The statement that if elected, Robinson would only be the second black Republican to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, implying that the first was J.C. Watts. What about Gary Franks, who served in the 1990s and for two years at the same time as Watts? Oscar DePriest? All the black members of the House before the 1930s?
Posted by antle @ 08:21 AM EST [Link]
~ DENIS THATCHER SPEAKS: In an interview recorded earlier this summer and aired on Sunday in Britain, the late Sir Denis Thatcher praised his wife and declared John Major "ghastly prime minister."
Bloody right.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:53 AM EST [Link]
~ THEY WERE BUSY DOING SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT: The CIA has released over 10 000 pages of intelligence that supported a war against Iraq but would you be surprised to know that few members of Congress actually bothered to even read them?
“We strive as a conference to provide information in a timely and consistent manner,” said House Republican Caucus spokesman Greg Crist, who added that often, members-only briefings will be sparsely attended. “What’s unfortunate is when members and opponents of the administration try to politicize this without having the facts.”
The administration made the massive cache of information available to the intelligence committees in July amid a firestorm over the president’s claim during his January State of the Union address that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa -- a claim that turned out to be based on erroneous intelligence.
In an unprecedented move, the House Intelligence Committee made the documents available to members, but sources acknowledge that by the end of the month, only about a couple dozen members had actually taken advantage of the opportunity.
Shocking! Next I'll be told that politicians rarely read the bills they vote on.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:06 AM EST [Link]
~ HE ALMOST SOUNDS SANE THESE DAYS: Moammar Gadhafi gave an interview to ABC's "This Week" on Sunday and the old boy almost sounded rational. Gadhafi says that America's war on terrorism has turned Osama bin Laden into a saint but rather than align himself with al-Qaida, he says he's been helping the U.S.
Despite his belief that the United States' hunt for bin Laden has raised the terrorist leader's stature, Gadhafi appeared to make efforts to reach out to the West.
He said he has exchanged information with U.S. authorities in an effort to thwart al Qaeda.
Gadhafi said U.S. officials have given their Libyan counterparts information about Libyans held at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that the Libyans have arrested terrorists who came to Libya from Afghanistan.
A State Department spokesman played down Gadhafi's claim of cooperation against al Qaeda, rating its value a three on a scale of one to 10, and added that the Libyans, "didn't really tell us anything we didn't know or suspect," ABC reported.
Gadhafi acknowledged that fighting al Qaeda is difficult.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:38 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 3, 2003 TARDY: Just a quick note. It is a long weekend here in Ontario so Sunday night is a second attempt at Saturday night! Given I plan on rat packing in several of Sudbury's bars tonight the latest issue of ESR will be a little late tonight.
Posted by steve @ 09:00 PM EST [Link]
~ SAD NEWS: I have just learned during a visit to The Libertarian Enterprise, a feisty and often radical libertarian webzine published by science fiction writer L. Neil Smith that I have occasionally contributed to, that editor Dan Weiner has inoperable lung cancer. Although I haven't had the opportunity to work with him, he had been doing a fine job following in the footsteps of past editors Vin Supyrnowicz (a onetime ESR contributor) and John Taylor, producing a magazine that was spirited and challenging even though I often disagreed with its content, especially post-9/11. Weiner continued TLE's tradition of offering a forum to a wide variety of libertarian voices and his editorship will tragically be too short.
Please keep him and his loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.
Posted by antle @ 07:33 PM EST [Link]
~ RE: ANTI-SEMITISM IN CANADA: "I commend you for an excellent column in today's Citizen about the rising tide of anti-Semitism here and abroad.
"If I were a Jew nowadays, I'd be damn scared. Because something terrible is brewing. Izzy Asper picked up on it in his address of a few days ago.
"I can sort of relate to how Jews must feel these days. I'm a Catholic, and Catholics have been taking a beating lately from the political correctness brigades. Even though I'm lapsed, if some dictator took it into his head to persecute Catholics, my non-practicing status would mean zilch and I'd be dragged into the mess.
"Not so long ago, one could say anything, no matter how vicious and unfounded and same-brush-tarring, against white males, in a public forum. We Caucasian males, especially those of a certain age, were a fashionable target for verbal abuse, particularly from some of the more hard-core feminists.
"I believe that charges of fomenting hatred should be levelled against all comers, to show once and for all that hate laws apply to everyone, even "compassionate and enlightened" lefties who think they can selectively discriminate against target groups.
Regards,
Harvey"Posted by steve @ 03:53 PM EST [Link]
Friday, August 1, 2003 MAN I HOPE I OUTLIVE CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Because I really do not want that cat to write a column about my life...well, not that I'd rate one. Hitchens absolutely savages Bob Hope for not being funny.
To be paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny is not a particular defect or shortcoming in, say, a cable repair man or a Supreme Court justice or a Navy Seal. These jobs can be performed humorlessly with no loss of efficiency or impact. But to be paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny is a serious drawback, even lapse, in a comedian. And the late Bob Hope devoted a fantastically successful and well-remunerated lifetime to showing that a truly unfunny man can make it as a comic. There is a laugh here, but it is on us.
Give a man a reputation as an early riser, said Mark Twain, and that man can thereafter sleep until noon. Quick, then—what is your favorite Bob Hope gag? It wouldn't take you long if I challenged you on Milton Berle, or Woody Allen, or John Cleese, or even (for the older customers) Lenny Bruce or Mort Sahl. By this time tomorrow, I bet you haven't come up with a real joke for which Hope could take credit.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:03 PM EST [Link]
~ I'D TRY THEM FOR CRIMES AGAINST STUPIDITY: Let's say your dad runs a country. And let's say that he's a bit bloodthirsty. So bloodthirsty, in fact, that he murders the husbands of his daughters. Now this isn't some Shakespearean play, mind you, but what happened to Raghad (I can already hear the racist jokes) and Rana Hussein. Despite what their father has done to his family and to Iraqis, they still care about the lovable rogue.
"He was a very good father, loving, had a big heart, loved his daughters, sons, grandchildren," Raghad said. "He was the one we always go to."
What level of stupidity would prompt you to say those words and apparently mean them? What's even more insane is that Raghad blames Iraqis for betraying her father. Apparently it's the not the 'Arab thing to do' to oppose a violent dictator.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:55 PM EST [Link]
~ SPEAKING OF ANNIVERSARIES: Rush Limbaugh celebrates his 15th anniversary as a professional broadcast host. Visit his web site for a retrospective.
I actually credit Rush for my coming out of the conservative closet and it was due to his short-lived television show. Back in university I was Mr. Liberal Party...president of the Laurentian University Young Liberals and holder of more positions in the provincial wing of the Liberal Party than I could care remember. A friend, Neil, turned me onto Rush's program and I quickly became the conservative you know and tolerate today. I started writing a weekly column for LU's newspaper -- entitled Enter Stage Right -- and I shamelessly stole his style in my early years of writing. I even bought a shortwave radio so I could listen to his program.
At any rate, thanks Rush and good wishes for your next 15 years!
Posted by steve @ 03:23 PM EST [Link]
~ I'M NOT GOING TO MAKE ANY "WHAT I BURIED ONCE" JOKES: Weapons inspectors in Iraq have found weapons buried in the sands of that country, just not what you would expect.
Search teams, some hunting for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, found dozens of fighter jets from Iraq's air force buried beneath the sands, U.S. officials say.
At least one Cold War-era MiG-25 interceptor was found when searchers saw the tops of its twin tail fins poking up from the sands, said one Pentagon official familiar with the hunt. He said search teams have found several MiG-25s and Su-25 ground attack jets buried at al-Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad.
Iraq's air squadrons were a no-show during the war, and U.S. military officials supposed their pilots stayed grounded because they believed they were overmatched by American and British air power.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:11 PM EST [Link]
~ HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MUSINGS!: Today is the second birthday of this blog. Hard to believe on August 1, 2001 in an effort to add to my workload I installed Greymatter and then began to bore the world with my thoughts. At any rate, the blog improved immeasurably with the addition of Jim Antle, Barton Wong, Charles Bloomer, Isabel Lyman and Jack Woehr.
Thanks to them, the amount of posts also increased. From August 2001 to November 2002, when the blog exploded and I had to reinstall everything, I posted 1 536 items. From December 2002 to August 2003 (when they were added to the blogging roster) we did 1 634 posts (including this one).
At any rate, thanks for continuing to read and hopefully we'll only continue to get better.
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: Unfortunately it's not online but the Ottawa Citizen is running today a piece I wrote on the latest round of anti-Semitism. Standard topics covered including Concordia, English professors, etc. If you live in Ottawa, feel free to pick up a limited edition of the Citizen (one that will surely appreciate in value because of my appearance in it) and check out the op-ed section for a piece entitled "History repeating itself in the new anti-Semitism."
[Update - 2:42pm] Well out of the world of the unlikely comes an email from a regular reader who read the piece before I posted this blog entry. Thanks to Harvey Chartrand for a kind note!
Posted by steve @ 02:39 PM EST [Link]
~ J-LO GOES TRADITIONAL: Reason intern Kerry Howley has a really perceptive piece on the transformation of Jennifer Lopez from a "fly girl" type known for her ample bottom and dalliances with Puff Daddy (now P. Diddy or something) into a tamer figure who's found love with Ben Affleck. Who would have thought that Lopez would even indirectly be associated with monogamy? Even some of the reports today in the celebrity gossip pages that Lopez and Affleck are on the rocks - and these types of stories are nonsense about as often as they are true - support Howley's observations. After all, the problems allegedly stem from reports that Mr. Affleck was, um, partying in a manner unbecoming of a man seeking to be her husband.
That's it for my reporting on pop culture for today.
Posted by antle @ 09:01 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece arguing against privatizing marriage in The American Prowler/American Spectator On-Line. I'm not so sure it is the solution to the gay marriage debate that many of my conservative and libertarian compatriots think it is.
Posted by antle @ 08:31 AM EST [Link]
~ DUDE, A SURPRISE WOULD CONSIST OF FINDING SOMETHING: U.S. investigators combing the Iraqi countryside for WMDs say that people should be ready for some real surprises.
"I think the American people should be prepared for surprises," said David Kay, a former U.N. weapons inspector who is leading the CIA's weapons investigation. "I think it's very likely that we will discover remarkable surprises in this enterprise."
Read on.
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