Musings Archive November 2003
Sunday, November 30, 2003 IT'S MORE PREVALENT THAN YOU THINK: Historians have released a list of sayings attributed to Abraham Lincoln that all share one thing: Honest Abe never said them.
Remarks attributed to the quotable 16th president have popped up in everything from television commercials to speeches by famous generals, presidents and even recent anti-war protesters. Too often, they are phrases that Lincoln never uttered, experts at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency say.
"It's simply Lincoln's own status as a cultural exemplar that make these spurious quotations seem credible," said Rodney Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg.
"He seems to provide validation for just about anything anybody wants to have validated, and if you can't find a Lincoln quote, you make one up."
I actually came across this problem myself a couple of weeks ago while researching famous pro- and anti-gun control statements for a new version of ESR's famous anti-gun control line of gear. Many of the famous statements that those opposed to gun control cite are, in fact, fakes. Names commonly attached to these statements? The Founding Fathers. While they did make many supportive statements of gun ownership, some of the most famous lines attached to their names are fake.
Posted by steve @ 11:52 PM EST [Link]
~ ROBINSON STEPS DOWN: Old ESR friend and Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Walter Robinson has announced that he's stepping down from the CTF to pursue "community pursuits."
We wish Walter the best and thank him for his contributions to the magazine and the tremendous work he's carried out on behalf of the CTF and Canadian taxpayers.
Posted by steve @ 07:15 PM EST [Link]
~ GLASS HOUSES HILLARY...: Mickey Kaus takes aim at Hillary Clinton who just couldn't wait to criticize George W. Bush for his visit to the troops in Baghdad. Says the Mickster:
How was Bush's trip just a "great PR stunt" (using Iraq "as his stage") and Hillary Clinton's trip not just a less-great PR stunt using Iraq as her stage? Both politicians met with Iraqis as well as American troops. Both discussed substance. The difference is that Bush has a central role in the actual decision-making structure while Hillary's trip was a classic self-promotional effort by one of 100 senators.
Read on. (No permalink, just scroll down "Whose PR Stunt?")
Posted by steve @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
~ MEMO TO AMERICA: YOU AREN'T DONE WITH AFGHANISTAN YET: In a meeting with Gen. John Abizaid and Zalmay Khalilzad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that Afghanistan still has big problems.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:39 AM EST [Link]
~ PERSONALLY I'M GLAD THAT NEW CANADIANS ARE TAUGHT THAT THEIR CULTURAL BACKGROUND IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT IS TO BE A CANADIAN: Vancouver apparently is a battleground of cultures with the latest example being a youth being killed after Filipinos and Indians (from the sub-continent) engaged in a little fight.
My teachers were right, the American "melting pot" is horrific compared to Canada's "mosiac". Or not I suppose...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:30 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, November 29, 2003 TWO TOWERS WEREN'T ANTI-WAR: Brian Tiemann, who will admit that he is a fanatic for the Lord of the Rings, defends the second movie in the series from the charge that it presented an anti-war (in the face of evil) message.
The only thing I wished were for more Ents...I waited 20 years for that movie and I only got a couple of minutes of Ents.
Saruman! A wizard should know better! There is no curse in elvish, entish or the tongues of men for such treachery. My business is with Isengard tonight, with a rock and stone. Rarum-rum! Come, my friends. The ents are going to war. It is likely that we go to our doom: The last march of the ents.
Gollum blew me away though.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:49 PM EST [Link]
~ SPANISH INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS KILLED IN IRAQ: Our condolences go out to the families of the seven men killed south of Baghdad today.
Eyewitnesses said one or two cars carrying insurgents were following the Spaniards, who were traveling south in two four-wheel-drive vehicles.
They were fired on by gunmen in the cars and by people on the side of the road in what appeared to be a coordinated ambush.
A 30-minute firefight followed, witnesses said.
Three bodies lay in the road and two in the median, said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a Washington Post reporter in Iraq. Others at the scene said there were two additional bodies in a burned vehicle.
A boisterous crowd at the scene chanted pro-Saddam Hussein slogans and kicked the bodies after the killings.
Crowds are always brave when they insult dead men. Let's see them be "boisterous" in front of, to pick a group at random, the 82nd Airborne Division.
Posted by steve @ 07:12 PM EST [Link]
~ DO DICTATORS RESPECT PETITIONS?: A campaign to force a referendum on Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's rule completed its first day without any violence.
They'll need to collect 2.4 million signatures in just four days. Good luck!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:06 PM EST [Link]
Friday, November 28, 2003 LET'S GO FIVE FOR FIVE: Mark Steyn has a good piece in The Spectator outlining what he believes must be the next steps in the war against terrorist activity. Time to release the hounds!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:38 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH ON HIS VISIT TO IRAQ: George W. Bush was pretty pleased with his Iraq trip, stating it was the best way to thank the troops. I can't argue with that.
Funny part of this story? Although Air Force One didn't use its usual call sign, a British Airways jet passing within eyesight of the distinctive aircraft figured out that there was clearly something going on...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:54 AM EST [Link]
~ HOW MANY TEN COMMANDMENT MONUMENTS WILL THEY BE REMOVING?: In light of the court ruling over Roy Moore's Ten Commandments monument outside of the Alabama supreme court building earlier this month, photojournalist Carrie Devorah took her camera went on a tour of federal buildings in Washington, D.C. and catalogued some of the many religious images gracing them.
The ACLU could be quite busy if they started on a purge...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:18 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, November 27, 2003 THURSDAY EVENING QUARTERBACK: 0-2 is an inauspicious way to start the weekend and that's what happened to me today when Green Bay and Dallas lost.
Just two game day notes:
1) Memo to Brett Favre: Look, no one is going to break your consecutive starts record. Ever. Take next week off because you're throwing like my two-and-a-half year old niece except that she gets it to the target. Rest the thumb big guy. Seriously.
2) Miami looked good today on both sides of the ball while Dallas looked like they didn't know what the heck was going on. Memo to Quincy Carter: If you have no one open and the pocket is breaking down, consider throwing the ball away. Seriously, you aren't Donovan McNabb and you don't have the mobility to start making huge breaks. And another thing, stop with the low percentage plays if nothing is open. It's a nice way to pad your interceptions stat.
Did you watch the Dallas game? For about half the game it seemed one camera guy was in love with a busty brunette Dallas Cowgirls cheerleader. Her name, for those interested, is Micaela Johnson, an 18-year old rookie member of the squad. Her goal? To one day be an actress. She's also single. To see her, click here and then pass your mouse across the backrow until you see 'MicaelaJohnson' appear on your status bar (she's second from the left).
I'd fight wars if the Cowgirls asked...
Posted by steve @ 07:36 PM EST [Link]
~ IS THE MEDIA IN LEAGUE WITH IRAQI INSURGENTS?: They might not be working together but Steven Den Beste says it's clear that some members of the media are sympathic enough to the insurgents that they are joining with them prior to attacks on targets and documenting them. One of those outlets may be Paris Match.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:20 PM EST [Link]
~ MAYBE ALIENS MADE IT: A new study into the famous "Vinland Map" states that it was created about 50 years before Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World.
The authenticity of the map has been debated since the 1960s, when philanthropist Paul Mellon gave it to Yale. The university has not taken a position on its authenticity.
The map depicts the world, including the north Atlantic coast of North America. It includes text in medieval Latin and a legend that describes how "Leif Eiriksson," a Norseman, found the new land called Vinland around the year 1000.
Scholars have dated the map to around 1440. Some scholars have speculated that Columbus could have used the map to find the New World in 1492.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:12 PM EST [Link]
~ SEMANTICS THAT COST LIVES?: According to an internal Army review U.S. policy makers didn't want to be called "occupiers" over the invasion of Iraq and failed to take certain steps including curfews, halting looting and ordering Iraqis back to work.
The report states the distinction between "occupiers" and "liberators" hamstrung military officials after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:42 PM EST [Link]
~ WELL, THE BRITISH HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ANTI-SEMITIC: (Via Brothers Judd Blog) The United Kingdom's Political Cartoon Society selected a cartoon published by The Independent in January depicting a naked Ariel Sharon biting off the bloodied head of a Palestinian child as helicopter warships hovered overhead blasting out "Vote Sharon" from loudspeakers as its Cartoon of the Year.
Read on.
See the cartoon here. (pop-up, 54.85KB).
Roger Simon responds to the award here.
Posted by steve @ 03:21 PM EST [Link]
~ I'D SAY THAT WAS A PRETTY BIG SURPRISE: George W. Bush celebrated Thanksgiving today...in Baghdad! Dubya made a secret trip and surprised the heck of the 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division at the Baghdad International Airport today by carrying out a turkey with the fixings.
"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people, only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," Bush said, to a standing ovation. "We will prevail. We will win because our cause is just."
...
The president was introduced to the troops by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, who kept the crowd off guard by saying it was time for the most senior official present to read the president's Thanksiving Proclamation.
"Is there anyone back there more senior than us?" he asked, the signal for Bush to emerge from behind a curtain and for the stunned audience to erupt in cheers, "hoo-ahs" and waves of applause. The president was wearing a jacket bearing the patch of the 1st Armored Division.
Speaking in the chow hall before helping dish up the plates, Bush included a call to the people of Iraq to "seize the moment and rebuild your great country, based on human dignity and freedom."
That is so cool...
Read on.
[Update - 7:57pm] Read the text of Bush's remarks to the soldiers here.
Posted by steve @ 03:07 PM EST [Link]
~ SIR, I DEMAND SATISFACTION! I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL!: Looks like there's a bit of a dust-up between blogger Colby Cosh and Maclean's columnist Paul Wells.
In a recent speech Wells blasted the state of Parliamentary journalism in Canada. He argues that instead of being focused on issues, Canada's newspapers instead played guessing games concerning the real departure date of the Beloved Leader Jean Chretien. In particular, Wells takes aim at his old home The National Post where, you guessed it!, Colby Cosh now regularly writes for.
Well Cosh of course answered yesterday and states that contrary to what Wells believes, Canada's newspapers are doing a damned fine job of reporting the issues and accuses Wells of "a self-conscious attempt to clamber up to a moral summit of media criticism."
I have to admit that Wells' response was a little heavy-handed, referring to two of Cosh's points as "worth particular scorn."
I'm so excited! We haven't had in Canada a war between two columnists in years! I wonder who will win.
So where do I stand? In the middle. I think Canada's media is doing a decent job but they could be doing so much better. Here's a note I sent to Wells:
I don't think Colby was entirely on the mark with his statement that Parliament is less important but given that the last decade has seen a complete emasculation of the institution thanks to the centralizing of power in the PMO, I think the average Canadian could be forgiven if they don't give a darn what happens in Parliament. If the real action is in the PMO -- which I would submit -- than what is the point of caring about what goes on in Parliament. They merely rubberstamped Chretien's policies. Why bother cover it as indepth as the past?
I know, I know, you're thinking with weighty thoughts like these I should be writing for the NP or Maclean's right? Yeah, same here.
Posted by steve @ 12:02 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, November 26, 2003 IRAQI COMMUNISTS LIKE U.N. BETTER THAN U.S.: Yeah, I'm shocked as well. Iraq's communists don't hate the U.S. -- after all, they aren't being fed into human-sized shredders any longer -- but they'd prefer if the U.N. were running the show. Gosh, why the U.N. in particular?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:44 PM EST [Link]
~ HUMANITY: Israeli doctors worked today to save an Iraqi baby suffering from a congenital heart defect. I'll spare you the expected question of how many Israeli babies have been saved by other nations in the Middle Eastern world.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:41 PM EST [Link]
~ HE'S EITHER RIGHT OR HE'S ANGRY HE GOT TURFED: Or perhaps it's a little of both. Retired ex-general Jay Garner today blasted the U.S. for making major mistakes in Iraq which include not enough troops on the ground, the disbanding of the Iraqi military and failing to explain the war's goals.
Garner acknowledges that he also made mistakes before he was pulled in favor of Paul Bremer.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:35 PM EST [Link]
~ HINCKLEY NO LONGER A DANGER: A psychiatrist testified today that John Hinckley Jr. is no longer a danger and should be allowed to make unsupervised trips to visit his parents.
"I think it is important that the outings be part of a risk reduction strategy," said Paul Montalbano, pretrial chief of forensic services at the hospital. "I believe that successful visits can actually make him less dangerous."
Eh? He's not dangerous but successful visits would make him less dangerous. And what would happen with unsuccessful visits? Would Jodie Foster be getting mail again?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ WILL IT EVER END?: Los Angeles officials are calling on suppliers to stop labelling their computer equipment "master" and "slave" on the grounds that the terms are offensive.
"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services, said in a memo sent to County vendors.
"We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment components that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature," Sandoval said in the memo, which was distributed last week and made available to Reuters.
So far it's just a "request" but you know how this is going to end up.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:33 PM EST [Link]
~ ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top military adviser said Tuesday they have evidence the Arab television news organizations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya cooperated with Iraqi insurgents to witness and videotape attacks on American troops."
I don't believe that at all. Everyone knows that Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are unbiased and credible news organizations. CNN and 60 Minutes told me so!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:33 AM EST [Link]
~ TMQ MOVES ON: As Football Outsiders announced, Gregg Easterbrook has found a new home for Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
He's now at NFL.com. Read his latest here.
Posted by steve @ 03:18 AM EST [Link]
~ ZOMBIES AND MARTIAL ARTS: A few weeks ago I announced that the key to my heart was "Kung Fu movies. Zombie movies. Kung Fu Zombie movies...though I don't know how that would work...Kung Fu fighting zombies? Kung Fu fighters taking on zombies?"
Well, it turns out such a movie -- zombies and martial arts -- exists.
Posted by steve @ 03:13 AM EST [Link]
~ I HAVEN'T READ IT YET: But Adam Teiichi Yoshida has released a free e-book entitled The Northern Abyss in PDF format. Yoshida bills himself as very right-wing and the book addresses the current political scene in Canada. You can find out more here.
Posted by steve @ 02:37 AM EST [Link]
~ BUSH TO DISAPPOINT SUPPLY-SIDERS: David Hogberg has a great piece in the mighty American Spectator On-Line on the conflict between President Bush's supply-side principles and his desire to build the Republican Party. This conflict has manifested itself in the form of trade protectionism, new entitlement programs and out-of-control non-defense discretionary spending intended to win the support of certain constituencies and key states for the GOP.
I agree with Hogberg. The only thing I would add to Hogberg's piece is that supply-siders themselves have been pretty slack on spending, setting the stage for Bush's performance on fiscal policy. Many supply-siders, from Larry Kudlow to Jack Kemp, tend to argue that cutting tax rates is more important than cutting spending, and where spending cuts endanger tax cuts the former should be abandoned. That being said, supply-siders have never counseled Washington to abandon spending restraint wholesale. An important piece to ponder for 2004 and, should Bush be reelected, beyond.
Posted by antle @ 12:33 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, November 25, 2003 THE NIXON IN DUBYA: I have heard people try to make predictions about the Iraq war by comparing it to just about every war ever waged in human history. Similarly, commentators trying to understand George W. Bush have compared him to just about every recent Republican president.
We hear that he's the new Gerald Ford, due to all the Ford people in his administration. Ideologically, Bush is supposed to be the new Ronald Reagan. When it comes to politics and winning reelection, he is supposed to be the second coming of his dad.
Now he is Richard Nixon. For real. At least according to the Washington Post. Maybe these pundits would be better off admitting that they just don't get Dubya than making up comparisons like this.
Posted by antle @ 10:26 PM EST [Link]
~ JACKO'S LAWYER WACKO TOO: What's with attorney Mark Geragos? This outburst, plus his tendency to grativate toward clients like Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson makes me wonder about this guy. I know, we all the right to an attorney, these people are innocent til proven guilty, etc. But Geragos sounds like he is trying to make a name for himself. I'm just not sure that it's a good one.
Posted by antle @ 10:20 PM EST [Link]
~ I THOUGHT HE STOLE FLORIDA?: (Via Andrew Sullivan) A new poll shows that George W. Bush has a commanding lead in Florida over any Democrat he would run against.
The Mason-Dixon Florida Poll said Bush's overall approval rating has held steady - although his disapproval numbers have risen since last summer. But in head-to-head matchups with his major Democratic challengers, Bush led by 20 points or more.
Must not get too excited...must not get too excited.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:32 PM EST [Link]
~ EVERYTHING'S TURNING UP DUBYA: The American economy grew at 8.2 per cent in the third quarter, the fastest pace since the first quarter in 1984 and up from 3.3 per cent in the second quarter.
If the Democrats want to start shouting, "It's the economy, stupid!" I'd say Dubya has a pretty good response.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:06 PM EST [Link]
~ GOOD QUESTION: Brian Anderson has an interesting piece in today's TechCentralStation about whether the right has won the culture war. As the average person and they say that the left won it decades ago but there are a lot of signs that the right hasn't actually suffered a massive withdrawl.
Posted by steve @ 02:56 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: Gay marriage opponents are going to have a long, hard slog in the court of public opinion if they intend to reverse Massachusetts' Goodridge decision at the state level. I have a piece on what an uphill battle defenders of traditional marriage are in for today in National Review On-Line.
Posted by antle @ 10:38 AM EST [Link]
~ A LETTER TO AMERICAN SOLDIERS
Dennis Prager writes to American soldiers and reinforces the importance of their efforts.
His letter is at World Net Daily.
I couldn't have said it better.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:27 AM EST [Link]
~ MONDAY NIGHT QUARTERBACK: Another relatively successful week with 12 of 16. Is Steve on a roll? It would have been a better week had Seattle not collapsed in the second half (guys, with a 17 point lead and only 6.5 minutes remaining you should win the game), Cleveland lived up to their pseudo-hype, Houston pulling it out (my long shot pick of the week) and Denver not losing to my hapless Chicago Bears. That last one bothered me but not that much...my Bears needed a win.
Congrats to Kordell Stewart for coming in to replace an injured Chris Chandler and leading the Bears to a surprising win. You saved Dick Jauron's job for one week. That said, if the Bears lose to the Arizona Cardinals this Sunday not even God could save his job.
Week 1: 9 of 15 (Thursday night game not counted)
Week 2: 13 of 15
Week 3: 10 of 15
Week 4: 10 of 15
Week 5: 11 of 14
Week 6: 11 of 14
Week 7: 8 of 14
Week 8: 10 of 14
Week 9: 7 of 14
Week 10: 9 of 14
Week 11: 12 of 16
Week 12: 12 of 16Season %: 69.3 (+0.3%)
I wanted to honour my Bears with the Cheerleader of the Week but unfortunately their web site doesn't realize how important it is to have scantily clad women who'd never give me a second look on it. As punishment I offer Denver Broncos cheerleader Sarah LaGrange, a seven-year veteran of the the squad and a first-grade teacher. Oi vey, no teacher I ever had looked like her. She lists "Black Hawk Down" as her favourite book and she likes to golf. Note to self: Visit all golf courses in Parker, Colorado if I'm ever there.
Posted by steve @ 02:05 AM EST [Link]
Monday, November 24, 2003 AL-ARABIYA SHUT DOWN BY IRAQIS: I'm not sure if I completely like this -- given my preference for more freedom and not less -- but the Iraqi Governing Council ordered the Arabic-language television network Al-Arabiya to shut down its operation in Baghdad today. The network aired a full tape allegedly recorded by Saddam Hussein. Pretty stupid move on Al-Arabiya's part...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:14 PM EST [Link]
~ INVESTIGATING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN CHILE
I won't argue whether former Chilean leader Agosto Pinochet conducted himself morally or legally during his effort to save Chile from Communism. An article in the Seattle Times reports on some leaks that have occured during investigations into abuses during Pinchet's tenure. They may or may not be true.
What is missing here is the fact that there don't seem to be any human right investigations sponsored by any states to look into the 100 million-plus that were murdered, raped, starved, tortured, imprisoned, or otherwise abused by communist led governments since 1917. Leftists demand investigations when the abuses occur at the hand of "right wing" dictators, but are silent in the face of overwhelming evidence of mass murder by "left wing" dictators.
Read "The Black Book of Communism", then decide which side is evil.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 05:34 PM EST [Link]
~ DIXIE CHICK SPOUTS OFF AGAIN: Natalie Maines has once again criticized the war in Iraq, stating that the American people had been "misled."
"I think people were misled and I think people are fighting a war that they didn't know they were going to be fighting," Maines said Friday on NBC's "Today" show. "And I think they were misled by people who should have been asking questions and weren't."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:19 PM EST [Link]
~ IDIOTS: Forgetting that what goes up must inevitably come back down, a KKK inductee was shot in the head after a bullet fired into the air came back down and struck him.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:15 PM EST [Link]
~ WELL BACON DOES GO WITH EVERYTHING AFTER ALL...: In today's Washington Post, Dan Morgan and Helen Dewar report on the massive amount of pork-barrel spending the Bush administration is engaging in.
But a rising tide of GOP spending on home-district projects is making those Democrats of yesteryear look like mere pikers of pork, according to a 15-page study just released by the minority staff of the House Appropriations Committee.
The study finds that the number of home-state projects earmarked in various bills has skyrocketed under the GOP, despite the party's rhetorical commitment to reining in a profligate federal government.
Moreover, it contends, Republicans "have opened up broad new areas of government to the practice of earmarking that were previously not subject to earmarks."
If the Republicans have an Achilles heel, this is definately it.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ DC SNIPER SENTENCED TO DEATH
John Allen Muhammad, convicted last week in the Washington area sniper shootings was sentenced to death this morning.
More details at Fox News.
I am not surprised, nor disappointed.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 12:24 PM EST [Link]
~ A HUMOROUS (AND TRUE) VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO
We all know that San Francisco is a beautiful city full of crazies. Adam Sparks gives us the rundown at SFGATE.COM.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 11:14 AM EST [Link]
~ TELL THE TRUTH PAUL: Donald Luskin, who seemingly has made a career at checking up on Paul Krugman, reports on the latest high-jinks connected to the NYT columnist. What's it this time? The UK/Australian cover of The Great Unraveling is so insane that you wonder who thought it would be a good idea.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:53 AM EST [Link]
~ SEND A MESSAGE TO THE MEDIA OVER IRAN: Peter over at the Pandavox has written a letter that you can send to the various news outlets concerning the ongoing struggle for democracy in Iran.
For those of us who support the Iranian pro-democracy movement, perhaps the biggest help we can offer is our solidarity. By getting their message out, I hope to increase awareness of this issue among the American population so we, as a free and democratic nation, may offer moral support to another nation who wishes to enjoy the same rights we take for granted.
As regular readers may already know, I do not support US military intervention as a way to topple the Iranian regime. I believe the change there needs to come from within and the Iranians are willing to make that change yet lack the moral support they seek from the Western world.
Perhaps best illustrated by the events of July 9, America's mainstream news media shows no interest in giving coverage to the homegrown struggle against the Islamic Republic. It is my belief that if they were to offer coverage, an increasing number of Americans would show solidarity with the Iranian people and embolden them in their quest for freedom.
I've prepared the following letter to send to the three major cable news networks: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Please join me in this campaign.
It only takes a couple of minutes...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:34 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS IS STILL RIGHT: After the firestorm that James Lileks' "F%@# you" to Salam Pax last week provoked, today's he's explaining precisely what he meant by it:
Okay, to repeat. This was not about someone Standing Up and Dissenting. It was about the quality of the criticism. If you say that George Bush invaded Iraq because he is a bloodthirsty moron compensating for a penis the size of a sewing thimble, I’m free to conclude that you have nothing to add to the debate. If you say that the invasion was a grand mistake predicated on wretched intel and a misguided attempt to unilaterally transform regional politics, you’ve made an intelligent point, and we can argue about that. I wasn’t criticizing Pax for being critical. It was his fatuous, smirky tone and insubstantial jibes. He had the tone of a Berlin cabaret MC who’d made Gestapo jokes in private and now was famous for making Eisenhower jokes in public. He sounded like someone amusing himself by dressing down a servant.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:29 AM EST [Link]
~ THE DEATH OF PUBLIC PLACES: Paul Goldberger has an interesting essay in Object Lesson about the impact that cell phones are having on the notion of public places. Thanks to the now ubitiquous technology, we can be among other people and yet not be there at the same time because we're talking to someone else.
But the cell phone has changed our sense of place more than faxes and computers and e-mail because of its ability to intrude into every moment in every possible place. When you walk along the street and talk on a cell phone, you are not on the street sharing the communal experience of urban life. You are in some other place--someplace at the other end of your phone conversation. You are there, but you are not there. It reminds me of the title of Lillian Ross's memoir of her life with William Shawn, Here But Not Here. Now that is increasingly true of almost every person on almost every street in almost every city. You are either on the phone or carrying one, and the moment it rings you will be transported out of real space into a virtual realm.
I can appreciate where Goldberger is coming from but I think he puts too much credence in the notion of "public spaces". In my opinion, for whatever its worth, public space has been dying for decades and it's not because of cell phones but for a number of reasons including the relentless encroachment of the commercial world (i.e. advertising) and our own tendencies to insulate ourselves from others in this increasingly busy world. I don't need a cell phone to transport myself out of a place...all I do is shut out the entire world and listen to my thoughts. Am I really adding to the public space by doing that?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:16 AM EST [Link]
~ I WOULD HAVE SERIOUSLY MESSED UP MOSUL FOR THIS: In a sort of replay of Somalia, Iraqi teens in Mosul dragged two bloody American soldiers from their vehicle and attacked them with concrete blocks.
Witnesses to the Mosul attack said gunmen shot two soldiers driving through the city center, sending their vehicle crashing into a wall. The 101st Airborne Division said the soldiers were driving to another garrison.
About a dozen swarming teenagers dragged the soldiers out of the wreckage and beat them with concrete blocks, the witnesses said.
"They lifted a block and hit them with it on the face," said Younis Mahmoud, 19.
It was unknown whether the soldiers were alive or dead when pulled from the wreckage.
I don't want to sound bloodthirsty but I would have used this as an opportunity to teach Mosul the story about what Rome did to Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:07 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, November 23, 2003 VIGILS FOR WACKO JACKO: Am I the only one who is disturbed by the fact that people in various countries are holding vigils for Michael Jackson? I understand fandom and the whole innocent until proven guilty thing, and I certainly don't know beyond a reasonable doubt that Jackson is guilty of anything. People do try to get money from celebrities. But the charges don't strike me as entirely implausible, to put it mildly.
Jackson's own stated behavior seems bizarre enough to make you look twice at such allegations. And what is up with these parents who allow their children to go to Neverland sleepovers? And if he's found guilty, will any of these people holding vigils change their minds about his innocence? I for one might burn my copy of Thriller.
Posted by antle @ 01:30 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, November 22, 2003 GOD, NOT AGAIN: Another movie starring Julia Roberts. I can't take it any more. Read on.
Every time I see Julia Roberts in a movie I think of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer's IQ jumped thanks to a crayon removed from his brain and he visits a movie theatre. Playing is Roberts' "Love is Beautiful" and she's just about to be married:
Priest: Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?
Groom 1: [simultaneously with Groom 2] I do.
Groom 2: [simultaneously with Groom 1] I do.
Priest: [points to one] One groom? [points to other] Two grooms? But he ... but you can't ... oh, my medication. [faints, and falls into the wedding cake]
Boy: Radical!
Wed. Usher: Is that your final answer? [audience laughs]
Homer: I don't understand; that wasn't funny.
Patty: Wait a minute. Somebody's not laughing here. [points to Homer] It's him!
Homer: Hey, don't blame me, this movie is tired and predictable. You know she's going to wind up marrying Richard Gere. [audience gasps in surprise]
Hibbert: I thought she was going to wind up with that rich snob.
McAllister: Ably played by Bill Paxton.
Homer: That's Bill *Pullman*, you fool! [someone knocks Homer out with a 2-by-4]
[cut to the front of the movie theater, as Homer is shown the door]
Mov. Usher: Point out your plot holes elsewhere.
Homer: [to the heavens] Is there no place for the man with the 105 IQ?
Posted by steve @ 05:01 PM EST [Link]
~ JFK AURA DYING: Christopher Hitchens has met any sacred cow that he wasn't a capable of launching a broadside against. Today he declares that the cult of John F. Kennedy is fading.
I may still be in a minority in this, and don't care if I am, but I am glad to find that the Kennedy drama and the Kennedy cult is falling away into nothingness. The effort of keeping it up is too much trouble. It has been a long time since anyone rang me, or wrote to me, with hectic new information about the real scoop on the assassination. It has been a very long time since I heard anyone argue with conviction (let alone with evidence) that if the president had been spared that day we would not be referring to the Vietnam calamity as "Kennedy's War."
The last thought is also, paradoxically, the kernel of the illusion that still keeps the JFK cult green. In a recent ill-phrased speech, Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts referred with contempt to the combat in Iraq as something cooked up "in Texas." He thereby gave vent to a facile liberal prejudice that still sees the Galahad of Camelot as having been somehow slain by Dallas itself, or by Texas at any rate. And what do we think of, or what are we supposed to think of, when the word "Texas" is invoked? Why, cowboys and gunplay and irresponsible capitalist dynasties.
Frankly, I'm more than sick of the boomer propogated cult of JFK. Look, as a Democrat, he wasn't all that bad. As a president, he was capable. Of course boomers, the most self-important generation in recent memory, believe that anything they think is the greatest must actually be. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:49 PM EST [Link]
~ FREEDOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Great article in the Jerusalem Post that points out the thirst for freedom in the Middle East is growing by the day.
Having just come back from a month in Iraq — visiting mass graves, crippled lives, talking to souls broken from years of tyrannical madness — I had nothing but immense sympathy for a fellow Middle Easterner longing for freedom. How else could the man feel about living under a police state?
I had already been shocked earlier this year to hear similar yearnings from ordinary Iranians on a visit there. Iranians are engaged in a quiet struggle: Women try to bend the Islamic regime’s dress code; young men challenge the police; everyone openly criticizes the theocratic elders. When asked about the possibility of the US toppling Saddam Hussein, most Iranians I spoke with said "Inshallah,‘ adding some version of ’So these guys [the mullahs] would understand their time could come too."
Historian Bernard Lewis explains this as the great paradox of the modern Middle East: the so-called moderate regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have populations irate with anti-American and anti-Western sentiments, while among the people in rogue regimes like Iran, Iraq and Syria, there is sympathy for the West and support for the new American mantra for regime change.
Skeptical? Go take a cab in Teheran — where the drivers feel free to curse at the government in front of a total stranger and move on to discuss ways Iranians could achieve freedoms.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:45 PM EST [Link]
~ AS LONG AS YOU AREN'T AFRAID OF THE TRUTH: (Via Instapundit) "The European Union's racism watchdog has shelved a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:35 PM EST [Link]
Friday, November 21, 2003 GOOD NEWS: I'm surprised this didn't get bigger play in the blogosphere. 83 per cent of Afghans in relatively stable areas are very optimistic about the future of their country.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:47 AM EST [Link]
~ NOTE TO SELF: NEVER ANGER JAMES LILEKS: If you haven't read today's Bleat, I urge you to do it right now. He absolutely tears into the media for deciding to cover Michael Jackson's arrest over George W. Bush's speech at Whitehall.
Even more remarkably, he tells Salam Pax to F*#@ himself after the Baghdad blogger penned a smarmy letter to Bush in the Guardian. (Salam's in bold, James in normal)
"I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.
Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service."
Hey, Salam? F@#$ you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.
Let me explain this in simple terms, habibi. You would have spent the rest of your life under Ba’athist rule. You might have gotten some nice architectural commissions to do a house for someone whose aroma was temporarily acceptable to the Tikriti mob. You might have worked your international connections, made it back to Vienna, lived a comfy exile’s life. What’s certain is that none of your pals would ever have gotten rid of that “scary guy without the hideous moustache” (as if his greatest sin was somehow a fashion faux pas) and the Saddam regime would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you. People who would rather have lived their life in low-level fear than change your situation. I understand; I would have done the same. I’m not brave enough to start a revolution. I wouldn’t have grabbed a gun and charged a palace. I would lived like you. Head down, eyes wary. When the man’s too strong, the man’s too strong.
Well said James. Well said. Hey, Salam? F@#$ you.
Posted by steve @ 05:30 AM EST [Link]
~ I'M NOT SURE HE'S RIGHT: Michael Ledeen argues in the Spectator that the West's most potent weapon isn't military firepower but democracy.
If the mullahs were brought down, they would certainly be replaced by a democratic government that separated mosque and state and gave the Iranian people a major voice in the country’s policies. There are very few knowledgeable people who doubt this, and this has been a major theme of the Dubya Doctrine all along. But to our shame the words have not been accompanied by action, either in Washington or London or any other Western capital, even though all are agreed that Iran is the leading terror master, that many of our troubles in Iraq are the result of Iranian actions or the actions of Iranian proxies, and that the Iranian people are ready to take to the streets against the mullahcracy in the same way the Serbs organised to bring down Milosevic.
Iran is ready for democratic revolution, and it is the key to the terror network. Ergo we should be supporting democratic revolution in Iran, and we should get on with it quickly before they show us that they have finally built an atomic bomb. It is hard to argue that Iran is somehow incapable of democracy, or that the mullahcracy should be tolerated any longer, let alone supported. Yet European and UN ‘diplomatic missions’ regularly show up in Tehran, occasionally mutter a few critical remarks about human rights violations or suspicious uranium samples, and then go away. I think we would do a lot better to recite the known facts about Iran every day, and give the Iranian people the support they deserve: round-the-clock broadcasting to encourage them to be brave, money to support potential strikes in the country’s crucial oil and gas and textile industries, communications toys like satellite phones so that they can communicate with one another when the regime shuts down the cells, as was done last summer on the eve of an announced national strike. Instead, we have remained aloof and even made highly misleading remarks (take the deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who proclaimed Iran ‘a democracy’; and the secretary of state Colin Powell, who, on the verge of the planned uprising last summer, said the United States really didn’t want to get involved in the Iranians’ ‘family squabble’.) Many Iranians felt betrayed, since they had earlier heard the President’s numerous statements about the need to spread freedom in their region.
That's all well and good but I've never thought that democracy was the be all and end all of reform when it comes to governments like Iran. Democracy, as Fareed Zakaria argued in his book The Future of Freedom, is a process not an end result. What countries like Iran need before they can enjoy democracy are the necessary institutions. Without them, Iran will turn into the Weimer Republic circa November 1933...except that instead of a new Adolph Hitler we'll see a freely elected extremist mullah who takes power by exacerbating social, religious and ethnic divisions. Don't believe me? Ever heard of Yugoslavia? It's a lot easier to divide than it is to build and a liberal democrat in a country like Iran wouldn't last long in an election.
That said, I do agree that recent U.S. mealy-mouthing about the nascent democracy movement in Iran is horrific...just as the Bush administration seemed to stop making the same bloody mistakes that other administrations have, along come people like Powell and Armitage to once again show that when it comes time to stand on the right side, the U.S. State Department falls into its old ways and screws everything up.
At any rate, I was just about to start writing an essay about this very subject when I came across Ledeen's essay...perhaps you'll see it on Monday.
Read Ledeen here.
Posted by steve @ 12:39 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, November 20, 2003 KATHERINE HARRIS CAUSING HEADACHES?: Talon News is reporting that the White House isn't exactly pleased with the notion that Rep. Katherine Harris may run for the Senate seat currently held by the retiring Bob Graham.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:59 PM EST [Link]
~ REAGAN'S WAR, REAGAN'S VICTORY: Glenn Garvin has an absolutely outstanding review of Peter Schweizer's Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His 40-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism in Reason. Forget "The Reagans;" this is the reality. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War.
Posted by antle @ 12:05 PM EST [Link]
~ WHEN IT RAINS...: Rush Limbaugh denied yesterday that he laundered money to buy drugs. Oi vey, this is turning out to be quite a year for him.
Posted by steve @ 03:05 AM EST [Link]
~ MEDICARE PERSPECTIVE INDEX: The National Center for Public Policy Research has released a parody of Harper's Index with "a compilation of factoids that give an irreverent but useful snapshot of the policy ironies within the $400 billion Medicare prescription drug debate ongoing on Capitol Hill."
Among the three dozen factoids included in the Medicare Perspective Index:
Pages in the Medicare bill reported out of Conference Committee: 1,100 (est.)
Days House Leadership has promised Members can have to read the final Medicare bill before voting on it: 3
Seconds available to read and comprehend each page of the final Medicare bill if devoting eight hours a day for three days to reading the bill: 78
Dollars of total Medicare spending in 2002: 246,800,000,000
Total dollars paid in Medicare premiums by enrollees in 2002: 25,600,000,000
Dollars of net taxpayer subsidy to Medicare in 2002: 221,200,000,000
Number of uninsured adults who worked full or part time in 2002 and thus paid the Medicare tax of 2.9 cents on every dollar they earned to fund health insurance for someone else: 25,679,000
Number of working uninsured adults with incomes below the poverty level in 2002 who paid the Medicare tax of 2.9 cents on every dollar they earned to fund health insurance for someone else: 4,080,000
Additional dollars budgeted by Congress for FY 2004 through FY 2013 to pay for expanding Medicare to include prescription drugs: 400,000,000,000
Additional dollars budgeted by Congress for FY 2004 through FY 2013 to pay for providing health insurance to the uninsured: 49,965,000,000
The MPI was compiled by Edmund F. Haislmaier, a leading Washington health policy expert who serves on The National Center's board of directors. Haislmaier, who also presently serves as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies, frequently testifies before Congress on health care matters, including twice recently before the House of Representatives on this particular legislation.
For copies of the full "Medicare Perspective Index," please visit http://www.nationalcenter.org/Health.html
Posted by steve @ 01:09 AM EST [Link]
~ PAHLAVI ON C-SPAN: A bit late notice but Reza Pahlavi will appear on Washington Journal (C-SPAN) Thursday morning at 7:30am EST.
Posted by steve @ 01:06 AM EST [Link]
~ MOVIE NIGHT AT FORT SINATRA: Tonight's feature was 2001's animated Waking Life, a movie that even it's detractors admit is at least interesting to watch. Waking Life was filmed entirely on digital video handhelds and then rotoscoped by several different animators. It essentially explores the nature of reality and how we perceive it. Is life a dream? Are our dreams as real as life?
What bugs people about the movie is that there doesn't seem to be a plot and that the philosophy that dominates it is essentially street corner preaching. With all due respect to those critics, I think they're wrong. The movie does indeed have a plot except that you have to wait until 70 minutes into it before you realize what may have happened to the main character as voiced by Wiley Wiggins. His character realizes that he's in a dream state but he doesn't know why until a certain point when something is told to him. Suddenly, everything that's transpired for the past hour or so makes a little more sense.
As for the philosophy? Well, the movie doesn't deal extensively with the various philosophical ideas that are introduced by the myriad of characters that the main character meets. That's actually a good thing because I think what Richard Linklater tried to do was introduce us to a lot of different perspectives of life. Some of it is ideas being introduced for the sake of being introduced while other tidbits advance the journey of the main character. The point is that you're supposed to watch this movie and debate your own perspectives.
I'll admit that a lot of people who watched this were bored because they saw it as pretentious and pointless. I have to respectively disagree but that's what makes watching movies a personal experience.
I have to admit my favourite scene in the movie was when the main character physically bumped into the red head with the novel idea for the soap opera. Her mini-rant about the lack of human communication struck a chord with me.
The two bump into each other
Soap Opera Woman: Excuse me.
Wiley: Excuse me.They begin to walk away but she calls out to him
Soap Opera Woman: Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?
I have to admit I also liked Linklater's character and his speech at the pinball machine about how we interact with time.
Posted by steve @ 12:55 AM EST [Link]
~ LAW & ORDER: IRAQI WAR PROTEST UNIT: Now I'm a big fan of Law & Order (the original series only) so I've grown to expect the occasional overtly liberal story lines the show features but did anyone else think tonight's episode carry the editorializing a little too far?
Every major character on the show -- with the exception of Det. Lennie Briscoe and unabashed conservative District Attorney Arthur Branch -- came out against the war with one character (Det. Ed Green) out and out accusing George W. Bush about lying about the war. The reporter even sounded like Michael Moore when he ranted about a "fictitious president" starting a "fictitious war."
Apparently not only is the far left part of the anti-war movement, so is New York's legal system.
Posted by steve @ 12:36 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, November 19, 2003 KIND OF LIKE THOSE AMERICAN ANTI-WAR PROTESTS AS WELL: So how many protestors came out to give a peice of their mind to George W. Bush while he's in the UK? Not many at all. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:50 PM EST [Link]
~ "CHAPTER 1...PAGE 1...PARAGRAPH 1: WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO 99 OUT OF 100 QUESTIONS?...MONEY": So why was France so bloody opposed to Saddam Hussein's removal from power? Mike Gonzalez reports over at the WSJ that to answer that question you have to look at the financial links between France and Iraq...not to mention all the other bad guys around the world.
For France was not just Baathist Iraq's largest contributor of funds; French banks have financed other odorous regimes. They are the No. 1 lenders to Iran and Cuba and past and present U.S. foes such as Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam. This type of financing, incidentally, is shared by Germany, France's partner in the pro-Saddam coalition. German banks are North Korea's biggest lenders, and also enjoy that dubious status with notorious rogue states such as Syria and Libya.
But France is the most active. In Fidel Castro's sweltering gulag, French banks plunked down $549 million in the first trimester this year, accounting for one-third of all international credit to Cuba. The figure for Saddam's Iraq, where the opposition was gassed and buried in mass graves, is $415 million. But both of these pale in comparison to what French banks have lent Iran , which is building a nuclear arsenal: $2.5 billion.
The figures come from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, and were cobbled together and interpreted by Inigo More for Madrid's new hard-hitting think tank, the Real Instituto Elcano. As Mr. More says, "one could think that Parisian bankers wait for the U.S. to have an international problem before taking out their check books." His report can be read at realinstitutoelcano.org.analisis/360.asp.
Yeah, I'm shocked as well.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:16 PM EST [Link]
~ DUBYA AT WHITEHALL: Who says George W. Bush isn't funny:
"Americans traveling to England always observe more similarities to our country than differences. I've been here only a short time, but I've noticed that the tradition of free speech -- exercised with enthusiasm -- (laughter) -- is alive and well here in London. We have that at home, too. They now have that right in Baghdad, as well. (Applause.)
Good speech on Iraq and terrorism...take the time to read it.
Read the rest of today's speech here.
Posted by steve @ 04:54 PM EST [Link]
~ LBJ FANS ANGRY AT HISTORY CHANNEL: Even a loathsome individual like Lyndon B. Johnson has his defenders. On Monday night (in the U.S.) the History Channel aired a documentary that claimed LBJ was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
A History Channel film that aired Monday alleges that then-Vice President Johnson and members of his staff were responsible for President Kennedy's 1963 killing, said LBJ Foundation Chairman Tom Johnson, no relation to the former president.
"I do not know of a greater injustice to the reputation of a former president -- especially to be on The History Channel," Tom Johnson, who worked in the Johnson White House, said in an interview Tuesday.
He and Jack Valenti, another former Johnson staff member and current president of the Motion Picture Association of America, issued a joint statement on behalf of the Johnson family and others.
"Sadly, President Johnson and the staff members who are wrongly smeared by the conspiracy theorists are no longer alive to defend themselves," the statement said. "In televising this production, The History Channel has distorted history beyond recognition."
I didn't see the documentary but I wouldn't be surprised if Barr McClellan appeared in it. McClellan's Blood, Money and Power was recently published (we reviewed it for this week's issue here) and made the same case. If LBJ and a cabal were responsible for Kennedy's murder, McClellan sure didn't prove it to me.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:43 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, November 18, 2003 YOU JUST KNOW THE E.U. IS GOING TO COMPARE THIS TO WHAT THE IDF DOES TO PALESTINIAN HOMES: The Pentagon announced today that it is destroying the homes of insurgents on Iraq.
Pentagon officials rejected any comparison to the tactics employed by the Israeli military in the West bank and Gaza, saying the U.S. actions are not aimed at punishing sympathizers, but rather are aimed at eliminating legitimate military targets.
Israel Defense Forces characterized its tactics in a September 30 statement: "The demolition of the houses of terrorists sends a message that anyone who participates in terrorist activity will pay a price for their actions."
"Coalition forces are continuing to target any building that may be used by anti-coalition forces to plan attacks, produce weapons or harbor insurgents," a Pentagon spokesman told CNN.
"These measures are not punitive in nature, they are strictly targeting those responsible for recent attacks against the coalition and the infrastructure used repeatedly to sustain those attacks," he said.
Military target or punishment? I like it either way but then again I'm a blood thirsty Western imperialist Jew lover.
Also in the article? Insurgents are posting videos of their attacks on the Internet in an attempt to recruit more poor fools to die.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:57 PM EST [Link]
~ YEAH, THAT'LL GET YOU FAR: Carol Moseley Braun has hired former NOW chief Patricia Ireland to run her campaign.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:30 PM EST [Link]
~ GOOD OR BAD NEWS?: So the rumours were right, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will retire earlier than he had announced. Today the lameduck said December 12 was the date, not February 2004 as was stated earlier this year.
Given the empty suit that is Martin, I can't figure out if I'm disappointed or happy. Men without ideas tend to harm their own ideas and yet you have someone sitting in the big chair to lead...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:23 PM EST [Link]
~ MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME COURT PLEASES ANDREW SULLIVAN: The much-anticipated ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court came down approving gay marriage. Expect the debate on this issue to intensify right as we are going into the 2004 presidential election. Two areas to watch: 1.) Will Howard Dean endorse the inevitable effort to take this effort here in the Bay State national? 2.) Will President Bush endorse the federal marriage amendment, which social conservatives are now likely to push all the harder?
Posted by antle @ 11:07 AM EST [Link]
~ TIME TO BOYCOTT THE UNITED WAY -- Give your money directly to your favorite charity.
"UW Screws Another Scout Council
"Next year, the Capitol Area Council of the Boy Scouts in Austin, Texas will
lose nearly $160,000 in allocated funding from the United Way Capitol Area.
On Thursday, November 13, the Boy Scouts and the United Way parted ways due
to differences in the two groups' non-discrimination policies. In what was
advertised as an amicable separation, the Austin United Way concluded two
years of Inclusiveness Committee meetings and focus groups by announcing
that the Boy Scouts of America's policies banning homosexual troop leaders
precludes it from being funded."- Hans Zeiger, GOPUSA.com, 11/17/03
Personally, I get a lot of pressure at the office for adamantly refusing to participate in the coercive fund-raising for the UW. It makes the office "look good" if we have 100% participation. I simply tell the "coordinators" that I object to the vast majority of UW recipients and prefer to keep my charitable giving private.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:43 AM EST [Link]
~ NEANDERTHALS?
"Windbag Winner by a Mile
Commenting on the recently concluded Justice for Judges marathon, Sen. Ted
Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said, "What has not ended is the resolution
and the determination of the members of the United States Senate to continue
to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president of the United
States for any court, federal court in the United States."The three conservative women who were denied an up-or-down vote on their
nominations last Friday are knuckle-dragging "Neanderthals"? Is it any
wonder that Uncle Ted won our "Biggest Windbag in the Senate" poll this
week, racking up over 50% of the vote? Bobby "KKK" Byrd came in a distant
second with 17% of the vote, followed by, in order, Chuck Schumer (11%),
Hillary Clinton (10%), Tom Daschle (9%), Pat Leahy (2%) and Mary Landrieu
(1%)."
-Chuck Muth’s News and Views email newsletter 11/18/03Chuck's website is at Citizen Outreach.
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:35 AM EST [Link]
~ MONDAY NIGHT QUARTERBACK: After a horrible couple of weeks I did reasonably well with 12 of 16. Hey, if you had told me that Cincinnati was going to beat Kansas City I would have laughed at you but it happened didn't it? Good for the Bengels. Buffalo's loss to the Houston Texans was annoying but one of those things that you could have predicted...the Texans aren't as bad as people think and the Bills are a lot worse then most people think. For some reason, the Bills coaching staff seems to think it's a good idea to create plays that leave Drew Bledsoe standing like a statue while the play develops. Hello? Bledsoe has never been a quarterback with good mobility and if your offensive line can't hold the opposition, he's going to get hit and rushed a lot.
Tampa Bay? God, if I had to re-pick that game, I would have took the Packers. The only reason I went with the Bucs was that they were at home. Minnesota? Oi vey, if the Raiders can beat them convincingly that means that the Vikings are clearly a team going downhill. Memo to Dante Culpepper: 396 yards is a good day but three picks don't help. Congrats to Raiders QB Rick Mirer who won his first game as a starter since November 1999.
Week 1: 9 of 15 (Thursday night game not counted)
Week 2: 13 of 15
Week 3: 10 of 15
Week 4: 10 of 15
Week 5: 11 of 14
Week 6: 11 of 14
Week 7: 8 of 14
Week 8: 10 of 14
Week 9: 7 of 14
Week 10: 9 of 14
Week 11: 12 of 16Season %: 69 (+1%)
In honor of the Bengels win over KC I offer Ben-gal Jessica, a six year veteran of the squad. A senior art director at an advertising agency, Jessica likes to socialize with friends, work out, dance, draw and paint. Inexplicably the person she wants to meet the most is Sarah Jessica Parker. What? No love for Canadian conservative writers Jessica?
Posted by steve @ 01:10 AM EST [Link]
~ BRUSHES WITH FAME: ESR contributor, Florida resident and old university school chum Peter Vere lives by some very cool people. One of them is none other than Larry Crane, long-time guitarist for John Mellencamp.
Crane and VereYou can visit Larry Crane's web site here and the group weblog that Peter blogs at -- Catholic Light -- here.
Posted by steve @ 12:50 AM EST [Link]
Monday, November 17, 2003 ZZZZZZzzzzz. After James blogged about Britney, I decided to watch her ABC special "In the Zone."
Coincidentally, the bow-tied fella that Steve wrote a book review about - Tucker Carlson - interviewed her throughout the one-hour show. (He was good.)
Despite the flashy costumes and perfectly choreographed dance sequences and leaving aside the moral implications, I was surprised to find myself thinking that the singing/music was, well, boring. Even dull.
Did anyone else have this impression, or am I just becoming jaded?
Posted by izzy @ 11:09 PM EST [Link]
~ THE MAN WITH TALENT ON LOAN FROM GOD IS BACK: For those of you in Rio Linda, California that refers to Rush Limbaugh.
"I don't want anybody to get frightened about this, now," Limbaugh said. "This has no impact on what you have come to know, love and respect here because I've not been phony here. I have not been artificial or any of that on the program. I was all that elsewhere. I was all that other places, but not here.
"I can no longer anticipate what I think people want and try to give that to them," he said. "I can no longer try to live my life by making other people happy. I can no longer turn over the power of my feelings to anybody else, which is what I have done a lot of my life. I have thought that I had to be this way or that way in order to be liked or appreciated or understood. In the process I denied myself who I was."
Limbaugh gave no specifics about what he meant by this, but he said more would emerge during his shows in the coming weeks.
He promised not to change his conservative philosophy.
"Many people feel and think that when you go to a rehabilitation center for addiction or other things that the people turn you into a linguini-spined liberal, and that's not true," he said.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]
~ WOMEN HELP CREATE METROSEXUALS THEN WHINE ABOUT IT: As you may remember, I have ranted about "metrosexuals" in the past. Seems I rant about many things these days. Well, it seems that many women are now getting worried about the rise in metrosexuality -- men who behave like women when it comes to things like fashion, cosmetics, etc. Alexa Hackbarth says her dating life in Washington, D.C. has gone to heck because of all the metrosexuals there.
I understand that men, like women, want to look their best in order to convey professionalism, attract lovers and improve their self-image. I just don't think they're going about it the right way. It's as if, in an effort to move far away from the image of a smelly, unshaven man smashing beer cans on his forehead and wiping his nacho cheese down the front of his stained T-shirt, these guys have swung too far in the opposite direction. It makes me uncomfortable when a man can discuss the new season's fashions in intimate detail. Perhaps I am unusually insensitive, but I don't want a man who pours out his heart on the fourth date. I lose interest in men who not only won't make the first move, but hesitate to make the second and third. I don't want my date to be tearing up at the end of a movie when I'm sitting there dry-eyed.
Boo hoo. Women demanded Alan Alda types in the 1980s -- and were horrified by what happened -- and then Bill Clinton types in the 1990s -- with the same response. For years many women demanded straight men act as if they were gay, until they got to the bedroom, and now they're complaining about that.
In Hackbarth's defense, she comes from a rural town and probably never wanted a manicured git for a boyfriend.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:39 PM EST [Link]
~ NICE SUIT...NOT MUCH FILLING IT THOUGH: Terence Corcoran states what many of us have been thinking for a long time: Canada's next prime minister, Paul Martin, talks a lot about a lot of things but doesn't seem to have one damned idea about where this country should be going.
Some people expect big things from Paul Martin. He certainly appears to expect big things from himself. "Martin desperately wants to be transformational," says Hugh Segal, head of the Institute for Research in Public Policy. "He will want his period to look like Pearson's -- a time when seismic changes were seen to happen in the federal government and the country." For a man of such grand ambition, Mr. Martin seems painfully short of ideas.
The shortfall looks canyonesque in the two new Martin books on the market. Combined, Juggernaut: Paul Martin's Campaign for Chrétien's Crown, by Susan Delacourt, and Paul Martin: The Power of Ambition, by John Gray, contain 600 pages of mind-numbing political backroom tedium, but not a hint of any political or intellectual passion. One searches the index of either book in vain for meaningful references to ideas or issues that might be defined, elaborated, proposed or endorsed. Nothing. Amid the hundreds of names dropped in Juggernaut (from Bono to Ruth Thorkelson), only "free trade," "gun registry" and "Gulf War" appear as issues, and even then we learn nothing of Mr. Martin's views on these subjects. John Gray attempts to track down some Martin substance in his book, but ultimately gives it up as hopeless. The man, he says, is "an enigma, unknowable to others and perhaps to himself."
The emptiness is even more pronounced among his coterie of crack political handlers, a handsome lot of men and women who appear to share two qualities: a long-standing dedication to Mr. Martin and a singular, even passionate, lack of interest in even one solid program or idea, let alone anything that might approach the transformational. Abortion isn't something to debate; it's just a "wedge issue." Nobody holds positions on economics or social policy or bank mergers; politics is the business of dealing with short-term coin-toss issues that can go either way depending on the circumstances.
A lot of people are predicting that Paul Martin is going to be Canada's next Liberal Party approved God but I have a feeling that he may end up being the next John Turner. What? Don't remember him? Turner was elected leader of the Liberal Party in 1984, replacing Pierre E. Trudeau. At the time it was believed that Turner was going to be the leader for a new generation of Liberals and Canadians. Smart, handsome and extremely well educated it seemed that the world was his oyster. As far back as the mid-1970s people were dreaming of a Turner-led Canada (Remember that horrible show King of Kensington? If it wasn't for the Toronto Maple Leafs and John Turner the show's "writers" would have had nothing to "write" about).
Well, as the 1984 election proved, Turner's appeal was superficial at best. It turned out that Turner had some serious deficiencies which included a lack of new ideas. Once elected, Turner looked (and sounded, if you remember that stammer he got whenever he wasn't sure what he was talking about, and it seemed like there was a lot he didn't know) like a man who didn't quite know what the hell he was supposed to do after he got the big chair. His tenure as prime minister lasted a few months and he was slaughtered by Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives. Although he lasted as Liberal Party leader until 1990, Turner was finished as a political force mere months after coming back into public life.
Is Paul Martin another John Turner? It's a little early to tell but the fact that he seems to be another empty suit doesn't bode well for his future. The only thing saving him is that the Tories and the Canadian Alliance -- merged or otherwise -- doesn't seem to be a real threat...yet. Then again, no one really thought that Mulroney was going to be elected either...
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:25 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQI ENEMIES GETTING SMARTER: Brian Bennett of Time Magazine was interviewed on CNN this morning where he reported that the Iraqi guerillas (which he refers to as the "resistance") are trading information between each other and beginning to coordinate their attacks.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY ALSO GOT THAT MACHINE THAT TELLS IF YOU'RE GAY: I guess our dismal dystopian future is going to be here sooner than I thought. John Ray blogs about a report that says "white" racism can be detected in the brain -- hardly a surprise but scary nonetheless. A) Black racism isn't mentioned because only us crackers are racists and B) can you imagine a government in the future hooking people up to determined their real attitudes?
Read more here. A reader also reports to Ray who one of the researchers is here.
Posted by steve @ 02:52 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, November 16, 2003 SELF-PROMO ALERT: Piece in today's Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel...a review of Tucker Carlson's recent book. Read it here.
Posted by steve @ 04:22 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT ABOUT THE SUBSTANCE? One final point of Nathan Newman's that I’d like to address is his argument that constitutional conservatives pretend to be concerned with constitutional process, but are really interested in pushing a substantive agenda.
It’s true that overall I think that a smaller federal government consistent with the Constitution would be substantively better than the regime we have now, I take that position in part because I believe it is in important both in principle and in practice to set objective limits on the exercise of coercive political power. Sometimes constitutionalism leads to outcomes in specific areas that I agree with substantively on the issues; however, sometimes it doesn’t.
I oppose both the constitutional reasoning (procedure) and the substance of Roe v. Wade, for example. But I also opposed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act on constitutional grounds, even though I strongly support the policy it legislated and would support equivalent legislation at the state level. I am only a reluctant supporter of the federal partial-birth abortion ban. I believe the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas was bad constitutional law even though I supported the political outcome of abolishing anti-sodomy laws, which I consider anti-freedom. So while it is obvious that substantive beliefs play a role in most con-cons’ politics, it can hardly be said that constitutionalism is the most convenient way of getting everything most of us would want politically.
Posted by antle @ 03:52 PM EST [Link]
~ CONFUSED ABOUT CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM: The liberal blogger Nathan Newman took issue with my “Living In Post-Constitutional America” piece a bit ago. He argues that I contradict myself by simultaneously advocating judicial restraint and the position that the federal government – including the legislative branch – routinely engages in unconstitutional policy-making. He argues that con-cons are using their procedural arguments as a smokescreen for a substantive agenda, which he describes as allowing corporations to go unregulated and dismantling civil rights protections for minorities.
So which is it? Do I want judicial restraint or a judiciary that will strike down unconstitutional congressional laws? In actuality, what I want is the restoration of the system of checks and balances, where the judiciary plays a role as a check against the executive and the legislature without going unchecked itself, and of the legitimate constitutional division of powers between the state and federal governments. You don’t have to believe in Calhounian states’ rights ideology to understand that the original constitutional scheme limited federal powers by enumerating them and left certain areas of government within the jurisdiction of the states.
Newman misreads the con-con position. First, constitutional conservatives generally do not dispute the authority of federal courts to strike down unconstitutional federal laws where applicable. What we do reject is the idea that they should be empowered to strike down laws they deem unwise or immoral while offering only the thinnest constitutional justifications for these rulings. Moreover, we regard it as illegitimate for courts to usurp legislative prerogatives by engaging in elaborate policymaking themselves. Secondly, our complaint is that most of this policymaking has not taken place in the context of judicial review of federal laws (although at this point it is only fair of me to note that Newman takes a far dimmer view of judicial review than most liberals), but rather in massive reshaping of policies that all sides of the political debate had from the beginning of the Republic regarded as the proper domain of the states. Roe v. Wade, to cite just one example, struck down state rather than federal laws.
Therefore, while I do not believe judicial restraint prevents federal courts from exercising their legitimate powers to overturn unconstitutional federal laws, I do believe that courts should on balance defer to the legislature on policy questions. Consequently, I do not look to the judiciary to tear down the entire unconstitutional legal edifice imposed by Congress. With some exceptions, that task is best left to the political branches. But I do look to the judiciary to overturn its own unconstitutional legal edifice built by decades of bad precedents with no basis in the Constitution. That is why I favor strict constructionist judicial nominees.
My support for Janice Rogers Brown as a proponent of judicial restraint is based on her record as a judge. My reference to Congress’ enumerated powers had more bearing on Justice Brown’s speeches, which her critics were claiming showed she held too radical views to be on the federal bench. I was merely pointing out that her views were consistent with those of the Founding Fathers. But her speeches are separate from her body of work as a judge, and that very separation is key to an understanding of con-cons’ view of the proper role of the judiciary.
What about judges who promoted strong federal power early in the Republic’s history? Judicial activism is not new and the political classes likewise sought ways to circumvent the Constitution from America’s very beginning. There were bad court decisions from the very beginning. But it is also true that there were significant differences about the federal versus state powers even among the Founding Fathers themselves. Yet the federal government was far more limited by the Constitution then than it has been in recent decades, and some of these unconstitutional executive, legislative and judicial actions violate the common understanding of the Constitution that was shared by all sides of these debates back then and that prevailed for close to two centuries. Constitutionally limited government was – and to the small extent it remains, is – a crucial component of American freedom.
Newman can conflate authentic constitutional conservatism with massive judicial activism on behalf of odious interests and pretend that liberals have a long legacy of judicial restraint, but that doesn’t make it so.
Posted by antle @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ NO WIN FOR JIN: Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco became the first woman ever elected governor of Louisiana yesterday, beating Bobby Jindal.
Blanco, 60, carried her native Cajun area and swamped Jindal in New Orleans, where Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin had endorsed the Republican. She held her own in Jindal's home city of Baton Rouge and in northern Louisiana. Jindal ran strong in the GOP-dominated suburbs of New Orleans.
Hopefully this isn't the last we've seen of Jindal.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:32 PM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: Thanks to go Robert S. Sargent Jr. and Bob Webster for their donation. Very much appreciated lads!
Posted by steve @ 03:07 PM EST [Link]
~ PROMOTING OTHERS, PROMOTING MYSELF: Thanks to columnist, blogger and attorney Stephan Kinsella for his kind mention of my American Conservative piece, along with several ESR articles on related subjects, over at the LewRockwell.com blog.
Posted by antle @ 02:35 PM EST [Link]
~ DON'T SHOOT BRITNEY!: I am glad that John Derbyshire feels a little bit sorry for Britney Spears. I thought I was the only one. Her skimpy clothes and introduction of trampiness to preteens is controversial, and rightfully so. If I had a daughter, I certainly wouldn't want her dressing like Britney Spears. The first lady of Maryland quipped that she would like to shoot her, and a number of parents listening to her agreed! Many people compare her use of her body and sex in promoting her music to her MTV smooching partner Madonna.
But Madonna and Britney are quite different. Maddona was self-conciously shocking and deliberately subversive. She knew what she was doing back in the 1980s, when she cavorted to tunes from "Like A Virgin" to "Like A Prayer" as her young female fans the "wannabes" endlessly imitated her. Britney just knows what her promoters tell her and what seems to be popular, and then does it. In interviews, she even reflects some of her Baptist upbringing, however difficult that is to reconcile with the sexual ethic her performances represent. This doesn't absolve her of all responsibility. But let's face it - she is largely a pawn of an entertainment industry that sells sex and strips attractive young people like her not just of their clothes but of their childhood, with her parents' complicity. She has done as much performing as living.
My impression of her is similar to the Derb's. To the extent that we can tell, she seems like a decent kid who has gotten mixed up into an industry that will value her as long as she looks good and will spit her out the day her looks start to fade or she is surpassed by some newer, younger and more provocative pop starlet. I don't know if she should have been a dental hygenist rather than a singer, but there must be times when the fame and fortune just don't seem worth it.
Posted by antle @ 02:37 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: My American Conservative cover story on the fragementation of the right along conservative and libertarian lines is now online.
I'm more libertarian than most conservatives and more conservative than most libertarians, which means that I don't agree with libertarians on every issue where they disagree with conservatives. At the end of the day, I am more of a conservative than a libertarian. But I do believe big government conservatism is a sham, a political gimmick that might win a few Republicans public office but is fundamentally incapable of delivering on what it promises. And in the long term, that will be far more damaging to the right and what it hopes to accomplish than a few election defeats.
Posted by antle @ 02:15 AM EST [Link]
~ EVEN IN THE SOUTH, WE CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL: Although it was excellent news that the GOP took the governorships of Mississippi and Kentucky with Haley Barbour and Ernie Fletcher respectively (right on the heels of Ah-nuld's big win in California), Republican Bobby Jindal's loss to Kathleen Blanco in Louisiana is a disappointment. Blanco is a John Breaux Democrat - she's pro-life, has a reputation for fiscal moderation and hasn't been caught up in the scandals that pervade her state's political culture. But Jindal would have been a superstar, someone to watch nationally, and his platform was far more promising than the warmed-over platitudes Blanco offered up in this campaign.
Of course, at just 32 years of age and coming off a fairly narrow loss there's still plenty of time for Jindal to become a national superstar. It's just too bad that another promising conservative in the same mold as Bret Schundler and Tom McClintock didn't quite make it. It will be interesting to get a look at some of exit poll data and county-by-county (or in Louisiana's case, parish-by-parish) results for some more detailed data showing just went wrong.
Posted by antle @ 02:10 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, November 15, 2003 SORRY COULD YOU REPEAT THIS FOR ALL THE UNBELIEVERS OF THE WORLD?: The Weekly Standard reported yesterday that Saddam Hussein gave al-Qaida financial and logistical support dating back to the early 1990s.
According to the memo, which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered points, Iraq-Al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began. Most of the numbered passages contain straight, fact-based intelligence reporting, which in some cases includes an evaluation of the credibility of the source. This reporting is often followed by commentary and analysis.
The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent "emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials." At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, "Iraq sought Sudan's assistance to establish links to Al Qaeda." The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, "bin Laden wanted to expand his organization's capabilities through ties with Iraq."
Yeah, I know, people like that fool Michael Moore are going to be stating there was no link -- as he does in Dude, Where's My Country? -- for years to come but at least we have a growing pile of evidence to state otherwise.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:52 PM EST [Link]
~ HILLA: THE IRAQI CITY OF TOMORROW: Nice story from Iraq about the Iraqi city of Hilla. It's working hard to become a modern city and the effects are already being seen.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:40 PM EST [Link]
~ MILLER UNDER FIRE: Zell Miller came under fire yesterday from civil rights activists who demanded an apology after he compared Democratic opposition to Janice Brown's nomination to a lynching.
Of course, Miller is described as a "conservative Democrat".
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:26 PM EST [Link]
~ SWEET...I SHOULD HAVE REFUSED ORDERS AS WELL: The U.S. Army has decided that it will not punish a female soldier who refused to return to Iraq because she could not care for her children.
Spc. Simone Holcomb, 30, had feared she would face criminal charges and a discharge that would cause her to lose the benefits she earned as a member of the Colorado National Guard.
But Army spokesman Maj. Steve Stover said the medic will face no administrative or criminal penalties.
For compassionate reasons, she will be allowed to remain at Colorado's Fort Carson and will be given time to resolve the custody dispute that led to her refusal to return to Iraq, the Army said.
I don't want to be a jerk here, but why are women in the military again? If I had tried this my butt would have been in a military prison marching the parade square for three years.
Posted by steve @ 06:27 AM EST [Link]
Friday, November 14, 2003 WIN STUFF FROM MARK STEYN!: Need I say more? Visit Mark Steyn's web site where you can enter a competition to pick either the first Democratic presidential candidate to drop out, the first three in order, the first eight in order or who will be the vice presidential nominee. A plethora of prizes are available!
Enter here!
Posted by steve @ 07:16 PM EST [Link]
~ TRULY, I AM IN HEAVEN: Criterion Collection, who I raved about earlier this year, is finally releasing Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru!
Truly, there is a God.
Criterion's sadly brief page on the movie is here and Roger Ebert holds forth about it here.
Posted by steve @ 03:57 PM EST [Link]
~ CAMPAIGN NOT GOING SO WELL WES?: Wesley Clark announced last night that he will -- unlike George W. Bush and Howard Dean -- accept public funding of his campaign. That means Clark will be "limited" to $45 million of spending in the primaries and could receive up to $19 million in public money.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:55 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN KEVIN BACON IN TO BREAK THE BAN: Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. will hold a dance tonight. That's not major news for most colleges but it is for WC. The college had banned social dancing for the past 143 years.
It was not until the 1960s that the school lifted the rule prohibiting students from going to movies. For generations, students were barred from dancing -- on campus or off -- unless it was with members of the same sex or a square dance. It was not until the 1990s that students and faculty were permitted to dance with spouses or relatives at family events such as weddings.
Dancing with members of the same sex? Hmm, I can see why nobody bothered to dance at all. At any rate, a panic stricken student body is attempting to cram in as many dance lessons as possible in order they don't embarass themselves tonight. My tips? Concentrate on the bass and move your hips to the rhythm of the music. Of course, I would have called in Kevin Bacon to break the ban as he did in Footloose. No man was better able to break a ban with the overwhelming power of the morality of dancing...or something like that.
Posted by steve @ 02:52 PM EST [Link]
~ THERE'S A SURPRISE: After a marathon 30 hour session, the Republicans failed to break a Democratic filibuster of three judicial nominees.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:44 PM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS ON MOORE, RALL AND OTHER IDIOTS: James Lileks takes a few swipes against Michael Moore, Ted Rall and the supposedly superior Europeans in his latest bleat. Read it here.
On a coincidental note, not five minutes ago I just finished reading Michael Moore's latest book, Dude, Where's My Country? It is perhaps the worst written book that combines distortion and a sophmoric tone that I have ever read. See what I put myself through so you can have stuff to read? My review will appear Monday.
Posted by steve @ 01:39 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, November 13, 2003 JETHRO TULL HAS ALWAYS SUCKED: WCHR-FM in Manahawkin, N.J. has banned Jethro Tull from its playlists after frontman Ian Anderson criticized all the American flags he sees people flying.
"I hate to see the American flag hanging out of every bloody station wagon, out of every SUV, every little Midwestern house in some residential area. It's easy to confuse patriotism with nationalism. Flag waving ain't gonna do it."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:31 PM EST [Link]
~ HELP SAVE AHMAD BATEBI'S LIFE: Got an interesting piece of email from Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi of the Blog Iran campaign. Ahmad Batebi is a student activist in Iran who has been imprisoned for the past four years for his anti-government protests.
Batebi was recently released on furlough to seek medical attention for ailments he acquired as a direct result of hardships he has had to endure in prison. His release coincided with a short visit by UN Special Rapporteur Ambeyi Ligabo, with whom he and the family members of other political prisoners met on Saturday to discuss violations of Human Rights and the restrictions on free expression in Iran. Soon after meeting with Ambeyi Ligabo, Batebi left for Tehran University, telling his father that he would return home later that evening. He has not been seen or heard from since.
All you have to do is sign a petition. Certainly a small thing to do that may help save this man's life.
Posted by steve @ 08:06 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S CHRETIEN'S LEGACY? NO ONE KNOWS: A poll conducted by SES/Sun Media has found that a majority of Canadians can't name a single accomplishment for outgoing Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
If that's so, why the hell did they vote for him a bunch of times?
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ ALRIGHT, PERHAPS I WAS A LITTLE HARSH: A couple of days ago I ranted about Joe Molnar's trial balloon about a Canadian-style WorldNetDaily site. Kathy Shaidle responds that she's not sure she agree with myconclusion:
Canadian conservatives will gladly screw each other over to protect their little fiefdoms. They aren't interested in creating a new conservative movement -- which would take the hard work of rebuilding a grassroots -- they are interested in protecting themselves.
Alright, alright, Canadian conservatives will not gladly screw each other over to protect their little fiefdoms. Many conservatives -- regardless of citizenship -- will gladly screw each other over to protect their little fiefdoms. They are congenitally unable to assist fellow conservatives because it might cost them something so it's much easier to screw over a fellow conservative then it is to help them.
Of course, not all conservatives are like this -- perhaps not even most, but enough are (especially in prominent positions) that it's almost a waste of time to try and build something in Canada. So prominent conservatives, enjoy your cheques from think tanks, the Receiver-General of Canada, CanWest, Osprey, Pacific Media and whoever else would keep a token on the staff and congratulate yourself! You made it. And you didn't even have to associate yourself with building a movement!
Posted by steve @ 02:22 PM EST [Link]
~ EVERYONE PLEADS WITH GOD DURING THOSE DAYS: Johnny Cash's final album will likely include a version of Larry Gatlin's "Help Me."
It goes in part:
Lord, Help me walk
another mile, just one more mile;
I'm tired of walkin' all alone.Lord, Help me smile
another smile, just one more smile;
I know I just can't make it on my own.I never thought I needed help before;
I thought that I could do things by myself.
Now I know I just can't take it any more.
With a humble heart, on bended knee,
I'm beggin' You, please, Help Me.
Read the story here.
Posted by steve @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]
~ NO MORE MOORE: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office this morning for defying a judge's order and refusing to move his Ten Commandments monument earlier this year.
Moore said he was not surprised by the decision, which he called a step toward "prohibiting the public worship of God."
"I have absolutely no regrets," he said. "I have done what I was sworn to do. I have said repeatedly that unless we can acknowledge God, we can not uphold the oath of our office."
Read on.
Part of me admits to cheering Moore on -- odd for an athiest I suppose -- while the other half hated the idea that a judge would defy a lawful order. Either way, Moore lost.
Posted by steve @ 01:58 PM EST [Link]
~ MU-HA-HA-HA-HA! RIGHT AGAIN: As you may remember, I went on a TiVo related rant earlier this year describing it as the false promise that you will watch less television. As I said back then:
Except there's a word that keeps popping up everytime I write about TiVo. It's the word "television." Now I know I'm a print and online writer so you might think I have this highbrow bias against television. You're right, I do. Instead of watching television last week (outside of hockey coverage) I read four books. I wrote. I played with my niece. I cooked a meal. I kissed someone. I had random original thoughts pass through my head which I wrote down for future reference. I planned my immediate future.
These are things I wouldn't have done even if I had "efficiently" watched more television. Note what I said, "more television." It turns out that TiVo owners not only watch television efficiently, they watch more television. They save a penny and spend a dollar.
They save a penny and spend a dollar. Such a turn of phrase. At any rate, a beautiful illustration of this was reported earlier this week by the San Diego Union-Tribune (who refuses to publish my submissions). Seems the greatest features of the TiVo -- the ability to store programs and have it record pretty well anything you want -- is turning into a curse for many owners.
TiVo's big selling point for many customers was the idea that they no longer needed to live their lives according to the TV schedule. What many failed to realize is the entertainment glut that is created by saving so many favorite programs.
"I love my TiVo and get separation anxiety when I spend too much time away from it," said Cori Martinelli, an economist with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in San Francisco.
She catches herself worrying, "Gosh, did (the show) record OK? Is something being deleted before I can watch it?"
Something makes me think that Ms. Martinelli needs to get a life but it proves my point that devices like TiVo may carry some benefit -- the ability to pause television and fast-forward past commercials -- but come at the cost of watching more television. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It'll record every episode that airs for you! Thought Farscape ruled? Don't worry, TiVo will satiate all your desires.
Of course, these people are a minority of TiVo users though it wouldn't surprise me if the average TiVo owner actually spent more time watching television.
Tyler Durden was right, "That which you own ends up owning you." Posted by steve @ 02:53 AM EST [Link]
~ MOORE TO FIND OUT FATE TODAY: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore will find out this morning what will happen to him over his decision to defy a judge's ruling to move his stone Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 12:35 AM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: A big thank you to Robert Bove who made a contribution to ESR's fundraising drive. I'm running out of ways to be over the top in my thanks so I'll just say, thanks Robert. It's very much appreciated!
If you'd like to donate, just click the VISA/Mastercard donate button to your left.
Posted by steve @ 12:02 AM EST [Link]
~ "I ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH. EVEN WHEN I LIE.": Movie night at Fort Sinatra was 1983's "Scarface", Brian De Palma's ultra-violent retelling of the 1932 classic starring Paul Muni. Obviously a movie that uses the "F-word" 206 times and features 42 deaths isn't what one would consider a conservative movie but I have to admit that I've long enjoyed it.
In the crime genre, if the 1970s belonged to "The Godfather" and the 1990s to "Goodfellas" then the 1980s was definately the era of "Scarface". It's been imitated by everyone from rappers to other actors and yet nothing has equaled it. It's an astonishingly powerful movie that speaks volumes about what happens when you want everything, get it and realize you still have nothing.
When you ask most people what their favourite scene in the movie is they'll either give you the chainsaw scene in near the beginning with the Columbians or the final act which sees Tony Montana attempt to fight off dozens of hitmen. Both are good scenes but for my money I've always liked the scene in the restaurant the best -- the one which sees Tony hypocritically declare his wife a junkie. After she leaves, he then starts in on the other patrons, declaring that he's no different from them except that he's honest enough to admit who he is.
Muchos gracias for the gift of the 20th anniversary edition S.!
Although I don't care for him, Roger Ebert had a good piece on the movie recently that you can read here.
Posted by steve @ 12:00 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, November 12, 2003 THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE HOTEL: Cots and coffee are being moved into the Senate tonight in preparation for a 30 hour "talkathon" over the issue of George W. Bush's judicial nominees.
For 30 hours -- from Wednesday evening through midnight Thursday -- Republicans and Democrats are expected to condemn each other in 30-minutes face-offs over four filibustered U.S. Appeals Court nominees: Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, Texas judge Priscilla Owen, Mississippi judge Charles Pickering and Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada.
Our own W. James Antle III wasn't impressed this week in ESR about this slumber party.
Posted by steve @ 05:08 PM EST [Link]
~ EL RUSHBO BACK ON THE AIR!: If you haven't turned on your radio in five weeks, chances are your a dittohead. Well, wipe the dust off of it friends, because Rush Limbaugh will be back on the air on Monday!
Posted by steve @ 03:48 PM EST [Link]
~ SON PROMO ALERT. First, congrats to ESR for returning to cyberspace. And, a "hear, hear" to those who made a contribution.
My son Wid III is featured in the Nov-Dec issue of Elle Girl magazine, a national fashion publication for the 13-18 set. He is one of three teens interviewed for a Q&A on homeschooling. Page 133.
Posted by izzy @ 10:49 AM EST [Link]
~ SO WHY DID THEY MAKE IT?: The International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran has made low-enriched uranium and plutonium that could be used to make a nuclear weapon but it has found no evidence of any program.
"Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge enrichment program, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment program," according to the report, obtained by CNN.
"In that context, Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of LEU using both centrifuge and laser enrichment processes, and that it had failed to report a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of small amounts of plutonium."
I'd buy that...Iran has produced material for nuclear weapons but they have no plans to build such weapons. Makes sense to me!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:36 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, November 11, 2003 WHAT MOVEMENT?: I got an interesting email sent to Connie over at Free Dominion and CC'ed to me earlier today by Joe Molnar, a fellow Canadian conservative that I have occasionally traded emails with since the 1990s. Joe is proposing that Canadian conservatives unite together to create a web site along the lines of WorldNetDaily.
Even though I am now retired (and tired) going onto seventy - two years the ability for me has lessened to take on a project such as I am proposing you do. I am still involved personally locally with the Canadian Alliance. We have a good relationship with, and are currently working with the local Oxford County PC's to join forces.
My saddest and deepest regret is that virtually ALL Canadian media is editorially left liberally biased, not to mention that the tax dollar black hole CBC and National Film Board are infested with crypto communists, thus aiding and abetting the country to become the quasi communist state it is becoming. (Health control, CRTC, Canadian Wheat Board come to mind )
Because there is no apparent Conrad Black type conservative media owner on the horizon in Canada, I would like to prod Canadian conservative/ libertarian types to become a major Canadian news force on the internet.
A Canadian site encompassing features of the Drudge Report, WorldNetDaily in the U.S and Bourque Newswatch from Ottawa could possibly become a positive factor on the Canadian political scene. My understanding is that within five years WorldNet became profitable and is expanding into books, radio and now looking to TV (internet TV?).
They have standing in the U.S. Whitehouse Press gallery as a legitimate news medium. They are helping fulfill the demand for right of centre news coverage which is also sorely lacking in U.S mainstream media.
Can a WorldNetDaily happen in Canada? My belief is that it can. Who can make this happen? Reinventing Free Dominion could perhaps become that vehicle. Using WorldNetDaily as a template and with the co-operation and/or involvement of others like Steve Martinovich, Colby Cosh and possibly writers from the defunct Alberta Report, Gwen Landolt from Real Women, Karen Selick, Wendy McElroy, Elizabeth Nickson, Christie Blatchford, Rory Leishman, Clare Hoy reporters and writers contributing together could make it happen and be influential and profitable to boot!
Perhaps there are others such as Pierre Lemieux, Mark Steyn, David Frum to name some others whom have their own sites but may realize greater effect on the right politically in Canada than with individual sites.
Admittedly most of these names are already high profiles and successful in their fields (and that is exactly why I am trying to engage them) but under one roof they could counteract the malevolent left bias that political conservatism endures daily in mainstream Canadian media.
Can you Imagine the "brown envelopes" this source would generate as a news organization?
Despite Free Dominion having many readers and posters, FD will probably not progress much farther than a debating place in its present format.
That is not meant in a disparaging way, but as a fact, in my view. So while your current efforts are laudable, I would hope you would push forward to greater things for the site and conservatism. Individual Blogs and websites just cannot do what ONE HIGH POWERED conservative site might do.
I am deliberately filing copies to the writers mentioned in the hopes it will tweak their interest in contributing and becoming a major force in reshaping the conscience of this nation as it sadly continues to diminish on the world stage. Does the notion sound fanciful? Perhaps, but on the other hand consider the reality of an internet force of the Canadian RIGHT!
Hopefully the idea will resonate and become in some form, a reality.
All the Best, Sincerely,
Joseph ( Joe ) Molnar
First, I'm honored to be mentioned in the same paragraph as people like Hoy, Blatchford and Cosh but I had to respond thusly:
Why aim for a Canadian WND...why not a Canadian National Review or NRO?
Ezra Levant's effort out in Alberta seems to be an effort to recreate a Western conservative magazine, which is a good start, but why should Canadian conservatives be content with simply that or a WorldNetDaily styled web site?
The Canadian conservative movement, despite the hopeful wishes of the Tories and the Alliance, is in the same position that the American conservative movement was in after Goldwater lost to Johnson. It needs an intellectual flag to follow, much as the National Review served for American conservatives. I'm not really interested in creating Yet Another Website. I already have a thriving and quite popular web site. What we should be trying to do is sow the seeds of a new intellectual movement and we could do that with an NR-styled effort.
Please note Joe, I'm not criticizing your idea as bad. I think anything that promotes conservativism or rationality in Canada is a bloody good thing. I just think that with the state of the conservative movement today, we need something more than a web site.
The problem, of course, is that conservatives in this country have no interest what-so-ever in creating a broad-based conservative movement. They're either happy as tokens in the establishment or as martyrs to their failed dreams.
Or perhaps to put it another way, Canadian conservatives will gladly screw each other over to protect their little fiefdoms. They aren't interested in creating a new conservative movement -- which would take the hard work of rebuilding a grassroots -- they are interested in protecting themselves. There isn't any payoff to a new conservative movement, or at least one that directly benefits them.
Cynical? Yes. Truthful? Probably.
Posted by steve @ 07:51 PM EST [Link]
~ DIRTY HARRY IS ACCEPTABLE: I suppose the entire concept of a list of "best movies" is designed to provoke argument and debate so in that spirit Men's Journal has produced a list of the Top 50 Best Guy Movies.
1. Dirty Harry (1972)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Scarface (1983)
3. Diehard (1988)
5. The Terminator (1984)
6. The Road Warrior (1981)
7. The Dirty Dozen (1967)
8. The Matrix (1999)
9. Caddyshack (1980)
10. Rocky (1976)I can live with Dirty Harry at number one though I would have likely placed another movie there myself. I know it's heresy to say this but I don't like The Godfather. Scarface in third? Definitely and I'm happy to report that a copy of the 20th anniversary edition of the movie has been gifted to me ... Coincidentally enough, I just watched The Matrix on DVD an hour ago and while I like it, it shouldn't be in the top ten. I would have gladly placed Goodfellas in its spot.
How could Lethal Weapon not make the top ten? The first one was marvelous...
Read about the first ten movies here, and an interview with a MJ editor here.
Posted by steve @ 07:15 PM EST [Link]
~ TMQ IS BACK! Tuesday Morning Quarterback is back! You can find Easterbrook's football musings at Football Outsiders.
Click here.
His cheerleader of the week is a babe but the one I picked last night is better...
Posted by steve @ 06:36 PM EST [Link]
~ J'ACCUSE!: Kevin Michael Grace has unleashed a torrent of criticism towards Link Byfield over the demise of The Report, Canada's last conservative magazine, earlier this year. I'd quote from it but it's really something that you have to read in its entirety.
Among the charges? Corruption and a profligate corporate culture.
Either way, KMG makes some very serious charges that's backed up by documentary evidence you can find over at Kevin Steel's web site. Both men are former Report employees.
[Update - 7:24pm] Kevin Steel also weighs in.
Posted by steve @ 06:26 PM EST [Link]
~ WE REPORT. WE DECIDE.: A student who participated in a townhall/debate amongst Democratic candidates says she was given a question to ask.
The news network on Tuesday acknowledged that a producer went "too far" in telling Brown University student Alexandra Trustman what to ask.
CNN televised the debate, co-sponsored by the nonprofit Rock the Vote organization, last week. It was billed as an event geared to the interests of young people.
And what was this weighty question? Whether the candidates preferred Wintel or Apple computers.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:43 PM EST [Link]
~ NEVER FORGET: Today is Remembrance Day in Canada and much of the Commonwealth world. Never forget.
To honour our war dead, some vandals sprayed anti-war slogans on the National War Memorial in Ottawa early this morning. God couldn't help them if I knew who they were...
Posted by steve @ 02:38 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY'LL NEVER GIVE UP: Years after the whole Monarch butterfly/global warming link was discredited the National Academy of Sciences is once again proclaiming that the butterflies are going to become endangered because of...you guessed it, global warming.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:27 PM EST [Link]
~ EVERYONE'S MORE CONSERVATIVE: Amy Ridenour blogs a couple of polls that show more Americans declare they are conservative vs. moderate or liberal and that more African-Americans describe themselves as conservative than liberal (though moderates make up the biggest block).
Posted by steve @ 12:36 AM EST [Link]
~ OKAY JIM, I'VE GOT SOME BAD NEWS: Movie night at Fort Sinatra consisted of "28 Days Later..." Since Dennis Kucinich is on record looking for a "first lady" I may as well get into the act. Conservative ladies...you want to know the way to my heart? Kung Fu movies. Zombie movies. Kung Fu Zombie movies...though I don't know how that would work...Kung Fu fighting zombies? Kung Fu fighters taking on zombies?
At any rate, borrowed "28 Days Later..." from a friend of mine and while it's not a zombie movie, many people have taken to describing it as thus. Basic plot? A man wakes up from a coma in a hospital in England and discovered a deserted London. After learning that some sort of virus escaped into the wild, Jim (Cillian Murphy) quickly learns that London -- and the rest of England -- isn't so deserted. The virus has turned ordinary people into raging monsters. If so much as a drop of blood from an infected person enters your body, within 20 seconds you turn into a raging zombie yourself. Needless to say, that plot device occasionally has you counting the seconds...
The movie was essentially made on a shoe string budget but I have to say it works...for the most part. Not enough "zombies" and the last act, which consists of Jim and a few other survivors meeting up with a British military unit, doesn't work that well. That said, the movie was decent and I can see why a lot of people were hyped on the movie. It's a rental, not a buy.
Interesting trivia: Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) stated that he used topless women to persuade male drivers not to drive on the streets where they were shooting, to keep them free of traffic.
Tomorrow night's movies? "The Matrix" and "The Matrix: Reloaded" courtesy of my friend Neil. I haven't seen the second movie and I wanted to revisit the first before I spent money on the final leg of the trilogy.
Posted by steve @ 12:30 AM EST [Link]
~ MONDAY NIGHT QUARTERBACK: All props to the Philadelphia Eagles who just pulled out a win over the Green Bay Packers. I don't know how they keep doing it but the Eagles keep winning. At any rate, given that I had the Packers by 9 over the Eagles, it capped another poor weekend for me. Nine of 14 games.
The New York Giants yet again screwed me (I should come up for an acronym so I don't have to keep typing those words) while Indianapolis, Seattle and Minnesota didn't aid my cause either.
Week 1: 9 of 15 (Thursday night game not counted)
Week 2: 13 of 15
Week 3: 10 of 15
Week 4: 10 of 15
Week 5: 11 of 14
Week 6: 11 of 14
Week 7: 8 of 14
Week 8: 10 of 14
Week 9: 7 of 14
Week 10: 9 of 14Season %: 68 (-2.6%)
In honour of the Eagles win I offer Caroline, a 1st year Eagles cheerleader. Caroline is attending Rutgers University where she is taking accounting. Unfortunately she seems to be a Justin Timberlake fan but a woman that looks like Caroline can enjoy any music she likes.
Posted by steve @ 12:19 AM EST [Link]
Monday, November 10, 2003 WELL, IT'S ONE WAY TO MEET A WOMAN: Dennis Kucinich has no shot at winning the Democratic nomination for president but his race for the presidency is giving him a shot at meeting women.
Last Wednesday, Kucinich described his ideal woman as a "dynamic, outspoken woman who was fearless in her desire for peace in the world and for universal single-payer health care and a full employment economy. If you are out there, call me."
On Friday, www.PoliticsNH.com started accepting personal ads for Kucinich and reportedly a 33-year old woman from New Jersey named Gina Marie was the first to respond.
Read on.
I suppose it's better than hunting for your future bride in a bar. God knows that's gotten me far.
Posted by steve @ 07:56 PM EST [Link]
~ SO WHO DO WE CHEER FOR?: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said today that al-Qaida aims to destablize and topple the Saudi royal family.
"It is quite clear to me that al Qaeda wants to take down the royal family and the government of Saudi Arabia," he said.
I feel bad for those killed in the recent bombings but ordinary Saudis better ask what role they and the royal family played in al-Qaida's ability to finance the attack. Millions of dollars every month flow out of Saudi Arabia into bank accounts linked to the terrorist group. You paid for your own deaths.
Read on.
Meanwhile, the National Post is reporting that the attacks have angered Muslims. See, there was no problem when Western women and children were the targets...
Posted by steve @ 01:45 PM EST [Link]
~ ROCK THE VOTE: Good news for Republicans...college students like George W. Bush. Charles Rousseaux explains in all in an American Spectator Online piece.
Posted by steve @ 01:21 AM EST [Link]
~ GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER: Right Wing News polled right of center bloggers to find out who they'd want to invite to dinner. Each blogger was allowed up to 20 picks and you can find the results here. Number one invitee? Jesus Christ.
You can find my list by clicking on "More". [more]
Posted by steve @ 12:44 AM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: A big thank you goes to Carol Devine-Molin for her kind donation. Thank you!
Posted by steve @ 12:06 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, November 9, 2003 TAX INCREASE AMENDMENTS FAIL IN COLORADO: Here in Colorado we just had an election in which the state government, caught between amendments voters approved in previous years which mandate certain spending, e.g., schools and amendments limiting the state's ability to tax (esp. TABOR, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights) asked the voters to repeal the Gallagher Amendment, which through a formula relating business property tax to residential property taxes effectively capped that tax.
The voters said "No!" rather resoundingly.
A state senator wrote to me shortly thereafter bemoaning the state of affairs, saying:
The general consensus that has emerged is that if the state does nothing to reform our current constitutional fiscal mandates (TABOR, Gallagher, and Amendment 23), in the very near future, our entire state budget will be needed to fund only three areas -- Medicaid (federal mandate), K-12 education (state constitutional mandate) and prisons. There will nothing left for higher education and other core services people want and expect from government.To which I replied, "That's wonderful news. Go broke with my blessing until the state goes AWOL from the War on Drugs." As far as I can see, TABOR is working as designed, there apparently being no other way left to the citizenry to wake up the "responsible leaders" to their responsibility to desist from the systematic taxpayer-funded human rights offenses that characterize drug policy in this country.
Posted by jwoehr @ 09:23 PM EST [Link]
~ CONSERVATISM, OPTIMISM AND PRUDENCE: Conservatism has never been a sunny ideology, a political philosophy based upon boundless hope in the goodness of man. It has always been skeptical of change and taken a dim view of human nature.
This began to change for American conservatives at least by the early 1980s. The main reason for this was probably the influence and leadership of Ronald Reagan, who tethered political conservatism to American optimism. Since then, conservatism has been characterized by a strong optimistic strain. This has not come without changes. Not so long ago, Steve Sailer observed on his website that neoconservative optimism about America's ability to reshape the Middle East along Democratic lines was at variance with traditional Burkean prudence.
I bring all this up because ESR friend and sometime contributor Paul Cella recently wrote an interesting piece on the subject of conservatism and optimism for Tech Central Station. It's well worth a look.
Posted by antle @ 07:31 PM EST [Link]
~ TAXING AFRICA TO DEATH: Paul Craig Roberts has been writing many things I don't agree with lately, but this column on the destructive impact of tax rates in Africa is dead-on.
Posted by antle @ 05:55 PM EST [Link]
~ LEGITIMIZING A RACE-BAITER: Stellar Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby puts his finger on one of the great scandals of the 2004 Democratic presidential race: The blithe acceptance of Al Sharpton, a virulent and unrepentant race-baiter, as a legitimate presidential candidate. Democrats running can criticize Howard Dean for a clumsy (and somewhat condescending) but innocuous comment about guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks, but Sharpton's record of anti-white racism and fanning the flames of racial and ethnic conflict is off-limits. Top-tier candidates like John Kerry and Joe Lieberman even joke about becoming Sharpton's running mate.
Conservatives and Republicans don't have a perfect record on race, as evidenced by GOP Mississippi Gov.-elect Haley Barbour's indefensible acceptance of the Council of Conservative Citizens. (On the basis of Barbour's full record, I don't believe he is a racist. He was an excellent chairman of the Republican Party and was my preferred candidate in this race. But Mississippi politicians of both parties -but particularly the GOP - need to stop condoning the C of CC.) But nobody has made a career out of racial resentment like Sharpton and there is nary a complaint.
Jacoby deserves credit for telling it like it is. Read the full story here.
Posted by antle @ 05:45 PM EST [Link]
~ YEAH, BUT HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL?: Mark Steyn apparently doesn't like Europeans. How can you tell? He titled his latest Spectator article "Europeans are worse than cockroaches".
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:46 AM EST [Link]
~ NOT THAT MUCH HAS CHANGED IN AFGHANISTAN: Vida Samadzai, who raised eyebrows across the world as Miss Afghanistan (picture, 20.4KB), could be prosecuted in her native country if she ever decides to return.
Fazel Ahmad Manawi, deputy head of Afghanistan's Supreme Court, told The Associated Press that Vida Samadzai, a college student in California, had betrayed Afghan culture by appearing at the Miss Earth contest in a bikini - and may have also broken the law.
"I hope that this lady regrets her actions," Mamawi said. He added that Afghan prosecutors may open an investigation, but refused to say what charges or penalties Samadzai could face.
Fazel dude...did the U.S. liberate Afghanistan so you could charge Afghan-Americans with wearing a swimsuit? Lighten up.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:19 AM EST [Link]
~ WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL: Andras Simonyi, Hungarian ambassador to the U.S., said Saturday night that rock and roll was one of the influences that brought down that nation's communist regime.
None other than Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, one of the few conservatives of the rock and roll world, introduced Simonyi at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Rock on brothers.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:11 AM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: Thanks go to Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research and Sean Hackbarth for their donations. It is truly appreciated.
Posted by steve @ 04:58 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, November 8, 2003
GET OUT OF THE TENT ACHILLES...IT'S TIME TO FIGHT: (Via Ghost of a Flea) The one movie I've been anxiously awaiting is the Wolfgang Peterson project "Troy", the latest cinematic version of The Iliad. Great cast (Brad Pitt, Peter O'Toole, Julie Christie), amazing sets...I can hardly wait until May 14, 2004. This is either an ambitious failure or it hits a home run.
Hopefully it will inspire more people to read The Iliad...
Find out more here.
Posted by steve @ 05:31 PM EST [Link]
~ HISTORIC WHEN DEMOCRATS DO IT?: AP is reporting that Howard Dean, in a "historic" move has announced that he will not take public funding in his bid for the White House. That means Dean will not be subject to any spending limits.
Historic...the first person to do something? Well, not quite. In the second paragraph the AP reports that George W. Bush opted out during the Republic primaries in 2000 and has already stated he's opting out for 2004.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:14 PM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: Thanks goes to Karl Brooks, Michael Edwards and Guy Hail for their donations during our fundraising drive. Thanks very much gentlemen!
Posted by steve @ 03:30 PM EST [Link]
~ WAR ON DRUGS? SOMETIMES NOT A GOOD THING: "After complaints from parents and students, police in Goose Creek, South Carolina, defended their decision Friday to send a team of officers, some with guns drawn, into a high school earlier this week for a drug raid that turned up no drugs. "
Hey, as long as they found nothing. God knows how many terrorists are running around the U.S. while police officers are ramming firearms into the noses of 17-year olds. I am so not going to go on a rant right now....
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 05:18 AM EST [Link]
Friday, November 7, 2003 SELF PROMO ALERT: I had a pile of self promo alerts while ESR was down but I won't bother listing them all. Of interest though was one I had in the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday about the paucity of Arab aid for Iraqi reconstruction. You can read it by clicking on "More". [more]
Posted by steve @ 04:53 PM EST [Link]
~ SHARPTON WARNS DEMS NOT TO FILIBUSTER BROWN: It's an odd world when a voice of reason is Al Sharpton. He warned Senate Democrats not to filibuster Janice Rogers Brown's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
"I don't agree with her politics. I don't agree with some of her background," said Mr. Sharpton, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. "But she should get an up-or-down vote."
Mr. Sharpton forgets that African-Americans -- and minorities in general -- are only useful to the Democrats as a means to bash Republicans. Some of the most shabbily treated Bush nominees are African-Americans but the Dems only want those with a plantation mindset -- that is, only those grateful to the master for giving them privileges, not fair treatment. Harsh yes, but Democrats haven't believed in fair treatment for people since John F. Kennedy. Since Lyndon Johnson, African-Americans are merely a voting block to court.
Read on.
[Update - 4:25pm] Or perhaps not. I just received a press release from Project 21 that states Sharpton has gone back on his word.
In a November 5 interview with Sinclair Broadcasting, Sharpton opposed plans by liberal senators to keep the Brown nomination from coming to a full vote in the U.S. Senate through a filibuster. He said: "I don't agree with her politics. I don't agree with some of her background. But she should get an up-or-down vote." The next day, however, Sharpton's office released a statement urging senators "to do everything within their means to prevent" Brown from being confirmed. Speaking on liberal pressure experienced by Sharpton to change his opinion, talk radio host Armstrong Williams, who was in contact with Sharpton, told The Washington Times: "He said they were putting a lot of pressure on him."
"I believe that Al Sharpton's unambiguous about-face is proof positive that liberal racists without question are able, in the face of undeniable evidence, to not just control the Jesse Jacksons and Elijah Cummings of our nation but also someone who - at face value - is believed to be as independent as Sharpton has been," said Project 21 member Mychal Massie, a Pennsylvania small businessman.
So much for that voice of reason thing...
Posted by steve @ 03:28 PM EST [Link]
~ LYNCH RESCUED MAY HAVE BEEN OVERDRAMATIZED: Who said that? None other than Jessica Lynch. In an interview with ABC's Primetime to air next Tuesday, Lynch believes that the U.S. military may have overdramatized the circumstances surrounding her rescue.
Responding to questions that the military may have exaggerated the danger of her nighttime rescue from a Nasiriya hospital by U.S. commandos, she said, "Yeah, I don't think it happened quite like that."
However, she also said that anyone "in that kind of situation would obviously go in with force, not knowing who was on the other side of the door."
She takes issue with the filming of the rescue and how the military publicized it. She does, however, call the cats who went in "heroes." Damned straight.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:21 PM EST [Link]
~ REYNOLDS AND KOPEL ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION LAWS: Glenn Reynolds and Dave Kopel write about partial-birth abortion laws back in 1997. Read their take here.
Posted by steve @ 03:17 PM EST [Link]
~ DON'T JUST BLAME THE VICTIM, ARREST HIM: An 80-year-old man defends himself from a violent mugger with a firearm and ends up being subjected to unlicensed firearm charges. His gun enabled him to protect himself - so the police took it and his other weapon away.
Remember: Gun control is for public safety. Read the full story here. Via The Corner.
Posted by antle @ 02:31 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE IRAQI RELICS FOUND: U.S. officials announced today that two more relics looted from Baghdad's main museum have been located. Most of the stuff reported stolen has been found and replaced and yet you still occasionally hear pundits yammer on about the "thousands" of artifacts that were taken.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE GOOD NEWS FOR DUBYA: Job growth in the United States grew for a third straight month in October. It's the biggest jump since January.
I'm not saying Dubya is unbeatable but as long as the economy keeps growing and the situation in Iraq doesn't get out of hand...hey baby, Republicans have themselves a two-termer!
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:56 PM EST [Link]
~ NRO FILLING IN FOR ESR?: The folks at NRO must have known that ESR was offline for most of this week. In the absence of this Canadian conservative webzine, they posted an interesting debate over the merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, with an emphasis on what this means for the Canadian right. Adam Daifallah of the National Post thinks the merger is a good thing; Michael Taube of the Windsor Star disagrees.
You can read their debate here, here and here.
Posted by antle @ 12:24 PM EST [Link]
~ PONNURU VS. FRUM ON ABORTION: Yesterday, David Frum posted an item in his NRO blog saying that while he supports the partial-birth abortion ban President Bush just signed into law, he does not share the pro-life movement's ultimate goals. In response to the deluge of e-mails he received on the subject (despite his request to the contrary), today he argued that a general abortion ban would tear the country apart and treat women like criminals. Ramesh Ponnuru, an especially eloquent pro-lifer, has responded to both points.
I'm not going to rehash the whole debate their exchange raises here. ESR's writers, like NRO's, differ on the abortion issue. But here's an aspect of their debate that's likely to be overlooked: Both writers endorse legislation restricting abortions that a broad consensus of Americans find abhorrent, like the partial-birth procedure. Frum says he believes that enacting such restrictions will make legal abortion more secure. Ponnuru seems to assume that such legislation would be part of a gradualist strategy on the part of the pro-life movement on the way to full legal protection for unborn children.
Ponnuru may well be right - certainly his approach seems more realistic and has so far been more effective than the position of ban-all-abortions-right-now absolutists as well as the strategies employed by the pro-life movement in the past. That is why this pro-lifer concurs with his support for an incremental strategy.
But there are also reasons to suspect Frum could be right. As pro-lifer Fred Barnes recently noted, serious opposition to abortion and its status as a defining characteristic of a politically viable conservatism is rare outside the United States. Not unheard of - countries like Ireland and Poland have pro-life legal regimes - but rare. In countries like Great Britain and, I fear, Canada the abortion debate is largely over. In the U.S., it is as much a part of the everyday political debate as taxes or the budget. Why is this the case?
We often hear that it has to do with the secularism of these other countries. Strong currents of traditionalist Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism have provided a political constituency for the pro-life movement in the U.S. that doesn't exist in, say, France or Britain. It is also the case that most of these countries settled the abortion debate legislatively rather than by judicial fiat. Many people argue that the heavy-handedness of Roe v. Wade is responsible for America's abortion politics.
But there's a third reason that gets less attention: The Roe abortion regime, when combined with the health standards of Doe v. Bolton, is actually more permissive than that of many other countries where the pro-life movement is weak. In many of these countries, late-term abortions are discouraged if not illegal, it is a requirement that women are to be provided with information and alternatives before obtaining an abortion and Robert Casey-style waiting periods are a matter of course. Many of the most egregious pro-abortion excesses, like partially delivering a viable fetus, jamming scissors into its skull and sucking its brains out, simply don't exist. When abortions are mainly occuring under circumstances where the pro-choice position is strongest (especially those particularly early in the pregnancy) rather than allowing the debate to be centered where it is weakest (partial-birth abortion, sex-selection abortions), then this favors pro-choicers and makes it more difficult to mobilize a pro-life political movement.
So it is possible that pro-lifers can ban gradually ban more and more abortions. But it is also possible that after abortion has been restricted in all those areas where there is wide public agreement, pro-lifers will be left with close to 1 million abortions a year that are politically untouchable.
Posted by antle @ 12:13 PM EST [Link]
~ CONFEDERATE METROSEXUAL LEADS THE RACE FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION: Despite a battery of criticism from his rivals and several recent gaffes, the AP is reporting that Howard Dean has held onto his front-runner status. The anybody-but-Dean slot in the Democratic race remains wide open.
Read the full story here.
Posted by antle @ 11:35 AM EST [Link]
~ LIBERTARIANS AND CONSERVATIVES, CONT'D: Of course, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that other conservatives have been tackling the conservative-libertarian split. One example is Steven Laib, who published a response to one of my recent pieces on the subject on IntellectualConservative.com.
Posted by antle @ 11:21 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: You knew it was only a matter of time after ESR came back before the self-promotion would begin! The cover story of the November 17 issue of The American Conservative, not yet online, is my most in-depth look yet at the growing divide between conservatives and libertarians. Special attention is paid to the implications for conservatism as a libertarian-traditionalist alliance that dates back to the Cold War. This issue should be on the newsstands shortly, so if you are not a subscriber please pick it up!
Also, a version of my piece attacking the alleged fiscal conservatism of high-tax Howard Dean is running over at AFF's Brainwash. In the comments section, I have a spirited and interesting exchange with several Dean-leaners, including some folks at the Libertarians for Dean blog. You can read the full story here.
Posted by antle @ 10:53 AM EST [Link]
~ WOMEN DON'T BELONG IN OR NEAR COMBAT
Joseph Farah at World Net Daily wades into the discussion in light of recent revelations that Jessica Lynch was raped during her capture. The purpose of the military is to defend the country, not serve as a jobs program or a social engineering petri dish for feminist stupidity.
Read his opinion at World Net Daily.
While you're there, click on the link at the end to sign the petition.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:40 AM EST [Link]
~ MORE CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING IN POST-CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA: One is that the people don't get to make their own laws. Their will and the decisions of their elected representatives can be summarily discarded to conform to an imaginary version of the Constitution dreamed up by liberals that somehow always manages to enshrine liberal policy preferences as the law of the land.
This is especially clear in the case of partial-birth abortion.
Posted by antle @ 10:34 AM EST [Link]
~ FIRST OF ALL, DO NO HARM -- the Hippocratic Oath
Howard Dean calls himself a doctor -- a practitioner of an art dedicated to saving peoples' lives.
But here's what he had to say about the Terry Schiavo case: "Florida Republicans should be "embarrassed" for intervening to save the life of Terri Schindler Schiavo."
Maybe it's better that this doctor of death went into politics. I'd have to think long and hard before I'd be one of his patients.
The rest of the story is at CNSNews.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:30 AM EST [Link]
~ BONG-WATER...THAT'S FUNNY: James Lileks reviews the third Matrix movie and likes it despite the fact that it wasn't all that good. The secret? Go in with really low expectations.
And because it's Lileks he takes the time to also savage the repulsive Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News for his truly idiotic review of the movie.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:49 AM EST [Link]
~ MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN: A judge in San Francisco, joining peers in Nebraska and New York has issued a temporary restraining order stopping enforcement of the partial-birth abortion ban signed into law by George W. Bush yesterday.
In each case, the judges said the law could be declared unconstitutional because it does not contain an exception to protect the women's health.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:09 AM EST [Link]
~ THANK YOU: ESR received a couple of donations today and I just wanted to thank in no particular order: Charles Bloomer, Jim Robinson, Alan Carroll and David Janes.
Thank you gentleman, your help is very appreciated.
And for betting purposes, for those of you who wagered, ESR was down exactly 1 week, 3 days, 8 hours, 41 minutes, 42 seconds according to InternetSeer.
Posted by steve @ 12:27 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, November 6, 2003 YOU CAN'T INVESTIGATE YOURSELF ARNOLD: California Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today that he will hire an investigative firm to check into groping allegations made against him but that he may not reveal the results to the public.
Not exactly the action of a man with nothing to hide.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:08 PM EST [Link]
~ NOW WE CAN'T EVEN SCARE THEM?: Doubtless you've heard about the case of Lt. Col. Allen B. West, the American soldier who was indicted last week on criminal assault charges for the psychological intimidation tactic he used to acquire vital intelligence from a captured enemy combatant in Iraq -- intelligence that saved the lives of American soldiers facing imminent attack. Terence Jeffrey editorializes about it here.
PatriotPetitions.US has launched a petition to have the U.S. Department of Defence exonerate him. Sign here.
Posted by steve @ 08:14 PM EST [Link]
~ MEANWHILE DEMS SCREW ANOTHER JUDICIAL NOMINEE: Alabama Attorney General William Pryor was blocked from being named to the U.S. Appeals Court seat for a second time today. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:39 PM EST [Link]
~ NOW THE REAL BATTLE BEGINS: California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown made it past a Senate Judiciary Committee vote but now must go to the full Senate where a bunch of Bush nominees have already been waiting a while. Read here.
Also, check out Bruce Walker's recent column on Rogers here.
Posted by steve @ 06:09 PM EST [Link]
~ DEAN GROVELS: Democrat Howard Dean today apologized again for stating that he wanted "guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks" to vote for him.
"I apologize for it. I think it's time to move on. The people who are most concerned about this are the people who are with us. I think we'll be fine."
Read on.
For the record, the flags that some people in the southeastern U.S. sport on their pickup trucks are Confederate battle flags, not the flag of the Confederacy. Actually, if you're completely anal about it, the flags most people fly are the Confederate naval flag...the battle flag, as the pop-up picture illustrates, is square, not rectangular.
Posted by steve @ 04:47 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE WENT TO WAR: Christopher Hitchens has a typically good article restating why the U.S. and its allies went to war against Iraq. Sometimes you gotta keep reminding people.
Posted by steve @ 04:10 PM EST [Link]
~ I SUPPOSE AN EXPLANATION IS IN ORDER: So you're probably wondering...what the heck happened to Enter Stage Right for just under two weeks?
As some of you may know, I was laid off back in March. They say you should have three months living expenses saved up, I thought I was good until February 2004. Turns out I did well above what "they" advise, but not well as I had hoped. Unfortunately, I feel behind in paying the bills for ESR because I simply couldn't afford it. Interland, our hosting company, pulled the plug on October 29.
They revived us today after I managed to scrap together enough money to pay off the arrears though it came at the cost of losing something else, but that's a private matter that you needn't concern yourself with. We're back at least until the end of November when the next bill comes in.
To that end, I'm asking for donations to keep the web site up. It's a move I didn't want to do but the writers of ESR almost unanimously suggested it and I bow to their greater intelligence. To that end, if you'd like to make a donation through PayPal to keep ESR online, please feel free to:
We would certainly appreciate it.
Cordially,
Steve Martinovich
Editor, Enter Stage RightPosted by steve @ 03:20 PM EST [Link]
~ PLEASE DON'T HURT US!: According to U.S. officials, Iraq begged the U.S. not to attack with Saddam Hussein willing to make a deal. I guess he got his answer.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:26 PM EST [Link]
~ GOODNESS, WE'RE BACK!: A full explanation is on its way for why ESR has been missing in action later today.
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