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 [
