October 3, 2003
So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas which on him prey And these have smaller still to bite 'em, and so proceed ad infinitum. Thus every poet, in his kind, Is bit by him who comes behind. -- Jonathan Swift I love this quote, and I've had it memorized since I first read it in Tom Burnham's Dictionary of Misinformation. In fact, I think it explains blogs and their popularity, and in some degrees their incestuousness. Glenn Reynolds or Andrew Sullivan read a news story, and they post a commentary, and then other blogs post commentaries to their commentaries, and so proceed ad infinitum. Don't get me wrong - I think that's terrific! We need an open market for political discussion. Hash things out to the nth degree. Argue, bicker, and scold. The trick is to keep your head, check your assumptions, and expose yourselves to differing points of...
I have to admit, as an ex-pat Californian, even I was surprised by the success of the recall campaign. California politics has long been under thrall to a single party, and the budget meltdown over the past two years (as well as Gray Davis' lying about it during the last gubernatorial race) seemed heaven-sent for California Republicans. After all, California was the laboratory for the more radicalized elements of the Democrats, and it was turning into a quagmire. All that the Republicans had to do was to stay out of the way, and they were assured of significant gains in the next couple of election cycles. Well, as usual, California Republicans had to show that they are bested by no one in shooting themselves in the foot. After pushing through an almost-unprecedented recall of a governor, who incidentally is not accused of any special malfeasance except being an idiot and...
The fallout continues, or sort of. Arnold's back on the campaign trail, being greeted by cheering fans -- er, voters -- but after his apology and non-acknowledgement of the Hitler reference (from almost 30 years ago!), he's keeping his mouth shut. As a strategy, this is probably as much of a winner that he'll come up with at this point of the campaign. I wonder, though, if a third shoe is being prepared for the Sunday edition... Arnold may be under attack, but the LA Times appears to be suffering the damage . Susan Estrich gets her shots in from the editorial page of the LA Times itself: So this is the October surprise? The Los Angeles Times headline that Arnold Schwarzenegger groped and humiliated women? ... But none of these women, as The Times emphasizes, ever came forward to complain. The newspaper went looking for them, and then waited...
Here's another reason to hate the French, courtesy of Merde in France. Does anyone still think that if we had just tried harder to woo the French, we could have gotten their support?...
Allen Barra defends Rush Limbaugh in his recent contretemps over Donovan McNabb. I think Barra is all wet on this one. McNabb may not have fulfilled his potential at Philadelphia, but he's hardly to blame for being the leading rusher on a team that can't run block or pass block worth a damn. Besides, the point isn't whether McNabb is overrated; he probably was, but expectations have come down quite a bit for him. However, Limbaugh's assertion that the media deliberately overrated him as a sort of affirmative action program is just too much to swallow. There is hardly a dearth of black quarterbacks in the NFL these days, and they don't need the press to make them feel good about their performances. ESPN made a mistake in hiring Limbaugh, and Limbaugh made a mistake in taking the job. Normally I respect Limbaugh's intelligence even if I disagree with him,...
Glenn's right -- we should all be reviewing actual news sources for our blogs. But let's all go to Instapundit first just to piss him off....
Power Line's Big Trunk has posted an e-mail he received from author Dr. Laurie Mylroie that explains more about the David Kay report. Go now and read the entire message, and while you're at it check out all of Power Line. It's a great blog. Also, they have an entry two posts below the Mylroie e-mail with a link to an article in the Sun, a British newspaper, on the Kay report....
I doubt this will pan out for the sniper suspects, seeing as how the 9th Circuit won't have jurisdiction on appeal....
Mickey Kaus continues to have fun with this story. Unfortunately, he's probably right about the transient nature of the bounce; it's likely a result of Ah-nold trying to "terminate" the scandal with a quick mea culpa, as well as the high level of disgust at the LA Times for spending several weeks specifically to dredge up this kind of crap. It's not that I don't think that the women are lying, although the fact that four of the six won't identify themselves, and all six never availed themselves of the legal system, does not give me confidence. Arnold himself acknowledged that he's done something, after all. And the incidents in the report are all ugly. But for crying out loud, after all the screeching the Times did over the Clinton sexual peccadiloes (that occured while he was in office, with staff underlings, on the public dime) being blown out of...
I can see PETA protesting this -- perhaps they'd prefer Cheney or Wolfowitz take a turn as a beefeater. Or, better yet, Bush could do the tasting to keep the mice safe....
I haven't absorbed the movie Requiem for a Dream in enough detail to give a thorough review, but I can give some impressions of it from two viewings. The primary feeling I got from the movie is hopelessness. There is no redemption in RFAD. From the first moments of the film, you know that the lives of its characters are sad and wretched, and the strong impression that they won't be going anywhere but down is quickly validated. This is a terrific movie nonetheless, and I think if you can handle the subject material and some graphic scenes of violence and sex (especially towards the end), you can't help but carry this movie with you. Both Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly do great work, but Ellen Burstyn really walks off with this movie. Maybe it's because hers is the most sympathetic character and her destruction is so unbearably sad, but...
October 4, 2003
President Bush surprises everyone with his deep, artistic side by writing poetry. This ought to silence those of his foes who dare to challenge his intellect, eh?...
Here's an AP update to all the Schwarzenonsense from the past 24 hours or so. According to an Austrian news source, California's leading candidate for Governer terminated a meeting of neo-Nazis when he was 17 years old, hunting them down and dispersing them. There's been five more women who've come forward with more groping stories, which Mickey Kaus covers in his latest entry....
Courtesy of Little Green Footballs -- today is the tenth anniversary of the battle in Mogadishu that became the focus of the film, Black Hawk Down. Particularly interesting are Osama bin Laden's comments from a 1997 interview with Robert Fisk....
Hindrocket blasts off at Minnesota Democrats on the Powerline blog. It certainly looks like Mike Hatch is flailing at anything to ruin Pawlenty. Maybe he's a protege of Gray Davis....
Once again, those darn Israelis have sabotaged peace again by having the arrogance to die in large numbers when a Palestinian freedom fighter blows herself up in a Haifa restaurant. You can check out the blogosphere reaction at Little Green Footballs (where it's about what you'd expect), Power Line, and Roger Simon....
A guest column by Andrew Apostalou puts it all into perspective. (Thanks to Roger Simon.) From what I see, we may be the first nation to have such poisonous debate over a war we won, with minimal losses on both sides, and that resulted in liberating over 20 million people (not to mention removing a dangerous regional threat). Does anyone else find this as silly as I do? We knew he was a brutal dictator; we know now that he was actively avoiding compliance with UN resolutions and the terms of the truce that left him in power. At the same time, a significant amount of our overseas military was pinned down enforcing the terms of that truce, and our presence in Saudi Arabia was not helping matters. Eventually we would have to have left, with Saddam in power, which would only embolden other dictators and bin Laden wanna-bes. The...
The Twins seem to have a problem hitting the ball, all of a sudden. Roger Clemens looked a bit shaky at first, but apart from a bases-empty homer, the Twins couldn't hold the Rocket down today and went down to defeat, 3-1. Now that the Twins have let the Yankees off the hook for losing home-field advantage, it doesn't look likely that they'll win the next two (one in New York) to advance this year. Lohse looked good today, but unfortunately not good enough. Ah, well. Tomorrow the Vikings play against the Vick-less Falcons. We should be able to beat them to go to 5-0. If Gus Frerotte has another game like he did against the 49ers, we may have a minor QB controversy in the Twin Cities......
This is more good news, and a good indicator that our campaign is bearing fruit in other areas. The only way we will ever be safe is to transform dictatorships and creaky monarchies into liberal democracies......
Okay, this is just a bit grim, don't you think? I'd hate to think where all these parts eventually ended up. I do think it's interesting that this guy was sentenced to a lot more prison time for selling dead body parts than most drunk drivers get sentenced for vehicular homicide -- in fact, about six times more....
Oh, yeah ... it's back!! I was a big fan of the original (through reruns, naturally, when I was a kid ... no, seriously), but even though this is quite different, I think it's captured the original's spirit. It's one of the few episodic shows I consider must-see on TV, and it has a high-priority setting on the TiVo....
Paris awards honorary citizenship to activist on death row in US : HindustanTimes.com There isn't much to say about this (I got it from Merde in France), other than to point out the disgusting spectacle of the French demonstrating on behalf of a man who murdered a policeman, lionizing him and celebrating him, as an excuse to demonstrate against the "imperialist" Americans, who just liberated over 20 million Iraqis from one of the worst dictatorships in recent memory. Of course, the dictator in question was a French arms client, so you can understand the anger. Demonstrating against the death penalty is a noble thing to do if you believe it to be wrong; I don't support it either. But lionizing murderers is despicable, and now you can see why the French favor Arafat and his gang....
This is beginning to sound like a broken record, but at some point we need to take some action to reverse this trend. The problem, as I found out three years ago when I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, is the high carb count in American diets (hell, the high everything count). Carbs convert to glucose quickly in the bloodstream, and the body responds by producing insulin. But if you do that too often, the body starts becoming resistant to the insulin, just like with most other chemicals. That is the leading cause of Type II -- weight-influenced insulin resistance. The only fix is to either supplement the insulin or to lose the weight. I was fortunate; I was able to lose the weight, but that diagnosis is the only reason why I did. I lost over 100 pounds, and have kept it off almost a year, and I...
I don't know who the hell Alex Kingston is, but she gets a royal Fisking over at Give War A Chance. Kingston is apparently one of those spoiled Hollywood brats who think that the First Amendment provides freedom of criticism, or in other words, free speech for me but not for thee. What a joke. I'm glad Emily had the time for this. Nice job....
I'm not sure if Hindrocket over at Power Line has had a chance to read this Fred Barnes article at OpinionJournal, but maybe it would make him feel a little bit better. The impression I get so far is that the Democrats are doing all the talking, and that's accounting for the slipping numbers. As Barnes points out, that's natural; it's Presidential election season, with the first round of the primaries coming up in three or four months. When Dubya has a chance to focus on the election, the numbers will move back, probably significantly, unless something goes disastrously wrong in the war....
I would just like to let y'all know that I wear a 7 5/8 hat size. (via Gweilo Diaries, who has something in common with me)...
I report, you decide ... but this just feels right to me. (Winds of Change)...
I've been trying to link to an excellent column at ESPN.com by Ralph Wiley on Rush Limbaugh's exit. Unfortunately, their pop-up ad from Orbitz keeps screwing up my browser -- I wind up having to shut all my browser windows down to make it stop. However, I was still able to read the column, and I think he's spot-on....
North Korea: a horror show. Read the whole thing. (via Instapundit)...
October 5, 2003
This ... is not good. No word on Syria's reaction yet, although I doubt it will be very friendly....
So, let me see if I understand journalism ... Arnold gets accused of groping, mostly by women who won't identify themselves and entirely by women who never took any action about it, and he's the Antichrist. However, a bank-robbing Bonnie and Clyde wind up behind bars for multiple armed robberies, and the Times does a sympathetic multiple-column feature story on them? Even though "Clyde" left his wife and kids behind to rob banks and run around with this woman? Odd set of priorities, that....
Damn ... I still don't agree with him on everything, but you have to admit, he makes a pretty good point here. I just wish the Times covered Gray Davis like they covered Arnold. Then I wouldn't have a gripe....
Yeah, I know that there would be a different reaction if this involved a female defendant and a male officer, but I still can't help but have some small part of me think that this kid really lucked out. He got dinner, booze, pot, and lucky, and now as a result, he will probably wind up having the charges against him dropped or at least a very lenient sentence....
Set your TiVos -- Mary Carey has an ad that will run on Monday night's "Tonight Show". Please submit any puns this inspires!!...
The Washington Post has an intelligent, measured editorial aboutDavid Kay's report. This is the best coverage yet that I've seen on the report from the major media, and it doesn't surprise me that the Post was the newspaper that got there first. It makes an important point that hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves: our prewar intelligence was faulty, not faked, but we'd better figure out how to get it fixed....
Frog eggs fall from the sky onto home in Berlin...
The Vikings beat Atlanta 39-26, and go to 5-0! I don't know what Tice did in the off-season, but these guys look good, and are starting to look confident. They're still making mistakes, but they're overcoming them. Of course, their biggest test comes up after the bye next week. They play Denver, who is 4-1 and I think will be the first team with a winning record they've played. We should know a lot more about this team after that....
Idiots. Maybe the best course of action would be to cancel next year's homecoming. It's one thing (still bad) when economically and socially repressed groups riot; while you don't condone it in any way, and you prosecute those responsible, there's some understanding of the desperation involved. What do we have in Mankato? A bunch of spoiled, rich kids who decided to piss all over their surrounding neighborhoods, beat people up, and destroy property. Everyone involved should be expelled, tried, and thrown in jail for a few weeks. It's only at times like this that I wish we had a military draft....
Oh, man ... if you want to read why Gray is going down, just read this article from today's Times. Here's a great quote of the master at work: "We need immigrants to pick our food and put it on our tables," he said as the audience — middle-class Latinos, primarily — shifted uncomfortably. "We need immigrants to clean our hotels and office buildings and take care of the elderly." And: "That work is important.... Whether people are janitors or maids or busboys or cooks, it's all part of the experience we enjoy when we're at a restaurant or a hotel." If any of the Latinos in the studios of the Spanish-language station Univision felt patronized, they didn't say so. But the governor's words landed with a dull thud Monday night, creating one of many awkward moments as he fought for his political life in the final week of the...
Here's a great article by Daniel Weintraub about why the recall came to be, and why it will win. Money quote: Although Davis ridiculed the recall as sour grapes from sore losers and attacked it as a right-wing coup, he realized too late that it was much more than that. The movement might have begun on the far right, but it became a deep, almost cathartic expression of frustration on the part of voters who felt cheated in the 2002 election by the governor's meddling in the opposition party's primary, by two unsatisfactory candidates who ran uninspiring, negative campaigns, and by a political elite who seemed to relish leaving them out of the game. Couldn't have put it any better....
Here's more from David Kay ... information that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of play elsewhere, but explains that we were right in going to war. "We now have three cases in which scientists have come forward with equipment, technology, diagrams, documents and, in this case, actual weapons material, reference strains and botulinum toxin that they were told to hide and that the U.N. didn't find," he said Sunday....
An interesting theory from Frater Libertas. Hmmmm .... Dittoheads should reserve judgment (not that I've ever been one; Rush irritates the snot out of me)....
October 6, 2003
Well, it's about time this administration started taking some action to win the peace. So far, while the Bush team is making all the right moves overseas, they've done a piss-poor job communicating back home. They've allowed the I-ANSWER stooges to occupy all the bandwidth, although Instapundit points out that this is now changing, too. The memo, which outlines working groups to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts, economic development, political affairs in Iraq and the creation of clearer messages to the media, is “a recognition by everyone that we are in a different phase now”, Rice told the Times in an interview Sunday....
Let's face it, Bud sucks anyway ... but I sure as hell won't be buying any of their beer now (third item). I wonder what all the anti-globalists and anti-corporate idiots who support Gray Davis, Algore, etc think about this corporate sponsorship. Could it be that, as opposed to Republicans who actively support businessmen and job creation, these guys spout off platitudes to hoodwink socialists while selling out to the corporate interests they supposedly oppose? True. True....
Here's another article from LA Weekly -- hardly a conservative mouthpiece -- on the origins of these groping allegations about Da Tehmahnatuh. Hint: it ain't all just good investigative journalism. In fact, it looks a lot like previous Davis dirty-tricks schemes. (via Andrew Sullivan)...
Jill Stewart, who wrote an article on Gray Davis that I linked a couple of days ago, puts the Times story in perspective at the LA Daily News. Main thrust: After my story ran, I waited for the Times to publish its story. It never did. When I spoke to a reporter involved, he said editors at the Times were against attacking a major political figure using anonymous sources. Just what they did last week to Schwarzenegger. Be sure to read the whole thing....
I'm wondering if someone shouldn't be losing their job over this story: While President Clinton was trying to broker an elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the FBI was secretly funneling money to suspected Hamas figures to see if the militant group would use it for terrorist attacks, according to interviews and court documents...Several thousand dollars in U.S. money was sent to suspected terror supporters during the operation as the FBI tried to track the flow of cash through terror organizations, the FBI said in a rare acknowledgment of an undercover sting that never resulted in prosecutions. "This was done in conjunction with permission from the attorney general for an ongoing operation, and Israeli authorities were aware of it," the bureau said. One of the FBI's key operatives, who has had a falling out with the bureau, provided an account of the operation at a friend's closed immigration court proceeding....
CNN.com - WTC bomber loses appeal - Oct. 6, 2003 I have nothing to add here....
October 7, 2003
Bob Graham drops out of presidential race; polls show no one knew he was in it to begin with....
Both the Cubs and the Red Sox make it to the championship round. The Red Sox come back from two games down to beat the A's (but who hasn't?), but now have to face the Yanks without home-field advantage. If the Cubs and the Red Sox both make it to the World Series, which jinx will be the strongest? Or will the world end during Game 7?...
Indianapolis scores 28 points in the 4th quarter to beat the vaunted Tampa Bay Bucs defense in overtime on Monday Night Football last night. This was unbelievable! The Bucs had them by the throat all game long, and in fact had a 21-point lead with less than 4 minutes to go. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the Colts' victory (or Bucs collapse, whichever you prefer): Indianapolis became the first team in NFL history to win after trailing by 21 or more points with less than four minutes to play in regulation. Wow! Too bad all of you turned the game off in the 3rd quarter ......
Daniel Weintraub has a hilarious bit on last minute campaigning by Gray Davis and his supporters. This, of course, could only take place in San Francisco: As [Mayor Willie] Brown spoke, a man with an oversized Arnold Schwarzenegger mask strapped to his face, money in his hands and a large blue E symbolizing Enron pursued a woman dressed in pink around the plaza, groping her between faux slaps in the face. And here's something that will make Davis sleep easier: Charles Duff, 24, a student at San Francisco State University, sat with his back to the rally. I asked him what he thought of the recall. “Crazy,” he said. “It’s crazy.” What’s crazy about it? I asked him. “The idea that you can take out a guy and have all these people running to replace him.” So you’re going to vote against the recall? “When’s the election?” he asked before...
If anything should finally underscore the fact that the LA Times has become a Democratic Party shill, this ought to do it. Bill Bradley at the LA Weekly (as mentioned before, no friend to conservatives) reveals a pre-publication leak of the Ah-nuld hit piece to the Davis campaign, who took the ball and ran with it with suspicious "alacrity". More: [T]he paper Monday backed off its previous contention that none of the women in subsequent stories came forward at the urging of Schwarzenegger’s opponents in the wake of the Weekly’s revelation that Jodie Evans, who pushed one of the women to come forward, is not merely the peace activist described by the Times but also a former close colleague of Governor Davis and longtime friend of chief Democratic hit man Bob Mulholland. This is, of course, what the LA Weekly has reported before, and is finally getting out to the...
Chris Muir captures my own ambivalence perfectly....
I have to admit, at first this pissed me off, and it's still irritating me. However, it is worth a read, and Dionne is trying to introduce constructive criticism, which is encouraging. I think this is based on a couple of mistaken notion, however, chief among them that there actually was a post-9/11 consensus. Domestically, that may have been true -- maybe. If so, it was short-lived. Dionne is incorrect to say that the Afghanistan phase of the war received near-unanimous support, however. We were regaled with history lessons about how the British became lost in their Afghanistan entanglement, and how it was the Russian version of Vietnam in the 1980s. World reaction was decidedly more mixed. As Merde in France has repeatedly documented, French opinion was that we got what was coming to us, and our focus on Afghanistan should have been diplomatic rather than military, and our approach...
Here's where I part company with the Right, and my annoying libertarian streak comes out. AndrewSullivan covers this topic in great detail, as he should; he's got a much larger stake in this than I do. (Full disclosure: I'm hetero, married, Catholic, pro-life, anti-death penalty.) He covers a USA Today poll showing the public is evenly split over this topic. And here's my take on this. Marriage, in my faith, is considered a sacrament between a man and a woman which exists for the glory of God and the perpetuation of God's primary creation, etc etc etc. That is my faith, and I subscribe to that view. However, the Church is perfectly free to set those rules for itself and its members, and it's perfectly free to tell members who don't comply to take a hike. Most Christian denominations view marriage in a similar, but not exact, way. Civil marriages...
Still haven't gotten a link from Best of the Web Today -- I'll keep trying. They did mention my name in the credits, though, and a lot closer to the top than ever before ......
How cool is it to have a comment on your blog from Chris Muir, the artist behind Day By Day? It's this cool! Thanks for dropping by, Chris! I am so jazzed ... now go read Chris' comic strip, and you'd better read the entire archive....
... is probably when he offers to slice off your testicles in the comfort of your own home. I mean, how difficult is it to figure this out? They should prosecute the doctor to the full extent of the law, but maybe the victim's family needs to set up a conservatorship on her behalf....
Here's a good interim report on Recall Day in California from the Post. The post I'm reading is from 2:30 PM, and it looks like a heavy turnout in California. Terry Neal points out that there's been some efforts to educate voters on the punch-card ballot process, but I voted in California for almost 20 years and I can tell you that every ballot I every used was punch-card, and most of those were of the notorious butterfly configuration. Californians aren't as stupid as Democrats would have you believe Floridians are. There's an interesting point in one of Neal's earlier dispatches (10/6 11:10 PM): Davis, the final speaker, was introduced by his wife, Sharon Davis, who alluded to the allegations against Schwarzenegger. "My husband has never been accused of anything worse than being dull," she said. Maybe Sharon hasn't read this yet....
Jesse Ventura's new TV show aired on MS-NBC this past weekend, and as Glenn Reynolds points out, the ratings were abysmal -- only an estimated 194,000 people watched it. Glenn is being generous and suggesting that MS-NBC didn't give it the proper PR support. The Post reports: Ventura fans would have had to be paying close attention to even know the show was on the air. MSNBC barely promoted it, running on-air promotions for the debut on Friday night and Saturday. The network bought no print ads and no commercials on other networks. Ventura's show was troubled almost since MSNBC hired him. It was envisioned as a daily, prime-time fixture, but after its premiere was delayed several times, the network said it would run just once a week on Saturday - generally the least-watched night of television. However, I had the opportunity to listen to the "Dork of the Week"...
Yeah, I came home from visiting my wife at the hospital tonight, and had to kill a half-dozen of these little suckers before I went to bed. I haven't been bit yet, at least not to my knowledge, but they're everywhere, and I'm surprised that it was only that many inside. These aren't the red variety; they're Asian lady beetles. Not too much difference, just the color. Lady beetles pose no danger to humans, although they do bite. "They'll land on you and taste-test you to see if you're food," Hahn said. "It's more of a pinch, although they can break the skin. There's no disease associated with them, and they're not drinking your blood. . . . They don't mean to be attacking us. They don't know any better." Well, that's comforting....
Sorry, Dan, but this is an indication of psychosis. Are you going to tell me that if the Cubs actually win a World Series, all you Cub fans will suddenly start cheering for the Cincinatti Bengals? Of course, you still have the possibility I mentioned yesterday ......
No link -- I'm watching Fox News, and Brit Hume used the phrase "possible landslide" for the recall. Interesting. They're predicting Ah-nuld the winner, based on exit polling. 69% of voters opposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Oops!...
Maybe the ACLU can explain why this is undemocratic: The secretary of state said that turnout by late afternoon was running on target at about 60%, according to department official Terri Carbaugh. That turnout is consistent with earlier predictions that the rate would fall roughly between the 70.94% turnout in the last presidential election and the 50.6% turnout in the gubernatorial election last November. The high turnout indicates that "voters are highly attentive and highly engaged," Carbaugh said....
CNN projection: Recall wins by 15 percentage points. It looks like it may well be a landslide....
This didn't take long. Wesley Clark's presidential campaign is already in disarray: Wesley K. Clark's campaign manager quit yesterday in a dispute over the direction of the Democratic presidential bid, exposing a rift between the former general's Washington-based advisers and his three-week-old Arkansas campaign team. Donnie Fowler told associates he was leaving over widespread concerns that supporters who used the Internet to draft Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by top campaign advisers. Fowler also complained that the campaign's message and methods are focused too much on Washington, not key states and the burgeoning power of the Internet, said two associates who spoke on condition of anonymity. Keep in mind that this organization is only three weeks old, at least officially. If he can't avoid this kind of chaos in his own organization in that period of time, what does that say for his ability to manage...
With 13% of precincts reporting, CNN reports that the recall is winning by 12%, and Arnold leads Cruz Bustamante by a margin of almost 2-1. I wouldn't get too complacent yet, but this is looking pretty darn good for the Terminator -- excuse me, the Governator....
October 8, 2003
With 94% of all precincts reporting, the results are clear -- Californians spoke clearly for a sea change in state government. Recall: 54% Yes, 46% No Part B: Schwarzenegger 48%, Bustamante 33%, McClintock 14% This means that in a statewide election, where Democrats have a registration lead of at least 10 percentage points, 62% voted Republican and only a third voted for the only major Democratic choice. Granted, Republicans may have been more motivated to go to the polls, but that excuse only flies if the overall turnout was low; instead, it was a record high for a non-presidential election. The state Legislature has to be very, very nervous now. Wait for the elections next year -- we'll see how pissed off the electorate is and will remain....
The LA Times is all over this trend. They're so ahead of the curve! This is the same paper that just a couple of days ago was insisting that the recall was trending Davis' way. It's hard to remember when a major news outlet was so wrong (like here). Dissatisfied Democrats showed their displeasure with Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday, with about a quarter each breaking ranks to vote for the recall and for a Republican candidate to replace him, according to a Times exit poll. Despite the governor's efforts to rally Democrats to his side, a quarter of liberals and at least 3 in 10 moderate Democrats voted "yes" on the recall, according to the survey of voters. And here's an odd fact: Meanwhile, McClintock, who made a strong appeal to the right wing of the GOP, won support from only about a fifth of conservative Republican voters. Some...
... even if they couldn't leave with a vestige of class and grace. (via California Insider) This type of insult-based dirty campaigning explains why Gray Davis' approval ratings are below Richard Nixon's post-resignation ratings. Good riddance. Take Cruz with you....
Do you think Dan Barreiro is celebrating this, or crying in his beer? If his earlier column is any indicator, probably both....
Another good point made by Chris Muirabout the Big Lie of dissent-crushing in America these days. I get so tired of people screaming in the streets and all over television that the Bush administration is forcing them to stay silent, without any sense of irony whatsoever. Quick way to see if you live in a free society: If you call the leader of your country a Nazi, which happens in a fascist state? 1: You're arrested and spend 20 years in a prison or mental facility; 2. You get put on TV and Hollywood sends you cash. If you're too dense to pick Option 1, perhaps you aren't qualified to speak to any other issues....
The "chocolate makers" have dropped their plans to create a military organization outside of NATO. Apparently, France, Germany, Beligium, and that military powerhouse Luxembourg decided that their combined might would only challenge the Junior ROTC in Berkeley. Instead, they plan to create a military "planning" cell. Do these guys have any clue about how that sounds during a war on Al Qaeda? No, apparently not. (Via Merde in France)...
It looks like a ten-point margin of victory for the recall, and Arnold took 46.4% of the second part, against 31% for Bustamante and 12.8% for McClintock (99% of all precincts reporting now). This means that slightly under 60% in a record turnout voted Republican against a lone Democrat. Also, since Proposition 54 went down in flames (64% no), you can't chalk it up to a conservative turnout. If anything, Prop 54 turns out to be the bellwether, the control group if you will, on who voted in this election. The 7.7 million people who voted were completely representative of Californians statewide, and they enthusiastically rejected Gray Davis and the Democrats. Unless Arnold [that's Governor Arnold to you, ex-pat boy!] screws up, this is trouble for the Democratic visegrip on California politics....
This is the new dictionary definition of chutzpah. Let's see -- did his job description include the following task: "May be called on occasion for some lightweight slaughtering of defenseless and terrified co-workers"? No? Then someone needs to tell this lady to shut the **** up and have the decency to hide in shame for the rest of her life....
Roger Simon is right about this title and article; Steve Lopez takes a cheap shot (specifically about the Fuhrer part of it). Otherwise, bitter as it may be, it's still a pretty good article. I'm happier about the outcome than Lopez, but he is right in that the situation that created the recall in the first place -- gridlock, Gray Davis in office, mandated spending -- was created by California voters in the first place. Gray Davis only made it a hell of a lot worse than it had to be....
The Euro took another baby step towards oblivion by ignoring France's economic violations of its underlying agreements. Isn't this the same country that insisted that countries could not act unilaterally in defiance of the community of nations? Sweden's looking smarter and smarter every day....
Just three weeks into his campaign, and Wesley Clark is already self-destructing. First his campaign manager quits after three weeks on the job, and now it looks like the General is breaking federal election laws: Under the laws governing the financing of presidential campaigns, candidates cannot be paid by corporations, labor unions, individuals or even universities for campaign-related events. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) considers such paid political appearances akin to a financial contribution to a candidate. Clark is getting paid as much as $30,000 for speeches, according to people familiar with his arrangement. He has two more scheduled for next week. Clark, like any other candidate, would likely be permitted to deliver the paid speeches only if they did not "expressly" cover his campaign or his political opponents, the experts said. But in his speeches, Clark has talked about his campaign positions and criticized President Bush's policies. At DePauw,...
Comparing California voters to unruly toddlers, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune spouts off again on a subject about which they know little. Most parents have witnessed a version of the Toys "R" Us scene in which a child, caught up in the frenzy of toy overload, cries out, "Mommy, I want it, and I want it now!" California politics, always a raucous affair, has become over the last 30 years more shrill, impatient and petulant, more of a toy-store experience. This may be a funny metaphor but sells voters short. California didn't get rid of Gray because of shiny, cool Arnold: they got rid of Gray because Gray has repeatedly sold out Californians to his contributors, and Californians got tired of it. Or perhaps the Strib never bothered to research sweetheart deals like the Oracle contract. Voters in the largest state knew what they didn't want -- more Gray Davis, whom they...
October 9, 2003
The fans in Boston must be happy with this -- the Red Sox just negated the Yankee's home-field advantage in this round of the playoffs. I'd love to see that Cubs-Red Sox series, and while the Cubs also lost their home-field advantage, at least they evened the series last night....
This seems intriguing, although until the written decision is released, it will be difficult to determine how far-reaching the effects will be. If the states are not allowed to regulate voice-over-IP, start putting some money into these companies, and divest from any long-distance carriers you may have money in. The utilities commission wants Vonage -- which charges $34.99 a month for unlimited calling in the United States and Canada -- to be certified as a local phone company. Among other things, Haar said, that would require it to file a complete listing of its various offerings to consumers, a description of its plans for offering emergency 911 service and a plan for participating in a state program than subsidizes phone service for poor people in Minnesota. Vonage believes that the judge, Davis, agreed with its argument that the state lacked regulatory authority in this case because the Constitution prohibits states...
It's a shame that a story like this is even necessary. I didn't know that Walter O'Malley wasn't in the Hall of Fame....
I have to admit, I never thought about this, but if Davis wanted retribution for Bustamante's defection, this might just work!...
Sasha Volokh discusses "blue laws" and their possible change in Massachussets. We have blue laws in Minnesota as well, on the sale of alcohol and (oddly) automobiles on Sundays. Sasha argues for efficiency; I would argue that government really has no business regulating sales of legal products based on the day of the week. Regulating alcohol sales by the hour of the day, on the other hand, has an overriding safety concern that makes government intervention appropriate. I'm not inclined to fix it if no one's complaining, though....
Ever wonder what it takes to get someone fired? If you're Deborah Norville, not much, although it's not clear if she actually initiated the termination. Last week, [Norville] was in town and had to stop by the KTVT-Channel 11 Dallas studios to do a live spot at 2 p.m. For the past year, Richard Daniels, 72, has been the front desk security guard in Dallas. At about 1:45, he looked into his monitor and saw Norville hurriedly approaching, assistant in tow. Daniels went to meet Norville--whom he did not recognize--at the door, which stays locked. According to Daniels and another Channel 11 employee who witnessed the following, Daniels began to say, "May I help you?" At this point, they say Norville--lessee, how would Inside Edition put this?--[deep baritone] they say Deborah Norville began acting more like Diva Norville. "I'm Deborah Norville!" Daniels said she screamed. "I'm late!" According to Daniels...
California Democrats are mighty grouchy today. It's like waking up with a huge hangover, I guess. (via California Insider) Aides to Sen. John Vasconcellos confirmed the liberal San Jose Democrat called Republican Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger "a boob," said voters "made a mistake," and announced that when the Legislature reconvenes in January, "I'm not sure I'll go back... If people want this actor to govern ... they don't need or deserve me." Which just goes to show you that Arnold really does get results. Is this what the Democrats has picked as a new strategy? Picking up their ball and going home? Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said he will introduce legislation he dubbed "Arnold's Law" to increase the penalty for sexual battery in the workplace. At least that has some wit to it. In what would be a pointed show of dissatisfaction, some Democrats may boycott Schwarzenegger's State of the...
Arnold the Governator has picked his transition team, and it's certainly unusual. There will be 65 people from such diverse viewpoints as Mayor Willie Brown, the former King of the Assembly (I'm not kidding about that), Bill Simon Jr, Susan Estrich, and Rep. David Dreier, a well-connected Republican with close ties to the Bush administration: Today, he characterized the transition team that he will head as widely varied, made up of people who are both "very liberal and very conservative." "I will tell you this will be a somewhat unusual group," Dreier said. "The reason I'm so convinced we can have a diverse group is the strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's in a position where he will get a wide range of recommendations from people throughout the state and from around the country." Arnold obviously wants to project an inclusive, healing image for his new administration, and I'm sure Willie...
I'm sure this all started with a directive that a certain percentage of all screeners had to pass their tests. From there, it's easy to get to this point. I mean, even if they weren't given most of the answers, how hard is it to answer questions like these: One question asked "How do threats get aboard an aircraft?" The possible answers were (a) In carry-on bags; (b) In checked-in bags; (c) In another person's bag; and (d) All of the above. The correct answer is (d). A second question asked why it is important to screen bags for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). A possible answer: "The ticking timer could worry other passengers." The right answer: "IEDs can cause loss of lives, property and aircraft." Chuck Schumer said that the questions "appear as if they were written by Jay Leno's gag writer," but that seems unduly harsh ... to Jay...
Seldom do you see a major news outlet sell itself out so completely, but the recall seems to have unhinged the editors of the Los Angeles Times. I read the Times on the Internet, as you will see if you scroll through my archives, but I do so with the knowledge that this newspaper has almost no credibility in its news coverage. Consider the following: The Los Angeles Times said it "corroborated" its stories that Schwarzenegger groped or humiliated more than a dozen women over a nearly 30-year period. But in no case did an eyewitness substantiate for the Times any of the tales despite the fact that the alleged incidents took place while hundreds of crew members on movie sets were present. As for the important "second source" news organizations often require on sensitive stories, the Times usually used a friend or relative who heard about the incidents afterward...
October 10, 2003
Power Line features an excellent essay on
the history of the Liberty Bell, and how the historically ignorant are misrepresenting it in its new setting.
I'm more a fan of green, myself ......
Lawyers, as officers of the court, are expected to play by the rules. One or two slips is forgivable, but six times should have resulted in a contempt charge. Kobe's lawyers knew that they weren't supposed to identify the alleged victim by name during the hearing. It looks like this will be going to trial soon. Let's hope the judge gets more control over the court. Kobe's going to have enough problems as it is; if he's really innocent, he won't want a OJ-style circus that will undercut the validity of an acquittal with the general public....
Tension mounts as perennial football power Michigan comes to Minneapolis to play against the undefeated Minnesota Golden Gophers tomorrow at the Metrodome. So far, this is Minnesota's best season in 40 years, and if they beat the Wolverines, they have a shot at a national title. Of course, at the same time we have to get a lecture on econmics: Exhibit A: At the start of 1993, when Maturi was assistant athletics director at the University of Wisconsin, the Badgers' athletic department was $3 million in debt. Then the football team went to the Rose Bowl. "We went from $3 million down to a million in reserves almost overnight,'' Maturi said. While Minnesota's $47 million athletics budget is not currently in the red, it definitely could use a cash infusion as it attempts to raise money for an on-campus football stadium. C'mon, guys, this is supposed to be fun!...
Despite the results of the recall, letting foreign-born citizens run for President is a bad idea. As the descendent of immigrants -- I am third-generation on my mother's side -- I do not see the need or the benefit of a foreign-born citizen filling the role of head of state. The Washington Post editorializes: The nation has profited from the service of naturalized citizens in sensitive posts such as secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and American public life is rife with people whose commitment to this country is one of choice, rather than birth. In every other sphere, American law welcomes such citizens and acknowledges parity between them and the native-born. Yes, I agree, although Kissinger's loyalties were often questioned during and after his tenure. Look at the vitriol thrown at American-born Jews in the Bush administration, such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle....
I have to admit, what Steve Wynn says about the tiger "attack" makes sense. It's a real shame that it happened, but it appears to be an outrageously unlikely fluke. One question, though: if your tiger is going to be distracted by "big hair", why would you use that tiger in Las Vegas? Have you ever seen the women in the audience for these shows?...
Too often, blog readers tend to focus on those sites where they expect to find no disagreement with their own opinions and prejudices. When I started this blog, I took a quick look around at a few other TypePad blogs, and I stumbled across the TwilightCafé. (Literally stumbled, by the way; I still have a Band-Aid on my elbow.) The next day, Alicia was the first person to post a comment on one of my posts, and I added her to my blogroll, and now she's done the same for me. My first link! We probably don't agree on a lot, as Alicia acknowledges: Since I started this weblog on TypePad, I have found lots of interesting people's sites. I have finally found a conservative (that is safe to say, I believe) whose arguments are well thought out and logical. (I am sure there are more out there, but I...
At the end of the third quarter: Minnesota Golden Gophers 28, Michigan Wolverines 7. Go Gophers! Take back the Little Brown Jug!...
My beloved Dodgers have been sold to Frank McCourt, who has been trying to buy a major-league baseball team for years. He finally succeeded with one of MLB's crown jewels, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium, which comes as part of the deal. Frank McCourt, a Boston real estate developer who failed in two earlier attempts to buy major league teams, has reached an agreement to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers from News Corp., both parties said Friday. McCourt will head an investment group that reportedly has offered more than $400 million for the team, Dodger Stadium and adjoining real estate, plus training facilities in Vero Beach, Fla., and the Dominican Republic. Tommy Lasorda, the legendary Dodgers' manager for 20 years (and the winner of two World Series championships, four National League pennants, and I believe seven division titles), waxes optimistic about the sale: "It's been an organization of...
I don't know if you are a praying person, but if you are or aren't, send up a good thought for my First Mate. She's in the hospital for the fourth night in a row, struggling with some of the more unpleasant effects of chronic Type 1 diabetes. I spent five hours there tonight (thankfully, my bosses are very understanding family types) and she had a rough day. We're turning the corner on it, but it'll be another couple of days before she'll be able to come home. Thank you....
Okay, just as I was posting that last one, the Gophers just allowed the Michigan Wolverines to score 31 points in the fourth quarter to come back and win the game, 38-35. I stayed up for that? Long day ... I'm gonna go to bed....
October 11, 2003
I understand the motivation behind dress codes such as this, but when they're implemented in an inflexible manner, it makes everyone look ridiculous. An 11-year-old Oklahoma girl has been suspended from a public school because officials said her Muslim head scarf violates dress code policies. Board officials met Friday to discuss the fate of suspended sixth-grader Nashala "Tallah" Hern, who was asked to leave school in the eastern Oklahoma town of Muskogee on October 1 because she refused to remove her head scarf, called a "hijab." "Zero tolerance" rules really mean "zero thinking", and this is a great example of it. Gang members do identify themselves through clothing, including headgear, usually with professional sports merchandise. Prohibiting such displays makes sense, and public schools should try to eliminate them. However, instead of exercising some judgment or making the effort to determine what is and is not acceptable to wear, administrators take...
I'm sorry that this little girl got paralyzed, but I fail to see how you can blame it on anyone but the drunk driver. The parents of a girl paralyzed in a car wreck caused by a drunken football fan have sued the National Football League, claiming it should be held responsible for the girl's injuries. The lawsuit, filed Thursday, contends the league promotes the type of behavior that led the fan to drink 14 beers at a New York Giants game in 1999 and then drive home. Why include the NFL? Because you won't get that much money out of a guy who's serving several years in prison for the crime. Tailgating is not inherently a bacchanalia; most people handle their alcohol respectably, and there's a lot of other things that go into tailgating, like grilling food, etc etc. It frustrates me when lawyers attempt to hold people responsible...
How the heck do you let a guy like this escape? A suspect in the murders of five people whose bodies were unearthed from his backyard escaped Friday night from the jail where he was awaiting trial, officials said. Hugo Selenski, who was charged Monday in two of the deaths, and another inmate used bedsheets to escape from the Luzerne County Correctional Facility around 9:30 p.m., officials said. I'm thinking about Ted Bundy, and what happened when he escaped ... I hope they catch this guy quick. I hope that the Luzerne County Correctional Facility changes its security procedures ASAP....
This has been bubbling under the surface for some time, and apparently is about to break into the open: Some Los Angeles area Roman Catholic priests are urging an open discussion on whether to allow married clergy as one solution to the growing priest shortage, and say they hope Cardinal Roger M. Mahony will raise the issue to church authorities nationally and in Rome. For those who are not familiar with the history of the Church, married men were allowed to be priests for the first thousand years of the Church's existence, although celibacy was the preferred state. It did not become a rule until around the time of the schism between Rome and the Eastern church. It is still considered a rule, not a doctrine, which means it is open to change by the Church hierarchy if desired. (Restricting the priesthood to men, on the other hand, is considered...
Here's an idea whose time, apparently, has not quite come -- an adult haunted house, complete with simulated genital mutilation and lesbian scenes: To open, a couple of exhibits had to be toned down, including a mock mutilation of male genitals, as well as a couple of women kissing. Says one performer, "They've completely violated our right to free expression." But due to the adult content, and the fact that many of the actors are minors, Wentzville city officials decided the haunted house needed an adult entertainment permit. I suspect it was the lesbian kissing scene (oh! I'm so shocked!) that really got panties in a twist, but the simulated male genital mutilation certainly seems beyond the pale and qualifies the exhibit as adult entertainment. I certainly can't imagine allowing kids to work there or go through the house, but not everyone agrees: A much different opinion comes from event...
If there was still any doubt at all, Pat Robertson has made it clear that he is a dangerous lunatic with no credibility at all to speak on issues. Last seen exhorting his mindless sheep to pray for the deaths of certain Supreme Court justices, now Robertson has decided that it's quicker to nuke the State Department rather than praying for the 10,000 or so heart attacks it would take: "I read your book," Robertson said, according to a transcript of the interview posted on his Christian Broadcasting Network's website (www.cbn.com). "When you get through, you say, 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer'," he said. "I mean, you get through this, and you say, 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?" Robertson asked. The State Department, oddly, takes offense to suggestions...
Notre Dame, who has had two losses already this season, goes on the road and upsets 15th ranked Pittsburgh, 20-14. The Fighting Irish played tough defense and relied on their traditionally strong running game, rather than the new West Coast offense of Ty Willingham. It wasn't exciting, but it was convincing. Go Irish! (and note that I didn't post a damn thing until the game was over this time!)...
Just wanted to post a note thanking everyone (especially Alicia) for your kind thoughts -- my wife is feeling much better. If she continues to improve and tolerate her new medication, she should be out of the hospital in a couple of days....
OK, now it's confirmed ... I'm 62% good: ... which means, of course ... These calculations come to me via the Gematriculator, using arcane mathematics to analyze word and phrase patterns on the website. How does it work? Haven't got a friggin' clue, even (and especially) after reading through the explanation on their website. Thanks to Alicia over at Twilight Café for the link! (I'm 6% more good than Twilight Café ... just for the record.)...
Here's how other blogs rate on the ol' Gematriculator: Instapundit: 74% good Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan): 73% good Power Line: 71% good Meaningful Media: 70% good (how did Steve get ahead of me??) hmmm ... I was on board with this until I saw Steve's ratings ... lemme see who else scores high: NakedJen: 65% good (ahead of me, too!) Merde in France: 62% -- a tie! But something tells me that this is not terribly accurate. For instance: Michaelmoore.com: 82% CBC.com (Pat Robertson's website): 96% good These two are deal-killers, I'm sorry to say ......
October 12, 2003
Steve Lopez, in today's LA Times, nails the recall election in another funny column: Conservatives eagerly abandoned sacred covenants and joined moderates — and even some liberals, for God's sake — in voting for a serial groper who smoked dope, skipped elections and was a poster boy for Hollywood's gun violence and mayhem. Who would've thunk it? Lopez not only notes that, but actually understands what this means for the California electorate: We're politically polarized beyond caricature, undermining any useful problem-solving, and great hordes of people need to be locked in their rooms. But as far as anyone can tell so far, Arnold appears to be somewhere in the middle — a fiscal conservative and social moderate. If so, that would put him more in touch with California than Gray Davis, who pumped helium into the state budget, or any of the knuckle-draggers the GOP keeps sending into the game....
I'm surprised it took PETA this long to take a life-threatening tragedy and crassly use it for their own purposes. The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals held a rally Saturday outside the Mirage hotel-casino to urge entertainers Siegfried & Roy to retire their felines after Roy Horn was nearly killed by a tiger during a performance. Carrying signs reading, "The Strip Is No Place for Tigers" and "Big Cats Big Danger," about two dozen demonstrators gathered near the entrance to the resort's large Siegfried & Roy marquee. It's understood that PETA opposes animals in entertainment, or in almost any other contact with humans, so it's not surprising that they want Siegfried & Roy to eliminate the tigers from their act. In fact, I believe they've protested the act several times previously. But since it's pretty clear that the act will be off the stage for a long...
If you are at risk of a heart attack, make sure you read this article -- and then make sure you know which of your local hospitals perform primary angioplasties. [H]eart attack treatment has undergone a quiet revolution, one that ambulance services and small hospitals have largely ignored. Many heart specialists now agree that the clot-dissolving drugs are passe, or should be, and large hospitals have generally stopped using them. Instead, the best treatment is an emergency procedure called a primary angioplasty. Even more reliably than clot drugs, it can stop a heart attack cold if done within the first two or three hours. But it is available only at major hospitals with top-tier cardiac centers. So the little community hospital is no longer the ideal place to treat a heart attack, especially if it occurs within driving distance of an angioplasty center, as the vast majority do. Nevertheless, specialists...
The Washington Post proves that it is the leading voice in American politics in a well-written, thoughtful analysis of the Iraq front of the war on terror. The debate over intervention was fraught precisely because many people understood that Saddam Hussein was not an imminent danger. We argued nonetheless that the real risk lay in allowing him to defy repeated U.N. disarmament orders, including Resolution 1441, the "final opportunity" approved by unanimous Security Council vote. As noted endlessly in the blogosphere, and acknowledged in the Post's editorial in a more passive way, the Bush administration never argued that Saddam represented an "imminent" threat. In fact, in Bush's State of the Union speech earlier this year, and in the speech he delivered to the UN, he argued that the United States and the civilized world could not afford to wait until the threat was imminent. That was the whole "preemption" controversy....
Even the New York Times is starting to get it, although Thomas Friedman is normally fairly sane on foreign policy anyway. Friedman argues against letting the UN dictate the timetable for Iraqi sovereignty as thoroughly impractical: Would the U.S. handing power to an interim Iraqi government really stop the attacks on U.S. forces, Iraqi police, the U.N. and Iraq's interim leaders? I doubt it. These attackers don't want Iraqis to rule themselves, these attackers want to rule Iraqis. Why do you think the attackers never identify themselves or their politics? Because they are largely diehard Baathists who want to restore the old order they dominated and will kill anyone in the way. Will the U.N., which has basically left Iraq, not flee again when its officials get attacked again — which will happen even after Iraqis have sovereignty? Could the Iraqi Governing Council agree now on who should lead an...
More good news, this time from an unlikely source: Islamic states to welcome new Iraq. I had thought they would try to exclude the Iraqi Governing Council, but it appears that the Organization of the Islamic Conference is about to take a more pragmatic view: The status of Iraq since Saddam Hussein was toppled six months ago had led to disagreement in the OIC, with summit host Malaysia contending that no Iraqi government should be seated with the country under U.S. occupation, and the powerful Arab bloc saying that the Governing Council is transitional and legitimate enough, for now. The Arab view prevailed, and Iraq will be represented by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, and by Ayad Alawi, current holder of the council’s rotating leadership. Delegates said that a resolution would likely welcome the Governing Council but be balanced with calls for Iraq’s return to full independence and sovereignty...
Here's a funny recollection of the last days of Arnold's campaign, from the October 30 issue of the Weekly Standard: IT SEEMS LIKE ONLY YESTERDAY that I was jetting around California with Arnold Schwarzenegger, enjoying one-on-one access, eating Arnold's food, laughing at Arnold's jokes, choking on Arnold's cigar smoke. In fact, it was a year ago, when Arnold was campaigning for his ballot initiative promoting after-school activities. Back then, he was running a modest little jobs program for former Pete Wilson aides. Now, five days before the 2003 recall election, at the kickoff of his home-stretch bus tour at the San Diego Convention Center, it's apparent that Schwarzenegger has gone Hollywood. There are so many staffers on the ground that it's hard to know who to suck up to. It's long but entertaining, sort of like the recall election....
The First Mate is home from the hospital, with four fresh prescriptions to fill and a tired smile on her face. She's looking and feeling much better, but I'm going to stay home from work tomorrow to keep an eye on her. Big grins!...
William Kristol and Robert Kagan have written a lengthy, detailed article covering the reason for the Iraq war in-depth. Kristol and Kagan take us back through the history of the UN inspections and Saddam's weapons programs, including statements by the Clinton administration, the UN, and Saddam: Here is what was known by 1998 based on Iraq's own admissions: * That in the years immediately prior to the first Gulf War, Iraq produced at least 3.9 tons of VX, a deadly nerve gas, and acquired 805 tons of precursor ingredients for the production of more VX. * That Iraq had produced or imported some 4,000 tons of ingredients to produce other types of poison gas. * That Iraq had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax. * That Iraq had produced 500 bombs fitted with parachutes for the purpose of delivering poison gas or germ payloads. * That Iraq had produced 550 artillery...
For those who may not know, the DLC is the centrist Democrat group that promoted Bill Clinton as a potential party leader as early as 1988. Now they're trying to keep California Democrats from going off the rails by giving them a major reality check. After acknowledging the right-wing origins of the recall, it tells them [I]t's clear the success of the recall effort was no mere right-wing conspiracy. Californians are deeply frustrated by what they perceive as a political establishment -- in both parties -- that's not listening to their concerns, acting on their needs, or paying much attention to anyone who does not belong to a bedrock partisan constituency group. Then they warn some of the radical elements of the party against following through on threats made on Election Night: There's already talk of Democrats going to the mattresses, denying cooperation to the Governor-elect, or even launching petitions...
October 13, 2003
Colleen Rowley, the FBI agent who blew the whistle on the bureau's lack of follow-up before 9/11 -- mostly due to political correctness concerns -- wrote a tedious and silly op-ed in Sunday's Star Tribune. James Lileks, who has a regular column and feature in the Strib (the Back Fence), fisks the hell out of Rowley. Rowley's article is another of those vague, unsupported complaints about how dissent is being stifled in John Ashcroft's America that seem to find themselves on the pages of major newspapers on almost a weekly basis. It would be delicious satire if these idiots actually had a sense of humor. (via Instapundit)...
Sen. Norm Coleman tries to eat his cake and have it too on the issue of school vouchers. He proposes putting a school voucher plan in place for Washington DC schoolchildren, but tries to claim he's not considering any application to any other state, including Minnesota: "I'm not going to push for vouchers for Minnesota kids," Coleman said in an interview. "I'm not going to push for a national program. But I will certainly support the local mayor in his effort to provide greater opportunity for his kids." Well, why not? I understand that DC schools are especially poor performers, but there are certainly schools like that in Minnesota, too, and elsewhere. Are those schoolchildren any less trapped by the educational monopoly? Why are DC schoolchildren special cases? I suspect it has a lot less to do with geography than with mollifying Education Minnesota, the state NEA outfit, who weighs...
Today's Strib features a column by Isaac Cheifetz titled "What would Winston do?" It doesn't give any answers to that specific question but instead talks about a little-discussed side of Winston Churchill: the accomplished manager. I found it interesting, since Churchill is one of my favorite historical figures, and I believe his life and philosophy are so applicable to today's global issues. Afterwards, check out the post that pointed me to it at Power Line....
Or, you could say he was really washing with gas!...
No, this is not a David Letterman list, but it's really the most hazardous jobs in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The top 10 most dangerous jobs are: 10. Truck drivers 9. Construction workers 8. Farm occupations 7. Electrical "power installers" (as opposed to workers?) 6. Roofers 5. Drivers - Sales Workers (incl. pizza delivery, vending machine workers) 4. Structural metal workers 3. Pilots and navigators 2. Fishers And the most dangerous job in America is ... 1. Timber cutters!...
In a move that indicates the US is beginning to make a major impact on the Arab world, Saudi Arabia announced its first ever free elections: Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, announced Monday it would hold its first elections to vote for municipal councils, seen as the first concrete political reform in the Gulf Arab state. ... Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- Riyadh has come under intense pressure by key ally Washington to implement social and political reform in the kingdom which is the cradle of Islam and the world's largest oil exporter. ... "The council of ministers decided to widen participation of citizens in running local affairs through elections by activating municipal councils, with half the members of each council being elected," the state news agency SPA said. It's not just the election,...
I don't know what's more disturbing about this story on Ed Asner: his predilection for mass-murdering tyrants, or his swollen ego regarding Rush Limbaugh, or just his entire, pathetic schtick ever since he started taking himself seriously after Lou Grant was canceled. I first read this story at Andrew Sullivan's site this morning, and it's been picked up by Instapundit (who discussed it in his MS-NBC column, too), but here's the original story, from Kevin McCullough at WorldNetDaily: "Mr. Asner, I do have a question ... if you had the chance to play the biographical story of a historical figure you respected most [emphasis mine] over your lifetime, who would it be?" "I think Joe Stalin was a guy that was hugely misunderstood," said Asner. "And to this day, I don't think I have ever seen an adequate job done of telling the story of Joe Stalin, so I guess...
I recall when this happened, and how the Dean campaign tried backing away from it at warp speed. Quite frankly, I just considered it to be a typical reaction from the no-war-for-any-reason set, and in that context it makes perfect sense: "Questioned about the deaths of Saddam's sons, Odai and Qusai, in Iraq, Dean dismissed suggestions that it was a victory for the Bush administration. `It's a victory for the Iraqi people . . . but it doesn't have any effect on whether we should or shouldn't have had a war,' Dean said. `I think in general the ends do not justify the means.' " Nevertheless, when challenged on this, Dean has gone on the attack rather than explain what he meant, or more likely, that he forgot he said it because he shot his mouth off without thinking about it at the time: "I never said that. I never...
I found an interesting article on the decades-long proxy game between Israel and Syria, and how Israel is looking to change the rules, with the first gambit being the attack on the terrorist training camp last week: No matter how much violence raged around it, the Israeli-Syrian border has been quiet since the armistice following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. If the bitter foes wanted to fight, they squared off on the battlefield called Lebanon, or deployed various proxy forces. The attack a week ago Sunday on what the Israelis said was a Palestinian terrorist training camp changed that formula, perhaps forever. This article gives a much clearer explanation of what the attack means to both Israel and Syria and what Israel hopes to gain from the escalation: The Syrians say they give no logistical support to the Palestinian groups, but cannot expel Palestinians who have lived legally here for decades....
Good luck on reading anything about this in the New York or LA Times, but Strange Women Lying in Ponds (a cool Monty Python reference, for those who don't know) picked up on a story in the Guardian which details the effects of banning all handguns: Handgun crime has soared past levels last seen before the Dunblane massacre of 1996 and the ban on ownership of handguns introduced the year after Thomas Hamilton, an amateur shooting enthusiast, shot dead 16 schoolchildren, their teacher and himself in the Perthshire town. It was hoped the measure would reduce the number of handguns available to criminals. Now handgun crime is at its highest since 1993. SWLIP reacts: Let's see, when Britain passed the handgun ban, many pro-gun ownership types predicted that Britain would eventually see a rise in violent gun crimes as guns became readily available on the black market for criminals, and...
I don't know if I agree that the Middle East Road Map is the evil clone of this historical document -- the argument can be made -- but at least this is pretty darned funny, and well-written, too....
I'm not even going to try to introduce this. I'll just let this speak for itself. (Caution: May be disturbing to some readers.) Have a nice night, folks. Sweet dreams. Heh heh heh....
October 14, 2003
Osama's son plays an increasignly important role in al-Qaeda, according to today's Washington Post, and is being protected by Iran: Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. The younger bin Laden speaks English and is computer literate, two rare qualities among al-Qaeda, and so his influence is even more pervasive than his family name would indicate. Saudi Arabia wants him extradited from Iran, but negotiations have gone nowhere: Similarly, Saudi Arabia, which in recent years has tried to thaw relations with its larger and more powerful neighbor across the Persian Gulf, is trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade Iran to extradite Saad bin Laden and others suspected in the Riyadh bombing. Saudi officials...
The Washington Post rails against the latest redistricting plan in Texas, but misses an important point. The current district plan was not implemented by the Texas Legislature but was imposed as a temporary plan by a federal court. Districting is a function of the Legislature and not the courts and it was entirely appropriate for Texas to redistrict, even if it was oustide the census cycle. That being said, the Post has a point about the results of the plan, and ultra-partisan districting plans in general: YOU MIGHT THINK America's rigged system of congressional elections couldn't get much worse. Self-serving redistricting schemes nationwide already have left an overwhelming number of seats in the House of Representatives so uncompetitive that election results are practically as preordained as in the old Soviet Union. In the last election, for example, 98 percent of incumbents were reelected, and the average winning candidate got more...
Negotiators from outside the governments of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority reached a peace agreement, but one with no weight whatsoever as Israel strongly denounced the effort: Coming at a time when Middle East peace prospects are at a low ebb, the 50-page draft agreement was reached during the weekend in Jordan by the two delegations, which include current Parliament members and former cabinet members from both sides. But the proposal has no official blessing, and the Israeli government immediately denounced it, calling it irresponsible freelance diplomacy. "The public rejected these same political figures," Limor Livnat, Israel's education minister, said of the Israeli delegation, led by left-wing politicians. "In no democratic country would this be acceptable." The Palestinian Authority did not immediately comment, though the Palestinian team included senior political figures with close ties to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Put into terms that we might relate to, it would...
With all of the debate about how long we should be staying in Iraq, and the UN demanding that we leave so that the Iraqis can take care of themselves, Gallup cut out the middlemen and just asked the Iraqis what they want. A novel approach, to be sure, but one that the UN apparently never bothered to try. The Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the capital city's residents felt U.S. troops should not leave in the next few months. Just 26 percent felt the troops should leave that soon. Bear in mind that Baghdad is part of the Sunni Triangle, where you could expect to find significant hostility to the US presence that eliminated the Sunni minority's hold on power (to the extent it was Sunni-based, anyway). Gallup's polling did not include areas outside the Sunni Triangle, where you would expect approval for the US occupation to...
The Washington Post reports that President Bush will start bypassing the national, traditional media and start focusing on regional and non-traditional media in order to get his message out more clearly and with less editorial filtering. Power Line links the story in its essay on the decision and its possible impact. Read the entire essay; it's excellent, although I disagree with it in one respect: And he and other administration officials should criticize Democratic jounalists and news outlets by name. The Democratic news media have overplayed their hand, and everyone knows how biased they are. (I'll link to a recent Gallup poll on this issue later in the day.) Why should hacks like Dana Milbank get a free pass to attack the administration on behalf of the Democrats, in the guise of objective journalism? I'll have to disagree with Hindrocket on taking such a confrontational strategy. Bush and the senior...
It took the medical/dietary establishment about 30 years to check this out, but it seems that they may have been wrong all along: Now, a small but carefully controlled study offers a strong hint that maybe Atkins was right: People on low-carb, high-fat diets actually can eat more. While I do not think that the Atkins plan is all it's cracked up to be -- any diet that severely limits fruits isn't going to be terribly healthy -- the philosophy is very sound. I lost a lot of weight and kept it off by eliminating "unneeded" carbs from by diet, as well as eating less and exercising regularly. It's a life change, though, not a "diet" in the popular sense; I won't be eating pizzas and burgers and fries except on very rare occasions for the rest of my life. Over the course of the study, they consumed an extra...
Let's see ... you're a football player at a major football college, and you've just been humiliated on national TV by an unranked team. What's your first instinct when you come across a rival fan? If it's decking the guy while the cameras are rolling, either you've taken a wee bit too much Testosterone or you're on the SpongeBob Squarepants academic track. I report, y'all decide....
I'm not shy in sharing my views on France, but this article in Reason gives hope that change may be coming in the person of Sabine Herold, a 22-year-old Opposition leader in Paris: Herold, the 22-year-old leader of Liberté, J’ecris Ton Nom (Freedom, I Write Your Name), has in the last few months emerged as the massively popular and highly photogenic leader of -- zut! -- a burgeoning pro-market, pro-American counterculture in France. Earning comparisons to Joan of Arc, Brigitte Bardot (!), and Margaret Thatcher in the panting British press, she represents something French politics hasn’t seen in years: a public figure eager to take on the country’s endlessly striking unions. Herold's youth, passion, and eloquence earned her enough of a following that she was able to draw 80,000 to a protest against union strikes early this summer in Paris. I've read about her before, mostly through Merde in France...
The Volokh Conspiracy has an excellent series of posts on this subject, starting (or ending, I suppose) with this one. I hadn't heard that Justice Scalia had recused himself, but considering his ill-advised commentary, it's probably for the best. It's not the content of the commentary that is a problem; he shouldn't have been commenting on the case at all, since it was always likely to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. It was a rare example of bad judgment on his part....
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has proposed making underage drivers licenses dependent on school attendance. Pawlenty describes the link between truancy and criminal behavior and says: "I have no hesitation linking expectations around school attendance and the privilege of driving," Pawlenty said. "We need to make sure we have the horse before the cart." "Students need to understand the importance of education and that there are consequences if they don't take it seriously," Pawlenty said in a statement. "Chronic absenteeism is one step away from crime and we need to do everything we can to stop it." Right now, the only consequences of truancy are borne by the parents; if the truancy becomes chronic, the parents can be taken to court to correct the situation. Truancy undoubtably underlies a significant part of teen crime, and the failure of the system to provide any significant consequences to the teens themselves doesn't do...
The AP reports that the coalition has captured another senior terrorist in Iraq, this time from Ansar al-Islam, which is tied to al-Qaeda: The arrest of Aso Hawleri, also known as Asad Muhammad Hasan, late last week in the northern city of Mosul has not been announced. Larry Di Rita, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters, "I'm not in a position to confirm" Hawleri's capture. Hawleri was taken by soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, said a defense official, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity. The officials said Hawleri is thought to be the third-ranking official in Ansar al-Islam, most of whose fighters were believed to have fled their stronghold in northern Iraq before U.S. forces invaded in March. U.S. and Kurdish forces destroyed the group's main base in the early weeks of the war. Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for the car bombing in...
Here's an interesting article on blogs, and the blogging bloggers who blog them. I saw this yesterday at Amygdala but didn't get a chance to post on the article. Like Amygdala, I am in the 1% demographic, although I just started there. Not to rub it in or anything. Perseus Development Corp. estimates that there are 4.12 million blogs out here in the blogosphere, but 2.72 million have been abandoned, either temporarily or permanently. Over a million of these were one-day wonders. (Guess I've surpassed that threshold; I believe this is my 140th post.) There's lots of interesting data here for bloggers who like a bit of navel-gazing....
Speaking of Amygdala, I noticed that he has posted (way down the left column) Farber's First Fundamental of Blogging: If your idea of making an insightful point is to make fun of people's names, or refer to them by rilly clever labels such as "The Big Me" or "The Shrub," chances are high that I'm not reading your blog. On the way home from work this afternoon, I listened to The Patriot, the conservative talk-radio outlet here in the Twin Cities. At my drive-time, Michael Medved is on the air, and I have enjoyed Medved from when he wrote The Golden Turkey Awards back in the 70s. It's out of print now, but it's hilarious. Anyway, unlike some of the other hosts on the Patriot, such as the screechy and utterly reactionary Michael Savage, Medved is thoughtful to his callers and encourages those who disagree with him to give him...
Guess who's back in the klink again: Rodney King. He should have been using that well-deserved settlement (I can watch videotape, but juries seem to have a problem with it) on some psychological help. I'd be happy if his name never popped up again in the news. I suspect he'd be happier, too....
On the day that Rodney King gets back in the news, this story makes me more than a tad bit nervous. The Minneapolis Police Department is taking great pains to handle this by the book and to make sure everyone sees that. Either they are very confident that these charges won't hold up, or something serious really did happen and CYA mode is kicking into high gear....
October 15, 2003
Jill Stewart has penned an extensive and detailed rebuttal to John Carroll's "explanation" of the groping stories at the LA Times and how they were nothing more than good journalism. (John Carroll's editorial had been listed in a featured position at the top of the Times' web site for several days; today is the first day it's gone.) Stewart writes: Carroll claims that the groping story was published as soon as it was done. In fact, in journalism, a story is done when the boss says turn it in. Carroll himself saw to it that the story was strung out until the last. That is why some staffers continue to insist to me that the story was sufficiently nailed and should have run two weeks beforehand. One of Carroll's major gripes with Stewart -- whom he never bothered to name -- was that she claimed he held the story back...
Breaking news: a bomb attack in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 3 American officials who were apparently touring to monitor progress on the peace process. [Saeb] Erakat offered his condolences and condemned the attack. "These people were here to help us," Erakat insisted, saying an attack on what he described as U.S. monitors was not in the interest of the Palestinian people. "I don't think this was a deliberate attack against the Americans." Obviously, some of the "Palestinian people" felt it was in their interest to attack Americans. Would that be the Hamas-led "Palestinian people"? The Islamic Jihad "Palestinian people"? Or the al-Fatah "Palestinian people" who report to Yasser Arafat and blow people up as a sideline? "We offer to have an immediate, joint Palestinian-American investigation committee to investigate the matter," Erakat said. Perhaps we should have a US delegation meet up with Erekat and Arafat. I nominate...
There is no other way to describe this but as a diplomatic victory for the Bush administration: France, Russia and Germany on Tuesday dropped their demands that the United States grant the United Nations a central role in Iraq's reconstruction and yield power to a provisional Iraqi government in the coming months. The move constituted a major retreat by the Security Council's chief antiwar advocates, and signaled their renewed willingness to consider the merits of a U.S. resolution aimed at conferring greater international legitimacy on its military occupation of Iraq. If passed, the new Security Council resolution would effectively reject the obstructionism of Kofi Annan and the French. Jacques Chirac seems to have gotten the message that France, if the US ceased negotiating, would be revealed as a pretender to real power. The Bush administration refused to incorporate the French, Russian and German demands for a timetable for the transfer...
Who wants to keep tabs on this woman's baby for the next 18 years? A woman who chased a 4-year-old boy through a McDonald's restaurant in Montgomery County, pinned him in a headlock and screamed obscenities as she smeared his face with hot french fries was sentenced yesterday to four days in jail and ordered to attend anger management and parenting classes. Milikia Hayes, 18, of Gaithersburg was nearly nine months pregnant with her first child when the incident took place in May. The boy, whom Hayes did not know, accidentally smeared ice cream on her clothing at a McDonald's in Germantown, authorities said. She should be getting lots of follow-up visits from Children's Services as well....
Via Oxblog, more on the bombing from Haaretz: The blast went off around 10:15 A.M. Wednesday as a three-car U.S. diplomatic convoy drove near a gas station on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, along the main north-south road. Both the militant Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements denied responsibility for the attack. Witnesses at the scene said a silver Cherokee jeep used by American diplomats was completely destroyed by the blast. Parts of the vehicle were strewn in a 30-meter radius around a crater created by the explosion. If Islamic Jihad and Hamas are denying responsibility, what about the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, a division of Yasser Arafat's al-Fatah faction? They've been known to plant bombs as well. My guess is that, unlike other attacks in the area, no one will be in a rush to claim this one as their own. As Oxblog...
Chris Muir makes another pithy but pointed statement on newspaper 'coverage' in recent elections. Gee, I wonder what he may mean by that? Perhaps we should ask Jill Stewart ......
This demonstrates a problem with blogging -- when a source turns out to be incorrect, you wind up having to apologize to people you'd rather not. If you scroll to the bottom of Kevin McCullough's partial retraction, you'll see that Ed Asner was not expressing admiration for Stalin and was in fact quite open about putting him on the same plane as Hitler: "Well, you know something, they've played Hitler, nobody has ever really touched Stalin, it just occurred to me. It's not because I am a liberal or anything like that. Stalin is one big damn mystery, I wonder why nobody has tried it? Many people, you know, speak of the fact that he killed more people than Hitler – why does nobody touch him? It's strange. So, and he was about my size, my height – with a wig I probably could do it." In fact, in his...
I'll be making some tweaks tonight -- the three-column format doesn't quite work for me, so I'll be playing around with some other options ... let me know what you think!...
OxBlog has an essay which, unbeknownst to Oxblog, expands on my post yesterday about name-calling and elevating political discourse: Are people really so sure of themselves that they simply cannot acknowledge that anyone who disagrees could be intelligent? Have they no humility whatsoever? Of course we all think we're right -- if we didn't think we were right, we'd change our opinions until we did. Maybe I'm just naive, but it really does amaze me when people claim that everyone who disagrees with them (on topics where general opinion is relatively divided -- I'm not talking about largely uncontroversial opinions like "slavery is wrong") is either malevolent, stupid, or both. This attitude exists in a lot more places than in the blogosphere, although Josh Chafetz understandably focuses on that area of debate. I mentioned talk radio in yesterday's post, of course, but it wouldn't exist in the blogosphere or on...
CBS has run a truly egregious hit piece on home schooling, which is also posted to their web site: "I think there's so little supervision that they really are not protecting those kids," Marcia Herman-Giddens, of the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute. Herman-Giddens is on the state task force that reviewed the Warren case. The conclusion: home school laws "allow persons who maltreat children to maintain social isolation in order for the abuse and neglect to remain undetected." Let's see ... because of the three or four cases of child abuse (including murder and suicide) of home-schooled kids they found, this is supposedly an evil trend, a conspiracy of child abusers to keep their victims from being noticed. Where is any mention of the hundreds of thousands of abuse cases that occur with children taught in public schools? Or, perhaps, a litany of children assaulted, molested, and murdered in public...
The Palestinian Authority began rounding up the usual suspects in the wake of the Gaza Strip bombing that killed 3 Americans and critically wounded a fourth: Palestinian police started rounding up suspects in a dragnet expected to last through the night, security sources said. The action followed word that Arafat had reappointed a law and order general, Gazi el-Jabali, to command Palestinian police forces -- a man he had previously fired from the job. The US position is that the bombing specifically targeted Americans, according to CNN: In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that "in the absence of information" on who did it, "the assumption one has to make, given the nature of the attack," is that Palestinians targeted Americans. That would tend to implicate the PA itself, given that the PA was responsible for the security arrangements and the route of the caravan. How else could the...
I avoided commenting on the latest foolishness spewing forth from Michael Moore during an appearance on CNN's Crossfire, with Robert Novak and Julian Epstein, who sounds as if he couldn't suck up enough to the pseudodocumentarian. EPSTEIN: And, in your book -- I love you. I think you say a lot of useful, important things that need to be said to shake the system up. Yeah, well. Anyway, Moore said in the course of the interview: MOORE: I'd like to ask the question whether September 11 was a terrorist attack, or was it a military attack? We call it a terrorist attack. We keep calling it a terrorist attack. But it sure has the markings of a military attack. And I'd like to know whose military was involved in this precision, perfectly planned operation. I'm sorry, but my common sense has never allowed me to believe since that day that...
October 16, 2003
It's decisions like this that make an even bigger joke of scare stories like the one from CBS News that argues that home-schooling is dangerous because there is no government oversight: At the same time that Donald Leonard Keys was being investigated on suspicion of having an illegal sexual relationship with a 16-year-old Woodbury boy, he was granted a renewal of his social worker's license. The renewal was approved by the Minnesota Board of Social Work despite knowledge that the 58-year-old St. Paul man had convictions for attempted sodomy with a child in 1971 and for fraud, for bilking an elderly man in Hennepin County in 1996. But it's okay, really, he's had a criminal background check .... he's licensed ......
The Washington Post excoriates Democrats for their irresponsibility regarding the rebuilding of Iraq and their intransigence in supporting proper funding: But political pressure doesn't excuse irresponsibility, and what's emerging in the Democratic Party is a gaping responsibility gap...On the wrong side is the rest of the Democratic field. Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) say they won't vote for the funding because Mr. Bush hasn't come up with enough of a long-term plan or done enough to get allies on board. This righteous position may make them, or their voters, feel better, but the security of U.S. troops and the long-term interests of both Iraq and the United States still depend on improving Iraqi daily life. The candidates do not seem to realize that the rebuilding of Iraq is crucial to the overall effort to eliminate terrorism, and that trying to do it on the cheap will...
In case anyone is confused, this is what a stunning diplomatic victory looks like. Notice that this was a unanimous vote recognizing the legitimacy of the Coalition in Iraq, with no requirement to stick to a specific timetable for withdrawal, only for the Iraqi Governing Council to have a plan ready by December 15: The United States and Britain never wavered in their assessment that sovereignty can't be relinquished until Iraq drafts a new constitution and holds elections. They agreed, however, to include new provisions urging the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority "to return governing responsibilities and authorities to the people of Iraq as soon as practicable" and calling on the Iraqi Governing Council to provide the Security Council with a timetable for drafting a new constitution and holding elections by Dec. 15. In the end, there were no nays and no abstentions, not even from Syria, who must have figured...
The UN Secretary General tells the West to address the grievances of Muslims: "We must unite our efforts to address the extremism that is, alas, on the rise, not only in Islam but among many faiths," said Annan, who withdrew from the summit after the Iraq (news - web sites) issue was taken back to the UN Security Council. He said Western governments must match their rhetoric of respect for human freedom with action to promote development, including a fair world trading system. Okay ... we should therefore try a dialogue with this Muslim leader: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday told a summit of Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims should unite, using nonviolent means for a "final victory." ... The prime minister, who has turned his country into the world's 17th-ranked trading nation during his 22 years in...
The Dissident Frogman, an excellent bilingual blog, has an outstanding post about what's happening in Iraq, and how little of this gets out via the traditional, "independent" media: At the risk of repeating myself, I heard almost daily on France-Info's broadcast: "Yet another US casualty in Iraq." The Coalition is wiping out Saddam's SS and the Al-Qaeda skuzzballs by the hundreds. I never heard : "Yet another hundred of SS and terrorist skuzzballs eliminated in Iraq." The Coalition has completed 13,000 reconstruction projects, including 1,500 schools as of October the first -- and I'll assume this number includes the 330 that were rebuilt by the 101st Airborne with Saddam's money -- and "the teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries." I never heard: "Yet another school rebuilt and reopened in Iraq." There are 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics open, a pharmaceutical distribution that has gone...
Man, I had a tough time trying to decide whether this White House leak qualified as Current Affairs or Humor: Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else. News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately. I feel bad for Bush, I really do. I can just imagine the scene in the Oval Office this evening: Bush has his staff gathered around him in the Oval Office, chewing them out for allowing this last leak to occur, and soon as he turns his back to face one person, all the others grab notepads and scribble furiously until he turns around again. Every modern President has had to deal with leaks,...
"Honey, why don't we eat out tonight?" "Sure, but you know I'm on a diet... I know -- how about Pizza Hut?" "That's a great idea, honey! That's why I love Pizza Hut, because I'm so concerned with my health!"...
... it was all Steve's fault. Bad blogger! Bad, bad blogger!...
It looks like the jig is up for an ex-patriate German just trying to make ends meet on a German disability pension in Florida: Maybe it is the image of a German pensioner, deeply tanned and dipping his toes in the surf on Miami Beach, while retired people here trudge windswept streets in dismal German burgs. Or maybe it is the notion of a housekeeper, paid for by the German government, to keep the fellow's apartment tidy. Whatever the reason, the curious case of Rolf John, a 64-year-old former banker who is living a sun-dappled retirement in Florida on $2,200 a month in German welfare checks, has driven people here batty. Germany currently pays over $6 million a year in pensions and benefits to just over a thousand German citizens living abroad in 88 countries. Rolf John's monthly benefits include: * $1,023 for rent * $854 as a "living allowance"...
USC's Online Journalism Review has an interview with NY Times technology reporter John Markoff, written by Adam Clayton Powell. Markoff has been covering technology since the year after two guys named Steve came up with a computer named Apple, and he gives an interesting but somewhat bleak picture of the future: I certainly can see that scenario, where all these new technologies may only be good enough to destroy all the old standards but not create something better to replace them with. I think that's certainly one scenario. The other possibility right now -- it sometimes seems we have a world full of bloggers and that blogging is the future of journalism, or at least that's what the bloggers argue, and to my mind, it's not clear yet whether blogging is anything more than CB radio. And, you know, give it five or 10 years and see if any institutions...
It looks like HostingMatters has crashed for some unknown reason, and some major blogs seem to be down with them. Instapundit is definitely one who is affected -- you can hit the backup site here, but so far the only post is from Glenn confirming that the servers are down. Power Line isn't responding, and neither is Little Green Footballs or Dissident Frogman. I hope the problem gets corrected soon, so I can continue to avoid commercials between innings. (Score so far: Red Sox 4, Overhyped-Babe-Curse Bronxies 2.) If nothing else, take a look at James Lileks today, who's in fine curmudgeonly style. He's ranting about Kill Bill and rooting for Agent Smith. Ortiz just went yard on David Wells' first pitch, so it's Red Sox 5, Crushing Monotony in Pinstripes 2....
The Corporate Juggernauts tied the score up, we're going to extra innings, and Instapundit is still off line ... I'm watching the rest of the game in bed. G'night, y'all....
October 17, 2003
So much for living in the Age of Freakin' Reason ... both "cursed" teams manage to promote their long-term images by choking in game 7 of their respective series. The Red Sox actually deserve a lot of credit; they went back on the road down 3-2, and won the first game and came close to winning the second. The Cubs, on the other hand, were up 3 games to 1 with home-field advantage, and managed to lose three games in a row, including two in Wrigley Field. [sigh] So instead of a World Series with the promise of real historical significance, which would have been true if either the Red Sox or Cubs had made it alone, we get the Marlins who won less than a decade ago, and New York for the fifth time in six years. Fabulous, simply fab-oo. I'll make sure I set the TiVo, with a...
The Malaysian government, after being scolded for the remaks of its Prime Minister at the OIC the day before, tries a little bit of damage control: "I'm sorry that they have misunderstood the whole thing," Syed Hamid, the foreign minister, told The Associated Press. "The intention is not to create controversy. His intention is to show that if you ponder and sit down to think, you can be very powerful." If that was his intention, then I suppose he failed miserably, considering this: Mahathir said the world's "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews," but suggested the use of political and economic tactics, not violence, to achieve a "final victory." Final victory, final solution, Jews running the world ... they didn't ponder or sit down to think, they're just channeling the Nazis. "Please forget about anti-Semitism," Syed Hamid told reporters. No, we wish you Muslims would...
Ever see what a denial-of-service attack looks like from the server side? Check out this graph of server traffic at Hosting Matters last night. (via Instapundit)...
A bit of of reaction this morning to a curseless World Series ... Over at OxBlog, David waxes biblical, invoking Lamentations (how appropriate!), while Josh simply asks why anyone will care ... Jacob Levy over at the Volokh Conspiracy decides that discretion is the better part of rage ... Strange Women Lying in Ponds expresses sympathy to Cubs fans, but doesn't seem 100% sincere ......
Let's hear it for GM's marketing folks: their new name for the Buick Regal certainly has instant recognition, if nothing else: General Motor's plans to rechristen the Canadian-built Buick Regal passenger car as the Buick LaCrosse have hit a snag: In Québécois youth culture, the word is slang for masturbation, among other things...Stew Low, a GM Canada spokesman, said in Quebec youth culture the word is a slang term "that means a couple of things, either to masturbate or 'I just got screwed,' or 'I just got taken.' " I can't think of anything that would help sell cars better than to pick a name which either reflects that the owner has no (binary) social life, or is a complete tool just waiting to be taken. Here's a few more names GM may consider in coming months: * Chevy Schlemiel * Cadillac Bunko * Pontiac Pudwhacker (Pee Wee Herman Select...
As if it hadn't been burned enough with the 'get-Arnold' campaign John Carroll waged the past few weeks, the LA Times has demonstrated atrocious journalistic standards in its editorial section yesterday. The story concerns General Jerry Boykin, the man in charge of finding al-Qaeda leaders and Saddam Hussein, and the man Rumsfeld just nominated as deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. General Boykin is a fervent Christian who feels God is calling the US to fight against Satan, and who regularly shares this opinion with others, when asked to do so. For instance, according to William Arkin, the Times' military affairs analyst, Boykin has been quoted as follows: In June of 2002, Jerry Boykin stepped to the pulpit at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla., and described a set of photographs he had taken of Mogadishu, Somalia, from an Army helicopter in 1993. The photographs were taken shortly...
It's not often that you run across people who do thoughtful things just because they're truly nice people. I'm lucky to have "met" Alicia through our efforts at blogging on Typepad. Alicia runs the excellent and intriguing Twilight Café, where I encourage you all to visit any chance you get. She's been kind enough to surprise me with a new banner, which is now posted proudly at the top of my blog here. Isn't that great? Thank you, Alicia -- I feel like a real blog now!...
Instapundit directed me to a Balloon Juice post about the Senate conversion of $10 billion in Iraqi reconstruction into a loan. A loan. Iraq currently struggles under almost $200 billion in debt, most of it to France and Germany for Saddam's military hardware. Prior to this, the Bush administration had been working towards agreements to retire some or all of this debt, efforts which may or may not have ever been successful. They would have allowed the Iraqi people to avoid shouldering the cost of their own prison and bleeding themselves dry to pay back Saddam's enablers and co-conspirators. The 51 senators who committed this embarrassment have made this nightmare a certainty now. Not only that, but now they will have to pay for their own liberation, after 12 years of being starved almost into genocide by the Western nations, ahead of investing in their own indepedence, their own security,...
Votes > Roll Call Vote" href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00389">Find out who voted for oppressing the Iraqis and undermining our efforts to get their debts forgiven....
I'd like to give a salute to any visitors being referred from Hugh Hewitt's excellent story on the General Boykin/LA Times scandal. Welcome aboard!...
Over the weekend, I'll be testing some design changes, some of which you may have already seen -- I've switched fonts from Palatino to Arial in my posts for better readability, and to Geneva on the sidebar items to be able to read them at all. This makes the page longer, but I've cut the numbers of days displayed to three now. I will be switching between two- and three-column layouts and two different, very cool Alicia-designed logos, so be sure to let me know what you think!...
In the middle of this story about General Boykin apologizing for offending Muslims, a Saudi official makes the following statement: Asked about the general’s church comments, Adel al-Jubeir, the foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, told reporters Friday: “If true, outrageous. I thought they were insensitive. I thought they were unbecoming of a senior military official, and certainly unbecoming of a senior government official.” Of course, there has been no comment forthcoming, other than participating in a standing ovation, for these comments from a Prime Minister of an Islamic nation: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday told a summit of Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims should unite, using nonviolent means for a "final victory." ... The prime minister, who has turned his country into the world's 17th-ranked trading nation during his 22 years in power, said Jews...
October 18, 2003
A journalistic kerfluffle of another sort has erupted in Minneapolis, as the man who has accused Minneapolis police officers of sodomizing him with a toilet plunger denies that he is a police informant: "I'm not an informant, never will be," Stephen C. Porter said, responding to a story in the Star Tribune that reported he'd worked for the police. He asked his friends to believe his word. "Stick with me, I need you," he said. He added that his friends no longer talk to him. Members of the community were outraged that the Star Tribune printed the story that Porter worked with police in the past, and questioned the motivation of both the newspaper and its sources: Spike Moss, vice president of The City Inc., lambasted the media for reporting that Porter was a confidential informant for Jindra. "Why would you participate in a setup to get him killed?" Moss...
Recent public statements seem to indicate that the Saudis may increasingly be specifically targeted in the war on terror, as the FBI starts talking about the Saudis more as suspects than allies: John Pistole, assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, told a Senate hearing recently that the bureau has raised concerns with the Saudi government that paying legal bills and bond for Saudis being questioned in the terror probe could influence their testimony. ``To us, that is tantamount to buying off a witness, if you will. So that gives us concern if the government is supplying money for defense counsel,'' Pistole said. A year ago, this probably would have been buried ... the fact that the FBI has started talking about this tells me that the Saudis aren't cooperating as much as the government would like. If more stories such as this start popping up in the news, it...
This story underscores the difficulty in doing business with Mexico, a country that has never fully respected private property rights and whose law enforcement efforts have always been a bit questionable: Three U.S. citizens, including a man dying of cancer, have been jailed here and face up to 14 years in prison in a land dispute involving a member of President Vicente Fox's cabinet. ... Ames and his wife lived together on the land until Jean Ames died in 2000 at age 92. Then, in May of this year, Ames was served with an eviction notice by the university, giving him nine days to vacate the property and ordering him to pay nearly $40,000 in back rent -- $1,000 a month since the death of his wife. Ames said he was stunned and angry. In this case, a 92-year-old widower has been ordered off of his land by the Mexican...
I read an excellent and, as advertised, depressing short essay by Roger Simon titled Could It Be More Depressing? I wrote this back in response. As a 40-year-old man who has studied 20th century history, I had always felt that the world in general had learned its lesson about anti-Semitism, and while general hatred of Jews may exist, it mainly existed in repressive Muslim societies. One of the benefits of liberating Iraq would therefore have been an opportunity for Arabs and Jews to work together in a mutually beneficial relationship, as a model for the region that could transform the Middle East. Unfortunately, while the radicalization of some moderate Muslims was to be expected, the Western response to anti-Semitic actions and speech has left me profoundly disappointed. Jacques Chirac blocks an EU resolution protesting Mahathir's remarks, while France convulses with more anti-Semitic violence than its seen since WWII. American media...
Normally, I'd describe the game between Notre Dame and the University of Spoiled Children as the Annual Battle of Good versus Evil, but with so much real evil in today's world, I'm just calling it The Game this year. Anyway, it's not looking good for the Irish so far. The Condoms just scored a touchdown, going 80 yards in 2:35, to take the lead 7-0. [sigh]...
David Brooks has an excellent editorial in today's New York Times regarding the reconstruction loan. He separates the Democrats into three groups, and suggests a fourth for a man who's in a class all to himself: First, there are the Nancy Pelosi Democrats. These Democrats voted against Paul Bremer's $87 billion plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. ... Their hatred for Bush is so dense, it's hard for them to see through it to the consequences of their vote. ... Saddam Hussein would be jubilant in Pelosi's Iraq. He has long argued that America is a decadent country that will buckle at the first sign of trouble. If the Pelosi Democrats had won yesterday's vote, the Saddam Doctrine would be enshrined in every terrorist cave and dictator's palace around the world: kill some Americans and watch the empire buckle. The second group would be the Evan Bayh Democrats, who would...
Some facts about the massive amount of debt facing the Iraqi people underscore the despicable nature of the Senate decision to convert reconstruction funds to further debt: Iraq's overall financial burden, according to the CSIS figures, is $383 billion. Based on these figures, Iraq's financial obligations are 14 times its estimated annual gross domestic product (GDP) of $27 billion--a staggering $16,000 per person. Measured by the debt-to-GDP ratio, Iraq's financial burden is over 25 times greater than Brazil's or Argentina's, making Iraq the developing world's most indebted nation. Bear in mind that all of this debt was accumulated under the auspices of Saddam Hussein, a great deal of it was accumulated during the sanctions, and a lot of it is owed to Arab nations. These governments, who have protested the war by loudly proclaiming brotherhood with the Iraqis, have been curiously silent on debt forgiveness for their brethren. (Also, as...
I've found a new neighbor, or rather she's found me! Brainstorming is a fairly new Typepad blog, with an easygoing nature but some smart commentary. Definitely drop by and check out what DC's brainstorming on now!...
[sigh] The University of Spoiled Children managed to just squeak by the Fighting Irish ... uh ... 45-14. The Trojans eased more than two decades of frustration by cruising to a 45-14 victory before a sellout crowd of 80,795. The victory was USC's first here since 1997 and the Trojans' second since 1981. USC's 45 points were the most the Trojans have scored at Notre Dame Stadium, and the second-most ever scored by any Fighting Irish opponent here. The Irish stayed with the Condoms through the first quarter, but after that it was all USC, otherwise known as The Best College Team Money Can Buy. (don't ya just love good sportsmanship?) [double sigh]...
The AP attempts to explain Syria's UN vote supporting the latest resolution on Iraq: The Syrian vote was "to ease the atmosphere with America and to be in harmony with the European position," said Syrian analyst Jad al-Karim Al-Jubai. He added the U.N. vote could win Syria support from Europe in the event of a confrontation with Israel and the United States. Syria, whose army is considered weak in the face of advanced Israeli weaponry, has not responded with force to the Israeli air raid on what Israel said was a Palestinian militant base. Syria complained to the U.N. Security Council, where any response is stalled because of the threat of an American veto. Al-Jubai said Syria did not seek a military confrontation with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites), and "went to the United States primarily to circumvent the possibility of military escalation" by Israel. Syria,...