Your education dollars at work

Ho hum, another day, another protest staged by the last organized apologists for Stalinism. The Belligerent Bunny Blog went out and visited the vast crowd at the Washington protest and brings back pictures of the International ANSWER event. Check out all of the pictures -- they'll make your day, trust me, especially Clowns for Saddam. No, I know it could describe everyone there, but I'm talking about actual clowns.

Best quote in Anna's post, under a picture of a sign that uses a swastika in Bush's name:

Honestly if you're going to introduce the National Socialist trope, you could pick a better venue than a rally organized by a national, Socialist organization. Oh the irony!

Somehow, I am sure the irony was lost on all of the attendees. (via Instapundit)

Germany's Schroeder and SPD in Political Free Fall - Anti-Americanism Backfiring

Instant karma's gonna get you ... gonna knock you off your feet:

The latest opinion poll by the German TV-channel ZDF currently shows the SPD at a new historic record-breaking low of 22 % in the approval ratings. This current result is down a full 5 percentage points from the already painfully low 27% approval rating of a few weeks ago.

On a scale from -5 to +5 the German government clocks a -1.7 - the worst result of any German government since the start of TV channel ZDF's "Politbarometer" in 1977. For the SPD and Schroeder, these results amount to nothing less than political free fall.

In the meantime, the conservative opposition CDU's support edged up to a solid majority at 53 %.

22% ... that's Gray Davis territory, isn't it?

Until now, Schroeder could always count on anti-American policies to give him a lift in the polls when he was in trouble at home. Just this week, the SPD attempted to play the very same card by refusing to forgive Iraq its $4.6 billion debt to Germany. Then the SPD went further by only sending a deputy minister to the Madrid Donor Conference and refusing to pledge more to Iraq's reconstruction than the miserly 193 million Euro already pledged by the EU. But apparently, most Germans (who were helped out of their post-war misery by the Marshall Plan) are starting to see through Schroeder's cynical brand of opportunistic politics.

How disappointing for Schroeder that he's based his entire political future on opposing the US. Of course, he can always count on support from Germans like this. Oh, wait, those Germans don't want to be in Germany, do they? Where is it that they want to be? The same country that Schroeder opposes? He's lucky he still has 22% support. (via Instapundit)

Bombing brought into focus the need for a fence

Oddly enough, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune printed this heartfelt and common-sense essay on the necessity of a security fence between the Israelis and the Palestinians:

In fact, it is easier to pass from the West Bank to Israel than from the United States to Canada simply because there is no border, not even a white picket fence. The Israeli public finds this lack of a border troubling, to say the least, especially because fenced areas in the Palestinian territories have been surprisingly quiet. The Gaza Strip is a case in point: No suicide bomber has ever come out of the Gaza Strip because the entire area is fenced.

People who oppose the building of the fence, especially here in the US, do not really understand the political implications or the motivation for the fence:

For all its faults, Sharon's government didn't want to create this border. By building this fence the government is acknowledging the creation of a separate Palestinian state and abandoning the settlements beyond it -- two actions it would rather avoid. The fence, suggested by the Israeli left, is built by popular demand on land taken from both Jewish and Palestinian villages that lay across the border.

In case anyone still does not understand this, building the fence is a de facto recognition of Palestine as a separate state. Nations do not build fortified borders within their own territory. Sharon, far from being the concentration-camp builder that the wacko left would have you believe, just recognized the two-state solution and has all but spoken aloud his sacrifice of Jewish settlements in Palestine. He didn't want to build the wall because he didn't want to reward the suicide bombers. He no longer has any choice. What angers the Palestinians (and the extreme left in the US) is that it also keeps the Palestinians from their true, unspoken aim: overrunning all of Israel and pushing the Jews into the sea. It also hurts the Palestinians economically, for which the Palestinians can blame no one but themselves.

Peace And Hate

The Dissident Frogman posts on the the depravity of putting guns and bombs into the hands of your own 5-year-old and training him to kill, or especially to commit suicide:

In my book, anybody putting a gun in the hands of his 5 years old son or strapping an explosive belt around her 10 years old daughter is not fighting for freedom, resisting oppression, showing resolve or absolute despair. ... For any given parents and group to successfully and repeatedly overcome this instinctive behavior and voluntarily put their offspring at risk, it does not take resolve, pride or despair but a mental pathology, a religious or political fanaticism.

This is true whether you're talking about Palestinian fanatics or white-supremacist mouthbreathers in Idaho. It's bad enough that fanatics strap bombs on themselves ... but to celebrate when your 12-year-old takes out a few civilians while blowing himself to pieces is just depraved. It stems from a valuation of human life only for its practical or strategic value. It's the same sort of thinking that forced the Jews into Auschwitz, that starved millions in Soviet Russia and Red China, that created the killing fields in Cambodia, and that separates Western democracies from murderous totalitarian regimes.

Kofi Unclear on the Subject

This article on the highly critical report on UN security failures in Iraq, which led to the bombings in August and September and UN's complete retreat, contains a very revealing quote from Kofi Annan:

The panel criticized the United Nations for shunning protection from U.S.-led coalition forces — the only source of security in Iraq — and for ignoring "credible information on imminent bomb attacks in the area." It also accused the United Nations of violating its own security rules.

Annan said the United Nations' security system worked well for the past 50 years.

"But the world has changed, and we will have to change our way of doing business to be able to protect our staff around the world," he said.

Hasn't that been President Bush's argument all along -- that the security arrangements that kept the peace for 50 years won't work now and must be adapted to new threats and new security issues? Does this mean he'll quit obstructing the US and start being helpful?

I won't be holding my breath.

Just don't forget the Lembas

I'm telling you, these maps on the Internet get more and more accurate all the time. Just be sure to plan for a stop in Rivendell for some shopping and good food.

(via Amygdala)

Power Line Is Humming

Power Line has an impressive series of posts this morning on a number of issues. First, Big Trunk posts about appearing on a panel at the National Lawyers Guild convention this week in Minneapolis, and how far left this organization goes:

Entering the convention precincts was a little shocking; the ambience, the displays, and the literature really marked the convention as hostile territory. Many handouts touted the cause of the only Cuban prisoners championed by the Guild -- "the Cuba five." The five, of course, are not any of Castro's prisoners, but rather are five Cuban men held in federal prison on conviction of offenses including espionage against the United States. The cause of the Cuba five is part of the Guild's old-time religion.

The Guild's PATRIOT Act panel demonstrated how the Guild has moved seamlessly from defending America's Communist enemies to defending America's Islamofascist enemies. The common denominator between the Communist Manifesto and Shari'a law is not apparent in theory; only in practice does raw hatred of the United States unmistakbly reveal itself as the glue that joins the Guild and these two causes.

Big Trunk's post contains lots of links to supporting and opposing arguments. While his comments on Lynne Stewart's appearance may be unnecessarily snarky (reminiscent of comments made by Democrats when trying to marginalize women like Paula Jones and Florida's Katherine Harris), his points about her assistance to terrorists are dead on.

After that, read the Big Trunk post on Churchill, which dovetails nicely with the post from Strange Women Lying in Ponds, which I referenced on Thursday. Big Trunk also recommends a new book on Churchill, which I'll probably look for when I finish the book on the Reagan letters.

Hindrocket notes Thomas Sowell's series on the far-left attacks on Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who appears to be facing yet another filibuster in the Senate. Hindrocket concludes:

The Democrats shamelessly pursue their anti-democratic tactics because they are paying no political price. Other than a few columnists and bloggers, who is expressing outrage at the Democrats' refusal to allow President Bush's judicial nominees (especially minority nominees) to be voted upon? The outrage needs to start at the top.

What has to happen to stop this from being a constant threat is for the Republicans to force the Democrats into a real filibuster, not the Filibuster Lite that they've allowed through painless procedural motions. Force the Democrats to grind the entire Senate to a halt, hopefully with that disgusting Black Commentator political cartoon in the background. If the Democrats are to pay any kind of political price, they have to be revealed as the radical obstructionists they are.

Make sure you read all of the Power Line posts from today.

Spain Asserts Its New Leadership in Europe

Being on the right side of history pays off for Spain (via Merde in France):

All the same, until the Iraq war, Spain's notion of a New Europe - defined in cooperation rather than rivalry with the United States and reflecting loyalties, interests and instincts different from those of decades of postwar European habit - was largely talk. But in blocking, with the British and others, what it regarded as an attempt to turn the war into a European confrontation with America under a French and German banner, Spain achieved a new visibility in its effort to be seen be as a singular - even global - player.

Spain has used Old World charm to vault itself into a leadership position by aligning itself as a medium between the Anglosphere on one hand and the emerging EU nations from the east, already inclined to support Anglo-American goals of democracy and free-market economics. The net effect marginalizes, at least politically, the stagnant and statist Old Europe powers of France and Germany:

The tone is unmistakable. To understand Europe after Iraq, said Ramón Gil-Casares, the Spanish secretary of state for foreign affairs, requires recognizing that the French-German relationship remains very important in the European Union's approach to economic affairs.

At the same time, he said in an interview, "as far as foreign policy goes, the French-German axis is just not indispensable anymore. They cannot pretend it is, and they cannot speak for Europe."

Read the whole article. Because it's the IHT, it can't help tossing a couple of mostly laughable barbs at Rumsfeld and America, but the fact that they're reporting this phenomenon is very encouraging. Franco-German prestige is on full retreat.

NPR Bias on Schiavo - Mickey Kaus

Like me, Mickey is unsure how he feels about the Schiavo case, but he's sure how NPR feels about it:

"Bias" isn't quite the right word, actually. A biased report might interview all sides but slant the story to favor one point of view while quoting only unconvincing generalities from the other. That was Thursday's NPR Schiavo story. Wednesday's story transcended mere bias, covering the case as if the anti-death side didn't even exist, so there was no need to even try to find out what they were thinking.

All Things Considered on Wednesday covered the Schiavo story by interviewing three "experts" who were all opposed to the parents and Giv. Bush's order to restart the tube feeding, speaking to no one with an opposing point of view. Afterwards, ATC spoke at length with a Dr. Sherwin Nuland, who makes the insulting insinuation that Terri Schiavo's parents oppose her starvation because of guilt over some unknown neglect of their daughter earlier in her life. This prompts Kaus, who rightly notes that the entire issue could have been avoided by creating a Living Will, to state:

Notice to All Potential Mickey Kaus "Surrogates"-- If I'm ever in Terri Schiavo's situation, and not in any pain, please follows these simple rules: Keep the feeding tube in, and keep Dr. Nuland out.

Noted, Mickey. Read the whole thing. For another indication of media viewpoint of this story, read this editorial from the New York Times. It's an editorial and it should take a position, so bias is not an issue, but this sentence really stands out:

The supporters of the new Florida law invoke society's interest in ensuring respect for life. But that interest does not equate with prolonging bodily functions as long as possible. True respect for life includes recognizing not just when it exists, but when it ceases to be meaningful.

Meaningful? And who is to determine whether my life is meaningful, in the absence of any written instruction from me? Does the Times feel that life by itself is meaningless?

I'm putting this post into a new category: Songs of the Shining Wire, which follows up on my post from a couple of days ago. Stories which reflect societal pressure to devalue life and expedite the death of inconvenient or impractical life will wind up in this category. I hope it's seldom used.

Is This News?

The Post, inexplicably, links to this two-month-old story on its main web page:

Abu Shanab was killed Thursday along with two bodyguards when an Israeli military aircraft fired three to six missiles at his car on a crowded street in central Gaza City. About 30 bystanders were injured in the attack, Palestinian hospital authorities said.

I gathered this was not a breaking news story when I read this:

Senior Israeli military officials warned that they would continue targeting Palestinian militant leaders if the government of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas did not move aggressively to arrest them, confiscate their arms, destroy their weapons workshops and dismantle their organizations.

Oddly, if you replace Abbas with Qurei in this story, you wouldn't be able to tell this story was written August 22. By the time you read this, the Post will likely have corrected its web site, but it was strange to see this.

Chickens Coming Home to Roost Again

The British government has warned travelers to expect a fresh set of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia:

Britain raised its warning Friday against travel to Saudi Arabia, saying terrorist attacks were imminent. "We advise British nationals against all but essential travel to Saudi Arabia. We believe that terrorists may be in the final phases of planning attacks," the Foreign Office warning said.

The US isn't issuing any specific warnings:

A U.S. counter-terrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said American authorities were unaware of any recent intelligence that would lead to new alerts in Saudi Arabia. Instead, U.S. officials have received a steady stream of information in recent months suggesting Al Qaeda operatives in the kingdom were close to mounting an attack.

Arguing over the Iraqi Victory Must Be Getting Old

The LA Times revists another US military victory to question tactics, strategy, and necessity:

As U.S. troops wrestle with an intervention in Iraq, the success of the Grenada invasion 20 years ago might be seen as inspiring evidence of long-term payoffs for determined campaigns to put a troubled world in order. But even here, where military action was a comparative cakewalk once troops got past 800 Cuban construction workers, deep divisions persist over the value of that Cold War-era intervention.

Are we really going to argue over Grenada again? Wasn't that over in about 15 minutes?

Although most Grenadians agree they are better off as a result of the American action, they tend to see the storming of their tropical shores not as a rescue mission to evacuate students from the U.S. medical school, as the Pentagon claimed, but as an aggressive strike to thwart the spread of communism in the Caribbean.

Excuse me, but, well ... duh. If the US didn't think Grenada affected its own security, why would it have gotten involved? Cuba had set the 1979 coup in motion and was actively fomenting revolution in the Caribbean. The US needed to put Castro back in his box. None of that should surprise anyone who read the papers in 1979 or 1983. Grenada happened on Carter's watch and his lack of response was considered a show of weakness in America's own back yard. Does anyone else remember what happened later in 1979 ... say, in Teheran?

Grenadians had expected easier access to the U.S. after their nation became the site of the proxy superpower confrontation, says Paul Scoon, who as governor-general represented the queen of England here for 14 years, spanning British colonial rule, 1974 independence, Bishop's coup five years later and the 1983 invasion. On the other hand, he argues, leaving Grenada to stand on its own feet was in the nation's best interest, spurring private enterprise instead of fostering dependence.

"Since the intervention, the country has developed tremendously. More Grenadians are coming back here from abroad to retire," he says of a diaspora thought to exceed this nation's 100,000 population. "I don't think the people of Grenada were ever really yearning for socialism."

And there's this from Grenadian intelligentsia:

C.V. Rao, a university professor 20 years ago and now dean of students, says his experience of the Grenada conflict provides him with a yardstick to measure the value and legitimacy of other U.S. military incursions.

"The key to post-invasion economic development here was the gratitude of the Grenadian people," he said. "I hope we will see that happen in Iraq, but that is so much bigger and more difficult."

It appears to me that this is a non-issue, although it does point out the problems of inaction and the benefits of being actively engaged. Does anyone doubt that the Grenadians are better off now than they would have been under 20 years of hard-line Marxism? It doesn't sound like the Grenadians think so; in fact, the Times doesn't present a single Grenadian voice claiming otherwise. Perhaps the Iraqis also feel the same way.

Critical security report means U.N. must change its ways, Annan says

Instead of blaming the US, a UN panel scolds the UN for security mistakes that led to the bombing of their facility in Iraq:

The panel, chaired by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, issued a report Wednesday citing extensive security failures before the Aug. 19 truck bombing that killed 22 people, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and injured more than 150 others. ... The panel criticized the United Nations for shunning protection from U.S.-led coalition forces and for ignoring "credible information on imminent bomb attacks."

Kofi hasn't quite smelled the coffee yet:

But Annan -- speaking to reporters after returning from a donors conference for Iraq in Madrid -- sidestepped a question on whether he deserved blame for the security failures cited by the U.N.-appointed panel, saying he needed more time to study the report.

I wonder if the report itself mentioned that employing Saddam's former security forces was not the best idea for protecting their staff. Of course, none of this has changed Kofi's mind about returning to Iraq.

NOTE: Although the story in the Strib has a dateline of today, they had no link to this from their main web page. Doesn't the Strib think this is news?

Lieberman would tap McCain for administration

He later claimed he was joking, and John McCain laughed it off, but this only makes Lieberman look more attractive than any of the other defeatist Democrats:

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman said Friday that if elected president, he would tap Republican Sen. John McCain as defense secretary.

Doing little to dispel the criticism that he's a closet Republican, Lieberman told Don Imus' syndicated radio program that he would want the Arizona senator, a colleague and a friend, for the Pentagon post.

Such a move would attract centrist voters who want to remain strong on defense but feel that the Bush Administration have gone off the rails on other issues. In fact, despite what the White House leaks about being "scared" of Gephardt, Lieberman is the only Democrat who could seriously challenge Bush for the centrists in 2004, and the center will be critical. What this announcement will repel are extremists who believe that the projection of American power is at the root of all evil in the world and that McCain is likely to be as bad as Rumsfeld, or perhaps a mild improvement in PR only.

Unfortunately, because of the primary system in the US, the extremists are what win primaries, which is why Lieberman is the only candidate running to the center. Despite his association with Al Gore, Lieberman is normally a straightforward person, as his courageous appearance before a hostile Arab-American political action group proved last week. His run to the center is not a Clintonian calculation; it's a trustworthy position for Lieberman, which is why he is the one Democrat who wouldn't keep me awake at night if he was elected. And that's the reason the candidate the Bush administration "fears" most is Joe Lieberman. With a recovering economy and a stabilized Iraq, Bush easily beats any of the rest who are trying to outrace each other to the fringe.

Still Evolving ...

Moving on up ... moving on up ... to that upright primate ... on la-and (oh yeah) ...

I've progressed from Insignificant Microbe, to Slimy Mollusc, to Flippery Fish, and now I'm a Crawly Amphibian!

[sniff] My parents will be so proud of me!

Please note that if you want to see me evolve into something remotely mammalian, you'll need to keep linking to my posts and visit the Captain's Quarters regularly! If I wind up being plankton, it'll be on your heads ... eww.

S.F. mayor tries to foil "coup" attempt

You can file this under No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:

An outraged Mayor Willie Brown decided to cut short a trip to Asia on Thursday to contend with a coup by a city supervisor who made two key appointments in the 14 hours he acted as mayor. ... As Mayor-for-the-day Wednesday, Supervisor Chris Daly secretly appointed and swore in two environmentalists to the city’s Public Utilities Commission, then announced the appointments on official letterhead he had drawn up for the occasion.

Brown is outraged by this, of course, as he should be. The transferring of mayor powers has always been a symbolic act, a gesture to reward friends and soothe ruffled feathers of opponents.

Mayor Brown was said to be particularly livid because the mayor-for-the-day honors had been intended as an olive branch to Daly, with whom Brown has never gotten along. “Mr. Daly showed he is still the spoiled little brat of San Francisco politics that we all knew him to be,” Johnston said. ... “This is nothing but an immature, selfish act that was used for political exposure and expediency,” Supervisor Tony Hall said. He called Daly “the Madonna of the board.”

Hopefully, Democrats keep this in mind when the Governator travels outside of California; Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante has threatened to do the exact same thing. In fact, this recalls [oops, sorry] another oddball episode from years ago when Malibu made Martin Sheen its Honorary Mayor. Sheen immediately proclaimed Malibu to be a sanctuary for the homeless. Malibu residents, who were highly concerned and vocal about the homeless until that point, demanded his removal, which came forthwith.

Do student loans do more damage than good?

Michael Kantor over at The Calico Cat posts an intriguing and provocative question regarding the value of students loans to our society and their effect on tuition:

The article mentioned how the cost of college education has been increasing faster than the rate of inflation, but the issue of why was never addressed. I believe student loans are part of the reason. By making more money available to students, this just gives the colleges the leeway to raise tuition even more.

I know it's very anti-mainstream to question the value of a college education, but I'm going to go ahead and question it anyway. My experience is that the majority of college students are just in it for the piece of paper they get at the end which they think will be a ticket to a "good job." Yet we have so many college students graduating with no job awaiting them at all. And then to add insult to injury, they are burdened with student loan payments of hundreds of dollars per month. This is debt that can never even be discharged in bankruptcy.

What Michael doesn't include are the many student grants that are available on the basis of need, performance, situation, etc, that exist as well. I'm not sure that I'm in complete agreement about eliminating federally-subsidized student loans -- and I'm not even sure Michael is proposing their entire elimination -- but he's asking good questions about the overall cost to students and government. Read the whole thing, and be sure to blogroll Calico Cat if you're interested in politics and economics.

A Tale of Two, er, Three Headlines

'Tis a far, far, more biased headline the LA Times writes, than has been written before (otherwise known as It Was The Worst of Times, and the Even More Worst of Times):

LA Times, 10/24/03: Immigrant Wal-Mart Janitors Arrested

Reuters, 10/23/03: Feds Arrests 300 Wal-Mart Workers

AP, 10/24/03: Sources: Wal-Mart Knew of Illegal Workers

Aha! It took the AP to put the word "illegal" into the headline. The Times just uses the word "immigrant" as if there is no difference between legal and illegal immigration, like the government was rounding up janitors for no reason, and Reuters doesn't bother to note immigration as an issue at all in its headline.

Federal agents investigating Wal-Mart seized documents from an executive's office Thursday and raided 61 stores across the country, arresting about 250 illegal immigrants working on cleaning crews, authorities said.

The investigation grew out of two earlier probes into the use of undocumented workers by cleaning contractors for Wal-Mart, the world's largest company as measured by revenue. Authorities dubbed the inquiry "Operation Rollback," a reference to the name Wal-Mart uses for its price reductions.

The AP story has more interesting information about Wal-Mart's complicity:

The workers were members of cleaning crews hired by outside contractors, but federal law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said Wal-Mart knew of the violations. They cited recordings of meetings and conversations among Wal-Mart executives, managers and contractors.

Remember what David Adesnik has to say about media bias -- it's not outright editorializing that's so much the problem as it is which facts get emphasized in news articles ... and headlines as well.

New Feature: Now Hear This

I've added content to the third column again -- I just couldn't leave it alone, could I? -- in order to list the posts I think best represent Captain's Quarters. The latest post is listed first, and goes all the way back [all the way back being 3 weeks!] to my first post, which explains the slogan that Alicia included in my logo.

Now, if I could just figure out how to configure links in Typepad to open a new page ...

Media Bias Explained (in a Fair and Balanced Manner)

OxBlog's David Adesnik posts one of the clearest definitions of media bias:

The implicit premise of Matt's statement is that any factually correct statement has a legitimate place in the news. Yet surely a professional journalist such as Matt knows that editorializing is not just a matter of expressing subjective opinions, but emphasizing certain facts at the expense of others.

Check out the example that David uses, and how he rewrites it in a completely factual manner but changes the entire tenor of the piece. This should be required reading for any of us who express frustration at media bias and get challenged to define it.

Strib and Pioneer Press burying bad news about Dayton?

Minneapolis's local NBC led its morning news with this story, but the Star Tribune, which strongly endorsed Senator Mark Dayton last election, buries this story deep within its web site:

An office manager for Sen. Mark Dayton who says he was fired after developing a heart condition was found sleeping on the job and terminated for "exceptionally" poor job performance, according to new court filings.

That account, provided by attorneys for Dayton's office, represents the Minnesota Democrat's most aggressive attempt yet to head off a lawsuit brought by Brad Hanson, his former state office manager.

Hanson, giving his first extensive account of the case Thursday, called Dayton's assertions "blatantly false" and an attempt to smear him in the press.

It would be an attempt to smear him in the press, if the press was interested in reporting bad news about Dayton. The story, which is fair and balanced, cannot be found on the Strib's "front page" of its website, and is listed below the following stories on its Politics page:

* Governor Pawlenty's energetic approach to his job
* Medicare agreement close
* Senate Democrats defeat tort reform effort
* Senate votes for spam restrictions
* Senate confirms "Famous Dave" Anderson to BIA post (in the Twin Cities, anything about Famous Dave is big news)
* When should police tell school officials about molestation accusations against school staff?
* Senate panel is preparing a blistering report on pre-war intelligence
* Farm groups oppose Gov. Pawlenty's land conservation plan

However, at least the Strib carried the story; the other local paper, the Pioneer Press, doesn't have a story on this at all, and a search on "Dayton Hanson heart lawsuit" came up with no matches.

Now, ask yourself this: if Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican senator from Minnesota, was being sued by an old family friend because Coleman fired him a few days after being diagnosed with a disabling heart condition, where do you think that story would play the day after the plaintiff's news conference? Do you think that you would need to do searches on either website to find that story? I'm sitting here watching the 5 AM news, and the story ran at 5:03, and they just announced that they would be revisiting the story at 5:33. It certainly seems to be news to some media outlets here.

Syria -- Ruthlessly Secular?

That this article can run in the New York Times without a hint of irony is simply unbelievable:

Two decades after Syria ruthlessly uprooted militant Islam, killing an estimated 10,000 people, this most secular of Arab states is experiencing a dramatic religious resurgence. ... The widespread sense that the faith is being singled out for attack by Washington has invigorated that appeal, at a time when the violence fomented by radicals had tarnished political Islam. In Syria, some experts attribute the sudden openness of the phenomenon to a far more local fear. The hasty collapse of the Baath government next door in Iraq stunned Syria's rulers, particularly the fact that most Iraqis reacted to the American onslaught as if they were bored spectators.

Maybe Neil MacFarquhar has been living under a rock for the past 20 years, but Syria hasn't been "ruthlessly secular" -- Syria has been a major sponsor of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, all Islamicist groups which epitomize the antithesis of "ruthlessly secular". And nowhere, nowhere in this article is mentioned a hint of Syria's support for these radical Islamicists. MacFarquhar manages to completely miss the story altogether.

Hafez Assad knew how to play his secular image to the West while financing and supporting radical Islamists in the Arab world. If Bashir Assad is nervous about radical Islam, it's not because it's rising due to Americans driving radicals out of Iraq. It's because he and his father have been using Islamofascists as tools to maintain power in the region, and perhaps their grasp on those tools has slipped. They've allowed these groups to build infrastructures within Syria and now that Syria has been weakened by the fall of Iraq -- no Baathist big brother to back up the relatively weak Syrians -- the Islamofascists may see Syria as an opportunity to re-establish a radical Islamic state.

Americans in particular should be laughing at the idea that Syria has been "ruthlessly secular" during this period. It was after the slaughter at Hama that the Islamofascist groups in Syria-occupied Lebanon began kidnapping a series of Americans, and where Islamicists blew up 243 Marines. Syria, which is unable to match up with Israel militarily, has waged a proxy war against Israel through these groups, in Palestine and southern Lebanon, for 20 years, especially Hezbollah, which also has Iranian backing.

At any rate, that such a story could run in the New York Times without even a mention of Syria's support for radical Islamic groups is astounding and disappointing in the extreme.

Iraqi official says limited German, French help won't be forgotten - Oct. 23, 2003

A free Iraq fires a warning shot acrossFrench and German bows:

Ayad Allawi, the current head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed governing council, said he hoped German and French officials would reconsider their decision not to boost their contributions beyond funds already pledged through the European Union.

"As far as Germany and France are concerned, really, this was a regrettable position they had," Allawi said. "I don't think the Iraqis are going to forget easily that in the hour of need, those countries wanted to neglect Iraq."

Oddly enough, it turns out to be the same countries that wanted to continue to leave Iraqis oppressed and tortured in Saddam's grip, and the same countries who funneled billions of dollars in cash and equipment to sustain their prison. Who'd a-thunk it? (via QandO)

Where's the beef?

Check out the third item on this list of recent recalls:

An Indiana company has recalled 33,000 pounds of frozen corn dogs because they contain undeclared ingredients that could cause allergic reactions in some consumers, the Agriculture Department said.

The corn dogs from Olympic Food Products contained eggs, beef and whey that weren't on the label.

I can understand the concern here -- I certainly wouldn't expect beef in a corn dog! My goodness, what is the world coming to, when you can find actual beef in a frozen corn dog!

This ... is all Bush's fault, of course.

What Would Winston Churchill Do?

Strange Women Lying in Ponds returns from vacation with an insightful post about Churchill as the hinge of history in the 20th century:

It is perhaps easy to view Churchill's staunch leadership through WWII as an inevitability; as a case of the right man being in the right place at the right time, etc. This is Churchill the Noble, the Invincible, given moral authority by his role as leader of an island nation that was Europe's last bulwark against the successful establishment of a Nazi empire throughout the Continent. Here he is a symbol of courage under fire, of a morally ascendant Great Britain defying an evil and militarily superior invader.

The irony is that, had history turned out as Churchill would have liked, this image of him never would have come to pass.

SWLIP reminds us that in order to avoiding repeating history, we have to know and understand it. Think about this in the context of today's war on Islamofascism and the abuse directed at Bush and Blair. And bear in mind that Churchill had no historical precedent for a so-called "pre-emptive" war, which really is a misnomer anyway. Just like with Saddam's Iraq, Hitler's Germany broke treaty after treaty during the 1930s, any one of which could have been a perfectly acceptable casus belli.

Have They Finally Gone Too Far?

Make sure you read this post from Power Line as soon as possible. Ask yourself if the cartoon used by the Black Commentator, the NAACP, and PFAW were used by conservatives to protest a Clinton judicial nominee (or hell, in any context) what the scope of outrage would be amongst the Left. Every physical stereotype of African-Americans are included in this depiction of Justice Janice Rogers Brown. It's crude, it's disgusting, and it should be unacceptable for anyone interested in fair-minded debate. I'm not saying it should be outlawed -- they have a right to create this -- but it should generate outrage from the same people who are using it to further their purported political goals of equality and fair treatment.

I don't know what Justice Brown's credentials are for the position -- I haven't read enough yet to have a grasp -- but I do know that if this is how the radicals on the Left intend to attack her, they must not have any real issues to provide. That they would sell out to this extent reveals their true aims and their true character. We need an effective opposition in this country, but so far these organizations have provided nothing but paranoid, hysterical, empty rhetoric. Write or e-mail your Senators immediately and ask if this is how they intend to let business be handled in the US Congress. If they don't see anything wrong with this, it's time to replace them.

People For the American Way Fights Free Speech?

People for the American Way, a leftist group that is "fighting to maintain and expand 50 years of legal and social justice progress that right-wing leaders are trying to dismantle," weighs in against free speech in their campaign against Janice Rogers Brown, the latest Bush judiciary nominee.

While there are reasonable limits to free speech in a workplace, it's up to the employer to set them, not the state, and I think Eugene Volokh is dead on with his excellent post today. Read through Justice Brown's opinion in the case PFAW cites and see what, if anything, you find "very disturbing". Remember this when you hear about PFAW and its allies screeching about the stifling of free speech in John Ashcroft's America.

Senate: White House didn't pressure CIA on Iraq findings

I assume the apologies will be forthcoming:

A Senate investigation has found no evidence that the Bush administration pressured CIA analysts to tailor their intelligence to suit the White House's views on the threat posed by Iraq. ... However, no current intelligence analysts came forward to the committee to back up that charge. And the White House says the intelligence it received on Iraq was unbiased and accurate.

"None (of the analysts) have indicated any intimidation," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

As QandO observes, we still need to find out why our intelligence data was off, and how we can improve it in the future. Maybe now that the finger-pointing and screeching can come to a close, we can move forward in that area.

British Patrols Walking Tall in Basra

Here's an update on our staunch British colleagues, winning hearts and minds in southern Iraq:

Battersby's men here in the nation's second-largest city wear soft berets and patrol neighborhoods at a leisurely pace, enjoying a level of contact and trust with residents that still eludes many U.S. units in and around Baghdad. ... But unlike the areas west and north of Baghdad — heavily populated by minority Sunni Muslims, who dominated Iraq under Hussein — there is little public sympathy for the resistance here. Many of the city's residents are Shiite Muslims, who suffered under the former regime and say they are grateful that U.S. and British troops chased Hussein from power.

"We don't say 'leave,' we say 'thank you,' " said Wael Abdulatif, governor of Basra province.

Basra has always been a center of anti-Saddam sentiment, and of course Basra is also where an insurrection was attempted after the first Gulf War in the hopes that the coalition would come to its aid. The British seem to be overcoming the mistrust and feelings of betrayal that were feared to remain strong in the area after the insurrection collapsed. Read the whole article.

The Shining Wire

"Do I wake or do I sleep?"

With those words, David Gelernter expresses his fundamental disconnect with a society that seems to obsess with nightmares, especially the kind from which it feels impossible to wake. He recalls the Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion and deduces that the various ways that followed in which we dispose of life in an ever-easier fashion all spring from this historical point. While I agree with a lot of what Gelernter wrote -- and I have tremendous respect for his opinions -- I disagree with this conclusion. As I wrote in my last post, all of these are symptoms of the existentialism and nihilism that has plagued the world since at least the aftermath of World War II, and perhaps World War I.

I felt that my post was incomplete, however, in that I didn't explain the link fully how they are linked to the issues Gelernter discussed in the Power Line post. What I left out was the concept of hopelessness that people feel regarding death. Even people who profess religious beliefs, of all creeds, are susceptible to this, even though most religions explain death as a stage one passes through to reach some higher consciousness. For centuries, for millenia, while humans struggled to progress while understanding that certain death awaited them, they relied on religious faith to maintain an equilibrium and ethical framework with which to interact with each other; losing your soul mattered far more than losing your life. While religion was used as a motivation for evil and terrible deeds, the overall benefit to human advancement is undeniable.

In the twentieth century, that began to change, as the world became more secular, both in government and in private life. Without the underpinning of religion -- and the valuation of life as sacred and holy -- humanity stopped focusing upward, as it were, but starting focusing inward. With the absence of the soul as a shared concept, life began to be a commodity. In societies built to be "workers paradises", religion was forcibly stripped from society and the only measure of a human was his contribution to the maintenance of the whole. Even in free Western societies, where religious expression was not discouraged, workers toiled in terrible conditions and in some industries (West Virginia coal miners, as an example) became the functional equivalent of slaves.

The results have been horrific. When people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and later Pol Pot found certain groups of people were inconvenient, they simply built enormous bureaucracies to exterminate them, either for their ethnicity, or their religion, or simply for poltical expediency. These were not deaths in battles; these were not unfortunate plagues; these were deliberate murder, either by intentional starvation, gas, bullets, whatever.

Even moving beyond the extremes, even moving into Western society, the concept of life as banal and essentially meaningless has eroded our sense of purpose. If human life has no value, then the fruits of human labor are also meaningless, and all effort becomes pathetically ironic. As this philosophy takes hold, we begin to value life not as sacred or holy, but for what practical purpose it can serve. Grandpa's getting old, and the cost of keeping him alive too much? Let's try euthanasia. Why house criminals when you can execute them and save yourself space, time and money? If someone wants to kill themselves for good reason, why not assist them in doing so? Why not? We're all going to die anyway.

I was reminded today of a book I read years ago named Watership Down. As memory serves (over fifteen years has gone by), a small group of rabbits must find their way to a new meadow in order for their warren to survive, and the book details their adventures. At one point in the book, the rabbits come upon another warren that is curiously detached, well-fed but not working, and the leader, a rabbit named Silverweed, sings odd and sad songs about the "shining wire" to entertain the rabbits. No one will leave with the main characters because they have no hope of a better life. It turns out that the warren is kept by a farmer, who sets his rabbit snares to harvest rabbits for food, and the shining wire is the snare that eventually will kill each of them.

That's what clicked with me when I thought about the Power Line post at more length. All of this nihilism, this constant postmodern, ironic disdain for humanity and its value, the obsession with death as the end of all things, is nothing more than singing about the shining wire, and we are surrounded by Silverweeds. Those of us who believe in something more find ourselves in the same place as Hazel, Bigwig, and Pipkin, looking around at a warren full of profoundly hopeless rabbits, who have consigned the entire meaning of their lives to death and death alone.

I don't mean to say in this that all atheists are consumed by hopelessness and are amoral, and all religious people rise above the material and focus on the spiritual; far from it. What I am saying is that where people attach no intrinsic value to life than its practical application, there you will find no hope at all. Religious fanatics who murder 3,000 people in order to make a point about the ascendancy of their creed attach no value to human life -- the 3,000 people are nothing more than a means to an end. Atheists who dedicate their lives to the betterment of those around them exemplify the assignment of a higher value to life. But what I am saying is that societies that assign no value above the practical to human life, who do not value human life as sacred and holy, will devise more creative and efficient ways of eliminating those lives it sees as impractical, and unfortunately, that is the theme of our world over the past century. All the issues are merely the symptoms of the greater sickness.

Power Line on Terri Schiavo

The Big Trunk excerpts at length from an article in the Wall Street Journal by David Gelernter regarding the Terri Schiavo case. Gelernter sums up the case quite accurately:

The death-by-starvation facing Terri Schiavo was averted yesterday when the Florida legislature passed a bill letting Gov. Jeb Bush intervene to save her life. Mrs. Schiavo has been severely mentally disabled since her heart stopped for a time in 1990. Although doctors have called her condition 'vegetative,' she breathes on her own, her eyes are open and in video clips she appears to respond with smiles to the sound of her mother's voice. That is one ground on which her parents have pleaded with authorities to let their daughter live. But last week her husband ordered her feeding tube removed, and until the legislature acted, Gov. Bush had no authority to override Michael Schiavo's decision.

Gelernter is highly critical of Mr. Schiavo's actions in trying to cut off all life-supporting therapies in order to terminate her life. He claims that she had expressed her desire to be free of such "heroic" medical intervention in case she was ever in the position she is now. Her parents dispute this and believe that she has some awareness of her surroundings and responds to stimuli, including their visits. Because Mr. Schiavo is the legal next of kin, he had the authority to order the removal of medical intervention, until the Florida legislature intervened itself and gave Jeb Bush the authority to reverse that decision, akin to a stay of execution of criminals.

The Schiavo case is heartbreaking, to be sure. There are accusations on both sides, notably against the husband, who is said to covet both the remainder of a legal judgment and another woman, which calls his testimony regarding his wife's state of mind into question. If nothing else, this should convince people who do not want heroic intervention to hasten to their lawyers' offices and establish a Living Will, which has legal weight and testifies incontrovertibly to your state of mind.

That being said, and without attempting to paint either side as evil or greedy, Gelernter has a good point in his essay; we are too quick to dispose of life, and not just at a particular stage, either. What Gelernter says in Big Trunk's excerpt is that the wholesale legalization of abortion has numbed us to the value of life:

"Who would have believed when the Supreme Court legalized abortion that, one generation later, only one, America would have come to this? Mrs. Schiavo's parents wanting her to live, pleading for her to live, the state saying no, and a meeting of the legislature required to pry the executioner's fingers from the victim's throat? I would never have made such an argument when the abortion decision came down, and I would never have believed it. I still can't believe it. Is this America? Do I wake or sleep?"

I believe Gelernter has it backwards. I believe that we became numb to the value of human life and so then supported widespread abortion, as well as capital punishment, assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc. That there are arguments, good arguments, to made on behalf of all of these to some extent is not in dispute. There are good arguments to be made for a lot of bad policy decisions based on honest and heartfelt beliefs and experience. It doesn't make the outcome any less wrong. The saying "Life is cheap" is so common and trite that is has become essentially meaningless, but was it always thus? I don't believe so, although capital punishment has certainly been around long enough. I think that in the post-Holocaust, post-nuclear world, we began to accept a fundamentally nihilistic and existential view of life. Nothing mattered when you could have 6 million people die in camps without even hearing about it until years later. Life meant nothing under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Once you accept these as everyday truths, then the litany of life-destroying policies makes sense and sounds perfectly reasonable.

Please read Big Trunk's post and Gelernter's views anyway. I don't want to criticize Michael Schiavo's decision in particular, but the application to our society in general.

Update: Sniper Defendant No Longer Acting as Attorney

According to the Star Tribune and the AP, John Allen Mohammed has ceased acting as his own attorney and rehired his "advisory" attorneys as his new counsel:

Prosecutors complained about Muhammad's self-representation Tuesday and asked the judge to rescind it. They said Muhammad was receiving too much help from Shapiro and Greenspun, whose role as standby counsel was supposed to be limited.

Fortunately for Mohammed, he had not had the opportunity to do too much damage to his case, and even at that point his rehired attorneys were able to reverse some of it:

After today's announcement, Greenspun launched a series of objections during the testimony of Chris Okupski of Trenton, N.J., who sold Muhammad the Chevrolet Caprice prosecutors believe was the vehicle used in the sniper attacks. Greenspun won many of his objections, something that happened only rarely while Muhammad represented himself.

Alan Dershowitz Speaks Out Against Self-Representation

Alan Dershowitz, noted appellant lawyer, Constitutional scholar, author, and a member of the OJ dream team, proposes that self-representation be banned in capital crime trials:

Should a defendant facing the death penalty have the right to defend himself, even if his defense will be unprofessional and could result, potentially, in his own execution? That may be the question the U.S. Supreme Court eventually faces in the case of Virginia vs. John Allen Muhammad, the alleged mastermind of the D.C. sniper murders.

Dershowitz discusses the cases of Colin Ferguson (the Subway Shooter) and Doctor Jack Kevorkian, who won in court three times while represented by counsel but lost when he chose to represent himself. There are success stories as well that Dershowitz only touches briefly on: Angela Davis and Clarence Darrow, but of course Darrow was a brilliant attorney.

The only real strategic advantage of defending one's self is this: In an ordinary case, the defendant may not speak unless he or she is willing to be cross-examined by the prosecution. But if the accused defends himself, he is then allowed to make opening and closing arguments without being cross-examined.

It is unclear whether Muhammad plans to take advantage of that. Instead, he may take the stand (questioned, most likely, by his standby counsel), and be subject to cross-examination, losing whatever strategic benefit he may have had.

I was surprised that there is no clear-cut Constitutional requirement for allowing a person to represent himself, mostly just long-standing tradition. I'm not sure how I feel about this, either. Idiots who choose this path are likely to experience legal Darwinism, and if they're guilty, that's fine with me. But they tend to muck up trials with lots of ignorant procedural issues and take up far too much of the judge's resources, driving costs and trial lengths way up. Some limitation on the practice may not be a bad idea.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm an idiot. I e-mailed Eugene Volokh on this article, and he graciously pointed out this post by Sasha Volokh that I somehow completely missed. Eugene, if you read this, I ... uh ... just learned to read English this morning. Yeah, that's it.

If you haven't yet checked out the Volokh Conspiracy, it's a great site for legal and political matters of all kinds. Especially if you take the time to read the posts.

Senate Dems Fight GOP Efforts at Tort Reform

Senate Democrats are threatening yet another filibuster, this time to protect their trial lawyer constituency:

Moving the cases to federal court would curb frivolous lawsuits and keep trial lawyers from getting millions of dollars in fees while their clients get little compensation, GOP senators say. Federal courts are assumed to be less likely to issue multimillion-dollar verdicts against big corporations.

[In] both the House and Senate versions of the bill, class-action lawsuits in which the primary defendant and more than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state would still be heard in state courts. But if less than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state as the primary defendant, the case would go to federal court.

Under the Constitution, anything affecting interstate commerce falls under the scope of the federal system, and most class-action suits have interstate impact, even if they're filed on a state-by-state basis. For instance, the various state tobacco lawsuits were filed in state courts and were careful to include only plaintiffs within each state so as to avoid federal court, at least at first. But that places an unfair burden on defendants, who may have to face 50 class-action lawsuits on every issue. And let's not forget that these lawsuits cost everyone money, except the trial lawyers who handle them. Businesses either go out of business (like Dow Corning, who made silicon breast implants that were later determined to be safe), resulting in lost jobs, or they have to raise their prices in order to cover the legal fees and massive judgments. The bill doesn't outlaw class-action or product liability lawsuits, nor does it weaken liability law. It moves the class-action process to federal court, where it belongs, and where judgments tend to be a lot more realistic -- which puts a dent in trial attorneys' paydays.

However, Democrats say they have at least 41 senators opposed to the bill, enough to prevent the legislation from coming up for a vote under Senate rules. They say the bill is designed to reduce business liability at the expense of people who are injured by corporate wrongdoing. ... Democrats also say the bill was meant hurt to trial lawyers, a perennial Republican target.

Evolution at the Captain's Quarters

If you scroll down through my Miscellaneous Links, you'll notice that I've evolved from an Insignificant Microbe to a Slimy Mollusc in the Ecosystem. Always the optimist, I hope to be some variety of vertebrate by the weekend. (It would, of course, be a first for me.)

Just when you thought it was safe ...

Showing the wit and intelligence long associated with the white-supremacist movement, Richard Butler, the Aryan Nations founder, is running for mayor in Hayden , Idaho, where the organization used to have a large facility until they lost a $6 million lawsuit:

"I'm not really anxious to become mayor," Butler, 85, said recently. ... Butler said his campaign is intended to restore Christian ideals, especially the Ten Commandments, to public life. But in truth, Butler admitted, Hayden is "running pretty well."

Okay, Dick ... can I call you Dick? ... You don't want to become mayor, and Hayden's running all right without you at the helm, but you're running for mayor anyway. Do I have that right? Hmmm ... kind of plays hell with that whole "superior race" thing, doesn't it?

White supremacists have not had good luck running for office in northern Idaho. Several years ago, Butler supporter Vincent Bertollini ran for mayor of the nearby resort town of Sandpoint. Bertollini got just 30 votes. Shortly after the election, he skipped town to escape a drunken driving charge.

How surprising! Anyway, human-rights advocates plan a get-out-the-vote campaign in Hayden (population 9,000) to defeat Butler's mayoral bid.

Politically Incorrect Lobsters

Brainstorming has solid evidence that eating lobsters is more humane that you might think. Save them from the long-term suffering that awaits them! Contact the Attorney General! Better yet, contact Michael Cerisi ...

Alicia pitches in -- again

Alicia pitches in again with a post about my shameless begging for trackbacks in the Truth Laid Bear contest. If you haven't visited the Twilight Café yet, go now. She designed my terrific logo (and another one, too, that I'm going to fit in here somewhere).

Check out this post, too, at the Twilight Café. Who was your choice?

Joining the Axis of Naughty

I've decided to pledge my Web loyalty (bloyalty?) to Instapundit and join the Axis of Naughty. There's no sense in spending this much time and effort on something if I can't be part of something divisive, after all. As Gaeilge, I'll add: Sin Instapundit an blog is fearr sa domhain, gan dabht!

In the meantime, now that I've picked sides, I've also entered the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem, and I've entered into a contest for new bloggers on the site. I had to pick a post to feature during the contest, so I picked my post on Fareed Zakaria's column on Boykin, but I probably should have picked the one on German husband day care. [sigh] Anyway, if you think about it, do me a favor and link to the Zakaria post on your own blog, even if it's to say what a dink I am for having that opinion. (I like being a dink, so no worries.)

At this point, I'm no more than an Insignificant Microbe in the Ecosystem -- like I needed to go through all this trouble to hear that -- but with a little luck, and with the hope of an all-elusive link from Glenn, the Oracle of the Blogosphere, perhaps I'll move up the food chain a bit.

Blogosphere to Islamofascists: Drop Dead

The Blogosphere's most prominent citizens are back on line after another DoS attack from Islamofascists.

The outage affected not just Power Line, but Hosting Matters and all of the web sites hosted by that company, a group that includes Insta Pundit, Little Green Footballs and many others. ... If Americans' news sources were limited to the network news and major daily newspapers, the Islamofascists would have a much better chance of winning the war. No doubt their first choice would be to blow up Fox News and various talk radio stations, but that is much more difficult than launching remote attacks on web sites from locations like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Hence their attacks on the blogosphere.

Power Line makes a good point about the value of the blogosphere, and why the Islamofascists target sites like Hosting Matters. I'd expand on Power Line and say that, based on the reporting I've seen so far from most of the traditional media, without the blogosphere we'd probably have already surrendered, since Americans would have no idea what's really happening.

Even beyond that, though, what the Islamofascists keep targeting is a fundamental part of the American and Western way of life: freedom of expression. The Blogosphere may be the greatest "marketplace of ideas" ever constructed, where people can expression their opinions, ideas, fears, hopes, and faith. People all over the world come to the Blogosphere to get entertained, informed, and inflamed. Nothing could be more dangerous to people who define freedom within the boundaries of their own strident and oppressive philosophy. It's no surprise that these modern fascists (who would love nothing better than a return to the fourteenth century) attack what they hate most and attempt to silence us.

So let's resolve to not stay silent.

InstaBackup

Glenn Reynolds is defying the DoS attackers by continuing to blog at his backup site. I've added the link to the blogroll as well.

Defending the Blogosphere Front in the War on Terrorism

Here's a good idea from Irreconcilable Musings, in view of the denial-of-service attacks on the Blogosphere in recent days:

Over the weekend, a number of blogs were impacted by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on a website called Internet Haganah, which monitors, uncovers, and works to shut down Islamic terrorists' online presences. They must be doing something right to draw the attention of these cyber-fascists. ...

It is painfully clear that the Islamofascists will not stop in their quest to silence Internet Haganah, and that cannot happen - what they do is too valuable. The 9-11 terror attacks were plotted, in part, on the very sites that Internet Haganah tracks. Attacking the terrorists' online presence is as valuable a service as destroying their bases and freezing their accounts - it cripples their infrastructure so they cannot mount attacks on us. So I dug deep into my pockets and hit Internet Haganah's tip jar, hard. Why? Because I could - and in a small way, I feel I have done my part, without sacrificing the core values I hold dear, to defend those institutions which value life and liberty.

I haven't had the chance to do it yet -- I'll hit the tip jar when I'm home tonight -- but it's something we all should consider.

St. Paul's Outreach Program Gets Results ....

... only maybe not the ones they're hoping for:

Patrons at Lucy's Saloon watched in amazement around 1 a.m. Sunday when the man they say started a bar-clearing brawl began barking orders at police officers who arrived to quell it — and the officers responded.

The man turned out to be St. Paul police Sgt. Jon Loretz, the son of Police Chief William Finney. On Monday, the department referred an investigation into the fight to the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to avoid a conflict of interest, Finney said.

For Sgt. Jon Loretz, "outreach" involves "scream[ing] slurs against homosexuals" and getting into a number of "scuffles", such as these:

"This guy, this big guy — he was actually swinging on women," Hill said Monday.

He was choking one woman when bar security stopped him, she said. Then he began to verbally attack Noble, who was trying to kick Loretz out of the bar. Hill said he yelled, "You want to act like a man, I'll treat you like a man."

Hill then said she saw Loretz smash a beer bottle over the head of Treseler. Treseler was immediately knocked out.

What happened afterwards was even more disturbing for St. Paul residents:

As Noble tried to get him out of the bar, Loretz kept saying that he was a police officer and that he could have the bar closed down, Noble said. ... Then, as police officers arrived, Loretz told them he had things under control, Noble and others said. Hill said the officers were leaving when Noble began to object and called KSTP-TV, Channel 5. ... "They let him walk away," said Noble, who expected the responding police officers to at least question Loretz. "I knew it was somebody important because they started taking orders from him." Police said Loretz wasn't questioned until several hours later and was not given a sobriety test.

Police Chief Finney at least made the right call in turning over the investigation to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension -- a state agency -- and recusing the St. Paul police from any active role. He said, "I want there to be no question that my role as a father in any way influenced this investigation." The BCA should fully investigate Sgt. Loretz's service record to see if there have been any other incidents of this type that can be substantiated and determine whether the police department covered them up, as apparently started to happen here with lower-level officers. Loretz's arrogance in this incident, if true, bespeaks a man who has wielded unwarranted power in the past and does not believe himself to be accountable. There can be no excuse for peace officers who behave in this manner, nor for those who would protect them.

Brian Mulroney: Replace the UN

Brian Mulroney, Canada's Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993, writes in support of US action in Iraq and the need to reform the UN:

Although the reality of pre-emptive action is new, so was the terrorist strike on America. What is also new is the suggestion that Security Council approval is--and has been--a sacrosanct precondition to action against a hostile state. The historical record is to the contrary. In any event, I would never have agreed to subcontract Canada's international security decisions and our national interest to 15 members of the Security Council. This would be a surrender of national sovereignty to which I'd never consent.

Mulroney strikes at the heart of the anti-war argument of requiring the UN to agree to action: it is tantamount to surrendering our sovereignty and foreign policy to Britain, France, China, and Russia. Agreement at the UN Security Council would have been wonderful, but there are too many countries with too much interest in our failure to make that a possibility. Mulroney continues:

In fact, a coalition of nations--including France, Germany and Canada--mounted a massive air war against Serbia a few years ago without Security Council authorization, under President Clinton's leadership. There was no "imminence" of attack on any allied nation, nor did Serbia represent a threat to anyone outside her own borders. Why the reversal of policy when Iraq was involved, with the same nations piously insisting that Security Council approval had to be obtained before any military action could be initiated--and that the absence of any such approval had rendered illegitimate any military action against Saddam Hussein?

The answer is that the American President is a blunt oilman and cowboy from Texas instead of a glib lifelong politician from Arkansas. That's it. Oh, yeah, he's Republican, too.

Fifty-eight years ago, in San Francisco, statesmen gathered from around the world, facing decisions every bit as momentous as those we face today. Yet now, the U.N. is like a sheriff without a police force, unable to respond effectively to global conflict, even genocide ... In my judgment, the U.S. should instigate and lead a "San Francisco II," a major reform effort to establish new multilateral approaches that respect the principles of the U.N. Charter.

It's hard to argue with Mulroney about this. When an organization puts Libya in charge of its Human Rights committee and Syria in charge of its counterterrorism committee, it has gone beyond satire into the realm of unreality. It's time to refocus our diplomacy on building multilateral relationships instead of funneling everything through the increasingly inert UN. We should continue to participate in the UN and push for reform, but we should no longer count on it as a reliable means for our security.

I'm Sorry You Can't Comprehend My Genius

Malaysian PM Mahathir attempts to explain what he really meant in the Bangkok Post:

"In my speech I condemned all violence, even the suicide bombings, and I told all Muslims it's about time we stopped all these things and paused to think and do something that is much more productive," Mahathir told the Bangkok Post.

"That was the whole tone of my speech, but they picked up one sentence where I said the Jews control the world."

But just in case no one misses the point, Mahathir helpfully added:

"The reaction of the world shows that they [Jews] do control the world," he told the Post.

Mahathir is often described by Western leaders as a "moderate" in the Muslim world. Isn't that just peachy?

Never forget ... what?

A very intriguing Michael Ramirez cartoon about our short attention spans.

Which quote was accurate?

Yet another reason not to trust the "traditional media" outlets. This was Howard Dean, according to the Washington Post, speaking to a group of Arab Americans on October 18th:

"Because John Ashcroft touts the Patriot Act around the country does not mean John Ashcroft is a patriot," Dean said to rising cheers. "That American flag over there belongs to every American -- not only to John Ashcroft, Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson."

But according to Reuters, this is what Howard Dean said:

"It does not belong to General Boykin, or John Ashcroft, or Rush Limbaugh or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson," the former Vermont governor said to cheers in the packed hotel conference room in the Detroit suburb which is home to one of the highest concentrations of Muslims and Arabs outside the Middle East.

Bear in mind that the addition of Boykin is no small matter. When Presidential candidates start personally attacking active-duty generals on the campaign trail, that's an issue. Especially so in this case, as it would appear that Dean is attacking him for his religious beliefs, since nothing of what Boykin reportedly said had anything to do with the flag, especially in a partisan manner. (Robertson and Falwell, of course, have repeatedly and publicly mixed politics with their proselytizing.)

So if the Reuters quote is accurate, why did the Post cover it up? And if the Post is accurate, why did Reuters make it up?

Apparently, the LA Times is not the only media outlet having trouble understanding what quotation marks mean. I suspect Reuters may be the culprit here; they're more used to using them as "scare quotes" around words like "terrorism". (via Little Green Footballs)

Power Line: Islamofascists Strike Again?

Note to Fareed Zakaria: stifling free speech isn't the American way. That tactic is employed by others. Interesting to note where the DoS attacks originated. Do you suppose this is in retaliation for General Boykin's churchgoing activities?

Well, there they go again ...

According to the Drudge Report, CBS will be airing a bio-pic about Ronald Reagan during next month's sweeps. Great! It should go well with the new book of Reagan's letters:

In the upcoming CBS telefilm on President Ronald Reagan producer fail to mention the economic recovery or the creation of wealth during his administration, nor does it show him delivering the nation from the malaise of the Jimmy Carter years ... It stresses Reagan's moments of forgetfulness, his supposed opinions on AIDS and gays, his laissez-faire handling of his staff members. The scenes often carry a disapproving tone. During a scene in which his wife pleads with him to help people battling AIDS, Reagan says resolutely, "They that live in sin shall die in sin" and refuses to discuss the issue further.

Or maybe not ...

The film's producers, Zadan and Meron, acknowledge their liberal politics, as do the stars of the television movie, James Brolin and Judy Davis. But Meron tells the TIMES: "This is not a vendetta, this is not revenge. It is about telling a good story in our honest sort of way. We all believe it's a story that should be told."

"In our honest sort of way"?? What happened here is that Zadan, Meron, Brolin, and Davis got together with CBS chairman Leslie Moonves, a big Democratic donor and close friend of the Clintons, and dreamt up a hatchet job on the Reagans -- if this report checks out. Hardly the fair and balanced group of people you'd hope would take on a project like this, but it's a free country. No one has to watch if they don't want to see it. I think I'll just break out the book instead that night.

Fareed Zakaria Loses It

Fareed Zakaria wrote an impassioned but wrong-headed essay for MS-NBC calling for the Bush Administration to fire General Jerry Boykin over the story that the LA Times gave NBC late last week:

President Bush’s commission on public diplomacy recently noted that in nine Muslim and Arab nations only 12 percent of respondents surveyed believed that “Americans respect Arab/Islamic values.” Such attitudes, the commission argued, create a toxic atmosphere of anti-Americanism that cripples U.S. foreign policy and helps terrorists. To address the problem the commission suggested a major reorganization of the American government, hundreds of millions of dollars of funding and the creation of a new cabinet position. I have a simpler, more urgent suggestion: fire William Boykin.

Zakaria, a writer whose work I respect, starts this essay off with the ludicrous suggestion that the only reason that Muslims and Arabs have an overwhelmingly negative view of Americans is that we have American diplomats and government officers spouting Christian theology. What rubbish! First and foremost, Muslim and Arab hostility towards Americans results from our alliance with Israel on one hand and our business relationships with oppressive, oil-rich Arab kleptocracies on the other. Despite our coming to the rescue of Muslims in the Balkans on multiple occasions (and opposing historically Christian oppressors in doing so), these issues haven't changed and so neither has Muslim and Arab attitudes towards the US.

While our relationships with the kleptocracies are wide open for criticism, they have had wide bipartisan support and reflect certain geopolitical realities, chief among them that we don't seem to want to drill for oil in our own abundant back yard, and so we must buy from others who have it. The only other choice would be to severely limit power production and transportation, which would have a devastating effect on our economy. But our relationship with Israel is based on shared values and the absolutely critical foreign policy axiom that we never sacrifice a democratic nation for the sake of dictators. We will not stand for any administration that sheds its alliance with Israel in order to grovel at the feet of Saddams and Khomeinis. Our mission is to promote democracy, not to abandon it.

So the idea that a general speaking at his churches will somehow tip all of these Muslims from being friendly to spawning terrorists is really just a bit too much to buy.

When asked about these remarks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to condemn them, explaining, “We’re a free people.” But the issue is not whether the general is free to express his views, but whether Secretary Rumsfeld wants someone who holds such views in high office.

I'm really at a loss as to what remedy Zakaria recommends here. Is he really calling for a religious test for government office? Because up until now, no one has proposed that non-Christians be barred from military command or the State department. Zakaria can't have it both ways. Either we are all free to worship as we please without fear of punishment or retribution, or we can start chucking people out of their jobs for religious expression we don't like. Is that what Zakaria wants?

After all, were the general to have expressed his opinion that the Iraq war was a blunder, he would have been fired.

There is a difference between expressing strong religious convictions and publicly countering the foreign policy of the government you represent. The latter is good cause for termination (assuming this is an appointee and not an elected official) regardless of whether you do the former or not.

Will he be effective in establishing close working relationships with these officials, who have all watched him slur their religion? Is this a man who will be able to objectively sift through intelligence and analysis about the state of Muslim societies, the difference between moderates and extremists, the distinctions among various fundamentalist groups? Or does he look at them all and see ... Satan?

Zakaria hits below the belt here. Boykin has been fighting for his country for many years now, from Vietnam to both Gulf Wars, mostly in covert operations where you either get proficient at reading subtle variations of character and expression, or you get dead. If he saw Satan in every Muslim walking out of a mosque, as Zakaria postulates here, how could he have survived all those missions and wars in Special Ops? He's spent years building close working relationships with a variety of people, all the while being Christian. Why is that so difficult to believe? Why doesn't Zakaria reverse this argument and ask how devout Muslims expect to be trusted once people know who they are? Because our experience, thus far, is that radical Christians don't hijack planes and run them into buildings full of civilians, nor do radical Jews, radical Buddhists, or radical atheists. Why does Zakaria expect Christians to apologize for being Christians?

I don't share the General's religious views in regards to this war, but that's really beside the point. We are in the middle of a war, and we have a seasoned, successful, and motivated expert who has dedicated his life to protecting the United States and its freedom, including the freedom of religious expression for all citizens -- Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Eckankar, Buddhist, or atheist. It would be the height of betrayal, and stupidity, for the US to bar this man from continuing his mission on the basis of his religious views, and I am astounded by Zakaria's suggestion to that end.

UPDATE: Let's remember that Boykin is not being challenged on any official communication from either his job as Deputy Undersecretary for Intelligence or as a commander. These quotes are from speeches Boykin gave to churches and from an interrogation 10 years ago that he repeated to another congregation. In fact, if you look at all of Arkin's quotes (for which he will still not provide transcripts, despite agreeing to do so), they all are from speeches in churches. What's next, a list of chapters and verses Boykin may have chosen for readings?

Monday Clarkbot?

Okay, I know I'm a novice at the whole blog thing, but what the hell is a Clarkbot?

a. It's a cybernetic Clark decoy sent out on the campaign trail as a security decoy. (Would anyone be able to tell the difference?)
b. It's a wind-up toy from a merchandising system gone mad.
c. It's a blog program, designed to search the Internet, never sleeping, never stopping, for blog references to Wesley Clark ... it cannot be reasoned with, it cannot be reprogrammed ... it is relentless ...

Yes, I guess it's Option C. If you follow the link back, you'll see two of my earlier posts about Clark listed on his campaign blog. I hope they enjoy the posts, but something tells me they won't. Hell, the second one wasn't even about them, it was about AP's inability to spell caucuses correctly.

Are German Men Really This Pathetic?

German wives who dislike having husbands in tow while shopping can instead put their hubbies in day care:

For women who want to be able to shop without grumbling partners in tow, the "Men's Garden" has the advantage that they know where their men are and can limit how much they'll spend.

"I wanted to shop in peace," said Jeanette Brendel after dropping her husband off, paying the 10 euro fee, collecting a "receipt" for him, and kissing her middle-aged husband goodbye for the afternoon.

What a concept! How lucky for German wives that they can avail themselves of this service, since German men apparently cannot muster up the brain power to keep themselves occupied while their wives shop. Don't you love the "receipt" thing, too? As if they couldn't tell which one of the oafs still left in the romper room was the one to which they're married? And how do the men stay entertained? Well ...

Dozens of men left by their partners at the Nox Bar in the port city of Hamburg told Reuters they loved the "Men's creche," where for 10 euros ($12) they got a hot meal, two bottles of beer, a name tag and free games. ... To keep the big boys entertained, there were also copies of Penthouse magazine in the bar ... So that grown men won't squander all their time with fun and games, Stein has also introduced a workshop to teach the lads carpentry. ... "It's the first place that I've found where guys from different walks of life can come and enjoy themselves socially," said Ben Uaubascher, in his mid 30s, who had a choice of comics to read and games including a mini-race track to amuse him.

So, wives, be sure to drop off your husbands. We'll have all the porno and beer they can handle, and after they've had their two bottles of beer, we'll have them start using power tools. If they have any fingers left after that, we'll give 'em some free popcorn. What a great idea!

Lieberman, Clark to Skip Iowa Caucasus

In a surprise move, Senator Joe Lieberman and General Wesley Clark have declared their refusal to campaign in Iowa in order to protest Iowa's annexation of Central Asia.

Hint: The plural of "caucus" is "caucuses", in English anyway. The Caucasus is an area in Central Asia that include the Republic of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Perhaps the AP may have heard of it before. Or, perhaps not!

UPDATE: They changed the headline to read "Caucases", which now doesn't mean anything.

Update on War Crimes Post

I've added an update to my earlier post on war crimes in Vietnam, in order to clarify the timeline. You may want to reread the entire post with the new information in mind.

Why did this come out now? I assume that one of the veterans involved had either too much guilt or too much anger to keep quiet about it and talked to the Toledo Blade, who then checked it out and discovered the Army investigation in the 70s. Now that it's out, the question is what to do about it. I think staying silent is a poor choice. If we are to lead the world militarily, we must project complete professionalism and competence, and demonstrate that we will not tolerate war crimes on anyone's behalf.

Why Did Willie Brown Join Arnold?

Mickey Kaus answers one of my questions regarding the Schwarzenegger transition team:

Brown had been widely expected to run for the Bay Area Senate seat now held by powerful Senate President pro Tem John Burton, who will be termed out next year....But Schwarzenegger is wildly unpopular in this district--teaming up with the Governor-elect would seem suicidal for Brown. It makes sense only if you assume Brown has abandoned plans to run for the seat. Why might he do that? Perhaps because he's seen private polls like the one kausfiles just saw--showing him with an unfavorability rating in the district of 40 percent, way above that of potential rivals.

Brown's no dummy, and he's not about to pick a fight he's likely to lose, but I can't help thinking that once he got serious about the race that he would win it anyway, despite the early polling numbers. This is the guy who got himself elected Speaker of the Assembly when the Republicans had a majority. (Don't ask, it's too painful.) He's a political vampire, far more so than Nixon. Never count this guy out. Co-opting him may have been the smartest thing that Arnold does in his transition period.

My guess is that Brown is trying to polish up some centrist credentials and lose some of his uber-partisan reputation. While the Governator may be wildly unpopular in Burton's district (big surprise there), the recall has made it clear that Californians are tiring quickly of extreme politics from both sides and want more compromise and consensus in government. It would not surprise me in the least if Brown is the first Democrat to really smell the coffee.

[Note: edited to make clear that I think Brown would win the State Senate race if he chose to run, instead of "wouldn't win it".]

A Question of Accountability

Merde in France asks a good question, in his inimitable style, in the wake of French President Jacques Chirac representing Germany and France simultaneously at the European Summit:

Where certain numb minded brainwashed individuals, stuffed full of dogma through their every orifice like cheap streetwalkers, see an elegant gesture, we see further proof that the EU is nothing more than a complete con job whose purpose is to smelt national sovereignties into a bland rotten broth of concentrated non-thought served up as a snack to feed a political void. Who answers to the German people now? Schroeder or Chiraq?

Did it occur to Germans when the EU was launched that their head of state would casually assign representation of their sovereignty to a French politician? It would be equivalent to George Bush telling Canada to sit in for the US at the next Security Council meeting. This was no low-level conference about the plight of a vanishing species -- this was a European Union summit, where ostensibly weighty matters would be discussed and votes taken.

Good luck, Germany. You can't hold Chirac accountable, but you can hold Schroeder accountable ...

Two Democrats Decide Discretion Is The Better Part of Retreat

Lieberman and Clark are bailing out of the Iowa caucus:

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Lieberman and Wesley K. Clark have decided not to campaign in the initial caucus state of Iowa, gambling on winning the nomination with a later surge in the primary race.

Lieberman and Clark have decided not to spend their money in a state they probably have no chance of winning. Their decisions allow them to shift money to New Hampshire and other states with later contests.

This makes some sense for General Clark, who just started in the race (and just started being a Democrat) and may not have a strong enough organization yet to really work the caucus. Lieberman, on the other hand, has been running or threatening to run since Bush finished saying the oath of office. He doesn't want to go up against Dean in Iowa, but feels comfortable tilting at Dean in Dean's neighborhood? (To be fair, it's Lieberman's neighborhood too, but if Dean wins in Iowa, the momentum is not going to favor Lieberman.) Sound retreat, Joe, and too bad, because I think Lieberman is the one candidate with the right foreign policy philosophy; if Bush was defeated, Lieberman at least wouldn't keep me awake at night.

Colorado teen found after Amber Alert

Another example of how well the Amber Alert system functions:

A 16-year-old girl who was apparently abducted in Denver, Colorado, early Sunday was found alive and unhurt hours later, after police issued a statewide Amber Alert, police said. ... Police were still looking for a man in a white Honda who had apparently kidnapped Mitchell, she said. Investigators said the man was 25-30 years old, about 5-foot-4, with a pot belly. He was described as having short, thinning black hair, a thick mustache and thick eyebrows. When last seen, he was wearing a light black jacket, a white shirt with stripes and jeans. Police described the vehicle as a white, 4-door Honda with a gray interior and dark-tinted windows. It has a scorpion decal in the rear window.

Let's hope they catch the man responsible before he tries this again.

Report: Army unit massacred 100s of Vietnamese civilians in 1967

The Pentagon's investigation into Army war crimes in Vietnam in 1967 has apparently stalled out before it was made public:

An elite unit of U.S. soldiers mutilated and killed hundreds of unarmed villagers over seven months in 1967 during the Vietnam War, and an Army investigation was closed with no charges filed, the Toledo Blade reported Sunday. ... The Army's 4 1/2-year investigation, never before made public, was initiated by a soldier outraged at the killings. The investigation substantiated 20 war crimes by 18 soldiers and reached the Pentagon and White House before it was closed in 1975, the Blade said.

The Pentagon had a difficult task in trying to piece together a case from actions that took place 36 years ago, but the level of atrocity of which the volunteer Tiger Force is accused was disturbing:

Soldiers of Tiger Force, a unit of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, dropped grenades into bunkers where villagers -- including women and children -- hid, and shot farmers without warning, the newspaper reported.

Soldiers told the Blade they severed ears from the dead and strung them on shoelaces to wear around their necks. ... The Blade said it is not known how many civilians were killed. Records show at least 78 were shot or stabbed, the newspaper said. Based on interviews with former Tiger Force soldiers and Vietnamese civilians, it is estimated the unit killed hundreds of unarmed people, the Blade said.

The AP reports that the Pentagon has decided that bringing charges at this point in time would be a waste of time; anyone tried for war crimes would have to be tried in civilian court rather than a military court-martial, and the evidence and testimony would not be compelling enough to result in conviction. I think that simply closing this case is a wrong-headed notion, though. This type of allegation needs public airing, or at least independent investigation, even if individual names are withheld until a potential trial. No allegation could be more damaging to our troops in the field now than the accusation that the US military condones murder and mutilation of civilians, even if it's in the past.

UPDATE: I misread this story the first couple of times I read it through. It appears that the investigation occurred in the early to mid 70s, and was closed by 1975. It is still disturbing to me that war crimes were "substantiated" but no action was taken, although given the political climate of the mid-70s, I can understand the Army's reluctance to air more dirty laundry publicly. It begs the question as to how many more of these incidents were investigated and closed without public knowledge, though, and that's the damage that cover-ups cause.

Don't I Know You from Somewhere, you SOB?

I suppose when this 22-year-old man first went to jail, he felt that his life was over. However, in one of those coincidences that make you want to believe in a Higher Power, or at least in karma, he was surprised to recognize his new cellmate:

Authorities say he recognized cellmate Kevin Kinder as the man who abused him and three other boys when he was 11 years old.

His lawyer said the man, who is now 22, jumped on Kinder and punched him repeatedly.

The former victim's mother called the encounter a "fluke" but added that it was very "therapeutic" for her son.

"Therapeutic". Yeah, that's what it was. "Poetic justice" comes to mind as well. People often say, "Just lock me in a room with the guy for five minutes," but here's a man who actually got to do it. Kinder's doing 60 years for violating his probation, by the way, and was only in the jail to attend a state hearing.

Who pays Joseph Wilson?

Remember Joseph Wilson? He's the one who has been screaming that top Bush officials outed his wife as a CIA covert agent. But according to Joel Mowbray, Wilson may be more connected than is known to anti-war partisans -- specifically the Saudis:

The Middle East Institute, officially on the Saudi payroll, receives $200,000 of its annual $1.5 million budget from the Saudi government, and an unknown amount from Saudi individuals — often a meaningless distinction since most of the ‘‘individuals'' with money to donate are members of the royal family, which constitutes the government.

MEI's chairman is Wyche Fowler, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001, and its president is Ned Walker, who has served as both deputy chief of mission in Riyadh and ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Also at MEI: David Mack, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and deputy assistant secretary for NEA; Richard Parker, former ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco; William Eagleton, former ambassador to Syria; Joseph C. Wilson, career FSO and former deputy chief of mission in Baghdad; David Ransom, former ambassador to Bahrain and former deputy chief of mission in Yemen, UAE and Syria; and Michael Sterner, former ambassador to UAE and deputy assistant secretary of NEA.

Mark Steyn, in today's Chicago Sun-Times, notes this in a series of coincidences:

Less Wahhabism is in America's interest. More Wahhabism is in the terrorists' interest. So why can't the United States introduce a policy whereby, for the duration of the war on terror, no organization directly funded by the Saudis will be eligible for any formal or informal role with any federal institution? That would also include the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute, whose "adjunct scholar" is one Joseph C. Wilson IV. Remember him? He's the fellow at the center of the Bob-Novak-published-the-name-of-my-CIA-wife scandal. The agency sent him to look into the European intelligence stories about Saddam Hussein trying to buy uranium in Africa. He went to Niger, drank mint tea with government flacks, and then wrote a big whiny piece in the New York Times after the White House declined to accept his assurances there was nothing going on. He was never an intelligence specialist, he's no longer a "career diplomat," but he is, like so many other retired ambassadors, on the House of Saud's payroll. And the Saudis were vehemently opposed to war with Saddam.

This has no bearing, in my mind, on the question of whether his wife was outed by Bush officials; if she was still covert and active, then whoever revealed her name should at the least be thrown out on his/her ass. However, it has tremendous bearing on the question of why Wilson was chosen for the Niger job at all. Who made that decision? From everything we've heard, it's the geniuses at the CIA, which makes you wonder if they're bothering with a vetting process at Langley anymore. (via Instapundit and Balloon Juice)

Uh ... You're Welcome, I Think

Jacques Chirac has locked up that all-important Psychotic World Leader endorsement:

MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has thanked French President Jacques Chirac for blocking a European Union declaration condemning his comments last week that Jews "rule the world by proxy," news reports said today.

Chirac, backed by Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, stopped the EU from ending a summit on Friday with a harshly worded statement deploring Mahathir's speech, which also included suggestions that Jews get "others to fight and die for them."

Lest we forget, Chirac is the head of state of the European nation that leads the West in anti-semitic violence. Guess he knows on which side his bread is buttered. I guess we all do.

The report quotes University of Paris Professor of French Literature, Eric Marty, who wrote in LeMonde, "There has been no voice of political authority ready to say simply that there is nothing that can justify a policy of terror against Jews. Individual or group violence against the Jews of France could never have gone so far without the perception that, even if not authorized, there has at least been a certain indulgence or understanding."

A certain understanding and indulgence that comes from the top down, obviously. If this is the example that Chirac sets for his nation, no wonder France leads the Western world in anti-semitic violence. (via Roger Simon)

Vikings 28, Broncos 20

The Vikings proved they can beat good teams as well by hanging on to beat the Broncos, 28-20:

Minnesota (6-0) entered as one of three remaining unbeaten teams in the NFL, but the Vikings' first five victories came at the expense of opponents with a combined record of 8-20.

The Broncos (5-2) nearly rallied behind third-string quarterback Danny Kanell, who went 12-for-18 for 104 yards and a touchdown in place of the injured [Steve] Beuerlein.

The Vikes jumped out to an early lead, and were up as much as 28-7 in the third quarter after a Beuerlein pass was picked off and returned for a touchdown. After that, the Vikes started to stall and the Broncos kept chipping away, scoring two field goals and a touchdown before the Vikings finally stopped them for good with less than a minute remaining.

Despite the fourth-quarter stall, the Vikes have to feel good about getting past Denver. Next week, the struggling Giants come to town, and the Vikings try to extend their regular-season win streak to 10, going back to last season ...

Microchip 'could do away with pills'

Big news for those who have chronic medical conditions -- American scientists have developed a microchip that time-releases medication so pills become unnecessary:

This type of drug delivery could be very useful for patients who have to take many different tablets at specific times each day for instance those with HIV.

It could also help patients suffering from dementia who cannot remember when to take their drugs.

My wife, who has had Type 1 diabetes for almost 40 years and is blind, has also had a kidney transplant which requires a number of pills every day. Because of her blindness, I separate all her pills into four doses every day (she also has hypertension, hypothyroidism, gastroparesis ... lots of complications). She's fully capable of taking care of herself otherwise, but even she can forget a dose once in a while, and the change in blood chemistry plays hell with her insulin requirements. If she could just have a few microchips implanted every three or four months, she would be able to manage her illness more independently and not feel like I have to manage her health care. I don't mind doing it, and I know she appreciates it, but it frustrates her.

The story doesn't have any background about how the pharmaceutical companies would be involved with microchip design; I'm thinking the technology would be licensed to the pharmaceutical companies so that they produce it along with the medicine, rather than have a third party combine the microchips and the medicine. (via Drudge Report)

200 Posts, Alternate Design

This is the 200th post for The Captain's Quarters, and today I'll be trying a new design. If you've seen the prior design (with the other Alicia-designed logo), let me know which one you prefer. Just drop a comment onto this post and I'll be reviewing them as they come in.

Poll: Majority of Palestinians Back Suicide Bombing

Once again, I have to ask the question: is it a smart idea to bestow sovereignty onto the Palestinians?

Seventy-five percent of Palestinians support the suicide bombing at an Israeli restaurant two weeks ago in which 21 people, including four children, were killed, a Palestinian survey showed Sunday.

The survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which questioned 1,318 respondents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), also showed that 85 percent of Palestinians support a "mutual cessation of violence by both sides."

The poll found considerable anti-American feeling among Palestinians. Just over 95 percent of respondents said the United States was "not sincere" when it says it seeks to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Unfortunately, I think we are all too sincere about the two-state solution, which after all is mandated by UN resolutions which we supported, or at least allowed to happen without our opposition. In an area where we are trying our best to eliminate terrorism as a method of political action, we're about to hand the keys over to a group of people who have fine-tuned terrorism to an art form, and who do not appear at all motivated to change their ways. I understand that you only make peace with your enemies, but it seems to me that we'll be talking about Palestine tomorrow the way we talk about Iran today.

Do I have any other solutions? Unfortunately, no. The Israelis cannot continue the "occupation" as it is. Either they have to evict the Palestinians, which is the equivalent of the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, or they have to agree to a Swiss-like canton government that gives equality to Palestinians within the Israeli structure (which is the equivalent of the elimination of Israel), or the Palestinians have to have their own state, free of Israeli settlements and as contiguous as possible. The only advice I can offer is that current Palestinian leadership must be removed from the equation and that the Palestinians must realize that the occupation will continue as long as the bombings do. And as the dominos fall in the Middle East, there will be less and less support for continuing the Palestinian intifada. Iraqis are already expressing their contempt for Palestinians; expect more of that as other governments are forced to become more representative and cannot blame their problems on the Israeli occupation.

UPDATE: Read this post from David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy regarding the Palestinians. He has better and more specific suggestions, which could be used by the US as well as Israel.

Demosophia: Totalitarianism 3.0

Demosophia has written a series of essays this weekend that put today's struggle against "terrorism" in a historical context, and comes to a conclusion that many of us already understand:

We are not fighting a "War on Terrorism," as some now call it. That's a misnomer, because suicide terrorism is not a movement, but simply a method that has always been one of the favorites of totalitarianism either seeking power, or on the verge of losing it. What we are involved in now is but the most recent stage in a war against Liberalism's ancient enemy. And it is far from won.

Demosophia doesn't stop there. He predicts that the new conflict between traditional Liberalism and Totalitarianism 3.0 will create new political divisions and obscure or eliminate the old. In this there is ample precedent, at least in British politics. Prior to World War I, the Labor movement was a small, third party that existed to tip the balance between the Tories and the Liberals in Parliament. After the destruction of the old world order of ancient monarchies and intermarried heads of state, Labor surpassed and obliterated the Liberals in British politics. Over a longer period of time in the US, the traditional Liberal philosophy of the Democrats has been eclipsed by a more strident Labor philosophy, which leaves people like Bernard Goldberg (as an example), who identify with Liberal thought, bewildered. It's only obscure in the US because both sides of the political divide insist on referring to Labor philosophy as liberalism.

Finally, he discusses the entire controversy over imminence:

But it would seem to me that the real issue isn't "imminence" but the same issue that was at stake in the Florida Recount: uncertainty. And to some people uncertainty means freedom and license, while to others it means constraint and caution. To Saddam, as to the Japanese High Command, the uncertainty of the US and its allies was freedom and license. It represented operating parameters, and opportunities. To Byrd and Kennedy uncertainly meant the possibility that a threat didn't exist. I might even say it meant the probability that the threat would not materialize unexpectedly. So, to them it also meant freedom and license. To the Bush people, on the other hand, uncertainty meant the possibility of a really nasty surprise somewhere down the line. And for an executive, to be on the receiving end of a "day of infamy," is something to be avoided.

Bear in mind that Demosophia supported the Gore position on the Florida recounts, but uses the same arguments to support the Bush position on Iraq. A distinction that, to be sure, will be lost on the Democrats:

The Bush Administration had a reliable estimate for the error potential of an attack on Saddam, but they did not have a reliable estimate for the margin of error of laying off, and Byrd and Kennedy were not about to supply it. We may eventually know what that potential of error was, as a result of the Kay Commission's final findings. But the mere fact that even that is uncertain now suggests a really profound level of uncertainty about laying off that simply could not be narrowed or squeezed, without an effort that was almost certainly beyond the resources the UN was willing to invest. And you can bet your bippy Saddam had made that calculation.

Unbelievably good writing and thought. Make sure you read all three essays.

The Clouds May Be Clearing for Bush and GOP

Today's LA Times practices a bit of balanced editorializing regarding prospects for President Bush and the GOP:

Like the Chicago Cubs, though, the Democrats may have peaked too soon. Bush's poll numbers have stabilized. Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory in the California gubernatorial recall election has sent a thrill through the Republican Party. In Iraq, the violence continues, but the lights are now on, kids are returning to school, Turkey has agreed to send troops to the most dangerous part of the country (Sunni Iraq) — and the Bush administration won unanimous support from the U.N. Security Council for its plan for Iraq.

That's not to say that Bush & Co. can expect easy sailing, either, at home or abroad:

The French, Germans and Russians still steam over the U.S.-led invasion. They remain worried that a new Iraqi government, with U.S. backing, may try to repudiate some of the debt Hussein contracted in cozy deals made with French, Russian and German companies. They want the U.S. to pay the highest possible price — in money and even in blood — for the invasion to lessen the chance that the Bush administration or its successors will ever act without their approval.

Walter Russell Mead gets a high-five in the lead editorial in today's Washington Post:

In particular the Pentagon refused to countenance any weakening of the U.S. monopoly of authority over the occupation administration or the management of reconstruction, which is proving lucrative for well-connected American contractors. Though France and others made unrealistic and unhelpful proposals, the administration trapped itself by failing to seriously consider how it might give the United Nations and other governments a more meaningful role in Iraq's transition. In the end, rather than make possible new contributions of troops and funds, the administration obtained a formal Security Council ratification of the very policies that have caused countries such as India and Pakistan to turn down U.S. appeals for assistance.

The Post continues its scolding of Democrats who have fought against the continuing appropriation for Iraqi security and reconstruction:

The administration's failure to mobilize broader international support is now being used by Democrats in Congress as an excuse to oppose the Iraqi aid appropriation. The illogicality of this is as shameful as it is obvious: Were the Democrats to succeed, a project that already is underfunded would be starved of resources altogether, thus ensuring its failure -- and condemning American troops to a longer and more dangerous stay than they face now.

Still, Mead remains upbeat about Bush's chances in the next election cycle, as he foresees the economic rebound and the creation of new jobs well under way by next summer. He figures that the timing of the economy will coincide with major troop withdrawals from Iraq, eliminating talk of quagmires and negating debate on questions of casus belli:

There is better news yet for the Bush team. The early stages of a rebounding economy are notoriously "jobless." That is, gross domestic product rises, the stock market goes up, but unemployment refuses to budge. The main reason is that business is cautious; it doesn't want to make new investments or restart hiring until it is sure the recovery is more than a mirage. It's beginning to look that way now.

If all this is true, and next spring finds Bush announcing troop withdrawal schedules in Iraq while unemployment falls at home, the GOP, not Democrats, will be looking forward to November.

... and Names Can Hurt Me Too

Forget the wisdom inherent in simple children's rhymes -- it appears that hurt feelings cause the same brain reaction as physical injury:

Using magnetic resonance imaging, Eisenberger and associates in Australia studied brain activity in 13 volunteers as they played a video game designed to mimic social rejection. The game involved throwing a ball back and forth. Volunteers thought they were playing with two other people.

After a period of nice three-way play, the game forced the volunteers to sit on the sidelines. The other two "players," both controlled by the computer, began to throw the ball between themselves.

The social snub triggered nerve activity in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which also processes physical pain.

This discovery has implications for social science, psychology, and education.

The physical distress from social rejection also may help explain violent outbursts among socially isolated individuals, Eisenberger said. Pain is a proven cause of violence in animals, she added.

It's an interesting article; I found the test method a bit odd. I wonder what they told the volunteers prior to the testing. It also sheds some light on how our politics has become so polarized over the past three decades, or maybe better yet, since Vietnam. Prior to that, name-calling was limited to fringe elements in local elections (including Congressional races). While the public debate may have been heated, the tenor was serious and deferential, a legacy of which is the custom in Congress of referring to others as "my esteemed colleague", and so on. As I've said before, we need to insist on intelligent and mature dialogue in order to repair our national discourse, because if this report is true, we are on a slippery slope indeed.