Britain tried to spy on ally: report

I find it odd indeed that very little notice has been taken of this story from London's Sunday Times (reported by AFP):

Britain's internal security service MI5 sought in 2001 to plant eavesdropping devices inside the walls of a London embassy belonging to one of its main allies, London's Sunday Times newspaper reported. ... "For four months from September 2001, MI5 infiltrated the embassy, stole codes used by embassy staff for sending secret messages, and planned to plant listening devices and remove documents," the Sunday Times said.

The question is which one of Britain's "main allies" MI-5 penetrated. The composition of the Coalition limits the possible targets. The Sunday Times is enjoined from releasing that information, but offered tantalizing clues. This is from Cronaca, who had access to the original article:

The Official Secrets Act prevents The Sunday Times from identifying the country concerned, but its leader has visited Tony Blair in Downing Street and Britain has declared it a staunch ally.

Googling on "staunch ally" and Downing, hits come up on the US, Australia, Israel, but not Pakistan, who claims to be the victim of the espionage, according to the Muslim News, among other reports:

Pakistan has today lodged a strong protest with the British Government over MI5 reportedly trying to bug its embassy in London. It demanded an assurance that the activity was not authorised by the Blair Government. ... "Pakistan is insisting on categorical assurance from the highest level of the British Government that it did not authorise any activity in Pakistan High Commission in London which is inconsistent with the Vienna Convention," said a senior Pakistani official. "The matter has also been raised with 10 Downing Street."

Pakistan's "President" Musharraf has visited Blair at 10 Downing Street, at least the one time in June 2003, and restoration work was being done on the embassy during the time in question. It all seems to fit except the "staunch ally" description, not a label one would rush to put on Pervez Musharraf, whose staunchness certainly has been debatable since 9/11. Spying on Pakistan makes sense, since there are significant questions about the loyalty and reliability of its security services; in fact, it makes so much sense that it begs the question of why that mission would create a crisis of conscience for an MI-5 agent. Something about this doesn't add up, and neither does the lack of coverage over here, while Tony Blair's every political bump in the road makes Page One below the fold.

UPDATE: I thought about this overnight and it still bothers me. For one thing, the Pakistani statement seems too pat, and too muted to me. If Britain really had targeted Pakistan, the exposure could be expected to undermine Musharraf at home; why then publicly proclaim yourself as a victim? To divorce Pakistan from Britain? That could be accomplished by merely giving in to the Islamist forces at home without an espionage scandal. It would hardly be questioned -- in fact, it's been a probability all along.

So, assuming it wasn't really Pakistan, who would it be? I mulled this over for a while, and I figured that Pakistan's statement would be intended to deflect attention from the real target. A "staunch ally" that the Pakistanis would cooperate with Britain to target, and one whose leader had recently visited Downing Street. Not the US: too dangerous for Pakistan. Not Australia: too dangerous for Blair, and no point anyway. But one country has been mentioned recently as a danger to world peace, as a candidate for sacrifice for Middle East peace, as explicitly reported by DEBKAfile and more elliptically by Thomas Friedman.

Has the Israeli Embassy had recent renovations?

Oil as an Unlimited Resource?

This may be world-changing.

A company named Changing World Technologies claims that it can produce oil and natural gas by recycling any carbon-based waste, with an energy efficiency of 85%, and scalable to almost any size. Almost any size. That means, in Samizdata's words,

If you live in the middle of the Australian outback, you can chuck your shite and animal carcasses into the hopper on one end... and fill up the old diesel RV from the other fifteen minutes later.

Scalable energy production was the hope of the hydrogen fuel-cell crowd (myself included), but hydrogen distribution remained a difficult obstacle for practical use. In this case, the fuel would be mostly inert waste products already in abundant supply at almost every level of scale you can imagine. And the biggest benefit -- energy indepence for not only the US but everyone -- will almost pale in comparison to the long-term benefit of severly reducing our landfill and sewage levels as these materials are consumed in energy production. Politically, energy independence will allow us to deal honestly with the Arab kleptocracies, and will also reduce their one natural resource to a curiosity, a third- or fourth-option backup source. That will severely impact funding to terrorists as well.

If this technology is proven, it's time to throw massive resources into licensing and producing these refineries. Let's roll, people. (via QandO)

UPDATE: There is a fair amount of skepticism in Samizdata's comments section; be sure to read through them. As one post says, "I hope this isn't the 2003 version of Cold fusion."

Progress in Iraq

Reuters reports that US forces have captured 12 terrorists involved in the rocket attack on the Baghdad hotel last month:

In overnight raids U.S. troops captured 12 people suspected of involvement in a deadly attack last month on a Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, a top commander said Saturday.

The suspects appeared to have links to the former regime of ousted president Saddam Hussein, said Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division.

I doubt that this will get a lot of play here, since it's Saturday and most people aren't watching the news. [What's your excuse? -- I have no life, that's why. Oh, and the First Mate is sick today, and Notre Dame is playing.]

"Based on multiple sources who provided human intelligence, the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division conducted a raid overnight in western Baghdad and captured 12 of 18 targets believed to have been responsible for the attack," Dempsey said.

Translation? The Iraqis are providing more and more leads to Coalition forces in order to get rid of these Baathist holdouts. It's similar to the Werewolf campaign in Germany after the collapse of Berlin, which lasted until 1947. We'd better learn to toughen up a bit at home, and probably get more people on the ground in theater.

It Never Fails

I hate it when they cancel my favorite TV shows:

Bad guys no longer have to fear the "L.A. Dragnet" crimebusters. ABC on Thursday canceled the show starring Ed O'Neill as police Sgt. Joe Friday. The series, based on the classic Jack Webb "Dragnet" series, had low ratings despite a second-season makeover.

I could see this coming -- they had moved the show to the Dead Zone of network programming, Saturday nights -- but had hoped that the quality of the show and Dick Wolf's influence would keep it on the air a bit longer while it found its niche. I liked the original line-up but thought the second-season improvements were very good. I loved Ed O'Neill as Joe Friday, too. What a bummer. I'd call for a viewer protest, but three out of the five of us are out of town this weekend.

Republicans Going to the Mattresses?

Today's Washington Post offers hope to those Republicans who believe that the Senate has allowed the Democrats a pain-free filibuster option for too long on federal judiciary nominees:

A brewing rebellion by conservative activists has prompted Senate Republican leaders to plan to devote at least 30 straight hours of debate next week to their bid to confirm a handful of judicial nominees being blocked by Democrats. The Republicans are bringing in food and cots for the "Justice for Judges Marathon," scheduled for Wednesday night through Friday morning.

It seems like they may be starting to take the filibusters seriously. No one has ever filibustered federal judiciary nominees before (with the exception of Abe Fortas' Supreme Court nomination in the sixties), and the Democrats have done it four times this session. But their obstructionism hasn't gotten a lot of play because the Republicans have allowed them to filibuster without actually doing anything. Is this a political risk? Perhaps, but to both sides, and there is a question of basic fairness in this. The President has the responsibility and the right to nominate judges for open seats as long as they're qualified and are not corrupt. The Senate has the duty to ensure that. It doesn't have the privilege of determining whether they're politically correct, and especially do not have the right to dismiss a nominee for their religious beliefs (William Pryor, a Catholic).

Republicans have their own statistics, saying the confirmation rate in Bush's two years is below that of any of the previous four presidents. Appeals court nominees, they say, were never filibustered before. They have also accused Democrats of being, in individual cases, anti-Catholic, anti-South and anti-Hispanic.

Democrats are using the filibuster to block U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. of Mississippi, nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans. Democrats had rejected him in 2001 when they controlled the Senate, but Bush renominated him as soon as Republicans regained the majority in January.

Also blocked by filibusters are Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen, nominated for the 5th Circuit, and Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr., nominated for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta.

Among the candidates for filibusters in coming weeks is Claude A. Allen, deputy secretary of health and human services, nominated for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond. Others include Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl, nominated for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and Brett M. Kavanaugh, the White House staff secretary, who have been nominated for the D.C. Circuit.

Yes, that's quite a list, and if the Democrats have to be on TV night after night blocking Senate business to block all of these nominations, then it will detract from the Nine Dwarves' press coverage -- although that may be a blessing, depending on which foot Dean has in his mouth at the moment -- and equate the filibuster with the Texas Democrats in their Legislature who bugged out instead of conducting business. I think that overall it will have the effect of making the Democrats the Tantrum Party. We'll see soon enough, I suspect.

I got this from Power Line, which has a series of excellent posts this morning. Be sure to read them all.

UPDATE: Power Line also comments specifically on this report that Bill Frist will dismiss the Senate Intelligence Commitee until the Democrats explain who wrote the strategy memo threatening to warp the commitee's processes to allow the Democrats to claim a cover-up. Deacon figures that the combination of these two developments show Republican resolve to play hardball in response to these tactics. Good.

Michael Moore: Man of the People

As if we needed another reason to dislike Michael Moore, try reading this letter (3rd item):

Recently, a co-worker asked me if I had seen the movie Bowling for Columbine yet, I told her absolutely not! My answer surprised her, given the fact my son, Matthew, was one of the 13 murdered during the deadliest school shooting in our country's history. I explained to her that prior to the public release of the movie the families of the injured and dead were invited by Michael Moore to attend a preview screening. How thoughtful.

Our family and others considered attending because we were genuinely interested in his message to the public regarding gun control and school violence.

However, once we discovered he was going to charge us admission we refrained from doing so.

It's laughable that Moore attempts to portray himself as an anti-establishment liberal who is the voice of the common folk, when in fact he is no better than the greedy capitalists he shuns. Maybe now that he has made millions of dollars off the blood of our children he could toss a DVD or two our way to view.

(via Amygdala)

Lá Breithe Sona Dhuit!

You say it's your birthday ...

Happy Birthday to ya!

300,000 Iraqis May Be in Mass Graves

Never again.

Never again.

Never again.

Any questions?

Subtleties of Media Bias

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit discusses an apparently common experience in media -- reporters who go into an interview with a predetermined agenda. I won't excerpt it as Glenn mostly uses an article by Roger Ebert to illustrate his point. Glenn relates this to interviews specifically, but I suspect that this phenomenon is more widespread in journalism. I would guess that reporters already know what their approach to a story will be before they ever write a word or spend an hour investigating. Read Glenn's post; it's very illuminating.

You Should Try It From The Other Side

I found a good blog that I'm adding to my blogroll, Bloviating Inanities, which on one hand elevates link-whoring to a new level, while in another post, openly hopes that all readers go away:

It is the goal of Suckwatch to annoy and alienate every blogger who reads me so eventually I have no readers and don't have to blog anymore because frankly, it's a big pain in the ass. This mission statement knows what you're thinking - why don't you just quit blogging, you idiot! Well, that would certainly be the logical thing to do, wouldn't it.

I love self-contradiction, and so I'm going to be visiting often, although apparently I will eventually be the only one. However, this post is the one that really got my attention, titled I'm an Idiot:

As I've mentioned, we had an alarm system installed at our house because a neighbor got robbed. Well, last night I set the damn thing off. I walked into the house and it beeped at me (this is your alarm system, Jackass. Turn me off). I walked into the kitchen and it beeped again (seriously, you moron, turn me off). But did I listen. No, I started feeding the cats. Then all of a sudden, the loudest, most annoying sound I had ever heard, well, sounded. It was like a thousand monkeys were pulling the tails of a thousand weasels all while the monkeys made that screaming monkey sound. Do weasels have tails?

Bill then got the alarm system turned off and had a difficult time with the alarm company because he had forgotten his identifying password, causing frustration and worry about what would happen if the police showed up. Would they arrest him for being in his own house? Well, Bill, to set your mind at ease, let me tell you what happens, because for 15 years, I've been the voice on the other end of the line, and have had regular conversations with alarm users that make you look like Albert Einstein in comparison.

First off, the police wouldn't arrest you -- they'd check your ID against your mail, check your house key, pictures on the wall if necessary, maybe even verify your identity with a neighbor if they wanted to bother, but they probably wouldn't. (Be kind to neighbors just in case!) I can tell you that the only thing that motivates police less than a residential burglary alarm is a doughnut-free diet. Oh, they respond, quickly and professionally in almost all cases, but they're not going there thinking that they're about to capture international jewel thieves. They know that either it's a homeowner who decided to feed his cat instead of turning off the alarm, a dog stuck inside with the motions armed,or a drug addict looking for your jewelry to get a quick source of cash for his next fix. None of these require Inspector Callahan; Inspector Clouseau could handle it.

And forgetting your password? Very common, especially when you're under stress -- a 120-decible siren in your ear tends to do that. No one thinks you're an idiot for that (although the cat thing ... well ...) . What we get much more often are calls like this:

C: Hello, I'd like to make a change to my call list.
A: Okay, may I have your password.
C: I don't have it with me.
A: It's on the card we sent you.
C: Oh, that thing? My wallet's too full already, I threw it out.
A: Okaaaaaayyyy .... You could submit your request in writing with your signature.
C: I need it done now.
A: You could fax it in.
C: Look, I don't have a fax machine, and I need to make the call list change now.
A: That's going to be a problem because without your code, we can't identify you.
C: I'm John Smith.
A: I'm sure you are, but without the code we can't verify it.
C: But I'm telling you that's who I am.
A: We're on the telephone. Anyone could call up and tell me they were you.
C: Why would they do that?
A: To make unauthorized changes.
C: How about if I tell you my phone number?
A: That's listed in the phone directory, it's not a secure code.
C: Let me speak to your supervisor.

Then we get to have the same conversation again with the supervisor, at which point the call gets transferred to me (the manager), where we have the same exact conversation, except this gets added on:

C: You suck. I hate your company.
A: I can understand that, sir. We made the assumption that you wanted a secure system. If not, you could always call another alarm company that allows any unidentified callers to make unlimited changes to your account.
C: F*** you.

Bill, I'll tell you what ... compared to people like this, you're a genius! (via A Small Victory)

Finally, the Strib figures out finance, sort of

Okay, maybe this is a sign of the impending Apocalypse, but even the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has figured out that the economy is improving:

For the second time in two weeks, the economy has delivered terrific news for President Bush -- and all Americans. The employment report released Friday shows that the nation's long jobless recovery has come to an end, and that the recovery's job-creating phase probably started last summer, earlier than analysts thought.

Coupled with a strong report on gross domestic product released last week, the data suggest that the economy finally is picking up steam after two years of lackadaisical expansion.

But, being the Star-Tribune, it simply cannot allow that Bush's economic policies may have been correct all along:

More worrisome are the long-term consequences of the president's budget policies. Rather than offer temporary stimulus -- the solution prescribed by a broad spectrum of economists -- the White House insisted on permanent tax cuts.

The Bush administration insisted on permanent tax cuts, especially on capital gains, in order to make people confident enough to start making long-term investments. But even the Star-Tribune has written off the recovery as only due to the temporary effect of rebate checks. For instance, the Strib reprinted Paul "Enron" Krugman's assertion just four days ago:

Consumers took advantage of low-interest financing, cash from home refinancing and tax rebate checks to accelerate purchases they would otherwise have made later. If he's right, we'll see below-normal purchases and slower growth in the months ahead.

The big question, of course, is jobs. Despite all that growth in the third quarter, the number of jobs actually fell.

Of course, this was printed a few days earlier in the NY Times, but the Strib always reprints Krugman, even when Krugman is demonstrably wrong (jobs grew in August and even more in September, and continued growing at a fast rate in October). Here's the Strib's own Mike Meyers, talking about rebate checks on November 1st:

The consumer spending spree that started with federal tax rebate checks last summer ended in September, even as personal income rose, the federal government reported Friday. ... It doesn't mean they're going to stop spending, but the big surge is over, [David Wyss] said. ... Personal spending fell 0.6 percent last month, and the personal savings rate was 2.9 percent in September, the lowest level since December 2001.

These checks were supposed to be the "temporary stimulus" that the Strib demanded instead of permanent tax cuts as an economic policy, and yet their own economists agree that the effect of these rebate checks are temporary and actually peter out very quickly. Businesses do not invest new funds into growth based on temporary surges in consumer spending; they only invest in growth when they can be assured of long-term prospects of favorable conditions, of money returning to the market over the long term (in both consumer spending and investment capital).

Of course, the Strib doesn't have a bias -- the leftist bias in the media is a myth, right? Especially when discussing economic science, a distinctly non-partisan area. For instance, back in August, the unbiased Strib printed a story in its business forum with this explanation of the risks of relying on projections:

But we must remember that projections are only educated guesses based on an evaluation of numbers. If we could reliably count on projections, we would be listening to President Gore talk about our economy and spending the rebate checks sent to us by the state.

Alas, this is clearly not the case. [emphasis mine]

Yeah, that mythical leftist bias in the media ... riiiiiiiiight.

UPDATE: Yikes, I forgot to mention that this is my entry in the Electric Venom Letter of the Day posting. (I'll assume that the anonymous commenter is either Kate or one of the Venom bunch giving me a timely reminder of blogosphere etiquette. Sorry!) Man, I get on a rant, I forget all about what the heck I'm doing ...

New Weblog Showcase: Mr. Cranky

I've decided to cast a vote in the TTLB New Weblog Showcase for Mr. Cranky and his excellent Halloween story:

I am always amazed at how nicely the boy is treated as he goes trick or treating. This year he wore a Hulk costume - you know the one, it has the foam muscles. At one place, the lady of the house gave him a candy after the usual holiday exchange, then squeezed his foam arms and said, "Wow, you're strong!". My boy grinned from ear to ear under his mask.

Read the whole thing, it's a great piece of writing. (I have a neighbor like A.H., too ... I wonder if they're related?) I've added Mr. Cranky to my blogroll, too.

Rip Van Wepner

I know boxers tend to get a little slow in their old age, but this is ridiculous:

The boxer who was the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone (news)'s "Rocky" films plans to file a lawsuit against the actor for illegally using his name to promote the films and other merchandise, attorneys said Friday.

Chuck Wepner, 65, is seeking $15 million in damages from the right of publicity claim, said his attorney Anthony Mango. The suit will be filed next week in New Jersey State Court.

Uh, Chuck ... Rocky first came out 27 years ago, pal. Why the delay?

Mango said Wepner waited almost 28 years before filing the suit because he always expected Stallone to compensate him. "Stallone said there was going to be something in this for Chuck. But he was giving him shallow promises to placate him. Chuck took him as a man of his word, but then finally realized it was never going to happen," Mango said.

It took 28 years of no check in the mail before it sunk in that Chuck wasn't going to see a payday? I've heard about patience, but this seems a bit much. I'm no legal expert (maybe the Volokh Conspiracy can weigh in here), but I doubt a judge is going to be enthusiastic about endorsing a lawsuit filed more than a quarter-century pass after the injury occurred. The judge will probably see this as an attempt at building a retirement nest egg at Stallone's expense, which is certainly what it looks like from here.

It Seems A Little Odd for a "Jobless" Recovery

I know we're in a jobless recovery, because all of those truth-tellers like Al Sharpton keep telling us so, but shouldn't the primary characteristic of a jobless recovery be one that doesn't create jobs?

The economy has created nearly 300,000 new jobs in the past three months after a half-year drought, pushing unemployment down to 6 percent in October and leaving little doubt that the jobs market is bouncing back.

The Labor Department reported Friday that payrolls grew by 126,000 last month, many more than economists had predicted. That followed a revised 125,000 new jobs in September, more than double what initially was reported. U.S. companies added 35,000 to their payrolls in August.

250,000 jobs added in the last two months. At that rate, we'll add 1.75 million jobs by Election Day next year. We aren't out of the woods economically, though:

The new jobs added last month mostly were in lower-paying industries such as retail and temporary employment firms. ... Also, 1.4 million workers were only able to find part-time work, up 27 percent from a year ago. To make ends meet, 7.5 million Americans worked two or more jobs last month, up from 7.3 million a year ago. One of four people out of work were unemployed for 27 weeks or longer last month. Nearly half of those were white-collar workers in management, professional, sales and office jobs, Challenger said.

The jobs recovery has to start somewhere, and it's now clear that it's really begun in earnest. As the economy continues its recovery, investment will increase, which will create more jobs at the production level, which will create a need for more supervisory, management, and sales positions. What's key now is to make sure we don't create disincentives for investment -- like jacking up taxes, especially on capital gains.

I guess the Democrats are right about Bush being a failure -- he just can't seem to deliver that jobless recovery they wanted.

Snark Hunt!

Electric Venom has its weekly snark hunt posted ... and the snark are running! Venomous Kate was kind enough to include one of my entries this week. But there's lots more snark to hunt, so be sure to go there and check it all out. Enjoy!

Josh Chafetz Wins the Day at Oxford

Josh Chafetz reprints his speech on OxBlog from the Oxford debate on the Iraq War, in which he participated yesterday:

I must begin with a word of apology for my lack of preparation. Not only was I just asked yesterday to speak, but I was also laboring under the apparent misapprehension that we would be addressing the resolution that "This House believes that we are losing the Peace." Yet I find that the honorable gentleman who has just spoken in the affirmative [Jeremy Corbyn, MP] has talked about the war - about Vietnam, oil, Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair, international law, weapons of mass destruction, sanctions, and so on. While these are all issues worthy of serious discussion, I must confess to being somewhat baffled at how these normative questions bear on the empirical resolution that I was told we were to debate.

Read the entire speech. It reminds us of what we have to accomplish as well as the victories of liberation we can already celebrate.

Oh, and PS: Josh won the debate. (via Instapundit)

QandO: Job Recovery Fastest in 20 Years

Jon at QandO sheds a little light on the "bleak" job recovery progress. Job recovery to a 6.0% unemployment rate from past recessions took 57 months after the 1982 recession and 41 months after the 1991 recession. Recovery time for this recession? 23 months.

Now, compare our previous post-recessionary periods with our current post-recessionary period and try to figure out why this unemployment rate is being called unusually bad.

Oh. Right. Elections.

My bad.

When Jon observes, Jon gets it right. Check out the entire blog, if you appreciate rational and fact-based argument. (Hell, check it out even if you don't.)

Voting Without a Choice

The Washington Post sends out a clear warning signal about the effects of radical gerrymandering on democratic processes:

VIRGINIANS CAN FLATTER themselves that they held an election this week, and in some technical sense they did. Votes were cast, and by day's end candidates had won state offices. Yet there was one glaring problem, which should gnaw at everyone who left the polls with a cheery "I Voted" sticker: Most of the legislative races were hardly more competitive than elections in the old Soviet Union. And just as it is in non-democratic societies, this absence of meaningful competition was the product of deliberate manipulation -- in this case the gerrymandering of legislative districts by the politicians who then run for reelection from those districts. Most results were known before a single vote was cast.

This problem occurs more frequently than ever in more and more states, and why this is a problem is explained quite clearly by the Post:

The point of elections is to test ideas and hold officials accountable. This process is short-circuited when like-minded voters are so concentrated in districts as to render the outcome a certainty. Lack of competition amplifies ideological differences and further polarizes U.S. politics, because Republican officeholders need not answer to Democratic constituents and Democratic officeholders can ignore Republican voters.

We are increasingly reaping the rewards of this process, and term limits hasn't done a thing to help. Redistricting needs to respect community boundaries and common sense; the original concept behind districts was not to Balkanize Republicans and Democrats, but to elect representatives to be truly representative of their communities. Once again, we should demand a better accounting of the districting process and saner, community-based districts.

Maybe They Should Be More Specific

Do you remember the couple having sex in St Patrick's Cathedral in the New York radio stunt? The woman involved was sentenced yesterday for her part:

A woman accused of having sex with her boyfriend inside St. Patrick's Cathedral as part of a radio show stunt was sentenced to five days of community service. Loretta Lynn Harper, 36, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on Thursday.

Harper could make a semantic argument that she was performing community "service" in St. Patrick's Cathedral, but I'm sure that the judge has something a bit more tame in mind.

In an odd and morbid note, her 38-year-old partner in crime died of a heart attack earlier this year.

The Partisan Diet

It loks like the "clubby" and "bipartisan" atmosphere of the House Appropriations Subcommittee may be a thing of the past -- and the winners will be American taxpayers:

Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), who chairs the subcommittee that controls spending on education, health and jobs programs, recently stunned Democrats by announcing plans to reject every "earmarked" project they are seeking in the final, compromise version of the bill, which funds the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor.

His reason: When the House passed the bill on July 10, all 198 Democrats present voted against it, several of them saying it shortchanged education programs. The bill passed, 215 to 208.

So what happened was that the subcommittee loaded up the bill with both Republican and Democratic pork, and then the Democrats stiffed the Republicans when it came to voting on the bill in the House, including (apparently) Democrats who serve on the committee itself. When the Republicans respond in a partisan manner to this, the Democrats are shocked, shocked to discover politics at play:

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) called the action an "abuse of power." Obey said Democrats were being punished for voting their consciences in July. And Hoyer said: "To tell the 130 million people represented by Democrats that they are shut out from getting health and education projects is consistent with the undemocratic, autocratic, confrontational process that's being followed by House Republicans."

Hoo hoo, hee hee. I tell you, politics is just like stand-up comedy, only funnier. The partisanship is a problem, to be sure, but let's not pretend that it's an exclusively Republican problem; the House vote itself showed that. Democrats have been accusing Republicans of being autocrats ever since they lost control of the House, for running things pretty much the same way the Democrats did when they were in power. But the results are a good start on getting control of profligate spending by this committee for the sake of ensuring safe elections for incumbents.

Note that the total cost of "earmarks" -- essentially amendments over which little control can be exercised by the House at large -- cost almost a billion dollars in the last session. That's the cost of giving these people great photo-ops for their next campaign, showing Rep. Hoyer building houses for smiling elderly people; he's ticked off because that's one campaign commercial that won't happen now. Also note that the article, which is balanced and well-written, mentions several projects that seem to add up to around $5-7 million. So what's the rest of the $880 million for? Maybe a little partisanship here can save us some real money and start addressing the deficits that these same Democrats have been (rightly) screaming about during the Bush administration.

UPDATE: Jon at QandO expanded on this in a way I hadn't thought to do when I wrote this, but his point is very intriguing.

Jesse Jackson says Iraq is a 'quagmire' akin to Vietnam

Jesse Jackson runs off at the mouth again:

Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday said the U.S. occupation of Iraq was a "quagmire" similar to that seen in Vietnam and that the United States must form alliances through the United Nations if it is to withdraw from the country peacefully. ... While the United States is viewed as an occupying force, the United Nations could be seen as a liberating force, he said, adding that "the key to that is to really appeal to China, to France and to Germany to come in as partners under the umbrella of the U.N."

Once again, we get the tired recitation of who needs to approve our foreign policy before the US can take any action in its own interest. This is the first time I've heard China trotted out; as far as I know, China wasn't threatening to veto the 17th resolution. France and Germany -- for the zillionth time -- had billions of dollars invested in Saddam's survival and extensive contacts with Baathists, both in Iraq and Syria. Is this what Jesse wants: coalition partners who would rather reinstall the previous ruling class?

And the idea that the UN is a "liberating force" is sheer nonsense. I challenge Jesse to name one country that the UN has ever liberated. Just one would do, and Kuwait doesn't count; that was an invasion of one sovereign country by an another, which was reversed at Anglo-American insistence only. The UN isn't designed to "liberate" countries, it's designed to protect the status quo.

Jackson said the United States "cannot survive in Iraq as a unilateral occupying force," and that establishing a coalition through the United Nations "could work out the delicate transition from invasion and occupation to self-determination for Iraq."

It's not a "unilateral" occupying force, and Jackson knows it, and it's insulting to Britain and Poland to keep insisting that it is. Poland, by the way, just suffered its first hostile-fire casualty this week, which makes the timing of this statement particularly insulting. Note, by the way, where this speech was given. Not in Chicago, or LA, or New York; nope, he gave this speech in Thailand. So much for foreign-policy debate stopping at the shoreline, eh?

She Ought to Just Call His Bluff

You'd think this was a lawyer joke -- and it is -- but it's apparently also real:

Jerusalem - An Israeli lawyer tried but failed to legally bind his wife to have sexual intercourse with him twice a day, the country's top-selling daily reported on Wednesday.

The Yediot Aharonot said that the lawyer, whose name was not disclosed, filed a petition to a court demanding his wife commit herself in writing to having sex with him "every morning and every night".

The lawyer, who complained his wife had wrongly accused him of attempting to force her into sexual relations and of beating her, also demanded that she comply "under no pressure whatsoever".

The court ruled the petition was not receivable.

Yeah, right, twice a day every day. Sounds like a typical guy ... who's having delusions of adequacy. If I were the wife, I would have said, "But Your Honor, I would like a definition and standard of performance on his part as well. Two pumps and a tickle may be time-efficient, but it's hardly what I call performance, if you get my drift." Because, let's face it, if this world-class creepo had any skill whatsoever in the sack as well as in the marriage, he wouldn't have to go crying and whining to a judge to get his own wife to give him some loving. (via Electric Venom)

And There Was a Great Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

... at least amongst Democrats, as productivity continues to rise and jobless claims fell to their lowest rate in almost 3 years:

Productivity — the amount an employee produces per hour of work — grew at an annual rate of 8.1 percent in the July-to-September quarter, the fastest pace since the first quarter of 2002. That was up from a 7 percent clip in the second quarter, the department reported. ... In a second report, new applications for jobless benefits last week plummeted by a seasonally adjusted 43,000 to 348,000. That marked the lowest level since the week ending Jan. 20, 2001, and was much better than the 380,000 level that economists forecast. The four-week moving average of new claims, which smooths out weekly fluctuations, dropped to 380,000 last week, the best showing since the week ending March 10, 2001.

So now that the economy and the job market are both looking up, what are the Nine Dwarves going to talk about now? Oh, wait ... I forgot ... the pressing issue of who they want to party with. (via Power Line)

The Meme of the Moment: Saint Ronald?

It didn't take long for the left to spin the CBS decision to cancel the "Reagans" miniseries and shift it to Showtime instead. Now we are about to be bombarded with accusations that right-wing nutbars are insisting that Ronald Reagan be portrayed as a saint. Consider this from Timothy Noah in Slate:

It isn't especially troubling that CBS would bow to angry protesters in canceling The Reagans, given that the miniseries itself, if at all typical of the genre, is likely a piece of hackwork. (Those who live by popular tastes, die by popular tastes.) But it is troubling that the public, or at least a highly influential segment of it, has apparently ruled any criticism of President Reagan out of bounds. When did the Gipper become St. Ronald?

The answer is, of course, that he didn't, and no one is insisting that he was. What generated the vehement protests was a script that was so full of lies and distortions that it didn't qualify as criticism; it was blatant slander, and poorly-constructed slander at that. Noah goes on to quote named sources, in most cases published sources, regarding incidents that certainly open Reagan to criticism, but that's not what was in the miniseries.

Be prepared to hear more of this as the month progresses.

Democratic Pickup Lines

George Will writes an excellent column in today's Washington Post, one of three at least nominally about Howard Dean, but Will expands his review to the entire Democratic field of candidates:

For Dean and Deanites, the idea of courting the Confederate-flag-and-pickups cohort gives them the frisson of walking on the wild side, the tingle of keeping bad company, like a professor in a biker bar. But Dean's statement, which dripped a kind of regional disdain, was a clumsy attempt to make a sensible point: Disdain no voters.

The other candidates, instead of getting past the clumsiness (a Dean trademark), jumped all over Howard Dean to prove their own diversity chops, missing the point entirely. Dean sees that the South is about to depart from the Democrats for a generation, in part because the same disdain that dripped from Dean's statement has been part of the radical Left since the Civil Rights movement. Unfortunately, the South has changed dramatically, as Zell Miller explains:

The South, Miller notes with magnificent impatience, is an economic powerhouse and has 5,500 African Americans in elective office. Miller remembers another New Englander, presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, at a Georgia rally in 1988: "They had all these bales of hay stashed around here and there, like it was some kind of set from the television show 'Hee Haw.' "

But Will saves his biggest cannons for economic and foreign-policy issues:

The Democratic candidates seem not to understand that as the economy becomes a smaller issue, the election becomes bigger. It does because the election becomes about a single large question: What should be America's role in the world? The Democratic candidates' answers, other than Joseph Lieberman's, range from incoherence to ruinous clarity.

The incoherence: We favored removing Saddam Hussein, but oppose having done it without the cooperation of other nations that made it clear they were never going to participate. We support the troops in the field but oppose the money for them to continue what they are in the field to do, which is complete the emancipation of Iraq from tyranny's aftermath.

Not one of the candidates has offered an alternative open to the Bush administration other than to not have gone to war at all (in my opinion, not finishing the war that was started in 1991 and never ended). All of them, except Lieberman, explain that they would have used "diplomacy" to get the French and Germans and Russians to change their minds about Iraq, as if the Bush administration hadn't tried that at all. The Bush administration, it should be noted, is the first administration since the last Bush administration to go to the UN for approval for military intervention. The Clinton administration never bothered, not for the Balkans, not for Haiti. No Democrat has ever been able to clearly explain what they would have done had they wound up with the same answer that Bush got from the Axis of Weasels; they would just like people to believe they would have gotten a different answer, despite the fact that all three had big money invested in Saddam's survival.

All of that is inexorably leading to this:

Until Oct. 7, 26 states with 46 percent of the nation's population had Republican governors. Then Californians remembered that they really wanted a Republican governor after all. Then on Tuesday, Mississippi and Kentucky elected Republicans to replace Democrats. When all three are inaugurated, and if Republicans on Nov. 15 retain the Louisiana governorship, the GOP will govern 29 states with 60.6 percent of the population.

If you think I'm celebrating that, well, I am, but there's a problem with too much success. We operate best with an effective opposition party as a check on power. I don't mean that Republicans are going to impose a dictatorship (nor the Democrats either), unlike some people who have never gotten over the sixties. I mean that Republicans have bad ideas just like the Democrats do, and having an effective opposition keeps most of them from being implemented. With the Democrats falling backwards out of the South and only being effective in the massive urban areas of the Northeast and California (and not even completely so there), their perspective will be increasingly socialist and parochial, just when we need both parties to be firmly behind the war on Islamofascism. It does not help one bit that one of the two major parties has become defeatist and deeply pessimistic, openly hoping for disaster to befall the economy and our foreign policy. They do not offer realistic alternatives any longer; they just point fingers. No one wins under those conditions.

Notre Dame: Desperate

In the second item, I'm afraid that Chris Dufresne of the LA Times has this exactly correct:

Navy last defeated Notre Dame in 1963, yet we can't think of a year Notre Dame needed to beat Navy more.

Um, ouch! But so true. This season was supposed to be when the Irish challenged for the national championship. After last year's magical season, it appeared Ty Willingham had turned the program around. But at 2-6, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere soon.

Read the first, featured item on Eddie Robinson; it's heartbreaking.

Howard Dean's Foot Strikes Again

Howard Dean, a man reportedly so intelligent that he is allowed to prescribe medication for people, needs something for his chronic foot-in-mouth disease:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."

Is Dean trying to lose the nomination? He traveled all the way to Tennessee just to tell Southerners to their faces that they're idiots who only vote on the basis of bigotry, religious fanaticism, and homicidal rage. Oh, and please stop doing that. What's next on the Dean itinerary -- a stop at the Bar Association to tell a few bad lawyer jokes, followed by an appearance at the NEA to tell the teachers that they should learn how to read first before trying to teach kids? It's one thing to tell voters what they need to hear (for instance, on entitlements) when they really don't want to listen. It's another thing entirely to stand up before a group of people and tell them that they're morons and have been for decades.

I've said it all this week: if this is the best that the Democrats can do, then they've already lost the election, and get ready for some stunning losses in Congress as well. (via Instapundit and Drudge)

The DNC Discovers Humor

Power Line posts the DNC's response to the cancellation of the CBS miniseries about the Reagans:

"No, there are no First Amendment violations here. The RNC protested the content of a program, which is its right, and CBS voluntarily pulled that program off the air, which is its right.

"But the decision makes it very easy to imagine a future where representatives for the Bush administration have the power to disapprove of any content that touches politics, policy, or history — including news programs."

So what is the DNC saying? That the unfettered exercise of our rights will lead us to a dictatorship? Apparently the only way for America to remain a free society is if a certain segment of the population agrees to remain voiceless. Alternately, we can only remain free if broadcasters are not allowed to control the content of their broadcasts, but must air all material produced (by the politically correct people, of course). Or maybe the DNC suggests that dissent can only be exercised by people in Hollywood, San Francisco, or New York.

Nothing that has happened in this tempest in a teacup is scarier than the DNC's statement. This isn't a fringe group, for crying out loud, these people want to run our government! Either they're about to drive off a cliff in the next year, or centrist Democrats need to stage a palace coup and eject Terry McAuliffe. They have become delusional in their bitterness.

I love Hindrocket's comment:

Currently the "power to disapprove of any content that touches politics, policy, or history -- including news programs" is almost 100% in the hands of Democrats. Frankly, none of us is imaginative enough to picture a world in which the American media are controlled by conservatives.

Blackfive: French Boycott Continues

Here's my first vote for this week's Carnival entry -- Blackfive's deep commitment to the French boycott:

The biggest fight that I have ever had with my wife in over six years of marriage was over my personal French Boycott. She had gone shopping and brought back some wine which happened to be made in France. She opened it before I knew what it was, and I asked her to pour it down the drain.

Of course, my wife knows me well, and she knows how much it would kill me to watch good booze destroyed. But, we went back and forth over it and she finally poured it down the drain, looking me in the eye the whole time.

He'd get my vote even if he wrote atrocious posts just for going through with that, but fortunately, he's a good writer. Check out his blog while you're there. And make sure to read the comments, too ... the second one, Doc Russia, has an even better suggestion.

Weight Isn't The Most Important Thing

My talented and very good-looking friend, Haddayr Copley-Woods, has a new column in the Minnesota Women's Press regarding society's obsession with weight:

As a feminist, I am ambivalent about having lost weight at all. Fat is a feminist issue, and although my weight loss was well within the scientific standard for my height and frame, I feel in a way as if I have betrayed the sisterhood. We should love ourselves for who we are, I tell myself, and people should love us for what’s inside. We should not be afraid to take up space. Also, I used to look a little tougher.

Quit laughing. I said “a little.”

Make sure you read the whole thing, and check out her previous columns as well. Haddayr always delivers an intelligent and entertaining column, I suppose even when we disagree, although so far that hasn't happened.

Dean's Confederate Comment Reverberates on Internet

Over the past few days, I have observed a fascinating phenomenon: my post on Howard Dean and his outreach to people who have a Confederate flag on their trucks gets over 10 hits an hour from various search engines, notably Google. Despite the fact that I post regularly on political topics and the War on Terror, this is by far and away the most-requested post from search engines.

Granted that this is not a scientific sample, and the Internet is not necessarily representative of the nation as a whole (and some of these searches are originating internationally), but it appears that Dean's comments have inflamed a large number of people who are looking for something on the Internet. No one has posted any comments on my original post, so I can only guess as to what it specifically means, but in general, those comments have resonated to a greater degree than I would have guessed.

Oh, and as you may already know, I don't mind the traffic one bit.

Barbra Streisand Decries Right-Wing "Censorship"

As expected, Barbra Streisand leaps to the defense of her husband and his movie:

I am deeply disappointed that CBS, the network that in 1964 gave me complete artistic control in creating television specials, now caved in to right wing Republican pressure to cancel the network broadcast of the movie The Reagans. (And I say MOVIE - because this is NOT a documentary - it's a television drama.)

She has a point -- this is a movie, after all, not like Michael Moore's supposed documentaries, although I doubt she'd hesitate to defend his intellectually dishonest works. All crying aside, the movie will still be broadcast, just on a different Viacom outlet. However, this part of her argument made my eyes roll back into my head:

I don't believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this.

Let's see ... it wasn't more than a few years ago that a number of Streisand's very Democratic friends staged the same kind of boycotts and protests to force Laura Schlesinger off of TV before she had even aired a single show. And let's not forget the hundreds of college campuses with "speech codes" that specifically target conservatives. Or accusing people of McCarthyism merely for disagreeing with them in public, like Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon did in the run-up to the war, even more despicably after their leadership in the Schlesinger boycott. The Hollywood liberal code seems to be "Free Speech for Me but Not For Thee".

Due to their experience with the restrictive English government, the framers of our constitution specifically included a ban on prior restraint in the First Amendment, which is an attempt to stop information from getting out there before the public has a chance to see it at all - exactly what is going on in this case.

In case Ms. Streisand missed this in Civics class, the "prior restraint" restriction applies to the government, not to private enterprise. Prior restraint doesn't apply here anyway; the movie wasn't stopped from being made, nor even stopped from being shown. The producers could well have decided to release it in theaters, or straight to video, although they would have lost money doing so. She acknowledges this in the very next sentence:

Of course, CBS as a company has the legal right to make decisions about what they do and do not air. However, these important decisions should be based on artistic integrity rather than an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents.

The decision, as Streisand well knows, is based on business. CBS is a business, and they have to answer to stockholders, who are not going to be pleased if they drive off hundreds of thousands of viewers, especially older viewers, which is their main demographic. And one would hope that artistic integrity implies a commitment to the truth; from the script, it is obvious that the movie had no such commitment. Instead of being artists, the producers were whores to their own political biases, and CBS declined to act as a pimp.

UPDATE: Power Line weighs in on this as well.

UPDATE II: Thanks to Big Trunk for linking back to my post, and welcome to all Power Line readers!

Wizbang: Vote Carnival In 2003!

Wizbang has the Carnival of the Vanities up and running. I'll post up some links later on in order to cast my votes. Don't forget that I've entered this post as my first-ever entry!

'8 Simple Rules' Returns Without Ritter

ABC struggles to keep its hit show, '8 Simple Rules', going without its star, the late John Ritter:

Ritter had completed three episodes for the new season when he died of a heart ailment Sept. 11. His last episode aired Oct. 7.

Gambling that a lighthearted sitcom can sustain the loss of its central figure, "8 Simple Rules..." is making a desperate bid to carry on as one of ABC's higher-rated series. Doing so, the producers and the network have risked conspicuous failure as well as criticism for tastelessness.

Let me tell you, I watched last night's episode, and I was mightily impressed with their effort. They made an excellent decision to film the show without a live audience, and so even the humor was muted and sad. James Garner and Suzanne Pleshette did an excellent job as a bitter and bickering couple who try with limited success to bury the hatchet to support their daughter. Larry Miller pitched in with a small guest shot that started out as a bit creepy but resolved itself very nicely. The real effort came from Katy Sagal and the actors playing the teen-age children, whose tears were copious throughout and, one suspects, were as much for losing their friend and co-worker than from the script.

I couldn't keep the tears out of my own eyes, either. John Ritter should have been there. Gilda Radner should be here. John Candy should be here. Last night, I missed them all.

Republicans Make Gains in the South

The Democrat position in the South continued to erode, as the Republicans gained two governorships in elections yesterday:

With a presidential campaign only months away, Republicans picked up two governorships in the South, ousting Mississippi's Democratic incumbent and seizing Kentucky's top job for the first time in 32 years. GOP Washington lobbyist Haley Barbour unseated one-term Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, while in Kentucky, three-term Republican Rep. Ernie Fletcher defeated Democratic Attorney General Ben Chandler.

In an echo of the California recall, neither election was as close as pre-election polls indicated, especially in Mississippi, where newspapers had the race as a dead heat; Haley Barbour wound up winning by eight percentage points, far larger than the margin of error in the polls. Fletcher won by 10 points.

Mississippi Democrats criticized Barbour for his connections and years spent in Washington as Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and other top GOP officials came to campaign for him — and as Musgrove distanced himself from national Democrats. In Kentucky, party activists argued that a vote for Chandler would tell the White House its economic policy is a failure.

All of this underscores the fact that the Democrats are heading in the wrong direction, especially in the South, as I wrote yesterday. Will this matter to the San Fran-LA-NY crowd? Probably not; instead, we'll hear a lot about Republicans stealing votes or intimidating minorities, some of which we've already heard. Don't expect a lurch back to the center anytime soon -- the True Believers are in charge of the party, and True Believers don't cotton to compromise.

Building character through sports

If intramural sports exist to build character for young adults, then one of the best success stories can be found in Nate Haasis, a Springfield, IL high-school quarterback:

Nate Haasis dropped back for one more pass as the clock wound down on his high school football career. But this one was different: As he threw a 37-yard completion, his opponents just stood around and watched.

With that, Haasis became the new all-time passing champion of the Central State Eight Conference, with a record 5,006 yards.

But it turns out the two opposing coaches in the Oct. 25 game orchestrated the play to ensure Haasis' place in history. And now the 17-year-old senior wants to nullify the pass and give back the record in a dispute that has roiled this football-crazed city and led to a debate over honesty and fair play.

Some in the community have made the coaches out to be evildoers in this incident, but the coaches stood to gain nothing from staging the final play for Haasis; they just wanted to see Haasis reach his goal. But Haasis realized immediately that the play was a sham, and decided that he could not take the record away from someone to whom it wasn't just given:

``It's for past and present football players. I felt disrespectful when I had the record the way I got it,'' the Springfield Southeast quarterback said.

People should quit blaming Neal Taylor, Haasis' coach -- this is not a story that needs a bad guy. The class and integrity Haasis demonstrated in filing a written request to have the play canceled out is compelling enough without ruining a well-intentioned but mistaken man's life and career. Haasis demonstrates that in a me-first-all-the-time world, where even pee-wee leaguers practice ridiculous celebration dances, sports can still build character. Or, perhaps, sports merely reveals character. Either way, it shows that sports can still make a positive impact on young people.

Kerry's wife calls presidential debates 'silly'

... and I completely agree with Theresa Heinz Kerry:

Heinz Kerry said debates have become about scoring a punch with quick soundbites. "It's just silly," she said. "I think those debates are really unproductive and they made it hard for all of them to (get their message across)."

In fact, I would call them exceedingly silly, made so by live audiences who ooh, aah, gasp, titter, and applaud the most banal and trite comebacks. These debates embody the vacuity of modern hight-tech media sound bite-ism. The formats do not allow for thoughtful policy discourse, and in fact are designed to eliminate any hope of that. They are entertainment, at least in theory, a type of gladiator arena where the fight is not so much between the gladiators themselves as it is between the audience members to stay awake long enough to punctuate their champions' verbal jabs with the appropriate sound effect.

To be sure, they've produced memorable, even classic moments:

* Richard Nixon's facial meltdown under the hot lights against Kennedy
* Ronald Reagan's "There you go again" against Carter, and
* Reagan's "I won't hold his youth and inexperience against him" comeback against Mondale
* Lloyd Bentsen's "You're no Jack Kennedy" against an outclassed Dan Quayle (VP debate)
* Al Gore acting like he had better things to do against George W. Bush

If pressed, 99% will only remember these moments from those classic debates, not anything about policy or philosophy, and especially not anything specific. So if these events are the only things memorable about televised debates, what exactly about the debates informs your choice as a voter? Or, if you make decisions based on these superficial and irrelevant incidents, maybe the debates are enabling you to avoid the serious work of evaluating candidates based on their record, their policy positions, and so on, which is a lot more work than having this pablum force-fed to you via the boob tube. I've stopped watching them; they're embarassing and they're pointless. One cheer for Mrs. Heinz Kerry for pointing it out.

UPDATE: Power Line has a great post demonstrating just about everything I said above. The big memorable question for the evening?

"I'd be curious to find out, if you could pick one of your fellow candidates to party with, which you would choose."

Great Moments in Democracy, Part 9. Will someone please drive a stake through the heart of the debate idea now?

If Loving You is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right

It's a bust! In fact, it was a lot of them for South St. Paul police officers responding to complaints of drug use:

Twenty minutes before police raided a South St. Paul sex swingers club, one of the partygoing couples reportedly won the top prize — a sex game — for their Halloween costumes. They were dressed as a police officer and a jailbird.

When the real police arrived at 1 a.m. Saturday, they found about 100 partygoers in the two-story building between two bars on South Concord Street. Officers also found small amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine. Three people were arrested in the raid; everyone inside was identified and photographed.

Yes, thank goodness for the South St. Paul police. I feel so much safer in my community now that we have pictures of all the spouse-swappers out on the town last weekend. Why spend the time on photographing people who didn't have drugs on them if drugs were the probable cause of the raid? (Maybe the swingers just wanted updated photos for their web sites. Clever.)

South St. Paul Police Chief Michael Messerich said police had suspected for months that Cline had been operating a swingers club at the location. But Messerich said that no allegations of prostitution or nonconsensual sex had surfaced. The alleged activity, consensual sex among adults, is not illegal, the chief noted.

Yeah, Chief, thanks for clearing that up.

While swingers parties are not on the local Chamber of Commerce's list of desired businesses ...

I'll bet they could make a quicker profit than those darn T-shirt kiosks in the middle of mall traffic. More satisfied customers, too.

Messerich said a search warrant was obtained and about 40 officers assisted the Dakota County Drug Task Force in making the raid. The task force is made up of officers from suburban police departments and the Dakota County Sheriff's Department.

Forty officers? It took 40 officers to arrest three people? I'll bet this is some sort of union thing, right? The last contract negotiations allowed for lower pay raises as long as they could get a lot of officers in on sex-party busts. Come on ... it's not like there's a lot of places in which to hide a weapon.

Two bars — Nick's Place and Al's Corral Bar & Grill — are on either side of Cline's place.

Thanks for the directions, we'll see you there Saturday night. It's "come as you are".

"Most people go there hoping to hook up with someone, that's swinging."

Only most people? What are the other ones there for, the articles?

Hauser objected to the police raid, which he said violated his constitutional rights. He said that Cline's parties, at least the couple of times he's attended, didn't "have anything to do with narcotics. It's not a drug place. It's a private party. It's not illegal to take your clothes off and have sex in a private place," Hauser said.

It's not? In John Ashcroft's America? Dubya's gonna be pissed!

QandO Joins Fisking Brigade

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has put QandO on its Mark Steyn Fiskers' Brigade for his delicious thrashing of the positions of Dennis Kucinich, and his even more delicious thrashing of the other Dem's lack of positions.

Also, Jon links back to my last post, so thanks, Jon!

WTF? The Incoherent Post

The Washington Post, whose editorial pages are generally clear-thinking on the war even when critical of the Bush administration, descends into self-contradictory babble in today's ultimately pointless second editorial:

TWO MONTHS after the Bush administration embarked on an effort to attract greater international support for its mission in Iraq, it faces the latest surge of violence on the ground from a position that is more isolated than ever.

Did I miss something? Has someone withdrawn from the established Coalition? Didn't Bush just get a unanimous resolution from the Security Council affirming the Coalition's mission in Iraq, something that the Clinton administration never did in the Balkans (where, by the way, we still have troops)? How is the Bush administration "isolated", let alone more isolated than ever?

Rather than look for further help from India, Pakistan or Russia, or even NATO allies, the Bush administration has abruptly embraced a new strategy -- "Iraqification," a rapid buildup of local police and paramilitary forces under U.S. tutelage. Maybe this policy will produce better results, but it's worth considering why the attempt at multilateralism has proved a failure.

"Iraqification" is the entire point. At some time, Iraq will need to police and defend itself, unless the Post is arguing for an extended occupation, either by the Coalition or by the UN, which it specifically is not.

Part of the explanation must account for U.S. enemies in Iraq, who seem to have achieved just the aim they were seeking in bombing U.N. and Red Cross facilities. ... The bombers took advantage of longstanding vulnerabilities in U.N. security procedures, as an internal investigation has shown. ... Despite the president's declared intention to seek a larger U.N. role, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his staff openly campaigned against it; they succeeded in blocking any weakening of the Pentagon's monopoly over power in Baghdad. This prompted governments that had been considering contributions of troops to pull back, and it caused senior U.N. officials to question why they should risk the lives of their staff to play a peripheral role.

So what was the UN excuse in Rwanda? The Congo? In fact, I challenge the Washington Post to name one conflict in the past 20 years where the UN took positive action to stop violence where anyone other than American or British leadership wasn't involved. In every other case, the UN contingent stands around watching while genocide occurs, and then gets withdrawn when the populace attacks their troops. The cut-and-run maneuver is standard operating procedure for the UN, and has nothing to do with George Bush.

And as far as the Pentagon's monopoly over Iraq, I would suggest that the British still have a major role in the Coalition, especially in the South, and would remind the Post that if control over Iraq had been handed over to the UN, most of the troops would still have to be American; other countries have never contributed troops in the numbers needed to make the mission successful. That means that either we leave 150,000 troops under foreign command, or we withdraw so many troops that the mission would fail from lack of manpower. It's all very well to toss around concepts such as "Pentagon monopoly" and "UN command", but if you're not going to discuss the ramifications of the options, it looks suspiciously like the writer doesn't grasp them.

It will now fall almost exclusively to U.S. soldiers to fight the insurgents in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle, and the United States will have to pay most of the cost of humanitarian relief and reconstruction in the coming year.

As I said above, that wouldn't change under UN command anyway. Also, the Bush administration just got $16 billion in foreign assistance for the reconstruction this past month, which almost matches the $20 billion we'e approved. "Most", I think, implies a greater difference than 12%.

The new police and security forces already have come under a concentrated assault by ambush and car bomb -- will their slight training and fragile morale prove adequate to withstand the pressure? If U.S. troops do not stay and fight with them, but instead are drawn down during an election year, that seems unlikely. Iraqi recruits also will want to know what they are fighting for. If the answer seems to be a dominating U.S. occupation regime, as opposed to a rapidly emerging Iraqi sovereignty, the commitment of our new comrades in arms may not be much greater than that of the international agencies and allies who lately have been slipping away.

So do you want us to stay, or do you want us to leave? In one sentence, the Post warns of reducing our presence, and in the very next breath, it accuses the Bush adminstration of creating a long-term domination of Iraq; the Post seriously questions Iraqi ability to police their own country, and then tells the Coalition that unless we give the Iraqis sovereignty, they won't protect their own interests. This editorial bounces between mutually exclusive arguments as though they were mutually supportive, all the while blaming the Bush administration for not convincing the French and Germans to support a war against a dictator that they had spent a decade assisting in undermining the US and the UN. It's a remarkable and unusual exercise in incoherence from the Post, but as such, it is sure to appear in the editorial pages of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune soon.

First Zell Miller, Now This

Another Democrat appears to be poised to defect in a major election, this time in the Louisiana gubernatorial race:

Mayor Ray Nagin, a Democrat, crossed party lines Monday to endorse Republican Bobby Jindal in the Nov. 15 runoff election for governor. Jindal faces Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco in the election.

Perhaps the Democrats should call in the UN -- 2004 is looking more like a quagmire every day. But this news, combined with the Zell Miller bombshell a few days back, and the sudden retirement announcement of Bob Graham in Florida, and it's becoming clear that the Democrats are losing the South. Despite their recent decision to abandon gun control, the South isn't likely to trust that Dem policy to be permanent, and the screechiness of the anti-war themes at the Presidential debates may play well in Hollywood and San Francisco, but among the NASCAR dads and the Confederate flag wavers that Dean craves (heh), it sounds like eight different flavors of wuss. (I'm exempting Joe Lieberman here.) These are Democrats who support unions and think that Bush gives away the store to the rich, but they're not going to stand for blame-America-first-last-and-always politicians running things.

The Democrats may be on the verge of a meltdown of 1972 proportions, without a Watergate in sight to rescue them. (links via Oxblog)

Update: It turns out that I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. I came across Photodude, a Southern Democrat, who writes thoughtfully on the subject at some length (via Instapundit):

I think Miller has a couple of very valid points, even if they took him to a hasty conclusion. ... “Al Gore became only the third Democrat since the Civil War to lose every state in the Old Confederacy, plus two border states as well. George McGovern and Walter Mondale were the others. But they had an excuse: they were crushed in national landslides [...] Gore’s loss was different. Had he won any state in the Old Confederacy or one more border state, he would be president today. But it didn’t happen. Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas and the Democratic bastion of West Virginia. Even Michael Dukakis -- hardly a son of the South -- didn’t manage to lose there.”

It’s the first thought I have when I hear someone who is still decrying how Bush “stole” Florida to win the election, as the Democrats had the power to make Florida totally irrelevant. Gore lost his home state. Gore lost his boss’ home state. Gore lost every state in the South, when winning just one would have made him the undisputed President.

Gore lost. Period.

Photodude puts in some excellent analysis, as I suppose only one who knows the South can do, and concludes that the Democratic cause in the South isn't hopeless yet, but it's rapidly heading that direction. He issues this warning:

So, you can bemoan any move to the center, and cling to the fact Gore got more individual votes than Bush in 2000, but you’ve just got your head in the sand. Electoral votes elect Presidents, and they will be won by wooing swing voters, not the party faithful.

Many of those swing voters appear to be in a wide swath of states the National Democratic Party seems to be largely ignoring ... any one of which could have won them the White House four years ago.

Read the entire post -- it's excellent.

CBS Bails?

Drudge Report has a headline without a story saying that CBS has dumped the miniseries on the Reagans. In the little Matt Drudge has posted, apparently Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone got involved and moved the miniseries to another Viacom subsidiary, Showtime, where it will run uncut.

Of course, this will allow Showtime subscribers to demonstrate their displeasure by canceling and switching to HBO ... they may have done better to just cancel it altogether. Maybe they will. Expect squeals of McCarthyism from ultraleftist Judy Davis and Jim Streisand, er, James Brolin.

New Terror Attack Warnings from DEBKAfile

Posting messages in a forum where prior notice of attacks have been revealed before, Islamofascists have stated that several US cities will be attacked in the near future:

A new message was posted in the last few hours by the Jeddah-based al-Qaeda-linked Al-Islah (Reform) society calling on Muslims to flee New York, Washington and Los Angeles in advance of major al Qaeda attacks in those cities. ... “The Jews rule the Pentagon by remote control and (are the cause) of Muslims being killed in every corner of the world. The United States should therefore expect more blows.”

The message is signed on behalf of the al Bayan (The Threat) movement by “your warrior brother, Abul Hassan al Khadrami”.

So far, nothing has been reported on CNN's web site. DEBKAfile gives background information on the forum and the history of al Khadrami. (via Little Green Footballs)

Onward and Upward

I didn't notice this until after I'd been on a while, but I've evolved further, from Slithering Reptile to Flappy Bird in the TTLB Ecosystem. Thanks to everyone who's been linking back here -- and if you haven't yet blogrolled me, let me know if you do so I can make sure I've blogrolled you in return!

Does French Sweat Smell Like Perfume?

Buried deep within the Washington Post is this bit of very good news (via Power Line):

The CIA has seized an extensive cache of files from the former Iraqi Intelligence Service....The records would stretch 9 1/2 miles if laid end to end, the officials said. They contain not only the names of nearly every Iraqi intelligence officer, but also the names of their paid foreign agents, written agent reports, evaluations of agent credentials, and documentary evidence of payments made to buy influence in the Arab world and elsewhere, the officials said.

It's time for many luminaries on the world stage to start coughing nervously and updating their resumes. This not only promises to embarrass international figures, but will completely undermine domestic arguments that Bush could have worked harder to get more international support. My guess is that the list is heavy on French and German names:

The officials declined to name individuals who they believe received funds or to name the home countries of the alleged recipients. One official said the recipients held high-ranking positions and worked both in Arab countries and in other regions. A second official said the payments were the subjects of "active investigations" by U.S. government agencies.

The recipients of the Iraqi funds were described by U.S. officials not as formal intelligence agents, but as prominent personalities and political figures who accepted money from Iraq as they defended Hussein publicly or pressed his causes.

If nothing else, it may be a signal from the Bush Administration that the time to play "Let's Make A Deal" is just about over, and Bush's days as Monty Hall are dwindling.

The Franco-American War, Part 42

Gregory Djerejian at the Belgravia Dispatch has a spot-on analysis of today's Washington Post article on Tariq Aziz and France's role in ensuring war was the only option:

Aziz has told interrogators that French and Russian intermediaries repeatedly assured Hussein during late 2002 and early this year that they would block a U.S.-led war through delays and vetoes at the U.N. Security Council. Later, according to Aziz, Hussein concluded after private talks with French and Russian contacts that the United States would probably wage a long air war first, as it had done in previous conflicts. By hunkering down and putting up a stiff defense, he might buy enough time to win a cease-fire brokered by Paris and Moscow.

Djerejian asks:

And, it begs the question, is this the behaviour of an "ally"? If, on the cusp of a conflict, where the U.S. has amassed some 200,000 troops on the Iraqi border, perhaps even making a strategic blunderer like Saddam think twice about continuing to stonewall the international community--if then French contacts work to make Saddam feel he is not really facing a full-blown American invasion--well, what's the result?

For one, it makes it less likely that Saddam will stand down.

And therefore more likely that U.S. troops will have to fight (and die) in a war.

I wouldn't expect such considerations to give a Yevgeny Primakov pause--but I would have expected it to give a nominal ally a reason to abstain from such diplomatic foul play--or at least cause a little crise de consience style navel-gazing.

Take the time to read both articles. It emphasizes the reality that France, and to some extent Germany, is no longer a US ally. We should take all steps possible to undermine the current French government, and at the very least, do whatever possible to isolate them diplomatically. Better to have them in front of us as an acknowledged hostile entity than behind us, pretending to be our friend where it makes it easier for France to plunge daggers.

Good Luck Selling This to the Pelosi/Boxer Crowd

A group of centrist, concerned Democrats have published a manifesto that attempts to fight the McGovern tilt amongst the Presidential candidates:

Last week, an impressive group of centrist Democratic foreign policy thinkers released a thoughtful document urging the party to adopt a "progressive internationalism" built around a strong defense, free trade and American leadership through international alliances "to shape a world in which the values of liberal democracy increasingly hold sway." ... Signed by prominent party thinkers like Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, and Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, the paper updates for a new century the vision advanced by Democratic presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. In that tradition, the authors envision an America that expands its own security by working with allies to encourage the spread of trade and freedom around the globe — but defends its interests with force when threatened.

I believe the party is too far gone down the International ANSWER path to turn back; the Pelosi/Boxer brand of idiocy has been energized by the pandering of most of the Democratic candidates, except Lieberman, and to adopt this policy now would leave all of them open to accusations of hypocrisy and flip-flopping. In order for this to work, another candidate would have to enter the race embracing it. Someone, say, like Hillary Clinton.

Minnesota teen dies while being a good samaritan

I normally like to finish on an up note, but that's not possible when you read something like this, which happened in North Carolina but involves a Minnesota teen:

When Nolan Myers saw somebody was in need he was always willing to lend a helping hand, his family and friends said. ... He and three friends came upon the accident and stopped to be good samaritans. As Myers, 18, of Carver, Minn., reached one of the injured motorists, the driver of a speeding van plowed into the vehicles and the bystanders, killing five people, including Myers. A sixth person died en route to the hospital, authorities said.

You may ask how someone driving by an accident could kill six people standing by the site. Take three guesses:

The driver of the van, Larry Robert Veeder, 32, was charged Sunday with driving while impaired and with six counts of involuntary manslaughter, said Sgt. Steve Green of the North Carolina State Patrol.

Want to bet it's not Veeder's first time driving drunk? How disgusting. I'll pray for Myers' family, and hopefully you will too.

Is this the end of 'the West?'

I don't know what breakfast cereal Thomas Friedman's been eating lately, but the man is on fire, this time asking if Europe has thrown in the towel, "Europe" mostly meaning France and Germany:

At the Madrid conference, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion in new loans and credits for Iraq — and Germany and France pledged zero new dollars. The bottom line is clear: Saudi Arabia cares more about nurturing democracy in Iraq than Germany and France. Ah, you say, that’s unfair. Germany and France opposed the war, so why should they pay more than their share of the paltry EU contribution? Actually, it’s not unfair, when you remember that before the war France and Germany were obsessed with the lifting of UN sanctions on Saddam’s regime — in the name of easing the suffering of the Iraqi people.

Friedman sheds quite a bit of light on the disconnect between the US and its former primary European partners. We're no longer arguing over the means to an end, Friedman argues persuasively, we no longer agree on the ends themselves. We no longer share a common viewpoint or common problems, or at least that's what Europe thinks:

Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, noted to me in Brussels the other day that for a generation Americans and Europeans shared the same date: 1945. A whole trans-Atlantic alliance flowed from that postwar shared commitment to democratic government, free markets and the necessity of deterring the Soviet Union. ... ‘‘Our defining date is now 1989 and yours is 2001,’’ Bildt said. Every European prime minister wakes up thinking about how to share sovereignty, as Europe takes advantage of the collapse of communism to consolidate economically, politically and militarily. The U.S. president wakes up thinking about where the next terror attack might come from and how to respond — most likely alone.

‘‘While we talk of peace, they talk of security,’’ Bildt said. ‘‘We talk of sharing sovereignty, they talk about exercising sovereign power. ... No longer united primarily by a common threat, we have also failed to develop a common vision for where we want to go on global issues confronting us.’’

From this outlook, we can see why no amount of wrangling in the UN would have produced support for American intervention in Iraq. The Europeans are too busy dividing sovereignty to help us defend it, and the last country they'll be inclined to rescue is the American juggernaut that they perceive as competition for a united Europe. Friedman suggests a summit meeting between France, Germany, and the US, but my feeling is that such a summit would stoke their self-perception as the 400-pound gorillas of the EU. A better course of action would be to bypass these two altogether and continue to develop our relationships with Britain, Spain, and those Eastern European nations that better understand the nature and fragility of freedom. Cut off France and Germany for a decade or so and see how they feel being isolated in the EU that results.

Will CBS Broadcast This Movie?

IMAO has a script for Les Moonves. Hopefully, we can get Tim Robbins to play Bill Clinton, Pamela Anderson to play Hillary, and Edward Herrmann to play Janet Reno.

One Mideast State May Be Future of Israel

I doubt that anyone besides the Palestinians take this suggestion seriously, but as a way to pressure Israel, this notion may have some legs (via The Poliburo Diktat):

With settlement-building continuing and peace efforts stalled, Israelis in growing numbers are worrying that a partition may soon become impossible — and some Palestinians have concluded that a single state for both peoples is in their interest. ... It has become a matter of intense discussion on talk shows and editorial pages, supplying ammunition to Israeli peace campaigners who say a pullout from the West Bank and Gaza should be framed not as a compromise but as a necessity. The alternative, they say, will be an Israel swamped by Arabs, torn between giving them the vote and losing Jewish dominion over the country, or denying them the vote and standing accused of emulating apartheid South Africa.

Not only would the Jewish character of such a nation be obliterated within a generation, but you can also say goodbye to democracy once the Palestinian Authority thugocracy gets voted into office. They've had the opportunity to put democracy into action ever since Oslo, but so far haven't bothered to establish anything except strongman rule. This has been an odd week of news for the Israelis; first we hear about Europeans conspiring to pull a Munich and sacrifice Israel to appease Islamofascists, because appeasement worked so well for Europe in the past.

[A] DEBKAfile informant dining at a Knightsbridge restaurant with a highly-placed British intelligence official heard him drop this remark: “Some people in the West have come to the conclusion that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was a mistake.” When asked to explain whether this meant that the Jews were to be evicted from the Middle East, he replied: “Certainly. Israel has a little more than 5 million Jews. If the United States and NATO were to finance their relocation in other countries, that would solve many Middle East problems.”

This same British source is extremely well-connected in high NATO circles and has moreover established a long-running reputation for credibility.

Notice the idea that the US and NATO taking care of the Jews, instead of the European Union. Why, do you suppose, the Europeans don't want the Jews back in Europe? This poll tells a sickening story about the state of the European mind (via Power Line):

Nearly 60 percent of 7,500 Europeans surveyed ranked Israel as the country posing the biggest threat to world peace today, according to the poll to be released Monday by the European Commission, Voice of America reported.

The United States ranks sixth on the list, after North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, France's Le Monde newspaper reported.

Europeans consider Israel a greater threat to peace than Iran, which sponsors terrorist groups that operate almost without restriction in Europe, and North Korea, whose Supreme Leader keeps making dark threats about dropping nuclear weapons onto Japan. Iraq and Afghanistan are neutralized now, and in the case of the former, no help from the Europeans at that. The US ranks above places like Syria. Nice people, those Europeans. Note also that the Palestinians don't even rank in the top 5. The Europeans feel Israel, instead of the bomb-tossers, is a threat to world peace. How? By having their civilians bombed in numbers that are too small to please the Europeans? Ah, I forget; when it comes to killing Jews, Europeans prefer the more efficient, high-volume methods pioneered by the Germans.

Put all of this together, along with Thomas Friedman's revelation about the European idea of staging Egyptian soldiers in Israel as "peacekeepers", and in Tom Lehrer's words, the Israelis are getting more nervous than a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. Make no mistake about it: European anti-Israel sentiment is directly linked to centuries-old European anti-Semitism, and they're falling back on their old tropes of the secret Jewish conspiracy behind all the world's woes. Israel was founded as a way for Jews to escape the "gentle" clutches of genocidal Europeans, and now the same Europeans, less than 60 years removed from the gas chambers of Auschwitz, are ready to ethnically cleanse Asia Minor of the same Jews they failed to kill in Europe.

If I were to take part in that poll, my answer for the biggest danger to world peace would be a tie -- between France and Germany. I propose that we eject all the French and Germans from Europe. The Arab League can finance their relocation to countries that would welcome them, if we could just find one.

My Political Compass

SurlyPundit has a note on her blog showing her Political Compass which gives a more sophisticated indication of her politics than simple "left-right" designations. Her graph point is 7.25/-3.69, which indicates significant rightist economics and libertarian philosophy. My numbers are more centrist: 4.75/-0.56. Quite frankly, I'm a little surprised; I would have expected more libertarian tendencies than that.

SurlyPundit has an intriguing blog; you should check it out.

Off-label drug use growing

If you take prescription medication, you should read this entire article on "off-label" prescriptions:

A six-month Knight Ridder investigation has found that patients nationwide are being injured and killed as doctors routinely prescribe drugs in ways the FDA never certified as safe and effective.

Moreover, these unapproved prescriptions are soaring. In the past year, 115 million such prescriptions were written, nearly double the number of five years ago, a Knight Ridder analysis of prescriptions for the country's top-selling drugs found.

The practice, called off-label prescribing, often is driven by questionable research, aggressive drug company marketing and cavalier doctors, and condoned by tepid regulators.

The story details the practice of giving medications for conditions not specifically targeted by the medicine, such as anti-depressants for premature ejaculation, even if no studies exist to validate such use. Doctors aren't prepared for the possible damage these off-label prescriptions cause:

Victims of off-label prescribing whom Knight Ridder interviewed have suffered heart attacks and strokes, had permanent nerve damage or lost their eyesight. Most said they never were told the FDA hadn't approved their treatments.

Based on the FDA's own data, Knight Ridder estimates at least 8,000 people became seriously ill last year after taking some of the nation's most popular drugs for off-label uses. The true number is likely to be many times higher.

The First Mate has several chronic health conditions and takes a number of medicines for these, but even when used as intended, certain medications can be harmful if taken for longer than designed. One example given is Reglan, which the First Mate just began using for diabetic gastroparesis:

In 2001, Glenna Baker, a loan officer from Burke, Va., came down with a debilitating stomach disorder that was suspected to be diabetic gastroparesis. She vomited repeatedly, prompting a specialist to prescribe Reglan. The FDA has approved the drug to be used for less than three months at a time, but studies have found that it's frequently prescribed improperly and that long-term use exposes patients to unnecessary side effects.

One of the worst is tardive dyskinesia, a condition that causes relentless body tremors and facial tics. Baker, now 55, said she was never told about this, so when she moved into her fourth month on the drug she didn't realize what was happening when she began to twitch every now and then. ... Today, Baker is out of work; the tremors make holding a job impossible. She can sit only for short spells; her right leg constantly bounces, and she endlessly wrings her hands.

That opened my eyes, and we will discuss this treatment immediately with her physicians. How many people take Reglan without knowing these consequences? My advice to all is this: when prescribed any new medication, Google it immediately, or failing that, ask the pharmicist when you buy it about any potential consequences. Read the entire article; there are several other medications discussed in detail.

IMHO, the Pioneer Press outclasses its competition, the Star Tribune, by a country mile. I just wish they would design a better website in order for people to realize it.

Once Around the Axis, and Others

A collection of links to interesting posts around the Axis of Naughty and other great blogs this morning ...

Michelle at A Small Victory wonders how to determine when ululating Arabs is a good or bad sign ... and also has a sane look at this morning's bad news in Iraq which puts it in perspective ...

Wizbang has the Howard Dean Metrosexual Quiz ready for you (be sure to read the comments!) ...

Samizdata has an example of left-wing hypocrisy in education policy in Britain, but we've seen it here before, too ...

Kate over at Electric Venom (cool site!) is angry about the dilution of her Social Security money ...

Roger Simon ponders the war of civilizations ...

DC at Brainstorming wonders about the world-changing power of the new Apple computers, but over at Jessica's Well, the concern is over the hard-drive-changing power of their new operating system ...

And last but not least, Power Line discusses the "Fiasco At The Post" in great detail -- make sure you read this one all the way through!

Maureen Dowd Watch

The Belgravia Dispatch posts a fisking, of sorts, on Maureen Dowd's latest column (via Instapundit):

But here's the point. Bush, for a good while now--including back during his September speech to the United Nations--has increasingly made reference, not only to terrorists opposing the U.S. in Iraq, but also regime "holdouts." Put differently, he's been more frank about the somewhat variegated nature of the opposition in Iraq recently. So my concerns at least, as someone who has followed the issue pretty closely, have been allayed somewhat recently.

But then MaDo comes in and ignores all the evidence to the contrary to facilitate her slanted, anti-Bush op-ed writing process.

Gregory Djerejian then provides the specifics on various Bush speeches where he specifically speaks about the difference between terrorists in Iraq, who mostly come from somewhere else, and regime holdouts like the Saddam Fedayeen and ex-military officers. Djerejian lumps Dowd in with Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, but of course the one difference is that Dowd writes an op-ed column; she is not reporting news, but giving opinion, which has a lower editorial threshold. Nevertheless, her many and focused inaccuracies have, in Glenn Reynolds' words, made her name synonymous with lying.

My prediction, of course, is that the Minneapolis Star Tribune reprints Dowd's article within the week. If Dowd is synonymous with lying, then the Strib has become the poster child for left-wing, unthinking me-tooism.

The First Sane Argument Against School Vouchers I've Seen

Yeah, I know, this isn't funny ... except it is, in a class-warfare kind of way:

Three high school students — a sophomore girl and two junior boys — have been expelled from an exclusive preparatory school in the Sepulveda Pass for allegedly making a sexually explicit video and distributing it on school grounds. ... Wrubel, who did not release the students' names or ages, said two of the students in the video seemed not to know that the recording would be shown to anyone outside a close circle of friends. "They thought they were just doing it for fun," Wrubel said. "And then it showed up in school."

I expect that the ACLU will sue the school on behalf of the two boys, claiming oppression of free-speech rights, and Gloria Allred will sue on behalf of the girl, for any manner of civil damages, and for good reason. Still, parents put kids in these schools to keep them from the bad influence of middle- and lower-class children, so you wonder where they got this idea, right?

Wrubel said she worried that the students were simply mimicking what they see on television, without the benefit of an adult understanding of what effect their actions might have on their dignity.

What they see on television. So maybe it's not other peoples' kids that are the problem. Maybe parents ought to make sure their teenagers aren't watching porn videos on TV. Don't get me wrong, I think that schools like these are the antidote to the education monopoly that enforces mediocrity onto children who can't afford to go outside the public school system, and this school showed why: they expelled the three students involved. I'm just saying that delinquency is not just an inner-city problem, nor will vouchers guarantee a risk-free education experience for children. Lack of parental supervision occurs across all economic bands, although the reasons are different.

Muslim Troops' Loyalty a Delicate Question

The Washington Post published a thoughtful and balanced piece on whether Muslim troops can remain loyal to the US:

Military sociologist Charles Moskos is traveling to Iraq this month to poll troops about morale issues. He plans to ask whether Muslim soldiers seem to have their hearts in fighting fellow Muslims, and whether the troops trust Muslims in their ranks.

"I'll ask, 'How do you feel about having a Muslim in your tent?' " Moskos said.

A black Christian Army chaplain based in this country said some of her fellow soldiers feel "tension" with Muslims in their units, many of whom are also black. "They say, . . . 'Can we really trust them?' "

In past wars, this concern over disloyalty in a diverse military has come up again and again. Most famously, the Japanese formed a unit to themselves in World War II and became the most decorated unit in the war, suffering a high casualty rate in the European Theater. Religious groups have been seen askance before as well, but in this case it's a little different, because there is at least a perception that this conflict is a war of civilizations, between secular/Judeo-Christian Western nations and Islamic states of the Arab world.

Speaking of the Arabs, here's a little bit about Our Friends the Saudis:

Just after the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, huge tents were erected in Saudi Arabia near the barracks of U.S. military personnel. Inside, day and night, Saudi imams sent by their government lectured the GIs about Islam and made aggressive pitches to convert them. Saudi officials had promised that the discussions would touch only on Arab culture. But within months, about 1,000 soldiers, and perhaps as many as 3,000, converted to Islam -- the largest surge of Muslims ever into the U.S. armed forces.

"It was quite aggressive," said David Peterson, then the military's top chaplain in the region. In retrospect, he said, there was reason for concern that foreign clerics had gained influence over the troops, but military officials were slow to grasp the implications, he said.

Had our forces tried this while we were based in Saudi Arabia, not only would the Saudis have angrily demanded our immediate exit, but carpers here at home would have been screaming about a lack of tolerance and cultural imperialism. Where are their cries now?

The Strib blindly follows the NY Times's lead

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune exercises little or no editorial control when purchasing fallacious stories from the NY Times:

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.

Ruthlessly uprooted militant Islam? Really? Who's been hosting Islamic Jihad and Hamas for the past 20 years or so? Who's been co-sponsoring Hezb' Allah with Iran for 20 years? Read the entire article and see whether any of these groups, or Syria's support for them, are even mentioned in passing. This is an atrocious piece of writing, and for the Strib to republish it demonstrates their commitment to left-wing memes and mediocrity in general.

This was my original post when this story first ran in the NY Times.

Slings and Arrows

Slings and Arrows tries to advance my evolution by linking to my post from earlier today about the LA Times (in SWLiP's hilarious words) being shocked, shocked to find editorial bias at Fox News. Thanks to Byron for the support; I've blogrolled Bryon, and you all should check out his well-written site. In fact, check out this post with a great graphic about economic performance during the Bush administration. As Homer Simpson says, it's funny because it's true.