Fighting Irish Take On The Trojans -- Live Blog!

6:14 pm CT - I hear from my Uncle Ted and Aunt Judy, who are at the Colisseum for the Notre Dame/USC football game, which I humbly call the Annual Battle of Good Vs. Evil. On our visit to LA last month, Ted foolishly bet me a six-pack of a good regional beer on the outcome. I expect to be tasting the sweet nectar of Henry Weinhardt's Dark in the coming weeks. At any rate, they're sitting up in the nosebleed section, and they tell me that it's overcast, cold (for LA), and the field will likely be slippery. Sounds like great Notre Dame weather to me ...

7:01 - Keith Jackson, Dan Fouts, and Todd Harris will be working the game for ABC's broadcast. It's a great team for a great game ...

7:05 - You may ask why I'm allowed to be home on a Saturday night, watching football. Well, for one thing, we did a good chunk of our Christmas shopping between the Northern Alliance show and the start of the game, so I got a few "good-boy" points for that. Plus, the First Mate knows that the Irish-USC game is the one must-see game on which I insist all year, outside of the Super Bowl. I've been wearing the green jersey all day, my Notre Dame watch and hat from my mom, and I'm pumped up and ready to see them upset the #1-ranked Trojans.

In other words, I'm a geek. As if you didn't know that already ...

First Quarter

7:09 - Notre Dame kicks off first -- and SC fair-catches it? O-kaaaayyy...

7:13 - SC gains a couple of first downs but stalls at midfield. Great punt from SC will make the Irish fight across a long field to score. The rain seems to be making the passing game a little difficult for Matt Leinart, or at least his receivers ...

7:19 - The Irish are mixing it up well and really moving the ball ...

7:25 - Going for it on 4th and goal -- TOUCHDOWN!! What a great opening drive, and what a way to deliver a message to USC. They went 93 yards and only got stopped twice, once on an incompletion and once on a off-tackle run. The Irish came to play ....

7:28 - King Banaian takes his laser focus off Ukraine and onto what's really important. Welcome aboard! ...

7:30 - Hate to say it, but that was a great catch on the ricochet ...

7:36 - Irish hold SC to a field goal, but that was a shaky drive for SC. 7-3 Irish ...

7:42 - End of the first quarter, after another big play for the Irish. Great job so far -- moving the ball at will and defense rising to the occasion ...

Second Quarter

7:50 - Good drive for the Irish, but they had to settle for a field goal after Brady Quinn threw the third-down pass behind the receiver. I agree with King; it looks like the Irish outweigh the Trojans on both sides of the line...

7:56 - Another great defensive series for the Irish. Not only do they get a three-and-out, but the punt was partially blocked and only went 20-odd yards. So far, the Irish look like they're on fire for this game, and SC looks like they're burnt out ...

8:00 - An excellent defensive series for the Trojans, too. Still 10-3 Irish...

8:03 - Hey, don't interview Anthony Davis! He's the Golden Domers' worst nightmare! Seriously, though, good to see him out there. The interview saved him from seeing the Trojans fumble, but they got it back ...

8:07 - Whatever ailed the Trojans seems to have disappeared, dammit. SC tied it up on the strength of three big plays. We'll have to see if the Irish can adjust. One big problem seems to be Freddie Parrish, who got moved to corner for this game. They burned him twice on the drive, including the TD...

8:15 - The Irish need to stick to the run on offense, I think; the Trojans are starting to blitz a little too much. A few draw plays would cure that. On defense, King's right, they need to be blitzing more themselves...

8:18 - It didn't take long for the momentum to shift to the Trojans, did it? Yikes. That was a beautiful pass for the 57-yard TD. 17-10 Irish ...

8:27 - Halftime. The Irish started out pretty well, but SC seems to have taken control of the game in the second quarter. Pete Carroll thinks the wet weather may have something to do with it, which sounds plausible to me. The Irish have made comebacks this year in the second half, including the game I watched at South Bend against Stanford. We'll have to see.

8:31 - Folsom James has joined us, complete with California triumphalism. [sigh] You may want to hold off on that until the game's over, James ...

8:43 - James is tormenting me with my own words, cruel man that he is. If you're not keeping up with the comments, you're missing half of the fun. James, I notice that they skipped Paige Laurie, too. You suppose that Daddy forgot to pay for the commercial? ...

Second half in the extended entry ...

Third Quarter

8:48 - Did that lineup of shirtless fans manage to misspell "Trojans"? The letter 'J' looks like it had a correction on it. Sounds like a USC education to me! ...

8:53 - Only one first down, and it looks like the Irish still haven't regained their fire. The defense needs to come up with a big play to pick them back up. The Irish punter has done a great job tonight ...

8:58 - Nice of Gahrie to drop by, too -- and he's right, this is a great rivalry, one that benefits both schools and college football overall ...

9:05 - The Irish defense held the Trojans to a field goal, bending but not breaking. Unless the offense can start moving the ball again, though, it won't help ...

9:08 - They finally caught the Trojans blitzing on a run ...

9:16 - Two dumb trick plays in a row kill the drive, and the Irish hook the FG try. Ye gods! Can we coach a little smarter the next time out, Ty? ...

9:20 - As so often happens when the defense stacks up for a short-yardage situation, the offense breaks it big for a TD. Unfortunately for the Irish, it was their defense. 27-10 Trojans ...

9:24 - King calls ballgame, but I think it's too early for that. We're down three scores with a full quarter left to play. If we stay patient and start running some traps and draws, we could get right back into this ...

9:27 - Good to see Marcus Allen on the TV, one of the few SC players I ever liked. Definitely one of the best running backs ever in the NFL, and if Al Davis hadn't set out to ruin his career, he may have broken all the records. I loved watching him at KC running it up against the Raiders ...

Fourth Quarter

9:30 - OT: Go check Michelle Malkin's latest post out. If you could name three journalists and a news agency least likely to produce a fair retrospective on Ronald Reagan, who would you pick?

9:32 - Nice third-down stop for the Irish, but the Trojans will go for it on fourth down. Dang -- they picked it up ...

9:34 - Okay, maybe King was right after all -- Trojans just scored again. Nertz....

9:40 - After the first quarter, SC's won this game on the trenches. They've done a very good job controlling the line of scrimmage almost all the way since. This game's starting to remind me of the one two years ago in LA ...

9:45 - The defense hasn't given up yet -- they're still hitting SC hard out there. Too bad they're getting the lion's share of the work ...

9:47 - Wallow on, James. Wallow on. Commercial watch: Isn't Sarah Jessica Parker a little too, er, old for a Gap commercial? Especially since they surrounded her with dancers half her age ...

9:51 - Okay, Pete Carroll just descended several slots downward on my respect list. A trick punt with 7 minutes left in a game they lead by 24 points? Talk about classless! The TD stinks. You can bet that the Irish will be talking about that call for the next year ...

10:00 - James, I thought that Sarah Jessica Parker looked good about 15 years ago, in LA Story, but she's looking pretty tired these days. To expand on the trick punt, I don't have a problem with them trying to score -- but using a trick punt at that time of the game with the lead that USC has is just classless...

10:08 - Well, I think I can wrap this up in the next few moments. The Irish looked great -- for a quarter. SC just looked overwhelming after that. It's hard to see how this SC team could be beat if it plays a full game like that in the Orange Bowl. If we want to maintain this rivalry, though, the Irish had better start playing better against SC -- we've lost the last three games by blowout margins. Losing three straight blowouts to the Trojans is a dubious distinction that I don't think even Gerry Faust managed in his much-reviled tenure at Notre Dame.

I understand that the Irish will be playing in a minor bowl game this year, but being unranked at 6-5 calls into question the rationale, besides the purely commercial.

Thanks to my friends James, King, Gahrie, McTrip, and everyone else who kept up. The comments section will remain open for James to express his California triumphalism and offer more Fighting Irish jokes!

Bush Administration Champions Democracy Over Expediency

CQ reader Peter Ingemi points out an important perspective on the American reaction to the Ukrainian political crisis. In their election, the Kuchma government candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, actually represents the closest partner we would have in the war on terror. Yanukovych has pledged to increase troop strength in Iraq and mirrors Putin's resolve to conduct a forward strategy in the fight against Islamist terror. Viktor Yuschenko speaks of pulling Ukrainian troops from Iraq, where they comprise the sixth-largest segment of the Coalition.

One would expect the Bush Administration, therefore, to have sat quietly and hoped for Yanukovych to come to power regardless of the means. That focus on expediency has been an unfortunate hallmark of American foreign policy for decades, a leftover of our Cold War-style binary approach to the world. Instead, both Colin Powell and George Bush spoke strongly about their rejection of the election's results and the need to hold a credible election in Ukraine.

The reaction demonstrates the Bush Administration's commitment to democratization as the guiding principle of his term, a transforming and radically liberalizing foreign policy in the traditional sense of the term. Prior to the 1960s, American liberalism championed the march of democracy as the primary American mission to the world. Only after the defeatism of the 1960s baby boomers infected the political process did classical liberalism give way to the moral relativity and rank isolationism of the Democratic Party and the American left (not to mention a significant, but rapidly shrinking, segment of the GOP).

George Bush has resurrected classic liberalism in foreign policy as a key part of our national-security strategy. His moves in the Ukrainian crisis shows that he strongly believes in the transformative power of democracy, and his commitment to the process regardless of the policy shifts it brings internationally.

Northern Alliance Roundtable On Ukraine Crisis

We had a great first hour on the Northern Alliance Radio Network this afternoon, with King Banaian, Rocket Man, Brian Ward, Mitch Berg, and myself all discussing the Ukrainian political crisis. Thanks to Instapundit, many Internet listeners caught the last part of the hour. If you missed any or all of what we think was one of our best hours, I've posted the segments in MP3 format, which you should be able to downstream:

Segment 1
Segment 2
Segment 3
Segment 4

Don't forget to check out our stream, as the show continues until 3 pm CT. It also repeats four times a day during weekdays, at 9 and 3, on this same stream.

The Fight Of Their Season

No, I'm not talking about the Ron Artest riot in Detroit -- I'm talking about the annual battle of Good vs Evil, the Forces of Light vs The Forces of Darkness ... the annual Notre Dame/USC football game. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Fighting Irish have had their difficulties this year, and they're looking for a little redemption:

Three victories over bowl-bound teams and two wins over squads in the top 10 are normally confidence builders for most college football programs.

Not at Notre Dame. The glass is either full or empty for the Irish, who consider a season that doesn't include at least seven wins and a bowl championship series game unacceptable. ...

The Irish have had more ups and downs this season than Magic Mountain's newest thrill ride. They upset highly ranked Michigan and Tennessee — after losing to Brigham Young in the season opener, a game they scheduled as a tuneup for Michigan. They are three-touchdown underdogs against the Trojans because of late-season losses to Boston College and Pittsburgh.

This has been a season full of promise and frustration for the Irish. They've shown flashes of brilliance against Michigan and Tennessee, on the road in the latter case, while blowing what should have been walkovers against BYU and Pitt. As a rabid Irish fan, I've seen the talent on the squad, but it still looks like the Irish are at least a year away from putting all the pieces together. I don't think the coaching is the problem, although Ty Willingham has put together two mediocre seasons in a row. What people forget is that recruiting had hit bottom before Willingham arrived, and it takes three or four years to get that back on track.

Nevertheless, the Irish have a shot against the Trojans in tonight's game (8 pm ET, ABC). USC has also been inconsistent, although they have escaped any damage from it. They almost lost twice to obviously inferior teams. The Irish have the talent and the ability to make them pay if they bring their B-game out to the Colisseum.

I will be live-blogging the game later tonight, for those of you who are Irish supporters. You're welcome to comment on the post as I'm writing, although if you're a USC fan, I have to warn you that we don't have spell-check in Movable Type. (You can read about an illustrious Trojan alumnus here and here for background.) We'll be shaking down the thunder from the kickoff!

Era Of Cheap Chinese Labor Coming To A Close

The abundance of impoverished rural Chinese formed the basis of China's economic boom over the past two decades, as the Communist regime brought cheap labor in trainloads from the boondocks to the cities, paying them pittances for exportable goods. Due to the extreme poverty of their home villages and the traditional respect for authority in Chinese culture, the workers dutifully and docilely produced tremendous amounts of material for sale all over the world, especially in America. The resultant economic expansion meant greater prosperity for China and a gradual relaxation of its tightly-controlled economy into more Westernlike, capital-based economy.

Now, the Washington Post reports that China may wind up a victim of its own success. The workers who once stoically endured any conditions for the hope of a reliable salary have suddenly begun conducting work stoppages and riots, turning the "worker's paradise" into a nightmare for the Communists:

Heralded by an unprecedented series of walkouts, the first stirrings of unrest have emerged among the millions of youthful migrant workers who supply seemingly inexhaustible cheap labor for the vast expanse of factories in China's booming Pearl River Delta.

The signs of newly assertive Chinese workers have jolted foreign and Chinese factory owners, who for the last two decades have churned out everything from Nikes to baby dolls with unbeatably low production costs. Some have concluded that the raw era in which rootless Chinese villagers would accept whatever job they could get may be drawing to a close, raising questions about China's long-term future as world headquarters for low-paid outsourcing.

"One dollar, two dollars, it used to be they didn't care," said Tom Stackpole, originally from Massachusetts, who is quality control director here for Skechers USA Inc. and has been involved in shoe manufacturing in southern China for a decade. "That has passed."

Workers no longer remain content to draw any salary at all, and they object to the slave environment in most government-run factories. In many such facilities, the workers must live in dormitories and then pay the company rent for their beds. It sounds remarkably similar to the work farms that replaced slavery in the mid-19th century here in the US. Workers lived on company land and were paid in company script, which could only be spent at company stores, which charged inflated prices in order to recoup as much of the wages as possible. Quitting the job meant eviction from the home -- as did strikes and other work actions.

China now has to decide what kind of economic and social structure it can allow. They brought in capitalism with limited legal protection for investors in order to ignite its long-diseased economy, probably thinking that they could easily control its spread and influence. American policymakers knew better, and eagerly passed most-favored-nation trading status for China over the objections of human-rights advocates. For years, it looked like a bad decision, as cheap labor and imports damaged the American economy, especially in the manufacturing sector.

Now, however, the workers in China have discovered that labor has a stake in the economy that simply did not exist before -- and that a refusal to man the factories carries significant political weight that had been unknown to them before. They want more money for their work, and more political and economic freedom to go with it. The Communists have long fed the workers the notion that the Maoist revolution signaled the triumph of the workers over the bosses; now the workers see that the Communists are the bosses and always have been:

The growing assertiveness of factory workers has posed a particular political problem for the governing Communist Party, which ideologically should champion poor laborers struggling against capitalist managers. But local governments have become shareholders in many of the factories, steering officials toward the management side of labor relations.

"The government is the largest boss in the area," said Liu Kaiming, a labor analyst and director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation in nearby Shenzhen. ...

[F]actory owners and workers in the Pearl River boom zone said the official union does little to represent labor, even in the rare cases when branches are formed, because it is a spinoff of local governments that own or rely on the businesses. In one factory, Liu recounted, the union head was both a management executive and a senior official in the local government.

The maintenance of free trade with China has the scales falling from the eyes of Chinese workers. While free trade may have hurt the US in the short run, we have mostly recovered from the blow, while the Chinese have just started to discover that a little freedom is an impossible measure: it either grows exponentially or dies altogether. Now that they have built the economy that communism could never deliver, neither option will be compatible with their autocratic rule. Either the government has to allow more freedom and individual choice to its people, or crack down and face the loss of overseas investment and a wide-scale worker revolt which could wipe out the government.

As in the Cold War, the economic front has proven to be the most devastating weapon in the American arsenal.

Ukraine Executive Loses The Parliament

Reuters just reported that the Ukrainian parliament just issued a no-confidence vote for the Central Election Commission which declared Viktor Yanukovych the winner last week in their presidential election:

Ukraine's parliament on Saturday expressed no confidence in the Central Election Commission overseeing a disputed presidential election run-off.

The assembly, by a large majority, said the commission had failed to fulfil its duties under Ukraine's constitution and laws. In an emergency session, deputies cited many irregularities during the Nov. 21 ballot.

The executive appears to have become almost completely politically isolated now, with its sympathetic Supreme Court ruling against it, the people in the streets blockading governmentg buildings, television stations refusing to broadcast their "lies", and now Parliament rejecting the election results. Outgoing President Kuchma and Yanukovych will be lucky to get a chance to re-run the election at this rate. They may soon regret not jumping on that offer by Viktor Yuschenko when they had the chance.

UPDATE: King at SCSU Scholars has much more analysis on this development and others in the Ukraine. Keep scrolling, and keep checking back. King and I will be discussing the Ukrainian crisis during today's Northern Alliance Radio Network show, which can be streamed here starting at 12:00 CT.

UN Admits It Can't Protect Refugees

The United Nations issued a report yesterday that confirms its inability to protect the refugees it shelters, leading to sexual abuse, slavery, and worse, according to the AP. As many of us in the blogosphere have written, the UN lacks the political will and influence to do more than open camps willy-nilly and stand around hoping for the best:

The United Nations is failing to protect millions of people displaced by conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and violence in other hotspots around the world, a U.N. report said Friday.

The world body's approach to the problem of people who have fled their homes but not crossed any international borders "is still largely ad hoc and driven more by the personalities and convictions of individuals on the ground than by an institutional, systemwide agenda," the report said.

Of particular concern in this report is the situation in Darfur, where government-back Arab terrorist gangs enforce the Sudanese policy of genocide. The UN has not stopped the murders, the dislocation, and the rest of the so-called ethnic cleansing that the Islamists have committed. In fact, the refugee camps run by the UN in another African disaster area (the Congo) are just as bad, where UN staff and "peacekeepers" rape and extort their wards, using food and security as their method of trade.

That's what makes this section of the report so bitterly ironic:

The Sudanese government is allowing the United Nations access to camps in Darfur, but U.N. activity is still limited by a lack of staff and funding. That shortage means the world body has been unable to provide AIDS tests and psychological counseling for rape victims in Darfur's camps, which McNamara called unacceptable.

Still, recognition of the problem might be the first step to solving it, if the problem wasn't built into the structure of the UN itself. The majority of the member states are dictatorships and kleptocracies who refuse to allow the UN the authority to stop activities like this, mostly because they don't want the UN on their doorstop next. These countries also supply the staff and security forces that the UN puts in charge of their camps, which leads to the grotesquerie that we've seen in the Congo and elsewhere.

More and more, the UN reveals itself to be a noble idea but mostly a failed experiment. The democracies should construct a new multilaterial organization to deal with security issues. Otherwise, the oppressors will continue their cruelties through the auspices of the United Nations, demeaning the US and other democracies that lend it credibility and its victims false hope.

Redneck Counterculture

Iowa Hawk has posted a hilarious paroday how blue state teenagers are rebelling against their parents by adopting a red state lifestyle. Here's a taste:

"I'm not sure where we went wrong," says Ellen McCormack, nervously fondling the recycled paper cup holding her organic Kona soy latte. "It seems like only yesterday Rain was a carefree little boy at the Montessori school, playing non-competitive musical chairs with the other children and his care facilitators."

"But now..." she pauses, staring out the window of her postmodern Palo Alto home. The words are hesitant, measured, bearing a tale of family heartbreak almost too painful for her to recount. "But now, Rain insists that I call him Bobby Ray."

Even as her voice is choked with emotion, she summons an inner courage -- a mother's courage -- and leads me down the hall to "Bobby Ray's" bedroom, for a firsthand glimpse at the psychic devastation that claimed her son.

She opens the door to a reveal a riot of George Jones CDs, reflective 'mudflap mama' stickers, empty foil packs of Red Man, and U.S. Marine recruiting posters. In the middle of the room: a makeshift table made from a utility cable spool, bearing a the remains of a gutted catfish.

"This used to be all Ikea," she says, rocking on heels between heaved sobs. "It's too late for us. Maybe it's not to late for me to warn others."

Iowa Hawk seems to be an equal opportunity humorist, laughing at the quirks of the rednecks and granola-eaters at the same time. Any blogger who can include "Foucault" and The General Lee in the same post is worth checking out!

Hat Tip: The Corner.

They'll Be Coming Around Soon Enough Now

Even the diehard Bush haters may be regaining their senses. Jonathan Chait lashes out at the Democrats rather than George Bush for not only losing this election but setting themselves up to lose the next one as well. Chait goes after the three Democrats sucking up the political oxygen thus far regarding the next election -- Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry. Chait sees disaster in each and all three:

This week's topic is Candidates Who Obviously Covet the 2008 Democratic Nomination and Who Must Be Stopped at All Costs From Obtaining It. ... As we speak, Deaniacs are reconstituting in their yoga studios and organic juice bars, plotting — in their benevolent, cheerful but fundamentally misguided way — to make Dean the leader of the Democratic Party.

Why would this be such a disaster? Because, remember, the Dean campaign advanced two novel theories about national politics. The first was that Democrats paid too much attention to winning over the center. What they really needed to do was mobilize the base by nominating a candidate like Dean who'd fire up liberals. This turned out to be doubly wrong.

Chait advises against the Dean candidacy for the DNC chair for all the reasons Republicans have secretly wished for his victory. The Democrats have had four years of unprecedented setbacks at the hands of Terry McAuliffe, whose complicity in turning them from the party of Scoop Jackson to a front for International ANSWER cannot be dismissed. McAuliffe discarded any notion of a coherent vision to instead run the Democrats as the automatic gainsay of the Republicans -- whatever the GOP was for, he was against, and vice versa.

To a large degree, the Democrats still have not realized this. Instead of analyzing their defeats honestly and engaging in some introspection, they have instead blamed everyone but themselves for the campaigns they've run and the candidates they've nominated. A Dean chairmanship promises more of the same. It's not just that Dean only motivates the base, as Chait correctly points out; the entire notion of a Dean chairmanship continues to extend the self-delusion of the Democrats into believing they were cheated out of their majority status, rather than ineptly discarding it. Picking the candidate with the most embarrassing primary stumble in recent memory clearly demonstrates their denial.

Chait also goes after Hillary Clinton and John Kerry with equal vitriol, although I think he underestimates Hillary. Kerry, of course, is another example of the same denial that makes Howard Dean attractive to Democrats. Chait sums up John Kerry as a presidential candidate in probably his most memorable salvo in recent memory:

In a previous column I compared Kerry's contribution to his own campaign to an anchor's contribution to a boat race. In retrospect, I seem to have given him far too much credit.

Chait probably doesn't give the Democrats enough credit here, however. It's true that Kerry has publicly stated that he's keeping his options open for 2008, but that doesn't mean that the party will nominate him again. It might be hard for them to turn him down, but I think that even the Democrats recognize that Kerry exuded zero attraction outside of Beantown, and in 2008 Bush hatred won't be a factor, unless Jeb runs for President.

Chait dismisses Hillary as a moderate in liberal clothing who will wind up emulating Dean by alienating the middle for the fringe. I think she's a bit more savvy than that, plus she'll have Bill around to remind everyone of the trailer-park Camelot that they created in the 1990s. It could be enough, depending on the next four years, to sway some moderates back to the Democrats. She's already staking out a conservative position on illegal immigration, triangulating in the best tradition of her husband on one of the red-meat issues for the GOP base.

However, Chait nails Hillary on one point that a nationwide campaign will make perfectly clear in short order: she has none of her husband's charisma. She can be pleasant while in safe environments, but in a partisan arena she reverts quickly back to her dour, wonkish personality. Her hard edge and sour temperament may play reasonably well in New York, although Chait reminds us that she gave back six points of Gore's vote to Rick Lazio in 2000, but in a national campaign ... well, she's certainly no Bill Clinton.

Chait has some wise words for Democrats in the Los Angeles Times today, and perhaps a few Democrats will heed them. If a Bush-hater like Jonathan Chait can start making sense, maybe the rest of the party is ready to turn the corner too.

UPDATE: Xrlq notes that Clinton's opponent was Rick Lazio, not Fazio. I've updated the post.

Jailed Palestinian Takes A Pass

Marwan Barghouti, currently serving multiple life terms in Israel for his role in planning and execution of several civilian bombings, has withdrawn his name from consideration in the upcoming election to replace Yasser Arafat. His Fatah faction of the PLO reportedly pressured him to endorse Mahmoud Abbas instead:

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi has decided not to run in Palestinian presidential elections, an official said on Friday, following pressure from the ruling Fatah faction to support Mahmoud Abbas.

Cabinet minister and group member Qaddoura Fares, who visited him earlier in prison, said Barghouti had called to endorse Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to succeed Yasser Arafat for president in a Jan 9. ballot.

"In order to maintain the unity of the movement..(Barghouti) is calling upon the sons of the movement and his supporters to support the movement's nominee Mahmoud Abbas," Qaddoura told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

This move surprises me. A Barghouti candidacy would have put tremendous pressure on Israel to release him, especially from the appeasement-minded Europeans who would have lectured Ariel Sharon on the necessity of making peace with one's enemies and not their friends. Either Israel would have rightfully stood its ground and blamed for any election breakdowns that ensued, or it would have caved and demonstrated that Israel was susceptible to weakening its own defenses due to Western pressure.

Apparently the Palestinians have belatedly recognized that circumstances have changed since 9/11, and especially since George Bush's re-election. The focus on Abbas seems like a positive sign that the Palestinians may have finally decided on negotiations instead of terrorism to gain their own state. Perhaps they see that they can ill afford another four years like the past four, and that with Bush in power, bombings only push them farther backwards.

2004 Weblog Awards Under Way

My friend and fellow convention blogger Kevin at Wizbang! has started the 2004 Weblog Awards, featuring many categories, including several new ones for this year. I've been fortunate enough to be nominated in just about every applicable category, with the possible exception of Best Essayist. If anyone wants to add more voices to the nominations already entered, feel free -- but the better use of the site would be to discover some excellent blogs that you may have missed before.

Voting starts on December 1st, and if memory serves, Kevin allows one vote per day per category. It's one election where "vote early and often" isn't intended as irony. Kevin puts a lot of effort and sweat into running the site, so be sure to check it out. Thank you to everyone who nominated me for awards already -- it shows that I'm already a lucky blogger, indeed.

Ukrainian Protests Escalate Into Blockade

Several reports from the Ukraine describe an escalation of the political crisis that resulted from the former Soviet republic's presidential election, with protestors now blockading government buildings and forcing the existing government to negotiate with the pro-Western challenger and former prime minister. The Guardian (UK) tells its readers that the five-day protest continues to grow in power and scope:

Thousands of Ukrainian opposition supporters today blockaded government buildings in protest at the outcome of the disputed presidential elections, as European envoys arrived in the ex-Soviet republic to seek a solution to the impasse. ...

Today, the protests intensified as demonstrators linked arms to prevent Mr Yanukovich and his staff from entering the cabinet building where he carries out his duties as prime minister. "The prime minister could not get into his office in the government building and so could not hold his planned meetings," a government official said.

The development came after Mr Yushchenko's deputy, Yulia Tymoshenko, called on supporters to surround government buildings and disrupt transport systems.

Protesters also blocked nearby streets with buses and vans draped in orange banners, representing Mr Yushchenko's party. Apart from a few traffic policemen wearing orange armbands, there were no police present in the immediate vicinity, but special forces had parked some 30 trucks and jeeps in an alley and police were packed into about 12 buses nearby.

Either the police have decided not to support the continued proclamations of the government that President Kuchma's hand-picked successor won the election, or they're afraid to confront the massive protests. Neither case bodes well for Kuchma and the announced winner of the election, Viktor Yanukovych. The erosion of government services will only escalate the protests as Ukrainians see that they are having an effect on Kuchma's willpower.

To that end, Kuchma has agreed to meet with Yuschenko in an attempt to reach a negotiated settlement that will restore order to the Ukraine:

Ukraine's outgoing president will meet Friday with opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in the presence of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and European envoys in a bid to solve a political crisis over the country's disputed election, a European Union official said. ...

"Any revolution must end in peace," Kuchma said in a televised statement. "The sooner this so-called revolution ends, the better it will be for the Ukrainian people."

The meeting will include European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, said Solana's spokeswoman, Christina Gallach.

So far, no reports have given any indication of an imminent threat of violence, but the longer the crisis lasts the more opportunity there will be for it to start. An outburst of violence might be all the excuse needed for Kuchma to request military assistance from Vladimir Putin, which could wind up tying the Ukraine more tightly into Russia's orbit than since its independence. Putin surely knows that his relationships with Western nations are already strained, but he probably couldn't resist the temptation if he received a public appeal for help from Kuchma.

The situation bears close watching. If you want to get some first-class analysis of the political issues of the Ukraine, keep checking at SCSU Scholars, where King Banaian has plenty of personal experience with the region and has a more comprehensive understanding of the players and the politics involved.

Supreme Court To Weigh Marijuana, Federalism

The AP reports that the Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday of an appeal of the Ninth Circuit's ruling that federal anti-marijuana laws do not apply when marijuana is used for medicinal purposes and does not cross state lines. The case promises to shed light on the current court's support of federalism and states' rights:

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will determine whether Raich and similar patients in California and 10 other states can continue to use marijuana for medical purposes.

At issue is whether states have the right to adopt laws allowing the use of drugs the federal government has banned or whether federal drug agents can arrest individuals for abiding by those medical marijuana laws.

California passed the nation's first so-called medical marijuana law in 1996, allowing patients to smoke and grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. The Bush administration maintains those laws violate federal drug rules and asserts that marijuana has no medical value.

But the drug eases Raich's pain, allows her to rise out of a wheelchair and promotes an appetite that prevents her from wasting away.

I remember when California voters approved this referendum, one of the few that the Ninth Circuit hasn't overturned on appeal. One of the arguments made in opposition to it was that federal laws banning marijuana use would trump it. That wasn't the only issue; because of the laws banning its use, doctors wouldn't prescribe marijuana, so the law made an explicit prescription unnecessary. It required only a doctor's recommendation, which convinced me to vote against the measure.

I think both sides are being hypocritical in this issue. For one thing, THC can be made available through other means than smoking weed, making the growing of marijuana unnecessary. No study has conclusively proved anything other than a placebo effect from smoking marijuana, although that data is very old thanks to a pigheaded refusal on the part of the FDA to even consider researching any possible benefits in a new, well-funded double-blind study. (It may be difficult to do anyway, considering the distinctive aroma of marijuana smoke.)

While I adamantly believe that marijuana is harmful, having seen the negative effects on friends while I grew up, I think that the warnings are overblown. Alcohol is just as impairing as marijuana and much easier to overdose. The money, effort, and jail space wasted on marijuana enforcement could be put to better use in enforcing drug laws on more dangerous substances, and the organic nature of marijuana makes it almost impossible to ban. If states want to legalize marijuana, the federal government should refrain from interfering except in cases where the material crosses state or national borders. Better to have a legalized, controlled market than the underground criminal distribution that we have now.

I think we'll see a surprising coalition of justices uphold the Ninth Circuit's ruling in defense of federalism. Perhaps once upheld, California can correct their law to require an actual prescription instead of relying on the more ambiguous "recommendation" standard. Unfortunately, it appears from the AP headline that bias has already snuck into the process, rendering any conclusion suspect (emphasis mine):

High Court to Weigh Medical Marijuana Laws

Someone at the AP has a sense of humor, I see ...

Was Ransom Paid For Afghan Hostages?

Reuters reports this morning that new questions have arisen regarding the release of three hostages from the grip of Islamist kidnappers in Afghanistan. According to an unnamed Afghani government source, a ransom was paid to the terrorists in exchange for their hostages, a move that the US warned against earlier and that all other governments deny making:

A government official, meanwhile, said he understood the hostages were freed on Tuesday after the payment of a ransom, but he did not know by whom it was paid or to whom.

"As far as I understand money has been given," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States had warned again paying a ransom for the release of the hostages -- Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo and Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan -- saying that compromises would only provoke more kidnappings.

A former British journalist now running a guesthouse in Kabul told Reuters that he had been approached as a conduit for a ransom offering of $1.5 million. Afghan officials later arrested him for alleged complicity in the kidnappings but was quickly released:

A former British soldier and journalist detained over his role in the release of three U.N. hostages was himself freed on Friday and said he had passed on a message offering $1.5 million to a group for the trio's freedom.

Veteran war cameraman Peter Jouvenal, who now runs a guesthouse in Kabul, said he passed on the offer of money from Kosovan businessman Behgjet Pacolli to the Taliban splinter faction Jaish-e Muslimeen (Army of Muslims) via an intermediary.

Jouvenal says that he doesn't think any ransom was paid, although both he and the family of one of the hostages confirm he went through his contacts to negotiate their release. That information makes his denial of payment appear a lot less credibile than otherwise. If he offered a ransom at some point -- which surely seems to be the only purpose of back-channel negotiations -- why would the Islamists release the three without payment?

The desire of families to do whatever they can to free their loved ones is understandable. Nevertheless, paying ransoms to these lunatics just keeps them in business, giving them funds to buy whatever materials they need for their next attacks on Westerners and on Afghanis eager to join in the new democratic processes that their liberation has allowed. It also creates a lucrative market for hostages, putting every Westerner in Afghanistan at markedly increased risk for capture. And when those ransoms are not paid, we will find their bodies littering the streets of Kabul just as they are in Baghdad and Fallujah.

It will be hard enough to stop the terrorists. Giving them millions of dollars at a toss will make it even more difficult in the future. For the safety of Afghanis and Westerners around the world, we must make sure that ransom is never paid for hostages.

ACLU Objects To Passport Modernization

With so many of the 9/11 terrorists able to get through our legal immigration processes, the US government created new requirements for a modernized passport system that would resist counterfeiting and manipulation. The proposed changes include embedding a chip in the cover that can be read at immigration checkpoints and compared to the information inside the passport, allowing border security to catch anyone coming into the US with falsified papers.

However, the ACLU has launched objections to the practice, claiming that the new technology will point out Americans abroad and allow others to "skim" private information from the passport:

Privacy advocates say the new format - developed in response to security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks - will be vulnerable to electronic snooping by anyone within several feet, a practice called skimming. Internal State Department documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, show that Canada, Germany and Britain have raised the same concern.

"This is like putting an invisible bull's-eye on Americans that can be seen only by the terrorists," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the A.C.L.U. Technology and Liberty Program. "If there's any nation in the world at the moment that could do without such a device, it is the United States."

The organization wants the State Department to take security precautions like encrypting the data, so that even if it is downloaded by unauthorized people, it cannot be understood.

Unlike many ACLU complaints, this one has some legitimacy. Allowing the chips to contain unencrypted information can fairly be equated to leaving your network password on your office desk -- it creates a security hole so wide as to negate any idea of privacy. Unshielded, these chips can be read as far away as 30 feet, in laboratory conditions, which makes them pretty vulnerable to hand-held devices in areas like airports and government buildings.

However, in this case the fixes are obvious and easy. First, as the article suggests, a layer of foil can be placed between the chip and the front of the passport, which would block any attempts to read the chip while the passport is closed. Another solution would require more work and coordination, but a password for encryption could be placed in the passport itself and optically scanned at the time an authorized agent read the chip. Neither of these solutions should be considered so overwhelming as to scuttle the program entirely.

Other objections make less sense. For instance, the ACLU claims that carrying this chip will identify Americans to terrorists through the use of hand-held readers anywhere abroad: shopping centers, tourist destinations, anywhere where travelers carry their passports. However, the Times article also reports that Australia has begun issuing passports with the same chip technology -- and other countries are expected to follow suit, as it will allow their citizens to avoid the fingerprinting process that the US will require for all travelers on visas.

Even if all of these concerns are addressed, the ACLU plans on fighting these new passport systems as invasions of privacy, which is where I lose all sympathy for their position. The chips will only contain the identification information already on the inside of the passport, which means the chip gives only the ability to verify the integrity of the document. Even if they contain more information than that, the expectation of privacy for people traveling between countries has always been rather low, and after 9/11 is necessarily much lower than that. We set up borders, visas, and entry requirements to keep undesirable elements from entering the country. If we find a better way to identify those elements and keep them from gaming the system, then let's do it.

We simply cannot afford to allow the ACLU to hijack security upgrades in our immigration processes. They are correct to point out the potential failings of the new system, which should be corrected. But if they intend on offering objection after objection just to stall any positive action on passports, then their input should be rejected outright.

A Tale Of Two Mercenaries, Not One

The ABC News Show 20/20 featured a story last week on campus cheaters -- those who pay others to do their work while collecting their degrees. The Scotsman highlights one of the cheaters, Wal-Mart heiress Paige Laurie, who sailed through the University of Southern California by hiring Elena Martinez to do her work:

Elena Martinez, her former room-mate at the University of Southern California, claims Ms Laurie paid her $20,000 over three years to write essays and complete assignments on her behalf, freeing the tycoon’s daughter for celebrity engagements.

"I thought about quitting a lot of times, but I didn’t know how. I was dealing with someone really powerful," Ms Martinez told ABC television’s 20/20 programme. "I rarely got a bad grade, but if I did, she’d say, ‘this was horrible’. She was pretty picky." ...

Her alleged fraud began one night during her first term in 2000, when she paid Ms Martinez $25 to write an essay for her while she spent the evening at a party. To a student already struggling to make ends meet, it seemed an attractive proposition.

"I just thought, ‘OK, this is $25, I’ve got lunch tomorrow’. I was the epitome of the starving college student," Ms Martinez admitted. "Then it just snowballed big time. Pretty soon, it was an employee-employer relationship."

Ms. Laurie apparently has some experience with the employer/employee relationship. She also has quite a track record for being pampered; her father bought the naming rights to the University of Missouri's new basketball arena and named it after her, even though she had never attended the school. It's clear from the Scotsman that Paige Laurie provides us yet another example of the classic spoiled rich kid, one who uses everyone around her to get ahead. She apparently majored in manipulation, with a minor in crassness.

But that's not why I found this article interesting. Of course anything to do with Wal-Mart and a cheap degree sounds pretty amusing, and when USC finds itself in yet another academic scandal, it assures me that the world has some consistency. What I find a bit outrageous is the treatment that Elena Martinez gets in both the Scotsman article and the ABC report. Both paint Martinez as a victim of exploitation, although John Stossel balances it out by emphasizing the wrong she committed by cheating.

What really annoyed me was the unchallenged comments about the relationship being that of an employee and Martinez' complaint about Laurie being "picky". Well, excuse me, but if I paid $20,000 for free-lance writing, I'd want the product to shine, too. I get paid a heck of a lot less than that for those columns that actually get published, and if the New York Sun or the Post gets "picky" about the content, I'd consider that good business practice. Martinez acts as if she did Laurie a favor instead of acknowledging that she took part in a business relationship. Hint: Friends don't charge $20,000 for favors. If they're dumb enough (and unethical enough) to write term papers for friends, they don't charge them $25 as a service fee.

Even the normally sensible Stossel doesn't address this, which disappoints me. Paige Laurie is undoubtedly a shallow, spoiled little girl who will probably never have to learn better, thanks to het family fortune. However, Elena Martinez is not much better -- a mercenary who wants to pretend to be a victim of the rich and powerful.

Being Thankful

Last year, I wrote a long blog essay about all of the reasons I'm thankful this season. Instead of writing an essay this year, I thought I'd just hit the reasons themselves ...

I'm thankful that this year, as in the past few years, my son's in-laws are gracious and loving enough to invite us to their family celebration. We have been truly blessed by our daughter-in-law Missy, her parents Gene and Linda, brother Michael and sister Deanne, and all of their extended family. (Her uncle is Sean from Everything I Know Is Wrong.) They've been wonderful to our son and to us. Even though our family is all out on the west coast, we have been fortunate to become part of a second family in Minnesota.

I'm also thankful for all of my family out in California -- my mom and dad are both still around and in great health. I owe them phone calls today. I'm thankful for my sister, with whom I fought constantly when we were kids and with whom I would trust my life today. I'm thankful for my own in-laws, who are on the phone right now with the First Mate. I'm thankful for my father's wife, who always welcomes us with open arms whenever we visit.

I'm very thankful for the Northern Alliance guys, AM 1280 The Patriot, and our Little Radio Show That Could. I'm grateful for Hugh Hewitt, who convinced The Patriot to create it.

Thanks to God also for George Bush's re-election and our men and women in harm's way, defending our country and liberating the oppressed. You may disagree with my perspective on this; so let's also thank God that we live in a country where we can all express our disagreement without picking up rifles or throwing bombs. If nothing else, the past few years should have demonstrated how precious that gift truly is.

I am enormously thankful to CQ readers. This blog has exploded since last Thanksgiving, and I am amazed and humbled by your readership and friendship. Bill at INDC Journal pointed out a report from Blogpulse that showed CQ as the eighth-most linked political blog of the election season. Thank you all for that gift.

Lastly, I am most thankful for the gift of my family -- The First Mate, my son David, my daughter-in-law Missy, and the Little Admiral, Kayla. They are truly the light of my life, and after all of the health issues the First Mate has had, this Thanksgiving is all the more precious to me. We're both grateful to our friend Mary, who donated the kidney that's kept the First Mate alive to see this holiday season.

This turned out to be more of an essay than I thought -- but it's easy to do when you start counting your blessings. I'll take the rest of the day off to relax and enjoy them.

President's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

President George Bush issued this proclamation for the holiday, titled In Focus: Thanksgiving 2004.

All across America, we gather this week with the people we love to give thanks to God for the blessings in our lives. We are grateful for our freedom, grateful for our families and friends, and grateful for the many gifts of America. On Thanksgiving Day, we acknowledge that all of these things, and life itself, come from the Almighty God.

Almost four centuries ago, the Pilgrims celebrated a harvest feast to thank God after suffering through a brutal winter. President George Washington proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, and President Lincoln revived the tradition during the Civil War, asking Americans to give thanks with "one heart and one voice." Since then, in times of war and in times of peace, Americans have gathered with family and friends and given thanks to God for our blessings.

Thanksgiving is also a time to share our blessings with those who are less fortunate. Americans this week will gather food and clothing for neighbors in need. Many young people will give part of their holiday to volunteer at homeless shelters and food pantries. On Thanksgiving, we remember that the true strength of America lies in the hearts and souls of the American people. By seeking out those who are hurting and by lending a hand, Americans touch the lives of their fellow citizens and help make our Nation and the world a better place.

This Thanksgiving, we express our gratitude to our dedicated firefighters and police officers who help keep our homeland safe. We are grateful to the homeland security and intelligence personnel who spend long hours on faithful watch. And we give thanks for the Americans in our Armed Forces who are serving around the world to secure our country and advance the cause of freedom. These brave men and women make our entire Nation proud, and we thank them and their families for their sacrifice.

On this Thanksgiving Day, we thank God for His blessings and ask Him to continue to guide and watch over our Nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 25, 2004, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather together in their homes and places of worship to reinforce the ties of family and community and to express gratitude for the many blessings we enjoy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-ninth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Please make sure you forward this to all students in Maryland or Cupertino, who will be barred from reading this since Bush mentioned God in the proclamation.

Our Friends, The Yemenis

The Yemenis showed their commitment to the fight against terrorism by setting free over a hundred al-Qaeda operatives, on their promise to be good little boys and stop killing people:

Yemeni authorities have released 113 militants belonging to the Al Qaeda network — including at least five once accused of involvement in the deadly bombing of the USS Cole — after they recanted their extremist views, security officials said Thursday.

The militants once accused in the USS Cole bombing were later cleared. The 15 Yemeni militants convicted in August of involvement in the 2000 bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, were not released.

The 113 men were released during the past two weeks after signing pledges not to carry out terror acts or criminal activities.

Wow -- they signed pledges? How tough on crime can the Yemenis get?

Zarqawi Lieutenant Arrested, With Chemical And Biological Weapons

Abu Saeed, identified by Iraqi and American sources as a key lieutenant to terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was arrested earlier this week by Coalition forces in Mosul, where insurgents had recently stepped up their activity. Not only did the Coalition capture Saeed, but they also captured material he worked towards deploying -- like anthrax:

A lieutenant of Iraq's most feared terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was captured a few days ago in Mosul, and Iraqi troops searching suspected terrorist hideouts in Fallujah discovered a laboratory with manuals on manufacturing explosives and toxins — including anthrax, Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday.

Also, the U.S. military said it discovered the "largest weapons cache to date in the city of Fallujah." The weapons — including anti-tank mines and a mobile bomb-making lab — were found inside a mosque used by an insurgent leader. Troops also found documents detailing hostage interrogations, the military said.

The intelligence continues to improve, as these discoveries demonstrate. Capturing someone that close to Zarqawi means that the Coalition probably now has a fair idea where the lunatic-in-chief s holed up. The capture of so much of their firepower means that the Islamofascists have to run too fast to carry anything heavier than personal weaponry with them. All signs point to the Coalition momentum gathering velocity.

North Korea Sending Signals That Something Big Has Changed

Two wire service reports indicate that North Korea has made major changes in its normally fanatical approach to its sovereignty and security. Reuters informs its readers that the hermit nation has suddenly developed a sense of urgency about restarting the six-nation talks that Kim Jong-Il previously joined with great reluctance:

North Korea wants urgently to restart six-party talks on its nuclear programs but is still demanding of its certain conditions be met, a top U.N. official told South Korea's Yonhap news agency on Thursday.

North Korea still agreed with the format of the talks, it quoted Jean Ping, president of the U.N. General Assembly, as saying. Officials told him during a visit that Pyongyang was committed to denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, it said.

"North Korea not only agreed to the format of the talks but also believes that the talks should restart urgently," Ping was quoted as saying.

North Korea has hardly been a fan of the multilateral negotiations in the past. Their haste to return to the table sounds like someone else may be making the decisions now, an impression that only gains currency with this report from the French news agency AFP. Not only have Kim's pictures been removed from public places in Pyongyang, they've also been pulled from the lapels of traveling Northerners:

South Korea's Unification Ministry confirmed that lapel badges of Kim are no longer being worn by North Koreans travelling from the Stalinist state to China on official business.

In the past, they wore either a badge portraying Kim or a similar badge portraying his father, the Stalinist state's founder Kim Il-Sung who died in 1994.

"North Koreans travelling to and from China who formerly wore the badge of either Kim Il-Sung or Kim Jong-Il on their chests, have stopped wearing the Kim Jong-Il badge," Unification Ministry spokeswoman Yang Jong-Hwa told AFP, citing an internal report from the ministry's information analysis bureau.

The official party line has Kim issuing orders to put an end to the personality cult he transferred from his father to himself after assuming power. Up to now, the only indication of regime change has been the removal of Kim's pictures, and the official explanation at least sounded plausible. Now that their foreign policy has apparently evolved, the rumors of Kim's demise start taking on a bit more credibility. The Reuters article discusses the latest of them:

Rumors circulated in currency and stock markets in Seoul and Tokyo early on Thursday that Kim had been shot dead.

"There have been various rumors about North Korea and some do have an impact on the market, but this time there's no reaction," said a foreign exchange dealer at a bank in Seoul.

Something has changed up there. Maybe Kim just decided to get humble after Bush's re-election, but with the nation starving to death and their neighbors aligning themselves with the US on their nuclear ambitions, one or more of the palace guard may have decided that their Nero needed to go.

Ukrainian Election Results Certified; US Rejects Them

The Ukraine certified its presidential election results, naming Russia's handpicked successor to the outgoing administration the winner. Meanwhile, the US pushed its Russian relationship further by rejecting the results and calling for a review of the election:

Ukraine's election commission declared the Kremlin-backed prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, the winner of the country's bitterly disputed presidential election, sharpening a crisis sparked by the opposition candidate's allegations that the vote was fraudulent. ...

Prime Minister Yanukovych got 49.61 percent of Sunday's vote, against Yushchenko's 46.61 percent, the commission said in giving its final results.

Secretary of State Colin Powell announced afterwards that the United States would not accept the results of the election:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday the United States cannot accept the results of elections in Ukraine, which the opposition says was marred by fraud.

Powell warned "there will be consequences" for the United States' relationship with Ukraine as a result of the developments in the former Soviet bloc nation. ...

Powell said he spoke with outgoing Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma and urged that his government not crack down on demonstrators. He also spoke with other regional leaders, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Powell did not elaborate about his conversation with Lavrov, but said he advocated a solution to the crisis in Ukraine that is "based on the law, using legal procedures."

Whether Kuchma follows Powell's advice remains to be seen, but I doubt that the Kuchma government or an attempt by Yanukovych to assume the presidency based on the election would survive if he did. The demonstrators have numbered in the tens of thousands already, even without overt support from the army and the police. However, asking either to put down the demonstrations may result in an unpleasant surprise about the level of support Kuchma and the Kremlin enjoy in the Ukraine. Armed suppression of the popular uprising would permanently delegitimize Yanukovych -- which leaves everyone in a difficult position.

Kudos to the Bush Administration for standing on principle, rather than allowing themselves to get massaged by Vladimir Putin. Perhaps his announcement of pursuing a new generation of nuclear weapons woke up a few people to the nature of the Putin regime, even with his ample cooperation on Islamist terror.

Israelis Get Serious About Aviation Security

The BBC reports that Israel has finalized a deal to fit its commercial aircraft with antimissile systems to defend against terrorist attack. El Al will fit the invisible-flare system initially on its high-risk flights -- but not to the US or Europe:

The Flight Guard system has been developed by Israel's largest defence firm, Israel Military Industries, and Elta, a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries.

It is expected to be installed on six El Al jets if initial tests prove successful, and eventually on the rest of the airline's 30-strong fleet, Haaretz reported.

While one supposes that terrorists would target flights to Europe and the US over those to Asia and Africa, none of the Western nations to which El Al flies will approve the new system. The US and Europe reportedly want to wait for infra-red jamming systems, rather than the invisible-flare system which Israel will purchase at a cost of over $1 million a plane. Unfortunately, those systems are still being developed and will not be ready until at least next year.

Every analysis done on commerical-aviation security has pointed out the gaping risk of surface-to-air missile attacks, against which our current fleet has no countermeasures. Commercial aviation moves too slowly and handles too heavily to outfly such an attack. It's bad enough that three years after 9/11, we have yet to deploy any realistic defenses against this strategy, but denying El Al landing rights for their planes appears inexcusable. Why are we punishing El Al and their customers -- many who are US citizens -- for providing the best security?

No Shrimp Left Behind

Congress is spending its lame-duck session trying to pass the remainder of its funding bills before heading home for the holidays. In order to spread some Christmas cheer, lawmakers have stuffed the budgetary goose with plenty of pork, including a measure that Senator John McCain dubbed the No Shrimp Left Behind Act:

The spending plan awaiting President Bush's signature is packed with them, doling out $4 million for an Alabama fertilizer development center, $1 million each for a Norwegian American Foundation in Seattle and a "Wild American Shrimp Initiative," and more, much more.

Despite soaring deficits, lawmakers from both parties who approved the $388 billion package last weekend set plenty of money aside for home-district projects like these, knowing they sow goodwill among special interests and voters.

They also raised the ire of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a pork-barrel critic who took to the Senate floor to ask whether shrimp are so unruly and lacking initiative that the government must spend $1 million on them.

"Why does the U.S. taxpayer need to fund this `no shrimp left behind' act?" he asked.

While I found his book mostly tedious and self-congratulatory, Joe Scarborough described the budget process accurately in Rome Wasn't Burnt In A Day. The GOP had initially tried to rein in the pork after its "revolution" carried them to power in 1994; budget discipline was a key plank in Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. Unfortunately, Newt overplayed his hand in 1995 when he shut down the federal government over spending policy, and ever since the GOP has porked it up just as badly as the Democrats.

Here's a partial list of the fabulous programs for which we'll be spending our money:

Among items in the package: $335,000 to protect North Dakota's sunflowers from blackbirds, $2.3 million for an animal waste management research lab in Bowling Green, Ky., $50,000 to control wild hogs in Missouri, and $443,000 to develop salmon-fortified baby food. ... Ohio Reps. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Democrat, and Steven LaTourette, a Republican, boasted about $350,000 for music education programs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

A presidential line-item veto would cure this to some extent, although it also would provide the executive with a heavy hammer with which to beat up its political opponents. The trade-off might be justified in the savings it would create. The issue of balancing power between the two branches seems to me to be moot, since the legislature refuses to police itself in this regard. However, thanks to old porkers like Robert Byrd, any attempt to resuscitate the line-item veto outside of a Constitutional amendment are likely to fail at the Supreme Court, which struck down the last attempt.

Now that the election is over, Bush could finally sharpen his veto pencil and send this embarrassment back to Congress. It's time to get back to serious budget discipline as a companion piece to tax cuts.

From A Freeze To Just A Chilly Experience

Iran has once again thrown its recent capitulation on uranium enrichment in doubt. Now the mullahcracy insists that an exemption must be made for two dozen centrifuges so that Iran can continue its research -- the same research which caused all the concern regarding their nuclear ambitions:

Iran is demanding that it be allowed to make an exception in its commitment to freeze all uranium enrichment activities so it can operate about about two dozen centrifuges, diplomats said Wednesday.

The Iranians have told the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear watchdog — that they want to operate the centrifuges "for research purposes," the diplomats told The Associated Press.

They have asked the IAEA to exempt around 24 of the devices from the agency seals meant to ensure the enrichment program is completely at a standstill, one of the diplomats said. The IAEA had no immediate comment. But another diplomat who is familiar with the agency said it was resisting the demand for an exemption.

Quelle surprise! Iran only stopped the centrifuges a few days ago after running them overtime to enrich as much uranium as possible before the IAEA agreement went into effect:

Tehran's announcement of a start to suspension came only after it had already converted a few tons of raw uranium into the gas used as feedstock for enrichment by centrifuges. While not prohibited from doing so until Monday — when the freeze took effect — conversion continued until shortly before the deadline, raising doubts about Iran's interest in dispelling international concerns.

Now they want an exception already. It sure looks like their interest in "international concerns" was short-lived at best. The EU-3 has done nothing to secure the region against proliferation; this agreement handcuffs the West more than Iran, and the mullahs already seek to undo what binds it places on Teheran.

Why does anyone take Iranian negotiations seriously?

On the road again

I'm heading for home after work, so no blogging tonight. We only have dial up service in our town . . . you know where you use the phone and something called a "modem." But I'll suffer through and blog this weekend for those who don't participate in the post-Thanksgiving shopping insanity!

Danforth: Why Have The UN?

America's UN ambassador John Danforth expressed his frustration and that of many in the US after watching the UN again bravely decide to dither while the Sudan burns:

John C. Danforth, the United States ambassador, assailed the General Assembly on Tuesday, saying its decision to avoid voting on a resolution denouncing human rights violations in Sudan called into question the purpose of the Assembly.

"One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this," he said. "One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? What is it all about?"

Mr. Danforth's blunt-spoken exasperation was prompted by a ruling earlier Tuesday in the General Assembly's committee on social, humanitarian and cultural affairs to take no action on a measure citing human rights violations in Sudan, which the United States has called genocide.

The purpose of the UN had originally been, in part, to ensure that no further genocides occurred after the Nazi Holocaust. In that mission the UN has been singularly unsuccessful. They have stood by and watched as genocide has erupted under various names -- "ethnic cleansing" being the most antiseptic -- around the globe in places like Cambodia, China, Rwanda, the Balkans, Iraq, and now in the Sudan. The UN in most of those cases couldn't even bring themselves to recognize the slaughter as it occurred, saving its crocodile tears for after the carnage.

If anyone can name a single genocide in which the UN took any action outside the rhetorical to stop, please be sure to let us know. In this case, as before, they couldn't even bring themselves to oppose it even with rhetoric.

The General Assembly delayed any action until today on the expression of "grave concern" on a motion from South Africa. It wasn't that long ago that the people in charge in Praetoria conducted a global campaign against apartheid in their own country, raising millions of dollars and awareness of the injustice of the old regime towards the majority of South African citizens. Apparently justice and freedom are exclusive to the South Africans on that continent, and the sufferings of the Sudanese requires no response from Nelson Mandela and his political heirs. What a disgusting and transparently hypocritical act by those who served as political icons, especially for the Left.

If the South Africans and the rest of the UN continues to block any recognition of the terrorist genocide being conducted in the Sudan, perhaps we need to take some significant action regarding the UN. Withdrawal puts us at too much of a political disadvantage, as the veto power we hold in the UNSC keeps much of their mischief from fruition. However, I see no reason to continue one cent of funding for this corrupt and venal congress of dictators, kleptocrats, and hypocritical clowns. Hit the UN where it hurts: its pocketbook.

The Victim Party Continues Its March From Reality

The Democratic Party continues its crusade for victimhood and the further poisoning of the political environment, asking for a recount of the presidential election in Ohio while making wishy-washy allegations of fraud:

The Ohio Democratic Party announced this week that it is supporting a third-party-led effort to force the battleground state to recount its presidential vote.

The organization, whose decision is expected to give more legitimacy to the recount push, complained that Ohio voters faced long lines at the polls Nov. 2, that some voting machines malfunctioned and that some absentee ballots were never delivered.

If that's the basis for their request, then someone needs to explain how recounting the ballots that were cast addresses any of those concerns. It's a further attempt by the Democrats to make Ohio the new Florida, giving them an extension on the martyrdom on which they've based their entire political strategy for the past four years.

Bush won the popular vote in Ohio by 136,000 votes in an election where Republicans turned out in slightly greater percentage than Democrats. With that margin of victory, the odds of any irregularity in the count making even a noticeable dent in Bush's lead approach infinity. And yet here we have the Democrats again, claiming again that an election has been stolen from them, simply because they cannot face the fact that they nominated a lousy candidate who, again, ran a lousy campaign. Their next step will be to file suit to keep Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell from certifying the results, a replay of Florida 2000.

If the Democrats think that they can build party support by turning the Buckeye State into the poster child for their victimology, perhaps they should look at their prototype again. They narrowly lost Florida in 2000 (a result confirmed by every recount done after the election), but after four years of holding the Sunshine State up as their Holy Land of martyrdom, they lost it by five points this year and coughed up a critical seat in the Senate. If they want to besmirch Ohio's reputation for the conduct of elections, they may well regret it in 2008. And if they want to turn every election they lose over to the lawyers, the Democrats had better get used to being in the minority for a very long time.

UPDATE: For those who claim, as DSB does in the comments, that the Kerry campaign has nothing to do with this, please try reading the article:

The Kerry campaign said it intends to monitor the proceedings for irregularities. "We didn't ask for it," said Dan Hoffheimer, the campaign's legal counsel. "But since it's apparently going to happen, we want to make sure it gets done right."

Besides, I didn't argue that the Kerry campaign was descending into victimological madness -- I said the Democratic Party was doing so. In fact, until this update, I didn't even mention the Kerry campaign in this post -- but isn't Kerry a Democrat? And if he opposed the recount nuttiness, why is the remnant of his campaign jumping into it?

Someone Sounds Desperate

A new statement by the leading terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sounds a desperate tone as he lashes out at Muslim intelligentsia for not supporting his gang of butchers. According to the AP, Zarqawi also sounds pretty pessimistic these days:

An audiotape purportedly made by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lashed out Wednesday at Muslim scholars for not speaking out against U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying they have "let us down in the darkest circumstances." ...

"You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy... You have quit supporting the mujahedeen," he said. "Hundreds of thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence."

Zarqawi obviously doesn't read the New York Times or watch CBS News. If he did, he wouldn't report that Muslims have quit supporting the mujahedeen. The party line in the media here is that Westerners are oppressive occupiers and that the Iraqis want us out. Zarqawi and his gang of bloodthirsty maniacs must see something different.

Perhaps Zarqawi's movement has lost whatever support they might have had in Iraq because they have killed many more Iraqis in their blundering, clumsy campaign than they have Westerners. Iraqis, even the scholars, must revulse at the mass execution-style murders of their sons who only want to restore order to the nation so Iraqis can have a little peace. Butchering those who opposed the invasion and who spent decades helping ordinary Iraqis, like Margaret Hassan, shows that Zarqawi cares little for Iraq and Iraqis and instead has reveled in his ability to spill blood -- an ability that has been curtailed, to Zarqawi's dismay.

Zarqawi's note clearly shows that Tawhid and Jihad is losing the battle for hearts and minds on the ground, even in the Sunni Triangle. He accuses the ulama for selling out "God's orders" in exchange for their "money and sons". It makes Islam sound like a cult of human sacrifice, and combined with the revolting beheadings that Zarqawi videotapes for the Internet, Muslim scholars may finally be waking up to the bastardization of Islam into a premonotheistic death worship.

Late reports have Zarqawi in the north of Baghdad, having lost his base for operations in Fallujah as well as a large number of his operatives there. Expect more desperation from the lunatic as the Coalition continues its offensive against the terrorists in Iraq.

Spirit Of America Update!

In just a few short hours since we started our challenge, we have raised over $4,000 in donations from Northern Alliance readers for the Spirit of America/Friends of Iraq Bloggers Challenge! Joining our team are a slew of blogfriends, including Bogus Gold, Pioneer Press columnist Craig Westover, Hobbs Online, Mad Anthony, Margaret and ol' what's-his-name at Our House, Peoples Republic Of Minnesota, and our mentor Hugh Hewitt. You can continue to donate at this link.

So far, we're leaving Jeff Jarvis in our dust, but Jeff's a pretty sneaky competitor. I think he's waiting until we get overconfident and get arm-weary, like George Foreman at all-you-can eat night at Fuddruckers fighting Ali for the championship. Jeff's betting that his rope-a-dope will give him the title, but our readers are smarter than that!

But just in case you're thinking about giving Jeff a hand, remember what I told you about Mitch dating your daughters. Imagine the heartache you'll have when she brings this home for Christmas dinner:

Don't say you weren't warned!

A Problematic Proposal

Korea scholar Nicholas Eberstadt has a new Weekly Standard column on the nK problem, and it’s a must read. He opens with the following evisceration of the current non-strategy:

The current U.S. approach to the North Korea problem is demonstrably flawed; arguably, even dangerously flawed.

Just what is wrong? After nearly four years in office, the curious fact remains that the Bush administration plainly lacks a strategy for dealing with the North Korean regime. Instead, it merely confronts Pyongyang with an attitude.

President Bush and his inner circle regard Kim Jong Il and his system with an admixture of loathing, contempt, and distrust--as well they might. Unfortunately, a mechanism for translating that point of view into effective action was manifestly absent from the statecraft of Bush's first-term administration. Long on attitude ("axis of evil") but short on strategy, the administration on North Korea was at times akin to a rudderless boat on an open sea.

Eberstadt suggests the administration base a new strategy on two precepts. First:

Precept One: We are exceedingly unlikely to talk--or to bribe--the current North Korean government out

of its nuclear quest.

We tried this with Clinton, it didn’t work then and will not work now. Let’s face it, the Jonger is always willing to take our money, but he’s dead set on having his nuclear deterrence. Next precept:

Precept Two: The North Korean nuclear crisis is the North Korean government--and the North Korean government is the North Korean nuclear crisis.

I think this concept is well-understood by the president, though perhaps not stated as such. After all, he didn’t rank nK in the axis of evil because it has a lousy climate and no good restaurants.

Eberstadt takes these principles and weaves them into four policy recommendations. Here the list and a rough summary:

1. “Instituting regime change - at the State Department.” Eberstadt cites Secretary Powell’s last trip to Asia as a key example of the diplomat’s failure to understand and address the nK danger.

2. “Defining ‘success’ and ‘failure’ for North Korea negotiations.” Talk is cheap.

3. “Increasing China’s ‘ownership’ of the North Korean problem.” Beijing will feel the pain of a fully nuclear nK.

4. “Working around the pro-appeasement crowd in the South Korea government.” Translation: the Sunshine Policy is a speed-bump on the road to a successful resolution of the crisis.

5. “Readying the nondiplomatic instruments for North Korea threat reduction.” Get the stick out in case the carrot doesn’t work.

6. “Planning for a post-Communist Korean peninsula.” He’s dreaming big here, but ‘tis forgivable.

I agree wholeheartedly with several of Eberstadt’s conclusions, but he fails to offer what the administration needs most: a realistic goal for its nK strategy. He accuses the administration of being a “rudderless boat on an open sea,” but he neglects to provide the president with a compass. We might assume from the title (“Tear Down This Tyranny”) that Eberstadt promotes regime change, yet he fails to actually call for such an event or suggest any methods by which it could be engineered. He speaks repeatedly of the “nuclear crisis” without identifying the elements of the situation that make it an emergency.

The idea of Kim Jong Il with nukes is scary, but let’s face it. The Dear Leader probably already has them. This means we have two options: (1) Destroy them with our military or (2) Make him an offer he can’t refuse. Eberstadt dealt with option (2) above. The military option is, sadly, too pricey. If we attempted a surgical strike, the nK artillery would fire thousands of rounds an hour on Seoul, resulting in massive casualties and crippling the East Asian economy. And it might not even work! Though our weapons are up to the task, there is significant doubt as to whether the intelligence can provide the targets.

Realistically, we can deter nK from deploying nuclear weapons, but the real threat, the threat that should keep the Bush administration up at night, is the possibility that nuclear material could be transferred to the Jihadists, who would have no qualms about detonating them in an American city. We must develop a nK policy that addresses this threat, even if that means the unthinkable: letting Kim keep a bomb or two . . . for now.

Irritating All The Right People

Americans left miserable by watching their Presidential candidate lose set up a website titled Sorry Everybody!, in which various pictures have been posted with apologies for George Bush's re-election. As my good friend and colleage Rocket Man notes at Power Line, SE! has to be one of the silliest excuses for Internet traffic in recent memory. Or at least it was, until someone set up Apologies Accepted, where people around the world posted pictures of themselves accepting the regrets of sore losers in the US.

Rocket Man posted a picture of a young woman from Red China professing her love of Blue America, a revealing insight into the kind of people to whom these apologies appeal. (Her smirk certainly must have helped the entry get past the Chinese Internet censors.) Apologies Accepted does provide a service for Americans who want to see the quality of the opposition we face to our policies around the world.

Mistress Kathy either wants to make Bush disappear, or spank him. I'm not sure which one would please her more.

These two Estonians should really coordinate their hair color and clothing better. At least they seem to be the most optimistic of the bunch.

Katrina, we think you're terrorist-ridden because people keep getting kidnapped and killed over there, including several Americans -- and because your government keeps asking for our help in getting rid of them. Oh, and check that tree behind you ...

For some reason, one hell of a lot of these came from the Netherlands. Here's one from a Dutch MP with too much time on his hands.

Is anyone surprised by this?

Finally, this represents the coherence of most submittals, as well as the John Kerry campaign.

Ukraine Convulses

The botched election in the Ukraine appears to have touched off a popular uprising, threatening the pro-Russian existing government with a pro-Western putsch. Both sides have appealed to the police and army to weigh in on their side in order to get their grip on power:

Ukraine's pro-western opposition leader called last night on army and police units to join his revolution as thousands of supporters braved sub-zero temperatures and driving snow to confront riot police outside the presidential palace.

In scenes reminiscent of the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, more than 200,000 anti-government demonstrators cheered on Viktor Yushchenko and called for his pro-Kremlin rival to accept electoral defeat. Many later broke away from the main protest in a sea of orange opposition flags to surround the presidential building in Kiev, the capital, where they were met by the police line.

The demonstrators chanted "Police, join the people!" but the security forces attempted to push back the crowds as they surged against the cordon around the building. Opposition deputies said they would not encourage the demonstrators to storm it.

It reminds me of the scenes outside the Duma when Boris Yeltsin managed to rescue freedom from an attempted coup by the Communists. Yeltsin may have had his faults, but that moment in history belonged to him. One wonders whether the Ukrainians will be fortunate enough to find someone of Yeltsin's stature to stand tall for democracy in the Ukraine now. Let's hope.

UPDATE: I'm remiss in failing to mention that fellow NARNian and my friend King Banaian at SCSU Scholars has posted extensively on the Ukraine. Keep checking back there, as King promises even more updates ...

UN: Billing The Victims For The Investigation

Iraq has formally protested a decision by the UN to use $30 million of the money that Turtle Bay kept for administrative services to investigate the massive corruption of the Oil For Food program -- and themselves:

Iraq has protested a U.N. decision to use $30 million in revenue from the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq to help pay for the investigation of alleged corruption in the humanitarian effort.

In a letter obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Samir Sumaidiaie argued that Security Council resolutions don't support the use of oil-for-food money "for an investigation into the internal practices of the United Nations in carrying out its duties." ...

Last month, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the council that money for the probe headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker would come from an account earmarked to pay U.N. administrative and operational costs for the embattled humanitarian program.

Here's what the UN proposes: They want to pay for the investigation of UN complicity in allowing Saddam to skim $21 billion from the money that Iraqis paid the UN to protect them from Saddam in the first place. The concepts of shame and remorse apparently have no application at Turtle Bay. In any other business, the complete and abject failure of an organization to safeguard its customers would result in the refund of the money paid for the service.

For that matter, in any other crime, the victims would not get the bill for arresting the criminals, although I highly doubt that the UN intends on concluding that they did anything wrong. Kofi Annan will likely wind up charging the Iraqis to whitewash the entire scandal. It will become the UN's final indignity to the Iraqi people.

Rather Resigned

CBS has announced Dan Rather's resignation from the anchor and managing editor positions for CBS Evening News. CBS calls it "retirement," even though in the same breath they announce that Rather will continue to work for 60 Minutes as an investigative reporter:

Dan Rather, embattled anchor of the "CBS Evening News," announced Tuesday that he will step down in March, on the 24th anniversary of taking over the job from Walter Cronkite.

The veteran anchor has been under fire in recent months for his role in a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, which turned out to based on allegedly forged documents.

Rather, 73, said he will continue to work for CBS, as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes."

Two years ago, this announcement would have been a blockbuster. By this point, the reaction will mostly focus on why CBS waited so long to make the announcement. Rather had long since squandered any semblance of credibility even before he "personally vouched" for the authenticity of forged documents that CBS used to smear President Bush. He leaves an incredibly damaged news organization in his wake, which won't recover until after his departure and that of Andrew Heyward, CBS News President.

CBS now has to find a fresh face to slap onto its tired and crumbling news division. It should also find some fresh faces for its management.

UPDATE: CBS has its own report on Rather's resignation, and it seems a bit strange for a retrospective on a presumably beloved figure in the news division:

The triumvirate of Rather, Brokaw and ABC's Peter Jennings has ruled network news for more than two decades. Rather dominated ratings after taking over for Cronkite during the 1980s, but he was eclipsed first by Jennings and then by Brokaw. His evening news broadcast generally runs a distant third in the ratings each week.

His hard news style was mixed with a folksy Texan style that led him to rattle off homespun phrases on Election Night. But odd incidents dogged him: In 1987 he walked off the set, leaving CBS with dead air, to protest a decision to let a tennis match delay the news.

I'm thinking that the news division may have delighted in the opportunity to point out a few of the emperor's flaws now that he's passing from the scene.

Northern Alliance Team Takes The Sprirt Of America Challenge!

The Northern Alliance is proud to sponsor a team for the Spirit of America "Friends of Iraq" Challenge. SoA provides support and provisions for our fighting men and women in Iraq who want to help rebuild the country and create the kind of friendship with freedom-loving Iraqis that can transform the region. You can donate with the Northern Alliance team at this link.

We're competing with other bloggers to raise more funds than any other team, and the NARN guys have targeted Jeff Jarvis for defeat. Jeff has his big team of media stars, while the Northern Alliance has ... er ... me. And Mitch. Yeah, we're a couple of great looking guys -- okay, I'm lying, we have faces made for radio. But we do have the movie-star looks of The Elder and Saint Paul at Fraters Libertas, the financial wizardry of King Banaian at SCSU Scholars, and the scary lawyers of Power Line, Big Trunk and Rocket Man.

Doesn't that sound like a media empire to you?

Remember, it's all in good fun for a great cause, but if we catch you donating through Jeff's team, we'll sic Trunk and Rocket on you, and if that doesn't work, Mitch will date your daughters. (Trust me -- a bad thing.)

UPDATE: Hey, we're in the lead! I knew that Mitch would frighten the fathers of America into action ...

UN Seraglio In The Congo Getting Little Attention

Michelle Malkin points her readers this morning to a Reuters report that frankly makes Abu Ghraib look like a tea party. The UN peacekeepers in the Congo have abused and raped scores of refugees while supposedly protecting them from Islamofascist terrorists, in some cases extorting sexual favors for basic necessities:

The United Nations is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on videotape, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.

The accusations include pedophilia, rape and prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary-general in the peacekeeping department.

Lute, an American, said there was photographic and video evidence for some of the allegations and most of the charges came to light since the spring.

Photographs? Videos? It sounds like Abu Ghraib, from which the media and the UN took the sick actions of a few low-ranking soldiers and created an onslaught against our reputation and our policies. In this case, the scale is much larger and the offenses much more egregious, not only because of the nature of the crimes themselves but because of the status of the victims. These people looked to the UN for assistance and all they got was exploitation.

Earlier this year, I wrote about this situation when it looked as though there had been a few dozen such incidents, as reported by the London Independent:

Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops sent to the stop their suffering.

The Independent has found that mothers as young as 13 - the victims of multiple rape by militiamen - can only secure enough food to survive in the sprawling refugee camp by routinely sleeping with UN peace-keepers.

Testimony from girls and aid workers in the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Bunia, in the north-east corner of Congo, claims that every night teenage girls crawl through a wire fence to an adjoining UN compound to sell their bodies to Moroccan and Uruguayan soldiers.

In the six months that have passed since the Independent's report which originally broke the story, what has the UN done to stop the sexual abuse and extortion in its Congo contingent? Apparently nothing more than send a few soldiers home -- because they have no power to do anything else:

In May the United Nations reported some 30 cases of abuse among peacekeepers in the northeastern town of Bunia, where half of the more than 10,000 soldiers are stationed.

Last month, one French soldier and two Tunisian soldiers were sent home, U.N. officials said. Three U.N. civilian staff were suspended.

The United Nations has jurisdiction over its civilian staff but troops are contributed by individual nations. Consequently, the world body has only the power to demand a specific country repatriate an accused soldier and punish him or her at home.

Abu Ghraib prompted worldwide attention, press conferences, and televised hearings, all because people arrested for terrorism were abused by a few idiotic American troops lacking the discipline necessary for their assigned roles. In the Congo, the UN has tolerated the forced prostitution and sexual extortion of genocide victims they're supposedly protecting for months now. The media has done nothing to follow up on this story, making them complicit in the ongoing abuses in the Congo. Does abuse only become noteworthy when Americans are accused of it? Or is their no room in the Washington Post and the New York Times when the UN uses vulnerable refugees to create a bordello for its staff and the "peacekeepers" for which they are responsible?

Earle Doth Protest Too Much

Ronnie Earle took his fight against Tom DeLay to the pages of the New York Times today, excoriating the House GOP for a rule change which would allow DeLay to keep his leadership position even if indicted by Earle on corruption charges. Earle, the district attorney for Travis County, complains that the Republicans have unfairly tarred him as a political hack and used that excuse to change the rules:

The thinly veiled personal attacks on me by Mr. DeLay's supporters in this case are no different from those in the cases of any of the 15 elected officials this office has prosecuted in my 27-year tenure. Most of these officials - 12 Democrats and three Republicans - have accused me of having political motives. What else are they going to say?

For most of my tenure the Democrats held the power in state government. Now Republicans do. Most crimes by elected officials involve the abuse of power; you have to have power before you can abuse it.

There is no limit to what you can do if you have the power to change the rules. Congress may make its own rules, but the public makes the rule of law, and depends for its peace on the enforcement of the law. Hypocrisy at the highest levels of government is toxic to the moral fiber that holds our communities together.

I'm ambivalent about the rule change. Under normal circumstances, anyone facing an indictment should voluntarily relinquish their leadership positions until matters have been resolved. Changing the rule now seems rather convenient, although the Republicans have not just assumed power in the House this month, as Earle suggests, but have operated under that rule for ten years.

Despite Earle's protests, I don't think these are normal circumstances. Earle dishonestly states that "no [member of Congress] is a target" of his grand jury investigation unless they've committed a crime. First, people do get targeted by grand-jury investigations even if they haven't committed a crime, and sometimes they also get indicted. As Earle should know, that's why we have trials -- to determine guilt or innocence. Why does a district attorney need to be reminded of this?

Secondly, Earle has some history of questionable prosecutions targeting the GOP. Earle, you may recall, once indicted and prosecuted Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson for a number of offenses, including assault and corruption. As the Austin Review wrote four years ago, long before the DeLay investigation:

Earle’s politically-motivated indictment of Senator Hutchinson on charges that she used state funds to run her senatorial campaign made even his own supporters cringe. The charges were dismissed when Earle refused to present evidence at trial.

What kind of prosecutor hauls a politician in front of a jury, then refuses to present evidence of her alleged crimes? Either an incompetent or a political hack, and evidence exists to support both conclusions.

Lastly, if politics plays no role in Earle's efforts, why is he spending his efforts, and Texas tax money, writing opinion pieces about Congressional actions for the New York Times? For a man who ostensibly eschews politics, he had no hesitation in attacking the House GOP over a rule change which makes absolutely no difference to his investigation. It seems wildly inappropriate for an officer of the court conducting a grand-jury investigation of alleged political corruption to start a career in punditry regarding partisan politics. Defending his honor would have been understandable, but Earle specifically derides the House for a rule change which, if you believe his statement that he has no control over how the grand jury will act, would be immaterial anyway.

While I believe that the GOP would be better served by reconsidering the rule change, all Earle did today was provide even more evidence that their action was a necessity.

Guantanamo On The Hudson?

Lawyers have descended upon New York City to file a flurry of lawsuits over the measures taken by the Big Apple to ensure security during the Republican National Convention. Both the New York Times and the AP file reports today describing the mass detention of 1800 protestors as a "Guantanamo" that amounted to cruel and unusual punishment:

The federal lawsuit claims protesters and bystanders alike were rounded up in mass arrests without cause; were kept without access to their lawyers or families at an old bus depot used as a temporary detention center; and were exposed for days to cruel and inhuman conditions.

The lawsuit asks for unspecified damages.

"All that was missing were the orange jumpsuits," lawyer Jonathan C. Moore said. "Under the guise of terrorism and the fear of terrorism, we are all losing our rights."

The Times reports an even more hysterical set of allegations:

The suit, filed initially on behalf of 24 people who were among more than 1,800 detained during the convention late this summer, contends that their constitutional rights were violated by arbitrary arrests and by harsh conditions at Pier 57, a former bus repair depot where they were held for as long as 48 hours on minor charges. The suit contends that the pier was contaminated with asbestos and toxic chemicals. ...

Several of the people suing the city said that they were still suffering aftereffects. For example, Rebecca Stoneback, a 25-year-old jewelry designer and glass artist from Asbury, N.J., showed several blemishes on her face at a news conference yesterday. She said they erupted, along with a rash on her body, while she was sitting handcuffed on the floor at Pier 57.

Yeah, well, one can't complain about anything to do with the GOP without tossing a bone to the environmentalists. It sounds to me like such a gross exaggeration that it questions the entire motivation of the lawyers and plaintiffs involved.

First, as one who was there, I can tell you that the areas being protected by the police department were only those adjacent to Madison Square Garden and the Pennsylvania Hotel. Police barricaded the streets surrounding these venues for good reason -- they didn't want anyone parking car bombs in front of them. The police forbade protests in this area because they wanted to focus on security, which seems like a reasonable decision to me. Other areas were ignored by the police, as close as a block away, but if anyone came into the secure zone to protest, they were politely asked to leave, and then arrested if they refused. I saw this myself twice during my stay in New York, and in both cases the protestors started quoting the First Amendment over and over again rather than leave.

The detention story got a lot of play even while we were at the convention. The protestors strategized that they could paralyze the police by simply getting arrested over and over again during the four-day convention, lowering the security for the conventioneers by exhausting police resources in moving people back and forth constantly to the jails. However, as anyone who has actually read the law knows, cities can detain people for quite a while without arraigning them, usually between 48-72 hours in most jurisdictions. New York took advantage of this by waiting until the last moment to arraign protestors -- a few of which waited too long, getting a strong rebuke from a municipal judge -- in order to discourage the revolving-door strategy.

I'm not sure what people expected after they were arrested. The city had to find a facility they could secure, and if that means using "chain-link fences and razor wire", as the lawsuit sobs, it just means they were successful in doing so. Jail isn't supposed to be the Hilton, which is why people should avoid behavior which lands them there. These protestors deliberately got themselves arrested; they should quit being crybabies about getting their wish.

The Last Act Of A Hero

Saturday's Seattle Times profiled the last actions of a Marine Corps sergeant that had already served with distinction, but who wound up giving his life to save his fellow Marines:

Sgt. Rafael Peralta built a reputation as a man who always put his Marines' interests ahead of his own.

He showed that again, when he made the ultimate sacrifice of his life Tuesday, by shielding his fellow Marines from a grenade blast. ...

One of the first Marines to enter the house, Peralta was wounded in the face by rifle fire from a room near the entry door, said Lance Cpl. Adam Morrison, 20, of Tacoma, who was in the house when Peralta was first wounded.

Moments later, an insurgent rolled a fragmentation grenade into the area where a wounded Peralta and the other Marines were seeking cover.

As Morrison and another Marine scrambled to escape the blast, pounding against a locked door, Peralta grabbed the grenade and cradled it into his body, Morrison said. While one Marine was badly wounded by shrapnel from the blast, the Marines said they believe more lives would have been lost if not for Peralta's selfless act.

"He saved half my fire team," said Cpl. Brannon Dyer, 27, of Blairsville, Ga.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta -- Marine, American, hero. Rest in peace, Rafael, while the rest of us strive to be worthy of your sacrifice.

Did Britain Stop A 9/11-Style Attack On London?

The French press service AFP and the UK service ITV report that unnamed sources in the British government claim that the UK prevented a specific Islamist plot to hijack commercial aircraft for suicide missions on London:

British security services have foiled an Al-Qaeda plot to fly planes into targets in London in a September 11-style attack, Britain's independent ITV News network reported.

"This is the story of what could have been a nightmare averted," said ITV's political editor Nick Robinson. "A story not of failure, but of success."

"That, at least, is what I am told by a senior authoritative source who says that the security services managed to avert a plot to fly planes into Canary Wharf here, and also into Heathrow Airport," he said.

AFP provides no specifics on the plot, not even if it was a recent development or something that happened a while ago. Hopefully more will be forthcoming soon.

Support Our Troops

This holiday season thousands of American troops will be deployed away from their homes and loved ones. If you wish to offer support but aren't sure how to go about it, the Department of Defense has launched a new website "America Supports You." The troops welcome gifts like care packages, phone cards, and messages. Although the DoD is not allowed to endorse any particular charitable organization, the website offers links and information about such groups. Even a simple “Thank you” will mean a lot to our men and women overseas. Click here to send yours.

Faithophobia Dumbs Down Maryland Education

Fox News reports that Maryland educators have such a fear of anything religious that they have begun rewriting history to remove any references to faith in the classroom -- beginning with Thanksgiving:

Young students across the state read stories about the Pilgrims (search) and Native Americans, simulate Mayflower (search) voyages, hold mock feasts and learn about the famous meal that temporarily allied two very different groups.

But what teachers don't mention when they describe the feast is that the Pilgrims not only thanked the Native Americans for their peaceful three-day indulgence, but repeatedly thanked God.

"We teach about Thanksgiving from a purely historical perspective, not from a religious perspective," said Charles Ridgell, St. Mary's County Public Schools curriculum and instruction director. School administrators statewide agree, saying religion never coincides with how they teach Thanksgiving to students.

Every time I think I've heard the dumbest education excuse, along comes another one to top it. Teaching that the Pilgrims gave thanks to the God in which they believed doesn't amount to teaching religion -- it's teaching history. The Pilgrims of the Massachussetts Bay colony came to North America to practice their rather radical and austere form of religion unmolested by the moderating influences of the mainstream Anglican Church. How can schools teach history without mentioning the faith of the colonists?

The forces of political correctness threaten to turn us into a nation of historical illiterates. I don't want public schools teaching religion to students -- not because of any First Amendment issues, but because they'd do a horrible job of it -- but rewriting history to turn the Puritans into secular humanists is ridiculous. It recalls the worst of Soviet-style education, where teaching the party line carried more worth than the truth.

The people in charge of the curricula want to create their own reality by constructing a fantasy world where no one ever believed in God, unless it's to teach how religious fanatics caused all wars and genocides, a fable gaining currency despite the 20th-century history of secular tyrannies such as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Maoist China, and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. People who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes. People who fail to teach history create the necessary environment for its repetition.

Context

In the disputed shooting of a wounded "insurgent" on 13 November, critics of the liberation of Fallujah accused a Marine of committing a war crime, despite the fact that terrorists have attacked Iraqi and US forces after playing dead a number of times. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports on another such incident today, providing even more context for the action on 13 November:

The US military says Marines in Fallujah have shot and killed an insurgent who engaged them as he was faking being dead, a week after footage of a marine killing an apparently unarmed and wounded Iraqi caused a stir in the region.

"Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent who while faking dead opened fire on the marines who were conducting a security and clearing patrol through the streets," a military statement said.

The Geneva Convention, which antiwar activists and pundits accused the US of violating in the earlier incident, requires that both sides not only be signatories to the pact but also that both sides represent a legitimate state military in order for it to apply. It also requires that both sides adhere to the treaty. The terrorists of Fallujah obviously fail on all three criteria. Failing the application of the GC, the UCMJ gives conditions for lawful combat, but given how the enemy operates in this theater, shooting anyone faking death seems like a wise and prudent choice.

If I have to choose between a Marine who protects himself and his unit against terrorists or a dead unit that nonetheless satisfies our critics' idea of how to conduct a military operation, I'll choose the former every single time. In that theater of battle, the only safe jihadi is a dead jihadi.

NIMBY (Doesn't) Come Home To Roost

The New York Times editorial board takes aim at the practices of the US Census Bureau when it comes to counting prisoners. The census takers count prisoners as residents of the city/county where the prison is located rather than in their home towns and states which, according to the NYT, shortchanges the urban areas from which the criminals come:

The citizens of large cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have helped to pay the cost of building and maintaining state prisons, which provide much-needed jobs in many rural districts. They did not, however, count on also giving these generally underpopulated areas extra political influence as well.

The nonvoting inmates - sometimes called "imported constituents'' - are often counted in rural districts where legislators vote against the interest of their home cities. Their presence in the census count of prison neighborhoods distorts population statistics and creates legislative districts that fly in the face of federal laws requiring districts to be roughly the same size - plus or minus a variation of about 5 percent.

Well, why are these prisons being built in the boondocks? Because urban dwellers and established suburbs have long fought the building of their own detention facilities in what's called the NIMBY attitude (Not In My Back Yard). Cities don't want to give up prime real estate and suffer a hit to their tax base, and the suburbs don't want to have inmates near their schools or churches. The resultant migration of penal institutions benefit underemployed areas of the country, although I don't necessarily know that they tend to be primarily white -- and the Times doesn't provide any evidence to support that conclusion.

The Times argues that this is only an issue now that the prison population has exploded, but that explosion occurred in the 1980s, with the passage of tough drug-sentencing laws. Now that reapportionment power has passed to mainly Republican state legislatures, the Gray Lady belatedly finds that the prison census to be a national emergency. Nor does their solution hold up to more than superficial analysis. They propose to have prisoners fill out their census queries with their home addresses, but how long does a prisoner have to be sentenced to be considered a resident of the prison? Surely lifers would have to be counted as a prison resident, since they won't ever be released to their home towns.

In truth, the urban centers shoved off the problems of housing criminals to the rural areas, not so much because the rural areas wanted prisons but because they lacked the political pull to stop them from being built. Cities and saturated suburban areas congratulated themselves on pushing their problems out of sight, while the rural areas took on the risk to their citizens. Now the Times argues that not only should the cities avoid their responsibilities but that they should also avoid the consequences for avoiding their responsibilities. Hogwash.

If New York City wants their criminals to count towards apportionment, then condemn office space in the city and build a prison instead. I'd suggest Turtle Bay. Not only would that give New York plenty of room to keep their own prisoners, it comes with plenty of crooks to kick-start the program.

Paging Michael Moore! Mr. Moore To Moonbat Central!

Today's New York Sun reports that a significant part of the funding for the new Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock came from a source more associated with conspiracy theories about the Bush Administration:

President Clinton's new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen.

The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week.

Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign this year accusing President Bush of improperly close ties to Saudi Arabia. The case was made in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," in a bestselling book by Craig Unger titled "House of Bush, House of Saud," and by the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Kerry.

Why do the Saudis and other oil producers have so much interest in a former president, one who holds little power in a political landscape dominated by the GOP? Think about who's running for President in 2008:

Mr. Unger said he suspects that the Saudi support may have something to do with a possible presidential bid by Senator Clinton in 2008.

"They want to keep their options open no matter who's in power and whether that's four years from now or whatever," the author said. "Just a few million is nothing to them to keep their options open."

Finance scandal surrounding the library have resulted from the start of the fundraising effort. Denise Rich donated $450,000 in 2000 while seeking a presidential pardon for her fugitive husband, Marc Rich. Despite objections from the Justice Department and ongoing investigations into his criminal activity, Clinton granted the pardon, touching off a federal bribery investigation as Clinton left office.

The Sun prints the names of other substantial donors to the Clinton Library, including the deputy prime minister of Lebanon, the SEIU, and several Hollywood power players such as Steven Spielberg. Can we expect Michael Moore to concoct conspiracy theories regarding the Clintons and the Saudis in his next crockumentary? I won't be holding my breath.

Twisted To The End

Brazil has discovered the papers of the notorious Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele, in a Sao Paulo police station. Apparently unknown to the police for the past quarter-century, the collection of letters and diaries by the sadistic monster of Auschwitz will be displayed for public viewing at the National Police Academy in Brasilia. They reveal Menegele as a committed Nazi and an unapologetic monster whose work in exterminating Jews and conducting bizarre and horrible medical experiments captured his complete enthusiasm.

Even at that, however, Mengele indulged in some measure of self-delusion:

Of his own actions in "selecting" whether victims at Auschwitz were to live to work or to be experimented upon, or to be dispatched in the gas chambers, he wrote: "I gave life in Auschwitz, I did not take it."

Mengele also continued to cast Jews as his personal bogeyman, even while giving them grudging respect for having survived the death factories Mengele and the other Nazis devised for them:

"The cultural production of the Jews is not to be disputed. It is possible to always perceive that their representatives are above-average intellectually and always without exception live with people who are of a high cultural level."

But he also remained true to the Führer’s ideal that Jews "should never be allowed to mix their blood with others".

And he wrote not a single word of regret about their destruction on an industrial production-line scale, yet found time to criticise Israel for its "persecution" of the Palestinians as early as 1969.

The notorious doctor died on the run, hiding from international justice and the Mossad in Brazil until his death in 1979, unconfirmed until years later. 400,000 had preceded him into death by Mengele's own actions, a mind-boggling number that only has any equal in Mengele's own superiors, or in Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, and Saddam today. Perhaps these diaries and letters will reinvigorate our vow to "never forget", and explain to a new generation why monsters like Mengele must be stopped by breaking their grip on power.

No Need For 28th Amendment

William Safire picks up on the Amend for Arnold enthusiasm coming from California and writes an impassioned argument for allowing foreign-born naturalized citizens to run for President. He makes the only argument that carries any water whatsoever -- that the Constitutional bar effectively creates two classes of citizens with unequal standing:

Article II of the Constitution directed that in the future only "natural born" citizens would be eligible for the nation's highest office. There may have been reason for suspicion of the foreign-born as the nation was in formation, but that nativist bias has no place in a nation proud of its "golden door."

When an immigrant is naturalized, his or her citizenship becomes as natural as "natural born." The oath taken and the pledge of allegiance given make the immigrant 100 percent American, with all the rights, privileges and obligations appertaining thereto. All except one - the right to the greatest political success.

That makes all naturalized citizens - including taxpayers, voters, servicemembers - slightly less than all-American. Even children born abroad of U.S. citizens have fallen under the shadow of Article II; this has caused pregnant women to race back to our shores to make certain their children's political potential is not somehow beclouded.

I somehow doubt that the last argument consists of anything more than hyperbole; I'd like to know the cases to which Safire refers where a woman rushed home to the US in order to preserve her child's eligiblity for the Presidency. I'd hazard a guess that for those pregnant mothers-to-be who do rush back here, health care and a sense of loyalty play a larger role than aspirations to the White House.

Unfortunately, that's the over-the-top, emotional kind of arguments we hear in this debate. Arnold's great! He's a centrist! We should amend the Constitution! Look, I'm as much a fan of Arnold as anyone -- I was delighted when he ran for governor, understanding that his bypassing of the primaries (and his celebrity) gave him a huge boost in unseating Gray Davis. He makes a good governor and may make a great one, although pushing a six-billion-dollar bond bill while California already drowns in red ink shakes my confidence more than a little.

That doesn't translate into a need to amend the Constitution to allow Arnold to run. I'm sympathetic to the one argument about naturalization creating a second-class citizenship, but the exception is so narrow that it becomes essentially meaningless. In over two hundred years under the Constitution, we've had 43 Presidents. How many opportunities have there been for discrimination to be significant? Besides, as the head of state, the President represents the country abroad, and I think that requiring that person to be native-born enhances the representative nature of the office.

Lastly, why should we need to look to immigrants for that representation? Immigrants fill all sorts of vital roles in our culture, and do so magnificently; two are sitting governors, and many others come to Congress and work as high-profile advisors to Presidents. We should be able to find qualified and intelligent candidates among the pool of native-born Americans for the presidency. The need to amend the Constitution doesn't exist.

Safire disagrees, but for his own reasons. At the end of his plea, he shares his vision of the 2008 Presidential race, a ridiculous prediction that in itself argues against the amendment he proposes:

After ratification of the 28th Amendment in 2007, I envision a G.O.P. ticket the next year with Rudy Giuliani or John McCain on top and Schwarzenegger as running-mate. For Democrats, Evan Bayh or Hillary Clinton for president, Peter Jennings (Canadian-born) for v.p.

Chew that one over.

And then spit it out. If you can imagine the GOP nominating two left-centrists as their ticket in 2008, then you must be from the New York media. Two of the three are pro-choice, and the one who isn't (McCain) has hardly made himself the darling of the conservative wing the past four years. The idea of Peter Jennings as a VP candidate is even more laughable. Does Safire think that network television anchors will lend the Democrats credibility, after the CBS debacle in September and the Halperin memo in October? Even the Democrats aren't that clueless.

It's an interesting debate, but I hardly think that amending the Constitution to allow Arnold to run for President makes any policy sense. Doing it for Peter Jennings is nothing short of insane.

UPDATE: Corrected "pro-life" to "pro-choice" in the next-to-last paragraph.

LA Times, AP Misleading On Civil-Rights Prosecutions

The headline in today's Los Angeles Times boldly proclaims that "Study Finds Enforcement of Civil Rights Laws Plummets," reporting on a new study by Syracuse University's TRAC data-collection project. Below the eye-grabbing banner, the story keeps its hyperventilating tone going, implying that the Bush Administration has abandoned civil rights:

Federal enforcement of civil rights laws has dropped sharply since 1999 even though the level of complaints received by the Justice Department has remained relatively constant, according a study released Sunday.

Criminal charges alleging civil rights violations were brought last year against 84 defendants, down from 159 in 1999, according to Justice Department data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University.

In addition, the study found that the number of times the FBI or other federal agencies recommended prosecution in civil rights cases had fallen by more than one-third, from over 3,000 in 1999 to just more than 1,900 last year.

First, it seems a bit odd that the AP would have chosen 1999 as a benchmark, and although I can't retrieve the data, I suspect that 1999 may have had an anomalous spike in referrals for prosecution. (TRAC requires a subscription for queries.) Syracuse has data for the last ten years available, and the narrower time frame indicates that the ten-year picture may be substantially different.

More to the point, the AP's reporting is incomplete, and one can't help but presume deliberately. TRAC found that FBI referrals for prosecution declined across the board since 2001, not just civil-rights violations, as the first paragraph of their report states:

In the months since 9/11/01, the overall number of FBI criminal enforcement actions has declined. In FY 2001 the FBI recommended that federal prosecutors bring charges against 39,060 individuals. In FY 2003, FBI referrals had declined to only 34,008. During the first quarter of FY 2004, the referrals were running at a rate -- if the trend continues (7,487 for the quarter or an estimated annual rate for FY 2004 of 29,948) -- indicating that the general decline for the full year will be substantial.

Now why do you suppose that might be? The next paragraph, of which the AP and Los Angeles Times also neglected to inform their readers, explains that the FBI has been rather busy (emphasis mine):

Those criminal matters the Justice Department classified as terrorism, anti-terrorism or internal security were sharply up, from 390 recorded in FY 2001 to 2,534 in FY 2003. But monthly figures for the first quarter of FY 2004 indicate that terrorism, anti-terrorism and internal security referrals peaked during the spring of 2003 and have been declining since (see graph). Even at their peak these cases still represent only a small fraction of the bureau's total criminal enforcement workload. (Much of the FBI's investigative and surveillance activities in the terrorism area, of course, never result in criminal cases.)

Here's the chart that demonstrates the focus of the FBI in the past three years:

In fact, even though most of the FBI's work on national security and counterterrorism does not result in criminal referrals -- instead resulting in deeper intelligence work -- criminal referrals have increased about tenfold. It demonstrates the shifting priorities of a nation at war, and the use of a limited resource based on those priorities. Hardly shocking, the focus on counterterrorism and national security should not only be comforting, it should be rather obvious to anyone who lived through 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror.

Why is this so difficult for the AP and the Los Angeles Times to grasp?

Where Have We Heard This Before?

The Ukraine has adopted American-style democracy in more ways than one. The Associated Press reports that their presidential election results have a mismatch between the vote count and the exit polling done, in part, by the US:

Ukraine's prime minister was leading the nation's run-off presidential election, according to partial vote tallies released Monday, but his Western-leaning challenger held the advantage in an exit poll funded partly by the United States. ...

With 69 percent of precincts counted following Sunday's election, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had 48.58 percent of the vote, compared with Viktor Yushchenko's 47.78 percent, the Central Election Commission said. About 2 percent voted against both candidates.

But an exit poll conducted by anonymous questionnaires under a program funded by several Western governments said Yushchenko had received 54 percent of the vote compared with the Kremlin-praised Yanukovych's 43 percent. A second exit poll, however, showed Yushchenko's margin was much smaller at 49.4 percent to 45.9 percent, the Interfax news agency reported.

Why should the Ukrainians expect their exit polling to be any more accurate than ours have been the past two election cycles? Besides, why do people rely on exit polling so much when the ballots just need to be counted? I understand they're trying to keep the process honest, but the observer nations can't even come up with the same numbers in two different exit polls. If the election process ran properly, then the observers should just focus on the accuracy of the ballot counts.

Minnesota Education Dollars At Work

The Grotmonster alerts us to an essay written last Friday by a student at St. Olaf College, an hour south of the Twin Cities and about two light years from reality. In an effort to make us all question the value of a Minnesota education, English and history major Megan Sutherland informs her fellow Olafians that between Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft, she fears the one that hasn't murdered 3,000 people:

As I write this article I can only hope that John Ashcroft doesn't show up at my door. This is not to say that Osama Bin Laden is a cuddly teddy bear.

Rather, I aim to point out that Bin Laden has motives for his actions. Motives which have been bypassed, simplified and just plain misconstrued by the current administration.

Further, just because Bin Laden attempts to highlight his objections through violent means does not mean his underlying cause is invalid or undeserving of consideration.

Yeah, just because he murdered 3,000 civilians doesn't mean we shouldn't take him seriously as a political voice. Richard Ramirez also provides us a unique perspective on residential security, and Charles Manson has value as a supporter of family values. Sutherland makes the mistake of taking Osama seriously in what she calls his latest "Osamagram", where bin Laden gave yet another excuse for his decade-long jihad against the US. First he objected to American troops on Saudi soil, then the oppression of the Palestinians -- and now bin Laden wants payback for the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The history major makes no mention of the al-Qaeda chief's shifting rationalizations, and her essay makes clear that she started paying attention sometime this summer.

For instance, in her next breath, she offers this:

Bin Laden has been touted by President Bush as an "evil" fundamentalist who hates America because of its freedoms.

Thus, instead of participating in intelligent discourse, Bush chooses to dumb down ideological differences and reduces them to generalizations which aren't necessarily true.

Let's see ... he murdered 3,000 noncombatants -- men, women, and children -- in order to further his vision of a radical Islamist empire in Southwest Asia, as exemplified by his close allies, the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the time, the Taliban earned its reputation for oppression by outlawing toys, music, and art, while beating men and women in the street for the most minor of violations. Women had no voice and had to cover themselves from head to toe in public, where they were not allowed to be unless accompanied by a husband, father, or adult male family member.

Doesn't Sutherland thinks that qualifies Osama as an "evil" man who "hates freedom"? Perhaps St. Olaf needs a refresher course on the concepts of evil and freedom. Megan, here's a hint: in Osama's world, merely publishing this essay would likely get you beaten by the morality police. Not the fictional, cynical morality police that you assign to John Ashcroft's fervent desires, but literally the Taliban's morality police. You'd be lucky to survive it.

Sutherland makes much of the fact that bin Laden chose to attack us rather than Sweden, as Osama mentioned in his tape:

In the tape Bin Laden jokingly denounces Bush's freedom rhetoric and challenges Bush to "explain to us why we don't strike, for example, Sweden." Aside from his injections of humor, Bin Laden actually makes some rather intelligent points. ...

I don't mean to imply that Bin Laden is justified in mass murder (because he is not) ...

I'm glad she cleared that up.

Terrorism is only a label used to evoke feelings of righteousness amongst those who toss the term around.

The people who flew planes into the World Trade Center felt they were justified because they believed that the United States had encroached upon their homeland.

Similarly, one could use civilian casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan to label the United States as a state which sponsors terrorism. It is all a matter of perspective.

Sutherland joins the long list of so-called intellectuals who cannot differentiate between military operations that causes unintended civilian casualties and terrorists that deliberately target civilians in order to affect political change through fear. Invoking Afghanistan is particularly telling. Why not check with the Afghanis themselves to see whether they approve of dumping the 12th-century tyranny of the Taliban in favor of the first democratically-elected governmen in their history? After all, the Afghanis could simply have voted them back into office. Only military action would ever have removed the Taliban from their grip on power, subsidized and protected by Osama's own organization.

The English major continues with this statement [sic]:

In his tape Bin Laden correctly identifies this hypocracy when he says that violent U.S. policies are always translated as "freedom and democracy, while resistance [to these policies] is [called] terrorism and intolerance."

Perhaps the English major means hypocrisy. One can't accuse her of that, however, as she moves inexorably to the logical conclusion of her argument -- it's all about the Joooooooos:

The fault within U.S. policy is that it very heavily sides with Israel, often overlooking Israel's aggression towards other nations. This obviously ties in with the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.

In the video Bin Laden cites the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon as the incident which first triggered his extreme animosity towards the United States. During this invasion, the United States was seen as silently backing the Israelis.

What the history major forgets to mention is that the PLO and other terrorists had based themselves in Lebanon prior to that invasion and had used Lebanon as a launching pad to attack Israel, much as they use the West Bank now. Further, while the US condoned the initial military action in southern Lebanon as provoked, we objected to the continuing occupation. In fact, we stationed Marines in Lebanon in an attempt to set up a security force to convince the Israelis to withdraw -- and the terrorists responded by killing 243 Marines, leading to a withdrawal that we would later regret.

So we have an English major who doesn't know how to spell or proofread, a history major who doesn't have a clue about fifty years of Arab aggression against Israel or the context of the conflict on which she comments, and a student at a school named after a saint that has no clue about the nature of evil. Minnesotans should be proud of their handiwork.

French Troops Open Fire At Ivory Coast Demonstration

Charles at LGF points his readers to a long video (in two parts) that shows a number of people being shot at a rally in the Ivory Coast. As rallies go, this one looked rather unremarkable until the shooting starts -- and then all you see is chaos for a few minutes. After the shooting stops, you see the carnage, including several extremely graphic scenes of dead people. (I'm not kidding -- one person has his head blown completely apart in the ninth minute of the second part. Don't watch it unless you really think you can handle it.)

From what I've seen thus far, it appears to show French troops shooting indiscriminately at African civilians. A number of deaths appear to have occurred at this incident, including several women. In fact, it seems like most of the dead were women, but that may have been because the cameraman focused on those victims. And that, just like the Marine shooting the faker in the mosque last week, may be the problem.

The video is highly subjective. Just like with any home movie, it starts and stops at different times with no particular purpose, and no time sequences are shown. When the firing starts, you can't see who's shooting, where it's aimed, or why. In fact, you never see soldiers shooting, at least in part II -- you just hear the shots and see the aftermath. Just as with the video in Iraq, the entire presentation lacks context. Who starts the shooting? Did anyone in the crowd have weapons and fire back, or fire first? So far, I can't tell.

Perhaps this might be the French Amritsar, but the video shown doesn't prove it; it merely suggests it. Before we leap to conclusions, we need a bit more evidence than these videos provide.

UPDATE: I've looked through both videos several times now, and it appears that the shooting in part I was warning fire. People hit the ground but then immediately got up and continued protesting. If anyone had been hit, they seemed pretty unconcerned. The few scenes showing bullet wounds appear rather minor, perhaps the result of ricochets on the warning shots.

The second video is the real thing. People hit the ground and don't get back up, and it's apparent that wounds caused by this fire are no accident. Neither video gives much context to the shooting, though. It still isn't clear that the French weren't provoked, only that the video doesn't show any provocation.

Ten Weeks To Victory

The Iraqi government has set January 30th as their Election Day, promising to conduct balloting in every area of the country regardless of the so-called insurgency:

Iraq's Electoral Commission on Sunday set national elections for Jan. 30, and a spokesman said ballots would be cast nationwide, including in areas now wracked by violence. ...

Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said areas still beset by violence — including the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, as well as northern Mosul — will participate in the elections.

"No Iraqi province will be excluded, because the law considers Iraq as one constituency, and therefore it is not legal to exclude any province," he said.

The Islamofascists and the Ba'ath remnants stepped up their bloody campaign to destabilize liberated Iraq in September, also hoping to affect the election in the United States. So far their efforts have met with little success. Their main base of operations, Fallujah, has been taken away from them not only by American troops but also by a free Iraqi corps determined not to go backwards into tyranny.

The terrorists made a serious miscalculation about their ability to withstand the Coalition offensive in their fortified City of Mosques, and also the determination of the Iraqis and Americans to clear out anywhere the terrorists gathered -- including those same mosques. The resultant collapse came so quickly that the terrorists abandoned most of their intelligence and supplies, allowing the Americans and Iraqis to quickly find other cells and associates of the Islamist network. This led to the capture of 1450 Fallujan combatants, the surprise seizure of 104 more in Baghdad, as well as this:

Northwest of Baghdad, U.S. forces conducted a raid to capture a "high value target" associated with Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area northwest of Baghdad, a U.S. spokesman said Sunday. Three people were detained.

Late Saturday, Marines conducted a "limited-scale" raid to disrupt insurgent activities in the Haqlaniyah area, about 135 miles northwest of Baghdad, said 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert.

Three people were detained and a weapons cache was confiscated, Gilbert said. He did not specify whether any of the three was the "high value target" that U.S. forces were seeking.

Make no mistake -- the momentum is firmly on the side of the Coalition and the insurgency is crumbling. Individual cells have the ability to carry out spot attacks, but their command and control have been seriously compromised. The intelligence failure on their part has made all of them vulnerable and the fall of Fallujah has taken away the base to which they once could return to re-establish network-wide communications.

Once elections are held, all pretense of shedding an "occupation" will be gone, and the terrorists will have been defeated by liberated Iraqis. It's our job to get them to that point.

Congress Acts To Protect Private Act Of Conscience

Congress passed its $388 billion spending authorization last night, adding in a provision that Democrats in both the House and Senate could not strip from the bill. The amendment punishes government agencies at all levels that act against doctors and insurers who refuse to provide or cover abortions:

Congress made it a little easier for hospitals, insurers and others to refuse to provide or cover abortions. A provision in a $388 billion spending bill passed by the House and Senate on Saturday would block any of the measure's money from going to federal, state or local agencies that act against health care providers and insurers because they don't provide abortions, make abortion referrals or cover them.

"This policy simply states that health care entities should not be forced to provide elective abortions, a practice to which a majority of health care providers object and which they will not perform as a matter of conscience," said Rep. David Weldon, R-Fla., a doctor who sponsored the language.

Nothing in this bill requires doctors or insurers to stop covering or providing elective abortions. It only protects those who do not wish to do so from being targeted by an increasingly intrusive bureaucracy for punishment for acting on their consciences. Needless to say, this has caused a bit of hysteria among those who believe all doctors and insurers should be forced into aborting babies regardless of their personal beliefs:

"Now any business entity can decide to tell doctors working for it they can't give information to women about their right to choose," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Many clinics and other providers, in exchange for federal funds, are required to at least tell pregnant women who do not wish to have a child that abortion is among their options. Weldon's language would make it more difficult to enforce that, opponents said.

Nonsense. First of all, doctors who wish to perform abortions can continue to do so. If the company for which they work does not choose to offer that service, the doctors can open their own practices. Doctors have a unique ability to do that (lawyers as well); as a customer-service manager, for instance, I don't have much ability to operate independently. The health-care corporations, clinics, and so on have a right to determine the services they wish to provide, and the government should not be allowed to bully them into violating their own beliefs in providing procedures they see as immoral or unsafe. If their customers dislike this, the customers can find providers to perform these services elsewhere.

In truth, pro-choice activists have become alarmed at the decline of abortion providers in the United States, calling it a crisis. Fewer and fewer doctors are willing to provide on-demand abortion; more doctors have become disillusioned with the casual abortions that now total more than 43 million since Roe v Wade. Democrats have paid lip service to making abortion "rare", in Bill Clinton's words, but the reality is that the vast majority of these 43 million dead fetuses were simply inconvenient, a matter of post-conception birth control rather than any health issue on the part of either the mother or the baby. Fewer doctors wish to work in that kind of practice. And abortion activists who have crafted laws that use government to force doctors and health insurers to cover this trade now face the loss of the one lever by which they've pressed the reluctant into service.

The Supreme Court ruled that women have the right to seek an abortion thirty-one years ago. No one has the right to force another person into performing that abortion. Congress made the right decision in adopting the Weldon amendment.