Thinking Meat

A Costly Vanity

2008-02-02T09:35:00.001-06:00

Let me get one thing clear: I do not like John McCain. He is self-righteous, he is arrogant, and in showing off his (undeniable) war-time heroism and using it to brow-beat Mitt Romney, he has shown a total lack of class. Don't even get me started on the grotesque perversion of the First Amendment that is McCain-Feingold.
Now, having said that -- Rachel Lucas is exactly right.

I am, quite frankly, horrified at how fast the right-wing voter base has become infected with the idea of refusing to vote for McCain no matter what, even if he is the Republican nominee. Were I a conspiracy-minded person, I would suspect an infiltration of Democrat operatives. But alas, it's far likelier that this wound is self-inflicted. It seems that self-righteousness and suicidal moral vanity are not limited to the "progressive" side of American politics.

I've seen several reasons listed for this "principled" refusal to vote for McCain. So far, they all suck:

McCain isn't conservative enough on immigration/taxes/guns/whatever. I have to vote my conscience, and that vote isn't for him. - With all due respect, your conscience is not running for office in 2008. So pick a viable candidate whose positions are those you hate the least. It's how a democratic republic works. So unless you think Clinton or Obama would do better on immigration/taxes/guns/whatever, your vote should be for the Republican nominee. Even if it's McCain.

The good news is: McCain won't be a dictator. There is a Congress, where you have a wider choice of members. Help elect ones that match your conscience more closely.

Writing in Fred Thompson will send a message... - Stop. No, it won't. Nobody will ever see your write-in ballot. It will not hang framed on the wall of the Oval Office. No newspaper will publish it. No one will care. The only message of importance will be: Democrats won by a wide margin, so the country wants more of what Obama, Clinton, or Pelosi have on tap. Is that the message you had in mind?

Republican congressmen will have an easier time opposing initiatives from Hillary than from McCain. - Says who? Why? And isn't it more important to note that Democratic congressmen -- who will likely remain in the majority -- will have a easier time supporting initiatives from Hillary or Obama?

Four years of Democrats will screw up the country so much that voters will sweep Republicans into office in 2012. - I have just one word: huh?! When did that ever happen? What is it that you think the Democrats could screw up and then not talk their way out of through sympathetic media? Bill Clinton's term included high profile failures to capture bin Laden, a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, several U.S. embassy bombings (with zero effective response), the U.S.S. Cole attack, nearly all the preparation work for 9/11 -- and Democrats still managed to push the line about "eight years of peace and prosperity." Even after Jimmy Carter's disastrous term, Democrats kept full control of Congress for 14 years. Who are you fooling?

And by the way, suppose you're right, and a Democratic president really "screws up the country." Doesn't that prospect worry you? Are you planning to live somewhere else?

We survived Jimmy Carter. How bad could it be under Obama/Hillary? - It's true, we survived Jimmy Carter. But while we were busy "surviving" him, his stupid moral vanity drove him to protect Ayatollah Khomeini from the Shah's military, resulting ultimately in Khomeini's turning Iran into the world's first Islamist state. Now, ruled by another lunatic, that Islamist state is about to go nuclear. Oh, and then there's the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, driven in no small part by the Russians' correct realization that Carter was too spineless to oppose it. Thirty years later, we're still paying for his mistakes in American blood and treasure. That is how much damage one deluded idiot can do in four years in the White House -- and in case you haven't noticed, when he isn't spewing banalities about "unity" and "hope," Obama sounds a lot like ol' Jimmy.

But hey, it's far more important that your message be heard. We'll survive whatever happens. Sleep tight, knowing you made your point.

Persistent Fool Persists

2006-08-15T10:43:00.001-05:00

By way of Hot Air comes a perfectly loathesome screed from Andrew Gumbel writing for Independent. (Quick summary: What's with Americans liking Israel more than Hizbollah, anyway? It's got to be the Jewish Lobby. Brilliant, insightful, and subtle -- exactly what you would expect from Robert Fisk's home publication.) I won't bother commenting further on the article, as Allah has already done a fine job. But I did recognize a particular name mentioned at the end -- one Rabbi Lerner, still happy to be the Arab apologists' favorite tool:

"There is no major figure in American political life who has been willing to raise the issue of the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people, or even talk about them as human beings," Lerner said. "The organised Jewish community has transformed the image of Judaism into a cheering squad for the Israeli government, whatever its policies are. That is just idolatry, and goes against all the warnings in the Bible about giving too much power to the king or the state."

Well, it's nice to know that there is some Jewish theology that the Independent is willing to publish uncensored. I won't bother commenting on the religious angle -- hard for me to imagine anything more pointless than debating strawmen with cheap "dissenters." Better to just point out the last time Lerner appeared in these pages, encouraging people to attend the rally from which he was thrown out -- for being too "pro-Zionist" and quite frankly, just too damned Jewish. Opposing the removal of Saddam Hussein was more important, see.

Priorities, man. The Rabbi has his priorities.

New Comments in Place

2006-08-14T18:47:00.001-05:00

I'm sick of the recurring outages and annoying arbitrary character limits at BackBlog, so comments have been switched over to HaloScan. Unfortunately, that means comments for old posts have disappeared from the blog. This was not an easy tradeoff to make, but I think it'll make things better in the long run. It's always possible to retrieve BackBlog comments by hand if necessary.

Google News' High Standards

2006-08-14T10:26:00.001-05:00

Convenient as I find Google News for my news-gathering needs, their utter lack of judgement -- no doubt passed off as "objectivity" within Google -- can be jarring even to me. I mean, what kind of "news" bot would consider the North Korea Times a source? Well, see for yourself.

It's unclear whether this site is really an organ of the Pyongyang government. It's hosted in Australia, where North Korea doesn't even have an embassy. It's also substantially more slick than Pyongyang's official website. The official web site looks like a page out of 1994; the "Times" is a bit closer to 1999. Of course, if it's not really a Pyongyang mouthpiece, Google has been had by a prank -- or perhaps an Aussie "admirer."

Amusing aside: apparently there are Seymour Hersh fans in Pyongyang. I'm really quite tempted to believe the whole site's a prank. And Google is not in on it. Though perhaps The New Yorker can help -- have they been paid by the North Koreans for running this story?

2006-07-31T07:08:00.000-05:00

A Very Immodest Open Letter

Dear Israel,

It was just about two years ago that I wrote my modest open letter to you. While inspired by the tragic events and disgusting moral preening that were in evidence at the time, that little missive was still meant to be in good fun. Not this one.

A short while ago, one of your bombs hit a Lebanese shelter. Dozens were killed, including many children. To call this a "tragedy" would be a massive understatement.

But as usual with global geopolitics, tragedy is quickly followed by farce. Right on cue, we are now witnessing widespread global outrage over the fact that you hit a civilian shelter while firing at a rocket launcher, while barely anyone is even remotely bothered by the fact that rocket launchers were dispersed amongst civilians to begin with. That no outrage is evident as Hezbollah's deliberate targeting of your civilians is so normal now, it hardly merits comment. Such is the cravenness and duplicity of those who would hold themselves your moral superiors.

And yet, somehow, you're still letting them do that. No matter how much abuse you take from this worthless "community" of cheaply bought, largely disposable nations, like a battered wife, you keep coming back begging. See, look, we're giving a state to a terrorist who's been murdering our people for over two decades! Check it out, we're leaving Lebanon, abandoning our Lebanese allies, and handing over strategic points to Hezbollah! Come on, sweetie, we'll even forcibly remove Jews from Gaza and the West Bank is coming soon! Can't you show us some love, just this once? And so it is now. My jaw dropped when I heard FM Haim Ramon claim that the world was giving Israel a "green light" to continue its war on the Hezbollah. Not necessarily because it was untrue but... since when does Israel ask permission to do what needs to be done? If invading Lebanon and bombing Hezbollah targets is what you feel is required to defend your citizens, what "green light" do you require? Naturally, once you start looking over your shoulder and asking for permission, others see fit to deny it to you. And why not? Certainly Hezbollah isn't going to ask their permission, and when you're, say, France, it's nice to pretend you matter and give orders to independent nations. Especially if said nations are dumb enough to ask.

Yes, I know, you want to be viewed as a respectable, "normal" country, part of a community of nations. The feeling is understandable, especially in people who have been shunned and spit upon by other nations for centuries. But here's the thing -- "normal," respectable countries don't go around begging others to respect them. You don't get respect by begging for it -- you get respect by showing that you respect yourself, and will take no crap from those who don't share that view. That's why China can mow down demonstrators on CNN, and get respect. It's why Iran can execute teenage girls for being raped, and get respect. It's why Saudi Arabia can be a privately owned backwards hellhole whose sole contribution to the world is Wahhabist terorrism, whose religious police shove girls into burning schools, and whose laws enshrine religious bigotry -- and they still get more respect than you. They don't ask for respect, they assume it, even though they hardly deserve it. You, on the other hand, permit yourself to be judged by a group 99% of which isn't fit to be in the same room with decent nations. Well, if you don't respect yourself, don't expect it from others. That's just life.

Which brings us to the goings-on in Lebanon today. Quite frankly, Israel, you'd better decide once and for all: do you want to live, or not? (This is not to be confused with that idiotic refrain about your "right to exist" that some well-meaning intellectuals bandy about. Yes, that's real smart, let's put that up for discussion, too! You exist, and you don't need anyone's edicts about your right to do so. The question is, what are you doing to protect that right?) If you're going to live, you'd better be willing to live without conditions -- the instant you set those, you're done, for they are nothing more than declared parameters for your destruction. For the past 50 years, you've imposed conditions on yourselves: sure, we want an Israel, but only as a "light unto nations;" yes, we want an Israel, but only if the world approves; definitely, Israel should prosper, but only if the Palestinians are happy; sure, Israel should defend its cities, but maybe not if getting our enemies requires going through their children... Your enemies aren't stupid and they aren't restrained by any such moral codes, so when you say this, all they hear is, "Palestinian demands are an effective tactic" and "Lebanese children will make excellent human shields." Such high-minded fantasies aren't nobility and heroism -- they are the opposite of nobility. When you succumb to them, you abdicate your responsibility to your fellow citizens in order to protect your enemies. And any society that does this seals its own destruction. You'll note that Arabs aren't reciprocating, and they only send you more rockets and bombs as a "thank you." So what is it that you hope to accomplish? If it is sainthood you want, fine -- but the problem with sainthood is that it's always granted posthumously.

No, it's not pleasant being labeled "aggressors," "world's greatest terrorists," "war criminals," and the like -- especially as these labels come from the very people for whom war crimes are a normal tactic, or their apologists. But let's look at this in perspective: a few decades ago, Jews were held in contempt, often despised, and viewed as helpless victims and convenient targets. Better to be hated and feared, than abused and pitied. Better to hear impotent global shrieks of "war criminal!" as you calmly eliminate your enemies, than wincing at whispers of "dirty yahood!" as you walk down the street in fear. Don't sacrifice your advantage in strength for empty promises of "peace" and "love." No one ever achieved peace by giving up tactical advantage. You've learned that lesson too many times in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon; don't do it again.

What does all of this mean, in practical terms? Are you really to start disregarding world opinion? Absolutely. Do what you and your citizens need. Right now, that means eradicating Hezbollah. So do that. Destroy them, without worrying about what happens to those they hide amongst -- it's sad that Lebanese innocents will die, but you are Israel, and your concern is with Israeli innocents. Lebanon should have worried about its civilians when Hezbollah was parking missile bunkers under their schools -- but they chose not to, and the consequences of that choice aren't your problem. That doesn't mean you target civilians just because, Hezbollah-style; but you know that. On the other hand, if the Lebanese park a missile launcher in a nursery, you take out the missile launcher. The nursery is not your problem. If you can't deal with having blood on your hands, you won't have a nation for long. No nation can survive that kind of squeamishness. You'll note that Arabs have no issues with infanticide, and they have some two dozen nations. After all they've done to you for the last 50 years, you don't need to apologize to them. (No, that doesn't mean you stoop to their level. But don't be such high-minded elitists that they shoot you off your high horse, either. War is hell, and if they don't want to wear cement in the morning, perhaps they should accept their losses and your existence. Otherwise, they can die, making their feelings about your existence a purely academic question.)

Always remember: as Israelis, your job is to protect Israelis. Protecting Arabs from their own suicidal stupidity is not your job -- that's why they have their own governments and mental health facilities. Sacrificing your own people -- soldiers or civilians -- in order to protect Arabs from the consequences of their behavior is downright criminal negligence. Your people come first -- period.

In the short term, this won't win you any love. Some of the more hypocritical and sanctimonious countries (who long ago secured their positions through exactly this attitude) may even cut their ties with you. So maybe you won't be able to travel to quite so many places, or have as many customers for your products. Travel is nice, trade is nice, but you know what's nicer than both of those things? Not having rockets fall on your heads. Not having suicide bombers in your midst. Sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious here.

And don't be so sure about those consequences. It took Arabs a long time to turn world opinion against you, mostly by drawing out the conflict. Get the conflict off the world's TV screens, and memories turn short. I'm an American. Recently, I took a trip to Tokyo. It was a lovely experience -- service on Japan Air Lines was superb, and people in Japan were polite and helpful. Never mind that 60 years ago, we fought a brutal war with them, which we ended by nuking their country -- twice. Today, I don't even need a visa. Nor is this an isolated example: those same Japanese do business all over Asia, which they brutalized in that same war. That was then; now they come for cheap booze, cheap labor, and (occasionally) cheap hookers, and no one seems to mind. Germans are still overrunning Europe, but now mainly in the form of slightly obnoxious tourists. The trains between India and Pakistan are packed. Russian nouveaux riches buy up Japanese televisions and American SUVs. Taiwanese businessmen run factories in central China. Even you have good relations with Jordan (Transjordan before you took away the West Bank) and Egypt. Life goes on, and peace is possible, but only if you bring it by killing your enemies until they are no longer willing to fight, either because they are exhausted, or because there's none left. The quicker you kill them, the quicker the conflict ends, the sooner everyone moves on and you resume normal life: t's not inconceivable that in a few years, you could be skiing on Mount Lebanon, doing business deals in Dubai, and visiting historic synagogues in Algeria. Hesitate, and you are doomed to neverending conflict, until your enemies grow stronger and destroy you. There is no "third way" -- five thousand years of history prove that conclusively.

To end conflicts, win them. World opinion isn't worth a warm cup of spit. Every "normal" country out there knows it. Figure it out, and you too will join the community of nations. And you won't have to sacrifice your people anymore.

2006-02-12T23:00:00.000-06:00

Former Terrorists Speak Out

I've said many times here that if there are truly anti-terrorist Muslims and Arabs out there, they'd better speak out. Well, it turns out, some of them are, at great risk to themselves. Amazingly, some, like the founder of the linked organization, are themselves former Arab terrorists. I need not tell anyone that they do this at enormous personal risk.

If you click on nothing else on this page, at least have a look at this astounding interview (streamable Windows Media Video, 17.8 MB), given by three former terrorists who are now speaking out (and not mincing any words) about exactly what the world is dealing with. It's nothing most pro-Israel readers didn't already know, but here, at least, the messengers are as important as the message.

2006-02-09T06:20:00.000-06:00

Principles, schminciples

The EU is beginning to sound positively Orwellian:

Feb 8, 2006 — LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union may try to draw up a media code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the furor caused by the publication across Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an EU commissioner said on Thursday.

In an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the charter would encourage the media to show "prudence" when covering religion.

"The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression," he told the newspaper. "We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

Exercise those rights, European publishers. Just keep in mind the "consequences." After all, we wouldn't want any accidental fires or leg-breakings, know what I mean?

Incidentally, if the media code is published by the EU government, how exactly is that self-regulation? In contrast to direct submission to sharia, maybe? Oh, here we are:

The code would be drawn up by the European Commission, the EU executive body, and European media outlets, he said. It would not have legal status.

So the EU will pass a "voluntary" speech code? Perhaps they can call it Tyranny Lite. I'd advise Mr. Frattini to give Fahrenheit 451 a read, but something tells me he'd go out and rent a Michael Moore movie.

It's hard to imagine, by the way, how a code of conduct written by the European Commission would have no legal standing. Regardless, at its core, this is the case of a government regulating the speech of its ~~citizens~~ subjects, for fear of giving offense. Remember all the European cries of "self-censorship" about American news media's coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq? Apparently, they were meant as a compliment.

My favorite part:

His proposed voluntary code would urge the media to respect all religious sensibilities but would not offer privileged status to any one faith.

It's hard not to yield to temptation, and use this to our advantage. For example, as someone who supports Israel, I'd advise Israelis to claim that references to "Zionist occupiers" etc. are offensive to the Jewish religion (which, after all, says pretty explicitly that Israel is the Jews' home). At that point, they can drag into court any reporter in Europe who so much as dares to claim that the West Bank is "occupied." A few burned consulates to drive the point home, and European support for Arabs -- in the press and otherwise -- should be considerably reduced.

Likewise, the next time anti-American sentiment spills over the top somewhere in Paris or Brussels, Americans should riot, boycott some products, and torch a few Washington embassies. Let's see if the EU then passes more "voluntary media codes" prohibiting offense based on nationality. Sure, it's immoral and uncivilized and all, but if the EU won't respect its own rights, why should it only be Muslims who benefit?

By the way -- isn't it amazing how Europe, aggressively secular for decades, has suddenly developed this deep respect for religions?

2006-02-06T00:36:00.000-06:00

Hugh Hewitt, for whose opinions I have the utmost respect, has written a couple of dismaying posts on his blog. His basic premises seem to be that the cartoons were nothing more than a juvenile, pointless vulgar stunt, and that the needless offense given by the cartoons has made them a perfect tool for jihadists to use as propaganda and undermine support for U.S. goals in the War on Terror.

With regard to the first point, Mr. Hewitt writes:

The cartoons were in bad taste, an unnecessary affront to many of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, just as Joel Stein affronted the military, the families and friends of the military, and as Toles did the same to the wounded, and their families, friends and admirers.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the parallels, beyond the facile. Toles' and Stein's commentary was, in its own Lefty way, rather banal. It had some mild shock value, but beyond that, it accomplished nothing. The reaction from readers, while unfavorable, was entirely predictable, and all we had was yet another instance of Left-wing disrespect for the opinions and sacrifices of Americans in uniform, and mainstream revulsion in return. A publicity stunt, a chance to act within pattern, nothing more.

None of this applies to the actions of the Jyllands-Posten. True, the cartoons were offensive to Muslims. True, they did not demonstrate respect for the beliefs of others that common courtesy demands. But this was no mere publicity stunt. The motivation for running the cartoons was to expose the censorship and suppression of speech that Jyllands-Posten editors noted when they tried to publish a book, whose purpose was neither to annoy nor to offend anyone. Faced with the fact that people were afraid to draw some pictures, Jyllands-Posten editors did the right (and truly heroic) thing, and challenged the censorship head-on.

What was the result? Was it "the usual" -- some nasty letters to the editor and a few empty threats? Not even close: what we got was nothing less than a global conflict, where the West received a very clear demonstration of the contempt that Muslims hold for concepts such as freedom of expression and freedom of worship (which includes the freedom not to worship). Not only that, but we also learned that Muslims consider the entire world subject to their beliefs; that they will threaten people for merely being compatriots of the few that offend them; and that for all their use of the UN and other international institutions, they will conveniently forget even the basics of international protocol and burn foreign embassies. Finally, we learned that building up goodwill -- as European appeasement has attempted to do for nearly half a century -- is pointless, as decades of submissive diplomacy and billions of dollars of "subsidies" failed to buy even a sane perspective from the Muslim world.

In short, the Jyllands-Posten cartoonists have accomplished in a few months what everyone from the Israeli government to hundredes of counter-jihadist writers and opinionmakers to even the invaluable Charles Johnson of LGF could not do: demonstrate beyond any doubt that "radical" Islam was a danger to Western civilization, that its adherents have no respect for ostensibly "global" rules of behavior, and that it is not possible to buy them off. For that alone, the Western world owes them a debt of gratitude the magnitude of which I can hardly fathom. And this is an action Mr. Hewitt considers "unnecessary"?

Mr. Hewitt also approaches the question from a more tactical point of view:

There are hundreds of thousands of American troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the globe among Muslim peoples who they are trying to befriend. The jihadists like nothing more than evidence that these troops represent a West intent on a new crusade and a new domination of Muslims. Idiot cartoonists make our troops' jobs more difficult, and the jihadists' mission easier.

And in a later post:

So, did the cartoons and their aftermath make it easier or more diffcult for Musharraf of Pakistan to continue to guide his country away from the lure of the jihadists? Easier or more difficult for Turkey to remain a friend of the West's? Easier or more difficult for the pro-Western people of Iran to summon the courage to change their government? Easier or more difficult for Jordan's King Abdullah to continue his course, which has included support for the reconstruction of Iraq even in the face of Zarqawi's murderers? [...] That doesn't mean censorship, or even self-censorship. Only a bit of reflection before rushing off to start new battles which divert attention from those already underway.

Again, it's time to step back and get a little perspective. We aren't fighting the War on Terror merely for the right to eat pork on our home turf or install less tyrannical governments in Mesopotamia. Our struggle is for the very survival of the Western civilization, which cannot stand without the liberal concepts of freedom of thought and expression. If we are willing to give those up just to gain some temporary allies in a tactical theater, we've already lost. To claim that the fight over what Danes may publish in Denmark "divert[s] attention" from more important battles is absurd: it is the battle. Why spend blood and treasure keeping Islamism out of Baghdad, if we let it run free in Copenhagen?

Nor am I particularly impressed with Mr. Hewitt's claim that this "stunt" has hurt our support from our Muslim allies. First, it is patronizing to those same allies, if we assume that just like their lunatic-radical mosquemates, they are unable to get over some cheesy drawings in order to fight the tyranny that threatens them far more than it does us. And second, if Hugh is right, then quite frankly, these are allies we don't need and do not want. Any such "allies" are just enemies we haven't discovered yet, and we'd be far better off putting them all on the business ends of our rifles. We can give up on them, and end this clash of Western Civilization and Islamic barbarism once and for all. Because if there's anything we've learned from Europe's recent troubles, it's that Islamists make for very fickle and dangerous "friends."

2006-02-03T00:21:00.000-06:00

Some brief observations on the whole brouhaha over the Mohammed cartoons:

I have absolutely no problem with Muslims demonstrating en masse and expressing outrage over this. However thin-skinned they are, their beliefs have been offended, and they do have the right to voice their displeasure. If certain countries want to make this displeasure official, that is also their prerogative.

The preceding obviously does not extend to death threats -- or worse -- against the authors of the cartoons, their publishers, or the citizens of the countries where the cartoons have been published.

* * *

Let's take note: using the name of Allah for a terrorist organization, or having a mass murderer like Atta take Mohammed's name as his own does not bother the Muslims a whole lot. Commuter bombings in London, bus bombings in Israel, carnage against Russian schoolchildren in Beslan and Iraqi kids in Baghdad -- in the name of Islam -- all elicit barely a shrug. But print up some images of Mohammed, and the Muslim world explodes. This is a very crucial insight into the ethics of the Muslim community as a whole. We ignore this particular lesson at our peril.

* * *

I know it's an annoying cliché, but Words mean things. I've heard too many times now that our (Western) value systems require us to "respect the beliefs of others." They most certainly do not. We usually respect others' beliefs as a courtesy, but we are under no obligation to respect the beliefs of anyone at all. We do not have to respect your beliefs; we only respect your right to hold those beliefs. That means we won't hurt, imprison, or kill you for merely holding or expressing some belief at odds with our own. (A courtesy the Muslims frequently fail to extend to others.) In no way does our value system prohibit mocking anyone's religious beliefs, tenets, or icons. It's disturbing that so many people are unclear on this, to the point of claiming that freedom of speech does not extend to blasphemy. Those European officials who feel this way may want to have their watch repaired: it's a few centuries behind.

* * *

You have to feel for poor ol' Europe. Decades of anti-Israel sentiment, nearly a half-century of lips planted firmly on Arab posteriors, billions sent to the murderers in the West Bank and Gaza -- and all it took was a few lousy drawings to make them the objects of death threats, fatwas, war declarations, and expulsions from the same West Bank and Gaza. Don't get me wrong -- I am thrilled that Europeans are finally standing up for freedom and genuine tolerance -- but I also hope that it's dawning on them just what dangerous, fickle, and worthless "friends" they have been cultivating.

2005-04-17T18:26:00.000-05:00

Terrorists Skipping Meals

What on earth is a one-day hunger strike?

2005-04-15T07:26:00.000-05:00

A fascinating AP story on the chaos that reigns in the Palestinian territories:

NABLUS, West Bank -- Policeman Jouma Ahmad settled the score the way he felt best -- by shooting his enemy nine times, right in the middle of a police station. ..

Ahmad, who was arrested after shooting and critically wounding a man he said stabbed his brother, said he had no regrets. "If someone beats you, you have to beat him back," he said in his jail in Nablus, one of the West Bank's most chaotic cities where police are trying hard to regain people's trust.

The excuse follows immediately -- and naturally, Israel is to blame:

Four years of fighting with Israel have severely weakened the Palestinian police force and strengthened gunmen, who effectively rule many Palestinian towns. Wild rampages by gun-wielding militants have wracked several Palestinian towns in recent weeks.

Never mind that this time, the "police force" seemed a little too strong, and not really concerned for all that rule-of-law nonsense. But then there's this:

Ordinary Palestinians are fed up, and that could cost Abbas' ruling Fatah party its majority in parliamentary elections in July, with the militant Hamas group expected to take up the slack.

So Palestinians, sick of "gun-wielding militants" are going to elect Hamas?!? No wonder they can't build a functional society.

The blame-Israel game then takes a turn towards comic absurdity that the AP reporter can't ignore:

But Palestinians say it will be difficult if not impossible to restore order unless Israel provides more breathing room, removing checkpoints, releasing prisoners and halting settlement activity.

"Our people want to see us functioning ... because they are craving security and safety," Tareq Zaid, the police commander in Nablus, said at his shell-pocked headquarters. "But this chaos is because of Israel, which has occupied our town and surrounded us, even shelling the building we're in now."

Zaid quickly added, however, that gunmen were keeping their weapons out of view. "Nablus is OK now," he said.

Within moments of that statement, at a funeral for a militant who had accidentally shot himself, dozens of gunmen brandished M16 rifles and shot them into the air. One carried a rocket launcher.

And what do those brave Palestinian peace officers do when they aren't settling scores at work? Well...

Police in Nablus claim they are slowly regaining control of the city, but a jailhouse meeting with 29-year-old Mohammed, imprisoned for collaborating with Israel, attests to a reality in which gunmen still hold sway.

Mohammed, whose full name is not divulged in this story for his protection, said he confessed under torture to aiding an Israeli pilot in a mission to shell a Palestinian police target in 2001.

Yes, by all means, let's negotiate a "peace" with these people, so that they can have a state.

2005-03-31T00:55:00.000-06:00

The Washington Post headline blares ominously:

Immigration Opponents To Patrol U.S. Border

Now: everyone read the article, and point out to me even a single "immigration opponent."

2005-03-29T07:59:00.000-06:00

From what I've read of the man, I am a big fan of John Bolton:

During that time, and during his early tenure in the second Bush administration, Bolton's first priority appears to have been to roll back public international law so it isn't used against us by other nations as they battle for power in a dark, Hobbesian world. At its most extreme, this view has led him to say that "if the U.N. Secretary Building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference," and to support former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet against the international courts that hope to bring him to trial on charges of gross human rights violations.

More generally, four years ago, Bolton said: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so -- because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States."

I couldn't agree more, and find myself relieved that at least some members of the current Administration are not clueless on this front. So while I would prefer to have the man in the State Department and not wasting his energy on the UN, I can at least enjoy the spectacle of diplomatic teacups shattering on the floor, as all kinds of notables faint from the idea that this utterly gauche man will be the U.S.'s face to the world. The latest to turn pale and reach for the smelling salts are fifty-nine former professional placators:

Fifty-nine former US diplomats have written to the chairman of a key Senate committee in protest at the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.

Chief among the objections was Mr Bolton's stated view that the UN "is valuable only when it directly serves the United States".

This is a stunning revelation into the mind of the professional diplomat. Their job is to serve the interests of the United States. That's why they get the nice house overseas and the big bucks. But heaven forfend someone actually demand that the UN do this!

In addition, Mr Bolton was criticised for his record as US arms control supremo.

He had an "exceptional record" of undermining potential improvements to US national security through arms control, the diplomats complained.

This is somewhat ambiguously phrased by the BBC, but what they mean is, Bolton is generally against useless paper "arms control" agreements. From the Salon article:

But his competence has ultimately allowed Bolton to do much harm, scuttling the international agreements and treaties that make up much of the legal basis for international order and security. With Bolton's tireless leadership and assistance, the Bush administration has undermined the International Criminal Court, the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, and a potential international treaty on small arms trafficking -- while also opposing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

One would think that with the arms-control agreements having been proved worthless in a string of humiliating and flagrant violations -- hello? North Korea? Iran? -- the old diplomats would have enough sense to, well, diplomatically neglect to mention them. Oops.

The usual suspects feature prominently here:

Among the most senior signatories was Arthur Hartman, former ambassador to France and the Soviet Union under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and assistant secretary of state for European affairs under President Richard Nixon.

Princeton Lyman, a former ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria, Monteagle Stearns, US representative in Greece and Ivory Coast, and Spurgeon Keeny Jr, Jimmy Carter's deputy director of arms control, also signed the letter.

And, finally, this part:

But the former diplomats insist his hard-line views on states such as Cuba and Syria, as well as previous paid employment for the government of Taiwan, make him an unsuitable candidate.

This statement is so awe-inspiringly stupid, I am tempted to let it stand without comment. Apparently it's all right for former diplomats to receive paychecks from the Saudis, but anyone who doesn't sing Castro's praises, pretend the Assads are legitimate, or -- horrors! -- has worked for the government of a friendly nation, is "unsuitable."

You have to hand it to the Bush Administration -- whatever their many flaws, on the foreign policy front they have managed rattle quite a few cages, with results that are simultaneously distressing and hilarious.

2005-03-28T19:59:00.000-06:00

'Elp! 'Elp! I'm Being Repressed!

Will someone please inform Professor Juan Cole (not to be confused with John Cole, ever) that what he calls "a new way of discrediting a political opponent" is also known as good ol'-fashioned criticism?

It seems to me that David Horowitz and some far rightwing friends of his have hit upon a new way of discrediting a political opponent, which is the GoogleSmear. It is an easy maneuver for someone like Horowitz, who has extremely wealthy backers, to set up a web magazine that has a high profile and is indexed in google news. Then he just commissions persons to write up lies about people like me (leavened with innuendo and out-of-context quotes). Anyone googling me will likely come upon the smear profiles, and they can be passed around to journalists and politicians as though they were actual information.

Nnnno. You're kidding, Professor! You mean, someone can have the temerity to (1) say something unflattering about you on the web and (2) get other people to read it, and link approvingly? Those Rovian fiends are Pure Evil Geniuses&trade!

Lest we have any doubts on what Cole considers quality argument, he approvingly cites an "ascerbic dissection" by no less an intellectual luminary than Dennis "Justin" Raimondo. (I must have missed the "dissection" entirely, as Raimondo does nothing more than call Plaut a few names, throw out some innuendo, and pile on enough non-sequiturs to stock two Costco aisles -- but hey, Professor Cole says it's "ascerbic," and who am I to argue?) Raimondo and Cole as allies -- enough said, really.

Well, maybe not quite, because the good Professor just can't resist setting himself up as the poor, defenseless Arab martyr to Horowitz's Merkava tank:

I am well aware that the GoogleSmear and other techniques of propaganda may well succeed. Horowitz and his minions are funded to the tune of millions, and I am just one lone individual. And, maybe it is even dangerous to tangle with someone who admires Kahane and his followers.

I'm not a fan of Horowitz, and I can't comment on his "millions." But really -- the good Professor works for one of the wealthiest universities in this nation, which funds all of his "work," including his pro-terrorist propaganda, and gives him credibility to boot. Yet the man fears a global Likud conspiracy with Horowitz on its pointy end, spending seven-digit sums to publish web sites that get indexed by Google. Fight the power, Dr. Cole.

Update: Dan Darling beat me to this, with a better response.

Steven Plaut has also written a thorough rebuttal of Cole's ramblings, including this revealing look at the Cole-Raimondo method of "research":

Cole rests the better part of his “self-defense” on labeling me “an Israeli defender of the terrorists (sic) around the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane,” the fellow who set up the Jewish Defense League. So what is the source of this invention reported with scholarly seriousness by Professor Juan Cole? Why, it is Justin Raimondo himself, of course! In fact, Cole thanks Raimondo profusely on his web page for smearing me as a supposed Kahanist.

The only problem is that I am not. Raimondo’s evidence for this smear against me is that he googled my name and the word “Kahanist” together, and discovered two articles of mine in which I used the word “Kahanist” in the text. But that was all he found. In neither article did I express any support for the Kahanists or Kahanism. Talk about Googlesmears! Cole, also accuses me of posting comments under a false name on a web bulletin board and accuses me of using illegal drugs, which is equally fanciful and absurd.

Just to add my small contribution to the "GoogleSmearing," here is Steven Plaut's original article on Juan Cole, meticulously researched, filled with direct quotes and links to original material -- contrast with the "material" that Cole and Raimondo present as their own alleged "refutations" of this article. Plaut is just not in Cole and Raimondo's league. Plaut should be proud of this.

2005-03-03T07:43:00.000-06:00

My responses to the quiz that has been traveling around:

Q: What's your favorite kind of cookie?
A: None of your business. Now get lost.

2005-02-24T21:56:00.000-06:00

Little Green Footballs has received sincere and enthusiastic kudos from Democratic Underground. No doubt endorsements from CAIR, the Palestinian Authority, the Saudi government, and Arab News will follow soon.

2005-02-09T01:52:00.000-06:00

A suggestion to save time

Why don't we just skip all the b.s., and call for an outright end to the illegal, immoral, and unjustifiable Dutch occupation of the Arab Republic of the Netherlands? Or, at least, propose a two-state solution. No doubt many Dutch will object to this, but surely we can't let extremists determine the agenda.

End the occupation now!

2005-02-08T23:50:00.000-06:00

Mark Steyn:

Well, the Parisian journalist Frederic Royer has just launched a new weekly tabloid called L'Anti-Americain. The first issue includes a parodic diary by George W Bush with the entry: "Ask the CIA: Where's China?"

Hilarious! Bush is so dumb he can't even find the real 21st-century superpower on a map! As it happens, it was the Canadian prime minister, a renowned sophisticate and indeed a fluent franco-phone, who last year declared in public that China was the most important nation in the southern hemisphere.

I can't find the source for this quote, but I do recall this admonition by the Left's intellectual superstar, Bill Clinton:

An expanded NATO is good for America; and a Europe in which all democracies define their future not in terms of what they can do to each other but in terms of what they can do together for the good of all -- that kind of Europe is good for America.

Second, America must look to the East no less than to the West. Our security demands it. Americans fought three wars in Asia in this century. Our prosperity requires it. More than 2 million American jobs depend upon trade with Asia.

That's right: while well-traveled Rhodes Scholar Clinton is delivering the State of the Union in Washington, he places Europe to the west, and Asia to the east. I wonder if Bush Jr. would be able to get away with such a faux pas, not to mention the part in italics, which seems to imply that American prosperity requires fighting wars in Asia.

Steyn link by way of LGF.

2005-02-07T23:39:00.000-06:00

Best Wishes

Happy fourth LGF-a-versary, Charles! Here's to many more years of one of the most informative and sorely-needed sites in the blogosphere.

And for the record, I also found that Bush-chimp picture funny, and still do. Just because I agree with the guy on foreign policy, doesn't mean I won't make fun of him on occasion. Laughing at our leaders is how we keep from forming cults of personality. Chomsky fans should try that sometime. Ditto for these weirdos.

2005-02-02T23:42:00.000-06:00

Thinking Meat presents...

A summary of the Democrat responses to the State of the Union Address

Nuh-uhhhh!

This has been a presentation of Thinking Meat.

Update: Jeff G. posts a more detailed summary.

2005-02-01T23:32:00.000-06:00

Defining torture down, Part 238

The Boston Globe is raising the banner of triumph over Monday's court decision that the Guantanamo prisoners. And boy oh boy, are they ever giddy:

The Bush administration created the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as its version of Devil's Island, where jailers' edicts would prevail in place of civil law. A federal district judge took a sledgehammer to this imprisonment on Monday by declaring that the rights of 11 inmates were being abridged in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Wow, a sledgehammer! Sounds impressive! Just how much of an impact did this ruling make? Umm, well...

Judge Joyce Hens Green's ruling is at odds with one issued by another federal district judge, which said in effect that the inmates had no rights to violate. A higher court will have to work out which view prevails.

Well, this is certainly a letdown -- it's an already-conflicted ruling, which will require other rulings! Not exactly sledgehammer stuff here. It's not as though we didn't expect the prisoners' attorneys to appeal if the case didn't go their way. The impact of this case is exactly zero, and I certainly don't recall this much noise being made over the earlier court decision. But let's get past the Globe's hyperbole, and get into vacuous conjecture:

Green's reasoning jibes better with a Supreme Court ruling last June. Abuse at the prison is well known, as are cases of unjustified detention.

Number of examples given by the Globe? Zero.

There is little reason for the high court to give inmates the power to sue unless it expected that some of their cases would prevail.

It's hard to pick out the single most asinine claim in this article, but the preceding is a good contender. The Supreme Court's decision to let some Guantanamo prisoners sue is in no way an indicator that they might have a case. It's simply a legal position that says enemy combatants are not automatically excluded from judicial review. But forget this lawyerly stuff, let's get to the meat and potatoes -- or, rather, the very watery broth:

If the courts won't interfere, who will stop the torture cited by Green in her decision -

Torture? Surely some examples are coming! Cigarette burns, nails pulled out, flesh carvings, sodomization, that kind of thing?

- inmates chained hand and feet in a fetal position for 18 to 24 hours, air-conditioning turned off or jacked up to near freezing levels?

...Wait, that's it? The prisoners were made uncomfortable? They were made to feel hot (My God! No air conditioning! In the Caribbean! Who can withstand such horrors?), cold (No, please, don't crank up the A/C now!), and stiff from holding the same pose for a day? How does the Globe think information is extracted, by saying "pretty please" a lot? But, hold on, the full horror of a Guantanamo imprisonment is yet to come:

And, while it did not figure in Green's decision, the recent report that a woman interrogator was using fake menstrual fluid to frighten inmates also illustrates the abuses encouraged by Guantámano's lawless status.

Yep, that's right. Menstrual fluid. The prisoners were "abused" by having some liquid put on them. Mind you, it wasn't even real blood, but they were told that it was. Who wrote these definitions of "abuse" and "torture" -- preteen girls? Ewww! Get away from me, you unclean menstruating infidel! By the power of Allah and Mohammed his messenger, that is, like, totally grrosss! I now fully expect the next batch of released jihadis to breathlessly claim that their American jailers theatened them with a permanent infection of cooties. Zionist cooties.

To call this "torture" is to belittle everyone who has ever suffered the real thing -- much of it at the hands of dictators shielded by the "progressives" of their day, which the Globe dimwits who wrote this tripe no doubt consider themselves.

In comparison to the preceding alarmist idiocy, the closing paragraph is an improvement, as it is merely inane and pointless:

Green criticized the tribunals set up to handle prisoner appeals, but did not specify a better system. Bush should establish one that fairly processes appeals, then release inmates that pose no threat, transfer the others to a military prison in the United States, and close the Guantánamo detention camp. If he won't do that, U.S. judges need to keep reminding him that battling terrorism is not an open-ended invitation to violate human rights.

Brilliant. We will capture all these people on the field of battle, then try them each individually, while giving each one a private room at the Waldorf-Astoria, where they need never be in the presense of an "unclean" menstruating woman, lest they should be made uncomfortable. And we will magically figure out which inmates "pose no threat" and have no useful information. We can do no less: just because we're trying to keep Islamic nuts from killing our citizens by the dozens does not mean we have "an open-ended invitation to violate human rights." Thank you, oh the enlightened souls at the Boston Globe -- you truly are members of a banality-based community.

2004-12-30T21:33:00.000-06:00

Since listening to NPR on the drive home this evening, I've been unable to shake off the feelings of disgust at the way various worthless "progressive" gumflappers have criticized the U.S. response to the tsunami disaster as either not generous or not international enough for their progressive tastes. It's times like this that one turns to Emperor Misha.

2004-12-12T13:59:00.000-06:00

Suha, call your office!

The following is spam I got earlier today. It is reproduced in its entirety, unedited except for the addition of HTML tags and shortening of the URL.

PLEASE I PLEADE WITH YOU TO VIEW THIS WEB PAGE BEFORE CONSIDERING

http://www.cbsnews.com...

HELLO,

MY NAME IS MOHAMMED FAYYAD FROM PALESTINE. I WORKED WITH THE REGIME OF YASSER ARAFAT AS HIS SECRET PESONAL ASSISTANCE. WE HANDLE ALL HIS FINANCIAL PLANS AND OTHERS.

SIR I KNOW THE IMPRESSION THE WORLD HAS ABOUT ANY BODY FROM MY COUNTRY PALESTINE,DURING MY TIME WITH THE FORMER REGIME,I WAS ABLE TO SECRETLY SECURE THE SUM OF $25.5 MILLION US DOLLARS. WHICH WAS KEPT SAFELY OUTSIDE PALESTINE VIA A SECRET DIPLOMATIC MEANS WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF YASSER ARAFAT TO A SECURITY FIRM IN EUROPE. THE FACT THAT THE FUND IS OUTSIDE PALESTINE NOW THAT IS MY HAPPINESS, BUT I AM STILL HIDING IN PALESTINE TRYING TO SEE HOW I CAN GET OUT, SINCE MY BOSS YASSER ARAFAT IS DEAD. I NEED YOUR URGENT AND SINCERE ASSISTANCE TO HELP ME CLEAR THE MONEY FOR INVESTMENT PURPOSES TILL I COME OUT OF PALESTINE TO MEET WITH YOU IN YOUR COUNTRY.
I WILL LET YOU KNOW THE LOCATION AS WELL AS THE DETAILED INFORMATION AS SOON AS YOU ASSURE ME THAT I CAN RELY ON YOU WITHOUT BEING BETRAYED. PLEASE FOR SAFETY PURPOSE, IT IS BETTER WE LIMIT OUT COMMUNICATION TO EMAIL, FOR NOW. YOU ARE GOING TO INVEST THE FUND FOR ME IN YOUR COUNTRY AND YOU WILL GET 35% OF WHATEVER INVESTMENT WE VENTURE INTO.

I WILL APPRECIATE IF YOU REPLY ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

THANKS,

SINCERELY,

MOHAMMED FAYYAD

2004-11-27T15:17:00.000-06:00

When talking Palestinian politics, remember not to mix up your Barghoutis:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian democracy activist who has campaigned for non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation said on Saturday he would run for president to succeed Yasser Arafat. Mustafa Barghouthi, a physician educated in Russia and the United States, will challenge frontrunner Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas, the new head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was chosen by the dominant Fatah movement to run in the Jan. 9 poll. Barghouthi shares a family name with jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi but is not closely related. Marwan Barghouthi dropped his potential bid for the presidency that Fatah leaders had feared could split the group.

The non-jailed Mr. Barghouti faces long odds, though, as he seems to be borrowing from the John Kerry playbook:

"Enough is enough. We have been dragged into so many tunnels without hope. I think everything will depend on the vote of the young people ... I think there is a huge demand for change.

I wonder how Arabs would respond to P. Diddy's VOTE OR DIE campaign...

2004-11-18T17:56:00.000-06:00

A case for less government

I know this is normally James Taranto's gig, but I couldn't help laughing at this headline:

US may have found new case of mad cow disease: official

I've always thought that some of our officials are a little nuts. . .

2004-11-14T23:55:00.000-06:00

New Hampshire It Ain't

Now that Arafat has bid us his final "Thank you, bye-bye!", it appears that the Palestinians are just about ready to hold elections.

How do we know? Because their primary season has started. It happens to coincide with hunting season.

You must be shot accurately when mourning General Arafat! Be quiet!

2004-11-10T23:16:00.000-06:00

Buh-bye

Three days after I wish him a long life, Arafat finally does the decent thing and kicks the damn bucket.

Well, I can't have everything.

2004-11-09T01:16:00.000-06:00

Guilty pleasures

OK, I admit it: part of the reason I voted for Bush was to see the outrage from Europe. Europe did not disappoint.

The groaning about the outcome of the US election is deafening... Four more years with [Bush]! You Americans, what have you done to us? More brusqueness, more going it alone, more wars? The groaning is deafening.

That's the editor-in-chief of one of Germany's two public TV channels. German unemployment rate is 10.5% -- twice that of the U.S. Muslims next door are slaughtering Dutch movie producers for not singing praises to Islam. And what causes the Germans to caterwaul? Four more years of Bush's "brusqueness"! Waaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaah!

2004-11-08T23:19:00.000-06:00

Linking to an incoherent rant by Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore asks:

What's round on sides and high in the middle?

That would be you, Mikey. Why do you ask?

2004-11-08T22:08:00.000-06:00

Here is where you'll always find them...

Ann Althouse points us to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Update: Where are my manners?! I didn't even give proper credit to the creators of this image: Docweasel of the eponymous web site, and Ed Hopper. Shame on me.

2004-11-07T21:20:00.000-06:00

Dear Mr. Kinsley...

You don't have to apologize. This isn't the principal's office. No one is asking you to abase yourself, or reject your core values. In fact, all anyone really asks is that you pay those alleged core values more than just lip service.

You refer to yourself as a "liberal." That word has meaning, and is not merely a stand-in for "left-winger." Liberals are supposed to be inclusive, and given that the word has the same root as liberty, somewhat permissive and willing to live and let live. Are you certain that you've been living up to this label? Or have you, in fact, been -- as you insist you have not -- "arrogant and elitist"?

Let's look at your crie-du-coeur in some detail. This paragraph, specifically:

. . .It's true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose abortion and where gay relationships have full civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values -- as deplorable as I'm sure they are -- don't involve any direct imposition on you. We don't want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same gender, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?

See, Mr. Kinsley, this is what we're talking about. First off, your tone is condescending, and that's not appreciated. But more importantly, your description of conflicting issues is facile, showing either a lack of awareness or a lack of appreciation for the position of those you oppose.

(A little aside. I, personally, don't have strong opinions on either abortion or gay marriage. My vote to re-elect President Bush was purely for foreign-policy reasons, where I'm afraid the Left Wing hasn't had a useful idea since Woodrow Wilson, and maybe not even then. I also think this whole "values" topic is a huge misdirection. Your Slate colleague Paul Freedman can back me up on this. But I digress.)

Let's start with abortion first. It's a difficult topic, because it deals with the nature of human life itself. I doubt, Mr. Kinsley, that you'd be OK with the practice of taking newborn babies and euthanizing them, for whatever reason. That's because you appreciate that those are small, defenseless human beings, and every instinct of every decent person revolts against even the thought of causing them deliberate harm. But surely you must understand that there is nothing about passing through the birth canal that magically bestows life upon a sack of flesh? Surely if a baby is a human being just after exiting the birth canal, it is also a human being just before? An hour before? A day before? But then, if that's true, what about a week before? A month? Three months? Six months? What's the cutoff time, the point of no return where what was previously a disposable clump of cells becomes a person -- tiny, defenseless, but nonetheless entitled to a chance at life?

The simple fact is, we don't know. It's not really possible for us to know. As human beings, we can appreciate and deal with ambiguity -- but as a law-bound society, we have to set down rules with hard cutoff times. And therein lies the problem: we can't all agree on where to set the cutoff time. All we know is that it's somewhere after conception, and before birth. Within that interval, opinions differ. But a substantial portion of the population believes -- really, truly believes -- that the instant after conception, when a unique package of genes is put together, that is a new human life, and destroying it is as wrong as hurting a week-old infant. You and I may not share this belief, Mr. Kinsley. But these people believe it -- as fervently and wholeheartedly as you and I believe that, for example, it is not right for human beings to enslave each other. You can't just dismiss this, and say to them, "Hey, no one is making you have an abortion, so mind your own business!" any more than anyone could say to you, "Hey, Kinsley, no one is asking you to buy slaves, so get off my damn plantation!"

These people aren't trying to stop abortion because they enjoy protesting and telling people how to behave. They are trying to stop it because they think it is fundamentally, inherently wrong and anti-human. Yet you refuse to even think about what they are saying, dismissing them as meddlesome rubes. If that's not "elitist," what is? You can disagree with them -- I do -- but surely it's not too much to ask that you fully understand their viewpoint? Because if you did, you'd quickly realize that they do, in fact, view having to violate their beliefs over a decades-old Supreme Court decision to be an "imposition." And while I don't support them, I can't really say I blame them.

Your stance on gay marriage is no more impressive. First, it's worth pointing out that even in liberal Oregon, not to mention several other "blue" states, the bans on gay marriage passed easily, nearly 2-to-1. Turns out that quite a few people, even those in your own party, are not yet ready to accept that a lifelong partnership between two men or two women is equivalent to one between a man and a woman.

Read that again, Mr. Kinsley -- they are not ready to accept this. It's not that they hate gay people. It's not that they want to keep them apart. Well, surely some do, but overall, I doubt whether even the Biblest of the Bible-belt states would have passed resolutions banning, say, cohabitation. Civil unions seem to enjoy pretty widespread support. But with marriage, you're demanding more than that. You're insisting that everyone accept your premise that gay unions are exactly equivalent to male-female marriages. You're not just asking people to stay out of others' business. You are not even asking them to accept a different lifestyle. You are telling people what to think, and how to feel, insisting that everyone from Amherst to Anaheim accept as gospel -- literally, as unquestionable gospel -- the word of a couple of Massachusetts judges about the fundamental makeup of our society. And when you tell people how to think, and demand that they treat judges as kings -- well, please don't take it the wrong way that the people tell you to go get bent. Our nation's founders fought a bloody war and put in this wonderful democratic system to prevent exactly that kind of rule-by-fiat.

You claim that those on "your side of the divide" don't believe that your values are "immutable," that you are "crippled," as it were, "by reason and open-mindedness." How is it, then, that you could be so closed-minded as to fail to understand the principles of your opponents? And if you think that "your side" is immune to thinking its precepts "immutable and beyond argument," walk down the street in Manhattan or San Francisco with a Bush/Cheney shirt on. Your colleague Richard Rushfield can tell you about his experience.

I don't agree with left-wingers on a lot of topics, Mr. Kinsley, just as I disagree with right-wingers on some topics. But what I try to do is understand and respect people's reasons for holding the beliefs they do. It's not too much to ask that you try doing the same. Heaven knows that right-wingers get the benefit of left-wing opinion on a continuous basis, from newspapers, college lectures, Doonesbury cartoons -- now there's even Eminem's video. Maybe it wouldn't hurt for the Left to start listening -- really listening -- to their less-liberal compatriots, and if you don't agree with them, at least try to recognize that they do, in fact, have a point. Then maybe you wouldn't feel so oppressed.

Article by way of Bill Quick.

2004-11-07T13:39:00.000-06:00

Dear Democrats...

Now that you've survived your very own Thermopylae, please spare us all the whining that your message didn't get out.

Your message got out. Boy, did it ever get out! Your message was less-than-subtle subtext in at least two high-budget, very well-marketed movies. It was the content of two very un-subtle, un-artful, devoid of talent propaganda flicks -- movies that would have embarrassed the most incompetent Sovinformburo hack, but ones that you lionized, showered with undeserved awards, put on every movie screen you could find, poured out on DVDs, and even dropped onto pay-per-view the day before the election. You had a running propaganda vehicle on NBC, a household name shilling for you at CBS, and the country's largest newspapers were all but extensions of your campaign headquarters.

You didn't lose because your message didn't get out -- you lost because it did get out. Your true nature became just a bit too obvious to a few people too many. For decades, you've been trying to build the reputation of inclusiveness and idealism, and many believed it. What conclusion, then, could they reach when, at your Convention, you lionize a guy who mocks Americans as "possibly the dumbest people on the planet," "known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe"? Do you really believe this? Or did you not think we were watching? When they heard the same man say that everyone who ever voted Republican gets "up at six in the morning trying to figure out which minority group they're going to screw today," did you think no one was paying attention? When your most rousing speaker was Al Sharpton, blathering on about foreign policy and "reparations," what effect did you expect?

You patronized America with thinly disguised propaganda. You insulted us with bad movies, asinine books, and a new radio network apparently staffed by people whose meds have run out. You whined about "censorship" every time someone criticized your opinions, apparently unaware of the irony. Every time one of your loonier ideas was said to be bad for the country and good for its enemies, you screamed at the top of your lungs that people were "questioning your patriotism." You railed about "the new McCarthyism," even as you casually threw out terms like "un-American" at your opponents. For people who consider themselves our intellectual superiors, you sure don't strike us as very bright. Pompous, entitled, condescending -- sure. Self-righteous -- absolutely. But not very bright at all.

And the thing is, you're still doing it. Losing the election has caused many of you not to look inwards and ask why your ideas were rejected. Instead, you lashed out, piling further scorn onto the hoi polloi who dared to disagree with your "progressive" [sic] view of the world. Ponder the irony: you rail against America "arrogantly" dismissing the rest of the world, even as you arrogantly deride over half your own countrymen. You whine about our alleged "intolerance" towards Muslim nations, who have indisputably created and harbored a culture of terrorism, honor killings, beheadings, and repression -- even as you yourself openly deride those awful, nasty Evangelicals, whose only "crime" has been to disagree with you on who should run the country. You twist yourself in knots to insist that the opinions of Iran, Syria, and Lybia must be given consideration because they are part of "our human family," yet write off more than half the people who live next door, or else "threaten" to leave, since apparently you just can't handle living with the those that don't share your views. You'll have to forgive us if we find your talk of "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" just a little unpersuasive. You may not be racist, but your bigotry runs deep.

So please, no more of this talk of getting out your message, or trying to pull a fast one by wrapping your message in talk of "values." America got your message the first time, but in all honesty, America was just not interested in being Southern Canada, or pandering to your inferiority complexes vis-a-vis Europe et al. So if you want a chance at election again, consider finding some new positions and a new message.

Make sure this isn't it.

2004-11-07T13:06:00.000-06:00

Long Live Arafat

Now that Arafat has turned into a vegetable and is not just heartless and gutless but liverless, I would like to do something I never thought I'd do: wish this dirtbag a long life. May he lie there, useless, friendless, and with his "family" and "advisors" circling like vultures, for as long as possible. I hope that every second that separates him from death feels as painful as having a bucket of nails embedded in his flesh; after his history of vicious terrorism, the scumbucket deserves nothing less. My own beliefs don't include a hell, but this will do nicely. To your long life, you worthless meatbag. To your very, very, very long life.

As for his burial arrangements, I suggest a Semtex vest in a car in downtown Ramallah. The burial can then be left to his devoted followers.

2004-11-04T23:38:00.000-06:00

Red Herrings of the Week: Gay Marriage and Other "Moral Issues"

A new notion is coming into the fore, as the Left, assisted by a still-compliant media, attempt to explain the thorough shellacking the Democrats received on Tuesday: it's all those Evangelicals and Catholics, who came out of their lairs so they could support George W. Bush over "moral issues." This is shorthand for: Kerry had it sewn up, Bush was a war-mongering chimp, but Karl Rove dug out all the latter-day fag-hatin' Cotton Mathers in the Bible Belt, who came out in droves to make sure gays couldn't get married. The Christian Right is happy to go along with this notion, hoping to claim more influence.

There is only one problem with this: it makes no sense, and is not supported by the data.

Let's get the easy ones out of the way first. Two states were considered "swing" going into this election, and crucial to Bush: Ohio and Florida. Florida did not have a no-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot.

Ohio did. It passed easily, with 3,249,157 votes -- 62%. Yet George W. Bush only got 2,796,147 votes -- 51%. Even assuming every single Bush voter also voted to prohibit gay marriage, that leaves over 400,000 Kerry voters who did the same. Even in Oregon -- where Kerry won by 65,000 votes -- the ban on gay marriage was adopted by a margin of 236,607 votes, giving it a 57% majority, the smallest of the 11 states where it was an issue. And why wouldn't someone against gay marriage vote for Kerry? It's not as if Kerry's position on the subject was any different from Bush's.

The rest of the states -- Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, and Oklahoma -- were all either safely pro-Bush, or else lost to Kerry. Some "wedge issue"!

Besides, you have to wonder where these "moral values" people have been. One would think that if anyone got the "moral values" crowd out to the polls, it would be Bill Clinton -- a pot-smoking womanizer with a thoroughly emancipated career wife, whose first term was famous for gays-in-the-military, Gennifer Flowers, and "I did not inhale." Yet Clinton got his second term with 49% of the popular vote, and I just can't see a whole lot of hardcore Christian Right types choosing Ross Perot. For Pete's sake, Clinton got 44% of the vote in Mississippi and about the same in Alabama, and you don't get much more "moral values" than those states. Kerry only got 39% and 37% percent there (respectively), and whatever his faults, it's hard to see him being more objectionable to the Christian Right than Clinton.

The notion of the election being tipped by the Christian Right is likewise unsupported by the exit polls. Bush only gained 3 percentage points with Protestants -- a group of which "the Christian Right" is a small part -- to get 59% of their vote. With 54% of the voters identifying themselves as Protestant, that's about 1.5% of the vote -- not enough to explain Bush's victory. Gaining another 5 percentage points with the 27% who are Catholic brings in another 1.35% -- just barely enough, assuming absolutely every one of them was voting strictly on "moral values." And were they?

In a word, no. Of those believers who attended church at least weekly, Bush only picked up 1% of the vote over 2000. Not enough, even if we assume that everyone who goes to church on Sunday is a Bible thumper whose only concern is to keep gay marriage out of their state.

(A side note about exit polls: yes, it's important not to place too much faith in them. But I still think these data are valid. These are full samples from all the voters, not just those showing up in the morning, so it's unlikely that their sampling is wildly skewed. Moreover, the usual margin or error for these things is around 3-4% -- too large to pick a winner in a 49-51 election, but certainly acceptable to test whether Bush's voters are all religious nuts.)

So, if it wasn't God and gays, what was it? The same ol' boring, oft-repeated topics: Iraq, terrorism, and the economy.

The latter first, because I think it's the most interesting. For all the complaining the Kerry campaign did on the economy, it seems that the U.S. is doing pretty well. 32% of voters said that their family's financial situation is better today than four years ago, compared to only 28% who said it's worse. Of those who said their family was better off, a whopping 80% voted for Bush -- a 44 percentage point improvement over 2000. The same proportion of those worse off voted against Bush, but there were fewer of them. The remaining 39% whose financial situation didn't change, split their votes just about evenly: 49% Bush, 50% Kerry, 1% Nader.

The other big one was Iraq. 51% of voters approved of the invasion, and 45% disapproved -- just about the same as the candidates' final percentages. Interestingly enough, 52% of voters thought that the war in Iraq was going badly, vs 44% who thought it was going well, but, at least for some people, that wasn't enough to choose Kerry.

On terrorism, 54% of the electorate thought the U.S. is safer, while 41% thought us "less safe." This also roughly mirrors the vote percentage. (On a side note, I can hardly imagine how we could be "less safe" than when 19 Arabs can get into the country illegally, take flight lessons without raising alarms, walk onto four airliners despite being on a watch list, and alter the Manhattan skyline. Does 41% of the electorate really think safety comes from being popular at the UN? Or is it just that many people never thought about terrorism before?)

Overall, it seems that the voters' choices came down simply to how well Bush has been doing his job, with Approve at 53% and Disapprove at 46% -- again, matching the election returns almost exactly. It appears that the difference comes from the "somewhat approve" camp, 15% of whom apparently thought Bush was doing a decent job, but either wanted a change or thought Kerry could do better.

And there it is, folks -- the true motivators behind Bush's win were Iraq, terrorism, and the economy, not necessarily in that order. Why all this talk of "moral values," then?

Because the press is bad at math. They looked at these polls, and saw that 22% of the voters said "Moral values" was the most important issue to them, and 80% of those voted for Bush. But even assuming that they answered honestly and accurately, that would be less than 18% of all voters chose Bush for this reason. (And questions like these are guaranteed to get a lot of bad answers. Quick, name the single most important issue for you when you voted!) Nor does "moral values" signify -- as many commentators suggest -- some kind of commitment to Biblical scripture. Sure, those who consider his "religious values" important chose Bush overwhelmingly -- but they were only 8% of the electorate, bringing him 7.2%. He got an equal number, though, of people who chose him because they wanted someone "honest/trustworthy" (7.7%) and twice that number chose him for being a "strong leader" (17.8%) and taking "a clear stand on the issues" (13.4%).

In other words, Bush got re-elected because the country thinks he says what he does and does what he says, and because it approves of both. The Republicans can only hope that the Democrats, convinced of yet another Rovian plot and spurred on by their media echo chamber, start on another wild goose chase, unable to distinguish between religion and morality. Which is ironic, considering how often they accuse Republicans of the same thing.

Update: Paul Freedman of Slate has more supporting data.

2004-11-04T23:28:00.000-06:00

Why I voted for George W. Bush

This started out as a comment on another blog, but as its length grew, I thought it would be better off here.

Personally, I had no trouble supporting George W. Bush for President. I did it because I know what he is doing and I'm pretty sure I know what he is going to do. And both of those are things I want. No, not the farm subsidies or the atrocious Medicare drug plan. I'm talking about foreign policy here. In a nutshell, I'm glad the President ignored the UN and global opinion when he felt it was right to do so. I do not respect the UN and do not want it to have even a miniscule say in the conduct of this nation, ever. I am not interested in having a President who, when weighing an action, ponders how it will be received in the Belgian street. With his talk of "global tests" and "rebuilding alliances," John Kerry made it clear -- as clear as he could make anything -- that if elected, his constituency would include Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Tehran, Khartoum, Nairobi -- you name it. Sorry, unacceptable. Nobody in those cities, certainly not anyone with an opinion that matters, has my interests at heart. This doesn't mean that their opinion should always be disregarded -- but disregarding it should never be unacceptable to a leader I vote for. I am not a "global citizen," whatever that is. I am a U.S. citizen. As far as any official elected in this country is concerned, my opinion and those of my fellow citizens are absolutely the only ones that matter.

More specifically, I am glad Bush has made war on Arab and Muslim strongmen, ensuring that they will not gain any more power in a vital and volatile region. Going after terrorists is a part of this, since terrorism is the most direct way that radical Muslims and secular dictators from that part of the world attack my civilization. (That some are secular and some are religious nuts, and that they don't all love each other, is beside the point. They cooperate quite a bit: witness secular Sunni Arab Syria's cooperation with Shi'ite Persians in Iran to support Hizbollah.) It's also important to attack the bigger threats from that region directly -- and Saddam was certainly such a threat. I admit it: I honestly thought he had WMD in place. It made sense that he would, and not that he secretly made them "disappear" then risk an American invasion on general principle. Had Bush not invaded Iraq, I would have voted him out of office on sheer negligence. But even in the absence of WMD, I view the removal of the Hussein regime, strategically, to be well-worth the cost in blood and treasure.

For slightly under a decade before 9/11, America decided to take a break from history, as we turned inward and worried about gays in the military, presidential fellatio, dot-com valuations, and Y2K. It seems nuts now that in the late 1990s, the biggest target for the Justice Department was a freaking software company. Meantime, a bomb went off in the World Trade Center, two embassies were blown up in Africa, an Arab plot to bomb Los Angeles over the Millenium was discovered by dumb luck, another Arab plot to blow up eleven U.S. airliners was discovered because of more dumb luck, seventeen sailors did not come home from a routine call in a "friendly" port in Yemen, and the 9/11 plot was put in place and activated. All the while, the mastermind behind these attacks sat safely in a primitive hole, growing further and further convinced that the U.S. was a paper tiger that just needed a good kick to be brought to its knees. (And, really, who can blame him? He bombs American soil and an American warship, kills hundreds, and we don't even bother to send anyone after him. The mighty United States, world's preeminent military power, can't bear to see military casualties, so it shoots some missiles and makes empty speeches about "bringing" people "to justice.") Sorry, but that kind of "peace and prosperity" I can live without.

9/11 was not simply a terrorist incident in American history. 9/11 was a wake-up call: the world was still full of dangerous people. Some believe that those people need to be "understood" and given what they want, that given enough time and good will, everyone can agree to live and let live. I don't, because history is littered with the corpses of fools who believed this. I believe that there is a small but substantial number of people in this world that must be destroyed, or they will destroy us. Islamic radicals and Arab strongmen are definitely at the top of that list. I want them gone. Not placated, not courted, not appeased -- eliminated from existence. George W. Bush and his administration share that view. John Kerry does not. He appears to believe in following the myriad UN rules and hoping that "allies" such as France will support us, that being on our best behavior will bring us safety, and that the U.S. can be kept safe through the promises of other governments and "international law." Talk about your faith-based policies. Say what you will about religious fundamentalists, at least they aren't worshipping a long-discredited god.

2004-11-03T23:40:00.000-06:00

Sweet

Last night was the Democrats' Waterloo.

But that's been discussed to death all over the blogosphere and the news outlets today. I'd like to cover a more important topic.

I didn't catch The Daily Show last night, so I watched yesterday's episode today. Two guests:

Fmr. Gov. William Weld (R, Mass), in studio - great sense of humor, deadpan, self-effacing.

Al Sharpton, by satellite from the Kerry/Edwards campaign HQ - leaden punchlines, cheap shots at Weld ("he can't send the state troopers after me anymore"), repeating the "we wuz robbed" line from Florida 2000, threatening to throw Bush out of the White House. A two-bit thug in a thousand-dollar suit.

I would have paid good money to see Sharpton's reaction when Bush cleaned up this election. That the Kerry campaign made him prominent during the convention and had him at their headquarters on Election Day -- that alone made the Democrats' humiliating and unmitigated defeat thoroughly deserved. They would do well to ponder just how close a relationship they need to have with the likes of Sharpton.

As would John Stewart.

2004-11-01T23:52:00.000-06:00

It's been over a month since the last time I posted anything here on Thinking Meat, and for that, I suppose I should apologize. On top of being busy and lazy, I had nothing to say, and I refuse to post strictly for the sake of posting.

This will be quick. Tomorrow, I will vote. I will vote for George W. Bush. It's not a tough decision. Bush is a lousy communicator and has an uninspiring presence. True. But his opponent is, at core, a thoroughly deluded fool. Not only deluded, but arrogant. The man actually thinks he can bring France and Germany into Iraq by "explaining" to them "the stakes." Right. As if they don't know. What a vacuous, pompous buffoon. And, as I write this, there's a real chance it'll be President-elect Buffoon by this time next week.

...Anyway. I'm voting Bush, to no one's surprise. I'll cast my ballot in the morning, after which, all I have is hope. And, unfortunately, a good deal of worry. Don't get me wrong: I think Bush will win. But this one is going to be close.

Too close. Much too close. But that's a topic for another day.

2004-09-22T11:34:00.000-05:00

Bush Campaign Crosses a Red Line

ABC News reports:

WASHINGTON Sept. 22, 2004 — John Kerry windsurfs left and right in a new television ad from President Bush's campaign that says the Democrat's positions on Iraq, education and health care shift "whichever way the wind blows."

"In which direction would John Kerry lead?" asks the ad, which is set to Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz."

This is unacceptable. The "Blue Danube Waltz" is one of my favorite pieces of music. If the Bushies make me think of Kerry each time I hear it, I will never forgive them.

2004-09-20T06:56:00.000-05:00

Oh, give me a break:

A cardinal rule of investigative reporting is to never trust a photocopy of a document you're using as a basis for a story. It could be fake.

Yet photocopies, examined by experts consulted by CBS News, are exactly what Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes used to illustrate their 60 Minutes story questioning President Bush's military service. Now it turns out that executives at 60, long considered the gold standard of investigative reporting, may have been duped into believing bogus memos.

How could that happen? Simple, producer Josh Howard explains. On the morning of the Sept. 8 broadcast — as 60 Minutes producers and lawyers discussed the memos' authenticity in New York — CBS correspondent John Roberts interviewed White House spokesman Dan Bartlett in Washington. CBS had given Bartlett the memos.

Bartlett didn't question their authenticity but in about six instances used information in them to bolster his argument that Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard. Roberts called Howard after his interview and, Howard says, reported that "Bartlett had no quarrel with the authenticity of the documents; in fact, he read into them stuff that supported the White House position. We took that to mean, 'Well, guess there's no issue here.' "

(USA TODAY obtained copies of the memos shortly after the 60 Minutes broadcast and reported that the next day. The newspaper's editors, like those at other media, relied in part on the fact that the White House did not challenge the memos' authenticity and released copies after the broadcast.)

This argument is so breathtakingly stupid, it's hard to believe that USA Today had the gall to put it before the public. It is not the job of the White House to fact-check documents for the news media. The White House spokesman is not equipped to do this, nor would he have the time in the few minutes that he'd have to examine the memos. This is why CBS News and USA Today are supposed to have editors and fact-checkers and all the time in the world to consult with document experts. To even suggest that you were justified in using obvious fakes because the White House spokesman didn't point this out to you, is buck-passing at its most sickening.

2004-09-17T13:43:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts on the Union thug vs. 3-year-old story, and it's alleged rebuttal:

The claim is that the guy tearing up the sign is actually Parlock's son, with the only evidence being a family photo. It's certainly a possibility, but hardly conclusive -- white men with prominent chins are not uncommon. Still, if it turns out the whole thing was staged by Parlock, then obviously this would be a pretty disgusting manipulative stunt.

What I don't get is the sarcasm coming from Attaturk in this paragraph:

Serial Republican Victim complains for the THIRD straight presidential election of being assaulted and has his family assist.

Seems like Attaturk is making Parlock's point for him -- it's not hard to get Democrats to act like brownshirts (flesh-and-blood brownshirts, not Gore's "digital" kind). Assuming that all three incidents were genuine, highlighting the fact that someone has successfully got the opposing side to physically attack him multiple times is not exactly helpful to the opposing side. And as I said before, the fact that the guy attacking Parlock sort of looks like his son in a low-res photo is miles away from conclusive.

Having said that:

I agree with KipEsquire. A three-year-old girl has no business at a political rally, much less holding a sign. It's a cheap political trick, and I despise those who engage in such tactics. It's one thing to just bring your kids along to your candidate's rally -- if nothing else, it shows that "good, family people" support the candidate. (And even then the child has no business holding a sign or displaying propaganda.) There is absolutely no excuse for bringing your child to an opposing rally, much less have her hold a sign. She is three years old, for crying out loud. Let her be a kid.

Mr. Parlock had better account for the whereabouts of his two sons at the time, or at least provide good photos that establish the attacker wasn't one of them.

The union has apologized for the behavior of the attacker. This is a credit to them, but not an admission of guilt. If they do confirm that it was one of their members, they have an obligation to state so publically. (They don't have to give his particulars. A simple "We have confirmed that the man in the photograph is an IBPAT member and is not related to the Parlock family" is quite enough.) If it turns out that the attack was entirely staged, Parlock will owe the union and a lot of people a huge apology, after which he can expect a fully justified defamation suit.

Both the IBPAT and Parlock can resolve this question very easily if they choose.

2004-09-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

CBS Memos - the Source Is Obvious

There has been much speculation on the source of the forged memos that were passed to CBS. Some have accused the Kerry Campaign. Some said it might be the MoveOn PAC. Some are whispering that it's the Bush Campaign, as done by the minions of that scary, scary genius, Karl Rove.

To all these speculators I say, Fools! Morons! Oh imbeciles, can you not see what is before your very eyes?

The culprit is so much more obvious. He has been hiding in plain sight, and laughing mirthlessly at your blindness. He is, of course, none other than Charles Johnson!

For those of you demanding proof (and you, too, Dan Rather), let us all ask the imporant question: who benefits?

It certainly isn't the Kerry campaign, which has been effectively muzzled by this debacle.

It's not really the Bush campaign, since few people gave a rip about his National Guard service.

It surely isn't CBS or Dan Rather.

Now consider:

The day after the CBS story ran, Charles was ready with a virtually identical copy of the memos. Sure, he claims that he typed them after the fact in Microsoft Word. But what are the odds that he would conveniently have a copy of Microsoft Word that worked exactly the same way as the Microsoft Word that was used to write the memos? And had the same "default" settings? Who does Charles take us for?!

Charles admits that he is an expert on fonts and printing. Who better to fool a prestigious organization like CBS News? Are we seriously to believe that Dan Rather's staff could be tricked by anyone other than an expert?

This scandal has generated a lot of exposure for Charles. Not only has he been mentioned on innumerable web logs, but he has had multiple radio interviews, the name of his weblog was given prominence on The O'Reilly Factor -- and I don't even know where else. Most weblogs receiving so much as a Fark or Slashdot link are brought down by the traffic. Yet not only was LGF able to withstand the barrage of new hits (at one point hitting 115 hits PER SECOND!), but it turns out JOHNSON KNEW!! that the traffic would spike as the story kept going! Either Charles is amazingly clairvoyant, or he planned it all along.

There you have it, folks. It's clear that Johnson was the original writer of the memos, as evidenced by his having the same tools as the memo writer, his remarkable ability to reproduce the memos letter-for-letter, his admitted font expertise (required to bamboozle CBS News), and his advanced knowledge of the ensuing media storm.

And if that's not enough to convince you, consider this: many of the LGF commenters are Jews.

For the benefit of the clueless and uninitiated: yes, the preceding was a joke.

2004-09-15T23:53:00.000-05:00

Hugh Hewitt says there should be a Congressional hearing into Rathergate:

But it isn't about Rather's or CBS's or all of old media's reputation. Someone tried to manipulate a presidential election! If that isn't a matter of Congressional oversight, nothing is, and even if the GOP blows it --and Chris Cox is not the sort of congressman to participate in botched inquiries-- that fear does not release Congress from its duty.

Congress might not chose to do its duty, leaving it open to the charge that it just doesn't care much about electoral honesty. Wait and see.

The emphasis is Hugh's. And while I understand his point, I must disagree. Rathergate is a media story, where someone lied to CBS, and CBS broadcast the lie. This is disturbing, and CBS's credibility has been torn to shreds, but it's a long way from manipulating the election. Neither CBS nor anyone else has been accused of forging ballots or buying votes. People are still able to make up their minds, CBS lies notwithstanding.

Deliberately or not, there is no question that CBS lied to its audience. However, while CBS News may have an ethical obligation (and long-term business interest) to be truthful with its viewers, it has no legal obligation to be truthful. The absolute worst accusation that can be thrown against CBS News at this point is that they violated election laws by becoming a de facto propaganda machine for Kerry. And this is unlikely to stick, if for no other reason that they were not actually helping Kerry, but rather hurting Bush. It's the same distinction that applies to the 527 groups.

But that's not even the bigger issue. Quite frankly, I don't ever want any branch of the U.S. government investigating the content of news stories. Once we start down this road, where do we stop? If we can drag CBS News executives in front of a congressional committee for trying to influence the election, what keeps us from dragging the Swift Boat Vets into the same chamber, for the same reason? (After all, they were far more effective!) Or the MoveOn PAC? Or, for that matter, me or Hugh? Surely if the content of a CBS story could influence the election, so could Hugh's radio show, or, for that matter, my little blog? (OK, maybe not my blog...)

I personally prefer that Congress and the FEC stay out of this. Plenty of damage to CBS News and Dan Rather has been done by the public humiliation they have endured so far. (It's never good when your credibility as a journalist is a Jay Leno punchline.) Plenty more will be done in the future, and I salute Powerline, INDC, Allah, Instapundit, and Hugh for keeping this story alive and burning CBS's buttocks. But what we don't need here is government intervention. That will only damage our democracy, not to mention turn those responsible for this outrage into martyrs.

The position I take here is classically libertarian. The market is clearly working. Let it.

Update: Just noticed a paragraph in the same post, which I feel I must address:

If the forger rides off unmolested, with only CBS News' reputation left in ruins, the message is clear: Try again next time, only use better forgers. Whatever works is repeated. Whatever fails without penalty is improved and repeated. Whatever is punished --severely-- goes away.

This is quite true, but it still does not give license to Congress to interfere. Ultimately, whoever passed these documents to CBS, is merely guilty of lying to CBS. It is, quite simply, none of our business. If CBS ends up suffering for this, recourse is their concern -- they can sue, they can out him, they can use their considerable bully pulpit to blame the whole thing on him, discredit and vilify him, whatever. But other than that, there are no forms of punishment that Congress could mete out. Lying to reporters is not a crime. It is the reporter's job to check out the story, which CBS clearly failed to do in this case (probably with intent). It was CBS -- not their source -- who abused the public trust, and it is CBS that must suffer for it. And the rest of us just will have to be that much the wiser the next time documents mysteriously show up two months before an election. If anything, this episode will make it that much harder to use such a campaigning method in the future, even if the story is true and the documents authentic.

2004-09-15T19:02:00.000-05:00

My Long-awaited Statement

I established to my satisfaction that Dan Rather is a legume or I would not say so in my blog.

2004-09-13T17:58:00.000-05:00

"We Have No Choice"

Check out this amazing story by Jeff Foster and Mike Taigman of EMS Magazine, who rode around with Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance crews in the spring of 2002. There are many poignant parts, and some utterly revolting:

One week after the pistol-packing shopper saved dozens of lives by killing the would-be suicide bomber, the MDA dispatch center in Jerusalem receives a call from Fatah, one of Yasser Arafat's terrorist organizations. The caller says there will be an attack in three minutes. He won't say where. Moments later, paramedic Asef Perlman is smoking a cigarette outside the MDA station in Efrata when a 16-year-old Palestinian boy carrying a backpack walks up the hill past the station. Asef calls to him, "Hey, where ya going?" The boy replies, "I'm just gonna get some cigarettes." Asef tells him that since it's Passover, the store is closed. Hearing voices outside, the EMTs and volunteers in the station wander out to see what's going on. Looking down at his watch, Asef says to the boy, "Besides, it's past curfew; you're really not supposed to be here." The boy mumbles something about going on. As Asef grabs him, the boy explodes.

The brave heroic Palestinian resistance, using teenage boys as suicide bombers against ambulance crews. And these ambulance crews are something else, too:

If this situation happened in America -— a group of EMTs watching a young boy blow up in the arms of their partner -— you'd expect certain things to happen. The EMTs would be off work for a few months and undergo extensive counseling/CISD. There is a chance that some or all of them might never come back to work at all. This is one of those areas that separates this remarkable group of Israeli EMS professionals from any EMS folks we've ever worked with. We asked them, "How much time did you take off after this incident?" They gave us a funny look. . . As we finished interviewing these folks, Dr. Glick, an Orthodox Jew, received a page asking him to respond to a Palestinian clinic to help treat a febrile child suspected to have meningitis.

While you're at MDA, consider making a contribution.

2004-09-04T11:51:00.000-05:00

A few random thoughts on the Beslan school massacre:

So does anyone remember all the rioting and demonstrations in the Arab/Muslim world, in response to U.S. invasion (and liberation) of Afghanistan? To say nothing of the fits apoplexy in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Have we seen anything even remotely similar in response to this massacre? Consider: these were Muslims -- Chechen and Arab -- who stormed a school, shot children in the back, and forced a mother to choose which child to save. All in the name of Islam.

So where's the outrage? If someone pulled something like this in my name, I'd be baying for their blood, and falling all over myself to offer help to the victims. Yet here we have a group of child murderers, claiming to act in the name of Islam -- "defiling" Islam, if you believe the various apologists from CAIR and the AAC -- and what is the global Muslim reaction?

Absolute. Silence.

Not one demonstration, anywhere. Not one peace rally. Not one candlelight vigil, not one show of solidarity, not one loud, forceful, unvarnished, and un-nuanced rejection of this, done in the name of their peaceful, tolerant, enlightened, precious, precious Islam. Not in Pakistan. Not in Ramallah. Not in Cairo. Not in Paris. Not in New Jersey or Dearborn. Not anywhere.

Have a look at the CAIR web site. Take a look at their news releases and their action alerts. What upsets them? A radio talk show host calling Islam a murderous organization. Some guy in Arizona getting his car trashed. And, of course, Israeli "war crimes" and that fiend, General Boykin. Well, that's what concerns American Muslims today -- what Jackie Mason and General Boykin say about Islam. What the wanton murder of dozens of kids says about Islam? Not their problem. A generic, months-old online petition is apparently sufficient to cover terrorism. They've got more important issues now, like the crisis with Red Lobster.

Then again, perhaps we should be happy with silence. It's better than receiving lectures on the "cycle of violence" from the very people that fund the violence. It's obnoxious enough for Arab News to reprint this squirmy little Guardian appeasement piece, which lays the blame on the Beslan massacre on (who else?) Putin and the Russian Army -- but it's a whole new level of indecency for them to actually blame the bloodshed on Putin's alleged lack of belief in "compromise, negotiations, give and take." ("Give and take." With people who are willing to die just to kill a few kids and their mothers. I don't even want to know what "compromise" position Arab News had in mind.)

So there it is. American liberation of Afghanistan, after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden -- an outrage, an offense against Islam, a new crusade, must be opposed. American liberation of Iraq, killing a secular Stalinist dictator -- umm, an outrage, an offense against Islam, violation of international law, mass demonstrations, etc. Muslim terrorists gunning down second-graders? Shrug. "Ask yourselves why they hate you."

Update: I should note that a few links for this article came by way of the Command Post and Allah. Also, LGF has some pertinent comments about alleged "Arab self-criticism."

Update on Sept. 7, 2004: Mark Steyn puts it as only he can:

The reality is that the IRA and ETA and the ANC and any number of secessionist and nationalist movements all the way back to the American revolutionaries could have seized schoolhouses and shot all the children.

But they didn't. Because, if they had, there would have been widespread revulsion within the perpetrators' own communities. To put it at its most tactful, that doesn't seem to be an issue here.

I can't put it any better.

2004-09-03T10:54:00.000-05:00

AP does a search-and-replace

From this hair-raising story on the storming of the Russian school against Chechen terrorists, we find the following fascinating tidbit:

People ran through the streets, the wounded carried off on stretchers. An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood. Four armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, "A militant ran this way."

"Militant." Sure.

2004-08-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

Illegal Zionist. . . oh, forget it

That's it. I give up. Arab League, you win. No matter how outrageous a parody of obstinate Arab lunacy I write, I can never top the real thing.

Arab League Slams Plans For a Wireless Jerusalem

In a bizarre move, the Arab League issued a condemnation Tuesday of the Jerusalem municipality’s project to turn Israel’s capital city into the world’s first city with complete wireless internet capability.

According to SANA, the official Syrian news agency, the Arab League says the project to make Jerusalem wireless fidelity-enabled (WiFi) accessible threatens the Arab identity of the city.

The Arab League issued a statement Tuesday saying, "the project aims at imposing a de facto [sic] on the city in a way that serves the Israeli interests under the pretext of encouraging the foreign investments."

The statement added that the WiFi project, along with all of Israel’s policies, "contradicts not only the international law and resolutions but also reflect no desire in realizing the just and comprehensive peace in the region."

Wireless Internet access -- have the Jews no decency?! Someone, please tell me this is just a Syrian prank.

By way of Allah.

2004-08-28T15:27:00.000-05:00

Chirac: Let's force Israel's surrender to the Arabs.

Arabs: Thanks, Jacques.

2004-08-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

Excuse me, what country is this?

Are you kidding me??

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush plans to seek a court order to force the U.S. Federal Election Commission to stop all political advertising by independent groups, said spokesman Scott McClellan.

Against all odds, it seems that the Bush campaign is actually trying to out-stupid Kerry. Anyone here ever heard of the First Amendment? It had something about restrictions on the freedom of speech being a no-no. I swear it said something like that.

``The president said he wanted to work together to pursue court action to stop all activities by these shadowy 527 groups,'' McClellan told reporters on Air Force One en route to New Mexico. `` If court action doesn't work, he is willing to pursue legislative action,'' McClellan said.

Wow. Why not skip even that, and just send in Ministry of Information troops? And if I may be so bold, the 527 groups aren't "shadowy." They are groups of citizens with political views who want to get those views heard, and influence the elections. That's not a failure of the political process -- it is the political process!

I can't believe the Bushies are trying to pull this. It's stupidity I never thought I'd find outside the Kucinich camp.

2004-08-23T07:49:00.000-05:00

I have to say, the Republican choice of New York City for their 2004 Convention is a pretty smart move. Besides the obvious references to 9/11, that is.

I'm talking about the protests, which are expected to be huge. This is to no one's surprise, of course. Considering the massive worldwide ANSWER-sponsored anger at Bush policies, this may make the anti-trade protests in Seattle, etc. look small. (Allah has been on top of this story for a while.) So what are the Republicans to do? Well, if you can't stop the mobs (and you can't), might as well use them to your advantage, and minimize their impact on your friends.

The Republicans could have chosen a traditionally friendly venue, like San Diego. But this would have brought the various mobs into a friendly town, causing annoyance and resentment among supporters. On the other hand, dragging the thousands of yippies, Black Bloc creeps, and their ilk to New York would at least show the largely-Democrat population there just who exactly they stand with. ("Hey, it wasn't us who torched cars and sailed bricks through the windows of Macy's...") Even if a small number of people switch their votes to Bush in pure disgust, that's a win. And if not, at least the anti-Bush forces will be trashing their own back yard.

True: this is still unfair to the many workaday-joe New Yorkers who will suffer through the mass protests and violent mobs. But they may want to keep in mind that it's not the people at the Convention that are causing gridlock and violence, and tying up emergency services. Good luck.

2004-08-17T18:04:00.000-05:00

A Suggested Bush Quip

"I know Bob Kerrey. Bob Kerrey is a friend of mine. And Senator, you're no Bob Kerrey."

2004-08-15T20:13:00.000-05:00

Ugh. I know it's the Daily Indefiskable and all, but this is approaching absurdity even by their bottomfeeder standards:

Bush accused of exploiting hurricane in Florida as he offers aid to disaster area
By David Usborne in Orlando

On closer reading, I wonder if the by-line should have been separated at all. Perhaps it was really meant as a continuation to the headline. Because, try as I might, I can't find a single instance of anyone quoted in the article that accuses Bush of exploiting anything. The closest we come is here:

"The most politically useful trips of all are the, quote, 'non-political' ones," commented Larry Sabato, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia. "Presidents never look better than when they appear to be acting decisively in situations such as these."

What Prof. Sabato says is perfectly true, but far from "accusing" anyone, he merely offers statements of fact. Yes, of course a President looks good when offering aid to disaster victims -- who doesn't? One has to make quite a leap to read into this that Bush is nakedly using suffering people for his own political purposes. In fact, the accusation is much easier to level against Usborne, who twists a perfectly ordinary Presidential visit to help people who have lost everything into a sinister ploy, all for the benefit of his half-baked political "theories."

I hate to break this to anyone, but not everything done by a sitting President is a calculated political ploy. Just because Bush has a corn muffin with his dinner is not an indication of trying to appeal to Midwestern farmers, and eating waffles for breakfast is not a dig at John Kerry. It is perfectly right and expected for a President to visit the hurricane-ravaged state of Florida, to use federal resources to provide relief, and to praise the aid workers who helped out the victims. If you're going to insist that this is all just an attempt to turn a disaster to political advantage, then first please make sure you're not merely projecting.

2004-08-12T08:38:00.000-05:00

Evil Zionist Occupiers redux

LGF has a photo that you're not likely to see on CNN or BBC:

An Israeli Army soldier comforts a Palestinian woman at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah Wednesday Aug. 11, 2004.

Be sure to also check out IDF Dave's photo collection. Amazingly simple, yet simply amazing.

2004-08-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

Yo Ahmed, don't bogart the good stuff, man...

Israelis find the key to peace in the Middle East.

2004-08-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

Will someone please explain to me the hubbub over this?

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Central Florida woman was fired from her job after eating "unclean" meat and violating a reported company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises, according to Local 6 News.
Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star -- a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News reported.
However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.

"Religious differences," my foot. She worked at a company run by Muslims, and she knew (because she had been warned) that they found her pork-eating offensive.

What I don't get is the outrage over this at Allah's place and LGF. Ms. Morales' employers are Muslim as are most of their employees. Over and above this, the company and the building it's housed in is their property, and they get to set the rules. Ms. Morales was made aware of those rules, which are not unfair, nor do they cause her an undue hardship. Her religion does not require her to eat pork products, and if she really wanted pork, she could simply eat it elsewhere. She was obviously not fired for being Catholic (something her employers knew when they hired her) -- she was fired for being disrespectful to the beliefs of her employer and violating the rules of her employment. And all because she wouldn't make a trivial modification to her lunch menu.

The rules she was subjected to were easy to follow, and not unreasonable. If pork was consumed in the company cafeteria, the company's Muslim employees -- including its owners -- could not be sure that the surfaces, utensils, etc. they were using are clean. Ms. Morales's lack of consideration would deny them the use of their own cafeteria.

I honestly want to know: am I missing something? It sure doesn't sound like Ms. Morales's rights were violated. Instead, it sounds like she tried to violate the rights of her bosses at Rising Star, and they didn't stand for it.

Update: Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, commented on the discrimination angle last night -- I wish I had checked his site more carefully. In a nutshell, he says that there is no discrimination. The equally qualified Jonathan Rowe says the same thing.

2004-08-03T17:43:00.000-05:00

Suman Palit is back, and he is distinctly unimpressed with Kerry's Convention speech.

And exactly how does Kerry plan on doubling the number of Special Forces..? These guys are called Special Forces for a reason. They are simply brilliant warriors, to a man. They are all volunteers who often apply for Spec Ops training over and over again, rejected until they are accepted. What does Kerry want to do? Impose Quotas on Spec Op hiring? All this will do is dilute the effectiveness of the Special Forces, making it difficult to use them as they were designed. Again, this tells me that either Kerry knows nothing of the military he claims to be proud of having served in, or this is a cynical and calculated effort at undermining it. . .
The carnard [sic] about the backdoor draft is just that, a canard. When you sign up for the Guard, it's not for sunny jaunts in armored cars across the Califormia coastline on a taxpayer funded binge. People join up knowing fully well that there is a eight year commitment, and that the purpose of the military is to fight wars. The Pentagon is now calling up reservists on the basis of something that all enlistees know about when they do sign up. They never have had to in past engagements, because our post-Vietnam entanglements never came close to stretching our resurces until Iraq-II. But this is exactly why the deferred service clause is in the contract. Does it suck? Of course it does? War sucks for everyone, particularly the soldiers. . .

(By way of Pejman.)

Update: Also back: the mustard-yellow Russell Wardlow. Well, he isn't yellow, but his site is.

2004-08-03T17:06:00.000-05:00

Would someone care to explain this?

Handicapped kids left stranded
HUMAN rights activists today called on Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz to let 11 handicapped Palestinian children, stranded in Egypt for nearly two weeks, return home to the Gaza Strip.
The children, among some 2500 Palestinians blocked by the Israeli army, are suffering from a shortage of food and water and the situation was worsening daily, said the activists.

OK... why? These children aren't stuck on a desert island -- they are in freaking Egypt, an Arab country and -- just as an aside -- recipient of $2 billion annually in American aid. Why can't they house 11 handicapped children in decent conditions? Why should it fall upon the mean old Israelis to let these children -- "and their caretakers," whoever they may be -- cross the border?

2004-08-03T16:50:00.000-05:00

Let me guess. . .

This is just Tony Blair helping Bush distract the American public from the story that terror alerts were issued to distract the American public from the period after the Democratic National Convention.

2004-08-02T07:37:00.000-05:00

A quick round-up of recent news from those wacky fun folks, the Palestinians:

First, some "militants" burn down government offices because Arafat assigned his brother to be the new head of Palestinian security.

Next, some other "militants" stormed into a "reform meeting" and shot it up for being a "plot against Arafat."

Today, a guard at a jail holding some alleged collaborators with Israel decided that rather than supervise them, he'd just as soon toss a grenade in their cell. Not all his targets died right away, so later his buddies came and shot one in his hospital bed.

Meanwhile, the heroic fighters of Hamas bravely launched Qassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, while another group of fearless fighters courageously tried to gun down a car with eight children on board. (Thankfully, they missed.)

Sounds to me like a wonderfully civilized society, ready for its own state.

August 3 update: Russell Wardlow adds some perspective:

Hey, so they tossed some grenades in an occupied cell. At least they didn't put women's panties on the inmates' head. THAT would be unexcusable.

2004-07-31T08:43:00.000-05:00

Bill Clinton had "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."

Al Gore had "You Can Call Me Al."

What should be John Kerry's theme song?

If you are confused, Allah will make it all clear. As long as you remember your hadiths and click on the photo.

2004-07-29T23:37:00.000-05:00

Hey, what's with all these people staggering in? Oh, they are vodka drinkers. Come on in, ladies and gentlemen, and make yourself at home. I'm sweeping out the cobwebs around here, but help yourselves to whatever you like: there's stuff on Democrats, some cynical stuff about Israel, a bit of F9/11 bashing. . . Feel free to ~~mark the walls~~ post comments, too.

2004-07-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

Kerry speech thoughts:

Oh, Lord... "reporting for duty" with a salute... subtle as a slap in the face...
"Stronger at home, respected in the world" ...check.
Heh... "I was born in the West Wing." Cute. But prophecy, or just assumed entitlement?
The anti-Communist rhetoric is interesting, and a bit unexpected. (Cute aside about being grounded... I laughed.) Interesting point about the gratitude of West Berliners to Americans, and a fitting follow-up of restoring that positive view of the U.S. (Immediate cynical thought: does that mean we'll have to let Islamism take over Europe first?)
"50 years of peace..." umm, really? So what was that thing with you on the boats? And wasn't there something about Kennedy, and Kruschev, and some misunderstanding over missiles in Cuba?
Nasty barbs into the Bush cabinet. Not sure how well this will go over. Well, it's playing to the base.
Nice riff on "reinstating trust in the White House."
I can just see the RNC ads about Edwards: "John Edwards' American dream: suing your way to millions..."
OK, laying it on for Teresa is a little thick. "Down to earth?" Come on...
Fourth, then fifth iteration of "band of brothers." With all due respect -- stop. Please.
"The United States never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to." So the Iraq war was elective? We should have left it alone, even though everyone thought it had a WMD program? Thank you, drive through...
"Credibility to bring our allies to our side." Umm... did Australia take a coffee break? Or is Kerry promising that France will join us in Iraq? That seems like an awfully tall order. (Never mind the implication that France is an "ally.")
Wow, a Democrat promising to expand the military! This is something new! (But "not in Iraq." So where? Is this man really going to put new divisions into Germany? Are they really "stretched thin"?)
For a party whose supporters mocked Bush's use of "freedom," the Democrats sure use it a lot themselves, specifically in contrast to what terrorists allegedly want...
Oh brother, the whining about "questioning patriotism." What-ever. "That flag. . . belongs to all the American people." Chants of "USA! USA!" I wonder what the ultra-lephtoids will be saying about this "jingoistic display" tomorrow.
"It's time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families." The Democrats are in full Republican-slogan-recycling mode tonight. After-school programs, drugs for seniors, and class conflict. "Help is on the way." I guess "the powerful vs. the people" didn't play well with test audiences.
Kerry is really hitting the anti-outsourcing resentment hard. This will play well.
"We will make government live by the rule that every family has to live by: Pay as you go." They really are stressing Republican slogans. Guess we know who won that war of ideas. How ironic that Bush should be vulnerable to such attacks.
Drug re-importation and prices negotiated by Medicare. This is silly.
A vague plan on health care. Something about cutting out on inefficiency and "greed." Uhh, ok.
Cutting dependence on Middle East oil. Right. Good luck.
Haha! The Roosevelt/JohnKerry.com quip was cute.
"Let's never misuse for political purposes... the Constitution of the United States." Huh?
Something about stopping the divisions of race from race, etc. Well, good thing Al Sharpton didn't get a speaking role.
"I don't want to say God is on our side... I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side." Good rhetoric, though not particularly inspiring. Gee, I hope we're not evil or anything.
Stem-cell research part was very effective. (Another Bush vulnerability.) The after-school bit was not. Not everything needs to be set up from Washington.

A very good speech overall. Reaganesque in its optimism and attempts to inspire, to say nothing of the Reagan slogans borrowed outright. Kerry is still no Reagan in terms of delivery, but the wooden patrician was not on the podium tonight.

Not much on specifics, though. Just the usual slogans ("Stronger at home" -- oh, you know the rest), and a litany of issues that could just as easily have been listed in 2000. Nothing at all on the war on Islamism -- just the vague references to "freedom" winning that are annoying enough coming from Bush.

Overall: good form, little substance -- which wasn't much of a surprise.

2004-07-29T20:25:00.000-05:00

Listening to today's Democratic convention:

Wesley Clark - missed most of the speech, but the end certainly seemed effective. That was quite some applause.
Nancy Pelosi - standard Democratic boilerplate. The reference to electing a Democratic House and having "the first woman Speaker" seemed awfully self-serving. The wooden delivery of "the Democrats have it right" seemed overwrought, but I get the idea. The "we can do it" part actually sounded desperate. "No, really guys, we can do it! Honest!"
Madeleine Albright - a very good speech, full of messages that the Democrats need to stress. What struck me, though, was the barely-audible applause to her assertions that Kerry would not seek approval from the world, or how America is a shining light to the world. You could practically hear some of the delegates whispering, "Jingoistic wench! Go read Chomsky!"
Kerry sisters - OK, what is this, a funeral? Maybe it's just me, but these "just-us-folks" and "my-daddy-is-nice" stories from millionaire career politicians grate. And uhh, the hamster story? What in the. . .?

Time for Kerry.

Update: Oops, I guess it was time for the Kerry family movie. Well-done parts: personal interviews, which made him seem much more human and less imposing and aloof than he's generally appeared. Talking about the births of his daughters and his relationship with his wife certainly was well-done. Vietnam service references were well-done. Post-Vietnam activism was also well-done, which is to say, very well whitewashed. No mention of accusing his fellow soldiers of war crimes; just carefully selected sound clips of Kerry ruefully asking, "Where are our leaders?" The ending fell apart, I thought, as it began to sound like a pre-packaged political ad: the farmer with a tractor, the diverse children, the waving flag, etc. A mistake, in my view: it instantly undid the rest of the film by reminding me that I was watching a political ad.

Update II: Wow, they are really driving home the war-hero point, aren't they? The Green Beret whose life Kerry saved certainly will carry well, and it is hard to disregard Max Cleland, upbeat and enthusiastic, despite having to power a wheelchair with his only limb. Well, these men deserve that respect; regardless of their political views, they served well and suffered much, and the Bush campaign will have to dance around this very gingerly. Background thought: the Democrats sure managed to keep the hard-core anti-Vietnam "baby-killer" rhetoric silenced, no?

Update III: Uh-oh, Cleland went into shaky-voice-rant mode... Bad. Change of image from inspiring war hero to grump-on-a-soapbox was instantaneous. Also, one reference to a band of brothers is powerful. Two is overdoing it. Three is annoying. And this story about a Bible and those "kinda long, sad, eyes" sounds artificial and sappy. . . .Whoa, "a man called by destiny"?? He's a war hero and a politician, not a comic book superhero. What next, a halo?

2004-07-26T20:10:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts watching the Democratic National Convention:

At this point, I'm pretty much a single-issue voter, and the issue is national security. Specifically, I want leadership that is willing and able to destroy Islamism. Not "make us safer," not "form a coalition," not "inspire the world" -- destroy Islamism. That, in turn, does not mean come to an accommodation -- it means killing Islamists, destroying their networks, and making it very clear to foreign governments that support for Islamists will cause them to be deposed, disposed, and decomposed. No "root causes," no asking what makes them hate me -- I'm not interested in what makes the murderous savages on this planet upset with me. I want them killed, thereby making the question of what upset them, an academic exercise.

Whoever is assigned this task, I want their hands untied. It's bad enough when American would-be "intellectuals" subordinate our national interests to some legalistic nonsense that pretends the world is just a larger version of Sweden. It is beyond unacceptable, though, to even suggest that the opinion of effete and deluded European intelligentsia, corrupt French leaders, and oil-fed Arab dictators should have any influence on U.S. policy. U.S. policy is made by U.S. citizens; end of story.

It bothers me a great deal, therefore, to hear the rhetoric coming out of the Democrats through this convention, and in the interviews they are giving the news channels. It's all a repetition of the same talking points, or rather a single point stated in different words: the image of the United States has been gravely damaged; we are isolated and distrusted; we have alienated our crucial allies; this is negatively affecting the war on terror; and, naturally, it's all Bush's fault. It's hard to figure out whether they really think this: that deluded old fool Jimmy Carter probably does, but I don't know about, say, Al Gore.

It's hard to describe just how much utter B.S. is compressed into these talking points. The United States has not been a popular country in the world for decades; organized Soviet propaganda, aided and abetted by "intellectuals" such as Noam Chomsky, made sure of that -- and Chomsky didn't achieve his global popularity through the efforts of George W. Bush. I traveled to Europe in the late 1990s, the height of Clinton euphoria. The shelves were filled with books mocking Americans and criticizing every American policy. (The war on Serbia certainly did not endear Americans to Europeans.) This animosity isn't surprising: it's a natural consequence of standing for something other than happy and meaningless drivel. The only difference under Bush is that we stopped pretending that we paid this carping any attention, and made it clear that the negative opinions of Europe and "the world" were not going to count in our decisions to face threats. This is both good and necessary if we are going to accomplish anything against Islamism, rather than get tied down wondering how every cowardly foreign politician will respond to our actions.

Real crucial allies -- i.e. Great Britain, Australia, and Israel -- have not been alienated, and continue to stand with us. Countries that have been alienated -- or rather, publicly humiliated -- are the likes of France, which has not been an ally in at least 100 years, and is certainly not crucial to any American interest. Any cooperation we get out of France, or Russia, or Jordan, or Qatar will never be because they love us, or because they think it's the right thing to do. They will cooperate because their interests happen to align with ours; no more, and no less. Anyone who thinks otherwise is, quite simply, unhinged, and must never be allowed anywhere near the foreign policy apparatus. One Jimmy Carter is one too many.

A while back, I was asked to join Blogs for Bush. I didn't care to: it wasn't my intention to turn my blog into partisan boosterism. I wasn't -- and still am not -- unequivocally pro-Bush, nor did I have any serious objections to John Kerry. Watching this convention, though, it's hard not to turn against the Democratic Party, if not Kerry himself. We have Al Gore, who still seems unable to get over the fact that popular votes don't elect American Presidents; we have Jimmy Carter, who actually has the temerity to suggest that Bush made the U.S. less respected abroad, and the idiocy to imply that the U.S. was admired under his (Carter's) presidency; and we have every Democratic delegate and mouthpiece talking about our "image" in the world, as though they are running a sales campaign for a luxury car. As if to underscore this, they have a woman who lost her family on 9/11, followed by a staged candlelight vigil. (Punctuated by camera flashes. Like it's a rock concert. Good grief.)

And really -- Hillary Clinton talking about her husband's reign as "8 years of peace, prosperity, and promise"? Have these people no shame? I wonder what the families of the sailors who died on the Cole have to say about this. Or the families of the dead African embassy workers. And it's George Bush that never admits to mistakes?

Sorry, but as much as I disagree with Bush -- and I disagree with him a lot -- I simply can't buy what the Democrats are selling. I can't have a President that thinks the opinion of the EU, or the UN, or the African Union, somehow matters and carries moral, let alone practical, weight. Sorry, Democrats, but I can't have a President who will second-guess himself based on how his actions might play with the Arab souk or the French café. I can't have a President who is more worried about America's image than American interests; I certainly can't have a President who can't distinguish between the two. I can't tell whether the Democrats' message is just honest delusions, or simply Saatchi-and-Saatchi-style brand positioning, but either way, it's not what I want for the next four years. This stuff is far too serious for the likes of Jimmy Carter. It's real life; not the Model UN.

Either the tone of the Convention rhetoric changes radically, or the Democrats will make up my mind for me.

2004-07-22T23:09:00.000-05:00

A Modest Open Letter

Unsolicited advice for the State of Israel

Dear Israel,

It has become painfully clear over the past few ~~days~~ ~~years~~ decades that you, as a nation, have a severe image problem internationally. This problem is not just with openly hostile governments that have promised on many occasions to destroy you and murder your citizens wholesale; rather, it extends to inter-governmental assemblies such as the United Nations, progressive non-governmental organizations, the global press, and the academic intelligentsia, combining into what has commonly come to be called "world opinion." I believe it would be of some benefit to consider the ways in which you can bring this world opinion to your side, and gain sympathy and respect, if not outright admiration, from nations the world over.

(Some may be tempted to ask why a sovereign nation should give any consideration to this "world opinion" to begin with. Some may even ask how this world opinion came to be considered a moral authority, especially given the rather shaky moral record of virtually all nations that presume to hold it. Such questions are beyond the scope of this letter. Suffice it to say that your UN ambassador probably does not enjoy being berated daily by virtually every country on the planet, including those that have more mass graves than your entire population.)

Let us consider the strategy you have employed for the past few decades: namely, to demonstrate your strength, but seek peaceful solutions instead, as with Egypt and Jordan; to strive to kill terrorists, but spare innocent civilians, as in Jenin; to occupy after being attacked, but not engage in genocide or ethnic cleansing, as in the West Bank; to give sworn enemies the benefit of the doubt and test their word, as with Arafat; to give all those within your borders citizenship and basic rights; to respect all your citizens' freedom of speech; to discuss your flaws openly and honestly; and to admit imperfection, but expect the world to understand the difficulties you face; to protect reporters and their freedom of speech, expecting them to report honestly and contextually; to respect world opinion while expecting it to recognize your right and responsibility to your own citizens. In short, you have tried to do the right thing, and expected the world to reciprocate. This foolishness has to stop, and it has to stop right now. It has brought you neither love nor respect from your fellow nations, and it is unclear as to why you expected anything else. But we'll get to that.

First, let us consider some suboptimal ways of getting on the good side of global opinion. These work, but the harm they do to your own nation tends to outweigh any benefit, so they aren't particularly recommended:

You can surrender to the Arabs. Put down your weapons, drop to your knees, and allow them to overrun the place. This will reduce you from your current position of strength, to that of innocent victims. The world loves helpless, innocent victims! Consider all the sympathy and support you got just after the Holocaust, when Jews was synonymous with skeletal Auschwitz victims. Why, the Europeans couldn't support you enough, just as long as you didn't hang around in Europe! (After all, helpless innocent victims are fine and good, as long as they are not camped out on the front lawn. That just spoils the scenery!)
This solution has been employed multiple times over the past 100 years or so, all with roughly the same results: sympathy galore. Just ask the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Rwandans, or the Sudanese in Darfur. The problem, of course, is that sympathy is all you get, and that's worth about as much as one of Arafat's commitments to peace -- so you'll end up exactly like the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Rwandans, or the Sudanese in Darfur. Or, more likely and more to the point, like the Auschwitz victims that never left the camp.
You can become an enemy of the United States. It's wacky but true: if you are opposed to the United States, you can expect widespread global support, regardless of your own failings. You can set up a mass-murdering police state, invade two countries, and kill entire villages with poison gas, but if you oppose the United States, you'll be the lesser evil. There are several problems with this approach, of course, not least of which is that there is no guarantee that it will work for you. There simply isn't enough empirical data to determine whether, in opposition to the U.S., you'd actually be viewed as the lesser evil. It certainly worked for Iraq and North Korea, but then neither of them is run by Jews.
Another problem is that being an enemy of the U.S., while popular, is exceedingly dangerous. Since 2001, at least two countries that engaged in this have had a radical change of government, preceded by some very loud urban renewal courtesy of the U.S. military. (By contrast, slaughtering Spanish citizens and Filipino expats has brought extremely promising results. You should keep this in mind.) At any rate, when picking one's enemies, the United States is probably not the best choice. Of course, in your case this option is barred even more by your strategic dependence upon the U.S. That problem is addressable, and we'll get to it shortly; nonetheless, it's easy to see that gaining popularity by being anti-U.S. is not really a viable option.

Now that we have eliminated the false leads, we shall examine the actions you will have to take in order to receive positive press and start benefitting from friendly world opinion. As you consider these options, you will no doubt find that they violate your principles, and contradict your very strongly held morals. Well, frankly, you'll just have to deal. When getting on the good side world opinion and the progressive intelligentsia, real morals are a nuisance you simply cannot afford. If you're going to insist on something as silly as principles, and be bothered by something as trivial as rank hypocrisy, you'll just have to hang out with the other pariahs, such as the U.S. and Australia. So forget it: just make like the French, and shrug it off. Principles are so simplisme.

The French actually have much to teach you about the benefits of moral flexibility: it has taken them successfully through World War II and the Cold War -- to say nothing of the many crises in Africa and the Middle East since then -- with virtually no damage to their economy, infrastructure, or reputation. The Americans, Brits, and Russians may have fought World War II to the bitter end, while the French surrendered after a few weeks and started working for the Germans, but guess who still ended up on the Security Council? That is skill, my friends!

Anyway, enough babble -- on to the plan!

The first thing to realize is that negative opinion is created by negative reporting. You have naively assumed that if you allow jouralists to report everything, they really will report everything -- the good and the bad, the claims and the counterclaims, the bloodshed and the background. Such foolishness! How many reporters can you name that have won awards for reporting something positive, especially where a Western society is concerned? Reporters don't merely report facts; reporters look for "the story," and that story had better have some bloodshed, preferably involving defenseless and oppressed people. Well, there is certainly no shortage of that on the planet, but someone who is willing to kill thousands of rival tribesmen is unlikely to spare a BBC crew, so the number of opportunities to wear khaki and film misery is actually much more limited. Then, as if to answer the prayers of every Pulitzer chaser, you walk right in, with the ethnic conflict, the weak Arabs, the poweful Jews backed by the U.S. -- and all perfectly safe to film! What kind of news stories do you expect, anyway, when even the lowest al-Jazeera staffer can stand in the middle of Tel-Aviv and safely curse the Zionist entity, while every TV crew in the West Bank knows that simply showing Palestinians doing what they do best gets your press credentials revoked.
So let's cut the crap. Close the West Bank and Gaza to journalists, and remove any who resist. Cut phone lines and satellite links; use missiles as needed on the rest. Isolate the West Bank and Gaza entirely; nothing, not even an SOS gets in or out of there without your say-so. Throw a couple of reporters in jail, just on general principle. Make it really clear that anyone who embarrasses the State of Israel can receive the same treatment; then make good on the threat. (I suggest using as examples reporters from respected but unimportant countries -- New Zealand, say, or Belgium -- you get the idea.) Make journalist visas nearly-impossible to obtain, and hold them as prizes. Demand to review all footage before it's broadcast or taken out of the country. Hey, it works for Arafat and the Saudis; it'll work for you.
This will obviously cause you some difficulty with your own journalists, especially the more left-leaning ones. Give them the same treatment as the foreign journalists. Remember: you are trying to be a respected member of the global community. Niceties like freedom of the press are not something you can afford.
A large portion of your population will object to this, on account of some silly notions like freedom of speech and the need for open discussion in a democracy. I won't bother telling you how to get rid of them. All you really need is a couple examples. Just remember: you control the press, so it's not like anyone will know. (Eventually, no one will care. More on that later.)
There's also the whole problem of various activists and outright terror sympathizers. All I have to say is that you don't really see too many protestors in Pyongyang or Damascus. Sure, it's partly due to the fact that their political leanings match those of North Korea and Syria to some degree, but mostly it's because they doubt they'd come back from such an adventure. This seems easy enough to arrange. Let's just say that ever since Rachel Corrie became one with the earth, not too many ISMers are eager to stand in front of a bulldozer. You don't need to be too obvious: a few examples and some rumors that those who protest in Israel tend to disappear, and the activists will seek new protest venues elsewhere.
This only leaves one type of negative publicity: the pundits and commentators outside your borders. Without live pictures, though, the world will quickly tire of hearing their cries of "occupation!" -- that stuff is boring, and the world has a very short attention span. Still, if you're worried, surely it's not that hard to remove one or two of the more annoying ones. The rest will quickly get the message. It works for the Chinese in Hong Kong, or the Iranians with Rushdie, and it will work for you.

Simply following these guidelines should reduce to virtually nil the flow of negative publicity. That by itself is not enough, though: you need to get the world on your side. And as everyone from the USSR to the PLO to Saddam Hussein has demonstrated, you can't do that without getting really nasty.

First off, you need to put yourself in a position where other nations need something from you. This is the only way most of them will ever support you, under any circumstances. There's a reason why everyone pays so much deference to the Saudis, and it's not because the world loves fat men in Maybachs. Like it or not, the world is not in dire need of more Sabra oranges or high-tech toys, and advanced cancer research just makes them feel inadequate. So what you need is control of a strategic resource. My suggestion would be to push the Egyptians out of the Sinai, and take over the Suez Canal. There's not much they can do about it, especially if you quietly point out that, well, you might just have some tactical nukes that might just find their way into Cairo. It's amazing how accommodating people can be when properly motivated. You can even let them save face through nominal control of some worthless port; no matter.
The point is, once you have control of a waterway so crucial the the Euroid economy, expect to see a radical change of tune from the French and the rest of Europe, especially the Old side. Don't bite off more than you can chew, though: it's probably best not to tweak the Brits this way, and I strongly suggest you give Americans perpetual free passage. As to the rest, you can pretty much do as you wish -- and I suggest making it really clear that you intend to play favorites. It'll certainly alter the calculus a bit: the Arabs may have oil, sure, but it still has to get to Europe somehow. And that's really hard, especially what with all those sabotaged pipelines. What sabotaged pipelines? You figure it out.
Oh, please, don't blanche at me now. This is global opinion we're talking about. Just imagine how much the Europeans will love you once they realize their economies are now completely dependent on your whim. I predict a total love fest. Chirac will go nowhere without his yarmulke.
You should also throw a bone to those intellectuals and progressives who are not rotting in your jails, just to make them forget their comrades. This is not too hard to do. Some anti-U.S. rhetoric might be nice, but you can do well enough just by espousing some pet issues of theirs, and adopting their language. For example, instead of the boring moniker State of Israel, perhaps you can adopt the name The Jewish State of Social Justice. Progressives love the phrase "social justice," and they'll accept anyting that promises it, no matter how absurd.
(Sort of like "free universal medical care." Which I also suggest you implement, at least in the West Bank. It doesn't have to be medically competent, or especially caring -- the point is, it's "free" and "universal." A couple of Potemkin villages and some carefully orchestrated trips with properly instructed reporters will do wonders. It worked for the Russians and the Cubans; it will work for you. Progressives are much more willing to accept a boot in someone's face, if the wearer of the boot explains that the face receives free universal medical care. Like quantum mechanics, it's weird and counter-intuitive, but it works.) By the way, now that I think about it, you should probably remove the "Jewish" from the new name of the state -- it polls negatively with global opinion. Perhaps the Hebraic State of Social Justice, or maybe something like the Multicultural State of Social Justice. Don't worry about what that means; it's the name that counts.

As you can see, you've been going about this world opinion thing all wrong. Silly Jews, you've tried to do the right thing under difficult circumstances, and -- oh the hilarity! -- expected fair treatment from the same people who brought you the Crusades, the Pale of Settlement, the pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, the Holocaust, and exploding buses. Now you'll probably just ignore me, stick to your silly morals and principles, and wonder how a Communist dictatorship manages to castigate your behavior without even a slight trace of irony.

You naive fools.

2004-07-22T12:14:00.000-05:00

There seems to be a lot of noise about how there are "two Americas." To which I say:

Duh.

2004-07-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Let me see if I have this straight: The so-called International "Court" of "Justice," the self-declared "principal judicial organ of the United Nations", presided over by "judges" from such illustrious places as China, Egypt, Jordan, and Russia -- staunch defenders of human rights, all! -- has issued a decision that Israel's barrier against Palestinian terrorism is verbotten because it amounts to an illegal grab of land that Israel has already won properly in a war of aggression it did not start. (Never mind, of course, that there is no such country as Palestine, and no borders of theirs are recognized by the UN or by Israel.)

The General Assembly, with all the usual suspects, votes to support this, and demand that Israel "comply" with this farce. The only two countries whose opinion matters at all -- i.e. Israel and the United States -- vote against. The usual leftoid screech chorus reaches its loudest crescendo since just before the invasion of Iraq.

In a new twist, the EUroids and the rest of the nuanced, progressive world sell out the Jews to a band of genocidal psychopaths, hiding their venality behind high-minded bullshit. Well, ok, that part is not really new.

The Chinese state press goes into overtime preening about Israeli perfidy in the face of human rights and "international law." I guess 15 years is plenty of time to wash the blood off the tanks. Feichang hao, tongzhi!

Meantime, with that icky wall depriving the "defenseless Palestinians" of convenient Jewish targets, the savages have turned, rat-like, upon one another. Oh, and while they are at it, they began using their UN enablers for hostages. The UN workers, committed to nothing if not principle, bravely stay in the Palestinian territories, helping the helpless and counting on Arab hospitality and good sense to protect them. . . No, haha, I'm only kidding! The UN, at the first sign of trouble, ran for the protection of that illegal, immoral, totally-buzz-killin' wall so fast, they made the Filipino scramble from Iraq look heroic. This is the outfit whose approval the U.S. should have sought before removing Hussein from power. World opinion, legitimacy, multilateralism, very very important, donchaknow.

Meantime, of course, the Israeli wall is saving lives, Hussein is in U.S. custody, and as to the weight of "world opinion," 150 times zero is still zero.

2004-07-04T00:18:00.000-05:00

Has anyone ever noticed that Michael Moore has never opposed child molestation? It's true: read his books, watch his movies, read his web site -- not once does he utter a single word of opposition to this disgusting practice. Don't you wonder why this purported defender of the defenseless and speaker for the voiceless has never once interrupted one of his anti-Bush, anti-small-business tirades to call attention to the horrors of this crime? Do you suppose he has a secret to hide -- and if so, what is it? Is this why his daughter has never appeared in public?

And what do you suppose he was thinking when the planes hit the towers on 9/11? I wonder if he thought, "Man, if I play this up right, I can pay off the condo in Manhattan!" He may have added afterwards, "Unless, of course, real estate prices plummet. Damn it -- why does this have to happen to me!" Then he might have gone back to scarfing down donuts without bothering to open the box.

In case you haven't caught on, yes, I just came back from seeing Fahrenheit 9/11, and it actually managed to fall below what I thought were bedrock-level expectations. The style of "argument" I used above is omnipresent throughout the film -- in fact, it is the film. This has been billed as a "controversial" and "thought-provoking" film, so here are some of the thoughts it provoked from me:

First, this film is nothing but an agonizingly long infomercial for the MoveOn.org agenda (i.e., "Bush bad!"). To call this a "documentary" is to equate Ron Popeil to Jacques Cousteau.
As a propaganda tool, this movie is virtually useless. It will only appeal to people who were already convinced that Bushitlerliedhalliburtonbloodforoil. To everyone else, it will come off as exactly what it is -- a cheap, incoherent celluloid babble that hardly even merits the term "propaganda." It is slightly more suble than a KCNA press release, though much longer and far less punchy. The huge ticket sales are significant, of course, but no small number of people went to see the movie just to find out what the fuss was about. In the end, this will have as much meaning as the critical mass of Deaniacs did during the Democratic primaries.
The rabid right-wing fools who tried to ban this movie did their cause a disservice. They would have done much better to buy tickets for all their friends -- rent out the theater! -- and then introduce the movie as what passes for left-wing anti-war argument these days. (Hey, I didn't say it'd be fair. Just effective.)
It's been commented on by many others, but the scene with the mother who lost her son in the war simultaneously manages to be pointless, disgustingly manipulative, and completely disingenuous. I sympathize with the loss of this woman's son, but -- and this is just me -- I don't generally invite a muckraking bloat sack with a camera to film my grief for days on end. The whole thing felt as staged as, well... At best, this is grief porn at its lowest. At worst, it's an attempt to manipulate the viewer by Moore and a woman who clearly has an agenda. And even if the whole thing was 100% genuine -- imagine the reaction if the right abused a grieving 9/11 family this way to justify the invasion of Afghanistan or the detainment of illegal Arab immigrants. The gallons of cappucino that would come pouring from Stabucks cups crushed in outrage could probably fill Lake Superior.
I really can't believe the ratings this film has got -- and the Palme D'Or?! The narration is incoherent and preachy, the music choices obvious, the anecdotes non-sequiturs. Moore leads the viewer directly to his conclusions with neither subtlety nor wit -- and then, in case you missed it, he spells out the conclusion for you. It's hardly a surprise for me that the American and international movie critics trend left -- but really, even if the politics fits, shouldn't the quality of the film count for something? I mean, how partisan can this film "criticism" get? Have our would-be cultural elites sunk so low that they can no longer even judge the merits of a work if there is a political slant? Why don't we just outsource all our movie reviews to Pyongyang, and save ourselves the trouble?

It seems that I could lay a turd and say that it's anti-Bush, and it would be the next contender for the Oscar. I wonder what Michael Moore would think if I did that. I suppose he would think, "Dude, that guy stole my idea!"

2004-06-14T07:58:00.000-05:00

From now on, whenever someone smugly mentions that some huge number of Americans don't know when World War II happened, I'll be able to say that at least we're quite certain who the bad guys were.

2004-04-26T16:46:00.000-05:00

Shhh...

It's a secret.

2004-04-23T08:36:00.000-05:00

Q: How many Palestinians does it take to change a light bulb?

A: 2001. One to change it, 2000 to fire automatic weapons and chant Death to Israel! as they carry the old one away.

Based on a comment at Tim Blair's.

2004-04-22T00:39:00.000-05:00

The ~~leaders~~ rulers of Muslim countries are meeting for an emergency OIC summit in Malaysia. You know the drill: oppose the U.S. policy in the Middle East, condemn Israel, road map, condemnation, "international law," etc. I'm just looking forward to some fine commentary. Like this, from the BBC:

Thursday's meeting may be judged on how many of the OIC's members turn up. As the world's largest grouping of Islamic countries, if there is a poor showing, it will be far easier for Western nations to ignore it.

I don't know which Western nations the Beeb had in mind, but as far as I'm concerned, they could all show up and camp out in Malaysia for a few months, and beyond looking for entertaining quotes and hate-filled rhetoric, I wouldn't give a damn. Ignoring the OIC comes pretty naturally to me.

2004-04-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

This blog is supposed to be an outlet of my own thoughts and opinions (such as they are -- see the slogan). Every once in a while, however, someone lays out what I'm thinking and feeling in a way that I just can't approach. Today, that person is Dennis Prager:

I have contempt for "the world." I cherish and admire countless individuals, but I have contempt for "the world" and "world opinion." "The world" has never cared about evils inflicted on human beings. The Communist genocides meant nothing to humanity. The Holocaust meant nothing. With almost no exception, the mass atrocities since World War II have likewise absorbed humanity less than the Olympics or the Miss World Contest.

That's just a small sample. Go read the whole thing. And give thanks to LGF for the link.

2004-04-19T00:23:00.000-05:00

So the identity of the new Hamas leader is a secret.

Does that mean that Israel will have to kill all the possible Hamas leaders? Because that'd be such a shame...

2004-04-18T23:43:00.000-05:00

Gimme an 'M'!

A Hamas pep rally:

GAZA CITY -- The excitement was mounting on Palestine Street as the body approached its first destination.

About 20,000 men and boys pointed their index fingers in the air. "What is your movement?" asked a rabble-rouser over van-borne loud speakers. "Hamas!" replied the crowd.

"Who was your lion?" he screamed. "Rantisi!" the crowd answered. . .

"What is your hope?" "To die a martyr," the crowd shouted.

Easy, fellas. The Israelis will accommodate you, but they can't get everyone at once. Get in line.

2004-04-18T12:03:00.000-05:00

"Can you imagine? 425 attacks, 377 dead, over two thousand wounded, and they haven't even scratched us! Running Hamas is fun and easy!"

Reuters glamor shot by way of Allah, of course.

2004-04-17T17:14:00.000-05:00

You know what's weird? Supposedly "liberal" "progressives" advocating conscription.

2004-04-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

It's time for another do-it-yourself caption party.

A near riot occurred in Ramallah today, as people crowded to see gum shaped like Yasser Arafat stuck to a local resident's shoe.

Photo by way of the merciful, the magnificent, the most glorious of pundits.

2004-04-17T14:04:00.000-05:00

Shortly after the Israelis liquidated Sheikh Yassin, there was worry in some quarters that the "far more radical" Abdel Aziz Rantisi would take charge and make Hamas somehow more vile and murderous than it has been so far.

I am happy to say that this is no longer a problem.

Update: Reuters, apparently unable to let go, calls Rantisi critically wounded, but CBC reports that hospital officials have already toe-tagged him.

2004-04-15T23:12:00.000-05:00

Cuba respects human rights

And if you say otherwise, they'll knock you senseless.

2004-04-15T23:04:00.000-05:00

The latest Palestinian discovery

Unlike Israelis, donkeys don't fight back.

You have to admit, it's only slightly dumber than demonstrations with puppets.

2004-04-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

Coffee Talk with Yasser Arafat

So Bush backed Sharon over me after I lied to him -- who knew? Still... I'm a little verklempt.... tawk amongst yourselves... I'll give you a topic: the Palestinian National Authority is neither Palestinian, nor national, nor has any authority -- discuss...

2004-04-15T18:15:00.000-05:00

Turkey flies a few feet, lands with thud

I'm not very pleased with Air America driving itself off a cliff in LA and Chicago, but I guess it's fitting, given the sheer incompetence and lack of professionalism from the top down. Like their wannabe-"revolutionary" predecessors, they thought they could wing it all with good intentions and lots of righteous anger. Turns out this radio thing isn't as easy as they thought. Which is too bad, in a way, because every minute of babble on Air America was essentially free advertising for those ideologically opposed to them -- provided, of course, anyone other than their most rabid fans (whom they couldn't affect anyway) wanted to listen to their incoherent mumblings. But if you could get past that, it was strangely soothing: you turn it on, realize they are still making Limbaugh and Hannity sound like Churchill and JFK rolled into one, and be glad that the likes of George Soros are spending so much moolah just to have their own ideas discredited.

But anyway, back to the lack of professionalism and the simple ability to not walk into walls. Much has already been said on the immature tone and ultra-low-grade alleged humor of AAR's so-called Sludge Report, which parodies the original rumor by Drudge. I won't even comment on the moronic puns on "Liu" -- suffice it to say that had this been done by, say, Limbaugh, AAR would be beside itself with anger for such mockery of an Asian name. Or the "metaphor" of threatening the man's life -- hey, I'm sure someone found this funny, and maybe the orderlies let them listen to the radio just long enough to keep them still for their daily injection of anti-psychotics. Instead, I'll focus on topics much more mundane:

Insiders tell SLUDGE, that the reason the network was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, was because, the owner of both stations, Arthur Liu of Multicultural Broadcasting, said, the network bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million!
The run-on sentence, tortured grammar and the exclamation point clearly means it’s true!!

I agree that the prose isn't the greatest (not that Air America should criticize...). But would someone point out to me how the sentence was a run-on? It's certainly complex, and has a whole sentence buried inside it as a clause, but I don't see a run-on. In the end, the sentence has exactly one subject (Insiders) and one verb (tell). Neither is what they tell a run on: stripped of the sources and background, it's that the network was pulled off the air because it bounced a check. So even in this clearly embellished quote of Drudge, the grammar is pretty good, even if the prose isn't. As for my claim of "embellished," here's what the earliest version of the story from the Drudge archive actually says:

The CHICAGO TRIBUNE is developing a story, insiders tell DRUDGE, on how the network was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, because, the owner of both stations said, the network bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million! A charge the network strongly denies.

Perfectly lucid, provided your reading level is somewhere north of the 5th grade. Also, credit is given to the Chicago Tribune, which Air America conveniently skips.

I'd call the whole exercise sophomoric, but fear an inadvertent insult to the many 10th-graders who do much better work.

Update: Fear not, they are back, sort of.

2004-04-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

What a real ally looks like

The BBC reports that American forces in Iraq are using tactics and equipment developed by Israelis.

2004-04-14T00:10:00.000-05:00

Oh, great. After Condi and Ashcroft and Clinton and everyone but Richard M. Nixon (and only because he is dead), the farcical 9/11 commission interrupts its grandstanding long enough to engage in some finger pointing -- this time by scapegoating the FBI.

Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said the FBI is "an agency that does not work."

"It failed and it failed and it failed and it failed," he said.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno made the dramatic charge that the FBI, an independent federal agency, "had information they didn't know they had," and what they did know, they refused to share. "The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing," she said.

No doubt there's some truth to that, and the FBI's methods need to be reworked. But they were only a symptom of a larger problem: we, as a country, as Americans, refused to openly acknowledge or deal with terrorism and terrorists. Prior to the WTC bombing, terrorism was something that affected the Brits, the French, the Israelis -- and possibly an unfortunate American tourist. Even after the WTC bombing, and the embassy attacks, and the Cole, we looked at terrorism as a nuisance, nothing more -- something to deliver a speech about, threaten "American justice" (trials, cushy prisons, and randomly fired cruise missiles -- oooooh!), and then get back to arguments over who stained whose dress, that Elian kid, and whether a Florida voter should be trusted with that sharp ballot-poking instrument.

9/11 was supposed to have changed all that. The nation was on a war footing, and no longer would we be a bunch of passive airline hostages, waiting for the big boys to negotiate for our release or maybe come to our rescue. We were taking responsibility, acknowledging the dangers ahead, and admitting that prior to 9/11 our priorities were a bit... misplaced. We were more worried about offending the sensibilities of foreign students than protecting our own citizens, and we paid for it -- dear God, did we ever pay for it.

Well, if the 9/11 Commission is any indication, all this has been forgotten. And we're back to partisan sniping and the old, stupid Clinton Sucks/Bush Sucks "dialogue." Worse than that, we're looking for someone to carry the "fault" for 9/11, seemingly forgetting that the problems that led to 9/11 were not just procedural but societal, and that we simply can't expect terrorism to be the responsibility of the FBI and CIA, and as for the rest of us, it's not our problem. Wasn't that how we got 9/11 in the first place?

Update: More from the Gweilo.

2004-04-08T14:42:00.000-05:00

More sloppy reporting

The Christian Science Monitor on reactions of 9/11 families to today's Rice testimony:

After the hearing, several felt the administration was clearly lax in its response to the terrorist threat. "If [Bush and Rice] had paid attention to [the August 6th presidential briefing], my son would be alive," says Bob McIlvaine, whose son, Bobby, died in the World Trade Center attack. "I think it's a disgrace."

Once again, no mention of McIlvaine's membership in Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization of families of 9/11 victims who were against this Administration, the invasion of Iraq, and the invasion of Afghanistan. Nope: just an average 9/11 family member, expressing his views based strictly on this hearing. And needless to say, none of the members quoted were conciliatory or favorable towards the Bush Administration. Nice, balanced reporting.

2004-04-01T23:38:00.000-06:00

Left-wing radio: a turkey takes to the Air

I caught my first few glimpses of Air America Radio today, and as far as I can tell, the impetus behind it must have been:

They say liberal talk radio will never work. Let's prove it!

First bit was caught at lunch -- approximately 20 minutes, roughly 1:15-1:35 Eastern. The whole thing consisted of Al Franken talking about how he is "learning" this whole radio thing, and some woman (whose name escapes me) is teaching him. A lot of new concepts in radio broadcasts, see -- like if he is making a joke, and a national emergency breaks out, he'll have to -- sit down for this -- stop telling the joke. This killed about 5 minutes of broadcast time, after which there was a whole bit of Franken doing impressions of Limbaugh and Strom Thurmond. (Why Thurmond? I haven't a clue. Franken gets a microphone and a national audience, and his topic of choice is a dead senator? Sense of timing, anyone? Relevance? Hello?) Franken's impression of Limbaugh was good, actually. Bringing up Limbaugh, he wished that Rush would stay consistent with his demands that drug addicts be locked up, check himself into a jail, and end up with a black cellmate who heard his commentary on Donovan McNabb. This little teen fantasy over, Franken did some of the Stuart Smalley impressions. That was it for the 20 minutes I caught.

Garofalo, Corn, and high-class humor

Fine, I thought, maybe I just caught a bad segment, so on my way home, shortly after 9 PM Eastern, I tuned in for "The Majority Report," co-hosted by Jeneane Garofalo and some guy whose name also escapes me. Let's see: first five minutes, a remote-control fart machine. (Really. Don't ask.) The next 15-20 minutes were dedicated to outrage at the George Bush "weapons of mass destruction" joke. You might wonder: how can such a small thing be talked about for so long? Well, it can't. So they just kept repeating it over and over, how "outrageous" it was, and how wouldn't it be just awful if you lost a loved one in the war, only to hear George Bush mock his "mistake" over WMD? Garofalo channelled Ralph Nader and Indymijiots for a while -- the liberation of Iraq was nothing but a corporate invasion, civilian security guards killed in Fallujah were nothing more than "mercenaries," Iraq was "anarchy," etc. Robert Fisk was referenced. Between the static-heavy broadcast and the quality of commentary -- or rather, the total absense of it -- it felt like listening to anarchist pirate radio, only not as substantive.

To top off the whole thing, they got a call from The Nation's David Corn, still outraged that when Bush made his now-infamous WMD joke, the people around him dared to laugh. (I don't know whether it's his humorlessness or just his voice, but I get the feeling Corn is not much fun at parties, except, perhaps, as receiver of wedgies.) They chewed on this topic yet again for a while, after which they got into a discussion as to whether we were "safer" in the wake of the invasion, even as Iraq had become a "shooting gallery." (Apparently, it was much better as a shredding-and-torture gallery.) Corn made the astute observation that al-Qaeda had a history of taking years between hitting their targets, apparently ignoring the constant empty threats of fire-and-brimstone that we'd heard from them since the first bombs fell on Afghanistan. In the midst of it all, Garofalo made constant references to her remote fart machine (again, don't ask), and then self-consciously commented on the sophomoric quality of her humor -- over, and over, and over. At one point she innovated by claiming that her humor was no more sophomoric than Bush's WMD joke, but that seemed to be the upper limit of her comedic genius for the night. I got to my destination about an hour into the show, and I wasn't going to subject myself to any more, so I couldn't say how well her chat with Barney Frank went.

This is it?

Defenders of Air America will point out that this was only their second day on the air, but that's hardly a defense. For one thing, it's not like they ever let you forget that they are just starting out -- every 3-4 minutes, there's some reference to this being their first week. Frankly, I found it shocking just how poorly these professional entertainers managed to perform -- if I didn't know better, I'd swear I was listening to high school students on their first day in front of a microphone. These are professional broadcast artists? These are people with stage presence? This is the A list of liberal talk radio? How profoundly sad. They seem so interesting when others write their lines.

Say what you want about Limbaugh or Hannity, but they are professionals. Their time is not wasted on idle babble; agree with them or not (and I often don't), but at least you know their position, and they articulate it well. This isn't to say that their quality is uniformly great, but at least you get the feeling that they take pride in their work, and understand the job. They want to tell their side of the story, they have it straight in their heads, and they deliver it with clarity, even if cut by demagoguery. Again, you don't have to agree with them, but you can tell that they think about their topic of choice. By contrast, the on-air "talent" at Air America simply speaks, or rather babbles, into the microphone, with no topic, storyline, or original thought in sight. They are little -- very little -- more than Left-wing reactionaries, angered by the thought that somewhere, on a different AM wavelength, a Right-winger is speaking his mind uncensored by a progressive editor. Even the name of their flagship lunch-time program -- The O'Franken Factor -- is a reactionary, pointless, and utterly unclever mocking of The O'Reilly Factor, a program I don't hold in high regard.

It's clear that all the intelligent, original liberals worth listening to are already gainfully employed at NPR, CNN, The New York Times, and a whole lot of other places. Air America is little more than an outlet for the Left-wing Looney Bin to have their views aired publicly. Far from a threat to the Right, I think it will do on the air what IndyMedia has done on the Internet: expose the lunatic fringe of the Left, and do damage to the credibility of the entire movement.

Frankenradio is right: this whole concept was an ill-conceived, top-down, artificially constructed walking media corpse. I give this monstrosity 6-7 months, maybe until December, before the plug is pulled and its stations go back to broadcasting foreign-language programming -- or until the whole network is revamped with real talent. Until then, let the fart machines work at full steam.

Quick follow-up: This was just a personal peeve, but will someone explain to Jeneane and her pal that the word blog is derived from weblog, and therefore rhymes with log, dog, and fog? It annoyed me to no end when these supposedly oh-so-hip cutting-edge commenters pronounced it blahg -- as in, "We're getting so many new stories via our blahg." Then again, maybe the root word fits.

2004-04-01T19:40:00.000-06:00

Bill Whittle:

Intellectualism, as it is practiced today, is a trap.

It is not a palatial hall of great minds looking for answers and then testing them in the real world; it is a basement in your parents house filled with lazy and filthy hippies eating your leftovers and drinking the last of your milk. Intellectualism is certainly not the same as intelligence, and more and more, it is becoming antithetical to intelligence. When well-off people who call themselves intellectuals drive their SUV's to march in support of Marxism, you can see the chasm between intellectualism and intelligence in full flower. When elitists who fancy themselves brighter and more compassionate than the rest of us choose to support the Taliban, with its stoning of women and execution of homosexuals in football stadiums before mandatory audiences, over a representative democracy with unparalleled structural protections of minorities and freedoms of expression, then self-styled intellectuals have abandoned intelligence altogether, as well as morality, reason, compassion and indeed sanity.

Likewise, when coffee-house intellectuals dictate their worldview according to non-existent pipelines or supposed theft of oil revenues where no evidence of such theft can be produced but deposits into Iraqi national accounts can, then one has to ask one’s self if this intellectual badge is worth the mud it’s printed on.

Pour yourself some tea, wine, or beer, and go read the whole thing.

2004-03-29T08:11:00.000-06:00

Pejman comes out in favor of dueling.

2004-03-28T19:13:00.000-06:00

The good news: Chirac got his ass handed to him.

The bad news: It was for all the wrong reasons.

Faced with an economy wrecked by mismanagement, the Chirac government tried to implement financial reforms. The public's response was to toss him out of office.

Between this, the recent debacle in Spain, and what may very well be a similar story for the Schroeder government in Germany, it appears that European electorates will not tolerate any leader that tells them anything other than what they want to hear. The EU's political and economic decline is accelerating to a plummet.

How unfortunate. But not surprising.

2004-03-24T23:08:00.000-06:00

Over at A Small Victory, Michele has had it with Muslims:

I'm always careful to put a disclaimer in front of the words Muslim. Radical. Militant. Something that sets those crazed, suicidal, murderers apart from the peace-loving, people-next-door who practice the same religion.

The problem I'm having with that now is I see less and less of the latter. I have yet to see any of the moderate Islamists (is there such a thing?) stand up and condemn their brothers for their acts of violence; violence done in the name of Allah, their god. . .

So where are the followers of Islam who do not condone the branch of their religion that is being practiced by those who see suicide belts as a fashion statement? Do they even exist?

If any event can shed the light on how some have underestimated the strength and numbers of the followers of radical Islam, it is the death of Sheik Yassin. Suddenly, the whole world is mourning and chanting and throwing stones.

They protested his death in Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq. They burned flags in Beirut. . .

These people who live just miles from me praise this man. They cry over his death. In fact, they wail. They curse Israel, curse America and wish death upon everyone but themselves. Where are their leaders, the ones who claim to be moderates and wonder why people walk on the other side of the street from them? Speak up. Tell us that you denounce Yassin and Arafat. I'm not asking that they turn around and praise Israel or defend her actions, I'm just asking that they show me who they are, that there are Muslims who do not fall to their knees in despair when a despicable mass murderer dies.

She has a point -- one that has been pushed by LGF for over two years now. It's not just that there are lunatics and radicals and terrorist sympathizers in disproportionate numbers among Muslims, including American Muslims. That would be bad enough, but the far greater problem is that the countering voices seem so weak that they barely register. We keep hearing how the terrorists are a tiny, radical minority -- so where in hell is the huge, non-radical majority that is supposed to repudiate them? Why is the death of an unabashed terror sponsor like Yassin publicly presented as a global tragedy? Is this really the leadership that global Islam follows? Why aren't there Muslims marching in opposition to the bombing in Spain, or the horrific terror attacks in Turkey, or (heaven forbid!) the inhuman mass murder of Israeli bus-riders?

Why is it that every statement out of CAIR fits the template of Of course, we condemn terrorism, but...? Why the constant apologia? Why can't they ever flip the clauses around the conjunction, anyway? No one is asking them to plaster their cars with Elect Sharon stickers, but wouldn't it be nice if once -- just once -- they said something like

Of course, we want the Palestinians to have a state, but the bombing of Israeli civilians is not an acceptable way to do it.

Of course, Muslims have many reasons to be angry at Western powers, but setting off bombs in their cities is inhuman and against everything we stand for.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it? Same ideas, different emphasis. And it'd be nice to see this delivered as publicly and loudly as the Muslim lobby manages to yell whenever some Islamic "charity" gets investigated for sending CARE packages to al-Qaeda, or when someone points out that a value system that permits child "martyrs" is not compatible with the norms of civilized behavior. While we're at it, let's hear some condemnation not just of abstract terrorism, or the backhanded criticism of Israel with "terrorism in all its forms," as if killing a Hamas operative is equivalent to bombing a pizza parlor. What is it that sticks in CAIR's craw that keeps them from pointedly, unequivocally condemning Islamic terrorists, by name? How hard is it to say "Palestinians who send children to blow up other children are nothing but bloodthirsty psychopaths, and we condemn them unconditionally"? Why this pathological need to equivocate at every turn?

For Pete's sake, if the Muslim community wanted a better image in the West, all they had to do was create it. Instead, with a few notable exceptions, the community seems bent on being antagonistic, chauvinist, intolerant of their host cultures, and openly seditious. Given this, and the apparent lack of any dissent, why shouldn't we take them at their word? Why should I not treat this community with suspicion, when every message it sends out seems to be condemnation with a veiled (or even overt) threat? Having seen no protest, no outrage, no revulsion at terrorism beyond perfunctory condemnations, why should I think anything other than that the Muslim community by and large supports it?

It doesn't have to be this way. But frankly, I fail to see why I should always be the one giving the full benefit of the doubt. If there is another voice, another movement, another set of ideas in Islam -- we're listening. We're all straining to hear it. But we'd better hear it soon.

2004-03-24T17:54:00.000-06:00

This explains a lot!

I believe we have found one of the major root causes of idiotarianism:

UNITED NATIONS - The brainpower of entire nations has diminished because of a shortage of the right vitamins, and slipping nutrients into people's food seems to be the only solution, a new U.N. survey says. . .

In most Western countries, governments have fought the problem with additives: iodine is sprayed onto salt before packaging, vitamin A is added to milk and margarine, and flour is enriched with niacin, iron and folic acid.

But that doesn't work in countries where governments are weak, food is not processed in big mills and diets are based on a single starchy staple like rice or corn.

(Emphasis mine)

Suddenly, the commonality between organic-everything anti-industrial antiglobazoids and Third-World Islamist nutcases is revealed: the former eschews foods that prevent stupidity, and the latter doesn't have access to same.

Update April 16, 2004: Yahoo link no longer valid; changed to point to the same AP story at the Miami Herald.

2004-03-22T22:56:00.000-06:00

Yawn

The Arabs are mad at the Israelis for making the world Sheikh Yassin-free. Really mad.

Of course, Arabs are angry quite a bit these days.

Perhaps the Arabs need to learn to concentrate on the positive and celebrate love. ...Well, maybe not.

2004-03-22T07:26:00.000-06:00

Fun quotes on the Yassin liquidation from the Seattle P-I:

"This is one of the biggest crimes that the Israeli government has committed." - Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

Pot, kettle. Also, I love the lack of quotes around "Prime Minister."

"Words cannot describe the emotion of anger and hate inside our hearts." - Ismail Haniyeh, a close associate of Yassin.

As opposed to the love and sweetness normally associated with Hamas.

"Yassin is a man in a nation, and a nation in a man. And the retaliation of this nation will be of the size of this man. ... You will see deeds not words." - Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

Whoa... a man in a nation, and a nation in a man. That's some deep stuff, Rantisi. Hey, do I hear a helicopter overhead...?

"The United States urges all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint." - U.S. State Department spokesman Lou Fintor.

Ah, incisive stuff as usual from our State Department. I'm sure the Arabs are really impressed with our even-handedness.

"The Zionists didn't carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist American administration, and it must take responsibility for this crime." - Hamas statement to The Associated Press.

D'oh!

And now, for my favorite:

"He (Yasser Arafat) is like a man who was hit on the head because they killed Yassin and now they could kill him. He feels his turn is next and he is sad and worried." - an aide to Arafat, describing the Palestinian leader's reaction.

Ooh, the baby wipe supply will be running low tonight! Here's hoping!

2004-03-21T23:01:00.000-06:00

About time and good riddance.

Update: Not that I had any doubt, but now it's official: "international opinion," including that of the EU, individual European nations, and even the UK, is worth less than used nasal wipes. The Israelis should have stopped paying attention to it years ago.

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Let me guess. . .

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Shhh...

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This explains a lot!

Yawn