Slings & Arrows: April 2003 Archives

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April 30, 2003

Am I Campaigning for Hart?

Sometime it feels that way. But I keep running into things like this that make sense:

Take the economy. Despite multiple interest rate cuts and the president's 2001 tax cut, the deficits are mounting and the recession is deepening. Hart wants to persuade the country to take the long view and change the way it thinks about the economy. Simplify the tax code, he says, and tax consumption, not income. Reward savings, and you'll build up capital, not debt.

Did I get that right, a Democrat that wants to simplify the tax code? Are we talking a flat sales tax instead of an income tax? If it is in addition to income tax, it is a loser, but if a replacement, I am all for it.

I like some of what Gary's bringing to the table, I also abhor some of it as well. But the good ideas should spur the Bush camp, as well as the other Dems, to think on their feet. The open competition of our political system makes this a better country.

Update: He's taking on volunteers now. Why do that if he's not running?

Posted by bubba138 at 02:25 PM | Comments (0) |

National Day of Prayer

This day, set aside for praying for our nation, has become quite a controversy:

A decision to ban Jews, Muslims and others who don't pray in the name of Jesus from fully participating in a National Day of Prayer service in downtown Muncie today has turned a communal expression of civic pride into a symbol of religious division.

That's interesting and probably misleading wording in the opening paragraph. Contrary to popular belief, Jews, Muslims and others are not being banned from the event. Instead, the organizers have...

decided people of other faiths could not have the podium.

So, everyone is welcome to the event, but not everyone can speak. Still doesn't sound right? After all, we do have freedom of religion, don't we? What is not stated until the end of the article -- almost as a passing thought -- is that the event is not sponsored by any government agency. It is a privately organized event put on by a private organization.

How would the local Imam feel if I walked into a mosque on any given Friday and started preaching Christ? I would be thrown out in seconds flat. That is no different than what is happening in Muncie today. But we get so screwed up about stuff like this that we fail to get our facts straight before opening our mouths and condemning:

"This is a Christian event that we have done for years," said the Rev. William Keller, an 85-year-old evangelist and Church of the Nazarene minister. "This year, the interfaith people wanted to make something out of it, but they can't. This is Christian."

Wait a minute, you mean they've been doing this all along, and it has just now become a problem? So what is really happening is people are wanting to restrict Rev. Keller and crew from free expression of their faith, not the other way around.

Posted by bubba138 at 01:43 PM | Comments (0) |

Muslim groups dominate U.S. terror list

James Taranto's Best of the Web satirizes the above UPI Headline with the phrase, "You Don't Say."

The problem is, this isn't a "you don't say" issue, as much as it should be. It probably won't be long before CAIR and others are calling for the heads of the top execs at UPI for printing an article so full of hate speech. After all, author Anwar Iqbal had the chuztpah, the unmitigated gall to print documented facts about the motivation behind most of the world's terrorist groups.

Days after 9/11, I read a report (I wish I could find it now) that stated that Muslims were involved in 28 of the 32 armed conflict going on in the world at that time.

Islam and violence have been inextricably linked throughout history, from it's beginnings up to the present. But speak about this from an historical perspective and you will be called a hate monger.

Posted by bubba138 at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) |

Does "W" Still Stand for Women? (Part Deu)

Reader Ted sends this:

...as if it ever did, outside the borders of Say-Anything-For-Votesville. Choice passage:

The American delegation joined with Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya and others in efforts to delete a phrase - included in previously agreed-upon UN statements dating back a decade - that calls on countries to condemn violence against women and "refrain from invoking any custom, tradition or religious consideration" to avoid the obligation to stop the violence
This, of course, came right off Atrios' site.

...and Atrios got it from Matt, who saw it at Diotima, who responds as I would:

These are real women's actual lives, we're talking about. We take this kind of violence seriously in the US (which is not to say that it doesn't happen still), but the countries we have allied ourselves with in opposing this provision are trying to justify the fact that they allow this violence to occur. The fact that we have joined them and in some way legitimized their abuse of women's rights is shameful.

One point, here. The article in question is surprisingly sparse on the language it has quoted from the resolution. Perhaps there is something in the context that is not being reported? I'll try to find the full document. Stay tuned...

Posted by bubba138 at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) |

April 29, 2003

Does "W" Still Stand For Women?

Bush said in 2000 that his "W" stands for women. At least one woman thinks the traditional fem vote going to the Democrats may be changing:

A Gallup Poll taken one week before the Gulf War in 1991 found that only 45 percent of women supported the attack, compared with 67 percent of men. Fast-forward to recent Iraq-war polls, which show the support of women at generally 50 percent; a recent Pew survey has the support at 61 percent.

Women are more hawkish than they once were. This goes hand-in-hand, I think, with their changing stance on gun ownership.

Posted by bubba138 at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) |

Grasping For Legitimacy

Not many weeks ago Kofi Anan was going on about how the only way the new government in Iraq would have legitimacy is if it was installed by the United Nations. Today, Reuters reports this:

Cuba was reelected without opposition on Tuesday to the United Nations' top human rights body, prompting a fierce response by Washington that it was "like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security."

Of course, now that Cuba's on the council, they went right to work:

Cuba's U.N. ambassador, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, accused the United States of executing minors and the mentally retarded people and abusing the rights of Afghan fighters long confined without charges in a U.S. base on Cuban territory.

If Kofi wants the U.N. to be legitimate, he should start by kicking thuggaries like Cuba and Iran off the Human Rights council. Each day the U.N. shows itself to be nothing more than a bureaucratic, money-wasting, self-preserving slug of an organization whose sole purpose is fattening the wallets and heads of its delegates.

Posted by bubba138 at 10:26 PM | Comments (0) |

With Faith...

you can ride mountains.

I love people that are nutz like this.

Posted by bubba138 at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) |

The Hart of the Matter

Gary Hart is running for president. Or maybe not. One thing is for sure, he's been thinking deeply about how the face of U.S. politics -- and the world -- has changed:

Any thought that Democratic candidates or spokespersons can now successfully redirect public attention to the precarious domestic economy misses important new 21st century realities--globalization is erasing the distinction between U.S. economics and the world economy; the world economy cannot be separated from U.S. foreign policy; and our foreign policy also involves our military and security forces.

Not too long ago Democrats thought they could win on economics ("It's the economy, stupid"). But, while we are generally given slightly more favorable marks on economic fairness, we are way behind with voters on confidence in our strength to manage America's role in the world and our knowledge of how, when, and where to use military force. In the age of globalization and the information revolution, we can't just "change the subject" and hope to win.

Democrats will only win the White House when we convince a majority of voters--including Independents and moderate Republicans--that we have sufficient depth of understanding and experience in world affairs and increasingly complex security issues to promote legitimate American interests as well as to create economic growth and justice. We're now part of a revolutionary new world and can no longer pretend that our own economic challenges are separate from it.

No here's the kicker -- none of the current runners have voiced this opinion. Not even close. This kind of thinking could make Mr. Hart a stand-out candidate. For now, however, Gary's not giving a hint one way or the other:

"I'm listening to my own drummer," said Hart, voicing what could be a motto for an unconventional career that includes two eventful but losing presidential bids in the 1980s. "I have a sense of timing and a certain rhythm to politics ... I'll know when the time is right."

With Bush putting everything off until September, Gary could do worse than to let the nine clones spend millions in the pre-pre-pre primary race, only to emerge fresh and well heeled when the time is right.

However, if I was Gary, I'd lay off stuff like this:

"My commission predicted those attacks and the administration did nothing about it," Hart said in an interview during a busy day on the unofficial campaign trail that included at least 10 meetings with groups and individuals in Washington.

"I told you so" rhetoric sounds contrived and bitter. It looks back when Americans want to look forward. Yes, we want to learn from the past, but let's not focus on it, we've got things to do and places to go.

Hart vs. Bush? I like that race.

Update: Grant M. Henninger has more.

Posted by bubba138 at 04:18 PM | Comments (0) |

She's Not Gone

Just being a Southern Californian.

Posted by bubba138 at 03:23 PM | Comments (0) |

Bloviation Award Nominee

This one's only nominated because it came in an e-mail and isn't used in an article or blog post: Peripatetic. If it had been used in an article, it would have won walking away.

Posted by bubba138 at 03:13 PM | Comments (0) |

al-Sahaf Is Alive and Well

But he's unwanted:

Sahhaf had been at his aunt's house in Baghdad for the past four days and wanted US troops to arrest him so that "they can protect him" but they refused since he was not on their "most wanted" deck of playing cards...

Now, who has ever heard of a deck of cards without a joker? I guess this is just another case of those Americans being insensitive.

Update: al-Arabiya, and Arab satellite channel, is offering al-Sahaf a job; as a political analyst, no less.

Posted by bubba138 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) |

The Moderate Mantra

The big trophy in 2004, as it is in any election, will be the middle-of-the-road voters. Every election cycle we hear about how important the undecided votes are. The Democratic base is going to vote Dem, whether the nominee is Dean or Kerry or (gasp) Kucinich. The Repubs are going to vote for Bush, period. But those in the middle, they will swing the vote one way or the other.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a slight margin, so if everyone votes right down party lines, Bush is looking for a new home. So the Bush strategy must be two-pronged. Prong one, get the Republican vote out. The Democrats have ruled prong in the last couple elections. The second prong is to turn the more moderate Democrats to vote for Bush, a task Anne E. Kornblut of the Boston Globe says he's not doing very well this time around:

Bush began his term in office determined to peel off such Democratic loyalists with a series of overtures...But in the lead-up to the 2004 campaign, the aggressive ''poaching'' strategy has been faltering, according to strategists in both parties.

To be fair, Bush hasn't really been concentrating on appealing to moderates (or conservatives, for that matter). What with a war on and the economy still lagging, he's kind-of been busy concentrating on doing his job. With everything that's going on, I am sure campaigning for votes is fairly low on George's list of things to do. Further, since the Repub convention isn't scheduled until September, it doesn't look like that task will be moving up in his list for a while.

But Anne does have a point. Bush has done plenty that the moderate-left might not like. He rejected the Kyoto Treaty, a fact that has been trumpeted loudly by the left. Of course, they never shout equally as loud that no other country has signed it either.

He has made some anti-environment moves. But this article cites a Gallup Poll that shows the environment is the 13th most important concern of voters. The number 14 concern? Abortion. Even so, this is another issue where Bush opponents only crow about one side. You never hear from them when his administration cracks down on diesel pollution, or proposes research funds for hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. Bottom line, few will change their vote from Bush to the not-yet-named Dem based upon environmental concerns.

So where will he get the votes? Ms.Kornblut hints at two demographics: Jews and Hispanics. The Jewish community has begun to see that the Repubs are truly pro-Israel, and this is causing many of them to reevaluate their entire political viewpoint. But they are not as important as the Hispanics.

The American-Hispanic population is growing at a huge rate. I have read statistics that say they'll be the largest minority in the U.S. in a very short time. Also, they'll very soon be a majority in states like California and Texas. Bush has always done well with the Hispanic vote:

But Republicans would argue -- and many Democrats would agree -- that Bush has most successfully courted Hispanic voters, an important and rapidly growing demographic group in key electoral states. Bush speaks Spanish at many public events and has paid frequent homage to his Latino constituents, ''making a personal, emotional connection'' with them, according to Democratic Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen.

Bush also has more Hispanics in his cabinet than any president that I can remember. Ms. Kornblut points out Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel, and Mel Martinez, director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development as two examples. Some have called these token moves designed to pander to Hispanics, but hey, the proof is in the pudding. The Democrats preach that we should give minorities equal opportunities. Bush and company are not preaching, they're doing.

Hispanics also represent a great two-fer-one opportunity for Bush. Hispanics traditionally hold conservative views on social issues. They are anti-abortion and pro-religion. They are close-knit family oriented people. These issues are Republican strongholds. But Hispanics are also liberal on policy issues. They are pro-union. This makes them ripe as middle-of-the-road (second prong) voters. But, they just don't go to the polls (First prong). Bush could get a huge bump if he focuses part of his campaign on getting out the traditionally lethargic Hispanic vote.

Here's the clincher. I have said before that if he wins California, Bush wins the White House. California has a huge Hispanic population, and a good portion of that population lives in Los Angeles (the unofficial capitol of Southern California). Five or six high-powered trips to California in 2004, each one spending time in Los Angeles, is all it will take to give him 54 electoral votes.

Posted by bubba138 at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) |

April 28, 2003

Soon We'll Be Living In A Flying Cube

Glenn Reynolds comments on the PBS piece about blogging:

The focus was on the blogosphere, not on particular blogs, and that was good -- because the blogosphere is smarter than any individual blog or blogger.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Posted by bubba138 at 07:41 PM | Comments (0) |

What Do China and Canada Have In Common?

1. Both start with the letter "C"
2. Both have socialized health care
3. Both have a flippant disregard for reality.

People are dying in Canada, and yet Canadian officials are upset at WHO for issuing a travel advisory.

Now, a suitcase full of anthrax bound for Canada is discovered and the Canadian authorities do not see it as a problem:

"There is absolutely no criminal or terrorist threat to Canada," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Insp. Dan Tanner said from Halifax.

Doesn't this guy realize that the only reason the anthrax didn't make it to Canada is because the courier died after he opened the suitcase and got a wiff of the stuff?

"I can't get into the specifics of the case. We believe that all the government officials and agencies that are involved are dealing with the issue appropriately," Easter told reporters outside Parliament. "There need not be fear."

Sounds alot like what the Chinese were saying about SARS a month ago.

PS: Here's a thought. Maybe there's no threat to Canada because they had ordered the shipment? Aren't there a lot of French up in the Great White North? D'oh! Now I am getting way too paranoid...
(Hat tip: Steven den Beste)

Update: Here's more.

Posted by bubba138 at 04:37 PM | Comments (0) |

Little Green Hawash

Mike Hawash was arrested in Portland Oregon over a month ago. He was held without bail, without access to a lawyer or his family, and without releasing any information as to why he had been arrested.

He has finally been charged. Here's what Charles over at Little Green Footballs has to say:

Do a Google search for Mike Hawash and you�ll get more than a thousand results, almost all from left-leaning sites with titles like �Free Mike Hawash,� followed by varying numbers of exclamation points.

Hey Chuck, why the veiled attack as if this was a lefty-only cause? The facts of this case are clear: Mike is a citizen who has been arrested and held illegally. His rights have been violated.

But he's a terrorist, you may counter. Maybe so. That's even more reason to do it right. What happens if Mike is a terrorist. Isn't there a possibility he could be released on appeal because the arrest was handled wrong? By violating his civil rights, we have all been put at risk.

Further, you may still hold, based on the suspected terrorist connections, that it is OK to pick this guy up without charging him. Will you still feel the same in 2008 when Hillary Clinton is elected president? (full disclosure: The Hillary thang is not a prognostication, and definitely not a hope!) What happens when "Janet Reno II -- The Empress Strikes Back" comes after you for your "subversive" anti-government blog?

Posted by bubba138 at 03:44 PM | Comments (0) |

Clavin Alert

Useless trivia: Homer Simpson's trademark expression comes from none other than Laurel and Hardy, the 1930's comedy team (Hat tip: Crooow Blog):

So I went back and watched those shorts, and there was a a character - well, an actor - named Jim Finlayson who used to always go, 'D'oooohh!' Like that. And so I went, 'D'ooh!' And Matt said, 'Well, this is animation, you've got to go faster.' And so, sped up, it's "D'oh!"

Posted by bubba138 at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) |

Gay Rights an Election Issue?

Some weeks ago Kevin Drum at CalPundit postulated that a good issue for the democrats in 2004 might be gay rights:

We all have our favorite domestic policy proposals, but here are a few that I happen to like for one reason or another:

Gay rights, including support for federal employment protection, civil unions, and gays in the military. I like this for a few reasons: (1) Fighting unwarranted discrimination is a core part of the liberal agenda. This is our fight. (2) It's a cause that's moving in the right direction. Public opinion has been shifting toward increased tolerance of gays slowly but surely for 30 years, and we might be at the right moment in history to really win a serious mandate for legislative change on this issue. (3) The main opponents are going to be the Christian right, which holds out the hope of causing a real rift in the Republican party. It's also likely to bring out the worst kind of homophobic rhetoric among the opposition, which in turn makes the Republican party look scary and intolerant to the average voter.

I poo-pooed the idea, thinking that not enough people really care about gay rights enough to motivate them to vote one way or the other:

First, let's consider Gay rights. Face it, nobody but gays and lesbians care enough about this to make it a voting issue. Most Americans still believe in male-female marriages, a fact which is born out every time there is a "defense-of-marriage" proposition on a statewide ballot (Even, believe it or not by 67% in California). Domestic partnerships and other gay rights have come almost exclusively as a result of action in state legislatures and in the courts. This implies that the impetus for change isn't coming from the general populace but from the well focused and well funded efforts of gay rights interest groups. I am not saying that a majority of Americans are for or against gay rights. It is just that gay rights is not enough of a hot-button issue to make a difference.

Well, the firestorm surrounding Santorum has given this issue some legs. And according to this Boston Globe article gay civil unions is the one issue upon which all Democrats are agreed. Kevin, you just might get your wish. (I expect Sully will be jumping on this wagon very soon.)

Update: Meanwhile the Washington Post is reporting that the Republican Party is planning target the more liberal Democrats as poster children for an out-of-touch political party in 2004. One of the key issues? You guessed it, same sex marriages:

Citing Mrs. Pelosi's support for national gun-control laws, needle-exchange programs, abortion and same-sex "marriage," the National Republican Congressional Committee issued news releases after several Blue Dog Democrats accepted contributions from Mrs. Pelosi's political action committee, PAC to the Future.

This might be a mistake. I think gay rights can be a non-issue in 2004, but only if Republicans choose not to concentrate on them. If the Repubs try to mount an attack against candidates that have pro-gay rights stances, they will be labeled bigots, just as Kevin reasoned. Instead of the voting to affirm of gay rights, people will vote to refute bigoted thinking.

Update: The New Republic weighs in:

The real problem posed by the comments is for the Republican Party. After all, if you think of the national electorate as consisting of more or less equal parts social liberals, social conservatives, and people who have some socially conservative impulses but are basically tolerant and turned off by bigotry, then Santorum's comments have just cost the party that important middle third of the country's voters.

Yep. I wasn't too bothered by Santorum's comments because every politician in Washington has a nutty idea or two. What disturbed me most was Bush's tacit approval which basically rubber-stamped Santorum's thinking onto the national Republican party.

Posted by bubba138 at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) |

Miriam's Appeal Unheard Last

April 27, 2003

Setting Up A Straw Man

Jack Straw, Britain's Foreign Secretary, has no problem with an Islamic state in Iraq. His reasoning? Iran is an Islamic state and they embrace democracy:

Straw further referred to the example of Iran as an "emerging democracy" with an overwhelming majority of Shia Muslims. "You have free elections, President Khatami was elected and so were his government and there is rumbustious politics taking place," he said.

They may have "free elections", but those elected have no power outside the religious clerics that really run things. And where do the Iranians get information on who to vote for and what the issues are? Maybe they can read the Iranian journalist Sina Motallebi. What is Sina saying on his blog? Here's a sample:

The Foreign Secretary said that even in Britain there was a state religion. "One of the things we have to encourage across the world is the intersection between people's religions and people's concepts of democracy," he said.

But can the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury tell Tony Blair what he can and cannot do? I think not.

April 26, 2003

Separated at Birth?

Does anyone else think that Fox News' Jane Hall looks like Lost in Space's mom June Lockhart?

There's a New Deck of Cards

Merde in France has the goods about a new deck of "wanted" cards that rivals the one released picturing Iraqi officials.

Saeed al-Sahaf's Biggest Fan

We all loved the briefings by Iraq's Minister of (dis)Information, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. But guess who is his biggest fan:

Mr Bush clearly derived light relief during the war from the accounts of heroic Iraqi resistance provided by Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the Information Minister. �He�s my man, he was great,� he laughed. �Somebody accused us of hiring him and putting him there. He was a classic. I did watch some of his clips. Somebody would say, �He�s getting ready to speak� and I�d pop out of a meeting or turn and watch the TV.�

I Just Got Drafted

DUH!

LOTR Fix

It has almost been five months since the Two Towers hit the movie screens and it has yet to hit DVD. (But you can get this, yoo hoo!). With seven more months until The Return of the King, you might be jonesin for a Tolkien fix.

The Press Loves Blood

The first time I noticed the fascination the press has with death and disaster was when the freeways collapsed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1989. Hours after the quake reports of tens of thousands dead were already coming in. The clean-up effort took weeks, and many dramatic rescues happened in the first few days after. But each day, the estimate of dead was decreased, until finally the count stopped at around 800+.

It was then I realized that, to the news media, impact is more important than fact.

We see that again today in the reports on the explosion at the Baghdad munitions dump. The first article out of Reuters headlines:

Forty killed in Baghdad blasts
ZAAFARANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Up to 40 Iraqi civilians have been killed and many badly hurt in a series of explosions at an arms dump on the outskirts of Baghdad

At least 12 Iraqis have died after an arms dump exploded on the edge of Baghdad.

From forty to six. That's quite a discrepancy. News Arab World even has two of these conflicting reports on their front page.

The Arab Street Is Rising

The days when the Arab world could just scream �Israel�, as if that one word were sufficient answer to every question about every problem that came its way � as though saying that one word could deflect all further inquiry � are over. The time for peaceful coexistence, internal reflection and healthy, progressive thinking has come.

Update: Unfortunately, there is still plenty of the same-old crap. This article equates the Thunderdome character Master-Blaster (a highly intelligent but week midget who controls a moronic but hulkian youth) with the Israel-USA relationship:

Master-Blaster is an extraordinarily apt personification of the bizarre relationship between Israel and the United States in recent decades. This is particularly the case under the current Sharon-Bush regime.

In other words, Israel is the hyper-intelligent midget that controls the stupid but strong buffoon, the USA. Please. The article goes on to commend the "few brave voices" in the U.S. that have recognized Israel's control over our foreign policy.

What is more surprising than the contrast of these two articles is the authorship. The first, calling for a change of Arab thinking, has no byline. I can only assume it is a paper editorial (the paper being Arab News). The second was written by Mohammed? No. Ibriham? No. How about John V. Whitbeck. Hmmm...that doesn't sound like a Middle Eastern name to me.

Once again we have a westerner projecting his hate for his own culture onto Arabs. Beware, Robert Fisk, you have competition.

I Met One

He was just standing there shopping with his sister. There wasn�t anything particularly noticeable about him. He was modestly dressed, relaxed and at peace. His sister, however, was beaming. She had a smile that even Sempra Energy couldn�t turn off. Not just her mouth either; her whole face, no her whole body smiled. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were full, her shoulders were back, and her stance was straight and proud. She was animated and excited.

They talked a bit about the young man�s journey; about how long he�d been gone; about how he felt being home. Then they parted.

Just then I looked up and caught his eye. I instantly thought of my wife and my two girls. They were at home. Safe. Well fed. Provided for. And today they were a little safer than they were just eight weeks ago; and a great deal safer than they were two years ago.

Why? Because of the young man standing in front of me. At five foot eight this man was a giant to me. At twenty years my junior, he was older, wiser, and more experience than I.

What could I say? I have never known the devastation of battle. I have never looked down the barrel of a firearm with the intent to kill another human being. I have never had to face myself in the wee dark hours of the night and question whether I had the will to do what it takes. I have never had to march past bodies of enemy soldiers lying there because of what I had done. I have never put my life on the line for anything.

I have never had to do these things, because this one, and countless others like him have done it for me. I looked him in the eye, he returned my gaze. What could I say? Words cannot express�

�Thank you�, I said. From my eyes, a tear sprang forth. We shook hands. We hugged. His embrace told me something. It told me we were brothers. In no way was I worthy to be his brother, but his hug said we were. Then his words said more.

Sir? Me? Sir? I was not due his respect. But he gave that too. He went to give all he had. He returned to give even more.

April 25, 2003

California Budget Woes

Even Hans Blix and his gang of merry inspectors wouldn�t have any trouble finding evidence that California�s economy is in a mess.
...
This irony is emblematic. A state that treats its own government as sacrosanct, while viewing private enterprise with a mixture of hostility and suspicion, can never thrive.

But for some reason, the Democrats who rule California either cannot or will not recognize two obvious truths: the state�s fiscal health is inextricably linked to the wellbeing of business, and that the costs they so lightheartedly impose on businesses are actually being paid by the people they purport to represent.

Lieberman On the Ropes Already?

Powerline opines about Lieberman's apparent lack of early success in his presidential campaign:

Social conservatives who support a muscular foreign policy are becoming a fringe element in the Democratic Party. Lieberman's plight confirms how far left the Democratic base has moved. It is pretty clear to me that the Democrats won't nominate anyone to the right of John Kerry.

German Fairy Tales?

Maybe Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der heard one too many of these stories when he was a child:

The Liberation Continues

U.S. troops came to the rescue Friday of six young lions and two cheetahs languishing uncared for in the private zoo of Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday.

Good News For the Anti-Gun Lobby

Charlton Heston is resigning as president of the NRA. The anti-gunners are overjoyed. Peter Hamm, communications director for the Brady Campaign puts it this way:

"He's been very effective, no doubt about it," Hamm continued. "We hope that whoever replaces him is less effective."

Even Palestinians Have a Sense of Humor

"Sahaf says Saddam's statues taken down for maintenance contrary to what the 'o'louj' (international infidels) claim," read one typical text message after satellite TV showed Iraqis pulling down a huge statue as U.S. tanks surged into Baghdad.

Affirmative Action

It is in full swing at Sprint. They've even got a Vulcan working for them. Then again, maybe she's an elf?

Where is Saddam, Part XVII (or something like that)

Just when we thought we were done with the "first strike" speculation, an AP report leads off with this cryptic quote:

President Bush says "some evidence" exists that U.S. air strikes on the first night of the Iraq war may have killed or severely wounded Saddam Hussein.

Speaking of Aussies

Happy Anzac Day...

...to our friends in Australia and New Zealand. Here is how they are celebrating:

In the final days of a war that divided the nation, Anzac Day crowds fell solidly in step behind Australia's military commitment in Iraq yesterday...
Brigadier Maurie McNarn said: "It's particularly evocative we are here in the Middle East on this day." No region had witnessed more Australian sacrifice - from the shores of Turkey, to Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon, the deserts of Libya and, more recently, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Their soldiers, past and present, deserve our thanks and respect. God Bless them.

Waging Peace Again?

Scott Ritter, weapons inspector turned "peace activist", is defending George Galloway, the British MP who has been accused of receiving cash from the Saddam regime for being Saddam's mouth piece in Britain. Scott is the guy who knew about the children's prison in Iraq and said nothing about it:

Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.

So this is what I think of Scott "I'm waging peace" Ritter's defense of Galloway:

I was shocked to read about the allegations�But I was also shocked because of the timing of these allegations. Having been on the receiving end of smear campaigns designed to assassinate the character of someone in opposition to the powers that be, I have grown highly suspicious of dramatic revelations conveniently timed to silence a vocal voice of dissent.

Surely, this must be a right-wing conspiracy. Has Scott been studying under Hillary Clinton?

But I do know a few things about George Galloway and the cause he championed with regards to Iraq. I know that he helped found the Mariam Appeal, a humanitarian organisation established in 1998 initially to raise funds on behalf of an Iraqi girl who suffered from leukaemia and who, because of economic sanctions, was unable to receive adequate medical care.

How nice. He started a relief program. Interesting is the fact that Mr. Ritter says it was started "initially" to raise funds on behalf of an Iraqi girl. That may be so, but the program quickly turned into a Pro-Saddam propaganda machine. Further, Galloway didn't want to open the books of the "charity" organization to public scrutiny. What was his reason? Because the press had adequately proved this organization was a money-raising scheme designed to pay for Galloway's frequent trips to the Middle East. But what was the reason Galloway gave for not opening his books?

the Daily Telegraph reported Mr Galloway as saying that the accounts were kept private because the fund was involved in a "life or death struggle against the might of the British and American state". He said the appeal did not intend to "open its activities to its enemies".

Yep. Galloway is sounding more and more like the humanitarian you see him as. That is if you define humanitarianism as being anti-British and anti-American. It boggles my mind that a British MP actually referred to Britain as an enemy. Who elected this yahoo?

I met Mariam in 1999, when she was a guest of the Bruderhof Society here in the US, a religious movement that eschews individual wealth and promotes a simple, communal life. She was getting treatment for the onset of blindness caused by medical neglect related to her leukaemia treatment. Mariam is a real person, not some political stunt. Her suffering was genuine.

OK. So Mariam is a real person. But Galloway's involvement with Miraim was obviously a political stunt. If it were not, he would have used the extra funds given to the Mariam Appeal for other children.

So, too, was the joy of her maternal grandmother, who accompanied Mariam to the US when she realised that while Mariam might be blind, she was going to live, thanks in no small part to the work of people like George Galloway, whose dramatic intervention got Mariam out of Iraq and into the hands of those who could care for her.

So let me get this straight. In order to get this girl healed, Galloway had to take her from benevolent Iraq where she was getting no attention to Enemy USA where she received top-rate care. But wait. I'm sure Scott has an explanation for this.

I know that Galloway helped set up the British-Iraqi friendship association. I know because he invited me to come to London and speak at the association's inaugural meeting. The message I heard him deliver that night was one of human kindness and compassion.

I Googled "British-Iraqi friendship association" and got no results. But if Scott says he was there, I guess he was there. How was that inaugural meeting, anyway?

"Roll call! Galloway?"
- "Here!"
"Ritter"
- "Here!"
"Anyone else?"
<insert sound of wind blowing here>

He spoke out against the suffering of the Iraqi people under the effects of a decades-long economic embargo. I heard him decry the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But I also heard him lambast the policies of his own country, and those of the US, which were subjecting the innocent people of Iraq to such suffering. Establishing the friendship association was a politically incorrect thing to do at the time.

Ummm�the policies of our countries caused this suffering? I knew he had an explanation! Did Scott see the same palaces I did on TV recently? Has Scott really missed the reports of stashes of cash found laying around in boxes? Was there really not enough money in Iraq to take care of these people? Yes, there was. Saddam and company very simply kept it for themselves. Could Saddam and company have come clean and ended the sanctions? Yes they could. They could have helped their own people. They did not. The sanctions didn't plunge the country into suffering, the Iraqi government did. To see it any other way is delusional.

Galloway's political opponents could, and did, make political hay from such actions, deriding them as "pro-Saddam". In the months to come, I'm sure many British people will flock to organisations espousing friendship between Britain and Iraq, now that it is the trendy thing to do. Galloway was a friend of the Iraqi people back when they most needed the friendship and understanding of the British people.

Didn't Galloway himself refer to Saddam as a friend? How then would he take the accusation of being "Pro-Saddam" as derision? Wouldn't he think that a compliment? Here's the problem. By befriending Saddam and company, Galloway made himself the enemy of the Iraqi people, no matter what he called his precious association. Those who are "flocking" to help the people today are doing so because their efforts now have a chance to succeed. The removal of the tyrant regime makes that success possible.

I know that Galloway was a leading, and highly vocal, critic of the war with Iraq.

He challenged Tony Blair's policies and statements about the justification for the war, namely the allegations made by Britain and the US concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes and its failure to comply with its security council-mandated obligations to disarm. I know because I share Galloway's views about the unsustained nature of the British-American case against Iraq.

Did you read Blair's address to the parliament just before the war started? I would say "the nature of the British-American case against Iraq" was sustained. The weapons were there 12 years ago. There has been no accounting for them. They must be somewhere.

He spoke out vociferously against Blair's policies on Iraq, demanding evidence concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction more substantial than the plagiarised dossier and forged documents produced by Whitehall. The case for war, as flimsy as it was in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, has been shown to date to be utterly without merit, as no stockpiles of hidden weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered by the US and British military forces occupying Iraq.

After twelve years Scott and friends couldn't find the weapons the Iraqis themselves told us they had. Now Mr. Ritter wants them found in two weeks? Let me repeat the anti-war mantra of just six weeks ago: "Why the rush?"

If it turns out that there are no weapons of mass destruction or programmes related to their production and concealment in Iraq, Blair and his government must be held accountable by the British people for actions carried out in their name. If British policy was sustained on the back of a lie, then those who perpetrated that lie must be called upon to explain themselves. Now, more than ever, the British people need a voice of opposition, because it is from the ranks of the opposition that the matter of policing bad policy will be raised.

Finally, something upon which we agree. Bad policy must be policed. That is why Galloway is under investigation. It was bad policy for Galloway to believe so greatly in the "No War for Oil" slogan that he got oil for no war.

To allow George Galloway to be silenced now, when his criticisms of British policy over Iraq have been shown to be fundamentally sound, would be a travesty of democracy. Rather than casting him aside, the British people should reconsider his statements in the light of the emerging reality that it is Blair and not Galloway who has been saying things worthy of investigation.

Anniversary Day

April 24, 2003

What Must Republicans Do to Win the White House in 2004

Some weeks ago, CalPundit posted ideas about what the Democrats must do in order to win the White House in 2004. I countered his thinking, and promised my own ideas on what the Repubs need to do to achieve the same goal. This is the first in a series of ideas on this subject.

Right from the start, let's dismiss any loopy ideas that Bush can coast into a second term on his current popularity. War-time poll numbers are devious, and inclined to slump quickly. Further, those that do not like Bush, really don't like him. Alot.They don't like him the same way many Repubs didn't like Clinton. And more so, the fervor of Democrat dislike after four years of Bush is equal to the dislike of Repubs after eight years of Clinton. This dislike carries with it power.

So if Bush & Co. have to work for the white House, what must they do? There are two ways we can look at this, ideologically and strategically.

Ideologically, Bush needs to address the economy. After the 1992 election, we kept hearing the Democrat mantra "It's the economy, stupid." This mantra applies now more than ever. The Dems will do everything they can to blame the current economy on Repub policy. Even though the slide began many months before Bush took office, truth will have no bearing here. They know the voting populace has a short term memory, and four years back has long been forgotten. Up to this point, Bush's solution to the economy has been cutting taxes. If this hasn't kicked in by the end of this year, he'll need to find a new strategy.

Health care, prescription meds, and social security are also issues that will come up. However, if the current economy doesn't get addressed adequately, these will be side issues. Few people care about what is going to happen in twenty years if they cannot get food on the table today.

On the foreign policy side, it is time for Bush to get a bit more dovish. With Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush has demonstrated to the world and to the citizens of the U.S. that we officially will take no more crap. Everyone knows with Bush at the helm there are dire consequences when they threaten us. Contrary to leftist belief, most Americans are comforted by this. However, the point is now made. Diplomacy is the game now. And our diplomacy will be more effective, with all parties knowing our diplomacy has more power behind it.

I think the best way to achieve success on the dove front is to accelerate the peace process in Israel. The interim Palestinian government is moving along, and Arafat is being slowly pushed out. The more Bush and team can accomplish in this arena the better. One caveat, the closer the Palestinians get to a legitimate representative government, the more they should be required to crack down on their own terrorists, and just as importantly, the more Israel must cease their incursions.

Peace in Israel might even trump the economy issue. If Bush can achieve through strength and principle what Clinton could not by giving the whole farm to Arafat, the election could be a walk away affair. (I know, that's a big "IF".)

The French Connection

It has Been A Month...

Salam Pax is the Iraqi blogger at Where is Raed?. Many of us in the blogosphere were looking forward to daily first hand accounts of the war, being blogged straight from Baghdad. When the war started, though, that did not happen.

His site went dark for three days on March 21st. Then, on March 24th, he posted a collective account of the previous two days, saying that his internet access had been cut off. Since then, no post.

What has happened to him? One blogger claimed he read an Iranian news report of Salam Pax being injured in the bombing and taken to a hospital. Steven Den Beste thinks perhaps Salam Pax may not have been in Baghdad at all, but in New York. The Village Voice postulates that the media may have "outed" him to the Iraqi secret police, or that he may be having technical challenges, what with the electricity out and internet access hard to maintain.

One last curious item. Diana Moon, the blogger that seemed to know the most about Salam Pax has taken down her blog completely. Even the archives have been removed. The only explanation comes through the Instaman:

Diana Moon announces that due to problems at work, she must not only stop blogging but take down her blog altogether. She will return to blogging as soon as possible.

I wonder, was Steven Den Beste correct in identifying Salam as arrested spy suspect Raed Rokan Al-Anbuge? Was Diana close enough to be considered a material witness? Was her blog and all correspondence with Salam Pax confiscated by the government as evidence?

Diana says she'll be back. I hope so. I also hope we'll hear from Salam Pax some time soon.

April 23, 2003

Peace in Palestine?

I was going to state that "stranger things have happened", but then after consideration I don't think they have. But it does look like Arafat is beginning to see that his days may be numbered politically:

Yasser Arafat and the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, reached a last-minute deal to end a bitter standoff over the Palestinian cabinet yesterday...which came after Mr Arafat backed down over his opposition to the cabinet proposed by Mr Abbas...

Mr Abbas had threatened to resign if Mr Arafat continued to hold out against his choice of ministers. Yesterday Mr Arafat was believed to have agreed to a cabinet close to the one Mr Abbas originally proposed.

It did seem ludicrous that Arafat would be so oppositional when a Palestinian state was as close as three years away. Mr. Arafat has now to prove that he really is the advocate he claims to be for Palestine, not just the warmongering terrorist that he appears to be. Even fellow Arabs have taken note that this is the chance for peace in the Middle East. Apparently, one of the major factors that ended Arafat's stonewalling was the arrival of Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who was sent by President Hosni Mubarak to convince Yasir to relent.

American Values In Iraq

As it became increasingly obvious to the nay-sayers that we would win the war in Iraq handily, the rhetoric switched into discussion about American values in an Arab population. "We cannot impose our value upon them", went the mantra. "The Arab culture is antithetical to American values", they screamed.

Thousands of Shiite Muslims took advantage of their newfound freedom to hold a political protest Wednesday, railing at the United States as their brethren began the final prayers of a fervent religious pilgrimage that dramatized the Shiites' potential political clout.

You bet they are. They are exercising a simple value we take for granted, but one they haven't had for years: free speech. They are actively involved in the political process of their country, adding their opinion on the direction of their government to be. What's more, others have opinions too:

Kathem Jasim Mohammed, a 50-year-old vendor, said: "I want to thank Mr. Bush for breaking the prison in which Iraq was. I thank him for what he did and God bless him."

The Oscar That Should Not Have Been

A Survey of Blogs and Bloggers

My reader(s) might be interested in participating in a survey examining blogging's influence on opinion of the war on Iraq.

Boxer It Up To-Go, Please

Senator Barbara Boxer is up for re-election in 2004. The big question for Republicans has been, "Who will run against her?" The Sacramento Bee is reporting that U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin is getting a close look.

Democrats sniff at the idea of any Republican posing a serious challenge to Boxer, who is seeking a third term.

"The cemetery is full of candidates who have run against Barbara Boxer," said Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser to the state Democratic Party.

Here's a question. If Bush is as far right as the media and leftists paint him to be, why would he be backing this very moderate, pro-choice candidate for the largest state (by population) in the nation? Perhaps their premise is off-base?

Update: This Field poll shows that California voters as a whole would rather not re-elect Boxer. Problem is, they are even more less likely to replace her. Go figure.

There Is a First Time For Everything

Personally, I disagree with just about everything Peter Shrag of the Sacremento Bee has to say. To be certain, I disagree with most of his refutation of the idea that California is out of it. I think my home state has lost its mind politically, or is at least experiencing a temporary episode of political insanity.

California lately has not leaned left. It has swerved. Violently. This is a state that has become entirely conquered by the left. The left holds every major elected state office. The assembly and senate are controlled, no dominated, by the left. Both U.S. senators are democrats. The majority of U.S. Congress members are democrats.

The press, and even the National Republican party has written California off in presidential elections as a democratic lock. Yet, even in my short life, California hasn't been this way historically. Peter points out (and here is where he and I agree):

WOW. This is the first time I have seen this analysis of Californian politics in print anywhere and I have been looking for it. Why? Because these are the two points I have been parroting for months.

First, California is not a political lock for Democrats in presidential elections. California went for Bush in 1988, Reagan in 1984 and 1980, Ford in 1976, and Nixon in 1972. Clinton ran a great campaign in 1992 and won California. (Bush ran a horrible campaign. I even voted for Clinton that year). California loves a winner, so he was reelected in 1996. But what very few have noticed or pointed out, the Clinton and Gore wins are an anomaly, not a rule. In the last fifty years, Democrats have only won California in four presidential elections.

The demographics of California are such that the majority of the state, geographically, lean towards the Republican ticket. Most counties in California have a low population, though. That makes the major cities the key to winning here. San Francisco is a write off for the Republicans, but the big prize, Los Angeles is not. If a presidential candidate can win a majority in L.A., then he can pretty much bank on 54 sweet electoral votes being in his pocket.

Second, Peter is the only person in the press I have seen suggest that it may have been the National Republican party that blew it in the 2002 gubernatorial election. A year and a half ago, the party had a choice, back Bill Simon, the guy who beat the White House's choice man Riordan in a surprise upset in the primaries, or wash their hands of the whole matter since Simon was going to lose anyway. Unwisely, they chose the latter. Simon ran a terrible campaign against an opponent that should have been beat by any halfway poddie-trained chimpanzee. Yet, he still finished a mere 5 points behind Gray Davis. 5 points. Those measly points would have easily been closed if Simon's camp had been given support, both in finances and in wisdom, from the more experienced, more professional national party.

Run This Up the Polemic and See Who Salutes It

Lonewacko and others are trying to smear California's senior U.S. senator Diane Feinstein because a planning and engineering firm co-owned by her husband has won a 600 (m) million dollars pentagon contract.

As much as I'd like to get on board here, I cannot. Face it guys, nothing has shown so far that she had any influence over this. Merely being a senator who is married to a guy that bids for defense contracts is not a crime.

Part of the problem with politics these days (and quite probably has been for all time) is the polemic "us vs. them" ideology. We should be opposed to politicians because we disagree with their ideas, not because they are in the other party. Let us not forget, although Ms. Feinstein is a democrat, she is still an American, and republicans have more in common with American democrats than not.

This is an important issue, I think, because we as a nation seem to be descending into a state of constant civil-war in the political arena. It brings to mind the Capulets and the Montagues, the Hatfields and McCoys, who fight for no other reason other than that they have always fought.

America is successful as a political experiment because of our ideological differences. In the open forum of the American arena, only the good ideas survive. the weak never gain strength and the faddish fade away. But if we spend our time dehumanizing those that put forth ideas, we weaken ourselves, not our opponents. The time Clinton was in office is case-in-point for the repubs. No matter how hard the repubs tried to discredit Bill the person, they only made themselves look like foaming-at-the-mouth idiots. Today, as we see off-the-charts hyperbole about Bush and crew, the democrats prove the point again, as they become less and less significant in the public eye.

April 21, 2003

Bloviation Award

This one is a double award. First, the whole idea behind Harold Meyerson's piece in TAP is bloviated. Second, he's got a great word as well:

What Bush seems determined to extirpate are the basic forms of common security in America.

Top 10 coaching Jobs

April 18, 2003

Just In Time For Easter

What To Do In Case of a Terrorist Attack

Ugh!

Good Friday

On this day we remember the death of Jesus. We remember how He was taken, beaten, mocked, and convicted of blasphemy in a kangaroo court. He was whipped by the Romans with a cat-of-nine-tails, a vicious instrument of pain made of nine leather straps tipped with jagged metal teeth.

On this day Jesus' pain was complete. Physically, His body was wracked. Emotionally, He was betrayed. Surrounding Him, calling Him names, taunting Him were those He had come to save, many of them the same people who had welcomed Him just five days ago exclaiming, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"

When Christ thought of passion, it was in the light of what He was willing to endure in order that He might redeem those He loves. We would do well to adopt Christ's mind, realizing that our passion is defined by the amount of pain we are willing to suffer in order to achieve a goal or purpose. Suffering is a crucial component to our Christianity. Through Christ's suffering, we are saved. Through our own we are changed, becoming more like Him.

April 17, 2003

"There's no way a war in Iraq will go well,"

Actors are so upset a being marginalized in the media. They have repeatedly whined about how there has been no real debate about the war. They accuse the "right-wing controlled media" (are they serious?) of not broadcasting their message.

The real problem is that people now know the celebs have no credibility. The public sees them for what they really are; very talented actors, actresses, and performers...nothing more.

Janeane and crew thirst for their listeners to behold them as thoughtful and thought provoking people who have weighed their issues of choice carefully and completely. They want people to believe they have come to their conclusions based upon well studied and carefully weighed pre-suppositions, and that their diligence is borne out of moral fibre and conviction, not out of partisan politics.

Not In Their Name

People of Iraq, the following people and other groups were opposed to your freedom from tyranny

Good News / Bad News

April 16, 2003

More on Syria

It looks like I jumped the gun on Syria. I hadn't planned on mentioning the whole Syria thing because it seemed to me to be overblown. But yesterday, I gave up and posted this.

"Things are not so bad," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bouthayna Shaaban said, referring to U.S.-Syrian relations. Shaaban said the media try to present the U.S. statements as more negative than they really are.

After a series of warnings from top U.S. officials...the Syrian government has ordered Iraqi diplomats to leave the country...In addition, the Syrians have told other Iraqi diplomats...not to seek refuge in Damascus

O.K. This is Just Wierd

I Hate Fry's

I looked outside my office window this afternoon and low-and-behold there were anti-war protesters across the street.

I knew I had to get photos of it but I had yet to have purchased a digital camera. Well, if protesters outside your office this isn't a reason to get one, nothing is. So I zipped on down to the Fry's about two blocks away.

Long story short, it was over an hour later when I finally got out of that pit. It only took me around five minutes to pick a camera out, and the rest of the time was spent trying to get someone competent enough to get it out of stock.

Beware The Arab Street

The war in Iraq has bolstered Arab and Palestinian reformers who believe that the time has come for real change in the Arab world. The change, they say, should begin by getting rid of the Arab despots and their corrupt regimes.

Yet commentators have been careful not to include Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in the list of corrupt Arab dictators who should step aside, though some have hinted that he, too, needs to learn the lesson.

Well, maybe it was too much to hope for Arafat overthrown. Still one cannot help but be encouraged when Arab newspapers print this:

"We won't cry for Arab regimes that don't give their constituents any freedom other than the liberty to shout slogans," he said. "No Arab will cry for his leader because Washington won't be able to steal more than what the leader has already stolen from his people. Nor will the US humiliate the Arabs more than their leaders have already humiliated them."

Everything Is Going According to Plan

Multi-lateral talks with North Korea are scheduled for next week. Pyongyang is learning humility:

Abu and Clinton

Bill Clinton is in the news today. He says our foreign policy is a loser because we cannot control the whole world. Obviously, there is a fundamental difference between his idea of foreign policy and that of the current administration. Bush and crew don't want to control the whole world, they only want to demonstrate that we aren't going to take the crap that make Islamist think we are weak. What does Bill think?

"We can't run," Clinton pointed out. "If you got an interdependent world, and you cannot kill, jail or occupy all your adversaries, sooner or later you have to make a deal."

"The Palestinian-Israeli interim agreement signed on September 28, 1995 stated that members of the Palestine Liberation Organization must not be detained or tried for matters they committed before the Oslo peace accord of September 13, 1993"

Why should we care about an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority? Here's why:

"This interim agreement was signed on the U.S. side by President Clinton and his secretary of state, Warren Christopher," Erekat added.

So this guy could go Scot-free because Clinton was so obsessed with writing his name in history doing a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. If this is what Clinton means by "sooner or later you have to make a deal", then I would rather be disliked by the world.

The clause in question, contained an interim peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, deals only with the detention and prosecution of certain people in the jurisdiction of the Jewish state and the Palestinian Authority, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

April 15, 2003

Why We Did Not Join the ICC

Election Slam

U.S. News & World Report (fourth item) quotes an unnamed Kerry "associate": "Our best auction offerings are yet to come: personally guided Oval Office tours by President John Kerry."

Hmm, he hasn't even won the nomination, and already he's promising to sell White House access to the highest bidder. Maybe there's a little Bill Clinton in him after all.

Bloviation Award

Today I start a new feature. The "Bloviation Award" is given to the piece that uses the most adumbrated multi-syllabic word or the most turgescent thought for that day.

The first winner is James Taranto's Best of the Web Today, as he comments on Bush's recent poll numbers (scroll down to Dems Dream On):

Is Syria Next?

I have been deliberately avoiding this subject in the hopes it will go away. Unfortunately, it keeps coming back. One example is this at the Filibuster, where they are extremely worried:

hey, no one in power is actually thinking this! Don't worry about it! Right. No one, that is, except George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. They don't sound too Syriaphilic to me.
...
Look, I should go ahead and say right now that I have become, officially, terrified. I hope I'm hysterical.

Calm down, Sam. You are being hysterical. The situations in Syria and Afghanistan are not equals. Taliban controlled Afghanistan was a clear and present danger at the time we invaded. They were harboring an international terrorist organization that was directly involved with the deaths of 3000 Americans. We gave them several chances to maintain their government. All they had to do was give up al-Qi'aida. True, Syria does openly support the anti-Semitic terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. But these have done the U.S. no harm thus far.

The situations in Iraq and Syria are not equals. Iraq was a proven aggressor. Iraq had seventeen, no eighteen, resolutions passed against it. They were given twelve years to comply with the multi-lateral demands to disarm. None of this applies to Syria.

Bottom line with Syria is there are many roads to take before military conflict, including diplomacy, multi-lateral resolutions, etc. These are the measures we took with the other countries, why would we skip them now? And the world, even the "Arab street", knows what we are capable of and willing to do. There is a greater strength behind our diplomacy than there was two years ago.

Even so, examine this. The anti-Bush group said we shouldn't go to war in Iraq. We did, and we are learning every day it was the right thing to do. Some said we couldn't win it, but we have, and handily. Some said it would be a quagmire. Yet, four weeks into it and the war is all but over. They said that terrorism would increase. It has not. They said we should forget Iraq and engage North Korea directly. Looks like they were wrong about that as well. So why, I wonder, do we listen to those who have been wrong time and time again when they postulate Bush is planning to attack Syria?

The Dominoes Are Falling

Yesterday I commented that the regime change in Iraq is already working. Today, the Opinion Journal goes deeper.

A Limerick to the Minister of Information

Mohammed Saed al-Sahad
The Westerners thought was a fraud
He said with a wink,
"Arabs like how I think"
"Now I do my gig at the Improv"

The Contacts For the Contracts

Terence Corcoran at Canada's National Post has some ideas about who should be getting what in the reconstruction of Iraq. As to whether the coalition should involve those countries against the war, he says this:

It is therefore no shock to learn that the Bush administration invited Britain, Australia and Poland -- which sent troops to Iraq -- to participate in early discussions over post-war reconstruction efforts. Excluded were France, Germany, Russia -- and Canada. A nation at war turns to its allies for support, not its opponents and its critics.

He goes on to express the very real fact that if anything goes wrong in Iraq, during or post-war, the U.S. will be shouldered with the blame. Why, then, would it make sense to involve countries that would love to see us fail?

Update: Of course not supporting the war hasn't stopped the Axis from wanting the cash from the "New Iraq." For the first time, though, I find myself agreeing with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder:

"I think the discussion about who gets which orders is a bit strange," he said. "That will be up to a democratically elected Iraqi government. To talk about that now is a bit macabre."

Who Is to Blame...

...for the breakdown in relations between Europe and the U.S.? The European Voice(registration required) reports that G�nter Burghardt, the EU's envoy to the U.S., says both sides are to blame.

EU leaders had avoided tackling the problem of Iraq, he claimed. �Between August 2002 � when the decision was taken in Washington to go to war against Iraq � and February 2003, there has not been one serious discussion in the European Council to at least try to establish a common line.� Burghardt accused some EU countries of acting �prematurely� in concluding that they would fail to forge an agreement.
...
Underlining this were some of George W. Bush�s more colourful pronouncements. The ambassador referred to two: his statement that �the call of history came to the right country�, implying that the US was the �chosen country� to deal with Iraq, and Bush�s remark that �while part of the history has been written by others, the rest of the history will be written by the United States�. This, for many, sounded like �imperialism�, Burghardt suggested.

This is the first balanced assessment of the situation I have seen from a European diplomat. He also appears to be looking at the right things to fix the situation:

This is Why I Don't Use Blogger Anymore

The Value Of Embedded Reporters

Sometimes, not seeing is believing. Such was the case a couple of weeks ago when the Telegraph ran this article telling how Royal Marine Eric Walderman had been hit in the helmet by several Iraqi bullets. Apparently, the amazing helmet saved the Marine's life:

More American Arrogance

Bill Owens, Governor of Colorado has taken lessons from the commander-in-chief in how to speak plainly. According to the Corner at NRO, a French official requested a meeting with Mr. Owens while visiting in Colorado. The gov's reply?

I am sorry I will be unable to meet with you during your visit to Colorado. I feel it would be inappropriate to do so at this time...I believe your government opposed our efforts in Iraq in order to advance the government's popularity at home and to further French ambitions abroad

So many are so concerned that our reputation and relations have been besmirched. That may be so, but it seems more credible that those who didn't like us before the Iraq conflict still don't like us, but at least we know who they really are.

April 14, 2003

Broken Record Syndrome

This article observes that French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was in the House of Saud on Sunday, as well as in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut before that. After de Villepin left, King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah called for an "emergency regional conference" in order to discuss the situation in Iraq. Invited guests include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Egypt. Conspicuously missing from the guest list is Kuwait.

Looks like the French are not done stirring things up. What do those French want now?

the return of Iraq to Iraqi control must remain a priority...he called for the return of UN arms inspectors to Iraq and the lifting of sanctions against Baghdad.

First, of course control of Iraq will go back to the Iraqis. From day one no one has said anything different. Second, with the Ba'ath regime gone, the only thing standing in the way of sanctions is the U.N. itself. Oh yeah, then it might be a while before anything gets done there.

Now This Is the Way To Celebrate

"When I heard that Saddam's regime had fallen I suddenly had an urge to bring children into the world," said 20-year-old Bushara, who sells tomatoes and onions on the streets of Baghdad.

Things aren't completely better yet. There is still shooting going on, The source?

She blamed the gunfights on "Wahhabis," or followers of the rigid form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.

"These are Wahhabis. Saddam paid them millions of dinars before the war to destroy our stores and rob our homes if he went away. It was the last nail he could drive into us," she said.

What Did NASA Know, and When Did They Know It?

Documents reviewed by the AP showed that when the shuttle Discovery returned from space after its March 2001 mission, inspectors were alarmed to discover a 2-inch tear caused by corrosion on a left wing heat-resistant panel...

...(NASA) concluded the damage was caused by small amounts of oxygen slowly penetrating the U-shaped panel's surface and weakening its outer coating of silicon carbide...

...The engineers feared similar corrosion damage to wing panels on other shuttles, especially older ones. They speculated this corrosion appeared on Discovery because it had just returned from its 29th flight, a record number at the time. Columbia was on its 28th mission when it was destroyed.

Should the U.N. Lead?

The next hot topic on the plate has to do with what role the U.N. will have in the reconstruction of Iraq. U.S. detractors want the U.S. out of there as soon as possible. U.N. execs, especially Kofi Annan, vehemently state that only the U.N. can give a new Iraqi government legitimacy. Hawks claim that since we shed the blood, we should get first dibs.

But is the U.N. really capable of building a truly democratic government? Debra Saunders looks at their track record and doubts they are up to the task:

Recently, a spokesperson for the U.N. Mission in Kosovo announced that four-hours-with and two-hours-without electricity will be the standard situation for an undetermined time -- this is after the United Nation has spent four years rebuilding Kosovo, well, in its own fashion.

I'll add that eating is what you might call a time-sensitive activity. I question whether a group that equates "final opportunity" with months and months of extensions should be entrusted with delivering food to people who are hungry right now. "Pronto" is not the United Nations' motto.

I submit that we must take the lead here for one reason, and it is the same reason we prosecuted the war: because we, and no one else can. Only the U.S. has the will to rebuild Iraq as a free democratic state. Only we have the desire to get the job done and get the heck out of there.

It Is Working Already

The nay-sayers preach that conservative "warmonger" ideas about reshaping the Middle East is pie-in-the-sky thinking. Our military operations are bound to cause widespread hatred on the "Arab Street" and bring more terrorist violence to the U.S.

Unfortunately for the nay-saying left, U.S. Middle-East policy is already working. Iran, an enemy for almost twenty-five years, is now coming to grips with the reality that this is not their father's United States. Moreover, according to last night's 60 minutes, more than 60% of Iranians are 25 years old or younger, having lost large parts of the older generation to the Iraq-Iran war. This younger generation yearns for American style democracy and other novel things like freedom of speech and the press.

These domestic pressures, together with being a first hand witness to the almost effortless U.S. invasion if Iraq (a country they barely fended off for eight years), must be crucial influences on Iran's coming change of heart in respect to U.S. relations.

Further, instead of the U.S. suffering consequences for its straightforward tack on the war in Iraq, it looks as if France, Russia, and Germany are turning out to be the goats.

al-Sahaf is Back!

Watch Out Jesse

The Republicans and Finances

I am still working on my list of things the Republicans need to do in order to maintain power in D.C. It is not complete yet, but one of the items that will be on the list is for them to start making their actions consistent with their rhetoric in regard to fiscal responsibility. One of the reasons I have supported (mostly Republican) conservatives is the belief in a smaller government that taxes and spends less than the liberal alternative.

Unfortunately, the ideal and the real are nowhere close to each other. As this report says, there has still been more pork in this last years spending than is needed, giving more than 22 billion (yes, with a "B") dollars to more than nine thousand special interest groups.

The First Tee Program, which strives to �impact the lives of young people around the world by creating affordable and accessible golf facilities to primarily serve those who have not previously had exposure to the game and its positive values,� received $500,000.

Because, let's face it, what the under-privileged really need is a lower score after eighteen holes. Or how about:

$1 million for Hawaii�s brown tree snakes. The latter expenditure was categorized as spending for defense.

I get it. If we run out of ammunition in the Iraqi conflict we can start lobbing Hawaiian brown snakes at them. That will do the trick.

The End Is Near

It has been repeatedly reported over the years, and more often in the last couple of months, that Saddam Hussein styled himself as a modern day version of the Biblical king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Iraq is the home of ancient Babylon, and Saddam had been busy restoring the city, including Nebuchadnezzar's palace.

These facts, coupled with "End-Times" Biblical references to Babylon has caused no end to speculation about the war in Iraq and the end of the world. A quick search on Google brings up references to books, opinions, and even Washington Post articles on the subject.

But we know when Walter Cronkite takes the end of the world seriously, it is time to sit up and notice. PBS is broadcasting "Avoiding Armageddon" over the next four nights. The series promises to take us

to some of the most dangerous places in the world to see dramatic human stories that convey the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, as well as the hope that the world can still choose to avoid Armageddon.

April 11, 2003

The Islamic Paradox

Interpress Service News reports posits that Muslim paradoxes are exposed by the collapse of the Ba'ath regime in Iraq.

This war, and how it is viewed by Muslim dominated countries will certainly be a turning point. As this article and many others point out, the Muslim press duped millions of Muslims into believing, to the very end, that Iraq had a chance and was fighting us to a stand-still. They fed their readers unfiltered the non-sensical rantings of al-Sahaf (here, here, here, and here) without question or the slightest tinge of doubt.

Bottom line is that Muslim media had really convinced the majority of Middle Eastern Muslims that Iraq would win this war. They were convinced this was a Christian vs. Muslim conflict. They were convinced there the majority of Iraqis would prefer to be dominated by an evil, brutal, Arab secular tyrant than to than to be freed by what they view as an evil, Christian force.

The U.S. and allies are at a crucial moment in this conflict. The regime has fallen, and soon, could be a few days, could be a few weeks but soon, a government must be installed. How that happens and the type of government installed will be vitally important. This task is of primary concern in the Muslim world. Iraq stands to be the first democratic Arab-Muslim state. Some Arabs, as well as many left and right wing Westerners, believe that Arab culture precludes a democratic form of government. They say we should give the Iraqis the kind of government the Iraqis want. I submit that no people can have the government they want unless it is democratic.

Typical among them is Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, acting prime minister of Malaysia, a country that clamps down on political dissent. On Friday, he was quoted in the English-language newspaper 'The Star', as saying the next government in Iraq ''must reflect the genuine will of the Iraqi people''.

Is it possible that the PM from a country that clamps down on political dissent can truly speak of the "genuine will" of a people? Absolutely not. A government that behaves such cannot know what the will of the people is, because they squelch the free speech of that people. Democracy is the only form of government that allows true free speech. And contrary to the belief of the monarchic Arab regimes, free speech makes a country stronger, not weaker. For when ideas are bandied about in the public forum, only strong ideas survive. Nonsense is discarded.

Kutless

April 09, 2003

Go Home Human Shields - Part II

Fisk on the Day of Victory

Can you believe it? Right there in the very first sentence of Robert Fisk's column today, the scare quotes remain. They scream out, "This is no liberation. The Americans only want to subjugate." He just cannot bring himself to admit that good was done this day in Iraq.

To be sure, we have all become accustomed to the bile spilled out on the pages of his columns. But one still has to be amazed at how, when presented so plainly with the fact that he has been wrong in just about everything in this conflict, he can continue condemning the American effort. But more than that, he condemns the Iraqis themselves as fools doomed to repeat the mistakes of history:

The great Lebanese poet Kalil Gibran once wrote that he pitied the nation that welcomed its tyrants with trumpetings and dismissed them with hootings of derision. And the people of Baghdad performed this same deadly ritual yesterday, forgetting that they � or their parents � had behaved in identical fashion when the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party destroyed the previous dictatorship of Iraq's generals and princes. Forgetting, too, that the "liberators" were a new and alien and all-powerful occupying force with neither culture nor language nor race nor religion to unite them with Iraq.

You have to love the way he makes the Ba'ath regime and the American forces moral equivilants. Check the facts, how many "children's prisons" have we here in the U.S.? How many of our own citizens have we gassed to death?

Further, can he really believe the Americans have any desire to stay in the deserts of Iraq forever? Interesting that the word "liberation" gets the scare quotes while the phrase "occupying force" has none. What facts has Mr. Fisk to back this up? What other countries have we occupied?

"Ah," he must have thought, "some brave souls putting up a valiant last stand against the evil aggressors invading their land."

Alas, he was mistaken. These were now brave Iraqis repelling an American insurgence. Instead, these were:

a small group of mujahedin fighters, firing Kalashnikov rifles at the American tanks on the other side of the waterway. It was brave and utterly pathetic and painfully instructive. For the men turned out to be Arabs from Algeria, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Palestine. Not an Iraqi was among them.

"We left our wives and children and came here to die for these people and then they told us to go," one of them said.

It seems that, unless he was to look for those in celebration, the Iraqis were nowhere to be found. That in itself should tell Mr. Fisk something. The Iraqis themselves wanted to be "liberated." The only opposition to the liberation was that of people who are blind with hate for America. It is only because he shares this sentiment that he still cannot see that what has happened in the last three weeks is a force, instead of believing that might makes right, used its might for right. The U.S. and its partners in this operation recognized the very real fact that it would be totally immoral not to act.

What's the Problem?

The anti-war rhetoric won't end today, tomorrow, or even next week. Be prepared to hear how this war was still wrong and even worse has made us more of a target. There are even those who somehow can reconcile simultaneously being against the war and being for Saddam's ousting. Somehow, they never seem to face the very real fact that the Ba'ath regime would have never left without superior military force.

But what is the root of this ideology? Why is it that a free Iraq is good but the liberators of Iraq are evil? Tewfic Mishlawi, editor of the English-language Middle East Reporter gives an example of this sentiment. In his words, the easy conquest of Bagdad was,

"a very sad thing. Despite that Iraqis want to see Saddam removed from power and have suffered from his brutal regime, they will resent a foreign power," he said. "If there will be an escalation of popular resistance, I will be extremely happy."

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Mishlawi's point of view is, now that Americans and Brits have shed their blood freeing you, be done with the kissing and hugging, rise up and shed more of their blood. Then, I as an Arab, will be happy.

The real problem lies in the perception in many Arab's minds regarding the United States' underlying motivation. Being raised on anti-Americanism, the U.S. is the Great Satan ideology, it is inconceivable that we should liberate Iraq for the dual purpose of increasing our own security as well as for the benefit of the Iraqis themselves.

The referenced article states that Mishlawi fears that Bush's ultimate aim was not to liberate Iraq but establish U.S. hegemony on the region.

But if you let Mishlawi speak for himself, and apparently for countless Arabs, you are enlightened to the true nature of his view point. His distrust isn't geo-political, it's anti-semetic:

"The purpose is to establish Israel as a dominating power in the region on behalf of the U.S.," he said.

The Celebration Spreads

Where Is al-Sahaf?

Another indicator that the structure of the Iraqi government was crumbling, sources in Baghdad said, was the absence Wednesday of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. Sahaf -- the daily face of Saddam's regime -- did not show up for work at his ministry's office in the Palestine Hotel.

Lockwood said Sahaf had canceled his daily press briefing Wednesday. Also missing were all the other Iraqi officials who work with the ministry, including the minders assigned to accompany each journalist on every venture outside the hotel.

Word has it that al-Sahaf has applied for a job with Saturday Night Live. He hopes to reprise the role Jon Lovitz's pathological liar. He was last heard saying:

"It wouldn't be much of a challenge, really. I've been paid to lie for the last ten years and I'm quite good at it. Me and my wife, uhh, I mean wives, yeah, would love to live in New York. As a matter of fact I've always lived in New York, yeah. I've got a flat in Manhattan. And I share it with no one, uhh, no one except Morgan Fairchild, yeah.

On a more serious note, it should be very interesting what the reporters that have been stationed in Bagdad have to say now that the minders are no longer shadowing them.

I keep expecting to see him in mid-tirade ("all is well, the airport is secure!") while behind him, uniformed U.S. Marines in their kevlar helmets come in, take down the portrait of Saddam, and replace it with one of George Bush. "Baghdad will be their grave!" cries Bob as Marines carry away the podium. A trooper then picks Bob up from behind, like a mannequin -- "the criminal infidels are fleeing!" -- and carts him off, still blabbering.

What Can He Say Now?

Day 20 of America's war for the "liberation" of Iraq was another day of fire, pain and death. It started with an attack by two A-10 jets that danced in the air like acrobats, tipping on one wing, sliding down the sky to turn on another, and spraying burning phosphorus to mislead heat-seeking missiles before turning their cannons on a government ministry and plastering it with depleted uranium shells. The day ended in blood-streaked hospital corridors and with three foreign correspondents dead and five wounded.

Iraq was freed today. Is it over yet? By no means. But the people, the free people, of Iraq have turned a corner. They have begun to taste what it is to speak their minds without fear of losing their lives. They have begun re-uniting with long imprisoned family members, including their own children who were captives of Saddam's sadism.

They will also mourn their dead, both those killed by Saddam and by U.S. and British forces. Some Iraqis will, quite understandably, never forgive us. How do you forgive a country that took your father, your brother, your child, your mother, your sister? Some, however, will forgive. They will realize, perhaps some already have, that the blood spilt for Saddam was blood spilt because of Saddam. While they may never fully trust the U.S., they will know it is to them they owe their freedom.

What will Fisk write about today? Same thing he wrote about yesterday. He will write about American arrogance. You can bet he'll devote a good portion on the brief moment the American flag was placed over the head of Saddam's statue. He'll write about the damning civilian casualties caused by coalition forces, even though they are the lowest of any similar military conflict. He'll write about the callousness of killing the few who were in the vicinity of the buildings in which coalition forces believed housed Saddam. He'll write about all the things wrong with a war that took all of three weeks to topple the fascist government. He will whine, he will complain, he will pontificate. What he won't do, however, is make any effort to empathize with what the Iraqis had lived in the last thirty years. What he won't do is look to the future with hope, like the majority of Iraqis will.

DOH!

Where Is Saddam?

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri hinted Wednesday that Saddam might have taken shelter at the Russian Embassy in Baghdad as part of a U.S.-Russian deal.

The Iraqi's Speak for Themselves

On one street, a white-haired man held up a poster of Saddam and beat it with his shoe. A younger man spat on the portrait, and several others launched kicks at the face of the Iraqi president.

Go Home!

We found out for sure today that the Iraqis do want the Americans to go home. We saw in the streets of Bagdad this morning a group carrying a banner telling the "U.S. Wankers" to go home. Oh, but wait a minute. The full banner said this, "GO HOME HUMAN SHIELDS U.S. WANKERS."

April 08, 2003

Saddam In The Street

There is an interesting theory brewing over at the Paxety Pages about the now-infamous Saddam in the street video that was broadcast last week. It will make you think...

"Big Paper" Weblog

The Sacramento Bee's Daniel Weintraub launched California's (I believe) first "Big Paper" weblog this week.

I have been reading Weintraub for several years now and I have found him to be both enlightening and infuriating. That's exactly what I like from an opinion columnist.

California Warmongers

To hear the press report it, one would believe that all of California is heavily immersed in the anti-war effort. After all, San Francisco's home state can't be pro-war, can it?

No More Fishing?

UPI files this report of the effect of global warming on the Great Lakes area. Apparently, the lakes are scheduled to dry up.

Now, I am no scientist, so forgive me if I get confused. Other studies on global warming scare us into believing that we'll all be flooded because of melted polar ice caps. How is global warming going to overflow the oceans with all that extra water but at the same time keep any of it from going into the Great Lakes?

What is only inferred in the article is that the study was based upon the assumption that global warming is a far-gone conclusion.

Not wanting to have all his research deemed worthless, Donald Wuebbles merely tosses aside this Harvard University study that refutes his assumption:

Donald Wuebbles...discounted a recent Smithsonian Institution study that found temperatures were warmer during the Middle Ages in Europe than they are now, saying the scientists involved had not fully analyzed the data.

Vedder and the Fan

Then you take it off and- here�s the sick part- are you ready? (Vedder removes the mask and lowers it onto an adjacent microphone stand, like putting a hat on a hat stand.) Total fucking impalement. And then you sing to it. This is a bizarre, violent ritual that I made up, because I�m a sick fuck. And a celebrity.� (He proceeds to sing a song to the floating Bill Gates head next to him.)

I don�t know what he did with the Bush mask the other night in Denver. But if the "impalement" was anything like what he did last night, there was nothing violent about it.

Umm...excuse me, Ted, but Isn't impalement a violent act? Didn't you just quote Vedder himself saying, "This is a bizarre, violent ritual?" It seems to me not beyond the pale that we can take Vedder's word for it if he says that's the intent of the message he is broadcasting.

Update: I know this is surprising, but Blogspot's permalinks aren't working again. Go to http://tedbarlow.blogspot.com/ and scroll down.

SARS: Good News / Bad News

Last week it was "Secret Carriers" this week it is cockroaches. The BBC report contains good news and bad news:

Officially, 98 people have now died worldwide from the severe pneumonia it causes, and the true figure is likely to be over 100 when deaths over the past few days are confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

OUCH! She's Gunna Feel That In The Morning

April 07, 2003

It Is a Good Day to Be a Scot

Disturbed

Ed Asner is disturbed by the criticism that actors are receiving for their outspoken anti-war, pro-appeasement stance, according to the Illinois Leader.

"The actors ought to be highly praised for speaking out," the Southern Illinoisan reported Asner saying this week. "It's ridiculous actors are the ones doing it. It strikes me as unbelievable that no legislators or leaders are in the press for speaking out."

First, Ed, why should actors be praised instead of criticised? Are you saying that actors can criticize the administration, but no one should criticize the actors? What happened to your side's call for an active debate? I was always taught that a debate was two-sided.

But I do agree that it is "ridiculous that actors are the ones doing it". After all, actors don't have all the facts, do they. Whereas the legislators and politicians are privy to national security information that we are not. They can base their opinions and judgments on more details.

Here's why actors are so derided when they speak out Ed. The fact is, they speak out of nothing more than emotion. They don't get their facts straight. For instance, this assertion that "no legislators or leaders are in the press for speaking out" is baseless. What about Daschle? What about Boxer? What about Dean? What about Kucinich? As for media, what about Donahue? What about Chris Matthews? What about Dan Rather?

It is Hard Being Hated

SARS Virus Discected

Researchers in San Francisco have mapped the SARS virus, identifying very interesting characteristics. SARS appears to be a cross-species virus, meaning it may be able to infect and be carried by humans, birds, and cows:

DeRisi placed his computer's cursor over one lit dot and it read "bovine coronavirus." Another dot outputted "avian coronavirus." By the time he got to the turkey and human coronavirus dots, he knew he was dealing with something the world's scientists had never seen before.
...
Whatever this was, it was related closely enough to the other viruses to bond to their DNA but exotic enough to suggest that it was something entirely new that had crossed the species barrier.

How Long Before We Hear Cries of "Kent State?"

This is a media frenzy waiting to happen. I predict it won't be long before we hear cries of "police state", "Kent State", and "censorship." Keep an eye out.

Counting Chickens

The rule of Saddam Hussein is over. Iraq's capital of Baghdad awoke Monday to find American tanks in the grounds of the presidential palace and the second city of Basra thrilled to their first full day of freedom from Saddam's Ba'athist regime.

I understand the enthusiasm that is being demonstrated by pro-coalition camps, and no one can intelligently argue that this operation has thus far been nothing less than a spectacular success. However, let's not get ahead of ourselves. The rule of Saddam Hussein is far from over. He is still in power, we still do not control all of Bagdad. His information minister al Sahaf still freely walks the streets to call credible news reports "propaganda":

Denying what was visible to many Baghdad residents as well as television viewers around the world, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said there had been no big U.S. raid.

"Baghdad is safe," he told reporters at the Palestine hotel as a dense yellow sandstorm swept over the city, mingling with smoke from oil fires lit to obstruct the invaders.

U.S. columns had been "slaughtered," Sahaf said. "The battle is still going on. Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad...Don't believe those liars."

Who Put That There?

BBC is reporting that coalition forces have found a base with powder filled grenades and other very interesting things. The military is not yet officially saying what they have found, but it does look like an important find (via Reuters):

A military source who declined to be identified said there were unconfirmed reports there could be sarin -- a highly lethal nerve agent that causes death by suffocation -- at the site.

The report on BBC said that some of the troops began to get sick as they were surveying the sight.

Should We Really Be There?

As US troops proudly wore flowers given to them by townsfolk, a 25-year-old said he could not understand opposition to the war. He asked: �Everyone who refuses this war � why?�

Pointing to the statue, he went on: �Come here and live two days with this man, and then refuse this war.�

April 06, 2003

Doomsayers Quieted

One of the primary arguments against the the war in Iraq was that it would create more terrorism. The president of Egypt even postulated the conflict would create "a hundred new Osama bin Ladens."

Just like everything else they have said so far, it looks as if the doomsayers were wrong again. According to the New York Times, the terrorists could care less:

Still, terror organizations like Al Qaeda appear to have been largely unmoved by Saddam Hussein's denunciations of the United States and his calls for an uprising in the Arab world against the American-led war in Iraq.

Let's face it, the New York Times hasn't exactly presented a pro-war stance. But even they have to admit things aren't getting more dangerous. As a matter of fact, with coalition troops finding terrorist training camps, it just might be getting safer:

Global Warming

In her prepared remarks, Pelosi chastised the administration for turning away from international alliances in its conduct of foreign policy. "Over the past two years, we have too often tested that reservoir of good will toward us by saying and doing things that show disregard for our friends," she said. "When we withdraw from the biological weapons convention and the Kyoto treaty without discussion and without an alternative, we communicate far more than our positions on arms control or global warming."

April 05, 2003

Another Move For Arnett

New Blogware

O.K. I have moved over to Blog 7.1 by Fahim A. Farook. It seems to work alright.

The Coalition Isn't in Bagdad...Really

A City of Two Tales

If we are to believe the leadership from both sides of this conflict, then Iraq's Republican Guard has control of Saddam International Airport and coalition troops are not in Bagdad, while simultaneously coalition forces have taken Bagdad International Airport and have penetrated into the center of Bagdad. There is only one solution to this conundrum: someone is lying. I wonder who that could be?

Would it be the government with state-controlled media, no independent reporting, and no video supporting their position, or the side with dozens of independent embedded reporters and hours of video?

Turns out, though, we do not need video to figure out who is telling the truth. All we need do is examine what the Bagdad Babies are saying. Here is Iraq's (dis)Information Minister:

Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf Saturday denied reports that U.S. Army and Marine forces were in the Iraqi capital, saying the Americans were playing tricks.

"You must inflict more wounds on this enemy and fight it and deprive it of the victories it has achieved... you must rattle their joints and terrify them and speedily defeat them in and around Baghdad."

What I Did Today

I woke up this morning at 5:30 so that I could work out before joining my brothers at our church's monthly men's breakfast. We move the clocks forward one hour tonight, so the sun had already broke over the mountains to the east of San Diego before I had left the warmth of the covers and my wife's embrace. Driving down to the gym, I was struck by how little the war has affected our lives. Sure, almost all of us are concerned for the troops, and many of us aren't sleeping as well as we were before the war. Sure, there are military families who's worlds have been turned upside down and do not know exactly where their loved ones are, or if they are even coming home alive again. But, for the majority of us, life goes on. Our routines have not changed. We continue to live life in comfort and freedom.

I am reminded of the day when there was a shooting at the local high school two years ago. My wife had heard the news on the radio and immediately called me. My girls were not yet old enough to attend that school, but many of my friend's kids went there, and we had personal relationships with these students. I went straight down to be whatever support I could be to those kids who were too young to be expected to handle such a horrible event, but then again are we ever old enough? I spent the day crying, and hugging, helping parents search for their kids and kids find their parents. I, with some friends from my church, spent the majority of the day helping one mother search for her son.

By late in the afternoon almost every one had gone. Parents and students had been reunited. But we were in a fast food place across the street from the school with that mother still waiting for news of her son. We prayed with her, we prayed for her son. We gave whatever comfort we could. We were sitting there with her when her husband walked in. We were there when the sheriff came and gave her the news that her son had been fatally shot. We cried with her. We disbelieved with her. A part of us died that day. The world was not right.

Later that night, as I was driving home, I passed a baseball field where the local adult softball leagues were playing. Immediately I got angry. I screamed inside, �Don't they know?� They had no right to be playing games! They had no right to be having fun when a mother has had her son taken from her! They had no right to act as if the world had not changed. They should be grief-stricken, just as I was. Just as those parents were.

I am now the one on that ball field. Soldiers are fighting and dying. Families, Iraqi and American, are losing their loved ones. All this so we, and with God's grace others, can get up, go to the gym, socialize with our friends, live our lives.

Yesterday was Friday. Hundreds of thousands of American Muslims went to mosque and worshipped Allah without persecution. Today is Shabbat, and our Jewish friends go to their synagogues without fear of their homes being destroyed, or their relatives being suicide bombed. Tomorrow I will worship with all those who share my faith, all the while praising God for putting me in a country where I can do so without the specter of a sword over my head. This weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, millions celebrate their lack of faith by going to the beach, shopping, being with their families, and a hundred other activities, comfortable that the state has not imposed upon them beliefs that they would rather do without.

Today, men and women, many of them just barely adults, are shedding their blood for this right. We must not forget that.

Over the last few months, we have watched people on both sides of the fence voice their opinions loudly and with great conviction. We have seen demonstrations both for and against the war. We have heard people call our leadership �heroes� and �Hitlers.� We have yet to see any of them strung up for their opinions. We have yet to see any tied up in the town square with tongues cut out, left to bleed to death.

Today, our soldiers are risking the ultimate so that we may continue to speak our minds, and that others may begin to do so. Never, I say it again, NEVER FORGET THAT.