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Saturday, February 09, 2002
In Blunt Question, Blunt Answer, Tom Friedman, who usually manages to please and annoy me in equal measure, comes up with this:
Only in a society that embraces self-criticism can the political process produce real facts to cope with real problems. Look at the excruciating process of analysis, self-criticism and accountability that America went through after Vietnam.
Yes, indeed. And this "excruciating process" is supposed to have been a good thing? The "lessons" we learned were for the most part wrong - and may have in some part resulted in 9/11 happening in the first place. Certainly a lingering (and mistaken) fear of "quagmire" governed US military strategy for decades after the end of that unfortunate conflict. The "self-criticism" that I recall sundered this country almost irreparably, creating a split that exists on one level or another to this day. And quite frankly, the "accountability" that Friedman claims to see is pretty hard to find from my vantage point: the military-industrial complex that worried Dwight Eisenhower seems much strengthened, especially since it's become the industrial-political complex, and affects every aspect of our daily lives, not to mention our future.
The notion that the aftermath of Vietnam resulted in a cleansing and rejuvenation of the American democracy - a belief made even more unyielding because the end of Vietnam is inextricably entwined with the downfall of the left's bete noir, Richard Nixon - has become conventional wisdom. Too bad. Conventional it may be, but wisdom it is not.
Vedrine outlined the following steps, but gave no timeline: - Palestinian elections "to support the Palestinian Authority's popular legitimacy in its efforts to crack down" on extremists. These could be general elections or a vote for a legislative council. - For the elections, Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would withdraw to the positions they held before September 2000, when the violence erupted, and lift travel restrictions. - The newly declared Palestinian state and Israel would sign "a declaration of non-belligerency," open negotiations and sign a peace accord.
With this pronouncement, the EU takes yet another step closer to total irrelevance. Here is a brutal fact that these proposals entirely ignore: Unless somebody can guarantee Israel's security, Israel has no reason to make concessions that might endager its existece - as this unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood certainly would do.
But there is only one nation in the world willing and able to offer that guarantee - the U.S. That given, it is either stupid, futile, or both for the Eurostatists to keep waging this - well, what clever phrase would the French come up with? Guerre chaud d'air* has a nice ring, don't you think? - against the United States.
*War of hot air.
UPDATE: Geoff M. from Grasshoppa's Blog thinks the phrase would more accurately translate as, "Hot war of air." Actually, I like that a lot better.
NAPERVILLE, Ill. — In what is being described as a major victory for the so-called "visitability" movement, two cities in disparate parts of the country this week started requiring all new homes to be accessible to the handicapped. The change means wider doorways, lower light switches, higher electrical sockets and reinforced bathroom walls to accommodate the installation of handrails in homes in Naperville, Ill. and Pima County, Ariz. (the handrails are not required). The Arizona ordinance includes the significant additional requirement of a zero-step entrance.
The very best thing that could come out of this nightmarish bit of uncontrolled statism would be for all of these "improved" homes to sit like malignant pustules on the body of the housing market, utterly rejected by the buying public. Too much to expect, I suppose, but still...
The drumbeat of European hysteria continues in this Guardian piece that tries to make the case that British troops captured in battle may face more uncertain treatment due to the "US regime of manacles and orange uniforms" at Guantanamo.
This would have a bit more impact if those who captured British and American troops in the past three quarters of a century had treated them even half as well as America treats these terrorists. Ask Senator John McCain, who can't lift his arms over his head after his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. Ask those men who built the bridge on the river Kwai, or those who survived the Bataan Death March. Ask the surivors of the Korean brainwashing mills.
And ask if, no matter what we did, our fighting men could expect any better at the hands of the insane Iranian ayatollahs, the lunatic Saddam Hussein, or the certifiable Dear Leader of North Korea.
Despite the crack about "the Jewish Lobby in America," this article paint a remarkably revealing portrait of a monster crumbling into old age, fear, helpless rage, and defeat.
If this is any indication, when the bullet in the back of his head finally comes, Yassar Arafat may actually welcome it.
Here's what the blogosphere in particular, and the Internet in general, is good for: We live in a world where a brutish, greedy flock of congress-thugs can berate a brutish, greedy flock of corporate-thugs for doing exactly what the congress-thugs have made a career of doing.
Where a pack of effete, cowardly, greedy, brutal Eurocratic promoters of Leviathan - whose predecessors slaughtered about a hundred million people in the past century - feel free to excoriate the United States for putting handcuffs and hoods on murderous fanatics who bit an American to death.
Where a pack of stupid, venal whores whose tarnished Olympian wares are for sale to the highest bidder in the lowest bidet can profess distaste for a minor show of honest patriotism, though if somebody had thought to keep them supplied with sufficient hot and cold running hookers, they'd have no doubt been out waving American flags themselves.
These are disconnects so blindingly obvious you'd think they'd be pointed out in every major media outlet in the United States. But they aren't. Which means somebody else has to do it. That would be us. That's what we're good for. Pointing things out.
Another Swedish tabloid, Expressen, wrote there was an "emotional statement against the world's terrorists," but possibly too much of one, adding that the use of the flag "even made the International Olympic Committee react that the statement was too political."
Oh, heck. Vinnie, weren't you supposed to deliver the bag of bribes to the Committee about this? Vinnie...?
'Ostensibly,' says one European diplomat, 'this is about security. But quite how a massive increase in defence spending is supposed to prevent another terrorist attack remains unclear. Instead this seems to be about repairing the bruised American psyche after 11 September. America's powerlessness in the face of this attack requires big gestures and reassurances, even if they are counter-productive and meaningless.'
It's a good thing that all the European nations are still sovereign and independent, otherwise we stupid colonials might get the idea all their political speeches, news articles, opinions, and tv analyses are being written by the same dwarfed, America-hating gnome in a cellar in Brussels.
Here's a question for you Euroclones: if America's military is so meaningless, why are all of you so exercised about it? To listen to you howl, you'd think that the U.S. actually matters, for goodness sakes. You can't have it both ways. Either we're untutored bumpkins thirsting for the wise and controlling reins of the old country, or we're big, bad, unilateralist, and don't have to give a shit what you think.
Let us know. We'll try to get back to you. As for how our massive military might prevent another attack, here's one way: we use it to do the same thing to the Islamofascist mullahs, ayatollahs, dictators for life and dear leaders for eternity who've spent the last decade or two shrieking "Death to the Great Satan America" that we did to the Taliban.
This won't stop every potential terror attack, but it will be considerably more effective than threatening them with French terms like "Gigantisme militaire."
Editor -- President Bush's budget exposes the real "fuzzy math" floating on unlimited use of the nation's credit card. Never mind, that a "war on terrorism" is the ultimate oxymoron, or that it's so vaguely defined as to be unendable. As long as national fears are kept stoked (as with the "axis of evil"), the Bush administration can keep inking hefty increases to benefit the Pentagon, corporate welfare and the elite rich. How clearly the meaning of compassionate conservatism is revealed for what it really is: cold-blooded, calculating mean-spiritedness. APRIL NEILSON Woodside
Yes, indeed. Cold-blooded, calculating mean-spiritedness has always been a winner for any political party.
As EU officials warned of a rift opening up between Europe and the US wider than at any time for half a century, Mr Patten tells the Guardian it is time European governments spoke up and stopped Washington before it goes into "unilateralist overdrive". "Gulliver can't go it alone, and I don't think it's helpful if we regard ourselves as so Lilliputian that we can't speak up and say it," he says in today's interview.
What, precisely, does this gaggle of squawking Eurocrats we're suddenly seeing and hearing far too much of think they will accomplish with all this painful whining? The ineffectiveness of their protests only serves to underline the pathetic state of their influence - or lack of same. Although they should probably be relieved that their thin, mosquito-like buzzings are unable to penetrate the American consciousness to any meaningful extent. Were it otherwise, the political reaction might force the Bush administration to take steps Lilliputia wouldn't enjoy at all.
But Mr Patten's greatest ire is reserved for America's go-it-alone approach to international relations. "However mighty you are, even if you're the greatest superpower in the world, you cannot do it all on your own."
I'm sorry, but this just sounds like a tantrum. Next, Patten probably intends to hold his breath until he turns blue. That's fine. At least he'll be quieter that way.
And if American sponsors threatened to withdraw support, so be it, He said. "The Olympic Games would be sure to continue, with or without American dollars."
Excellent. I'm for letting them give it a try. It seems to me the various sporting world championship contests are more than sufficient. Why do we need the festival of bribery, arrogance, danger and corruption the Olympics have become?
As far as I'm concerned, let them fund it with Euros. Or Argentine pesos.
Concerned about another negative media blitz, the City Council put the brakes on a letter-writing campaign to elected officials and major news organizations on Tuesday. The letter called for an end to the “attack on the First Amendment” resulting from Sept. 11. The Peace and Justice Commission [??? -ed.] recommended the letter-writing campaign in response to several government and media actions taken since the terrorist attacks.
Actions such as excoriating the Berkeley City Council for being packed with unregenerate dumbasses. We know it's called the "Daily Planet." The only question that remains is: What planet?
RAND SIMBERG has a complete rundown (with full linkage) on Dick Morris's evisceration of the newly-renovated (yet still curiously repulsive) Greta Van Susteren on CNN last night. The whole thing is hilarious. Go read it.
UPDATE: Oops, the disembowelment took place on Fox. And the link is fixed.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Penn State University is asking its architecture department to pay for repairs to a bathroom stall that was redecorated to look like a Roman Catholic confessional as part of a class project.
I'm an atheist, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that millions of people sincerely believe in various religions. This "artist" has the absolute right to express himself however he chooses. However, others have just as much right to shower him with as much flak as they feel necessary. I hope they do. Ain't freedom of expression wonderful?
Police said the passports could have been intended for use by members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda group, but there was no immediate evidence to support this.
A report by aviation security chief Brigadier General Marcelo Ele said Mr Bin Salleh was [also] carrying a map of Afghanistan and a mobile phone with the name Osama Bin Laden displayed on the screen. But officials conceded this was not a criminal offence.
Gosh. Do you think there might have been some Osama involvement? Oh, well, we'll probably never know. At least the Beeb won't, that's for sure.
In Letterman, Leno are pin pals, SF critic John Carman writes about the American flag pins Leno and Letterman are wearing:
The pins have to come off sometime, if only because in another year or two, they will reclaim their original meaning: I am a conservative Republican, and more American than you.
Evidently you really do have to be a liberal self-caricature in order to critique film and television for a major paper in San Francisco.
WASHINGTON - The FBI may have violated its own rules in questioning John Walker Lindh by not taping or transcribing his statements, and that could determine the outcome of the case against him, experts said Thursday. The FBI's only record of its two-day interrogation of the accused Taliban fighter is a summary form written by the agent who questioned him. Lindh did not sign the form.
If TaliBoy walks because of a bonehead FBI play like this, the destruction wreaked not just upon the Feds, but upon the justice system itself will be incalculable. If nothing else, it will make the jury-rigged military tribunal system look wonderful by comparison. All of which makes the paranoid in me wonder: could the Fibbies really be this stupid? Or is somebody else being very, very clever?
It's possible that the average WalMart-shopping mouth-breathers who accidently stumbled across this segment while driving in their gunrack-toting pickups and changing their five-button radios from a Christian station to Country may have missed the context as well as the subtle irony we intended and gone charging off at the urging of some extremist talk-show host to write us hysterical letters (badly spelled for the most part, in pencil and on lined paper), thousands of which now litter our offices.
Satire from the Iron of God, or the Real Pure Truth? You be the judge.
Editor -- I couldn't believe the Super Bowl drug ads. Using their logic, American drug policy itself is a terrorist organization, for it created today's market.
If America would legalize drugs, the ads for treatment would be more tasteful.
CHUCK MANG Benicia
We interrupt the usual drumbeat of dumbness from San Francisco to bring you a rare, brief flash of sanity.
John Weidner at Random Jottings just keeps getting better and better:
Your brain comprises about 3% of your body weight and uses about 14% of your energy intake.
Keep this in mind when you hear grey-beard Chomskyites condemn America and the West for using more than their 'fair share' of the world's resources. We are the brains of the world. We are the ones creating the advances that give us the hope of eliminating the ancient ills; plague, war and famine. In fact we have eliminated them wherever Western Civilization is allowed to flourish. We didn't do it on a starvation diet.
He also came up with a lovely description of what many of us bloggers really do: "beachcombing along the blogshore..." Nice.
Japan, the sick man of Asia, is now being recognized for what it really has been all along: the sick man of the world. Take a look at this chart of the Nikkei, the Japanese stock market:
A truism about bubbles - which the Japanese markets in both real estate and stocks were - is that they always bottom at a point lower than where the bubble began. Here's a shot of the Dow Industrial Average over the time of the 1920s Bubble into the Great Depression:
The Japanese crash is still ongoing, and the end is not yet in sight.
The Japanese problem is a compound of several forces, none of which bode well in terms of outcome. Japan is unable to restructure its financial system because corruption is spread too broadly and deeply within its political system. In the end the politicians and businessmen, mutually parasitic and symbiotic, unable to destroy each other, will destroy the financial system instead.
The other great force at work on Japan (and soon elsewhere) is international deflation. Deflation strikes weakened economies first, but by a process detailed in this article, it can quickly spread. For instance, while a large amount of Japanese foreign investment is indeed tied up in hard assets like real estate and factories (which cannot be repatriated) there is nothing to stop Japanese investors from dumping these assets at fire sale prices, thereby both repatriating cash and exporting deflation simultaneously.
Furthering the general bad news is the fact that deflation is not likely to go away any time soon, for two reasons: first, technology will continue to make vast productivity leaps possible, which result in lower prices; second, there are several billion impoverished hands beginning to enter the world's production systems. And no matter how hard US or European unions try to wall those eager hands out, in the end they will fail, and Nike shoes and Wal-Mart jackets, as well as computers, lawn mowers, automobiles, and cell phones will continue to be made at lower and lower real wages.
No change as drastic as the move from an industrial to a post-industrial world economy has ever been accomplished without vast upheaval and disruption. The demise of the Soviet Union, crumpled and tossed on the scrap heap of history with hardly a second glance, was merely a harbinger. The utter destruction of what was once the second largest, and most vibrant economy in the history of the world is yet another. China's collapse has yet to occur, but it will. Nor will the unwieldy and unworkable United Stasis of Europe succeed either. Finally, of course, even the strongest will feel the effects of the secular shift, and we here in America will also find ourselves trying to ride the waves of change without falling overboard.
Can we do it? Beats me. Ask me again in, oh, 2020 or thereabouts. I will say this, though: deflation has historically been part of the normal order of things. Traditionally, inflation and deflation just about balanced each other over periods of a century or more. It was only with the rise of great central command state economies in the 20th century that inflation, thanks to Keynesian economics theories, became more or less secular and permanent. It may well be that the forces of disintermediation and decentralization now becoming more and more important in the world's economic structure may require a destructive shakeout in order to build something new on the ashes. What that may be, I cannot say, except to note that, if history is any guide, it probably won't look much like anything that has gone before.
I like the way Bush is handling the political chores of the upcoming bi-election. Karl Rove is most likely the guiding hand, of course, but I suspect GWB signs off on everything, even the Machiavellian nougats his Evil Genius proposes. And this one is really rich:
Democratic Rep. Tony Hall of Ohio has been offered a job as ambassador to the United Nations' food and agriculture agencies, government sources said Thursday, and appointment could come as soon as next week.
Just think how many trivial ambassadorships there must be out there which can be used to buy nervous Democratic legislators out of their seats-for-life. Congressional district election outcomes are almost invariably determined by incumbency, which accounts for oddities like districts with 80-20 Elephant splits sending hardened Democrats back to Washington time and time again. But if you can somehow remove the incumbency factor, all of a sudden those districts become competitive again, since neither side has incumbency going for them.
My hunch is that about eleven months from now, another great bunch of people who've been privately snickering at what an obtuse dunce Bush is are going to be standing around scraping half-spoiled yolk off their faces.
Ridge said his office would announce a new Homeland Security Advisory System in the next few weeks that would help local and state governments make better sense of sometimes-obtuse government warnings of possible attacks.
With UPI, it's sometimes hard to figure out whether their copy editors are being sly, or just, well, obtuse.
Obtuse means stupid. And the usage makes perfect sense. It's just a bit blunt for standard news-editing custom.
It's not so important that Steve Emerson isn't heard on National Public Radio. It is important that NPR, a taxpayer supported operation, feels it can blithely cut off one area of public comment because another area feels offended by that comment.
I listen to NPR as many do, usually when driving. But at least I'm smart enough to know that I need to crank their biases about 90 degrees to the right in order to reach something approximating the center. Stories like these push me beyond my limit, though. If NPR cannot be weaned from its current all-leftist, all-the-time viewpoint toward something approximating objectivity, then I don't want my tax dollars going toward its support. (Actually, I don't want my taxes supporting it under any circumstances, but that's a story for another day).
Let NPR take its chances peddling its extremist viewpoint in the commercial marketplace instead of snuffling at a government trough into which I am forced to contribute. If it really is a public supported operation, it won't have any trouble making ends meet.
"Both the history department and Michael Bellesiles have now requested that we initiate this process, and we have done so," said Paul, dean of Emory College, an undergraduate division of the university. "Professor Bellesiles says that he welcomes the review by his faculty colleagues and other scholars in this forum."
Bellesiles also said he welcomes "white hot needles plunged into my eyeballs, rabid wolverines ripping at my entrails, and maddened water buffaloes stampeding across my testicles."
"The vice president, I think, is going to be very effective at convincing our friends we mean business," Bush said. "We would hope that they would do everything in their power to shut off money, to deny haven (to terrorists), and to join this grand coalition dedicated to one thing: freedom and peace."
That Sharon has said he accepts the idea of a Palestinian state should, in theory at least, help to assauge the anti-Israel hysterics who shriek about the terror being visited upon Palestine while never mentioning the dead twelve year old targets in the Jewish camp. It won't do anything to silence those whose agendas include the destruction of Israel, but that's what Guido's - excuse me, I mean Cheny's - visit is supposed to handle. His mission is to make the suddenly (post-Afghanistan) more respectful Arab anti-terror coalition an offer it can't refuse.
Steven Den Beste makes an important point about the dangers of trying to dilute personal responsibility:
Absent extreme mental illness, either we have to hold everyone responsible for their own actions, or else we hold no-one at all individually responsible for anything. Why did Klebold and Harris shoot up Columbine high school? It's because they decided to do so. It's as simple as that. Who is responsible? They are. Since they're both dead, it's an unsatisfying answer. We want someone to blame, someone we can punish. But sometimes you can't get what you want.
In a way, this is implicit evidence for a libertarian point of view. Either individuals are sovereign actors and hence bearers of sovereign responsibility, or they aren't. Collectivists claim they seek a better life for individuals: but the path they pursue to achieve that better life inevitably ends up denying the existence of individualism altogether. Or worse, recognizing it in a weak sort of way only in order to stamp it outala Ted Kennedy.
An Olympic event : So the Olympics relented and will let us bring our tattered flag from the World Trade Center into the opening ceremonies. How frigging big of them. Here's how I want it to play out: As soon as the flag enters the stadium, the entire audience should rise and sing God Bless America -- spontaneously, unanimously, reverently, defiantly. I'll be damned if I'm going to hide like some PC mouse just because other countries don't like us. This is our country. We have been attacked. We are prevailing through it all. We will be united and proud and strong together. We will show it. We will bring our flag into our stadium. We should rise as one voice to sing in praise and hope. Can we spread this meme in two days? Bill O'Reilley could do it.
Matt Welch reports on the real hit smackdown. Poseurs like the pathetic Justin Raimondo aren't even in the same league as the likes of the Human Hit Hose, but even the HyperBlogger himself must take pause at the gusher that issues from andrewsullivan.com. 20,643 hits? Are you kidding me?
Mr Morcira joined flight 885, which had more than 150 people on board, in Miami on Wednesday evening. Half-way into the flight, he got up and started to bang on the cockpit door. Brian Hopman, a passenger on the flight, said Mr Morcira seemed to want to talk to the pilot. The captain opened the door thinking it was another member of the crew, and Mr Morcira stormed in punching both pilots.
Doesn't anybody know where the lede is supposed to go any more? The story here isn't that some Brazilian whackjob went nutzoid aboard one of United's luxo carriers, it's that after he did, he banged on the cockpit door, and the morons inside the cockpit opened up and let him in.
These are the pilots who wanted the FAA to let them arm themselves with real guns. I used to support the idea, though United Airlines is, of course, opposed. Now I'm wondering if maybe United already knew something the rest of us are just finding out: their pilots are idiots!
"We have never allowed pilots to carry firearms on board," said Jenna Ludgate, spokeswoman for United Airlines. "Pilots are first and foremost pilots and in any emergency situation, they need to by flying the plane."
Well, yes. At the very least, in an emergency situation, they shouldn't be opening the damned cockpit door!
UPDATE: CNN is reporting that the cockpit door was locked, and the assailant forced his way in, until he was stopped by the co-pilot whacking him on the skull with an axe. (Good job!) Which still raises the question: Aren't these cockpit doors all supposed to be secure now? Then how in the hell did this bucket of pralines manage to force his way in?
(Link courtesy of the Human Hit Hose, Glenn Reynolds, who is currently flooding DailyPundit for the second time in three days. Thanks, HHH! You da Man!) And welcome to all visiting InstaPunditeers. Pull up a chair, have a cuppa whatever, and enjoy yourselves. No jostling, no waiting, plenty of room for all. And while you're here, you might as well, oh, I dunno, buy my book? Please?
Editor -- Will we ever be able to take our president, vice president and Cabinet seriously again? Enron executives have exploited their position in unspeakable ways. They "cashed in" on people with illegal abandon, not unlike the mafia. We have a president and a Cabinet who were supported by Enron money. How will we ever be able to believe in our government again? It all begins to feel rotten to the core. CATHERINE WALLER Richmond
Why, yes, of course. Enron is exactly like the Mafia, too.
O'Neill's lucky Byrd didn't call him a "white nigger." Perhaps the Democratic icon managed to restrain himself, not wanting to move the focus away from the current Demo blackraking of Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering and onto himself.
Ah, yes, San Francisco. The blandness of Silicon Valley would not be such an issue if San Francisco was a true metropolis; if there was a West End to compensate for working in Slough. But San Francisco is a dysfunctional city, and here is why. It is ungovernable. The city of cute cable cars has abandoned large swathes of the city centre to 5,000 vagrants, mostly alcoholics, drug abusers and the mentally ill. Homeless advocates, taking San Francisco's famed tolerance to ridiculous extremes, defend their lifestyle choice. The mayor, Willie Brown, has given up. Imagine New York, before Rudy Giuliani took office, except more corrupt and lethargic.
There is lots more, and every bit of it painfully accurate. One thing I notice on my daily bike rides around town: two years ago, landlords held outdoor bidding sessions for even the crappiest apartments. Now every block has two or three "for rent" signs in the window, and the days of the $2500 one-room studio apartment are long gone. I saw one sign advertising a very nice one bedroom apartment in the yuppified Marina - with parking - at $1250. The sign had been there so long, and was so faded, it was difficult to read the Magic-Markered price.
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. Ozymandias would understand.
Hmm. There seems to be silence across much of the blogosphere this morning. Evidently blogspot is overwhelmed or incapacitated for other reasons. I'm having no problems reaching DailyPundit.com, but I moved the actual blog to a different server. I wonder if Blogger itself is working. Well, this will tell the answer soon.
UPDATE: Okay, I have lift-off. Feel free to use the comments on this post for any messages you wish to get out to the blogosphere.
Rarely are the corrupting influences of international elites as clearly exposed as they are in this LAT piece:
"I think these Games are very important to the relationship between the United States Olympic Committee and the balance of the international Olympic movement," USOC President Sandra Baldwin said. "I have long felt that we had to put America's best foot forward in order to enhance any future bid for the Games on our home soil."
That the International Olympics Committee, a pack of corrupt, bribe-taking, arrogant petit-dictators, thinks it can get away with blackmailing the United States is bad enough; that the servile hacks of the United States Olympic Committee are willing to let them get away with it is worse.
Bob Herbert of the NYT initiates the ritual blackraking* of GWB's Fifth Circuit nominee Charles Pickering.
*blackraking 1. To smear politically with spurious accusations of racism in thought, word, or deed. 2. To falsely arrogate responsibility for, or support of, racist actions or incidents. (cf. George W. Bush, James Byrd). 3. Attempts to associate political figures in the unsophisticated public mind with racism in general.
UPDATE: Say, has anybody seen Democratic Senator Robert Byrd around lately?
But although L.A. denizens might be a little self-absorbed when it comes to looking good, they're also generous, devoting a much bigger slice of their annual expenditures to charity than folks in the San Francisco area, who also spend twice as much on alcohol.
This is no news to those of us who actually live in Baglady-by-the-Bay, but it is testimony to the effectiveness of having Berkeley nearby as a (pot)smokescreen for what actually does go on here.
Because of the "progressive" dregs of the 60s who inhabit Marin, and the pathetic wannabes who infest the University of Califonia outpost in Berkeley, the rest of the world assumes that San Francisco is Ground Zero of goo-goo Kooky Kalifornicating Kewlness.
Not hardly. SF is a mean, evil, hard drinking, hard drugging coven of obdurate liberal Democrats who'd as soon cut your PAC off as look at you, especially if you're a Republican. We heat up pennies in politically correct gas fireplaces to throw at the pooting, dribbling, oozing rabble who clog our sidewalks. And if anybody should suggest that we consider dragging a few of our most obvious near-death curbside experiences off to feed and medicate into a semblance of humanity, well. Our civil libertarians would beat them bloody with right-to-starve sticks until they give up on the notion that a corpse a day isn't a normal appurtenance to a proper urban environment. Around here, charity means your last rights will be your last rites. We live under a city government that makes the original Daley mob look like a bunch of castrated choir boys, and when we get rid of mayors, we don't recall them, we shoot them. Our men look like women, our women look like Godzilla (or Greta), and our serial killers look like our next door neighbors (because they often are).
Don't mess with Texas? Hah. Those ten-gallon frauds couldn't handle our queens, let alone our liberals. Compared to the denizens of San Francisco, those bar-bull riding drugstore cowboy pansies don't have a clue. Or a chance.
This article by Tom Rawles is excerpted from the Liberalia site referenced in my permalinks at left. Liberalia is an important libertarian resource, and I'd like to give it a bit more exposure in the blogosphere. Here's a taste, from Rawles's article titled Can A Christian Be A Libertarian?
Earlier this summer, our Southern Baptist Pastor and I were playing golf. In our usual discussion of the freedom Christians have in Christ, we turned our attention to the troubling and divisive issue of abortion. Almost in the middle of my backswing -which should tell you how seriously we take our golf- he stated that, in his opinion, government was an agent of immorality by allowing abortions to happen. I stopped my backswing, turned to him, and asked a question that he has still not answered. If that is true, I said, is God also an agent of immorality because He too allows abortions to happen?
Results are indicative and may not reflect public opinion
Current results of a poll at the BBC web site on whether Blair and Bush should win the Nobel Peace Prize. Isn't the Internet wonderful? It allows anybody in the world, even filthy Americans, to vote in polls like these merely by clicking here.
Often, we are advised that we should take Dick Morris reports from the belly of the Clinton beast with a grain of salt, but I can't see any reason to doubt his veracity, especially when considering the reputation for truthfulness possessed by his detractors. Anyway, he reports:
When Mr. Clinton was advised to pass a law requiring that driver's licenses for aliens expire when their visas do (so that a routine traffic stop could trigger the deportation process), Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes and White House adviser George Stephanopoulos worked hard to kill the idea. They derided the proposal, which called for the interface of FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service data about illegal aliens, visa expirations and terrorist watch lists with state motor vehicle records, as racial profiling and warned that it might alienate Mr. Clinton's political base. Had the idea been adopted, suicide bomber Mohamed Atta would have been subject to deportation when he was stopped for driving without a license, three months before Sept. 11, 2001.
Somebody in the press should ask Stephanopoulos about this. Whoops, I forgot! Stephanopoulos is the press these days.
Still, the collapse of the stimulus plan would help improve the administration's 2003 budget forecast, turning a projected $80 billion deficit into a $15 billion deficit -- and actually producing a surplus in 2004. Moreover, if the economy revives in time for the November elections, GOP strategists said, the administration would not have to share credit with Democrats but instead could say last year's tax cut was responsible.
Tom Daschle deep-sixed the bloated, pork-laded "stimulus" package (Stimulus to whom, by the way? The list of contributory suspects and poster boys for finance reform readily available at OpenSecrets.org?) in what now looks to be a tactical error in the sub-rosa war games currently underway for the fall elections. By squashing this bill, he may do nothing to impede the already burgeoning economic recovery, and may also have saved the Republicans from their worst corporate-subsidy instincts. And if GWB actually sails into the 2004 elections sporting a renewed budget surplus, Tiny Tom may have driven a major nail into the Democrats's secular political coffin.
The folks at Newsweek are horrified at the notion of a President who speaks with an unforked tongue, and even more appalled that their favorite diplomat isn't leading a palace rebellion against a President they absolutely cannot abide.
You won't find the naked prejudice and bias of elite media more clearly on display than in this agenda-driven ideological tirade masquerading as a straight news report.
Editor -- As noted in The Chronicle ("Debating the drug ads," Feb. 5), during the Super Bowl the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy ran ads suggesting that those who buy drugs help to fund terrorists. That may be true, but doesn't the same reasoning apply to those addicted to the profligate use of oil? Osama bin Laden's family fortune was earned in Saudi Arabia, and numerous reports suggest he continues to receive substantial monetary support from that country. There's no debating that the Saudis' vast wealth is from oil. When it comes to funding terrorists, are the selfish egotists guzzling gas in their SUVs and wasting energy to heat and cool their oversized homes any better than drug addicts? DAVID FIOL San Francisco
Throw away your joints and Jimmies, folks - or (all together now) the terrorists will have won.
While no one in the White House has spoken with any of the justices about their future plans, one Senate aide says that White House strategists have spoken of wanting O'Connor or another "conservative" judge to retire first, so that Democrats would in some small way have to give Bush a nod toward his first appointment to the court. "If it were Stevens, Democrats would put up a huge fight to block any conservative," says a Judiciary Committee staffer. "With O'Connor or Scalia going, placing a conservative in that slot would be a slightly easier fight."
As a libertarian, I really shouldn't give that much of a damn one way or another about which gang gets their judges onto the highest bench, but I do. Here's why: of all the major libertarian issues before us these days, that of the 2nd Amendment is the most important, and the one most amenable to success. We have already had a major victory in the 5th Circuit Emerson ruling that the Second guarantees an individual right. If the Supreme Court eventually concurs many, if not most, restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms would become unconstitutional. Such an outcome would mean the most significant victory for a pure libertarian issue in the U.S. in the past hundred years.
Which leads to my amazement at the "strategy" outlined above. I'm not one of those who whines about ineffective Republican political skills - what with one thing (Reagan) or another (Gingrich) the Elephants have been riding pretty high (Bushies) for the past twenty years. But that doesn't mean I can't wonder what on earth they are thinking when they propose a mess like this, to risk one of the potentially pro-gun seats in hopes of getting a "slightly" easier confirmation process. Do they think Democrats won't fight all the harder at the prospect of ending the standoff? Forcing Bush to replace an O'Connor with some sort of squishy liberal-in-Bork's-clothing like Souter would guarantee that no liberals would seek retirement unless it involved a coffin - and why would they? They'd have control of the Supreme Court again.
Listen, Bushies - it's going to be a take-no-prisoners fight (the Democrats don't know any other kind) no matter who you nominate, so you might as well try to roll the dice on the big one. Hope for a liberal retirement, and then fire up the war cannons for your best shot to take active control of the Court in seventy years. You might as well. You aren't going to get a "slightly" easier fight, no matter what happens.
I wish I had written Will Warren's latest, so I could dedicate it to President Ronald Reagan on his 91st birthday.
Do superficial aspects now conceal The truths that humble eyes could see before? Do silent lips still cry that same appeal To those who see her lamp beside the door?
George Van Komen, chairman of Utah's Alcohol Policy Coalition, told broadcaster MSNBC: "Many people associate revelry and partying with alcohol, but that's simply not necessary. Drinks may not be as available as freely as some people might like. But it's a compromise we feel is important to keep drinks away from our young people and to keep the public safe."
Utah is an interesting example of a back-door American theocracy, where the preponderance of voters who belong to a single religion have simply voted their religious prejudices into law.
Like members of all theocracies, which assume that God has directly dictated the capital-T Truth to them, they are puzzled when the real world refuses to respond in the expected and approved manner. I cannot imagine who would find the Winter Olympics in Mormon-dominated Utah in these times a can't-miss attraction.
Security is a nightmare, forcing people to sharply limit the number of events they can attend, stand in the cold while security checks are performed (imagine an airline security checkpoint, but outdoors, in a 10 degree farenheit wind chill), without the ability to easily obtain a potent alcoholic beverage, all the while worrying that some demented Islamic nutbag may break through anyhow and incinerate you in some novel and spectacular way. And then pay a couple of hundred bucks per event for the priviledge (presumably so Utah can complete its IOC bribery schedule).
It looks like the "secret war" (yes, the one between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld) is heating up, as Powell supporters provide "evidence" of Saddam's good behavior to their favorite good gray mouthpiece: "All the leaks that fit, we print."
What do you want to bet that if you asked this appendage of the imperial state who she worked for, she wouldn't say it was the people of the United States?
Editor -- President Bush's characterization of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as "an axis of evil" is the lowest form of international political rhetoric, completely reckless and dangerously laughable. It's as if our fearless leader watched "Austin Powers" and did not realize it was a spoof? Are we so gullible as not to recognize that what Bush is trying to do is demonize and inflate the threats these countries pose in order to groom public opinion for revving up our war machine -- with $48 billion in additional military-industrial complex spending this year alone -- in hopes of propping up our faltering economy by the next election? Bush knows that without creating conflict via his chest-beating, Wild West rhetoric, his presidency is hollow. As for an "axis of evil," there is more evidence that it ran through Ken Lay's former Enron office straight to the Oval Office. PETER GAUVIN Los Altos Hills
Yes, there goes that damned Ken Lay, flying his axis of evil into American skyscrapers again. You can't slip anything past these San Franciscans. They know that Enron and al-Qaeda are exactly alike.
THERE'S A CONTROVERSY raging in the comments section of this post over at Charles Johnson's excellent Little Green Footballs. The heart of the argument centers on the question "Why does the U.S. support Israel?" which springs from the Victor Hansen NRO article Charles cites.
Most of the responses are depressingly banal. There's a lot of jockeying over how much the "Israel lobby" contributes to American politicians, or how much freedom is enjoyed by political, ethnic, and religious minorities in Israel - as if there is any such freedom in the Arabic and Islamic theocracies and dictatorships that threaten Israel. Most disappointing of all, however, is that something else, something of absolutely crucial importance, isn't (as yet) mentioned in the discussion. So I'll mention it now.
A little more than sixty years ago, some Europeans set about the systematic extermination of the Jews who lived among them, and succeeded to the extent they managed to slaughter about six million of them. Many non-participants were aware of the slaughter, but chose to pretend it wasn't happening - and they did so at levels from the lowest to the highest. Much of American policy regarding Israel in the latter half of the twentieth century was set by men who might personally have opened the hellgates of Dachau and Buchenwald, with their nostrils full of the stench of burning bodies, and their eyes scorched by the sight of naked human skeletons that still walked and breathed.
If there is any debt in the world that can be said to be a moral one, then it is the one Europe as a whole owes to the survivors and descendants of the people one part of Europe wantonly massacred, while other parts of Europe pretended that the butchery wasn't happening. But of course Europe, being older, wiser, and more "civilized" than American "cowboys" who pursue such foolishness as supporting the underdog and succoring the weak, acknowledges no debt to an Israel built on those enormous stacks of helpless, innocent corpses.
No matter. We will, as we have in so many other ways, and on so many other occasions, undertake to pay the debt ourselves, with our guarantee that no one will finish the insane job once begun by the Nazis and their collaborators, and aided by the silence of "good" Germans (and Poles and Italians and French and, yes, even some Britons).
If agenda-driven leftist European ideologues can hold all America responsible today for crimes committed against black slaves a century and a half ago, or against the armed fighting men (and yes, innocent women and children) of the native American tribes, then how should there be no levy of the same responsibilities against those whose parents, grandparents, and governments either murdered, or collaborated in the murder of six million innocent men, women, and children? And this not in the dead, dusty past, but in nightmares of yet-living memory?
America supports Israel because we must, because we would not be America if we didn't. There will be no repeat of the Holocaust on our watch. That any European could, or would question the source of our determination indicates the sort of moral blindness that has traditionally fortified American distrust of (and disgust with) the old countries.
There are more native Americans alive in the United States today than there were in colonial times. There are more blacks alive in the United States today than there were during the Civil War (the bloodiest war in our history, waged at least in part to set free those very slaves). There are more Jews living in the United States today than there were in 1935.
However, in 1935, there were approximately eight million Jews living in Europe. Today, there are about 1.6 million. Outside the U.S., the largest concentration of Jews in the world resides in Israel, surrounded by nations whose press, political, and religious leaders urge atrocities like, "Allah willing, this unjust state ... Israel, will be erased..." and "the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam."
It doesn't matter whether Europe is puzzled (or scornful), or Islam is angry, or Asia doesn't care. We will not permit the destruction of Israel, nor will our support of her waver. "Never again" is not some faded, hopeful wish. It is the bedrock promise of the state of Israel. It is also the debt of the civilized world, whether the civilized world wishes to acknowledge it or not, keeping in mind that we may not have entirely clean hands in the matter ourselves. The contention of some that FDR could have done more to mitigate the genocide is controversial, but the possibility certainly must be acknowledged. In any event, the debt remains, and we will enforce it with American will and power, because we are America.
John Kennedy, speaking in another time, and to a different threat, said:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
His words are as true today as they were in 1961. Those who doubt it do so at their peril.
A big round of applause and a hearty welcome to Wlady Pleszczynski's latest venture, The American Prowler. It's the old American Spectator Online, but dolled up in brand new bloggin' duds.
Gays don't need spurious, feel-good "hate crime" laws, certainly not while statutes like this monstrosity are on the books. Doesn't anybody in the (mostly) leftish covens of gay activism understand the meaning of priorities?
Jerome Hooper was taken by ambulance to San Francisco General Hospital on Saturday afternoon after Officer Steve Lee shot him three or four times in the chest with a semiautomatic handgun after Hooper allegedly attacked Lee in Chinatown, police said.
It's always difficult to parse the precise intentions of the latest journalistic code words, but why do I doubt that police announced the shooting had been carried out by an officer using "a semiautomatic handgun?" This sounds more like the kind of detail a typically anti-gun SFChron reporter would solicit.
"Oh, one more question - was the officer using a semiautomatic handgun by any chance? Yes? Thanks very much."
Would it make any difference if the officer was using a "semiautomatic" baseball bat, as long as the attacker went down?
It's also not fair that the tax dollars of citizens and legal immigrants must subsidize -- and hence reward -- the college tuition of students who entered the country illegally.
And I wonder why it is so hard for anybody - politicians and pundits alike - to say out loud that illegal aliens are criminals. If we support criminals, why should we expect others to obey the law in the first place? After all, we are sending the message that crime pays and, in the case of subsidized tuition to California colleges and universities, pays damned well.
Saunders does approach the issue, albeit obliquely:
So here's another question: If politicians don't respect the law, why should citizens respect politicians?
Actually, citizens don't. This is just one more reason why.
The despicable Robert Fisk's only concern about his "friend" Daniel Pearl's kidnapping is that it might cause an exodus of journalists from Pakistan, so that nobody will remain to report on the supposed atrocities occurring there.
Well, Bobby, if worst comes to worst, you can always go back to take up any slack. And with a little bit of luck for the rest of us, perhaps the next pack of muggers won't be so gentle.
Editor -- It's not hard to locate the origins of corporate greed run amok if we look at where corporate welfare and deregulation took a radical escalation: in the "go-go" Reagan economics of the '80s. "I've got mine, you get yours" was a familiar echo coming from a laissez-faire playground. Isn't it time to set an example in this country? How can we preach to other countries that we represent the values of democracy and integrity, and condemn evildoers, when we sanction domestic monetary terrorism? How can we let what happened on Sept. 11 be trivialized by the insidious bottom line? LIZ BROWN Carmel Valley
It takes a hell of a lot of "domestic monetary terrorism" to pay for digs in Carmel Valley. The average home price there is a cool $701,000.
"In the base of the party, there's still a great deal of support for Al Gore, and in Washington there isn't," said Mitchell Berger, a top fund- raiser for Mr. Gore in 2000 who said he would back him again. "When I worked for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, nobody in Washington wanted them. Currently, a similar thing is going on with Al Gore."
This is a solid NYT analysis of Demo prexy prospects for 2004, in view of the recent stirrings of the politically living-dead Al Gore. Byron Dorgan of S. Dakota guffaws at the notion of a new Gore try for the brass ring, while Mitch Berger, above, whistles in the dark. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton may have been disliked by the Beltway crowd prior to their elections, but they were relative unknowns to the general voting public, which worked in their favor.
Sadly for Al Gore, he is very well known. I wonder how long it will take for "Holy Joe" Lieberman to demonstrate his naked ambition and back away from his "promise" not to run if Gore does?
I POST THIS item with no analysis except that which you choose to provide for yourself. I just watched (and listened to, god help me) Paul McCartney and Terry Bradshaw singing an a cappella duet of "Hard Day's Night" at the Super Bowl.
I'LL BE BUSIER THAN USUAL with my regular writing chores for the next few days. Like Ken Layne, I'm trying to finish the first draft of a new novel, and I'm into the homestretch. I'll try to post off and on, but bear with me if you don't see as much as usual. It will pick up again after I get this patch of scribbling out of the way.
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