Musings Archive February 2003
Friday, February 28, 2003 GOLDBERG ON GAROFALO: Jonah Goldberg isn't quite as down on comedienne Janeane Garofalo as Charles Bloomer, but he's darn close. And I think he's quite right that fewer than 32 million Americans have even heard of Win Without War, much less belong to it.
Posted by antle @ 11:53 PM EST [Link]
~ WRONG MAN TO SELL TAX CUTS?: Stephen Moore sounds off on Gregory Mankiw on NRO. Is Glen Hubbard about to be replaced by someone hostile to the low-tax, pro-growth policies of the Reagan years? If so, this does not bode well for the promotion of such policies today.
Posted by antle @ 11:24 PM EST [Link]
~ THE FOLLY OF LIBERAL TALK RADIO: Marni Soupcoff has a characteristically clever piece in The American Enterprise On-Line on the idea that the left needs to take talk radio by storm to undo the damage wrought by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.
My favorite line: "Adding a specifically themed 'liberal' radio network to the mix would be like adding a special 'chocolate' themed area to a Godiva store."
Posted by antle @ 11:07 PM EST [Link]
~ CAROLYN PARRISH WATCH CONTINUED: Damian Penny links to a shocking interview that Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish gave to Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly last year.
How this woman got elected is beyond me, and I've seen some truly messed up candidates get elected.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link]
~ THE LAST MINUTES OF THEIR LIVES: A videotape recovered near Palestine, Texas shows the Shuttle Columbia crew during the final moments of their lives.
Posted by steve @ 03:22 PM EST [Link]
~ SHOCKING story about the thugs that are terrorizing (and even killing) teen-aged girls in high-rise apartments in France. This well-written article has something that will make many mad, especially feminists, immigration reformers, family values activists, city planners, and plain ol' French bashers.
Posted by izzy @ 03:16 PM EST [Link]
~ RE: MIDDLE EAST: Think the unthinkable, says Mark Steyn.
"These days, everything's thinkable, everything's up for grabs. But, once you recoil from the unthinkable, it's all too easy to slump back into the unthinking. Take Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, veterans of that golden age, the Ford-Carter era. They wrote a thing in The Wall Street Journal a week or so back arguing that we urgently need to get -- ta-da! -- the Palestinian 'peace process' back on track. To this end, they propose several exciting new ideas that sound exactly like the same old ideas: a Palestinian state on the land occupied by Israel since 1967; a '100% Palestinian Authority effort to end violence'; a Jerusalem that will 'accommodate two separate sovereignties' yet be 'physically undivided' ..."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:45 PM EST [Link]
~ QUIT SLAMMING AMERICA AND HER SOLDIERS PLEASE: "After complaints that the children of soldiers were upset by anti-war comments at school, Maine's top education official warned teachers to be careful of what they say in class about a possible invasion of Iraq."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ PARRISH APOLOGIZES AGAIN: Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish apologized again yesterday for calling Americans "bastards".
"I share a fear of imminent war experienced by many Canadians. That fear and frustration do not justify my comments," she said in the House of Commons.
"I sincerely regret having made them and have made a full apology to . . . the ambassador of the United States."
For me that's not the story. The telling part (and I think the journo responsible for the story must have loved putting this in) was her profoundly anti-democratic response to being questioned about it before her first apology.
"Parrish said her remarks were not intended for publication and, before issuing the apology, told one reporter who contacted her: 'If you use it, don't bother calling here again.'
"She added that she would work to restrict access journalists have in Parliament if the comment was reported."
Not only is she a moron, she's an arrogant moron.
Posted by steve @ 10:12 AM EST [Link]
~ HEY, I JUST WATCHED LAWRENCE OF ARABIA: Ahem, on DVD. Actor Omar Sharif has come out against a war against Iraq.
"The Islamic world is in danger of becoming completely radicalized. You're going to encourage a war of religion, East against West and Muslims against Christians, the Crusades. You're going to create more terrorists with this than ever you can imagine," he said.
I guess Mr. Sharif missed the note that some Muslims had already declared war against the West and Christianity. The 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre. The USS Cole. The bombings of two American embassies in Africa. The 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre. Assorted terrorist attacks stretching back decades.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:42 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS ON SADDAM AND DUBYA: Good piece by James Lileks today on Dan Rather's interview with Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush's landmark speech in Washington, D.C. the other day on his hopes for the Arab world.
"I don’t fault Dan Rather for going to Baghdad. If someone had interviewed Hitler in ‘39 for three hours, we'd prize the tapes as an invaluable historical document. Every year the History Channel would run them without commercials: Hitler Unplugged. Granted, the interview would consist of one question followed by three hours of spittle-shower ranting, but it would be the sort of up-close-and-personal document we don’t have of Herr Hitler. He’s always on the podium pounding and howling, or smiling as he pats the cheek of some doomed Hitler Youth, or staring off in full Adoph Mode as the Robotmach stomps past in endless parade. We have plenty of Fuhrer, but very little Hitler. To see him in repose out of uniform, dog at his feet, fire crackling behind him, peering over steepled fingers as he takes in the translation of the question - well, it wouldn’t tell us anything new, but it would be fascinating to see him just being unnervingly normal."
Posted by steve @ 09:32 AM EST [Link]
~ NO HUMILITY ALERT. My homeschool piece that was featured on mises.org got me invited on a talk show, a CBS affiliate in San Antonio, Texas. The show is hosted by a Eliza Sonneland. Alas, it's not Alan Colmes. :>)
Posted by izzy @ 12:34 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, February 27, 2003 MUSIC FOR SOLDIERS: Michele over at A Small Victory is collecting money to send CDs to soldiers serving over seas. The little things count so please help her out.
[Update - 11:19pm] The campaign is going well!
Posted by steve @ 11:16 PM EST [Link]
~ DESTROY THEM WITH ACID: "New York medical examiners using DNA samples have identified the remains of two of the 10 suicide hijackers who crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, officials said Thursday."
They deserve no burial. Destroy the remains completely. Let there be no trace of them ever again.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:04 PM EST [Link]
~ QUIBBLING ALWAYS WORKS: Steve, my only regret is that I didn't win a free book :( Of course, when most people say something about "Eisenhower-era conformism," they're referring to McCarthyism (Jonah Goldberg has just made a not-altogether convincing defence of Tailgunner Joe; here's a good summary of McCarthy's career, which more than shows why no one, least of all conservatives, should be caught defending McCarthy). Of course, this is historically myopic given that McCarthy was at the height of his powers during the Truman adminstration. In fact, it was McCarthy's former ally, Vice President Nixon (!) who made the first real counterattack against McCarthy when he made a televised speech warning against McCarthy's "reckless talk and questionable methods." And it was Eisenhower who manouvered McCarthy (I'd like to see Goldberg explain that) into overreaching when McCarthy began making baseless accusations of Communist infiltration in the US Army. The baby-boomer phenomenom of Fifties-bashing, like the Lytton Strachey-led attack on the Victorian era, will be seen in the future for what it is: utterly baseless self-promotion.
Posted by Barton @ 06:30 PM EST [Link]
~ DAMN BARTON WONG!: I review Mark Steyn's book and I don't get a mention on his web site but Barton Wong writes a letter and gets published.
DELIBERATE MISTAKE OF THE WEEK
I believe I have detected one of those many deliberate errors hidden throughout your columns you speak of in your latest mailbox. In your review of The Hours, you say that the section involving Julianne Moore set in 1951 seems like "just another movie ganging up on Eisenhower-era conformism." Of course, General Eisenhower did not formally take the oath of office and thus get to impose conformism upon America until January 1953.Barton Wong
TorontoNicely done Barton!
Posted by steve @ 03:43 PM EST [Link]
~ SEA KING CRASHES DURING TAKE OFF: A Canadian Forces Sea King helicopter crashed this morning on the desk of the HMCS Iroquois as it was attempting to take off. Two men were injured.
"At the time of the accident the Iroquois was on its way to patrol the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman and the southern part of the Arabian Gulf with two Canadian frigates."
In every story I have ever written about the Canadian military I unfailingly mention the 40 year old helicopters. So aged that they require 30 hours of maintenance for every one hour of flying time. Read that sentence again if the disparity slipped by you. They are in essence the very symbol of the Canadian military. Used past the breaking point with little help in sight.
Posted by steve @ 01:44 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT THE WAR IS ABOUT: Steve den Beste had a good piece yesterday about what a war with Iraq would really be about.
"That's what will be needed in Iraq: we must make them feel as if they've won because their lives have improved. We will force on them certain things which will replace the most diseased aspects of what they have now, and that will be integrated into their culture and create a new-and-better Iraq. They must begin to achieve, for once they do their pride will be satisfied and their resentment will subside, and they will cease to be a danger to us. Nation building in Iraq is a strategic requirement for the US for purely selfish reasons. But we cannot get what we need by placing a new friendly dictator in charge to replace the old unfriendly dictator. Iraq itself must be reformed.
"This means that we are fighting this war to free the Iraqi people. We're not doing so out of altruism, but the effect for the Iraqi people will be the same as if we were. (We didn't free Eastern Europe from Soviet rule out of altruism, but they don't seem to mind.) And we need Iraq to keep being a success, because it will induce reform in the rest of the Arab world, leading to further and broader Arab success, rising pride, decreasing shame, lessening resentment and less violence aimed at us."
[Update - 2:07pm] In what may have been the most important speech of the year, U.S. President George W. Bush talked about the future of Iraq last night.
Posted by steve @ 01:38 PM EST [Link]
~ "TIRED, LEFT-WING LIBERAL": Woo, woo, Phil Donahue yesterday issued a statement blasting MSNBC for cancelling his struggling talk show. Donahue stated that MSNBC was attempting to "out-fox Fox" by going more conservative.
"Meanwhile, the Web site www.allyourtv.com posted a commentary on Wednesday by Rick Ellis saying that he had been leaked an internal NBC study that described Donahue as 'a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace.'"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:25 PM EST [Link]
~ HUMBLE THURSDAY: No self-promotion today.
Posted by antle @ 12:26 PM EST [Link]
~ DON FEDER'S SPEECH was taped. So, Steve can invite you fellas over, and you can all watch it on his DVD. Click here to read Why the Left Hates Israel.
Posted by izzy @ 10:25 AM EST [Link]
~ THEY AREN'T SURRENDURING ALREADY ARE THEY?: U.S. intelligence reports that a Republican Guard unit was on the move in northern Iraq today.
"U.S. intelligence indicated the unit will be positioned in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland, but it also could be enroute to Baghdad to defend the capital. This unit is believed to be possibly one of two Republican Guard infantry divisions in northern Iraq."
Read on. Also reports on Turkey's continual delaying on approving U.S. troops. I hope they didn't complain about NATO refusing to plan for Turkey's defence earlier this month...they had at least one ally on board and her name was America.
Posted by steve @ 10:00 AM EST [Link]
~ I LIKE THE SYMBOLISM: The proposal of the son of holocaust survivors has been chosen for the new World Trade Centre. The plan includes a tower that's 1 776 feet tall (for 1776) and would make it the tallest building in the world.
"The architect says that having calculated the arc of the sun, a wedge of natural light would funnel visitors to the memorial site, and that every September 11 between 8:46 a.m., when the first tower was struck by a plane, and 10:28 a.m., when the second tower collapsed, no shadows will be cast by his buildings."
I don't know if I like Daniel Libeskind's proposal yet but I like the thought that went behind some of the touches.
Posted by steve @ 09:56 AM EST [Link]
~ I THINK YOUR BASTARDS, I JUST DIDN'T MEAN TO SAY IT: Yet another Liberal MP (I'm going to have to start using YALMP) has publicly apologized for an anti-American remark.
Liberal MP Carrolyn Parrish, a nobody in her own ranks besides on the national stage, stated yesterday, "Damn Americans, I hate the bastards." The remark was picked up by a TV microphone and after the story broke Parrish issued a hasty apology.
"My comments do not reflect my personal opinion of the American people and they certainly do not reflect the views of the government of Canada."
Of course they don't.
[Update - 1:28pm] This isn't the first time Parrish has made the papers making an asinine remark. Damien Penny chronicled last fall how she berated the National Post for running a journalist's stories because he won an award from B'nai Brith.
Posted by steve @ 09:51 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY DONAHUE FAILED: At least according to Jack Shafer in Slate. Sayeth Shafer: "First and foremost, Phil failed because the plurality of regular cable viewers will not watch a lefty commentator who doesn't have a right-wing co-pilot."
Shafer trots out figures to show that the audience of all news shows lean to the right regardless of what channel your talking about. That means regardless of what network he was on, regardless of whether he was on broadcast or cable, Donahue had no chance.
Posted by steve @ 09:46 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, February 26, 2003 USSC THROWS OUT GUN RECORDS CASE: The US Supreme Court said today that it would not decide after all if the government can withhold information on some gun purchases and crimes because a new law may affect the case.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 07:34 PM EST [Link]
~ EUROPE'S NEW FLAG: David Govett wrote to tell me he has a new flag for Europe. You can find it here.
It's funny because it's true.
Posted by steve @ 07:01 PM EST [Link]
~ JOHNNY CASH'S HURT: Virginia Heffernan over at Slate discusses Johnny Cash's video for Hurt, the remake of the Nine Inch Nails song. There is also a link to the video online.
Happy birthday Johnny.
Posted by steve @ 03:32 PM EST [Link]
~ AHEM! I know that Steve's DVD purchase has distracted you chaps and temporarily turned this into a Men's Home Shopping Network blog. While you were dishing, some of us were reporting about big issues like affirmative action.
Posted by izzy @ 02:39 PM EST [Link]
~ IMAGINE NO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN CANADA: "Envision it: Poof, Ottawa is gone. Of course by this I mean no harm to the flesh-and-blood creatures who live there, even the sleazier inhabitants of the patronage and chequebook world of lower Liberalism. Let us look simply at the central apparatus of the state."
End result? No harm to anyone. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:16 PM EST [Link]
~ CAN I HAVE SOME MORE PLEASE?: Canadian Justice Minister Martin Cauchon will ask Parliament for another $170 million to continue operations for the federal firearms registry, bringing total spending on the program to close to $1 billion.
If you're keeping track at home, the original cost of the program was pegged at $2 million.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
Posted by steve @ 02:12 PM EST [Link]
~ STEVE AND HIS DVD: PART 1 OF 1: I have to admit DVD rules. I watched Unbreakable last night and I was amazed as to the quality of the picture and sound. So much so, I went on a buying spree today and bought Spider-Man (2 disc collectors), Zulu, Fight Club (2 disc collectors) and Requiem of a Dream (Directors cut).
Tonight, Lawrence of Arabia...I can hardly keep myself from saying I'm sick and going home.
I can't imagine ever putting up with VHS again. Now I just have to buy Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress and a couple of other Akira Kurosawa movies to please myself...and Good Fellas...The Alamo...Bladerunner...well, lots more.
Posted by steve @ 02:06 PM EST [Link]
~ QUESTIONS FOR SADDAM: I'm having a little bit of trouble with Saddam's solutions to the whole stalemate over Iraq. If he's prepared to die, why don't we just shoot him and spare his country an invasion? Then there is his proposal that he debate President Bush. My own feeling is that if he wants a debate styled after the U.S. presidential debates, he should hold free elections and debate his opponent. Deal?
Posted by antle @ 01:26 PM EST [Link]
~ SO LONG OLD FRIEND: This makes me sad. NASA announced yesterday that Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, has been given up on. It's last signal was received by the Deep Space Network on January 22.
"NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt Feb. 7, 2003. The previous three contacts, including the Jan. 22 signal, were very faint with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was April 27, 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10."
Goodbye old friend. You are now truly a part of the cosmos for the rest of time. That or until a Klingon Bird of Prey blows you up for target practice (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier reference).
Posted by steve @ 09:49 AM EST [Link]
~ I NEVER EVEN GOT TO WATCH IT: Because I'm not rich enough to afford that fancy digital satelite stuff. MSNBC has cancelled Phil Donahue's six-month old talk show because of poor ratings.
"The political talk show format has yet to prove -- and may never -- that it can support a liberal voice, said Andrew Tyndall, head of ADT Research, a television news consulting firm."
You know what Phil would say right? "This proves, woo woo, that conservatives control the, woo woo, media."
Posted by steve @ 09:37 AM EST [Link]
~ NO PROBLEM: Saddam Hussein announces he would rather die in Iraq then accept exile.
I heard of a couple of guys who are preparing to help him out right now.
Posted by steve @ 09:25 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece on Dennis Kucinich's abortion flip-flop today in The American Prowler. If there was ever a time for the good congressman to reveal his inner pro-choicer, his 1998 run against a pro-life activist would have been it.
Sean Higgins provides background in earlier pieces here and here.
Posted by antle @ 08:30 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, February 25, 2003 I'VE SUSPECTED THIS ALL ALONG: Steve and Orrin, the methods you have perfected for sustaining your unbelievable "reading" rate are finally exposed for all the public to see ;) The literary editor of London's Evening Standard has provided his fellow literary hacks with a how-to guide for book reviewers who have a deadline to fill and a paycheck to earn, but who just don't want to read their assigned books. The paragraphs that say it all:
My predecessor as literary editor in this paper, A.N. Wilson, told a remarkable story in a book of essays called Secrets of the Press. He had rung the historian Paul Johnson to ask him to review a big book - more than 800 pages - on the American Civil War. To give Johnson more time, Wilson asked his assistant to have it biked over that same day. The next morning, she admitted she had forgotten to send it and that it was still sitting on her desk.
At that moment, "the fax machine had begun to whirr into action, and 800 perfectly formed words on the American Civil War, with observant comments on the merits and faults of the book, had dropped into the intray. I saw no reason not to publish this review", says Wilson. "Like all really good journalists, Paul had somehow intuited the true nature of the thing under discussion."
Now, A.N. Wilson believes all journalism to be a form of imaginative literature rather than "an exact science", so this incident, too, may have been somewhat shaped by the crebadative impulse. But we must believe him, when in the same piece, he cheerfully announces: "I have lost count of the number of dull books I have hailed as masterpieces, rather than trouble myself to finish."
I'm going to print this out and file it away for future reference. (Via The American Scene)
Posted by Barton @ 05:55 PM EST [Link]
~ LIBERAL PARTY, R.IP.: New York's 60-year-old Liberal Party has shut down after losing its automatic ballot access for the first time in 2002. The party's membership and support base had been in decline for some time. And it's claim to be the oldest active third party in the United States wasn't true either - the Prohibition Party has been around since 1869. Sure, it hasn't had any influence in decades, but in recent years neither have the Liberals.
Now we only have to wait for the Democrats to disband... Sigh, I can dream can't I?
Posted by antle @ 04:36 PM EST [Link]
~ ARE MUSLIMS GOOD MULTICULTURALISTS?: Mark Steyn says no.
Posted by steve @ 02:08 PM EST [Link]
~ AVRIL LAVIGNE WILL HAVE MORE CHANCES AT A GRAMMY: Says the normally intelligent National Post.
"If Ms. Lavigne and her fans are seeking further consolation, they might consider the fate of recent Grammy darlings. For Alanis Morissette in 1996, Lauryn Hill in 1999, Macy Gray in 2001 and Alicia Keys in 2002, big Grammy hauls seem to have been career pinnacles rather than harbingers of longevity."
Perhaps, but I like to think the candle that burns twice as bright lasts only half as long. And your candle is burning very bright right now Avril.
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ LET IRAQ'S PEOPLE RULE IRAQ: Says Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress.
"However, there must be no gap in the sovereignty over Iraq by Iraqis. We reject notions of foreign military government or United Nations administration for Iraq. Iraqis are fiercely independent and, at the same time, are perfectly capable of governing Iraq. There are many able and talented Iraqis who are not tainted by serving the dictatorship; after all, nearly one-third of all Iraqis live outside Saddam's control -- four million in exile and three million in the liberated area of Iraqi Kurdistan."
I don't disagree with him but I think Mr. Chalabi is a little sanguine about how difficult it will be for Iraq's people modify a state that has dedicated itself to decades of brutal repression and is a powder keg of ethnic tensions. Added to that is that Chalabi himself has little credibility among other Iraqi leaders.
Posted by steve @ 02:01 PM EST [Link]
~ NO RACE: If U.S. President George W. Bush is rushing to war against Iraq then it must be the slowest race on the history of the world. I mean it has been over a year since he identified Iraq as a member of the Axis of Evil, right?
Christopher Hitchens agrees. He points out that early in Dubya's administration he hinted at lifting some sanctions against Iraq and since then he's taken the slowest possible road to war.
"Some 'drumbeat.' Some 'drive to war.'"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:30 AM EST [Link]
~ AGGRANDIZING THE SELF or self-promo alert. Mises.org features my "Why of Homeschool" piece. (That desk in the photo is passe.)
Posted by izzy @ 10:30 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece in the Washington Dispatch today comparing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The short version? Dubya ain't no Reagan yet, but he could be someday.
Posted by antle @ 10:11 AM EST [Link]
~ I JOINED THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY TODAY: That's right, I finally broke down and bought a DVD player. It came by delivery this morning so I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to tear apart my home theatre system just to install a component I swore I would never buy until I could record (I time shift my television watching) on it so that I could ditch my VCR.
That said, Future Shop offered a pretty sweet deal on a Samsung unit so I decided to pull the trigger. Remember, every time you delay a purchase the terrorists win. Tonight's viewing? Either Fight Club, Unbreakable, Lawrence of Arabia or Dark City. The early favourite is Fight Club since I feel in an anarchistic mood this morning.
Now the question is what is the first thing I'll buy for it. My first tape was Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, my first CD was U2's Achtung Baby (well, that's not true but it was the first new CD I bought for it) and my first DVD? Probably Fight Club.
Posted by steve @ 09:57 AM EST [Link]
Monday, February 24, 2003 AN UNLIKELY NORAH JONES FAN CLUB MEMBER: Even some social conservatives who don't think much of popular culture/music like Norah Jones.
Posted by antle @ 11:18 PM EST [Link]
~ PUT A SOCK IN IT, RALPH: I talked before about Ralph Klein's separatist fantasias, but I'm not a professional journalist employed by a major national newspaper. Don Martin is though, and it's because of articles like this:
With every fill-up of 83¢ litres of regular gas, and with every monthly whack from hefty heating bills, it gets harder to feel Alberta's pain as the hard-done-by energy sheik of Canada.
As home to the lowest taxes, the highest per capita program spending, the most vigorous economy, the lowest unemployment and the fastest growth by the nation's youngest population, well, cry me a river, Alberta.
Yet once again, from homes out on the range, a discouraging word is heard, voices suggesting Alberta is sick of serving as a no-fees ATM to a federation of ungrateful shopaholics and may opt to create its own bank account...the Alberta Republican movement is the same as it's always been -- a tiny sometimes-vocal sliver of the actual population. I suspect this to be true because a survey of a dozen prominent Albertans yesterday failed to yield a single informed voice expressing fresh separatist sentiment.
For some reason, Martin goes all portentous in the very last word of the article, but this and Andrew Coyne's commentary in today's National Post (not posted on the website yet), should relieve any anxious busybody actually scared of Alberta separatism occuring within the next century or so. Doesn't Klein have a clue that everytime the word "separatism" comes out of his mouth, we selfish central Canadians (unfortunately, including the conservatives among us) take him just a smite less seriously then we did before or is he really that tone-deaf?
Posted by Barton @ 09:02 PM EST [Link]
~ ATTACKING PEOPLE WHO EARN $6.85/HR. IS SO COOL: I have to agree with Steve that given a choice between the "X-Men" and the Grammys, I watched the "X-Men" (my sister's teacher, Mr. Brown, got to scream in agony before an audience of millions since he plays the cop whose forehead Magneto slowly drills a bullet into; I wonder what kind of audition you need to prepare for a role like that?). As for Avril...well, I've got a tiny little rant to get off my chest about her. You're going to think I'm insane, but here it goes.
One of the more aggravating things about my television viewing experience in 2002 was the fact that Avril's first music video for her hit single "Complicated" was inescapable for anyone living in the First World (if you wish, you may gaze upon that masterpiece here). The first time I saw the damn thing, I got really, really angry. I mean we're presented here with that stupid spoiled brat of a "rocker," her all-male punker "crew," and the lyrics of a song about how love's so complex and what not. So what kind of concept does the video's director think of? Why, let's have Avril and the gang trash a shopping mall! Fine, whatever. Vandalism is a traditional mode of youthful exuberance. What that has to do with the mysteries of the human heart is beyond me, but then again, I'm not a music video director. But even better, let's have Avril and friends steal from, mock, and physically assault some hapless, pimply, minimum-wage earning drones who look like they're exactly the same age, except they aren't as cool-looking or "rebellious" as Ms. Lavigne and her pals. Ms. Lavigne's unfortunate victims (including a poor sucker who has the oh-so dignified job of being a store mascot) look like they're all toiling away to pay for their college-tuitions, while real-life high-school dropout Avril and her thugs actually have the temerity to walk right in and humiliate them as they try to work. I mean, those losers and conformos just had it coming to them, didn't they? Avril and her unbathed gang of goons are just too cool to bother with the niceties of earning their money for a living. This is supposed to be the new face of rock?
Anyway, I actually ranted about this to my fellow student-interns at the Ministry of Culture, and the first response was a well-deserved eyeroll along with, "Dude, it's only a music video." To which I responded, "Yeah, but think of the age group that the video's aimed at. What kind of message are we sending to little kids: 'Multimillionaire, vandalizing, skater queen good; hard-working, minimum-wage earning nerds bad?' What happened to the rock music that was supposed to stand up for the have-nots in the world, instead of telling us to squish them like a bug?" Alright, as you can tell, I'm still inexplicably deranged about this four-minute long spool of film. But that's why I hate Avril Lavigne (that and the fact that my little sister stole one of my only ties in order to get that "Avril" look, but that's another story...).
Posted by Barton @ 08:41 PM EST [Link]
~ ANOTHER TALKING AIRHEAD
I watch very little television and even fewer new movies, so I wouldn't know Janeane Garofalo from the cleaning lady. Someone told me she's an actress or something. Whoever she is, she is woefully confused, or maybe just wrong, on this whole Iraq situation.
She was interviewed by Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday. The transcript is here.
I am a strong believer in the US Constitution and its free speech protections. Garofalo has as much right to express her opinion as anyone else. I just object to her access to big time TV interviews just because she is a celebrity. I pay attention to experts with credentials. Being able to act does not count as credentials.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:52 PM EST [Link]
~ GOVERNORS BEGGING AT THE WHITE HOUSE
I have written more than once in the illustrious pages of Enter Stage Right that the one of the major reasons that we have an out of control federal government is because State governors are addicted to federal handouts. State governors think that everyone should pay for their problems, even if they don't live in that State.
The governors are at it again. Fox News has the story.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 03:36 PM EST [Link]
~ A FREE NATION DEEP IN DEBT: Orrin over at Brothers Judd reviewed A Free Nation Deep in Debt this weekend as well and as usual his review kicks the tar out of mine.
Posted by steve @ 03:27 PM EST [Link]
~ POOR AVRIL: I didn't watch the Grammys last night, opting instead for X-Men on Fox (anyone who turns down an opportunity to watch Ian McKellan act should be beaten), so I didn't know who won anything until this morning. Frankly, I still don't care.
But I am happy that Canadian skater queen Avril Lavigne was shut out last night after receiving five nominations. It's popular now for entertainment journalists to write about the "Avril backlash"...people who are jealous of the girl's success. For the record, I'm not jealous of her success. Good for her! Enjoy the money! The reason I hate Avril is that faux-angst skater garbage she calls music. If you want good thrashing Canadian girl fronted music I suggest Scratching Post (if you look on the web for their site, I must warn you ahead of time it's filled with the stuff conservatives hate), who's lead singer I am inexplicably in love with. I think it's the flaming red dyed hair and the way she screams in "Wake Up You're On Fire".
[Update - 3:41pm] Fellow Canadian Sarah Kelly has a blog entry from earlier this year detailing her dislike of Avril as well.
[Update - 4:16pm] Fellow Canadian Damian Penny considers the Grammys a bad joke. To prove that, he lists the Grammys that were won in years that The Beatles lost. Example? (Winner in brackets) "1964, Record of the Year -- The Beatles, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (Getz and Gilberto, "The Girl From Ipanema")" I just put the Rubber Soul album in to wipe the memory of The Girl from Ipanema from my mind...
Posted by steve @ 02:24 PM EST [Link]
~ H-K UNITS TO KILL SADDAM AND SONS: (via Brothers Judd Blog) The NY Post reports that "hunter-killer teams and aircraft would target Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein - and his two evil sons - within 48 hours of the launch of any military campaign."
"The moves would include a series of massive, surgical airstrikes and commando raids in the opening hours of the action. Specially trained operatives would target Saddam, sons Uday and Qusay and other key aides.
Qusay, who heads Saddam’s personal Republican Guard unit, has orders to unleash weapons of mass destruction should something happen to his father, according to British intelligence.
Saddam’s eldest son, Uday, is said to command Iraq’s vicious paramilitary groups in charge of sabotaging infrastructure, such as bridges, and committing atrocities against their country’s own civilians to blame on the United States."
I know I'd weep if they bit the bullet. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]
~ IRANIANS HAVE NO LOVE FOR IRAQ: Which shouldn't be a surprise. Good LA Times story about how many Iranians want to see Saddam Hussein removed from power.
"At least 300,000 Iranians were killed in the war, and more than half a million were wounded.
However, the depth of Iranian antipathy for Hussein predates both the war and the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970s.
Iranians and Arabs are ethnically and culturally distinct, and a prejudice against Arabs has run through Iranian history for centuries. After the Iranian national soccer team lost a game to Iraq in 1977, the shah wept openly before fans at Tehran's Azadi Stadium.
Because Iranians speak Persian instead of Arabic and identify with a culture that predates Islam, most of them do not have the emotional ties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that reinforce the anger Arabs feel toward the United States, which they see as Israel's sponsor. Iranians do not sleep and rise with televised images of Palestinian suffering, as Arabs throughout the region do."
Read on. (Free registration or use name: esrmusings pass: coffee)
The best part may be the final paragraphs in the story which recount how some young Iranians want an U.S. invasion of...you guessed it...Iran.
Posted by steve @ 01:13 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece today in Tech Central Station on Libertarians trying to fill the void Republicans have left in the fight to shrink Massaschusetts' state government. I think the lesson is applicable to anyone working for smaller government, not just those who belong to or support the Libertarian Party - I myself am a Republican. And I also believe in giving credit where it's due.
Posted by antle @ 09:28 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, February 23, 2003 MESSAGE FROM THE REVEREND AL: Al Sharpton wants you to know that he is viable. Along with a series of other pronouncements from your friendly neighborhood Democratic presidential contenders.
Posted by antle @ 06:17 PM EST [Link]
~ DISPLAYING YOUR CONVICTIONS: Louisvillians show their support of George W. Bush and America's soldiers with a billboard and they invite people across the country to do the same. You can learn more about the campaign here.
Posted by steve @ 05:05 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, February 22, 2003 POSSIBLE GOOD NEWS FOR BUSH: Ralph Reed, who made the Christian Coalition into a potent political force during the 1990s and helped lead Republicans to unprecedented victories in Georgia in 2002, is resigning as chairman of the Georgia Republican Party in order to focus on President Bush's reelection in 2004.
Of course, a large part of the reason for his resignation is to help new GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue consolidate his control over the state party. But if Reed is in fact going to be a player in Bush's reelection campaign, the president can only benefit from his proven track record of success.
Posted by antle @ 09:12 PM EST [Link]
~ GEORGE W. BUSH, ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE- Well Steve, prepare to feel more unhappy. Here's three stories I noticed today:
1. War support hits new low. Canadians want U.N. support: Poll American motives found to be suspect
Support in Canada for a U.S.-led war on Iraq has reached a new low, a poll done for the Toronto Star shows.According to a poll conducted by EKOS Research Associates for The Star, La Presse and the CBC, 74 per cent of Canadians would oppose Canadian participation in a war without the "full support" of the United Nations Security Council. Only 25 per cent would support a war without it. (snip)
Many Canadians are suspicious of American motives for an attack on Iraq, the poll shows. Asked about the most important reason for a U.S. attack on Iraq, 39 per cent answered that it was to ensure that the United States' strategic oil interests in the Middle East are protected, while 30 per cent think it is to protect the security of Americans from threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and only 18 per cent think it is to remove Saddam Hussein and install a democratic regime in Iraq. Ten per cent think it is to ensure the popularity of the Bush administration for the next election.
2. Via Iberian Notes:
Today's main page three Vanguardia international headline: "Africa supports France against Bush". All fifty-two African states have voted, at the Franco-African summit in Paris, to follow the French line on Iraq policy. There's a lovely photo of Chirac talking with Thado Mbeki of South Africa, the guy who says that HIV doesn't cause AIDS and whose country has the highest murder rate known in the world, well over 100 per year per 100,000 people. (In comparison, in America it's five point something and in Spain it's three point something murders per 100,000 people.) At least Mbeki was elected more or less democratically; the other three guys in the picture are Kabila of the Congo, Kerekou of Benin (this guy is sort of OK, he was dictator for many years, got voted out, and then got voted in again), and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Fine folks, those. Salt of the earth. The French managed to talk the Brits into letting Mugabe into the EU; he's under EU sanctions and isn't supposed to be able to enter. Patassé from the Central African Republic and Ngueso from the other Congo are being threatened with international human rights violations charges. Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast didn't show up because if he left the country he'd be overthrown. Other lovely governments in attendance were Libya's, Algeria's, Uganda's, Rwanda's, Ethiopia's, Eritrea's, Equatorial Guinea's, Malawi's, Angola's, Sudan's and Mozambique's. How much do you want to bet that each of these governments is responsible for many times the number of deaths that will be caused to civilians in the upcoming Iraq War?
3. Grammy stars free to sing out on war
Get ready for antiwar protests at tomorrow night's Grammy Awards ceremony. Despite a report that CBS executives had considered blocking politically outspoken rockers, the network said last night it would not pull the plug on anyone protesting a war against Iraq. The Drudge Report, an Internet news site, quoted an anonymous CBS chieftain as saying the network would cut the microphone of any rocker who engaged in antiwar rhetoric. But CBS quickly moved to squelch the story.
"There will be no restrictions on artistic expression or opinions expressed during acceptance speeches," said CBS spokesman Chris Ender.
Musician Sheryl Crow, who made headlines when she wore a "War Is Not the Answer" T-shirt at the American Music Awards in January, plans to hand out 300 "No War" buttons tomorrow. "If we can't turn to our artists, who can we look to?" Crow told the Daily News. "I think there will be artists stepping forward and making statements."
At Thursday's Brit Awards in London, Chris Martin of English band Coldplay said, "We are all going to die when George Bush has his way. But it's great to go out with a bang." The Grammys will be handed out during a 3-1/2-hour telecast from Madison Square Garden. (Via Drudge Report)
Doesn't it feel great to be a rebel in these days of massive anti-war sentiment? The more everyone squeals for keeping Saddam in power, the more defiant I feel.
Posted by Barton @ 06:59 PM EST [Link]
~ DEMS SHOW DOUBLE STANDARDS ON ESTRADA: Apparently I am not the only one who believes that the Democrats are showing their double standards by blocking Miguel Estrada. Liberal columnist Ruben Navarrette, Jr. is also questioning the nature of the Democrats' opposition and wondering what the Democrats have done for Hispanics lately. (Link via Brothers Judd.)
Just for the record, my argument is not that it is necessarily racist to oppose a minority nominee. If the Democrats think Estrada is too conservative and want to make that case, fine. What I do object to is the double standard that says that when conservatives oppose minority nominees they are being racist - or at least their motives are so suspect that they should be on the defensive by default - but liberals can oppose conservative minorities with impunity. What makes this double standard all the more outrageous is the fact that liberal Democrats escape criticism even when they make race or ethnicity a factor in their opposition. Whatever your opinion of conservative Republican opposition to any number of minority nominees over the years, ranging from Jocelyn Elders and Henry Foster for surgeon general to Ronnie White for a federal judgeship - I can think of no point at which they explicitly raised race or ethnicity in their opposition. Yet a Democratic leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus can, in the presence of Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, question the ethnic authenticity and solidarity of a minority nominee without reprisal. And observers can make at least a plausible argument that the intensity of Democratic opposition owes in part to a desire to deny President Bush the opportunity to appoint someone who could potentially become a leading Hispanic judge and possibly even the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice at some point in the future.
Race and ethnicity should obviously not be a factor in judicial nominations and other government appointments. Instead, the debate should focus on the qualifications and positions of the nominee with both sides free to oppose a nominee on those grounds without being called a racist if the nominee in question is a minority. What cannot be tolerated is a double standard by which opposition to one side's minority nominees is considered evidence of racism while oppostion to the other side's minority nominees is acceptable even when opponents bring up race and ethnicity. Yet this appears to be the situation that we've found ourselves in.
Posted by antle @ 05:46 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE BAD NEWS: In addition to all the terrible things Steve mentioned in his earlier post, now a roof has collapsed in a Maryland toystore. Fortunately, not many people appear to have been injured.
It's almost enough to make you want to stay in bed.
Posted by antle @ 05:03 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: Earlier in the week, Ether Zone ran my second article on immigration myths. Past ESR contributor Vin Suprynowicz, who has tended to take the traditional libertarian position in favor of open immigration, also had a good column on the subject recently.
Posted by antle @ 04:58 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQ WAR DIVIDES DEMOCRATS: The divison in the Democratic Party over whether to back President Bush on war with Iraq is starting to show among the party's presidential candidates. The Washington Times reports that Howard Dean addressed the Democratic National Committee with a fiery antiwar speech in which he also criticized Democrats for supporting other Bush policies.
Dean, the former governor of Vermont, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun are all antiwar. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who most polls show to be the prohibitive front-runner, and former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt have consistently supported going to war with Iraq. Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John Edwards have tended toward a more ambiguous position of openness to war with Iraq if broad international consensus and U.N. Security Council approval can be reached while criticizing Bush's diplomatic efforts and "rush to war." Among the Democratic aspirants who serve in Congress, Lieberman, Gephardt and Kerry voted in favor of the Iraq war resolution while Edwards and Kucinich voted against. If Florida Sen. Bob Graham gets into the race, the Democrats will have a candidate who voted against the resolution not because he opposes war, but because he did not think the resolution went far enough - he would intervene militarily in a variety of countries to disarm not just Iraq and al Qaida, but Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.
War with Iraq - and perhaps the war on terror generally - figures to be the most emotional issue debated by Democratic contenders during the 2004 election cycle.
Posted by antle @ 04:06 PM EST [Link]
~ I'M IN A FANTASIC MOOD TODAY!: Let's see...96 people dead in a fire in a Rhode Island bar...girl who got wrong organs transplanted has brain damage (medically dead in other words)...Four people stoned to death in the Congo after being accused of casting an evil spell to cause an outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease that has killed nearly 70 people.
Yup, I'm in a great mood this morning.
Posted by steve @ 05:05 AM EST [Link]
Friday, February 21, 2003 AL FRANKEN ON THE AIR: I'm not prepared to predict that Al Franken will flop in his bid to become liberalism's first successful national radio talk snow host. He's a pretty talented guy and it should be remembered that most who have tried before him (the one exception would be Jim Hightower) were just boring gasbags. But I think Jonah Goldberg makes a pretty good case for why liberals have trouble on talk radio.
Liberals for the most part don't listen to talk radio. They don't need talk radio because they have most of the major media, NPR, Hollywood and the rest. Maybe the rise of FOX and a growing perception that the left is being shut out of the media will create a liberal audience for talk radio as an alternative media, in much the same way these circumstances created a conservative talk radio audience. But so far there is no evidence for this. If liberals don't listen to talk radio but conservatives do, that in and of itself will doom most liberal hosts. Combine that with Goldberg's observation that liberals can't afford to offend anyone from the "Coalition of the Oppressed" with their shtick, and their chances get even slimmer.
Boston has a few moderately successful liberal talkers. But even in this Democratic bastion, the most popular talk show hosts tend to be right of center. Even on TV, the most successful liberals are usually paired with conservatives. My guess is if Franken succeeds, it will be because he talks about more than just politics.
Posted by antle @ 11:26 PM EST [Link]
~ YOU TOO COULD BE A WINNER!: The opportunity that all Canadian conservatives have been waiting for can be found right here. Don't delay, operators are standing by to take your calls now! (Via ToryDraft)
Posted by Barton @ 07:10 PM EST [Link]
~ ALRIGHT, THIS IS JUST CREEPY- From the BBC:
Nauru loses contact with the world
The tiny Pacific island of Nauru has spent weeks completely cut off from the outside world after its telecommunications network collapsed.
Its isolation is so complete that no one is even sure who the country's president is any more.
Nauru, an isolated speck in the southwest Pacific with a population of 12,000, is in a "critical situation", according to the last message received by the outside world.
That came via an address given three weeks ago by the man last believed to be running the country, President Bernard Dowiyogo, details of which were given on Friday by Radio Australia.
The president said that many people had not been paid since last year and that the eight square mile (21 square kilometre) island was effectively broke.
"You are all aware and conscious of our critical situation," Dowiyogo said in the address.
Nauru's telephone system collapsed on 8 January amid political chaos, and since then the island has only been contactable when ships equipped with satellite telephones made stops there, the AFP news agency reported.
Nauru's diplomats in New Zealand confirmed to the agency that apart from these few calls, they had been unable to contact home for weeks.
The situation is compounded by the fact that when contact was last made, a battle was raging for power between President Dowiyogo and the man he unseated in January, Rene Harris. No one is quite sure who runs the island now.
Additionally, whoever is in charge is thought to have no budget with which to rule, while the official presidential residence was reported to have burned down last month.
It is a sad demise for an island which not long ago boasted one of the world's highest per capita incomes through lucrative phosphate mining.
But with the phosphate reserves nearly gone - and most of the island reduced to a barren moonscape as a result - Nauru has gradually slumped into chaos.
In an attempt to find a new source of income, Nauru has recently become a major centre for offshore banking and is accused of allowing rampant money laundering.
The problem is so bad that more than 400 banks were registered to one mailbox alone, international investigators say.
The island has also begun interning asylum seekers while their applications to live in Australia are processed, in return for aid from Canberra.
However this appears to have gone badly wrong.
Late last year, Australian immigration officials admitted that the asylum seekers, mainly Iraqis, had been running their own detention centre since officials abandoned the site following a riot.
"Effectively you could call it a self-managed centre," a senior Australian immigration official told an inquiry.
Can anyone say Lord of the Flies? (Via Free Republic)
Posted by Barton @ 06:54 PM EST [Link]
~ FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY "HOSTAGES HELD FOR 444 DAYS" CARTER OPENS HIS MOUTH
Former President Jimmy Carter blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for creating animosity abroad, according to an AP report at Fox News.
And just which US policy is Mr. Carter referring to? The one that allowed Iraq to violate its surrender agreement, as practiced by former zipper-in-chief Bill Clinton? Or maybe he's referring to his own US foreign policy. You remember, the one that led to Iran holding Americans hostage for 444 days. The foreign policy, coupled with his complete lack of military and defense policy that led to a disastrous rescue attempt that failed miserably in the desert, with our own pilots and crews as the only casualties?
Mr. Carter has a perfect opportunity to be quiet. He should take advantage of the chance. If he keeps his mouth shut, we may think he's an imbecile. If he opens it again, we'll be convinced.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 05:58 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
CLEARWATER, Fla. — A judge granted child custody to a transsexual man involved in a bitter divorce case and ruled Friday that the man is legally male under Florida law, even though he was born female.
I don't care if he/she was born an alien in outer space. This judge, not uniquely, overlooks how his ruling will impact a couple of otherwise normal kids. This ruling shows that judges are more concerned about the egos of the nut cases involved than he does about the children that will now live with a deviant. I don't know if this judge is a liberal or not, but the ruling shows more concern about deviancy than it does "for the children".
This is an AP story at Fox News.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 04:45 PM EST [Link]
~ WEAPONS OF MASS HYSTERIA
Jed Babbin has a good piece over at The American Prowler that puts a more sensible spin on the threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
I am less concerned about the effects of the weapons than I am with the breakdown in society that would accompany the panic associated with their use. That panic would be a result of 2 things -- the lack of knowledge among the general population and the overwhelming media hype that would result from their use. Other people buy duct tape, I buy bullets.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 04:12 PM EST [Link]
~ HOCKEY GAME TOO VIOLENT FOR MILITARY: The brain trust at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, a university that trains officers for the Canadian military -- and a place where I was nearly arrested by two humourless MPs back in the late 1980s in connection with a bottle of exceptionally cheap white wine and my ability (or lack thereof) to hold my booze back then, has ruled that cadets cannot play in a historic re-enactment of a hockey game.
"The game is a re-enactment of one of the first recorded games of hockey in Canada, an 1886 match between RMC and Queen's played on an inlet of Lake Ontario."
The reason? The replica 19th-century hockey uniforms worn for the event do not include helmets and protective padding.
Canadian Armed Forces officers, active and retired, are justifiably flipping out.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 02:35 PM EST [Link]
~ WORST. BOOK. EVER.: I love reviewing books and it's not because I get free books. I like discovering something new and telling people about it. I guess that's why we write and work as journalists. Telling stories. Writing about bad books can be as fun, if not more, than writing about good ones. There's something fun about writing a poison review.
In a recent Washington Post interview, Gene Weingarten talks to Robert Burrows, a man he says has written the worst novel in the history of the English language. That's high praise indeed. He decides to interview Burrows but tells him that his review will won't be, to put it politely, kind. Burrows, amazingly, agrees.
"I have said this before, and I'll say it again. I really love my job," writes Weingarten.
The central point of Burrows' novel? The Bush tax cuts are bad. Trust me, that doesn't steel you for how bad Great American Parade promises to be.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:59 PM EST [Link]
~ LOYAL AUDIENCE?: Yahoo! story says liberal mag Salon.com may not survive past this month. It has so little money that it hasn't paid its rent since December.
The funny part of the story is the following sentence:
"Although its news coverage and commentary have attracted a loyal audience, Salon hasn't been able to make money."
Unless I don't know what loyalty is, such an audience would make sure that Salon wouldn't be in the straits that it is. Less than five per cent of its audience has ponied up for the premium service. That's like two per cent more than respond to flyers in newspapers. Hardly loyal or impressive.
Posted by steve @ 10:52 AM EST [Link]
~ WAIT, I THOUGHT THERE WERE NO TERRORISTS IN IRAQ: That's what Saddam Hussein said.
"Iraq has rejected U.S. claims of links to a Kurdish terrorist group believed connected to Al Qaeda, and said it has offered to hand Washington a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:17 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS ON WHO THE REAL ENEMY IS: "It takes a particularly rarified variety of idiot to look at a Jew-hating fascist with a small mustache - and decide that his opponent is the Nazi."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:12 AM EST [Link]
~ COEDS AND GUNS. This is a slightly longer version of that gun column I originally wrote for my local paper.
However, this version has a few photos of Mount Holyoke students with firearms.Posted by izzy @ 09:38 AM EST [Link]
~ FORGIVE ME FATHER: For I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
I got Johnny Cash's most recent album, American IV: The Man Comes Around, yesterday and I have to say that I'm very unhappy. Cash is 70 years old and he hasn't got too many more years to crank out the amazing stuff he's been doing since signing with American Records. American IV proves once again that the Man in Black is one of the most important singer/songwriters in American history. Each album from him these days is truly a gift.
American IV opens with The Man Comes Around, a song written by Cash which is filled with Apocalyptic imagery about the last days when the Earth sees a return of the Kingdom of God. It then moves into one of the more unlikely covers I've heard, Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails) Hurt. In fact, American IV is filled with unlikely covers. Depeche Mode is one band I blame for destroying music in the 1980s yet Cash's cover of Personal Jesus is truly a masterpiece. If there's anything bad on this album it's Cash's rendition of Oh Danny Boy. He does it fine but I think a moratorium has to be placed on this song. Enough people have done it. Enough already.
Reading the liner notes and listening to the album I'm struck by how religious Cash really is (Hey, he was on an episode of Touched by an Angel, an execrable show I only watched because he was on it). He opens his personal note in the notes by thanking God for both being alive and for his wife, the superb June Carter Cash. He recounts a dream he had of visiting Buckingham Palace and having the Queen recite a line from the Book of Job. He may have been stuck in Folsom Prison but it's likely he spent a lot of time in its chapel.
I've long thought that Johnny Cash would make the perfect priest. Has he sinned? Damn right, though probably nowhere near what the public thinks – he's made it to 70 years of age after all. But who knows God better than the sinner? (ref. fallen angels Satan and Moloch) Cash has lived. He understands the darker side of humanity and yet his faith in a higher power is proof that he also believes in the beauty of humanity. I can see him minister to his flock and understand their sins only because he knows what sinning is.
Posted by steve @ 09:18 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, February 20, 2003 BASHING THE FRENCH IS FUN: Nice little article detailing the rise of anti-French feelings in the United States. I love the picture of Jacques Chirac with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.
Posted by steve @ 07:18 PM EST [Link]
~ THE HISTORIAN WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD: Oh yes, before I forget, you must read this excellent profile in the Telegraph of the High Tory historian and official Kissinger biographer, Andrew Roberts, whose latest book (despite it's godawful self-help title) Hitler & Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, has garnished equally excellent reviews.
Anyone who can admit that he was "a very active bachelor," but that "I'm completely un-priapic now," or cheerfully says he "was an absolutely beautiful child," or despairs because "I don't need to boast . . . but gosh, it's so difficult not to do. I don't know why . . ." gets my vote. Who can't help but like a man who just decides one day to leave his job at a merchant bank and become a spy at MI6, just like that, or who at the grown-up age of 27, upon hearing that Thatcher was resigning, burst into tears (the Telegraph's words) and then decides to immediately rush over to 10 Downing Street with a bouquet of flowers?
Posted by Barton @ 03:23 PM EST [Link]
~ KLEIN TRIES THE "SUBTLE HINT" APPROACH: From today's National Post:
EDMONTON - Ralph Klein says Alberta separation is not on the agenda "right now," but warned it will probably be raised at the provincial Tory party's convention in March.
The issue of separation arose this week during the government's Throne Speech in which it asserted that Alberta's ability to be a partner in Canada is compromised by the federal government.
The Premier insisted he is not in favour of separation but said there is a small but growing number of Albertans who are.
"Based on just the letters I get and so on? Yes, and it's scary," Mr. Klein said yesterday.
"But I can understand the frustration of Albertans over Kyoto, health care, gun registration, the Canadian Wheat Board, Senate reform, the list goes on.
"I wasn't talking about separation at all [in the Throne Speech]. Turn that around and put it the other way, we want to be part of the Canadian family."
Mr. Klein added, "But we're saying, and the Throne Speech was quite clear, Alberta's ability to be a partner is compromised by the current federal government.
"We do believe the federal government's unilateral approach to a number of issues is undermining a united Canada, and is underminig the interests of this province.
"I don't want this to be construed as a threat of separation, because separation is not on the table for discussion. Not right now."
Mr. Klein acknowledged, however, it will likely be brought up at the Tory convention. "But it's not on this table right now," he said.
"But it might be, that's what I'm saying, and it might be at the party convention. It simply puts the federal government on notice that the Alberta government intends to strongly defend our interests.
"We want to be a strong member of Confederation. And I think most Albertans, not all, share that opinion." (snip)
Gosh, is Ralph threatening us elitist central Canadians with the spectre of rising Albertan separatism (a movement which of course, would be out of his hands) unless we conform to a more Alberta view of things or just let them keep more of their goodies? Well, if a rise in seperatism is predicated on who gets shafted the most in the Canadian confederation, our pampered Quebecers would be breaking out into spontaneous choruses of "O Canada" everyday, while I'd be out on the street waving signs reading "Vive le Toronto libre!" and banging the drum for turning our fair city into Singapore North. A Newfoundland-born, Toronto-based conservative like David Janes was begging Albertans to raise the separatism threat several weeks ago in order to force The Permanent-Ruling Party to shape up, while a reactionary such as Kevin Michael Grace was not so subtly telling Stephen Harper to abandon the dream of sitting in the PM's office in favour of leading a party which "would fight like a terrier to prevent Ottawa from raping Alberta again. And, if necessary, he would take Alberta out of Canada." Both are under the delusion that a: Conservatism of any strong sort is actually appealing to Canadians on a national level. b: that the Quebec City/Windsor junta which rule this country will regard Alberta seperatism as more than just another one of Ralph Klein's more hazy, alcohol-induced mirages. That's unfortunately also the sentiment on the street here in Toronto. Hey Albertans, if you're feeling like you're being unfairly picked on by the federal government, well, get in line. Grumbling about Ottawa and threats of separation are two of the things that unite all Canadians.
Posted by Barton @ 02:39 PM EST [Link]
~ FBI ARRESTS PROF OVER ALLEGED TERRORIST TIES: File this under the "It isn't academic freedom if people die" category.
The FBI today arrested a University of South Florida professor over allegations he raised money in the United States to support the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
"[Sami] Al-Arian has been under investigation since the mid-1990s when he and Abdullah Shallah founded an Islamic think tank at the University of South Florida. About a year later, Shallah returned to the Middle East as the new head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group dedicated to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel. The U.S. State Department has designated it as a terrorist group."
Al-Arian is on tape announcing "Death to Israel" and yet he claims that he doesn't support suicide bombings or the targeting of civilians. Hey, I believe him.
Posted by steve @ 09:45 AM EST [Link]
~ REMEMBERING DANIEL PEARL: Interfaith memorial services will be held in major cities around the globe over the next few days to mark the anniversary of the slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
"Services have been scheduled at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Thursday; at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New York on Sunday; and at Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto on Monday. Other services are planned in London, Paris and Jerusalem."
If you're in those cities on those days please consider going to a service. If you're not near any, spare a moment and remember Daniel Pearl, a genuinely decent human being murdered for being nothing more than an American Jew.
[Update - 9:57am] - His father, Judea Pearl, writes about Daniel in the WSJ.
Posted by steve @ 09:41 AM EST [Link]
~ JAMES EARL JONES, ANTI-IDIOTARIAN: One of my favourite actors, James Earl Jones, says he's for an invasion of Iraq if it's done properly. He says his only concern is that the U.S. gets involved as soon as necessary and hangs around to see the job through this time.
Read on.
What else could you expect from the man who hated hippies in Field of Dreams?
Terence Mann (James Earl Jones): Oh my God!
Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner): What?
Terence Mann: You're from the Sixties!Later in the same conversation:
Terence Mann: Peace, love, dope! Now get the hell out of here.
Posted by steve @ 09:37 AM EST [Link]
~ SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT THE FRENCH: They wouldn't have took any garbage from Greenpeace. The environmental group attempted to block a cargo ship loaded with U.S. military equipment destined for the Persian Gulf from leaving Rotterdam.
"We want to send a signal to the U.S. and British governments, but also to the Dutch government, which is going along too easily with preparations for military conflict instead of looking for a peaceful solution," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Maartje van Boekel.
Read on. I'm trying to figure out what Iraq has to do with the environment...
Posted by steve @ 09:32 AM EST [Link]
~ THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO DISCOVERS THAT THERE ARE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SEXES: As this is Reading Week at the Best University In Canada, I feel obliged to occasionally keep up with the campus news from my home computer. That is how I discovered this delightful news item:
In an era of "grrl power" and breaking gender stereotypes, girls still write stories about romance while boys write about action and adventure, says an education researcher.
"What I find alarming is gender identities are becoming more rigid as students get older," says Professor Shelley Peterson of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) and author of the study. "These gender roles don't allow students to explore other topics, styles and ways of being."
Peterson asked 54 Grade 8 students from an urban and suburban school in Ohio to write a story on any topic and consult with their peers while crafting it. She analyzed their writing and put the students in focus groups so they could critique each other's writing and choice of topics. Her findings were published recently in the journal Gender and Education.
Although Peterson found writing and gender stereotypes closely linked, there were a few students whose stories had different themes. Some girls wrote about sports and a couple of boys wrote about relationships, but on a competitive level.
Yep, according to Professor Peterson, it's alarming that young females act feminine and young males act masculine. These unfortunate 14-year olds have obviously been forced by that bad old all-purpose villain, the Patriarchy, into conforming with stereotypical gender roles. I mean, it's not like their minds aren't genetically hard-wired into acting like that, is it? Why that would mean that our beloved "blank slate" theory of the mind is completely wrong, but no one has come along recently to disprove it, have they? I should note that the OISE is considered the finest facility for the education of future teachers in the country, which says a lot about the teaching profession in Canada. Oh well, at least the article notes at the end that the study was funded by a grant from Ohio State University, so I personally thank the taxpayers of that good state for funding this great discovery in modern sociology.
Posted by Barton @ 03:14 AM EST [Link]
~ HOW TO JUSTIFY WANDERING AROUND AND BEING LAZY: It might puzzle regular readers of this supposed "group" blog, why Steve Martinovich seems to be the only consistent writer at least since I dropped out over six months ago. I must admit that this puzzles me as well. After all, it was I who proposed expansion of this blog in the first place and that list of recommended blogs to the left is mostly my handiwork. I have any number of excuses at hand: my university work, my work last summer as a Culturecrat (an eye-opening experience which made me sympathize with government bureaucrats more while making me like the administrative state even less, but that is another story), the fact that writing blog entries does not even compare with reading other people's blog entries, especially when they are invariably better-written than your own (and it's less tiring as well). But in the final analysis, I suppose my recent non-contribution can be pinned down to two things: my habitual laziness and my equally habitual hobby of pointlessly wandering the streets of dear, old Toronto during my free time. Like any university student however, I have perfectly good theoretical reasons for this.
First, why would anyone with any sense want to wander aimlessly around city streets, especially during the well-known Canadian winter? Well, wandering around aimlessly isn't just anything: it's an art (complete with a fancy French name: "flânerie"). And perfecting your own "flânerie" is more difficult than it looks. As Walter Benjamin (who along with Baudelaire is the expert on this) put it in the Arcades Project: "Not to find one’s way about in a city is of little interest. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a forest, requires practice." Precisely. Anyone can get lost while looking for a specific place to go to; it takes real intelligence getting yourself absorbed in the myriad details of the city with nowhere to go to in particular, all the while retaining an ironic detachment from the very cityscape which fascinates you. It is aimless wandering for the sheer sake of experiencing the infinitely variable sculptural artform of the very streets.
Or as the invaluable Idler's Glossary puts it: "The flâneur practices a kind of refined street theater, thumbing his nose at hurrying urban crowds by loitering ostentatiously. For Baudelaire—who admired famous flâneurs like Nerval, who is said to have walked a lobster around Paris on a pale blue leash—the 'perfect flâneur' is that urbanite who is neither aloof from the crowd nor surrendered to it, but both at once; this "kaleidoscopic" faculty allows him to perceive the subtle eruptions of the infinite into the everyday."
Not convinced that walking about for hours like some crazed Raskolnikov and hanging out with all those streetpeople is worth your time? To wit, here's the venerable Partisan Review quoting Anke Gleber from her theoretical book about aimless wandering, The Art of Taking a Walk, (304 pages and published by the Princeton University Press) where "the flâneur [is] 'a kind of private eye,' a quintessentially urban figure that 'investigates the sensations he experiences and the riddles of modernity he registers.'" Investigating the riddles of modernity like some professorial Sherlock Holmes? Sounds like grand fun to a jaded arts degree-earning cynic like me. And here's Benjamin again on the psychological and physiological effects of sustained aimless wandering:
An intoxication comes over the man who walks long and aimlessly through the streets. With each step, the walk takes on greater momentum; ever weaker grow the temptations of shops, of bistros, of smiling women, ever more irresistible the magnetism of the next streetcorner, of a distant mass of foliage, of a street name. Then comes hunger. Our man wants nothing to do with the myriad possibilities offered to sate his appetite. Like an ascetic animal, he flits through unknown districts–until, utterly exhausted, he stumbles into his room, which receives him coldly and wears a strange air.
As you can see, aimless wandering is not well, aimless, at least psychologically speaking. It's more of a spiritual quest: denying the flesh for the sake of nourishing the soul with the sights and sounds of the street until the street itself becomes more of a home for the flâneur than the home itself. It's also great practise, just in case you ever fear becoming homeless. And the goal? Why the walk itself of course! Haven't you heard the saying about the point of a journey being not the destination but the journey itself? So there.
Oh and justifying laziness? I'm not lazy actually. Think of it more as a kind of lifestyle choice. It's just that my preferred methods of activity consists of Otioiseness, Idleness, and Indolence. To wit, here's the Idler's Glossary on the word "otiose:" "The Latin word for 'business' is negotium (as in 'negotiate')—which means 'not idling.' Get it? Otium, or leisure, was once considered the true goal of life; and business was just what you did when you weren't idling."
As well, I can't see why I cannot justify being Indolent after reading this: "For Keats, neither Love nor Ambition nor even Poesy contain joy 'so sweet as drowsy noons,/And evenings steep'd in honied indolence.' Although indolence [from the Latin for 'feeling no pain'] strongly resembles habitual laziness, or sluggishness, it's less a physical aversion to activity or effort than it is a romantic repudiation of what Keats calls 'the voice of busy common-sense.' To the idler, nothing is so precious as what Bergson calls 'duration': time divorced from productive operations, and dedicated instead to contemplation and reverie.'"
The man who practises Idleness as a lifestyle choice is not lazy, far from it. In fact, Idleness is how people like me achieve self-fulfillment: "Although the idler might not 'work' in any recognizable fashion, he is neither shiftless nor lazy. His energies, having been freed from the merry-go-round of the working life, are channeled into the pursuit of wisdom and pleasure...That's because idleness is not (unlike slackness), the opposite of 'work,' but is instead a hard-won mode of existence in which whatever one does is an act of creativity." Note the hard-won: it takes real psychological (if not physical) work to get to my goal of perfect Idleness.
In fact, I agree with Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote that: "Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself." As you can see, my doing nothing is actually my individual way of stickin' it to The Man. When you've got the ancient Romans, Keats, Henri Bergson, and Robert Louis Stevenson all on the side of doing nothing and doing it well, is there any point to continuing the argument?
Posted by Barton @ 01:40 AM EST [Link]
~ AM I BEING SERIOUS IN THE ABOVE ENTRY?: Well, I don't know. You tell me.
Posted by Barton @ 01:39 AM EST [Link]
~ CHOPPING DOWN THE ORCHARD: My poor beloved Tories. They just can't seem to get a break. Media coverage of their leadership race is down to NDP-like levels of anonymity. And now, protectionist Saskatchewan farmer David Orchard (think William Jennings Bryan with a moustache) seems to be out-organizing everyone by recruiting not-exactly conservative new members into the party. His latest ploy? Signing up members of the Serbian community by touting his opposition to the bombings over Kosovo. According to the "Gossip" section of the invaluable Tory leadership campaign tracker, ToryDraft.com (scroll down to "02/17 - This in from Saskatchewan"), Orchard is recruiting 250 members a day compared to the other candidates 50 a day. Not only that, here's an excerpt of a leaked memo from the Canadian Action Party (scroll down to "02/05 - And many Tories are asking, why is another left-wing party backing David Orchard for leadership of our party?"):
We think it would also be desirable if David Orchard became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party at its convention to be held in Toronto at the end of May. But he will need help to achieve that goal. As it is possible to join the PC Party without giving up membership in one’s own party, we urge anyone (except CAP executive members) wishing to help David reverse that party’s policies to give him a hand for these next few critical weeks until June 1st when it will be clear whether or not the transformation is possible.
While there seems to be a growing anyone-but-Orchard sentiment in the party (see "ORCHARD HAS NO PLACE IN THE TORIES" by Jeremy Dutton in the "Opinion" section and a Brison supporter's half-serious plea for MacKay people to give up as to not split the vote in the "Gossip" section entitled, "02/09 - Here's the anti-Orchard word on the street.... "), it all reeks of "geez, how did we let things get this bad?"
Posted by Barton @ 01:36 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, February 19, 2003 TOO FUNNY: I linked a couple of days ago (unless I imagined it) to some pictures of the San Francisco anti-war protest from the past weekend. Well, Rush Limbaugh has some other pictures, ones that are truly hilarious.
Dittoheads inflitrated the protests with some funny signs like: "Communism has only killed 100 million people. Let's give it another chance" and "Except for ending slavery, facism, Nazism and communism, war has never solved anything."
View on. Well done dittoheads!
Posted by steve @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
~ PROPS TO GERMANY: The first man to face trial in the September 11 terrorist attack was convicted in a German court of over 3 000 accessory to murder charges. Unfortunately, Mounir el Motassadeq will only get 15 years which is the maximum.
Posted by steve @ 01:03 PM EST [Link]
~ BREAK-UP BEGAN EARLIER THAN THOUGHT: "Space shuttle Columbia began losing pieces over the California coast, well before it disintegrated over Texas, the accident investigation board reported today, confirming what astronomers and amateur skywatchers have been saying."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:58 AM EST [Link]
~ BOSNIAN "CHARITY" AND AL-QAIDA LINKED: "U.S. authorities recovered a list of 20 financiers they suspect funneled money to Osama bin Laden and others extremist Muslim causes among a cache of documents that provide insight into the financing of terrorism, an unsealed court record shows."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:52 AM EST [Link]
~ PLAY NICE, MCCAIN TELLS WASHED UP EX-PRESIDENTS: Sen. John McCain told ex-presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to stop dissing Dubya and the administration's policies.
"It was an unwritten rule for a long time," McCain told radio host Sean Hannity, "that you kept your mouth shut about the conduct, particularly of national security affairs, by the people that succeeded you. That is obviously not honored by either former President Carter or former President Clinton."
Posted by steve @ 09:49 AM EST [Link]
~ SMOKING GUN?: The Independent reports today that three cargo ships are being tracked by American and British intelligence and are suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, some of Iraq's WMDs.
"Each with a deadweight of 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes, the ships have been sailing around the world's oceans for the past three months while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law, say authoritative shipping industry sources.
"The vessels left port in late November, just a few days after UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix began their search for the alleged Iraqi arsenal on their return to the country."
Posted by steve @ 09:46 AM EST [Link]
~ LILEKS ON THE PROTESTS: James Lileks responds to the past weekend's protests and while he understands why some people would be opposed to a war against Iraq, the protestors failed to make any case outside of being clueless.
"No surprise: there are lots of people out there whose viewpoint I find contemptible. The West is the problem, they insist. The US is the locus of perfidy. A mad cabal of oilmen and Jews jerk the string of a jug-eared dullard so they can kill Iraqi babies. And so forth. I know, I know, not everyone in the rally believes this, perhaps not even most. Just because the Spartacists march in your rally and hold up signs supporting North Korea doesn’t mean anyone else believes in their twisted cause. But mass movements have a way of being hijacked by the ardent few, the ones who are damned dead serious about overturning the established order and oiling up the guillotine to deal with the undecided. Their work is made easier by comfortable dilettantes who think it’s funny to call Bush a Nazi - or who march without comment beside someone who does."
I am, however, horrified that Lileks would cut down the Rat Pack and diss Sinatra as "overrated."
Posted by steve @ 09:14 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, February 18, 2003 WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT THE NEW WORLD ORDER?: My friend Nicholas Stix has an interesting take on the post-Cold War world over at Toogood Reports. I disagree with him somewhat on the nature of our Cold War victory and even more strongly over the (insufficient) credit he gives Reagan for it, but it is as usual a thoughtful and worthwhile piece.
Posted by antle @ 11:18 PM EST [Link]
~ TIRED OF HATE MAIL: The estimable Megan McArdle, aka Jane Galt, has decided to go on a blogging hiatus after a recent spate of hate mail. I'm not going to rehash what started the whole thing or what egged the hate mailers on, because you can pretty much gague that for yourself from her site and the comments to the post I linked to.
This is unfortunate, because Megan is one of my favorite bloggers. She's very thoughtful and tends to advance well-reasoned, factually supported arguments. You could make a case for describing her as either conservative or libertarian, but she doesn't just inveigh against liberals or French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." She arrives at her positions independently and doesn't shill for any politician, political party or platform. I hope she decides it is worthwhile to either return to blogging or continue as a commentator on current events in some other capacity.
But allow me to take this opportunity to make a confession. I know some Internet columnists who have been very demoralized by negative emails, and I can certainly understand where they're coming from when they're the result of organized campaigns. But I actually like getting negative emails. When somebody sees fit to get all fired up and write you a long, abusive email calling you every name in the book over something you wrote, that is a very reassuring bit of evidence that someone somewhere out there really cares. And a really stupid negative email provides every bit as much positive reinforcement as a really intelligent positive email.
I've been told to extract my head from all kinds of orifices. I have been accused of being a flak for big business and the Bush administration. I have also been accused of being a closet liberal and a promoter of Al Gore's presidential aspirations (both in response to criticisms of Bush). I had a guy challenge me to a boxing match. I have received emails laced with obscenity. I have been called both a white supremacist and a traitor to the white race. There's one web publication I ocassionally contribute to where everytime I write a new article, a guy uses it as an excuse to write a letter to the editor denouncing one of the first articles I ever wrote for the site. (He usually makes an attempt to connect it to the current piece, but what he is doing is so transparent it is hilarious.)
Am I just sick? Am I the only one who feels this way about nasty messages from readers?
Posted by antle @ 10:35 PM EST [Link]
~ WILL THE CHICAGO NIGHTCLUB DEATHS BECOME A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE?: Jesse Jackson has entered the fray over the controversial Chicago nightclub where 21 people were trampled to death this weekend. Apparently he is looking to demonstrate that there are few situations that are so bad that he can't make them worse.
Posted by antle @ 09:52 PM EST [Link]
~ MARK STEYN IS LIKE CRACK COCAINE: Or really tasty grape juice which is what I prefer. He's got a great piece reacting to the weekend's protestors.
To chum the waters a little if you're thinking of skipping this one, Steyn compares the protestors' devotion to their ideology to Hitler's manic obsession to his. Tasty!
Posted by steve @ 07:57 PM EST [Link]
~ CHIRAC TO EASTERN EUROPE: "SHUT UP": French president Jacques Chirac tells Eastern European nations to shut up. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, all of whom have dates for EU membership, joined EU members Britain, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Portugal in signing a pro-American letter. Ten other eastern European nations -- eight with entry dates and Romania and Bulgaria who are still in membership discussions signed another letter a few days later.
"These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position," he said.
"It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet."
Read on. Perhaps M. Chirac realizes that France and Germany are actually in a minority position these days and feels threatened. Perhaps he also realizes the countries outside of the EU may now represent the future of Europe....
Posted by steve @ 01:20 PM EST [Link]
~ GERMANY SETS UP THE NEXT WAR: After years of assisting in Libya and Iraq's biological and chemical industries, German companies are now assisting North Korea. Bill Gertz reports today that the North Korean ship that dropped off Scud missiles to Yemen last year apparently picked up a large shipment of chemical weapons precursor and brought it back to North Korea.
"The ship, the Sosan, was monitored as it arrived in North Korea earlier this month carrying a shipment of sodium cyanide, a precursor chemical used in making nerve gas, said officials familiar with intelligence reports."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:16 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT'S HAPPENING IN IRAQ?: Interesting news out of Iraq today. Saddam Hussein has apparently placed defence minister Lieutenant-General Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Jabburi Tai under house arrest.
According to various news reports, the move was made to prevent a possible coup against Hussein and there are rumours that the Republican Guard and regular army units are considering mass desertion rather than fight any U.S.-led invasion.
"The fear that Iraq's 700 000-strong regular army might refuse to fight invading American troops has prompted President Saddam to take drastic measures. Last week he reportedly deployed a ruthless militia of Iranian fighters to several key cities to crush any popular uprisings. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq - a violent Iranian opposition group based in Iraq - was sent to defend urban areas, including Baghdad, Kurdish newspapers reported. MEK fighters have also arrived at the border with Kuwait and Syria."
Might we see Hussein's body hanging upside down a la Benito Mussolini in the near future?
Posted by steve @ 09:58 AM EST [Link]
~ LIFE IS TOUGH FOR M. CHIRAC: Good Herald article detailing the corner that Jacques Chirac has been painted into over Iraq. Even Kofi Annan came across sounding like a hawk...
Posted by steve @ 09:31 AM EST [Link]
~ WHICH GROUP DO YOU BELONG TO?: "People break down into two groups when they experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching over them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just happy chance. And surely, the people in Group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in very suspicious way. For them, the situation is fifty-fifty. Could be bad, Could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in the Group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. So what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you: are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"
Rather than watch Joe Millionaire, interviews with Michael Jackson or the other garbage on television, I watched Signs last night. Better than The Sixth Sense (which was great) and on the same level as Unbreakable (amazing), Signs proves that M. Night Shyamalan is one of the best directors around today. If you haven't seen it, I seriously urge you to do so. If you only went by the trailers and decided not see it, trust me, ignore them and catch it.
Posted by steve @ 09:26 AM EST [Link]
Monday, February 17, 2003 KUCINICH TESTING THE WATERS: So Dennis Kucinich, once the disastrous "Boy Mayor" of Cleveland, now one of the most liberal members of the U.S. House of Representatives, is apparently going to run for president as the progressive candidate. He will be joining an already crowded field of Democrats, trying to distinguish himself as the most consistent liberal and an authentic "peace candidate" in the mold of Gene McCarthy and George McGovern.
Just one question - will Kucinich remain pro-life, or will he join such erstwhile pro-life Democrats as Richard Gephardt, Jesse Jackson and (to a certain extent) Al Gore in jettisoning his opposition to abortion in pursuit of his party's presidential nomination? None of the news coverage I have read recently has mentioned the abortion issue, an area where this liberal's liberal has consistently voted with the most steadfast conservatives. In 1998, when I was still dabbling with Ohio politics, the Ohio Right to Life Society even endorsed Kucinich over a Republican who was aligned with Randall Terry and the hard-line anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. After the Nation ran an article criticizing the left for embracing Kucinich despite his opposition to abortion, some pro-lifers have detected a weakening in his resolve.
Kucinich could still go the way of other liberals, like Nat Hentoff and Mary Meehan, and Democrats, like Ray Flynn and the late Bob Casey, rather than the way of Gephardt, Jackson and Gore. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Posted by antle @ 05:10 PM EST [Link]
~ FROM THE MAILBAG: You may have noticed that a previous entry grew into an article this week. Here's what one reader had to say about the subject of liberal double standards on race: "There is a double standard on most issues. The reason the liberals can get by with it is because no one expects any thing from them. Everybody knows they have no standards of conduct for themselves or society. That is what liberal has come to mean. No values. No one is surprised when a prostitute has sex. Cats meow. Dogs bark. Liberals lie."
And you thought it was just this magazine's writers who took a dim view of liberalism!
Posted by antle @ 04:50 PM EST [Link]
~ MISSED A CHANCE TO SEE A PROTEST?: Right Thinking from the Left Coast is here to save the day. Check out some pics from the San Francisco protest.
It is as I told some of my friends at a bar Saturday night in reaction to seeing the protests during a newsbreak in the middle of the hockey game. "They don't even &$%ing wash every day. How can you take what they have to say seriously?"
Posted by steve @ 02:26 PM EST [Link]
~ THE AL-QAIDA MEMBER WHO HELPED: Good NY Times story of an al-Qaida informant giving up big information. (Free registration necessary or use name: esrmusings pass: companyman)
Posted by steve @ 01:50 PM EST [Link]
~
THE SIMPSONS SUCK: Damian Penny is a lot kinder this morning to The Simpsons then I am. Last night the 300th episode aired -- actually the 302nd as the show itself cheekily admitted at one point -- and it was yet another example of the sheer awfulness it has descended to since Conan O'Brien left to do his talk show (that statement, by the way, really gets the backs up of the people behind the show today).
Damian, quite rightly, says the show has stopped being about the characters and more about The Simpsons phenomenon. He, however, is wrong to date it with the appearance of George Harrison during the B-Sharp's episode. It's true that Harrison's appearance was the first time (that I can remember anyhow) of a celebrity playing himself on the show instead of an original character (it used to be that people like Dustin Hoffman would play characters like Lisa's supply teacher and even be listed under the credits as "Sam Etic" -- say it fast if you don't get it -- in order not to overwhelm the point of the story with their star power). That said, Homer was more interested in the buffet table then meeting the former Beatle which was why the scene worked. Harrison's celebrity didn't matter.
The jumping the shark moment occurred later though I won't pin it down to any specific episode. It probably occurred sometime after the fourth or fifth season when the general quality of the show began to decline. Many people believe it occurred when Seymour Skinner was outed as an imposter (actually named Armin Tanzarian) in a 1997 episode. Seems as a good as place as any to pin the moment down. It was a genuinely awful episode.
Though The Simpsons was torn apart by social conservatives as yet another indicator of America's decline, it's important to note that in those early years the show was quite warm. Homer may have been bumbling but he genuinely loved his family and sacrificed for them repeatedly. Bart may have been a holy terror but you knew underneath he was a good kid who needed some stronger boundaries. The family went to church, they ate dinner together every night and in the end they always chose family over outside baubles. There aren't a lot of families, even those that profess to promote "family values", who do those sorts of things today.
Oddly enough, once the social conservatives found other targets or even began to praise the show -- some churches even employ a guide that uses The Simpsons to promote Christian principles -- that the show changed its portrayal of the family. Homer stopped being the well-intentioned bumbler and often became absolutely malevolent towards his family, regularly abandoning them or displaying an often savage cruelty. Bart's character receded into the background and the rise of the celebrity came to pass. That's your average episode today: Homer mistreats his family, everyone shakes their heads, celebrity makes appearance, episode ends.
A critic recently stated that The Simpsons are now the best sitcom on television. The problem is that he didn't mean it as a compliment. The show has declined to the point where the episodes are so formulaic that there's no real point in watching the entire thing...you know what's going to happen. There are essentially 12 plots that sitcoms employ (the miscommunication, the case of mistaken identity, etc.) and The Simpsons mine them relentlessly these days.
I'm in a minority these days. Everywhere I look I see television critics praise The Simpsons as funnier than ever. Maybe it is but along with the laughs, such as they are, I want the warmth from those early years. I don't need A Very Special Guest and a celebration of Homer's cruelty.
Posted by steve @ 10:08 AM EST [Link]
~ WHY I LIKE TONY BLAIR: (via Dispatches) As I aluded to in an early Sunday morning entry, and I'm sure you saw on the television, this weekend saw a large number of protests against any war against Iraq. Tony Blair responded to the protests thusly:
"But I ask the marchers to understand this. I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership. And the cost of conviction.
"But as you watch your TV pictures of the march, ponder this: If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who dies in the wars he started."
I don't think it needs be said that Tony Blair's politics aren't something I particularly care for. Call it psuedo-EngSoc, call it Third Way politics, call it old-fashioned liberal spending, but his domestic agenda is something that I find plain wrong. That said, his foreign agenda is another matter. Blair gets it. Blair understands that the world contains people in it that would destroy the people they rule and people like us simply because of some twisted ideology. You can call Bush an imperialist warmonger and Blair his poodle but that's just fatuous reasoning -- if your worldview sees George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Saddam Hussein as equals then there is nothing I can say to convince you. Your probably beyond redemption on an intellectual and moral level.
If I were an Englishman I probably wouldn't vote for Blair because I'm a conservative but I wouldn't be overwhelmingly disappointed if he won. At least I'd be able to hold my head up on an international stage and say that "Tony Blair speaks for me."
[Update - 1:43pm] Here's the entire text of Blair's speech. One thing he has to do is drop this infatuation with the UN.
Posted by steve @ 09:30 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, February 16, 2003 STANDING ROOM ONLY: I found this picture of Carol Mosley-Braun addressing supporters via NRO's The Corner. Other than my previously mentioned suspicions about the impact a Mosley-Braun bid could have on Al Sharpton, I see even less rationale for her candidacy than Gary Hart's.
Posted by antle @ 10:04 PM EST [Link]
~ HEY YANKS: You had a lot of protests against you yesterday. I mean, like, from all over the world. People truly hated you yesterday. If you fought a war in Iraq, they're hoping for a lot of dead Americans to "teach you a lesson." Some guy came up to me tonight, in a bar, and called Dubya a "Clymer" and announced how much he hated Americans.
I still love you. It doesn't mean anything, but there is one Canadian up here who still loves the United States of America. Please remember that. Don't brazenly call all Canadians asses. When I signed up to join the Canadian Armed Forces, I asked my recruiter if I could transfer to the Marines...
Posted by steve @ 04:02 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, February 15, 2003 EVICT THE U.N., COLUMNIST SAYS: Tim Rollins doesn't like the U.N. either. The American Partisan re-ran his 2001 piece calling for a U.S. withdrawal from the organization accompanied its removal from New York City.
Posted by antle @ 08:46 PM EST [Link]
~ WAR HERO'S WIDOW FACES EVICTION: WorldNet Daily had an interesting piece on the travails of a war hero's widow. Even more interesting is that valiance and courage of her late husband, reported in the story.
Posted by antle @ 08:33 PM EST [Link]
~ CUT SPENDING TOO, DUBYA: Veronique de Rugy has a great piece in Tech Central Station arguing that while President Bush may have sound instincts on taxes, he is letting federal spending roar out of control. In the long run, these are contradictory policies.
Posted by antle @ 08:19 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT ABOUT THE 98 PERCENT OF ECONOMISTS WHO DIDN'T SIGN?: Capitalism Magazine's Don Luskin positively slams news reports about the economists' letter opposing President Bush's tax cut cut proposal. He doesn't think much of the idea this proves the "experts" don't think Bush's plan should pass.
Posted by antle @ 07:51 PM EST [Link]
~ ESTRADA AND THE NEW RACISM: The debate over Miguel Estrada's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals reminds me of the pre-Anita Hill debate over Clarence Thomas. Especially troubling to me is the racial aspect of this debate, evidenced even among internal discussions of Estrada by Hispanics themselves in much the same way the black community divided over Thomas.
Decades ago, one would have thought that if a qualified black or Hispanic judge were to meet with opposition on racial or ethnic grounds, it would be unrepentant white bigots who would refuse to accept the idea of a minority judge. Now, self-styled civil rights groups try to force these nominees to choose group solidarity over their own ideas and criticize anyone who doesn't back their liberal agenda as lacking in "authenticity." Rather than treat them as individuals with their own ideas and accomplishments, we are to perceive them as cogs in a monolithic group thats interests can only be advanced by liberalism and the growth of government. This is where identity politics have taken us, to a new form of socially acceptable racism. Many people said that the Trent Lott debacle showed that conservatives have a problem with race. I think that the debate over Estrada demonstrates that liberals have their problems with race, too.
Posted by antle @ 03:18 PM EST [Link]
Friday, February 14, 2003 WHY WE HATE THE FRENCH, NO. 284: Steven Den Beste explains why he hates the French for opposing a war against Iraq while not minding that the Russians are also working against us. His reasoning? (And I agree by the way) The Russians openly work towards their own interests and are unapologetic about it. You can work with people like that because they're honest about their motivations.
The French? Well, one-third of the Axis of Weasels plays like the pious choir boy but acts like the bully.
Posted by steve @ 04:28 PM EST [Link]
~ SENATE MAJORITY LEADER FRIST CAVES TO DEM THREATS OF FILIBUSTER
In his first major test of strength and guts in the face of Democrat obstructionism on the nomination of Miguel Estrada, Senator Frist wimped out. He will not try to force a vote on Estrada's nomination before the President's Day recess. Some of us had hoped that we would see some backbone, something different from Senator Lott.
Republicans continue to play tiddly-winks while the Democrats play hardball.
More at CNSNews.com.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 04:11 PM EST [Link]
~ SADDAM THE MACGUFFIN: No matter what France and Germany think, writes Mark Steyn, Saddam Hussein is gone within a matter of weeks.
"Saddam is what Alfred Hitchcock called the MacGuffin. Like the top-secret formula in The 39 Steps or the uranium in Notorious, he's the pretext for the movie, but he's not really what the movie's about. Despite the best efforts of the French and Germans, the old butcher will be gone in a few weeks. The real debate in Washington is about the speed and scale of post-Saddam Middle Eastern reform: There are legitimate differences about that but the 'post-Saddam' bit of it is taken for granted. As noted in this space many months ago, he's being taken out first because he's the weak link in the chain of Arab despots. All the other stuff -- the chemical weapons, the ties to Islamist terrorism, the material breaches -- is true but ancillary."
Posted by steve @ 02:04 PM EST [Link]
~ NO MORE INSPECTIONS, SAYS POWELL: Colin Powell, to deaf ears, reacted to Hans Blix's report by stating new inspections were not the answer to resolving the crisis over Iraq.
Want to know how unbiased the UN is? After French Foreign Minister Dominique de Ville spoke and called for, you guessed it, more inspections, his speech was greeted with applause -- something banned during UN meetings.
Posted by steve @ 01:56 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT. I sunlight (as opposed to moonlight) as a reporter for Massachusetts News.
Here's a story I wrote about college students who are finding religion.
Posted by izzy @ 11:50 AM EST [Link]
~ IS THIS REAL?: It comes straight from the NY Post web site. It is beautiful beyond belief.
Posted by steve @ 11:46 AM EST [Link]
~ ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY, PUNK?
Dirty Harry will have to rethink his choice in handguns. Smith & Wesson has introduced a .50 caliber magnum pistol. That's big enough to stop a bear or other large object (large object being subject to your individual definition).
Let's see -- Christmas is too far away, but my birthday is coming up. A subtle hint to the wife...
The Washington Times has an article on this cannon.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 11:15 AM EST [Link]
~ FUNNIEST INTERNATIONAL STORY OF THE DAY: Saddam Hussein today banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq hours ahead of Hans Blix's report to the United Nations, a report that wasn't very good news for the U.S. if you watched it.
"The presidential decree forbids the production or importation of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or of any materials that could be used to make them."
Well, that settles it then. Those American and British troops can go home and the UN inspectors can go back to whatever they were doing before they got a free trip to sunny Baghdad.
Posted by steve @ 11:13 AM EST [Link]
~ HEY, MAYBE I'M IN THAT STUDY: The Canadian Islamic Congress has issued its fifth annual report on "anti-Islamic" references in the media and once again the National Post has "won."
Among the newspapers who scored highly was the Ottawa Citizen, a newspaper that has published a number of my writings on terrorism, militant Islam and the Arab world. I'd better be careful opening the door to my home tonight.
Read on.
[Update - 1:58pm] - The National Post responds.
Posted by steve @ 11:11 AM EST [Link]
~ ONE REASON FOR THE TERROR ALERTS?: CNN reports that the FBI is watching a number of men in America who have trained in al-Qaida camps.
Posted by steve @ 11:08 AM EST [Link]
~ NUKE 'EM! NUKE 'EM NOW!: I have to admit that on September 11, 2001 I was one of those who called on Dubya to turn the entire Middle East (Israel excepted) into a lake of blood and fire via nuclear weapons in retaliation. It's not something I'm particularly proud of but I'm old school: You mess with us and forget about this "proportionate response" thing. We kick your butt and kick it to the point that you never even consider raising a finger to us again.
James Lileks discusses a related idea: the people who want to turn Baghdad into glowing cinders if Saddam Hussein ever does something stupid to the United States, like launch nuclear/biological/terrorist attacks against the homeland. Lileks says Americans aren't like that, we won't kill innocent civilians in Baghdad in response because Americans are, well, Americans.
"Anyone think the US would nuke Baghdad under these circumstances? Were we the big bully bent on EMPIRE, we would have nuked them in ‘91 and spent the last 12 years enjoying dime-a-gallon gas. But that’s not who we are. I don’t believe we’d nuke Iraq after the fact if we had persuasive evidence."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:07 AM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: The American Prowler has run my review of Our Story: 77 Hours that Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, the story of the Queecreek miners trapped in that Pennsylvania mine last year.
Posted by steve @ 08:43 AM EST [Link]
~ GUN IS A FOUR LETTER WORD
Canadian Club
"Amanda Sousa, a self-styled 'pacifist' from Canada, was shocked and appalled when her seven-year-old daughter brought home her spelling assignment. One of the words on the list was gun. No, we're not making this up; it's in the Ottawa Citizen:
"'I realize people hunt in this area, but I still don't think that warrants the teaching of this word to my daughter or any other child,' said Mrs. Sousa. . . . Mrs. Sousa wrote a letter to her daughter's teacher describing her views on the word gun, her unease with any child learning to spell the word, a few alternatives, and the wish to speak to the teacher about its inclusion on the list.
"'The word gun is synonymous with death. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out why a seven-year-old would need to learn this word,' said Mrs. Sousa. . . . 'I don't think this is an issue of political correctness. It's an issue of protecting your child from violence. Guns are violent. End of story,' said Mrs. Sousa.'
"The Upper Canada School Board actually gave in to Sousa's demand and banned the word. Occasionally we hear from Canadian readers upset that we make fun of their country. But how can we help it when Canadians so often play to type?"
- James Taranto's "Best of the Web," 2/11/03
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 08:30 AM EST [Link]
~ FELLOW BLOGGERS and ESR Readers: Happy Valentine's Day.
Posted by izzy @ 12:13 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, February 13, 2003 AND SO DOES CONRAD BLACK: The man that leftists love to hate, media baron Conrad Black, argues in a Spectator piece today that Britain is right to stick by America.
"Tony Blair has adhered to a position that is not popular in his party and which he has not been as successful as would have been thought in selling to the country. He has been reviled outrageously as a poodle of the United States."
Posted by steve @ 08:22 PM EST [Link]
~ DENNIS MILLER GETS IT: (via Brothers Judd Blog) My favourite comedian, Dennis Miller, appeared on Phil Donahue's MSNBC Wednesday night and proved that when it comes to what's going on in the world today, he gets it.
"Miller so flustered Donahue that he went on a rant about how people like Miller are trying to 'marginalize' liberals. Becoming a parody of himself, Donahue whined about how 'you're making us to be some sort of wimpy kind of people who, woo, woo, we don't get it. We don’t see evil. We think everything is a nice fairy tale. That is an attempt to marginalize us.'"
Sorry Phil, you marginalized yourself.
Posted by steve @ 08:19 PM EST [Link]
~ WHO'S GAME IS THE UN PLAYING?: Christopher Hitchens says it's Saddam's game.
Posted by steve @ 06:53 PM EST [Link]
~ DISARMING LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS, continued.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has unveiled a new package of gun control measures. Among them: ballistic fingerprinting, a 10 day "cooling off" period, a ban on "automatic sub-machine pistols", jail time for companies that equip vehicles with secret compartments for guns, setting a limit of one gun purchase per month, and background checks on purchases at gun shows.
Of course, the mayor calls these "reasonable and commonsense gun laws".
It never ceases to amaze me that liberals can continue to propose these kinds of laws in the face of all the evidence that they do not reduce crime, that they cost much more than they are worth, and that they prevent or deter honest citizens from having access to guns. There is nothing "reasonable" or "commonsense" about the mayor's proposal. I would volunteer to give him the evidence, but I wouldn't want to confuse his feelings with facts.
The article is in The Washington Times.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ SLEEP IN PEACE: The remains of all seven Columbia crew members have been positively identified, NASA announced today.
Posted by steve @ 02:38 PM EST [Link]
~ I HATE TED KENNEDY: Even more than I hate folk music. Today that ex-drunk senator from Mass. got up in a huff at the Senate Armed Services Committee because he was worried that Bush Administration might be lowering the threshold for the possible use of nuclear weapons in Iraq.
I can just imagine what the secretary-killing senator was thinking before he asked the question.
Inside Ted's mind:
I, errrr, I, errrr, ought to make sure bring up nukes because of what John did with the Cubans...errr
Anyhow, Donald Rumsfeld didn't fall for it.
"Our policy historically has been generally that we will not foreclose the possible use of nuclear weapons if attacked," he responded
Posted by steve @ 02:36 PM EST [Link]
~ NEW YORK A TARGET?: Law enforcement and city hospitals in New York City are on alert after a very specific terrorist threat against the city.
"Hospitals across the city are really keeping an eye on this new terror warning because of the specific language that the city health department is using. They are talking about a possible cyanide gas attack. All those hospitals in the city are now on high-alert."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:19 PM EST [Link]
~ BUT THEY SAID THE MISSILES WERE LEGAL: UN inspectors find that Iraqi missiles exceed the maximum range allowed under UN resolutions. Iraqi military officials previously stated that the missiles didn't. How can you not trust Saddam Hussein?
Posted by steve @ 01:14 PM EST [Link]
~ CAROL MOSLEY-BRAUN MAY RUN: Carol Mosley-Braun, both the first black woman and first (and to date only) black Democrat to serve in the U.S. Senate, is said to be planning on a presidential bid. One-term senators occasionally make a splash when they run for president - John Edwards is a freshman and Paul Tsongas ran a strong presidential campaign even though he served only a single term in the Senate (though he served in the House before that). But I can't think of someone who was defeated for reelection after a single term who launched a credible presidential bid.
My own view is that Democratic bigwigs have asked her to run to siphon off black support from the embarrassing Al Sharpton. I especially think this because Donna Brazille reportedly talked about the possibility of running favorite-son black candidates in several states for just that purpose, and she has spoken favorably about a Mosley-Braun run. Maybe I'm a cynic, but at least Jonathan Adler over at The Corner shares my cynicism.
Posted by antle @ 12:35 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, February 12, 2003 REVOLTING EX-PRESIDENT: In case you had forgotten, Bill Clinton is still capable of extreme obnoxiousness.
Posted by antle @ 10:31 PM EST [Link]
~ LIBERTARIANISM AS A COOL AND CONSISTENT IDEOLOGY: Susan Lee has a piece in Opinion Journal that plays up the divide between traditional conservatives and libertarians. She essentially argues that libertarianism is more consistent, and implies that it is cooler (or at least related to such cool things as sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll).
As a conservative/libertarian hybrid, I should have liked the piece, but overall I didn't. It reminded me too much of Ed Clarke's attempts to sell libertarianism as "low-tax liberalism." She attempts that libertarianism is more consistent than mainstream conservatism mainly by grossly oversimplifying the issues that conservatives and libertarians tend to disagree about. For example, Lee argues that the libertarians believe 1.) in self-ownership and 2.) that human cloning should be legal. Fine. But what if what is at stake is arguably the taking of human lives, either through a high risk in reproductive cloning at this point in the technology's advancement or the destruction of human embryos via therapeutic cloning? There are certainly good arguments on both sides, and even if the anti-cloning side is right on the merits it doesn't necessarily prove that government is the best - or even a good - way to deal with the issue. But Lee waxes poetic about human self-ownership while absent-mindedly stepping over any discussion of the point at which humans begin to exercise this intrinsic right.
Lee scores her best points when she raps conservatives for insufficient understanding of and support for free markets. Nevertheless, I think many libertarians would disagree with her about normative values. Let's face it: Libertarianism is itself a value judgement that places liberty above all others as the highest value. Lee's piece definitely deserves to be read, however.
Posted by antle @ 09:41 PM EST [Link]
~ POETS AGAINST WAR DAY: Ultra timely article up today on ESR...it's Poets Against War Day today! Celebrate with Murray Soupcoff here.
Posted by steve @ 07:19 PM EST [Link]
~ IT'S CALLED TREASON
Jesse Jackson to Attend Anti-War Rally in London
London (CNSNews.com) - The Rev. Jessie Jackson will be one of the headlined speakers at a planned anti-war rally in London this weekend, organizers said Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Stop the War Coalition said that Jackson decided to come to England because war protests in the British capital are "more important at the moment" than similar protests in the United States. Several members of Parliament from the ruling Labor Party will be marching in opposition to their party's official line, and the leader of Parliament's third-largest bloc, Liberal Democrat Charles Kennedy, has said he would speak at the rally. Organizers estimate that up to 500,000 people will attend Saturday's march.
cbPosted by clbloomer @ 05:02 PM EST [Link]
~ PLEASANT NEWS: North Korea has untested ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast, CIA director George Tenet announced today.
More here.
Posted by steve @ 01:13 PM EST [Link]
~ FRANCE AND GERMANY AREN'T THE ONLY ONES IN TROUBLE: Say Barry Cooper and David Bercuson. They argue in a National Post piece today that Canada has invested a lot in both the UN and NATO and would suffer greatly diplomatically if both organizations were to undergo a profound diminishing.
"Canadian policy-makers have long depended on the UN and NATO to counterbalance the power of the United States. As early as the end of the Second World War, Canadian leaders feared the prospect of co-ordinating foreign and defence policy only with the Americans. Such a course, it was believed, would inevitably draw Canada too close to the United States, which would clearly dominate the relationship."
Now that the U.S. is all but declaring both the UN and NATO as slowly becoming irrelevant to international peace and security, that leaves Canada in the unenviable position of having to revaluate how it is to deal with America. Added to that, the future for Canada's foreign influence isn't so bright.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:54 AM EST [Link]
~ NO NEW INSPECTORS, SAYS BLIX: I have to admit, my instinctual dislike of career internationalist bureaucrat Hans Blix is beginning to subside. I still don't know the ultimate game the cat is playing, but he's not a total stooge for the U.N. as I had expected.
Blix has announced that no new inspectors will be sent to Iraq, killing off a French-German plan calling for just that.
"Mr. Blix's remarks, combined with a statement earlier this week that Iraq has failed to account for chemical and biological weapons known to the UN, suggest he will give an unfavourable report on the extent of Iraqi co-operation when he next reports to the Security Council on Friday."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 10:49 AM EST [Link]
~ Q&A WITH MARK STEYN: Right Wing News has made me green with envy and landed an interview with Mark Steyn.
Posted by steve @ 10:45 AM EST [Link]
~ OHIO JUDGE CARES MORE ABOUT CITIZENS' SAFETY AND SECURITY THAN DOES DC GOVERNMENT
Short piece from CNSNews.com.
Ohio Judge Rules In Favor of Concealed Carry
(CNSNews.com) - An Ohio judge says a state law banning concealed weapons is unconstitutional because it prevents people from defending themselves. Wire reports said Seneca County Common Pleas Judge Michael Kelbley issued an 18-page ruling Tuesday, dismissing the charges against a woman who had a gun hidden in her car. The woman reportedly said she needed the gun for protection, since she had been sexually attacked in the past. Later this year, the Ohio Supreme Court is expected to hear a separate challenge to Ohio's concealed-carry ban.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:14 AM EST [Link]
~ THE RIGHT TO DEFEND LIFE, FAMILY AND PROPERTY
A handful of citizens in Washington, DC, the nation's capital, and, more often than not, the nation's murder capital, are filing suit in federal court to overturn DC's incredibly restrictive handgun laws. Since 1967 it has been a crime in DC to possess a handgun.
DC mayor Anthony Williams says he will not budge.
The story is in The Washington Times.
With the increased terror alert level, and the rampant violent crime, a reasonable person would allow people the means to protect themselves. Of course, no one has ever accused the DC government of being reasonable.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 10:07 AM EST [Link]
~ ODD NEWS HEADLINE OF THE DAY: "Duct tape sales rise amid terror fears"
Then again, duct tape is the force that binds the universe. Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:08 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, February 11, 2003 MIKE RICCI...SEX SYMBOL: Paul Cella has a nice post about hockey and Canada.
"This may be a reflection of my mere American ignorance, but I think the greatest contribution Canada has made is the game of hockey. This may also be a very unoriginal rumination indeed; but it is neither insincere nor designed to belittle our neighbors to the north. I recall with nostalgia when the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 1996 (they won again, of course, in 2001), and in my hometown of Denver a guy named Mike Ricci was the most popular man in the city, and, even more peculiarly, a favorite of the ladies. Now only hockey could have produced in public persona a ladies’ man out of a guy like Ricci."
Posted by steve @ 07:21 PM EST [Link]
~ I HATE FOLK MUSIC: Do you remember, back in 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival when Bob Dylan went electric to play "Mr. Tambourine Man"? Remember how everyone in the audience booed him and declared him a traitor to the folk ethos? Do you remember in the audience hearing that one guy cheer Dylan's electric guitar?
That was me.
Posted by steve @ 04:39 PM EST [Link]
~ TWO RANDOM THOUGHTS: No. 1: I'm listening to Mozart's Jupiter Symphony (Symphony No. 41 in C, K551 for all you fellow anal Musical Heritage Society members out there) and it reminds me why we fight people like Osama bin Laden. They would ban it. They would ban Mozart. I'll gladly fight to the death to crush anyone who would take things like that away from us. You say we fight for oil? Maybe, but we fight so we can listen to Smetana's Vltava without some savage dragging us from our homes to shoot us in the back of the head in a soccer stadium for breaking his sect's rules of living. I'll match Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2 against them any day.
No. 2: Before this morning I hadn't shaved since Friday on account of the Norwalk virus laying me up. I like the smoothness you get shaving after a couple of days off.
Hmm, odd thoughts. Perhaps I'm still sick.
Posted by steve @ 03:34 PM EST [Link]
~ WOMEN STILL DOING MAJORITY OF HOUSEWORK IN CANADA: For once, and I just mean once, I'd love to see headlines along the lines of:
"Men still more likely to die in combat"
"Men still more likely to die earlier, studies urged"
"Men still doing majority of dirty, dangerous jobs"
"Women lag in number of severe workplace injuries"
"Many male dominated industries still see low pay"
"Work keeps men from families, study finds"
And so on and so forth. The reason for this wool gathering is a new Statistics Canada report announcing, yet again, breathlessly that women do a majority of the housework and child rearing.
I don't mean to denigrate the incredible work that women do. Frankly, women -- particularly mothers -- are owed an eternal debt of gratitude by every man that has ever walked for what they do for us and our families. Mother's Day should last a week. Two weeks vacation a year is a too-small insult. Every home should have a statue dedicated to the women who inhabits it. I'm not kidding. I love women and I respect them. We men should show that -- our thanks, respect and admiration -- more often. Like at least once a day. Phone your wife and/or mother right now and tell her thanks. Seriously, do it now. You'll have no idea how much she'll appreciate it.
But just once, and I mean just once, I'd like to see those once a year headlines announce something else.
Posted by steve @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]
~ SWEET! Hundreds of folks came to Helena (that's the capital of Montana for you pub ed grads) in opposition to a bill that would have required testing for homeschool/private school students.
Posted by izzy @ 01:05 PM EST [Link]
~ IF THE AMERICANS REALLY WANTED AN EMPIRE: says Glenn Reynolds, the world would have reason to worry.
"An imperial nation, possessed of the kind of lopsided military power the United States has in today’s world, wouldn’t waste its time with inspectors and diplomacy. Nor would it limit its ambitions to Iraq.
"An Imperial America would probably join with nascent superpower India to divide up and conquer the region. India could have Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran; we’d take Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt."Insta-man goes on to say that real empires don't act the way the United States has. Criticism would be met with economic or military force and our primary targets would be lakes of blood and fire. Of course, subtleties like that often escape people, both on the right and left, who throw around the word empire when describing America's foreign policy. Last time I checked, the U.S. has never sown the soil with salt to make sure nothing ever grows again...of course, I might have missed it.
Posted by steve @ 12:13 PM EST [Link]
~ I'M TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT EUROPE: Probably because I'm really beginning to hate that continent right now. That or I'm still recovering from the Norwalk virus.
John Keegan, however, is still eager to diss "old Europe" and blasts it for the screwing over that Turkey is receiving, among other recent events.
Posted by steve @ 11:18 AM EST [Link]
~ ANOTHER BLOW TO THE POLITICALLY CORRECT MOVEMENT!: Well, not actually. The Upper Canada District School Board has removed the word gun from all spelling tests in its schools as a result of a complaint by pacifist parents of a Grade 1 student.
I have no comment. What would be the point anyway? Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:14 AM EST [Link]
~ MAYBE SHE SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR "SWEPT AWAY" FIRST: Public intellectual Madonna is working on a video that will show the "catastrophic repercussions and horror of war."
The song, "American Dream" apparently isn't political at all but Madonna has decided to use the opportunity of a new album, yes, I can't wait to buy it either, to show "a panoramic view of our culture and looming war through the view of a female superhero portrayed by Madonna."
Unlike many people, I don't criticize the glitterati when they speak out on public issues. They, like the rest of us, pay taxes and unlike many of us, directly create jobs and wealth for others. As citizens, they have the full right to pontificate on any issue they want. We all do it, after all, and thanks to the rights of free speech and citizenship.
That said, I can't help but wonder if there is anyone in Hollywood, outside of a few anti-idiotarians, who isn't a complete moron.
Posted by steve @ 09:53 AM EST [Link]
~ COMMUNISTS DON'T LIKE BUSH
Former Attorney General and current anti-American crackpot Ramsey Clark is drafting articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush and three other top administration officials.
'According to Clark, the U.S. Constitution provides the legal means for removing both elected officials and appointed officials from office when they have "acted or threatened acts" that are serious constitutional offenses or threaten to "injure the Presidency."', reports an article at CNSNews.com. While all that may be true, Clark will have trouble identifying acts that are constitutional offenses or that threaten the presidency.
As most of us remember, Clark is the traitor who broadcast pro-Iraqi propaganda during the first gulf war. He also called Jesus a terrorist and founded the left-wing anti-everything-American International Action Center.
I doubt that Dubya is too concerned.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:40 AM EST [Link]
~ THE END OF NATO?: George W. Bush says he's "disappointed" that NATO -- ie. France, Germany and Belgium -- are blocking preparations to defend fellow member Turkey from possible attack in case of war against Iraq.
Do remember that the UN and NATO are both essentially post-Second World War structures and as such both suffer the same problems: relevance. In one case, NATO, it's relevance was determined for decades by an external threat, namely the Soviet Union and it's satellite slave nations. In the UN's case, it's relevance was determined by its members. Now both organizations rely on its members to keep them relevant.
Funny how the same nations are working to keep both organizations relevant and how the same ones are working to kill them off, even if they don't know it.
Posted by steve @ 12:51 AM EST [Link]
Monday, February 10, 2003 MORE GOOD NEWS OUT OF IRAQ
According to a Fox News story today, Iraq has agreed to allow U2 spyplane overflights. The agreement is another testament to the uselessness of the UN weapons inspectors. If the inspectors wanted U2 overflights to help find banned weapons, they should have insisted from the very start. The inspectors do not seem to understand that they are there to carry out the mission assigned by the UN, not to get bogged down in negotiations.
Another tidbit from the story is that Iraq has "pledged to pass legislation next week outlawing the use of weapons of mass destruction, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations said". Now that makes me feel much safer.
Read the story at Fox News.
cbPosted by clbloomer @ 03:59 PM EST [Link]
~ HANDS OFF MY SUV!
Here's a link to a website that supports ownership of SUVs. The owner of the site equates hatred of SUVs with class warfare, anti-capitalism, and socialism.
His rant goes on for several pages' worth of dissertation, but I couldn't find anything I disagreed with.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 02:48 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, February 9, 2003 "MILD"...WHATEVER: I've been suffering all day today with the Norwalk Virus, a rather unpleasant bug that I caught some mysterious way. Whatever they say, the symptoms aren't always "mild" flu-like in nature.
Please people, wash your hands...those of us that do still get jammed up by you who don't.
Posted by steve @ 12:04 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, February 8, 2003 CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG, PART II. Is this another trend? Conservatives (neos and paleos and whatever) who write about their never-ending spats with each other. I understand there are significant philosophical disagreements but it seems like a bunch of folks on the right have become extremely territorial about their turf. Some are also infatutated with celebrity. Others are obsessed with making a buck. Pride goeth before a fall.
Posted by izzy @ 12:25 PM EST [Link]
Friday, February 7, 2003 RIPPING THE OTHER TAP: Don't know how I missed this Wednesday, but liberals who believe that the John Lott controversy gives them free reign to impugn all Second Amendment activists should think twice after Dave Kopel's column on the Firearms Owners Protection Act in NRO. The American Prospect's "Tapped" weblog took Kopel to task for his arguments in favor of the act's reduction of BATF powers and implied that he fabricated his figure that 75 percent of that agency's prosecutions were constitutionally improper. Kopel was scathing in his response, defending the merits of his arguments and ripping TAP for how it chose to present them.
As the Michael Bellesiles event showed, liberals should be reluctant to claim the moral highground when it comes to accurately arguing about gun issues. Gun rights supporters can vigorously defend their positions without help from Mary Rosh.
Posted by antle @ 11:27 PM EST [Link]
~ TAP: DON'T MILITARIZE THE BORDERS: Although it is no secret that I am an immigration restrictionist, I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of militarizing the U.S. border. As this interview and this book review both show, I am certainly sympathetic to arguments Michelle Malkin and others make in favor of it. But my libertarian side is troubled by the idea, for many of the cogent reasons Gene Healy mentions in this article for The American Prowler.
Posted by antle @ 10:50 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece in today's Washington Dispatch on affirmative action.
Posted by antle @ 04:51 PM EST [Link]
~ KENNEDY CAR WASH ALERT. Howie Carr is my favorite Boston Herald columnist. He is fearless and funny and ridicules liberal and conservative hacks. In this op ed, he writes about the Rube of Chappaquiddick and his incoherent opinions about Iraq. Hehe.
Posted by izzy @ 04:34 PM EST [Link]
~ JUST A PHONE CALL AWAY...: Pat Tillman, who walked away from millions in the NFL to become an Army Ranger, says he is one phone call away from being sent to Iraq.
"For those keeping score, Tillman and his brother, Kevin, are now full-fledged Army Rangers. They completed infantry training. They became certified airborne parachutists. And just before Christmas, they graduated from RIP, the Ranger Indoctrination Program that separates great men from the really good ones."
He truly is a great man.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:04 PM EST [Link]
~ SEX STUD: A genetic study has found that one man about a 1 000 years ago did some major league procreation. So much so that there are literally millions of direct descendents.
"In over 90 percent of the Asian men tested, the Y-chromosomes were quite diverse, indicating a multiplicity of paternal-line ancestors in their highly varied family trees. In striking contrast, 8 percent had Y-chromosomes that were virtually identical, indicating a common recent forefather.
"This individual man's Y-chromosome is today found in an estimated 16 million of his male line progeny in a vast swath of Asia from Manchuria near the Sea of Japan to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in Central Asia. That's one of every 200 males on Earth today."
Who is he? Read on. Frankly, I wonder how he had time for conquering...
Posted by steve @ 03:59 PM EST [Link]
~ RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE DAY: I know Jennifer Garner (pop-up, 17k), the star of Alias -- a TV show I have never watched, is the most beautiful woman ever because the Television told me so it must be true. She is more beautiful, apparently, than Jennifer Lopez -- who she supplanted last month -- but may be losing ground to Kate Hudson who has a new movie out.
I have to prepare a chart to keep track so I know at all times who I am to worship.
Posted by steve @ 03:55 PM EST [Link]
~ ALL THIS AND BRAINS TOO?: (via Dispatches) The Beautiful People in Hollywood have spoken...it's time to kick Hussein butt.
No, it's true. According to a Wall Street Journal piece, people like Dennis Miller, Tom Cruise and James Woods are with Dubya on this "got to remove evil people from power" list. Shocking, but true.
Posted by steve @ 03:25 PM EST [Link]
~
I'D BE DISCONCERTED TO SAY THE LEAST: U.S. Marines stationed in Kuwait are wearing some interesting masks. I wonder if the Iraqis will surrender even quicker seeing a platoon of these cats in the distance.
Iraqi soldier: Aiiieee! American death soldiers!
U.S Marine: Suckers.
Posted by steve @ 02:37 PM EST [Link]
~ ISLAMISTS DISAPPOINTED, RAMON'S BODY IDENTIFIED: Two day old story but it just came to my attention. The remains of Ilan Ramon were identified this week so that he could be buried in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Why I'm pointing this article out, besides the news about Ramon, is that it turns out the 1943 drawing of a picture of the Earth drawn from the moon by a boy that died in the holocaust turns out to have been a copy. The original remains safe though I don't feel any happier today.
The story also has some other interesting tidbits, none of them that would make you feel chipper after reading about them.
Posted by steve @ 01:33 PM EST [Link]
~ GERMANY IS OFFENDED
The German government is angry at US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's remarks that lumped Germany with Libya and Cuba. Rumsfeld remarked that "three of four countries have indicated that they will not participate in military action against Iraq or in any post-war rebuilding", according to a story at CNSnews.com. '"I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect," he said.'
The story is here.
Germany, as you will recall, is the "allied" country whose current government campaigned on a hard anti-US platform.
So, if they are offended, I know a toll-free number for someone who cares.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 01:24 PM EST [Link]
~ J-LOTT ON DE COSTER/WND FEUD: In case you weren't aware of it, paleo-libertarian Karen De Coster and WorldNetDaily are engaged in a bit of a blood feud over her contention that WND has sold out and become a shill for the Dubya admin.
J-Lott, what I've decided I'm going to call Jeremy Lott on this blog, provides a summary and commentary about both sides.
"Case in point: the recent sniping contest between LewRockwell.com columnist Karen De Coster and WND commentary editor Tom Ambrose. After apparently privately badmouthing WND for months, De Coster finally let it rip on Sunday. On her own weblog, she wrote that starting in 2000, WND had begun the downhill slide from libertarian oasis to 'neocon, warmongering, statist hell[hole].'"
Can't we all just get along? That also prompts me to wonder what Karen thinks of ESR, a place she used to submit her articles to. If WND is a "neocon, warmongering statist hell" then ESR must be even worse in her eyes. Oh well, you can't please all the people all of the time and my financial backers in Jerusalem could care less...
Posted by steve @ 01:10 PM EST [Link]
~ THEY WOULD HAVE BETTER LUCK ORDERING A PIZZA
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered -- ordered! -- US officials not to execute three convicted murderers being held on death row in Texas and Oklahoma. Mexican officials, who brought the suit, claim that the unanimous decision "certainly reinforces international law".
Of course, there is this nasty thing called reality. The ICJ has no way to enforce its ruling. And to challenge the fairest (though not perfect) justice system in the world to try to save convicted murderers because of their nationality flies in the face of law, international or otherwise.
Read the article at CNSNews.com
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 01:07 PM EST [Link]
~ MORE ON THE IRRELEVANCY OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Sterling Rome, over at CNSNews.com, provides a view of the UN that he calls a "charade". I would add that the UN also includes a lot of smoke and mirrors -- a lot of hype and no substance.
Read the piece at CNSNews.
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 12:53 PM EST [Link]
~ OKAY, SO NOW THERE ARE PICTURES WITH WING DAMAGE: CNN reports that photographs taken by an Air Force tracking camera shortly before the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated show serious structural damage to the shuttle's left wing, an aviation magazine reported Friday.
Read on.
[Update - 1:20pm] Here's a better link.
Posted by steve @ 11:56 AM EST [Link]
~ HAWKS AREN'T HICKS AND WHY EUROPE JUST DOESN'T GET IT: Charles Moore and Mark Steyn have a pair of good essays in the National Post.
Moore argues today that you can call the Bush administration and war supporters "hawks" but you'd best not call them "hicks." A long time ago while the left was arguing about the best way to redistribute wealth, conservatives were thinking about asymmetric threats and how the U.S. would have to eventually deal with them. As he points out, hawks are a bird that can see things from a long way away.
In Steyn's piece, published yesterday, he says that even after the Powell presentation to the UN Security Council, the European nations still don't get it. It's not only an end game for Saddam Hussein, it's potentially an end game for the UN as well. Unless Resolution 1441 is acted upon, the UN will turn into the League of Nations, a body that couldn't turn its words into action.
"The trouble with the UN is simple: At its inception, it reflected the realities of the World War victory parade; from the Fifties to the Eighties, it reflected the realities of the Cold War stalemate; now it reflects not the new reality -- a unipolar world dominated by a hyperpower -- but the denial of that fact. For most of the participants in yesterday's meeting, the UN is not a reflection of geopolitical power but a substitute for it, a means by which the Lilliputians can tie down the Texan Gulliver. The fantastical, unreal character it adopted after the collapse of Communism sealed its fate. Yesterday was merely a confirmation."
Good stuff.
Posted by steve @ 10:14 AM EST [Link]
~ REINSTATE JEW HATER, NATIVES SAY: Native elders have overwhelmingly voted that the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations allow David Ahenakew back into the fold mere months after he was kicked out for launching on an anti-Semitic tirade.
"Mr. Ahenakew, who is a former leader of the Assembly of First Nations and who has been admitted to the Order of Canada, caused a national furor in December when he said that killing millions of Jews during the Holocaust had been a good idea.
"The chairman of the federation's senate, Roland Crowe, said the senators didn't want to endorse Mr. Ahenakew's statements about the Holocaust, but they felt that the best way to reform him was to bring him back inside their organization."
All I know is this: had the leader of a national conservative organization made the comment that past aggression against natives had been justified and that natives were a parasite on Canada's back and said conservative organization had allowed said leader "back inside their organization," well you can imagine the sorts of protests we'd see. But then again, it's what Dinesh D'Souza refers to as having minority immunity. You can pretty well do anything you want and declare it an aspect of your culture as long as you are a minority. Any other person would be relegated to a marginalized position in society but Mr. Ahenakew may now once again be a responsible member of the FSIN.
Posted by steve @ 09:27 AM EST [Link]
~ A LIBERAL CASE FOR WAR: It ain't perfect but Johann Hari makes the case that liberals should be supporting a war in Iraq. Imagine if there was no war because peace protestors were successful in blocking military action:
"Do you think the Iraqi people would be dancing in the streets of Baghdad on such a day? Do you think the 5 million Iraqi exiles scattered across the globe would be jubilant that, once again, their country had been brought within inches of freedom from Saddam Hussein, only to be betrayed by another Western coalition led by a man called George Bush? Do you think the political dissidents – most of them democrats – rotting in Saddam's torture chambers would weep tears of joy? Do you think the Kurds, who have inhaled his poison gas more than once, would be delighted that Saddam was free to gather as many biological and chemical weapons as he likes? Do you think the Marsh Arabs, ethnically cleansed by Saddam from the swamps they had lived on for millennia, would rejoice in their pathetic desert shacks? Would you celebrate the fact that hatred for Dubya had overwhelmed the desire to help the Iraqi people to overthrow one of the worst dictators on earth?"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:21 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, February 6, 2003 HOLY COW: I'm writing a bit of an op-ed on Jennifer Gates, the CBC Newsworld anchor who asked novelist Robert Sawyer just minutes after the Columbia's destruction whether it was due to "American arrogance", and I just learned that she used to work for MCTV in Sudbury, Ontario...the very home of your humble editor and the Enter Stage Right empire.
I knew that her face looked familiar...On behalf of Sudbury (even though she wasn't born here) I apologize to my American cousins.
Posted by steve @ 08:15 PM EST [Link]
~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIPPER: (via Brothers Judd Blog): I can't believe I almost forgot. Today is Ronald Reagan's birthday. The Gipper turns 92 today.
I'm not one of these people who views Reagan as nothing short of a saint but as Orrin Judd stated in his blog entry, "What do you get for the man who gave you everything?" Damned right. Perhaps people will one day realize what the man did for this world.
Okay, maybe I do think of him as a saint. Sue me. There are still people out there who go weak at the knees for Bill Clinton. Those people are messed up.
Posted by steve @ 06:57 PM EST [Link]
~ BRING OUT YOUR DEAD: I think my next project may be restoring the 1 538 odd blog entries made on Musings between August 2001 and November 2002. I'll probably just put a page up for each month because Greymatter's system isn't too friendly to the kind of hacks I'll have to do to get the old ones up separately.
And people wonder why I have perpetual black circles under my eyes...
Posted by steve @ 02:47 PM EST [Link]
~ SIMBERG RESPONDS TO EASTERBROOK: Gregg Easterbrook, whom you may remember because of my relentless blogging of his very fine Tuesday Morning Quarterback series on ESPN.com -- any man who likes football and cheerleaders has my vote, liberal or not, has been getting a lot of play concerning his Time Magazine article calling for an end to the shuttle program. Hell, Don Imus interviewed him Tuesday morning on his show about it.
Well, Rand Simberg responds to Easterbrook's arguments in a nice long post.
Posted by steve @ 02:39 PM EST [Link]
~ SPEAKING OF DEBUNKED...: Earlier this week Musings reported on "odd blue lights" captured by a California cat taking pictures of Columbia as it flew over San Francisco. Ken Layne has the skinny on what those lights really were and some other news on where they found wreckage. We're talking about a west coast location...
Posted by steve @ 02:34 PM EST [Link]
~ NO CRACKS IN WING: (Via Daimnation) The picture we ran of "cracks" in the Shuttle Columbia's wings were not in fact cracks. The picture wasn't bogus, as one commentor here stated, just evaluated incorrectly.
Snopes has the scoop.
Posted by steve @ 02:29 PM EST [Link]
~ GOODNESS...ESR HITS BIG TIME: Highly influential blogger Colby Cosh blogs ESR and even refers to me as a sort of co-worker because I have a piece in the February 3 issue of The Report. High honour indeed!
About the only thing I would add is that our blog has been around since August 2001 but unfortunately had to be restarted in December 2002 due to "technical problems" (i.e. I'm a meddling clod.)
Posted by steve @ 02:20 PM EST [Link]
~ IN CASE YOU DIDN'T SEE IT: The U.S. State Department has Colin Powell's presentation, complete with slides and audio and a link to a video of his speech to the Security Council, at its web site.
Posted by steve @ 01:24 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY SOME COUNTRIES ARE AGAINST SADDAM: Andrew Sullivan has a nice piece up (it appeared on February 3) about why some countries are with America when it comes to Iraq and why some others aren't.
"The word for this new, and still nascent, international alliance is the 'Anglosphere.' The Anglospherists have recently been making news and stirring discussion among Washington's conservative think-tanks. And their vision of the future of the West is starkly different than that envisioned by the E.U. or even, in some respects, the U.N."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:11 PM EST [Link]
~ BYE BYE UN: Mark Steyn says the United States should just leave the United Nations.
Posted by steve @ 11:55 AM EST [Link]
~ NEW DESIGNS FOR WTC SUCK, SAYS LILEKS: And I agree.
"My initial reaction to the two WTC finalists was simple: crap. But one must not leap to conclusions; you have to consider the designs in context, let the mind wander around the spaces and imagine them as they would live and breathe in the city. Having done so, I am comfortable pronouncing them great bolshoi heaps of crap, and timorous, confused,incoherent crap. In other words: krrrrrep!"
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:47 AM EST [Link]
~ SPEAKING OF IRANIANS: Back before we had to restart this blog, I reported on two Iranian pollsters who released a poll which said a large majority of Iranians supported an open dialogue with the United States. Well, this week Iran's fanatic judiciary sentenced the pair up to nine years in prison because they said the poll was a fake.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 11:42 AM EST [Link]
~ IRANIANS FOR FREEDOM: I've been meaning to blog this web site for a while but always forgot. The Alliance of Iranian Students is a group that is fighting for a secular and democratic Iran. Personally, I think the second of their aims is more likely to come about but one can always hope.
"We stand against the reactionary ruling Islamic regime in their use of violence and brutality to silence the voice of freedom and democracy."
Learn more about them here and consider making a donation.
Posted by steve @ 11:39 AM EST [Link]
~ CARUBA HITS BIG TIME: Longtime ESR contributor Alan Caruba's book, Warning Signs, is now available.
It's a collection columns that have run here and elsewhere and can be bought at your local bookstore, Amazon.com or at his web site for a discount.
"Published by Merril Press of Bellevue, Washington, Warning Signs takes no prisoners on topics from Islam to energy, education to environmentalism, immigration to animal rights, et cetera!" says Caruba.
Get it now!
Posted by steve @ 11:36 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, February 5, 2003 MALKIN ON LOTT: Michelle Malkin has a great column on the strange saga of research scholar John Lott, aka Mary Rosh. Already a controversial figure because of his study results showing gun control to be counterproductive, Lott has found his academic integrity questioned. I could rehash the whole sordid affair here, but Malkin's account is possibly the best I've seen.
The blogosphere has been all over this story, but this is the first time I've seen a syndicated columnist write about it. But I will not be convinced that this has really become a full-blown controversy until Jeremy Lott publicly disavows any familial relationship with the subject.
Posted by antle @ 06:30 PM EST [Link]
~ IN COLD BLOOD. I wonder if Joe Farah would have made this irresponsible argument if the shoe (high heel?) was on the other foot. That is, if Mr. Harris was the man scorned, and he had made road kill out of Clara. The deceased hubby was a scumbug, no doubt, but now the poor Harris children are left without a daddy. It is the little ones I truly pity.
Posted by izzy @ 04:31 PM EST [Link]
~ I CAN'T DRIVE 55: At this point I have been awake for 55 consecutive hours...me so tired. I can't wait to go home and sleep. And don't ask why this happened...
Posted by steve @ 02:40 PM EST [Link]
~ POWELL'S REMARKS: Tacitus has a Word file with Colin Powell's speechifying to the UN Security Council.
Posted by steve @ 02:14 PM EST [Link]
~ CONGRATULATIONS!: Patrick Ruffini reports that his very lovely girlfriend has become his very lovely fiance!
I'd better not tell my mother though...she's already getting antsy for more grandchildren.
Posted by steve @ 01:55 PM EST [Link]
~ I DON'T WEEP JEREMY, I ONLY SLEEP MORE: Jeremy Lott says he unsettled me with his thoughts of my use of the words "Jesus wept" for the pictures of the shuttle helmet and patch found among the debris in Texas. Maybe.
On a different note, he does have a nice list of things for aspiring freelance writers to realize before they enter that very dark, cold and mean world.
"When people tell me they want to try their hands at freelance writing and ask for my advice, I usually tell them to take 80 bucks to the local pub, blow it all on lubricants (of the orally administered variety), stumble home, and then think, when they wake up the next morning with the mother of all hangovers, 'So this is what the first six months of freelancing would feel like.'"
One thing he didn't include, surprisingly to me, was "Don't be discouraged." It can be crushing when your Buckley-esque thoughts on the links between sushi and the Bush administration is rejected by everyone you've sent it to or passed the idea by...but get used to it. As Jeremy points out, editors don't have a lot of time to waste and if your story isn't the flavour of the day, it ain't going to be placed anywhere. In the beginning I was rejected a lot more then I was accepted...over time that reversed itself and now I get commissions from editors. Just this morning the Ottawa Citizen asked me to write a piece on smoking laws aimed at public places. Why? Because I didn't quit out of discouragement several years ago.
I also disagree about his injunction about sending pieces blind...that's how I started out...but I can see why it would make sense. No reason to write something that you don't know anyone will be interested in.
Final advice from Steve? Write every day. Pick a topic out of the newspaper, do some research and write. Read it outloud. You'll turn out some trash but you'll also be amazed over time how your work will improve. And read. Read some more. Read one more page. Read.
Only 80 bucks? Jeremy, you have to go out drinking with me sometime :-)
Posted by steve @ 01:53 PM EST [Link]
~ IT WOULD PROBABLY WORK: Colin Powell made some last minute changes in order draw support from the Democrats for a war against Iraq:
"Saddam Hussein personally owns guns, and uses them" and "Saddam supports the death penalty and uses it" are among them.
Read on. Satire from ScrappleFace...can it get any better?
Posted by steve @ 01:32 PM EST [Link]
~ HITCHENS Q&A: Christopher Hitchens gives a typically Hitchens-esque interview to AFF's brainwash and doesn't mention -- in what must be a record for him -- Henry Kissinger once!
That said, it was a good interview.
Posted by steve @ 01:27 PM EST [Link]
~ YEAH, BUT IT WASN'T SNOOPY WAS IT?: A new Canadian film says that Capt. Roy Brown, a Canadian, did not kill Manfred von Richthofen -- aka The Red Baron -- in 1918 during a dogfight.
"[T]he filmmakers found it was probably an unheralded Australian machine gunner, Snowy Evans, who brought down Manfred von Richthofen near the French village of Vaux sur Somme."
This comes after a compelling book that we reviewed by Brereton Greenhous, The Making of Billy Bishop, that came out last year challenging Billy Bishop's military exploits during the same war.
Posted by steve @ 11:37 AM EST [Link]
~ GITLIN ON JERKS LIKE GORE VIDAL: I've never particularly cared for Todd Gitlin -- he's just another self-absorbed ex-hippy boomer...but wait, I repeat myself -- and I hammered his most recent book last year in Enter Stage Right.
That said, he has a piece in Dissent Magazine, that though smacks of Gitlinism, makes some good points about the idiotarians who are using the post-September 11 era to blame America for everything.
"One might have thought all this obvious. On the evidence of two of the works under review, it is not. Consider the sad case of Gore Vidal, once "a great wit" (in the words of Norman Mailer, who proceeded to skewer him), now a witless crank. Reposing in Ravello, Italy, Vidal maunders from snippet to snippet. His latest volume of musings manages to be skimpy and redundant at once. Collecting one's Vanity Fair pieces as if they would stand up in book covers is an act of, well, vanity. That such an exercise should be escorted into the world by the Nation's book publishing arm speaks unflatteringly about publishing standards on the left."
Posted by steve @ 11:32 AM EST [Link]
~ DISAGREEMENT WITH OUR POLL THIS WEEK: "Should America's space program be put on hold until the present shuttles are replaced with new technology?" Available choices: Yes, no, I don't know, I don't care.
Mark Lintz writes:
"I did not answer the current poll, as I thought that it asked the wrong question. I started to respond that no; the space program should NOT be put on hold, but, stopped, realizing that the American space program should not be a government enterprise (no pun intended), in the first place. On the other hand, there is no constitutional basis for about 95% of the government, so, why not have one? I dunno.
Therefore, the only basis for throwing money into space (metaphorically speaking, of course) is to keep it away from welfare recipients."
I responded:
"I can't say that I disagree with you. I always felt that outside of any military significance that space might hold for the West, space exploration and commerce should be a primarily private market project.
That said, the reality of the situation is that the U.S. government will continue to fund space exploration, commerce and military matters and I felt the poll had to reflect that."
Posted by steve @ 11:28 AM EST [Link]
~ SO WAS THE WING CRACKED?: Damian Penny discusses the photograph we ran earlier this week (that originally appeared on the Globe and Mail's front page) and whether it actually shows a crack on Columbia's wing.
Posted by steve @ 09:35 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, February 4, 2003 BLACKS AND THE GOP: I meant to link to FrontPage Magazine's symposium on the relationship between blacks and the Republican Party yesterday. This article is worth reading mainly because of Richard Nadler's stellar contributions to the discussion. Ramesh Ponnuru has an article in the current issue of National Review on Nadler's real-world track record of success in winning black and Hispanic votes for Republican candidates. I haven't read it yet, so I won't comment, but the man definitely thinks outside the box when it comes to trying to increase the minority vote for the GOP.
Posted by antle @ 06:03 PM EST [Link]
~ SELF-PROMO ALERT: I have a piece on libertarianism and the civil rights movement in the February/March issue of The Abolitionist Examiner, which went on-line today. I also had a column yesterday in Ether Zone about myths that, in my view, impede the immigration debate.
Posted by antle @ 05:52 PM EST [Link]
~ ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BE MORE LIKE EUROPE
Stupidity Virus Hits Brits
"Farmers throughout the country have 90 days to put a toy in every pigsty or
face up to three months in jail. The new ruling from Brussels, which is to
become law in Britain next week, is to keep pigs happy and prevent them
chewing each other. Official instructions to farmers are to give pigs
'environmental enrichment' by providing 'manipulable material,' which the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last night defined as
balls."- Times of London
cb
Posted by clbloomer @ 09:27 AM EST [Link]
Monday, February 3, 2003 IF SADDAM IS ALLOWED TO LEAVE INTO EXILE: Then Tom Knowlton has two non-negotiable conditions that must be met first.
Posted by steve @ 06:06 PM EST [Link]
~ ARE 'MANNED' VACATIONS WORTH THE RISK?: Brilliant bit editorializing by Scott Ott over at Scrappleface.
"Many Americans are asking whether manned vacations -- by car, plane, train or ship -- are worth the risk of accidents and illness. Congressional Democrats may introduce a bill this week mandating unmanned, robotic family vacations."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:05 PM EST [Link]
~ WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS?: "A San Francisco amateur astronomer who photographs the space shuttles whenever their orbits carry them over the Bay Area has captured five strange and provocative images of the shuttle Columbia just as it was re-entering the Earth's atmosphere before dawn Saturday.
"The pictures, taken with a Nikon-880 digital camera on a tripod, reveal what appear to be bright electrical phenomena flashing around the track of the shuttle's passage, but the photographer, who asked not to be identified, will not make them public immediately."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:29 PM EST [Link]
~ STEVE AND RELIGION: On his blog yesterday Jeremy Lott evinced some surprise that I, an avowed athiest, would title the pictures we ran of the helmet and mission patch found among the debris in Texas "Jesus wept."
"PICTORAL COMMENT: Steve Martinovich--believe it or not, an agnostic--had this to say about the shuttle crash." was Jeremy's comment while linking to the entry.
Odd, I suppose, for an athiest to invoke the name of Christ...I don't do it often. I suppose when I do I'm attempting to use a common language to convey depth of meaning, not surprising given that Christianity is the dominant religion in North America. I told Jeremy this morning that what else could have I written? If Christ couldn't weep at the sight of the helmet...
So am I a closet Christian? A lot of people say that there are no such things as athiests in foxholes during war, something I've never bought but then again I've never had to serve my nation in war. Who knows...ten years ago I was a committed member of the Liberal Party.
Posted by steve @ 02:32 PM EST [Link]
~ WHY WE GO, ACCORDING TO LILEKS: James Lileks answers the question that some people are asking, why send men to do what robots are built for? (Warning, one naughty word)
The rest of the day I listened to the radio. NPR had an interview with one of those people who think we should not send people into space, but rely entirely on robots. As I pulled into the parking lot at the mall he casually asked "what can a man do on Mars that a robot cannot?"
PLANT A *** FLAG ON THE PLANET, I shouted at the radio. Pardon my language. But. On a day when seven brave people died while fulfilling their brightest ambitions, this was the wrong day to suggest we all stay tethered to the dirt until the sun grows cold. Are we less than the men who left safe harbors and shouldered through cold oceans? After all, they sailed into the void; we can look up at the night sky and point at where we want to go. There: that bright white orb. We’re going. There: that red coal burning on the horizon. We’re going. And we’re not sending smart toys on our behalf - we’re sending human beings, and one of them will put his boot on the sand and bring the number of worlds we’ve visited to three. And when he plants the flag he will use flesh and sinew and blood and bone to drive it into the ground. His heartbeat will hammer in his ears; his mind will spin a kaleidoscopic medley of all the things he’d thought he’d think at this moment, and he'll grin: I had it wrong. I had no idea what it would truly be like. He’d imagined this moment as oddly private; he'd thought of himself, the red land, the flag in his hand, and he heard music, as though the moment would be fully scored when it happened. But there isn't any music; there's the sound of his breath and the thrum of his pulse. It seems like everyone who ever lived is standing behind him at the other end of a vast dark auditorium, waiting for the flag to stand on the ground of Mars. Then he will say something. He might stumble on a word or two, because he’s only human.
But look what humans have done. Again.
Posted by steve @ 01:57 PM EST [Link]
~ CRACKS ON THE WING?: Canadian national treasure David Janes has a picture (courtesy of the Globe & Mail) on his web site showing what appear to be two large cracks on Columbia's wing while it was in space.
Posted by steve @ 01:53 PM EST [Link]
~ DID DEBRIS DOOM THE SHUTTLE?: NASA investigators are focusing on a seam on a landing gear door in their investigation into the shuttle disaster, said a retired NASA engineer.
"The former official said the landing gear door, which protects vital wiring and sensors, is perhaps the most vulnerable part of the shuttle."
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:16 PM EST [Link]
~ REMAINS OF ASTRONAUTS LOCATED: NASA confirmed yesterday that the remains of the seven astronauts have been located.
The New York Times reports that some of the remains were found by children.
"In Plainview, Tex., Tammy White's three sons — 4, 6 and 8 — were riding a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle when they came across a charred leg. 'They've been asking questions,' Ms. White said.
Her youngest, Colton, "keeps saying, 'Go with me to the bathroom;' he doesn't want to be left alone," she said. "The oldest one is sad, he's really devastated. He says, 'It's so bad, no one should be looking at that stuff, no one should be taking pictures of it — it's somebody's Momma or Daddy.'
"I said, 'Yes, baby, it is.'"
Read on. (Free registration required)
Posted by steve @ 10:24 AM EST [Link]
~ DID NASA IGNORE WARNINGS?: Former NASA engineer Don Nelson says so, according to a Guardian article. Nelson said he repeatedly warned NASA chiefs that the shuttle program would see another catastrophic accident.
"Listing a series of mishaps with shuttle missions since 1999, Nelson warned in his letter that Nasa management and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have failed to respond to the growing warning signs of another shuttle accident. Since 1999 the vehicle had experienced a number of potentially disastrous problems."
Read on.
If people are culpable for Saturday's tragedy, I don't expect many repercussions. All that happened after the 1986 Challenger disaster was a bunch of NASA bosses and Morton Thiokol managers took early retirement.
Posted by steve @ 10:06 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, February 2, 2003 AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE EU: John O'Sullivan argues in National Review On-Line that the U.S. should bypass the European Union and integrate with its European allies, especially Great Britain, in a Transatlantic alliance. If Bush embraces such a bold proposal, he could get a free trade zone that upends the protectionism touched off by last year's steel tarriffs debacle and permanently bypass the obstacles to our interests posed by France and Germany.
Posted by antle @ 05:19 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH TAX CUTS KILLED SHUTTLE ASTRONAUTS: I've been watching CNN exclusively since the Shuttle disaster yesterday and I keep hearing the reporters and anchors talk about funding cuts "over the past few years." Outside of Lou Dobbs, who has basically stuck to reporting the story and little else (we call it journalism), I doubt one CNN staffer has failed to mention this subject.
Here's a prediction: Someone, somewhere will report, announce or link Bush administration tax cuts to the Shuttle disaster. It may be a marginal yet well known public figure (how many people immediately pop into your head?) or it could even be a prominent newspaper's editorial page (any leading candidates?). It will, however, happen. People out there -- on both sides of the political spectrum -- played politics with September 11, 2001 just days after and I just know it's going to happen with yesterday's disaster.
Posted by steve @ 04:45 PM EST [Link]
~ SHE DIDN'T MEAN TO BE OFFENSIVE: Canadian sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer says a CBC journalist who interviewed him on CBC Newsworld likely wasn't trying to be offensive when she asked whether the shuttle disaster occurred because of American "arrogance."
"I'm sure she didn't mean to be offensive, and it was quite clear during our brief interview that she was being distracted by all sorts of chatter in her earpiece (she first introduced me as Robert Fischer, who is a staff reporter the CBC)."
I'm sorry but I don't buy it. Distracted or not, busy or not, the issue of "American arrogance" isn't the one that pop into my head during an interview. I'm surprised she didn't bring the Bush administration's refusal to ratify Kyoto into the mix.
Posted by steve @ 04:38 PM EST [Link]
~ IS THIS PROOF?: Saddam Hussein's bodyguard fled Iraq and has information on all the toys that the old boy has been playing with. (Free registration needed)
Posted by steve @ 05:38 AM EST [Link]
~ TRAGEDY REDUX: Laurel Clark, one of the astronauts who died in service of her nation, humanity and science yesterday, lost a first cousin on September 11, 2001. (Free registration necessary)
Posted by steve @ 05:36 AM EST [Link]
~ JESUS WEPT: A helmet from the shuttle was found in a Texas field...
And a patch from one of the crew members...
Posted by steve @ 05:25 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, February 1, 2003 WORDS OF COMFORT: Alongside President Bush's moving remarks about the Columbia shuttle tragedy, the Christian Science Monitor also reprinted President Reagan's speech comforting the nation following the explosion of the Challenger.
The words apply as much today as they did 17 years ago last week: "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"
Posted by antle @ 07:40 PM EST [Link]
~ RAMON AND HIS SPECIAL CARGO: Press release from Yad Vashem about Ilan Ramon and the special piece of art he brought into space with him.
Posted by steve @ 06:54 PM EST [Link]
~ IRAQIS HAPPY ABOUT SHUTTLE DISASTER: I didn't even want to link to this but everyone else has so I suppose we have to as well. It would appear that not everyone is saddened by the deaths of seven human beings in the service of humanity and science. Some Iraqis think it was a good thing, especially since a Jew died.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 06:50 PM EST [Link]
~ BUSH ADDRESSES THE LOSS OF SEVEN ASTRONAUTS: "My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9:00 a.m. this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our Space Shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas. The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.
On board was a crew of seven: Colonel Rick Husband; Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson; Commander Laurel Clark; Captain David Brown; Commander William McCool; Dr. Kalpana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon, a Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity.
In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.
The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."
The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.
May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America."
Posted by steve @ 06:33 PM EST [Link]
~ The Saddest News. Homeschoolers lost one of their own in the space shuttle tragedy: Commander Rick Husband, age 45.
He was the father of two children (front row, on the left). My fellow ESR writers and I offer our condolences to the families of all these brave men and women.
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