As If Nothing Happened

2003-07-22T23:27:00.000-05:00

With news of Uday & Qusay's demise along with this article in the Washington Post, perhaps the worm is beginning to turn.

U.S. Lowered Its Sights in Iraq Search
Information on Fugitives Poured In After Military Turned Focus to Mid-Level Operatives

After weeks of difficult searching for the top targets on the U.S. government's list of most-wanted Iraqi fugitives, U.S. military commanders two weeks ago switched the emphasis of their operations, focusing on capturing and gathering intelligence from low-level members of former president Saddam Hussein's Baath Party who had been attacking American forces, according to military officials.

That shift produced a flood of new information about the location of the Iraqi fugitives, which came just before the attack in which Hussein's two sons were killed by U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul, the officials said.

"We shifted our focus from very high-level personalities to the people that are causing us damage," Gen. John P. Abizaid, the new commander of the U.S. military in the Middle East, said in an interview last weekend. Later, he told reporters in Baghdad: "In the past two weeks, we have been getting the mid-level leadership in a way that is effective."

The captured Baathists provided much new detail about their organization and contacts, officials here said. Some gave information about their financing and their means of communication, they added. Others identified members of their networks. Some described the routes and contacts that fugitive leaders were using. Threats to ship the recalcitrant captives to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay on the eastern end of Cuba were especially helpful in encouraging them to talk, officials said.

"You get a tip, you pull a couple of guys in, they start to talk," a Central Command official said. Then, based on that information, he continued, "you do a raid, you confiscate some documents, you start building the tree" of contacts and "you start doing signals intercepts. And then you're into the network."

"The people are now coming to us with information," Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, told Abizaid in a briefing this week at Odierno's headquarters in Tikrit, Hussein's home town. "Every time we do an operation, more people come in."

The 4th Infantry, operating in a region dominated by Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which was a major base of Hussein's support, conducted an average of 18 raids a day in recent weeks, he added.

The number and breadth of those follow-up raids also encouraged Iraqis who had been fearful of Baathist retaliation to speak up, officials here said.

Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said at a Baghdad news conference at which he confirmed the deaths of Hussein's sons that the Mosul raid resulted from "a walk-in" Monday night who "gave us the information that those two individuals were in that residence."

Until early June, when the Army launched the first of three major offensives in the an area known as the Sunni triangle north and west of Baghdad, U.S. officials didn't fully grasp the extent of Baathist resistance in the area, one Army official said.

The first offensive, dubbed Peninsula Strike, wasn't aimed so much at Baathists as at hostile remnants of the Iraqi military that remained active in the Sunni town of Thuluya, on the Tigris River between Baghdad and Tikrit. Yet when captives from that operation, from June 8 to 15, were interrogated, they began shedding unexpected light on the role that Baath Party operatives were playing in the region in supplying weapons, recruiting fighters and financing attacks on U.S. troops and bases, officials said.

Later in June, the next offensive, Desert Scorpion, began with scores of simultaneous raids aimed at, among other things, shutting down escape routes available to the former Iraqi leaders. It also went after the secret hoards of cash and jewelry that were financing their operations, and it sought to gather more information about the size and structure of Baathist resistance in the Sunni triangle.

That series of raids yielded information on what analysts said was a surprisingly large network of Hussein loyalists. "We call it the gang of 9,000," said a senior Army official, adding that that figure was just an estimate of the number of Baath Party operatives, former intelligence functionaries and their allies active in the Sunni region and in Baghdad.

As a result, U.S. commanders changed their minds about sending the entire 3rd Infantry Division home, as they had hoped to do by the end of last month. "As we began to see the extent of Baathist pockets in the Sunni triangle, it became clear that we couldn't draw down forces as quickly as we liked," said a senior Central Command official.

The raids also led to a sharp increase in U.S. casualties in June, with a soldier dying nearly every day. This official estimated that close to 60 percent of U.S. casualties came in the course of offensive operations by the U.S. troops or Baathist responses to those attacks.

The third offensive, Soda Mountain, conducted this month, was the first aimed at capturing and interrogating the resistance leaders -- the mid-level Baathists who U.S. officials had come to believe were behind most of the attacks on American forces. That operation began with a smaller series of raids by the 4th Division, called Ivy Serpent.

The mid-level operatives who were captured turned out to be knowledgeable about how the top targets on the U.S. list were evading capture. "There was a snowball effect," a senior Army official said .

Put together, the information helped breach the wall of protection around Hussein and his sons, a U.S. official said this week. He said the information the United States now has is far more solid than that which led to last month's Special Operations raid near the Syrian border. U.S. officials initially thought that raid might have hit Hussein or people close to him, but it appears only to have damaged the smuggling network that was being used by fugitives to travel in and out of Iraq.

Despite their recent success, U.S. military officials here caution that the fighting is far from over, and they predict that the nature of the attacks could worsen. They worry that the more they succeed, the more desperate Baathist remnants will become. So, they fear, the next phase of attacks might rely more on car bombs and other terrorist methods than on direct attacks on U.S. forces. Two officials here this week, for example, expressed concern about the possibility of an Oklahoma City-like bomb attack on U.S. officials and Iraqis working with them in the capital.

2003-07-18T14:35:00.000-05:00

At last!
White House Releases CIA Info on Iraq

An intelligence assessment by the CIA last October cites "compelling evidence" that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute a nuclear-weapons program, according to documents released Friday by the White House...

The report asserts that Baghdad "if left unchecked...probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."

It also cites unsubstantiated reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from three African countries: Niger, Somalia and "possibly" Congo.

2003-07-18T14:30:00.000-05:00

Stay for our sakes: black council plea to PM
The Age

A major indigenous community has lobbied John Howard to stay on indefinitely as Prime Minister, dismissing the left of politics as "clueless" and calling for a new alliance between Aborigines and conservatives.

In a letter written to Mr Howard on the day before he announced his intention to fight the next election, influential Cape York Land Council chairman Richie Ah Mat begged him not to retire.

"Many people in media and politics promote a set of attitudes that are supposed to be 'moderate' and 'progressive': republicanism, harm minimisation, the elusive ideal of reconciliation and so on," Mr Ah Mat wrote.

"We fear that if you go, there will be a shift in public discussion.

"Otherwise the whole project will regress back to progressivist platitudes about symbolic reconciliation and walking bridges...

From Tim Blair

2003-07-13T20:48:00.000-05:00

French secret service 'kept CIA in the dark over Iraq and uranium'
The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" intelligence showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, US intelligence sources said yesterday.

MI6 had more than one "different and credible" piece of intelligence to show that Iraq was attempting to buy the ore, known as yellowcake, British officials insisted. But it was given to them by at least one and possibly two intelligence services and, under the rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared with anyone else without the originator's permission.

US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of the MI6 intelligence was the French secret service, the DGSE. Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are run by a French company that comes under the control of the French Atomic Energy Commission.

2003-07-13T19:14:00.000-05:00

Republicans draw Hispanic voters from Democrats

Hispanic leaders are telling Democratic officials that Hispanics are no longer part of the party's political base because President Bush and the Republicans have made inroads into the nation's largest minority voting bloc.
In closed-door Democratic strategy meetings to plan for the elections next year, Hispanic leaders and pollsters have painted a picture of declining Hispanic support for the Democrats, warning party officials that if they do not reach out more aggressively to this pivotal group, Republicans likely will make further gains in the 2004 elections.

If we are to win the culture war, it will depend a great deal on Hispanics and immigrants from cultures which still hold basic traditional values and their ability to pass them along to the next generation, so this is much more than simply a matter of gaining votes.

2003-07-13T19:08:00.000-05:00

'France and Italy gave information on Saddam'

Two foreign governments, thought to be France and Italy, supplied Britain with the intelligence for its claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.

The Financial Times has learnt from senior Whitehall sources that the information came from two west European countries, and not from now discredited documents that proved to be forgeries.

This information, which does not appear to have been passed on to the US, would suggest why the government felt confident enough to put it in a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction last September.

2003-07-13T18:53:00.000-05:00

This is interesting:
Alleged Qaeda Group Says Behind Iraq Attacks-TV

2003-07-13T18:38:00.000-05:00

Mob attacks researchers who found few Palestinians want their old homes now in Israel
Independent

A mob of about 100 Palestinian refugees stormed the office of a Ramallah polling organisation yesterday to stop it publishing a survey showing that five times as many refugees would prefer to settle permanently in a Palestinian state than return to their old homes in what is now Israel.

The protesters pelted Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, with eggs, smashed computers and assaulted the nine staff members on duty. A female worker was treated in hospital for her injuries. "This is a message for everyone not to tamper with our rights," one of the rioters said...

The poll, conducted among 4,500 refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Jordan, was the first to ask where they would want to live if Israel recognised a right of return.

Only 10 per cent of the refugees chose Israel, even if they were allowed to live there with Palestinian citizenship; 54 per cent opted for the Palestinian state; 17 per cent for Jordan or Lebanon, and 2 per cent for other countries. Another 13 per cent rejected all these options, preferring to sit it out and wait for Israel to disappear, while 2 per cent didn't know

2003-07-13T18:36:00.000-05:00

Transcript: Condoleezza Rice on Fox News Sunday
[T]here are two things about this, Tony. First of all, it is ludicrous to suggest that the president of the United States went to war on the question of whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Africa. This was a part of a very broad case that the president laid out in the State of the Union and other places.

But the statement that he made was indeed accurate. The British government did say that. Not only was the statement accurate, there were statements of this kind in the National Intelligence Estimate. And the British themselves stand by that statement to this very day, saying that they had sources other than sources that have now been called into question to back up that claim. We have no reason not to believe them.

2003-07-12T14:34:00.000-05:00

White Student Won't Apologize for Flap at University Multicultural Center

2003-07-12T14:06:00.000-05:00

New hope for WMD evidence

Scandal!: Bush’s enemies aren't telling the truth about what he said.

A core lunacy to Dems' foreign policy
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030711-121254-3711r.htm

Friendship Develops With Iraqis, Troops
Toddler Hiyam Kadhem couldn't contain her excitement when she spotted Robert Garcia entering the compound. Flashing a big smile, the 18-month-old Iraqi girl ran to the Marine officer and threw herself into his arms.

Safe in his embrace and with a disarming laugh, she playfully removed his camouflage hat and placed it on her own tiny head.

Hiyam, her five siblings and parents have found themselves in a peculiar situation. Their apartment in an abandoned school sits in the middle of a U.S. Marine base...

Straw stands behind UK's inelligence about Iraq's nuc program that made it's way into Bush's State of Union address

Here's Uncle Zeus, Aunt Hera, the Twins ...

t was about 20 years ago when Jon O. Newman, a federal appeals court judge in Manhattan, walked up to a staff member in the New York Public Library and asked, "Do you have a book anywhere in this library that has a complete genealogical chart of Greek mythology?" They didn't.

"O.K., second question," Judge Newman said. "If there were such a book, would you buy it?"

"We'd have to," the librarian replied...

Something unexpected is happening on distant Pluto - the outermost planet.
Although it is receding from the Sun, its atmosphere is getting thicker, puzzling astronomers who expect it to "freeze-out" and contract in about 10 years.

The recent changes were noted as a result of a rare cosmic alignment last year. Pluto passed in front of two faint stars whose light was dimmed by its atmosphere before being cut-off by its disc.

Data from these events indicate that Pluto's tenuous atmosphere has become swelled in the past 14 years since the last time such an occultation was observed.

Bush Bid for Jews' Votes Zeroes In on Gen X
Many observers insist that the president faces an uphill task building a solid base among Jews. New polling data indicates that most Jewish voters around the country continue to identify themselves as Democrats and are more ready to criticize the president than other ethnic or religious groups. (See sidebar, Page 4.) Analysts say the GOP's dilemma is compounded by the president's new drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which risks alienating the conservatives who form the president's most solid support in the Jewish community.

The emergence of an enthusiastic new support base consisting of movers and shakers in their 30s and 40s appears to fly in the face of those analyses, however. While its numbers are not yet large, it has taken on an oversized role in Republican strategy and fundraising in New York and a few other locations, and activists are already talking about mobilizing Jews as a swing vote that can deliver some key Democratic states to the GOP column in 2004...

2003-07-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

George & Laura treated to elephant porn.

2003-07-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

True Heroes:
Police find robbery suspect naked and bound with duct tape

2003-07-10T22:01:00.000-05:00

Why does the media report the recent casualties as unprovoked attacks

Franks: 10-25 Attacks a Day on U.S. Troops in Iraq

U.S. troops in Iraq face 10 to 25 attacks a day, partly because they are hunting for Baathists, "jihadists" and fighters crossing the border from Syria, Gen. Tommy Franks, who ran the war against Baghdad, said on Thursday...

Also, while U.S. forces were seeing "increasing sophistication," including the use of mortars in attacks, there did not appear to be coordinated efforts under a command, Franks said. "It doesn't fit my own personal definition."

2003-07-10T00:04:00.000-05:00

Among Democrats, The Energy Seems To Be on the Left
Washington Post

They do not call themselves "liberals" anymore; the preferred term today is "progressives." But in other ways, they are much the same slice of the electorate that dominated the Democratic Party from 1972 to the late 1980s: antiwar, pro-environment, suspicious of corporations and supportive of federal social services.

I've recently taken to co-opting the term 'progressive' for such radical Republican ideas as welfare reform, school vouchers, and a color-blind society. It really drives the leftists nuts, and considering that their still stuck in the 1970s, I think "fossilized liberals" may be a better discriptor of them.

2003-07-09T23:44:00.000-05:00

July 9th in Iran

Pejmanesque has it covered.

Tehran Online is suspicious of the timing of the separation operation of the Iranian co-joined twins.

Ken Wheaton hits the nail on the head with his observation of the Iranian protest in NYC.
Noticeably absent from the demonstration signs saying "Bush=Hitler," "It's all about oil," "War is not the answer," "End Imperialism" or any of that ilk.

More noticeably absent? The 20,000 or so American college students who typically carry such signs in New York protests. Sure, they couldn't pass up an opportunity to show up in 20 degree weather to howl about how evil their country was and how suspect the President's motives were in regards to Iraq. And like it or not, whether they knew it or not (and interviews with a number of them showed they didn't know much beyond the particular slogan they'd decided to carry or shout), they ultimately were arguing for Saddam Hussein to remain in place.

Sure, with Iraq, there was the issue of war. Many of the February/March protesters said they were morally opposed to war. No, they couldn't offer an alternative solution, but they were opposed to war, and, on the surface of it, that's a noble position to hold. As many politicians know, it's always easier to claim the moral high ground and talk about being noble than to take action, to solve a problem.

Still, I find it morally reprehensible that the youth of America, muddle-headed as they may be, can run out into the streets to scold their country, yet here we have a demonstration for democracy in Iran, for a non-interventionist and peaceful solution to a horrible human-rights issue, the ousting of a fundamentalist religious regime and not a single one of them shows up. There are college students in Iran at this very moment who are in jail, probably being tortured, for doing nothing more than shouting their own slogans in the street or for running a Web site or for having a satellite dish. They're looking for secularization and democracy and women's rights. And not a peep out of their colleagues here. No rock musicians crying out. No public forums on MTV. No concerned actors biting at the ankles of politicians.

It's not just hypocritical, it's disgusting and depressing.
Absolutely.

2003-07-09T22:18:00.000-05:00

RUTGERS GETS 'F' FOR PUTTING ANTI-SEMITISM 101 ON THE SCHEDULE
A student group at Rutgers University, no slouch in the destroy-Israel department, has snagged the third annual National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, to be held Oct. 10-12.

The event, which organizers expect to draw at least 500 Israel foes from the world over, is to include classes designed to teach kids how to pressure their universities to stop investing in companies that do business with Israel. Expect workshops in nonviolent resistance. Or so we hope.

Organizer Charlotte Kates told me peaceful resistance is the fest's guiding principle. Yet she noted that she, as well as the sponsoring organization, the New Jersey Solidarity Movement - an offshoot of International Solidarity - supports Palestinian homicide bombers.

"Palestinian resistance in all its forms has been a very powerful tool of justice," said Kates, 23, a Rutgers law student. "All forms, from armed struggle to mass protest."

And does Israel have a right to exist?

"Israel is an apartheid, colonial settler state. I do not believe apartheid, colonial settler states have a right to exist."

At the two previous conferences, at Berkeley, Calif., and the University of Michigan, pro-Palestinian rhetoric "crossed into virulent anti-Semitism," said Shai Goldstein, director of the New Jersey Anti-Defamation League chapter.

The university said the show will go on, despite 230 letters of protest. As a state school, Rutgers bestows public funding to Solidarity, said a spokeswoman.

They have now received 231 protest letters, and if you would like to send one, you can reach Richard L. McCormick at president@rutgers.edu

2003-07-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

Here's a story you just have to snicker over.

2003-07-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

Body of Disabled N.Y. Girl Found in Trash
An autopsy was being conducted to determine the cause of death for Stephanie Ramos. Police said she was physically underdeveloped, weighed only 28 pounds, and could not see, speak or walk.

Her foster mother originally reported Stephanie missing on Tuesday, but changed her account after being questioned, police spokesman Sgt. Michael Wysokowski said.

2003-07-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Halliburton: The Bush/Iraq Scandal that Wasn’t
National Review

2003-07-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

The BBC is left hanging in the wind:

MoD official who met Gilligan 'denies 45-minute claim'
Independent

BBC's faulty service
Telegraph

No, no bias here
Andrew Sullivan compares how different news outlets cover the findings of the intelligence investigation, and the BBC comes up wanting again:

"UK Parliament Clears Govt of Misleading on Iraq" - Reuters/Washington Post.

"Campbell cleared by MPs over Iraq dossier" - Daily Telegraph.

"Dossier report clears Campbell" - The Guardian.

"Iraq weapons claims criticised" - BBC headline today.

2003-07-09T19:59:00.000-05:00

As if the Supreme Court hasn't become worrisome enough:
Supreme Court citing more foreign cases Scalia: Only U.S. views are relevant
USA Today

Writing for the majority in a landmark decision supporting gay civil rights, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that the European Court of Human Rights and other foreign courts have affirmed the ''rights of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct.''

Never before had the Supreme Court's majority cited a foreign legal precedent in such a big case. Kennedy's opinion in Lawrence vs. Texas, which was signed by four other justices, has ignited a debate among analysts over whether it was a signal that the justices will adopt foreign courts' views of individual liberties.

In theory, that could mean the currently conservative court someday might be influenced by other countries' opposition to the death penalty, their emphasis on foreign prisoners' rights and even their acceptance of same-sex marriages...

''It surprised me to see it in a majority opinion because there has been a debate among the justices over whether foreign law is relevant'' to rulings on U.S. law, says Yale law professor Drew Days, a former U.S. solicitor general.

Days is among those who saw the reference as a step forward. ''The justices are gaining the benefit of very sophisticated thinking by other foreign courts about privacy and equality,'' he says. ''Those terms are not unique to our Constitution and our society.''

Last year, Justice John Paul Stevens cited foreign law in a footnote when the majority banned executions of mentally retarded convicts. Stevens noted that ''within the world community, the . . . death penalty for crimes committed by mentally retarded offenders is overwhelmingly disapproved.''

That drew a rebuke from Scalia, who said, ''The views of other nations, however enlightened the justices of this court may think them to be, cannot be imposed upon Americans through the Constitution.'' Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in his dissent.

In the Texas case, Scalia -- joined once again by Rehnquist and Thomas -- wrote that ''the court's discussion of these foreign views (ignoring, of course, the many countries that have retained criminal prohibitions on sodomy) is ... meaningless dicta. Dangerous dicta, however, since this court should not impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans.''

2003-07-08T13:12:00.000-05:00

Dissertation Could Be Security Threat: Student's Maps Illustrate Concerns About Public Information
Washington Post

Sean Gorman's professor called his dissertation "tedious and unimportant." Gorman didn't talk about it when he went on dates because "it was so boring they'd start staring up at the ceiling." But since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Gorman's work has become so compelling that companies want to seize it, government officials want to suppress it, and al Qaeda operatives -- if they could get their hands on it -- would find a terrorist treasure map.

2003-07-08T12:31:00.000-05:00

Democrats and Fat Cats
Washington Times
"The Nine Dwarfs" pursuing the Democratic Party presidential nomination have been relentlessly asserting that the Republican Party is beholden to the wealthy. It turns out, however, that it is the Democratic Party that has been addicted to the million-dollar contributions from the nation's fat cats. A recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan campaign-finance research organization, reveals that the Democratic Party gobbled up an astounding 92 percent of all individual contributions totaling $1 million or more during the 2001-02 election cycle...

[O]nly in the truly fat-cat segments ($100,000-$999,999 and $1-million-and-above) did the self-described "party of the people" outraise the GOP. From individuals who contributed $1 million or more, Democrats collected $48 million, or 1,100 percent more than the Republicans' $4 million. Moreover, Democrats enjoyed a monopoly among individual contributors who donated $2 million or more.

2003-07-08T12:03:00.000-05:00

It’s Alive!: Why the Constitution should remain dead.
Jonah Goldberg
As Charles Krauthammer and others have noted, Sandy Baby (as John Riggins once dubbed her) is the Constitution of the United States of America. If she wants the text to mean free speech for everybody, then free speech for everybody it is. If she wants it to mean censorship for everybody, well shut my mouth!
...

A Constitution which changes with the times will inevitably mean that the Constitution only means whatever a handful of "robed masters" say it means at any given time. Not only is this dangerous, for all the obvious reasons, it's not even honest. Indeed, the fundamental deception of the liberal campaign to breathe new life into the Constitution with every generation is the implied suggestion that these changes are democratic in some vague way. The idea seems to be that if the text changes with the generations it must reflect the attitudes of those generations. Unfortunately, that's not really true. The fact is that the Court rarely reflects popular opinion so much as elite opinion. And it almost never reflects popular opinion when the pro-"living Constitution" crowd calls the justices "heroic."
...

And, once you realize that the Court is not changing with the generations so much as changing with whatever is fashionable in elite society in Washington and New York, it becomes clear that the people who celebrate the idea of a "living Constitution" don't really want the Court to follow the people, they want it to lead or, if need be, command the people. As Judge Robert Bork noted in The Tempting of America, "The abandonment of original understanding in modern times means the transportation into the Constitution of the principles of a liberal culture that cannot achieve those results democratically."
...

Amending the Constitution is hard because the Founders rightly wanted it that way. Making it a slow and difficult process — often taking years or even generations — not only guaranteed that only the most important changes would be considered as binding precommitments for future generations. It ensured that any proposed changes would be debated and argued over by just about everyone over a sufficient period of time so as to make certain that everyone thought about the lasting repercussions for generations to come. In other words, the Founders designed the amendment process to make us all wear the hat of a Founding Father. But when the Court simply redefines the existing words to mean whatever the majority wants, the Constitution is not longer about precommitting future generations to agreed-upon rules, it's about rank power in the here and now. You may not weep over the fact that this nullifies our ancestors efforts to set the rules of the game. But I hope it bothers you that the rules of the game are still being changed and you have almost no say in what kind of Constitution your descendents will live under. That is unless your name is Sandra Day O'Connor.

2003-07-07T22:31:00.000-05:00

We built an altar, but will they come?
National Post
Weeks after an Ontario court invited gays to wed, a decision enthusiastically feted at Toronto's Gay Pride events, The Washington Post claimed "hundreds of gay Americans are streaming north to get married." But in fact only about two dozen or so couples have signed on for a major-league commitment. Embarrassing, to say the least, for gay marriage proponents. If not in ultra-liberal Hogtown, where? If not now, when?
...

The Field of Theory is landscaped and ready. Where are the players? The answer is: The whole marriage-for-gays movement is a construct of the liberal imagination, a naked Emperor on parade, and the cheering throng -- blindfolded by choice -- are the activist judges, timorous politicians and anti-establishment intellectuals who have co-opted what should have been a national debate on an issue whose unknown social consequences have not been considered in the rush to eradicate history.

The gay-marriage-rights issue has been fabricated out of whole cloth by social revolutionaries who have run out of traditional social institutions to mow down. The fact is: The overwhelming majority of heterosexuals want to marry because in doing so they are joining a historical stream and are reinforcing links to the generation that came before as well as affirming the one to follow. The overwhelming majority of gay men do not want to marry because, by biological definition, they are not in the historical stream. Unlike heterosexuals, every generation of homosexuals must re-invent itself. This is why the spectacle of a gay marriage ceremony will never have the solemn impact or underlying meaning of a real marriage.

When government created civil unions, offering benefits and rights parity to gay couples, the battle for gay rights was over, and that's when the champagne should have been handed round. It was a win-win situation for gays and heteros.

But political militants -- the expression "politically correct" comes out of Mao's cultural revolution -- prefer a zero-sum game: The former victims win only when the former winners lose. To radicals, gays are not individuals but a collective torch, fuel to their hungry bonfire of historic social norms. But the empirical evidence so far suggests given the level playing field of public acceptance through civil unions, most gays will choose to play ball rather than jump through the activists' fiery hoops.

Two more articles on same sex marriage by Jeff Jacoby:

The lull before the storm
"Solid majorities . . . do not endorse legally sanctioned gay marriage," concludes Karlyn Bowman, an expert on public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute. In a recent compilation of surveys dating back to 1973, she shows that Americans have in many ways become more accepting of homosexuality. They are far more likely to have homosexual friends, and to affirm the right of gays and lesbians to equality in job opportunities. Polls find majority support for homosexual teachers, doctors, politicians -- even clergy. But not marriage. Americans adamantly resist the idea of men marrying men or women marrying women...

It is not by coincidence or on a whim, after all, that human societies since time immemorial have restricted marriage to opposite-sex unions. That restriction is part of a system of social taboos whose purpose is to protect families from the caustic power of unrestrained sexuality. Together with the ancient taboos against adultery and incest, and the Western taboo against polygamy, the heterosexuality of marriage helps shield women and children from exploitation, cements the union between fathers and mothers, and bolsters the ethos of monogamy on which the dignity of marriage depends.

Weakening those traditional norms boosts sexual freedom, but as sexual freedom rises, the stability of families and marriage declines. The slippery slope is real, as America's experience since the sexual revolution has made all too clear. Is that a reason to condemn anything and everything that expands sexual options? No. (How many Americans want to return to the era before reliable birth control?) But we should recognize that those options aren't free. We pay a price when we weaken common standards, especially those that pertain to marriage and sex. And the price of same-sex marriage -- as even some "queer" theorists openly predict -- may be the ruin of traditional family life.

Gay marriage would change society's ideal
ONE WAY to approach the same-sex marriage debate is to think about something else entirely. So let's talk about welfare...

It caused wholesale disintegration among low-income families, and sent the rate of black illegitimacy and fatherlessness skyrocketing. An underclass did indeed emerge, one plagued by violence, crime, educational failure, and joblessness.

It didn't happen overnight, but the War on Poverty ended up doing great harm. By toppling the social values that had governed life in poor urban neighborhoods, it eventually undermined those neighborhoods and damaged the people who lived in them.

The adoption of same-sex marriage would likewise topple a longstanding system of shared values. It would change assumptions and expectations by which society has long operated - that men and women are not interchangeable, for example, and that the central reason for marriage is to provide children with mothers and fathers in a safe and loving environment...

Society's ideal is for boys and girls to grow up, choose a life partner of the opposite sex, and form a new family. Of course there are people who find it impossible or intolerable to live up to that ideal, and contemporary American culture provides them with many other options. The big tent we live under now has room for lifelong singles, gay and lesbian partnerships, cohabiting heterosexuals, and second, third, and fourth marriages.

But the ideal arrangement remains the permanent and fruitful union of a loving husband and wife. That is the relationship in which society has its strongest survival stake, and our legal system privileges traditional marriage in order to send the message that it is still, despite all the other choices out there, the ideal.

Legalizing same-sex marriage would change that message. It would signal that we no longer attach unique importance to the union of married opposite-sex couples. It would affirm that same-sex unions are as valuable in every way as conventional marriage. And its most dramatic impact would be not on the gays and lesbians who would joyfully embrace the right to wed today, but on the children who would grow up in a world of normative homosexual marriage tomorrow.

Social behavior changes when society's expectations and values change. Teach children by example - as welfare did - that money can be had without work, and many of them grow up unwilling to work. Teach children by example that traditional marriage is nothing special, and many of them will grow up unwilling to marry.

More:
Marriage — American-Style

2003-07-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

Soft totalitarianism of the world's NGOs
National Post
So let's be clear. Environmental NGOs and private foreign foundations effectively shut down the forest business in B.C. in the '90s, and are now hell-bent on shuttering what's left of forestry, mining and fisheries. If we dare try to develop our offshore oil and gas to fuel necessary growth? The hootin' and hollerin' and "science" generation will escalate. What I want to know is, are the Hewletts and Packards, and Bullitts and Brainerds and Ford and Rockefeller etc., going to pay for the medical costs of all the Canadian Boomers who are going to move here and age expensively, meanwhile demanding the top medical care? Are they? Because we won't be able to after they get through with us.

This little wrinkle in humanity leaks its poison everywhere. The UN (mother of all NGOs) report continued that NGOs are encouraging small poor countries not to open their markets to trade, because NGOs are inherently suspicious of business and the market. However, the transparency and accountability they demand from corporations and government, they refuse for themselves...

[T]he inestimable American journalist, Heather MacDonald, writing for the quarterly, The Manhattan City Journal, has made a methodical study of the capture of the world's great foundations by the activist left. Neal B. Freeman of the Foundation Management Institute of Virginia, equally, calls this capture the ideological heist of the century. MacDonald's "The Burden of Bad Ideas" makes delicious reading, as she systematically reveals that billions of dollars made in the free market, have, over the past 30 years funded the destructive social changes that have led to our schools being unable to teach, made our poor more desperate and numerous, our museums riven by preposterous, historically incorrect revisionism, and finally, and most importantly, our courts hijacked by system-changing leftists bent on cleansing our souls. All this activity seeks social change without using the democratic process...

Extend their destructive activity in B.C. to every phase of human existence, and what you get is a massive drag upon the economy and all activity that reaches towards prosperity and growth. And funded by the foundations struck by the greatest capitalists of all time: Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mott, Mellon.

2003-07-07T21:04:00.000-05:00

Constitutional Irrelevance?
National Review
o poorly reasoned was Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the recent Texas sodomy case that perhaps its most dangerous precedent has gone overlooked...

After dubiously asserting that "our laws and traditions in the past half-century are of most relevance here" (although why 50-year-old "traditions" trump a 135-year-old amendment to a 215-year-old Constitution isn't clear), Kennedy then made a segue to "other authorities" in "Western civilization." Somehow he found it relevant that the British parliament repealed laws against homosexual conduct in 1967.

Then came what would have been a real howler, if it weren't so serious. "Of even more importance," wrote Kennedy,

almost five years before Bowers was decided the European Court of Human Rights considered a case with parallels to Bowers and to today's case. An adult male resident in Northern Ireland alleged he was a practicing homosexual who desired to engage in consensual homosexual conduct. The laws of Northern Ireland forbade him that right.... The court held that the laws proscribing the conduct were invalid under the European Convention on Human Rights.... Authoritative in all countries that are members of the Council of Europe (21 nations then, 45 nations now), the decision is at odds with the premise in Bowers that the claim put forward was insubstantial in our Western civilization.
...

If the authority of extra-national courts is held to be even partially dispositive in the United States (especially without a formal treaty yielding a specific measure of American sovereignty on a particular issue), then the same foreign authority cited in supposed defense of liberty could be cited to take an American individual's liberty away.

As Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his brilliantly concise dissent from the Court majority — in overreacting to a "silly" (and even obnoxious) Texas law — left behind its judicial restraint and assumed a legislative posture instead. Unable to find clear authority in the U.S. Constitution for its raw exercise of judicial will, the Kennedy majority looked to a foreign source for justification. But any American with native intelligence can see that down that road lies alienation from our country's rule of law.

2003-07-04T14:45:00.000-05:00

Uncle Sam to the Rescue
Neil Cavuto

So let me see if I have this right: Now the United Nations needs us. Not in Iraq, where it argued, we shouldn't go. But in Liberia (search), where it argues, we should go.

Liberia is a mess and needs to be stabilized, the U.N. says. Funny, Iraq was a mess but apparently didn't need to be stabilized, the U.N. said.

But why quibble over the details. The administration is indeed sending at least 1,000 G.I.s to Liberia -- maybe double that number down the road.

It’s part of a global peacekeeping force that needs some clout and we just provided it.

We could have bickered and dithered and ignored. We could have said, to hell with your request. But we didn't.

We could have ignored the desperate pleas from Liberians looking to end a civil war that's already claimed hundreds of lives. But we didn't.

We could have been vindictive and said to the French and Germans, who led this request by the way, "You didn't do diddly for us, we ain't doing diddly for you." But we didn't. No, we recognized the greater good by doing some good. So it’s Uncle Sam to the rescue… again.

You know, there are a lot of people who criticize this country, but we're always there when they need this country.

Yes, we do a lot of things wrong, but when everything hits the fan, we do one thing right: We calm, protect and save people.

Sometimes I wonder why we do anything for fair weather friends, who hate us one moment and then dizzily come running to us the next.

Then I look back in our history and I realize the answer: It’s because we've done the exact same thing before, time and time again.

That’s not bad for a country the world loves to hate, until the world is too scared to move.

~~~~~

280 caged children freed: Police arrest captors at Zambian Islamic 'school'

~~~~~

2003-07-04T11:28:00.000-05:00

Restricting abortion in Russia
Globe and Mail

In tackling this volatile issue, Russian lawmakers are assisted by legislation that already divides abortion into two categories — before 12 weeks, when it is unrestricted, and between 12 and 22 weeks, when women are subject to a list of 13 circumstances to qualify.

That list, which now includes such items as low income and insufficient housing — in other words, just about everybody — would be cut to three: rape, a husband's death or a court ruling restricting a woman's right to be a parent...

Official statistics show Russians had 68 abortions per 1,000 women in 2000, but both advocates and opponents believe the actual number may be double that, meaning 60 per cent of pregnancies in the country end in abortion. In Canada, there were 15 abortions per 1,000 women in 2000...

At the reproductive health clinic, Railya Fruluva said that while she disagrees with abortion and refuses to perform them, she realizes that many of the clinic's clients are women with no jobs, no proper housing and no ability to raise children.

"In Soviet times . . . it was terrible, because before we didn't have any contraception and it was practically the only way [to deal with unwanted pregnancies]," Dr. Fruluva said. "But now its a lack of culture."

Ms. Kareyeva says she knows contraception is available, but says not all men are open to using it. Her mother-in-law, Shura Karpova, who says she has had 15 abortions in her lifetime, believes many Russian women are at the mercy of their husbands when it comes to birth control...

Abortion was again fully legalized in 1955, just as condoms and other methods of birth control were starting to take root in many countries. But Soviet-made condoms and diaphragms were uncomfortable and unreliable, leaving abortion as the most common method of family planning.

Today, at least in urban areas, birth-control pills can be purchased without a prescription and grocery stores sell a wide selection of foreign-made condoms. But at 400 rubles, or about $4, for a package of six, they are expensive to purchase regularly. Abortions are not: A first consultation at a Moscow clinic runs about 200 rubles, under $10. A complete abortion costs 640 rubles, or $27.50...

Back at the clinic, the women waiting in the hallway simply shrug when they hear the proposal: Private clinics already advertise freely in newspapers and magazines, and these women believe later-term abortions will still be available. But the service will be underground, no longer reporting to the government and no longer accountable for the kind of care they provide.

"The rights of women will be affected, but the doctors will keep on making money. They will still be doing abortions, they will just be more expensive," said one woman in her late 20s, who did not want to give her name. She said she knows many women who would have no choice but to resort to illegal abortions: "Usually women go in after three months when their husbands have kicked them out of their houses and they are in despair."

Let me see if I've got this right. Unristricted cheap abortions, which have led to them being the primary method of birth control for generations of Russian women because their mates don't like domestic condoms and imported ones are expensive and the selfish dominating men in their lives have little regard for the health risks of multiple abortions which these women are subjected to, are an expression of equality and women's rights.

Conversely, limiting abortions to primarily first trimester, changing the perception among both sexes that the procedure is the most common form of birth control, empowering women to insist on alternative safer methods which their partners share responsiblity in using, and limiting these overbearing men to less than 3 months of being able to pressure their partner into an abortion that she doesn't want instead of 9 is harmful to women's rights.

2003-07-03T10:26:00.000-05:00

The Idea of America
National Review
In a speech delivered just after Independence Day 1858, Lincoln clarified the link between the Declaration and American nationhood. His argument is one we should ponder at a time when "multiculturalists" are advancing the view that the U.S. is not a land of free individuals but instead a conglomeration of discrete racial and ethnic groups.

When we celebrate the Fourth of July, Lincoln told his listeners in Chicago, we celebrate the founders, "our fathers and grandfathers," those

iron men...But after we have done this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men — descended by blood from our ancestors — among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe — German, Irish, French and Scandinavian...finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that the moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.

~~~~~

DEMS DO A TIPTOE AROUND GAY MARRIAGE
NY Post

SUDDENLY a lot of Democrats, starting with Sen. Hillary Clinton and her ex-president husband Bill, are desperately seeking a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the subject of gay marriage.

~~~~~

Sun drives climate change, not sheep gas
National Business Review (New Zealand)
Copious amounts of intestinal gas methane from sheep and cattle together with carbon dioxide from industrial activity will have much less effect on global climate than some people think.

Indeed, it might have hardly any effect at all, according to Dr Paal Brekke from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (Soho).

The results of his research at Soho, a project of international co-operation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the US National Aeronautical and Space Administration (Nasa), suggest that energy emitted from the sun drives the climate system, and natural changes in its behaviour can have a far greater effect than human behaviour.

Earlier this year another study reported an even more startling find: that the amount of energy the sun produces has been increasing in amounts sufficient to account for a significant amount of the global warming that has become so important to both climatologists and environmentalists.

~~~~~

2003-07-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

Sperm donor is legal dad: court

court has ruled a 35-year-old Swedish man who privately donated his sperm to a lesbian couple is the legal father of the three children and must support them financially.

Anna Bjurling, the mother of the children - aged 10, seven and five - asked Igor Lehnberg to pay child support after the relationship with her partner ended last year.

A county administrative court yesterday ruled in her favour and ordered Lehnberg to pay child support of $US280 ($A555) a month.

Lehnberg challenged the decision by arguing in district court that he wasn't the legal father. But the court said a document Lehnberg had signed, stating that he was the biological father, was legally binding.

Lehnberg claimed he signed the document only so the children would know their origin, not to accept any responsibility for them.

And how many other men make sperm 'donations' everyday without first accepting responsibilty for any children that might be created. What kind of legal precedent would this set. Yes, Your Honor, I am the biological father of this child, but since her mother and I had a one night stand after too many cervecas in Cancun and I never intended to impregnate her (which my use of a condom on that night implies), I have chosen not to accept any responsibility the kid.

How can a man who not only plans to impregnate a female but goes to extraordinary lengths to accomplish that feat, as this Swedish man has done, be less responsible than some poor drunken bloke who had the bad luck of his birthcontrol method failing while he was boinking some chic he ordinarily wouldn't ask on a date let alone choose to be the mother of his child.

And while I'm still ranting, isn't it time that this society realises that 'accepting responsiblity' is about choosing to take on someone else's responsibilty (like the non-maternal lesbian did), but if something is your responsibility, you do not have a choice of taking it on or not and if the person you have made arrangements with to take on your responsibility chooses no longer to do that, they fall back to you. Children are the responsibility ultimately of their biological parents whether they are planned or not and whether they are wanted or not.

~~~~~

Man's sex appeal shows in his cheek
Telegraph

~~~~~

Someone over there has got some explaining to do.

~~~~~

US cuts aid over ICC immunity refusals

~~~~~

Stadium of Death
Little Green Footballs

~~~~~

2003-06-30T23:05:00.000-05:00
U.S. loses its taste for French wine

~~~~~

New book outlines drugs, violence in JFK Jr.'s marriage

~~~~~

US 'imperialism' is best hope for unstable world
The Scotsman
he important question is: what does the US do with the power thrust upon it? Neo-conservatives in the US talk of a Pax Americana, whereby it will use its dominant military power to maintain global order and discourage any rivals who might threaten its interests.

At the same time, the US will work to spread democracy and liberal values (as it aims to do in Iraq) as a way of constructing a lasting, stable international order. Call this a rationalisation after the event, rather than its cause.

This viewpoint is amazingly reminiscent of the discussion in Britain after Napoleon, where there was much talk about a Pax Britannica. An early form of UN had been invented called the Congress System, whereby the big powers of the day (Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria) got together to thrash out common problems. But liberal opinion in the United Kingdom decided that doing deals with these corrupt autocracies was not in our interests. Instead, Britain adopted a unilateralist approach - shades of the US today, and with the same idealistic thrust.

For instance, Britain unilaterally decided to outlaw the trade in slaves and its navy hunted foreign slave ships off the high seas (remembered here in New Haven, where the blacks, who seized their slave ship, the Amistad, were tried and freed). At the time, the slave traders claimed this was a cynical ploy to remove competition to Britain from free slave labour - shades of the Iraq oil debate - but public opposition to slavery in Britain was very real...
continue

~~~~~

Sick, Sick, Sick

Spectre of babies from the unborn
Telegraph

Women seeking fertility treatment could one day be offered donor eggs grown from the tissue of an aborted foetus, researchers said yesterday.

In an experiment that raises the prospect of babies with "unborn mothers", ovarian tissue was removed from seven dead foetuses and kept alive in a laboratory for four weeks.

~~~~~

David at Bernstein Blog makes a great point about Clarence Thomas's record.
Eugene over at the Volokh Conspiracy notes the tendency of many Justice Thomas critics to claim that Thomas is basically Scalia's stooge. I ran into this argument a few years ago on an African American studies listserv, and pointed out that Thomas votes with Scalia far less often than Thurgood Marshall voted with William Brennan, but no one accused Marshall of being Brennan's lap dog. I was challenged for exact statistics. I provided them from the Harvard Law Review's annual Supreme Court survey. But I was still met with the argument that Scalia must be dictating Thomas's opinions.

This issues reminds me of when Thomas was first nominated to the Supreme Court, and a raft of biographical sketches appeared, many with the theme, "how did Thomas come to such conservative views." The articles typically tried to assess the effect of various biographical or psychological idiosyncracies on Thomas. None gave any serious weight to Thomas's own explanation, which is that he read a lot, ranging from Ayn Rand to Thomas Sowell, and concluded that libertarianish conservatism made sense. I thought those articles were insulting to Thomas and to blacks in general, and still do. If whites can read and be influenced by Ayn Rand and Thomas Sowell, why can't blacks? And if Scalia can win grudging praise for the sharpness of this legal writings, why can't Thomas, who, if anything, is a bolder and more original thinker than is Scalia?

~~~~~

Armavirumque has a
jaw dropping inquiry from an American librarianSubject: librarian with question

Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 12:11:08 -0400
Dear ____

I am a librarian trying to answer a reference question from a student. I found on the Web reference to a book you have written on the history of Australian philosophy and thought perhaps you could assist me. Could you provide a name(s) of any ancient Australian philosophers or educators pre-200 B.C.? The student is looking for information on ancient philosophers or educators that impacted modern education.

With a name, perhaps I can find more information in other sources.

Thank you very much for your help.

Link from Pejmanesque

~~~~~

Is Lawrence worse than Roe?
New Republic
Link from Pejmanesque

2003-06-29T17:26:00.000-05:00
High court's race ruling affects K-12: Schools given path for using diversity as admission factor
Boston Globe
The US Supreme Court's decision last week to uphold race in university admissions also gives a green light for K-12 school systems with magnet programs or student-transfer policies to take children's race into account, as long as it is not the primary factor in admissions.

~~~~~

Characteristic #7 of a failed culture in action:
Hospitality Found Wanting at Two Riyadh Supermarkets
Arab News

A young Saudi cashier at a major supermarket chain on Dhabab Street created a scene on Wednesday night when he refused to move the items from an expatriate’s shopping basket onto the counter for scanning.

Instead the cashier asked the expatriate — from the Subcontinent — to do the unloading himself. The expatriate refused on the grounds that it was the duty of the cashier to place the items on the scanner.

When the cashier remained adamant, the shopping supervisor, also a non-Saudi, was called to discipline him. When his words fell on deaf ears of the Saudi cashier, a Bangladeshi employee of the supermarket came forward to do the job.

Last week, this correspondent happened to be at the Hail Al-Wizarat branch of another supermarket chain. Long queues had built up at three counters, while three others remained unmanned.

Checking out after a 45-minute wait for some minor shopping, the Arab News correspondent suggested to the shopping supervisor, an Asian expatriate, that it would make sense to open all the counters to customers during peak hours to clear the growing queues.

He replied: “What to do? The counters have to be manned by Saudis under the new law. But they did not show up.”

These two instances provide a glimpse of Saudization at work in the supermarkets. The Saudis who have replaced the expatriates at the cash counters think it beneath their dignity to serve expatriate shoppers, especially if they happen to be from the Subcontinent.

A senior manager of one of the oldest supermarkets on Takhassusi Street said the store had to fire 20 out of 50 new Saudi recruits within a short period due to frequent absenteeism, lack of punctuality and excessive use of mobile phones at counters. He added that the decision was taken on the basis of complaints from the customers due to billing errors.

Saudization of jobs in the supermarkets along with IT, health care and construction sectors are part of the comprehensive strategy drawn up by the Human Resources Development Fund to create 20,000 jobs for Saudis this year.

To meet the target, it has compelled the private sector to fall in line.

“We are hiring Saudis, but they don’t stick around for long,” said the administration manager of a multinational construction company.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said that many played truant or reported sick very often.

“We have three gates to be manned by 10 Saudi guards. This is just to fulfill the requirement for Saudization, as we have been taken to court by the Labor Office for non-compliance with the five percent annual Saudization rule. But the caliber of the Saudi manpower is such that we have no alternative but to fire them and again place ads for fresh recruits,” he added.

Link from Somewhere on A1A...

2003-06-29T16:19:00.000-05:00
Dispute over Iraq trailer labs denied
MSNBC

RESPONDING TO THE report, in Thursday’s editions of The New York Times, the officials confirmed that the internal State Department memo dated June 2 warned that it was “premature” to conclude that the mobile trailers were biological labs.
But the intelligence officials, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the memo, which was only two paragraphs in length, was drafted by “uninformed” State Department experts who did not have access to intelligence available to the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The officials also said the memo did not offer an alternative explanation as to the use for which the mobile labs were intended and noted that, several days after the memo was circulated, Secretary of State Colin Powell said publicly that the trailers were apparently part of Iraq’s biological weapons program.

~~~~~

Counting on diversity in court
Mark Steyn

~~~~~

10 things to celebrate
Dinesh D'Souza

1. America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy.
2. America offers more opportunity and social mobility than any other country, including the countries of Europe.
3. Work and trade are respectable in America. Historically most cultures have despised the merchant and the laborer, regarding the former as vile and corrupt and the latter as degraded and vulgar.
4. America has achieved greater social equality than any other society.
5. People live longer, fuller lives in America.
6. In America the destiny of the young is not given to them, but created by them.
7. America has gone further than any other society in establishing equality of rights.
8. America has found a solution to the problem of religious and ethnic conflict that continues to divide and terrorize much of the world.
9. America has the kindest, gentlest foreign policy of any great power in world history.
10. America, the freest nation on Earth, is also the most virtuous nation on Earth.

More on the same theme from Dinesh
The Real Appeal of America

~~~~~

Now doesn't this just inspire confidence in government healthcare programs?
UK to outsource heart operations to India
Economic Times of India

~~~~~

Just another minor error from the NYT:
An article last Sunday about President Bush's truthfulness on the war in Iraq and on tax cuts misstated the timetable for a tax reduction affecting the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. On average, their taxes will be reduced by nearly $100,000 over four years, not over one year.

~~~~~

Dean of the Democrats: He appeals to the party's rotten mood.

Mr. Dean doesn't merely want to raise taxes on "the rich"; he wants to repeal every tax cut passed during the Bush Presidency. Asked last Sunday by Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he "would consider increasing the payroll tax," Mr. Dean replied: "Absolutely. You don't have to increase the amount of the payroll tax, you increase the salary that it's applied to." Applying the same rate to more income is still a tax increase, and in this case on anyone earning more than $87,000 a year.

In Mr. Dean's wake, every Democratic candidate is now proposing some kind of tax increase. It's become the price of Iowa admission. John Kerry once talked about repealing the double tax on dividends, but not any longer. Even Joe Lieberman, once a capital-gains rate cutter, now wants to restore the highest Clinton rates.

~~~~~

Day by Day by Chris Muir

What are the chances that the Greens are on Rove's payroll, too?
Greens spurn Democrats, hope for another Nader run

~~~~~

A child needs a father like a fish needs a bicycle.
Do-It-Yourself babies now come via Internet
Hindustan Times

Fourteen lesbians in Britain have become pregnant with sperms sold to them by a company through the Internet. And Britain's first online "Do-It-Yourself" baby is expected within a month, it has revealed.

ManNotIncluded.com has its offices in London's Harley Street, and started selling sperms last year to single women and lesbians.

~~~~~

Strikes demanding more entitlements failed last week. Now deep tax cuts and supply side economics are announced. What is going on in Germany?

~~~~~~

2003-06-28T21:48:00.000-05:00
Aging Europe Finds Its Pension Is Running Out
NYT

~~~~~

The New Gloomsayers: Thinkers again predict American decline. Is there any reason to think they'll be right this time?

~~~~~

Why hasn't this gotten around?
Poliblog has an important post about Dr. Dean
And speaking of controversial issues, is the Democratic Party ready to unite behind a leader who, as a med student, performed his ob-gyn rotation at a Planned Parenthood clinic? Vermont magazine reported on this in 1998, adding: "While he has never performed an abortion himself, he is strongly pro-choice and certainly understands the medical procedures involved." This rates as the medical equivalent of not inhaling.

The question is, why didn't Dr. Dean, at one time on the board of Planned Parenthood, ever perform an abortion? And how does Dr. Dean, who is also an opponent of parental notification, explain Vermont's status as one of a handful of states in which abortions may be performed by non-doctors? In 1998--the last year the state released data--183 girls under the age of 18 had abortions, more than half of them performed by non-doctors: Morality aside, is this even the healthiest option?

~~~~~

No, there's no anti-semitism in the EU, huh-hu, no siree, not a bit
From Merde in France:
Le Parisien on June 8 published a crossword puzzle that must have been written by one of those French donors to Hamas (or a Mecca-Cola drinker, but then again they are the same thing). 'Wholesale meats' was the definition given for 'genocide'. 'Taken far from home' was the definition for 'deported' and 'Pejorative for Jewish girl' was the definition for 'kike-ette'. When questioned by the AFP, Christian de Villeneuve, Managing Director of Le Parisien, admitted 'that there had been a lack of vigilance'.

Little Green Footballs found some at Oxford.
From: "Andrew Wilkie" awilkie@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk
To: "Amit Duvshani"
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: PhD application

Dear Amit Duvshani,

Thank you for contacting me, but I don't think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country.

I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I'm sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around.

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Wilkie

Nuffield Professor of Pathology,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
The John Radcliffe,
Headington,
Oxford OX3 9DS,
UK.

Tel (44)-1865-222619
Fax (44)-1865-222500

Doya think he knows that military service is universal in Isreal? An educator who feels so passionately about an issue would surely have such rudementary knowledge, right?

The Telegraph picks up the story.

~~~~~

2003-06-28T20:27:00.000-05:00
Heh
Israel breaks links with BBC in anger at ‘demonisation’
Times
Mr Seaman, 42, said the sanctions had been decided at an angry meeting of representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Ministry and the government press office because of what was seen as an overall BBC attitude towards Israel “verging on the anti-Semitic”. They were in reaction to a series of programmes which had sought “to delegitimise Israel and showed some of the attitudes once familiar in Der Stürmer (the Nazi journal).”

Mr Seaman added: “Our complaint is with the BBC as an organisation rather than its bureau here, which does try from time to time to rectify its mistakes. The weapons programme, which contains the ridiculous false assertion that we used nerve gas against the Palestinians, was the last straw.

“We decided that we had to draw a red line rather than just complain about a consistent attitude in which successive BBC programmes attempt to place us in the same context as totalitarian, axis-of-evil countries such as Iraq and Iran.”

“The attitude of the BBC is more than a pure journalistic matter; it is dangerous to the existence of the state of Israel because it demonises the Israelis and gives our terrorist enemies reasons to attack us. There is no dialogue between Israel and the BBC and no recognition inside the corporation of the sensitivity of a people who have faced attempted annihilation. The questions about nuclear weapons asked by the BBC are never directed against the US or Britain. Mr Sharon is never mentioned without some critical reference to his alleged right-wing tendencies or military past, while Islamic terrorists are politely referred to as ‘militants’ out of a reluctance by the BBC to upset Muslims by telling the truth.”

~~~~~

From the evil empireto the empire for liberty
New Criterion
The Bush administration is only beginning to grasp the implications of the course on which it has embarked. It still, albeit with growing difficulty, speaks the language of anti-imperialism. But that is the jargon of the twentieth century, or its second half; who says it will be the prevailing discourse of the twenty-first? As it happens, in America?s own parlance, imperialism became a derogatory term only during the Civil War, when the South accused the North of behaving like a European empire. It then became politically correct to speak only of ?American exceptionalism.? But it is worth recalling that up to 1860 ?empire? was not a term of abuse in the United States. George Washington himself spoke of ?the rising American Empire.? Jefferson, aware of the dilemma, claimed that America was ?an Empire for liberty.? That is what America is becoming again, in fact if not in name. America?s search for the security against terrorism and rogue states goes hand in hand with liberating their oppressed peoples. From the Evil Empire to an Empire for Liberty is a giant step, a contrast as great as the appalling images of the wasted twentieth century and the brightening dawn of the twenty-first. But America has the musculature and the will to take giant steps, as it has shown in the past

Link found at Common Sense and Wonder

~~~~~

Wouldn't you know...

You are EVE!
Beautiful and innocent, you were literally God's
gift to man! But your curiosity, disobedience
and gullibility in the face of serpents caused
you to break the big rule, and since that time,
it has been one big drag.

What Beautiful and Tragic Mythic Woman Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

~~~~~

Diversity? That's a New One
Washington Post

The immediate reaction from most commentators and political leaders has been tepid, as though the court had decided in favor of keeping things the way they are. Some of the headlines, for example, have declared that the court upheld "affirmative action." No, it didn't. What it did was invent a new constitutional principle, "diversity." In her opinion for the majority in the University of Michigan Law School case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that "Today, we hold that the law school has a compelling interest in attaining a diverse student body."

This is mild phrasing for a radical change. "Diversity" has never before been officially recognized as a compelling government interest, and making it into one will make America significantly less true to its deepest principles and stir profound resentment, animosity and conflict for years to come...

~~~~~

2003-06-28T17:33:00.000-05:00
As if Nothing Happened is entered in this week's New Weblog Showcase. To cast your vote for this blog, just link this post to your web log.

Here are some other interesting new blogs to explore:

Occasional Subversion

Bob's Bits and Bites

Web Dawn: Rebirth of the Social Marketplace

2003-06-28T17:14:00.000-05:00
Behavior May Leave a Mark on Genes
LA Times

After a century of false starts, the effort to dissect human nature is entering a new era, said Yale University science historian Daniel Kevles. It may be only a matter of time before genes involved in human behavior can be identified, patented and, perhaps, altered.

Research is revealing that the workings of genes are more complex than scientists had thought, that the brain itself is more open to change, and that the effects of everyday experience are more powerful.

Indeed, growing evidence suggests that what happens in life controls the activity of many genes.

"The new way of looking at this is that different experiences turn different genes on and off," said psychologist Seth Pollak at the University of Wisconsin. "Experience matters..."

Love is in some measure the influence of a brain chemical called oxytocin and fluctuating levels of vasopressin. Aggression and depression are a measure of serotonin levels.

By altering a single gene that affects vasopressin, scientists can turn philandering mice into faithful, devoted mates.

Eliminate four genes that affect levels of oxytocin and estrogen, and mice cannot recognize their friends or their enemies.

Make just one genetic change in how a brain hormone such as serotonin is controlled and researchers also can eliminate or elevate some kinds of aggression — at least in mice...

If genes bind family members to one another, the nuances of experience are what set families' members apart, according to the American Society of Human Genetics.

The way a mother holds and strokes her child can chemically alter the expression of some of the child's genes and temper their effects, said psychiatrist Glen Gabbard at Baylor College of Medicine, who studies how biology and the environment affect personality disorders.

"The quality of maternal interaction may override the genetic predisposition to criminal behavior," Gabbard said.

Such biochemical changes in how a gene behaves can, in turn, be inherited, even though they do not actually change the structure of the gene itself...

2003-06-28T15:34:00.000-05:00
GOP Outpaces Dems in Contributions from Small Donors
LA Times
Republicans raised far more than Democrats from small donors in the 2002 election, suggesting that the GOP may enjoy a significant advantage from the new ban on unregulated "soft money" contributions to the parties, a nonpartisan study has found.

With those large soft money contributions from wealthy individuals, unions and corporations now barred by the campaign finance law President Bush signed last year, the parties will be more dependent in 2004 on smaller contributions ? the kind of donation where the study found that Republicans hold their largest advantage.

The study found that the GOP attracted almost 50% more contributors than Democrats during the 2002 election, and significantly outraised the Democrats among every level of donor who gave less than $100,000 to the parties...

That disparity was evident in one striking finding in the new study: Democrats raised as much as Republicans in 2002 only among the largest donors. Those who donated between $100,000 and $999,999 to the two parties split their contributions almost exactly in half; Democrats attracted 92% of the money from the 23 donors who contributed at least $1 million.

By contrast, Republicans dominated among smaller and mid-sized donors. Republicans garnered 64% of the total contributions from those who donated $200 or less; 61% from those who gave between $200 and $999; 55% from those who gave between $1,000 and $9,999; and 53% from those who gave up to $99,999.

Mc Cain Feingold is exacerbating Dems fundraining troubles
Democrats Discovering Campaign Law's Cost
Washington Post

The evidence is growing that Democrats shot themselves in the foot by forcing passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law restricting what had been unlimited "soft money" donations to political parties..

And from the same article, here's another nice little statistic to remember:
The study also found that only one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans gave $1,000 or more.

2003-06-28T14:35:00.000-05:00
Muslim prayer leaders in U.S. at a crossroads: Role of imams is changing to meet community needs
Desert News

~~~~~

Howard Dean

Howard Dean is a top-tier candidate for the Democratic nomination. So it's time the press started treating him like one--by taking his "straight talk" seriously
Fred Barnes
HOWARD DEAN has fashioned a reputation as the straightforward Democratic candidate for president. And the media has bought the idea. Joe Klein writes in this week's Time that Dean, the former Vermont governor, has already "won the Straight Talk primary." He did this chiefly by loudly and unequivocally opposing the war in Iraq while some of his Democratic rivals waffled.

But the press is wrong about Dean. He appears to be no more straightforward or candid than most national politicians and less so than some. An hour-long grilling by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" on Sunday should put the rest any notion of Dean's unique straightforwardness. Instead, he waffled on numerous issues and made wild or false statements on others...

Absolute Howard: Dean's national security problem
Slate
For months, I've been scratching my head over the Howard Dean problem. On domestic issues, Dean beats the rest of the presidential field hands down. He knows the nooks and crannies of all the policy debates. He's been an executive. He's principled where he ought to be principled and pragmatic where he ought to be pragmatic. He hurls fire and brimstone with the best of them. He isn't one of those wishy-washy liberals who inspire contempt on both the left and the right. And he states his views in a way that everyone can understand and most people can support.

The problem is national security. It isn't just Dean's opposition to the war in Iraq, which is eminently defensible. It's subtler and broader. Every time Dean talks about foreign affairs, he gives off a whiff of hostility or indifference to American military power...

Link from Andrew Sullivan

~~~~~

Yourish is still challenging Indymedia on their lack of support for democracy in Iran.

~~~~~

A bad way to dispose of a bad law
JAY AMBROSE

The Texas law banning homosexual sex was a disgrace, and in writing a majority Supreme Court opinion that struck it down, Justice Anthony Kennedy was eloquent about the terrible ways in which it was demeaning. If he were a legislator trying to persuade other lawmakers, he might well have carried the day.

But, of course, he isn't a legislator, at least not technically. He is a judge, and he failed to do what he was required to do: find some basis in the Constitution for his decision. Instead, he relies on "substantive due process," which is a means of twisting constitutional language about due process to mean what it does not mean in order to invent rights that do not exist.

~~~~~

2003-06-28T00:56:00.000-05:00
Exposing Eco-Hypocrisy
National Review

Eugene Lapointe has unique credentials to write a book on sustainability. He is the current president of IWMC World Conservation Trust, a global coalition of experts and wildlife managers promoting sustainable resource use guided by science. An attorney who grew up in the woods of Quebec, Lapointe served fourteen years in the Canadian government before becoming the Secretary General of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, from 1982 to 1990. CITES is the international trade commission overseeing the multi-billion-dollar-a-year commerce in wild animals and their products.

Lapointe left his post at CITES dramatically on November 2, 1990, when he was dismissed by UNEP executive director Mostapha Tolba. The campaign to remove him was led by a handful of U.S. officials and 28 major NGOs, who, according to Lapointe, ?claimed I had become the worst criminal on the planet.? His crime was advocating a sustainable-use philosophy that allowed for scientifically directed hunting of whales, elephants, and other animals, especially in situations that respect local cultural values.

...

In 167 passionate pages, Lapointe lays out his pragmatic philosophy of sustainable use, and he also presents considerable data on the actual state of many wild animals ? data that seldom appear in the media. His defense clearly shows why poverty is the biggest force working against conservation.

...

Lapointe?s book harpoons myths. What is the biggest threat to blue and right whales? Lapointe suggests it may not be whalers, but an overabundance of minke whales that compete with blue and right whales for the same food, as well as killer whales, which ruthlessly prey in packs, or pods, on young leviathans.

Lapointe also points out that tooted and baleen whales consume three-to-six times the combined 90-million ton annual seafood catch of all the world?s commercial fisheries. How often have you ever heard the media suggest that an overabundance of some species of whales is a contributing factor to the decline of some stocks of fisheries? Lapointe argues that controlled whaling, for meat, could help restore ailing fisheries.

2003-06-28T00:35:00.000-05:00
The Baathists' Blundering Guerrilla War
Washington Post

~~~~~

The Poor Like Globalization
Yale Global Online

~~~~~

Texas to Restore Race in Admissions
AP

Six years after dropping affirmative action in favor of a 10 percent solution, Texas' public university system will work to restore race as a factor in admissions, with the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court.

~~~~~

Delhi rich girls sell sex
BBC
Unlike in the past, when girls from poor families were forced to take to prostitution, more and more models and even school girls have joined the profession, the authorities say.

The police say prostitution has become a huge organised business in the capital.

"These girls are all from rich and good families and they took up this profession to earn some quick money," says deputy commissioner of police, Sanjay Beniwal, reflecting on one recent operation against Delhi prostitutes.

~~~~~

Vegetarians are destroying the rainforest
Amazon Destruction Jumps, Shocks Environmentalists
Reuters

Most of the deforestation takes place due to burning and logging to create farms, and the jump in 2002 suggests soy farming is growing rapidly in the area.

Brazil is expected to overtake U.S. soy production in a few years, making it the world's No. 1 producer of a crop that offers large profits for farmers and gives a sizable boost to Brazil's trade accounts.

~~~~~

Old and in the Way: The American Street has sized up best the new paradoxes of foreign policy.
Victor Davis Hanson

~~~~~

Landmark Studies Reveal Virtually All Of California's Population Explosion Due To Immigration: While Native-Born Californians Are Leaving The State

~~~~~

Crumbling U.N. Seeks $1 Billion for Renovation
Fox

The U.N.'s two 50-year-old buildings in New York City are basically falling apart — decaying pipes and crumbling ceilings are now commonplace — and the U.N. is seeking an interest-free loan worth more than $1 billion to renovate its headquarters.

Who will pay to fix the 1952 original plumbing, get rid of asbestos and raise security fences? Repairs would cost U.S. taxpayers about $600 million over 30 years...

~~~~~

The Burnt Orange Report is on top of Texas redistricting.

~~~~~

Man Gets Prison in Stabbing that Killed Woman's Fetus

~~~~~

Rapper to perform despite rape charges
Grammy Award nominated artist Mystikal will perform today at the Kuumba Festival despite pleading guilty on Thursday to charges that he forced his hairstylist to perform sex acts on him and two bodyguards.

Festival organizer Nkechi Ajanaku said Friday that Mystikal will be allowed to perform as part of the events at Chilhowee Park because the festival's backing organization had signed a contract and would "lose a big chunk" of money if his appearance was canceled.

Ajanaku also said she had received calls of support for Mystikal. "The hip-hop constituency wanted to see this particular artist," she said.

~~~~~

The Politics of Mass Destruction
Frontpage Magazine
Even as evidence is uncovered that Saddam Hussein was planning to revive his nuclear-weapons program at the earliest possible date, politicians and pundits alike lament the failure of coalition forces to find a "smoking gun." Despite the recent discovery of plans and parts for a uranium-enrichment centrifuge, some presidential candidates have accused the Bush administration of lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to justify the war with Iraq.

Such assertions ignore all that has been learned and has transpired during the last 12-plus years...

~~~~~

2003-06-27T21:52:00.000-05:00
Geddes v. Texas
~~~~~

Supreme Court strikes down Texas sodomy law: Ruling establishes new legal ground in privacy, experts say
CNN

The Supreme Court Thursday struck down a Texas state law banning private consensual sex between adults of the same sex in a decision gay rights groups hailed as historic.

The 6-3 decision by the court reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.

Best of the Web,

Civil laws prohibiting consensual sodomy were an anachronism, and the country is well rid of them. Yet we'd say the court got it right in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), when it ruled that the U.S. Constitution is no bar to such laws. At the time the court decided Bowers, 24 states had sodomy laws; by yesterday only 13 did. By short-circuiting the political process, which seemed to be moving in the right direction anyway, the Supreme Court took away a little bit of Americans' democratic freedom.

At the same time, one can't really accuse the court of making up a new right out of whole cloth--at least not in this case. The court's "privacy" jurisprudence, which has no basis in the text of the constitution, goes back nearly four decades, to Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which established a constitutional right to marital privacy (specifically, for married couples to use contraceptives). In 1973, Roe v. Wade established a right to reproductive privacy, and although the court acknowledged that "a State may properly assert important interests . . . in protecting potential life," in practice this hasn't amounted to much. The establishment of a right to sexual privacy, which is effectively what Lawrence does, seems a natural, perhaps even inevitable, progression from Griswold and Roe.

Analysis from:
George Will
Given the Supreme Court's 6 to 3 ruling yesterday that Texas's anti-sodomy law violates the constitutional privacy right, lap dancing -- like prostitution, for that matter -- looks like a fundamental constitutional right. Consider the discontinuities in the evolution of that right, which the court first explicitly affirmed in 1965, more than 17 decades after the Constitution was ratified.

In 1965 the court said a Connecticut law banning the sale and use of contraceptives violated a constitutional right of privacy. But the court connected this right to society's stake in an institution -- marriage, "an association that promotes a way of life." Marriage is grounded in nature, in the generation and rearing of children, a matter about which every society legislates.

The privacy right is most famously associated with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision. But the radicalism of that decision was in severing the privacy right from any relationship with any social institution.

David Frum
Lawrence v. Texas does more than strike down an archaic and unenforceable law. It does more than stretch the Constitution in directions unintended and unimaginable to the Constitution’s authors. It is above all things a case that opens the way to a wild new era of judicial activism. Here’s why.

You have to read Lawrence in conjunction with another case, Romer v. Evans, decided in 1996...

As Justice Scalia pointed out in his dissent, it would have been perfectly constitutionally OK in 1996 for the state of Colorado to criminalize homosexuality altogether by passing a sodomy law. The effect of Romer was to offer states a stark choice: Either you treat homosexuality as a crime, as Georgia does, and as we upheld in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986. Or else you treat it is a protected category. There’s no in-between. Neutrality is not allowed.

See where this takes us? This week, the Supreme Court overturned Bowers v. Hardwick. States will no longer be permitted to treat homosexuality as a crime. By the logic of Romer that leaves them (as this Supreme Court sees it) no option but to treat it as a protected category.

Dean's World
In issuing his (quite thoughtful and reasonable) dissent on yesterday's ruling on sodomy laws, it appears that Antonin Scalia was Dowdified. He was quoted several places as saying "I have nothing against homosexuals," which makes it sound like he was being defensive. But what he actually said was, "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means."

In other words, he was taking the quite reasonable position that this was not a Constitutional matter, and should be dealt with democratically. Now, why is it that I suspect he will continue to be pilloried as a horrible backward mean-spirited jerk, and that few corrections and retractions will be issued?

Family Scholars Blog
In The American Prospect, E.J. Graff wonders at some length why the U.S. is so "backward," compared to many other countries, on the issue of legal recognition for same-sex couples. Her self-righteous tone -- her whole style says, "only a moron or a Baptist could fail to agree with every point I make" -- is pretty hard to take, but she does have a lot of interesting information about what's happening in other countries.

And she also writes:

In the 1970s, as different-sex couples started shacking up in massive numbers, Canada, Australia and New Zealand decided to make marriage automatic -- lest women get exploited, tossed aside and land on the dole. No need to sign in: Should you and your honey dally more than a few months at the same address, the state automatically treats you as married, with or without your consent.

Amazing to me how she is apparently willing to toss aside, without so much as a backward glance, the venerable idea that part of the very definition of marriage, part of its essence, is that it is a relationship entered into freely, deliberately, and voluntarily. Graff seems perfectly content to let the state effectively "marry" couples without their knowledge or consent.

~~~~~

2003-06-26T15:33:00.000-05:00
UN concern for Norwegian rape victims
Aftenposten

Lawyer Hege Salomon said the criticism was completely justified.

"It is almost impossible to convict someone of rape in Norway," Salomon said, and believes prosecution and police have simply become used to the current situation.

~~~~~

U.S.: Nuclear components in Iraq: Pre-Gulf War plans, parts found hidden in residential backyard
msnbc

~~~~~

Family of woman who died at abortion clinic files lawsuit
AP

A report by the state Department of Health Services concluded that the clinic did not follow established medical procedures during the abortion and it did not report Lopez's death within a required 24-hour period.

~~~~~

Racism at the Times? It sure sounds like it
Andrew Sullivan calls Maureen Dowd on it.

The good negroes, in Dowd's liberal-racist world, are those grateful to their massas in the liberal hierarchy: they are grateful to Howell and Gerald and Arthur; and they know their place. For them to express the psychological torment of being advanced for racist reasons, to explain in graphic, brave and bold terms the complexity of emotions many African-Americans feel as 'beneficiaries' of racial preferences, is unacceptable.

~~~~~

Swiss reveal illeagal organ trade
Swiss Info
A Swiss parliamentarian has revealed evidence of human organ trafficking in one of eastern Europe's poorest countries.

Growing concern over the illegal trade has prompted the Swiss authorities to consider new legislation outlawing the sale of organs, tissues and cells.

~~~~~

GM food safety fear 'based on distortion'
New Scientist

~~~~~

Big Brother in action in the UK
Couple's TV licence trick foiled
The Scotsman

A COUPLE IN Aberdeen wrapped their television in a parcel of tin foil to try to avoid paying their licence.

The believed the silver foil would make their set invisible to hi-tech detector vans.

But the couple got a shock when a TV licensing squad came knocking on their door after their state-of-the art equipment picked up the set.

~~~~~

2003-06-26T15:13:00.000-05:00
Dr. Dean gives himself a lethal injection
Houston Chronicle

This bit of political sausage-making came into public view on Sunday, a day on which Dean would have profited from not getting out of bed.

Dean appeared on Meet the Press. It was a disaster, in a league with Teddy Kennedy's inability during a 1980 television interview to quite say why he wanted to be president. On Sunday, Meet host Tim Russert was at his prosecutorial best, gnawing and snarling at Dean's inconsistencies, incongruities and flip-flops. You could hear transcripts of the NBC show pouring out of the printers at the headquarters of gleeful Democratic rivals before Russert even signed off. The White House has probably had its copy bronzed...

Meet the Press transcript

~~~~~

States who sponsor terrorism are ceding their own sovereignty
Anatomy of an Ambush
Austin Bay

This war escapes traditional political boundaries. Scholars argue "pre-emptive war" undermines the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the ur-document of the nation-state system. Contemporary transnational terrorists, however, have already exploited the system's weaknesses. Failed states (e.g., Somalia) can't police themselves and thus cede sovereignty to terrorists; terror is their bane. Rogue states (e.g., Syria) support and promote terrorists; terror is their business...

From Instapundit
~~~~~

NATO tracking 20 ships 'linked to terror'
SMH

~~~~~

Vatican puts art collection online
msnbc

The Sistine Chapel is now online. The Vatican put its enormous art collection on the Web on Tuesday, launching a new site for the Vatican Museums that it hopes will attract more tourists while also disseminating the church's message around the globe...

[V]isitors can view entire galleries of the Egyptian and Etruscan museums, the Pinacoteca painting gallery, the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel — part of a collection that the U.N. culture agency, UNESCO, has recognized for its place in the world's cultural patrimony...

Still under construction is a part of the Web site dedicated to the Vatican's Secret Archives, including documents concerning the Vatican's disputed role in World War II.

Celli said that site would be ready in "the near future" but he noted that the museum site had been in the works since 1998.

Vatican Museums Online

~~~~~

2003-06-26T15:08:00.000-05:00
The pot is still boiling at the New York Times

1. UNBURIED HATCHETS AT TIMES
NY Post

The latest dirty trick is an anonymous letter to PAGE SIX which claims a petition is being circulated "to remind [publisher] Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that several editors who remain on West 43rd Street were enthusiastic henchmen of the Raines era and would be unacceptable in a new editing team."

The only "enthusiastic henchman" named, however, is Andrew Rosenthal, the assistant managing editor and son of former Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal. The supposed petition urges Sulzberger to "either demote or preferably dismiss Andy, who is as responsible as Howell and Gerald for our current plight."

"Arthur, if Andy remains in place, you will never be rid of the poison in the atmosphere here," it continues. "For many of us, Andy was the poison, since Howell and Gerald mostly hid themselves away from the newsroom staff and Andy was their public face. Andy treats colleagues with contempt. His editing is both capricious and dishonest . . . He was Howell's lapdog."
...

Co-workers point out that Rosenthal is a product of nepotism. Max Frankel, who succeeded Abe Rosenthal as executive editor in 1986, wrote in "The Times of My Life" that, "Abe had left with only one request: that I hire his talented son, Andrew."

Rosenthal made a name for himself covering the 1992 election with a front-page story asserting that President Bush (the elder) was so out of touch with the everyday world that he'd never seen a supermarket bar-code scanner. In fact, the president had examined a state-of-the-art prototype on display at a National Grocers Assn. convention.

Bush sent a note to his press secretary Marlin Fitzwater saying: "Once again my ire turns to Rosenthal . . . what a terrible little guy he is turning out to be."

The White House demanded a correction. It didn't get one, but it did get an apology from Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Sr., who admitted Rosenthal's story was "just a teeny-weeny bit naughty."

2. Embedded Reporter's Role In Army Unit's Actions Questioned by Military
Howard Kurtz

New York Times reporter Judith Miller played a highly unusual role in an Army unit assigned to search for dangerous Iraqi weapons, according to U.S. military officials, prompting criticism that the unit was turned into what one official called a "rogue operation."

More than a half-dozen military officers said that Miller acted as a middleman between the Army unit with which she was embedded and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, on one occasion accompanying Army officers to Chalabi's headquarters, where they took custody of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law. She also sat in on the initial debriefing of the son-in-law, these sources say.

Since interrogating Iraqis was not the mission of the unit, these officials said, it became a "Judith Miller team," in the words of one officer close to the situation.

In April, Miller wrote a letter objecting to an Army commander's order to withdraw the unit, Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, from the field. She said this would be a "waste" of time and suggested that she would write about it unfavorably in the Times. After Miller took up the matter with a two-star general, the pullback order was dropped.

Times Assistant Managing Editor Andrew Rosenthal dismissed the notion that she exercised influence over the unit as "an idiotic proposition."
...

Miller's role with MET Alpha was controversial within the Defense Department and among some staff members at the Times, where one reporter was assigned to check up on whether other embedded journalists followed similar procedures.

The MET Alpha team was charged with examining potential Iraqi weapon sites in the war's aftermath. Military officers critical of the unit's conduct say its members were not trained in the art of human intelligence -- that is, eliciting information from prisoners and potential defectors. Specialists in such interrogations say the initial hours of questioning are crucial, and several Army and Pentagon officials were upset that MET Alpha officers were debriefing Hussein son-in-law Jamal Sultan Tikriti.

"This was totally out of their lane, getting involved with human intelligence," said one military officer who, like several others interviewed, declined to be named because he is not an authorized spokesman. But, the officer said of Miller, "this woman came in with a plan. She was leading them. . . . She ended up almost hijacking the mission."

Said a senior staff officer of the 75th Exploitation Task Force, of which MET Alpha is a part: "It's impossible to exaggerate the impact she had on the mission of this unit, and not for the better." Three weapons specialists were reassigned as the unit changed its approach, according to officers with the task force.

Several military officers say Miller led MET Alpha members to Chalabi's compound in a former sporting club, where they wound up taking custody of Sultan, who was on the Pentagon's "deck of cards" of the 55 most wanted Iraqis. The April trip to Chalabi's headquarters took place "at Judy's direction," one officer said.
...

On April 21, when the MET Alpha team was ordered to withdraw to the southern Iraqi town of Talil, Miller objected in a handwritten note to two public affairs officers. It said:

"I see no reason for me to waste time (or MET Alpha, for that matter) in Talil. . . . Request permission to stay on here with colleagues at the Palestine Hotel til MET Alpha returns or order to return is rescinded. I intend to write about this decision in the NY Times to send a successful team back home just as progress on WMD is being made."

One military officer, who says that Miller sometimes "intimidated" Army soldiers by invoking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Undersecretary Douglas Feith, was sharply critical of the note. "Essentially, she threatened them," the officer said, describing the threat as that "she would publish a negative story."

An Army officer, who regarded Miller's presence as "detrimental," said: "Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat," this person said, and MET Alpha "was allowed to bend the rules."

3. Lucianne.com points out that the NYT is continueing to shape the news to their liking starting with this misleading headline in today's Times Expert Said to Tell Legislators He Was Pressed to Distort Some Evidence which implies that the 'expert' was referring to Iraqi intelligence. Furthermore, it is not even until paragraph 6 that we learn that he didn't change the report in question which was actually about Cuba and not Iraq. And they save the following bit of infomation which suggests that Westermann's testimony might be self-serving for the very end of the article.

An administration official said that Mr. Westermann had clashed repeatedly with Mr. Bolton.

A State Department official sympathetic to Mr. Bolton's views said of Mr. Westermann, "He doesn't have anything that he can point to, and he doesn't have anything more recent than Cuba." That official added, "We're in a period where people are looking for particular evidence of intelligence being altered, and he's talking about mood swings."

But other administration officials said there had been ongoing tensions between the two since the Cuban issue first came up, to the point that Mr. Bolton has unsuccessfully sought to have Mr. Westermann reassigned.

2003-06-25T12:22:00.000-05:00
Mass. teens' HIV cases up: `Epidemic' numbers alarm state officials
Boston Herald

New HIV cases among those in the 13-to-24 age group rose by more than 40 percent over a four-year period, jumping from 6.1 percent of the total new cases reported in 1999 to 8.7 percent in 2002.

In actual numbers, it means about 87 new cases in that youthful age group last year, compared to 61 four years ago...

The trend was similar among those over age 50, with this group accounting for 12 percent of newly reported HIV cases in 2002, compared to 9.2 percent in 1999, a hike of 31 percent. Officials said they aren't sure why cases are rising in those age groups, but said prevention programs in the past have focused on those in their 20s and 30s.

~~~~~

Security checks ground air marshals: Others flying without final clearances

More than 100 federal air marshals have been fired or stripped of their flight status in recent weeks for problems stemming from their security clearance background investigations, MSNBC.com has learned. In addition, some air marshals are flying without having received their final security clearances, Transportation Security Administration sources said. The revelations fuel critics’ charges that a key element of post-9/11 airline security is being poorly managed.

~~~~~

GOP Votes To Break Nominee Filibusters: Democrats Appear Able to Block Plan
Washington Post

~~~~~

The Gullible Mr. Kerry: The senator gets fooled again.
Christopher Hitchens

~~~~~

2003-06-24T19:36:00.000-05:00
What are people thinking #1
Judge: Marshall violated woman's right to `dirty dance'
U.S. District Court Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. said the town violated Willis' First Amendments rights by barring her from dancing.

Yes, the town went a little overboard banning one particular citizen from dancing, but for heaven's sake, what else do you do about a 58 year old woman who dances like a flopping fish in a skirt so short you can see something you reeeaaally don't want to.

What are people thinking #2
The breast feeding while driving story just went off the bizzaro meter:
Man uses strict faith as defense: Husband says woman shouldn't be defendant in breast-feeding
Be sure to read the whole story; it just gets better and better. Sheesh

What are people thinking #3
Nine-day-old baby gets an earful at AC/DC gig
Other fans at Sunday's gig at the Hockenheim Formula One motor-racing ring in southwest Germany warned police after seeing the 41-year-old mother in the spectators' seats holding the baby.

The couple only agreed to leave after a doctor at the scene warned them of the danger of exposing a nine-day-old baby to such noise levels.

These two remind me of the aging hippie couple I encountered in the early eighties at a Fleetwood Mac concert. After smoking pot and drinking beer thoughout the first half of the concert, the woman had an violent and protracted vomitting episode. When we became concerned, her partner assured us that she was really fine and that this had been happening all the time lately because she was pregnant.
~~~~~

2003-06-24T13:27:00.000-05:00
Boys' violent tastes harmless: psychologist
National Post

The author who raised the first alarm about boys and violence in North America says we should stop worrying about boys indulging in war games, wrestling and fantasy play and begin embracing their low-brow tastes.

Michael Thompson, the psychologist who wrote the groundbreaking book Raising Cain and several other best-selling books about boys, told a gathering of librarians from across North America that ''snobbery and elitism'' are too much a part of the prevailing attitudes toward boys.

~~~~~

Andrew Sullivan praises Slate's affirmative actions supporting commentators on their intellectual honesty about yesterday's SC decision.

Dahlia Lithwick notes:
Like you, I was terrified that today might have seen a thick dark cloud blot out all the good that affirmative action programs have achieved over the decades. But intellectual honesty doesn't let me accept O'Connor's basic ends-justifies-the-means approach to upholding the principle. And so much of your analysis today suggests that this is what's best about O'Connor's opinion: She got it morally right, even where she's logically wrong. As you put it: Powell's opinion in Bakke is riddled with logical flaws but is nevertheless "wise." Why? Because we need affirmative action. And so even if a program singles out only three traditionally underrepresented races, and offers them special advantages under the fiction of fostering "educational diversity," we'll laud it because the alternative — doing away with such programs — is intolerable to us. But then, let's be honest. Justice Thomas is correct in his dissent when he argues that "diversity" means nothing and can't be the cornerstone of affirmative action jurisprudence. And Justice Scalia is right when he says (or rather bellows … ) that today's decisions in Gratz and Grutter will do nothing but further cloud and confuse the affirmative action debate for years to come.

~~~~~

Instapundit notes that France seems determined to keep peace from breaking out in the ME which is, afterall, the same game they have played in Algeria for years.
Hamas' French Funds?
Time

~~~~~

Ack! How did this happen? I missed Andrew Sullivan's milestone yesterday of living 10 years with HIV. He's an inspriation to everyone living with a life threatening illness and a much needed vocal supporter not only of new drug therapies but also of the pharmaseutical companies which make them possible.

~~~~~

A genealogy of anti-Americanism
The Public Interest

~~~~~

You really gotta wonder what Gephardt really thinks about the American public when he makes such an asinine statement as he did about correcting any mistakes the SC might make. Eugene Volokh has a good post on the subject. Evidently Dennis Kucinich has said similar things. While these statements should ring alarm bells with any American who has graduated from high school, I'm really not surprised by a not-ready-for-prime-time-candidate like Kucinich shooting his mouth off like an idiot, but Gephardt can't get by with that excuse.

~~~~~

2003-06-23T14:31:00.000-05:00
I've always considered it a sign of real womanhood to eat red meat, so taking on a 4 1/2 lb. steak must be down right heroic.

Hat tip to Instapudit for turning me on to American Digest

~~~~~

Court OKs Anti-Porn Filters in Libraries
AP

~~~~~

If this letter turns out to be real, ya just gotta wonder what Sadaam has been smoking
Troops handed 'Saddam letter'
Evening Standard

American soldiers have allegedly been handed a letter from Saddam Hussein offering his terms of surrender...Saddam passed the handwritten document to Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti shortly before the former aide was captured by US forces last week, it has been claimed.

In the letter Saddam called for "fair treatment" by the allied forces for himself and that his family be allowed safe passage from Iraq to another Arab country.

In return he promised order an end to the rebel attacks on the occupying American soldiers, which have claimed 40 lives since the official end of hostilities.

Saddam also offered to help build links between the Iraqi people and the Americans.

~~~~~

Mysterious Net traffic spurs code hunt
Cnet

~~~~~

2003-06-23T13:15:00.000-05:00
Iran Students Warn Clerics Over Protest Crackdown
Reuters

Iranian student leaders said Sunday a crackdown on protests against Islamic clerical rule could make them adopt more radical and violent methods.

The warning was made as the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog called on Iran to ease concerns about its atomic program. Washington accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says its program is only for electricity.

The student leaders gathered outside parliament to protest against what they said were the arrests of hundreds of colleagues after a wave of demonstrations, hailed by the United States as a cry for freedom.

"Even if they send us to prison and take us to solitary confinement there are others who have more daring slogans than us and they will confront the system with more violent methods," Saeed Razavi Faqih, one of the student leaders, told Reuters.

"Today we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Anyone who wants to play with this fire will be burned."

The protests began in Tehran two weeks ago and spread to other cities in the most outspoken demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Officials say 500 "hooligans" were arrested during recent protests in Tehran but only a handful of students were among them...

~~~~~

No, Mr Galloway, you're not in the clear yet
Telegraph

Yesterday the Christian Science Monitor in Boston confirmed that papers it published purporting to show that Mr Galloway accepted Iraqi largesse running into millions of dollars were "almost certainly" fakes. The Mail on Sunday has already exposed as crude forgeries further papers from the same source.

These revelations have no bearing whatsoever on our story, but in telling Sky News yesterday how the Monitor's experts had unmasked their documents as forgeries, Mr Galloway promised that ours too would "meet the same fate". He was ignoring the fact that those experts went on to say they believed ours to be consistent with genuine Iraqi documents...

~~~~~

It's a good day for all Americans at the Supreme Court
A disadvantaged minority candidate may get a helping hand up the ladder of success, but a wealthy minority candidate will not take precedence over a disadvantaged candidate who isn't a minority simply because of the shade of his skin.

Court issues split decision on affirmative action: Law school policy upheld; undergrad program overturned
CNN

~~~~~~

Studies shatter myth about abuse
USA Today

It is not just men who hit women. Women hit men, too. And the latest research shows that ignoring the role women play in domestic violence does both women and men a disservice.

There is little doubt that women get hurt more than men. She may slap him. But then he may hit her harder or more often.

By not understanding the mutual role they often play, women are at great risk for injury, new studies show...The number of women who hit first or hit back is "much greater than has been generally assumed," Capaldi says. She says she is surprised by the frequency of aggressive acts by women and by the number of men who are afraid of partners who assault them...

I'd really like to know how these statistics break down between short-term non-maritial relationships, long-term ones, live-in ones, and married ones:
*On average, three women a day are murdered in the USA by husbands or boyfriends.
*31% of U.S. women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend.
*30% of Americans know a woman who was physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.

~~~~~

May the ayatollah go the way of Saddam
MarkSteyn

. The only question is which of the European models applies: the Czech version, where the old monsters are civilized enough to perform one real service for their people by handing power over peacefully; the Romanian version, where the saner elements in the ruling party decide to remove the leadership and hope that's enough to assuage their subjects; the Bulgar version, where the former Royal Family returns from exile to spearhead a new democracy . . .

I'll wager there are more than a few quiet-life mullahs weighing the options. Iran is not a one-man cult like Saddam's Iraq, and many imams, whether ''conservative'' or ''liberal,'' can recognize the smell of death percolating from the head office. The regime begins this year's riot season see-sawing between savage but ineffective crackdowns and humiliating but insufficient concessions. Tipping point beckons...

~~~~~

Blogger Tom Sylvester posts about what same sex marriage really means to alternative lifestyle activists in their own words. He quotes Sheeri Kritzer of the Bisexual Resource Center:

Same-sex marriage is great; and I feel that after that battle has won, polyamorists and people who are happy being single will speak out. It's a progression; just like gay rights had to be accepted as real issues before lesbian rights (before bi and trans and kinky rights, blah blah blah). It's how we can subvert the system, USING the system.
Hat tip: The Corner

The NYT also ran an article on Saturday about same-sex marriage that I missed the first time around.
A Too-Hot Topic
Hat tip: Family Scholars Blog

~~~~~

The 57 varieties of John Kerry
Wesley Pruden

You have to feel a spot of sympathy for someone who looks as French as John Kerry. But he's sometimes got a mouth like Jacques Chirac, and he leaves a lurid paper trail.

...

"For the sake of argument," jibes James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal Online, "let's say Kerry is right and Bush perpetrated a sham. In a hypothetical general-election matchup, who would you rather choose to deal with hostile foreign leaders: a guy who's capable of pulling off such an elaborate deception, or the sucker who fell for it?"

~~~~~

2003-06-23T00:26:00.000-05:00
The most plausible explanation
Clue offered in mystery of the missing jet

~~~~~

Hundreds jailed as Iran rounds up protesters
Telegraph

~~~~~

2003-06-22T19:55:00.000-05:00
Hehehe...Ann Coulter owes a big thanks to lefties who are spreading news of her new web log far and wide. I didn't even know that she would be publishing one on Monday until I accidentally stumbled across a new blog that isn't even political, but it did include the comments that the blogger would not be linking to it, referring to it, or reading it and advised others to do the same.
Thanks for the info, hon.

Then I found out that Outside the Beltway discovered Ann's blog the same way from another leftist blog urging others to ignore it.
Are those Dems great at following the party line without considering the consequences, or what? I know...I know; it's nothing new, but still guaranteed to put a smile on my face.

2003-06-22T18:22:00.000-05:00
Chirac threat to veto reform of farm subsidies
Guardian

~~~~~

Greek Forces Find 680 Tonnes of Explosives on Boat
Reuters

~~~~~

Straddling Sexes: Young lesbians transitioning into men are shaking the foundation of the lesbian-feminist world
SF Chronicle
A boom in the number of people transitioning from female to male (referred to as FTMs) has been stirring up controversy, even within the lesbian community. There are those who are feeling curiously uncomfortable standing by as friends morph into men. Sometimes there is a generational flavor to this discomfort; many in the over-40 crowd feel particular unease. Having lived through the fiery feminist years, when challenging male power was central to a particular agenda, some lesbians have gone so far as to say they feel betrayed by those "transitioning" - the street parlance for crossing genders. Twenty years ago life as a butch lesbian seemed the obvious path for a masculine- identified gay female. Now, young lesbians immediately enter a community in which the option to change genders is readily available - an option that some say they might be taking up too lightly, injecting their bodies with testosterone and having radical breast-reduction surgery before they've had time to explore who they might be as adults. (Very few FTMs undergo genital reconstruction: The operations are costly, painful and have yet to produce a fully functional penis.)

~~~~~

PA paper makes racist, sexist remarks about Condoleeza Rice
Jerusalem Post

In an article entitled "Beware of the Lady of Steel," prominent Palestinian columnist Hasan al-Batal describes Rice as a "black widow" and a "single black lady."

Earlier this year, al-Ayyam launched a similar attack on Rice, dubbing her a "black raven." Then, she was targeted for accusing the Palestinian Authority of supporting terrorism.

Sunday's article also included insults directed against former US Secretary of State "Henry [Kissinger] the Jew."

"She (Rice) is as pretty as supermodel Naomi Campbell and much more intelligent than the iron woman Margaret Thatcher," the communist, who writes on a regular basis in al-Ayyam, said.

"She is the most powerful National Security Advisor in the US administration since "darling" Henry Kissinger. The White House has seen some women with strong personalities, such as the 'dominant' wife of Ronald Reagan, the 'bright' and 'ambitious' wife of Bill Clinton, and the 'beloved' wife of John F. Kennedy. But Condoleeza Rice, the first black woman to serve in the most serious post in the White House, is the brains of the [US] President."

2003-06-22T13:02:00.000-05:00
Homing pigeon flies to US, not UK
A HOMING pigeon who took a wrong turn on his return to Britain from France, ending up in the United States, would be flown home by British Airways, the airline said.

...

She added that Billy had become a star in America and had been renamed Tony Blair, after the British Prime Minister, "for his guts and determination".

~~~~~

2003-06-21T18:07:00.000-05:00
Belgium acknowledges that they aren't the world's moral police
Belgium close to deal to amend controversial war crimes law
Haaretz

~~~~~

No, Support the Freedom Fighters
Michael Ledeen

~~~~~

One more try for the big fish
DNA tests after missiles strike 'Saddam convoy:' Human remains removed after US Hellfire missiles target source of dictator's satellite phone call
Guardian

If we got him this time, it was probably due to these guys
'Grey Fox' closes in on prize scalp--Saddam: Peter Beaumont examines the new role of a secret unit that worked in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Colombia
Guardian

~~~~~

2003-06-21T16:43:00.000-05:00
Ice storm babies have lower IQ scores: Researchers also found a greater incidence of premature births due to natural disaster

~~~~~

Dad uses Internet to rape daughter

A father used an Internet "chat room" and e-mail to lure his own daughter into having sex with him.

Adopting a false personality, the man convinced the 11-year-old girl that having sex with her father was not wrong. She eventually succumbed, and he went on to sexually abuse her for four years.

~~~~~

If this wasn't a Benny Hill sketch, it should have been.

~~~~~

Mutated monkey viruses gave us Aids - study

~~~~~

Glen Reynolds turns up the heat on John Kampfner and posts about the last remaining part of his BBC story of Jessica Lynch's rescue that hasn't been refuted. Evidently that ambulance drive wasn't a foiled attempt to turn her over to the the US

The hospital staff also said that on the night of March 27, military officials prepared to kill Ms. Lynch by putting her in an ambulance and blowing it up with its occupants — blaming the atrocity on the Americans. The ambulance drivers balked at that idea. Eventually, the plan was changed so that a military officer would shoot Ms. Lynch and burn the ambulance. So Sabah Khazal, an ambulance driver, loaded her in the vehicle and drove off with a military officer assigned to execute her.

"I asked him not to shoot Jessica," Mr. Khazal said, "and he was afraid of God and didn't kill her." Instead, the executioner ran away and deserted the army, and Mr. Khazal said that he then thought about delivering Ms. Lynch to an American checkpoint. But there were firefights on the streets, so he returned to the hospital. (Ms. Lynch apparently never knew how close she had come to execution.)

2003-06-21T14:36:00.000-05:00
U.S. aims to lower Iraqi child death rate
Washington Times

The United States aims to cut the death rate of children younger than 5 in half within a year, primarily through far better water supplies, said Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"That's an objective, not a promise, but we're confident we will achieve it because we're dealing here with a major Saddam-imposed scandal," Mr. Natsios told The Washington Times yesterday.

~~~~~

Don't kiss off marriage
Globe and Mail

~~~~~

The objections to Harry Potter have mainly come from individual parents and not religous institutions or organizatoins.
Full coverage of Harry Potter by Christianity Today

Christian symbolism in Harry Potter

~~~~~

Maybe the French raid on that Iranian opposition group was really about fighting terrorism:
Group planned attacks: France
AP

~~~~~

Ick--The latest version of the new man: The only clue to his sexuality is who he is holding hands with

Metrosexuals Come Out
NYT
America may be on the verge of a metrosexual moment. On July 15, Bravo will present a makeover show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," in which a team of five gay men "transform a style-deficient and culture-deprived straight man from drab to fab," according to the network. Condé Nast is developing a shopping magazine for men, modeled after Lucky, its successful women's magazine, which is largely a text-free catalog of clothes and shoes.
There is no end to the curious new vanity products for young men, from a Maxim-magazine-branded hair coloring system to Axe, Unilever's all-over body deodorant for guys. And men are going in for self-improvement strategies traditionally associated with women. For example, the number of plastic surgery procedures on men in the United States has increased threefold since 1997, to 807,000, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
"Their heightened sense of aesthetics is very, very pronounced," Marian Salzman, chief strategy officer at Euro RSCG, who organized the gathering at Eleven Madison Park, said of metrosexuals. "They're the style makers. It doesn't mean your average Joe American is going to copy everything they do," she added. "But unless you study these guys you don't know where Joe American is heading."

~~~~~

2003-06-21T13:43:00.000-05:00
Raid Turns Up Intelligence Equipment, Documents in Iraq
Fox

The documents, which were handed over to senior intelligence analysts, mentioned Iraq's nuclear program and may possibly contain information regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...

~~~~~

Abortion ship denied entry to Poland
Reuters

The ship, which offers abortions in international waters to women in countries where the procedure is more restricted than in the Netherlands, was forced to anchor offshore after being turned away from Wladyslawowo on Friday...

~~~~~

Last night after reading Matthew Parris's diatribe in the Times of London about the German (read facist Nazi) influence in the US, I decided not even to post a link to it because, while amusing, his knowledge of history and analysis is so either so faulty, that I decided that no one on either side of the Atlantic with a basic cultural knowledge of either Britain or the US couldn't take it seriously.

Innocents Abroad has done what I neither have the patience or the measured tone for and has spent a good deal of time and no doubt effort responding to Parris's pile of garbage. While I don't think the orignial article was worthy of a response of this calibur, the response is

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

Merde in France gets news through the baguette curtain that McDonalds is feeding French students who were at the mercy of striking cafeteria workers and had to go through angry teachers in solidarity with the strikers to do it.

What did the students learn from this experience?

*Micky Ds & the school administration that met their responsibilty of feeding their students are the good guys
*The work ethic, identifying & meeting needs, taking initiative, & thinking creativity are good
*Free enterprise & private industry is good

*Unions who want to use others (especially hungry children) to further their own agenda are bad
*Harming innocent victims is not the way to gain sympathy or support for your cause
*Government workers care more about themselves than those they serve and, unlike private workers, have little incentive to put the needs of those they serve over their personal agenda
*Teachers with strong allegience unions are not on their side
*Government institutions & unions have fossilized outdated socialistic ideology

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

Kennedy Going His Own Way on Medicare (Dems Outraged)
AP

~~~~~

MIRACLE OF BABY AALIYAH
Sky News

Aaliyah Hart was born at City Hospital, Birmingham, three months prematurely and weighing just 12oz.

~~~~~

Is Eric Rudolph a Christian Terrorist?
Christianity Today

~~~~~

2003-06-21T00:45:00.000-05:00
Ever heard of a ''Danish-made transcranial magnetic stimulator?''

~~~~~

Democrats vie in Internet ‘primary’
msnbc

[S]ome strategists see it as skewed toward Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who shares the group’s antiwar views. “It appears to be rigged,” said Erik Smith, a spokesman for Rep. Dick Gephardt’s campaign.

~~~~~

One less thing for the anti-American & anti-Bush crowd to bitch about
Looted Iraqi uranium 'found'

~~~~~

Riddle of Colossal flooding solved

THE mystery of the flooded amphitheatre has puzzled historians and scientists for almost 2000 years. But now an Edinburgh engineer has come up with a theory for how Emperor Titus flooded the Colosseum in Rome at its opening in 80AD.

A crowd of 87,000 cheering citizens and slaves had watched gladiators battle to the death in the arena that stood at the heart of the Roman empire. More than 5000 animals had been killed for sport.

But the highlight of the 100-day inauguration was a series of naval battles re-enacted in the Colosseum, according to Cassius Dio, chronicler of ancient Rome, who said: "Titus suddenly filled this same theatre with water and brought in horses and bulls and other domesticated animals that had been taught to behave in the liquid element just as on land. He also brought in people on ships, who engaged in a sea-fight there, impersonating the Corcyreans and Corinthians."

His account left historians with a colossal question, only now answered by Martin Crapper, lecturer in civil and environmental engineering at Edinburgh University : Was the giant arena flooded to stage the mock sea battles - known as naumachiae -or were the naval re-enactments actually staged elsewhere in Rome?

Academics have long argued that holding sea battles at the Colosseum was impossible due to the underground tunnels used to spirit wild animals, slaves and gladiators to different parts of the arena.

Tales of thousands of slaves and convicts drowning in the sea battles with ships built to scale were told by Latin poets such as Martial, but were dismissed as sycophantic works of fantasy written to enhance the reputation of the emperor.

However, Dr Crapper believes he has solved the puzzle of the flooded Colosseum...

~~~~~

"I'm not so sure we can call ourselves a civilized society when stuff like this happens."
Judge calls slaying 'out of the Dark Ages': Philadelphia teen lured by girlfriend to his death; the motive was robbery

~~~~~

A CRIMEFIGHTING EXOTIC DANCER. NO, SERIOUSLY
NY Post

Despite the obvious sexual overtones, Stan Lee says "Striperella" is not Playboy Channel material. "They [the network] know that I am a man of impeccable good taste and would never do anything that would be offensive," says Lee.

Yeah, right.

Anderson plays an exotic dancer named Erotica Jones whose alter-ego is Stripperella, secret agent 0069, who works for a top-secret anti-crime organization.

She's tipped off about trouble when her belly ring vibrates and swings into action against villains like Cheapo (a bad-guy so cheap he and his henchmen share one gun), a diabolical fashion designer Pushy Galore and the evil plastic surgeon, Dr. Cesarean (played by "Star Wars' " Mark Hamill).

Striperella's most dangerous foe is a villain whose name is so X-rated it can't be printed here (Hint: it rhymes with the name Queen Dolores.

~~~~~

2003-06-20T16:49:00.000-05:00
Hehehe...I'm starting to wonder if the RNC has hired a SNL writer.

SENATOR KERRY CALLS CANDIDATE KERRY “IRRESPONSIBLE” ON WMD: John Forbes Kerry’s 72 Hour Flip-Flop

French translation

Hat tip: Polipundit

~~~~~

Why the EU (and the UN, for that matter) will never be effective:
Mr Blair said: "I would like us to commit to matching the $1bn." But he added: "We have got 25 countries sitting around the table and the decision has got to be unanimous.

EU will not match US Aids donation
Guardian

~~~~~

The seeds of freedom start to bloom: U.S. teams helping neighbors to create municipal councils

~~~~~

Today's must read:
U.S. Military -- Back to the Future!
Winds of Change

~~~~~

Democrats Go Off the Cliff
Weekly Standard

It's mystifying. Fury rarely wins elections. Rage rarely appeals to suburban moderates. And there is a mountain of evidence that the Democrats are now racing away from swing voters, who do not hate George Bush, and who, despite their qualms about the economy and certain policies, do not feel that the republic is being raped by vile and illegitimate marauders. The Democrats, indeed, look like they're turning into a domestic version of the Palestinians--a group so enraged at their perceived oppressors, and so caught up in their own victimization, that they behave in ways that are patently not in their self-interest, and that are almost guaranteed to perpetuate their suffering...

~~~~~

2003-06-20T14:12:00.000-05:00
Hue and Cry on 'Whiteness Studies'
Washington Post

"Black studies celebrates blackness, Chicano studies celebrates Chicanos, women's studies celebrates women, and white studies attacks white people as evil," Horowitz said.

"It's so evil that one author has called for the abolition of whiteness," he said. "I have read their books, and it's just despicable."

Whiteness studies, said Matthew Spalding, is "a derogatory name for Western civilization." Its study is important only to those who think "black studies and Chicano studies haven't gone far enough in removing the baggage of Anglo-European traditions," said Spalding, director of the Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

"The notion that you can get rid of a historical tradition as a way to further current . . . concerns strikes me as intellectually misleading," Spalding said. "It makes certain assumptions and looks for certain outcomes. It's close-minded."

Whiteness studies can be traced to the writings of black intellectuals such as W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin, but the field did not coalesce until liberal white scholars embraced it about eight years ago, according to some who helped shape it.

Now, despite widespread criticism and what some opponents view as major flaws in the curriculum, at least 30 institutions -- from Princeton University to the University of California at Los Angeles -- teach courses in whiteness studies.

The courses are emerging at a pivotal time. Scientists have determined that there is scant genetic distinction between races, and the 2000 Census allowed residents to define themselves by multiple racial categories for the first time. Dozens of books, such as "The Invention of the White Race," "How the Irish Became White" and "Memoir of a Race Traitor," are standard reading for people who study whiteness.

~~~~~

Staying the Course, Despite Competition: D.C. System Unresponsive As Charters Entice Students
Washington Post

Over the past four years, enrollment at this school off East Capitol Street in Southeast Washington has shrunk from 491 to 178. There is so much extra space in the building that a counselor has a full-size classroom of her own.

The loss of students stems partly from the demolition of nearby public housing. But another reason is that many parents have moved their children to the Arts and Technology Academy Public Charter School less than half a mile away. Parents say the four-year-old charter school, which has 615 students and a waiting list of about 100, provides many things that Shadd lacks: a renovated building with bright walls and ample light, a longer school day, physical education, Spanish classes and programs in music, drama and visual arts.

Yet D.C. school system administrators have not tried to lure students back to Shadd by matching any of the charter school's offerings.

That response -- or lack of one -- typifies the school system's passive reaction to the rapid growth of charter schools throughout the city over the past six years. Contrary to the predictions of many charter school advocates, the vigorous competition from charters has not forced improvements in the regular public schools, according to a number of school activists and analysts...

Previous article in series

~~~~~

A Limited Palestinian State
Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu makes a good case about why neither the current Palestinian situation nor the proposed plan of an independent Palestinian state are tenable, but it seems to me that the likelyhood of a lasting peace coming from his proposal is little more than wishful thinking. I'll be interested to find out what others think of it.

~~~~~

Charles, Charles, Charles, what are you thinking???
Energy Fix: Pump the Oil, Raise the Tax
Washington Post

~~~~~

Winning After All: Despair is not an option amid the present chaos

Victor David Hanson points out however we handle the situation, criticism is sure to follow:

Americans cannot be blamed for their exasperation. In Afghanistan #1 we once kept our distance, armed the locals to fight Russian expansionist Communism on their own, left when the common enemy was defeated, accepted noninterference in Afghan affairs — and were blamed as cynical Cold War realists when the inevitable chaos followed. In Afghanistan #2, we defeated an equally odious force, stayed on to promote consensual government, attempted to provide aid — and are now being blamed as either cynical imperialists who lust after some mythical pipeline or naïve Pollyannas who are squandering blood and treasure to change people who cannot be changed.

In Iraq #1 we stayed within U.N. mandates, limited our response, went home after Kuwait was freed — and were censured for allowing Shiites and Kurds to be butchered and not going to Baghdad when the road was open and the dictator tottering. In Iraq #2 we removed the tyrant at less cost than the liberation of Kuwait during the earlier war, stayed on to ensure freedom and fair representation for various groups — and are being castigated for either using too little force to ensure needed order or too much power that stifles indigenous aspirations and turns popular opinion against us.

And his view that no matter what the vocal malcontents say, the majority of the citenzenry support the US presence in their country is backed up by this poll:

Sixty-five percent of Iraqis polled in Baghdad claimed they want the U.S. military to stay until Iraq is stable and secure; only 17 percent want American soldiers out now.

Mark Steyn also concurs that our efforts in Iraq are not the disaster that some are portraying them to be inThe Spectator and nails Will Day of Care International for pawning off, in his article in The Telegraph, statistics from January, four months before the Ba'athists were driven from power, as current and the result of the liberation.

~~~~~

Bloggers Rate the Most Influential Blogs
Online Journalism Review

~~~~~

Maureen Dowd is really getting really ugly
Stepford Wives Remake No Match for Today's Botoxed Reality

Suzanne Fields notes that she's also old and outdated, and according to David Frum, her journalistic ethics don't appear to be improving either.

~~~~~

2003-06-20T12:48:00.000-05:00
I have to agree with Betsy. I so hope that Kerry wins the Democrat nomination. Betweeen John "57 Flavors" Kerry and The Widow Heinz, no other Democrat couple can touch them for sheer entertainment value.

Of course, Ralph Nader is so nutty, he doesn't even need a sidekick. It would be nice to see him totally ostracized from both the Dems & Greens & running as a Republican. My on-the-fringe-of-the-left-part-of-the-left debate buddies who admire and respect him might finally get a clue how far from reality he (and they) really are.

Liberal pariah Ralph Nader flirts with new White House run
AFP

~~~~~

The Pagan motto: "An (if) it harm none, do what you will," goes along nicely with the Hippie motto: "If it feels good, do it."
Unfortunately one ignores the existence of God and the other supplants the perogotive of God to decide what is harmful and not harmful or good and bad in Judeo-Christian terms.
Sabrina, Harry and the Web Help UK Paganism Grow
Reuters

~~~~~

2003-06-19T22:25:00.000-05:00
Happy Juneteenth!

The Texas holiday which remembers June 19th, 1865 as the day that news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas two and a half years after Lincoln freed the slaves appears to be spreading to other states since it also marks the day when the last slaves in the US finally received their freedom.

~~~~~

Ohio Trucker Pleads Guilty in Terror Case
AP

Iyman Faris, 34, of Columbus acknowledged in court documents that he met bin Laden in 2000 at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and provided operatives there with sleeping bags, cell phones and other assistance.

Later, Faris received attack instructions from top terror leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, authorities said, for what they suggested might have been a second wave planned for New York and Washington to follow the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. ...

A government statement, signed by Faris, says that he was instructed by a senior al-Qaida operative to obtain "gas cutters," probably acetylene torches, that would enable him to sever the cables on "a bridge in New York City" that officials said was the Brooklyn Bridge...

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

~~~~~

David Frum on Gay Marriage

Gay marriage opens the doors to a series of changes in the law of marriage. Not the law of marriage for gays - the law of marriage for everybody. The whole point to gay marriage is to make the rules for gays the same as the rules for straights. Logically, then, the rules for straights will have to be the same as the rules for gays.

It's a good guess, for example, that we will see an end to the concepts of “motherhood” and “fatherhood” in our legal practice. The law will increasingly see couples as interchangeable “parents.” This reinterpretation of motherhood as parenthood will have large impacts on, for example, custody decisions during divorce. Right now, the courts still tend to award custody to mothers, even if they work, even if they work more hours than their husbands do. (Some years ago, a Florida court awarded custody to an at-home dad over his working wife, and feminists raised a huge fuss against the sexist court that extinguished maternal rights just because the mother worked 70 hours a week.) But as the courts have to make new law to cope with gay divorces, look for the old idea of maternal preference to disappear. You can’t have maternal preferences when both parents claim to be the mother...

~~~~~

Hat tip: Instapundit

2003-06-19T21:05:00.000-05:00
Strength Of Dean Campaign Beginning To Concern Congressional Dems
Drudge Report

Of most concern: "Dean's outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and his call for a complete rollback of President Bush's tax cuts, positions that some strategists argue makes him unattractive - even potentially alienating - to swing voters needed to win competitive House and Senate seats."

"If Dean is the nominee it will make 1972 look competitive," a Democratic strategist not "aligned with any of the presidential campaigns" told the newspaper. "Members and candidates in marginal seats will be running for the hills."

~~~~~

Chess may lower Alzheimers risk

Print Email
Posted: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 7:19 AEST

Chess may lower Alzheimers risk: research
Researchers in the United States have found that playing chess, chequers or a musical instrument lowers the risk of developing Alzheimers disease.

The researchers believe the activities either delay the onset of the disease, or may even create new brain cells in areas affected by Alzheimers.

...

"It looks like if you exercise your brain then you're also resistant to the effects of dementiating illnesses, such as Alzheimers," he said.

He says doing crossword puzzles did not show any significant benefits.

Hat tip: Pejmanesque

~~~~~

Gore TV, Coming Soon?
Howard Kurtz

One reason such efforts have fizzled is that too many liberals tend to be of the dull and earnest variety. Talking about eight-point plans to revive the economy or protect the environment doesn't quite have the entertainment pizzazz of Rush/O'Reilly/Hannity spouting off against big government and low morality. That's also why a spate of in-your-face conservative books have hit the best-seller lists.

More important, perhaps, is that there's a built-in conservative audience that feels alienated from what it views as the liberal media establishment of ABC-CBS-NBC-New York Times-Washington Post-CNN etc. They hungered for the alternative delivery system that talk radio and Fox provide. There may not be a comparable left-leaning audience that is deeply dissatisfied with the mainstream press. If there was, more liberal radio hosts would undoubtedly be thriving.

Another question is how much credibility a network that proudly wore the L label would have in openly proclaiming its philosophy. But it would be fun to get to that point and see if such an operation could go toe to toe with Roger Ailes's team.

Hat tip: Poliblog

~~~~~

Cheers for freeing Iran
Jeff Jacoby

What the Iranian people need from us is not a military invasion but sustained backing for their own self-liberation. That should include:

An explicit declaration that it is the policy of the United States to support a transition to democracy, pluralism, and religious freedom in Iran.

Financial support for the privately-owned Persian-language TV and radio stations in southern California that for millions of Iranians have become a key source of information and inspiration.

Reforming Radio Farda, the US government's Persian radio service, so that it seeks out the views of pro-democracy Iranian exiles and actively promotes human rights and self-rule in Iran.

The seizing of every opportunity to stress that the United States supports the right of Iranians to live in freedom under a democratic and lawful government of their own choosing.

All these provisions would be mandated by the Iran Democracy Act, S. 1082, introduced by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas last month. The bill - which is to say, the cause of Iranian liberty - deserves enthusiastic and bipartisan support. Americans who opposed the war in Iraq no less than those who favored it should be cheering this embryonic democratic revolution.

~~~~~

Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Bush, Blair, both Clintons, Kerry, Cooke, and...

The Invisible Hand has uncovered another member of the WMD conspiracy.

2003-06-19T12:55:00.000-05:00
Germans 'take too many holidays'
Telegraph

"Lazy Germans" might seem like an oxymoron, but not to Germany's economics minister, who said yesterday his compatriots take too many holidays and are damaging the country's prospects.

...

"With regards to holidays, public days off and working hours we have without a doubt reached our limit," he said. "Anyone who compares our holiday calendar with that of other countries can really start to worry." Germany's economy is one of the worst performing of all industrial countries and it has the lowest growth rate in Europe. Unemployment, at 10.4 per cent, is at the highest level since German reunification, and Germany tops the table for freizeit, or free time.

The nation with a reputation for hard work has on average 43 days off a year - 13 public holidays, the rest annual leave. It is followed by Austria and Spain which each have 37.

Britain comes fourth in a survey of 10 countries by the German Employers' Association, with 33.5 days, nine of them public holidays.

~~~~~

France --The Ally of Tyranny Everywhere
Winds of Change

To emphasize the point:
When I Think About You, I Torch Myself
Silflay Hraka
In France, the country that opposed the liberation of the Iraqi people, Muslims are setting themselves on fire.

When was the last time you remember an Iraqi setting himself on fire in despair over his countrymen's treatment by the United States?

Setting oneself on fire is not an act of terrorism. Self-immolation does not involve suicide belts packed with ball bearings or car bombs. It is an act of protest, against a perceived oppression so great that suicide is the only response...

~~~~~

Andrew Sullivan notes the moral abdication of the left
Shocking Silence

~~~~~

Radio talk disturbs family of sex-while-driving crash victim

Mr. Christensen said. ``We need to get him off the streets for one simple fact - so he doesn't hurt anyone else.''

Yes, Mr. Christensen, we have to protect women who are as stupid as your daughter and might have sex with Morris El while he is driving and high on marijuana. Of course, putting him away doesn't do much for other women who are as idiotic your daughter and who will probably do something as equally asinine with a different looser. If anything, the DJ should be commended for publicizing the story and stigmatizing the people involved by making a laughing stock of them so that it might make an impression on others likely to engage in similar stunts.

~~~~~

And if after that story you still thought smoking pot was a good idea,
Study Finds Pot Lowers Math Scores
Reuters

Future engineers, mathematicians and economists beware. A new study finds that high school students who smoke marijuana are likely to see lower math scores, and ultimately, lower wages, than peers.

Poets and literary types may have less to fear however. Scores showed no difference on reading scores between potheads and those who abstained from the weed.

~~~~~

Heh.
War news not biased, says ITC
Guardian

Television watchdogs have thrown out all of the complaints they received about news bias during the Iraq war, including those against notoriously pro-war US channel Fox News.

~~~~~

Pryor dares to say the unthinkable
William F. Buckley

The attorney general of Alabama, William Pryor, is the most refreshing thing to happen to Washington since William Faulkner said the reason he wouldn't be going to President Kennedy's Nobel prize-winner party at the White House was that Washington was a long way to go for dinner...

~~~~~

How many stories about fathers killing their own children or their pregnant partners have there been since the last time a story like this came out?

~~~~~

Shyness linked to brain differences
New Scientist

~~~~~

2003-06-18T19:18:00.000-05:00
Interesting news from Norway
Growing favor for female conscription

Although few of those polled viewed the military as an attractive arena for women, over half felt that women would supply values which the military needed to instill.

...

Half of men under 30 who have done their compulsory service characterize the experience as 'not very meaningful'.

So can we conclude that Norwegians believe feminizing the military will make the male experience more meaningful and that considering Norwegians don't view military service as particularly beneficial for women, they think getting 'feminine values' into the military culture is important enough to force every young Norwegian female into conscription?

~~~~~

I think learned foot and I must be the only two bloggers to be sorry to see Alabama do away with their "alienation of affection" law. Instead of making the same points, I'll point you to his comments and just mention that I would not have used such strong language. ;)

~~~~~

A liberal's condescension toward Hispanics slips out

It slipped out a few months ago when Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman, during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," took the liberty of crediting affirmative action for putting the highly capable Condoleezza Rice -- the first African-American woman to serve as national security adviser -- "where she is today."

And it slipped out again last week when another Democrat seeking the presidential nomination, John Edwards, dismissively boiled down the accomplishments of the highly capable Miguel Estrada, President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to his having "the right last name"...

~~~~~

Domestic Disputes: Bad social science and bad legal policy
Eugene Volokh

~~~~~

2003-06-18T17:21:00.000-05:00
Ain't America Great? In three gernerations from immigrant to the top general at Central Command
Arab-American General Nominated to Take Over Central Command
Fox

The nomination of Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, currently second-in-command under Franks, was widely expected since Franks announced last month he would retire this summer.

Abizaid must be confirmed by the Senate before taking the reins at Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, including Iraq and a large swath of the Middle East.

Abizaid, a grandson of Lebanese immigrants, speaks fluent Arabic, which he studied at a university in Jordan. He also holds a master's degree in Middle East studies from Harvard and has said he loves the region's people and culture.

...

"You begin with the fact that he's a great soldier," retired Army Gen. Bill Nash said about Abizaid in March. "And then you add to that the fact that he is savvy to the world of political military affairs.

"And of course, in this particular case, his unique qualification is that he is fluent in Arabic and understands that region extremely well," said Nash, who has known Abizaid for over 20 years. They worked together most recently in Kosovo (search).

Before becoming the No. 2 general at Central Command, Abizaid held two top positions for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

He also has served as commandant of the military academy at West Point, commander of a battalion providing humanitarian relief in northern Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and company commander during the 1983 invasion of Grenada.

~~~~~

Sounds like a good plan
Israel to feed US soldiers in Iraq
Jerusalem Post
Israel will supply fresh produce and food to American forces serving in Iraq, Israel Radio reported. Agriculture minister proposed that the food be transferred via Jordanian suppliers.

~~~~~

Only Americans Support Bush More Than Israelis, International Survey Shows
CNS News

What the World Thinks of America?

Israel and Jordan, the two countries chosen to represent the Middle East in the survey, answered at the opposite ends of the spectrum on most questions.

Israel, often isolated in the international community except for support from the U.S., is one of the best friends America has, the poll showed.

Jordan, recipient of more than $225 million in American economic and military aid annually, had some of the most negative responses to America, according to the poll.

...

"How would you say you feel toward America?" one question asked. Seventy-two percent of Israelis said they were favorable, while 25 percent said they were less favorable. In Jordan, the numbers were the opposite; 19 percent said they were favorable toward America and 79 percent less favorable.

The Jordanian responses to those questions were the lowest of all the countries polled.

Specific statistics from the poll on Israel and Jordan, provided to CNSNews.com by the BBC in London, showed that 65 percent of Israelis agree with America's policy on terrorism, while 33 percent disagree with it.

In Jordan, 8 percent of respondents said they agreed with America's policy on terrorism, and 83 percent said they disagreed.

...

When asked, "Based on what you know, do you yourself agree with American policy on Israel and Palestine?" 44 percent of Israelis said they agreed, while 50 percent said they disagreed.

In Jordan, where some 60 percent of the population is Palestinian, only 5 percent agreed with American policy, and 95 percent disagreed with it.

Some 71 percent of Israelis said they were favorable to the statement, "America is a force for good in the world," while 28 percent said they were less favorable. Among Jordanians, 10 percent said they were favorable to the statement, while 89 percent said they were less favorable.

Fewer Israelis than Americans said they agreed with the statement, "America scares me." Only 17 percent of Israelis said they agreed with the statement, while 20 percent of Americans agreed with it and 22 percent of Jordanians agreed.

But as far as agreement on the statement, "America is a beacon of hope and opportunity," 75 percent of Israelis said they agreed, while 24 percent said they disagreed; 20 percent of Jordanians agreed, while 79 percent of Jordanians disagreed.

In four separate questions, participants were asked who is more dangerous, America or North Korea, al Qaeda, or Iran or Syria.

In each case, more than 70 percent of Jordanians said that America was more dangerous than any of the four. About 70 percent of Israelis responded that the other entities were more dangerous than America.

...

When asked whether America was "right or wrong" to invade Iraq, more Israelis than Americans said America was right, while Jordan again was at the bottom of the list. Some 79 percent of Israelis said the U.S. was right, while 74 percent of Americans and only 7 percent of Jordanians said it was right for America to invade Iraq.

~~~~~

Shades of Jayson Blair?
Soldier warned superiors with his suspicions about accused killer Akbar
The Tennessean

~~~~~

I've previously pointed out that Camp Delta inmates were gaining weight, that the underage ones were receiving the only formal education that they have ever had, and that the recently released inmates have said that they were not physically mistreated. Their only complaints were that the cells were too small
(so is my house) and that too many prisioners spoke Arabic.

Yesterday I also came across another good point made by a blogger (sorry, can't remember who); the high rate of attempted suicides by inmates probably has more to do with the mental state of people who join terror organizations which carry out suicide missions than with the conditions of Camp Delta.

Today James Taranto notes that the incarcerated enemy combatants are happier than the average American.

The Great Depression

Remember that New York Times sob story we noted yesterday about the illegal enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo Bay? Here's the last sentence in the Times article: "Hospital officials said that about 5 percent of the inmates were suffering from depression and that they were being treated with antidepressants, typically Zoloft."

Today's Times carries a story titled "More Americans Seeking Help for Depression," according to which "more than 16 percent of Americans--as many as 35 million people--suffer from depression severe enough to warrant treatment at some time in their lives." That means the Guantanamo inmates are much happier than Americans are! If that's so, could it be that they're being treated too humanely?

~~~~~

2003-06-18T12:31:00.000-05:00
I was in Iraq on day alleged in memos, admits Galloway
Telegraph

George Galloway confirmed for the first time yesterday that he was in Iraq on the day that documents found by The Telegraph allege he met an Iraqi intelligence officer there to discuss "continuous financial support".

The suspended Labour MP also admitted that he was "not yet" in a position to disprove the documents, which he claimed were forgeries and which were discovered in the looted foreign ministry in Baghdad.

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

The Democrats' folly
Tony Blankley
A few years from now, the current national reporting and commentary will be seen to be utterly blind to the reality of our times. In the 19 months since September 11, we have fought two wars and authorized the reorganization of much of our government. France has risen in an attempt to lead the Third World and Europe in explicit opposition to America. Confidence in the efficacy of the United Nations has shriveled. NATO is divided and adrift...

~~~~~

How Europe Can Stop the Hate
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI

Anti-Semitism is the Western world's oldest and most persistent species of hatred. There are larger and more widespread minority groups than Jews — at 13 million, they comprise about 0.2 percent of the world's population — but the Holocaust made clear how virulent hatred of them has been. To the extent that anti-Semitism persists, we have yet to fulfill the promise of "Never Again" to those who were martyred.

President Bush has asked me to head the United States delegation to a conference on combating anti-Semitism, held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which begins tomorrow in Vienna. The meeting is a direct response to the worldwide surge in anti-Semitic violence...

~~~~~

Don't Blame It on Jayson Blair
Big media's big problem isn't plagiarism — it's a passion deficit
Time

[The public] see a profession that acts excited about a lot — Laci Peterson, The Matrix Reloaded, political horse races — but cares about nothing. . . .

We've spent a month being worried that our readers and viewers hate us because they think we're liars. Relax, brethren; they don't. They hate us because they think we're phonies

Hat tip: Donald Sensing

~~~~~

Extinction of the car giants: Why America's car industry is an endangered species
The Economist

Hat tip: Regions of Mind

~~~~~

France is living down to our expectations
James Likeks

To woo Americans back, the French government decided to hire a celeb to speak on France's behalf. Did they get Arnold Schwarzenegger? ("Ahl be bach -- for de crepes!") Did they get Paula Abdul? ("I don't care what Simon says, France is incredibly talented.")

No, they got Woody Allen. Most Americans regard Woody as a wrinkly creep who makes movies you no longer regret missing. Even on video. "I don't want to have to freedom-kiss my wife," Allen says in the ads, "when what I really want to do is French-kiss her."

Eewww. You might recall that Allen is 391 years older than his wife, and that his wife was his previous girlfriend's adopted daughter. Why him? Roman Polanski wasn't available?

They also got George Plimpton to appear in an ad, making it official: French understanding of American culture is taken entirely from a 1968 issue of Playboy...

~~~~~

Old Enough to Make a Lanyard, and to Do It Nude
NYT

"I don't want to play strip volleyball!" complained Jane Jeffries, 13, her sunburned shoulders sagging. "I want to play regular volleyball."

Halie Nelson, 14, agreed, "Yeah, I'd rather get all the clothes off, and keep all the clothes off."

Here at the Youth Leadership Camp run by the American Association for Nude Recreation, the dress code for regular volleyball — and for the pudding toss, mini-golf and campfire sing-alongs — is the same as it is for skinny dipping...

Hat tip: Poliblog

~~~~~

Michael J. Trotten wonders why the left is ignoring the Iranian protests.
I have been puzzled by the same thing especially since before the war, when I was debating the issue with my on-line leftie friends, they all said that we should not use miliatary force in Iraq but work to encourage internal dissent and help ferment revolution from within. I'd now really like to explore with them why I haven't encountered any anti-war folks taking that position with Iran, but unfortunately, they pretty much all stopped talking to me after that week of quagmire in Iraq. Looks like that the last vestiges that they had to claim a moral position has been stripped away. Their hatred of us and their determination to oppose Bush no matter what position the administration takes is all that is driving the left-wing liberals.

~~~~~

2003-06-17T16:29:00.000-05:00
In his post about the complaints of the released Guantanomo prisioners, which comes down to the cells being to small and being surrounded by too many Arabic speakers, Donald Sensing recounts the experiences of American POWs in various wars and ends with this remarkable encounter between American POWs being held in Japan during WWII and wounded Japanese soldiers:

Ernest Gordon was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp. In his book, Through the Valley of the Kwai, he wrote of a train trip he and his fellows made while in the hands of the Japanese. At a stop in Burma, a train carrying Japanese wounded pulled alongside.

They were in a shocking state. I have never seen men filthier. Uniforms were encrusted with blood, mud and excrement. Their wounds crawled with maggots. The wounded looked at us forlornly as they sat waiting for death. They had been discarded as expendable, the refuse of war. These were our enemy.

Without a word most of the officers in my section unbuckled their packs, took out part of their rations and a rag or two, and with their water canteens in their hands, went over to the Japanese train. Our guards tried to prevent us, but we ignored them and knelt down by the enemy to give water and food, to clean and bind their wounds. Grateful cries of "Arigato" (thank you) followed us when we left.

~~~~~

Dr. Frank exposes anti-semetic football chants in Britain.
Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

~~~~~

Marseille's stink offensive
BBC
About 8,000 tonnes of rubbish were left to accumulate in searing heat during the latest wave of nationwide strikes against pension reform.

Refuse collectors returned to work on Tuesday after a 14-day stoppage and have so far cleared up about a third of the rubbish mountain.

...

Residents of Marseille grew so furious at the pervasive stench - which attracted rats in droves - that they set rubbish heaps on fire, keeping firemen working round the clock.

~~~~~

2003-06-17T15:46:00.000-05:00
In Baghdad, nuptials bloom anew

Saddam Hussein encouraged Iraqis to get married by offering them bonuses and other financial incentives, mainly because families had little money for dowries, and men couldn't afford wives.

But many people still postponed marriage during Saddam's nearly 24-year regime. In a nation where the secret police often used threats against family members to blackmail citizens, many people didn't want to extend their families and give Saddam's agents even more leverage over their lives.

But now on Thursday evenings, hotels across Baghdad are pulsing with the beat of traditional drums and the shouts and songs of relatives welcoming honeymooning couples.

~~~~~

Sarah and the Saudis: Despite Prince Bandar's assurances, another American woman is trapped in the kingdom
WSJ
If only Sarah Saga were trying to crash a men's-only golf club. Then she and those like her might be guaranteed some sustained media coverage. As it is, this intrepid 23-year-old American mother is now holed up with her two children in the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah in a desperate bid for freedom.

Back in September Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., claimed in this newspaper it is "absolutely not true" that any American women were in his country against their will. Ms. Saga's flight to the consulate suggests otherwise. For under Saudi law no woman--even an American--is free to leave that country if her father or husband forbids it.

Update:
American Woman Leaves Jeddah Consulate
"She departed today of her own accord. We're going to be continuing to monitor their well-being and provide all possible assistance to her," spokesman Philip Reeker told a briefing.

Another American woman remains in the building with her children, and the United States is in talks with the Saudi authorities to resolve the case, Reeker said.

~~~~~

How the West grew rich
Dinesh D''Souza
Did the West enrich itself at the expense of minorities and the Third World through its distinctive crimes of slavery and colonialism? This thesis is hard to sustain, because there is nothing distinctively Western about slavery or colonialism. The West had its empires, but so did the Persians, the Mongols, the Chinese, and the Turks.

.....

If colonialism is not a Western institution, neither is slavery. Slavery has existed in every known civilization. The Chinese had slavery, and so did ancient India. Slavery was common all over Africa, and American Indians had slavery long before Columbus arrived on this continent.
What is uniquely Western is not slavery but the movement to abolish slavery. There is no history of anti-slavery activism outside of Western civilization. Of course in every society, slaves have strongly resisted being slaves. Runaways and slave revolts occurred frequently in all slave cultures. But only in the West did a movement arise, not of slaves, but of potential slave-owners, to oppose slavery in principle.
The unique Western attitude is captured in Abraham Lincoln's remark, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master." Lincoln understandably didn't want to be a slave, but interestingly, he didn't want to be a master either. He rejected slavery altogether, and he was willing to expend a good deal of treasure and ultimately a great deal of blood to destroy the institution. During the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of white men died to bring freedom to African Americans — a group that was not in a position to secure freedom for itself.

.....

If oppression and exploitation did not make the West rich and powerful, what did? The answer is that the West invented three institutions that never existed before: science, democracy, and capitalism. Each of these institutions is based on a universal human impulse that took on a very specific institutional expression in the history of the West.

.....

First, science. Of course people everywhere want to learn about the world. The Chinese recorded the eclipses, the Hindus invented the number zero, the Mayans developed a sophisticated calendar. But science — which means experimentation, and verification, and a "scientific method" that one writer has termed "the invention of invention" — this is a Western institution.
Just like the impulse to learn, the impulse to barter and trade is universal. People in every culture exchange goods for mutual benefit. Money is not a Western invention. But capitalism — which implies property rights, and courts to enforce them, and free trade, and stock exchanges, and institutions of credit, and double-entry bookkeeping — this system developed in the West.
Finally, tribal participation is universal, but democracy — which requires elections, and peaceful transitions of power, and separation of powers, and checks and balances — is a Western institution.

~~~~~
Hat tip: Outside the Beltway

2003-06-17T14:58:00.000-05:00
Iraqi Arms Tied to al-Qaida: Found in raids in Saudi Arabia
Weapons and explosives smuggled out of Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime may have ended up in the hands of al-Qaida militants in Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi officials and a former Iraqi army officer.

~~~~~

Rare Bosnia Success Story, Thanks to U.S. Viceroy
NYT
The lesson of Brkco, Mr. Wheeler said, is that would-be nation-builders should install a powerful interim administrator, who is unafraid of defying the local political bosses. With a whip and some cash in hand, this proconsul can override ethnic loyalties and turn local attention to establishing the rule of law and business-friendly policies

~~~~~

Staff revolt at Baghdad museum
Guardian
More than 130 of the 185 staff of Iraq's state board of antiquities office in Baghdad, which runs the museum, have signed a petition demanding the resignation of its directors.

Staff said they believed that some of the thefts from the museum were an inside job. They also accused Dony George, the board's head of research, of arming them and ordering them to fight US forces.

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

Graham quiet about his role on Patriot Act
When Sen. Bob Graham campaigned in Iowa last weekend, at least two Democratic activists complained that the USA Patriot Act threatened civil liberties. They asked what he planned to do about it.

The Florida senator replied that he was unhappy with Attorney General John Ashcroft's implementation of the antiterrorism law, but Graham neglected to mention an important fact: He co-wrote it.

Hat tip: Pejmanesque

~~~~~

2003-06-16T22:34:00.000-05:00
Report Clears Agency in Hunt for Texas Democrats
The Department of Homeland Security did the right thing when it responded to a request to help find runaway Texas Democratic state legislators last month, according to an internal audit released on Monday.
A report by the department's inspector general said the department acted properly on a request by Texas police and its assistance amounted to about 40 minutes of telephone calls.

No aircraft were launched and no other department resources were used to search for the missing Democrats.

~~~~~

Why Europe still doesn't get the Internet
The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or "blogs"), must offer a "right of reply" to those who have been criticized by a person or organization.

~~~~~

Georgia Finds Dirty Bomb Material in Taxi

~~~~~

2003-06-15T11:36:00.000-05:00
A Nation of Liberators: No WMDs yet, and America shrugs. That's because we value human rights.
WSJ

~~~~~

Castro's execution of 3 raises specter of racism
Washington Times
Cubans of African descent, who make up 62 percent of the island's population, live in the worst, most dilapidated Havana neighborhoods: Cerro, Luyano and Guanabacoa.
Afro-Cubans have the worst jobs and are increasingly disenfranchised, according to the University of Miami report.

...

The report notes that none of the top 10 generals or senior military leaders in Cuba is black.
None of the 15 presidents of provincial assemblies is black. Two of the 40-person Council of Ministers is black, and three of the 15 provincial heads of the Cuban Communist Party are black.
Cuban blacks, according to government reports, have 5 percent of the lucrative tourism jobs, but Afro-Cubans constitute 85 percent of Cuba's prison population.

~~~~~

MARTHA & SAM: THE INSIDE STORY
NY Post

~~~~~

US marines diverted to Liberia
Financial Times
A US marine expeditionary force was heading for the strife-riven west African state of Liberia on Friday night after Washington came under increased pressure to deploy troops in what would be its biggest military engagement in Africa since the early 1990s.

The USS Kearsarge, carrying 1,800 marines, 1,200 sailors and attack helicopters, was diverted on its homeward voyage from Iraq to prepare for the possible evacuation of civilians from Liberia where rebel fighters have reached the edge of the capital, Monrovia.

~~~~~

The anti-Duranty
Gareth Jones, hero of Ukraine
What can you expect if you fearlessly expose the systematic, genocidal murder of 10 million people?

You can expect to be branded as a liar in the most prestigious newspaper in the United States. You can expect to be murdered yourself by bandits probably in the pay of conspirators perpetrating equally colossal, monstrous crimes against humanity. And you can even to be betrayed after your death and airbrushed out of existence by one of your closest professional colleagues and friends.

That was the fate of Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones, a brilliant, idealistic and utterly fearless young journalist who published the first major expose in the United States and the first signed articles in Britain of Josef Stalin's deliberately imposed famine in the Ukraine in 1933.

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

If it makes America look bad it must be true, mustn’t it?: Some left-leaning media will rush to publish anything, right or wrong, if it meets their anti-war agenda
Times
[The Guardian’s story, “Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil,” ] was too good to be true and too good to check. A freelance at The Guardian was so delighted with it that he went to the trouble of translating Wolfowitz from German into English, when he had spoken in English in the first place. And the German story was wrong anyway. No matter: another journalist turned it into the splash.

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

2003-06-14T22:35:00.000-05:00
U.S. using quick, decisive tactics to quell Iraqi attacks
Washington Times

~~~~~

Thai police seize radioactive material
Straits Times
Thai police, tipped off by US customs agents, said yesterday they had arrested a Thai national with 30kg of radioactive caesium-137, possibly intended for use in militant attacks.

Officials said the suspect had confessed to smuggling the caesium, a common radioactive substance, from neighbouring Laos. They said it was believed to have originated in Russia.

~~~~~

2003-06-13T17:03:00.000-05:00
Che Trippers
NY Observer

~~~~~

Short conflict, less ammo kept war cost down
USA Today
Those projections offer a window into the administration's prewar expectations. What kept war costs down:

* The administration budgeted for the military buildup and 30 days of heavy fighting and bombing, followed by several months of skirmishes. Officials say the war lasted 26 days, from the launching of the first missiles March 19 until mid-April, when Iraqi political and religious leaders met with U.S. officials on forming an interim government.
* Fewer expensive high-tech weapons were fired. For example, as many as 200 anti-missile Patriots were expected to be fired, but less than 25 were used. Each Patriot costs $2.3 million.
* Planners had earmarked $489 million to put out as many as 500 oil well fires that Iraqis might ignite. Fewer than 10 wells were set ablaze, which cost about $5 million to extinguish the fires and repair damage.
* Planners budgeted $593 million to care for as many as 2 million refugees, a problem avoided when urban combat was less extensive than expected. The refugee count was less than 100,000. In addition, $200 million was earmarked for emergency food supplies for Iraqis, but no major shortages occurred.
* Troops are staying longer. The plan called for shipping more than 400,000 troops and equipment to the region and returning most of them within six months, at a round-trip cost of $30 billion. Now, at least 160,000 troops are staying in Iraq indefinitely, which means the cost of bringing them home can be deferred.

Update: Best of the Web also brings up the estimates of those who were critical of the war and also deliciously adds:
This wasn't the only thing war opponents told us during the prewar debate that turned out not to be true. They said the U.S. would suffer thousands of casualties. They said ordinary Iraqis would resent American "invaders" rather than welcome them as liberators. They said the "Arab street" would rise up in outrage. They said Iraq's liberation would set off a new wave of terrorism. They said the war would be a "quagmire"--a line today's London Guardian is peddling, though even the New York Times carries an article--albeit on the op-ed page--noting that "things really aren't that bad" in Iraq.

Some war foes even said--get this!--that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and would use them on American troops. Well pardon us for asking, but if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, where are they?

Hat tip: Instapundit

~~~~~

Ballyhooed Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Have Environmental Drawback
ap
Researchers issued a report Thursday saying that if hydrogen replaced fossil fuels to run everything from cars to power plants, large amounts of hydrogen would drift into the stratosphere as a result of leakage and indirectly cause increased depletion of the ozone.

They acknowledged that much is still unknown about the hydrogen cycle and that technologies could be developed to curtail hydrogen releases, mitigating the problem. But they say hydrogen's impact on ozone destruction should be considered when gauging the potential environmental downside of a hydrogen-fuel economy.

Hat tip: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

~~~~~

Bled dry, Marsh Arabs retaliate
Chicago Tribune
It's 100 degrees at noon, the hour when the sky itself seems to melt into chrome-colored lakes--rippling pools that shimmer like mirrors in the vast salt pans of southern Iraq. These days, however, those liquid sheets of light are no mirage. They are real water--and one of the most poignant symbols of liberation since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"This will bring back the fish, the birds and the animals," said Jawad Mutashir, a grizzled Marsh Arab who came to watch, for the pure joy of it, water from the Euphrates River gurgling back into the long-dead swamp that had been his ancestral home.

~~~~~
Is the US using an art show to display its anger at Old Europe?
Independent

Are the Brits using a BBC poll to display their anger at the US

~~~~~

Unidentified Object Seen Floating Outside ISS

I hope it wasn't anything important.

2003-06-13T15:43:00.000-05:00
Stanley Kurtz in The Corner has been thinking about how male homosexual marriages may influence straight ones
GAY MARRIAGE AND PROMISCUITY [Stanley Kurtz]
Gay-marriage advocates often argue that marriage will reduce the gay male tendency toward promiscuous sex. I have often suggested that a different and more disturbing effect is more likely. Since many of even the most committed and stable gay relationships are sexually open, there is a danger that gay marriage will help to break the now taken-for-granted connection between marriage and monogamy. For an interesting foreshadowing of this effect, consider the recent piece in Salon by Michael Alvear. Alvear’s take on the Clinton scandal is that straights need to lighten up about marital infidelity and model their marriages on the sexually open relationships so familiar to gays. This is exactly the sort of thing I have suggested we will be seeing plenty of after gay marriage is legalized. But after legalization, instead of someone like Alvear saying that straight marriages ought to follow the example of gay relationships, he’ll be able to say that straight marriages ought to become more like gay marriages. That’s going to make it very tough to communicate the meaning of marital fidelity to a new generation. For details on Alvear’s piece, see the critique by blogger Tom Sylvester.

Taking into account the biological predispositions of both men (for promiscuity and meaningless sex) and women (for fidelity and committed sex), in a marriage between two men, there is no reason for fidelity to become a standard. Open relationships which are the usual arrangement in long term gay relationships are more likely to be the pattern for gay marriage since both partners are naturally inclided to promiscuous sex separate from emotional commitment and don't have the additional incentive of childrearing to curb their extra-marital activities, so I see little reason why heterosexual marriage would be looked to as a role model for homosexual marriage.

Also, with all the cultural influences and social engineering that has been going on over the last 30 years we have been raising women to be more like men when it comes to their sexual expectations and behavior. Young women who engage in recreational sex when they are between relationships is the norm in many high schools and colleges. It seems to me that the next step down this road will be for heterosexual couples who have no taboo against recreational sex to normalize open relationships and marriages and look to the homosexual community as role models.

2003-06-13T01:51:00.000-05:00
Four-year sentence for killing wife
There's so much wrong here, it hurts my brain to even think about.

~~~~~

Ohio Eectrocution Remains Mystery
ap
Nine-year-old Willie Wagner and a buddy were dropping rocks over the crumbling concrete railing of a hulking downtown bridge, watching the splashes in the drowsy Scioto River, when he suddenly slumped between a lamppost and a chain-link fence.

Willie had been electrocuted.

Nearly three weeks later, though, city officials cannot say exactly where the current came from.

~~~~~

Students Roil Iranian Capital in 3rd Night of Protests
NYT

~~~~~

2003-06-12T23:46:00.000-05:00
Here's a nice website for tea drinkers,
and I also turned up a few sites for those who don't drink tea.

Coffee Addicts
Dr Pepper Lovers
Water Drinkers
All Other Non-alchoholic Beverages
Beer, Wine, & Spirits

~~~~~

Even the Arab News is coming down on Sultana Freeman.
Covering Up the Truth

~~~~~

Study Finds Antioxidant Vitamins Useless
ap
Vitamin E and beta-carotene pills are useless for warding off major heart problems, and beta-carotene, a source of vitamin A, may be harmful, an analysis of key studies has concluded.

~~~~~

I do so hope John Kerry wins the nomination. He and the widow of the ketchup magnate that he lives with are soooo much more more entertaining than Gephardt could ever be.

'TOUCH UP: Sen. John Kerry was back at Salon Christophe Thursday, sources tell DRUDGE, this for an $80 trim. The Democratic presidential hopeful was speaking French to the 'stylist'...'

~~~~~

Ruth Bader Ginsberg sees a storm on the horizon

~~~~~

David Adesnik thoroughly covers the current condition of both Iraq and Afghanistan in Oxblog when he answers Matt Yglesias's charge that the Bush administration is opportunistic.
WHAT, ME HUMANITARIAN?

~~~~~

I'm just a sucker for all these stories about quick thinking personable American soldiers and involved enterprising civilians working together to bring grass roots democracy to Iraq

A Soldier's Business Deal Aims to Aid Baghdad Security: Keeping Shops Open And Criminals Away
Washington Post
Hat tip: Oxblog

They're Foot Soldiers for Democracy in Iraq: From the bottom up, neighborhood by neighborhood, the Army is teaching civics.
LA Times
Hat tip: Priorities & Frivoloties

Election puts Kirkuk on road to democracy: Council selects Kurdish mayor
Chicago Tribune

~~~~~

Rebranding puts black marks against UK flag
BBC
A campaign is being launched to modernise the red, white and blue flag by adding a touch of black to reflect multicultural Britain in the 21st Century.

~~~~~

2003-06-12T18:54:00.000-05:00
New Zealand changes the defition of 'fatherhood' to include women

~~~~~

If people are already personifying their robots how long will it be before we start seeing robot beds, robot television, and robot hotels so that people can leave the house without feeling guilty?

Get your own pet vacuum.

~~~~~

Donald Sensing lets the air out of HRC's inflated book sales.

~~~~~

2003-06-12T17:04:00.000-05:00
The humbling of Homo sapiens
The Spectator

Who would have guessed the we have nearly the same number of genes as a microscopic worm or 15,000 fewer than a rice plant or that it's not our genes that distinguish us from other animals, but when they are turned on and off?

The article also touches on the issue of GM food with this story

The word ‘carotenoid’ is not in my Pocket Oxford English Dictionary (1969 edition). It means a protein that is the precursor of vitamin A, a crucial ingredient of vision. The genes for making carotenoids are lacking in human beings, which is why we must eat vitamin A or go blind. The gene is also lacking in rice grains, so a person who subsists largely on rice may go blind. Approximately 500,000 children in the developing world suffer this exact fate every year, and determined efforts by aid agencies to get vitamin supplements or green vegetables to these people have so far failed.

Along comes Ingo Potrykus of Switzerland with a simple solution. Why not genetically engineer a rice plant so that it has the genes to make carotenoids in its grains? So he took the necessary genes from a daffodil and put them into rice. In effect, he added the word ‘carotenoid’ to the rice plant’s book. He soon had a form of rice that was identical in every respect, except that eating just 200 grams of it a day gave you a daily sufficiency of vitamin A. (Further refinements, including the addition of vitamin E’s precursor, have since made the rice even more health-giving.)

He then carefully negotiated away all the patents he had infringed, so that he could give the new ‘golden rice’ away free to peasants who could plant it in their fields. Since the rice would be self-fertile, there was nothing to stop the peasants he gave it to growing their own seed and giving it away to their neighbours. When he had finished in 2000, it was possible for the first time to envisage a realistic, practical and cheap way to prevent 500,000 children going blind every year.

Yet he found himself opposed and vilified by the so-called environmental movement, which was then enjoying a boom in donations from rich people disturbed by the half-truths, scare stories and wild predictions that they had been told about genetic engineering of plants. In vain did Potrykus make clear that his ‘golden rice’ would not enrich him, neither would it enrich any multinational company; it would damage no ecosystem, hurt no human being, invigorate no weed and assist no landlord; it would benefit the poor; it was not an American invention. It answered every one of the environmentalists’ excuses for their lucrative opposition to GM foods.

Still the Greens opposed it. More than two years have now passed and no governments have approved golden rice for use, frightened of the Green backlash if they do. Potrykus said to me recently, in his mild way, ‘Should I start to show pictures of blind children in the talks I give?’ ‘They would,’ I replied.

~~~~~

It's about time the EU was challened on their position on GM food
Starving Nations Reject U.S. Food Donation
Fox

The United States, whose farmers are feeling the impact from a ban on genetically modified food by the European Union, is working on a claim filed with the World Trade Organization calling the EU's actions a form of illegal protectionism.

The high-profile political fight with Europe comes even as some Europeans say they have no evidence that genetically modified, or GM, foods are in any way harmful. EU scientists acknowledge that after dozens of studies that show no ill effects from engineered foods, their rejection is not science-based, but the result of paranoia following outbreaks like mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease.

The real tragedy is what EU paranoia is doing to the developing world

Not only will the EU not accept them, but their ban has effectively forced starving nations to reject food aid, of which the United States provides 50 percent of the world's stocks.

Last year, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, two African nations experiencing ongoing famine, turned down thousands of tons of desperately needed foods, in part because of Europe's ban, in part because of an international propaganda campaign.

"They basically are saying it is better a million people starve to death than eat perfectly nutritious genetically modified food from the U.S. where people have been eating it for 10 years without negative effect," said Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Moore has since broken with Greenpeace.

~~~~~

If were already personifying robots, it's only a matter of time before robot television and robot hotels are available so we can leave our houses without feeling guilty for abandoning the most technologically advanced members of the family.

~~~~~

A first lady we haven't heard enough about lately and one we've heard way tooooo much about

2003-06-12T14:38:00.000-05:00
Television without Pity has the latest Trading Spaces recap and, after the Hildibeast breaks a piano, speculates what the other TS designers would do in similar circumstances:

Laurie breaks the piano: Shrieks. Looks horrified. Breaks into more pieces than the piano.
Frank breaks the piano: Chops it up into little pieces and applies them all over a coffee table like a mosaic. Uses surplus for an incomprehensibly ugly piece of wall art, along with some Styrofoam packing peanuts and a Ziploc bag.
Doug breaks the piano: Builds a big façade around it. Hangs portrait of his feet on the façade. Is peeved by the lack of enthusiasm for his approach.
Gen breaks the piano: Giggles. Jiggles. Giggles some more. Blames Ty. Giggles. Uses the wreckage as inspiration for her next room.
Kia breaks the piano: Turns it into a fountain and makes it the centrepiece of the room. Is inordinately pleased with herself.
Edward breaks the piano: Like he'd ever have the chance, given how little he's on the show.
Vern breaks the piano: Only slightly more likely than me marrying Donald Rumsfeld, but if it did happen, would just build them a better piano. With additional storage.

Hat tip: Inoperable Terran

~~~~~

Another attempt to keep the developing world dirty and disease ridden
Flush Toilets Called 'Environmental Disaster'

CNS news
Dry toilet advocates claim the devices have advantages but concede there is the issue of routine emptying of excrement from the toilets.

Warnberg's website explains that the dry toilets need to be emptied at 6- to 12-month intervals, "depending on loading," and his design includes the use of earthworms to "provide mixing and aeration."

Warnberg concedes the emptying procedures may make some people squeamish. "It takes more responsibility than a flush toilet, there is no getting around it.

...
Another purported benefit of dry toilets is the ability to use the composted excrement for fertilizing human food crops.

"A proper dry toilet system with the recycling of the urine and the feces as a compost product, brings more productivity to crops and improves the land quality," Tittiina Repka, conference secretary of the upcoming Dry Toilet conference, told CNSNews.com.

"It's dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. You are talking about all kinds of bacterial issues; human manure has human pathogens in it." Avery countered.

Despite claims by advocates of dry toilets that excrement is safe for use as fertilizer if it's properly composted, Avery remained skeptical.

"In labs, under ideal conditions, human manure can be safely disinfected. But manure in the hands of average people out there day after day, time after time, you are taking about enormous risk," Avery said.

"Can you imagine a block full of homes, each of them dumping their wastes in their backyard this way; the odor, the disgust, the public health risk?" Avery asked.

Dingle of Worldwrite does not see the need to even contemplate using your homegrown feces for fertilizer.

"Since chemical fertilizers have massively increased the productivity of commercialized agriculture, there is no evidence to suggest we even need to concern ourselves with preserving and using human waste since we have developed much healthier alternatives," Dingle said.

Malodor, insects, and inconvenience for only $2,000 a pop. Yeah, this sounds like a good idea.

More:
The Trouble with Composting Toilets
by a very foolish former dry toilet advocate

~~~~~

Two lives well lived

David Brinkly who was more prescient than he usually let on.
"We all look forward with great pleasure to four years of wonderful, inspiring speeches, full of wit, poetry, music, love and affection - plus more goddamned nonsense," Brinkley said of President Clinton on election night after Bill Clinton had been elected to a second term.

Goodnight, David

and

Gregory Peck who will live on for me in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, To Kill a Mockingbird, Roman Holiday, and Designing Woman. I don't quote Shepard Smith too often, but his description of Peck as, "all quiet strength and dignity," is apt.

~~~~~

The Nominee Who Won’t Back Down
National Reiew

China jails four internet dissidents
Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court handed down prison terms of up to 10 years to the four intellectuals, all aged around 30, who had posted their views on social issues online.

~~~~~

2003-06-11T16:08:00.000-05:00
Frontpage Magazine has an excellent symposium on the the current state of affairs in France.
The Death of France?
Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

~~~~~

Iran agrees Iraq hid arms
Washington Times

~~~~~

Another reporter admits to 'self-censorship' in Iraq
'Iraqis did have Scuds'
Guardian
Channel 4 News diplomatic correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has admitted that she "self-censored" her reports from Baghdad and did not tell viewers that Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding Scud missile launchers in residential areas, because she did not want to be thrown out of the city.
Hilsum saw a missile launcher in a back street of Baghdad after losing her way when driving to the scene of the first marketplace bombing in the city, in which 14 people were killed.

Although Channel 4 News was not censored by Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat, Hilsum decided not to report on what she had seen for fear of being ejected from the city.

"We were not censored. Some of the broadcasters had Mukhabarat with them all the time. Channel 4 News didn't have any problems like that. But there was one occasion when we did censor ourselves," she said.

"After the first marketplace bombing we heard there had been a hit and we were able to go there in our own vehicle. We got lost and a couple of blocks from where the two missiles had hit there was a Scud missile launcher with a Scud on top.

"We then realised the Iraqis were hiding Scuds in residential areas. If I'd said that I think we would have been thrown out the next day," she told a Media Society event last night.

~~~~~

Wow!
Rodger Hitchcock guest hosting on Rush today mentioned that the GDP of all the Arab nations combined doesn't equal the GDP of Spain.

~~~~~

Australia confirms US plan to confront N Korea
Financial Times
The Australian government on Wednesday confirmed that it is working with the US and Japan on ways to stop North Korean vessels trafficking nuclear material, narcotics and other illicit goods.

While conceding that talks were taking place in Tokyo, Alexander Downer, foreign minister, said that no decisions had yet been made about intercepting North Korean ships or imposing blockades on the country.

~~~~~

Saving the children...with fathers
Linda Chavez
Most Americans agree that children are better off being raised in two-parent families -- and with good reason. Children raised in single-mother households are more likely to do poorly in school and are twice as likely to drop out of school or become parents themselves while teenagers. Nonetheless, significantly more women than men believe that one parent can raise a child successfully, according to the Child Trends report. Overall, 42 percent of women, but only 26 percent of men, said that "one parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together." A far greater number of black women said that single parents were as good as two parents in raising children -- 64 percent. Not surprisingly, this is roughly the same percentage of the black population that is now born to single mothers.

Women also appear less likely to stay married "for the sake of the children" than men. While attitudes toward divorce have become increasingly tolerant since the 1960s -- along with skyrocketing divorce rates over the same period -- fewer women than men believe "when there are children in the family, parents should stay together even if they don't get along," according to the study. Only 12 percent of women, compared with 20 percent of men, said they agreed with the statement, while nearly half of both men and women said that "Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can't seem to work out their marriage problems."

~~~~~

2003-06-10T23:53:00.000-05:00
NYT savages Hillary's book
A 'Zone of Privacy' With Calculated Polish

~~~~~

French say their Congo mission will have little impact on fighting
Guardian
The French intervention on behalf of the UN in Congo will be short-lived and localised and will have a negligible impact on tribal conflict, according to a French military briefing paper obtained by the Guardian.

The document confirms military analysts' pessimism about the likely success of the mission, which began on Friday, to rein in the latest outburst of violence in the civil war which has killed an estimated 4.7 million people in four years.

...

A European military planner who was issued a copy of the French document said: "This is the most cynical military briefing I've read in my entire life. Everybody is just laughing at it."

...

A brief patrol by the French troops yesterday made the mission's modest ambitions apparent. Four jeeps packed with infantrymen drove 200 metres through the town centre, accompanied by as many western journalists. For 20 minutes groups of children sang for the cameras, then the troops rolled back to their airport base.

There was no patrol on Saturday during a gun battle in central Bunia. "We are here to secure the airport for the arrival of the international force. It is not our mandate to intervene in fighting between armed groups, only in direct attacks on civilians," the colonel in command said.

Hat tip: Gweilo Diaries

~~~~~

The Brothers Judd do have a point. Where is the oil?

~~~~~

‘Second Holocaust,’ Roth’s Invention, Isn’t Novelistic
New York Observer

~~~~~

You are an enigma wraped in a mystery, you blog
for yourself. You have your own reasons for
doing what you do. We are still glad your here!

What kind of blogger am I?
brought to you by Quizilla

~~~~~

Brit Hume gives a speech at Hillsdale College
The American Media in Wartime
Hat tip: Roger L. Simon

~~~~~

Lost from the Baghdad museum: truth
Guardian
On Sunday night, in a remarkable programme on BBC2, the architectural historian Dan Cruikshank both sought and found. Cruikshank had been to the museum in Baghdad, had inspected the collection, the storerooms, the outbuildings, and had interviewed people who had been present around the time of the looting, including George and some US troops. And Cruikshank was present when, for the first time, US personnel along with Iraqi museum staff broke into the storerooms.

One, which had clearly been used as a sniper point by Ba'ath forces, had also been looted of its best items, although they had been stacked in a far corner. The room had been opened with a key. Another storeroom looked as though the looters had just departed with broken artefacts all over the floor. But this, Cruikshank learned, was the way it had been left by the museum staff. No wonder, he told the viewers - the staff hadn't wanted anyone inside this room. Overall, he concluded, most of the serious looting "was an inside job".

Cruikshank also tackled George directly on events leading up to the looting. The Americans had said that the museum was a substantial point of Iraqi resistance, and this explained their reticence in occupying it. Not true, said George, a few militia-men had fired from the grounds and that was all. This, as Cruikshank heavily implied, was a lie. Not only were there firing positions in the grounds, but at the back of the museum there was a room that seemed to have been used as a military command post. And it was hardly credible that senior staff at the museum would not have known that. Cruikshank's closing thought was to wonder whether the museum's senior staff - all Ba'ath party appointees - could safely be left in post.

Furious, I conclude two things from all this. The first is the credulousness of many western academics and others who cannot conceive that a plausible and intelligent fellow-professional might have been an apparatchiks of a fascist regime and a propagandist for his own past. The second is that - these days - you cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed.

~~~~~

Today's good news from Iraq
In Holy City, Things Are Going Right: U.S. Forces and Iraqis Work Together in Shiite Stronghold of Karbala
wp

~~~~~

NPR’s Terror Problem: When is a terrorist a terrorist?
National Review

~~~~~

2003-06-09T16:02:00.000-05:00
U.S. Says Stun Guns Viable for Airline Security
Reuters

~~~~~

The bad news:
Iran sways Iraqis with food, aid: Tehran's support of Iraqi opposition groups like SCIRI wins hearts and minds.
Christian Science Monitor

The good news:
A majority of the newspapers being published now in Iraq are advocating democratic reforms.
Hat tip: Hobbes Online

and

Thriving Kurdish Trade in Fake Passports Slumps
NYT
One of this city's better-known forgers, a man who would identify himself only as Sarhang, estimated that 200,000 passports were faked in the 1990's for Kurds seeking better lives and wages in the West.

But now, two months after the war, things have changed. Sarhang's business has dropped off precipitously. There are no clients for his wares. He spends his days in the empty shop playing a Sony PlayStation. Kurds, it seems, are now choosing to stay at home.

~~~~~

Are Republicans about to become the majority party?
Jay Bryant says it all depends on SEX.
Hat tip: Polipundit

~~~~~

When humans looked over the edge
BBC

Humans may have come close to extinction about 70,000 years ago according to the latest genetic research.

~~~~~

2003-06-08T14:41:00.000-05:00
Iraq Had Secret Labs, Officer Says
LA Times

Bush's Commitment to Peace Plan Gives Rise to Optimism in the Arab World
NYT

Why America Outpaces Europe (Clue: The God Factor)
NYT

Music Preferences Linked to Personality: Study
Reuters

Major cocaine source wanes
LA Times

Nurse ordered to SARS team: She had no say
Toronto Sun

~~~~~

Give me a job - or I'll sue
Telegraph

Meet Britain's most prolific race discrimination litigant. Omorotu Francis Ayovuare, a Nigerian-born surveyor, may not have held a steady job for five years: he has, however, earned a certain celebrity in the world of industrial relations after launching 72 employment tribunal cases alleging racial discrimination.
At a conservative estimate, Mr Ayovuare has cost those he has accused - and they include businesses, hospitals, local authorities and the police - £500,000 in legal costs.
He has secured just two victories, both on the lesser offence of "victimisation". Yet he so frequently launches cases that tribunals have heard that he now has a template form for all his allegations: he simply fills in the name of the company and the date of the "discrimination".
Extraordinarily, only one of the companies targeted by Mr Ayovuare has employed him. Mr Ayovuare, who has an MSc in construction management from South Bank University and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, applies for hundreds of jobs. When rejected, he often claims racial discrimination, sometimes without waiting for a company to explain itself. On at least two occasions, the successful job applicant has turned out to be black.
His cases have cost the tribunals at least £72,000 in public funds. Mr Ayovuare has not paid any compensation for his failed claims: he has responded to three successful costs awards against him by taking his opponents to appeal.

~~~~~

Children are so clear sighted.
Sharon at The Brazos de Dios Cantina notes this observation:
"I don't get it. The rules on Nickelodeon.com are that you don't use cuss words or bad words or call someone stupid...but they do it all the time on their TV shows."

~~~~~

'TERROR THREATS' PUT JEWS ON STREET
NY Post

A Manhattan church that rented space to a synagogue tossed its tenants into the street and locked the doors yesterday in a tenant-landlord dispute allegedly prompted by terroristic threats against the Jewish worshippers.
Rabbi Bruce L. Cohen - who was forced to perform a bar mitzvah at his home yesterday after being shut out of Rock Church at 153 E. 62nd St. - said one reason a church official gave him for evicting Congregation Beth-El of Manhattan Messianic Synagogue was because an "Arab-looking man" had threatened the church to "get rid of the Jews - or else."

...

"We think it's morally reprehensible that they said, 'Get rid of the Jews,' and the church just said, 'OK,' " Cohen said. "It would have been a better example if the Christians had said, 'Over our dead bodies.' "

Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs from Bensmom

~~~~~

Mayor nixes brother's airport deal
Philadelphia Daily News

"I don't like the fact that this was a contract Milton entered into with no bidding," the mayor said at a press conference. "It has the potential to be looked at as a kind of insiders' deal."

Street said he asked his brother to withdraw from the contract, and he did. The mayor said he first heard about the contract when reporters began calling his press office this week...

"The rules were followed," Street said yesterday. "However, I don't like the appearance of an impropriety, whether or not one exists."

~~~~~

Fun, Fear...And Faith The Church has hit a lean patch in Europe, the welfare system replacing God
Outlook India

~~~~~

For dad, a win-win-win: B.C. must let father share in naming triplets, top judges rule
National Post

Mothers should not have the sole power to name a child when they refuse to acknowledge the father, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled Friday in a case involving seven-year-old Vancouver Island triplets.
...

B.C.'s Vital Statistics Act discriminates against biological fathers on the basis of sex by providing biological mothers with the discretion to include or exclude information about the father when registering the birth of a child, contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the court ruled. But Trociuk, and fathers in similar situations, will not be able to seek name changes for their children in B.C. until the province rewrites the act.

~~~~~

Body may be Nefertiti
Sunday Times

BRITISH archaeologists believe they may have identified the body of one of the most legendary beauties of the ancient world.

They are confident that a tattered mummy found in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings is Queen Nefertiti, stepmother of the boy king Tutankhamun and one of the most powerful women in ancient Egypt.
Photo & more about Nefertiti

~~~~~

2003-06-07T22:05:00.000-05:00
Police station torn down in defiant Falluja
Guardian

~~~~~

EU give swings the push
Sun
A VILLAGE had to get rid of its playground swings because Euro rules say they are too TALL.

The three swings were erected more than 25 years ago.
Kids playing on them have suffered nothing worse than a grazed knee ever since.

But now Brussels bureaucrats have introduced a new maximum height order for swings throughout the UK.

The EU edict, European Standard BS EN 11 76, states the height of children’s swings must be no more than three metres (9ft 10ins).

The set at the park in Great Somerford, Wilts, are 60cm (2ft) over the limit.

The directive also includes a mind-boggling set of other rules including the distance from the seats to the frame and to the ground.

The Great Somerford swings were condemned during a routine inspection by playground equipment firm Wicksteed Leisure last month.

~~~~~

Oral sex 'safer,' teens respond in two surveys
According to a survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, one-third of adolescents have engaged in oral sex. One in five do not know sexually transmitted diseases can be contracted through the practice; two teens in five think oral sex is "safer sex."

~~~~~

Dutch to Send 1,100 Peacekeepers to Iraq
ap

~~~~~

2003-06-07T20:51:00.000-05:00
Saudi: al-Qaida Behind Riyadh Bombings
ap
For the first time, the Saudi interior minister linked last month's Riyadh bombings to the al-Qaida terror network in an interview published Saturday, and his ministry identified 12 of the attackers.

~~~~~

Blame for riot falls on Suu Kyi
The Age
One of Burma's most powerful leaders blamed Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy for violence last week in which at least four people were killed, a sign that the military regime may not be willing to release the Nobel laureate from detention.

~~~~~

Living wage laws killing business
CBS Market Watch
Even in the midst of an economic boom, how many small business owners can afford a 65% raise for their entire entry-level staff or manage an extra $184,912 in payroll costs when they hire a 25th employee?

~~~~~

The 51st and 52nd states: Alberta is already more American than Canadian in some ways, while a left-leaning State of British Columbia would keep the Democrats happy
National Post

~~~~~

Ancient Assyrian Treasures Found Intact in Baghdad
National Geographic
Gold jewelry and other precious items recovered from royal tombs excavated at the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud, and objects from the royal cemetery at Ur, have been found where they were stashed for safety—in a vault below the Central Bank in Baghdad—before the onset of the Gulf War in 1990.

The 2,800-year-old treasures—which are regarded by some archaeologists as rare and precious as the objects found in Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb—were in three cases that had been sealed and secured in the underground vault. The cases were not found until last week because the basement of the bank was flooded, possibly deliberately by bank officials as a way to protect the treasures from looters.

...

A documentary producer for Ultimate Explorer, Jason Williams, had been following the treasures of Nimrud story for nearly a decade. Ultimate Explorer host Lisa Ling traveled with Williams and a crew to Iraq to investigate what happened to one of the greatest archaeological finds of all time for a documentary to air in the United States on MSNBC on July 6 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Photos & more info

~~~~~

The British wrest defeat from the jaws of victory
Mark Steyn
I had a weird experience a few days ago. I flew from the Middle East to North America. In Iraq, 95 per cent of the people I met told me they were happy to be liberated and regretted only that various disappeared loved ones weren't around to see it. In the US, the great victory has been digested and folks have moved on to newer distractions, like the travails of the indicted style guru Martha Stewart. In their different ways, these are both rational reactions.

But, en route from east to west, I briefly touched down in the strange area known as "Europe", where possibly due to a freak electrical storm or some other phenomenon the people of Britain appeared to be in the fevered grip of some mass psychosis, perhaps a variant of Sars (Sudden Alternative Reality Syndrome).

~~~~~

WHO Cautious About China's SARS Reports
Reuters
World Health Organization officials said on Friday they plan to have an explanation next week for an apparent sudden decrease in SARS cases in China.

WHO has been suspicious of China's reported decline, which dropped from thousands in recent months to a just handful in the past week, but has been diplomatic in its questioning of officials in Beijing.

~~~~~

France makes a unilateral play for the EU
British walk-out over Giscard 'trick'
Telegraph
Gisela Stuart, a Labour MP, reacted with fury to efforts by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who heads the drafting team, to sneak through new clauses that would change the character of the European Union.

~~~~~

Famine-struck N Koreans 'eating children'
Telegraph

~~~~~

Iran authorizes use of lethal force at
demonstrations planned July 9th
In addition, more arrests and controls of communications along with harsher jamming of abroad based radio and TV networks are planned.

~~~~~

Baptism of fire for French peacekeepers in Congo
Independent

~~~~~

Dixie Chicks ignored

The Dixie Chicks, country radio's most popular act three months ago, remain personas non grata. The trio's fourth single "Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)" off the "Home" album is being roundly ignored by most country radio stations. Only seven stations out of 140 played it a dozen or more times last week, according to Mediabase 24/7, a tracking firm.

Nationally, about 40 percent of country radio stations are not playing the group at all, according to Billboard. Locally, the two country stations Kicks 101.5 and Eagle 106.7 (both owned by ABC Radio) have not spun a Dixie Chicks record since the controversial comments lead singer Natalie Maines made March 10 in London insulting President George W. Bush. Kicks/Eagle General Manager Victor Sansone said he's seen no sympathetic groundswell to bring back the Chicks as of yet. "There's no compelling reason for us to want to add 'Godspeed' for anything," he adds.

~~~~~

A Plot to Deceive?
WP
There is something surreal about the charges flying that President Bush lied when he said that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. In Europe, and especially in Britain, where Tony Blair is also under fire, the idea has actually taken hold that the charge against Iraq was a complete fabrication.

The absurdity of these accusations is mind-boggling. Start with this.

~~~~~

2003-06-07T16:45:00.000-05:00
Tax burden jumps with 2nd income
The study is another indication that conventional approaches to tax policy are often misleading. Until legislators of both parties take a systemic view of taxation and benefits, the usual claims of wounds and gains will remain largely meaningless.

Here are three findings from the study, done by economists Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence Kotlikoff for the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas. Gokhale is currently at the American Enterprise Institute, on leave from his position as senior economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Kotlikoff is chairman of the Boston University economics department.

• A spouse whose husband (or wife) earns $60,000 a year faces lifetime marginal net-tax rates of more than 50 percent for earnings that range from $10,000 to $40,000.

• A two-earner couple where each earns $30,000 faces a lifetime loss of Social Security benefits. The loss has a current value of $56,829.

• A woman with a husband who earns only $20,000 a year faces an extraordinary lifetime tax burden if she opts to work. She loses Social Security benefits, Medicaid and other programs by working. If she earns $10,000 a year, her lifetime marginal tax rate is 121.6 percent. The rate declines to 80.6 percent if she earns $20,000 and 66.4 percent if she earns $30,000.

Hat Tip: Diotima

~~~~~

In Contempt of Courtship
Atlantic Monthly

Who knew that modern dating might not be the best way to find love and romance?
Barbara Defore Whithead did.

~~~~~

Instapundit's Paris correspondent reports on the strikes:
The scale of the lawlessness and thuggery would generate endless anguished editorials in the English-language press if France were Iraq, and if somehow the United States could be blamed for it. The demonstrators have barricaded roads and railway tracks, ransacked and occupied administrative buildings, set fires, reversed over one another with their cars, sealed off city centers, emptied garbage onto the streets and rendered public transportation throughout the country unusable. Air traffic has been brought to a halt. Demonstrators cut off power lines at the Gare de Lyon. Tourists have been stranded everywhere. The national railway company, the SNCF, has lost $140 million in six days.

This is not a loss the shaky French economy can tolerate. And why? Because the government has proposed to increase the number of years public sector employees must work to receive full retirement benefits, from 37.5 years to 40 years -- a move that would bring them in line with the private sector.

~~~~~

Teen prisoner adds to woes by getting arm stuck in toilet

~~~~~

Conservatives swell ACLU

~~~~~

Saddam's Surgeons: First, Do Harm
wp
Whether the complicity was forced or voluntary, physicians participated for years in the state's apparatus of cruelty and terror. As researchers for Physicians for Human Rights in Iraq, we spoke to many doctors who reported on complicity in these heinous acts. The state wanted them to have "dirty hands," said one senior surgeon, who told us that they acted on a government mandate ordering all surgeons to participate in cutting off the ears and branding the foreheads of army deserters. In one hospital, all surgeons -- general, orthopedic, plastic, cardiac and neurosurgeons -- were reportedly required to perform the mutilation.

~~~~~

Palestinian Officials Blast Hamas
A Hamas refusal to negotiate an end to attacks on Israelis could force Abbas to either crack down on the group and risk a civil war, or allow it to continue bombing and shooting attacks that would derail U.S.-backed peace efforts.

~~~~~

It's not easy being a ex-Muslim

Ahmed Mohamed was in the line at a Minneapolis grocery store, when a man behind him tapped him on the shoulder and asked,

Are you Somali?

Yes.

Are you new here in Minnesota?

Well, yes.

Why haven't I seen you in the mosque?

I don't go to the mosque.

Why?

I'm a Christian...

continue

~~~~~

Mexican Resort Caters to Big Tourists
ap

Freedom Paradise Resort
Freedom Paradise has big, wide benches made of tree trunks, four-foot-wide chaise lounges, and 26-inch wide dining room chairs. All the furniture is reinforced and made of wood.

No more getting stuck in a chair with armrests, because there are no armrests. No more getting stared at on crowded beaches, because the hotel's Tankah beach is 250 yards long and relatively secluded.

~~~~~

Here's one for all those Americans who have been disgruntled by noticing an 'Hecho in Mexico' label on a US flag or read a story about military supplies being imported from China:
Canadian stamps made in U.S.A.
Toronto Star

~~~~~

Vegetarian parents charged in malnutrition death of 5-month-old
ap
Lamoy Andressohn, 27, and Joseph Andressohn, 34, also were charged with neglecting their four surviving children, who were taken by the state after their sister Woyah's death May 15.

Woyah weighed 6.99 pound when she died, slightly less than the 7 pounds her mother told investigators said she weighed when she was born. Doctors say a full-term baby should have weighed about 15 pounds at 5 months.

Investigators say all four surviving children were also malnourished, and two showed signs of rickets. The vitamin D deficiency is avoided by exposure to sunlight or consumption of vitamins or vitamin-fortified food.

This is the second story of vegetarian parents with malnourished babies in a month. At least the other parents (both in their thirties) had the sense to get their daughter to the hospital before she suffered anything worse than brain damage.

~~~~~

Thailand Tiptoes in Step With American Antiterror Effort
NYT
Although Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra insists publicly that his country is safely on the sidelines in the campaign against terrorism, he has secretly been helping the United States in several significant ways, American officials say.

He has allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to bring suspected members of Al Qaeda here for interrogation and the American Air Force to use bases in Thailand for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American officials say. Two weeks ago, the Thai authorities were acting on a C.I.A. tip when they arrested a man suspected of being part of a plot to blow up the United States Embassy in Singapore in December 2001.

~~~~~

As both a Christian and someone who doesn't want to see anything diminish the chances for US success in the Middle East, I've had ambivalent feelings about missionaries going to Iraq while the country is so unstable, but Evangelists say Iraqis embrace message.
Austin American Statesman

~~~~~

U.S. might deport 13,000 immigrants: Action stems from voluntary registration program; few are linked to terrorism
Officials acknowledge that most of the Arab and Muslim immigrants swept up in counterterrorism sweeps have no ties to terrorist groups. Of the 82,000 men who showed up at immigration offices, and tens of thousands more screened at airports and border crossings over the past six months, 11 have had links to terrorism, officials said.

But officials said they can no longer afford to ignore illegal immigrants from countries that pose a security risk. They note that several of the Sept. 11 hijackers were in the country illegally at the time of the attacks.

"You have to look at not just the terrorists themselves but on the mechanisms that they exploit," Chaparro said. "This government has come to realize that immigration enforcement is a very effective tool in the war on anti-terrorism."

~~~~~

2003-06-07T13:47:00.000-05:00
How did the Michigan race based admissions case get to the SC?
Judges Spar Over Affirmative Action
WP
As the Supreme Court prepares for a historic ruling on affirmative action in university admissions, a conservative federal appeals judge has formally accused her court's liberal chief judge of improperly manipulating the case on its way to the high court -- and he has fired back with accusations of his own, in an extraordinary public argument among members of the federal judiciary.

In a May 28 memorandum, Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit concluded that Chief Judge Boyce F. Martin Jr. used his position in 2001 to delay consideration of race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan law school until two judges opposed to the policy became ineligible to vote on it. On May 14, 2002, the court voted 5-4 to uphold the policy, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, where a decision is expected by the end of this month.

~~~~~

While it's looking good for Texas redistricting this summer (see yesterdays post), the investigation into improper use of Federal resources is still hanging out there
In Texas Feud, a Plane Tale of Intrigue: U.S. Role in GOP Hunt for Democratic Lawmakers Is Still Murky
WP

~~~~~

Only in Bloomberg's New York
Ticket's no choke: Nurse saves man, and gets fined
NY Daily News
Comic book collector Marty Rosenblum played a real-life superhero, jumping out of his car to save a man from choking on a Brooklyn street.
His reward? A ticket for double-parking.

~~~~~

After Hamas walkout, Israel says it retains right to fight terror
Jerusalem Post

~~~~~

His daughter reveals The Real Leo Strauss
NYT
Leo Strauss believed in the intrinsic dignity of the political. He believed in and defended liberal democracy; although he was not blind to its flaws, he felt it was the best form of government that could be realized, "the last best hope." He was an enemy of any regime that aspired to global domination. He despised utopianism — in our time, Nazism and Communism — which is predicated on the denial of a fundamental and even noble feature of human nature: love of one's own. His heroes were Churchill and Lincoln. He was not an observant Jew, but he loved the Jewish people and he saw the establishment of Israel as essential to their survival.

...

[H]e insistently confronted his students with the question of the "good life." For him, the choice boiled down to the life in accordance with Revelation or the life according to Reason — Jerusalem versus Athens. The vitality of Western tradition, he felt, lay in the invigorating tension between the two.

~~~~~

"Solzhenitsyn was arresting because he spoke of the truth as if it were true.” ~Charles Kesler
Jay Nordlinger commemorates the 25th anniversary of “A World Split Apart,” the commencement address delivered by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn at Harvard University.
Hat Tip: The Corner

~~~~~

The Chinese Holocaust Memorial remembers the victims of the Cultural Revolution.

~~~~~

Belmont Club asks the question Is Aung San Suu Kyi dead? and puts forward a United States Military Options in Burma.
Hat tip: Oxblog

~~~~~

Victor David Hanson says The Old Game: Once upon a time, everything was so nice and predictable ...
Unfortunately, two strange events transpired that should not have, undoing all the old rules. On September 11, 2001, 3,000 Americans were murdered en masse at a time of peace — in our planes, in our most iconic buildings, and at the center of American military power. And worse still for terrorists, faux-allies, and triangulators, our president was a Texan inexperienced with the game's nuances — not a liberal Democrat who wanted to be liked abroad or a seasoned Republican congressional alumnus who wanted to preserve the old rules. Stranger still, President Bush surrounded himself with a different kind of person — the kind who, in a crisis, offers one reason why we should act, rather than 1,000 excuses why we should not.

And so, all bets are off. Bases, alliances, institutions, friendships, immigration policy, easily duped Americans — nothing can be taken for granted anymore.

Hat Tip: Outside the Beltway

~~~~~

Forgotten Founder: Rick Brookhiser talks about Gouverneur Morris
National Review

2003-06-06T23:43:00.000-05:00
US Defense Intelligence: Never Any Doubt About Iraq's WMD Program
VOA
A top U.S. defense intelligence official says his agency never had doubts that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction program, despite news media reports to the contrary. The official met with members of Congress Friday as some lawmakers question whether the Bush administration manipulated U.S. intelligence to justify the war against Iraq.

Top defense intelligence officials sought to clarify news accounts that the Pentagon's intelligence agency last September reported it had 'no reliable information' that Iraq had a chemical weapons program.

...

"It is a sentence lifted out of the text," he said. "The single sentence was not intended to summarize the program. So what we are saying is, that in 2002 in September, we could not reliably pin down for someone who was doing contingency planning, specific facilities, locations, or production that was underway at a specific location at that point in time."

But Admiral Jacoby said his agency had no doubt about the existence of a weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq.

Defense officials say the Pentagon intelligence report is just one of many sources of information on Iraq.

~~~~~

The Guardian admits to a A nasty slip on Iraqi oil, and retracts their story about Wolfie foolishly slipping up and admitting to the world the fiendish neocon plan to to invade Iraq and take over their oil.

2003-06-06T18:07:00.000-05:00
George W. Bush would handily defeat Bill Clinton if they were the major party candidates in 2004
Fox

~~~~~

Seeking the Roots of Terrorism
Chronicle of Higher Education
Instead of viewing terrorism as a response -- either direct or indirect -- to poverty or ignorance, we suggest that it is more accurately viewed as a response to political conditions and longstanding feelings of indignity and frustration that have little to do with economic circumstances. We suspect that is why international terrorist acts are more likely to be committed by people who grew up under repressive political regimes.

There are many good reasons to improve education and reduce poverty in poor countries. Alas, reducing terrorism is probably not one of them.

~~~~~

Kyoto U. team developing subcritical nuclear reactor
Yomiuri Shimbun
Researchers at Kyoto University are developing a nuclear power reactor that does not require criticality to produce energy, thereby drastically reducing the risk of accidents, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Friday.

~~~~~

2003-06-06T17:34:00.000-05:00
N Korea angry at US army plans
BBC
North Korea has condemned United States plans to lift military spending on the Korean peninsula

~~~~~

Iraq Sunnis Seethe Over Loss of Prestige
ap

~~~~~

Friendships flower for soldiers, Iraqi women
Boston Globe
[O]n the sultry streets of Baghdad, where 53,000 American troops are now stationed, soldiers are finding that their interactions with Iraqi women are leading to friendships and, in some cases, romance. With emotions running high during the weeks after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, some soldiers found that relationships developed naturally.

~~~~~

U.S. Demands Exit Visas for 636 Cubans
ap

~~~~~

2003-06-06T16:17:00.000-05:00
PROGRESS
The Corner
A federal judge has declared Dallas public schools to be officially desegregated, ending 32 years of federal oversight. When court-ordered busing began in Dallas, the public schools were 59 percent white. Today, less than seven percent of Dallas public schoolchildren are white. As school officials told the Dallas Morning News for today's editions, it's hard to have a segregated school system when only a handful of students are white (white families having put their kids in private schools, or lit out for the suburbs to escape busing). This, we are told, is progress.

~~~~~

2003-06-06T15:48:00.000-05:00
~~~~~

Clergy may join disaster response
Chicago Sun Times

~~~~~

Wesley Pruden considers what cunning plan could be up Bill Clinton's sleeve to induce him to suggest repealing the 22nd Amendment
In the Great Dismal Swamp, cultivating Clinton nostalgia is not difficult. The bigger and badder George W. Bush looks, measured against Little Joe, the French-looking guy, Dorky Dick, the sleepy senator from Florida, that nice Edwards boy and Jesse Jackson Lite, the more acute the nostalgia. The former president is doing all he can to encourage the wallow in what used to be; that's what was behind his suggestion last week that what the country needs is repeal of the Twenty-second Amendment, to allow presidents who have served successfully for two terms to seek a third. Nobody knows better than Pa Clinton how unlikely repeal may be, and nobody knows better than Pa Clinton that such talk feeds nostalgia.
But if you can't have Pa, why not Ma? And if Ma Clinton later, why not now?

2003-06-06T15:44:00.000-05:00
Weren't these the people who opposed the war because they didn't believe us when we said that we'd rebuild Iraq?
Protesters urge Bechtel to leave Iraq
Contra Costa Times
The activists, many part of Direct Action to Stop the War, claim Bechtel raised the price of water in Cochabamba by 100 percent to 300 percent, pricing poor people out of the market -- and then watched as the government cracked down on protesters. Bechtel said the account is inaccurate. The company, in a flyer responding to criticism, said that it only controlled 27.5 percent of the contract to operate the city's water system, that rates rose by only 35 percent to reflect the cost of providing cleaner, more reliable water, and that the violence was not its doing.

Either way, emphasizing issues like water privatization proves that the protesters are anti-globalization activists rather than serious critics of Bechtel's work in Iraq, said company spokesman Jonathan Marshall. "They are speaking in the name of the anti-war movement," he said.

Marshall said he was mystified at the protests, since Bechtel's contract does not encompass privatizing Iraq's water supply. "We are trying to rehabilitate water and waste-water facilities so Iraqi children aren't drinking raw sewage," he said.

2003-06-06T15:30:00.000-05:00
'Congestion Charge' Cuts London Traffic; Businesses Upset
CNS
"These results confirm that traffic congestion and journey times for motorists, bus passengers, and business journeys are significantly reduced both inside and outside the congestion charging zone," Livingstone said. "This is great news for everyone who travels into central London."

Instead of traditional booths, the system is administered by a network of closed-circuit television cameras.

Buses, taxis, motorcycles and alternative fuel vehicles are exempt, and those who live inside the zone are eligible for a 90 percent discount. The money raised goes to London's bus system.

Livingstone contends that "the majority of business leaders have backed the scheme," but a spokesman for the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the charge is eating into profits of retailers inside the zone.

"There's no doubt the scheme has cut traffic," a spokesman said, "but there's growing evidence that it brings along with it the unwanted effect of deterring shoppers."

The chamber of commerce estimates that 60 percent of London retail outlets have seen business suffer as a result of the charge.

The Federation of Small Businesses has also expressed concern, saying that its members are being disproportionately hurt by the toll.

Commerce groups say the charge has not only resulted in reduced customer traffic, but has also added to the costs of doing business in the capital.

~~~~~

2003-06-06T15:18:00.000-05:00
ANDREW SULLIVAN'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
"Has not the time come to change our strategy? What I think the rest of the world is waiting for - indeed hoping for - is some positive sign that the civilised powers are going to uphold the standards of international behaviour set by their forbears; that they are going to do so in the most systematic, relentless and comprehensive manner, and if necessary - while they still possess it - with overwhelming force. All over our tormented planet, there are millions of decent, peaceable and intelligent men and women of all religions, complexions, and races, who are praying that the resources of civilisation are not, indeed, exhausted - and that the Brezhnevs and the Amins, the Ghadaffis and the Maos, the Arafats and the O-Sadists will not be allowed to take over the earth." - Paul Johnson, quoted in Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "A Dangerous Place," his memoir about the United Nations.

~~~~~

Sullivan also points of the influence of the Blogosphere on the NYT scandal
GETTING THERE FIRST:
It's worth reviewing that the blogosphere was there before the mainstream media caught on and long before the Jayson Blair revelation. First, blogs revealed how many of the NYT's polls were skewed in the way they presented or spun data. They exposed the anti-Bush fervor of the Enron coverage. Then they broadcast the revelation of how Paul Krugman had once had lucrative former ties with Enron. We exposed blatant lies on the front-page - from allegedly soaring temperatures in Alaska to the fabricated cooptation of Henry Kissinger into the anti-war camp in August 2002. The process was relentless. In the end, even fabulist Maureen Dowd couldn't get away with doctoring quotes from the president to make a partisan point because a relatively little known blogger caught her, and passed it on. And in all this, we were helped by hundreds of readers who found errors and bias where others didn't - meta-bloggers, if you will.

~~~~~

And Collin Levey credits the Blogosphere directly with Howell & Boyd's removal
A Media Coup: The Times' shakeup is a victory for the little guy
Wall Street Journal OL
For the past few weeks, coverage on the major networks and many big regional newspapers has waned, but outlets like Slate, Jim Romenesko's Media News, and bloggers like Mickey Kaus have been chipping away relentlessly at all Mr. Blair's news that wasn't fit to print.

They kept up the pressure, stirring the pot for old-media columnists like the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. Times reporters fed off these sites--and contributed to them, spinning the gossip cycle. In the end, publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger had to accept Messrs. Raines's and Boyd's resignations just to get his house in order.

...
If the Times has been doing back flips of late to restore its editorial reputation--publishing corrections of ancient and forgotten stories, and suspending another reporter, Rick Bragg, for not crediting the work of an unpaid intern--it's these small-media gadflies who deserve much of the credit.
Just three weeks ago, after all, top management had clearly decided to circle the wagons. Mr. Sulzberger announced that if Mr. Raines tendered his resignation, he wouldn't accept it. "Let's not begin to demonize our executives," the Times itself famously quoted Mr. Sulzberger as saying.

That turned out not to be good enough for the media critics, who, in the tradition of journalism in a democratic society, were holding a powerful institution's feet to the fire. Going one better, the target was from that class of powerful institution--the media themselves--that in the old days of three TV networks seldom held each other to account.

While the Times' own 7,000-word opus setting the record straight on Mr. Blair's past journalistic lies and errors was thorough, many thought it was less than credible in treating Messrs. Raines and Boyd as bystander victims of Mr. Blair's betrayal. Besides, what other institution would be allowed to get away with investigating itself?

The media at large, however, have become naturally more self-policing, not least because readers and critics can have instant access to copy published hundreds or thousands of miles away. Mr. Blair's history of deception was dragged into the light by Macarena Hernandez, a young reporter at the San Antonio Express News, whose story Mr. Blair had plagiarized.

...

And one of the most important but least scrutinized institutions in society--the media--is finally getting feedback and accountability.

~~~~~

The NY Observer had a fly on the wall at the final staff meeting
It's a Hard Raines Fall

~~~~~

Horizontal Knowledge
Glenn Reynolds

~~~~~

2003-06-06T14:20:00.000-05:00
History's twists and turns
Wash Times
In 1857, the British consul in Palestine, James Finn, told his government that Palestine "is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population."
Ten years later, Mark Twain visited the Holy Land, recording his impressions in "The Innocents Abroad." Jericho was "a moldering ruin," he wrote. About the Galilee, he noted "a desolation ... that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action." Which is pretty desolate. As for the land around Jerusalem, "The further we went ... the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became," Twain wrote. "There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive and cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."
Things hadn't changed much by 1881, when British cartographer Arthur Penrhyn Stanley observed, "In Judea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there is no appearance of life or habitation." To be sure, there were at this time Arabs (and Jews) living in Palestine, but 1881 hardly marks the shimmering high point of civilization Yasser Arafat would describe to the United Nations in 1974, when he conjured visions of "a verdant land, inhabited mainly by an Arab people in the course of building its life and dynamically enriching its indigenous culture."
Why the world came to accept the mendacious vision of a terror-kingpin over a wealth of historical impressions recorded by writers, scientists and officials is a tantalizing question.

~~~~~

Arab world eyes new side of Bush
Christian Science Monitor

~~~~~

U.S. Move in Korea Could Change Dynamic
ap
The Pentagon says it can better deter North Korea by moving U.S. troops farther south from the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. But while the allies have yet to say when the relocation will occur, many South Koreans are already wondering about the repercussions.

"When people hear the news, their immediate reaction often is, 'What? Who's going to defend the border? Are the Americans moving south so that they can leave our country fast when the war breaks out?'" said Song Young-sun, an analyst in Seoul's Korea Institute of Defense Analysis.

Elderly South Koreans have vivid memories of the 1950-53 Korean War, when communist invaders from the North swept over most of the South within weeks. Eventually, the Northern forces were pushed back by American-led U.N. forces, but allied forces suffered heavy losses in the fighting, including 33,700 U.S. troops.

A half-century after the war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, tensions remain high today over Pyongyang's suspected development of nuclear weapons.

North Korea keeps two-thirds of its 1.1 million-strong military, the world's fifth largest, near the border. In a moment's notice, its artillery and rocket launchers can showers thousands of shells on Seoul, turning the capital, only 37 miles south of the border, into what North Korea says would be a "sea of fire."

From a military standpoint, keeping so many American ground troops within the range of artillery doesn't make much sense, strategists say. Large numbers of U.S. troops would likely die in the first hours of a North Korean attack, or would have to retreat and regroup.
...

President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun believe South Korea's economy, the world's 11th largest, allows it to play a bigger role defending itself.

"This is a time to move beyond outmoded concepts or catch phrases such as the term 'tripwire,'" Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy U.S. defense secretary, said in Seoul on Monday.

In Manila, Adm. Thomas Fargo, U.S. military commander for the Pacific, said Friday that South Korea's military is "much more capable than it was 10 or 15 years ago ... They have made dramatic improvements in their own capability."

In the Pentagon's view, moving U.S. troops away from the DMZ and consolidating them at perhaps two main "hub" bases south of Seoul will still enable them to respond quickly. It believes the relocations will give the U.S. forces the flexibility to train for missions elsewhere in the region.

But "the redeployment can also be a direct message to North Korea that the United States is now readier than ever to launch a pre-emptive strike if Pyongyang does not behave," said Park June-young, a political scientist at Seoul's Ewha Woman's University.
...

Some South Koreans worry the removal of U.S. forces from the border could raise the potential for hostilities on the peninsula. "The U.S. troop presence near the DMZ meant they wouldn't do anything dangerous because they were so close to North Korea. Now when they are far away, they will feel more comfortable to attack North Korea and start a war," said Kim Jong-soo, 42, a textile dealer in Seoul.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan told Seoul's SBS radio Friday that the redeployment would take "a significant amount of time," probably five to six years.

The realignment will force South Korea to boost its defense spending to help finance part of the relocations and make up for equipment lost by the withdrawal.

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WHAT'S PROPPING UP NORTH KOREA? SOUTH KOREA
The Corner
Fascinating piece in the Journal (needs subscription) by a NK defector. During his debriefing by SK Intel people, it became clear to him that propping up NK was the main aim of the South's "sunshine policy" & that terror of an NK collapse, with following floods of refugees (spelled "cheap labor"), is a major factor in SK strategy towards the North. Not very surprising, but nice to see it from one who should know. Not actually that irrational, either--but very short-sighted. Also immoral: "We mind NK-ers flooding our labor markets much more than we mind them starving to death by the million."

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North Koreans Selling Human Flesh on Black Market
Weekly Post, Japan
In some corners of the black market, pieces of special meat are displayed on straw mats for sale. People know where they came from, however, they do not speak about it. One refugee said, "Oil from animal meat coagulates and becomes round in shape, however, that of human flesh coagulates and takes the shape of a diamond."

The sale of human flesh is expanding beyond the granary regions.

The same witness said, "If a funeral takes place during the day and the burial is performed that evening, the grave may be dug open and the body stolen before morning. Such incidents happen often. The stolen body is cut into pieces and sold on the black market. This is why people conduct funerals in the evening and bury the dead bodies at midnight. People cannot steal them during the day because other people are watching. Also, the dead bodies lose freshness over night, which makes it difficult to market them."

The North Korean police department has issued an order banning daytime funerals and executes publicly anyone involved in the sale of human flesh.

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Yakuza cash is funding Pyongyang's WMD: U.S.
Japan Times OL
North Korea uses remittances from overseas illegal activities -- including cash from organized crime networks in Japan -- to fund its weapons of mass destruction programs, a senior official of the U.S. State Department said Wednesday.
At a hearing of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said the North has used three sources of hard currency earnings to buttress its weapons programs.

"One is the sale of weapons of mass destruction: the North Koreans are the largest sellers of ballistic missile technology to 'proliferant' countries in the world," he said.

"The second . . . is the sale of illegal drugs. And third is a combination of remittances from illegal and quasi-illegal activity outside the country from, basically, organized criminal networks in Japan and elsewhere."

Bolton said the U.S. has focused on all three categories to prevent North Korea's "dictatorship" from getting its hands on funds.

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Japan Expands Military's Right to Fight
ap
Japan approved legislation Friday that expands its military's ability to fight back in case of a foreign attack, a key campaign pledge of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi but a sensitive political issue in a country that sought to renounce militarism after World War II.
...

Some of the provisions call for the government to study how to protect basic human rights and freedom of speech during times of military emergency, as well as the establishment of a new agency for crisis management.
...

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said he is not expecting sharp reaction from Asian neighbors who often consider Japan's attempt to give its military more flexibility a military threat because of their bitter wartime memories under Japan's aggression.
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South Korea's ruling Millennium Democratic Party, however, swiftly criticized the new laws and demanded further explanation.

"Japan should be blamed for its actions that irritate neighboring countries while failing to repent for its past, which imposed tremendous human and material sacrifices on those countries," party deputy spokesman Kim Jae-doo said in a statement posted on its Web site. "We were shocked at the passage of the security bills."

He called on Japan to explain the bills to its neighbors and especially to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who arrived in Tokyo Friday for a state visit. Roh was due to meet Koizumi Saturday.

Japan's pacifist post-World War II constitution renounces war as means to solving international disputes. The feature is cherished by liberals who abhor Japan's wartime militarism and an annoyance to conservatives who say it is too inflexible.

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Judge: Woman Can't Wear Veil in ID Photo
ap
Her lawyers argued that instead of a driver's license photo, she could use other documents such as a birth certificate or Social Security card to prove her identity if necessary.

But a state attorney countered that Islamic law has exceptions that allow women to lift their veil and expose their face if the action serves a public good. Assistant Attorney General Jason Vail said arrangements can be made to have Freeman photographed only with women present to allay her concerns about modesty.

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Jordan proves democracy is more than free votes--
Iraq: what must be done now
Mark Steyn, just back from the Middle East, says that a new order cannot be rushed into existence
The Spectator
In rural Jordan, a candidate runs on his Rolodex. He’s the guy with high-level contacts in Amman who can use ’em to bring home the bacon, or the pork, or whatever the Muslim equivalent is. That’s the message of the suit. If the plaid in a New Hampshire primary is supposed to signal that the guy’s one of us, the Savile Row get-up in Azraq is supposed to send the opposite message: this guy’s one of them — in a suit like that, there’s no reason why you couldn’t find him sitting across the banqueting table from Queen Rania. That’s the man your tribe or village needs in Amman. In Jordan, the electoral districting is weighted towards the rural areas, and the local newspapers carry ads announcing the various tribes’ and families’ candidates. Because they’re running tribally, they avoid taking a stand on contentious matters, such as the recent court decision giving an Amman plumber one year in jail for the ‘honour crime’ of strangling his sister. In fact, they avoid taking a stand even on uncontentious matters.
...

And that’s it. That’s the choice. There are no arguments about tax rates or education expenditure or foreign policy.
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Freedom is more than a free vote. Britain is defined not by the one day in five years that it goes to the polls but by the broader framework of which that vote is an expression. Canada, the subject of some pretty feeble maple-boosterism in these pages last week, would be a poor country if judged strictly by its national politics: at the federal level it’s a one-party state. But Canadians still live, just about, in liberty. If you look at healthy nations, competitive electoral politics is often the final stage of their journey: property rights, the rule of law, enforceable contracts and many other things come first. Fareed Zakaria has just published an interesting book on this theme, The Future of Freedom, in which he notes one of the trends of this post-Cold War era: the thug nations from Africa to Central Asia are developing the knack of holding elections while remaining, in all other respects, tyrannies.

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