Tuesday, October 29, 2002
[posted by jaed at 4:11 PM]Testing... testing... one two three...
Thursday, September 26, 2002
[posted by jaed at 1:00 AM]Test
Have I mentioned how much I hate Blogger?
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
[posted by jaed at 10:14 AM]An interesting article on the handling of the Zacharias Moussaoui case by prosecutors, challenging much of the conventional wisdom on the whistleblower Coleen Rowley, etc.
Moussaoui was certainly connected to Al Qaeda, but his real value to the United States may have been as a witness and not as a stand-in for the dead hijackers, who are beyond punishment. That potential appears to have been traded away for the sake of a high-profile prosecution that is politically and emotionally satisfying.
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
[posted by jaed at 10:11 AM]Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way
Jason Rylander is understandably annoyed by the Democratic Party's refusal to speak substantively on the question of war with Iraq. But I think the Democrats are in a cleft stick here. If they say, "We believe, in light of Democratic Party principles, that the president's overall Iraq policy is the right one," they run a serious risk of alienating their core of Demo activists and party faithful - which is somewhat anti-war and, maybe more to the point, almost pathologically anti-Bush and anti-Republican at the moment. On the other hand, if they say, "In light of Democratic Party principles we must oppose the idea of going to war with Iraq," they lose most of the general public. If either of those effects proved permanent or long-lasting, they'd risk losing their cohesiveness as a party - they can't survive as a major party either having lost their core or having become a decided minority through losing broad support.
So they anklebite; they complain that the timing is a campaign ploy, they mutter "Wag the Dog" out of one corner of their mouths and "We support the president...sorta" out of the other. In this way they retain visibility while not having to take a very risky stand. The trouble is, this strategy has its own risks if carried on too long or too blatantly, and we're now seeing them start to manifest themselves. When loyal Democrats start asking whether the Democratic Party has anything relevant to say about the most important political issue of the day, it's fair to say that the party has a problem.
And it's not one that's going to be dissipated by spin doctors goobering about "kitchen-table issues".
Friday, September 13, 2002
[posted by jaed at 9:25 AM]The cliche of "American Imperialism"
It occurred to me to wonder: if we were imperialists, wouldn't we have an empire?
I don't think the popularity of "Baywatch" reruns is quite up there in the same league as the British, French, and Roman incarnations, somehow.
Sunday, September 01, 2002
[posted by jaed at 8:51 AM]And thhey wonder why I'm cynical
Mbeki, at a pre-summit gala Sunday night at which dancers wore costumes including giant giraffe heads, said it should help end suffering and a "global apartheid" caused by the yawning gap between rich and poor.Reuters Wire | 08/25/2002 | Protesters Warned as Earth Summit Looms
Thursday, August 22, 2002
[posted by jaed at 9:37 PM]Satire is dead
There are some ledes that just lead you right through the glass and make you realize you're in an alternate universe:
American federal authorities are turning their attention from terrorists to users of peer-to-peer networks, who could be jailed for up to five years.-ZDNet - US Justice Department ready to prosecute file-swappers
Don't these people have jobs?
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
[posted by jaed at 10:13 PM]ATC Heroes of 9/11
USA Today, of all media outlets, has a minute-by-minute account of the air-traffic controllers' decisions on September 11th - decisions which may have prevented more attacks.
The only thing I'm wondering is, why are we only hearing about this now, after nearly a year of the "Mineta made the decision" urban legend?
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
[posted by jaed at 5:45 PM]Pretty pictures about unpretty things:
I'm simple-minded in some ways. When dealing with large amounts of data, graphs say more to me than columns of figures and explanatory text. This particular large amount of data has to do with death totals in the Middle East.
Thursday, August 01, 2002
[posted by jaed at 9:14 PM]Documentary evidence
I clearly remember seeing on the tube at least three groups of Palestinian Arabs celebrating the 9/11 attack... but for some reason, it's become hard to locate the images on media websites. This site is maintaininga collection of celebratory images. Best not to forget.
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
[posted by jaed at 10:45 AM]That certain shudder of recognition
The Truth Laid Bear reports from July 28, 2014.
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
[posted by jaed at 12:11 PM]"It's all a conspiracy!"
The American Prospect offers an article debunking the theory that Bush attacked Afghanistan (and perhaps even orchestrated the 9/11 attacks) in order to clear the way for the famed Caspian Oil Pipeline. This theory never seemed to me to pass the giggle test - among other things, it smacks just a bit too much of desperation ("No Blood For Oil! Wait a minute - you say Afghanistan doesn't have any oil? Oh... well... um, there must be an oil connection in here somewhere, no matter how tenuous..."). But the background is interesting.
Afghanistan never made much sense as a transit point for energy, and today less than ever. In the mid-1990s, when the Unocal project arose, Turkmenistan was desperate to find new export markets for its gas. Russia, which had traditionally bought almost all Turkmen gas, was in a prolonged post-communist recession, and its purchases had plummeted from 88 billion cubic meters in 1992 to about 15 billion cubic meters in 1996. Furthermore, Moscow was refusing to allow Turkmenistan to use its vast pipeline network to send gas to non-Russian customers -- despite the fact that Pakistan and India faced gas shortages and were eager to buy from Turkmenistan. Hence there was at least a commercial logic to the Unocal proposal.
Today the situation has completely changed. In 2000 the Russian economy emerged from its deep slump, prompting the country to sign a special arrangement with Turkmenistan for gas imports. Since then, Turkmen exports to Russia have climbed steadily and now stand at around 31 billion cubic meters. As part of the deal the Russians have become more generous in allowing Turkmen exporters to utilize their pipeline system.
At the same time, the customers that Unocal had foreseen for Turkmen gas have disappeared. Turkey has lined up sufficient future supplies from Russia and Azerbaijan, while Pakistan has discovered domestic supplies and no longer needs to import gas. That leaves only India, which has cheaper alternatives than buying Turkmen gas that's been shipped across three countries.
Saturday, July 20, 2002
[posted by jaed at 6:07 AM]Fool for a client
The transcript of the hearing in which Zacarias Moussaoui tried to plead guilty. Example of his legal knowledge:
It is defined by the Black Dictionary of Law as an equitable plea that affirmatively allege new matter that are outside the bill. A pure plea must track the allegation of the bill, not evade it or mistake its purpose.
So by entering this pure plea, I will first have to track the indictment. Then -- or before, make specific statement regarding my involvement, my participation in a known terrorist group since 1995, but -- so I enter formally today a pure plea and affirmatively plead.
Sigh.
Friday, July 12, 2002
[posted by jaed at 9:29 PM]Jonah Goldberg is crabby today
"Before Sept. 11, it was just an opinion, 'I think we should hate the others,' " Batarfi says. "After Sept. 11, we found out ourselves that some of those thoughts brought actions that hurt us, that put all Muslims on trial."
I see. It's not the hating, per se, which is the problem. It's that darned blowback the hating creates. If we could just hate "the others" (Read: Christians, Jews, Hindus, and everybody else who isn't a Muslim) without creating so many hassles for Muslims well, then, everything would be fine.
Thursday, July 11, 2002
[posted by jaed at 10:51 AM]Not just a river in Egypt
The Israelis are feeling a little exasperated. Well, who can blame them? I'm feeling a little exasperated myself. An Egyptian national with a history of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish comments, who got pissed off because someone displayed an American flag after 9/11, goes to LAX, on the Fourth of July, heads straight for the El Al counter and starts shooting, but there's no reason, none at all, to suspect this might have been a terrorist attack? Is the FBI overrun with fools, or do they think Americans are all fools? I'm honestly not sure which possibility frightens me more.
(In the thankful-for-small-favors department, at least the FBI has conceded that the attacker, who went armed with two guns, a knife, and a shitload of ammunition, probably was planning violence. Thank God we have a Federal Bureau to Investigate these things for us.)
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
[posted by jaed at 12:16 PM]The Arab Onion
Our friends at the Arab News have outdone themselves. It seems there's a new threat to Arabs: terrorist reporters!
A number of Western cells are presently operating in Saudi Arabia, both overtly and covertly, and have launched periodic assaults [...] The Westerners who make up these cells are experts in psychological terrorism. [...] the lost cause of breathing life into a profession dying a quiet death in their home countries: serious, objective journalism. [...] a Saudi teenage girl was found in tears after falling victim to a psychological terror attack by a foreign reporter, who had been walking around under cover of looking like a total and utter idiot [...]Yes, you're reading that right. Clueless reporters are united in a terrorist attack on Saudi Arabia.
One hesitates in these cases to know how to respond? Are they, perhaps, actually serious? Is this satire? Or is a British or American freelance writer perhaps having a little fun with the editors?
Monday, June 24, 2002
[posted by jaed at 11:08 PM]Ahhhh, how refreshing...
It is unusual for me to react this way to anonymous statements made by government departments, but this week, the Pentagon outdid itself in the plain-speaking-of-truth department. It seems the Pentagon was asked about the "controvery" over the French best-seller "The Horrifying Fraud" by Thierry Meyssan, who contends that no airplane crashed into the Pentagon - instead, a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy fired a missile at it - and that, while planes did hit the WTC, they were actually flown by, yes, the same VWRC. To quote:
A Pentagon spokesman said, "There was no official reaction because we figured it was so stupid."
Do you think we could fire a whole lot of government spokespeople and clone this person from the Pentagon?
Friday, June 21, 2002
[posted by jaed at 12:01 AM]Marriages to Saudi men: the State Department speaks
Or, well, it did speak until a protest from the Saudi government caused it to remove from its web site a compendium of advice for American women contemplating marrying Saudi men. Fortunately, ABC news has preserved a mirror of the advice for us to read. It begins with a general word of advice:
Survivors of dual-national marriages
Quite a phrase.
provide a checklist for American women to consider prior to making a commitment to living in the Kingdom. The stories of those whose marriages have failed underline the necessity of looking before leaping into the cultural chasm that separates Saudi husbands from their American wives.
The tone of the document is matter-of-fact. There are no horror stories here. But the picture it paints of the socially isolated American wife, at the mercy (quite literally) of her husband and his family, is chilling. So is this little tidbit, which helps explain the stories of kidnapping and detention of wives and their children:
Most American wives believe that the U.S. Embassy can issue exit visas in a pinch. This is not the case. The U.S. Embassy cannot obtain exit visas for American citizens. Passports issued by the Embassy are worthless as travel documents without the mandatory Saudi exit visa.
And why, you ask, is there no such document for American men contemplating marriage to Saudi women? The document helpfully explains:
Saudi women are prohibited from marrying non-Arabs except with a special dispensation from the King.
(Has anyone notified Noam Chomsky that the Saudis have miscegenation laws?)
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
[posted by jaed at 8:24 PM]Looking into the crystal ball:
The Telegraph reports on the visit of Leila Khaled to Britain to speak. You remember Khaled - she was a plane hijacker three decades ago, and is responsible for several deaths. They invited her to speak at the House of Commons in January; this visit, she's telling something called "the School for Oriental and African Studies" that people who blow up babies are actually "freedom fighters".
Now let's set the Way Ahead Machine to 2007, and see what the future holds:
Reuters News Service -- London, England -- September 11 2007 -- Osama bin Laden, long suspected of complicity in the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, today spoke before the British House of Commons. Mr. bin Laden told the Members of Parliament that Britain has "much to atone for", and concluded his address by reading a poem of his own composition praising the suicide bomber who recently blew up an Israeli day-care center as "the pure one who brings liberation with his pristine body".
The US State Department called the speech "unhelpful" and "provocative"; however, the UK interior ministry issued a statement saying that "Honestly engaging perspectives such as Mr. bin Laden's is essential in the modern world" and "The Americans must learn that they cannot expect the rest of the world to follow their lead."
Mr. bin Laden is a respected figure within the terror group al Qaeda, which last month claimed responsibility for the smallpox attack that has thus far claimed 230,000 American lives. He is scheduled to speak on "Liberation and Jihad" to the School for Oriental and African Studies a week from now, and may speak at other meetings, though his spokesman describes the trip as "primarily a recruiting effort".
Anyone care to lay odds?
(Link via Little Green Footballs.)
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
[posted by jaed at 3:06 PM]blogspot annoyance
Testing, testing, one two three....
Thursday, May 09, 2002
[posted by jaed at 1:02 PM]Off the wall thought for today: Unite Arabia!
The more I learn about the aftermath of World War I, the more I admire the title David Fromkin chose for his book on the making of the modern Middle East: A Peace to End All Peace.
That's what it was, all right. The treaty of Versailles resulted, twenty years later, in a conflagration in Europe that exceeded the carnage of the Great War. In the Middle East, the French and British split up peoples, moved monarchs and tribal leaders around like so many pawns on a chessboard, and drew borders willy-nilly, because they were afraid Arab nationalism would pose a future danger to their interests.
Great. Look at what we have to deal with instead.
So I'm wondering, in high-handed imperialistic fashion: what if we redrew the borders in the Middle East, and undid some of these arbitrary disasters, with an eye to uniting the Arabs politically? It may seem like a startling idea, but think about it. A unified Arab economy would almost certainly be healthier than the current mix of extraction economies and remittance economies, and a healthy economy, while not a solution to everything, is less likely to breed monsters. A single state, with a single leadership, would be easier for us to deal with than the current squabbling bunch, almost certainly.
Best of all, we could rid ourselves (not to mention the Arabs) of the useless House of Saud, sponsors of terrorism and general makers of violent mischief. Jordan is, even now, much better off than Saudi Arabia - more healthy economy (despite the fact that oil makes Saudi Arabia richer), more democratic institutions, more public participation in government, less general religious insanity. Put the Hashemites back on the throne of Arabia (which is, after all, where they came from, before the British peeled off a piece of the Mandate as a consolation prize for the Hashemite kings after giving Arabia to the Sauds), help establish a constitutional monarchy, and dump the Sauds in the nearest trash receptacle.
In the aftermath of WWII, we undid the disaster that was the Treaty of Versailles - and as a result we have a peaceable and prosperous Germany which has shown no signs of wanting to make war again. Is it possible to have a peaceful and prosperous Arab world that likewise does not want to kill people? Maybe it's time to think about undoing Picot-Sykes.
Thursday, May 02, 2002
[posted by jaed at 11:07 PM]The monster under the bed:
A 37-year-old British Jew speaks:
I could not imagine anything more fanciful than the idea that my countrymen might turn on me. I am the third generation of my family to be born here and as British as anyone. Israel is an idea, and a country, which I support; but it is a foreign country with whose citizens I have nothing more in common than a shared religion.
I now know different.
Yeah. The rest of us are starting to figure it out as well.
We didn't kill Nazism half a century ago. We thought we had. We thought this evil, at least, had been driven out of the world forever. There are plenty of other evils still active, but this particular toxin was dead, dead, dead.
But I've been reading about the synagogue burnings and Jews being beaten up on the streets in France. And the Saudis printing the blood libel. And some fool clergyman in Scotland deciding Easter was a good time to call the Israelis "Christ-killers" in the form of a mural. And Hamas talking openly about how many Jews they can kill, and no one sounding horrified or even surprised about that. And...and....
...and I am starting to feel the way Sigourney Weaver felt at the end of Alien when, safe in her emergency shuttle, having escaped from her ship, she suddenly noticed a shadow behind some machinery and saw the alien, still alive, uncoiling itself up from the floor, rising to nine feet in height and looking at her.
I'm starting to have the dreadful feeling that fifty-seven years ago, we didn't kill Nazism after all. It just went underground.
[posted by jaed at 9:32 PM]
MEMRI again delivers the Latest in Lunacy, Hot Off the Presses (and I swear their stuff is so crazy-sounding that I'd conclude MEMRI was a front designed to try to make the Arabs look bad were it not for the fact that a) I've never seen anyone question their translations and b) when I've been able to check, their material has always proven out)
... where was I... yes, MEMRI delivers us this time the words of one Father Manuel Musalam, a Palestinian Christian clergyman, on the message of Jesus:
You are loathsome! You are contemptible! You are cowards! � because you cannot carry the message of Jesus in your hearts. The message of Jesus is one of love, sacrifice, mercy, life, and manhood, and these Christians of the world have no mercy, no compassion, no manliness, no sacrifice.
(He's complaining here that the Christians of the West haven't forcibly prevented Israel from trying to end the Palestinian occupation and hostage-taking in the Church of the Nativity.) Now, the message of Jesus...
- Love, check.
- Sacrifice, gotcha.
- Mercy, all clear here.
- Life, OK.
- Manliness... full stop.
Manliness? Me-heap-big-man-you-do-what-I-say-ness? The importance of virility? Honor above all? Somehow I missed that.
But at the very least this is more evidence in support of the idea that the honor/shame culture of the Arabs is at the root of this mess - more specifically, of why the Arabs cannot get out of it, since all the available avenues are either impossible (actually defeating Israel militarily and killing them all) or too humiliating for the product of an honor culture to contemplate (making peace, after all this time of the rhetoric of genocide, when it will be obvious to all that peace is sought out of weakness). And further evidence - remember, this is a Christian clergyman identifying "manliness" as a core principle of Christianity - that it's a manifestation of Arab culture, not of Islam as such.
Bonus quote: Bishop Alex, head of the Roman Orthodox Bishopric of Gaza, said, "Real Christianity means love and harmony, and it exists only in Palestine and the Holy Land." Love and harmony. Only in Palestine. Hmmm. Is it something in the water that drives the people there to say things like this? The air? A heretofore-unknown psychotomimetic agent? Maybe the UN should make itself useful and send WHO officials instead of a UNHRC team.
Just a wealth of quotes here:
Perhaps the Church of the Nativity will be destroyed and turn into rubble. Bush, the head of the Christian rulers, will be responsible for what happens to it.
...not, of course, the people who actually destroy it and turn it into rubble. The disclaimer of responsibility sounds a familiar note.
There's much more, not excluding the Christ-killer libel, references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the existence - the existence! - of Israel as an "unforgiveable sin", sympathy for poor Pope Pius XII, traduced just because he was complicit in the Holocaust...
[posted by jaed at 12:29 PM]
Winds of Change proposes a memorial to the heroes who recaptured Flight 93 before it could be used as a guided missile:
The fitting memorial I imagine for my heroes would not sit in one place, but in many places. It would be something that every American could hope to visit - and would be available outside America as well. In its forms, it would match the variety of those on the plane. Yet it would convey the same message. E Pluribus Unum: from out of many, one. It would not just remind, it would teach. Preferably by quiet example. As they did.
Wednesday, May 01, 2002
[posted by jaed at 2:37 PM]The persistence of lies
The Washington Times reports that Al Fatah has concluded the Palestinian death toll at the battle in Jenin was 56. Which is about what I'd expected it to come out as. Israeli officials estimated about 50 a week ago; other groups are providing about the same numbers.
Nonetheless, I know that in future years, friends attacking Israel will point to the "massacre" of Jenin, in which "hundreds were killed" and "the whole city was destroyed", in excuse for the latest atrocities. Just like they point to the merciless and deliberate Israeli killing of the child Muhammed al-Durra (who was caught in a shootout with his father and was killed by a Palestinian bullet, but the lie persists anyway). Lies have a habit of doing that, when they're repeated and reinforced and exaggerated with every trip around the globe.
The Weekly Standard also comments, in an article worth reading if only for the headline:
THE JENIN PROBE ENDS
The United Nations, unhappy about the prospect of seeing Israel exonerated, decides not to investigate Jenin.
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
[posted by jaed at 10:59 PM]Have our British Cousins completely lost their minds?
The Times reports:
Unarmed British police and prison officers risk becoming �sitting ducks� when they take on the unprecedented role of guarding six Palestinian terrorists in a jail in Jericho
Unarmed? They're sending them into a war zone, to guard prisoners who are popular wiith a local population that's lynched people before, and these foreign guards will be unarmed? Jesus, why not just pre-kill them and send in their dead bodies to save time?
"Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, told the Commons that it would be up to the Palestinian Authority to ensure their protection."
Oh, I'll just bet it will. What in hell are they thinking?
[posted by jaed at 1:52 PM]
MEMRI brings us the chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Association, homicidal lunatic.
Satire is dead. The Onion might as well pack it in and go home; reality has caught up with and surpassed its brilliance.
A few excerpts for your reading pleasure:
"[...]when a girl of 18 springs blows herself up [along with a few Jewish babies - ed], this means that her cause is right [...]"
"...The psychological structure [of the perpetrator of a suicide attack] is that of an individual who loves life."
"Remove the Apache [helicopter] from the equation, leave them one-on-one with the Palestinian people with the only weapon [for both sides] being dynamite. Then you will see all the Israelis leave, because among them there is not even one man willing to don a belt of dynamite..."
[Well, no, I can't say there's not even one Israeli who would stoop to the deliberate murder of random civilians for the sake solely of spite. Any country will have a few people with no honor, no humanity, not to mention no sense of strategy. But there are damn few, because most peoples react with horror and contempt to the animals in their midst instead of celebrating them.]
I'm getting too disgusted to go on with this. Go read it for yourself.
(link via
