bitter sanity

2006-08-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

Scary questions of our timesOne of the scariest of those questions - if you spend most of the day reading and writing, at least, and trying to forget about the really scary ones such as "When is Iran going to set off a nuke in Baghdad?" - is "Is this a clever parody, or the real thing?" From the comments thread on a Tapped post on Walmart comes this: gem of sarcasm, or primo blend of craziness

2006-06-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

We're the UN, and we're here to help you*ring* *ring* *ring*Hello! You've reached the United Nations. Your call *is* important to us!Please listen to the following options:Par francais, s'il vous plait appuyez sur "neuf".If a neighboring country has invaded and annexed yours, press 1 for an emergency meeting of the Security Council, to be held within 30 days.If your local dictator has been

2006-05-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

Quote of the dayHmmm. It seems that the NYT and Senator Kerry are resurrecting the "Christmas in Cambodia" story. God only knows why; it doesn't reflect well on Kerry. However, I was reminded of another remark Kerry made a year and a half ago, on Meet the Press. Roll tape:MR. RUSSERT: [...] In a letter to the Boston Herald, you remember spending Christmas Eve '68 five miles across the Cambodian

2006-02-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

The cold breath of the silenceDouglas Murray writes in the London Times:...The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack.A few days ago, this silence breathed past me, just

2006-02-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

Mirror-imaging, the press, the public, and BushThe Big Guy had a post yesterday on the Dubai ports deal, with a series of updates from various military types attesting to UAE cooperation and help in the war, along with some speculation that any "quid pro quo" which helped put this deal through might have to do with the current Big Headache, Iran. Glenn notes at the end, "You'd think the White

2005-12-25T20:25:00.000-08:00

Thought of the dayMerry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

2005-10-22T22:50:00.000-07:00

The song remains the same, 2001-2005 In re Afghanistan, 2001-2002: "graveyard of empires""natural warriors""quagmire""the holy month of Ramadan""the brutal Afghan winter""Millions of Afghans will starve to death.""The Arab street will explode." In re Iraq, 2002-2003: "hundreds of thousands of refugees""Saddam will use his chemical weapons against our troops.""quagmire""isolated and without allies

2005-10-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

A few predictions I've been thinking that it's only a matter of time before mainstream thought in this country begins the process of lionizing Saddam Hussein. With his trial beginning, the tone of media coverage is starting to bear out my worst fears. (You wouldn't think it would be possible to admire someone who has done what Saddam has uncontestably done, but in a country where people wear

2005-09-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

Not so much bitter as sour I wonder, now that it looks as though the death toll from Katrina may be smaller than was feared at first, how long it will be before we start hearing mutters to the effect that those greedy Americans exaggerated the scope of the disaster in order to cop aid and/or sympathy from the world? (Five years ago, such a thing would never have occurred to me, and I would have

2005-09-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

Maaaaannnnn The mayor of New Orleans is an ass:I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here. I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country

2005-09-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

The ghosts of storms past Sound familiar?Those who had the money to flee Hurricane Ivan ran into hours-long traffic jams. Those too poor to leave the city had to find their own shelter - a policy that was eventually reversed, but only a few hours before the deadly storm struck land. New Orleans dodged the knockout punch many feared from the hurricane, but the storm exposed what some say are

2005-09-01T04:34:00.000-07:00

A modest proposal After reading about some of what's going on in New Orleans - in particular, about the general disorder, refugees and volunteers arriving at the Astrodome and being turned away by guards who appear to know nothing, people being ordered to leave the city but with no provision for transportation or suggestions as to how to leave, and in general, the growing awareness of a complete

2005-08-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

The autism of politics The New York Times' hagiography of the day for Cindy Sheehan includes this tidbit, trivial and idiosyncratic but all too revealing:Casey Kelley, 61, a semiretired real estate broker from Colorado who drove 1,000 miles in her camper with her dog, Lucky, to help Ms. Sheehan, said: "It's us versus them again. I haven't felt this since the Vietnam War."Glenn Reynolds has

2005-08-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

The truth, loudly and without decorum Andrea speaks for me:There are days when I have absolutely no patience with our coddled, neurasthenic, infantile society, and this is one of them. I am tired of people complaining that the administration isn’t acting in perfect concord with the thoughts of ten thousand people writing on the internet. I am getting tired of people complaining that the

2005-08-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

Historical perspective, illustrated Right Wing Nut House has some thoughts on yesterday's anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima:It happens every year. A gigantic spasm of anti-Americanism breaks out all over the world on August 6th as people gather in every major city to condemn the use by the United States of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. And yet, there is no similar day set aside by

2005-07-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

The problem with living in these times... ...is that so often I have genuine trouble telling whether a statement is a parody, or intended in deadly (if entirely stupid) earnest. For example, this comment from Harry's Place:Once we've dealt with the Muslim fundamentalists, we're going to have to take on the Christian fundamentalists. As we sit here wondering how to get Islam through a reformation,

2005-07-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

Pointer Fat Steve's Blatherings offers a timeline and links roundup of the Plame/Wilson affair (which will apparently, contrary to breathless expection, not doom the evil Lord Rove). Don't neglect the comments, in which there is more information about the so-called "crudely forged documents". (via Tim Blair)

2005-07-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Blogosphere Best. Blog. Name. EVER: Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays For WAR. This blog also notes new site We're Not Afraid. Not sorry, and not afraid either. Go and look.

2005-07-09T00:06:00.000-07:00

Blood for blood Lee Harris has written perhaps the most insightful thing I've seen on the mind of the enemy since his "Fantasy Ideology". In this latest essay, he compares what they think they're doing not to war, but to tribal feud:In the blood feud, the orientation is not to the future, as in war, but to the past. In the feud you are avenging yourself on your enemy for something that he did in

2005-06-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

The Anchoress Speaks And she saith:Words mean things. “Torture” means more than rap music: "And if President Bush had a D after his name, instead of an R, the same people who vilify him would be calling him a great liberator and defender of human rights throughout the world. And Amnesty International would perhaps be looking at France’s treatment of people in the Ivory Coast, or China’s crackdown

2005-06-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

Oil for palacesA few weeks back, the Weekly Standard had a useful article on the ins and outs of the oil-for-food scandal. One thing it clarified for me was something I had never quite understood, which is what these "vouchers" were and how they could be used to bribe people who weren't in the oil industry:Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this

2005-06-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

Theresa Schiavo, Revisited The New York Review of Books has a thoughtful article on the case of Theresa Schiavo that's well worth reading for its attachment to cold fact - the author seems to have actually done research, something not in much evidence among pundits while Schiavo was dying - and for its careful consideration of difficult matters attached to the case and how those impacted the

2005-06-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day Made me snicker, in a cruel, cynical sort of way:The United States government and its leadership are a gang of criminals who should be isolated, sanctioned, arrested, and condemned as in principle no better than the undeniably criminal Sudanese government--but, by the way, it would be excellent if the Great Satan would also mount its noble charger, rattle its weapons, gird up its

2005-05-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

Lessons in using terminology for propaganda, part 8,274,162The AFP gives us this caption on a photo of an Egyptian pro-democracy poster:An Egyptian woman screams as she and other members of the left-wing umbrella organization Kefaya (Enough) are roughed-up by supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak while participating in a protest in Cairo against the referendum on changing the electoral

2005-05-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

The Sin Eater"I was sorry to hear about the trouble in Uzbekistan. I heard that a lot of people are blaming the US for that too.Sometimes I feel as if America is some kind of global sin eater."- Terrye, commenter on Roger Simon's blog

2005-05-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

An irreverent thought experiment A semi-famous artist places a copy of the Koran in a glass jar, fills the jar with his urine, photographs the result, and calls the work "Piss Prophet". It is exhibited and written up, the suddenly no-longer-"semi"-famous artist is interviewed by the most prestigious media outlets, and a world media storm ensues. What happens next? Devout Muslims writing angry

2005-05-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

Possibly the first-ever fisking of a prayerTo celebrate (more precisely to deprecate) the elevation of Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy, the Women's Ordination Conference brings us "WOC's Offering of Spiritual Nourishment", written by one "Aisha Taylor, WOC's Program Director":Abba Godde,* we come to YouCan we declare a moratorium on the use of ancient languages for purposes of spiritual

2005-05-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

Oh manI just found out something about Charles Graner, the ringleader of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, that I hadn't realized until now. Quoth the NYT:But Private Graner had not completely cut off relations with Private England. On Jan. 2, 2004, he was caught sleeping in Private England's quarters and demoted.[...]The two spent evenings together during the trial, and it was there that Private

2005-04-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Group slidesRichard Delevan remarked a few days ago:We're a fan of Indymedia in principle, if for no other reason that it makes them easier for me and my NSA/CIA/MI5/Mossad/Special Branch mates to monitor. And because they produce for us our best nicknames: "fascist", "neocon", "mean", "not a great dancer".But one thing has interested us about the Indymedia universe and the blogosphere: why do

2005-03-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

The first and the lastFirst they advocated the right of patients to order treatment withdrawn. I considered it a good thing, because I believe the right to refuse treatment is absolute. And I was right in this: respect for a person's rights and dignity absolutely requires that they not be treated against their will.(I did sort of notice that most of the people who were speaking in favor of "the

2005-03-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

Theresa Schiavo: Arguments in favor (IV)Third argument in favor of denying food and water to Theresa Schiavo:She's not a person anyway.The third argument is the most troubling to me. This argument is, essentially, that Theresa Schiavo does not have a right to continue living because the severity of her disability renders her a non-person. When she suffered such massive brain damage, she lost her

2005-03-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

Theresa Schiavo: Arguments in favor (III)Second argument in favor of denying food and water to Theresa Schiavo:The family should decide. The second argument is that Theresa Schiavo's next of kin are or should be empowered to decide to deprive her of food and water, and thus leave her to die. The popular echo of this argument is the often-heard lament that Congress has "interfered in a family

2005-03-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

Theresa Schiavo: Arguments in favor (II)The first argument in favor of denying food and water to Theresa Schiavo:Respect for Terri's wishes requires her death. The popular echo of this argument is the characterization of this situation as a "right to die" case, with the assumption that Theresa Schiavo would have wanted to die under these conditions. This assumption is based on a report by Michael

2005-03-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

Theresa Schiavo: Arguments in favor (I)First, some quick facts as I have gleaned them, to provide a basis for continuing:Everyone (who has actual knowledge of the case) agrees that Theresa Schiavo is not brain-dead. Brain death has a specific legal meaning: it means cessation of all brain activity. A brain-dead body cannot be kept going, heart beating, etc. without extreme medical intervention,

2005-03-23T14:51:00.000-08:00

Concerning Terri SchiavoEveryone, it seems, is discussing Terri Schiavo's case. Everyone has an opinion.My own position on this is a simple one. I don't know whether she is in a PVS, nor what she may have said about treatment should she become disabled, nor whether her husband's motives in all this are loving or malign. I have an opinion on whether she is able to perceive and respond to her

2005-03-20T19:12:00.000-08:00

Vietnam: the defeatless defeatI've thought before that one of the reasons for the sense of unreality that shimmers off the Left when it's characterizing Iraq as a sandy "quagmire", and demanding "American troops out now!", is that neither it nor America ever faced any consequences for bugging out of Vietnam.Sure, the pictures of desperate people trying to get into the last helicopters were

2005-03-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

Pravda on the HudsonI get the NYT's daily emailing of top stories. Today, it said:Orlando Mayor Is Indicted in Absentee Ballot CaseBy ABBY GOODNOUGHMayor Buddy Dyer faces a felony charge of paying someone tocollect absentee ballots before his election in a tightrace last year.and I knew at once, even though I've never heard of Buddy Dyer, that he's a Democrat. Because otherwise, the NYT would

2005-02-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

Scratching my head You've probably seen the Anheuser-Busch ad showing a group of soldiers coming home through an airport and getting a spontaneous round of applause on their way through. Some might think it hokey or sentimental. I have a bit of a hard time understanding why anyone might be offended by it, though. But apparently someone is. Best of the Web refers to a Guardian [moan] column by

2005-02-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

A thought on history Someone the other day, I can't recall who, said that watching Bush's speeches now, he has the feeling of seeing history in the making. I've been feeling like this for a while. I've witnessed other important moments, of course (at least, "witnessed" through the media) and never felt that sense of history at the time. Now, though... on the Saturday night and Sunday of the

2005-02-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

Speaking of an odd affinity for dolls What the hell is this supposed to be? A doll protest? What? What? This is on the site of George Galloway's political party - you remember George, the British MP who told Saddam, "Sir, I salute your strength, your courage, your indefatigability" and went on to babble something about "On to Jerusalem!" - but there doesn't seem to be anything explaining this

2005-02-01T17:01:00.000-08:00

"I swear to Allah, if you do not release our brave warriors held in captivity, by next week Garfield the cat will have a whole new reason to hate Mondays" A new hostage-taking was announced today, but it seems our jihadist friends may have been reduced to threatening to behead G.I. Joe dolls: The story, with a picture of the doll, at Wizbang (Post title stolen from Ace of Spades, who offers a

2005-01-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

The alchemy of elections... ...seems to have caused an outbreak of sanity and humanity in one of the places you'd least expect it. Yes, Democratic Underground, where several people are responding with disbelief to one poster who proclaimed his hope that "the resistance" would kill Iraqis who had "betrayed their country" by voting. That poster is more or less what I've come to expect on DU. But

2005-01-27T21:32:00.000-08:00

Problems staying on message There's been some attention to an essay by professor Ward Churchill that argues that the 9/11 victims were "little Eichmans" who got what they had coming to them. This would make Churchill an idiot in good standing, but unaccountably, he seems to have poked a hole in the usual argument. Quoth the Rocky Mountain News:Churchill's essay argues that the Sept. 11 attacks

2005-01-14T07:45:00.000-08:00

Required reading Jason Van Steenwyk at Countercolumn (ne Iraq Now) provides an expert fisking of a Weekly Standard article. (He doesn't provide a link, but it appears to be this one). But it's not just a fisking. It's the most specific, pithy, and fact-based response that I can recall reading to the "we should have had more troops in Iraq" argument, from someone who's been in Iraq and seen these

2005-01-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day [ Considering how often you've posted lately, shouldn't that be "Quote of the fiscal quarter"? ed. Oh, shut up.] Something called "Ruth Conniff's Blog" (although it appears to be a regular column, not a blog) at the Progressive has, among other things, this: At the Republican convention in 1996 I went on a yacht cruise with some socially moderate Republican women who were

2005-01-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

Freedom of the press The NYT profiles the head of al-Arabiyya, a station that is trying to change emphasis from jihadist propaganda (from reading what Iraqis say, it used to be considered almost as bad as al-Jazeera) to a balanced "news" approach. It's long but fascinating.

2005-01-02T13:23:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day It's actually the quote of eight weeks or so ago, but we won't mind that. Norm Geras contemplates the reaction of right-thinking Britain to the presidential election: In contemporary debate on the liberal-left, it is sometimes suggested that, only with a few crazies, only at the very outside margin of this political sector, is there any serious problem about the commitment to

2004-12-12T18:09:00.000-08:00

A modest proposal Noting speculation that Kerik actually had more damaging problems, and used the "illegal immigrant nanny" story to get out of the nomination without overmuch scrutiny, Kaus suggests: "Every public figure should keep at least one illegal housekeeper around, just in case! [...] No need to look any further! Just another nanny problem!" I have nothing really to say about this,

2004-11-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Darfur Occasionally, I hear remarks to the effect that America doesn't care about democracy or human rights in Iraq - that all that is a sham - because if we did, we'd immediately invade the Sudan to put a stop to the genocide in Darfur. I'm trying to imagine what the reaction would be if Bush emerged from the White House and announced that (after consulting with Britain, Poland, Tanzania and

2004-11-14T08:41:00.000-08:00

Alternate history The Diplomad speculates on what might have become of America had it experienced certain crises just a little later in history:It’s quite possible that the USA would never have come into existence, its independence movement suppressed by “international peacekeepers.” A UN at the time of our Civil War almost certainly would have ensured the emergence of a Confederate States of

2004-11-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

Quote du jour "Why does France get a pass in its postcolonial interventions? Simply because there are no French to criticize them." -- Victor Davis Hanson, "The Ironies Ahead"

2004-11-07T17:55:00.000-08:00

Silliest quote of the day (And considering that we just had an election that the Democratic candidate lost, with the attendant obligatory wailing and gnashing of teeth, that's saying something.) This does not appear to be parody:Perhaps the happiest people are those who do not have much choice: Sisyphus may have got used to his rock-rolling lot, rock-bound Prometheus might well have become

2004-11-06T22:46:00.000-08:00

Worth reading Remarkably thoughtful discussion at Democratic Underground on how the Democratic Party can attract a wider diversity of voter. (Yes, I'm serious. Democratic Underground and "thoughtful" don't often belong in the same sentence, but this one is worth a look.) There is some paranoid crap, of course, but much of the conversation demonstrates people genuinely struggling with the issue.

2004-11-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

The last line of defense For the last couple of days I've been cruising Democratic blogs, as I did after the 2002 midterm election. Reading the comments, trying to gauge the mood among the party stalwarts. What I'm finding is causing me to think that the party really may be on the verge of becoming irrelevant. I wondered about this after the spanking the electorate administered in 2002. In that

2004-11-02T02:17:00.000-08:00

If Kerry is elected to the presidency of the United States today... (This is related to something I wrote in comments at Allah is in the House a while back:) I will not cheerlead American diplomatic defeats, express hope for American setbacks, or look on anti-American protests with creamy satisfaction. I also will not exaggerate American losses or use them to attack the president for the sake of

2004-10-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Read This Now This blog emerges from its months-long sloth to point to this, at Peeve Farm:I don't think Kerry's going to win, but I'm bracing myself nonetheless. I'm bracing for condescending, patronizing head-patting from European acquaintances, which is a good deal worse than such acquaintances simply ignoring me out of disgust. I'm bracing for Michael Moore riding the wave of celebratory

2004-10-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

I am no longer surprised... ...by press reluctance to confront the depraved nature of the actions of the enemy. The NYT, however, may have just set a new low in this regard. It was the headline that caught my eye: "Russian Official Says Beslan Rebels Were Addicts". Rebels. If this is indended to refer back to Chechnya, recall that at least some of the killers were Arab, not Chechen, and that all

2004-10-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day It's a bit buried in the middle of an NYT op-ed by Tommy Franks, so let's pull it out: The war on terrorism has a global focus. It cannot be divided into separate and unrelated wars, one in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. Both are part of the same effort to capture and kill terrorists before they are able to strike America again, potentially with weapons of mass destruction.This

2004-09-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

Department of "O Jesus" moments On occasion since 9/11, I've come across something, some statement, that makes me physically sick for a moment. This is an ad for the El Pais newspaper of Spain: "You can do a lot in a day. Imagine how much can happen in three months." El Pais' editorial position seems to be solidly anti-American. That's one thing. This... this is something else. I don't even

2004-08-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

Dept of "I may never vote for a Democrat again" Senator Carl Levin has been talking to unnamed foreign leaders about the upcoming election: Levin said he has talked to foreign leaders about potential changes in their Iraq policies after the U.S. election. "Nobody is going to say what the details of the deal are. They simply report to us that distrust of the administration is so intense that you

2004-07-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Very brief Kerry speech reaction He lost me at "...reporting for duty". Condescension to serving military, check. Self-importance, check. Non-sequitor, check. It would of course have been worse had Kerry never served in the military. But it was bad enough as far as I'm concerned.

2004-07-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

What the...? I thought Tim Blair was having a little fun with his readers. I mean, yes, we see references to the Jews controlling the world... in Egyptian papers and in the weekly khutbas and occasionally in ANSWER missives. Not in mainstream Australian newspapers, usually. Comes now Margo Kingston, who writes for the Sydney Morning Herald(warning: evil registration involved; follow the link to

2004-07-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this blog for a moment of pure self-pity It's one in the morning here. The next-door neighbor is having a party, with loud music, directly opposite my bedroom window. (Not for the first time, and I know from experience that asking him to crank it down is pointless.) There is a loud drunk standing in the yard shouting insults about Condoleeza Rice, alternating with screams of "We're

2004-07-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

In the Middle East Quarterly, archaeologist Alexander Joffe revisits the looting of the Iraq National Museum (and the outraged narrative that followed in the press), using the events and their interpretation as a springboard to examine the relationship of archaeologists to the Baathist regime:[...] archaeologists submitted paperwork to the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, knowing

2004-07-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Paragraph found in an NYT article The NYT today has an article on security preparations for the Democratic and Republican conventions. Fears of terrorism, possible disruption in NYC and Boston, etc. Paragraph four is this:New York is regarded as a higher risk than Boston by counterterrorism officials because President Bush is a Republican and because of consistent intelligence.And that's it. No

2004-06-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

Compromise Brian Tieman at Peeve Farm has a long, thoughtful piece on the prerequisites for compromise - and why it's fruitless to keep calling for negotiations if one side is not willing to compromise - and also discusses why, politically, we sometimes have so much trouble accepting that compromise isn't going to work when the prerequisite isn't there. It should be obvious—it really should—that

2004-06-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, I read a short sentence somewhere that causes me to stop for a moment, all thought knocked out of my head, feeling as though I'd just run painlessly but firmly into a brick wall. One ricpic does it to me today, on a recent Roger Simon post on Ellis Island. In the midst of a group discussion of ancestry and everyone's families' immigration experiences and history: If it

2004-06-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

O Times, o mores,... The New York Times offers an email service, a daily summary with brief quote of top stories. Here's the summary of one of today's op-eds:OP-ED COLUMNIST All Hail Moore By DAVID BROOKS A beacon in the form of Michael Moore has appeared on the mountaintop, and tens of thousands have joined in the adulation.And here's the first paragraph of the actual piece:In years past,

2004-06-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

The seduction of narrative Eugene Volokh, scourge of Slate's Bushism/Kerryism of the week feature, speculates on why these columns are often so laughable:Part of the problem, I think, is precisely that these are regular columns, with constant plots -- not just constant subject matters (the war, the economy, or whatever else), but constant points (Bush misspoke, Kerry spoke in too complex a way,

2004-06-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

Whimper... Air marshalls ride along on commercial plane flights to stop hijackings. Unfortunately, if the hijacker's first move is to shoot the air marshall, they are of limited usefuless. Comes now an informative article on just how easy it is for hijackers to spot these "undercover" officers: As they settled into first class on American Airlines Flight 1438 from Chicago to Miami, they were

2004-06-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

"Gentlemen of the press..." Sometimes the media, cynical as I am about it, still manages to astonish me. Such a day is today, with the current jawdrop moment thanks to an unbylined reporter at AFP. The story describes Ghazi al-Yawar, the transitional president, thus:Announcing his cabinet, Allawi hailed what he described as the country's first step towards democracy. "After 35 years of

2004-05-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Step by step... Instapundit passes on a note from a reader about the NYT's new formulation, "No stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have been found since the invasion.So that's the new standard, I guess -- and a tacit admission that WMD have been found. But unless Bush can produce "stockpiles" now, it'll have all been a lie, you see. . . . Oh no. That's not far enough. There are steps in

2004-04-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Something to remember An Italian hostage was murdered today. This is an aspect I haven't seen emphasized in the news, but at Roger Simon, commenter TmjUtah points out:That the Italian's last words were in defiance ("Now I'll show you how an Italian dies!" while trying to rip off the hood covering his face -http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAWP2B43TD.html ) violates the terror style book; they look

2004-04-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

The difference Someone asked me the other day, "You compared building democracy in Iraq to the US experience with Germany and Japan after WWII. How come it's not going like that?" People have come up with a lot of reasons - both before and since the fall of Saddam - why Iraq would not be like Germany or Japan: level of previous exposure to democracy, degree of international legitimacy for the

2004-04-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

A thought about proxy war At Roger Simon's site, commenter Peony makes the following point: Ted Kennedy is correct to the extent that Vietnam was a proxy war between China and the US and later the Soviet Union and the US. Iraq is very much a proxy war between states (Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) masked behind an ideological movement and the US.This wasn't the case a year ago, of course,

2004-03-27T23:46:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day Mark Steyn sayeth, quoting Special Forces Colonel Mike Sheehan - in October 2000: "The Pentagon brass won't let Delta go get bin Laden. Does al-Qa'eda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?"Apparently. (via Instapundit

2004-03-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

The Great Divide (continued) I've written before here about the submerged differences in fundamental assumptions between European and American political thinking, and how these tend to appear as unpleasant surprises in crisis situations, sometimes after a long period of both sides erroneously thinking they agreed with one another when, in reality, they were simply following the same path of

2003-12-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

MS found in the dead-blogs list While combing my dead-blogs bookmarks to see whether any of them have come back to life, I found this prediction from Memento Mori, last February:There's a nice objectivist "fuck 'em, I've got mine" argument about the war which says: Iraqi civilians will suffer heavily if we don't go to war, and I don't give a rat's ass, because I don't want to make the effort. The

2003-12-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

Levels of warfare Donald Sensing posts on what we might do in response to a nuclear strike (responding to a Dean Esmay post on the subject):...let us accept Dean's first premise, that an American city might suffer a catastrophic strike by al Qaeda that would kill many, many thousands of citizens. Imagine an atomic truck bomb in an American metropolis. Imagine 30,0000 dead and 60,000 injured, or

2003-12-10T17:01:00.000-08:00

Various things ...which I want to make a note of but am too lazy to give each its own post:Christopher Hitchens interview, in which he gives a clearer picture of his views on the various subdivisions within the Left and his place therein. Part II here and includes a somewhat depressing series of inanities about Israel, but at least he stops short of advocating genocide.Sayyed Qutb's Milestones

2003-12-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

Stick a fork in them Instapundit posts on the Washington Post story claiming "Scandal!" because - wait for it - the turkey that Bush was photographed holding was not the turkey served to the troops in Iraq. (They were served other turkeys. This one was a centerpiece.) In response to this whole thing, Instapundit correspondent Elizabeth King lets loose with this: I now have an urge to rant that I

2003-12-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

The Ghost of Wars Past The CounterRevolutionary has been posting news articles from the aftermath of WWII. It's all there: quagmire, falling US prestige, battles between cabinet departments, lack of planning leading to trouble, guerilla warfare, discontented and angry people in the occupation zone.... Of course the analogy between 1946 Germany and 2003 Iraq is inexact - the war was faster, the

2003-12-04T17:12:00.000-08:00

Listening to Iraqis John Burns's reports from Iraq are becoming indispensable. I am starting to wonder what we'd be seeing if every Western reporter in Iraq 1) got out of the hotel once in a while 2) got out of Baghdad once in a while 3) got edgy and risk-taking enough to use translators who didn't used to work for the Mukhbarat. Today's article in the NYT recounts a conversation with four Iraqi

2003-12-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

EU report on European anti-Semitism It has been widely reported that the EU, after commissioning a report on anti-Semitic incidents in Europe, suppressed the findings because they were politically embarrassing: anti-Semitism is a rising problem, anti-Semitic attacks are largely perpetrated by young Muslim immigrants, and anti-Semitic rhetoric is emitted by the political left as well as by the far

2003-12-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

Those ol' debbil WMDs Stuart Cohen was actiing chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the time the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's WMDs was issued. The NIC website publishes a followup analysis and description. The document at times has an understandably testy tone: We do not know whether the ISG ultimately will be able to find physical evidence of Iraq's chemical and

2003-12-02T16:02:00.000-08:00

That phrase again Jimmy Carter spoke yesterday at the event that introduced the "Geneva Proposal" for the Middle East (basically Oslo II, so far as I can tell, except without the participation, approval, or interest of either polity involved): "had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final

2003-12-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

If the NYT diid not exist it would be necessary for anti-Americans to invent it Normally, I don't go in for Times-bashing, except when utterly obligatory. It's a prominent newspaper, it has a decided point of view, I don't always agree with that point of view... whatever. Today, however, the NYT has a story concerning a battle between American soldiers and Saddam Fedayeen. And what headline does

2003-11-29T10:01:00.000-08:00

Sigh Eamonn Fitzgerald of Rainy Day posted this lovely little "thank-you" to America the other day, which damn near made me cry. Unexpected kindness does that to me. Then his commenters promptly announced that they didn't agree, and overall the Irish are, too, anti-American.

2003-11-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

Dept of "What's wrong with this picture?" From the Washington Post, we read: The FBI, in an unprecedented move that has strained relations with a close ally in the war on terrorism, has subpoenaed records for dozens of bank accounts belonging to the Saudi Embassy...In other news, the Washington Post (dateline 1943) has a story that the US has strained relations with "a close ally in WWII" by

2003-11-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day The Economist, in an article on American protectionism against clothing imports from China: Now, the Commerce Department has shown that it is willing to use every device at its disposal to ward off the menace of cheap dressing gowns.(via Drezner, whose remarks are readworthy as usual)

2003-11-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

...to coin a phrase A number of people have commented on the apparent disconnect between some traditional ideals that the left associates itself with (humanitarian causes, human rights, opposition to dictatorship) and the behavior of much of the left and many soi-disant "liberals" at the moment ("People have been murdered in Istanbul? Who cares? It's Bush and Blair who are the killers!").

2003-11-20T13:11:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day Ralph Peters puts his finger on the media dynamics - go to the dramatic event, frame the story around it, ignore facts and events that don't fit in the frame - in a way that explains, briefly and colorfully, why the conventional media have behaved the way they have concerning Iraq: The terrorists push a potent drug, and journalists are the addicts.(via the Karmic Inquisition)

2003-11-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

The things we do for fashion Imshin at Not a Fish provides all the excuse I need for not getting off my butt and installing Movable Type: If I hang on long enough, Blogger will become retro and I will be cool, at last.Retro. That's the ticket.

2003-11-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

Return to Kurdistan Here's a series of articles by Sivan Ahmedi. A few tidbits: ...I asked my friend if it was truly advisable that I speak Kurdish in public. He told me, �It is not like the last time you were here. Now, because of the EU, the Turks cannot give us as much trouble.� I hesitantly trusted him and spoke Kurdish everywhere we went, and I indeed encountered no real trouble. [...] They

2003-11-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

Don't give them ideas Gene at Harry's Place saw an ad for a restaurant named "Michael Moore". It turned out that the Moore for whom the restaurant is named is not the famous MM, but it inspired this brief fantasy: The walls would be decorated with deer rifles and anti-gun-control bumper stickers. The wait staff would wear cowboy boots and George W. Bush masks. The only items on the menu would be

2003-11-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

On touchscreen voting machines Volokh has a number of posts this week on the issues surrounding touchscreen voting machines, counting, etc. Eugene Volokh seems to think giving a receipt to the voter is being proposed; I've never heard this suggested, but if it has been, the suggestor should be slapped with a large fish into which has been carved the phrase "Secret Ballot". Diebold's management

2003-11-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

The measure of success Instapundit sets a low bar for success in Iraq: But, you know, Russia was a mess (and remains one) after the fall of the Soviet Union, for many of the same reasons. But it's still better the way it is, for them and for us. So it doesn't have to be perfect. Just good enough. The problems that Bannion describes remind me of Nigeria, which isn't a great place, but it's better

2003-11-16T18:03:00.000-08:00

Press puzzle I don't think the press is unbiased. I think that the culture of the world press is such that its members can generally be expected to oppose us in this war and to romanticize our enemies, and that media outlets express this bias in choice of stories, in level of coverage, in the wording of stories and headlines, and in all the things we refer to as "positioning". However, I have

2003-11-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

Department of Things You Just Can't Make Up ...although you may wish you had. Two synagogies in Istanbul are bombed in the middle of prayer services, and this is the response of the Secretary-General of the Arab League: Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mussa condemned Saturday the bombing of two synagogues in Istanbul, and held Israel responsible for inciting terrorism.This is usual. It's what

2003-11-04T15:22:00.000-08:00

Iron Curtain, redux A while ago, I noted the use of "Iron Curtain" in the recently-released transcript of a 1945 talk by John Foster Dulles, and asked whether this was the original use. Marten Barck (of the indispensable Watch) tells me: The first time the phrase is mentioned in Martin Gilbert (Churchill - A Life [845])is in a telegram from Churchill to Truman on May 12 1945: "An iron curtain is