wednesday February 1, 2006
250,000 superballs in san francisco
A visually striking Sony commercial. I thought the balls had been added digitally, but it's all real. After you watch the ad, click behind the scenes and see how they did it.
naked wedding
Gerard Van der Leun looks back:
THE FIRST TIME I WAS MARRIED I was married to over 200 naked people. We weren't quite buck naked. The men had crudely made laurel wreathes on their heads, sometimes just a wad of weeds, while the women had wreathes of flowers around their brows and, for those old enough to have any, small bouquets of blossoms lodged in their pubic hair. All the men had large clubs and all the women large breasts. It was the butt end of the 60s and people in my set tended to have that kind of equipment. What children there were tended to be either infants or toddlers, all still nursing at will.
The men and the women had separated an hour or so before the wedding and, at dusk, the two groups came together from opposite directions.
First the men came, chanting and grunting and pounding and waving their clubs. At our center was the groom, long black hair streaming down over his back, nude and tanned, under a kind of pagan huppah of a custom tie-dye made for the occassion and four sticks sporting Gods Eyes, also hand crafted for the ritual.
A wonderful time capsule on wry.
anbar tribes arrest 270 al-Qaeda thugs
The Anbar tribes’ campaign to rid the province of Zarqawi’s terror organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq is in its 2nd day and so far, 270 Arab and foreign intruders have been arrested.
[…]
Usama Jad’aan, the leader of Karabila tribes in Qaim told al-Hayat that “the operation will continue to eliminate terror elements according to a quality plan” and added “270 Arab and foreign intruders have been arrested, in addition to some Iraqis who were providing them shelter”.Sheikh Jad’aan added “the operation is conducted in coordination between the tribes and the minister of defense Sa’doun al-Dulaimi and since we arrested hundreds of terrorists, I don’t expect the operation to take a lot of time”.
state of the union
The most passionate the Democrats got all night was celebrating their thwarting Social Security reform. Given that two bipartisan commissions concluded reform was essential to its viability, it seems like a curious thing to cheer. But the current Democrat party is a curious animal.
save my seat!
One of our favorite parts of the SOTU is the reliable presence of a handful of House Dems who spend 364 days of the year lacing into Pres Bush, but spend a good chunk of this day camped out in aisle seats on the House floor so as to shake hands with the Prez and get some nat'l tv face time.
A House spy reports as of 3 p.m. (a full 6 hours before gametime) the following members were lined up in these primo positions. From the back of the chamber forward, the order was: Rep's Kildee (MI), A. Green (TX), Jackson Lee (TX), Tubbs Jones (OH), Jackson (IL).
Our eagle-eyed observer adds that most had purses or briefcases to "mark their territory."
tuesday january 31, 2006
whisky ted's race card is a joker
Anything can hapen in the bizarro world where the likes of Sen. Ted Kennedy gets to lecture others on morality. But yesterday's booming performance [video here] provided an extra-rich diet of irony:
- Ted foams up over the "march of progress" that he admits was only possible by actions from the courts. That is, policies he adores could not pass democratically elected legislatures. You need liberal judges making law for that.
- He smears Samuel Alito as a closet racist/sexist/elitist eager to undo civil rights legislation and screw the "working people." What's more elitist than being a spoiled rich kid who gets a young woman killed and then uses family connections to escape punishment?
- He claims that the Senate has a "responsibility to take this [nomination] to the American people." No, actually the Senate is charged with advice and consent, not the electorate. He then goes on to insult said electorate by saying they've just now starting paying attention to the nomination.
- Ted's speech was calling for a filibuster. The filibuster was the tool Senate Democrats used to block civil rights legislation for decades, forcing liberal judges to legislate from the bench. Al Gore's daddy voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So did Bill Clinton's mentor, Sen. William Fulbright.
national guard enjoys recruiting boom
National Guard officials yesterday said recruiting has accelerated so much in recent months that they expect to expand the Guard even as the Bush administration proposes to shrink it.
For the first time since 1993, the Guard exceeded a quarterly recruiting goal, signing up 13,466 recruits in the final three months of 2005, up from 12,605 the previous fall, said the National Guard Bureau, the Pentagon office that administers the Guard.
Mark Allen, a National Guard Bureau spokesman, attributed the 7 percent improvement to a new advertising campaign, a large increase in financial incentives and a near doubling of the number of recruiters, from 2,700 to 5,100.In a statement released yesterday, the Guard said it is "aggressively working" to reach the 350,000-troop level that it is funded for by the end of the current budget year on Sept. 30, despite Mr. Bush's call to cut the force next year to its current level of 333,000 troops.
It is unusual for a military organization such as the Guard Bureau to publicly suggest that it is moving in a direction that appears to differ from the administration's. Any talk of cutting the Guard is politically sensitive because Guard units are controlled by governors, except when they are mobilized by presidential order.
fly the plane, serve the drinks: what's the diff?
Canada serves as a canary in the PC coal mine: if you want to see where the American Left wants to steer our country, just look north. To liberals, everyone should be paid the same, hence:
The Canadian Union of Public Employees began the case in 1991, arguing that the airline discriminated because it paid attendants differently "for what it argued was equally valuable work performed by mechanical personnel and pilots."
Air Canada held that the three groups should be treated separately in legal terms because they worked in different establishments. The human rights commission agreed, but two court cases followed, which delivered split decisions.
Any waitress could learn to be a flight attendant. Heck, even I could be a flight attendant. But I'd make a lousy mechanic. And flying an airliner filled with human being takes more skill and training than opening cans of Pepsi from a drink cart.
Thus Canadians expose a commonly held Liberal fallacy: equal opportunity means equal outcomes.
child-like fantasy realm
In my remarks, I mentioned that the primary reason for the Arab-Israeli conflict was that the majority of Palestinians wanted Israel destroyed.
A woman who introduced herself as "a peace activist" walked over to me afterward and said I was wrong, that, in fact, the majority of Palestinians wanted peace with Israel. I asked her to go over to the Arab students who were attending a counter protest against Israel and ask them if they accepted the right of a Jewish state of Israel to exist. I bet her $5 they would say "no." She took the bet.
Fifteen minutes later, she came back to me.
"Well, who won the bet?" I asked.
"I don't know," she responded.
"What do you mean you 'don't know'? What did they say?"
"They all asked me, 'What do you mean?'"
Though not one Arab student answered "yes," she still didn't get it.
This peace activist, like other "peace activists" and just about everyone on the Left, lives in a state of wishful thinking. As director Steven Spielberg, commenting on the Arab-Israeli dispute, recently told Time magazine, "The only thing that's going to solve this is rational minds, a lot of sitting down and talking until you're blue in the gills."
On just about every issue, the Left lives in a childlike fantasy realm.
blogger helped paul martin out the door
On Monday, Canadian voters elected a new government, led by Stephen Harper and the Conservative party. Without the Internet, Paul Martin and the Liberals might still be ruling Canada.
Last year, Canadian Judge John Gomery was conducting an investigation of a money-laundering and kickback program in which the Liberal government had given $85 million to Montreal advertising firms. Rather than spending the money on advertising for government programs, the money was apparently distributed as payoffs to political allies. Gomery allowed the public to attend the public court hearings on the scandal, but forbade publication of events at the hearing. He hoped to be able to prevent the public from becoming prejudiced about the matter in the event that some of the alleged perpetrators were put on trial.
But a Canadian citizen who attended the hearing provided accounts to Minneapolis Web logger Ed Morrissey (who blogs at www.captainsquartersblog.com).Morrissey then published reports on his Captain's Quarters Web site. Canadian media continued to obey the publication ban, but Canada's CTV reported on the existence of Morrissey's site, which soon was attracting hundreds of thousands of readers daily.
Wapo pokes paul martin
Whatever their feelings about Mr. Bush, most Canadians probably agree with that sentiment. Canada sells 85 percent of its exports to the United States and depends on it for security as well as prosperity -- a fact that Mr. Martin opportunistically overlooked when he refused to join the U.S. missile defense program. His grandstanding merely gave Mr. Bush an excuse to ignore Canada's legitimate complaints about tariffs on softwood lumber and the impact of new border controls due to take effect this year.
Mr. Harper can be expected to stop the self-defeating flow of bile, to offer more cooperation on defense, and to seek to be heard on trade and border issues. If he is wise, Mr. Bush will make an effort to listen, and find compromises, as he did this month with Ms. Merkel. Foreign political leaders who stick to a platform of friendship and cooperation with the United States in the teeth of anti-American mudslinging ought to be visibly rewarded. As for Mr. Martin, perhaps he will be tempted again by the example of Mr. Schroeder, who has taken a job as an agent for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Does Hugo Chavez need another lobbyist?
clinton's list
You might excuse Bill Clinton for failing to grasp the terrorist threat pre-9/11 (I don't) but today? John Leo writes:
Bill Clinton thinks terrorism is an overrated threat. Last fall he said terrorism is less important than global warming. That was at the Clinton Global Initiative, his personal New York version of Davos, the annual big-think fiesta in Switzerland for world leaders and Hollywood stars.
Last week at the real Davos, Clinton demoted the terrorism threat from No.2 to No.3, behind economic inequality around the world as well as global warming. Most informed people think that climate change is very ominous and that poverty is of course a serious problem. But Clinton does not seem to think the possibility of New York or Washington disappearing in a nuclear blast is a very big deal.
Michael Crowley of the New Republic, reporting on the New York talkathon last September, wrote that "Clinton cast the war on terrorism as a blip on the radar of history."
Many Democrats seem to think this way. Fretting about racial profiling at airports and the turning over of library records of suspected terrorists is a much bigger deal than doing all we can do to avoid an apocalypse on American soil. I was distressed to see Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic, more or less join the pack of those taking terrorism less seriously than politically aware adults should.
the people's cube
Has a few words for Der Googlemeisters:
Dear Messrs. Brin and Page:
May we take this opportunity to applaud your decision on accepting technical guidance from the Communist Party of China in your creative Google China project, and to extend our admiration for your recognition that search technologies are best left in the hands of responsible government entities (the U.S. imperialist government doesn't fall into that category, of course).
Be sure to check out their Google logo with the tank from Tieneman Square.
end of the month pith
Some reading for those with the time and interest.
First, there is The Rise of the West, a website dedicated to J. Needham's Grand Question: Why was modern science invented in Western Europe, and not in India, or China?
Then Chicagoboyz' Lexington Green offers a reading list for those eager to know more about military history.
monday january 30, 2006
bush breaks "brokeback" silence
President Bush, from a humorous speech at the Alfalfa Club:
"Lynne Cheney and Laura were out of town recently, so I called up Dick and said, 'Why don't we go to a movie?'
"He said, 'Great idea, let's go to a cowboy movie.'
"Yep, finally we went to see Brokeback Mountain. Let me tell you, whooo-eee.
"Dick sat through the movie, didn't say a word. We came out. After a while he says: 'Nice horses.' I say 'Yep.'
"Then he becomes real quiet again and kind of serious. I knew something was on his mind. Finally he turned to me and said: 'You don't suppose the Lone Ranger and Tonto …"
On Alito, he had this:
"Martha Alito won America's heart," Mr Bush said. "What a warm and wonderful woman. I talked to her. You wanna know what really caused her to cry at those hearings? Boredom."
Hillary: americans impatient for a woman pres
Americans are growing 'impatient" as they wait for a woman to be elected president, 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Saturday night. "People are saying,' Well, at least we're ready,'" Clinton told interviewer Jane Pauley, as the two held a public chat for charity in San Francisco.
But Americans are patient enough to wait out Hillary: a Gallup poll found last week that 51 percent of Americans had already made up their minds not to vote for her.
They also don't want Geena Davis:
"Commander in Chief” started out as the season’s most talked-about new show, but the initial hype didn’t translate into solid ratings – and ABC has shelved the White House drama.
The network announced over the weekend that it is pulling the show – which stars Geena Davis as the first female president – until spring to make way for a new comedy, "Sons & Daughters.” The "Commander" show will be off the air for at least six weeks, the New York Post reports.
medicine as diplomacy
Democratic Senator Patty Murray from Washington caught hell in 2002 for telling a group of high school students terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is popular in poor countries because he helped pay for schools, roads and even day care centers.
"We haven't done that," Murray said. "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"
Murray was just plain ignorant. As Robert Kaplan's "Imperial Grunts" makes clear, we have military groups all over the globe (Mongolia, Phillipines, Yemen, etc.) serving, as one person put it, as the "Peace Corps with guns."
Often these are tiny Special Forces teams who assist locals by digging wells and holding medical and dental clinics. By becoming close to people, they are offered intelligence on the enemy without ever asking. Lest anyone think this is new, it's a method developed the US Army 100 years ago to fight insurgencies in the Phillipines.
US Navy battle groups were also at the forefront of relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami, and US forces are still helping aid the Pakistani quake victims. But that's just the beginning:
In the confusion of this post-Cold War, terrorist-troubled world, Congress is betting more and more foreign aid dollars on fighting that one common foe everyone can agree upon: infectious disease.
"Medicine can be a currency for peace" says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon and a force behind the change. Today that "currency" is near $4 billion -- almost triple in real dollars what the U.S. was providing per year in 2001.
That increase parallels -- and is energized by -- efforts by private philanthropists like billionaire Bill Gates, who pledged Friday to triple his contributions to fight tuberculosis. Democrats have almost uniformly backed the shift. More striking has been rising support from Republicans, drawing in both the religious right and old-line fiscal conservatives who long have opposed more traditional development programs.
Mr. Frist's personal influence is significant, on the White House and his colleagues. The past 12 months have been difficult politically for the Tennessee Republican, but the emphasis on global health care will be a highlight of his legacy when he leaves the Senate at the end of the year.
Perhaps Dennis Kucinich might be made to understand why we don't need a Department of Peace.
barking dogs on the left
...want Democrats senators to use wounded soldiers as political props. (HT Instapundit.)
be a bollywood director
Choose a clip, write your own subtitles and smell the curry. (Be patient, movies load slowly.)
bbc on bush
I was hearing the other day about a woman who went to the White House Christmas drinks party.
You are allowed to bring a friend and the two of you get to pose for a 10-second photo-op (they call it a "grip and grin") with the leader of the free world.
But this woman had no friends available that evening and queued up to see him alone. When her turn came she explained to the president, "I couldn't get a date."
With a charm and wit worthy of Ronald Reagan he pulled her close and asked - mock earnestly - "Nothing I've done I hope?"
sheehan, chavez to speak for dems
Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who parlayed the death of her soldier son into a successful public speaking and writing career, will join Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Tuesday night to deliver the Democrat response to President George Bush’s State of the Union address.
“Our choice of Cindy and Hugo demonstrates our commitment to diversity, and personifies our platform for the future,” said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democrat National Committee (DNC). “Plus, they’re among the few well-known progressives who didn’t vote to support the war in Iraq while publicly attacking the Bush administration for its policy toward Iraq.”
and beautiful atrocities on "citizen superstar"
Globetrotting citizen / superstar Cindy Sheehan says she'll run for Senate against Dianne Feinstein if the bitch doesn't toe the line & call the troops home yesterday! Apparently that Idiotarian of the Year award went straight to her head. Cindy's already got DiFi jumping around like a trained seal: when she threatened to run if Di didn't support a filibluster, Di immediately fell in line. You go, girl!
In between bullying senators & slipping the tongue to Hugo Chavez, Cindy posted her latest scribbles at Huff Post about ‘matriots’, which is not a kind of marsupial but patriots with ovaries. Cindy's screed - which includes the words sputum, nefariously, matriotic, & spit - makes a stunning point:
"There is one universal truth that no one can dispute no matter how hard they try: Everyone has a mother!"
exposing free riders
Dear President / Prime Minister / Chancellor:
You, along with the leaders of many other nations, have morally condemned the United States’ treatment of our terrorist prisoners. It’s true that we use much harsher interrogation techniques on terrorists than we do on ordinary domestic criminals. But regardless of your criticisms we will continue to use these techniques when questioning terrorists about future attacks on the U.S.
Many of the terrorists we have captured, however, are involved in planning attacks on targets outside of the U.S. Up until now we have done our best to gather information on all potential terrorist objectives. But we realize that using rough interrogation to expose possible attacks on your country might taint your moral purity. We therefore offer you the following choice:
When asking terrorists about potential future attacks on your country would you prefer that we:
A. Use the exact same harsh interrogation methods we have previously been using, or
B. Use only the softer interrogation methods that we use on ordinary domestic criminals?
If you don’t respond to this question we will assume your choice is B. Please be aware that choosing B will expose your country to significantly greater risk of attack as our rough questioning has generated information that has allowed us to thwart many international terrorist atrocities.
Sincerely,
President George W. Bush.
The overwhelming military might of the U.S. has allowed many of our allies to become free-riders. They spend relatively small sums on their own military confident that in a crisis we would protect them. If, for example, Berlin were attacked by terrorists based outside of Europe the German armed forces could not possibly retaliate. Yet terrorists are somewhat deterred from attacking Berlin by the knowledge that if they did the U.S. armed forces would hunt them down. But being mere financial free-riders is not enough for many of our allies. They are now becoming moral free-riders.
To expose their hypocrisy President Bush should send the above letter to the leader of every nation that has morally criticized our war on terror. These leaders want the U.S. to protect them from terrorism but they also want to wallow in their supposed moral superiority because we but not they use unpleasant methods to combat terrorism. They are like meat eaters who condemn their own butcher for murdering animals.
words and music
by Burt Prelutsky
I have spent my entire adult life as a professional writer. Along the way, I have been a humor columnist; a book, TV and movie critic; an advertising copywriter; a celebrity profiler; a TV writer; and, of late, an essayist. It’s sort of like being the literary equivalent of a one-man band. The variety has certainly helped prevent burn-out, but it has also made me feel at times as if I were juggling dishes while tightrope walking.
Frankly, I would never encourage anyone to pursue a writing career. Pursue is the operative word. As a matter of fact, when addressing groups of aspiring writers, I do everything in my power to discourage them. I consider it a good deed on my part. However, I’m all too aware that those afflicted with the writing virus are immune to my sage counsel. People who feel the need to get their thoughts down on paper are as driven as any other group of addicts. Why else would they continue writing when every sane person in their lives is warning them to stop before they hurt themselves?
It’s true that a few writers -- people like Rawlings, King and Grisham -- become wealthy. A somewhat larger number earn decent livings. But for all the others, writing only provides a miserable hand-to-mouth existence, filled with frustration and, occasionally, humiliation.
When one considers the odds against succeeding as a writer, it probably makes more sense to invest heavily in lottery tickets or betting on the ponies.
In my case, if I had it to do all over again, I probably would have become a lyricist. Of all the writers, I believe they have the best deal. That is to say, I think they’re the only wordsmiths in the world who are actually over-paid.
It has always amazed me that a lyricist shares equally with the composer in the revenue generated by a song. I have heard that the great Jerome Kern insisted on a 60-40 division with his collaborators, but I think even he was getting short-changed.
It’s one thing when George Gershwin split 50-50 with his lyricist, for inasmuch as the guy was his brother, the money at least stayed in the family. Giants such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Frank Loesser and Stephen Sondheim, avoided settling for 50 cents on the dollar by writing the words as well as the music.
Even though I have never composed a single note, I simply can not fathom why the composer should have to fork over half the loot. The music, after all, is the thing that grabs us, the tune we whistle, the memory that lasts. In some cases, in fact, the instrumental versions, with their often banal lyrics removed, are much better than the vocal renditions.
I recall hearing an anecdote about the wife of a lyricist who, upon hearing the composer’s wife claim that her husband had written, let us say “Some Enchanted Evening,” announced, “No, your husband wrote la-la-la. My husband wrote ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’”
The lady was right, and I don’t wish to diminish the lyricist’s contribution. Without the words, singers would have to hum. But to me, the cut should be more like 80-20. The composer’s contribution is far and away the greater part of the whole. The music, after all, is always able to stand on its own, whereas without the music, most lyrics would be second-rate poetry, and the author would be lucky to get five cents-a-line from some college quarterly.
It’s true that there have been a handful of brilliant lyricists. Such people as Lorenz Hart, Johnny Mercer, Oscar Hammerstein, and Alan Jay Lerner, spring to mind. But it’s also true that, except for the Italians, nobody understands the lyrics to the arias of Puccini, Bizet and Verdi, and nobody except maybe the lyricists’ wives seems to care that it’s all la-la-la.
sunday january 29, 2006
condi's revolution
Ralph Peters:
OSAMA'S latest plea for attention suckered the media into blowing last week's real story: Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice's declaration of war on her dysfunctional department.
In a speech at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where students are deformed into diplomats, Condi cancelled the tea party. Her message was revolutionary and essential. As a result, she may go down in history as the SecState most hated by Foggy Bottom bureaucrats.
Here's what "Killjoy Condi" had to say:
- Diplomats can no longer build careers by hiding behind desks in comfy capitals. They'll have to accept dangerous assignments and serve in hardship posts; develop regional expertise in at least two areas; and speak at least two relevant foreign languages (French waiters need not apply). That ain't going to make Rice popular with diplos accustomed to rotating between Rome and Northwest D.C. on their way to ambassadorships. Yet, it's vital if we're going to convert our failed, 19th-century- model State Department into a useful tool for the 21st century.
- Ouch! Condi really put Paris and Berlin in their places — pointedly noting that "we have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people, that we have in India, a country of 1 billion people." Cancel that order for the big schnitzel, Mr. Ambassador. You're going to be eating some development vindaloo. (Delicious, too, that la Rice smacked down Old Europe just as Jacques Chirac threatened to hurl nukes at terrorists to prove that France remains relevant.)
- Crucially, Condi named China, India, South Africa and Brazil as countries of the future while declaring that an initial 100 diplomatic slots would migrate from Europe immediately to countries that actually matter. More reassignments will follow, with even Moscow demoted to the international enlisted ranks — while Indonesia gets promoted (Double ouch!).
al-qaida is losing
...says Christopher Hitchens.
more bad news for detroit
China is getting into the auto business big time.
101 dumbest moments in business
...for 2005, a catty list from Business 2.0.
threat tracker
Here's an interesting Java applet that visualizes connections between people in terror networks. Take a moment to read the instructions because it's not a gimme. And once you get elements in the graph, click "expand" to see the connections grow.
an act of hygiene
QUEBEC--Remember the conventional wisdom of 2004? Back then, you'll recall, it was the many members of George Bush's "unilateral" coalition who were supposed to be in trouble, not least the three doughty warriors of the Anglosphere--the president, Tony Blair and John Howard--who would all be paying a terrible electoral price for lying their way into war in Iraq.
The Democrats' position was that Mr. Bush's rinky-dink nickel-and-dime allies didn't count: The president has "alienated almost everyone," said Jimmy Carter, "and now we have just a handful of little tiny countries supposedly helping us in Iraq." (That would be Britain, Australia, Poland, Japan . . .) Instead of those nobodies, John Kerry pledged that, under his leadership, "America will rejoin the community of nations"--by which he meant Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, the Belgian guy ...
Two years on, Messrs. Bush, Blair, Howard and Koizumi are all re-elected, while Mr. Chirac is the lamest of lame ducks, and his ingrate citizenry has tossed out his big legacy, the European Constitution; Mr. Schroeder's government was defeated and he's now shilling for Russia's state-owned Gazprom ("It's all about Gaz!"); and the latest member of the coalition of the unwilling to hit the skids is Canada's Liberal Party, which fell from office on Monday. John Kerry may have wanted to "rejoin the community of nations." Instead, "the community of nations" has joined John Kerry, windsurfing off Nantucket in electric-yellow buttock-hugging Lycra, or whatever he's doing these days.
saturday january 28, 2006
real world vs. government world
Los Angeles has a homeless problem. New York made theirs better. So 30 (yes 30) LA politicians flew to the Big Apple to learn NY's big secret. Could they not use a phone? Or send one person to file a report? Can you picture a corporation sending 30 employees off to do basic research?
how to make a fool of yourself on the 'net
James Lileks has tips.
iraqi army getting stronger
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - With American help, the Iraqi army is emerging as a lightly armed counterinsurgency force that may control more of the country than the U.S.-led coalition by this spring, U.S. military officials say.
But in coming years, the Iraqi army will remain too weak to defend the country and will be reliant far into the future on America to guarantee Iraq's sovereignty, experts say.
''They're not going to be the 101st Airborne anytime soon,'' said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, spokesman for the military transition command in Baghdad. ``But in 2006, this is the year that the majority of Iraq will be secured by Iraqis.''
But the Pentagon is also grappling with designing a force that assuages the worries of countries victimized by Saddam Hussein's military.
''There is a concern in the region about giving them an offensive military capability,'' said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of planning for the U.S. Central Command.
The dilemma for Washington, which wants to hand off its counterinsurgency duties and depart as soon as possible, is that a weak Iraqi army could leave U.S. forces providing security for Iraq for many years, said Mustafa Alani, a military analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.
Besides Jordan, who else should we worry about? Syria? Iran suffered the most from Saddam, but who cares what they think about Iraq?
what if wiretaps work?
From the New Republic:
Lawyers who are busily debating legality without first trying to assess the consequences of the program have put the cart before the horse. Law in the United States is not a Platonic abstraction but a flexible tool of social policy. In analyzing all but the simplest legal questions, one is well advised to begin by asking what social policies are at stake. Suppose the NSA program is vital to the nation's defense, and its impingements on civil liberties are slight. That would not prove the program's legality, because not every good thing is legal; law and policy are not perfectly aligned.
But a conviction that the program had great merit would shape and hone the legal inquiry. We would search harder for grounds to affirm its legality, and, if our search were to fail, at least we would know how to change the law--or how to change the program to make it comply with the law--without destroying its effectiveness. Similarly, if the program's contribution to national security were negligible--as we learn, also from the Times, that some FBI personnel are indiscreetly whispering--and it is undermining our civil liberties, this would push the legal analysis in the opposite direction.
Ronald Dworkin, the distinguished legal philosopher and constitutional theorist, wrote in The New York Review of Books in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks that "we cannot allow our Constitution and our shared sense of decency to become a suicide pact." He would doubtless have said the same thing about fisa. If you approach legal issues in that spirit rather than in the spirit of ruat caelum fiat iusticia (let the heavens fall so long as justice is done), you will want to know how close to suicide a particular legal interpretation will bring you before you decide whether to embrace it. The legal critics of the surveillance program have not done this, and the defenders have for the most part been content to play on the critics' turf.
the healing power of children's laughter
by J.C. Phillips
I lay in bed floating on an antihistamine high. I felt a presence at the side of my bed so I opened my eyes and stared into the face of innocence. Barely able to see into the bed, my four-year-old son stood on his toes watching me. “Daddy, are you okay?” he was concerned.
“Daddy is just a bit under the weather today.”
“Can I give you hug?”
Let me tell you, nothing satisfies like those little skinny arms around my neck. I felt better immediately. He ran downstairs to announce to his mother that he had given Daddy a feel better hug.
Ahh, childhood. A time when puddles are for stomping in, running is just so we can feel the wind in our face and a hug and a kiss will cure most anything that ails you; A time that disappears all too quickly. Age often brings more than just wisdom it brings cynicism as well. Perhaps we suffer too much heartbreak. Maybe it’s just that we no longer have boundless reserves of energy, but as we get older what was possible becomes impossible or not worth the effort. We avoid puddles lest we dirty our shoes, run only so we can lose weight and, for my money, we don’t hug or kiss nearly enough.
We recognize how precious those qualities are. As adults, we bust our humps to provide safety and security for our children and are outraged when anything or anyone acts to rob them of their innocence. Yet, often we become so focused on protecting them that we forget to enjoy them. We are focused on paying the bills, preparing dinner and getting projects for work finished on time and forget to revel in the healing power of our children's laughter. We focus in on the “why me Lord?” and tune out their stories that go on and on with no direction and no end. We sit them in front of the television rather than put business to the side and indulge in that wonderful sense of everything being possible.
I plead guilty as charged. And it’s too bad really because my boys will not be young forever and I will miss their childhood when it is gone.
The other day, my oldest didn’t take my hand as we crossed the parking lot. Over the years, I have grown used to feeling him slip his fat little hand in mine as we cross the street or walk through a parking lot. This time, my son didn’t take my hand as he normally does. He jumped out of the car and simply walked by my side. It was so subtle that I almost didn’t even notice it, but I missed the feel of his fat little hand in mine. When did it happen? I thought. When did he stop needing me to hold his hand? When did my first baby become a big boy? It happened so fast.
It may have been the cold medication playing tricks with my mind but in the midst of the fog I had a moment of clarity. I was suddenly outside myself watching, seeing time march by; days falling like leaves. My sons were men. The innocence of their big brown eyes was replaced with the wisdom and cynicism of adulthood. Sadness washed over me.
The day will come when my four-year-old will not look up to me lying on my bed sleeping off a few ounces of cold medicine, but will look down upon my elderly body lying in my deathbed. That’s just the way it is. The cycle of life. He will take my hand as I took my father’s hand in his last moments. I wonder if his hands will still feel as small.
friday january 27, 2006
a short history of pork
Daniel Henninger explains how "reform" got us the pork barrel spending everyone decries and the lobbyists with too much influence:
...Congress planted the seeds back in the '70s for what is revolting you now with two enactments--the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. Both were marketed as reforms.
The first law turned political Washington into a trillion-dollar industry camouflaged as the federal budget. The second ensured that sitting members of Congress and K Street lobbyists would become the entrenched management of that industry. Compared to this, Enron is a kindergarten game.
This is a history worth knowing and retelling. It all came to life amid another famous scandal, Watergate, and the most famous such name of all, Richard Nixon.
Nixon's impeachment is wholly linked in history to the Watergate scandal. But in fact, his battles with the Democratically controlled Congress over spending authority also greased his fall. As had Presidents Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, Nixon tried to control Congress's spending by "impounding"--refusing to spend--specific appropriations.
Congress itself had tried various gimmicks to stanch the Great Society's costs, such as "spending ceilings." None worked, as indeed no gaggle of legislators will discipline themselves. Nixon resorted to the blunt club of impoundments. Congress went bananas. This battle, fought inside the partisan cauldron of the Vietnam War, led to the oddly named 1974 Budget Control Act, which purposely eviscerated presidential control over individual spending items, such as an earmark. To kill a "bridge to nowhere," a president has to veto the entire highway bill. Ditto defense pork and so on.
The 1974 act did give the president "rescission" authority--a request not to spend money on a project. But the law also said that if Congress never took a vote to affirm the rescission, the money went out the door. Absurd, but that's current law. Congressional Quarterly, in a 1982 study of the struggle over spending control, quoted a budget official then predicting the future: "What we're talking about here is congressional government--and chaos."
But they weren't done. In 1974--the start the Long Era of Chaos in our politics--Congress claimed it was curing the abuses of Watergate by mandating that no individual could contribute more than $1,000 to a candidate per election. So of course candidates were going to need a lot of "individual" contributions to finance a modern campaign. Thus was born the current co-dependency between members of Congress who hold the power to confer federal spending and Washington lobbyists who have the power to bundle campaign contributions in PACs and such for incumbent earmarkers.
silver lining
Contrary to initial responses, Hamas’s projected victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections is a positive development. Not, as its apologists claim, because the proximity of power will favor a process of cooptation into parliamentary politics, and therefore strengthen the pragmatic wing of Hamas. There is no pragmatic wing in Hamas, and all differences within the movement — the armed wing and the political wing, Palestine Hamas and Hamas in Syria — are arguably tactical differences. No, the reason is, as Vladimir Ilich Lenin would put it, "worse is better."
Hamas’s favored outcome was not victory, but a strong showing that would leave Hamas with the best of both worlds: It would remain in opposition (or would be invited to join a coalition as a junior partner) but would impose severe limitations on the Fatah-led government on how to manage its relations with Israel. Hamas could thus claim to reject Oslo, decline to recognize the Palestinian Authority and its commitments under the Oslo accords and the roadmap, and continue to use its rising political clout and its military strength to sabotage any effort to revive the moribund peace process.
What victory does to Hamas is to put the movement into an impossible position. As preliminary reports emerge, Hamas has already asked Fatah to form a coalition and got a negative response. Prime Minister Abu Ala has resigned with his cabinet, and president Abu Mazen will now appoint Hamas to form the next government. From the shadows of ambiguity, where Hamas could afford — thanks to the moral and intellectual hypocrisy of those in the Western world who dismissed its incendiary rhetoric as tactics — to have the cake and eat it too. Now, no more. Had they won 30-35 percent of the seats, they could have stayed out of power but put enormous limits on the Palestinian Authority’s room to maneuver. By winning, they have to govern, which means they have to tell the world, very soon, a number of things.
quote of the day
White House Spokesman Scott McClellan, on John Kerry’s pathetic call for a filibuster of Judge Alito’s nomination:
I think it was a historic day yesterday. It was the first ever call for a filibuster from the slopes of Davos, Switzerland.
charles krauthammer's eulogy to his brother
Wonderfully touching.
big gains
In job growth, but it never makes headlines. Betsy Newmark weighs in.
not such a small world
Astronomers say that by virtue of the ceaseless shifting of the billions of stars in the Milky Way and a trick of Einsteinian physics, they have briefly glimpsed the most Earth-like planet yet to be discovered outside the solar system.
It is a ball of rock and ice only about 5.5 times as massive as Earth, smaller than any of the 160 previously discovered exoplanets, and is orbiting a dim reddish star 21,000 light-years from here.
saddam general says wmd flown to syria
Let's see how MSM ignores this story.
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.
"There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."
unhinged (again)
It must be tough being a war critic and a liberal like Al Gore. Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair -- all supporters of liberating Iraq get reelected. Germany's Schroeder? Gone. Now Canada's Paul Martin has been voted out. So what's a lib to conclude? Conspiracy, natch.
Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has accused the oil industry of financially backing the Tories and their "ultra-conservative leader" to protect its stake in Alberta's lucrative oilsands.
Canadians, Gore said, should vigilantly keep watch over prime minister-designate Stephen Harper because he has a pro-oil agenda and wants to pull out of the Kyoto accord -- an international agreement to combat climate change.
"The election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta," Gore said Wednesday while attending the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
And the financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election . . . and to protect their interests."
Darcie Park, spokeswoman for oilsands giant Suncor Energy, said she's taken aback by Gore's remarks and hopes they don't resonate with Canadians.
"Our company just doesn't do business that way. We're really puzzled about where these comments came from," she said.
"Canadians understand how elections work in Canada and understand there are these very tight restrictions around what individuals and companies can contribute to individual parties or campaigns."
thursday january 26, 2006
Under the Radar
From Polipundit:
Sometimes it’s the small stories which say the most about our nation’s politics:
President Bush on Wednesday nominated Superior Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant to the [Connecticut] federal bench, where she would be the first black woman to serve in New England.
Wait a minute. Hold the phone.
You’re telling me that over the course of eight years Saint Bill Clinton – the nation’s “first black president” – never seated a female black district or circuit court judge anywhere in New England?
Yet Chimpy McBushitler is poised to do so before the end of year six???
Man, next thing you’ll tell me is the Prez also nominated: (1) the first black female on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, (2) the first black Secretary of State, and (3) the first female black Secretary of State.
Oh, right.
Continuing:
A Republican from Avon, Bryant is Bush’s second nominee to Connecticut’s federal bench.
Hang on a second. There are female black {gulp} Republicans???
Do the Katie/Oprah blocs know about that? Does Kayne West? Do the young librulz in the media and on campus know that?
What do you think, Ted Rall?
-- Jayson
jacques chirac finally wakes up
...to the reality of Islamic terrorism:
"All of our nuclear forces have been configured in this spirit." Although Mr. Chirac did not name any specific countries, which might be targets of a French nuclear attack, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the likely targets. These include Iran, as well as Arab countries in the Middle East.
What is so surprising is that Mr. Chirac's government has in the past favored an approach of conciliation or even appeasement toward Iran and the Arab nations. He was, after all, the vociferous foe of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and a hard line against Iran. That approach benefited French companies that were able to obtain lucrative contracts in competition with corporations based in the land of the great Satan. So, what happened?
There are two contributing factors. The first is the civil unrest in France several months ago, which involved nightly riots and a myriad of car burnings in many areas of the country. This violence had the same kind of impact upon Mr. Chirac and the French government that September 11 had upon the United States.
In his speech, Mr. Chirac bluntly declared, "In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilizations." Mr. Chirac now understands the problem. The jihadists are attempting to capture town by town, areas within Western Europe. As one French government official put it, "This is more than a clash of civilizations. It is a cancer within our country that if unchecked will destroy all of France."
Imagine that.
dr. coburn goes to washington
Republican Senator Tom Coburn is a doctor and a trouble maker of the best kind. In November 2005, National Review wrote:
The self-described citizen-legislator kept his promise to serve only three terms, and went back to practicing medicine for four years before running for the Senate in 2004. In that race, he promised to serve only two terms, and to keep in touch with the people of his state by continuing his medical practice.
Before he was sworn in, however, the Senate Ethics Committee informed him that this would not be allowed. Under chairman George Voinovich, the Ethics Committee has decided that Senator Coburn’s request to treat patients runs afoul of a Senate rule holding that members shall not “receive compensation for practicing a profession which involves a fiduciary relationship.”
So Senate ethics rules would keep him from keeping his medical practice. Meanwhile, other senators earned outside income in less noble pursuits. For example Barbara Boxer published a novel she didn't write.
(George Voinovich, you might recall, is the Republican who wept after speaking out against the confirmation hearings of John Bolton as UN Ambassador.)
But Coburn has bigger fish to fry. Tim Chapman writes:
When Oklahomans elected Dr. Tom Coburn to the United States Senate they knew that they were sending a man to Washington who would not dance the D.C. two-step. But Beltway types have underestimated the determination of this man not to go along to get along.
Very soon, that will change.
According to Senate aides, Dr. Coburn has notified his colleagues that he intends to challenge every earmark—or pork project—on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Coburn, who has been a champion in the fight against wasteful federal spending, believes that the congressional earmarking process is the genesis of the current Abramoff-related lobbying scandals.
Coburn’s threat will dramatically slow the appropriations process because he will demand many more votes and more debate than normal on all spending bills. The added debate will allow senators to learn the merits (or lack thereof) of each earmark and affirm or reject.
According to one GOP Senate aide, many of the old-bull appropriators are not taking the threat seriously and are confident in their ability to apply pressure tactics and parliamentary maneuvers in order to ensure business as usual on spending bills. But that aide points out Coburn’s commitment, “It will take a lot of votes on one or two appropriations bills before the appropriators figure out that [Coburn] means business.”
Once they do figure out that Dr. Coburn isn’t bluffing, they will understand why some outside observers have affectionately dubbed the Oklahoman “Senator Train Wreck.”
John McCain has railed against pork barrel spending for years. Why didn't he do what Tom Coburn is planning to do?
"i wish bush spied on me"
A hilarious call for help.
hardwired
Talk about hot-button issues. Political opinions are forged in the brain by heated emotions rather than reason, according to a study released yesterday by Emory University.
Magnetic resonance imaging revealed that emotional centers in the brains of a group of staunch Republicans and Democrats "lit up" when confronted with ideological messages, prompting these partisans to hear the same information but reach opposite conclusions.
"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory, who led the study. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up."