Heel - The DFL Fiesta Tuesday night was planned at the DNC in Washington. It was about as inadvertent as the Super Bowl. And they know it.
Capitol Hill Blue breaks the story.
While Kahn's firey rhetoric, and walkouts by Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and GOP Senate Leader Trent Lott, fueled controversy, Democratic political operatives in Washington congratulated each other Wednesday.We were lied to, everyone. The denials, the "it got out of hands", the campaign manager's acceptance of blame - all a sham, all a lie."Mission accomplished" was the message of the day at the DNC and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee offices.
And if you read DFLers' side of it, the line is
"This is war," one operative said. "The Republicans are too busy planning war on Iraq. They won't even see us coming."
If it was war, why did Norm Coleman, honorable as he is, sit it out?
We have to beat these dirtbags.
Yeah, I'm angry.
Why I Love America - Reason MMCLVM - Think this sort of thing ever happens in Sweden or Japan?
On the Ropes? - Al Quaeda's in the midst of a power struggle, caused by the death of its leader, Bin Laden.
That's James Robbins' theory, anyway. And it's an interesting one.
Another symptom of system breakdown is the inability to coordinate action. The recent fall offensive is a case in point — the terrorists are pulling off some attacks, but most are not large scale (Bali being the exception), and many have been unsuccessful. Of course, al Qaeda is highly decentralized anyway, and if the objective is simply to disrupt, attacks do not have to be coordinated precisely. Yet, in the October 12 al Qaeda statement on the anniversary of our attacks on Afghanistan, "Osama" ordered that efforts should be concentrated on the U.S. and Israel, and not on other countries — while also congratulating the Yemeni bombers of the French oil tanker. A few days later a rambling statement was issued under his name in which he said either the Yemen bombing was al Qaeda's responsibility, or it wasn't; he was not telling, and it was bad for the United States either way. "We leave [the enemy] to drown in all the assumptions and possibilities," he wrote. If his intent was to confuse, mission accomplished."I'm feeeeelling better!". Sorry. I needed a Monty Python break. Back to the articleThese are only a few of the bewildering series of messages in recent weeks and months that indicate that al Qaeda is in turmoil. The messages are uncoordinated, sometimes contradictory, varying in tone and style. Many come out in bin Laden's name, others only refer to him, and some, significantly, do not. Last summer a statement was issued that Osama bin Laden's eldest son Sad had taken over day-to-day operations of al Qaeda while his father was recovering from illness. Sad is a twentysomething with computer skills who allegedly controls the bin Laden audio and videotape archives. ...This was followed quickly by another statement that Osama was feeling much better and was back in charge.
The abortive move reportedly raised the hackles of other more seasoned al Qaeda leaders, particularly the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two. Zawahiri was reported dead by the Russian press in early October, and rushed out a few statements and an interview to show he was still alive and fighting the infidels.Read the whole thing. It's a little complicated, but worth it.
And fun to ponder.
Unbelieveable - This is a new Gray Davis campaign poster.
This was brought to my attention by my friend Brian in Atlanta, who writes:
Heh. Guess they know their constituency all too well.Write. Er...you know.
(Yes, I know, Martin Sheen is a hero in his own mind.)
(I mean, in his own rite.)
(RIGHT! I meant right.)
Blah, Part 4 - It's been a rough year for us Eighties kids - the coolest artists are dying off way too fast:
It's yet another big loss.
Can't Make It Up Fast Enough - Years ago, there was a rash of airplane hijackings by Islamist terrorists who threatened to kill themselves and their captives if their demands weren't met. I sprang into action and hatched a plan - equip aircraft with sprinkler systems that, when tripped, fired a spray of liquified pig fat throughout the plane.
Devout Moslems believe that contact with pigs, pork, pig byproducts, or apparently footballs will get them rejected, Studio-54-style, from Paradise.
Of course, I wrote my idea off as impractical, both technically and theologically; any Islamist terrorist that can ignore Quranic rules against, say, killing the innocent, probably won't have much problem with the pig thing.
So imagine my shock when, today, I read that the Russians plan to bury the Chechens who died at the Theatre siege last weekend...wrapped in pigskin.
Teaching Moment: when the urge to get that patent strikes you, follow it
Fritz and Me, Part 1 - This post is going to appear in two parts - apparently Blogger.com can't handle posts this big:
I can understand, and empathize, with the reasons the DFL loves Walter Mondale. He's Minnesota's LBJ - a backroom fixer non-pareil, the guy who put big teeth in Hubert Humphrey's legacy. I've met Mondale. He's a perfectly fine human being, for a career politician. That's not as sarcastic as it might sound.
He's also a link to the DFL's glory days. I can understand the nostalgia. And in understanding that nostalgia, you can understand the main reason that I'll oppose him - beyond his party, beyond his policy, beyond his record.
It's the sense of Deja Vu he brings about.
Scroll back to 1979. I was a 16-year-old high school kid - working at my first radio job, driving too fast, one of three Punk Rockers in North Dakota. And I was a committed Liberal - I thought George McGovern was the future, and I wanted to be part of it. Walter Mondale was Jimmy Carter's vice-president - and, as someone from the next state over, I took some regional pride in that fact.
And then, in a speech right around then, Jimmy Carter started a process that took three years - my morph from left to right - in a speech when he said "the best days are behind us. We need to tighten our belts, learn to expect less from life". And I thought "oh, swell. I'm hearing THIS from a guy who's already got more than he can ever possibly deserve?"
In 1979, the nation was in a funk; depressed; in a "malaise" (thanks, Erik). We - and by "we", I mean the professional nattering classes - thought that our nation's best days were behind us; we were in a cultural midlife crisis that would inevitably lead to our culture's declining years, requiring endless doses of cultural Prozac and political Group Therapy. We were a sick, sick nation, said the left, and the affliction was terminal, and we had best just accept the fact that the end was coming (eventually - one never knows, really), and do our best to make the declining years as comfortable as possible. If we only made sure we assuaged the aches and pains with the right programs, there'd still be many good years left in which to expiate our national guilt...
Fritz and Me, Part II - In other words, it was the golden age of the DFL. The party of measured
decay, the party whose prescription is long-term palliative care for a society
gone terminal. The hospice party.
The party for people, and societies, that had chosen to make a slow death
more bearable.
Four years later, when Ronald Reagan snapped the nation out of its' hypochondria,
I'd converted; a strong dose of O'Rourke and Solzhenitzyn and Johnson had
gotten me in tune with the rest of the country. We'd gotten our asses off
the cultural couch, started running again, lost some weight, started socializing.
We felt twenty years younger.
And Walter Mondale, looking like he'd come up from the Lutheran church basement,
scolded us; "That backache you feel? Could be cancer! Take your metamucil
and get back to bed!".
It was 20 years ago, but I can still remember how depressing it all was.
And Mondale brings it all back. I don't EVER want my children to have
to experience that.
Mondale's a credit to this state. We could do worse in a Senator, truth
be told (and, indeed, with Mark Dayton we ARE). But he represents the lowest
ebb of this nation's history (IMHAAHO) - an era which the DFL apotheosizes;
an era of big, sixties-style statements combined with feeble, sickly seventies-era
application. So while we could do worse - we can also do better.
So I'm not just voting for Norm Coleman. I'm voting AGAINST the Seventies;
against malaise; against submission; against the inward-turning, inward-feeding
angst that ate this nation's guts out 25 years ago.
I'm choosing life.
Whoah - Greetings to any of you coming over from Instapundit. Glenn Reynolds linked to this site yesterday, and my hit count jumped by, literally, an order of magnitude.
Feel free to drop me a line, and come back soon.
I usually do my serious writing over lunch. It probably shows...
Fritzstock - Howard Kurtz has the best wrapup of the "Memorial" fiasco that I've seen yet, including a wide range of opinion on the subject from the punditry, left and right. Worth a long read.
For Whom the Bell Polls - A Star-Tribune Poll released yesterday showed a major shift in the gubernatorial and senate races.
First, the great news for Tim Pawlenty - he's up by four points. Yes, this is the same poll that showed Skip Humphrey as the winner four years ago - but Tim Penny is no Jesse Ventura.
Read this quote, and tell me who's been saying this all along:
Pawlenty's strength comes from several factors. He is stronger among Republicans than Moe is among DFLers, and stronger among conservatives than Moe is among liberals. Pawlenty also wins among self-described independents. And he probably loses fewer votes to the Green Party's Ken Pentel than do Moe and Penny.It might just be that the message is getting out - Tim Penny's no Jesse Ventura. He's a wonk. He's the type of guy who loves going to zoning meetings. The IP is DFL Lite. It's not a choice.
In the meantime, the poll shows Mondale leading Norm Coleman by 8 points, 47-39. But the poll was taken before the furor over the Wellstone "memorial" last night. There are so many ways this could trip Mondale up - and the poll wouldn't have gotten any of them. Coleman's got a chance.
Five more days.
Cry Conspiracy, Again! - The National Review's Andrew Breitbart answers the left's new wave of conspiracy wackoes.
Kudos - to Governor Ventura, for walking out of last night's festivities...er, "memorial" for Wellstone.
This may be the first thing he's done in his administration that I can honestly say I respect.
Feeling Sick - Last night's "memorial" for Wellstone went far beyond being a partisan canonization of a political figure for purely political gain; way beyond being a four-hour commercial for the DFL.
It was a lot scarier than that.
If you don't live here, it's hard to describe. Maybe it's like this elsewhere in the country. All I know is, it's totally on the sleeve of this state, and showed in spades last night. It's something that started as a vague sense of unease seven years ago, when I first started becoming active in politics in Minnesota. It grew to a more coherent notion in 2000. It whacked me over the head when the mob booed the assembled Republican senators.
Hatred of Republicans is part of the majority, *mainstream* DFL culture in Minnesota.
Not dislike. Not disagreement. Hate.
You see it in bits of day to day life in this state: women theatrically holding their noses when talking about Republican candidates at the coffee shop; people who put "No Republicans Need Apply" at the top of personal ads; a mob of 15,000 mainstream, work-a-daddy, hug-a-mommy Minnesotans baying at the moon at the recognition of Republicans.
This is not the lunatic fringe; it's not analogous to the rantings of those Republicans who act from hate, the party's loud but isolated homophobes, anti-immigrants, clinic-bombing-coddlers. This is the mainstream of the Minnesota DFL.
I really don't like my neighbors too much today.
Volunteers? Form A Line to the Right - Any takers?
The Culture War - A bit of background, here. Last year, Michael Bellesiles, a history professor at Emory University, published a book, Arming America, which purported to show (among other things) how the so-called "gun culture" is not a product of American history, but rather firearms-industry marketing. The book received rave reviews from the NYT Book Review, and a Bancroft Prize, among many other kudos.
The problem is, the data was all wrong; slapped-together, out of context, or just plain made up. After the accolades passed, a number of critics began noticing the gaps in Bellisiles' data - a process that ended with his resignation from Emory, last week. Emory's student newspaper has been remarkably candid about this issue, by the way.
John Rosenberg, author of the Discriminations blog, writes about this fracas' place in the culture wars. Read the whole thing.
The Vanishing European - For the past decade, Japan has suffered an economic downturn that has been terribly exacerbated by the very structure of their economy.
Europeans, especially Germans, thought they were above it all - engrossed in reunification and the EU, but with a vastly different banking system and political (and to a lesser extent, social) structure, the Europeans thought they were immune from the Japanese economy's illness.
Today, they're confronting the ugly truth - they may share more with the Japanese than they thought. This article appears in the relatively conservative (by German standards) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (English and German editions):
Both countries are former economic miracle countries whose strength has failed amid a number of shocks - in the German case, above all the effects of unification and the stock market collapse. Both are heavily export-oriented and suffer from subdued domestic consumption, with a relatively rigidified labor market that does not respond well to external shocks. Most disconcertingly, both share an inability to reform.Now, the big question - will the US be ripe for the same sort of deflation? Some think so. It's not a pretty thought.
With government's latest policy proposals set to perpetuate Germany's economic ailments, some economists believe the specter of deflation is no longer out of the question in a country that traditionally fears inflation more than anything else.
T-Shirt Fodder - This was seen (via an Italian newspaper) on the side of a US plane on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
I want it silkscreened!
What Would Wellstone Think? - Last night, Lewis reminded me of one of the more interesting facets of Paul Wellstone's character.
While he was liberal enough to make Ted Kennedy blanche, and his convictions in that direction were utterly unshakeable, he had great intellectual respect for opposing viewpoints.
More than that, his closest friends in the Senate, irrespective of affiliation, were other Senators of deep conviction; people who went to Washington on the basis of their ideas; people who didn't consult polls and focus groups and consultants before voting their consciences. People like Jesse Helms and Barry Goldwater; people who, despite their opposing beliefs, were people like him.
Contrast that with the behavior of so many that'd call themselves Wellstone supporters around here. I will be charitable and call it "intolerance", but whatever you call it, you see it everywhere: posts on this list; teachers teaching their students that Republicans are bad; personal ads with "Republicans Need Not Reply" as the headline; implausible conspiracy theories,which people grasp onto like intellectual life rafts; people who all but plug their ears and run away when one voices a conservative idea, or respond with red-faced, spittle-flecked vituperation; the growing separatism of so many arguments from the left these days.
In the meantime, the wacko (but not-far-from-mainstream) left is responding with the type of bizarre conspiracy theories that people used to associate with the lunatic right. We talked about that yesterday.
Unbelieveable - This poster, via Samizdata, is a production...no, not of the Chinese secret police, or of some utopian cult...
...but of the Metro London Police Department.
Something About Harry - Andrew Sullivan on Harry Belafonte's corrosive bigotry.
Again, the simple test here is the following: If a conservative had used these expressions, would it have been denounced by liberals? The answer, obviously, is yes. Imagine if George Will had called Colin Powell a "house slave." Imagine if Pat Buchanan had called Barney Frank a "nasty faggot." Imagine if Trent Lott had called Hillary Clinton a whore. Do you think they'd be invited on "Larry King Live" to further elaborate on their comments?It's amazing - and predictable. The left gets away with saying, and believing, things that would get any conservative justifiably pilloried. Anti-conservative black, anti-conservative-gay, anti-conservative-woman...Very, very few liberals call such expressions what they are any more: bigotry. Left-wing homophobia is now having a resurgence -- in Democratic ad campaigns and political discourse. Left-wing racism is now so common it scarcely bears mentioning. "Stupid White Men," anyone? Left-wing misogyny directed at women who dare to differ from certain political positions is endemic. Left-wing anti-Semitism can be found on campuses across the country. At anti-war rallies, copies of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are openly sold. [Emphasis is Mitch's]. All these unsightly trends exist on the right as well, of course. But who on the right has said anything recently as offensive on racial matters as Belafonte, in his remarks about Colin Powell?
Add this to the "Conspiracy" post, below, and you have to ask yourself - where is our "objective" media?
Conspiracy - Didn't it used to be the conservatives who were tagged with the conspiracy-theory-nut label? I do believe so.
Yet in this past week, we've been treated to the following:
RIP Wellstone - The state-wide mourning continues - sometimes segueing into outright caterwauling. His passing is marked by mourning on the part of his followers that seams more appropriate to a cult leader - I mean, a cult of personality leader - than an American political figure.
I don't mean to sound in the least insensitive to the loss of the Senator or the other seven people on the plane. Their deaths are senseless and utterly tragic.
No, I'm talking about the followers. The legions of the invincibly sensitive, the phalanxes of higher consciences that threw their garments on the ground before Wellstone in life, and seem in many cases to have lost their reasons for existence with his death. The ones that are turning his death into a political statement in and of itself - a sort of secular liberal Easter.
A friend of a friend - a committed Wellstonocrat, needless to say - is wondering if there isn't some sort of foul play involved. That pretty much had to follow, didn't it? Let the conspiracy theories begin.
James Lileks had probably the most cogent point of the lot.
Fatwa Rules - As Instapundit notes, the media's definition of "Terrorist", as far as the DC sniper case is concerned, is specious. Bin Laden's fatwa specifically calls, not only for action by terrorist groups, but also by individual Moslems. Instapundit clips the money quote:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."This is in addition to the words of Almighty God "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed--women and children, whose cry is 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"
We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
Siege Ends - Russian commandos stormed the theatre in Moscow, ending a three-day siege where Chechen terrorists had held 800 Russians hostage.
67 hostages died, along with all 34 Chechens. Around 750 hostages - 90% - were saved.
This quote is the beef:
...one bystander, Igor Konstantinov, in his 60s, was in no doubt about what he thought."Putin has only one choice. (U.S. President George W.) Bush showed the world what to do with these bastards after September 11. It's Putin's turn to liquidate them in Russia."
Terrorism seeks to force people to adopt a bunker mentality, to abrogate all they believe in out of fear. The US, after September 11, showe that terrorists aren't safe in their bases. The Russians, I think, have showed us that terrorists aren't invincible, even given their disdain for life and ability to start their battles on their own agenda. And it shows that even the impossible situations can be turned into victories - albeit costly ones.
One wonders what Al Gore would have done in a situation like this.
Wellstone - Dead at 58 in a plane crash.
For those of you who follow these things; this is interesting. Since 1990, in Minnesota, the rule has been that parties can replace candidates on the ballot, at least four days before the election.
However, according to a private email from a source in the DFL, the party's bylaws may not allow the party to get a legitimate Central Committee meeting together to select this candidate.
Which might leave Wellstone on the ticket. And if Wellstone wins, that would mean Governor Ventura would appoint the successor. I'd think that would very likely be Independence Party candidate Jim Moore.
My big question; assuming the DFL is allowed to nominate a replacement, who are the frontrunners? I'm personally thinking State Senators John Marty or Becky Lourey, but if I understood the inner workings of the DFL, I'd be a much less stable person.
Your feedback on this is eagerly encouraged.
Selective Coverage - Earlier this year, a gunman at a Virginia law school, apparently intent on mass-murder, was stopped by three students - two of them armed with legally-owned handguns.
Yet the media's ignored it completely.
The Problem with Socialists - Interesting to notice that the Democratic Socialists of America have removed the web page that stirred up the election fraud furor last week.
The part that amazed me is that the left wrote the whole thing off to "trying to disenfranchise minorities".
Ashcroft in Hong Kong - This bit from the Gweilo Diaries sums up a big part of our problem - at least, the diplomatic one.
Ashcroft observed that the September 11 terrorists were recruited in Germany, received general training in Afghanistan, received operational training in Florida, assembled and initiated their mission in New England, struck New York and Washington, and received financing "from the capital city of another country."Two words - Foggy Bottom?That last bit encapsulates everything that is wrong with the US "war" on terrorism. How likely are American leaders to confront Saudi Arabia regarding their continued funding of terrorists, when the chief law enforcement officer of the US won't even utter their name for fear of offending them?
What the hell is the explanation for this inordinate deference to the Saudis?
Have, Eat Cake - The Violence Policy Center has done its damnedest to make all the political hay it could from the sniper incident.
Today - with the news that the sniper's rifle was both illegally owned and did not fit the post-1994 definition of "assault rifle" that the VPC itself helped ram though - they're still trying to have it both ways.
So suddenly hunting rifles with scopes aren't the end of civilization - but "assault rifles" are, again?
Got it.
Ugh - Dog died yesterday. Probably cancer. Chaos ensued.
Yet another way I can't be confused with Lileks.
Will have more later today, though.
Enigma wrapped in a Jumble swathed in a Tarot Card- As far as I'm concerned, the theory that the DC sniper is a terrorist may be taking a big hit. Would anyone that's this big a grandstander be an actual foreign agent?
...unless, as Jayna Davis claims of Tim McVeigh, the sniper is a patsy for someone else's agenda.
Generic TV Product - After five months without, we finally have a TV in my house.
This is what we have to look forward to, it seems - more cookie-cutter David Kelley productions. Yeesh, and I thought Steven Bochco's formula aged badly.
Well, at least Blind Date is still on.
Transformation - What Janis Ian lacked as a songwriter (she was the queen of pre-Oprah pseudo-feminist bathos in the seventies) she more than makes up for as a pundit.
This is a great piece from USA Today on the file sharing controversy, and how music industry execs' problems with the practice have nothing to do with those of actual musicians.
Desperation? - Maybe it's just the proximity of the election - but is it just me, or are Democrats diving into the gutter head-first, looking for anything to toss at the GOP?
It'll be an interesting election.
Blah - I'm battling one of those rotten, pre-flu headaches today. This blog's been running light the last few days, and I say I'm feeling ill not to beg off writing more so much as because I've noticed that the more I say I won't write, the more I write.
Let's see how it works...
Child Abuse - Jennifer Roback, on the abuse and exploitation inherent in the support of the leftist sacrament of abortion.
The abortion lobby seems to think even a very young girl is entitled to abort without any adult influence. But honestly, if a 14-year-old girl babysits for your family, you walk her home. If your 13-year-old has to go to the orthodontist, you take her, and wait for her in the waiting room. We wouldn't send a 16-year-old to buy a car or choose a college without any adult guidance. Yet, under the guise of protecting her autonomy, the abortion lobby wants to let her go through the decision to abort, and the abortion itself, completely on her own, with no support from the people who love her. This is not respectful; this is abandoning a young girl at one of the most vulnerable moments of her life.A set of legal rules that allows secret abortions for any girl, no matter how young, increases the number of abortions performed. It is easy to understand why a chain of abortion clinics wants such rules. Planned Parenthood sells abortion services. They want the demand for their services to be as high as possible. They want the costs associated with getting an abortion (other than their fees) to be as low as possible.
Economics of War - We can afford this war, says Laurence Kudlow.
He's talking economics, of course. In terms of human cost, hopefully it'll be no different.
My son is nine. I'm praying every night that this madness (from without) is done by the time he's 18. He's just starting to get interested in military stuff - and, as big of a military history buff as I am, it makes me nervous.
The Story Spreads - For most of the last eight years, suggesting Arab involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing has been enough to get you consigned to the Art Bell set - at least, according to the left and the media.
But in the past few months - since the Wall Street Journal ran with Jayna Davis' story linking Arab/Iraqi agents with Tim McVeigh - the story's been picking up steam.
Now, it's crossed the Atlantic - and not via tabloid.
This one, however, is new to me (albeit perhaps not to you):
There is another confirmed incident that suggests something more sinister. Two of the 11 September conspirators held a crucial meeting at a motel in Oklahoma City in August 2001. The motel's owner has since identified them as ringleader Mohammed Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, who has known links with shoebomber Richard Reid.Read the whole thing. (Link courtesy of Instapundit).
Curb My Enthusiasm - The Democrats could come in third for the gubernatorial race, behind GOP and Independence candidates...
...In New York!
Brits - Not that smart, but not too dumb either.
They Say Thurmond is Senile? - In today's George Will column:
During the House debate on authorizing the use of force against Iraq, Rep. Pete Stark, a paleo-liberal from northern California, cried, "Rich kids will not pay; their daddies will get them deferments." He meant draft deferments. It is almost unkind to awaken Stark from his dogmatic slumbers to notify him that there has not been a draft since 1973. And the Beatles have broken up
Gefuffles - More server trouble left the site off the air for most of the past week.
I'm looking for different hosting.
OK - let's see if we can pick up where we left off...
Sister Doin' It For Herself - A Pittsburgh woman with a concealed pistol permit ended the career of a serial rapist yesterday.
As the Instapundit asks - why isn't this getting all sorts of media attention?
The eminently sensible Eugene Volokh (a law professor at UCLA) says this about this incident, and its relation to the concealed-carry debate:
The debates about concealed carry laws, and about gun control generally, ought not, I think, be fought based on anecdotes, whether pro-gun-rights or pro-gun-control. One can only find out the merits of a policy by looking at aggregate data, plus whatever moral or constitutional logic that one thinks is relevant; in a nation of 280 million people, there are going to be isolated incidents that fit virtually any profile.All food for thought as the concealed-carry debate spools up for another run here in Minnesota.Nonetheless, I've generally found that even logically and empirically sound arguments work best if they also include some specific incidents as illustrations -- that just seems to be the way the human mind works. There are indeed plenty of defensive gun uses each year; there's a hot controversy about how many there are (the estimates range from just under 100,000/year to 2.5 million/year), but there certainly are lots of them. And this case seems like a very good illustration of this phenomenon.
And it's also just good to hear about, I think.
Bali - Ralph Peters on why the Bali attack was a sign of terrorist desperation:
The good news is that the terrorists have bitten the hand that tolerated them, even if it didn't quite feed them. Insecure and wary, President Megawati Sukarnoputri has been timid in facing up to Indonesia's terrorist problem, and many Indonesians have been in denial. There has been no end of halfhearted claims that there was no real threat from Islamic extremists in Indonesia, that al Qaeda had no presence, and that Jakarta could mind its own affairs, thank you.The attacks were against a wide variety of "sins" - Austrialian support of intervening in Iraq plus their presence in Afghanistan, Australian suppression of the Moslem genocide of Christians in East Timor, Bali's Hindu majority, and the "decadence" of the Kuta economy, which is sort of the Ibiza of the southwest Pacific.
The paradox is that Indonesia really has not had--and still does not have--a major terrorist problem on the scale of many other Muslim countries. The Bali bombings were acts of frustration and desperation, not of strength. This largest of Muslim nations has a population overwhelmingly at peace with its various laissez-faire versions of Islam. A relatively small percentage of Indonesians support Islamic extremism even passively, a situation chronically disheartening to the fanatics.Indonesia is a country of 210 million with a 90% Muslim majority that produces good beer and likes to party (most young Indonesians tend to hear only the first three letters of the word "fundamentalism"). Nubile Western pop singers are markedly more popular than Osama bin Laden, and the only anti-Americanism I encountered personally was so superficial it couldn't survive a handshake.
But these are the very qualities hateful to the fundamentalist extremists, and the Megawati government's passivity has encouraged them to believe that they could act with impunity. Now the terrorists have overreached, as their comrades did in New York and Washington. The crimes they committed on Bali were so ferocious that they cannot be denied or explained away. More importantly, they were a severe embarrassment for the government and the country. And public shame is anathema in Indonesian society. The attacks hit wallets, too, which is a far worse idea in corrupt states than in more orderly ones.
Of course, hitting a lot of enemies makes a lot of enemies very angry. And the Australian SAS is every bit as nasty an enemy as our Delta Force...
Sniper Update - This appeared, on Page 22 of this story about the sniper:
Authorities in Baltimore, meanwhile, seized a white van and found an assault rifle, sniper manual and ammunition similar to the .223 bullets used in attacks that have killed eight people and wounded two others, WBAL-TV reported.Why would anyone conclude that it was?MSNBC reported that a tarot card was found in the van and a sign on the dashboard read "Gihad in America." A tarot card was also found at one of the shootings.
The van's owner was being questioned by police Monday night.
"At this time, the task force believes this is not related to our sniper incidents," said Louise Marthens, a Montgomery County police spokeswoman.
Police are reportedly searching for an "olive-skinned" suspect.
Sniper Update - This appeared, on Page 22 of this story about the sniper:
Authorities in Baltimore, meanwhile, seized a white van and found an assault rifle, sniper manual and ammunition similar to the .223 bullets used in attacks that have killed eight people and wounded two others, WBAL-TV reported.Why would anyone conclude that it was?MSNBC reported that a tarot card was found in the van and a sign on the dashboard read "Gihad in America." A tarot card was also found at one of the shootings.
The van's owner was being questioned by police Monday night.
(AP) Police officers fan out to seach the are next to a Home Depot store near Seven Corners, Va, Monday,...
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"At this time, the task force believes this is not related to our sniper incidents," said Louise Marthens, a Montgomery County police spokeswoman.
Police are reportedly searching for an "olive-skinned" suspect.
Settled - The Pawlenty campaign has reached a settlement with the Campaign Finance Board.
Gun Patrol - According to John Lott, gun control is again on the defensive.
Wichita vs. Press vs. Oprah- I've been following the Wichita murder case, where two Afro-American brothers are charged with the killings of five people.
Since the beginning of this case, there have been questions: Why is it not being treated as a hate crime? (The victims were white, and were tortured and sexually humiliated before being slain, execution-style). This article, though - in the Washington Post - ascribes all questioning to "neo-nazis" and "white supremacists", ignoring the wide swath of opinion that wonders why this is not being considered a hate crime, on par with the Byrd dragging-murder case in Texas.
And, for a final, gaggy postlude - the superintendant of the school district for which two of the victims taught had this to say:
"That was kind of closure for us, and it was a good closure," [Superintendant Jim] Markos said. "Now it was reopened again with the trial."Wow. Hope that seeking justice for the murders of your colleagues, and three other people, doesn't upset anyone's precious "closure".
It's an Oprah, Oprah world out there.
Bali - The official death toll is hovering around 180, with many missing. Most of the dead and missing so far are Australians (14 confirmed but nearly 200 still missing), with many other nationalities thrown in as well.
The nightclub involved is in a Hindu area of mostly-Moslem Indonesia. Indonesia's Moslems are, however, largely very moderate. It's suspected the bombing is largely the work of foreigners in Al-Quaeda (although that's just a theory so far).
It's heart-rending to read the Sydney Morning Herald's coverage of the atrocity - it's like deja vu, it feels like our own papers on September 11. And no wonder - even if half the missing Ozzies turn up safe, that's nearly 120 dead. In proportion to our population, that's the same as nearly 1,500 American dead (their population is about a twelfth that of the US). Half the magnitude, in proportion, of our 9/11 death toll, in other words.
And some Australians are starting to genuinely feel that we are all in it together, and that the left's apologists for Islamofascism - here, in Australia, and in Europe - are deluded.
Whatever personal positions are held about Bush, Blair and John Howard, contemporary terrorism amounts to an attack on Western civilisation. The sooner this is understood, the sooner the likes of [leftist Australian commentator Michael] Leunig will recognise that bin Laden is one of those brothers who, if given the chance, commits fratricide; before, during or after Christmas.So this past week, we've seen
Definition: Limo Liberal - Mary McGrory's column in the WashPost spells out the Sheen-iest of reasons to avoid war: it spoils vacations.
Cops and the Mentally Ill - Advocates for the mentally ill are up in arms over the killings, over the past decade, of several mentally-ill people in the Twin Cities.
Advocates managed to get the Minneapolis Police Department to set up a special squad to deal with violent, mentally-ill people. That group has had two major, widely-publicized setbacks - the shooting of Abu Jeilani last summer, and the death of Officer Melissa Schmidt (and a mentally-ill perpetrator) later in the summer.
Now, the Saint Paul PD is coming under fire from the same band of advocates. Chief Finney seems to be unimpressed with Minneapolis' response, and is holding tough on his current model. Currently, SPPD officers don't receive any specialized training after the police academy.
Advocates for the mentally-ill seem to ignore the fact that all of these shootings started with a mentally-ill person charging at a cop with a deadly weapon. It gets frustrating talking with them - because it's always the story. "Cops need special training", they'll say, and "nobody needed to die". Cops'll respond "The mentally-ill person was ten feet away and charging with a samurai sword" - which the advocates ignore in responding yet again.
Hard to know exactly where to come down on this one.
Peace in Hussein's Good Time - All of the scenarios that could avert a US invasion of Iraq depend on Iraq opening up for unfettered inspections.
The left is fooled, of course - too many of them seem willing to take the Iraqi government's word at face value.
But their word, says Richard Spertzel, is worthless.
Iraq is still insisting that it obliterated its WMD programs and that it has no weapons of mass destruction. One should note, however, that it has not stated that it has no WMD programs. How, then, can Iraq account for the reviews of the international experts — who held discussions with whomever the Iraqi side wished to bring to both the sessions in 1998 and the U.N.-convened panels in 1999?Unbelieveably, under the threat of US action, the delaying and diplomatic gamesmanship has begun again.Iraq has not given up its pursuit of WMDs. Until it does, there is little hope for inspections to succeed.
Polling - According to Zogby, the Gubernatorial race shapes up like this:
So - perhaps Pawlenty will survive, maybe even benefit from, last week's kangaroo-court lynching.
Pawlenty: 30%
Penny: 27%
Moe: 25%
Zogby also shows Jeb Bush leading Bill McBride by three points - within the margin of error.
It's not hard to find conservative critics of paleoleftist filmmaker and polemicist Michael Moore.
Now, even some of his sympathizers are getting the picture. Steven Whitty, who describes himself as sympathetic to much of Moore's politics, writes this for the Newark Star-Ledger, wondering about Moore's tendency to make absolutely everything personal :
I am beginning to wonder if it is all personal, although not quite in the way Moore imagines. And I am beginning to believe that "Bowling for Columbine" [Moore's new movie] may be the movie Michael Moore was meant to make all along -- a story about how Americans never see the real enemies hiding among them, all helpfully pointed out by a man who's never had trouble keeping track of his.
No, Really! - Al-Jazeera is quoting a press release purportedly from Bin Laden, in which the allegedly-still-alive terrorist leader sends kudos to the terrorists who blew up the Bali disco, suicide-bombed the French tanker Limburg, and shot the Marine in Kuwait.
No video, of course - but Al-Jazeera's staff said it looked like Bin Laden's signature.
In the meantime, sources are claiming Bin Laden will appear on TV soon.
Let's see - terrorist groups have access to experts in forgery for passports and other travel papers - d'ya suppose there's a possibility it's fake?
When US SOCOM claimed that Bin Laden was dead, I was skeptical. I'm coming around to about 50-50, now.
Predictions - I hate to predict things. It'd the pastime of mediocre minds, plus I'm rarely any good at it.
But I'm going to take a shot at predicting the Second Gulf War.
Enabled by a UN resolution which is bolstered by hard evidence of al-quaeda/Hussein links, the inspectors go in. But they're barred from dozens of sites. Nonetheless, other evidence (from defectors and other intelligence) shows that those sites contain either active or dormant chemical and bioweapon development and storage, and elements of the Iraqi nuclear program. In addition, defectors warn of massive hidden caves with more nuke development. Hussein denies it - but inspectors are barred, perhaps with force.
US/UK air strikes begin - and, in the face of Iraqi intransigence, continue into a full-scale softening-up campaign against the Iraqi military. Command and Control, Air Defense, Electrical and communications facilities are bombed, as well as the most reliable military units and the array of presidential palaces. US units start to fly in, picking up equipment stored in Kuwait, or shipped in from Diego Garcia, and moving into position.
Units of 7th Special Forces group, retrained from their previous, Euro-centric mission and with linguists from 5th SFG, infiltrate Iraq, gathering groups of Northern Kurds and southern Shi'a together to start taking those areas - and start getting the measure of Iraq's capability to respond.
The failure of the final ultimatum starts the attack. Heavies - a couple of armored/mechanized divisions - outflank their opponents by driving through Saudi territory (with the Sauds' surreptitious permission) as the 101st Airborne takes the port of Basra and the road to Baghdad in a reprise of their 1991 helicopter-borne attack. The Marines do NOT invade across the heavily-mined, easily-defended beach, but rather truck in from Kuwait or helicopter in from their ships, consolidating control of Basra and readying it for use as a base. In days, the nearby Amatiyeh airbase is ready to support US airstrikes, and the port of Basra is soon open for military, then commercial traffic.
Special Forces (Rangers and the Brits' Parachute Regiment) will move to protect the oil wells, preventing massive demolition.
Hussein tries a chemical attack. Aircraft attempting to drop nerve gas are shot down well with Iraqi-held territory, while an artillery-delivered attack causes
a few casualties - US and UK troops have been training to deal with chemical attacks for 30 years. The artillery and missile sites are quickly destroyed, and
in hindsight the chemical attacks (like the first ones, in 1915 at Ypres) can be said to have done more damage to the attackers than the defenders.
Hussein also tries to draw Israel into the fray. Israel mounts a very strong, active defense, shooting down incoming missiles and intercepting and bombing terrorist camps. There are unconfirmable rumors that their Sayaret commandos and Air Force are operating against missile sites in the west of Iraq - but the
deniability is very plausible (Israel and the US use mostly the same weapons, from the F-16 to the M-16).
In the face of the US/UK blitzkrieg, Hussein withdraws to the cities. The US, UK and (by now) Turkish military heeds Patton, bypasses the cities, and digs in and waits them out - sniping with precision-guided missiles and artillery, and letting the few loyal Iraqi units swelter in their carefully-prepared and
useless fortifications. As the Iraqi military sits and waits, the allied forces conquer the REAL objectives - bases, territory, and WOMD facilities.
Most cities surrender shortly. Baghdad holds on...
The Iranians fume and bluster - but, mindful of their eroding juju in the "Farsi Street", don't do much. The "Arab Street" in Egypt and other Arab nations is in an uproar,for a month or so. Then, they go back about their business.
Pro-Hussein guerrillas are expected - but, except for the Tikrit region, are rare. Kurdish and Shi'a forces butcher all pro-hussein resistance in their areas, while US/UK troops, trained to avoid confrontation, win the hearts and minds of the "Iraqi Street" the same way they did in Germany and Japan - with medical aid and an avalanche of food.
Resitance in Tikrit is stiffer - Hussein and his inner circle are all Tikriti, and know the deguello that faces them if caught alive by Kurds, Shi'a, or even many Iraqis. This is the toughest ground battle of the campaign.
Baghdad holds for a while - but, with radio and TV broadcasts juxtaposing the relative safety and plenty of life in the liberated areas beaming into the city, and absent the sort of mass destructinon that many of the Western Left predicted, the citizens don't have the heart for it. A promise of safe passage causes an avalanche of defections and desertions - many are shot by hard-core Republican Guards trying to escape (and the Guards' triumph is short-lived, as antitank missiles immolate their positions), but many more succeed.
Other nations respond - wanting their share at the
table when the peace is adjudicated. Canada, Norway, France and Australia-New Zealand send special forces units to help with the mopping up, while Poland and the Czech Republic, eager to bolster their standing in NATO, send troops to join units from all of the above plus Russia, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, several Gulf States and even Germany, sent to help preserve order and enforce the peace. The UN commits troops, notably Indonesians and Bengali (Moslem) regiments of the Indian Army, to help defuse religious tensions.
Within 60 days, the victory is consolidated. There are a few guerrilla strikes, and many teething pains for the infant, fragile democracy.
Oil prices spike briefly, then settle back down. They're down to pre-war levels within six weeks.
Terrorist organizations try to launch attacks - but without the long,peacetime preparation cycles, the attacks are mostly broken up.
Hussein? Whether he's found or not, his country is liberated, his WMD's are gone, the apparatus of his state is liquidated - he's as irrelevant as Bin Laden. Rumors fly, though - he was killed by a Predator, his car was crushed by an Iraqi tank, he's in Switzerland or the Sudan...people are realizing his irrelevance about the time his body is uncovered, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot, in the garden behind his bunker in a newly-surrendered Baghdad, next to the bodies of his mistress and his propaganda minister.
Within the year, Iran's theocracy teeters on the precipice, and is pushed over by violent suppression of riots in Teheran. A new revolution sweeps the city,and spreads to the countryside. The corrupt, vile Ayatollahs flee to Sudan or are put to the pike. The new, moderate Iran seeks rapprochement with the west and the newly-moderating Arab world.
In 2004, the Bush/Rice ticket, buoyed by a vibrant recovery and a foreign-policy victory, sweeps to a 65-35 victory over the Gore-Wellstone ticket (running on a "Peace through Indignance" platform), which wins only Minneapolis, Berkeley and Cambridge (although Gore spends the next 6 months demanding recounts).
Hey, Tom Clancy built an entire career out of this...
Iraq Taq - Americans are responding to Bush's appeal on Iraq.
So let's go over this: The Democrats claim that we mustn't molest Hussein without:
Well, suddenly the Democrats are expressing boundless concern for the welfare of our troops. One wonders where that concern was when the Democrats were gutting defense spending, (especially operations and training budgets) and the Clinton administration's sixties-bred contempt for the military.
Glad to see they're so concerned. Finally.
Peace Prize - Jimmy Carter just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jay Nordlinger wrote a piece last May in the National Review about the extent to which Carter cuddled up to foreign dictators.
Even when he was in office - when I was 18 and a liberal - the guy reminded me of a perfectly nice fella with a huge Neville Chamberlain complex. He believed in detente with Brezhnev, turning a blind, helpless eye to Soviet expansionism in Africa and Asia, and was basically a hapless fool before the international community.
But it turns out he's worse than that (according to Nordlinger's article, which will be on the NRO homepage later today:
Care for a quick walk down Memory Lane? Joshua Muravchik reminded us of some Carter nuggets in a 1994 piece for The New Republic. While in office, Carter hailed Tito as "a man who believes in human rights." He said of Ceausescu and himself, "Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics . . . We believe in enhancing human rights." Since leaving office, Carter has praised Syria's late Assad (killer of at least 20,000 in Hama) and the Ethiopian tyrant Mengistu (killer of many more than that). In Haiti, he told the dictator Cédras that he was "ashamed of what my country has done to your country."Reminds me of the fools who nuzzled up to Hitler and Stalin (including, in the latter case, the progenitors of Minnesota's Democrat-Farmer-Labor party) in the thirties, the ones who figured making the trains run on time was the measure of a government and a leader.While in North Korea, Carter lauded Kim Il Sung, one of the most complete and destructive dictators in history. Said Carter, "I find him to be vigorous, intelligent,...and in charge of the decisions about this country" (well, he was absolute ruler). He said, "I don't see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation." Pyongyang, he observed, was a "bustling city," where shoppers "pack the department stores," reminding him of the "Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia."
A shameful day indeed.
Gripping Radio - Driving in to work this morning, I listened to NPR's edge-of-the-seat coverage of...
...Senator Byrd's filibuster.
Note to my Democrat friends - anyone who jokes about Strom Thurmond's advancing senility will be forced to listen to this.
The Wichita Non-Hate Murders - Notes on the testimony of the single survivor of a rape-murder binge in Wichita that left four dead.
As reported in this space earlier, this crime has all the hallmarks of a hate crime - racial motivations, degradation of the victims (rape, sodomy) before the murders, and a quadruple (attempted quintuple) execution-style shooting.
But it's not being prosecuted as a hate crime (albeit the death penalty is on the table). Which is, on the one hand, OK, if you're being consistent about things. Conservatives oppose creating special classes of victims.
But Kansas does have a hate-crime statute. The fact that it's not being invoked in this case (even though it is a capital case) shows the dishonesty of hate crime laws, at least in that jurisdiction (although one might suspect many more would follow suit).
Freedom, Part CMXXIV - Yesterday in this space (see "Why We Fight", below), we saw what joke freedom of the press has become in France.
Now, Natalie Solent shows that the UK isn't far behind. A Brit was accused by a Moslem man under a new hate crime law of defaming Islam. The "perp" has been convicted, and may get prison time.
The accuser, by the way, believes Bin Laden is a great man, and that Americans are stupid and deserve to die. Since it's not attacking anyone's religion, it's not actionable.
Shocked, aren't you?
Theory Confirmed - I always rued the passing of the notion of "self-respect" - the sense of knowing and being able to live with oneself and one's actions - and its replacement by the idea of "self-esteem", the notion that one is just plain pretty darn good. Self-respect seems grown-up, sensible, based in moral concepts as simple as the Golden Rule, while self-esteen always seemed to me to be a gateway to narcissism and a solipsistic view of the world. Self-esteem says "I'm special!". Self-respect says "I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person". Self-esteem is one step removed from bragging; self-respect is an integral part of character.
The saw was that without sufficient self-esteem, kids would grow up to have problems - crime, violence, promiscuity, the whole line-up. It never added up to me, though - most of the real troublemakers I knew growing up, and in the adult world, seemed to like themselves just fine.
It seems that research is bearing this out. Despite a decade of social-service and education-establishment pandering to the concept of self-esteem, investigation indicates it's just not so. Andrew Sullivan, in a Time Magazine article, quotes Dr. Brad J. Bushman of Iowa State University and Dr. Roy F. Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University
"I think we had a great deal of optimism that high self-esteem would cause all sorts of positive consequences, and that if we raised self-esteem people would do better in life," Baumeister told the Times. "Mostly, the data have not borne that out." Racists, street thugs, school bullies all polled high on the self-esteem charts. And you can see why. If you think you're God's gift, you're particularly offended if other people don't treat you that way. So you lash out, or commit crimes, or cut ethical corners to reassert your pre-eminence. After all, who are your moral inferiors to suggest tht you could be doing something, er, wrong? What do they know?So what do we do now? We've spent uncounted millions on programs to boost self-esteem, while the notion of self-respect has gone begging, and and it's been squeezed out of the agenda for most of the institutions that used to promote it (schools, churches, social organizations).
So when can we stop teaching school kids to mouth "I AM someone" - which always struck me as pathetic - and start teaching them why that matters?
Why We Fight - One of the things for which our flag stands, and for which generations of Americans have fought and died, is freedom. Freedom to live, pursue happiness, protect ourselves from the ravages of man and governmet, to be secure in our homes and persons, free from the rapacity of the majority and the bureaucracy. Freedom to worship, to assemble, to choose our destinies.
Freedom to express ourselves, even at the risk of insulting and being insulted.
We do this in contrast to repressive governments like Iran, Iraq, the former Taliban, Myanmar...
...and France?
Miss America and the Sex Agenda - The new Miss America has ruffled many feathers. She embraces many conservative values (as noted in this space immediately after the pageant), including, most notably, teen abstinence.
Today, she details the pressure - indeed, bullying - she's received from pageant officials to drop the abstinence message from her "platform", and revert to the standard, cookie-cutter "prevent teen violence" message that the pageant has tried to impose on her.
Matt vs. Babs - I love this bit here...
...and this one, too.
I'll Know When I See It - My mom's an artist. She used to run a little city art gallery in the middle of North Dakota. Every now and then, in between displays of art from the town's elementary school kids, she's bring in an installation by some regional artist or another. Now, I'm pretty literate about some art - music and literature, certainly - but visual art has never been a forte of mine.
Still, in looking at the art of people like Eric Budd, I did develop a bit of revulsion for the subgenre of art that grew up around the notion of aestheticizing the reprehensible.
Charles Freund, on the aestheticization of 9/11 by artists who are blessed with greater senses of aesthetics than empathy.
One conclusion is that these artists represent an aesthetic barbarity not evident since the painters and writers of prewar Italy and France celebrated violence, destruction and martial strength as necessary to create a fascist order. These, too, saw something positive -- something wonderfully aesthetic -- in force, blood and mayhem, which is why the German critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin charged fascism with "aestheticizing" its repellent politics.In that sense, these artists and those for whom they speak may be "aestheticizing" their own politics as well. Until such time as these artists applaud the obliteration of Hiroshima in a wonderfully novel burst of light, or celebrate Hollywood for its beautifully choreographed violence, or embrace the American right to bear arms for its aesthetic potential -- until then, we can justly speculate that it is only when Americans are murdered that the act is revealed as grand art.
The Vanishing Feminist - Catherine Seipp on organized feminism's relevancy gap.
The Vanishing Legacy - First, it was the Middle East peace that wasn't.
Then, the Clinton bubble burst.
Does this make me Wierd? - I can't stop laughing at this, from the main page of today's Onion:
ARLINGTON, VA—The U.S. Defense Department apologized to Skokie, IL, dentist Ira Nussbaum Tuesday following a bombing campaign aimed at removing the 37-year-old from power. "Apparently, the intelligence source who drafted the attack plan against Iraq failed to strike the 'Q' key hard enough," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "The 'Q' was always a little stubborn on that keyboard. Sorry." This marks the first military action taken against Nussbaum since a malfunctioning shift key prompted Ulster Unionists to detonate his Ford Taurus in 1998.
Sharpton: The Right Loser for Black America - Rod Dreher on Al Sharpton, his new book, and his candidacy for President.
Liberal Opprobium Watch - Dave Konig, on the trials of being a Republican in a sea of liberals. He's in show-biz in New York. Say no more.
Except that it can't be much worse than being a Republican in Saint Paul.
None Dare Call It Terrorism - The Maryland Sniper murders apparently continue - and J.J. Johnson wonders why it's not being called terrorism?
since nothing - absolutely nothing since September 11, 2001 will be called terrorism. Not the American Airlines flight over New York City a year ago, not the string of oil refinery explosions, unexplained train derailments, not the nutcases attacking Greyhound bus drivers, and heaven forbid - that Anthrax thing was an anomaly, just like the West Nile Virus and the new cases of malaria popping up in the same area of the shooting. Just individual crazed lunatics mind you, not terrorism.OK, seems a little paranoid? Perhaps. But he goes on:
Not bad for eleven rounds. Anyone want to take a guess how many of these students are children of federal employees? Now, let your brain spin. Here's a federal government planning for war, importing and exporting no goods on its western flank, and with a market in a steady freefall, and yet to even submit a budget this fiscal year. But none of that will be on their minds when they wake up - only: who's next?I'm also counting the hours until some anti-gun zealot tries to count this as another reason to ban firearms - despite the fact that Maryland's gun laws are already extremely strict and proscriptive.Just like September 11 - brilliant war tactics. Then again, as any sniper can tell you, psychological terror is a bi-product of this time-tested, lethal art.
Ooops - Smells like a hoax, but it sure is funny...
Play MST-y For Me - A very clever attack on a very mendacious assault on the President, by a California "psychiatrist", done in the form of a "Mystery Science Theater" segment.
Sometimes I wish I were a lot more clever than I am!
Follow the Flipping Penny - This site is a Republican production, but it does a fine job of catelogueing Tim Penny's endless...well, waffling.
It's a big job.
The Speech - James Robbins has this opinion.
The anti-war left will not be convinced. Having seen the responses to 9/11, I doubt even a nuclear attack would do the job.
Freeh as a Bird - Last summer, asking "what did Bush know?" was all the rage among the nattering classes.
Now that the man who knows what Clinton knew is on the stand...where is the major media?
The Times, They Are A-Slanting - According to Dick Morris, the NY Times polls that purport to show slipping public support for invading Iraq are worse than slanted - they're dishonest:
But take a close look at the poll: The phrasing of the questions is so slanted and biased that it amounts to journalistic "push polling" - the use of "objective" polling to generate a predetermined result, and so vindicate a specific point of view.It was just such polling that led the Democratic Party astray over the summer and played an important role in catalyzing their (politically suicidal) criticism of Bush over Iraq. Now the Times returns with another poll, on the verge of Congress' vote on a use-of-force resolution, to suggest that voters see the economy as a bigger issue than Iraq.
Read the piece - it goes into specifics about the questions the Times poll asked.Connect the dots from there.
Posted by Mitch at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
Time Travel? - London's liberal The Independant covers Bush's speech tonight.
In the past tense.
The speech hasn't happened yet.
Hateful - Conservative opponents of hate crime laws have long claimed that such laws would be far from color-blind - that they'd serve politically-correct aims.
This seems to be confirmed by the case behind an upcoming trial in Wichita. Reginald and Jonathan Carr are accused of the hate-based murder of five white men and women in two separate incidents, after inflicting an orgy of forced sex and depravity on their victims.
Didn't Rush Limbaugh get lambasted for claiming that it would be impossible for a white person to file a hate crime complaint against a minority? That seems to be what's happening here.
Who's a Republican? - About twenty years ago, I was a committed far-left Democrat who was just starting to fray a bit about the edges. I was reading things that were challenging a lot of the assumptions I'd grown up with, in my Democrat household (Dad was a public school teacher and probably a Scoop Jackson-y Democrat, while Mom was probably two steps to the right of Abby Hoffman, and still is).
Reading the usual stuff - Ayn Rand, Solzhenitzyn, Paul Johnson, Tolstoii - began the process of starting my invincible liberalism to crumble. But to me, Republicans were still the country-club crowd, and did not act like me - play guitar, dig the Ramones, slobber over Justine Bateman...
Then came PJ O'Rourke, and Republican Party Reptile, and his tenure on the National Lampoon. He coined the phrase "Pants Down Republican" - people who liked loud music, free markets, the odd drink or three, limited goverment, driving fast, constructionism.
Today's analogue? The South Park Republican:
The most important Southpark Republicans are not famous. They are the millions of people of every age, race, sex, and religion that generally agree that government spending is usually not the best way to deal with the nation's problems. Many of these individuals can tell you why Ayn Rand should displace some other authors in high school literature classes. They know firsthand from endless hours at the DMV, at the post office, and preparing income tax forms that government wastes time and money. They know a nation cannot tax its way to greatness.Y'know, as a father with two overly-impressionable kids, I'd pretty much banned South Park from the house. Now, I'm not so sure...
FBI Cluster...hug? - There are serious questions regarding what an FBI informant in San Diego knew about two of the 9/11 hijackers, according to Mickey Kaus.
If worse comes to worst, it could be a bungle more colossal than the one that left Moussaoui's computer unsearched in the days before the attacks.
The Slippery Slope - Gun rights advocates talk about the slippery slope.
Liberals deny it exists (unless one criticizes Mapplethorpe).
Legal scholars - like Eugene Volokh, and David Kopel and Hamline's Joe Olson - refute this.
Caldicott was Right? - In the '80's, feminist anti-war hysteric Helen Caldicott said that computer games were training the next generation of techno-warriors to man anti-ballistic missile systems.
This article - by Wagner Au, in Salon - confirms her thesis. With one exception - America's Army, the Army's new interactive shoot-em-up-with-a-mission-and-a-conscience recruitment tool - among others, apparently has value in training ground-pounding infantry, Ranger and Special Forces.
Women and Guns - Rachel Jurado is angry.
Deja Vu - Zell Miller, on the similarities between 1972 and today, at least for Democrats.
The world threat at that time was communism, not terrorism, and this highly ambitious group of senators was sailing the ship and tacking hard to the left. Mr. McGovern tacked the quickest and the furthest to the left, and, with the help of his brilliant campaign manager, Gary Hart, captured the antiwar crowd. Then, for all practical purposes, Mr. McGovern nailed down the nomination by defeating Hubert Humphrey in California with the help of Shirley MacLaine.Today, the names have changed: The South Dakotan is Daschle, the manager is MacAuliffe, and the actor is Martin Sheen or Alec Baldwin or Cher or...
But the story, says Miller, is playing the same.
Gored - Spinsanity, on the lies in Algore's most recent speeches.
I should start tracking this for later. In case there's a later for Algore.
A Good German - Thomas von der Osten-Sacken is a leading German expert on Iraq. This article - in Ha'aretz - both criticizes our mistakes in dealing with Iraq in the eighties and during the first Gulf War:
"American policy in Iraq is a series of huge mistakes. Firstly, it was a mistake to support that horrible regime in the 1980s knowing, for example, about the massacres against the Kurds. Secondly, it was a huge mistake not to let the Iraqi people topple Saddam in '91. The Americans feared democracy in the Middle East, they feared the breakup of Iraq because it would strengthen Iran, so they allowed Saddam to crush the uprising.and approves of deposing him, for the good of the world.
Worth a read.
"With regimes like the Iraqi one, there will be no peace in the Middle East. You cannot contain a regime like Saddam Hussein's. That was a mistake of the West. So the question is: Is America ready to face up to the mistakes it made in '91 and in the '80s? Are the Americans ready to support democracy? Because people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden grew out of the Middle East. They are not products of Afghanistan."
Racist Racism Conference - An international conference on racism, in Barbados, voted to expel all non-black members.
It's so odd to see Cuba leading the dissent against that decision (which was proposed by British delegates).
Wellstone's Remarks - Wellstone declined to support action against Iraq, absent complete approval from the UN.
I love Lileks' screed on the subject.
Here's the best part:
The opponents of military force always make the best argument for Saddam’s removal. They spend a great deal of time detailing how he has lied and cheated and killed and stalled and gassed and oppressed, and hence should be given an additional last chance to prove he’s worthy of the last chance we’ll give him in November. It’s not surprising coming from Wellstone; he belongs to the UN party. As I’ve noted elsewhere, there are two parties nowadays: the US party, and the UN party. The former includes Republicans and Democrats who have an inordinate, romantic, and almost quaint attachment to the Constitution and the notion of national sovereignty. The latter regard nation-states as subsets of a global construct that values unanimous impotence over individual effort, and values procedure over results. The US party calls in mortar fire on the enemy positions. The UN party stands up, climbs over the lip of the trench, and recites Robert’s Rules of Order as it approaches the machine-gun positions. Yea, though I walk through the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, for evil is specifically prohibited under Article 4, subclause B.And with all of Wellstone's (and the left's) cringing before the opinion of the "Arab Street", and the mortal danger we face by "going it alone", this part is hilarious
Wellstone apparently believes that Saddam would use a “go-it-alone” invasion to inspire France, Canada, the Solomon Islands and Belarus to launch simultaneous attacks against us. What forces would he unite? Do we fear the mighty Egyptian Army swimming to Florida? If he’s talking about the terrorists, then he seems to believe that an invasion of Iraq would topple those fence-sitters who hated America, hated Jews, hated the pig-monkey mongrel West with its beer-and-Britney sinfulness. It’s bad enough that the West exisst at all, but toppling a secularist whack-job who co-opts the Muslim cause for his own clan’s advancement - that’s the last straw. And the infidels won, too - all the more reason to rise up and demand that they kill us, too!By the way - isn't it amazing what a dove Wellstone was not, during the Clinton administration?
Shootings - Five are dead in shootings in the Maryland suburbs of DC.
Interesting to note that while this part of Maryland is very close to Virginia, the shootings appear confined to Maryland. I'm sure it's unrelated, but Virginia has a shall-issue concealed carry law, while Maryland has a very restrictive "probably won't issue" law, like Minnesota's.
These kinds of shootings just don't seem to happen in shall-issue states - outside of schools, where guns are "illegal", anyway...
Rice Doctrine - For all the prattle from the left - and the media, which is largely illiterate about things more then two new cycles in the future or past - Bush's foreign policy has been incredibly consistent, says the Financial Times.
The Dumb Guy - Yesterday's resolution was a political maneuver worthy of Slick Willie.
When will the Dems figure out "Dubya" isn't the idiot they...no, wait. Best that they continue with their delusion.
Balbra Steisanb - "The Star" seems to need an errata page. This is the "news" page from her website.
Odd, isn't it? When the President makes a slipup, it's because he's an idiot (according to Streisand et al), but when Ms. Streisand's atrocious spelling is called to task, it's because:
...when the Republicans don't like what you say, they attack you on the lowest and least pertinent level. At least, that was the way a Republican source leaked a private memo which had been sent by Barbra Streisand to House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt. The manner in which this memo was leaked obliterated the imperative message of the note by drawing attention only to the fact that a few words had been misspelled.Well, we wouldn't want to use things like spelling, or verbal tics, or facility at impromptu speaking, to "avoid addressing real substance", now, would we?The story behind the misspelled words is explained here only because those spellings were used as a ruse to avoid addressing the real substance of the memo.
Fraud - As if the war wasn't causing enough trouble for Democrats, Bill Luther's campaign has other problems.
For those who haven't been following the situation, longtime DFL activist Sam Garst filed to run for Congress in the Second District, under the "No New Taxes Party" moniker. Those who know Garst (and I've sparred with him for years on the Minnesota Politics forum) know that he never met a tax that he didn't want to french-kiss, and that he's as DFL as they come. The bid was a transparent ploy (to those in the know) to siphon conservative votes away from Bill Luther.
Luther denied any involvement by his campaign at first. Now, he's found a scapegoat - his "overzealous" campaign manager.
This could be the GOP's year, finally...
Unintended Consequences - The moral laxity of the Clinton years and the moral relativism of the Sixties have combined, since the weekend, to make war more, not less, likely.
Robert Torricelli's abdication in New Jersey threatens to erase at one shot the Democrat lead in the Senate. Even if the New Jersey Supreme Court gives the Democrats an extralegal upset victory by allowing the Democrats to put Frank Lautenberg on the ballot, Lautenberg would face long odds. So while the punditry has been talking about how bad this election looks for the Dems, this has made it even worse.
In the meantime, Representatives Bonior and McDermott's performance in Baghdad over the weekend may go down in history as worse, if anything, than Neville Chamberlain's performance in Munich. They may have done for the Dems what Chamberlain did for Labour after Munich.\
Did you hear Tom Daschle today? Over the course of five days, he's gone from stalling like a madman on the Iraq resolution, to (this morning) backing it. Granted the support is the support of the sidewinder - he can lash out again on the slightest pretext - but the public reaction to Bonior and McDermott's has apparently been scathing enough to get Daschle to do what the combined efforts of the entire GOP couldn't - soften his stance, make him run for cover.
My big question: Bonior and McDermott's performance pretty well gutted, for now, the far left's credibility on this issue. After Bonior and McDermott, who is the most recognizable paleoliberal in Congress?
No, besides Maxine Waters and Dianne Feinstein and Jerry Nadler...
Yes, that's right, Paul Wellstone.
What will Wellstone do? How can Coleman use this to strengthen his (so says Zogby) lead?
Wellstone's Veterans - The Vietnam Veterans of America, which has endorsed Paul Wellstone, today condemned a Coleman ad which criticized Wellstone's voting record on defense issues.
"For Norm Coleman to come out and say that Senator Wellstone is unpatriotic is just an out and out lie," Richard Bergling, past Minnesota president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said at a State Capitol news conference.Unmentioned by the Strib was the fact that the VVA is to veterans what the AARP is to seniors, and the AFT is to teachers; a special interest group that is out to get its share of the pork. Wellstone, whatever he lacks in his defense voting record (i.e. lots) has certainly delivered the pork to the veterans lobby.
Not that veterans don't deserve it. But there are veterans who do realize that Wellstone's support of veterans exists to mollify critics of his stance on bread-and-butter defense issues.
The Mind Boggles - Twelve California cities are sueing gun manufacturers because "they'll sell guns to anyone with a Federal Firearms License".
So if a Federal License doesn't make someone a safe customer...who has the problem?
Anyone?
I don't want to keep seeing the same hands here...
One Stop Retort Shop - Jonah Goldberg does us all the public service of summarizing the retorts to most of the most well-worn anti-invasion tropes.
The Money War - Tom Holsinger on a surreal idea - buying victory in Iraq.
It's really not that surreal. Governments have been buying the support of factions within enemy governments and nations as long as there've been conquerors. It's how we won in Afghanistan - as Holsinger notes, we outbid Al Quaeda for the loyalty of the southern warlords.
But read the whole article. It's not all good news.
The Way Ye Were - Barbra Streisand is caught quoting a hoax version of Shakespeare.
Clout - The most exclusive club in New York City? Easy - people who can get concealed carry handgun permits.
And as is often the case in areas with strict gun control laws, it's the celebrities and goverment apparatchiks who get the permits, as this Newsday article shows. Regular citizens are undefended, while government figures and celebrities can get them for the asking.
Especially interesting how many guns went to aides of highly-anti-gun-rights former mayor Giuliani.
Here's the partial list:
Handgun PermitsOf course, it's not much different in Minnesota - clout counts.The Numbers For 2002
Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, compared to same period last year
FORMER GIULIANI AIDES
Joel Miele - Environmental Protection Commissioner
Richard Sheirer - Emergency Management Director
Anthony Carbonetti - Chief of Staff
Jerry Cammarata - Youth/Community Development Commissioner [The Youth Commissioner needs a gun?]
Bernard Kerik - Police Commissioner
Kevin Farrell - Sanitation Commissioner [the head garbageman needs a gun? They must take their trash seriously...]MTA OFFICIALS [Transit executives with guns!]
Lawrence Reuter - NYC Transit President
Joseph Hofmann - NYC Transit Senior Vice President
Thomas Savage - MetroCard operations chief
Michael Ascher - Bridges and Tunnels President
David Mack - Vice Chairman
Rudy Washington, former deputy mayor - Board Member
James Simpson - Board MemberENTERTAINMENT FIGURES
Tommy Mottola - Record executuve [For protection from ex-wife Mariah Carey, we presume...]
Steven Seagal
Buddy Hackett [Buddy Hackett needs a gun? Buddy Hackett is allowed a gun?]
Robert De Niro
Harvey Keitel
Chazz Palminteri
Howard Stern
Don ImusOTHERS
Richard A. Brown - Queens DA
Leslie Crocker Snyder - State Supreme Court
Fernando Mateo - Livery-driver advocate
Winthrop Rockefeller - Millionaire
Donald Trump - Developer [Amazing]
William F. Buckley - Columnist [and one of few anti-Second-Amendment conservatives at that...]
Joseph L. Bruno - State Senate Majority Leader
Not, as it happens, being a crime victim.
All the more reason to pass the Personal Protection Act.
Amazing - Lots to talk about - the elections, Alec Baldwin, and of course last night's Springsteen concert.
I'll hit all that later this morning.
