Mayor McSleaze

I'm not ordinarily a proponent of the death penalty, but I might make an exception for this guy.

Taggers:Military, Marines, Fort Lupton, Colorado, Jason Sepulveda, Ellis Sepulveda, Jim Bostick, Mayor, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Hypocrisy at the NRA

Dave Codrea shows that it's apparently not about freedom after all.

Taggers:Guns, NRA, National Rifle Association, hypocrisy, Florida, Voter Registration, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Darfur needs an intervention

Over at Dean's World, Aziz is asking the right questions:

Can anyone explain to me why the heck we haven't just gone in bombed the crap out of the janjaweed militias in Darfur yet?

It's a simple question. Why are we discussing potential airstrikes on Iran but none on the murdering children-mutilating rapist thug scum?

I'd love to say that the right answer is that the UN is on it, so we don't have to worry, but it's impossible to be that drunk and still type. So here are several reasons why we have done next to nothing while genocide is being committed:

Bombing alone won't solve the problem. We (or someone, anyway) would have to get a substantial number of troops in country. This is quite possibly logistically impossible because of our committment in Iraq: Ironically, by not sending more troops into Iraq early on, when they might have made a huge difference, Rumsfeld probably has ensured that we can't draw down our forces there now. (Ironic to me, probably not so ironic to our troops or to the people dying in Iraq Darfur.)

But even if it we could somehow pull it off logistically, there are a host of other political problems inherent in any American troop committment, particularly in Africa. You'll have your charges that the US is imperialistic, hegemonistic, and racist, for starters. Let's face it: as long as we are the world's only superpower, much of the world is going to fear and/or loathe us. Already, everything we do is perceived in the worst possible light, everything action we take is considered selfish. (And if that's how Democrats feel, imagine how foreigners feel.)

The commenters at Dean's World give some thoughtful answers to Aziz's question, summed up thusly:

"Why does America have do to everything? Let someone else doing something for a change."

"We can't do everything." (The logistics issue I brought up earlier.)

"We'll be called imperialists, racists, etc." (Also mentioned above.)

"Iranian nukes are a potential threat to America. Dead people in Darfur are not."

"What's happening in Darfur is horrible, but it's not our problem."

(This is, of course, a gross oversimplification of the comments. I should also point out that commenters were presenting the reasons they think we're not bombing the bad guys in Darfur, reasons they don't necessarily agree with.)

In my mind, these comments ultimately come down to two trains of thought. First, that we can only do so much in so many places, and what we do isn't appreciated anyway, so it's time for someone else to step forward and pick up the slack. And second, that the events in Darfur are definitely tragic, but absent a threat to the US, our military should not get involved.

I call these the "disgruntled neocon" and "military isolationist" positions.

Disgruntled neocons are generally all for getting militarily involved in other nations' affairs, even if those affairs don't directly threaten the US. However, they're sick to death of the name calling and America-bashing that inevitably accompany such involvement, much of it from our supposed allies across the pond, who for the most part refuse to do any of the work. The disgruntlecons think it's high time some European nations starting pulling their weight, rather than sitting on the sidelines and criticizing those who get in the game.

Military isolationists think that US military might should be used only in direct defense of America. For the most part, they are not true isolationists who want to withdraw from the world: they are all for America intervening in places like the Sudan, just not militarily. They urge (or at the very least have no problem with) the use of diplomacy, sanctions, and other measures to help resolve situations; they just don't think that any American troops should be asked to risk their lives unless America is directly threatened.

I have some sympathy with both positions, for overlapping reasons. It is definitely frustrating to the point of genuine rage that we are for the most part the only nation on the planet that is ever willing to stick its neck out, and as thanks for this we get condescendingly sneered at by the so-called "sophisticates" of Europe, dragged through the streets by the people we're trying to help in Somalia, and told we are stupid, selfish, ignorant, vain, and the most evil and repressive country in the word by just about everyone except the Israelis. If I were president my first act after being sworn in would be to recall all military personnel from Europe, along with their weapons systems. The Soviet Union is gone, and it's long past time we stopped subsidizing Europe's defense. (My second action would be to withdraw from the UN and give Kofi Annan-intervention 30 days to pack up his corrupt and bloated staff and find a home elsewhere.)

But here's the thing. None of those things ultimately matter to me, because I can't get past the numbers. The civilian death toll in Darfur is currently estimated to be 180,000, according to UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland.

"It could be just as well more than 200 000 (dead) but I think 10 000 a month is a reasonable figure," said Egeland who emphasised that the toll does not include those killed in the fighting between the local black population and government-backed militias. [emphasis mine]

On top of this is the displacement of 2 million people, a number that is expected to rise to around 4 million unless efforts at stabilization are stepped up. Then throw in the countless rapes committed by the Janjaweed militias as they wantonly destroy entire villages.

Enough.

For the same reason I supported going into Iraq, I think that, whatever the downsides, we have to intervene in Darfur, and we have to do it quicky and with everything we've got. Sometimes "This cannot stand" is the only reason you need for taking action, and this is one of those times. I will never understand how 300,000 bodies in mass graves along with the existence of rape rooms and torture chambers were not enough for most liberals to fervently support military action in Iraq. If that's not enough, if you think the figures from Darfur aren't enough to override any negative consequences, then what the hell is your tipping point? How many people have to die to meet your standard, what number has to be plugged into your equation of death? How many Sudanese equal one American?

If the Europeans want to sit on their nuanced asses and pretend they're in any way still relevant, fine. The ones who don't escape to the US will all be dues paying members of the Caliphate soon anyway. (Sometimes you really do reap what you sow.)

If people want to question our motives and call us names, let them. As long as we know that our motives are humanitarian, who cares? Call us racists as our multi-ethnic armed forces save the lives of people who happen to be black. Call us imperialists after we do our job and give the country back to its people. Call us evil and repressive as we liberate another country from thugs while you do nothing. Saving lives is far more important than worrying about what Le Monde and Stern say about us.

It's already too late to prevent mass murder. It's not too late to prevent more deaths, and it's long past time we take care of the killers.

Like it or not, as usual it's up to us.

Taggers:Europe, Bush, War, Politics, Sudan, Darfur, Janjaweed, Dean's World, Aziz P, Military, Intervention, Military Intervention, Genocide, Mass Murder, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

United 93 reviewed

United 93 is one of the most powerful films I've ever seen, and a total triumph for writer-director Paul Greengrass and everyone else involved in its making.

All politics and subject matter aside, United 93 is nearly perfect as a film. The acting is uniformly naturalistic and pitch perfect, with standout performances from Patrick St. Esprit as Major Kevin Nasypany, an Air Force officer assigned to Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), and FAA National Operations Manager Ben Sliney as himself. (Anyone who thinks it's easy to play yourself - especially for a non-actor - doesn't understand how much the camera changes everything.) But all the actors perform admirably, and Greengrass' decision to not use easily recognizable faces in any of the roles pays off in a huge way. I can't imagine how bad a film this would have been with Brad Pitt as Beamer, Gene Hackman as Sliney, and Naveen Andrews and Tony Shalhoub as two of the hijackers.

For awhile I found it a bit frustrating that I never got the passengers' names straight or got a real feel for their personalities (I actually spent most of the movie thinking the wrong guy was Todd Beamer), but I suspect this was intentional on Greengrass' part. Not assigning identifiable characteristics to the passengers serves two purposes: first, it avoids the Hollywood cliches of "the funny one," "the brainy one," "the dumb but loveable one," etc. After all, this ain't Friends. Second, not knowing much about them in an odd way makes it easier to identify with them: they are Every Americans. None of them is Superman or Wonder Woman, they're just ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and we can imagine ourselves in their place. Also, since the film takes place in close to real time, the reality is that there really isn't much time for character development.

United 93 is technically flawless. Greengrass, cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and a team of three editors combine to give the film its documentary feel. The use of handheld cameras is extremely effective at portraying the state of chaos that exists in air traffic control centers even when planes aren't being hijacked, and the camera is never in the wrong place during the close quarters filming of the scenes aboard Flight 93. John Powell's music is made more effective by its absence throughout most of the film: this is not a shot at his score, but a compliment to Greengrass' decision to let much of the movie proceed unaccompanied by anything other than occasional tension-building drumbeats. When Powell's music kicks in towards the end, the emotional effect is overwhelming to an extent it wouldn't have been if we had been hearing the same motifs throughout. Visual effects are seamless - there is never a moment when you don't believe you're on the plane, or in the control center.

The scenes inside the FAA's Command Center and regional control centers, along with those inside NORAD, are riveting and allow us to see professionals operating (mostly) at their best amidst their total confusion at what was happening. (There are several instances of characters disbelievingly saying that they couldn't even remember the last time a plane was hijacked.) Seeing the thousands of radar blips on multiple screens, each blip representing an airplane flying along the Northeast corridor that might have already been hijacked, makes you appreciate the immensity of the task faced by Sliney and his teams. Watching NORAD officers having to bypass the FAA and take matters into their own hands just to get a Combat Air Patrol flying over Manhattan, and at the same time struggling to have someone - anyone - in Washington tell them their rules of engagement, you feel some of the same frustration they felt on that day.

As the film proceeds inexorably towards its conclusion, the fact that we know how it ends does not in any way diminish the tension we feel. In actuality, knowing that there's no Hollywood ending for Flight 93's passengers makes it simultaneously nearly unbearable to watch and absolutely impossible to take your eyes off of. The last twenty minutes or so of the film take place entirely aboard the aircraft and are some of the tensest moments ever committed to celluoid, particularly once the decision is reached to storm the cockpit. And even though we know what to expect, the ending, when it finally comes, is shocking in its finality: I really happened, it says. There won't be any alternate endings on the DVD, no sequel in which characters you thought were dead come back to life. You can push me into the back of your mind if you want, you can do your best to forget me, you can look all you want for my root causes, but in the end, what remains is this: I really happened.

There are those who say it's "too soon" for United 93: I suspect they'd be saying the same thing if this were 2016. In my mind, it's too soon only if you want to forget. If you want to remember, if, as I do, you think we need to remember (and not in an abstract "I remember it was awful" way, but in a visceral "I remember what it felt like" way), then it's hard to imagine a better film than this. There's no Osama, no Afghanistan, no Iraq, no anything but what it was like to be an American on that day.

Greengrass has a brilliant quote in the press kit given out for the film, a quote that serves as a fine epitaph for those aboard United 93. He notes that the passengers on United 93 knew through phone calls to loved ones that two other aircraft had already hit the World Trade Center, and that this knowledge informed their decision to fight rather than allow their plane to be used in the same way. Because of this, he says,

They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world.

For more commentary on United 93 click here and here.

Taggers:United 93, movie, review, United 93 review, 9/11, Terrorism, Terrorist, War on Terror, Islam, Politics, Greengrass, Paul Greengrass, Hollywood, film, Ben Sliney, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Revolt of the Commentariat

If you read a lot of blogs, this is hysterical.

Hat tip: Diecast Dude.

Taggers:Humor, Blogs, Comments, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Journalism 302: Deconstructing the Washington Post's deconstruction of United 93

Good morning, class. Today's topic is writing opinion pieces as though they were straight news pieces. Please open Friday's Washington Post and go straight to Paul Farhi's story on the front page, the one with the headline that reads "When Hollywood Makes History: Invented Details in United 93 Raise Real Questions." After reading it, it seems clear that Farhi doesn't like the fact that United 93 was made. Oh, his story has all the trappings of an objective piece of journalism - the quotes from different sides, for example - but Farhi's opinion still manages to come through loud and clear. Now I'm going to show you how this is done.

First, when writing in an "on the one hand, on the other hand" format, make sure the side you agree with is always the "other hand." This way you can let your side rebut the other's points, rather than vice versa. Plus, you can throw in phrases like, "But others say," or "Despite these assurances," etc. For example:

"United 93," Hollywood's first big-budget film about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is faithful to the major aspects of the tragic morning it depicts. The movie tracks the key events detailed in the 9/11 Commission Report, the most definitive source on the subject: the commandeering of the United jet by four terrorists, the panic of the passengers and the heroic rebellion that ended with the plane crashing in a field near Shanksville, Pa.

But the movie, which opens nationwide today, is a dramatic re-creation that includes scenes and images that go far beyond what is known about the attacks.

Those scenes raise questions: How far can a dramatic movie go in imposing its own reality before it distorts the public's understanding of the event? And with memories of 9/11 still vivid and raw, is it too soon for such films to be made?

See? If you're not in favor of "X," but want to appear objective, start off by lightly praising X. This allows you to smoothly transition to your "other hand," hopefully leaving your readers none the wiser about your actual opinion.

Another tactic Farhi uses here is the old "some people are saying" ploy. You see this a lot on television: An interviewer asks a question of his interviewee, who responds with his usual boilerplate blather. The interviewer then says - wait for it - "But Senator, some people are saying that your policy unfairly discriminates against gay Palestinian paraplegics. How do you respond to those people?"

Note how the reporter, by attributing this position to "some people," avoids having to admit that "some people's" opinion is, in reality, his opinion. In Farhi's case, he takes it a step further by assigning the passive tense to his position. So questions are "raised," but not by anyone in particular. They just are.

Moving on. Next, you need to let the other side explain why they did what they did. If you've followed my instructions correctly, you've already got them on the defensive, having to justify their decisions. After this attempt at justification, which you will render pathetic, go ahead and list several instances of what it is you're talking about. Make everything "bad" seem as though it was a malicious lie, completely ignoring any justifications that had been made:

"United 93's" director, Paul Greengrass, has said he sought to create the "plausible truth" of what happened, given that many details are unknown.

The film asserts that the hijackers' intended target was the Capitol. In one scene, Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese terrorist who piloted the plane, props a picture of the building on the cockpit's console, imposing a cinematic answer to a question that the 9/11 Commission could not resolve: whether the terrorists were trying to hit the Capitol or the White House. Investigators said that point was a source of contention among the 9/11 plotters, with Osama bin Laden favoring a strike on the White House and others, including Mohamed Atta, favoring the Capitol.

"United 93" also suggests that the terrorists killed the pilot and co-pilot, for example, but what occurred is unclear. A United 93 flight recorder picked up the terrorists ordering someone repeatedly to "sit down" and discussing whether to "bring the pilot back" late in the hijacking.

"United 93" also shows the passengers breaching the cockpit with a beverage cart and wrestling the terrorists for control as the plane plummets. Although the 9/11 report states that the passengers fought back in the flight's final moments, the commission had no indication that the passengers entered the cockpit. The report suggests the opposite: "The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them."

You're on a roll now. Throw in a quick list of supposed "experts" that the other side says helped them, but don't quote any of them. Just list them and walk away. Maybe mention how one of the "experts" ended up on their payroll:

Universal Pictures, the film's distributor, says researchers consulted numerous sources, including the 9/11 Commission Report, military and civilian aviation authorities, and more than 100 family members and friends of the victims. The movie's advisers included Ben Sliney, who headed the Federal Aviation Administration's Command Center in Herndon on Sept. 11; Sliney portrays himself in the film.

Now it's patsy time. Find someone other than the person in charge of the other side and use your language skills to tear him apart. Words such as "acknowledges," "admits," "justifies," and "questionable" are particularly handy here:

Lloyd Levin, a "United 93" co-producer, acknowledges that the film went beyond known facts about the flight, but he justifies the movie's approach as artistically necessary. "Our mandate was not the same as the 9/11 Commission Report," Levin said. "Our mandate was to what Paul wanted to say with this movie. We're not journalists. Paul is an artist."

He called some of the questionable depictions "choices we had to make." Whether the passengers actually breached the cockpit is "a moot point, because at that point you're in the area of metaphor," he said.

Okay, time for another "one hand, other hand" con. By this point, if you've done your job well, your readers are on your side and you don't have to be all that subtle:

Those choices might satisfy moviegoers but they rankle those interested in a more literal portrait of the events of Sept. 11.

Quickly now, a quote for your side from someone with absolute moral authority:

"I would prefer history tell itself, rather than have Hollywood tell it," said Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, was killed on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center. "There's so much we just don't know. Unfortunately, they're taking artistic license with history and people will believe it's accurate. Speculation is okay for drama, but it's less okay when it's purporting to tell history. If they didn't know, why didn't they just leave it out?"

Lemack, co-founder of the organization Families of September 11, has not seen the movie, but she says she was surprised and upset by its trailer and promotional poster, which shows smoke pouring from the World Trade Center towers. She also says the filmmakers missed an opportunity to spur moviegoers to find out more about terrorism and call them to action. (Universal will donate 10 percent of the movie's first weekend ticket sales to a memorial fund.)

You're just about unstoppable now! You can, as Farhi does, throw in some more examples of the other side's shameless duplicity. It's probably not necessary, but what could it hurt?

The decision to counterattack the terrorists was made after passengers learned that other hijacked planes had crashed, according to the 9/11 report and the film. In addition to the cockpit recordings, eyewitness accounts came from crew members and passengers, who used cellphones and air phones to contact people on the ground. But those accounts were sometimes contradictory and fragmentary, and the 9/11 Commission acknowledged that many details never will be known.

Levin acknowledges that in dramatizing the course of the flight, "United 93" makes creative leaps to fill in the blanks. For example, it's not clear who among the passengers spearheaded the response to the terrorists. One passenger, in a phone call from the plane, left it vague: "Everyone's running up to first class. I've got to go. Bye." The 9/11 Commission could not identify whose voices are heard as the passengers storm the cockpit door. "United 93" tackles this uncertainty with a reasonable assumption: that the charge was led by the strongest, most athletic men, including a judo champion.

Other scenes appear to be wholly invented. In one, a passenger who argued for cooperating with the hijackers is restrained by others as the counterattack begins. In another, the passengers are shown overwhelming two hijackers and apparently killing them. Both depictions might be dramatically satisfying, but there's no evidence that either of those events occurred.

Now it's showtime: time to bring 'er on home! The important thing to remember here is that you must close with a quote that takes your side. If you forget everything else I've taught you, do not forget this. Anything before this quote doesn't matter. In fact, the best thing to do here is allow the other side to make a short point, then quickly shift into "some people say" mode and wrap it up:

Many of the victims' immediate relatives have endorsed the movie, saying it fairly represents their final hours. David Beamer, whose son Todd Beamer was killed, told the Associated Press this week: "Our personal reaction was one of relief, because they got it right. When it comes to September 11 and United Flight 93, we don't need another movie. This one got it."

But others question whether it was necessary to make even one movie about an event that many have lived through.

Bruce Hoffman, a Washington-based counterterrorism expert with the Rand Corp., notes that the news media have long avoided replaying some of the more disturbing images of Sept. 11. But, he says: "These equally horrible events are now being depicted as entertainment. I don't know why that's more acceptable.

"Producers and directors can have the purest and best intentions to re-create the horror and tragedy and bravery of the passengers. But the bottom line is, it's still entertainment. You have to question whether making it into entertainment cheapens and demeans it."

You may not have noticed the added twist Farhi performs here, like a gymnast making one last rotation on her dismount. He says that many of the "victims' immediate relatives" endorse United 93, then goes into his "some people say" routine by writing "But others question whether it was necessary," etc. Now, the word "others" here obviously refers back to the "victims' immediate relatives," so you'd think that the quote following this would be from a family member. But no, it's from counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, telling us that United 93 "cheapens and demeans" what happened on 9/11.

Hoffman is obviously entitled to his opinion, but as neither a family member of a victim nor an expert in film studies, it's not clear why he's quoted as though he were an expert. However, it really doesn't matter. The article, a beautifully constructed opinion piece in straight news's clothing, is done.

If you're successful, readers will come away parroting your opinion even though they are convinced they just read a harmless news story. If you're really successful, you'll end up on page A01, like Farhi did.

Class dismissed.

(For my take on Salon's review of United 93, click here. For my review of United 93, click here.)

Taggers:United 93, Flight 93, Movies, United 93 movie, Hollywood, 9/11, Terrorism, War on Terror, Islam, Washington Post, Journalism, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Pakistanis Looney over Toons

Gateway Pundit reports that police in Karachi, Pakistan, have "registered cases" against the editor and publisher of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, over the cartoons of Muhammed the paper published last September. According to the Pakistani Daily Times, cases were also registered against "several other European dailies," as well as Yahoo, Hotmail and Google. The cases have been filed "under a blasphemy law that carries the death penalty."

Islamic tradition bars any of drawings of the Holy Prophet, favourable or otherwise, in a policy to discourage idolatry. Lawyer Iqbal Haider, who runs Awami Himayat Tehrik or People’s Support Movement, had petitioned the Supreme Court against the publication of the cartoons under a blasphemy law that allows the death penalty for anyone guilty of insulting the Holy Prophet or the holy Quran. [Note: I took out the "PBUH" that the Times used after saying "the Holy Prophet." I'm not in the mood, and besides, pretty soon it'll probably be mandatory.]

Cases were registered on Tuesday against Jyllands-Posten, its editor, publisher, a cartoonist, and newspapers in France, Italy, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands at a police station in Karachi on the court’s orders, said Tariq Malik, an official at the station.

“It is now the government’s job to contact the Interpol and bring the offenders to a court of law in Pakistan,” Haider said on Wednesday.

The Pakistani government has not yet indicated whether or not it would contact Interpol, but a "senior Karachi police officer" told the Daily Times that the case was being looked into.

It should be noted that there does seem to be at least sane one person in Pakistan:

A government prosecutor, who opposed the petition, says Pakistan’s courts have no jurisdiction over a crime committed abroad.

“The courts in Pakistan ... have jurisdiction to try a person for an offence within their territorial jurisdiction in Pakistan,” prosecutor Makhdoom Ali Khan said in a written statement to the Supreme Court on April 7.

It's interesting to note, as Gateway Pundit does, that no case has been brought against Egypt's Al Fager newspaper, which also published the cartoons, nor against the Danish imams who apparently made up the most offensive cartoons and then claimed that Jyllands-Posten had published them along with the actual cartoons.

Also of interest will be the responses of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, all three of which have rather spotted histories when it comes to sacrificing freedom of speech on the altar of political and economic expediency. As Pamela at Atlas Shrugs says of Google,

Let's see if they bend over and yelp 'how far???' or if they finally take a stand.

I'm not optimistic.

Really, there's only one rational response to this madness:

I hope every blogger who doesn't already have a Jyllands-Posten cartoon on his or her site puts one up now. And I will now proceed to back up this blog in case Google has a problem with this.

My previous posts on cartoons here, here and here.

Islam. The official religion of peace and tolerance.^TM
(Does not apply to apostates, unbelievers, cartoonists, filmmakers, authors, homosexuals and women. Other groups and/or individuals may be added to this list at any time and for any reason, real or perceived. All rights reserved.)

Taggers:Cartoons, Denmark, Danish Cartoons, Jyllens-Posten, Islam, Terrorism, Dhimmitude, Europe, Religion, Blasphemy, Pakistan, Muhammed, Allah, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Atlas Mugs

Is Atlas finally about to mug for the big screen? Variety's Pam McClintock is reporting that distributor Lionsgate has picked up the worldwide rights to Atlas Shrugs, Ayn Rand's 7,000 page doorstop in which she once again laid out her philosophy of Objectivism for those of us who read We the Living, Anthem and/or The Fountainhead, and somehow still thought she was an altruistic Commie.

(I don't mean to rag on Rand: I think The Fountainhead is one of the best - and most important - works of the 20th century. But, and I know this is probably considered heresy in some quarters, I found Atlas to be overwrought, overlong and overdone. It actually turned me into a man overbored in the middle of John Galt's "I can go longer than Fidel" speech.)

According to McClintock - and to be filed under M for "You cannot be serious,"

Angelina Jolie, a longtime devotee of Rand's, and Brad Pitt, also a fan, are rumored to be circling the leading roles of Dagny Taggart and John Galt.

Okay, at this point I realized I should've gone straight to the source to begin with, and whaddaya know, the source, she comes through. (Personal aside: I think I may have had a dream that involved Pamela and that Supergirl costume she's photoshopped into at the top left of her blog. I don't remember the details, but I'm pretty sure - Lord, I hope - I wasn't the one wearing it.)

Anyway, Pamela pointed me to Robert Bindinotto's blog, where I learned that I would've known that Brad and Angie were big fans of Rand (Fands?) if I had only read the Hollywood issue of The New Individualist, which I unaccountably missed. The Shrugstress also sent me to one of the more inane articles I've ever read, in which the writer (who, luckily for any future aspirations he or she has, did not sign his or her "work") lets us know that Rand is mostly read by frat boys.

First of all, I find that offensive to Rand's readers. And second of all, it's fraternity, not frat. Would you call your country a - well, you get the idea.

Anyway, the author of this piece is clearly either a college freshman or an Ivy League political science professor. The dead giveaway? This line:

The weighty tome focuses on railroad executive Dagny Taggart, who feels crushed by society's evil shift toward collectivism or something silly like that.

To which Pamela rationally retorts:

Yeah "something silly" that results in the death of 100 million outside of war. By why quibble with "silly" details.

I think I'm in love.

But back to the movies. Atlas has been floating around Hollywood for decades (somehow managing to never philosphically penetrate the hive minds at the studios), so it remains to be seen what, if anything, comes out of this deal. (The Variety article gives a good history.) I dealt with McClintock back when I was Hollywood Boy, and always found her to be a reliable reporter. But the fact of the matter is that deals like this are announced all the time, sometimes with a full brass band providing the fanfare, and often absolutely nothing comes of them. As an example, McClintock, in detailing the history of Rand's books in Hollywood, notes that

Oliver Stone was attached to direct a remake of "Fountainhead" for Warner Bros. and Paramount, but the project has languished in development. Along the way, Pitt expressed interest in playing Roark.

You can bet there was a lot of hype about that, too.

The real question is: Is it true that all John Galt really wanted to do was direct?

Taggers:Hollywood, Atlas Shrugs, Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Movies, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Deja vu all over again: Middle East edition

"I am sailing out along parallel 32.5 to stress that this is the Libyan border. This is the line of death where we shall stand and fight with our backs to the wall."

- Libya's supreme leader, Muammar Qaddafi, 1986

"Today is a day in the Grand Battle, the immortal Mother of All Battles. It is a glorious and a splendid day on the part of the self-respecting people of Iraq and their history, and it is the beginning of the great shame for those who ignited its fire on the other part. It is the first day on which the vast military phase of that battle started. Or rather, it is the first day of that battle, since Allah decreed that the Mother of All Battles continue till this day."

- Iraq's supreme leader, Saddam Hussein, 1991

""If the U.S. ventured into any aggression on Iran, Iran will retaliate by damaging U.S. interests worldwide twice as much as the U.S. may inflict on Iran."

- Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 2006

Taggers:Iran, Iraq, War, Politics, Humor, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Bloomberg shoots and misses

Based on his performance at a press conference yesterday that followed a summit of 15 anti-gun mayors, it's obvious that New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg has built up a tolerance to whatever anti-psychotics or mood stabilizers he's currently on, to the point where they have no effect whatsoever.

You see, Bloomberg has got this idea stuck in his head (where I'm sure it's very lonely) that he's a great crusader for justice. Well, if justice is fining people for sitting on milk crates, taking up two seats on the subway, or riding a bike without both feet on the pedals, then Bloomberg is freakin' Batman. But it's not, and he's not.

Here's an example of Bloombergian logic from yesterday's presser, as reported by the inexplicably sympathetic New York Post:

Surrounded by 14 mayors attending an unprecedented Gracie Mansion gun summit, Mayor Bloomberg charged yesterday that legislators who "vote against getting guns off the street" share responsibility for the death of the 2-year-old boy killed by a stray bullet on Easter Sunday.

"The only thing that would have helped that child is if we had the courage to stand up and get the guns off the street," Bloomberg declared at a press conference following the four-hour summit.

"And those who vote against getting guns off the street really are the ones as much responsible as the shooter, because if the shooter didn't have a gun, that child would still be alive."

So in the world according to Mike, supporting an individual's right to bear arms makes you not even just partially responsible for a senseless murder, but as responsible as the nutjob who pulled the trigger on a gun that - surprise, surprise - was obtained illegally in the first place. Makes perfect sense. Or at least as much sense as mouthing platitudes about having the "courage" to "get the guns off the street."

How should we get the guns "off the street?" Well, what we should probably do is enact a series of laws that strictly limit who can legally buy one. Once we do that, all murder will magically disappear, Willy Wonka will open his chocolate factory, and we'll all live happily ever after. Obviously the laws we have aren't strict enough, or little David Pacheco Jr. wouldn't have been shot with an illegal weap--HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!

Phew. That was close. I almost got sucked down the rabbit hole into Bloomland, where our universe's logic doesn't apply.

I'm gonna leave it to you, dear readers, to explain how a crime committed with an illegally acquired gun is the fault of lawmakers. It's too much for me. Besides, each mayor at the summit signed a six-point statement of principles, so I'm sure everything will be taken care of, even if, as the Post points out, "at least half the principles require state or federal action." Last time I checked, taking state or federal action wasn't listed under the job description of mayor, but I haven't checked in awhile, so maybe that's changed.

Here's the deal, Mike: making it difficult, if not impossible, for law-abiding citizens to own guns will always lead to more crime. When predators know their would-be prey can't defend themselves, they attack. When they know their would-be prey may be able to fight back, they tend to move on. It's science.

So if you think about it, maybe the politicians who campaign and vote for stricter gun laws "really are the ones as much responsible as the shooter."

Guns don't kill people: gun control laws do.

Update: How could I forget: Mayor Bloomberg? You're on my list.

Taggers:Politics, Mayor Bloomberg, Bloomberg, Guns, New York, Gun Control, Second Amendment, Libertarian, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac,

Tapes of Wrath

I'm too disgusted to really write about this. Just go over to The Agitator, read Radley Balko's post about cops in Tennessee torturing a suspected low-level drug dealer here, then click on the link to the actual recordings of the police going all Uday and Qusay on the poor guy here. If you make it all the way through, you're either a better man than Cranky, or you're a sociopath.

I meant to post about this yesterday, and now I see from Balko's post here that between then and now a flame war has started over Andy Sullivan's perceived blame of the Bush administration for this heinous crime. Here's what Sullivan said, in part:

What I do know is that when the government launches an ill-defined "war" on a "thing", rather than an explicit foreign enemy, and when you have an administration as profoundly hostile to American liberty as this one is, all sorts of abuses will necessarily follow. And they have.

Backed by Instapundit (gosh, the InstaSully feud is so adorable!), Tom Maguire over at Just One Minute sees this as a clear sign that Sullivan has developed Bush Derangement Syndrome, but I'm not sure that's being fair to Sullivan. JOM says

It's not clear from the context whether the "thing" upon which we have declared war is drugs (this was, after all, a drug dealer) or terror.

It seems clear to me that "this thing of ours" that Sully references is the immoral, worthless and endless "War on Drugs," particularly given his strong support for the GWOT. Yes, his rhetoric about the Bush administration is a tad overheated, but c'mon: that's Sullivan. You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him. Let Sully be Sully. Etc.

And, in defense of Sullivan, Balko correctly points out that, among other things,

[I]t was the Bush administration that ran inflammatory ads accusing recreational drug users of financing international terrorism, attempting to make the case that there's no moral distinction between dope dealers and al-Qaeda operatives. When the White House's top drug policy people run a million-dollar ad campaign suggesting that small-time drug dealers are no better than terrorists, it's certainly reasonable to wonder if that might contribute to the mindset that leads drug cops to treat drug suspects like terrorists, isn't it? [emphasis Cranky's]

[snip]

It's disingenuous to support an administration that paints drug users and dealers as subhuman scum no better than the 9/11 hijackers, then feign shock when someone dares to suggest that such rhetoric and policies might be to blame when drug cops do in fact treat suspected drug users or dealers ...as subhuman scum no better than the 9/11 hijackers. [emphasis still Cranky's]

Anyway, I started this post by saying I wasn't gonna write much about it, so leave me alone and follow the damn links that I slaved long and hard preparing just for you that you never appreciate and just once it would be nice to hear "those links were really good" and why are you always working late these days and don't you love me anymore?

Taggers: Police, Politics, Torture, War on Drugs, War on Terror, Bush, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Are the generals revolting?

There's a really interesting opinion piece in today's Washington Post by British journalist and historian Max Hastings which places the sudden outspokenness of retired generals in some historical context.

There's been a lot of debate over the past couple of weeks regarding the propriety of retired senior officers speaking out against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (See my take here and here, and a link to Point Five's Donald Rumsfeld Resignation Advisory System here.) As Hastings says, even "many people who oppose the Iraq war and deplore Rumsfeld are nonetheless troubled by the notion of senior officers, even retired ones, openly criticizing political leadership."

He notes that in principle this is nothing new:

In truth, retired soldiers have always been outspoken about the alleged blunders of successor warlords, uniformed and otherwise. During Britain's colonial conflicts and in both world wars, through Korea and Vietnam, hoary old American and British warriors wrote frequently to newspapers, deploring this decision or that, exploiting their credentials to criticize governments and commanders.

During the Iraq campaigns of 1991 and 2003, I heard British chiefs of staff express their fervent desire for veterans to get themselves off television screens. We may assume that, as chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff today, Gen. Peter Pace feels the same way.

Winston Churchill's wartime chief of staff, Gen. Hastings "Pug" Ismay, charmingly described in his memoirs how, in 1940, lunches at his old army club in London became intolerable because at every mouthful, he was beset by veterans explaining how his master should properly be running the war. In self-defense, Ismay resorted to lunching at White's, a venerable aristocratic institution where few members had noticed that a conflict was taking place.

But according to Hastings, there is something that separates the current volubility from past conduct: the way we now wage war and assign responsibility for failures both perceived and real. It used to be that elected governments were responsible for the "who, where and why" of war - who are we fighting, where are we fighting them, why are we fighting them - and the generals and admirals, working with the officers and troops below them, handled the "how." In this system, assigning responsibility seemed relatively easy: Vietnam is perceived as a bad war , Lyndon Johnson takes the fall. Little Big Horn doesn't turn out quite the way we hoped, General Custer gets the blame. FDR is hailed for his leadership during World War II, and Ike, Bradley, Nimitz, Patton, etc., get the glory for battles won and campaigns well-executed.

Post-WWII, however, and particularly after winning the Cold War, the West increasingly finds itself involved in a different kind of war:

The great progressive change since 1945 is that the conduct of limited wars has become intensely political. The interventions of civilian leaders are ever more detailed and explicit in matters that were once deemed military turf. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was sacked in Korea in 1951 for conduct no more imperious than his World War II norm in the Pacific. The general failed to understand that the principle on which he had always justified his own mandate -- when wars start, politicians must leave soldiers to run them -- was a dead letter in the nuclear age.

Coupled with this increased desire of civilians to encroach on what was historically the militiary's bailiwick is their ability to do so. Secure phones, real time satellite imagery and other technological advancements have made it very easy - too easy, many in the military might say - for officials in Washington to monitor, influence, and even direct events happening thousands of miles away.

All of these things can lead to a frustrated military that is unable to achieve the broad strategic objectives given to it, and an officer corps that may wonder why, when they would never infringe upon the right (indeed the necessity) of an elected government to set policy, an official of this same government shows no compunction about constantly meddling in their areas of expertise, and then tops it off by refusing to accept any responsibility when his meddling leads to notable failures. As Hastings puts it:

If commanders are denied the power to manage campaigns as they think right, it is unjust to allow them to accept blame when these go awry. In the new world, the generals' revolt seems a legitimate response to political mismanagement of operations. If a civilian such as Donald Rumsfeld seeks to exercise from Washington functions that were traditionally those of soldiers, he should take the customary consequences.

I worked for a guy like Rumsfeld once. (Not in the Army.) The guy would hire people, like me, to perform duties they were well qualified for (in my case, communications and PR), and then wouldn't let them do their jobs the way they knew how. He was a micromanager of the worst sort, and was convinced he knew how to do your job better than you did, even though he had no training and, more importantly, no native ability at it. You would try to convince him that you knew what you were doing, and explain to him why his ideas were disastrous, only to have him overrule you. But then - and here's the kicker - when his decisions turned out to be wrong, guess who got the blame?

This may be why I feel so strongly about Rumsfeld being removed as SecDef, but I suppose that's a question for my shrink.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Military, Rumsfeld, War, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Heh, indeed

Greenpeace is mad at Ted Kennedy, and this time it's not for polluting bodies of water with bodies of women.

The Poor Man explains what makes Tony Snow so special. (Hat tip to my mentor, Chewey Williams.)

NY Times fails Econ 101

According to the New York Times, the current high price of gas is, like everything else in the world it doesn't like, President Bush's fault.

In a general editorial called "How Not to Cure an Addiction," the Times castigates the President for on the one hand acknowledging that "higher prices reflected global demand," but on the other for offering "no strategy to combat demand-driven price rises."

So the Times would like Bush to repeal the law of supply and demand. Sure, and maybe after that he can work on getting Newton v. Apple overturned. (By the way, I thought the whole War in Iraq thing was supposed to be about cheap oil, but now the Times says that it's actually pushing prices up by "reinforcing the market's anxiety over political upheaval in oil-producing areas." I wish these people would make up their minds when they're telling me what to think.)

According to the Times,

The obvious solution, to increase fuel efficiency standards for ordinary cars, was not mentioned. The current standard, 27.5 miles per gallon, on average, has not been raised in more than two decades.

Really? This is the "obvious solution?" With all your Navigators that I can't see around and your Escalades with 20" rims and your Hummers that come damn close to getting single digit mpgs on the road nowadays, ordinary cars are the problem? I doubt that. (Yeah, I have a thing against SUVs, but that's a topic for another post.)

The bottom line is that in the end - at the end of the day, when all is said and done, after the fat lady's sung, when all the petards have finished their hoisting, when the cows come home - in the end, gas prices are high because people are willing to pay high prices for gas. And even if they're not willing, they have no choice.

Interestingly, on the op-ed page directly across from where the gen-eds are, there's a piece by William Sweet called The Nuclear Option, which says that the US needs to rely more on nuclear power. My earlier post here explains how organizations such as the Times helped prevent the growth of the nuclear power industry for the past thirty years, thereby contributing to the mess we now find ourselves in. Not that the Times will acknowledge that one of its stances was wrong any time soon. Hell, it took them forty years to figure out that championing Stalin might've been a mistake.

As blogger Counter Top points out, there are several things the government can do that might lower the price of gas, but all of them involve getting out of the way of the free market, not mandating more regulation. And though this will offer short-term help to consumers, lowering the price of gas will do nothing to ease our dependence on oil. Indeed, by making the economic burden less severe, it will do quite the opposite.

Unfortunately, we've probably reached the point where only higher prices than we're used to paying will force us to explore serious (i.e., not corn) alternatives to oil-based power sources. Never forget that the piper, he done like to get paid.

The Cranky Insomniac's 100th Post!

In honor of my 100thpost, here are some random musings, questions, and aphorisms from The Notebooks of the Cranky Insomniac, to be published only in the unlikely event of my death.

If you're going to compare Republicans to Nazis, please make sure you do it at the top so you save me the trouble of having to pay attention to anything else you have to say.

"My country always wrong" is not a more nuanced or sophisticated position than "my country right or wrong," and the latter is generally far less annoying.

I'm not particularly interested in the root causes of your dementia.

Does anyone else find it odd that it in general it was the people who don't believe in an afterlife who wanted to pull the plug on Terry Schiavo, and the people who believe in heaven who wanted to keep her alive?

If you can rage about living in a fascist society and not be thrown in jail or shot, you're not living in a fascist society.

Just once I'd like for House to be wrong and for one of the other doctors to make the correct diagnosis.

When will Keith Olbermann realize that his anti-O'Reilly ranting makes him as distasteful as O'Reilly himself?

The people with left wing bumperstickers on their cars are invariably the most incapable and inconsiderate drivers on the road.

Why is having been a supporter of Stalin somehow always excusable?

Our theocrats are preferable to their theocrats. For now.

Believing in the usefulness of the United Nations is insane, unless you're a dictator, despot, or mass murderer.

If you threaten me, my family, my friends, my country, or my way of life, you're gonna have a fight on your hands.

Sometimes torture is both necessary and moral. Then there's the other 99.9% of the time.

Why do "Blame America Firsters" claim to love their country?

The guy next to Jack Bauer in a gunfight is this generation's equivalent of the guy in the landing party wearing the red shirt on Star Trek.

Mr. Darwin will eventually take care of pacifists.

Our moral relativists are the best friends of their extremists.

If you enjoyed this sneak peek from The Notebooks of the Cranky Insomniac half as much as I did, well, then I enjoyed it twice as much as you.

Thanks to all of you who wrote in to congratulate me on my 100th post. Never forget that it's your strength and love that make all this possible.

-Cranky

United 93 not as cheery as Salon's critic hoped

Pre-release reviews of Paul Greengrass's United 93 are almost uniformly spectacular.

But my favorite review comes courtesty of Stephanie Zacharek at the unbearably smug and French-sounding leftist e-zine, Salon, because it's an instructive look inside the heart and mind of the Nuanced.

Zacharek is upset because the film made her feel...well, upset.

Paul Greengrass' "United 93" is a movie made with tremendous care, and with almost boundless sensitivity to persons living and dead. But just hours after seeing the picture, I'm finding it hard to care about Greengrass' integrity: I've never had a more excruciating moviegoing experience in my life, and as brilliantly crafted -- and as adamantly unexploitive -- as the picture is, it still leaves you wondering why it was made in the first place.

Here's a hint as to why it was "made in the first place," Stephanie: look in the mirror. The people who need to see United 93 are the people who have had the horror of 9/11 removed from the eternal sunshine of their spotless minds, the people who want to pretend that 9/11 didn't really change anything, the people who condescendingly mock those of us who know it did. (More precisely, 9/11 didn't really change reality as much as it brought it into stark relief, but let's not quibble.)

Some other choice quotes:

And the movie's climactic sequence, in which several of the bigger, stronger passengers attack two of the terrorists, jolts us with a terrifying charge. We need the catharsis the scene offers, but Greengrass never allows us to lapse into moral superiority. Greengrass doesn't allow a comfortable distance between ourselves and these desperate passengers. When they lunged for one of the terrorists, I found I'd curled my own hands into fists, as if expressing some atavistic desire to choke the life out of him myself.

Here we find Zacharek clearly unhappy about not being allowed to assume her natural feelings of "moral superiority," angry at being made to feel an "atavistic desire" to kill a terrorist, a desire that should only be felt by unitellectual red staters who are brainwashed by our government in the service of the military-industrial complex. If the idea that wanting to kill someone who is trying to kill you is the moral equivalent of a prehensile tail doesn't perfectly sum up the bankruptcy and uselessness of the anti-war crowd, I don't know what does.

And while Greengrass must have his own strong personal feelings about how the U.S. government has co-opted the events of 9/11 for its own purposes (he's too politically astute a filmmaker not to have such feelings), "United 93" isn't intended to make a statement on the war on terrorism.

Okay, okay, we get the fact that you're sophisticated and nuanced, so relax. Also, I love how the Bush administration is always accused of "taking advantage of" or "co-opting" the events of 9/11 for its own nefarious purposes. I've never understood how waging an increasingly unpopular war, watching your approval ratings tumble into the low 30s and possibly leaving as your legacy your party's loss of its congressional majorities are the works of an evil mastermind. But then again, I'm not very nuanced, myself.

Zacharek concludes her review (and really I should get a promotion, or at least a medal, for reading the whole thing) by reiterating how unfair it is that she was forced to remember 9/11:

But while "United 93" offers a horrifyingly realistic evocation of pain and fear, it doesn't open itself out to any greater, more expansive truth. And it offers us no hope of transcendence. "United 93" spells out for us horrors that previously we could only have imagined, as if imagining them could never be enough. It's an expertly made picture that I wish I could stamp out of my mind. What's the value of artistry that sucks the life out of you?

I obviously haven't seen the film yet, but I'll take a wild shot in the dark that it doesn't offer any "hope of transcendence" because Greengrass sought to make as close to an honest re-creation of what happened to Flight 93 as possible, using all available information. And I'll take another stab that none of that information was particularly transcendent. [Edit: I've now seen the film, and I was right. But you knew that.] Sorry, Stephanie, but this really happened, and life doesn't always provide a sense of uplift. You may wish you could stamp it out of your mind, but that's your problem, not the film's.

Besides, you can always cheer yourself up by watching Fahrenheit 9/11, right?

Update: For an explanation of how the Washington Post bashes United 93 in a page A01 "straight news" story, see here. For my review of United 93, see here.

Update²: Welcome, Gay Patriot readers!

Update³: Welcome, Countertoppers!

Update⁴: Welcome, residents of Dean's World!

Taggers:United 93, Flight 93, Movies, United 93 movie, Hollywood, 9/11, Terrorism, War on Terror, Islam, Salon, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

No fun to stay at the DMCA

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is the draconian law enacted by Congress in 1998 to combat piracy on the dry seas of the ether. Among other things, the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection measures used to prevent consumers from copying DVDs, music or software CDs, and other such copyrighted materials. It has already been used to prosecute the manufacturers and sellers of software and harware intended to be used for such circumvention.

It also has had about as much effect on piracy as that whole "war on drugs" thing has had on drug use.

So, like the drug "warriors" before them, the folks behind the DMCA - the recording and entertainment industries, with the support of their stooges in DC - have decided that what's needed are harsher laws with stiffer penalites. For whatever reasons - sheer stupidity is my guess - they don't seem to realize that this will further alienate their potential consumers and most likely do next to nothing to prevent all the Dread Pirate Roberts out there from continuing their plundering and pillaging.

As the ever-reliable Declan McCullagh at CNET News reports:

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith, a Texas Republican, is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.

A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to "be introduced in the near future." Beth Frigola, Smith's press secretary, added Monday that Wisconsin Republican F. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the full House Judiciary Committee, will be leading the effort.

It should come as no surpise to anyone that Attorney General and porn voyeur Alberto Gonzales thinks the whole thing is a great idea. But hold on: this time he's not doing it "for the children." No, this time, in a display of chutzpah that could only be matched by Bill Clinton becoming a couples' therapist, the AG (and pv) lets us know that if we don't pass this new legislation, the terrorists have won:

Such changes are necessary because new technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

(There used to be a thing in this country called shame. It's been MIA for a long time, and, although no remains were ever found, it was declared legally dead during the Clinton administration. Shame sightings still occasionally occur: there was a mass sighting right after the 2000 election, but there is now ample evidence that this was a false alarm. Many Americans refuse to believe that shame is gone forever, and wait anxiously for its return.)

Where is this evidence of "large-scale criminal enterprises" that apparently are giving the money they make from selling little Johnny a bootleg copy of Stealth straight to bin Laden, Inc.? I'll tell you where it is: right next to Joe McCarthy's list.

Anyone who doesn't know that you can get literally almost any CD, DVD or piece of software you want for free by joining the world of BitTorrents has no business talking about or passing laws having to do with "piracy." (Do a search here, if you don't know what I'm talking about. Search for a movie that's still in theatres, if you feel like it.)

Also, note how Gonzo says "quite franky" before invoking the terrorists. Many shrinks would say that the use of "quite franky" is a sure sign that the speaker is being anything but frank.

Here are some examples of how under the newly proposed legislation the customer is always wrong:

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

It also represents a political setback for critics of expanding copyright law, who have been backing federal legislation that veers in the opposite direction and permits bypassing copy protection for "fair use" purposes. That bill--introduced in 2002 by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat--has been bottled up in a subcommittee ever since.

Smith's measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

"It's one degree more likely that mere communication about the means of accomplishing a hack would be subject to penalties," said Peter Jaszi, who teaches copyright law at American University and is critical of attempts to expand it.

Even the current wording of the DMCA has alarmed security researchers. Ed Felten, the Princeton professor, told the Copyright Office last month that he and a colleague were the first to uncover the so-called "rootkit" on some Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs--but delayed publishing their findings for fear of being sued under the DMCA. A report prepared by critics of the DMCA says it quashes free speech and chokes innovation.

Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University, views the DMCA expansion as more than just a minor change. "If Sony had decided to stand on its rights and either McAfee or Norton Antivirus had tried to remove the rootkit from my hard drive, we'd all be violating this expanded definition," Litman said.

So Sony, in its capacity as a music distributor, puts a piece of software known as a "rootkit" on some of its CDs. This software, meant to prevent you from making "unauthorized" copies of your CD, inserts itself into your operating system without your knowledge or consent when you put one of these CDs into your computer's CD-ROM drive.

Under the DMCA, this is perfectly legal.

Now, let's say you find out that this rootkit program had been installed on your hard drive - again, without your knowledge or consent - and you decide that you wanted to remove it.

Under the DMCA, this is perfectly illegal.

So, to sum up: Under the DMCA it is okay for a company to hide software on a CD (which you own) and download that software onto your hard drive (which you own) without your knowledge or consent. But it is verboten for you to remove this software, regardless of the fact that it was installed on your hard drive (which you own) without your knowledge or consent. And under the new law, you could be put in prison for 10 years just for trying to remove this rootkit.

This is "fair use"????

And it doesn't stop there. The proposed law also:

Establishes a new copyright crimes unit within the FBI and grants wiretapping authority for copyright infringement investigations;

Allows for criminal enforcement of copyright violations even for unregistered works;

Establishes civil asset forfeiture penalties for any equipment used for piracy;

Allows copyright holders to seize any and all records that might document the "manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" copyright infringements.

Yes, by all means, let's increase the ability of the government - your government - to seize your assets. But hey - at least the asset forfeiture will be done "following the rules established by federal drug laws," because Lord knows those don't get abused every day. Count on overzealous prosecutors seizing computers, hard drives, etc., before the guilt of a suspect has been established. Count on it being difficult, if not impossible, for a person who's been cleared of the charges against him to get his stuff back.

And as for seizing records:

Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the digital-rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the recording industry would be delighted to have the right to impound records. In a piracy lawsuit, "they want server logs," Schultz said. "They want to know every single person who's ever downloaded (certain files)--their IP addresses, everything."

The recording industry notoriously screws musicians. It screws music fans, too, by overcharging for CDs, placing too much faith (and too much marketing) in untalented artists who look good in videos but can't put out even one CD's worth of decent material, while for the most part ignoring talented acts that might take time to build an audience, but whose audience will stay with them for the long haul.

The industry does all this, and then blames declining sales on the fans themselves, who, in the eyes of the RIAA, are nothing but potential pirates just waiting to scam the labels out of their "hard-earned" money. Product sucks? Can't be. Product's too expensive? No way. Music fans ungrateful bastards? Bingo.

Here's some advice for the RIAA: Whatever you do to try to stop piracy will be countered by people who ultimately are smarter than you, people who for the most part aren't looking to get something for nothing, but who are making it their business to give you the (electronic) finger simply because they just don't like you or your methods.

The fact that you're seeking to make "unfair use" even more obnoxious than it already is shows that you haven't learned a damn thing in the past eight years or so. You're in serious danger of becoming a dinosaur, trying to avoid extinction by passing laws against ice ages.

Wake up.

(Hat tip: TuCents' excellent post, "It doesn't hurt enough yet, do it again," via The Libery Papers mailing list. )

Update: I just want to make it clear that I'm in no way condoning breaking the law, even if the law is an ass. What for now is called "piracy" is most definitely illegal, at least in the US, regardless of how you feel about it ethically. At some point today's "piracy" may become tomorrow's "viral marketing tactics," but in America circa 2006, it is punishable by fine and/or prison time.

So don't do it. And if you're gonna do it, for God's sake hide your IP address. But don't do it.

Movie Review: Chasing Zarqawi

The usually so-camera-shy-it's-adorable al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared in a rare video that was posted on a Web site "that al-Zarqawi’s group often uses to post Internet messages," according to msnbc.com.

Zarqawi shouldn't be so shy: he's wearing a totally chic black scarf (Hugo Boss, if I'm not mistaken) around his head, and he's got a simply fabulous beard and moustache combo that gives him a "sexy in an early John Turturro kind of way" look. Cranky says Allah gave you your sexy for a reason, so work it, girlfriend!

The actualy content of the video is the usual blather about crusaders and jihad and mujihadeen. C'mon, Zarqy: that's sooooooo 2003! Somebody's coasting like he wants to be in Ocean's 13! Cranky knows where you're coming from, Z, but Cranky gots to know what's next for his favorite Abu-Fabu holy warrior!

Presentation: A-
Content: D

Chasing Zarqawi is rated R for homoerotic suggestiveness.

ACLU loses its appeal *

Stop the ACLU (naturally) reports that the ACLU has lost its appeal to have a display of the Ten Commandments removed from the Mercer County courthouse in Kentucky. According to Liberty Counsel, which represented Mercer County

The Foundations of American Law and Government display in the county courthouse includes the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta, the Star-Spangled Banner, the National Motto, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice. This display is identical to the one Liberty Counsel defended at the Supreme Court last year in two other Kentucky counties, McCreary and Pulaski. The litigation in those two cases continues and may end up again at the High Court.

Look, I'm for keeping government out of religion and vice-versa as much as the next guy, if not more. But this is ridiculous. This display is clearly intended to depict exactly what its name says: the foundations of American Law and Government. It's absurd to pretend that the Ten Commandments are "just" religious in nature and that they have played absolutely no role in the shaping of our societal ethos. (I suppose you could make the argument that they shouldn't have played such a role, but not that they haven't.)

Placing the Ten Commandments in this context, surrounded by the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, etc., seems to me to be a wholly appropriate expression of the founding principles of America and what's left of Western Civilization. Maybe the ACLU should spend some time actually reading the Commandments, particularly the Second Commandment, which if I'm not mistaken confirms the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, and is the cornerstone of our freedom.

That's not it? Well, it should be.

(FYI, the ACLU's hypocrisy when it comes to gun rights will be the topic of a future screed from the Cranky Insomniac. Oh, it's brewing. Believe you me.)



*Unless otherwise noted, all puns are intended.

MilBloggers fall in

Military Bloggers held the first annual MilBloggers Conference this past weekend in Washington, DC, and the National Journal's Beltway Blogroll's got a roundup of what went down. Check it out.

There's no group of bloggers I respect more. Whether they're active duty, veterans, or military family members, MilBloggers call it as they see it, and - obnoxious phrase alert obnoxious phrase alert obnoxious phrase alert - "speak truth to power" in ways Hollywood will never understand.

(Hat tip: Dean Esmay)

Steyn partially online

Mark Steyn appears to have an excellent column over at National Review Online, but I'm not a subscriber, so I can only read the first five paragraphs. Here they are, in all their glory. If you're an NRO subscriber, I urge you to head over there and read the entire article.

And don't worry: if your fingers happen to slip while you're reading it, and you accidently hit ctrl-a and copy the whole thing, and then you mistakenly open your email program and, as if possessed by the ghost of a little Asian child you paste the whole thing into the body of an email and send it off to the Cranky Insomniac, I won't tell. These kinda things happen.

Last year Newt Gingrich was up in New Hampshire and my neighbor Scott went along and expressed various dissatisfactions with the GOP Congress. And Newt said, well, you must remember Republicans are still pretty new at this, we're not used to being in the majority.

That's it? The Iraqis are expected to pick up the ins and outs of this governing business instantly, but the Republican party can't get the hang of it after eleven years? Don't worry, I'm not predicting electoral disaster this November. It would be nice to think that the GOP might get to enjoy a Geena Davis-style "hiatus" while they "retune" their winning formula. But I doubt it will happen: Even losers need someone to lose to, and the Democrats have failed to fulfill even that minimal requirement for the last decade.

Christopher Hitchens said on the Hugh Hewitt show recently that he "dislikes" the Republican party but has "contempt" for the Democrats. I appreciate the distinction, though I'm not sure I could muster even that level of genial tolerance. The Democrats have been the most contemptible opportunists in the years since 9/11: If they've got nothing useful to contribute to the great challenge of the age they could at least have the decency not to waste our time waving around three-year-old Abu Ghraib pictures and chanting "exit strategy" every ten minutes.

But what happened to the other guys? "The Republican party," says Arlen Specter, "is now principally moderate, if not liberal" — and he means it as a compliment. "I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters," chips in Trent Lott. "I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble since Katrina."

Well, to be honest, I'm a good half-decade past getting damn tired of hearing from Trent Lott. But the difference is that, as a member of the pork-funding sector of the economy, I pay for him; he doesn't pay for me. . . .

Life

If you never thought you'd see the day when Right Wing News and the Democratic Underground would make common cause, today's the day you were proven wrong.

Turns out that occasionally there's something more important than political differences. Please click on the link and read about the sad case of Andrea Clarke, and if you think there's anything you can do to help, do it.

Thanks to Jay at Stop the ACLU for passing this on, and to John Hawkins at Right Wing News for running with the ball.

Countertop's gas pains

Countertop at The Countertop Chronicles is mad as hell, and I think it's safe to say he's not gonna take it any more. (And nobody's even trying to take away his guns!)

Check out his most excellent post, Bush Can Fix Energy Problem Now.

See the raw power of righteous anger unleashed upon a helpless world!

Thrill to the calling of Bullshit on the powers that be!

Feel the pure, unadulterated hatred directed at "me first", cover-your-ass politicians!

Bush Can Fix Energy Problem Now is the one blogpost you can't possibly miss!

If you only read one blogpost this summer, make sure it's Bush Can Fix Energy Problem Now!

Double Live Gonzo: Porn to be vile

Alberto Gonzales wants to be able to see your porn. Why? For the children, of course.

It's long been true that when a politician or bureaucrat starts talking about "the children," you'd better keep a sharp eye on your wallet. Unfortunately, after years of using this alibi to get away with robbing the American people of their money, they've recently figured out that this same excuse can be used to rob the American people of their freedom.

As CNET News's Declan McCullagh reports, Gonzales and his puritanical brethren are calling for a federal law mandating that internet service providers (ISPs) retain data records for a "reasonable amount of time," and a mandatory, government-devised and -enforced ratings system under which "web site operators posting sexually explicit information must place official government warning labels on their pages or risk being imprisoned for up to five years." To justify these proposed laws, Gonzo brings up those meddling kids again:

The failure of some Internet service providers to retain user logs for a "reasonable amount of time" is hampering investigations into gruesome online sex crimes, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Thursday, indicating that new data retention rules may be on the way.

"The investigation and prosecution of child predators depends critically on the availability of evidence that is often in the hands of Internet service providers," Gonzales said in a morning speech to staff at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children headquarters here.

It comes as no surprise that the Justice Department won't define what a "reasonable amount of time" is, but internet sex crimes investigators say that one year would be ideal.

Privacy advocates generally fear that such a law would allow police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months--or not kept in the first place. Right now, Internet service providers typically discard any log file they don't need for business purposes, such as network monitoring, fraud prevention or billing disputes.

Proposals for mandatory data retention tend to follow one of two paths. One approach would require businesses to record only the Internet address that is assigned to a customer at a specific time. The second version, which is closer to what Europe adopted, would call for retention of more information including telephone numbers dialed, contents of Web pages visited, and recipients of e-mail messages.

The idea has drawn concern from the Internet service providers themselves, which worry about costs associated with storing the massive amounts of data and argue that existing laws give police sufficient tools to conduct investigations.

Raise your hand if you think that once a law like this is in place, the government will use it only to track child predators and pornographers. Remember that the government's drug of choice is PCP- Power, Control, and Prohibition - and that it's addicted. And like any addict, it constantly needs more and more of its drug to get the same rush, the same high, as that first one. This PCP addiction is how legislation regarding methamphetamines wormed its way into the PATRIOT Act, for example.

And I hope you liberals out there don't think the Democrats are any better. As McCullagh points out, the idea of a mandatory website rating system like the one Gonzales wants was first proposed under the Clinton administration:

In the mid-1990s, the then-nascent Internet industry began backing the Platform for Internet Content Selection, or PICS. The idea was simple: let Web sites self-rate, or let a third-party service offer ratings, and permit parents to set their browsers to never show certain types of content. Netscape and Microsoft soon agreed to support it in their browsers.

At a White House summit in July 1997 hosted by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, the head of the Lycos search engine proposed that only rated pages would be indexed. (Bob Davis, the president of Lycos at the time, said: "I threw a gauntlet to other search engines in today's meeting saying that collectively we should require a rating before we index pages.") Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, suggested that misrating a Web site should be a federal crime.

The Bush administration wants to require websites that contain sexually explicit information to place "official government warning labels" on their web pages, with penalties of up to five years in prison for website operators who refuse to comply.

The Bush administration's proposal would require commercial Web sites to place "marks and notices" to be devised by the Federal Trade Commission on each sexually explicit page. The definition of sexually explicit broadly covers depictions of everything from sexual intercourse and masturbation to "sadistic abuse" and close-ups of fully clothed genital regions.

So what's the name of this proposal? Surprise, surprise, surprise, it's the "Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006." (Should CPOPA be pronounced See Poppa? If so, does someone at DoJ have a sick mind?)

Past efforts at compulsory website ratings systems have failed largely because of the difficulties inherent in labeling news sites; e.g., does the news coverage of a sex crime deserve the same rating as a fictional depiction of that same type of crime, or should it have a more inclusive rating because of its perceived value? Indeed, First Amendment experts seem split on the constitutionality of CPOPA:

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA who has written a book on the First Amendment, said the Bush administration's proposal may be more likely to survive judicial scrutiny. Because the definitions of sexually explicit material have been used elsewhere in federal law, Volokh said, "it has the virtue of relative clarity. I think that's probably constitutional."

But David Greene, director of a free-speech advocacy group called The First Amendment Project, thinks it wouldn't survive a court challenge. "I believe the law would be struck down as impermissible compelled speech," Greene said. "The only times courts allow product labeling is with commercial speech--advertisements."

The clarity to which Volokh refers is the Bush Justice Department's use of existing federal law to define sexually explicit material:

It covers: sexual intercourse of all types; bestiality; masturbation; sadistic or masochistic abuse; or lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person.

However, McCullagh points out that as hard and fast* as these definitions appear,

In practice, courts have interpreted those definitions quite broadly. In one case, U.S. v. Knox, the Supreme Court and an appeals court ruled that the "lascivious exhibition" of the pubic area could include images of clothed people wearing bikini bathing suits, leotards and underwear. That suggests, for instance, that photos of people in leotards and bathing suits would have to be rated as sexually explicit if the commercial Web site owner wanted to avoid going to prison.

It's disheartening that Volokh thinks the proposed law is probably constitutional, but maybe this is one of those rare instances in which the good professor is wrong.

Interestingly, one of the main opponents of the Bush Justice Department is...the Bush Justice Department. Testifying before a Senate Committee this past January, a senior FBI official said that no new laws were necessary to deal with online kiddie porn, and insisted that the laws already on the books were more than up to the task of handling child pornographers.

"The laws are pretty well defined," James H. Burris, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division told the Senate Commerce Committee. "We have…arrested thousands of predators who would use the Internet to entice children into exploitive situations."

On top of that, McCullagh adds this:

[T]he Justice Department has previously expressed (Click for PDF) "serious reservations about broad mandatory data retention regimes" such as the one that Gonzales proposed on Thursday.

So, which is it, Gonzo? Are the laws you're proposing really necessary to keep our kids safe and snug? Or are you using our kids - exploiting them, you might say - to get what you really want: power and control over the reading and viewing habits of consenting adults and the prohibition of those things you claim to find distasteful. Power, control, prohibition: PCP. It's an odd, though widespread, addicition, this need to run other people's lives. And "small government" conservatives are often no more immune to its charms than are nanny state liberals.

But exploiting the exploitation of children is pretty low - the moral equivalent of kiddie porn. It should go without saying that an adult having sex with a child is among the vilest, cruelest and most immoral acts known to man, and creating or trafficking in kiddie porn is right behind it. But most pornography is not child pornography, and it shouldn't be treated as though it were.

Porn has become a sort of equivalent to "the Jews": Don't like the state of your society and need something to blame? "The Jews" or "porn" works equally well as a scapegoat. But just as the Jews have never been the real reason for society's problems, pornography has never been the a prioi evil that some on the "I don't like it so it should be illegal" right and the "I'm doing this for your own good" left make it out to be. There's a reason why the adult entertaiment industry's 2005 revenues were in the neighborhood of $12.6 billion (with $2.5 billion of that coming* from the 'net). Anything making that kind of money is clearly bringing a lot of pleasure to a lot of people, and anything that provides that much consensual pleasure simply can't be evil in and of itself. If you find that offensive, deal with it. As Nigel Tufnel from the great band Spinal Tap once said, "What's wrong with being sexy?"

(Hat tip: The Agitator himself, Radley Balko, who explains why "Gonzo" is an unfortunate nickname for an anti-porn crusader, in case you didn't already know. The Cranky Insomniac already knew. The Cranky Insomniac accepts the fact that he's probably on many government lists.)

*Unless otherwise noted, all puns are intended.

New Orleans mayoral candidates emphasize race - or they don't

From an April 6 article in The Ledger headed "Campaign for Mayor Bogged Down by Race" (originally published April 4 in the New York Times, but now held in the TimesReject^TM gulag):

No candidate appears to be making a more explicit racial bid than the incumbent mayor, C. Ray Nagin, the one major black candidate in the jostling, Katrina-inspired crowd.

An unknown executive in 2002, elected largely thanks to white support and for years the target of sharp criticism among blacks in New Orleans for failing to favor black-owned companies, Nagin has been all but abandoned by the white businessmen who enthusiastically supported him the first time. They now fault his post-Katrina leadership and are donating thousands to his white opponents.

As a result, he has remade himself as a black candidate, first with his provocative speech in which he predicted New Orleans would once again be a mostly black "Chocolate City"; later by disavowing a reconstruction plan masterminded by whites, which was seen by blacks as cold-shouldering ruined black neighborhoods. This past weekend he took part in a protest march over the election led by the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, national figures he was not previously close to.

Jim Carvin, his veteran campaign consultant, acknowledged that Nagin was counting on a moment of racial solidarity. "In each election black voters have voted for black candidates against a white candidate," said Carvin, who has advised every successful New Orleans mayoral campaign since 1970. "My feeling is they will do the same thing again."

From today's front page Washington Post article headed "Candidates Ask That Race Be Kept Out Of Runoff":

Nagin, some observers believe, is loath to play racial politics, partly by nature and particularly because he has been targeted by both sides.

[snip]

"Neither one of these candidates wants to play a race card. They're just not that type," said Susan E. Howell, a pollster and political scientist at the University of New Orleans.

From a January 17 New Orleans Times-Picayune article headed "Evoking King, Nagin calls N.O. 'chocolate' city":

"This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be," Nagin said. "You can't have it no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

[snip]

"We ask black people. . . . It's time for us to come together," said the mayor, who is black.

"It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," he said. "And I don't care what people are saying in Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day."

I guess it depends on what the meaning of "mayoral race" is...

Three column layout

Sorry for the light blogging this weekend. I was on the road most of Saturday and then went to a bar to watch NASCAR last night. Today I spent what time I had available working on this new three column layout. It looks pretty good on my system, but I need to know if everything formats okay on your systems, so please let me know. Going back to two columns will take five seconds so it's not a big deal if I have to do that.

For those of you who are interested, I got the three column template from Thur Broeders' template website, so big ups to Thur. It's his "Minima_original_ 3col" template, with some of my own mods.

Update: Obviously I'm back to a two column layout. Thanks to Gunner for the heads up that the three column layout wasn't universally formatting correctly. Back to the drawing board...

Update Update: I think I figured out the problem, but again I won't know for sure unless somebody tells me it looks screwy. I changed from fixed (width always stays the same size) to fluid (width size expressed as a percentage of page) sidebars, which should keep everything hunky-dory. We'll see. Man, have I become a geek...

Reality Bites Back

"And you're really tired and work really hard and in the end we get rescued. It was so surreal, it's almost like it happened to somebody else.'' [Dumbstruck emphasis Cranky's]

-Actor Michael Pena, talking to Entertainment Weekly about how it felt to play the part of Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center."

Let me type that again, in case you missed it: Actor Michael Pena, talking to Entertainment Weekly about how it felt to play the part of Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center."

One more time, for the people in the rear? Actor Michael Pena, talking to Entertainment Weekly about how it felt to play the part of Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center."

"Hello, Michael Pena? Oh. Is he available? Hmm. Well, could you please let him know that Reality called to perform a random check, and that he should call me back ASAP. Thanks...[hangs up]...Okay, who's next...ah...[dials]... Hello, Mr. Clooney? Yes, hello there, this is your High Horse calling to ask you to get off me..."

Working for the leak's end

Irony alert: A CIA officer has been fired for divulging classified information to the Washington Post, and according to NBC News, the officer is Mary McCarthy from the CIA's Office of the Inspector General, whose job is to sniff out illegal goings on within the Agency. (Tips o' the hat to Stop the ACLU and The Strata-Sphere.) Fox News says a "law enforcement official" has confirmed to them that the officer (unnamed in this earlier report) was terminated for providing information "that contributed to a Washington Post story last year saying there were secret U.S. prisons in Eastern Europe." According to that story, the US was transferring terror suspects to countries in which torture is considered much more acceptable than it is (by some) here, and where the use of secret prisons is not illegal, as it (sort of) is here.

Citing the Privacy Act, the CIA would not provide any details about the officer's identity or assignments. It was not immediately clear if the person would face prosecution. The firing is a highly unusual move, although there has been an ongoing investigation into leaks in the CIA.

"The officer has acknowledged unauthorized discussions with the media and the unauthorized sharing of classified information," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "That is a violation of the secrecy agreement that everyone signs as a condition of employment with the CIA."

One official called this a "damaging leak" that deals with operational information and said the fired officer "knowingly and willfully" leaked the information to the media and "was caught."

According to Fox, the suspect originally failed a polygraph given to CIA employees "who had been exposed to certain intelligence programs." Under follow-up questioning by CIA invesitgators, the officer eventually admitted disclosing classified information, "including information about classified operations." It is considered more than likely that the officer will face prosecution, although neither the Justice Department nor the CIA would comment on this.

Well, good. Ms. McCarthy should be criminally prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (and maybe ever-so-slightly more), and deserves to rot in prison for a very, very long time (and maybe ever-so-slightly longer).

By the way, that deafening silence you hear is emanating from the moral vacuum on the left, where sound only carries if it's anti-American. After all, this leak, regardless of how much it hurt the United States (or maybe because it hurt us?), was a Good Leak. Good Leakers, aka "whistleblowers," are simply speaking truth to power (whatever that stupid saying means) and should not be investigated or punished in any way. Indeed, their brave heroism should be rewarded, and songs sung about their deeds.

Of course there are other leaks, in which information that may or may not be classified is divulged about people who may or may not be working undercover in order to point out that a certain person has a rather fluid definition of the truth that seems to change depending on whether or not he takes his meds. These are Bad Leaks, and facts be damned, we must severly punish these leakers, even if we have no real evidence that what they leaked was classified and we're not sure who they are or if what they did was even illegal.

One line from the Fox report caught my attention:

The administration has refused to address the question of whether it operated such secret sites that may be illegal under European law, citing the constraints of classified information.

Well, if McCarthy was fired for admitting to the disclosure of classified information that led to the Washington Post running its story about how we do operate such sites, I guess that should be confirmation enough. Not that anyone doubted it anyway, but why continue to maintain the no-longer-necessary fiction? All they'd have to say is, "Yes, we ran secret prisons in secret countries where we did special things to our special prisoners. But we were only keeping it secret so that Andrew Sullivan wouldn't whine about it incessantly." (I'm actually a big fan of Sullivan's, but c'mon: it was right there. "I had the shot and I took it," as a pre-brainwashed Tom Cruise said in Top Gun.)

There is no confirmation that the ACLU at first misheard this news report, thought the CIA had fired a reeker, and had already drafted a press release regarding the lawsuit they were going to file under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which apparently, if interpreted loosely (y'know, like the Constitution was meant to be) can be invoked to ban the termination of employees with bad body odor (BBO).

ATT: Can we hear you now? (You'd better believe it)

Richard Stiennon, blogging over at ZDNet, had a chilling conversation with an anonymous AT&T engineer, on the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed against that company by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on January 31. EFF's lawsuit accuses AT&T of

violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.

EFF lays out the details of its allegations:

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T continues to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of Americans. EFF, on behalf of a nationwide class of AT&T customers, is suing to stop this illegal conduct and hold AT&T responsible for its illegal collaboration in the government's domestic spying program, which has violated the law and damaged the fundamental freedoms of the American public.

In its filings, EFF accuses AT&T of participating in

a secret and illegal government program to intercept and analyze vast quantities of Americans’ telephone and Internet communications, surveillance done without the authorization of a court and in violation of federal electronic surveillance and telecommunications statues, as well as the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Based on these allegations, Stiennon made contact with the engineer from AT&T, and with the help of a colleague, took every precaution to ensure the engineer's anonymity:

Barrett Lyon and I resort to an air-gap technique to interview an engineer at ATT about the massive funneling of data and voice traffic into the NSA’s analysis centers. At first we looked into doing the interview directly with this guy, who we call Deep Packet, and masking his voice with digital effects. When we realized just what sort of processing power the NSA has available to them we decided that was not good enough to protect our source. Any digital effects could be reversed. So I got Barrett on the phone and he relayed my questions to Deep Packet via IRC and read his responses back to me.

As Stiennon says, "those responses were chilling." Deep Packet, he says, "gives a sense of an insider who at first did not believe the press reports but quickly learned that not only were they true but it went deeper."

According to Deep Packet ATT maintains numerous facilities that host very expensive Juniper routers for this project. As far as he knows there is no direct contract with the NSA. In other words ATT is paying for all of this. He feels that the reward is favorable treatment when ATT is bidding on less clandestine government contracts.

According to Deep Packet these Juniper routers have specially designed cards in them to shunt ALL OF THE TRAFFIC from ATT peering points to NSA analysis centers around the country. Peering traffic means not just traffic that begins and ends on ATT’s network but any traffic from networks that ATT has peering arrangements with. A quick look here indicates that is just about… everything.

Now, the EFF claims that ATT handles 300 million voice calls and 4,000 terabytes PER DAY of traffic. I tried to get a feel for whether ATT had enough storage space to actually archive all of that info. Deep Packet says there is A LOT of storage associated with this project. I still doubt it is enough. But maybe enough to grab every conversation that involves airplanes, flight school, anthrax, and Allah.

To listen to a podcast of the actual interview, click here for a downloadable mp3 file.

I know I'm not the first to say this, but this, for me, is a tough issue on which to stake out an opinion. On the one hand, I'm a cranky and cantankerous libertarian who finds the idea of the NSA tapping into, or data mining, the conversations and emails of American citizens abhorrent. I'm a privacy nut who uses encryption in my emails, an NSA-level secure file shredder program to delete computer files, and various programs to hide or disguise my IP address while I'm online. So I should be completely opposed to President Bush, without any judicial oversight, ordering the NSA to "spy on" US citizens, and to AT&T and other companies that voluntarily assist the NSA's efforts.

But then there's that pesky "other hand." The other hand says that, cliched though it may be, 9/11 really did change everything, and we are at war with people who will stop at nothing in their attempts to kill or subjugate us, and if the worst thing most of us have to deal with is the government taking a "key word" peek at our emails or phone conversations, so be it. Better that than another well-coordinated terrorist attack on America.

I think what bothers me the most is not that this data mining, or wiretapping, or whatever you want to call it, is going on now: it's the sense that once you open this Pandora's box of government intrusion, it becomes really tough - if not impossible - to close it back up. And conversely, it becomes much easier for the government to lift the lid a little bit more to get a bigger peek inside, and then a little bit more because there's a shadow over that one spot, and then just a little bit more for reasons we can't tell you right now but trust us they're important, until finally the top is completely off the box because it really is best that the government see everything, and if you haven't done anything wrong you've got nothing to worry about, and raising your voice in opposition to this obviously means that you've got something to hide, so we better take an extra close look at you, maybe in private somewhere.

This is only one of the many reasons I'm up all night. Always remember: you're not paranoid if the black helicpoters really are outside your window.

Dr. Strangegun or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the fisking

What's the first sign a newspaper article - that's article, not column or op-ed - isn't going to be fair or balanced? Here's one possible answer: If you're reading the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Check out the first two grafs of an article by John Caniglia, headed "Gun shows in the crossfire" (Hat tip to one of my new favorite blogs, No Quarters):

It's easy to build an illegal machine gun. Or to get the recipe for exploding gelatin.

Everything you need is available at hundreds of gun shows held across the country this time of year.

I wonder what direction the "reporter" is going in. Let's find out, shall we?

While gun businesses must be federally licensed, gun shows enable private individuals to sell scores of weapons each weekend with little, if any, oversight.

Little, if any, oversight! For a Nanny State aficionado, these are the four scariest words in the English language. "Private individuals" (are there any other kind?) conducting mutually beneficial transactions with other private individuals: how is this allowed to happen? This can't be legal!

And the shows are flourishing. In the past two months alone, promoters have hosted 20 gun shows in Ohio, including one April 9 in Niles.

That's where Gerald Nunziato, a retired agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, walked the aisles of the 500-table show with a reporter, looking at some of the world's most popular guns, including 9mm Glocks, an Austrian weapon used by many U.S. police departments, Beretta semiautomatic pistols and .38-calibers from Smith & Wesson, one of America's leading gun makers.

He pointed out:

A .50-caliber rifle with bullets that can pierce steel. Price: $4,000.

The parts needed to turn a 9mm handgun into an illegal machine gun. They were scattered at several tables, but a knowledgeable buyer could collect what he needed.

Let's see: a retired ATFE agent, which apparently is what passes for an objective source at the Bum Dealer, walked around a gun show "with a reporter." Not "with me," because that would inject the hard boiled "just the facts, ma'am" reporter into the story and maybe make it seem as though he had an agenda. So let's enter a fantasy world in which one reporter walked through the gun show with the agent, and another one wrote the story. No wonder newspapers are bleeding money.

And what does our objective tour guide see?

First we have the 9mm Glock, which is an "Austrian weapon." Austria...Hitler was from Austria, wasn't he? So by saying Austrian weapon I can subtly make the gun show seem evil. Then it's off to "Beretta semiautomatic pistols." That sounds scary, unless of course you know that semiautomatic means you still have to squeeze the trigger each time you want to fire a round. Also, the Glock is a semiautomatic, too, but I guess once you've called it an Austrian weapon you've done your job as a reporter.

Moving right past the Smith & Wesson, we next come to the steel-piercing, $4000 .50 cal. Okay, I'll admit that the .50 is the only weapon I've ever fired that scared the hell out of me, mainly because I'm apparently too much of a wuss to control it. So I'll skip that one and saunter over to the parts that will magically turn a 9mm handgun into a "machine gun." I was taught that a machine gun is just a fully automatic weapon capable of rapid firing: is this what Caniglia means? If so, why not just say "the parts needed to convert a semiautomatic handgun into a fully automatic one"? It couldn't be because "machine gun" sounds scarier, could it? And note that these parts were "scattered at several tables," but that a "knowledgeable buyer" could get everything he needed. In otherwords, several different people were legally selling different parts that, when combined, could be used for this conversion. Hell, I could walk into a supermarket and buy several different products on several different shelves that I could then combine to make Molotov cocktails. Should supermarkets be banned?

But let's move on to the next items our trusty retired ATFE agent found:

A series of books that included "The Black Book of Arson," "How to Build Undetectable Hand Grenades" and "The Anarchist's Cook Book," manuals that detail a variety of ways to maim people from the simple to the complex.

The authors say the books are for educational purposes only. The "Turner Diaries" also is there.

The white-supremacist book describes the fictional overthrow of minority-backed U.S. government. It helped influence Timothy McVeigh to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

I've read the Turner Diaries, and it's one of the worst books ever written. Any good point the author makes (and there are some, mainly about the tendency of governments to abuse their power) is drowned in a sea of racist and/or anti-Semitic rhetoric that is so overblown you almost want to laugh, until you realize that he's serious. So one point for Caniglia. The others, while not my cup of tea, are the kind of books read by people who believe they may have to one day defend themselves against an out-of-control American government that lies to them, tramples on their civil liberties, and arrogates to itself more and more power until it resembles a fascist dictatorship. Since this is exactly what the left keeps telling us is happening right now, I'm not clear as to why Caniglia uses them as examples of naughty goings on.

Gun enthusiasts contend that the shows are simply meeting places for like-minded hobbyists. Critics say they are a place where criminals can get guns quickly and cheaply.

Now there'll be a quote from both sides, right? Wrong.

"Everything a criminal needs is right there," Nunziato said, standing outside the Niles show, 15 minutes from Youngstown. "Believe me, I'm not anti-gun. I just think there needs to be a little more regulation."

I guess the gun enthusiast's quote got Rosemaried.

Now let me subtly change Nunziato's quote. See if you can even spot the difference.

"Everything a dissident needs is right there," Nunziato said, standing outside the book show, 15 minutes from Youngstown. "Believe me, I'm not anti-free speech. I just think there needs to be a little more regulation."

Didn't catch it, did you.

Christopher Crobaugh, a defense attorney in Elyria, has attended gun shows for years.

"Let's put it this way: Cars kill a lot more people than guns do. Should we outlaw car shows?" Crobaugh asked.

"Every now and again, I'll see someone at a show, and I'll think, Oh boy, I don't want that guy with a gun.' Then I kick myself and say, What's wrong with you, you elitist?

Finally a pro-gun show point of view. But of course he sees people at the shows whom he at first thinks shouldn't be allowed to own a gun. You see? Even gun nuts are scared by what goes on at these shows!

The debate comes when the ranks of licensed gun dealers have shrunk dramatically. From 1990 to 2005, the number of licensed dealers in the United States dropped by 78 percent, and in Ohio, by 73 percent, according to the ATF.

Licensed dealers disappeared after the ATF began to scrutinize their records more closely and required them to sell from storefronts instead of their basements, federal authorities say. The price of a three-year license also jumped from $30 to $200.

Rosemary must be at it again, because here's another quote that seems to be missing: "The drop in the number of licensed dealers came about because it became harder and harder for honest businessmen to deal with all the red tape and harassment levelled on them by federal authorities such as ATF agent Gerald Nunziato, former gun dealers say."

During the same 15 years, the number of gun shows annually grew to more than 5,000 across the United States. The exact numbers are difficult to determine because no state or federal records are required. But advertising in the Big Show Journal, a magazine that promotes gun, knife and outdoor shows, is an indication.

The magazine's show advertisements doubled to 84 pages from 1998 to this year. Each show draws 2,000 to 4,000 people. Collectors shows bring in more than 20,000 people.

The shows quietly began to take off 20 years ago, when Congress ordered people to obtain federal licenses if they "engaged in the business" of selling guns. A licensed dealer had to do a background check on a buyer before selling the weapon.

But Congress allowed other sellers, like many of those at gun shows, to continue to peddle weapons from their personal collections, as long as they didn't make their living from the sales.

Just step up and buy.

Who would've ever thought that when the government made it harder to do something one way, another, easier way of doing it would become more popular? Surely this is unheard of in the annals of human events. Damn that pesky free market anyway!

At the Niles show, a 20-something man browsed the aisles with his bored girlfriend. He looked at the table of a licensed dealer, who had to do a background check on the buyer before selling one of the 24 handguns he had. A few feet away, at another table, three men displayed more than 30 weapons from their own collections, including an old, palm-size gun for $45 -- for sale, no questions asked.

The girlfriend is bored because while men use guns as proxies for their undersized penises women know what's truly important in life and if only women ruled the world there would be no more war and hey see how sensitive I am will you go out with me?

With all the deals going on, only one police officer was apparent, sitting at the door.

I can't believe that with all these rednecks scary guns here this place isn't swarming with cops yeah I've never heard of anything really dangerous happening at a gun show but that's not the point is it the point is I don't feel safe around these people God I need a nice zinfandel I can't wait to get out of here and take a shower.

John Lott of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., cited U.S. Justice Department statistics indicating that only about 1 percent of all guns in crimes have been traced to shows.

"Law enforcement would get more bang for its buck if it looked for crime in other places," Lott said.

Nunziato, the retired ATF agent, said it is impossible to know whether the Justice Department statistics are accurate because so little paperwork is required of gun shows.

Yes, you can't trust DOJ statistics. Unless, of course, they show how evil guns and gun shows are. And since we don't know if the stats are accurate, let's assume that gun shows are guilty until proven otherwise. Who could have a problem with that?

The ATF investigates about 2 percent of the shows each year, according to congressional testimony. The agency says it does not unfairly target gun shows, that agents investigate illegal gun sales wherever they occur.

But even gun-rights advocates acknowledge that the shows can turn criminal. Last year, an online forum at Gunshows USA.com discussed the theft of weapons at shows in the South.

"More guns are being stolen all the time," a Tennessee gun dealer lamented.

One group, the Ohio Gun Collectors Association, allows only its members and their guests into its shows.

"We don't want felons coming to our shows," said Joseph Pittenger, the group's president. "We try to keep people of that nature out."

People like Nigel Bostic.

He and his girlfriend bought 238 guns at gun shows in Dayton in 2000. They bought the 9mm handguns for $89 each. Bostic sold them on the street in Buffalo for three times that, according to court records.

Bostic was sentenced to 87 months in prison in 2004. The parents of a teenager who was shot by mistake have sued Bostic, the Dayton gun dealer and the gun's manufacturer.

Since even "gun-rights advocates" admit that gun shows aren't perfect, we probably should shut them all down, don't you think? And in case you're not convinced, here's one real example. If there's one, there must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands more just like it, wouldn't you agree?

At the Niles show, Nunziato spent nearly 15 minutes talking with David Tomes, the owner of Pop's Place in La Grange, in Lorain County. When Nunziato appeared to be inter ested in a Hi-Point 9mm handgun, the dealer grabbed his phone to check out the former agent through the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Tomes said he faces growing competition from sellers with personal collections who attend show after show. At a recent show, the FBI's background check system shut down, cutting off the licensed dealers' ability to sell weapons.

Sellers with personal collections "don't have paperwork. They don't collect sales taxes. They don't care whom they are selling guns to," Tomes said.

Yeah, it sucks when someone can do the same thing as you, only cheaper, faster and easier. There oughta be a law!

After nearly two hours at the show, Nunziato headed out, with one question.

"Why can't all of the dealers be like him?" Nunziato said, referring to Tomes. "I'm not saying ban gun shows. I'm saying make all the people there like Pop's. There would at least be some paperwork."

Paperwork: the weapon of choice for Big Brothers everywhere.^TM

As he left, a man with a shotgun stood outside the show, smoking a cigarette. He was looking for a sale.

In conclusion, the moral of the story is: Guns don't kill people. Gun shows do.

And so we come to the end of my first official fisking. Too long? Just right? Let me know, but remember: you report, I decide.

ABC = Anti-Bush Channel

ABC News has invited Mr. and Mrs. Valerie Plame to be their guests at this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, which will be held on April 29.

According to Editor & Publisher, other "notable non-journalist guests" will include Alex Trebek, Ben Roethlisberger, Anna Kournikova and Ludacris. Or wait, is Ludacris just Joe Wilson's street name? I forget.

E & P's reporter, Joe Strupp, writes that "It is unlikely she will be seated next to [Bob] Novak, but perhaps Bush may have a good view of her from the dais." Oh, my sides. You get the feeling Strupp is one of those guys who walks around thinking that everyone thinks he's the funniest guy in the office? The kind of guy who, when he's all alone in bed, thinks to himself, "I really should do standup"? Yeah, me too.

Lorie Byrd over at Polipundit (where I found this story) nails it when she says, "I guess this is just the latest step in the process of restoring Ms. Plame/Wilson’s quiet, anonymous existence which she claims to have loved so much."

Rathergate.com (where Laurie found this story) says

We don’t know why ABC News would invited Wilson and Plame, who right now are only technically newsworthy and are behind what ostensibly one of the noisiest hoaxes so far in this young 21st century: the Joe Wilson scandal™.

Well, there's obviously only one reason to invite the Plamers: to embarrass the President. Think about this. An American news organization can think of nothing better to do with its extremely hard to get tickets than to invite guests with the sole purpose of embarrassing the President of the United States.

Look, I'm not saying that criticizing the President is un-American or "helps the terrorists." But to go out of your way to embarrass our Commander-in-Chief just for the sake of embarrasing him is absolutely pathetic, and more than a little petty. That an ostensibly "objective" news organization would stoop to this is even more disgusting, and everyone at ABC News should be ashamed.

I also find it oddly instructive that the folks at ABC would do this so soon after the suspension of producer John Green for writing anti-Bush emails: ever heard the expression "lesson learned," people?

I'd threaten to boycott ABC News, but that would give them a net loss of zero viewers. What I can do, however, will punish them so severly that at the very least, they will rue the day. ABC News? You're on my list.

The Donald Rumsfeld Resignation Advisory System

Point Five has come up with an outstanding color-coded Donald Rumsfeld Resignation Advisory System, modeled after the Departmant of Homeland Securities' Threat Advisory System. Check it out.

My take on Rummy can be found here and here.

(Hat tip: Stop the ACLU)

Moral relativist of the week: Niklas Zennstrom of Skype

The internet telephony company Skype is following the lead of Google, et. al. and allowing its Chinese partner firm, Tom Online, to censor text-based correspondence according to the dictates of the Chinese government. Among the words that activate Tom's text filter are "Falun Gong" and big hitter, but lousy tipper, the "Dalai Lama."

Here's Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom rationalizing his company's position:

"Tom had implemented a text filter, which is what everyone else in that market is doing," said Zennstrom. "Those are the regulations."

He added: "I may like or not like the laws and regulations to operate businesses in the UK or Germany or the US, but if I do business there I choose to comply with those laws and regulations. I can try to lobby to change them, but I need to comply with them. China in that way is not different."

To Zennstrom, a country's laws are a country's laws. There's absolutely no difference between the US having laws that regulate communications in order to, say, prevent the spread of the practice of selling children for sexual purposes, and China having laws that regulate communications to, say, prevent the spread of truths that might weaken the government's grip on the populace, and also to make it easier for the government to identify political dissidents and arrest them. Nope, no difference there. Different cultures have different values, that's all. Who is Zennstrom to judge?

I love the smell of moral relativism in the morning. It smells like...cowardice.*

More info here and here.

(Hat tip: K-Lo at the The Corner)

*Many of you have asked if Niklas Zennstrom just made my list. Indeed he did.

Brit crit

Senior British officer Alan Sharpe has criticized "'shoulder-holster' American generals for trying to emulate film stars" such as Sylvester Stallone or John Wayne, according to an article in the Telegraph.

Sharpe, a brigadier who worked alongside Americans in Baghdad, made his charges in a paper on Britain's influence on US foreign relations.

An important part to being a successful American officer was to be able to combine the "real and acted heroics" of Audie Murphy, the "newsreel antics" of Gen Douglas MacArthur and the "movie performances" of Hollywood actors, the brigadier wrote.

While this might look good on television at home, the brigadier suggested that "loud voices, full body armour, wrap-around sunglasses, air strikes and daily broadcasts from shoulder-holster wearing brigadier-generals proudly announcing how many Iraqis have been killed by US forces today" was no "hearts-and-minds winning tool".

Sharpe also referred to the US-led interim government put in place in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad as an "interim dictatorship."

According to Sharpe, the British Army's 500 years of experience in fighting insurgents gave it a distinct edge over US forces in Iraq. British troops, he says, "although under-equipped, were 'undemonstrative, phlegmatic and pragmatic', patrolled on foot where possible and were keen to interact with locals."

Sharpe believes that "senior British officers in Baghdad should continue with their moderating influence." In Iraq he found that

the most effective way of passing on British experience was to place capable officers "with a feel for the British way of doing business" into positions of influence alongside American officers where they could "practically influence the decisions, plans and conduct on the ground of US adventures in world policing".

The brigadier closed his critique with an anecdote about a Ba'athist (or "subjugated Iraqi," in Sharpe's words) about to be released from detention:

The Ba'athist was loudly lectured by an American officer, who was accompanied by a quiet British brigadier, on the dangers of returning to his "previously nefarious ways".

As the Iraqi left he said: "Hey, Mr American, next time before you shout so much you should speak to him. He is British - they know how to invade a country."

Sharpe was awarded the Bronze Star by the United States for writing the "coalition campaign plan" for Iraq during a tour in Baghdad in 2004.

I'm not on the ground in Iraq and never was, so it's hard for me to judge the accuracy of Sharpe's criticisms. Are there US generals who are more concerned with appearing "macho" than with being sensitive to the people whose country they're in? Undoubtedly. I think it was either Sun Tzu or von Clausewitz who said that wherever and whenever there's an military, there will be chickenshit senior officers.

But you'll have to excuse me for feeling a little bit like the ghost of Field Marshall Montgomery has come back to haunt us. During World War II, Monty constantly (and loudly) disagreed with American General Omar Bradley's strategies, but when given his way, the result was often failure, with Bradley and his troops having to pull Monty and his men out of the fire.

At this time, the Allied high command under Eisenhower faced a decision on strategy. Bradley favored a strategy consisting of an advance into the Saarland, or possibly a two thrust assault on both the Saarland and the Ruhr Area. Newly promoted to Field Marshal, Bernard Montgomery argued that he should lead a thrust on the northern flank into the Ruhr. Montgomery's tempestuous personality ultimately carried the day, leading to Operation Market-Garden. The debate, while not fissuring the Allied command, nevertheless led to a serious rift between the two Army group commanders of the European Theater of Operations. Bradley bitterly protested to Eisenhower the priority of supplies given to Montgomery, but Eisenhower, mindful of British public opinion, held Bradley's protests in check.

After the failure of Montgomery's forces to take Arnhem and its bridge across the Rhine river, forces under Bradley's command took the initial brunt of what would become the Battle of the Bulge. In a move without precedent in modern warfare, the US 3rd Army under George Patton disengaged from their combat in the Saarland, moved 90 miles to the battlefront, and forced the Germans back. Bradley used the advantage gained in March 1945 — after Eisenhower once again favored Montgomery with supplies for another unsuccessful offensive in February 1945 — to break the German defenses and cross the Rhine into the industrial heartland of the Ruhr. Aggressive pursuit of the disintegrating German troops by Bradley's forces resulted in the capture of a bridge across the River Rhine at Remagen. Bradley and his subordinates quickly exploited the crossing, leading to an enormous pincer movement encircling the German forces in the Ruhr from the north and south.

You do have to grant Sharpe's point that the British have been dealing with insurgencies for over 500 years: that's how it is when you're more interested in subjugating people than in liberating them. (Although I do seem to recall an insurgency about 230 years ago that didn't work out too well for the Brits.) But I wonder if in the end this isn't just a matter of different strokes for different folks: on the one hand, the British with their stiff upper lips; on the other, the Americans with our "git 'r done" eagerness and confidence. Surely there's a place for both on the battlefield.

As always, I welcome being told I'm wrong by the ones who were actually there.

Ghettoized Quote of the Day

The main reason Mr. Rumsfeld should leave now is because we can't have a credible diplomatic or military option vis-a-vis Iran when so many people feel, as I do, that in a choice between another Rumsfeld-led confrontation and just letting Iran get nukes and living with it, we should opt for the latter.

It may be that learning to live with a nuclear Iran is the wisest thing under any circumstances. But it would be nice to have a choice. It would be nice to have the option of a diplomatic deal to end Iran's nuclear program - but that will only come with a credible threat of force. Yet we will not have the support at home or abroad for that threat as long as Don Rumsfeld leads the Pentagon. No one in their right mind would follow this man into another confrontation - and that it a real strategic liability.

- Thomas Friedman, Iraq war supporter, writing behind the TimesReject^TM wall and on page A21 of today's dead tree edition of the New York Times*

Friedman is wrong in thinking that living with a nuclear Iran is an option for us, but he's dead on with respect to Rumsfeld. I'll say it again: Get RID of Rummy.



*Having to actually type out quoted passages really sucks. Thanks a lot, NY Times. You're on my list.

UNethicals Annanymous

Journalist extraordinaire Claudia Rosett serves up a blistering attack on the United Nations in the April issue of Commentary. (Hat tip: Atlas Shrugs.) Rosett, whose dogged investigations into the UN's Oil-for-Food scandal seemed to single-handedly give that story the prominence it deserved, doesn't pull any punches in describing an organization shrouded in secrecy and shielded by immunity, with "so many overlapping programs, far-flung projects, quietly vested interests, nepotistic shenanigans, and interlocking directorates as to defy accurate or easy comprehension, let alone responsible supervision." (Secretary-General Kofi Annan, under interrogation by the Volcker commission, claimed that even he didn't know his own chain of command.) As Rosett says, "[b]ehind the specific scandals lies what one of the UN’s own internal auditors has termed a “'culture of impunity.'”

Whether it's Oil-for-Food, unnacounted for funds that were supposed to go towards tsunami relief in Indonesia, or the network of UN peacekeepers in Africa who took on second jobs as child rapists, Rosett says we may never know the full extent of the UN's wrongdoing. What we do know, she says, "is that an assortment of noble-sounding efforts has devolved into enterprises marked chiefly by abuse, self-dealing, and worse."

Much of the problem lies in the aforementioned impenetrability that 60 years of unnacountable bureaucracy has - not accidently - produced. Thanks to the proliferation of "agencies, funds, commissions, programs, 'ad-hoc bodies,' and 'other entities,'" most UN personnel, let alone outsiders, don't even know who reports to whom. Coupled with the denial of, or, more likely than not, the complicity in the systemic corruption by those at the top of the organization, it becomes nearly impossible to fully determine the length and breadth of this corruption:

Take the central scandal of recent UN history—namely, Oil-for-Food. Last October, Paul Volcker’s UN-authorized probe into Oil-for-Food submitted its fifth and final report on that relief program, which in its seven years of operation had become a vehicle for billions in kickbacks, payoffs, and sanctions-busting arms traffic. By January of this year, after first having declared that he was taking responsibility for the debacle, Kofi Annan was spinning a different story, telling a London audience that “only one staff member was found to maybe have taken some $150,000 out of a $64-billion program.”

This was an artful lie. The staff member in question was Benon Sevan, whom Annan had appointed to run Oil-for-Food for six of its seven years. If indeed Sevan took no more than this relative pittance, then Saddam Hussein scored the biggest bargain in the history of kickbacks. According to Senator Norm Coleman’s independent investigation into Oil-for-Food, the real figure for Sevan’s take was $1.2 million. Clearing up this discrepancy is difficult, however, because Sevan, who was allowed by Annan to retire to his native Cyprus on full UN pension, is outside the reach of U.S. law and has denied taking anything.

In any case, the corruption hardly ended with Sevan. Instances that appear to have slipped the Secretary-General’s mind include another member of his inner circle, the French diplomat Jean-Bernard Merimée, who by his own admission took a payoff from Saddam while serving as Annan’s handpicked envoy to the European Union. Within the UN agencies working with Annan’s Secretariat on Oil-for-Food, Volcker confirmed “numerous [further] allegations of corrupt behavior and practices,” embracing “bid-rigging, conflicts of interest, bribery, theft, nepotism, and sexual harassment.” He also noted that the UN lacked controls on graft, failed to investigate many cases, and failed to act upon some of those it did explore. Finally, Volcker calculated that UN agencies had kept for themselves at least $50 million earmarked to buy relief for the people of Iraq.

Nor do the sheer monetary amounts even begin to convey the extent of the damage done by UN labors in Iraq. Annan’s office had the mandate of the Security Council, plus a $1.4-billion budget, to check oil and relief contracts for price fiddles, to monitor oil exports in order to prevent smuggling, and to audit UN operations. In the event, Oil-for-Food spent far more money renovating its offices in New York than checking the terms of Saddam’s contracts, and ignored the smuggling even when Saddam in 2000 opened a pipeline to Syria. The result of what Annan now placidly describes as “instances of mismanagement”—as if someone forgot to reload the office printer—was that Saddam skimmed and smuggled anywhere from $12 billion (according to the incomplete numbers supplied by Volcker) to $17 billion or more (according to the more comprehensive totals provided by Senator Coleman’s staff).

Whatever the UN's original purpose, and despite the opacity of many of its dealings, one thing that is clear is that the organization is at best ineffectual, and at worst an agent for dictators, tyrants and repressive regimes of all stripes. UN "peacekeepers" stand accused of widespread corruption, drug-dealing, rape and the sexual exploitation of hungry children. And whether it's in Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq or Darfur, seemingly the only way the United Nations lives up to its professed goal of equality for all mankind is by ignoring all oppressed people equally, regardless of race, gender, religion or ethnicity. We are all one in the blind, uncaring eyes of the UN.

Except for the Jews, naturally:

On matters involving Israel and the Palestinians—unlike nuclear proliferation, this may be the UN’s one genuine obsession—hypocrisy has been outdone only by mischief-making and blatant anti-Semitism. UN programs set up to help the Palestinians over the past half-century have not only failed to produce decent lives but have helped create a culture of entitlement and violence—fueled in large part by the UN’s own anti-Israel agenda. The UN condemnation of Zionism as racism in 1975, finally repealed in 1991, was followed by the grotesque transformation of the UN’s 2001 Durban conference on racism into an anti-Semitic festival. The UN Security Council invites totalitarian Syria to take the chair, but democratic Israel has never been so much as allowed to hold a seat.

The United Nations' record as a relief organization is similarly stellar, as exemplified by its shameful actions following the December 2004 tsunami:

Demanding exclusive rights to direct the aid effort (and the money), UN officials warned loudly of a health crisis that never materialized, denounced the U.S. as “stingy,” and promised transparent use of funds. A year later, the Financial Times reported that, from what little could be gleaned of the UN’s largely incomplete or secret accounts, the organization’s expenditures on overhead (i.e., travel, hotel rooms, lavishly funded international talk-fests, and the like) were triple those of private charities.

As Rosett so eloquently puts it, when the tsunami struck, "the U.S. and countries like Australia rushed to help the victims. The UN rushed to help itself."

Despite these and numerous other scandals, questionable actions and pathetic inactions, many people throughout the world still cling to the United Nations as the embodiment of the loftiest of ideals and as the guardian of the planet. Not too long ago these notions might - might - have been understandable as idealistic yearnings for peace, love and understanding. Unfortunately, we can no longer afford to take seriously such inexcusable naivete and willful ignorance. In light of what we know, and what we can guess, it is not an unreasonable or extreme view to want the UN out of America, and America out of the UN. And whether the world likes it or not, right now its best chance for peace, freedom and prosperity lies not with the symbolic olive branches of the UN, but with the stars and stripes of Old Glory. The only question is whether we have the will to do what needs doing.

Update: A Cranky welcome to everyone from Dean's World. Hope you stick around.

This is the one where Spock has the beard, right?

"It would burn me like a Eucharist on a vampire."
- Stephen Colbert's response when ACLU National Director Anthony Romero tried to hand him a membership card with his name on it on The Colbert Report. Funny stuff, as usual.

*********************************************************

From the "Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria" department, the Cranky Insomniac notes that the ACLU and Stop the ACLU find themselves on the same side of an issue!

It seems students in the Crocker School District in Missouri are expressing their opinion over the resignation of a high school principal by wearing t-shirts with slogans on them. The students were originally told this was okay, as the shirts did not violate school standards, but as more students began wearing the shirts and another group of students made plans to wear shirts with a slogan representing an opposing point of view, school administrators decided to ban the shirts altogether. They also suspended several students because - well, because that's what petty fascists with delusions of grandeur do. (This description fits about 97% of school administrators.)

As Gribbit at Stop the ACLU says,

Let me get this straight. Students on both sides of the issue are expressing their 1st Amendment rights in a non-verbal manner, no violence has occurred in relation to the conflicting protests, and the t-shirts both pro and con Bogle do not violate the District’s dress code; so what’s the problem? Where do they get off suspending students for being involved in a civil debate?

C'mon, Gribbit: You're not actually suggesting that the school district should teach these kids that civil debate is the American way, are you? Isn't it much better for them to learn that taking sides isn't worth the effort and usually just gets you in trouble anyway, so better to just do what you're told?

The Cranky Insomniac gives props to the folks over at Stop the ACLU for having absolutely no problem agreeing with a position taken by their sworn enemy. It's this kind of intellectual honesty that makes Stop the ACLU good reading. Also, they both happen to be on the right side of this issue, which gives the CI an oddly pleasurable feeling in one of his special places.

However, all that aside, the Cranky Insomniac is, quite franky, ultimately terrified by this unholy alliance, as he's pretty sure he learned in an old Star Trek episode that it's something like this that will somehow lead to the destruction of the universe.

Good nukes at last

Who said the following?

The 600-plus coal-fired plants emit nearly 2 billion tons of CO2 annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from about 300 million automobiles. In addition, the Clean Air Council reports that coal plants are responsible for 64 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 26 percent of nitrous oxides and 33 percent of mercury emissions. These pollutants are eroding the health of our environment, producing acid rain, smog, respiratory illness and mercury contamination.

Meanwhile, the 103 nuclear plants operating in the United States effectively avoid the release of 700 million tons of CO2 emissions annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from more than 100 million automobiles. Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were reversed so that only 20 percent of our electricity was generated from coal and 60 percent from nuclear. This would go a long way toward cleaning the air and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Every responsible environmentalist should support a move in that direction.

Believe it or not, it's Patrick Moore, co-founder of the leading anti-nuke (and anti-progress in general) organization Greenpeace, writing in a Washington Post op-ed this past Sunday. (I was out of town, remember?)

Moore admits that he and his Luddite pals were dead wrong thirty years ago, when they effectively helped kill the expansion of America's nuclear energy capacity. Without taking any of the blame for spreading the false and alarmist rhetoric that terrified much of America and made it impossible for any company to build and operate nuclear power plants, Moore debunks everything he once smugly asserted was objectively true.

Here's Moore on the reactor core meltdown at Three Mile Island, widely portrayed (with no small assistance from Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon in The China Syndrome) as bringing us within an inch of Armageddon:

What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do -- prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

Note the passivity of Moore's language: "what nobody noticed at the time," "it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology."

I was just a teenager at the time, but even I remember reading about scientists and politicians who said exactly what Moore is saying now. I also somehow seem to remember that the nicest thing there were called by Moore and his cronies were shills for the nuclear energy companies.

And yes, it was enough to scare "us" away from the technology, thanks once again to Moore and his ilk trumpeting falsehoods about how using nuclear energy would eventually lead to the extinction of all life on Earth.

But for Moore, these things just "happened." No-one's ever to blame, least of all the ignorant or deceitful lefties, who even if they were wrong had their hearts in the right place, and really, isn't that all that matters?

And it's not as though organizations like Greenpeace (with which Moore is no longer affiliated) aren't continuing this pattern of deceit. A UN study completed last year found that there have been only 56 deaths that are directly attributable to the accident at Chernobyl, and 47 of those who died were emergency workers. In all, the study says that 3940 more deaths from cancer will be attributable to Chernobyl. I'm certainly not implying that this isn't tragic, but the original scare-mongering estimates put the death toll in the tens of thousands.

And even now, there's Greenpeace proclaiming that the International Atomic Energy Agency (one of the participants in the UN study) is "deliberately trying to down play the death toll of the Chernobyl accident as part of the nuclear industry's continued attempt to portray itself as an acceptable future energy source." Greenpeace insists that an accurate study would lead to estimates "in the range of tens to hundreds of thousands of casualties," not taking into account "the hundreds of millions of Europeans exposed to low doses of radioactivity as a result of the cloud of contamination which spread throughout Europe from Chernobyl." From 3940 to hundreds of millions with a few clicks of the keys.

Over the past thirty years America has grown God-only-knows how much more dependent upon fossil fuels, and the world has at the very least wastefully postponed the rise of a cheap energy source that potentially could have helped millions upon millions of people in poorer nations.

And, perhaps more importantly, if we had had thirty years of clean nuclear energy replacing dirty coal and oil-based energy, we might never have had to hear Laurie David's petulant whinging.

So it's all fine and dandy for Moore to admit now that nuclear energy is relatively clean, safe, and inexpensive, but, to paraphrase Ray Donovan, where do I go to get my thirty years back?

(Hat tip: Michelle Cottle, guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan)

Hanoi Hilton: The Scuttlebutt on Tuttle

Andi's World and Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette have been all over Hilton's decision to not renew the lease of Washington, DC steakhouse Fran O'Brien's, which every Friday night for the past two-and-a-half years has served up free steak dinners to wounded troops from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. Head over to those two sites for a wealth of information on this issue (the links go to their homepages because they've both got too many posts on this subject to link directly), and check out this article over at America Supports You on the "Friday Night Dinners Reunion Celebration," which marked the two year anniversary of this program. There are some great quotes from wounded soldiers about how the Friday night dinners really motivated them and made them feel like they belonged somewhere.

(An aside: if you have any interest in military affairs and you're not reading Mudville Gazette and Andi's World, you're wrong.)

Fuzzilicious Thinking (via Mudville) points to commenter Lawrence Kelly at Andi's World who provided a list of who serves on Hilton Corp's Board of Directors. One member of the Board is former Deputy Secretary of Commerce Donna Tuttle, who The Cranky Insomniac has learned was appointed by California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger in November 2004 as co-Chair of his Council on Base Support and Retention. According to the Governor's website,

The Council will build on the progress California has made this year to increase the state's ability to welcome military missions and installations with a hospitable economic and regulatory climate. The Governor signed legislation that increased funding for the Office of Military and Aerospace Support, the state office charged with coordinating base retention and conversion, and gave it the ability to seek grants and private donations to support its mission. Additional legislation signed by the Governor is expected to reduce the cost of constructing and maintaining military housing, encourage the basing of the Joint Strike Fighter in California, and prevent threat of encroachment on military installations and special use airspace by requiring local communities to recognize the needs of military bases in local planning.

The Council on Base Support and Retention is made up of 18 members with backgrounds in the military and state and local affairs. Co-chaired by Leon Panetta and Donna Tuttle, the Council will conduct public hearings and receive input from experts and the public on BRAC policy. Administrative support will be provided by the Office of Military & Aerospace Support under the aegis of the Business, Transportation & Housing Agency. Members of the Council will receive no compensation for their work.

I'd like to know how the Governor, as well as the retired military officers on the Council, feel about Tuttle's being part of a corporate Board of Directors that has callously decided to shut down a service that provided some much-needed morale boosting for wounded servicemen and women. Ahnold's website claims that his Council is "comprised of retired military officers and civic leaders," but Tuttle is not retired military and her actions concerning Fran O'Brien's are far from civic minded. And in light of her apparent disregard for the welfare of those who serve, what business does she have co-Chairing a Council whose mission is to "build on the progress California has made this year to increase the state's ability to welcome military missions and installations...?"

As someone who has worked in publicity for ten years, I don't see any way Hilton gets out of this unscathed, unless its Board moves quickly to reverse itself. The economic cost to Hilton of keeping Fran O'Brien's open surely pales in comparison next to the cost to its corporate image should it become known as the company that didn't want to help out wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. As Greyhawk says,

Though not quite in league with New Coke, this is likely to be one of the worst business decisions ever made by a major corporation. If you push through with your plan you'll certainly at least never live down the "Hanoi Hilton" nickname the vets are now starting to use. Can you imagine any segment of the American public that will support or applaud you for this?

Additionally, the economic costs themselves could end up being higher if Hilton follows through with its plan to shut down the restaurant: a nationwide boycott of Hilton by veterans, active duty military, and sympathetic fellow travellers could conceivably cost the company millions of dollars. In this instance, doing the right thing would also serve Hilton's self-interest. It would be nice if someone at Hilton Corporation were smart enough to figure this out.

"AK-47 is the tool"

Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, says US soldiers in Iraq prefer his rifle to the standard issue M-16. Leftist news agency Reuters quotes the 86-yeard-old Kalashnikov as saying:

"Even after lying in a swamp you can pick up this rifle, aim it and shoot. That's the best job description there is for a gun. Real soldiers know that and understand it," the 86-year-old gunmaker told a weekend news conference in Moscow.

"In Vietnam, American soldiers threw away their M-16 rifles and used (Kalashnikov) AK-47s from dead Vietnamese soldiers, with bullets they captured. That was because the climate is different to America, where M-16s may work properly," he said.

"Look what's happening now: every day on television we see that the Americans in Iraq have my machine guns and assault rifles in their armored vehicles. Even there American rifles don't work properly."

It wouldn't surprise me if this were true. I remember one of my Drill Sergeants ("This one time, in boot camp...") taking an AK, throwing it into a puddle, kicking it around in the puddle for a bit, and then taking it out and firing it with no problem whatsoever. His point was that the AK handles being mishandled much better than the M-16 does, and is much less likely to jam or otherwise malfunction under adverse conditions or in harsh climates.

If any Milbloggers or veterans read this, I'd love to hear your opinions on this issue. I'd like to think that in the time I've been out of the service they've improved the reliability of the M-16, but if this article is to be believed (and obviously Kalashnikov may be simply being self-serving) it doesn't sound like that's the case. This, of course, would be another fine example of your tax dollars at work.

Back from DC

Well, I made it back from DC. The conference was a huge success, as always, (see earlier posts here and here) and the Saturday night party was a blast. I'll just say that Johnny Bolton's moustache is even more impressive up close. It's very soft, too. And I'll tell you what: the Black Pope is one crazy Dutchman! Not only does he enjoy his Dirty Sue martinis, he told a joke involving St. Thomas Aquinas, Rabbi Isaac Luria and Mother Goose that would've made Lenny Bruce arrest him on the spot. Adams Morgan will never be the same.

Anyway, the Protocols are safe for another year and we're already planning next year's conference, which will be held in Tehran.

Normal blogging to begin again shortly.

Did Aljazeera get a copy of a DNC foreign policy strategy memo?

Check it out here.

Today's EZ Conference agenda

Following welcoming remarks by William Kristol, today's session of the 1,735th annual Elders of Zion Conference (see previous post) got underway. On the morning's agenda:

• Trey Parker gave an update on Operation: Acme, our plan to foster mistrust between Muslims and the west through the use of offensive cartoons. All agreed the Danish cartoons were worth every penny we spent on them, and that the refusal of Comedy Centralsor to air a cartoon image of Muhammed actually worked to our advantage. Pinch Sulzberger's idea of having his New York Times repeatedly publish pictures of the Virgin Mary covered in dung in order to further infuriate Christians won high praise. Additional resources were allocated for future efforts. Also, a boycott of Borders Books was unanimously agreed upon, with the Queen of England abstaining.

• There was heated debate on the topic of whether or not to revoke Steven Spielberg's membership. After several hours, the motion was tabled upon the recommendation of the representative from the Vatican.

Tonight's festivities will kick off with the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award, which this year is going to David Rockefeller, in recognition of his outstanding efforts in setting up our front organizations, including the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the Council on Foreign Relations. Presenting the long-overdue award will be Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney.

Tonight's closing speaker will be Henry Kissinger. His topic will be, "The assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK: why we did it and what we gained."

The password is Rothschild

Light blogging, if any, for the rest of the weekend. The Cranky Insomniac is headed to DC for the annual meeting of the Elders of Zion. We meet every Easter weekend to discuss any potential updates to our Protocols. This year I'm giving the keynote address - the topic is how best to continue and extend our control of US foreign policy in the post-Wolfowitz era. I can't tell you any more: I've said too much already.

Happy Easter to those of you who are not part of the international conspiracy. To my ZOG and Masonic friends: I'll see you in DC or via videoconference. Just follow the sign...



Update: Eight friggin' hours to get from NY to DC. There will be blood tonight!

Comedy Centralsor

Jim Lindgren, who's been all over the South Park story over at the Volokh Conspiracy, is now reporting that Comedy Centralsor ordered the censoring of a cartoon image of Muhammed strictly out of fear, and that religious tolerance played no part in this decision. (My earlier South Park post is here.)

Lindgren interviewed South Park Executive Producer Anne Garefino, who told him that the South Park team basically had two options:

[D]eliver the episode as written and animated with Mohammed shown and then allow Comedy Central to censor it, or edit out the disputed scene and write their own language explaining why Mohammed was not being shown and whose decision it was. “We wanted everyone to understand how strongly we felt about this,” said Garefino. Although the decision to omit Mohammed was not theirs, they wanted the language of the censorship disclosure to be their own.

Along with South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker (who are also Executive Producers of the show), Garefino was heavily involved in the negotiations with Comedy Central. She made clear that the reason for Comedy Central’s decision was “fear”: “We were happy that they didn’t try to claim that it was because of religious tolerance.”

Comedy Centralsor released a terse statement on Thursday, saying only that "In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision."

The Washington Post noticed this:

Banned by Comedy Central from showing an image of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the creators of "South Park" skewered their own network for hypocrisy in the cartoon's most recent episode.

The comedy - in an episode aired during Holy Week for Christians - instead featured an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag.

Believing that Christians (and Republicans, maybe?) pose no threat to their safety, Comedy Centralsor executives had absolutely no problem airing that. Guess who just made my list?

Also according to WaPo,

A frequent "South Park" critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored.

"The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central _ that's their decision not to show the image of Muhammad or not _ it's Parker and Stone," he said. "Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade."

That first sentence should read, "A frequent critic of fun of any kind," as in, "There'll be no more fun of any kind." Bill Donohue is a fatuous ass who has to look in the mirror every day and realize how much he has in common with Islamist ayatollahs. The Cranky Insomniac has nothing more to say about him, except that he won't need to pack any sweaters for where he's Eventually going.

You know what? You're on my list, too, Donohue.

Taggers:Cartoons, Denmark, Muhammed, South Park, Comedy Central, Comedy Censor, Danish Cartoons, Jyllens-Posten, Islam, Terrorism, Dhimmitude, Europe, Religion, Blasphemy, Pakistan, Allah, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Good Friday: This day in history

This day in history: Thanks to the recent discovery by renowned archaeologist Martin van Nostrand, it is now known that on Good Friday in the year 33AD, the world's first outgoing voicemail message was left by Jesus of Nazareth. Dr. van Nostrand and his team discovered this message buried in an earthen pot at a dig just outside what were once the city walls of ancient Meggido. Along with the actual message, several fragments were found that are thought to be previous failed attempts by Jesus to get the message exactly how he wanted it. Presented here for the first time ever are the results of the painstaking translation process, which coincidentally (Providentially?) ended at just the right time for the release the transcript to occur on Good Friday, the anniversary of their recording.

This transcription has been translated from the original Aramaic by Professor Thomas Sunderssen of Hebrew University:

Hey, it's Jesus of Nazareth. I'm not here right now so leave a..wait, that's lame...how do you reset this thing...hold on, I think you hit 9...

Hey this is the Notorious SOG* and I'm away for the weekend so just [sound of coughing]...[muttered] this is all Judas' fault...

"Hey, you've reached The Lamb*. It's Friday, and I'm unavailable to take your tall, so...Daddammit!...

"What up, what up, it's Lambo* y'all. It's Friday and I can't take your call, but I'm planning my return for Sunday, so leave a message with your name and village of birth and I'll get back to you then.

At this time we have found no evidence of any incoming messages, and two distinct schools of thought have arisen regarding this. One group believes that it is simply a matter of time before such messages are found; the other is certain that no incoming messages exist, mainly due to the fact that the telephone wouldn't actually be invented for another 1,843 years.


*Thanks in large part to these tapes, we now know that Jesus had various street names, including the ones seen above. Others included Jesus H., J-Dawg, Nazzy J and, simply, Naz. Additionally, some Gnostic gospels refer to Jesus as "My Lizzle and Sizzle," but it is not yet known what this means.

"They're not antiwar, they're on the other side" watch

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette points us to Reporting for Duty, a new Milblog launched by the Washington Post. Check out Chief Warrant Officer Bert Stover's account of a recent aircraft crash suffered by his unit, and then read the comments posted below it. As Greyhawk says,

Some eye opening stuff for anyone who thinks the Left's "support the troops" mantra is earnest or sustainable. Those wanting to add a few words of simple thanks for the author's efforts (and not further bog down the comments section already clogged by this type of sewage) are encouraged to do so...

I second that emotion, and have already left a comment of my own. Many of the commenters are truly disgusting, particularly given the fact that they are denigrating the very people who provide the umbrella of liberty under which they exercise their right to free speech. I strongly urge you to head over there and express your disgust for these commenters and your thanks for Mr. Stover.

Death in the rubble

We now have the first official finding of a death being the direct result of search and rescue efforts carried out at Ground Zero. The New York Post reports that New Jersey pathologist Dr. Gerard Breton has determined that retired NYPD Detective James Zadroga's death from pulmonary disease and respiratory failure was "directly connected to exposure to toxic materials experienced in the days immediately after 9/11."

The New York Daily News reports that

Zadroga was inside 7 World Trade Center as the building began to collapse on 9/11.

He survived the disaster, and like many other cops and civil servants, was called on to return to the site to help search for victims' remains.

Zadroga spent more than 450 hours at Ground Zero, digging through debris and inhaling the noxious gases that are believed to be related to death.

"On Sept. 11, 2001, James Zadroga was a 29-year-old healthy human being," [president of the Detectives' Endowment Association Michael] Palladino said.

But after his work at the 9/11 site, the nonsmoker's health "began to deteriorate rapidly," Palladino added.

Zadroga developed respiratory ailments, had difficulty breathing and was found to have fiberglass in his lungs, Palladino said.

The cop retired on a disability on Nov. 1, 2004. The 34-year-old widower died at his parents home in Little Egg Harbor, N.J., just over 14 months later.

As the Post says, this may be the first such finding, but it won't be the last. Already we have the case of former NYPD Officer Robert Williams, a cancer victim who, since participating in the rescue attempts and cleanup at Ground Zero, has lost "his pancreas, spleen, gall bladder, most of his stomach and parts of his intestines and and a lung. " According to the Post, chemotherapy is no longer working for Williams.

Here's his story:

The veteran cop had just finished a night shift at 7 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, and had gotten a couple of hours sleep when his wife woke him and told him of the terror attacks.

His two daughters, now 11 and 9, wept as he got dressed and headed back to work. "Daddy, don't go," they implored.

"I said, 'It's OK. Daddy is going to go and help people. Don't worry.'"

He wasn't on the scene when the Twin Towers collapsed, but had to run for his life when WTC 7 collapsed.

Over the next five weeks, he put in 16-hour days digging through the debris for survivors and evidence. Most of the time, he had just a paper mask.

"The EPA said the air was safe, but common sense told you it was not," he said.

The EPA has a lot to answer for. All New Yorkers knew in their gut that the air around the rubble was toxic, despite the repeated assurances of the bureaucrats who, as always, somehow managed to be far from the front lines. Somebody needs to pay for this, and I don't mean with a reassignment or demotion.

In the mean time, Officer Zadroga should be immediately put on the list of those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He deserves to be remembered as a hero of that day, and needs to be added to the tab that's been run up by Al Qaeda.

Help! Irony Police!

Editor's note: The following is an unedited transcript of an emergency call received by the Irony Police shortly after the airing of South Park last night on Comedy Central. The caller has been identified only as Sam, but it is believed he may be somebody's uncle.

Help irony police I've been watching this episode of South Park see well actually it's a two-part episode so it airs over two weeks okay and the entire point of the two-part episode that airs over two weeks the entire reason it was written okay was to illustrate the point that you can't give in to violence that you can't let Islamists tell you that you can't show images of Muhammed that you can't let their rioting and their threats of violence force you into submission that if you do that then you're saying that all you have to do to get me to abandon my principles is threaten me with violence and that you're saying that if you ask nicely I'll tell you to fuck off but you can get anything you want if you threaten me and get all belligerent and irrational and that's a bad message to send because all it does is encourage more acts of violence and destruction and if you do that you're basically allowing terrorists to tell you what you can and cannot do and that's not the way it's supposed to be here in America or anywhere in the West for that matter and if you want to live that way you're sad and pathetic and so anyway I've been watching this episode of South Park see and so what does Comedy Central do they air the episode the two-part episode that airs over two weeks okay so it all builds up to the end of the second part and finally Kyle that's one of the characters on the show finally Kyle persuades the president of a TV network to air a show that features a cartoon depiction of Muhammed and so it's a happy ending right and a good lesson is learned by everyone and we all live happily ever after but WAIT I can't believe what just happened Comedy Central just refused to show the scene from the show within the show that features a cartoon depiction of Muhammed they refused to show it instead a screen came up with the words "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network" I can't believe this just happened it negates the whole point of the episode the two-part episode that airs over two weeks so you watch it for two weeks and then Comedy Central does this this is ridiculous please hurry irony police please hurry this is an emergency we're in big trouble here mayday mayday we're going down please send help we can't let this happen we're the only chance the world has got it may already be too late for Eurabia it's gonna be up to us as usual so please hurry please we've got to stop the bleeding before it's too late for us too hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry hur

Editor: At this point the voice on the tape abruptly cuts off. Sounds of screaming and breaking glass can be heard, along with what has been tentatively identified as crackling flames. The immediate fate of the man dubbed "Uncle" Sam is not yet known.


Update: Much more at Michelle Malkin, Volokh Conspiracy and The Anchoress.

Use your discharge card when you hire the ACLU

Gribbit over at Stop the ACLU presents a compelling argument that lays out why he thinks the ACLU has no business filing a lawsuit on behalf of a lesbian Air Force major who was discharged because her relationship with another woman became public. He may well be right, but I'm not totally convinced.

Strangely, the ACLU has no information about the lawsuit on its website - not even a press release. And the only news source I can find is an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has incomplete information.

It's clear that neither side is disputing the fact that Major Margaret Witt is a lesbian, and that she engaged in sexual activities with another woman. Since that's been stipulated, here's what I think we need to know: Does the ACLU's lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Seattle, claim that Witt's constitutional rights have been violated? If so, I say fine, go ahead and file suit. That's what the court system is there for. (The "don't ask, don't tell regulations already have been upheld five times by federal courts.) If, however, the ACLU jumped on this case because they're not big fans of the law and think Witt shouldn't be penalized for violating it, then I agree with Gribbit that the they have no business filing this suit.

According to the Seattle PI

The ACLU argued that Witt's absence has harmed her unit's morale, and that it comes at a time when the Air Force Reserves has a shortage of flight nurses.

"Major Margaret Witt has been an exemplary member of the military with a distinguished record of service," said Kathleen Taylor, executive director of the ACLU's Washington office. "To discharge her simply because of her sexual orientation is unfair and does not make our military stronger."

This doesn't sound like a constitutional issue to me. Whether or not Witt's absence "has harmed her unit's morale" or whether there's a shortage of flight nurses has nothing to do with whether or not she violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Indeed Major Witt admits that

she had been in what the ACLU characterized as "a committed relationship" with a female civilian from 1997 to 2003. ACLU spokesman Doug Honig said Wednesday that relationship has since ended.

Gribbit lays out what he believes to be the relevant articles of the UCMJ that Major Witt has violated:

883. ART. 83. FRAUDULENT ENLISTMENT, APPOINTMENT, OR SEPARATION

Any person who–

(1) procures his own enlistment or appointment in the armed forces by knowingly false representation or deliberate concealment as to his qualifications for the enlistment or appointment and receives pay or allowances thereunder; or

(2) procures his own separation from the armed forces by knowingly false representation or deliberate concealment as to his eligibility for that separation;

shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

884. ART. 84. UNLAWFUL ENLISTMENT, APPOINTMENT, OR SEPARATION

Any person subject to this chapter who effects an enlistment or appointment in or a separation from the armed forces of any person who is known to him to be ineligible for that enlistment, appointment, or separation because it is prohibited by law, regulation, or order shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Gribbit says that

When she accepted her commission, she understood at that point that homosexuals are not permitted to serve in the US Armed Forces. Therefore, either or both Articles 83 & 84 could be applicable in a case such as this.

Probably. However, Witt served for eighteen years, and I suppose it's possible that she did not self-identify as a lesbian back then and therefore did not knowingly procure a fraudulent appointment. And I'm not sure if her appointment itself would be considered unlawful if she did not think of herself as a lesbian when it occured. (When I say "I'm not sure," I'm not trying to be cute: I'm really not sure, and would welcome clarification on this.) Since 1994, when the ridiculous "Don't ask don't tell" regulations went into effect, simply being gay does not disqualify a person from joining the military:

A person's sexual orientation is considered a personal and private matter, and is not a bar to service unless manifested by homosexual conduct.

So in order to bring charges under 883 . ART. 83 or 888 . ART. 84, the Air Force now has to prove that a person who knew him- or herself to be gay planned to engage in "homosexual conduct" at the time that he or she joined the service. However, since Major Witt received her appointment prior to 1994, I would imagine that this doesn't apply to her. ("Then why bring it up?" you ask, and I realize I have no good answer to that question.)

The other article Gribbit brings up is:

925. ART. 125. SODOMY

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration , however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Gribbit says

If Maj. Witt was involved in a lesbian relationship for many years, it can be assumed that she has engaged in sexual activities with her lover. This being the case, it is an act of unnatural carnal copulation and thus Sodomy. So Article 125 is applicable.

There is nothing in this particular article that says gay or lesbian sex qua gay or lesbian sex constitutes "unnatural carnal copulation." (And I'd like to know just what the UCMJ's definition of "unnatural carnal copulation" is.) Obviously there was no penetration, slight or otherwise, between Major Witt and her companion, and if penetration "completes the offense," then lesbian sex ain't sodomy.

It's interesting to note that 925. ART. 125 does not discriminate between gays, straights, and animal lovers. To the UCMJ, sodomy is sodomy (even if it doesn't actually define what sodomy is). This of course begs the question of whether straight servicepeople are ever charged under this article. The Cranky Insomniac is no lawyer, but it would seem that if it's only enforced against gays, it would constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

(On a side note, Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines sodomy as

1 : copulation with a member of the same sex or with an animal
2 : noncoital and especially anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex

If number 2 were ever strictly enforced there'd be a serious troop strength issue.)

However, it's entirely possible that 925. ART. 125 is never enforced, because the military can discharge actively gay servicepeople without it. The FY 1994 National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Clinton, which codified the don't ask, don't tell guidelines, states that grounds for discharge are that:

1) the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts; 2) the member states that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual; or 3) the member has married or attempted to marry someone of the same sex.

I would imagine that this, rather than the articles of the UCMJ Gribbit mentions, was the grounds used for discharging Major Witt.

So, again, if the ACLU is bringing this suit to challenge the constitutionality of the relevant sections of current military law, then it's not, as Gribbit insists, an "internal military matter," but a question that can only be decided by the courts. If, however, the suit is being brought on any other grounds, then I agree that "the ACLU should keep their nose out of this matter."

On a different note, Gribbit and I differ in our opinions regarding gays in the military. We're both veterans, but he believes that

Openly homosexual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines have the potential to create a morale and discipline problem within the unit and as such can be seen as being damaging for the good of the service. And conversely, the potential for sexual relationships among members of the same unit or command can also lead to a breakdown in discipline.

I think that if were gays allowed to openly serve, there would be some issues that would have to be worked out, including the very real question of living arrangements. But I also think that these problems can be dealt with, and that morale and discipline problems would not be as big a problem as Gribbit thinks. Regarding sexual relations between people in the same unit, this already goes on all the time among straight servicepeople, openly or not, so I don't think it's an argument against letting gays serve openly.

What would it be like if you had two openly homosexual men in an infantry unit who were involved with each other. They go into combat and one of them gets shot. How would his boyfriend react on the battlefield? Instead of the unit being down one weapon, there is a potential of being down two as a result of one round. This is unacceptable.

This is not an unfair point. However, consider the fact that members of the same unit can (and in the best units, do) become incredibly close-knit, but that even within these close-knit groups it is inevitable that individuals will form stronger bonds with some people than with others, and possibly with one person over everyone else. Is this so different from the situation Gribbit describes? I think it's close enough, and no-one would argue that "best friends" shouldn't serve in the same unit.

(By the way, at no point does Gribbit come off as being homophobic. It's unfortunate that I feel I need to say that, but the times, they require it. Most people who are against amnesty for illegal immigrants are not racists, and many people who oppose gays serving in the military are not homophobes. )

Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are volunteers. They know the score going into the service. If they choose to conceal their sexual orientation knowing that homosexual conduct is a violation of the UCMJ, that is a risk that they take. If they are caught, then they should know that the military will apply the UCMJ because if they fail to, it would lead to a collapse of discipline.

It is no different (except in severity) than a soldier who falls asleep on guard. It is a violation and there is no room for latitude.

Here's where I think Gribbit's emotions may have gotten away from him. I fully take his point about both instances being violations of the UCMJ, but I knew more than a handful of gay soldiers when I was in the army, and honestly, very few people cared. However, I didn't know a lot of soldiers who fell asleep on guard duty, because people did care about that, and everyone knew it. A soldier who falls asleep on guard duty puts his platoon/company/battalion/whatever at potential risk. I fail to see how a gay man who just wants the opportunity to serve his country is putting anyone in harm's way, except potentially himself.

Happy Passover

Happy Passover to my Tribal readers.

For those of you who aren't Jewish or Charlton Heston fans - and out of those two, it's certainly okay to not be Jewish - during Passover the Jews commemorate the fact that God was the first to impose sanctions (the ten plagues) on a dictatorial regime (Pharoah). Someday, in a cave in the Sinai, a scroll will be discovered containing evidence that several European angels, and perhaps the head of the United Angels and his family, got rich by working with Pharoah in violation of these sanctions.

During Passover we also remember the hardships our forepeople^* suffered while fleeing Egypt. Because Jews take forever to say their good-byes, they had to leave in such a hurry that they couldn't wait for their bread to rise and had to eat it unleavened, as matzoh. (This led to the concept of bakeries, where you could get actual bread really quickly. For a people who spend most of their history fleeing, this is of the utmost importance. "Never again," as we say.) In modern times we identify with the suffering of our ancestors by eating matzoh, along with kosher-for-Passover cookies, brownies, cakes, and potato chips. Really, you can only identify so much before it starts to become annoying.


^*The Cranky Insomniac's sister forbids the use of the word "forefathers."

Shallow Thoughts with the Cranky Insomniac

The best thing about being a blogger in the TimesReject^TM era: Realizing you don't have to read Maureen Dowd's columns because nobody else is. I was halfway through today's MoDo screed when it hit me: I can't link, therefore it isn't.

The worst thing about being a blogger: Actually dreaming that Mickey Kaus sent you an email complimenting you on one of your posts. I kid you not, I was in the shower when I remembered this, but while I was pretty sure it was a dream, the first thing I did when I got out was, well, dry myself off, obviously. The second thing I did was check my computer. Sure enough, it was just a dream, the whole time it was just a dream. Damn those new ruby slippers.

Great Minds Think Alike?

The Cranky Insomniac, in comments made over at Ann Althouse in response to her post about former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani and whether he would run for president:

I think a lot of people forget that before 9/11 a majority of NYC folk really disliked Giuliani. He was viewed by many as petty, vindictive and thin-skinned, and it wasn't until he showed his competence and calm in the midst of chaos that a lot of NYCers came to admire him.

Unless he's mellowed with age, Giuliani's thin skin will not serve him well in a long, hard national campaign, particularly in those parts of the country where pushy and arrogant New Yorkers are not looked upon favorably, especially if they're "ethnic."

After 9/11 I don't think anybody doubts his ability and strength in times of crisis, but I think there are a lot of people who remember the pre-9/11 Giuliani and think that he's one of those people who should be kept in a glass container that says "open only in times of emergency."

And

I admit that I wouldn't vote for him because he has the soul of an autocratic statist, and that doesn't mesh with my wacko libertarianism. But, hey -- to a large extent it's those qualities that made him such an effective leader during those dark days of September '01.

But my personal opinion aside, it remains true that between his sometimes abrasive style and the mini-scandal involving his wife and girlfriend, his popularity in NYC was pretty low on 9/10/01.

From an article in today's New York Times about a new anti-Rudy documentary entitled "Giuliani Time":

George Arzt, a political and communications consultant in New York City, said the documentary was a reminder that Mr. Giuliani is a far more complicated leader than the post-9/11 hagiography suggests.

"In the second term he was fighting with a lot of people, he had tense relationships, his marriage was falling apart, nothing was going right, and he was headed for political oblivion when 9/11 happened," said Mr. Arzt, once the press secretary for Mayor Edward I. Koch.

Robert Polner, a former Newsday reporter and the editor of a 2005 book of essays and articles about Mr. Giuliani, said that many Americans did not know the same man New Yorkers may recall: one who wanted to win every battle, who lashed out at his critics and who rarely ceded ground (at least in public).

"I wasn't that surprised with him in 9/11 because he was always good in a crisis," said Mr. Polner, whose book, "America's Mayor: the Hidden History of Rudy Giuliani's New York" (Soft Skull Press), was published last year. "When it was quiet in the room or a problem needed finesse, it was almost like he couldn't exist. He almost existed to manage a crisis. But there is far more to him than that."

Fighting dirty

The Sunday Times of London reports that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, "the number of incidents involving the unauthorised movement, possession or loss of radioactive sources doubled from 2002 to 2004." These radioactive agents could be used by terrorists in order to produce so-called "dirty bombs," the IAEA says.

Dirty bombs are conventional explosives combined with radioactive material. The Times says that "[s]ecurity experts fear that terrorists could pack conventional bombs with radioactive material which would contaminate wide areas of cities"; however, a US Nuclear Regulatory Commission fact sheet on dirty bombs states that

[i]n most instances, the conventional explosive itself would have more immediate lethality than the radioactive material. At the levels created by most probable sources, not enough radiation would be present in a dirty bomb to kill people or cause severe illness.

Because of the relatively low levels of radiation usually associated with dirty bombs, the NRC classifies them as weapons of mass disruption rather than weapons of mass destruction.

In an effort to serve the public interest, I now present the NRC's list of what people should do following the explosion of a dirty bomb:

• Move away from the immediate area--at least several blocks from the explosion--and go inside. This will reduce exposure to any radioactive airborne dust.

• Turn on local radio or TV channels for advisories from emergency response and health authorities.

• If facilities are available, remove clothes and place them in a sealed plastic bag. Saving contaminated clothing will allow testing for radiation exposure.

• Take a shower to wash off dust and dirt. This will reduce total radiation exposure, if the explosive device contained radioactive material.

• If radioactive material was released, local news broadcasts will advise people where to report for radiation monitoring and blood and other tests to determine whether they were in fact exposed and what steps to take to protect their health.

The more you know...

Get RID of Rummy

I don't suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome, but I am currently being treated for its close cousin, Rumsfeld Insanity Disorder. My RID is triggered anytime I hear Donald Rumsfeld's voice, and witnessing his smug technocratic condescension on television can send me into a blind rage that I no longer even want to control.

The Pentagon's press conference today, which featured Rumsfeld with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, by his side, forced me to swallow so many tranquilizers and sedatives that the ghosts of Hunter Thompson and John Belushi showed up to tell me to slow down.

But it was actually something Pace said in response to questions about the three retired generals (including Marine Lieutenant General Greg Newbold) who have recently called for Rumsfeld's resignation that set me off.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from new criticism by former Pentagon brass Tuesday, telling reporters that "nobody works harder than he does."

"He does his homework. He works weekends. He works nights," Gen. Peter Pace said. "People can question my judgment or his judgment, but they should never question the dedication, the patriotism and the work ethic of Secretary Rumsfeld."

I guess I missed the part where the three generals' disgust with Rumsfeld was over his work habits.

Look, doing your homework doesn't matter if you get it wrong. Working weekends and nights doesn't matter if you do shoddy work - if anything, it's more of a hindrance to everyone else. Like many government employees, Rumsfeld is actually at his most valuable when he's AWOL.

And of course he's working long hours. That's what you end up doing when you think you're more important in your corner office than the people under you are on the ground. That's what happens when you're a classic bureaucratic micromanager who constantly overrules his subordinates even though they may be in a better position to make decisions.

To my knowledge, no one has ever questioned Rumsfeld's patriotism or work habits. The issue here is his utter lack of competence, coupled with his unfortunately overinflated sense of self. There's nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks he's a lot smarter than he is and therefore believes he's the smartest person in the room. Simply put, this is a recipe for disaster. (See "Iraqi occupation and reconstruction, troop levels needed for"; see also "Iraqi army, disbanding of.") And for General Pace to pretend that RID is caused by anthing other than this is a disgraceful farce and an embarrassment to the uniform he wears.

It's way past time to "Get RID of Rummy," and hopefully salvage a war I have always supported in theory, but am becoming increasingly uneasy about in practice. For all the inane and overblown comparisons made between the wars in Iraq and Vietnam, it seems that one thing they do have in common is the crippling influence of REMFs who don't know what they're doing.

You're on my list, Rumsfeld.

And you know what? You're on my list, too, General Pace.

The beginning of Operation Iraqinian Freedom?

Iranian President and all-around fun guy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that Iranian scientists have successfully produced enriched uranium at a level that could power nuclear plants. He said Iran was determined to develop production on an industrial scale.

"The nuclear fuel cycle at the laboratory level has been completed, and uranium with the desired enrichment for nuclear power plants was achieved," Mr. Ahmedinejad said in a speech that was broadcast live from the city of Mashad.

"Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world," he later added. "This is a starting point for more major points of success for the Iranian nation."

Well, actually it's the beginning of the end of the Iranian nation as we know it, but let's not split hairs. And it looks like once again we'll be doing it ourselves:

European foreign ministers met [yesterday] in Luxembourg to discuss steps short of sanctions that could be taken to pressure Iran if it does not comply with the Security Council request. Both Russia and China have indicated deep reluctance to impose sanctions, even while supporting calls for a freeze on Iranian research.

"Steps short of sanctions" sounds suspiciously like surrender to this simple soul. It conjures up images of Europe starting by asking nicely, proceeding quickly to offering concessions, and hitting snags while in the middle of begging. I imagine it'll be at that point that we'll handle things, leaving the Europeans to end as they always do: by condemning us. So it goes.

Much more, including a roundup of blogosphere reaction, at Stop the ACLU here and here.

Colbert Report tonight

Comedy Central is airing a repeat episode of The Colbert Report tonight that features former US Senator and noted seaman Gart Hart. If you missed it the first time, try to catch it. It's Colbert at his best, eviscerating the almost painfully overmatched Hart.

Colbert may not believe the positions his on-air persona adopts, but he's actually a much better "conservative" interviewer than anyone on Fox News. He's smarter and quicker than either the execrable Bill O'Reilly or the loathsome Sean Hannity, and he's just plain likeable, something real political commentators of all ideologies could learn from.

"I have a list"

From time to time I'll be putting people, organizations, entire nations, etc., on My List. My list is not someplace you want to be - being on it generally means you've offended, hurt, or angered me.

Examples of what gets you on my list are here, here and, much to the dismay of many of you, here. A complete copy of my list can always be found at the top of the left sidebar, under the heading, "Who's on My List." All entries are hyperlinked so you can see exactly what led to their shame and learn from their mistakes. Copies of my list are maintained at various secure locations throughout this great nation of ours, along with other documents that will be made public should anything unfortunate "accidentally" happen to me.

Good night, and good luck.

NASCAR nation refuses to take Dateline's bait

Apparently Dateline: NBC did send a crew and some Muslim-looking men to the race at Martinsville, VA on April 1. Columnist Duane Cross at NASCAR.com reports that nothing happened, much to the shock and chagrin of the Dateline folks, I'm sure.

Mike Smith, director of public relations for Martinsville Speedway, said that the Dateline crew's presence wasn't as stealth as it possibly hoped.

"Our security knew almost immediately that [the Dateline crew] were on site and they were monitored the whole time they were here, for obvious reasons -- their protections, fans protection -- and they were not disturbed," Smith said. "It says a lot about our fans.

"If there is an upside, it shows that the image so many people have of NASCAR fans is a false one, and it shows that not only at Martinsville Speedway, but at NASCAR tracks in general, it shows what type of security we have in place that can discover something like this, observe it and make sure nothing happens.

"We've gotten calls [Thursday] from fans praising our security and wanting the number for Dateline," Smith said. "As disappointed as we are, we feel pretty good about the end result."

Remind me again who's more obsessed with race: the people at Dateline, who obviously were praying for an ugly incident of some sort, or the "redneck" NASCAR fans, who refused to oblige? It seems as though the only race the fans were interested in was the one going on on the track.

Update: Um, apparently this story came out on April 6. Nobody tells me nothin'. Thanks a lot, readers. You're on my list.

I still think my last line is pretty good, although given how long this has been out there, I'm sure sixty-four other people already used it. I guess I'm officially the only blog with a long lead time.

Afflecktion

I hope Brent Baker over at Newsbusters didn't have to actually sit through professional sleaze* Bill Maher's show to give us this little gem:

Reminiscent of Al Franken on the Late Show last October, on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, actor Ben Affleck charged that President Bush “probably also leaked” Valerie Plame's name and so “if he did, you can be hung for that! That's treason!” In full rant, an apoplectic Affleck asserted: “You could be killed. That's not a joking around Tom DeLay 'I'll do a year, I bribed the state officials with corporate money.' That's like they shoot you in the battlefield for doing that.”

Note to Bruce Willis: You couldn't have left him on that asteroid??

*Ever see Maher at a Hollywood party? I have (yes, I'm that cool), and it's not a pretty sight, especially if you're a really young girl.

Note to Maher's lawyers: By really young, I mean late teens, early twenties. I'm not saying he's a pedophile, just a short, very impressed with himself sleazebag who you wouldn't want within fifty yards of your sister.

An open letter to Greg Gutfeld at Huffington Post

Dear Greg,

Please start posting again over at HuffnPuff. America needs you. I need you. Whatever it is we did, we're sorry. We want you back. And not just at the double secret hidden blog, but out in the open, where we can see you.

Thanks!

Best,
The Cranky Insomniac
(formerly known as Gutfeld commenter ender22)

P.S. I'm in New York. Let's do drinks!

Injunctivitis

The largest Christian group in Korea is seeking an injunction ordering Sony Pictures to stop the release of the film version of The Da Vinci Code.

According to Variety,

the Christian Council of Korea charged that the film "may disparage and insult the divinity of Jesus Christ" and "will incite even greater conflict and chaos than the novel – to Christians and non-Christians alike – as it makes people believe that a fictional tale is historical fact."

Hey, why not? It works for Muslims...

Same old media, same old story

Bill Carter's story in today's New York Times is headlined, "Will Couric As Anchor Revive News at Night?" Let me field that one: no.

Not surprisingly, president of NBC News Steve Capus wishfully thinks it will.

"I think with Katie going to CBS, people are going to be talking about the evening news again," Mr. Capus said.

Talking about it ain't the same as watching it. Sure, CBS may see a spike at the beginning of Couric's run, but Capus can't really think this will translate into a larger overall viewership for the three networks' evening news shows. Or can he be that out of touch? Bill Carter puts his own old media spin on things:

However Ms. Couric ultimately fares as the new anchor of the "CBS Evening News," her decision has thrown a new spotlight on network news, which in the past decade or so has been all but written off as a passé, perhaps obsolete part of the news business.

You mean like newspapers, Mr. Carter?

The desperation of old media has a definable scent: it's the musty smell of "we were here first" mixed with the flop sweat odor of "we really don't understand what's happening." The networks trumpet their decisions to feed their newscasts over the interweb as if it will make any difference, not realizing that the same people who aren't watching their shows on television also won't be watching them on the 'net. Why? Because they don't have to. Why would you want to get the news in that format if you've got alternatives? In the time it takes a nightly news show to cover five stories, I can ready thirty stories that give me a wider and deeper perspective on what's happening.

And then there's the Times itself, going full bore into the electronic age by putting perhaps its most valuable commodities, its opinion columnists, behind the TimesReject^tm wall. And now, as Ann Althouse reports, they're having Stanley Fish blog from behind the same wall.

But this Stanley Fish blog is just crazy. It's a blog. But you can't link. By having blogs, the Times seems to want to say we're cool. By making them unlinkable, it's saying we're clueless. But maybe they want their subscribers to stay out of the linked-up blogosphere and wade around in the Times blogs. Stay here, in our safe domain -- our clean, well-lit aquarium -- with our approved bloggers. Of course, we riffraff bloggers, in wanting to link, are trying to send them more readers and to get a lively conversation going.

Does anybody remember the time before TimesReject^tm, when MoDo and Krugman were two of the most blogged about writers? I feel like an old man having to tell some young whippersnappers how things used to be back in the old days.

Les Moonves at least kind of gets it.

In November, Mr. Moonves told a Reuters reporter, "We've got to move forward or else the people watching our evening news are going to be dead, and there's going to be nobody there to replace them."

He clearly doesn't understand that twenty percent of the CBS Evening News' viewership may already be dead, depending on particular state laws, but it's a step in the right direction.

The French are toast

France continued its descent into obscurity today by caving into students who have been protesting against the need to earn a living. At issue was a youth jobs law that would have made it easier for employers to fire workers during their first two years on the job - as things stand, it is virtually impossible to do so. The law was withdrawn today.

But it's okay, it's been replaced with something else:

"The necessary conditions of confidence and calm are not there, either among young people or companies, to allow the application of the First Job Contract," Mr. Villepin said in a brief speech. He said the now-defunct contract would be replaced by a series of measures to encourage employers to hire unqualified young people. [Disbelieving emphasis mine.]

Yeah, providing government-subsidized jobs for unqualified workers is clearly the best way to boost your dying economy. Note to France: Sign up for an Econ 101 class, stat.

The only thing that made this outcome hard to forsee is that both sides are French, so it was a question of who would surrender first. I guess the moral of the story is always go with the French government.

Bruce Bawer is wrong. Europe isn't sleeping, it's in a coma.*

Gateway Pundit has more.

*I couldn't resist that line, but Bawer's book is actually one of the best, and most frightening, things I've read in a long time. I highly recommend it. I may even blog about it later. So back off.

Dr. No

Is there anything more annoying than a doctor who won't listen to you?

As the name of this blog tells you, I have major sleep issues. (Yes, I'm about to get all Andy Sullivan on you.) I'm generally up until between 5 and 8am, and whatever sleep I do get is lousy - I wake up constantly, and by the time I get out of bed I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I'm exhausted all day, but inevitably around 10 or 11pm I start to feel awake and alert.

Over the past six months I've been seeing various doctors in an attempt to deal with I consider to be two separate issues (dyssomnias, as they're called): the first is the poor quality of my actual sleep, the second my inability to sleep at night.

Through a polysomnogram conducted during an overnight stay in a sleep lab, the sleep quality issue has been diagnosed as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which, briefly, means that while I'm sleeping my airway closes up and I stop breathing for a brief period of time. This happens constantly throughout my sleep, causing me to briefly wake up over and over again, which is why I never feel rested or refreshed. I'm trying to solve this problem with the use of a CPAP machine, which pumps pressurized air through my nose to keep the airway open. It's a little machine that connects, via a hose, to a mask which goes over my nose, and which I'm trying to retail as "sexy in a Blue Velvet kind of way." (Not much luck so far.) It hasn't really been helpful so far, but I'm gonna keep trying.

So today I saw my sleep doctor (a pulmonologist) to talk about my being unable to fall asleep. I'm convinced that I have delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), which not surprisingly means that my body clock is out of whack so that I'm tired during the day and awake at night. But, and here's where my frustration kicks in, I can't get my doctor to really listen to me.

When I had my overnight stays at the sleep lab (once for the polysomnogram, once to fit me for the CPAP) I fell asleep at around 11pm, slept for about an hour or so, and then was up for the rest of the night. So according to the doctor, the fact that I briefly fell asleep at around 11 shows that I don't have DSPS. I tried to explain to him that this happens occasionally, and that it's the equivalent of a mid-day nap for a normal person. This didn't impress him.

He told me I should try sleep medications. (Gee, I never thought of that. Brilliant.) I informed him that I've tried every sleep aid known to man, from ambien to lunesta to trazodone to restoril to medications that haven't been used in twenty years. Not one of them puts me to sleep. His answer to this was, "well, you haven't tried them with the CPAP." Now, just so we're clear here, the purpose of the CPAP is not to put you to sleep, it's to keep you asleep. It has nothing whatsoever to do with DSPS or any other dyssomnia that prevents you from falling asleep. And, on top of that, it's not even doing what it's supposed to do for me.

I'm not generally shy about expressing my opinion, but my attitude is that you shouldn't piss off the people who control your physical and mental well being. So as much as I wanted to, at no point did I leap out of my chair and strangle the doc.

The upshot of all this? I'm going to try the remedy for DSPS, which is to force your body clock to "reset" by pushing forward the time you go to sleep until you're where you want to be. In otherwords, if I usually fall asleep around 6am, I'll push it to 7am for a couple of days, then 8am, etc, until I'm pusing it to midnight or 1am. This'll take about a month, and is supposedly not much fun, but it's either that or completely give up on any semblance of a normal life, which I'm not quite ready to do.

I'll keep you up-to-date through a series of really short blog posts, but I promise not to turn this into a "here's what's wrong with me" diary. In otherwords, enough about me: what do you think about me?

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog programming.

Sunday Sports Roundup

The Mets won 3-2, with third baseman and this year's NL MVP David Wright driving in all three runs. The Mets now have a nearly insurmountable 2 game lead in the NL East.

Lefty Phil Mickelson won the Masters by two strokes, but the other, right-handed golfers seemed buoyed by the fact that scientists say he'll die at a younger age than them.

In NASCAR news, the Cranky Insomniac is breaking up with Carl Edwards, who killed The CI in his fantasy league for the second time in this young season. In Sunday's race, Edwards somehow managed to get into an accident with himself, while in the lead. The CI should've known Edwards would be spectacularly incompetent after he guest-starred on 24 last week as a Homeland Security agent.

Turning to the NFL, earlier excitement over who the Jets will draft has faded as fans realize that no matter who they get they'll still suck, and the latest word from Oakland is that Al Davis is still alive, ensuring that the Raiders will have a horrible draft and also continue to suck.

Stay tuned for Hale Hittler with the weather.

Hersh so good?

In an earlier post concerning Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article on alleged US war plans vis a vis Iran, I said

having senior officials "leak" the "fact" that the use of nukes is being seriously considered is a great piece of psyops if you want to scare the hell out of Iran and bring them to the bargaining table.

Upon further reflection, almost all of the hyperbolic claims made by Hersh's anonymous sources fit this same pattern, raising the question: in writing this article, did Hersh unwittingly help a brilliant Bush administration psychological warfare campaign aimed at convincing the Iranian leadership that the "cowboys" in DC will do whatever it takes to remove them from power (and in all likelihood send them straight to Allah) if they don't end their nuclear program?

Consider how much of the information (in addition to the nuclear option) given to Hersh has either a "this is a done deal," or a "he's just crazy enough to do it" vibe to it. Hersh tells us that:

• US special ops troops are already in Iran and could be in position to "lase" targets, to insure bombing accuracy and minimize civilian casualties.
  
• The Air Force is already drawing up lists of hundreds of targets, and that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation,' but more to do with regime change.
  
• Bush will never let the Iranians begin a pilot program to enrich uranium that's scheduled for this spring.
• Bush views Iranian President Ahmadinejad as "a potential Hitler."
• Bush "believes that he must do 'what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,' and 'that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.'”
• A former defense official, when told that current US military planning is "premised on a belief that 'a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government,'" asked himself, ""What are they smoking?'"
• A member of the House Appropriations Committee says there's “'no pressure from Congress'” for the US not to take military action, that the pressure is only "'from the guys who want to do it.'” This same House members adds his scary take on President Bush: "'The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.'”
• The Europeans, whom the Iranians might be counting on for their usual willingness to achieve appeasment at any cost, find themselves "rattled...by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change."

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic in believing that the Bushies are capable of such a grand deception, but even if I'm wrong, doesn't Hersh's article help the US by telling the Iranians that we mean business? I know they're not the most rational people in the world, but even crazy people often have a strong sense of self-preservation.

So if you're part of the current Iranian regime, do you read Hersh's piece and think America is a paper tiger that doesn't have the will to pick a fight, or do you get the message that if forced to go to war, we will, as Ralph Peters urges, "make the conflict so devastating and painful that even our allies are stunned"?

A lot of bloggers have come down hard on Hersh (see here and here for examples) and often he deserves it. But I think in this case, whatever his intentions were, he's done this country a huge favor.

Update: Marc Schulman at American Future has a round-up of blogosphere opinion. He's not happy. Neither is The CI, but that's just because he wasn't part of the round-up.

US mulling mullah strike? Sy Hersh says plans are being stepped up for war with Iran

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the April 17 issue of The New Yorker, says that the Bush administration is ramping up its planning for a "possible major air strike" on Iran, and that US special operations troops are already on the ground in that country.

According to Hersh, who cites numerous sources, almost all of them anonymous, for his information

Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

Hersh says there is "growing conviction" that President Bush's goal is nothing short of regime change, and that the White House believes that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a potential Hitler. According to Hersh's sources, Bush believes that "saving Iran will be his legacy," and a member of the House of Representatives says the most worrisome thing about Bush is that "this guy has a messianic vision."

Perhaps Hersh's boldest assertion is that among the plans being seriously discussed is the idea of using the bunker-busting B61-11 tactical nuclear weapon against underground nuclear targets. According to Hersh, the so-called nuclear option has caused much consternation among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who unsuccessfully attempted to remove it from consideration. Two sources tell Hersh that some senior officers and officials are considering resigning in protest if the use of nukes is not taken off the table.

A Pentagon advisor on the War on Terror sums up the White House's mindset thusly:

“[A]llowing Iran to have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent downstream to a terror network. It’s just too dangerous.” He added, “The whole internal debate is on which way to go”—in terms of stopping the Iranian program. It is possible, the adviser said, that Iran will unilaterally renounce its nuclear plans—and forestall the American action. “God may smile on us, but I don’t think so. The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen.”

Hersh definitely has an uneven track record, but when he's right, he's usually dead on. The main problem with this article is its overwhelming dependence on anonymous sources. This may be understandable given the sensitivity of what Hersh is reporting, but after awhile you may start to wonder about the authenticity of what you're reading. I confess to being highly skeptical of the idea that the Administration is seriously considering using tactical nukes. Even if it makes military sense (which given the suspected underground nature of Iran's nuclear facilities it well might), from a public relations standpoint it is conceivably the worst possible idea in the world. As a former senior intelligence official tells Hersh, "we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit." No war has ever required the winning of hearts and minds throughout the world more than the Global War on Terror, and images of mushroom clouds and children with radiation poisoning would damage America's reputation perhaps irreparably. And, maybe even more importantly, nothing would create more jihadists whose only goal would be "death to America."

On the other hand, having senior officials "leak" the "fact" that the use of nukes is being seriously considered is a great piece of psyops if you want to scare the hell out of Iran and bring them to the bargaining table.

There's much, much more in Hersh's very long article. Read the whole thing, as somebody once said.

Judas, Judas, Judas

Much debate and discussion about the Gospel of Judas (see my earlier post here) over at Professor Bainbridge and The Volokh Conspiracy. Some Christians are upset with the way this gospel is being marketed, and I can't say they're wrong, although viewing the marketing as evidence of some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy is a bit much. I addressed this briefly in my earlier post, but let me add this.

From a Christian perspective, the Gnostics were heretics. This cannot be argued with. Obviously the Gnostics didn't think they were heretics: rather, they believed that the early church had perverted the teachings of Jesus and that they, in fact, were his true followers.

These two positions cannot be reconciled. After all, the beliefs of the Gnostics and what we now call the early Christians were so dissimilar that they could not co-exist. It is not true, as one commenter at Professor Bainbridge said, that "the importance of [the Gospel of Judas] is to help understand the various stories, and the interplay between them, which created the theological underpinnings of the early Church." The truth is that this and all the other Gnostic gospels most likely were written after the theological underpinnings of the early church were already extant, and they were pretty much a direct contradiction of those tenets. That's why they were considered heresy, and that's why the church, led by Bishop Irenaeus, went to such great lengths to wipe out those who believed in them. Early church leaders weren't stupid: they knew that two opposed and competing visions of Jesus and spirituality had much less chance of surviving, let alone attaining any kind of power, than one strong, unified church - i.e., the church built around Peter.

2000 years later, the Gospel of Judas is not the threat to the Catholic Church that it could have been back then. It's absurd to think it is in any way going to be a world-changing document, and it shouldn't be marketed as such. Thanks to the 1945 discovery at Nag Hammadi, we already have many other Gnostic gospels, and I'm pretty sure there haven't been mass defections* from Catholicism or any other Christian faith. The gospel is, however, a fascinating historical document, and should be treated as such. Like the other Gnostic gospels, it gives us a glimpse into a religion that for the most part is long dead. And I, personally, think that's pretty cool.

But then again, I'm Jewish, so what do I know...

*Unless otherwise noted, all puns are intended.

Santorum outed?

[This post has been edited to reflect the fact that the actual title of the blog in question is Malcontent, not "Brokeback Malcontent," as well as the fact that fun was poked at The CI for not knowing this.]

"Brokeback" Malcontent gets off* a zinger. [Via Andrew Sullivan]


*Unless otherwise noted, all puns are intended.

Bush whacking

You could probably kill a whole day at work playing with this. (Via JGB at The Corner)

Disaster cancelled due to bad weather

Glenn Reynolds instalinks to a story about a disaster drill in Tennessee being suspended because of the threat of tornadoes.

I hope if disaster ever strikes Tennessee it does so on a nice, sunny 72 degree day.

I understand not wanting to risk people's lives, but I don't fully understand the point of only training for a disaster under ideal conditions. "If it ain't rainin' it ain't trainin'" was how the saying went when I was in the army, and as miserable as it could make you, it made sense. You can't plan on conditions being perfect when the balloon goes up, and you can't just pray that the weather will be nice when a skyscraper collapses or a train derails and spills chemicals (the two drills that were scheduled to be run). If you're only trained in how to act when things go by the book, you're in deep kimchi when the book goes out the window. The more conditions you train in, the more likely you are to keep your head regardless of what's going on around you.

Of course, I don't know jack about tornadoes, having never lived in a region where they occur. So it's entirely possible I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

NASCAR rolls into Texas

After two straight weeks of short track racing, it's cookie-cutter time again for NASCAR. For the un-American among you, "cookie-cutter" refers to the fairly flat, 1.5 mile ovals that are taking over stock car racing, much to the chagrin of many hardcore fans. ("Boring," is generally the nicest thing they'll say.) This week's cookie-cutter is Texas Motor Speedway.

Diecast Dude has come up with a pretty good idea he calls the Roush drinking game:

Pound one down every time during the television broadcast you hear reference made to Roush dominance at such places, a field summary of Roush drivers, or there's any variation on "look how many Roush drivers are currently in the top ten."

Again, for those of you with communist leanings, Jack Roush is a team owner, and his five Ford drivers (known as the Roushketeers) tend to dominate at the cookie-cutter tracks. As you can guess from the rules of the game, NASCAR's TV commentators tend to beat this theme to death.

Here are my fantasy picks (as of now) for this weekend's race:

"A" driver: Carl Edwards
"B" drivers:Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch
"C" driver: Reed Sorenson

The meme that wouldn't die

Today's New York Times, in an unsigned editorial entitled "Playing Hardball With Secrets," repeats for the umpteenth time the false meme that Joseph Wilson debunked claims that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from the African nation of Niger. The Times says that

Mr. Wilson was sent by the administration to Niger to check out the report that Iraq tried to buy uranium in the late 1990's. He concluded that it was bogus and said so in a Times Op-Ed article in July 2003.

Wilson's op-ed said nothing of the sort. Here's what he wrote:

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the [US] embassy [in Niger]. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Nowhere does Wilson state that Saddam Hussein never attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. He says only that no actual purchase ever took place.

To my knowledge, no-one in the Bush administration ever claimed that Saddam successfully purchased uranium from Niger. Ah, but what about the "16 words" recited by the President himself in his January 2003 State 0f the Union address, the infamous 16 words that are a touchstone for the "Bush lied, people died" crowd? Well, here they are, as quoted by the very same New York Times exactly two weeks after Wilson's op-ed ran:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. [emphasis added]

Look carefully. The boldfaced word is sought, not bought. At no point in his SOTU address does the President assert that Saddam actually purchased uranium, only that he was attempting to do so.

To sum up:

• Ambassador Wilson never said that Saddam did not attempt to buy uranium from Niger, only that he didn't succesfully complete such a transaction.

• President Bush never said that Saddam successfully purchased uranium from Niger, only that he looked into conducting such a transaction.

Neither one of them contradicts or debunks the other.

So how does the editorial board of the very paper that published Wilson's op-ed get this wrong? As far as I can see, there are only two possible explanations: the first is that the board is simply incompetent, the second is that the board has an agenda and in its zeal to pursue this agenda simply doesn't care about the facts.

I report, you decide.

Da Vinci - veni, vidi, vici

A British court has ruled that Dan Brown did not violate the copyright of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" in writing "The Da Vinci Code," a book some of you may have heard of. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of "Holy Blood," had claimed that Brown "appropriated the architecture" of their book and had sought an injunction against both the book and the upcoming movie. According to the LA Times, Judge Peter Smith held that

"Even if the central themes were copied, they are too general, or of too low a level of abstraction to be capable of protection by copyright law."

I have no doubt that the court's ruling was correct, even by the stringent standard of British copyright law. But lost in all this is the irrefutable fact that the central theme of "Da Vinci" - that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and had children, and that the Holy Grail refers to their line of descendants - was, in fact, ripped off, stolen, borrowed, or whatever term of art you want to use, from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

I remember reading "Da Vinci" when it first came out, before anyone had really heard of it, and thinking that large parts of it seemed really familiar. And when Brown himself mentioned "Holy Blood" about halfway through the book, I had an "aha!" moment: I had, in fact, read "Holy Blood" many, many years before and it was sitting on my bookshelf. I started thumbing through it, and it seemed like it was all there - the bloodline of Jesus, the Priory of Sion, the Merovingians, etc. And I remember thinking, "man, this guy lifted this whole book."

Baigent and Leigh's problem may be that they presented their book as non-fiction. Had they labelled it fiction (which would've been more accurate anyway), I wonder if Brown would've been legally able to write "The Da Vinci Code." Maybe he would have - I'm certainly no expert on copyright law. But I suspect at the very least he would've had a harder time proving his case.

I've got nothing against Dan Brown and I think "The Da Vinci Code" is a great read. (Although I do hold him responsible for the rash of similarly themed books that have come out since, some of which are good, but many of which are absolutely awful. Yes,I'm talking to you, Steve Berry.) And the silly thing about this lawsuit is that Baigent and Leigh should be on their knees genuflecting before Brown for all the money he must be making them. While "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" was a bestseller when it was originally released, I can only imagine how many copies have been sold in the past couple years because of "The Da Vinci Code."

Those of you that want to read a far superior book with somewhat similar subject matter should check out Theodore Roszak's novel, "Flicker.""Flicker" is billed as a "secret history of movies," and ties together the invention of moving pictures with an ancient Gnostic heresy. After being out of print for awhile, it's recently been reissued to capitalize on the fact that Darren Aronofsky (writer-director of "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream") is adapting it for the big screen.

Casablanca whacks The Godfather on WGA list

Casablanca has been named the best screenplay of all-time by the Writers Guild of America. The Hollywood Reporter says the WGA unveiled its list of 101 greatest screenplays last night at its headquarters in Beverly Hills, and reports that the guild will post the full list later today on its website.

The top ten screenplays as voted by the WGA membership are Casablanca, The Godfather, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, All About Eve, Annie Hall, Sunset Boulevard, Network, Some Like it Hot and The Godfather Part II.

It's hard to quibble with any of those choices, but I am confused as to why John Horn, in his LA Times story, finds it necessary to mention that Brokeback Mountain and Crash didn't make the list. Horn is a top notch entertainment writer who's smart enough to know that neither of those screenplays comes even remotely close to greatness. I sense the tin ear (tin eye?) of an editor at work here.

For the record, I'd bump up Godfather II a bunch of slots and I'm curious to see where on the list The Maltese Falcon and Dr. Strangelove end up. It should also be interesting to see if films such as 2001 and Raging Bull, which routinely place highly on lists of best films, make the cut, given that they're arguably more director-driven than screenplay dependent.

I'd love to see the rapier wit of The Thin Man's rapid fire dialogue earn its screenplay a slot, and my dark horse candidate is Scott Frank's uncommonly intelligent script for Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight.

And last but not least, my pick for screenplay that should make the list but won't is Jim Uhls's adaptation (with the uncredited assistance of Andrew Kevin Walker) of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

UPDATE: The Maltese Falcon checks in at number 47 and Dr. Strangelove just misses the top 10,