The Cranky Insomniac: May 2006

I'm a Grup!!

Finally, a name for people like me besides "immature jerk!" We're Grups!!

God bless you, New York Times Sunday Magazine. God bless you each and every one!

This is an obituary for the generation gap. It is a story about 40-year-old men and women who look, talk, act, and dress like people who are 22 years old.

[snip]

Or take Michael Rauch, the creator of the recently canceled CBS show Love Monkey, which chronicled the life of a late-thirties single A&R guy in New York who frets openly about being a “suit” while working at the plucky indie label he joined after leaving his evil corporate record company, because for him, it was all about the music. Isn’t a guy like that—late thirties, still single, still bar-hopping, still chasing the latest hot rock band, his whole life, in fact, still defined by the word still—kind of, I don’t know, pathetic? “If this show existed ten years ago, the answer would be yes,” says Rauch. “But now, absolutely not. Now it’s less the exception than the rule. Especially in New York.” Rauch himself is 38. “I spoke to an undergrad class at NYU recently. And it was terrifying how much we had in common. I’m looking at these kids who look about 12, and we’re all going to the same movies and watching the same TV shows and listening to the same music. I don’t know if it’s scarier for them or scarier for me.”

[snip]

During the dot-com boom, businesses not only allowed people to come to work in clothes they might usually wear to clean out the attic but encouraged this as a celebration of youthful vivacity and an upheaval of the fusty corporate order. Suits were thought to be the provenance of, well, suits. The dot-com bubble burst, but the aesthetic remained, as part of the ongoing rock star–ification of America. Three-day stubble and shredded jeans are the now-familiar symbols of the most desirable kind of affluence and freedom.

[snip]

If the boomer’s icon of success was an empire-building maverick magnate like Ted Turner, the Grup’s model would be Spike Jonze, the 36-year-old Jackass-producing, skateboarding, awesome-indie-movie-directing free agent. Remember, the Grup of today is the slacker from 1990 who, fresh out of college, ran smack into the recession and maybe fiddled around with a riot-grrl band, then got a job at 25 for a Web-development company where she wore jeans to work and played Ping-Pong and stayed late and covered her desk in rare Japanese action figures. Now that woman is 35, a VP at a viral-marketing firm, still dressing down because everyone knows that the youth market is where it’s at, yet is scared to death she’s going to ossify into the same kind of corporate stooge she swore she’d never become. For a Grup, success isn’t about how many employees you have but how much freedom you have to walk, or boogie-board, away.

[snip]

What’s with the Grups and passion? It’s all anyone wants to talk about. Passionate parents, passionate workers, passionate listeners to the new album by Wolf Parade. Even Rogan lights up when he talks about touring Japanese textile factories to find the perfect denim for his jeans. And I start to realize: Under the skin of the iPods and the $400 ripped jeans, this is the spine of the Grup ethos: passion, and the fear of losing it.
Which brings me back to my father: the one who wore suits, not jeans; the one who, when he was my age, already had four kids; the one who logged a lifetime at exactly the kind of middle-management jobs that no one wakes up excited about going to in the morning, and who then found himself sandbagged by the late-eighties recession, laid off in what must have felt like the worst kind of double whammy. All the adult trade-offs he’d made turned out to be a brutal bait-and-switch. Is it any wonder that the Grups have looked at that brand of adulthood and said, “No thanks, you can keep your carrot and your stick.” Especially once we saw just how easily that stick can be turned around to whap your ass as you’re ushered out the door, suit and all. Just how easily a bona fide, by-the-book adult can be made to wonder where it all went wrong, and why you ever bothered to grow up in the first place.

The article is actually mostly pro-Grup, and the parts that weren't don't apply to me, so I feel very good about myself right now. All this time people thought I was just a lazy, ambition-free Peter Pan (without the glass eye), and it turns out I'm just really, really smart and cool.

An observation

Today was a very good hair day.

Blogs I've been reading lately

As I wait for the Vicodin to kick in, here's a partial list of some blogs I've been reading lately. (Doesn't mean I always agree with them, just that I enjoy reading them.) Note that blogs such as Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan aren't on this list, since everybody's been reading 'em since Christ was a corporal.

Greg Gutfeld: The funniest man in blog business. Never have so many been so offended by the writings of the one. It was actually actually Das Gut's fault that I started blogging in the first place, and as soon as he inevitably offers me a job, you can kiss this site goodbye.

Dean's World: One of the best all-around political blogs out there, in my opinion. Dean Esmay is both prolific and intelligent, and his posts are invariably well-reasoned and interesting, as are the posts of his co-bloggers. A must read.

Christopher Althouse: Son of Ann, Chris possesses smarts and a nice way with the English language. I've picked a couple of fights with him, but only because it saddens me to see a smart person be wrong (i.e., disagree with me), particularly about movies. (See comments section here and my post and comments here, in which I pull off the rare double feature of pissing off both Chris and his Mom.) Plus, I'm jealous that he lives in Austin, one of the coolest cities in the US. Also, in some ways he reminds me of a younger me, which really pisses me off to no end.

Jeremy's Special Blog: A great tonal mix of seriousness and humor, laced with a healthy dose of The Truth.

Fmragtops, Radioactive Liberty, Steve the Pirate, Shoot a Liberal: Again not stuff I always agree with (though I do, more often than not) , but these four blogs are consistently funny and fun to read. Throw in the more-than-occasional rant and much talk of impaling from our four guys who may or may not be "just friends," add water and stir until humor is hard-edged.

The MoxArgon Group: I'll be honest, I don't know what to make of this. Is it a spoof, or is it really written by a handful of evil aliens who are the forerunners of a potential invasion of Earth by marauding ETs? I can't make up my mind.

Gun Toting Liberal: GTL is a good dude, and he was one of the first bloggers to offer me advice, which, if I recall, was Godawful. Unfortunately, he knows very little about music and this is putting a heavy strain on our once-deep, if platonic, friendship.

That's it for now: more to follow at a later date.

Triumph of Geroge Will

I know this is a week or so old, but George Will, a columnist I don't come close to always agreeing with, nails it with this observation:

A pastor called to a new church arrives on the day of a funeral for a man he never knew. The new pastor asks if someone in the congregation would like to say afew words in praise of the deceased. After a long pause, from the back of the church a voice calls out: "His brother was even worse!"Twelve years after the high-water mark of postwar conservatism, this is the Republican rallying cry: Democrats would be even worse than we are!

Sadly, that really is the best they can do. Even more pathetic (from a Democratic point of view, at least) is that that may be enough.

If the SATs asked political questions

A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that 25% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. This means that:

a) 25% of Americans misunderstood the question
b) 25% of Americans don't speak or read English
c) 25% of Americans are brain dead
d) 25% of Americans thought they were voting for American Idol hottie Katharine McPhee
e) All of the above

Dr. Strangelaw or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Congress

I've held off blogging about the whole farcical, Kubrickesque, "Gentlemen, you can't follow the law in here, this is Congress!" thing mainly because the absurd separation-of-powers logic used by House Speaker Hastert, Minority Leader Pelosi and others may have surprised me, but it didn't shock me. That is, I was surprised at the specific "justification" our lawmakers have given for being above the law, but not at all shocked that they consider themselves above the law.

Here's why:

The more powerful a government is, the more powerful government positions are.

The more powerful goverment positions are, the more they attract the kind of people who enjoy the feeling and trappings of power.

The more people enjoy the feeling and trappings of power, the more likely it is that they will use any means necessary to keep themselves in power.

The more people will use any means necessary to keep themselves in power, the more likely they are to eventually consider themselves above the law.

We cede more and more power to our government every day: how can any of us be shocked when we finally notice that we've created an arrogant, out of control political class? The reason I used to consider conservatives preferable to liberals is that a central tenet of conservatism is supposed to be smaller, less intrusive government. But it seems that Congressional "conservatives" have learned that smaller government means less power for them, and they've discovered that they don't like that idea.

So from there it's a straight line to the sad spectacle of the past several days, in which we've seen outraged - and terrified - Congresspeople shamelessly wrapping themselves in the cloak of the Constitution to hide the fact that they're ethically naked. (These days it's just a skip and a jump from the Congressional Record to a criminal record.) And all the shock in the world can't hide the fact that we, the people, created the very monster we despise.

And when you create a monster, you can't be surprised when it acts monstrously.

Gab Galloway

Fatboy George is at it again:

The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.
In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"

Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."

There's nothing I can say about a dictator's best friend that Hitch hasn't already said a thousand times better than I ever could. (Although the phrase "some folks just need killin'" comes to mind for some odd reason...)

(H/T: Hot Air, appropriately enough...)

Iran so far away

Please read Charles Krauthammer's column in Friday's Washington Post. I'm not always a huge fan of the sometimes sour Krauthammer, but he absolutely nails it with his explanation of why the US absolutely should not engage Iran in one-on-one negotiations, unless Europe agrees to one condition:

Entering negotiations carries with it the responsibility to do something if they fail. The E.U. Three understood that when they took on the mullahs a couple of years ago. Bilateral U.S.-Iran talks are the perfect way to get Europe off the hook. They would preempt all the current discussions about sanctions, place all responsibility for success on the negotiations and set America up to take the blame for their inevitable failure.
It is an obvious trap. We should resolutely say no.
Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.
You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there, but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail. The mullahs already fear economic sanctions; they will fear European-backed U.S. military action infinitely more. Such negotiations might actually accomplish something.
That's our condition. Otherwise, the entire suggestion of bilateral talks is a ploy that should be rejected with the same contempt with which it was proposed.

Read the whole column: it's perfect. You'll love me for recommending it. Have I ever steered you wrong?

Light Blogging

Just a heads up that blogging will be light for the next couple days due to family obligations. You are all ordered to go outside and enjoy your weekend.

And if we don't talk before Monday, just remember to spend 15 minutes or so remembering why it's Memorial Day.

Other than that, you're old enough to decide for yourself and I'm not gonna stop you, even if what you're doing breaks your mother's heart.

(Sorry, just gearing up for the family stuff...)

Hearing Truth from Bawer

Jamie Gazlov interviews While Europe Slept author Bruce Bawer over at FrontPageMagazine. Check it out, especially if you haven't read the book.

Good quote from the interview:

Americans and Europeans both learned a lesson from World War II – but we learned different lessons. America learned that evil should never be appeased. If Britain and France had not caved in to Hitler at Munich, the war and the Holocaust might never have happened. Europeans, however, have been taught that the lesson of WWII is the evil of war, pure and simple. War should be avoided at all costs. Dialogue is always better than armed conflict. This mentality feeds anti-Americanism – instead of admiring America’s willingness to defend its freedoms in war, which after all is what made possible the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis – duh! – Europeans see Americans as people who simply love to make war. We’re primitive, bloodthirsty warmongers. They see themselves, by contrast, as the preachers and guardians of a new, more noble and sophisticated era of peace. And they’ll make any compromise in order to preserve that peace.

European Muslim leaders know this. And they’ve manipulated it brilliantly. European politicians have become classic dhimmis, giving in to Muslim demands and being careful to avoid giving any offense whatsoever in order to maintain social harmony. The result, of course, is that Muslim leaders just get more and more demanding, and more and more easily offended.

Read the whole thing, and if you haven't read the book, you should. It'll make your fists clench and your blood boil, but it's one of the most important books of the past several years.

(H/T: Roger L Simon.)

Despite earlier report, America not dead yet in Michigan schools

I've held off from blogging about this because I couldn't quite believe it was true:

In perhaps a well-intentioned, but pernicious example of political correctness, the Michigan Department of Education is attempting to ban the "America" and "American" from our public schools. Even though the word "America" appears in the department's own civics and government benchmarks, the department's style protocol for the Michigan Education Assessment Program requires that "America" and "Americans" be expunged from our testing and grade level expectations. Last week, the department ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.
The Department of Education asserts that "Americans" includes Mexicans, Canadians and others in the Western Hemisphere, so referring to U.S. residents as Americans is inappropriate. In the department's view, "America" happens to include South, Central and North America. Accordingly, when referring to the colonial period, the state bureaucracy requires teachers to refer to "the colonies of North America" or "North Americans." After the American Revolution, the nation is called the United States (not of America).

I'm glad I decided to wait. The MDOE has now put out a press release saying there is absolutely no truth to this story, which first surfaced in the above-cited Detroit News op-ed piece, written by an ex-MDOE member. According to the release:

No such edict has gone out to school teachers across Michigan, nor will one, said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. He explained that an independent association of Social Studies educators has discussed the issue of official U.S. documents or titles, but that any recommendations regarding changes in school curriculum have not even made it to his desk for review.

Inasmuch, Flanagan emphatically stated that, if such a recommendation ever came to his desk, it would be stopped in its tracks.

“We are not seeking to do away with the terms ‘America’ or ‘American’ from classroom instruction,” Flanagan said. “It’s not going to happen. I consider myself an American. We live in the United States of America. We are citizens of the United States of America. But the vernacular is that we’re Americans.”

These curriculum associations consist of curriculum content supervisors who represent diverse views and opinions.

“These are advisory groups,” Flanagan said. “The conversations and internal communications between members of an independent association have been misconstrued as Department of Education policy. This is not a Department of Education policy, nor will it ever be our policy while I’m here. I would never approve the removal of ‘America’ or ‘American’ from our classrooms. Not on my watch.”

That's about as firm a denial as you can make, although it obviously doesn't preclude the possibility that the advisory group isn't considering making the recommendation that the use of "America" be done away with. In fact, it looks as though that may be closer to the truth. The Free Press has this in a sidebar to the original op-ed:

What a state social studies consultant is telling educators in e-mails about using "America" and "Americans" in tests and courses:
"I have promised teachers that we would delete the use of American [when we are really ONLY referring to the United States] from the GLCEs (grade level content expectations) so that everything is consistent and correct as soon as it was feasible."
"It is ethnocentric for the United States to claim the entire hemisphere."
-- Karen Todorov, Michigan Department of Education

Okay, so that's one moron's advice. But the question is, how could the Detroit Free Press run the op-ed itself without first checking with the state Department of Education? Instapundit linked to the op-ed early this afternoon, but why wouldn't he? It's one thing to run an opinion piece in which facts can be disputed, but even the biggest MSM-hater probably wouldn't expect a fairly well-respected newspaper to publish an op-ed in which the entire subject is totally inaccurate. And the sidebar, rather than absolving the Free Press, makes matters worse, because it appears as though it backs up the op-ed.

Even now, I can't find any mention of the Department of Ed's flatout denial anywhere on the DFP's website, meaning anybody reading the op-ed now has no reason to question its veracity. Maybe the "Free" in Free Press refers to the paper's level of truth content. The Detroit Press: Now Truth-free!

"God is My Spotter"

CBS Sportsline columnist Clay Travis notes the following on Pat Robertson's website:

Did you know that Pat Robertson can leg press 2,000 pounds? How does he do it?

Where does Pat find the time and energy to host a daily, national TV show, head a world-wide ministry, develop visionary scholars, while traveling the globe as a statesman?

One of Pat's secrets to keeping his energy high and his vitality soaring is his age-defying protein shake. Pat developed a delicious, refreshing shake, filled with energy-producing nutrients. Discover what kinds of natural ingredients make up Pat's protein shake by registering for your FREE booklet today!

Oddly, there's no mention on Robertson's website of the guy he had to hire to follow him around with a fire extinguisher because his pants burst into flame every time he speaks.

(Hat tip: Radley Balko.)

Isolation Chamber

Blogging at misteramericano, tdr makes this excellent observation:

But conservatives today have abandoned the positive and inclusive spirit that animated Reagan's politics. Instead conservatives have embraced the negative and divisive spirit of the Republican Party's angry little brother, Patrick Buchanan. Buchanan, for those who only know him as an occasional MSNBC commentator, ran for President more than once on an isolationist, anti-immigrant, and protectionist platform. He lost badly each time.

Things have changed. America finds herself at war abroad in a conflict that seems without end. More and more Americans just want to call it a day and bring the troops home. At home, many Americans have come to view illegal immigrants as an invading army to be repelled at all costs. In the middle of a booming economy, Americans are insecure about their own prospects as Lou Dobbs relentlessly demagogues on TV about a "War on the Middle Class." Buchanan's time has come.

To go a step further, I think the biggest difference between Reagan-era conservatism and Bush-era (faux) conservatism or Buchanan-style paleoconservatism is the difference between optimism and pessimism.

Whether you agreed with him or not, there's no denying that Reagan's vision of America was relentlessly optimistic. And the reason he was able to communicate this so clearly is not just because he was an actor, and not just because he had the incomparable Peggy Noonan as a speechwriter. He got this view across because he honestly believed it.

To those of you too young to remember Reagan, it probably sounds ridiculous to say that a politician honestly believed in something he was saying. But Reagan did, and despite his faults, what he said resonated with much of America because of this basic honesty of vision. It didn't hurt that Reagan exuded a confidence in America that no politician since has come close to matching, although Clinton was at least smart enough to try. This was not the false confidence of that manifests itself in the putting down of others; it was the quiet confidence that comes with knowing how good you are. Reagan knew in his heart that America was the greatest force for good on the planet, and that this was not because of its government, but because of its citizens. Knowing that he believed in you made you believe in him, and in his vision.

We don't have that sunny optimism any more, and although some might argue that this just means we've become more realistic, and that this is a good thing, I don't think that's the case. I think we've lost something invaluable and irreplaceable, and that we need to look everywhere until we've found it. Nobody (except Reagan) thought Reagan was being realistic when he called on Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." But the wall came down. Many on the left were outraged when Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire. But an evil empire it was, and Reagan's words gave aid and comfort to those trapped behind the Iron Curtain. (It's no accident that some of the former Soviet-bloc nations have been our staunchest allies over the past several years.)

In the middle of the last century it was liberals who had an optimistic view of America's place in the world. A liberal told us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. A liberal told us that we would pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. And it was conservatives who argued that we needed to put ourselves first, and that the freedom of others wasn't worth the price of one American life.

Reagan changed all that, and in truly reactionary fashion, liberals suddenly decided that we shouldn't pay any price, bear any burden, or meet any hardship to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Really what they decided was that words such as freedom and liberty were just words, just expressions of the white male power structure, and that we needed to be more sensitive to other people's cultures. This view continues to be espoused by today's left, despite the fact that it is really an expression of the "white man's burden" turned on its head. "Of course freedom is good for us," they say, "but it wouldn't be right for us to impose our world view on people of other cultures." The fact that this is the moral equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns is lost on these people, who are content to suffer separated shoulders from patting themselves on the back for their "cultural sensitivity" to the brown and black. They're more than willing to send foreign aid to underdeveloped nations, but God forbid we should try to do something about the political and economic systems that in many cases directly led to the underdevelopment. (Root causes, anyone?) That would be "imperialistic" and "hegemonistic." We must respect the culture of the Other, even as the Other has an average lifespan of 26 and dies of diseases that the don't you dare say it's better West eliminated decades ago.

I get the sense that in the area of foreign policy, the conservative "base" circa 2006 has more in common with so-called "progressives" than either side would like to admit, although it's a case of different roads reaching the same neoisolationist terminus. In his heart, it's clear that George W. Bush would be more comfortable with a sort of "steady state" world, in which America takes care of herself first, and then, if anything is left over, maybe turns her attention abroad. (Indeed, as many people have pointed out, that's pretty much the foreign policy platform he ran on.) And this shows everytime he makes a speech about spreading democracy and freedom: the words are there, but the vision isn't. There's no heart, no soul, in what he's saying. Reagan made statements: Bush gives speeches. The Reagan administration would have emphasized Iraqi freedom as a reason for Operation: Iraqi Freedom, rather than downplaying it until it became clear that we weren't going to find any WMD any time soon. Why? Because they would have had the political smarts to know how it would play, and, more importantly, because Reagan himself would have believed it.

Excepting the neocons, I think many of today's conservatives feel much the way Bush does. They may duitifully back the President, and they sincerely believe that now that we're in Iraq we have to win, but in their hearts they don't particularly care one way or the other whether the Iraqi people will ever be free, and they doubt that we can effect this kind of change in the first place.

This same pessimism among conservatives - and many liberals - extends to their views on immigration. Lost among the fence-building crowd is any semblance of the notion that this country still has the ability to handle a great influx of immigrants: many of them look at America as a zero-sum nation rather than the land of limitless possibility that Reagan believed in. Illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans, they say. Well, no, they're not, actually, but by now the entire issue is running on almost pure emotion on all sides - logic has left the building and is warming up the car. Defending the illegals doesn't make much sense; after all, their first act in coming to America was to break our laws. But does anyone doubt that there is a sizeable number of people who favor building the Rusty Curtain who would just as soon these people not be here period, whether illegally or legally?

How far we've come from Reagan's call for a wall to be torn down. How far we've come from Reagan's neverending faith in America. How far we've come from Reagan's boundless belief in us.

A Torn ACLu?

Via Jay at Stop the ACLU, this almost-Clintonian headscratcher from a press release posted at the ACLU's website:

The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed its alarm over the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence vote to confirm General Michael V. Hayden as the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The committee voted 12 to 3 to name the former Director of the National Security Agency to the highest position at the CIA.

The ACLU is a non-partisan organization, and takes no position on Hayden’s nomination. [Emphases added]

So what's the right way to make this clear: "It depends on what the meaning of 'takes no position' is," or "We did not take a position with that nominee, General Hayden"?

House party tonight at 9 Eastern

The one and only (thank God) fmragtops (who may or may not be French), will be liveblogging tonight's season finale of House over at the creatively named Blogs for House.

People are saying that Blogs for House is "The perfect companion to the perfect show," "The next great group blog" and "What Blogs4Bauer wishes it could be."

(I can't seem to find the links for those "quotes." Maybe I'm too far out in front of the news cycle? Either way, I love putting the word "quotes" in quotes. It's so meta.)

(As an aside to my aside, the Jack Bauer Kill Counter is complete for ~~Season~~Day 5. The official total is 316 corpses.)

So head on over to Blogs for House tonight at 9pm Eastern. You Left Coasters should head over at 9 Pacific and read along while you're watching. And if you're not American, well, then you're just un-American, and I quite frankly question your patriotism. No liveblogging for you, one year.

NEXT!

Adult Swim question

Does anyone out there think Futurama is at all funny or clever? If so, could you let me know why? I just don't get it. It's the one show featured on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block that I've never liked.

That is all.

Amir misunderstanding

Allahpundit reports that Amir Taheri, who pretty much launched the story about the new law supposedly passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear colored badges to identify them as non-Muslims, is backpedalling, sort of:

He says he’s sticking by his story, which after all wasn’t a news story but an opinion column, and if other people treated it as a news story then that’s their fault for having “jumped the gun.” Errrrr…

He also says (or seems to say) he never claimed the provisions about non-Muslims had been formally enacted, only that they were being considered

It's the old "I wasn't wrong, I was too far out in front of the news cycle" excuse.

Add Salter and Stir the Pot

I just got around to reading McCain speechwriter/chief of staff Mark Salter's riposte to Jean Rohe at PuffHo. Rohe, in case you don't know, is the woman who gave a student commencement address at the New School right before McCain spoke and a bunch of students and faculty embarrased themselves. You can read her self-serving claptrap here and her self-pitying claptrap here, if you feel the need.

As to Salter: Everything he said is absolutely correct, and he shouldn't have said any of it. As he himself writes, McCain "has managed to endure much worse."

Let the left have their fun, let them elevate yet another unworthy to the post of town crier, as they did with Cindy Sheehan. When was the last time any "respectable" liberal publication associated themselves with her? Besides, Rohe's main crime is the know-it-all foolishness of youth, and given that the Senator is the first to admit that he himself had some less-than-stellar moments as a young man, Salter would have been better served by letting the whole thing go. All he's done is reset Rohe's Fame Clock to 15 minutes.

Here's my favorite part of her speech:

We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet. Fear is the greatest impediment to the achievement of peace. We have nothing to fear from people who are different from us, from people who live in other countries, even from the people who run our government--and this we should have learned from our educations here. We can speak truth to power, we can allow our humanity always to come before our nationality, we can refuse to let fear invade our lives and to goad us on to destroy the lives of others. These words I speak do not reflect the arrogance of a young strong-headed woman, but belong to a line of great progressive thought.

I don't think Jet Blue flies to whatever world it is she lives in. It's obviously a world without terrorists, without dictators, without people who would very much like to kill a fairly large number of us. Hey, I'd like to live in that world, too. But I don't think I ever did, even as the sumgnoxious^TM college student I was. I'm jealous.

My favorite lines from Salter's ill-conceived comment are:

Ms. Rohe and those of her fellow graduates who hailed their school's President as a war criminal and who greeted the Senator's reference to a friend's death with laughter proved only one thing, one sad thing, that they could learn a thing or two about tolerance and respect from the students of Liberty University.

And:

Once upon time, even among the young, the words courage and hero were used more sparingly, more precisely. It took no courage to do what you did, Ms. Rohe. It was an act of vanity and nothing more. And please don't worry about the Senator's discomfort with you. He has managed to endure much worse. McCain was once offered release from imprisonment and torture because of his father's position as a senior military officer. He declined because he would not leave his comrades behind, and thus, willingly, accepted four more years of hardships life will spare almost all of us from.

And:

You took exception to the paragraph in which he lightly deprecated the vanity of youth. Well, Ms. Rohe, and your fellow graduates's comical self-importance deserves a rebuke far stronger than the gentle suggestions he offered you. So, let me leave you with this. Should you grow up and ever get down to the hard business of making a living and finding a purpose for your lives beyond self-indulgence some of you might then know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of living in an echo chamber. And if you are that fortunate, you might look back on the day of your graduation and your discourtesy to a good and honest man with a little shame and the certain knowledge that it very unlikely any of you will ever posses the one small fraction of the character of John McCain.

As I've noted in several posts, I'm not a big McCain fan. But there's no getting around the fact that Salter is among the best writers in Washington. Here he sounds kinda like Peggy Noonan would if she would just get rip roaring drunk and let down that impenetrable WASP shield of hers. But that shield is what made her a perfect fit for the always genial Reagan. And, now that I think about it, the lack of that shield is what makes Salter a perfect fit for the sometimes cranky McCain.

For the best take on Rohe and her new-found celebrity, read Greg Gutfeld's dead-on parody here. You might even find something from your cranky narrator in the "readers' favorite comments" section right after his post.

Speaking Truth to Bauer

Warning: West Coast Spoilers

The fifth season of 24 finished up tonight with back-to-back episodes that kept the tension level pretty high. A good body count in the first ep (don't forget to stop by Blogs 4 Bauer and check out the official Jack Bauer Kill Counter) and some great work by the First Lady in the second.

Left unresolved in the wake of Jack's boat trip:
President Logan's final fate
WTF ever happened to my man Curtis?
Everything about Evil Can You Hear Me Now Guy, aka Bluetooth Man, aka The Preppy from Hell
Why Jack keeps torturing people when he knows it upsets Andrew Sullivan

All I know is that they have to bring Logan back next season. Greg Itzin is far too good of an actor to just be given his walking papers.

Only 8 months til "tomorrow"....

MonoPundit survivor ends up at Wizbang

Lorie Byrd, who was summarily dismissed from ~~Poli~~MonoPundit for disagreeing with Poli's view on immigration, has resurfaced at Wizbang, so all's well that ends well.

Lorie's a lot more conservative than I am: she voted for Jesse Helms three times, whereas the racking dry heaves I would get from even contemplating voting for him once would prevent me from taking a single step towards the polling station. But she got screwed over at MonoPundit, and I'm glad she's landed on her feet.

Offensive Headline of the Day

"Dixie Chicks in the Line of Fire"

Seriously? They volunteered to go to Afghanistan? No? Iraq, then? No?

Oh. I see. They're "under fire" because some people are upset at them. Same thing, I guess.

This should probably be filed under "Who cares," but Time magazine has decided that this is the most important story of the week. So let's quickly see how tough life is for the Chicks:

Now that she's truly notorious, having told a London audience in 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas," Maines has one regret: the apology she offered George W. Bush at the onset of her infamy. "I apologized for disrespecting the office of the president," says Maines. "But I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."

Natalie ain't to brite, are she. If you apologize for disrespecting "the office" of the president, feeling that "he" isn't owed any respect doesn't matter. I certainly can't take seriously anyone who butchers the English language like that, and I'm sure all liberals agree with this sentiment. People who make linguistic mistakes are just stupid, or so I keep hearing.

[T]he first single from the Dixie Chicks' new album, "Taking the Long Way" (out May 23), is called "Not Ready to Make Nice." It is, as one country radio programmer says, "a four-minute f--- you to the format and our listeners. I like the Chicks, and I won't play it."
Few other stations are playing Not Ready to Make Nice, and while it has done well on iTunes, it's quite possible that in singing about their anger at people who were already livid with them and were once their target audience, the Chicks have written their own ticket to the pop-culture glue factory.
"I guess if we really cared, we wouldn't have released that single first," says Maguire. "That was just making people mad. But I don't think it was a mistake."

If you don't care, stop doing interviews that talk about how tough you are, and how you're "under fire." Otherwise, accept the fact that your choices have consequence and shut up.

Whether the Dixie Chicks recover their sales luster or not, the choice of single has turned their album release into a referendum. "Taking the Long Way" is designed to thumb its nose at country's intolerance for ideological hell raising, and buying it or cursing it reveals something about you and your politics -- or at least your ability to put a grudge above your listening pleasure.
And however you vote, it's tough to deny that by gambling their careers, three Texas women have the biggest balls in American music.

Yeah, they're at least as brave as George Clooney. It must be really scary to be on the cover of Time. And listening to three spoiled women sing about the fact that they're not ready to make nice doesn't sound like "listening pleasure" to me.

Over lunch in decidedly uncountry Santa Monica, California, where they have lived part time while recording "Long Way," the Dixie Chicks -- in fancy jeans, tank tops and designer sunglasses -- seem less like provocateurs than busy moms (they have seven kids in all, ages 1 to 5) amped up by a little free time.

My God, they're wearing fancy jeans, tank tops and designer sunglasses! Poor things! They really are under fire. I'm sorry, I had no idea.

In conversation they are loud and unembarrassable, celebrating their lack of boundaries in that escalating, I-can-be-more-blunt-than-you way unique to sisters (which Maguire and Robison are) and women who have shared a tour-bus bathroom.

Is "loud and unembarrassable" the new classless?

Bottom line: The politics of Radiohead skew heavily to the left, but in my opinion they're the best rock band in the world. What the Dixie Chicks don't realize is that any "fire" they're "under" has less to do with their political leanings than it does with their smugnoxiousness^TM. And does anyone seriously believe that no matter how good their new album may be, they would be on the cover of Time if it weren't for their classless behavior? You'll pardon me if I don't waste any more time worrying about them. Something tells me they'll come out of their "war" much better than a lot of actual soldiers will.

Heads up to Vets

From WaPo:

Dear Veteran:
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee took home electronic data from VA, which he was not authorized to do and was in violation of established policies. The employee's home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. As a result of this incident, information identifiable with you was potentially exposed to others. It is important to note that the affected data did not include any of VA's electronic health records or any financial information.

Read the whole thing if this may affect you.

NOAA shows inhuman restraint, doesn't recommend building arks

Be vewwy quiet. It's huwwicane season.

Howard Dean and The Party of Doom

Drudge reports that the Democratic National Committee secretly worked against the successful re-election campaign of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin:

DNC Chairman Howard Dean made the decision himself to back mayoral candidate and sitting Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu (D-LA), sources reveal.

Dean came to the decision to back the white challenger, over the African-American incumbent Nagin, despite concerns amongst senior black officials in the Party that the DNC should stay neutral.

The DNC teams actively worked to defeat Nagin under the auspice of the committee's voting rights program.

The party's field efforts also coincided with a national effort by Democrat contributors to support Landrieu.

Landrieu had outraised Nagin by a wide margin - $3.3 million to $541,980.

Preliminary campaign finance reports indicate many of Landrieu’s contributions came from out of state white Democrat leaders and financiers, including a $1,000 contribution from Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) PAC.

The defeat of Mitch Landrieu is the latest setback for Dean's often criticized field operation.

In his victory speech late Saturday night, Nagin praised President Bush.

"You and I have probably been the most vilified politicians in the country. But I want to thank you for moving that promise that you made in Jackson Square forward," Nagin said.

Andy Sullivan asks:

How much more damage can Howard Dean do to the Democrats before someone finally pulls the plug?

I have a different question: How did the Democrats select someone whose own presidential campaign imploded so spectacularly to head their national committee?? If Drudge is accurate (an admittedly not-so-small if), it's just another example of Dean's utter lack of competence to run anything larger than a small New England state. Between his tin ear and his inability to even suck-up correctly, Dean is a disaster, regardless of how much money he's helped raise.

If Drudge is right, and the DNC made a decision that supporting Landrieu was in the national party's best interest, it should've explained why, and openly supported his candidacy. Since Katrina, Nagin's own incompetence is a matter of public record, so this wouldn't have been all that difficult. Instead, by conducting a shadow campaign, the DNC leaves itself open to the dual charges of racism (from blacks) and pandering to/fear of its black constituents (from whites). Only in Dean's America.

If Drudge is wrong - a not totally-farfetched possibility - it still does nothing to change the fact that Dean's leadership does nothing but help Republican claims that the Democrats can't be trusted to run the country. Say what you want about Ken Mehlman, but when was the last time you saw him having to furiously backpedal from something he'd said or done?

Besides, if you're a Democrat and you want to secretly work against someone, how do you overlook the 800-pound gorilla named Hillary? If Dean had any ability whatsoever to lead his party he'd be working day and night to either draft Al Gore 2.0^TM or come up with someone else who can prevent the debacle-in-the-making of a Hillary nomination. There is no other potential nominee - including John Kerry - who will cause so many people to vote Republican who would rather not.

Given the seemingly overwhelming feeling among many Americans that a Republican administration and a Republican-controlled Congress have done a less-than-stellar job with their stewardship of the country (to put it mildly), it's absolutely astonishing that the Democrats haven't already locked and loaded substantial gains in the mid-term elections and a solid lead going into the 2008 presidential race.

Absolutely astonishing until you realize that the guy who's running the Democratic store is "an arrogant, devious, self-righteous, and politically maladroit bully," that is.

Is that global warming or is Bill Clinton giving a speech somewhere?

From Reuters:

Former President Bill Clinton said on Saturday global warming is a greater threat to the future than terrorism and that the United States and other countries must "get off our butts" and do something about it.
Clinton, speaking to the graduating class at University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, said the United States must pursue policies that make "more partners and fewer enemies" and use "institutionalized cooperation" before there is catastrophic damage from global warming.
"Climate change is more remote than terror but a more profound threat to the future of the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren I hope all of you have," Clinton said.

"It's the only thing we face today that has the power to remove the preconditions of civilized society," he said.
"I am not one of those who is pessimistic about the future of the world, assuming we get off our butts and do something about climate change in a timely fashion."

Well, at least now we know why he did absolutely nothing about terrorism for eight years.

Wankette

Alex Pareene at Wonkette is having a little trouble seeing the line - you know, the one you're not supposed to cross. Here's a lovely little excerpt from a fake instant message conversation posted on Friday:

wonkette: OMG I AM WATCHING MICHELLE MALKIN’S INTERNET VIDEOS FOR THE FIRST TIME
operative: she has internet videos?
operative: does she do the thing with the ping-pong balls?*

Michelle Malkin is justifiably upset:

Pat yourselves on the backs, you tolerant liberal bastards.

***

This is hardly
the first
time
liberals
have
made Asian whore ping-pong ball jokes about me.

But Wonkette has now mainstreamed it. And I'm sick of it. Are you proud of yourselves? Do you get a bonus from Nick Denton for scraping the bottom of the barrel?

I'm far from a Malkin fan (I don't even have a permalink to her on this blog), but Pareene's little joke is beyond the pale. Can you imagine the uproar if a conservative blogger had made a similar joke?

The Wonkette post has since been updated to say: "This is not funny. We apologize." The way it's placed, however, makes it unclear if it's referring to the whole post or just the ping-pong ball joke. (Given that the whole post ain't funny, it's tough to tell.) Also, who's "we"? And are "we" apologizing because it's not funny, or because it's offensive and racist?

Wonkette commenter Wagner James Au has the best take on this:

Of course you think it's funny, you disingenuous racist coward, it's why you ran it in the first place. It's also why nothing has happened to the equally racist comments above from "ifthethunderdontgetya" and "Montecore" above, despite Gawker Terms of Service which expressly forbid "abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory, libelous, offensive or sexually explicit" posts in Comments.

Michelle Malkin is a gasbag ideologue who can be justly and snarkishly criticized for myriad reasons, so you should do some soul searching to wonder why you instead consider her Asian heritage fair game for mockery. Or for that matter, why, when you look at a Filipino-American woman, the image of a sex worker is one of the first things that springs into your surprisingly narrow mind.

In all honesty, I think I've looked at Wonkette maybe twice since Ana Marie Cox left. I wasn't too impressed either time. I still enjoy Defamer and Deadspin, but maybe Wonkette's just played out, or maybe the dudes writing it now simply aren't as clever as Cox was. Forgetting the fact that it's racist, I don't think Cox would've stooped to making an Asian woman/ping-pong ball joke if only because it's so stale and cliched.

It'll be interesting to see what, if anything happens to Pareene. I'm not a big fan of firing people for making one bad mistake, but I would think at the very least Malkin is owed a real apology.

(Hat tip: Dean Esmay.)

Not your father's Republican Party

This sums up the ex-party of small government perfectly.

Here's an "off the top of my head" list of ways the GOP has learned to stop worrying and love big government:

War on Drugs
Increased regulation of the Internet/War on Porn
Support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage
National prescription drug plan
More welfare for farmers
Increase in federal government meddling in education
Huge budget deficits
Regulation of free speech (McCain-Feingold)

Please feel free to add to this list in the comments.

(Hat tip to Sullivan.)

Update: Fmragtops says:

The stated principles of the Republican Party are still small government, personal responsibility, low taxes, and strong national defense.

Cranky says:

One out of four ain't bad.

MonoPundit

I just found out about the big blowup over at ~~Poli~~MonoPundit during the past week. I never really headed over there that much because I wasn't a big fan of the overall tone of the blog, and now I know I was right.

Seems ~~Poli~~MonoPundit himself had awhile back invited some of his better commenters to become guest bloggers, and pretty much gave them free reign. Very cool. But apparently disagreements over the hot button issue of immigration proved to be too much for ~~Poli~~Mono to take. Here's guest blogger Lorie Byrd:

I received a lengthy email from Polipundit tonight alerting us to an editorial policy change that included the following: "From now on, every blogger at PoliPundit.com will either agree with me completely on the immigration issue, or not blog at PoliPundit.com." I would provide additional context, but Polipundit has asked that the contents of our emails not be disclosed publicly and I think that is a fair request. There has been plenty written in the posts over the past week alone to let readers figure out what happened. Polipundit ended a later email with this: "It’s over. The group-blogging experiment was nice while it lasted, but we have different priorities now. It’s time to go our own separate ways."

Here's guest blogger Alexander McClure:

I believe we have a duty, as the majority party, to act responsibility, to be worthy of the confidence of the American people. The secret of our success has been our openness, our willing to debate, our eagerness to confront issues, and to create solutions. Unlike our adversaries, we do not engage in the venomous politics of division and hate. Therefore, I believe we should not disparage our President nor distort what he says. As I said in one post several weeks ago, a party of freedom cannot be a party of fear.
Because of these beliefs, and because of the the immigration issue, I can no longer participate on this site in my former capacity.

And here's guest blogger DJ Drummond:

The ‘guest writers’ contributed a lot of good work to the Polipundit site. Being angry at us now would only prevent the appreciation of some very good insights. But to those who think that the site owner somehow owes us anything, I would remind you that we were essentially no-name writers when he gave us the offer to write here; he not only has the right to change the make-up of his site, it’s his duty to do so when he sees it as needed. A coach changes his roster when it is necessary, so much more a site owner whose message needs focus. Poli and I differ on this issue of the Illegals, specifically with regard to the President and the tone of the debate, but we have long agreed on many important issues, and we still have great respect for each other. Even if we can no longer post on the same site, we still serve the same greater cause, for the same reason.

So what to make of this? Right off the top, let me state the obvious: it's ~~Poli~~Mono's blog, and he has every right to do what he wants with it. If that includes expecting guest bloggers to agree with him on the immigration issue, that's his decision.

But here's the thing: the debate on immigration is not really a debate. It's people with differing opinions calling each other names and questioning each other's motives. The fact is, most people who support building a wall along the Amerexico border are not "racists." And by the same token, Senators who don't march in lockstep with ~~Poli~~MonoPundit shouldn't be referred to as "Quislings" or "agents of Mexico."

But ~~Poli~~Mono doesn't see it that way: not agreeing with him on this issue apparently makes you an enemy of the state. And he's not alone. The level of invective over immigration is in my opinion worse than it is on any other issue right now, including the War in Iraq. What's particularly bothersome is that when it comes to immigration, the childish name calling is not limited to the Kos/DU crowd on the left or the LGF/Coulter crowd on the right. On this issue, otherwise rational people completely lose their minds.

Here's what ~~Poli~~Mono has to say about the guest blogger issue:

The blog has focused on various issues, but one issue on which I cannot give in to the elites is illegal immigration. On that, this blog’s position must be clear, not ambivalent. As a legal immigrant, I feel very, very, strongly about this. Back in 2004, I nearly withdrew my support for Bush’s re-election when he came out with his suicidal immigration “reform” plan.

So far, I’ve allowed the guest bloggers here to write pretty much what they pleased about all issues, including illegal immigration.

But on the illegal immigration issue, I now find myself having to contend with at least three out of four guest bloggers who will reflexively try to poke holes in any argument I make.

Suppose three out of four columnists at the Old York Times were pro-Republican. You can bet publisher “Pinch” Sulzberger would do something about that right quick.

Suppose a Bush administration official came out openly against amnesty. The Bushies would show him the door.

Similarly, the writers at PoliPundit.com need to respect the editorial position of PoliPundit.com on the most important issue to this blog, as the “publisher” sees it - illegal immigration.

Well, Sulzberger wouldn't have hired three pro-Republican columnists in the first place, so that's a silly analogy. And what, exactly, does ~~Poli~~Mono mean when he says that the guest bloggers "need to respect the editorial position of PoliPundit.com on...illegal immigration?" Respecting a position is not the same as agreeing with it, which is clearly what ~~Poli~~Mono wants. FIAR gives his position on immigration here. I don't agree with much of it, but I think it's probably the best summation of that point of view that I've seen, and I respect it.

I guess as an extension of ~~Poli~~Mono's policy, since I don't agree with the editorial position of ~~Poli~~MonoPundit.com on the most important issue to that blog, I should probably just completely stop reading it. Not a problem. Done, and done.

But here's a quick piece of unsolicited advice for ~~Poli~~Mono: If this issue is so important to you, it seems to me you should be trying your damndest to convert people to your point of view. All you're doing now, with your name calling and your attitude, is preaching to the choir.

I Love Ya, CC!

Ray Nagin has won re-election as Mayor of New Orleans.

No word yet on whether Reverend Ike will be named Secretary of the Treasure, or Stevie Wonder the Secretary of Fine Arts.

Hey, CC!
They say your jivin' game, it can't be changed
But on the positive side,
You're my piece of the rock
And I love you, CC.
Can you dig it?

God bless Chocolate City and its vanilla suburbs.

TruthIn?

From Msnbc.com:

FBI agents searched the congressional office of Rep. William Jefferson late Saturday as part of an ongoing bribery investigation, NBC News has learned.
Jefferson, D-La., has denied involvement in any illegal activity.
The search, conducted by the Washington Field Office of the FBI, is extremely rare -- if not unprecedented, NBC reported.
Jefferson, a Democrat in his eighth congressional term, declared his innocence Monday during news conference outside the federal building in New Orleans and said he will not resign in the face of the investigation that has resulted in guilty pleas from two people who implicated him in a bribery scheme.
A U.S. government official with knowledge of the investigation told NBC that the FBI secretly videotaped Jefferson.

Three thoughts:

How come TruthOut didn't give me a heads up about this? I guess they didn't want to be "too far out in front of the news-cycle" again.

I can't believe a Lousiana public official could be suspected of bribery...

Why haven't I heard a peep from the usual suspects about the "culture of corruption"?

Off to you, GTL...

Da Vinci: Veni, Vidi, Vici

A good history of the decline of the Catholic church's influence in Hollywood in today's Washington Post:

For decades American Catholics exerted the moral equivalent of final cut over Hollywood cinema. Galvanized by the church hierarchy, they managed not just to control but to convert the motion picture industry.

[snip]
With box offices hemorrhaging in the Catholic strongholds in big cities, Will H. Hays, Presbyterian Church elder and president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), turned to a Victorian Irishman named Joseph I. Breen to negotiate surrender terms with the Catholics. Hays told Breen that "the Catholic authorities can have anything they want."
What the Catholics wanted, and got, was a censorship regime that ceded dominion of Hollywood cinema to Catholic theology for the next 30 years. On July 15, 1934, Breen set up shop at the Production Code Administration, an in-house arm of the studio system that vetted film scripts for Code violations prior to production. Thus, before the cameras ever rolled, the fix would be in. The visible mark of quality control would be a quite literal Production Code Seal of Approval, an oval logo encircling the MPPDA initials, printed on the credits of every Code-worthy film.
Between the Legion of Decency on the outside and the Breen Office on the inside, Roman Catholics made certain that Hollywood defended the faith. Of course, sin could not be exiled from the screen, but the transgression always had to be offset by what Breen called "morally compensating value" -- usually in the form of a just and certain punishment, or a voice of morality reminding audiences that crime does not pay.

Writer Thomas Doherty shows how much things have changed since those days:

When the Catholic hierarchy lost the power to energize millions of parishioners for some real Catholic action, when American Catholics responded to calls to boycott Hollywood blockbusters with approximately the same obedient deference they accorded the Vatican's advice on birth control, then Catholic dominion over Hollywood lapsed. And today the only Code that Hollywood adheres to is the kind authored by Dan Brown.

On that note, The Da Vinci Code seems to be pretty much review proof (as I thought it would be), grossing over $30 million dollars on Friday alone, with a projected weekend gross of $80-85 million. Let the gnashing of conservative teeth begin!

That's hot!

Raytheon works to fix heat-ray in time for Iraq test next year

Raytheon Co., the world's largest missile maker, said it's trying to fix problems with an experimental heat-ray weapon to keep the device on schedule for a field test in Iraq early next year.

Raytheon's new weapon, which is intended to repel hostile forces by creating a sensation of intense heat on skin, doesn't act quickly enough to be effective, said U.S. Marine Corps Col. Wade Hall, who directs the program that would test the device. Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon is working to resolve the issue, company spokesman Alan Fischer said.

The so-called "active denial" system was developed by Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems.

The H is O indeed...

(Via Greyhawk at Milblogs.)

Relatively Fabulous?

Over at Tapped, Matt Yglesias seems to think he's back in freshman philo:

I don't want this to be misunderstood, but I'm a moral relativist. Or, rather, I reject moral realism, the view that "moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true." This is a much-debated philosophical issue, but in punditland, it's just a term of abuse. Ergo, Fred Siegel writing in Blueprint about the least-significant challenge currently facing America -- college professors who are too left-wing for Siegel's taste:
If, as Michel Foucault told the Berkeley faculty in 1983, "There is no universal criterion which permits us to say, this category of power relations are bad and those are good," then there is no way to prefer a liberal society to fascism, communism, or Islamism.

Tragically, I don't have time for a full-throated defense of my meta-ethical views at the moment. But this kind of claim, oft-made, is clearly false. Is there a universal criterion by which I judge whether I like chocolate ice cream better than vanilla ice cream? Presumably not. Is there, therefore no way to prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream? Obiously, no; people are walking around with preferences about this as we speak, and it's fine. Similarly, letting the ontological chips fall where they may, the purported objective superiority of liberal societies to Islamism doesn't play an actual role in Siegel's preference for liberal societies.

Sometimes, you face a question that you think has an objective answer like "How much should we care about budget deficits?" What you're supposed to do in those circumstances is look at the evidence in an even-handed and objective way. The big issues of political commitment don't work like that at all. Siegel didn't go learn Arabic fluently, then read the Koran (it says you should only read it in Arabic), then study the works of Sayyid Qutb and other Islamist commentators, and then objectively weigh those arguments against the great names of liberal political thought in an open-minded and unprejudiced way before deciding, "Yes, those Islamists are all wrong!" That would be dumb, and nobody lives their life like that. Nevertheless, if you asked Siegel to explain his preference for liberal societies, I'm sure he could muster some reasons in much the way that I can. Islamists do a lot of stuff that seems cruel and repugnant -- sawing off peoples' heads, for example or stoning gay people to death. Is that "really" wrong? Do I need to check? Deduce it from first principles? If I can't come up with an airtight argument against head-sawing within the next fifteen minutes, does that throw everything into doubt? Again, that's silly; nobody thinks that.

First of all, I'll wager that there's no such thing as a absolute moral relativist, if you'll pardon the expression. Everybody has at least one moral position they are convinced is not debatable. In the West, claims of moral relativism are usually just pseudo-intellectual excuses for deriding one's own culture or political system: for example, refusing to categorically state that the Western ideal of liberal society is morally superior to Taliban-style theocracy would be considered "nuanced" and "sophisticated." At best, one should say, as Yglesias does, that liberalism is preferable to Talibanism, because who are we to judge the morality of crushing homosexuals under walls or sexually mutilating young girls? Get it? It's just like ice cream! (I guess college professors everywhere use the same analogies, because I heard the same crap at Columbia.) We saw the same thing during the Cold War, when many on the left (and many Europeans) saw the US and the USSR as just two sides of the same coin.

In contrast, call the Soviet Union an "evil empire," refer to the situation in North Korea as "evil," or call terrorists "evil-doers," and you are immediately the subject of scorn and derision. How simple-minded you have to be to call something evil.

Of course, these are the same people who called for divestment from South Africa, the same people who think universal health care is a "right," the same people who believe that abortion is a woman's right. It doesn't matter here whether these stances are right or wrong, what matters is that they all assume a universal and absolute morality: "My body, my choice" is hardly a statement of "preference."

I also find it odd that many of the same people who won't objectively judge Castro or Kim Jong-il (or Saddam, for that matter) have absolutely no problem saying that Republicans are evil. But I'm weird that way. This always reminds me of the scene in Revenge of the Sith in which Obi-Wan tells Anakin that "Only the Sith speak in absolutes," and then ten seconds later says "The Emperor is evil."

Obi-Wan Yglesias needs to grow up a bit.

Pot Brownies

Radley Balko skewers Jonah Golberg on immigration and the war on drugs:

Drawing on his immigration-crack comparision, Goldberg then chastises advocates for drug legalization for their inconsistency on the immigration issue. He writes:
Some drug legalization advocates hang their position on a lot of moral preening about the absolute right of the individual to do what he wants. But many of the same people will then argue that it is - and should be - an outrageous crime to hire an illegal immigrant.
To read Goldberg's take, one would think most drug reformers are anti-immigration. That's just not the case. Most prominent opponents of the Drug War I can think of also hold fairly liberal views on immigration. Perhaps there are a couple of people who fit Goldberg's description (my guess is that they work at National Review), but it's not a dichotomy that's all that prevalent in the drug reform movement, or among libertarians. And I certainly don't think there are enough people holding both views to merit an entire column attacking them.
Goldberg goes on:
Most opponents of the drug war came to their position because they consider the effort worthy in principle, but ultimately futile in the face of a more determined "enemy," and a bit silly since the gains of winning aren't that important to them.
No. Most opponents of the drug war aren't utilitarians. Most came to our position because drug laws create consensual crimes, because we don't feel it's the government's responsibility to tell it's citizens what they can and can't put into their bodies, and because it's certainly not the government's function to enforce those laws by throwing people in prison, and by eviscerating the Bill of Rights.
The vast majority of us also see no reason why the government should prevent willing laborers from freely contracting with willing employers.

In other words, there's no inconsistency here.

Read it all.

John McCain: The Kinsley Report

Michael Kinsley has an excellent piece over at Slate about John McCain, the people who love him and the people who loathe him:

In a presidential run, he would have the votes of millions who disagree with him on major issues but like him anyway. His challenge is to get the votes of more people who agree with him. The fact that his base of support is people who disagree with him explains both why so many ideological soul mates dislike him, and why they may support him anyway. It's because they think he is their best shot at winning. Thus if McCain becomes president, it will be the result of a cynical calculation by people who don't like him even though they agree with him, on top of support by people who disagree with him but admire his lack of cynicism.

Check out the whole piece.

Hugo boy!

Did you know we were readying an invasion force to occupy Venezuela? Eric at Classical Values links to a Reuters article that says Venezuelan President and party boy Hugo Chavez is "preparing citizens to fight a guerrilla war to repel a possible Iraq-style invasion by U.S. troops."

"They've already invaded us, now the invading forces are controlling certain strategic objectives," said Rear Admiral Zahin Quintana, a squadron commander, after disembarking from a warship as part of the exercise. "Now begins the resistance by our troops together with our people."

The tanks began circulating through the streets, and units of mock invading soldiers launched smoke bombs to clear the way. But local residents, organized and trained by military authorities, resisted the assault by blocking roads with rusting cars and burning tires.

"We're willing to go anywhere to defend our homeland," said Rosmery Trujillo, a participant in the operation, told state television. "This country will never again be put under the boot of the North, thanks to our President Chavez."

The simulated attack is part of a military operation called "Operation Patriot 2006" being carried out this week.

Eric wants to know if there's any way to "avert this coming war," and offers a, er, um, let's say, "unique" alternative.

But I don't think this can be avoided. It's a war of necessity. The freedom-loving people of Venezuela deserve our help, whether they want it or not, and Chavez, with his mean words and papal meetings, has pushed us to the limit. I, for one, think going into Venezuela is long overdue, and I was glad to hear that Bush has been planning this for some time. Of course, our government denies having any such plans, but they would, wouldn't they.

Next year in Caracas!

Why We Fight

20 May, 1640 Update: It now appears pretty clear that this story was at the very least exaggerated, if not outright fabricated. Andy Sullivan asks:

Was this active disinformation? If so, who was behind it? And for what purpose? That seems to me to be the next salient question.

Other than thinking that that's two questions, I'm with Sully. Though I still say the story has the air of truthiness about it..

1810 Update: It strikes me that even if this story proves to be false, we can probably all agree that it has the ring of truthiness to it....

1745 Update: It seems nobody can absolutely confirm this story: Israpundit has some info and Allahpundit at Hot Air is all over the contradictory reports.

Needless to say, if this turns out to be false, then never mind.

From canada.com:

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."

The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."

Gee, I wonder where they got the idea that the Jews should wear yellow...

Note to all you people who compare our "theocrats" to theirs: stop it, now.

Note to all you people who think Ahmadenijad and Bush are the same: shut up, now. And maybe apologize. (Yeah, right...)

Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the law could come into force as early as next year.

It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.

Mr. Behroozian said it will make life even more difficult for Iran's small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities -- the country is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim. "They have all been persecuted for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse for them," he said.

The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the measures. "This is nothing to do with anything here," said a press secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.

"We are not here to answer such questions.

"Why not? I would think you'd be proud of what your country's doing.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the measure.

"The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored Hitler for many years -- he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd never come to power -- and we were all wrong."

Mr. Farber said Canada and other nations should take action to isolate Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the new law, which he called "chilling," and his previous string of anti-Semitic statements.

"There are some very frightening parallels here," he said. "It's time to start considering how we're going to deal with this person."

Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the history of the Nazis' "Final Solution."

He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Yeah, let's let the UN handle this: it's been so successful at getting Iran to stop its uranium production. It amazes me that people who really should know better still think the UN is a credible organization.

I can't wait to see how Juan Cole finds a way to defend this.

Also, please remember: cartoons are offensive.

Jay Stephenson and Andrew Sullivan have more.

10 Things I Hate About Commandments

Now this is a trailer!

(Hat tip: Brother Fountain.)

"The world saw evil that day"

The trailer for Oliver Stone's upcoming movie, World Trade Center, is now in theatres and available online here.

The Althouses, mother and son, are unimpressed.

I'm not blown away, but I don't think it's as bad as they make it out to be. First of all, it's a trailer, not a film, so bashing Oliver Stone seems a bit premature. Yes, the trailer itself is a bit "maudlin," as Mama Althouse says, and yes, the music is overly schmalzy, as Chris Althouse notes, but to go from that to ouright derision is a little much, no? Chris in particular wants you to know that he's too sophisticated to fall for all the little Hollywood tricks:

Soft, pretty little piano chords play over images of the sun rising--the morning of September 11th. Yes, we know that it was a nice day before the attacks started. An American flag hanging out an apartment building feels anachronistic, given that this is the pre-9/11 world we're seeing.

Oooooookay. "Yes, we know that it was a nice day before the attacks started"? A snarky comment about a shot of the sun rising in the morning? Are you kidding me? And, um, people did hang American flags in the "pre-9/11 world," as unfashionable as that may seem to the tragically hip.

Cage gives a morning roll call speech to some in the NY police department. "The color for the day is green," he says. The color for the day is green? Please tell me the NYPD does not really begin their work day with their "color for the day." I'm sorry, I thought this was the police department, not kindergarten. When's nap time, by the way? If there's some inside meaning to that phrase that I'm not aware of, please let me know.

NYPD's color for the day refers to a method of recognizing undercover police officers. It's an odd line for the trailer, but that doesn't excuse showing your ignorance by talking about kindergarten and nap time. It's not that there's any reason Chris should have know this, it's the tone of superiority he takes that's irksome.

A surprisingly fake-looking shadow of one of the planes passes over a New York building, juxtaposed in the same shot with a nearby billboard for Zoolander--starring Ben Stiller. I suppose the billboard is supposed to remind you of what was happening back in 2001, in order to give you a cultural frame of reference. Good thing that's there; it really helps me place myself back in that former, 2001 world.

Is it me, or are we just looking for reasons to make fun of the trailer now?

Professor Althouse goes one better, giving us a complete analysis of Stone's mindset:

I believe that in this case "maudlin and sentimental" is an expression of Stone's low opinion of the intelligence and sensibility of Americans. He's talking down to us and thinks 9/11 has turned us into simple-minded sentimentalists. He may also have that attitude that Americans were admirable right after 9/11, in the immediate pain of the events, when we concentrated on grief and helping victims, but that we subsequently lost our way (by fighting back). The sentimentalism thus essentially expresses opposition to the war on terrorism.

Once again, I merely point out that this is a trailer! Why not wait to see the film before you say things like Stone is "talking down to us" and that he's expressing "opposition to the war on terrorism?" He may well be doing both of those things, but making that call based on a two minute edited clip is silly.

I'm not defending the film here: how could I, when I haven't seen it? But that's the whole point, isn't it? World Trade Center may turn out to be everything that the Althouses say, but as the saying goes, you can't judge a film by its trailer.

What strikes me the most is a line of text at the end of the trailer: "The world saw evil that day." I'm shocked at the lack of nuance here: calling something "evil" is reflective of a simple-minded notion of the world, an unfortunate tendency to view things in black and white. What about root causes? What about America's imperialistic and hegemonistic foreign policy? Saying we saw "evil that day" sounds like, oh, I don't know, something George Bush would say! The horror...the horror.

Carnival Time

The Carnival of Comedy is up at Fmragtops Spews. Head over there and get yourself a taste of teh funny.

10,000 Visitors!

It's a milestone day here at The Cranky Insomniac. My 10,000th visitor just came through a little earlier!

Number 10,000 has tentatively been identified as a Mr. C. Williams, in or near ~~Whale's Vagina~~San Diego, CA. If Mr. C. Williams emails me, I'll send him a complimentary bottle of my new frangrance, Calvin Klein's "Cranky."

Cranky. For those times when you need a little freakin' space.

Congratulations to Mr. C. Williams!

Indiana Ponnuru and The Title of Doom

I give Ramesh Ponnuru credit for playing Daniel to The Daily Show's lion's den, but he really got spanked by Jon Stewart last night. It wasn't entirely his fault: Stewart was fairly adversarial, and politesse requires not interrupting the host to say something like, "Jon, I know you're a liberal, and I know your audience is mostly liberal, but rather than scoring cheap points, why don't you actually let me speak and listen to what I say?"

That said, when you title your book The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, you can't exactly expect a reasoned response, as Andrew Sullivan's been pointing out ad nauseum.

Here's what I don't get. When Ponnuru picks that title, or when Ann Coulter writes what she writes, they are effectively saying that they're only interested in preaching to the converted. What's the point of that? Rather than screaming "You're the party of death!" or "Liberals are godless traitors!" doesn't it make more sense to chill on the rhetoric and try to persuade people of the rightness of your cause? Is Coulter really that stupid that she doesn't realize what a turn off she is to anyone who doesn't share her bordering-on-the-insane beliefs in the first place? Or, for all her political posturing, is she content to just pocket the money? I suspect it's the latter: the Coulter personality seems very into the cult of personality.

Ponnuru, however, should be better than that, and it wouldn't surprise me if his book is much more than a obnoxious anti-liberal rant. But I think a lot of people aren't ever going to know that because they'll take one look at the title, roll their eyes, and buy the latest Knights Templar conspiracy book instead.

Da Vinci reviewers say the Code is broken

Reviews for The Da Vinci Code are so far mostly hideous. It'll be interesting to see if this impacts the film's box office. Some movies are review proof, and DVC, directed by Opie, starring Gump, and based on a book that I think has sold 212 billion copies in Rhode Island alone, would seem to be one of them.

But you never know, particularly if you're a studio executive. Michael Lynton, Amy Pascal and Jeff Blake have got to be sweating big time right now.

That's a shame.

Back in the hot tub with Ryan Sager

Ryan Sager interprets my main argument here as:

We don't have enough clout within the GOP, so let's not invest any energy in the GOP. The problem, though, is that this logic is circular. The GOP ignores libertarians because they're unengaged in politics, and they're unengaged in politics because the GOP ignores them.

I don't think that's what my argument was. What I said was that as long as roughly 60% of libertarianish voters support the GOP seemingly regardless of that party's numerous big government positions, the GOP can afford to mostly ignore the other 40%. As I wrote, it's a simple numbers game:

To do what it would have to do to get these Democratic libertarians to come its way, the GOP would more than likely lose much of its vaunted "base," a loss that would hurt it far more than losing those libertarians does.

Nowhere do I say that libertarians being "unengaged in politics" has anything to do with anything.

That said, I agree with Sager's contentions that the Libertarian party is a waste, and that as tempting as it is, libertarians can't afford to stay above the political fray. I also agree that the GOP, though never a "libertarian paradise," should be the natural home for all but the most radical libertarians, but the simple fact is that it no longer is.

The bottom line is that the Republican party is, at its core, no longer the party of limited government. A party that runs massive budget deficits, pushes for a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage, believes wholeheartedly in the "war on drugs," rekindles a "war on pornography" and in general has a record on civil liberties that is, to put it kindly, spotty at best, is not a party I want to be on the guest list for. It's the kind of party I'll sometimes feel like crashing, mainly because it's the only fiesta in town that has shown me that it understands we're at war (open bar), but I always end up leaving early when I realize that there's some sorta prayer circle going on in one of the upstairs rooms (no drugs) and some of the guests seem a little too interested in what web sites I like (no hot chicks).

To recap: Republican party equals open bar, but no drugs and - more importantly - no hot chicks. Not great. Don't get me wrong: the Democratic party is even worse: sure, the drugs are pretty good, but the drinks are expensive and there're still no hot chicks. I know there are a bunch of other parties going on, but they're all really just little get togethers that sound pretty lame.

(Funeral services for the use of an actual party as a metaphor for a political party will be held Friday, as I have now officially beaten it to death.)

In the end, I think the only difference between Sager's position and mine is that he's optimistic that libertarians can reclaim their historic role in the GOP, and I'm not. Other than that, I think we actually agree.

Wall of Shame

The Senate just voted to build 370 miles worth of triple-layered fencing along the Mexican border.

That giant cheering sound you hear is not coming from me.

I said it before, and I'll say it again:

I don't understand how you can have a statue that proclaims "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses who won't stop with the yearning" on the one hand and then erect a giant wall that says "keep out" on the other. If you build the wall, the statue must fall.

This is a bad day for the American Dream.

Are libertarians stuck at the hot tub party?

In an interesting article over at Real Clear Politics, Ryan Sager asks the question:

As the Republican Party abandons its commitment to small government, how politically impotent are libertarians?

Pretty damn, would be my answer.

Sager points to some fascinating statistics from the 2004 presidential election. First, exit polls showed that the number of Bush voters who felt government should not do more, or that it should do less, was approximately the same as it was in 2000. Using that as a rough definition of libertarianism, Sager says this means that

despite No Child Left Behind, campaign-finance regulation, steel tariffs, the Medicare prescription-drug bill and exploding government spending generally, libertarians stood by their man.

In otherwords, there ain't much the Republicans could do that would make those voters bolt the party. To put it in libertarian terms, the GOP has absolutely no incentive whatsoever to court these voters. To put it in terms of political impotence, the GOP doesn't have to pay any attention at all to these voters. It don't get no impotenter that that.

Two other fascinating facts come from a recently released Pew Center survey of 2,000 voters. The survey showed that only about 60% of those whom the Center considered to be libertarians voted for Bush in 2004. Additionally, only 50% of libertarians identified themselves as Republicans, with 41% identifying as Democrats. Sager thinks this finding is extremely significant:

Given that libertarians' traditional home has been in the conservative base of the Republican Party for about five decades, as part of a strained partnership with social conservatives, their almost 50-50 split between the two parties today is big news.

According to Pew's "political typology," libertarians used to be one of three groups that made up the Republican Party, along with social conservatives and economic conservatives. But, since 1994, they've been replaced by a group of voters Pew has called Populists, but most recently renamed Pro-Government Conservatives. In essence, it would seem, these Pro-Government Conservatives -- about 10 percent of the electorate, largely female and southern, and equally at ease with universal health care and banning controversial books from libraries -- are squeezing libertarians further and further toward the fringes of the GOP.

So it seems that although the GOP knows it can reliably count on a little over half of the libertarian vote pretty much regardless of who the ~~establishment selects~~ party members nominate, it also needs to realize that just under half of libertarians not only aren't voting for its ticket, but consider themselves friendly to its main opposition.

Sager notes that libertarians make up anywhere from 9-20% of the electorate, depending on the survey. This means that in 2004, the Republicans lost the votes of roughly 4-8% of those who historically were overwhelmingly likely to consider themselves aligned with the GOP. As recent elections show, 4-8% of the electorate ain't nothing to sneeze at.

In Sager's mind, libertarians can become more "potent" if they somehow can just band together and not split up between the Dems and Reps:

The challenge, then -- for those who don't want to see the Republican Party succumb once and for all to big-government conservatism and who don't want to see it become overrun with populists lacking in respect for taxpayers' money and individuals' right to be left alone -- is either to organize existing libertarians more effectively to vote and contribute time and money as a bloc or to identify new constituencies with an overriding interest in remaking the time bomb we call the New Deal (everyone under 40 comes to mind).
So, libertarians: It's time to get out of that hot tub! Put down that wrench! And start thinking about how you're going to reclaim your rightful place in the conservative coalition.

Here's where we disagree.

Let's assume that 4-8% we were talking about party hopped because of GOP positions on social issues. (I have no evidence for this, but it seems a reasonable assumption, no?) If these people feel strongly enough about these issues to join the party least likely to match their economic views, there's no way in hell they're "coming home" to the modern avatar of the Republican party unless the party fundamentally alters its relationship with fundamentalists. And it's here that the libertarians lose the numbers game, at least as long as 60% of them will seemingly vote Republican regardless of in what direction the party moves. To do what it would have to do to get these Democratic libertarians to come its way, the GOP would more than likely lose much of its vaunted "base," a loss that would hurt it far more than losing those libertarians does.

Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, or maybe a significant slice of the "GOP forever" libertarians will suddenly decide that they don't have enough in common with other party elements to keep voting with them (as I did ten years ago, when I realized that "this party sucks," and split). But until this political Cialis takes effect, libertarians as a group will have about as much political clout as people who give Porter Goss as a reference.

We might as well keep kickin' it in the hot tub.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

An apologia for light blogging

These are various reasons why my blogging has been light over the past several days:

I've been posting comments at various other blogs, including long and cranky screeds here.

Cataloging all the porn on the internet is not as easy as it sounds. Take "spanking" as just one example. There are various genres and subgenres of porn where this activity can fit, including, but not limited to, "spanking," "s/m", "bdsm," and "rough sex." Learning the often subtle nuances of each of these is imperative. Then you have to get into motivation: why is he spanking her? Does she want him to spank her? Did he have a bad day at the office? Was she really being a "bad girl"? Was she just pretending to be a "bad girl" because being spanked turns her on? Or is it as simple as the possibility that she just kept on asking questions even after he said he didn't want to talk about it any more and maybe he has been working long hours lately but did she ever consider that maybe he just doesn't want to come home to her constant nagging and is it too much trouble for her to have dinner ready when he does get home after all who do you think pays for all this? As you can see, discerning all of this can often require hours of study.

I've been trying out all the new brands of body wash aimed at men that have hit the market lately. As a pre-Howard Dean metrosexual, I've been using body wash instead of soap for a long time, but recently there's been an explosion of brands developed especially for men, so I figured I'd try to find one that would leave me smelling like a man, but feeling like a pretty little girl - the Holy Grail of aftershower combinations. So far I know that I'm not a fan of Axe, which left me feeling more like a horny, frustrated 16 year old boy. Dial for men has possibilities, but further research is indicated.

I've been debating the merits and demerits of getting highlights for the summer. Still up in the air on this one.

I had to get all my pants let out about 2 inches. My tailor says this is because I'm adding bodymass either around the waist area or somewhere right below the waist area, in the front. Also, I may be putting on height.

Grey's Anatomy was on two nights this week.

My position as Communications Director for the Elders of Zion has kept me very busy lately. (See here, here and here.) My workload should lighten up after The Da Vinci Code opens this Friday: plotting against the One True Church is always time consuming, but given the recent failure of our Pontius Pilates fitness centers, everyone has been working double-shifts on this one.

I've been trying to figure out what it must feel like to be Kevin Federline. How many people could be married to Britney Spears and be thought of as the less-talented one?

Anyway, serious blogging will begin again very shortly, possibly even tonight after House!

A Strategic Communications and Public Relations Plan for ANDYGUT

[Note: the following will not make any sense whatsoever unless you read this post, this post, this post and this post from Greg Gutfeld at the Huffington Post.]

To: Greg Gutfeld

From: CrankyComConsulting

Re: ANDYGUT^TM

Here is the initial Strategic Communications and Public Relations Plan that you "requested." We "look forward" to working with you as you move forward with your "exciting business venture."

1. We would caution against initially targeting those countries in which the "Internet" is "censored" or "banned competely." Please remember that if those people wanted the freedom to access information, they wouldn't have chosen to live under systems that don't allow this. If the North Koreans wanted to be free, why would they keep re-electing Kim Jongl-il? If people in Darfur didn't need the adrenaline rush that comes with the constant fear of being "raped" or "hacked to pieces," they would move somewhere else, wouldn't they? While it makes sense to target an "xtreme" culture like this eventually (and we can certainly get you the people who came up with the Mountain Dew campaigns when you're ready), we would strongly "recommend" that you build up some "street cred" first. Also, it has been "brought to our attention" by many in the "media" that Muslims don't like "freedom" either, so we would additionally advise staying out of those markets.

2. We noticed that you cite the "Journal for Variable Binding" as if it is an "objective source." Perhaps you are unaware that it is considered by many to be nothing but "a shill" for the Society of Binders (SOB). We feel strongly that a venture such as yours should not be seen to be "in bed" with "Big Binder."

3. On a similar note, using the word "binder" in this context may be offensive to "Oriental cultures" in which the custom of foot binding is beloved by women. To avoid "rioting" and "calls for your beheading," we would recommend that you choose a different term that shows you don't make "judgments" about "non-Western cultures." We are perfectly happy to assist you with this choice, if you would like.

4. While it's farsighted of you to explore possibilities such as sending information to people without having to show up at their houses, it seems to us that "your eyes may be bigger than your stomach." Why not concentrate your resources on the basics before investing in technologies that may or may not even be feasible? We assume you're talking about using some kind of "robots" or "cyborgs" for this, and our fear is that the "money men" may be "turned off" by this, particularly if they saw that movie with Will Smith. Remember, you are targeting your pitch at investors, who by nature tend to be cautious. Don't scare them off with "science fiction-like concepts" such as "non-human delivery systems" or "non face-to-face methods of contacting customers." (We are certainly aware that the notion of being able to "talk to" clients without them being physically in your presence is being toyed with at the "highest levels", but we would caution that even if the experiments pan out, it will be many years before such an application will be "cost-effective" for civilian use.)

5. Your associate "J2" is absolutely right to caution against possible lawsuits. Indeed, we believe that you may want to reconsider targeting the "mentally disturbed" and "handicapped," "IR rings" or not. As we see from many of your "commenters," the sad fact is that many of these people are simply not "handicapable" of understanding the value of your service. Additionally, a "large number" of "these people" actually enjoy Mr. Pibb, so we would advise against the selection of that particular flavor if your goal is to prevent the consumption of the "IR rings." Instead, we would recommend the use of whatever flavor NASCAR uses on its tires to keep these "people" away from its races. If you are "amenable" to this, we would contact NASCAR for you. However, we have come up with an "exciting" idea that you may want to consider: From a "PR" point of view, it may actually be BENEFICIAL for the "mentally challenged" to eat the "IR rings." The marketing possibilities for this are considerable: One, you would be providing a food source for the "less fortunate" among us. Two, you would also be providing a built-in, "ecofriendly" means for the disposal of your product. Using this "pitch," we feel certain we could get you a "celebrity-spouse" endorsement from someone such as "Laurie David." While she's obviously not someone of the same level as Marjoe Gortner, every "little bit" helps. (Also, Anthony Zerbe is not dead, he's just taking the decade off. We can get him for you, if you still want him.) Should you decide to go in this "direction," we would recommend flavoring the "IR rings" with patchouli.

6. Finally, we highly recommend changing the name of your company from "ANDYGUT" to "AndyGut." The use of a capital letter rather than a space to distinguish words in a "compound name corporate name" is something we feel will soon "catch on" in many industries, and numerous "studies" using the latest in "focus testing" technology have shown that people associate this practice with "cutting edge" technologies.

We hope this initial Strategic Communications and Public Relations Plan meets with your approval, and we "look forward" to your response.

Best,
The Cranky Insomniac
CrankComCon

Union don'ts

From today's New York Times:

Britain's biggest union for college and university teachers plans to ask its 67,000 members to consider boycotting Israeli lecturers who do not publicly dissociate themselves from what it called Israel's "apartheid policies."
The language is from a resolution to be put to the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education at its annual conference in Blackpool from May 27 to 29.
[snip]
The contentious resolution is one of two relating directly to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The first, concerning Hamas's victory in Palestinian elections, enjoins British academics "to continue to help protect and support Palestinian colleges and universities in the face of the continual attacks by Israel's government" and to "contact the Palestinian Authority government to reaffirm that support."

The second cites "Israeli apartheid policies including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices." It "invites members to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and nondiscrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals, and to consider the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies."

From today's New York Times:

They buried Lior Anidzar on Sunday. He was 26. His family and friends, and his new wife, put him in the sand of this southern suburb of Tel Aviv, then keened over his grave. His mother, Yvonne, fainted and was taken away in a wheelchair.
Lior Anidzar worked in a garage, for a dealer of car parts. He was a gregarious young man, and he wanted to open a restaurant of his own.

He was in the north on April 17, during the Passover holiday, but then stopped by the shop near the old Tel Aviv bus station where his wife, Maya, worked. They had been married two weeks, and had lived in their new apartment here for four days.

He wanted to take her to lunch, she said, but she was busy and not hungry. He went to the Rosh Hair restaurant, a working-class place of falafel and shwarma, the Arabic foods, eaten in pita bread, that Israelis have adopted as their own.

Then Sami Salim Khamad, himself only 21, from Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, walked into the restaurant and blew himself up on behalf of a Palestinian militant group called Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the killing of civilians, but the new Palestinian government of Hamas defended it as a legitimate act of resistance to Israeli occupation.

"I give myself," Mr. Khamad said in the video issued by the militant group after the bombing, "for the sake of God."

God seemed distant that day to Lior Anidzar and 10 others who were killed in the bombing. More than 65 people were wounded. Mr. Anidzar, with internal injuries and serious burns, but young and strong, held on for a month. He died early on Saturday.
[snip]
At the funeral, the former chief rabbi of Israel and now chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel Meir Lau, said Lior Anidzar "had fought for his life, and fought for his bride," and the mourners wailed, and "now he's gone to the gates of Heaven, and that's a separation forever." Here Rabbi Lau himself began to cry, and said, "A father saying Kaddish," the prayer for the dead, "for his son!"

Then he shouted, "Who are these savages who do these things, and no one takes the hand outstretched for peace?" He stopped, then said: "Heaven is not for such people. For what do they give their lives? To kill innocents? This is religion? No, this is a distortion of all mercy and all religious feeling, and I want the Muslim clerics to tell the truth, that murder doesn't bring paradise."

The new health minister of Israel, Yaakov Ben-Yizri, intoned, "The people of Israel pay a heavy price, to hold onto our lives and our country." He added: "We won't just take it and be silent. We have a strong army. We have no choice: to see it, and hit them a real shock." Lior Anidzar's friend Alon said, "How did we get to this place?" Then he broke down: "We'll never forget you, Lior, Lior. We all loved you. It's hard to separate ourselves from you, Lior, Lior, Lior!"

For more on the potential boycott of Israeli scholars and educational institutions, see my post here.

Tyra on her pillows

Breaking news from ace reporter Michael Starr in today's New York Post:

"The Tyra Banks Show" has had its share of controversy, including two shows some might consider "sweeps stunts" - one devoted to Banks proving her breasts are real, and the other in which she pole-danced at a strip club.
Banks says both shows were her idea - really.
"The breast thing ... people didn't know I was insecure about that and it started to hurt my feelings that people saw me as fake," she says. "It was about me wanting to do this and do it now.
"After we taped that show I went home and cried like a baby. I felt so vulnerable. I thought, 'Should we air this?' Then I went to the editing bay and watched it again ... and then cried the night it aired."

I think I speak for everyone when I say brava to Miss Banks for daring to speak truth to power. Clearly her outer beauty conceals an inner honesty and courage that most of us wish we had. If Kate Moss is the new coke of the modeling world, Miss Tyra Banks is its new heroine.

McCain takes Liberty

Great speech. Unlike Andrew Sullivan, however, I already know that McCain's a hypocrite and Mark Salter's an excellent writer, so I don't feel the need to swoon.

Frank Rich questions senators' patriotism!

Editor & Publisher reads Frank Rich's Sunday New York Times column so I don't have to. (I'm assuming the actual column is in the TimesReject^TM gulag, so I'm not even gonna bother looking for a link.)

[Rich] closes with a denunciation of Gen. Michael Hayden for new CIA chief, based on his leadership at NSA. "If Democrats — and, for that matter, Republicans — let a president with a Nixonesque approval rating install yet another second-rate sycophant at yet another security agency, even one as diminished as the C.I.A.," Rich declares, "someone should charge those senators with treason, too. "

So if you don't agree with ~~President Bush~~Frank Rich you're a traitor, and obviously unpatriotic? Where's the liberal outrage? Or is it "Do as I say, not as I do" time, as usual?

Yeah...I'm gonna need you to go ahead and assume you won't hear a negative peep out of Rich's peeps.

Can you say "hypocrites," children? I knew that you could.

Al Gore: He's tanned, rested and ready

Did you happen to catch Al Gore all but kick off his '08 presidential campaign on Saturday Night Live? I'm no fan of Gore, but I've gotta say, he was loose, relaxed, comfortable in his own skin, and..........funny??

Sure, the opening sketch, in which he played "President Gore," elected in 2000 and reelected in 2K4, was a liberal's wet dream come to life, but it was funny, not least of all because of Gore's timing and delivery. And the same could be said for his Weekend Update bit, in which he "debated" Amy Poehler on whether or not global warming was a good thing.

This bit also had my favorite unintentionally revealing line, when Tina Fey said something along the lines of, "Global warming is real, we're not going to debate that," in a dismissive voice. Note to liberals: if you'd drop the smugnoxious^TM self-righteousness you'd get more votes, win more elections, and be more likeable. Unfortunately, as a good friend of mine, Pierre duPont Copeland IV, always says, "Liberals are the least liberal minded people I know."

Anyway, I expect the liberal hemiblogosphere will be alive with the sounds of vigorous passion tonight. (And not in the good way.) It may be already - I don't go into certain neighborhoods at night. (My God, what HuffPo must smell like right now!) But I suspect one half of the Clinton "household" will not be sleeping soundly in her separate bed. An Al Gore with charm may just be her worst nightmare.

Update: Hot Air has video of the opening sketch.

uNSAfe at what speed?

[Updated to clarify my intent in separating moral authority from legal authority.]

I have a question for my readers and fellow bloggers of all political persuasions.

At what point, if any, do you draw the line with regards to the government's moral authority during wartime to peek into the private lives of its citizen in the name of national security?

This is not meant as an adversarial question, and I've tried to word it as inoffensively as possible. I think it's a question a lot of Americans are (or should be) wrestling with, and I'm not sure there's an easy answer, though many of you may disagree with me on that.

Please note that the question refers to the government's moral authority, not legal authority, which is a completely different matter.

Also, if you don't classify our current situation as "wartime," please explain how your position would be different if you did, assuming it would be. If it wouldn't be, please note that as well.

Other than that, I'm pretty sure y'all don't need any instructions from me. I think ideally bloggers would answer this question on their own sites, rather than in my comments section, then either trackback to this post or leave a comment with your link and I'll keep an updated list.

Have at it!

PS: I don't kid myself that I'm the most read blog out there (yet), so if any other bloggers - or readers - want to spread that word, that'd obviously be great.

Update: Let me clarify a point that I obviously wasn't clear about. For purposes of this "thought experiment," in separating the moral from the legal, pretend that the legal doesn't exist. In otherwords, the otherwise perfectly reasonable answer that in violating its legal authority the government violates its moral authority does not apply here. Think of the law as tabula rasa, upon which you can impose perfect morality. The law that you would devise in this situation would, in fact, be the line you would draw with regards to where the government's moral authority ends.

Update²: Dean Esmay shares his thoughts here.

Oy Protein

I offer the following list in support of Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom. This doesn't mean I always agree with him, but what difference does that make?

Current:

Effexor
Wellbutrin
Adderall
Prilosec
Tramadol (occasionally)

Past:

Klonopin
Xanax
Ambien*
Lunesta*
Restoril*
Trazodone*
Chloral Hydrate*
Paxil
Provigil

...and I'm still Cranky...

The following people are thoroughly disgusting:

Jane Hamsher
Lindsay Beyerstein
Duncan Black
Tbogg
Thesaurus Rex
I Speak Dog

No links for you, one year.

Ace, on the other hand, has the goods. (Warning: The end of the second link is rude, crude and hysterical.)

*I'm apparently immune to every sleep drug known to man. Hence my nom de bloggue.

The Foggo War

1430 Update: FBI agents executed sealed search warrants today on former CIA number three man Dusty Foggo's Virginia residence and Langley office. No comment from the Fibbies or spooks other than confirming the execution.

David Ignatius has a nice little op-ed in today's Washington Post called "How the CIA Came Unglued." Ignatius traces the rise and fall of recently resigned CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and shows how it was emblematic of "what went so badly wrong at the CIA under Porter Goss."

In true "rise of the bureaucrats" fashion, Foggo apparently came to the attention of Goss by "facilitating trips overseas" for members of the House Intelligence Committee and their staff, including Goss and his staff director Patrick Murray, while he was employed by the CIA's Directorate of Support in West Germany. Just what you want on the resume of the CIA's future number three man.

When Goss and Murray arrived at the CIA in the fall of 2004, their first choice for the agency's No. 3 job of executive director was a former CIA officer named Michael Kostiw, who had many friends in conservative political circles. But Kostiw's nomination was sabotaged when a CIA insider leaked the fact that he had once been accused of shoplifting. The charges were dropped after Kostiw resigned and agreed to seek counseling. Kostiw's past made him an inappropriate choice for such a senior position, in the view of many career CIA officers, but to Murray the leak was evidence of a liberal cabal at the CIA that was determined to obstruct the Bush administration's agenda.

For whatever reason, Foggo was Goss' Plan B, even after Murray was briefed on Foggo's file, which, Ignatius says, "included what one former CIA official describes as instances of 'dumb personal behavior.'"

The briefers included Mary Margaret Graham, then chief of counterintelligence, and Jeanette Moore, then head of the Office of Security, who, according to ABC News, had once reprimanded Foggo about alleged insubordination, though the CIA says a formal letter was never filed. Murray rejected the material about Foggo as petty and is said to have warned Graham, "If this leaks, you're dead."

Here's all you really need to know about Foggo: after his bizarre appointment to executive director, "to the amusement of his colleagues, [he] began placing pictures of himself prominently around headquarters."

Meanwhile, a period of internal bloodletting ensued that was worthy of the Soviet NKVD under Joseph Stalin. The associate deputy chief of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, Michael Sulick, complained angrily to Murray about his tongue-lashing of Graham, arguing that he was treating CIA officers as if they were Democratic congressional staffers. An indignant Murray thereupon demanded that Sulick be fired for insubordination. His boss, Operations Deputy Director Stephen Kappes, refused Murray's demand, and both he and Sulick resigned.
The political fallout from Foggo's appointment continued. Graham left in 2005 to become a top aide to the new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte. Moore, the head of security who had reprimanded Foggo, soon retired; at the time she was the agency's highest-ranking African American woman.

As for Foggo, he distinguished himself by adopting Murray's adversarial attitude towards the directorate of operations, "telling agency colleagues that no unit at the CIA was more important than any other and that, in a phrase meant to urge unity, 'We're all purple.'"

The sad last act of the Foggo drama involves allegations of corruption. It turned out that he had attended poker parties hosted by his old school pal Brent R. Wilkes, a military contractor whose activities were described in the bribery indictment of former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.). According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the CIA inspector general's office has been investigating whether Foggo, back when he was a support officer in Germany, helped steer to one of Wilkes's companies, Archer Logistics, a roughly $3 million contract to supply bottled water to CIA operatives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Foggo, who resigned from the CIA on Monday, has denied any wrongdoing.

Under the "leadership" of Goss, Murray and Foggo, the CIA experienced one of its worst periods in its history, at a time when its country needed it most. But an administration that often appears more interested in petty politics than results, and more impressed by "good soldiers" than forward thinkers, seemed slow to react to this obvious problem. When Ignatius asked a senior administration official why it took the White House so long to do something about the situation, the official "repeated the line that the agency was full of leakers and obstructionists." As Ignatuis says, "The political vendetta against the CIA went to the top, in other words. It did real damage to the country before President Bush finally called a halt."

Despite what we keep hearing, apparently 9/11 didn't change everything.

Unholy Alliance?

From News.com Australia, May 12:

A VIDEO by an al-Qaeda member posted on the Internet overnight calls on Muslims to attack Denmark, Norway and France for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
"Muslims avenge your Prophet .... We deeply desire that the small state of Denmark, Norway and France ... are struck hard and destroyed," said Libyan Mohammed Hassan, who escaped from US custody at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan last July.
"Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood," said Hassan, dressed in military fatigues and a black turban, and holding an assault rifle.
Hassan, also known as Sheikh Abu Yahia al-Libi, was one of four Arab terror suspects who broke out of the high-security detention facility at Bagram, the main US military base in Afghanistan.
It was unclear when the 35-minute video, produced by al-Sahab, a media organisation close to Al-Qaeda, was recorded.

From the New York Times, April 29:

Speaking in Rome, the official, Archbishop Angelo Amato, a close aide to Pope Benedict XVI, called [The Da Vinci Code] "full of calumnies, offenses and historical and theological errors regarding Jesus, the Gospels and the church," Reuters reported. "If such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, they would have justly provoked a world uprising," he said. "Instead, if they are directed against the church and Christians, they remain unpunished."

[All emphases mine]

(Archbishop Amato is not some rogue Catholic. He is the secretary of the ~~Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition~~ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was previously headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.)

More DVC posts here, here, here, here and here.

Da Vinci Code Response Group

At least some people in the Catholic Church understand the right way to preach.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster has launched a "Da Vinci Code Response Group" to counter the release of the film version of Dan Brown's book, which apparently sold a couple of copies. (You may have heard of it.) Here's who they are and what their aim is:

The Da Vinci Code Response Group is a team of Catholics available for comment on the film, co-ordinated by Austen Ivereigh, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster’s Director for Public Affairs. It is not an official body of the Catholic Church and contains a diversity of opinions and people, including a Benedictine abbot, two priests, theologians and academics, as well as members of Opus Dei and lay Catholics working in communications .
The group has been formed because the DVC is fiction trading as fact. We believe the DVC is fun and harmless in so far as it is treated as fiction. We do not believe in condemnations, boycotts or protests. Prickliness on the part of Christians leads us into the trap laid by Dan Brown: that the Church is on the defensive because it is engaged in a cover-up.
But we are also exasperated that many people without a good understanding of the Catholic Church and its history have been understandably deceived by Dan Brown’s claim that the DVC is based on facts and respectable theories. That deception is likely to be reinforced by the film, because images are much more powerful than words. We support Opus Dei’s call for Sony Corporation to include a disclaimer in the film making clear it is fiction. Sony has so far ignored that request. If they include it, we will be delighted.
In the absence of such a disclaimer, we consider it our task in advance of the film’s release to point out the yawning gap between fact and fiction. We believe that the DVC has presented the Church with a positive opportunity to discuss the key tenets of our faith, and we look forward to turning “lemon into lemonade”.

How beautiful is that? No calls for beheadings, no calls for legal action, no incitements to riot, and smartly, no calls for a boycott of the film, an almost guaranteed way to put more bodies in the theatres. (Rocco Palmo, writing in his influential blog, Whispers in the Loggia, about Cardinal Francis Arinze's call for a boycott and legal action against the film, asks, "Is the good cardinal getting points out the back end for this?)

Of course, there are those who disagree with this civilized stance.

Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent for the UK's Times Online, reports on her blog that DVC response group member Peter Jennings, a Catholic commentator and Press Secretary to the Archbishop of Birmingham, has "condemned and distanced himself from the group's statement." (Jennings' name no longer appears, if it ever did, on the list of group members posted at the Westminster Archdiocese website.)

Jennings told Gledhill why he feels as he does:

'The Da Vinci Code is far more than an attack on Opus Dei. It is an attack on Catholic Church.

'I agree with the more hard-line approach adopted by Archbishop Angelo Amato, Secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith when he spoke at the media conference in Rome, at which I was present, on Friday 28 April.

'He said: "'The Da Vinci Code is an offensive, anti-Christian novel, full of lies, mistakes, and theological errors about Jesus, the Gospels and the Church." Archbishop Amato stressed this during his thought-provoking lecture: The Presentation of the Magisterium of the Church in the World of the Media.'

Archbishop Amato urged Catholics worldwide to "boycott" The Da Vinci Code film when it goes on general release. I will go and see the film in order to give radio, television and newspaper interviews about it. I do not speak out about a film or a book I have not seen or read.'

'I agree with Archbishop Amato when he said: "If such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, they would have justly provoked a world uprising."

'I think that Catholics, and Christians of all traditions, should challenge Dan Brown and ask: Would you dare to write so offensively about Islam, the Koran, and the Prophet Mohamed?

"I suspect that the answer would be an emphatic no!

'As Catholic journalist, writer and broadcaster since the mid-1970's, I found much of what Dan Brown wrote in The Da Vinci Code about the Catholic Church and the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and Second Person of the Holy Trinity, to be deeply deplorable and deeply offensive. I will continue to defend my Catholic Faith loudly and clearly and sincerely hope that millions of other Catholics worldwide will now stand for what we believe and not allow the person of Jesus Christ to be blasphemed in this outrageous way.'

[Okay, this is weird: I just discovered that the hyperlinked text "hard-line approach" in Gledhill's article links to my post from last Sunday about Cardinal Arinze calling for legal action against DVC. There's a first! As my main man Jesse used to say, "I am somebody!" But enough about me...]

So Jennings plays the fundamentalist card, siding with those who burn down buildings and threaten death to blasphemers rather than those who favor rational discourse. I'm sure Torquemada would be proud.

Austen Ivereigh's response to Jennings is poetic in its simplicity:

'There are a variety of possible responses to the DVC. Some would like to organise world uprisings. We prefer to talk.'

Finally, here's a message for people who say things like, "If such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, they would have justly provoked a world uprising." The Holocaust is not synonymous with the Koran, with the Catholic Church, with Muhammed, or with the divinity of Christ. The Holocaust is not a matter of faith, nor should it be a matter of religion: it's a matter of fact. Stop using it to score cheap points with Jews, because it's quite frankly offensive, and should be to all people regardless of their religious beliefs. If you feel the need to drag us into your fight (are you seriously worried that we're running out of our own?), point to the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as analogous to your situation. Of course, the only problem with this analogy is that historically the only "world uprisings" provoked by libeling the Jews have been those directed at the Jews, something an Archbishop of the Catholic Church should know as well as anyone.

More DVC posts here, here, here and here.

Midnight links

Welcome to the Cranky Insomniac's midnight links....Smooth blogs to keep my babies feeling fresh and clean all night long, dig?

Insolublog shows us that contracts with America are in large part made to be broken.

Fmragtops is running for president.

Steve the Pirate fails to see the humor in the comments section of Greg Gutfeld's Huffyblog. (I explain it to him in his comments section.)

FIAR at Radioactive Liberty says Democrats are nuthin' but pinko reds (if that makes sense).

The Gun Toting Liberal finally finds something he thinks the Bushies do well.

In an "Ebony and Ivory" moment, Jay at Stop the ACLU finds common ground between the ACLU and the NSA.

And finally, Blogs4Bauer somehow got a leaked copy of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's letter to Jack Bauer.

Qwest for freedom?

Dale Carpenter at the Volokh Conspiracy and Radley Balko are among the bloggers who champion Qwest for being named by USA Today as the only telcom to refuse to turn over its phone records to the NSA.

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom has another take: Qwest, you see, is helping the terrorists:

[W]ere I a terrorist (the exploding kind, not just an evil Bush Kultist whose terrorist-tendencies include a desire to destroy the Constitution and roll-back civil liberties to the salad days when women and blacks couldn’t interfere with government), I might think about switching to Qwest, after reading this piece.
Which is great for Qwest, I suppose, but not so great for national security.

First of all, this story is not new. I wrote about it on April 21, in a post called ATT: Can we hear you know? (You'd better believe it). As others have noted, it's a little interesting that USA Today would choose to run its story right after the nomination of former NSA chief Michael Hayden for the CIA directorship.

But that aside, is the NSA's program a necessary evil brought on by the Global War on Terror, or is it an unwarranted* intrusion into the privacy of American citizens?

Here's what I wrote on 4/21:

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.

Is it a big deal that the NSA is collecting phone records in order to analyze call patterns, and doing so without a warrant? Probably not, in and of itself. (It's at least as troubling that the phone companies are maintaining these huge databases, by the way.) But watch out, because that slope starts getting real slippery real soon. I suppose a lot of it comes down to whether or not you're okay with putting your trust in the NSA and the Bush administration to go only so far. And as Andrew Sullivan notes:

You don't abandon limited government, enable torture, declare the executive above the law, pile up countless signing statements to undermine the Congress ... and then take pains to protect Americans' privacy.

At some point, invoking 9/11 and the war on terror becomes nothing but an empty excuse. Many on the left want to pretend that this started happening on 9/12, but those of us who live in the real world actually had to do some real thinking and make a real choice. I know many libertarian-leaning Americans, including yours truly, chose to suspend their natural instincts and cut President Bush some slack. But the President needs to realize that you can only go to the "trust me" well so often before your water runs dry.

And as far as Qwest goes, I salute them for not turning over their records because they were unsure of the legality of the NSA's request. But I don't condemn out of hand the other telcoms for believing that in acquiescing to the NSA's request, they were doing what's best for America. How's that for having it both ways?

*Unless othterwise noted, all puns are intended.

Does anyone at the NY Times know anything about the military?

Please click here. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Please read the caption underneath the photo. Please note the part that says that Maria Gomez tried to find comfort on an "Army officer's shoulder."

Please look at the soldier identified as an Army officer. Please note that she is a Staff Sergeant. Please note that a Staff Sergeant is not an officer, and would most likely be insulted to be identified as such.

Please note that this is why many military personnel and veterans believe that, in the words of Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette,

[N]o (American) newspaper treats American GIs with more contempt than the New York Times does, never missing an opportunity to fabricate or twist a quote to make it fit their editorial purpose. [emphasis mine]

It's a small thing, you might say. Well, no, it isn't, if you've worn a uniform and earned rank. And even if you think it is, ask yourself this: If they can't get the small things right when it comes to the military, how can you trust them on the bigger things?

The answer is simple: you can't. Please remember that.

Note: This was not a minor story for the Times. This picture, with the caption underneath, took up a good part of page B1 in the New York print edition of today's paper.

Old college buddy update

Congratulations to Neil Gorsuch, old college buddy of the Cranky Insomniac, who is expected to be nominated by President Bush to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, CO. (Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the info.)

Neil and I, along with a couple of other guys (including Chewey Williams before he was Chewey Williams), started an alternative campus newspaper at Columbia, which is still around, lo these many years. He's a lot more conservative than I am, but is one of the most intelligent and decent people I've met in my life. I have no doubt that SCOTUS is in his future.

Congrats again, Neil.

Update: Neil's nomination was actually sent to the Senate today.

Ahmadinejad calls a staff meeting

What follows are excerpts from a high level staff meeting called by Iranian President Ahmadinejad on Friday, May 5, 2006. The excerpts, which were apparently obtained by the NSA, have been translated into colloquial English. Names are used wherever possible.

President Ahmadinejad: C'mon, fellas, I'm dying here. Have you seen how high my negatives are in America?

Khameini: I know, I know. We're working in it.

Ahmadinejad: Working on it doesn't make the cat come home. I need something now!

Khimeini: How about a flattering article in the Tehran Times?

Ahmadinejad: [sarcastically] Yeah, that'll really help my numbers in the US.

Khameini: What if we get some pictures of you kissing little babies?

Ahmadinejad: Dude, are you serious? Kissing babies? That's the best you've got?

Khomeini: Wait...wait...wait...I've got it!

Ahmadinejad: [sighs] Oh, this'll be good.

Khomeini: No, no, check it out. We write a letter to President Bush!

Khameini: You're an idiot.

Khimeini: You're crazy, bro.

Ahmadinejad: Wait. I wanna hear more about this letter. What would I say?

Khomeini: Okay, let's see. How about this: The letter is not really from one head of state to another, it's a personal thing, just a guy talking to another guy, y'know, talking about things you have in common, chicks you've both slept with - okay forget that one, but you know what I mean.

Ahmadinejad: [intrigued] Go on...

F. Hussein: [jumping in] Yeah, you could talk about how you're both really religious, right?

Khameini: [horrified] But Bush is an infidel!

T. Hussein: [excited] You're missing the point, G. You've gotta think outside the box! Sure, they're different religions, but they both believe that they're directed by the will of Allah.

Khimeini: Nobody's gonna buy that.

Khomeini: Really? I'll bet you your third wife that a lot of people will. In fact, I'll go double or nothing for twelve of your goats that not only will a whole bunch of Americans buy that idea, they'll go even further and compare Bush's beliefs to our President's and say that really they're no different.

K. Hussein: So this letter will humanize our leader and also make Bush look bad?

Ahmadinejad: That's beautiful! Khomeini, you are a fucking genius! We'll have people who really should know better talking about Bush like he's a religious fanatic bent on world domination, and at the same time they'll start thinking that maybe I'm not so bad after all! Pretty soon this whole thing will be blamed on Bush and I'll be the loveable underdog who dared to stand up to him! That's totally rad!

Khumeini: The blogs will be key.

Ahmadinejad: Good thinking. Start with Sullivan. He's got a big audience and he halfway believes this crap already.

Khomeini: We'll work up a whole list of sites that we should target.

Ahmadinejad: Okay, now we're cooking with uranium! I want to see a draft of this letter by noon. Nice work, Khymeini.

Khomeini: Um, I'm Khomeini, sir.

Ahmadinejad: Whatever. [under his breath] You are so dead.

End excerpt.

The Return of the Gut

The long national nightmare is over. Greg Gutfeld has resumed blogging at the otherwise nauseatingly smugnoxious^TM Huffington Post.

It's all there: the put downs of his fellow HuffPosters, the hysterically ranting comments from clueless lefties, the fake hysterically ranting comments left by Gutfeld himself that seem to be from clueless lefties, all of it. (Okay, I'm guesing on the last one, but it seems pretty obvious.)

Go get yourself a little squeeze of the Gut. And be sure to click on his "bio" link for a double secret surprise!

The Book of Opie

Lo, there came a time, a time unlike any other time, when the wrath of Opus Dei was great indeed. And in that time didst the members of Opus focus their displeasure upon the Great Deceiver, known to man as Opie, requiring of him a service unto them.

"For shall ye not repent, let ye at least maketh clear that your foul abomination of a film shalt not be mistaken for Truth, for in sooth we are wounded by your effigy."

But the proud and stubborn Opie would not be moved by the pleas of Opus.

"I have looked upon my film, and it is good. It pretendeth not to be that which it is not, and tho I seeketh not to do thee harm, thou shalt not compromiseth mine artistic vision, nor shalt thou lead me down the path of temptation in the direction of attaching a disclaimer."

And so Opus, who didst grieve at its murderous portrayal, after much gnashing of teeth did devise a plan to usurp the power of Opie by using his Creation in to serve its own interests.

"If that be your final answer, then thou leaveth us a choice of none but to say to thee that we shall turn your own Creation against you, and will 'capitalize on the interest created by the book and will use the controversy surrounding the film as "teaching opportunities" instead of heresies.'"

And so it was written, and so it came to pass, that both sides put down their swords and beat them into PR campaigns. And a great cry of joy went up across all the lands of the Earth, as the people - most of whom had understanding that the Heresy of the Code was naught but harmless fiction - had grown weary of the whole thing at this point.

(Mine hat tippeth to St. Andrew of Sullivan.)

Intel in the dumps

Opinion Journal has an interesting piece by Bret Stephens in which two former high-ranking Mossad officers discuss the problems at the CIA and what, if anything, a new director can do to fix them.

Efraim Halevy, who headed Mossad from 1998-2002, notes that he started his job during a crisis situation. He says the new CIA chief, whether it's General Hayden or someone else

"must first work quickly to repair the image of the organization by producing results. He must re-establish credibility at the political level, and this isn't going to be easy because political leaders will be wary of intelligence judgments. He must pass a message of confidence in and respect for the troops. He has to stand up for his people, and not take a back seat while someone else takes the rap. And he has to be creative and allow creativity and courage to show themselves."

Not long into his tenure, a Turkish newspaper claimed--falsely, according to Mr. Halevy--that the Mossad had been involved in the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish leader of the terrorist PKK. The report, which put Israelis at risk of PKK reprisals, had to be discredited in a way that would be believed. Rather than issue a public denial, Mr. Halevy circulated a memo within the Mossad disavowing any link to the Ocalan operation. The memo then "leaked," achieving the desired impression.

Stephens see a lesson in this:

[I]t helps to run an organization where leaks, when they happen, are authorized and purposeful. In recent years, the CIA has lost that ability, in part because of a deep-seated ideological animus to the Bush administration (witness the careers of anti-Bush partisans Valerie Plame, Paul Pillar, Michael Scheuer and Mary McCarthy), but also, it seems, as payback from careerists who felt rudely handled by Mr. Goss. If you want to plug leaks--and manage change--try getting the troops on board.

All of this is true enough, but Stephens doesn't explain why this "deep-seated animus" exists in the first place, something that it seems to me would be deserving of exploration. (Could it have anything to do with the administration throwing the CIA to the wolves over pre-Iraqi war intelligence?)

Halevy has kind words for the CIA's quality of work, saying that in the nearly four decades that he's had dealing with it, he "has not seen a decline" in its intelligence gathering capabilities. To this, Stephens throws in a snarky, "It isn't clear if he's only being polite."

Uzi Arad (maybe we need an intelligence chief whose first name is Colt or Wesson?), who once ran Mossad's intel division, paints quite a different picture.

"My impression," he says, "is that rather than galloping ahead to compensate for years of absenteeism and lagging behind, you have a kind of vegetating system."
Mr. Arad compares this to what's happened to the U.S. military in recent years. "The field of intelligence has been going through a revolution analogous to the revolution in military affairs," he says. Yet while the Pentagon is devising new technologies and strategies to cope with a new geopolitical landscape, the CIA is adapting "retroactively, as one mishap follows another."
An instructive example: "In the past," Mr. Arad says, "secrecy and compartmentalization were considered to be virtues in the intelligence community, often at the expense of synergy. That made sense during the Cold War, when the U.S. was confronting an enemy capable of penetrating the system. But al Qaeda and Iran probably aren't capable of penetrating the system the way the KGB was. So perhaps we need to tilt away from the culture of secrecy and bring more jointness, more synchronization, more pooling of scarce resources."
Nor is this the only problem Mr. Arad sees. "Despite the current reforms," he says, "the American system is very big, very complex, with many redundancies to protect institutional interests rather than security interests." The Mossad employs an estimated 2,000 agents and officers. The CIA is perhaps 10 times that size, and it's just one of 16 American intelligence agencies. Yet the quantity of resources has done little to improve the quality of U.S. intelligence. On Iran's nuclear program, for instance, last year's Robb-Silberman Report suggests America knows frighteningly little.

The whole idea behind the establishment of the Director of National Intelligence position was to deal with these "redundancies" and institutional biases, but, as Stephens point out:

Instead, under John Negroponte, the office has become yet another player in the broader intelligence bureaucracy, trying to impose its will on a recalcitrant (but weak) CIA and an even more recalcitrant (and strong) Defense Intelligence Agency. How a CIA director can find his way through this maze is anyone's guess; it certainly defeated Mr. Goss.

So instead of making things run more efficiently, we've got an office of the DNI that apparently does nothing but add yet another layer of bureaucracy to a system already choking in it. This is good for our national security how? This makes us safer how?

Will we ever get serious about this country's intelligence apparatus? Why does every solution that comes out of DC involve the creation of more bureaucratic bullshit? Will the boys and girls at the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, SOG, and all the other alphabet agencies ever learn to work together? It seems to me that this last is what Negroponte and his people - with General Hayden in the number two slot - were supposed to be working on. If so, they've so far failed, and failed miserably.

This country doesn't need any more alphabet soup; instead, we need some clear chicken broth.

Sullivan's Folly

Andrew Sullivan writes:

A grocery store clerk in Virginia can legally own a vast arsenal of deadly weaponry. Was he planning on shooting quail with an AK-47-style assault rifle? I guess that's what Glenn Reynolds would call his civil rights. Now, I'm sympathetic to the arguments against gun-control, but this kind of story gives me pause. I mean: surely common sense suggests that this kind of access to legal weaponry is, shall we say, "over-kill".

Oh, where to begin...

First of all, I'd love to know what an "AK-47 style assault rifle" is. The Washington Post article that describes the weapon this way doesn't say anything else about it.

Second of all, I don't know if the "grocery store clerk," as we're apparently going to condescedingly refer to him as, was planning on "shooting quail" with this "assault weapon," and it's neither my business nor Sullivan's. The right to own weapons is not synonymous with the right to hunt birds. It's synonymous with the right to self-protection, and that's what makes it a civil right in the eyes of Glenn Reynolds. (I prefer the term "civil liberty," but tomayto tomahto. Calling it a civil liberty does have the added bonus of pointing out the ACLU's hypocrisy on this issue, though. And pissing them off, which is always fun!)

(By the way, the clerk is not the one who did the killing: it was his deranged son, who had broken out of a psychiatric institution and carjacked his way home.)

Third of all, does common sense "surely" tell us that "this kind of access to legal weaponry is, shall we say, "over-kill"? I dunno. Does common sense also tell us that while freedom of speech is usually a good thing, surely it's over-kill to be able to offend someone's religious beliefs? And really, what does a grocery store clerk need all that free speech for, anyway? Is he planning on using it to run for office?

Here's a fact that even the anti-gun Washington Post couldn't ignore (though Sullivan conveniently doesn't mention it):

The shootings shocked the county, which had never lost an officer in a line-of-duty shooting.

So with lax gun control in Virginia, and all those evil assault weapons apparently floating around Fairfax County, no police county police officer had ever before been shot to death. Yet Sullivan wants to blame what happened Monday on the fact that a grocery store clerk was allowed to own an "vast arsenal of deadly weaponry."

Sorry, Andy. No sale.

Update: Welcome to all the 'lanchers, and thanks to Glenn for sending 'em my way.

Update Update: Jay at Stop the ACLU has some more info on the ACLU's hypocrisy when it comes to guns and individual rights.

British academics fail ethics test

According to Ha'aretz Daily, England's largest university and college lecturers union is about to recommend a boycott of ~~Jewish~~ Israeli "lecturers and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories." The 67,000 member National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) will vote on the anti-~~Semitic~~Israeli boycott at its national conference in at the end of the month.

NATFHE members had voted last year to impose a boycott on two ~~Jewish~~Israeli universities, but reversed themselves after one of the institutions threatened legal action. They seemed to have learned from their mistake, though:

Unlike the previous boycott, which targeted two specific institutions, the current motion relates to all lecturers and academic institutions in Israel. Now that the University of Haifa has threatened the AUT with a lawsuit, the NATFHE motion is more cautious: instead of recommending the lecturers union boycott Israeli institutions, it calls on the union to suggest its members carry out the boycott.

"The conference invites members to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and non-discrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals, and to consider the appropriateness of the boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies," the NATFHE motion states. It also encourages lecturers to hold meetings on the issue on campus.

The motion explicitly says NATFHE will recognize Israeli policies, while at the same time denigrating them as "apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall and discriminatory educational practices."

And here's a fun fact:

In the past decade, the only country whose academia NATFHE has considered boycotting is Israel.

Yep. No boycott of the state-controlled institutions of Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Syria. Only the policies of the ~~Jews~~Israelis are so evil that the very presence of their academia cannot be tolerated.

The union appears to be calling for a boycott of reality, as well:

In addition to the boycott motion, the annual conference will also discuss a motion condemning the "outrageous bias" of the British government in opposing Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections and stating that NATFHE will "continue to help protect and support Palestinian colleges and universities in the face of the continual attack by Israel's government."

Arab terrorist organization, good: ~~Jews~~Israelis, bad. Of course, of course. How did I miss that? Well played, NATFHE! This is just another example of how superior Europe is to our backwoods nation. Kudos to you, sirs. And kudos again!

And don't you dare call them anti-Semitic. This has nothing to do with the Jews. Nothing at all...nothing at all....nothing...nothing...you are gettin sleepy...

What these not-very-intelligent academics fail to realize is that by holding ~~the Jews~~Israel to higher standards than their Arab neighbors, they are paying ~~the Jews~~Israel a compliment and at the same time denigrating Arab culture. The ~~Jews~~Israelis, you see, are capable of enlightenment, while you just can't expect those primitive dark-skinned Arabs to behave in a civilized manner, T.E. Lawrence and all that, they don't even like toast don't you know, eh, wot?

Cheerio!

(Via Instapundit)

Taking the Sci out of Poli Sci

The following is an op-ed that ran in the Baltimore Jewish Times. The author is Robert O. Freedman, Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Professor of Political Science at Baltimore Hebrew University and Visiting Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Please keep this in mind as we proceed with our fisking.

As the crisis over the Danish cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad appears to be dying down, it is time to create a system to prevent such a costly crisis from erupting in the future.

We already have this system: it's called Western civilization.

As a result of the crisis, lives were lost, embassies were attacked in the Muslim world, the loyalty of Muslims living in Europe was put into question, and the image of Islam in the West as a violent religion was reinforced, thus increasing the possibility of the "clash of civilizations" desired by Islamic radicals such as Osama bin Laden.

Lives were lost because of the actions of Muslim fanatics. Embassies were attacked in the Muslim world by Muslim fanatics. The loyalty of Muslims living in Europe was put into question by the statements and actions of Muslims living in Europe. The image of Islam in the West as a violent religion was reinforced by followers of Islam committing acts of violence in the name of religion. But I'm nitpicking here.

Making a resolution of the conflict over the cartoons so difficult are the very different perspectives of much of the Muslim world and the West. Although it is certainly true that anti-Western states such as Syria and Iran sought to manipulate the crisis for their own political ends, one must acknowledge that a number of Muslims were genuinely insulted when they saw their prophet depicted as a terrorist.

While the Danish cartoonists may have sought to show, through their cartoons, that some Muslims were citing the Koran, and Muhammad, to justify suicide bombings, the cartoons had a very negative impact in the Muslim world where Muhammad is revered.

Okay, I acknowledge that a number of Muslims were genuinely insulted when they saw their prophet depicted as a terrorist. Deal with it, Muslims: everybody else does. And by the way, feel free to be insulted when you see terrorists depicted as your prophets.

Complicating the situation further was the reaction of many in the West to the violence perpetrated by the Muslims protesting the cartoons. The Muslims were accused of double standards, since anti-Semitic and anti-Christian cartoons are widespread in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and when complaints are made about them, the response is usually "we have a free press" — precisely the words used by the Danes to justify their cartoons.

I see. It's not the violence perpetrated by irrational fanatics that's the problem: it's the reaction of many in the West to this violence. Well, that's one way to go. And I've never heard a Muslim claim freedom of the press as justification for anti-Semitic or anti-Christian cartoons. Or laws. Or killings.

In order to rectify the situation, and to prevent a future crisis of this type from erupting, what is needed is a "code of conduct" for the newspapers and other media in both the Western and Muslim worlds. All governments must agree that the negative depiction of religion is "out of bounds," and penalties should be imposed on those who violate the code of conduct.

Please keep in mind that the writer of this op-ed is a political science professor. I'll type that again: Please keep in mind that the writer of this op-ed is a political science professor. If I had college-age kids I'd file for a restraining order to keep this guy from coming within 1000 feet of them. All governments must agree that the negative depiction of religion is out of bounds? There's really only one rational response to that statement: ~~Fuck you.~~ Not on my watch, pal. See if these words ring any bells, Professor: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." I'll give you a hint: it's the First Amendment to the Constituion of the United States. Maybe something you should consider boning up on, seeing as you're a FREAKING POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR.

See, our government can agree that the negative depiction of religion is out of bounds, but it can't do anything to enforce that belief. A bunch of farsighted guys set up our system this way over 200 years ago, just to protect it from dangerous idiots like you.

The problem, of course, is to determine the difference between legitimate criticism of someone who acts in the name of a religion, and the negative depiction of that religion.

Believe me, that's the least of your problems, but go ahead and tell us how you're gonna do this.

To solve that problem, I propose the creation of an International Religious Court, composed of Christian, Muslim and Jewish clergymen with one clergyman representing each of the three religions. Anyone feeling that his or her religion was insulted could appeal to the International Religious Court for a ruling on the matter, and the court would then determine whether a penalty should be invoked. It would be the responsibility of the government on whose territory the action took place to impose the penalty.

Of course! An international court! Because those work so well! Yutz.

And when did we outlaw all religions other than the big three? Is it okay to offend Hindus, or Buddhists, or Seventh Day Adventists, or Sikhs, or Zoroastrianists, or Pagans~~, or Scientologists~~?

And anyone on the planet who feels that his or her religion was insulted can appeal to this court? This court with three members? Seriously? Those poor guys.

I realize that establishing the authority of the International Religious Court would not be easy. First of all, given the divisions between Sunni and Shia Islam, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, and Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism — to mention only the most important divisions of the three religions — finding a single individual to represent each of the three faiths will be a challenge.

Not to mention the divisions among Hindus, or Buddhists, or Seventh Day Adventists, or Sikhs, or Zoroastrianists, or Pagans~~, or Scientologists~~.

Second, governments may be reluctant, on grounds of sovereignty, to impose penalties required by such an international court. Nonetheless, there is a precedent wherein a number of states have, in certain cases, voluntarily agreed to abide by the decisions of the International Court of Justice, which could be a model for the International Religious Court.

The fact that you view the International Court of Justice as a potential model for anything is sad.

Given the very severe costs of the Danish Cartoon Crisis, establishing both an international code of conduct to prevent negative media depictions of religion, and an International Religious Court to determine whether that code has been violated, are needed to defuse future crises such as the one over the Danish cartoons. I urge the international community to create the code of conduct and establish the International Religious Court as quickly as possible.

I urge you to stop teaching political science and seek immediate help. At the very least, please try to remember that you're not the Osama bin Laden Professor of Dhimmitude at Caliphate University.

Twenty Snore

Last night's episode of 24 was so boring that the official Jack Bauer Kill Counter over at Blogs4Bauer has to be set back one. (Billy DeVane lives!)

What kind of hour is it where -1 people get offed?

Of course, it does make sense that the person who isn't dead is the one who "died" when Calamity Jack wasn't near him...

Emerald Bile

Emerald Bile is foul. Emerald Bile is crass. Emerald Bile is crude.

Emerald Bile is funny as shite.

This post in particular cracked me up for some reason.

Did I warn you that Emerald Bile is foul, crass and crude?

"My Kingdom is not of this world"

The good Andrew Sullivan, in a Time magazine essay on the difference between Christians and Christianists:

I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

Can I get a witness?

"My comparison is not of this world"

The bad Andrew Sullivan comparing incarceration rates around the globe:

There's no country on the planet - no dictatorship on earth - as comfortable with locking people up as the state of Texas. The detention policies of the current administration may be more understandable in this context.

I know a lot of conservatives will disagree with me for saying this, but this sort of invective is beneath Sullivan.

Pop quiz, Andy: Would you rather live in Texas or North Korea? Texas or Cuba? Texas or Libya? Unless one or more of your answers wasn't Texas, what's the point of going out of your way to unfavorably compare that state to every dictatorship on earth?

Give me a ~~prison~~ break.

Victim in cell phone murder video not Atwar Bahjat

Update to story posted here. The Jawa Report has the details - including who was shown being killed on the video, and by whom - as well as the appropriate conclusion.

Note: Although the video was not of Bahjat, the fact that she was kidnapped and killed unfortunately still remains.

The Times, it's never a-changin'

So here I am, innocently doing the boringly easy Monday New York Times crossword, when the article right above the puzzle catches my eye. It's a review of an episode of American Experience that airs tonight, the subject of which is Annie Oakley.

Here are the first two grafs of Neil Genzlinger's review, with some emphasis provided by Cranky:

Plenty of women accomplished plenty of things in the first century or so of United States history, so it's a little dismaying to think that the country's first female superstar was famous not for her voice or her musicianship or her brain, but for her ability to shoot firearms accurately. Yet tonight's installment of "American Experience" on PBS makes the case that Annie Oakley was the first American woman whose fame and knack for spawning legends (a close cousin of gossip) qualified as superstardom.

Even if her particular talent is not to your liking, it would be difficult to watch this program and not be awed by the woman's life. Oakley, born Phoebe Ann Moses in Ohio in 1860, lived during a remarkable stretch of history that encompassed both the Civil War and World War I, one that began on horseback by lamplight and ended in automobiles under electric bulbs.

I don't even know how to respond to that. First off, "it's a little dismaying" to whom, exactly? Second off, why is it "a little dismaying," exactly? Third off, WHAT THE FUCK DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH A REVIEW OF A TV SHOW???

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ridiculous. It's one thing to find idiotic statements like those on the editorial pages of the Times: you expect that. It's one thing to find slanted "objective" news stories that demonize guns, gun owners, gun rights organizations and/or people who don't have to twist themselves into logical contortions to make the Second Amendment say what they want it to say: you expect that. But what in the name of all that is holy are those sentiments doing in a review of a biography of Annie Oakley?

Oh, and by the way, sexist much, Neil? Got a problem with women who can handle firearms? A little insecure, maybe? Having trouble writing that novel that's gonna make you famous? You know, the one you've been working on for nearly three years, now? Hmmm?

Yutz.

Now I remember why I stopped reading the Times.

Women's Fib

Here's a perfect example of what's wrong with contemporary American liberalism: Bill Clinton fits perfectly the concept of a sexual predator yet is heralded as a savior by women's groups such as NOW, while George Bush, whose policies have contributed mightily to the advancement of women's rights worldwide, is denounced as a fascist and a Nazi by those same groups.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal, A. Yasmine Rassam, director of international policy for the Independent Women's Forum, shows us just how absurd the extent of self-delusion and deception among "feminists" has become.

Rassam looks at a report published by Global Exchange and Code Pink and is rightfully astounded at what she finds:

Some radical feminists and anti-war liberals have very short memories. It's just three years after Saddam Hussein's ouster and some would have us believe the tyrant was in fact a protector of women's rights in Iraq. That Iraq under Saddam actually had progressive, pro-women policies that are now being "rolled back" thanks to the Bush administration.

A recent report by "Global Exchange" and "Code Pink" entitled "Iraqi Women Under Siege" concluded that "the occupation of Iraq has not resulted in greater equality and freedom for women" than they had under Saddam Hussein. Published by two radical feminist anti-war groups whose primary activities include protesting military recruiting stations, organizing anti-WTO protests and sympathizing with the regimes in North Korea and Cuba, this report echoes a long line of blatant pronouncements. Hillary Clinton who once said that after liberation there were "pullbacks in the rights that [women] were given under Saddam Hussein" and Howard Dean's infamous remark that "Iraqi women were better off under Saddam Hussein."
Anti-war revisionist liberals and radical feminists alike are trying their best to come up with comparisons of the Saddamist and post-Saddamist eras in Iraq with the aim of discrediting the historic liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein in 2003. With Iraqi women they think they have found a seemingly incontrovertible argument since Saddam, according to his apologists, was a "secular" ruler who gave liberal rights to women.

Oh, Saddam: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

Much of the anti-war propagandists' defense of Saddam as a champion of women's rights rests on his willingness to allow women to vote (for him), drive cars, own property, get an education and work. What they choose to ignore, however, is the systematic rapes, torture, beheadings, honor killings, forced fertility programs, and declining literacy rates that also characterized Saddam's regime. A few examples can only begin to illustrate the cruelty and suffering endured by thousands of Iraqi women. One torture technique favored by Saddam's henchman and his sons involved raping a detainee's mother or sister in front of him until he talked. In Saddam's torture chambers women, when not tortured and raped, spent years in dark jails. If lucky, their suckling children were allowed to be with them. In most cases, however, these children were considered a nuisance to be disposed of; mass graves currently being uncovered contain many corpses of children buried alive with their mothers.
During Saddam's war with Iran, nearly an entire generation of Iraqi men were killed, injured or captured, leaving a dearth of men of military age in Iraqi society. As a result, Saddam launched "fertility campaigns" that forcibly administered fertility drugs to school girls as young as 10 in an effort to drive up the population rate.
After the Gulf War--particularly after crushing the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings of 1991--Saddam reverted to tribal and "Islamic" traditions as a means to consolidate power. Iraqi women paid the heaviest price for his new-found piety. Many women were removed from government jobs and were not allowed to travel without the permission of a male relative. Men were exempted from punishment for "honor" killings--killings carried out on female relatives who had supposedly "shamed" their family. An estimated 4,000 women died from honor killings in the ensuing years. By 2000, Iraqi women, once considered the most highly educated in the Middle East, had literacy levels of only 23%.
Under the pretext of fighting prostitution in 2000, Saddam's Fedayeen forces beheaded 200 women "dissidents" and dumped their head on their families doorsteps for public display. These women obviously lost whatever "rights" granted to them once they got in Saddam's way.

Well, golly gee willikers, sounds like everything was just peachy until mean old George Bush came along and ruined everything.

To give credit where credit is due, it is true that Hussein generally treated women as equal to men: as Rassam says, "Saddam Hussein was an equal opportunity killer who tortured, raped and gassed men, women and children alike." Maybe that's what passes for "progressive" these days.

It says a lot about the moral bankruptcy of the anti-war movement that Code Pink and Global Exchange are not considered part of the lunatic fringe. Like Cindy Sheehan, these groups - and others, such as Answer - have become mainstream voices, cited approvingly by journalists, who give them a free pass with regards to their full agenda. (I suppose this is because "their heart's in the right place.") And, as Rassam says:

The revisionist history offered by those opposed to the Bush administration--whether it comes from bad judgment, a lack of information or a desire for political advantage--has grave consequences. A brutal dictator who tortures his own people cannot be a champion of women's rights. To pretend otherwise is to dishonor the memory of the thousands of innocent Iraqi women who died in a senseless brutal reign of terror. It also does a grave disservice to the men and women of this country who died or were injured to liberate Iraq.

But that's pretty much the point, isn't it?

Klavan to Hollywood: I'm proud to be an American, why aren't you?

Novelist Andrew Klavan has an op-ed in yesterday's LA Times that calls on the powers that be in Hollywood to make some patriotic movies about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the way they did about World War II. The piece is intelligent, thoughtfully pro-American, and absolutely right. Klavan will never work in that town again.

Here's an excerpt (but read the whole thing):

But there's a difference between a humble nation confessing its sins and a country of flagellants whipping themselves for every impure thought. Since the '60s, we have had, it seems, an endless string of war movies, from "Dr. Strangelove" to "Syriana," in which the United States is depicted as wildly aggressive and endlessly corrupt — which, in fact, it's not; which, in fact, it never has been.

In taking our self-examining ethos to these extremes, we have lost a kind of wisdom, wisdom that acknowledges the complexity of human life but can move through it to find the simple truth again. While assessing the intricate failings of our moral history, many of us have lost sight of the simple truth that the system that shapes us is, in fact, a great one, that it has moved us inexorably to do better and that it's well worth defending against every aggressor and certainly against as shabby and vicious an aggressor as we face today.

Not only have we lost this kind of wisdom, but I think that a handful of elites — really only a handful of academics, journalists and artists — has raised up a golden counterfeit in its stead. With this counterfeit wisdom, they imagine themselves above the need for patriotism; they fantasize they grasp a truth beyond good and evil, and they preen themselves on a higher calling than the protection of our way of life. And all the while they forget that they imagine and fantasize and preen only by the grace of those who fight and die and stand guard to secure those freedoms that our system alone guarantees.

When war comes, as it always will, and when it is justified, as it is now, some nuances and shades of gray have to be set aside. It is time, instead, for faith and for ferocity. Our enemies have these weapons, after all. Our movies should inspire us to have them too.

I guarantee that the Times will run a "counterpoint" op-ed in the next few days, most likely written by a famous, semi-famous or "I know that name from somewhere" Hollywood artiste. I further guarantee that the phrase "truth to power" will appear somewhere in this piece.

Blair 1, Kos 0

Tim Blair shreds Daily Markos here.

Help Wanted

I need to find some information about the role of forgiveness in the American legal system, and I'd appreciate any help any readers could give me.

Examples of the kinds of questions I need to find answers to would be:

What role, if any, does forgiveness on the part of a victim play in the sentencing of a criminal?

Can remorse (or lack thereof) on the part of a criminal play a role in the severity of his sentence?

I'm trying to find any actual statute language or legal opinions that address these types of questions, as well as any examples of actual cases in which forgiveness or remorse played a part.

If anyone knows of any good sources of information on this topic, I'd really appreciate it if you could email me at the address provided in the left sidebar.

Thanks.

-Cranky

Cartoon Wars: Here Beginneth The Lesson

The Catholic Church gets it. Or at least one Cardinal, a Cardinal considered papabile by many Vatican insiders, gets it.

Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria, who was a potential candidate for Pope at last year's Enclave, is calling for Catholics all across the globe to take legal action against The Da Vinci Code.

Legal action. Not a boycott, not a campaign to correct any falsehoods he believes are perpetrated by the book or film, both of which are works of fiction to begin with. Legal action.

What's "illegal" about Da Vinci? Cardinal Arinze, in an interview featured in a forthcoming documentary called The Da Vinci Code-A Masterful Deception, takes off his scarlet biretta and puts on his Eagles helmet: it's all about respect, yo.

"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specialising in religious affairs.
"Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others," Arinze said.
"This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected."

The Terrell Owens of Catholicism thinks it's against the law to disrespect or offend his Church or his savior. And I assume he believes this is true in every country on the planet, since he doesn't specify where this legal action should be taken.

Somebody learned his lesson:

"Those who blaspheme Christ and get away with it are exploiting the Christian readiness to forgive and to love even those who insult us. There are some other religions which if you insult their founder they will not be just talking. They will make it painfully clear to you," Arinze said.

Gee, I wonder what other religion he's talking about. I suppose the Cardinal thinks he's being collegial by not calling for full-scale riots.

Does anyone think Arinze spoke without the Pope's benediction?

Here beginneth the lesson of the Cartoon Wars.

Atwar Bahjat: The Kitty Genovese of Samarra

We have to stop this kind of stuff ASAP:

By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.

It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.

Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.

A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.

Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.

Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.

Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.

The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30.

This is the story of the murder of Atwar Bahjat. She was one of the new Iraq's top TV journalists until she was abducted and killed after reporting live from the outskirts of Samarra on February 22. Earlier that day, Samarra's golden-domed Shi'ite mosque had been blown up, either by Sunni terrorists or by a faction that wanted it thought that it was Sunni terrorists.

Roadblocks prevented her from entering the city and her anxiety was obvious to everyone who saw her final report. Night was falling and tensions were high.
Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man.
We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.

A friend of Bahjat reveals other details of her horrible death:

The friend, who cannot be identified, knew nothing of her beheading but had been guarding other horrifying details of Bahjat’s ordeal. She had nine drill holes in her right arm and 10 in her left, he said. The drill had also been applied to her legs, her navel and her right eye. One can only hope that these mutilations were made after her death.

We don't know what side, what faction, what religious sect is responsible for this savagery, which may be the first atrocity committed by an Iraqi death squad that has been captured on video. Her fearless reporting seems to have angered Shi'ite and Sunni extremists, along with al Qaeda in Iraq.

Bahjat, with her professionalism and impartiality as a half-Shi’ite, half-Sunni, would have been the first to warn against any hasty conclusions, however. The uniforms seem to be those of the Iraqi National Guard but that does not mean she was murdered by guardsmen. The fatigues could have been stolen for disguise.
A source linked to the Sunni insurgency who supplied the film to The Sunday Times in London claimed it had come from a mobile phone found on the body of a Shi’ite Badr Brigade member killed during fighting in Baghdad.
But there is no evidence the Iranian-backed Badr militia was responsible. Indeed, there are conflicting indications. The drill is said to be a popular tool of torture with the Badr Brigade. But beheading is a hallmark of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Sunni Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
According to a report that was circulating after Bahjat’s murder, she had enraged the Shi’ite militias during her coverage of the bombing of the Samarra shrine by filming the interior minister, Bayan Jabr, ordering police to release two Iranians they had arrested.
There is no confirmation of this and the Badr Brigade, with which she maintained good relations, protected her family after her funeral came under attack in Baghdad from a bomber and then from a gunman. Three people died that day.
Bahjat’s reporting of terrorist attacks and denunciations of violence to a wide audience across the Middle East made her plenty of enemies among both Shi’ite and Sunni gunmen. Death threats from Sunnis drove her away to Qatar for a spell but she believed her place was in Iraq and she returned to frontline reporting despite the risks.

It is obviously important that Bahjat's killers be brought to justice. However, of more importance is the elimination of the conditions that allow subhuman thugs on any side (or no side) to operate freely while Iraqi citizens stand by and turn Bahjat into the Kitty Genovese of Samarra.

[T]he manner of her death testifies to the breakdown of law, order and justice that she so bravely highlighted and illustrates the importance of a cause she espoused with passion.
Bahjat advocated the unity of Iraq and saw her golden locket as a symbol of her belief. She put it with her customary on-air eloquence on the last day of her life: “Whether you are a Sunni, a Shi’ite or a Kurd, there is no difference between Iraqis united in fear for this nation.”

Whoever did this, there is no escaping that ultimately this is our responsibility. Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn rule" may not properly apply to Pottery Barn, but it is still viable, at least to a certain extent, for countries we liberate from sadistic tyrants. I may be starting to sound like a broken record, but it's my considered opinion that the murder of Atwar Bahjat was made possible by Donald Rumsfeld's refusal to listen when people in positions to know told him we needed more boots on the ground to properly handle Iraq's reconstruction.

We have to stop this kind of stuff ASAP.

Update: Mudville Gazette, Jeff

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