Date ►►► January 31, 2006

Sheehan Demands Impeachment of Hillary, Kerry, Reid, Pelosi

Impeachment, conviction, removel from office, and that they all be tried for "crimes against humanity."

What, really? Well, perhaps Cindy Sheehan didn't even know that was what she was doing. But earlier today, in the little "alternative State of the Union" event sponsored jointly by CODEPINK and the Elves, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society, alongside fellow nutbags Ramsey Clark, David Swanson, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and like-minded souls, Sheehan declared that "anyone who said anything about Saddam and WMDs" should be impeached, removed, and tried for crimes against humanity. Cushlamochree!

I will be charitable and assume she meant only those who agreed with the CIA, the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, Downing Street, Jacques Chirac, Gerhardt Schroeder, and Vladimir Putin that Saddam Hussein actually did have WMD (which he did; we found tons)... not literally everyone who said anything (which would include people who denied it). But even so, that dragnet would scoop up nearly every prominent Democrat in the House and Senate leadership.

After the PINKFIZZ, Lynn Woolsey -- representative of Marin and Sonoma counties, a.k.a. "whine country" -- invited Sheehan to watch the actual State of the Union address (Gallery 5, seat 7, row A, if anybody cares), on Sheehan's parole not to do anything disruptive. Woolsey gave her the ticket, and Sheehad scuttled up to the House Gallery... whereupon she was promptly cuffed and busted for unlawfully demonstrating by unfurling her t-shirt, emblazoned with an anti-war slogan.

(I wonder how Rep. Woolsey feels now about wasting a precious ticket on Mother "I Can't Keep My Word For Two Minutes" Sheehan? And speaking of which -- when was the last time Sheehan saw her son? She has another, you know, besides Casey. Or her husband, for that matter.)

And now that you bring up Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union -- no word whether Zell Miller or his brother Dennis was to give the alternative Democratic response -- I had a hard time with one phrase Kaine used. I can't make out what it means; perhaps one of the commenters can enlighten me.

Kaine demanded that the government confiscate, through extra taxes, the "excess profits" of oil companies as a way to make gasoline more abundant. My question is, what exactly is an excess profit? Kaine must have had some formula in mind, but danged if I can suss it out from his statement. As a small business owner, I don't see any level of profit as "excess," however beyond my reach it may be.

Oh well. Just another day in the life of the reality-based party.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 31, 2006, at the time of 9:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Two-Edged Sword

In another rare disagreement with one of my favorite bloggers at my favorite blog, Power Line -- Paul this time, not John -- I have to take exception to what Paul calls the "Alito rule":

This was basically a straight party line vote -- 90 percent of the Democrats voted no. The vote changes the "rules" for confirming Supreme Court Justices. Under the Alito rule, Senators will vote against highly qualified nominee for no reason other than that they expect the nominee to rule contrary to their preference on major issues. Under the Alito rule, the president's party, in effect, must control the Senate in order for the president to have top-notch nominees of his choice confirmed. When the the president's party doesn't control the Senate, only compromise nominees acceptable to both parties can expect to be confirmed.

Typically, I find Paul more equivocal than I; but this time, our roles are reverse: I think Paul draws too sweeping a conclusion.

In fact, I believe that the Alito Rule -- party-line vote for Supreme-Court nominees in the Senate -- will apply in the future only when the president is a Republican. When a Democrat is in the White House and nominates a controversial but highly regarded leftist to the Court, the Republicans will be unable or unwilling to use the "Alito Rule" against him: they will vote for the nominee the same way they voted for Ginsburg and Breyer.

Republicans have proven over and over that on certain issues, they will take the high road, following their own consciences, whatever that may entail, even when the position is a political loser; in fact, even when it's political party suicide. Look at Sen. Arlen Specter calling for hearings into the NSA al-Qaeda-tapping program, or to conservative Republicans who vote against the president's position on any number of issues, from drilling in ANWR to reforming Social Security to banning partial-birth abortion.

Notwithstanding the foul, revolting Democratic revolt against Samuel Alito, in which they finally stooped all the way down to personal vilification and out and out slander -- if there were not an exception carved out for speeches on the floor of Congress, a number of Democratic senators would find themselves in civil court -- I see no evidence that Republicans plan on following suit the next time a Democratic president nominates another Ginsburg. Rather, they will complain bitterly, recall the Alito mini-fili and the near party-line vote, lecture the Democrats -- and then hold their noses and once again vote for the qualified but far-left nominee.

It's simply one element of the Culture of Clarity that permeates the Republican Party. And the Democrats know it... they would never dare push the envelope as they do if they thought the GOP would respond in kind.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 31, 2006, at the time of 3:25 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 30, 2006

Dynamics of a Smear

I always find it wryly amusing, the mental gymnastics that liberals will undertake just to "prove" that conservatives are really just racists. Which, of course, they knew all along; so it's jolly convenient that their studies keep proving it over and over.

For example, when sociologists decide to investigate whether there is a correlation between supporting George W. Bush and harboring ill will towards blacks:

For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias that measures the speed of people's associations between black or white faces and positive or negative words. The researchers examined correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes and voting behavior in all 435 congressional districts.

The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces -- evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.

The fallacy here is, naturally, the error of predetermined causality: is the correlation between Bush voters and people who find it "more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces" due to innate racism? And if so, do racists just naturally tend to gravitate towards Bush?

Or could it be that when blacks learn that a Caucasian is a Republican, they direct such a torrent of hate and racial bigotry towards him that they virtually guarantee that he won't be able to associate his tormenters with "positive concepts?"

And what exactly constitutes a "positive concept" in the first place? Would the list include tolerance of those who believe differently, a belief that everyone should be treated equally regardless of race, and basic fairness? Why should we assume that every subculture in the United States is equally provisioned with these virtues?

If black leaders -- such as Harry Belafonte, Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Barak Obama -- to the enthusisatic applause and cheering of ordinary, middle-class blacks, routinely show rampant and hysterical intolerance of anyone to their right; if they prattle incessantly about racial preferences and "reparations" for slavery; if bad employees who happen to be black constantly threaten an EEOC lawsuit whenever a company tries to let them go -- is it really a racist reaction for someone to have a hard time associating various "positive concepts" with blacks, given the recent history?

It's like showing pictures of Arab faces to Israeli Jews and concluding that the latter must be racially prejudiced, because they have a hard time associating "positive concepts" with Achmed, Ramzi, and Mohammed.

But if such wariness is a rational response, then this study shows only that districts that produce more Bush voters are likewise more rational; while districts that produce more Democratic voters are more likely to be living in a fantasy of cultural relativism, where every culture is equally good, and we cannot in fact even judge them except by their own terms.

For this to say anything about latent racism, we must first assume that Republicans have no more reason to be wary of blacks than do Democrats... which is of course patent nonsense: of course we do, because blacks are so much more likely to hate Republicans than Democrats (many blacks do not hate Democrats... they despise them, which is an altogether different emotional response, albeit no less ugly).

When prominent blacks make a point of not "hating Whitey," as David Horowitz titled a book he edited, then those blacks typically come under vicious attack by the civil-rights community as Uncle Toms and Aunt Jemimas -- and Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elderberry, Condoleezza Rice, and Michael Steel could all give you an earful about it.

I would bet that if the authors of this study were to ask the same questions of blacks, they would find an even larger percent of black Republicans who have a hard time associating those "positive concepts" with black faces. It would not, however, be "self-hatred" or prejudice, but rather post-judice: black Republicans have an enormous load of history to back up their angry reaction to most "brothers." How do you love someone who nakedly hates you?

But the Washington Post, which carried this article, wasted no opportunity to use the study as a stick to bash Republicans:

Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation....

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."

I'm sure... but how much is "research" like this study?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 30, 2006, at the time of 11:29 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

The Filly Buster Gets Busted!

I believe the era of the judicial filbuster is at an end... without the "nuclear option" ever being put into effect.

Just a moment ago, the ballyhooed Democratic filibuster against popular Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito -- the man that Ted Kennedy, John F. Kerry, and now Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, and Hillary Clinton declared their number-one target to keep off the Court -- collapsed ignominiously, when the Democratic radicals could not even muster the forty-one votes necessary even to force the Republicans to whip out their "constitutional option," a Senate rules change to forbid filibusters of judicial nominees.

In fact, they could only get twenty-five votes against cloture.

Majority Leader Bill Frist believes he has the votes to push the constitutional option through... but it can only be done if the Democrats successfully prevent cloture. If they can't even do that, there is nothing to change the rules about.

This doesn't mean they can't be changed at the beginning of the next Congress (January, 2007); in fact, that might be a better time anyway, since no special procedures would be necessary: at the beginning of each Congress (or perhaps each legislative session -- I'm not entirely sure), the Senate (like the House) must vote to renew its own rules. At that time, changes made are simply voted on, requiring a mere majority and no special parliamentary rulings from the president of the Senate.

While I would much prefer seeing the constitutional option enacted -- and not just for judicial but for every appointment, as the argument against filibustering John Bolton is identical to the argument against filibustering Samuel Alito -- the reality is that if fear of the constitutional option makes it impossible for the Democrats to filibuster the latter, their number-one target, they won't be able to filibuster anyone else, either. After the extremity of the rhetoric against Alito, how do the Senate Democrats justify filibustering the next nominee for any level of federal judge, from district to Supreme Court? Do they say the next target is not just Hitler, he's Hitler squared?

But the real losers here are the formerly rational-sounding Democrats, such as Dianne Feinstein and (heh) Hillary Clinton, who allowed Kerry and Kennedy to twist their arms into publicly supporting the doomed filibuster. Does anyone think this won't be brought up again and again in 2008, when the latter is running a presidential campaign that will be as doomed as was this last, desperate lunge at the brass Alito?

It will also be brought up repeatedly in adverts this year -- and while Feinstein is unassailable, the more radical the Democratic Party makes itself, the more close votes will fall on the Republican side in numerous states:

• Pennsylvania, where Republican Rick Santorum is strugling to hang onto his seat
• Florida, where Democrat Bill Nelson hopes to stave off Katherine Harris and Mark Foley
• Maryland, where an open Democratic seat is being challenged by rising-star Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele
• Minnesota, where Evacuatin' Dayton is not running for reelection, and Republican Mark Kennedy is poised to give Minne-So-Cold a clean sweep among the top offices
• Missouri, where Republican Jim Talent wants a full term
• Montana, where Republican Conrad Burns was nearly unseated in 2000
• North Dakota, where Democrat Kent Conrad, who thought he had dodged a bullet when Gov. John Hoeven decided not to run against him, might now find himself in danger again
• Nebraska, where Democrat Ben Nelson is running for reelection in a state that went for Bush over Kerry by thirty points
• New Jersey, where Jon Corzine's appointed successor, Robert Menendez, is up for his confirmation election against Tom Kean, jr, the son of the popular former governor
• Ohio where Republican Mike DeWine was mentioned earlier as a target of the Democrats
• Tennessee, where Bill Frist is stepping down, and the GOP has an open seat to defend
• Washington, where Maria Cantwell knocked off Republican incumbent Slade Gorton in 2000 but is now in a desperate fight herself for reelection
• West Virginia, where senile Democrat Robert Byrd is trying for his 74th term in the Senate

That this filibuster attempt works against the Democrats in the midterms in November is demonstrated by the fact that all five of the incumbent Democrats running for reelection in the above list voted for cloture, against the filibuster.

Why did they do it? Why were so many Democrats suckered into joining this foolish demonstration of their own radicalism? I can understand Patrick Leahy, who plays to the MoveOn/Soros crowd anyway... but Dianne Feinstein? She has never been seriously threatened in any of her reelection campaigns, and certainly there is no Republican with state-wide standing within California who can do so -- and the Cindy Sheehan "challenge" from the Left is simply ludicrous. Feinstein had nothing to gain and much to lose, in terms of her carefully built reputation as a moderate centrist -- in contrast to her wild-eyed colleague, Barbara Boxer.

And then of course... there's Hillary. For years, ever since at least 2002, Hillary Clinton has built a wall of moderation around her radical history, brick by careful brick. A wall that is now dashed to rubble around her feet, as she has thrown away any centrist image she might have generated among moderates and the Right by joining a filibuster against a nominee with 2-1 support among voters.

Nor will this gain her anything among the Sorosiacs: the fact that she has supported Operation Iraqi Freedom, both with her votes and, more important, her rhetoric, seals her fate with that crowd. If Cindy Sheehan thought she could get away with it, she would challenge Hillary Clinton as well as DiFi.

But that is the future; for right now, the fact is that Samuel Alito has just cleared the last procedural hurdle before being quickly confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice tomorrow (easily o'erleapt, actually -- at least seventeen Democrats voted for cloture, where Alito needed only five); and the Democrats have made themselves look foolish for nothing.

So what else is new?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 30, 2006, at the time of 2:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 29, 2006

New Iraqi Judge Takes Saddam, Lawyers In Hand

After the previous senior judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, left in a snit, following intense criticism across Iraq that he had allowed Hussein to seize control of his own trial and use it as a platform for his semi-coherent rants about how badly he was being treated, the new judge who replaced Amin appears to be a "new broom."

Raouf Rasheen Abdel-Rahman began his tenure by expelling one defendant and one of the defense lawyers for shouting at the court. When the entire defense team threatened to walk out, rather than placate them, Abdel-Rahman let them go, appointed temporary defense counsel for that day, and continued with the trial in the absence of one of the defendants and the defense team:

The session, which was the first since Dec. 22, rapidly degenerated into chaos. [Barzan] Ibrahim [Saddam Hussein's half brother] called the court "the daughter of a whore" and refused to sit down. Abdel-Rahman ordered him removed, and Ibrahim scuffled with two guards before they dragged him out of the courtroom.

Then defense lawyer Salih al-Armouti, a Jordanian, was forcibly removed from the court for yelling at Abdel-Rahman.

The entire defense team walked out in protest. "This is an unjust and illegitimate court," Khalil al-Dulaimi, Saddam's chief lawyer, told the judge on the way out.

At that point, Saddam Hussein began to rant, so he, too, was calmly ordered removed by the new judge. Three witnesses to Hussein's brutality gave their testimony, as the trial proceeded in relative peace. I suspect this entire charade was deliberately staged, in order to test the new judge and see if he would be as pliant as the old. Alas for the defense team, Judge Abdel-Rahman passed with flying colors.

I am much happier with this new judge than I was with Judge Amin -- who I felt gave Hussein and his grandstanding defense lawyers (including American traitor Ramsey Clark) too much latitude to turn the trial into a three-ring circus, or whatever Arabs say when they mean to say a circus... a forty-tent bazaar?

Hussein and his seven co-defendants face a possible sentence of death by hanging:

Defense lawyers criticized the tough approach, saying it was preventing Saddam and his seven co-defendants from getting a fair trial. The eight could face death by hanging if convicted in the killing of at least 140 Shiites after a July 1982 attempt on Saddam's life in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

Naturally, "critics" of the trial -- which means the Left in America and Europe -- are already denouncing the new Judge Abdel-Rahman for not giving the defendants a fair trial. They see the trial as a forum for their new innocent martyr, Saddam Hussein, to "testify" (by outbursts) against the "real villain," who should actually be in the dock instead of Hussein, in many leftists' opinions: George W. Bush. But clearly, Abdel-Rahman plans to keep the focus where it should be... on the question of whether Hussein and his henchmen tortured to death nearly a gross of innocent citizens of a town that had the unfortunate distinction of being the location of one of the assassination attempts of the dictator.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who is part of Saddam's defense team but did not attend Sunday's session, denounced the court as "lawless" and repeated calls for it to be moved out of Iraq. [To where... the Hague? Or the International Court of Leftist Opinion at Harvard? - the Mgt.]

"Now the court is seated without the defendants' counsel of choice. This is wrong," Clark said, speaking from New York....

Richard Dicker, the head of the International Justice Program at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the failure to question the witnesses was "probably the most disturbing part of the day."

"The events take us further away from the basic practices of fairness that are necessary in any trial and especially in a trial of this significance," he said.

Ibrahim's comments were "clearly provocative and disrespectful," but Abdel-Rahman was "a little too trigger-happy," he told The Associated Press....

Critics have said the turmoil gives credence to claims that Saddam cannot get a fair trial in a country torn apart by ethnic, religious and tribal divisions and an insurgency comprising large numbers of his supporters.

Michael Scharf, an international law professor who helped train judges for the trial, said Abdel-Rahman has to walk a "tightrope" between maintaining order and fairness.

"The risk is that the judge's tactics will be viewed as too heavy-handed and therefore unfair," said Scharf, head of the international law center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Note that, despite Yahoo's insinuating description above, Michael Scharf does not appear to be one of those "critics." He has been blogging on the Case School of Law website, and his comments seem quite even-handed and temperate. See this entry from January 17th, for example:

This changing of the guard [after Amin quit but before a successor was named] should not be seen as a sign that Judge Amin had bungled the trial (as his critics have asserted). Despite the frequent (and sometimes successful) attempts by the defendants to disrupt and derail the proceedings, in just five trial days (October 19, November 28, December 5, December 21 and December 22), the prosecutor completed an opening statement, and fourteen witnesses testified and were cross-examined by the defense -- a very efficient pace even by American judicial standards. With forty witnesses still to go, the prosecution has already proven the scale of the atrocities, the direct involvement of several of Hussein's co-defendants, and the command hierarchy - the key elements necessary for a conviction in this case. And especially for those who understand Arabic, the testimony of Saddam's victims has been both moving and compelling....

Judge al-Hamash [originally thought to be likely to replace Amin, until al-Hamash came under suspicion of having himself been a secret member of the Baath Party] can use his new position to instill a greater degree of control on the proceedings. He can, for example, insist that for now on Saddam Hussein only speak through his lawyer, rather than address the court and the witnesses directly, except when it is the defendant's turn to testify as a witness on his own behalf. And Judge al-Hamash can enforce this by removing the microphones from the defendants' dock, so that the televised coverage does not pick up any disruptive outbursts....

In taking such actions, Judge al-Hamash must be extremely careful not to appear too heavy handed. If Judge al-Hamash yells at the defendants, for example, as Judge Richard May did during the Milosevic trial at The Hague, it will only play into the defense strategy of trying to cast the proceedings as unfair and illegitimate. As Judge Amin understood, in the long run, it is far more important that the trial be seen as scrupulously fair than for the judge to be seen as winning the battle of the wills against Saddam Hussein.

This strikes me as very fair commentary -- and not as the words of a mere "critic" of the trial, as Yahoo News painted Scharf.

So it appears that the trial is now back on course, after former Judge Amin showed himself a bit too accomodating to Hussein's erratic behavior. Hussein clearly imagines himself still president of Iraq. From the Yahoo News story:

When the [new] judge [Abdel-Rahman] ordered guards to remove him, Saddam — holding a Quran under his arm — became indignant, saying he was choosing to go and referring to his time in power.

"For 35 years I led you, and you say, 'Eject him?'" Saddam said.

"I am a judge and you are a defendant," Abdel-Rahman replied. "And you have violated order in the court. I am implementing the law."

I'm sure Hussein will not quit, however, nor will his unseemly defense team. Hussein will keep energetically trying to derail the proceedings. But as the expression goes, he can rest when he's dead.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 29, 2006, at the time of 4:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Hillary Comes Crawling Back, Chapter Two

In the previous chapter, we met an anxious Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham furiously tacking left by denouncing Bush's international al-Qaeda surveillance program, indicating rather a bit of desperation in her quest for the Democratic nomination.

On Friday, she poured more gasoline on the doubt-fire by throwing in her lot with Massachusetts Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy and JFK and joining the nascent filibuster against Judge Samuel Alito... a filibuster doomed to failure (on several fronts): not enough Democrats, no support within the rank and file, the certainty of the constitutional option if they manage to scrape up forty-one senators, and the strong popular support for Alito within the American voting public.

Sen. Hillary Clinton yesterday backed a rebel band of Senate Dems seeking to filibuster a vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito.

Democratic leaders had warned that filibuster efforts were going nowhere and would let President Bush score easy political points, but Clinton said, "I oppose his nomination and support efforts to block his confirmation."

"I do not think Judge Alito would advance the principles Americans hold most dear," she said, adding she would vote against a move to cut off a filibuster should one occur.

So after several years of positioning herself as a "centrist," the Semi-Divine Ms. C. is busily throwing all that work away in an increasingly hysterical tack to the left. This is not the action of a woman confident of the Democratic nomination, but rather one seeing it flutter out the window, as the Democratic Party lurches further into the fever swamp of Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, and Howard the Dean. This is a portrait of a woman astride a merry-go-round horse, on her last time 'round, seeing the brass ring pulling further into the distance behind her -- and she makes a last, desperate lunge for it....

And topples off onto the ground, dazed and stunned, wondering what just happened. Bye, bye, Blackbird.

As I said last time,

The fact that Clinton now finds it necessary to reassure the Democratic base that she does too suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome -- evidently a litmus test for nomination -- tells me that she is starting to get nervous about 2008, despite her likely easy win in her reelection this year. Look for the bipartisan "Sunday morning Hillary" to go MIA, and the shrill and screechy "Saturday night Hillary" to reappear from whatever limbo she has been banished to these last few years.

I don't think it will help; it will only solidify the belief, among both Left and Right, that she is just an opportunist who will say or do anything to get elected... and not even as good a one as her husband.

I see no reason to moderate or temporize this analysis, so I double down and let it ride.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 29, 2006, at the time of 9:55 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 28, 2006

The Delirious Democratic Dichotomy

In debate, there is a fallacy called the false dichotomy. This is best exemplified by the structure of the argument made by creationists (or followers of "intelligent design," which amounts to the same thing as creationism): creationists cannot prove their thesis, because it involves a one-time intervention by an "intelligent watchmaker" that isn't being repeated anymore. So instead, they content themselves with trying to poke holes in evolutionary theory (which they insist upon calling "Darwinism," even while they reject, with puzzlement, the label "Wilberforcism" for their own ideas). The structural theory of the argument runs thus:

Since there are only two possible alternatives -- evolutionary theory as of this moment or creationism -- then if we can "prove" that current evolutionary theory doesn't explain every, single observed fact, then logically, people must reject current evolutionary theory and take up creationism instead.

The fallacy, of course, is in the first subordinate clause: it's demonstrably false that "there are only two possible alternatives." For one thing, if indeed a fact is found that contradicts current evolutionary theory, then under the rules of science, the theory would be changed to accomodate the new observation; that is the way science always proceeds (and far from being a "weakness" of science, that is its greatest strength).

The revised theory would then be a third alternative to the first two. Hence, the fallacy of the false dichotomy.

It took a while for the penny to drop, but I finally understand why the Democrats argue the way they do. And if you've read up to this point, then you're probably way ahead of me: clearly, it is now the Democrats who operate under the same false dichotomy: Democrats have convinced themselves that the only alternative to George Bush is Harry Reid... so if they can get voters to dislike Bush or his policies, the voters must necessarily flock to the Democrats in 2006 and 2008.

This is why Democrats have not bothered putting forth any unique plans, agenda, or platforms of their own. There is no need, since, in the Democratic playbook, attacking Bush and the Republicans is the same thing as putting forth a positive Democratic agenda... and it's much easier and lot more fun.

Alas for the Democrats, if this were really a good argument, then the American people should have flocked to the Democrats in 2004; in fact, Bush not only got more voters than he did in 2000, he got a larger share of all the votes, a clear majority this time. And 2000 was before the Democratic campaign had such success in demonizing the president. More tellingly, Bush in 2004 got more votes than the Republicans got in 2002, when Bush's approval rating was still sky high from the 9/11 effect. Clearly, souring on Bush does not equate with supporting the Democrats.

Yet this year, they plan to run, once again, on the platform "we're not Republicans, and we hate Bush." Whoever is their nominee in 2008, his primary argument will doubtless be "I am the anti-Bush -- whatever Bush did I will undo, whatever he prevented I will promote and applaud." They may as well change their name to the Gainsayer Party.

Or the Kramer party. There was an episode of Seinfeld when a man collapsed from some medical ailment in Jerry's apartment; Jerry (I think) said, "quick, elevate his feet to get blood to his head!" Whereupon a hysterical Cosmo Kramer immediately shouted, "no, elevate his head to get blood to his feet!" That's Reid and Pelosi, on a nutshell.

The problem with this approach is, of course, just the same as with the creationists' argument: Bush and Reid are not the only two alternatives. And just as the response of evolutionary theory to a fact that doesn't fit is not to throw out the fact, but rather to remake the theory so that it does take that fact into account... so too is the most natural Republican response to voter rejection of some of Bush's agenda to remake the GOP agenda in ways different from those of George W. Bush, but still consonant with Republicanism.

This November, scores of Republican senators and representatives will agree with their constituents that Bush's proposals on X, Y, and Z issues won't work -- but will offer a different, yet still Republican-based proposal for dealing with them instead. If Bush is wise, he will embrace as many of these as he can, in order to meet more of his goals, albeit by different means.

And in 2008, not just the Democrats but also the Republicans will be running an anti-Bush campaign, to some extent. George Allen and John McCain will each be saying, anent some issues, "Bush's goals were laudable, but his specific policies failed... and here is how I will go about achieving those same goals differently." It will be a powerful argument, dashing Democratic hopes that as the American people turn against Bush (mostly because of false accusation), they will necessarily flip towards the Democratic Left.

The American voter has clearly demonstrated over the past few years that he thinks the Republican agenda is the worst one possible for the country... except for all the other parties' agendas. So it turns out, in the end, that the Republicans in Congress are no dumber than the American voter -- but the Democrats are.

Surprise, surprise, on the jungle cruise tonight.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 28, 2006, at the time of 5:31 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Patterico Channels Big Lizards!

In this passionate and snarly post, Patterico rightly takes the L.A. Slimes to task for being unwilling to bring itself to call Hamas a terrorist organization (though they seem to have no trouble calling the Bush administration one).

Of course, Pat is right; he is nearly always right, excepting only when he disagrees with Big Lizards. But in this case, he may have taken his agreement with us too far -- actually manifesting symptoms of our own ridiculous affectation of bolding lots of phrases in order to emphasize the important bits, as if the esteemed readers were too dense to get them on their own.

Compare this passage of Patterico, for example, to virtually any Big Lizards post:

It is, quite simply, a murderous, terrorist organization. That’s not all it is, of course. It is also a selfless creator of hospitals and schools — just like that other selfless creator of hospitals and schools, Al Qaeda. But its creation of hospitals and schools doesn’t change the fact that it is a terrorist organization.

A news organization that can’t admit this — such your newspaper, Michael — has a real credibility problem. To call this “picking at minor issues of syntax and diction” is to trivialize a very serious complaint about the paper’s willingness to speak simple truths.

Or this:

Kim Jong Il is evil. Hamas is a terrorist organization. If you can’t bring yourselves to acknowledge and articulate such obvious facts, how can you expect anyone rational to trust you?

Or even this:

Let’s say, hypothetically, that I were to write the following:

Although Adolf Hitler has been branded by the Allies as a racist who has ordered massive genocide, he built autobahns, liked dogs, and was a vegetarian.

Big Lizards' insistance upon liberal use of boldface, or "paint," as we say in the business (and by "the business," I of course mean the industry), which most readers confidently cite as a sign of senile dementia on the part of the reptillian authors, has now infected what was once one of the highest regarded rocks of the blogosphere. Even worse than when Patterico allows the Mad Mollusk to guest post.

(In fact, Patterico does have a long history of bad taste in guest posters; we understand he used to allow some brain-shrivled Welshman to post on his site under the improbable nom de plume of "Dafydd ab Hugh.")

We worry that Patterico may begin to pick up some of our other nasty habits; soon we may find him dropping rocks and tree stumps on cars from a freeway overpass -- lying curled in an opium den on Los Angeles Street, visions of candied gallstones dancing in his head -- raising yak -- heading for Skid Row dressed as a lamp-post, waiting for a bum, and belting out a couple of choruses of "There's no business like show business like no business I know!"

If he continues emulating Big Lizards, he may soon quit his job and go to work as a male model, invest in Beano futures, regurgitate worms into the mouths of his children, vote for Hillary Swank, and attend random funerals in the Greater Los Angeles area wearing coral-pink cowboy boots, Groucho glasses, and a glow-in-the-dark "Disco Bigfoot" tie.

It's time for Patterico to take himself in hand. There is only one Big Lizards. Actually, there must be at least two, since the name is plural... but you know what I mean. Unless he's come to demonstrate his prowess on the 20-foot alpenhorn, he is better off eschewing the demented annoyances of Blog Lizards and working on some demented annoyances of his own. We have the patent on paint!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 28, 2006, at the time of 6:50 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 27, 2006

Freedom From Religion

So now we know:

Priest May Be Tried for Saying Jesus Existed
Associated Press
January 27, 2006

VITERBO, Italy — An Italian judge heard arguments Friday on whether a small-town parish priest should stand trial for asserting that Jesus Christ existed.

The priest's atheist accuser, Luigi Cascioli, says the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people for 2,000 years with a fable that Christ existed, and that the Rev. Enrico Righi violated two Italian laws by reasserting the claim....

"The point is not to establish whether Jesus existed or not, but if there is a question of possible fraud," Cascioli's attorney, Mauro Fonzo, told reporters before the hearing.

Cascioli says the church has been gaining financially by "impersonating" as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.

He has said he has little hope of the case succeeding in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy, but that he is merely going through the necessary legal steps to reach the European Court of Human Rights, where he intends to accuse the church of what he calls "religious racism."

Now we know what atheists really want: not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion... and to paracontextualize Erich Fromm, atheists want an "escape from freedom."

It's not that they simply don't want you to force your beliefs on them; they don't want you to have the freedom to have beliefs that contradict theirs in the first place... for if Cascioli wins his case, Christianity will be outlawed in Italy.

Thanks for the heads up, Mr. Cascioli!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 27, 2006, at the time of 7:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Predictions, Predilections

Very quick predictions. No long explanations.

1. Hamas will discover that having a thing is not so fine after all as wanting a thing. They are woefully unprepared actually to run a country -- or even the pseudo-kleptocracy of the Palestinian Authority -- and the PA will fairly quickly collapse into chaos... civil war between Hamas and Fatah, or worse: the Hobbesian war of all against all. The government will formally fall.
2. The Palestinian economy will shatter.
3. After a bloody few months, out of sheer necessity, a third party will arise, a professional political class. They will likely be ideologically fairly neutral -- sort of a Palestinian version of Kadima, call it Padima -- whose sole platform will be competence at the actual mechanics of governance.
4. New elections will be called, and Padima will win a sweeping victory over both Hamas and Fatah.
5. Hamas and Fatah will fade into complete political irrelevance, though they will still have armed factions (they'll end like Muqtada Sadr and his Mighty al-Mahdi Army).
6. Padima will have significant success at restarting the economy; all it will take will be an infusion of a bit of real Capitalism, rather than Arafatist corruption and Hamasian Islamism.
7. Eventually, one or two more real parties will split out from Padima, the way parties split out of the Federalists in the early 1800s here. These parties will be pragmatic politicians with somewhat differing ideologies... but the ideological differences will be akin to those between Likud and Labor, or the Conservatives and the Liberals, rather than murderous warfar as between Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, PIJ, and the PFLP. Then and only then will Palestine become an actual functioning democrazy.

I expect this process to take some time, but we will all live to see it. (Except those of you who choose to die abruptly in the next few years. But I can't help that!)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 27, 2006, at the time of 6:46 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Soft! Slowest! Weakest! Meagre! Tepid! Tumbling!

I must assume you are all shocked, shocked to see that the MSM have leapt upon the "soft" economic figures from the Commerce Department like a starving chick gulping a juicy worm. (As a sad aside, it must be nerve-wracking to be an editor on a major newspaper -- having to spend all day, every day hunting for the least bit of bad news for Bush you can find, in a state of incipient panic that today something good might have happened... and might be wrongly attributed by the rabble to That Man.)

And I must also conclude the fellows who brought you the story assume you will not read beyond the first couple of paragraphs; because if you dare, you will wonder at the end how they got the headlines they did.

First, of course, those all-important headlines. I have added the necessary punctuation:

Growth pace weakest in three years!

The U.S. economy ended 2005 on a surprisingly soft note as consumer spending grew at the slowest rate since 2001 and businesses were less eager to boost investment, a government report on Friday showed.

The Commerce Department said gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity within U.S. borders, expanded at a weak 1.1 percent annual rate in the October-December period -- little more than a quarter of the third quarter's 4.1 percent rate.

It was the weakest growth rate for any three months since 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002 and much below what Wall Street had anticipated, and initially sent stock futures and the dollar tumbling and bond prices soaring.

I'm not quite sure how 4Q05 can have grown "at the slowest rate since 2001" and also suffered "the weakest growth rate for any three months since 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002," but let that go. Either way, it means there has been at least thirty-six months of steady growth -- right? And pay attention to that keyword "initially" in the last paragraph.

Lackluster economic news adds to Bush's woes!!!

A surprisingly tepid report on the U.S. economy brought new perils to President George W. Bush as he prepared to unveil his 2006 agenda and struggled to help vulnerable Republicans in a congressional election year.

The meager 1.1 percent gain in U.S. fourth-quarter gross domestic product, reported by the Commerce Department, threatened to undercut Bush's argument his tax-cutting policies had set the stage for a thriving economy.

The GDP growth was the weakest in three years and marked an abrupt slowdown from the third quarter's 4.1 percent pace.

I will continue to quote more or less randomly from these two stories without bothering to distinguish them; it's really just one story split in two chapters -- which the MSM believes should be titled Chapter 11 and Chapter 13, naturally.

I suggested you should pay attention to the word "initially," as in "initially sent stock futures and the dollar tumbling and bond prices soaring." Because the very next few grafs read:

But later data showing a pickup in new home sales in December, together with speculation that some of the fourth-quarter slowdown might prove temporary, helped stocks rally strongly as the day wore on.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 97.74 points at 10,907.21 while the high tech-laden Nasdaq composite index added 21.23 points to close at 2,304.23. Strong earnings reports by blue-chip companies Microsoft Corp. and Procter & Gamble Co. stimulated buying.

Bond prices steadied after early volatile trading. By the end of the day, the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond ahead 5/32 in price to yield 4.696 percent against 4.707 percent on Thursday.

Benchmark 10-year notes, which jumped as much as 10/32 after the GDP report, were 1/32 higher and yielded 4.519 percent, down from 4.525 percent late on Thursday.

This is the part where you are permitted to shake your head. Had the president been one of those D people, rather than an R, the headline would have read Early 2006 Economic News Boosts Moderate Fourth Quarter Growth. I still haven't figured out which players in the MSM actually still believe they are impartial and unbiased and cannot understand why anyone would say otherwise -- and which ones know they are as partisan as Ted Kennedy but just cynically believe they can maintain the charade for the rest of their careers.

There are of course reasons why 4Q05 would be soft -- the Hurricane Katrina aftermath being chief among them, but also residual effects (on industry) of the high gas prices in summer and fall. But it's really irrelevant: the economy moves up and down by its very nature, which is why we pay more attention to the annual growth rate, not the rate in a particular quarter. Over 2005, GDP grew at 3.5%, which is very healthy and respectable and in fact much more pleasing to the Federal Reserve than 2004's somewhat breakneck growth of 4.2%. The Fed is far less likely to raise interest rates again in March if growth remains between 3% and 4%.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Household Survey, total employment rose 2.6 million from December 2004 to December 2005 (an increase of about 2%); the percent of the labor force employed rose from 62.4% to 62.8%.

The Payroll Survey (a.k.a. the Establishment Survey) shows an increase in payroll jobs (this doesn't include the self-employed or those employed by recent startups) of 2.0 million jobs from December to December (seasonally adjusted) with every single sector of employment rising -- including manufacturing. This is excellent news; if it continues, Bush will finish his administration having added about 10 million new jobs -- despite inheriting a recession from his predecessor, inheriting bin Laden and 9/11 from his predecessor, and fighting two major wars.

John Snow is absolutely correct:

Administration officials rushed to play down the latest GDP number, with Treasury Secretary John Snow and White House economic adviser Al Hubbard hitting the airwaves to insist the expansion was solid, job growth was strong and businesses were healthy.

"By virtue of every index of economic performance, we're going the right way," Treasury Secretary John Snow told a Vermont talk radio show.

People will believe what they choose to believe. I know for a fact that many liberals literally believe "we're in the midst of the worst economic downturn since a Republican caused the Great Depression." But I suspect that when people and their friends and neighbors are all personally doing well and have been for years, that they will not attach much voting significance to the economy -- no matter what they have been brainwashed into believing.

National security, however, is another issue entirely... one that, once again, will be the major theme of the 2006 elections, to the distress of one side of the aisle and the delight of the other.

But I must end on a high note. I absolutely love this grudging admission:

"If the first quarter is weak as well, this could pose some problems for Republicans," said Kenneth Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. "There's a lot of latent unhappiness out there...."

Mayer noted that blows to the economy from Hurricane Katrina and higher energy costs could mean the GDP figure was little more than "blip" whose impact would be short-lived.

So far, he said, "We are not talking about a recession."

Well that's mighty big of you, Mr. Mayer... considering that what we are talking about is GDP growth: most folks still define a recession as having actual, you know, shrinkage -- and for three quarters in a row. So yes, I suppose I would be forced to agree that twelve straight quarters of economic growth would not normally be associated with a "recession."

No matter what Howard Dean will have said by October.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 27, 2006, at the time of 5:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 26, 2006

Centrifuge "Spin Cycle"

All Europe is abuzz with Iran's recent tock towards the Russian proposal (following a tick against it, an earlier tock, and the original tick; I may have missed a few cycles of incoherence in there).

The Russian proposal, which I was originally somewhat attracted to myself, until I recently read the Guardian report discussed below, is that Iran cease all Uranium enrichment in exchange for being supplied with low-enriched Uranium by Russia. The Russian Uranium would be enriched enough to work in a power plant but not enough to function as a nuclear warhead.

Uranium is enriched in a centrifuge, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran admits to a casade of 164 of them at their Natanz pilot enrichment facility, above-ground. Currently, many of them appear not to be working, though "maintenance" (upgrading? building more of them?) continues.

(I had originally written "non-radioactive" above, but a commenter complained that ²³⁸U was, in fact, radioactive... which it is -- but so trivially that for practical, non-technical purposes, one may as well consider it not radioactive.)

Gas centrifuges spin UF6 [Uranium Hexaflouride] gas at high speeds creating a centrifugal force that separates the isotopes by forcing the heavier U-238 further outward in the centrifuge. Gas centrifuges have been used in Europe for about 30 years for enriching uranium.

So a proposal to supply Iran with 3% low-enriched Uranium would apparently solve the problem.

But the accent is on "apparently;" because if a report in the Guardian (and elsewhere) from August, 2005 about thousands of secret centrifuges underground at Natanz is even remotely accurate, it makes a dog's breakfast of the Russian proposal:

Meanwhile, it was claimed today that Iran had secretly manufactured around 4,000 centrifuges capable of weapons grade uranium enrichment - 25 times the quantity it has admitted to the UN.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, an exiled Iranian dissident who in 2002 helped to uncover almost two decades of covert Iranian nuclear activity, said the centrifuges - rotating machines used in separation processes - were ready to be installed at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz.

Mr Jafarzadeh, who runs Strategic Policy Consulting, a Washington-based thinktank focusing on Iran and Iraq, said the information - which he described as "very recent" - had come from sources within the Tehran regime that had proved to be accurate in the past.

"These 4,000 centrifuge machines have not been declared to the IAEA, and the regime has kept the production of these machines hidden from the inspectors while the negotiations with the EU have been going on over the past 21 months," Mr Jafarzadeh told the Associated Press.

The Wall Street Journal article linked above gives us some numbers:

The two main halls at the Natanz complex are buried beneath the sands of central Iran, and have room for some 50,000 centrifuges -- enough to produce a year's supply of low-enriched fuel for Iran's Bushehr power plant, or high-enriched uranium for 25 to 30 bombs annually. Iran, which has yet to master the intricacies of centrifuge production and large-batch enrichment, is believed to be years away from that.

The WSJ goes on to reassure us a bit that Iran is "years away" from "centrifuge production and large-batch enrichment;" but since they don't give us a source for that, we don't know if it's solid or simply denial.

But clearly, before any proposal like the Russian one is accepted by the EU-3 (Britain, France, and Germany), who are negotiating with Iran in a (probably futile) last-ditch diplomatic effort to resolve the crisis without resorting to sanctions or military action, we need to get better intelligence on the claim by Jafarzadeh of an army of secret centrifuges.

Since the CIA is too busy on its long-running, critical-priority operation to produce regime-change in the United States, and thus has no time to deal with such side issues as Iranian nuclear yields, perhaps we should ask the Israeli Mossad for help on this "burning" question.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 26, 2006, at the time of 4:54 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Filibuster Count: Two to Go

With today's pro-Alito declarations by Democratic Senators Tim Johnson (somewhat expected, given that Bush carried South Dakota by more than twenty-one points) and West Virginia's Robert Byrd, of all people, brings the total number of Democrats declaring they will vote for Samuel Alito, including Nebraska's Ben Nelson, to three.

One presumes that a senator willing to vote for Alito will likewise refuse to filibuster against him.

Thus, there are a minimum of three Democratic votes against filibustering Alito. While it's possible that some Republicans will vote against him -- keep an eye on the usual suspects -- I doubt any will go along with a filibuster. Thus, we need only consider Democratic votes for such a procedural brick wall.

There are 45 Democrats, counting Jumpin' Jim Jeffords (I-VT) as one of them (since that is the party with which he caucuses). They need 41 votes to sustain a filibuster, not taking the constitutional option into account. Thus, at the moment, the best they can get -- if every other Democrat cooperates -- is 42.

So if just two more Democrats declare support for Alito, it will, for all practical purposes, be impossible to filibuster Alito's confirmation vote... and that will likely open the floodgates. If the party crosses that threshold during debates, then all or nearly all will vote for cloture. In the actual vote, Alito will probably get about 60 senators voting for him.

But if no other Democrat declares between now and the vote, there might be a serious attempt to mount a filibuster -- not because they think they'll win, but rather to keep sucking up to the radical Left that increasingly controls the Democratic Party. We'll see an attempted filibuster that is broken (either by peeling off a couple of Democrats during the actual cloture vote or via the constitutional option immediately afterward), and Alito might end up with no more than 51 or 52 senators, claiming (or tying) the dubious title of narrowest Supreme Court confirmation ever (currently held by Clarence Thomas at 52-48).

So which hand will they choose? Will the Dems pull back from the brink? Or will they, like buffalo stampeded by "environmentally friendly" American Indians, charge blindly off the cliff, snorting and bellowing all the way down?

"Pretty," as Byrd might say; "pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty!"

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 26, 2006, at the time of 3:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

On Those Dadburned Elections In Arafatistan

As long-term Lizardites know, although I'm a big fan of Netanyahu, I completely support the Sharon plan of disengagement from the Palestinians by withdrawing settlements from Gaza and the West Bank.

The typical argument people make supporting the position of the incapacitated Ariel Sharon and his uncertain party Kadima is that by withdrawing from the occupied territories, the Palestinians will be mollified by the gesture and will reciprocate with peace and love and brotherhood. In fact, I utterly reject this argument -- I support the policy for other reasons discussed below -- and I have dismissed this wishful thinking ever since I first discussed the situation in Crystal Gaza on Captain's Quarters, back in August, 2005.

With Hamas's landslide victory yesterday in the Palestinian elections, my prediction -- that following withdrawal, Israel will have a freer hand for military response -- may finally be tested. In fact, the victory of Hamas is more complete than the victory of Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party Canada... Hamas won an absolute majority in the Palestinian parliament and will completely control the Palestinan Authority. As they insist they will maintain the party plank to destroy Israel, and they will not disband the military wing of Hamas, they have one of two choices:

• They can be hypocrites, calling for Israel's destruction but steadfastly refusing to do anything that Israel could take as casus belli; or,
• They can be honest, launch an attack on Israel, and be utterly crushed in the ensuing debacle.

Note that Mahmoud Abbas remains the elected president of the PA, having been separately elected last January, and will presumably remain so until the expiration of his term, whenever that is. (History is encouraging for Abbas, as the previous president's term in office appeared to be eternal... at least he himself met his own expiry date.) Abbas does become largely powerless and irrelevant with this election, and he might resign. Who knows?

I'm not surprised by this result; I was actually quite startled yesterday, when all the newsies were claiming that Fatah had won a narrow victory over Hamas, as that seemed highly unlikely. Today's clarification makes far more sense than yesterday's equivocation. In fact, my theory of the Middle East is better served by a Hamas victory in this election than the continued charade of the "peace process."

The existence of an alleged "road map to peace" (President Bush's biggest foreign-policy blind spot) drove the Israelis into continued negotiation and interaction with the Palestinian Arabs (nearly all Moslem). Because the Palestinians have the equivalent of a psychic allergy to Jews, blaming them for everything that has gone wrong in their lives and history, the continued forced intimacy of negotiations, checkpoints, patrols, and settlers kept the Palestinians in a state of continual hysteria and incipient panic. Imagine if Republicans exuded a pheromone that automatically tripled the level of adrenaline in nearly every Democrat they met, causing a perpetual anxiety attack. (Oh, wait -- we don't need to imagine that.)

In such a case, the only possible solution is complete and total disengagement: the Israeli settlers should remove themselves from the occupied territories -- and the Democrats should remove themselves from the United States (I would suggest Madagascar, but it may sound a bit too much like "NASCAR" for their comfort.) So disengagement in the Middle East serves a double purpose: it removes the Jews from the sight of panicked, irrational Arab Moslems, and it also clears the decks for a massive Israeli response in the event of an attack... which is actually very likely now.

I don't know Dennis Prager's reaction to this vote, but I would suspect he at least appreciates the "clarity" (his favorite word), and that is my position, too. Fatah was every bit as terrorist as Hamas in its means and every bit as genocidal in its goals; it simply wore a mask of humanity, pretending to support freedom, liberty, and tolerance. Hamas is more open but otherwise indistinguishable from Fatah.

...Except in one other particular: because of their openness, Hamas may well be driven by the excess of its own rhetoric to formally declare war on Israel, or else to launch a naked attack across the border -- not simply sponsoring suicidal murderers in Netanya or Tel Aviv, but actual masses of Hamas militants charging into Israel, à la 1948, 1967, and 1973. At which point, the legitimate purpose behind disengagement will be manifest: without thousands of hostages behind enemy lines, Israel will be able to respond as any sovereign nation would to invasion from another, without let or hinderance.

If Hamas has a sudden "road to Damascus" conversion and decides it loves life more than it hates the Jews, wonderful. But if they follow true to form, follow the will of the Palestinian people -- a "will" they have put there themselves through relentless propaganda -- and believe their own PR about Allah drawing his sword and fighting alongside the Hamas warriors to exterminate the Jews (in revenge for the Jews being the first to reject Mohammed as the final prophet), they will actually launch a war... and Israel will swiftly and convincingly pound them into little bits.

If the mullahs of Teheran are mad enough to join with them, they too will be defeated... and this would also give unassailable cover for Israel and the United States jointly to strike at Iran's nuclear power facilities and at the mullahs themselves.

Then -- and possibly only then, alas -- will real peace become possible... at least for ten or twelve years. Until the madness once again strikes the Palestinians, and we must go through the whole belly-dance of a "peace process," followed by a war process, followed by another temporary peace.

Wilhelm Reich famously dissected the Mass Psychology of Fascism; I wonder if he ever considered the Mass Bipolar Disorder of the Moslems?

Regardless, as Sachi often says, the absence of open war is not the same as peace. And sometimes, you just have to roll the dice.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 26, 2006, at the time of 2:24 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 25, 2006

With the Goo-Goo-Googley Eyes

Now let me see if I have gotten this bull by the tail, so I can look the facts in the face.

Google -- the search engine guys we all know and loathe -- made a big to-do earlier this month about refusing to cooperate with the United States government when the feds wanted to do some data-mining to see how many kids were accessing porn sites:

The exception among major search engines was Google Inc., which said it would "vigorously" fight the government's requests.

The government had asked Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., for a broad amount of data, including a million random Web addresses and records of Google searches over any week, the Associated Press reported....

Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., Yahoo, Sunnyvale, Calif., and AOL, Dulles, Va. unit of Time Warner Inc., said they provided the data without handing over personal information on subscribers.

"We did comply with their request for data in regards to helping protect children in a way that ensured we also protected the privacy of our customers," MSN spokesman Adam Sohn said in a statement. "We were able to share aggregated query data, not search results, that did not include any personally identifiable information at their request....”

While it appeared the government was not seeking personal data that would identify individuals, there was still reason for concern, Sullivan said. [Danny Sullivan is an editor of Search Engine Watch.]

"Nothing suggests that they wanted to know who did the searches in any way," Sullivan said. "Having said this, such a move absolutely should breed some paranoia. They didn't ask for data this time, but next time, they might."

All right, I can understand that; Google simply doesn't want to compromise its "Don't be evil" corporate motto (I rib you not) by climbing into bed with a government, rather than catering to its user base. Um... except when some real money might be at stake, that is. Then, they're willing to bed the Devil himself:

Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin said his company's decision to self-censor its Chinese search system followed a change of heart over how best to foster the free flow of information.

Google said on Tuesday it will block politically sensitive terms on its new China search site and not offer e-mail, chat and blog publishing services, which authorities fear can become flashpoints for social or political protest. Those actions go further than many of its biggest rivals in China....

"There is no question. Google would tell you that going into China is about making money, not bringing democracy," John Palfrey, author of a study on Chinese Internet censorship and a law professor at Harvard Law School, on Google's action.

Some uncharitable folks might purport to see some sort of dichotomy here: Google makes a big show about refusing to cooperate with the American government -- which won't punish them, even financially, for their petulance -- but they wriggle like a puppy for the Chinese government, which would have blocked them completely if they hadn't agreed to be, let's say, a little bit evil. Think of the money they would have lost by refusing just that miniscule bit of evilness!

But of course, Reuters hastens to reassure us, it's not just the Chinese who demand (successfully) that Google cooperate with censorship: there's Germany, France -- and of course the Great Satan of Censorship, George W. Bush and the Americans:

In different political circumstances, Google already notifies users of its German and French search services when it blocks access to material such as banned Nazi sites in Europe.

"France and Germany require censorship for Nazi sites, and the U.S. requires censorship based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). These various countries also have laws on child pornography," he said.

The DCMA law requires U.S. Internet service providers to block access to Web sites violating copyrights on materials such as music or movies.

Yeah, sure, Google is helping China block political sites, speech, and thoughts that might discomfit the one-party Communist dictatorship, maybe even opening the eyes of Chinese subjects to freedom and democracy. But America is just as bad, since they insist Google not participate in theft of copyrighted materials or the distribution of child pornography. Surely you can see the parallel!

Um, Mr. President Sergey Brin? Perhaps it's time to amend that corporate motto.

(Any readers of Big Lizards who would care to suggest a new, updated, and more accurate motto for Google, please leave a comment to that effect... bearing in mind the Reptillian Comment Policy, of course!)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 25, 2006, at the time of 11:53 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Hillary Comes Crawling Back

After tacking far to the right of the Democratic Party by supporting (however limply) the Iraq War, Hillary is now trying to tack back leftward by lambasting Bush for the NSA international surveillance program. Yet she manages to demonstrate some of the same incoherence her husband used to do.

Here is her main complaint:

"Obviously, I support tracking down terrorists. I think that's our obligation. But I think it can be done in a lawful way," the New York Democrat said.

All right; so her objection is that Bush should have followed the law. But wait....

Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, told reporters she did not yet know whether the administration's warrantless eavesdropping broke any laws. But the senator said she did not buy the White House's main justifications for the tactic.

Say, that's a pretty tricky balancing act: eavesdropping on al-Qaeda is bad because Bush didn't follow the law, but she's not actually sure whether Bush followed the law.

Here is another curious argument, referring to the attorney general's argument that Article II of the Constitution gives the president the authority to conduct surveillance for national-security purposes:

"Their argument that it's rooted in the Constitution inherently is kind of strange because we have FISA and FISA operated very effectively and it wasn't that hard to get their permission," she said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established by Congress to approve eavesdropping warrants, even retroactively, but Bush has argued that the process often takes too long.

The existence of FISA may well be an argument against the policy (a bad argument against the policy), but it certainly has nothing to do with the question of whether "the Constitution inherently" gives that authority to the commander in chief. This is logical gibberish... it's like saying that the argument that the right to bear arms is inherently rooted in the Second Amendment is "kind of strange" because we also have federal laws allowing the FBI to carry guns. It's a non-sequitur.

She buttresses her claim that the Article II argument is "kind of strange" by adding that the argument that the congressional Authorization of Miliary Force also confers that authority is "far-fetched." Under such withering legal reasoning, I'm not sure Bush has any alternative but to end the program immediately! Oh, wait... after she "blast[ed]" Bush for the program, she mysteriously failed to call for him to end it. Like the rest of the Democratic Party.

Clinton also demonstrated her Criswell impersonation:

Clinton talked to reporters after addressing the mayors in a speech that criticized Bush's health care, economic and anti-terrorism policies.

Pointing the Democratic-leaning crowd to the president's State of the Union address on Jan. 31, she said his message amounts to "You're on your own."

Hm. Isn't that speech about six days in the future? I know the White House hands out advance copies -- but isn't that usually earlier on speech day, or at most the night before? I'm a little skeptical that Bush is actually going to stand up on Tuesday and announce, "mayors -- you're on your own!"

The fact that Clinton now finds it necessary to reassure the Democratic base that she does too suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome -- evidently a litmus test for nomination -- tells me that she is starting to get nervous about 2008, despite her likely easy win in her reelection this year. Look for the bipartisan "Sunday morning Hillary" to go MIA, and the shrill and screechy "Saturday night Hillary" to reappear from whatever limbo she has been banished to these last few years.

I don't think it will help; it will only solidify the belief, among both Left and Right, that she is just an opportunist who will say or do anything to get elected... and not even as good a one as her husband.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 25, 2006, at the time of 2:49 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

More On Cindy Sheehan

From Yahoo news: US anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan hails Venezuela's Chavez

...Is she still here?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 25, 2006, at the time of 12:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Who Let the Dawgs Out?

This post was actually hatched by Lee R. Porter.

You've seen me mention Lee before, and I might even have discussed his "Parable of the Chained Dog." He's one of my oldest friends, and I value his insight and input on most issues of the day. Except when he disagrees with me, in which case his ideas are completely weird and wrong.

Fortunately, this is a case where he agrees with me -- and is therefore absolutely correct. So without further dithering...

The Parable of the Chained Dog

It seems there was an old dog on a chain out in his owner's yard. Every day, all day long, the dog was kept on that chain.

Many of the people in the neighborhood knew why that dog was chained up: some time back, it had chased a kid down the street, knocked him down, and bit him. But because the mauling didn't seem severe, and because the dog's owner agreed not to let the dog run loose, neither the victim's family nor the community at large insisted that the dog be destroyed.

Time passed, and things changed in the neighborhood. The boy who had been bitten... well, his family moved away, and so did some other families. New neighbors moved into those houses.

As events tend to do, the biting incident receded in people's memories; and most of the folks who were new to the neighborhood never even heard about it in the first place. Within a couple of years after the victim's family had moved away, people who saw the poor, old dog on his chain began to feel sorry for him.

The owner started to get some complaints about his inhumane treatment of the animal. The owner tried to explain why the dog was chained up, but people told him sure, maybe the dog bit that kid; but after all, that was a long time ago, and it only happened once. Others wondered whether the kid had somehow incited the dog to attack him, and still others suggested -- in an accusatory way -- that the dog had probably been mistreated as a puppy.

A lot of the people doing the complaining didn't even live in that neighborhood, but eventually they got their way. The dog was taken off his chain.

We all know what happened next. That poor little girl; what a senseless tragedy. Why was it so difficult to remember the reason for the chain?

Why is it so hard, even impossible, for some people to understand?

© 2005 Lee R. Porter, all rights reserved

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 25, 2006, at the time of 12:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Iraq Rebuilding Is Either Going Badly -- Or It Isn't

Reading through this New York Times article is like decoding a secret document... a secret document that was somehow leaked to the Times (of course).

The New York Times believes the rebuilding effort in Iraq is "badly hobbled;" but the picture that actually emerges from the article (once one decrypts it) is a royal mess that still somehow managed to finish most of the projects it planned, even while dodging terrorist activity, Shiite uprisings, and bureaucratic infighting.

The leaked document is a "highly preliminary" report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, formerly known as the Coalition Provisional Authority Office of Inspector General (CPA-IG). The spokesman from the IG's office, Jim Mitchell, says the report is "incomplete.... It could change significantly before it is finally published." But caveats will never deter the Times from reporting some bad news, when it thinks is has some.

Lost in the article, however, is any context. We've rebuilt countries before, notably Japan and Germany. By all accounts, the former went much better than the latter; which, if either, does the current effort most resemble?

In fact, it's a hybrid: in terms of having to deal with a persistent terrorist and insurgency factor, it's closer to what happened in Germany under international control; but in terms of effectiveness and rate of completion, it resembles the Japanese reconstruction, which was almost entirely American. This seems like quite a remarkable success story, given the environment.

So what exactly is the problem?

In the document, the paralyzing effect of staffing shortfalls and contracting battles between the State Department and the Pentagon, creating delays of months at a stretch, are described for the first time from inside the program.

The document also recounts concerns about writing contracts for an entity with the "ambiguous legal status" of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the question of whether it was an American entity or a multinational one like NATO.

Seemingly odd decisions on dividing the responsibility for various sectors of the reconstruction crop up repeatedly in the document. At one point, a planning team made the decision to put all reconstruction activities in Iraq under the Army Corps of Engineers, except anything to do with water, which would go to the Navy. At the time, a retired admiral, David Nash, was in charge of the rebuilding.

So there are too many competing authorities: State versus DoD, Army versus Navy, NATO versus American officials. In addition, Iraqi ministries got into the contracting game as well, handing out contracts to be paid for with other people's money (ours, mostly).

Basically, there are too many captains on the boat, and it's easy to see why this is a problem. However, this is hardly news; the same conclusion could be drawn about hurricane relief, intelligence gathering, and the normal operation of the United States Congress.

And surprisingly, even before this story saw the light of day, President Bush had already taken measures to address this very issue:

The Corps of Engineers has been given command of the severely criticized office set up by President Bush to oversee some $13 billion of the reconstruction funds.

The shift occurred days before Mr. Bush said the early focus of the rebuilding program on huge public works projects - largely overseen by the office, the Project and Contracting Office - had been flawed.

So what exactly does the NYT want to tell us? First, that the significant problems were in the contracting phase, not in the actual "construction and completion." And second, that there were too few personnel in the main contracting authority, the CPA.

"The impression you get is of an organization that had too little structure on the ground over there, that it had conflicting guidance from the United States," Mr. Hamre said. "It had a very difficult environment and pressures by that environment to quickly move things."

A situation like that, Mr. Hamre said, "creates shortcuts that probably turn into short circuits."

Hamre is president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a sort of "Council on Foreign Relations Lite," with very "State Department/September 10th" thinking. And naturally, by "shortcuts," Hamre means the Left's favorite shibboleth:

The Army appropriated $1.9 million in November 2002 to create a "contingency plan" for what to do if Iraqi forces damaged or destroyed the nation's oil complexes and pipelines. That "task order," under a running contract, went to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary. The Army later used that task order as a justification for awarding the company a new $1.4 billion noncompetitive contract to restore oil equipment, a program that became one of the most criticized moves of the conflict partly because Vice President Dick Cheney was once the top executive at Halliburton.

Nobody complains about the job they did, by the way; it always boils down to the fact that the job of restoring oil equipment wasn't put up for public bidding... but was instead restricted to the handful of companies that could actually do it, like KB&R. That's like complaining that the contract to put out the oil-well fires after the Gulf War was handed to Red Adair, rather than allowing the wells to burn while McDonalds, Microsoft, and Mercedes-Benz bid on it.

What we are trying to do in Iraq is a huge task in the great unknown, complicated by Zarqawi, Sadr, and other forces of chaos. We need to constantly adjust to the fluid situation in Iraq, and it's hardly surprising that our initial approach to rebuilding was inadequate: nobody really knew how to go about it, because undertaking a Marshall Plan while still fighting high-tech terrorists and unstable Shiite imams has never been done before. But we're working on it, and we're learning: that's all this report is really saying.

And yet, despite all those problems, 1,636 projects of 2,265 originally planned by the office have been completed. That should be the real story... but of course, that would require the Times to stop looking for trouble and start seeing the ongoing solutions.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, January 25, 2006, at the time of 12:04 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Date ►►► January 24, 2006

Hillary Will Never Be the Presidential Nominee

...Not in 2008, not ever.

[Special: note that my emphasis has changed; the main argument