January 09, 2008

After Bhutan, Tibet?

When I sit down and spend hours writing something in hopes it gets published, inevitably it doesn’t. That’s why I have this blog. When it’s late at night and I dash off something hastily written, errors and all, it gets published. I’ve got to figure out why.

The last time I had something published was in business school. I came home from a networking activity (read: drinking at a bar) to find an email sent to a mailing list asking for comments on the fact Columbia was #9 in the latest ranking, far lower than we should be. So I dashed off a long and rather rambling diatribe to the mailing list detailing how we should aspire to be #1 and how the Dean should set that as the school’s goal.

I was caught off guard when, a few days later, my diatribe was printed on the front page of the student newspaper, mercifully cut when the rambling got too long. I was even more surprised at how many people approached me that day to tell me that I was saying exactly what needed to be said. But I took a lesson not to send things to mailing lists that include journalists.

On January 2, the night before I departed for Stockholm, I couldn’t get to sleep so I dialed-up the next days’ editorials on WSJ.com. This one caught my eye:

Democracy in Shangri-La

The citizens of the world's newest democracy went to the polls Monday to elect members of the upper house of Parliament. In coming months they will vote on the draft constitution that has been mailed to every household in the nation and choose representatives for the lower house.

Welcome to Bhutan, an isolated Himalayan Kingdom wedged between India and China and famous for a national philosophy of "gross domestic happiness." Until recently, Bhutan has been an absolute monarchy, under the reign of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, who ascended the throne in 1972 at the age of 16. The monarch's official title is Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King, but His Majesty also deserves to go down in history as his country's George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

In 1998, King Jigme Singye Wangchuk voluntarily reduced the scope of his powers. A few years later he decreed that Bhutan would become a constitutional monarchy and set out to educate his people on the virtues of democracy. He accomplished this task by personally presiding at informational meetings throughout the country and holding mock elections. In December 2006, after 34 years as sovereign, he abdicated, turning over his limited responsibilities to his Oxford-educated son.

In drafting a constitution, the elder King ordered his legal experts to study the constitutions of all the world's great democracies. The final product opens with "We the People" and speaks, in the preamble, of securing the "blessings of liberty." These words were originally penned by a group of men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787. Their power has not diminished over the centuries. Today, the ideals that stand at the heart of the world's oldest democracy are understood anew by men and women led by an enlightened former monarch in Thimphu.

Aside from Belgium (and soon Sweden), I’ve spent more consecutive time in Bhutan than any other country. So I felt motivated to wipe the grogginess from my eyes and type out on my blackberry’s gmail the following:

George Washington Avatar Alive and Well in Bhutan

Regarding your editorial "Democracy in Shangi-La," (Jan. 2), the then-king of Bhutan drove past me on his way to the office one morning in Thimpu. There were no flashing lights or fancy Benz -- the only indication came from my tour guide.

Remarkably, Bhutan's transition from absolute monarchy to democracy has been entirely organic, driven by the pragmatic former king and the sometimes hesitant people of Bhutan. Remarkably, do-gooder western NGOs are almost non-existent in the country except in narrow technical roles like bridge building.

Alas, with democracy blooming in Bhutan, we can only hope that Bhutan's brothers in neighboring Tibet will someday be so lucky.

Adrian Jones
New York

It was published, errors and all (who would use the word “remarkably” to start two consecutive sentences?), in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It ran in all three worldwide editions—Americas, Europe, and Asia. The Asia headline was, “After Bhutan, Tibet?” Hopefully the Chinese won’t arrest me next time I visit Shanghai.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:14 AM

January 24, 2007

In the quiet attic

A friend from Canada now in New York writes:

Canada is like the quiet attic above the really great party, an American once told me. Upon further contemplation, I think he may be right. We're the neighbour in the attic, just trying to hear ourselves think over the insufferably loud music booming from below.

We commiserate over our living location and we smugly commend ourselves for our well-swept floors and our low cost of living. But – if we could – would we get rid of our neighbours? Not a chance. When the blizzards set in, who shovels the walk? When there is a threat from outside, who watches from the window and protects the house? The raucous neighbours on the ground floor do.

We sit up in the attic and look down upon them for the melodramatic arguments that we hear through the floorboards, but the house insurance is in their name and, whether or not we admit it, we lucked out to get these guys on our side.

Living in the American capital – where the barista at Starbucks is more likely to ask your preferred political party than your preferred beverage – I was disappointed to discover that Canada's self-proclaimed reputation as an influential peacekeeper rarely, if ever, comes up in discussions of international politics.

Canada is an international peacekeeper? That's news to me.

(The sad thing is that most "international peacekeepers" try to keep the peace even when the peace is immoral or corrupt--witness the role of the UN in Oil for Food or the OAS's refusal to disturb the peace in Darfur--but that's a topic for another day.)

Posted by adrianjo at 10:21 PM

November 25, 2006

A Sark contrast

The tiny island of Sark, an independently-governed island off the coast of France, last month voted to abolish its feudal government that had existed since the 1500s. These strange governments like Sark's fascinate me, for reasons not fully clear.

Sark has been ruled by a Seigneur, or a feudal lord, since the first Seigneur moved with 40 families under a British royal charter in 1533. In exchange for a few pounds annual rent given to the Queen, the Seigneur runs the island. He owns all the land and has a few other strange rights, such as being the only person allowed to own piegons and unspayed bitches. He also owns whatever washes up on shore.

Reports the London Times:

In future, the island will no longer be governed by an hereditary seigneur deriving authority directly from the Queen and a group of unelected landholders, but by an elected council.

Islanders voted by 234 to 184 to abolish Sark’s 450-year-old system of government.

Since the reign of Elizabeth I, Sark, which is six miles from Guernsey but entirely selfgoverning, was run by the descendants of 40 “tenants” given the right to settle there in 1533. In a concession to modernity, the island’s parliament Government, the Chief Pleas, was recently expanded to include 12 “people’s deputies” elected by islanders. They were given the choice of an entirely elected body or one that included eight representatives of the 40 tenants.

The biggest change for Sark’s 610 residents is likely to be the abolition of the feudal position of the Seigneur, who was the Sovereign’s sole representative on the island.

It's still unclear whether this will allow islanders to own piegons and unspayed bitches.

Posted by adrianjo at 07:35 PM

November 19, 2006

Powerline: Grin and Barack It

It wasn't popular to say that the emporer had no clothes, and it's not popular to say that Barack Obama has no substance. I remember when I first encountered some campaign lit for Barack Obama and thought, "geez this guy is a crazy rabid liberal." I didn't expect him to go anywhere. He barely survived the Illinois Democrat primary and then got lucky when his opponent self-destructed after admitting he took his wife (Seven of Nine from Star Trek) to a kinky Paris sex club. Millions of men fantasize about taking Seven of Nine to a sex club, and I've never understood why that revelation compelled a smart former i-banker to withdraw from a Senate race he was winning. Anyway, this self-destruction provided the perfect opportunity for Obama to conceal those earlier unpalatable liberal tendencies and cruise to an easy win.

Powerline is also willing to say the star child has no substance:

I suppose there have been political figures more overrated than Barack Obama, but it's hard to think of one offhand. Here is a typically fawning media portrait, this one from the Associated Press, headlined Riding High, Obama Ponders His Future.

Obama is surely riding high, in some sense, but if you ask the question: what exactly has he done? the answer is elusive. Previously unknown, he won a Senate race against an opponent who withdrew from the race. That was less than two years ago. Since then, in his time in the Senate, what has he done? Nothing noteworthy, certainly.

The AP spins Obama's lack of any accomplishments as an advantage:

Obama, 45, clearly benefits from his rapid rise. He is not burdened by a lengthy Senate voting record.

Or any other record, as far as that goes. The AP professes itself mystified as to the origins of Obama's current notoriety:

It is hard to fathom Obama's meteoric rise in politics.

Not really. I think it has something to do with the fact that every news article that has ever appeared about Obama has described him in glowing terms as a "rising star." What he has done to deserve such a description, however, remains unclear.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:01 PM

November 05, 2006

Vote out the Republicans!

My thoughts on the upcoming election are boiled down nicely in cartoon format:

Posted by adrianjo at 06:32 PM

October 19, 2006

One of earth's wierder places

CENTRAL TEXAS - I swung by the former home of the Branch Davidan cult today. It's in the middle of nowhere on a road called Double EE Ranch Road, a narrow road that quickly turns to dirt. The nearby area has a few houses, mostly trailers really. It feels like high land, and clearly there are more cows here than humans. Just before the road turns to dirt, one passes a fenced compound with three houses, one of which is a double-wide trailer. The fence is decorated with a "PRIVATE PROPERTY" sign as well as a faded "No stopping, standing, or parking" sign erected by the road authorities. That's odd, since the road has only three houses along its long stretch. One of the two gates was open, behind which stands a giant polished red granite stone reading "Welcome to the Branch." That big rock is strangely out-of-place, like a giant plasma screen in the apartment of someone living in a housing project.

It's easy to imagine how nightmarish it might have been to have lived in the cult, led by a 33-year old full-time madman, part-time child molester. There's pretty much nothing nearby, no people, no jobs, no excitement of any sort. That all changed in March 1993 where the Clinton FBI made a military-style assault on peaceful civilians. Six Davidians were killed before the government retreated, leading to a 51-day standoff that culminated when the FBI launched grenades into the rickety wooden compound, provoking a fire that killed another 74 people, including dozens of women and children. A few members of The Branch survived, and a couple of them occupy the place today. There's pretty much no sign of the old compound visible from the road, since the FBI bulldozed the site less than a month after the fire, long before enough evidence could be collected to determine whether the government lit or substantially contributed to the fire that destroyed the building.

My next visit will be to the President's ranch, which is less than 30 miles from the cult compound.

Posted by adrianjo at 08:24 PM

April 23, 2006

America's worst mayor, a month from incineration

America's worst mayor didn't loose his job in yesterday's election, but it's just a matter of time. Ray Nagin, better called Ray No-Noggin, is the New Orleans knucklehead who left 2000 busses swamped in a parking lot rather than use them to evacuate. He's the guy who failed to deliver when his city was destroyed, instead creating a very effective smear campaign against FEMA. He's the guy who has overseen a city plagued by corruption before and after that storm. And he's the racist who declared that New Orleans should be "chocolate." Of course, if a white person wanted his city "vanilla," you can imagine what would happen to him.

No-noggin polled around 39% of the vote in yesterday's New Orleans mayoral election. Because that's less than 50%, there will be a run-off next month. These run-offs are typically very difficult if the incumbent wasn't already very close to 50%. A vote for any opponent is a vote against the incumbent, and 60% of voters voted against the incumbent.

Now with No-Noggin's noggin in the guillotine, he's starting to have second thoughts about the racism stuff.

With turnout apparently low in black precincts, Mr. Nagin appealed for unity after the results were in.

"If we don't come together as men and women, we will perish as fools," he said. "We must become comfortable with one another."

It's hard to be comfortable with a Mayor who has declared entire ethnic groups (whites, Hispanics, etc.) unwelcome in his city. Even many black voters, who too often appear to vote the way of the lemming, are thinking pragmatically:

Some black voters interviewed here Saturday, dissatisfied with the slow pace of recovery, said they were supporting Mr. Landrieu.

"We have no direction right now," said Marvin Keelen, who had journeyed from Baton Rouge to vote. "We can't make any decisions."

It's easy to predict how this will play out. No-noggin will get 42% of the vote, complain that black voters were "disenfranchised," moan that the results were rigged (they were rigged, but you gotta rig your way to 50%, not just 42%), get a visit from Jesse Jackson who will scream in public but read No-noggin his political last rites in private, and ultimately retire to the dustbin of history. Good riddance.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:59 PM

March 25, 2006

A club not to join

The seal-clubbers are back in Canada. Says Paul McCartney's wife:

"We're devastated to learn that 325,000 of these harp seals, almost all of them defenseless babies, will be clubbed and shot to death."

CNN continues:

But animal-rights activists and celebrities, including Brigitte Bardot, have placed Canada under an unpopular global spotlight, calling the world's largest seal hunt barbaric and unnecessary in a developed nation.

Registered hunters are not allowed to kill the pups before they molt their downy white fur, typically when they're 10 days to three weeks old.

At least the seal-clubbers wait until the pups are 10 days old before beating their heads in. Yeah, the real victim here is Canada:

"Unfortunately, we're to some degree the victim of a bit of an international propaganda campaign," [Canadian Prime Minister] Harper said.

That degree would be zero.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:51 AM

February 27, 2006

The latest from Turd Blossom

This is why we pay Karl Rove.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:35 PM

February 18, 2006

Even France doesn't give these benefits

The bloggers I read swear that this Al-Qaeda charter, posted on the West Point website, is for real. It specifies the terrorist organization's org-structure and even such details as the benefits package employees receive. It includes the following:

A- Bachelors:
Authorize for them a basic monthly salary of 1,000 Rupees.

B- Married individuals:
1- Authorize for them a basic monthly salary of 6,500 Rupees.
2- The sum of 300 Rupees is added per child.
3- Add the sum of 700 Rupees per wife in case of multi-wives.
4- Approve a 10% annual increment of the basic salary for cost of living increase.

There's a lot more, including vacation time and who is responsible for torture. More here.

Posted by adrianjo at 01:07 PM

February 05, 2006

Buy Danish

I served a Danish beer at my Super Bowl party today. I've joined the Buy Danish campaign in support of the Danes who published (back in September) the cartoons that asserted that some Muslims are violent people. Some Muslims responded by engaging in acts of violence: torching several embassies, calling for the cartoonists' murder, declaring a desire for another holocaust, and burning flags. All of which proves the cartoons' point.

buydanish.jpg


So buy Danish stuff. Lots of it.

By the way, the funniest part of this whole series of violent outbursts was the group of idiots who burned a Swiss flag; they couldn't tell the difference. Or they just didn't care: as the Russian nihilists said, smash right, smash left, smash anything, smash everything.

Posted by adrianjo at 11:47 PM

December 18, 2005

Martin "Little Magician" van Buren finally gets his due

Among the presidents soon to appear on US coins: James K. Polk, John "Silent Cal" Coolidge Jr, and Grover "Uncle Jumbo" Cleveland. (more) This will be a great opportunity for history nerds to bring out their jokes about our more obscure presidents. My personal favorite goes like this:

A white house dinner guest of President Coolidge bet her friends that she could convince "Silent Cal" to say at least three words. Upon learning of the wager, Coolidge retorted: "You lose."

Then there's this great line from Abraham J. "Grandpa" Simpson:

Why when I was a pup, we got spanked 'till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland spanked me on two non-consecutive occasions.

Posted by adrianjo at 06:52 PM

December 15, 2005

Rev Al in trouble again

Among the items buried in the news today is a note that Rev Al has been ordered to repay the Feds $100,000 of federal matching funds that he fraudently obtained.

Posted by adrianjo at 11:02 PM

November 21, 2005

Law and order, and the lack thereof

The City Crime Rankings are out, and there are some interesting findings:

It's interesting to note how many of the "most dangerous" cities are run by Democrats, like New Orleans's incompetent and overwhelmed Roy Nagin or Gary's Scott King. New York City, by contrast, has had 12 years of Republican governance and has gone from one of America's most dangerous cities to one of its safest. No wonder Republicans are trusted more than Democrats on law and order.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:35 AM

November 02, 2005

France leads the way

With Paris's St. Denis inner-suburb erupting in riots started by Muslim youths, one wonders if France will finally stop hectoring the US about how to run our policy towards Muslim nations.

Posted by adrianjo at 05:11 PM

If someone is planning to kill my kid, I'd like to know

A lot of hay has been made over how Sam Alito, the Supreme Court nominee, voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law requring wives to inform their husbands before an abortion. (The rest of the court disagreed and struck down the law.) Somehow Alito's opinion is seen as an infringement on a woman's right to choose.

I'm generally pro-choice (as a libertarian), but if my unborn kid is about to be aborted, I think I should at least be informed, even if I don't have a say in whether Junior is murdered. The only problem with the law is that it did not go far enough to provide men some influence in whether or not his child is killed. (Perhaps fathers' rights are difficult to establish in practice, but the idea sounds good in theory.)

Of course, the real aim of the Pennsylvania law was to force adulterers who were too stupid to use condoms and the Pill to come clean. In the sense that the law encourages people to be faithful on their commitments, it is also desireable. If married individuals want society to provide benefits because they choose to marry, they ought to at least be faithful on the commitments they made.

UPDATE: The NY Times has an unusually fair and balanced look at Alito's abortion and marriage decisions.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:33 PM

October 09, 2005

Voted in by Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Flowers

There's a headline on CNN right now:

"Clinton Inducted into Women's Hall of Fame"

Really? I know that Slick Willy got his way with a lot of women and Hillary never dumped him, but it migth be a bit excessive to induct him into their hall of fame.

Posted by adrianjo at 05:18 PM

August 17, 2005

Pictures with more gore than Vice-Prez Al

Ogrish.com has an extraordinarily graphic picture of a charred body from the recent Greek plane crash. This is the sort of thing you'll never see in any mainstream media. Only click this link if you have a ridiculously strong stomach, and don't blame me for the nightmares it will cause. Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm getting on a plane tomorrow to go to China?

Far less graphic is a video of some Korean cops attacking a protester.

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August 15, 2005

That's no khan-man

Louis Farrakhan preacheth the truth. And why is everyone so foolishly sensitive about it?

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August 09, 2005

MADD: dumb as a drunk

The Washington Post has a good op-ed on parents who throw parties for their kids and supply alcohol for the occasion. It is particularly embarassing to the neo-Prohibitionists at MADD who advocate that the way to stop drunken driving is to criminialize underage drinking such that it occurs not in controlled settings but rather in "cars, in parking lots, in vacant lots and in rented motel rooms."

As I pointed out in a 2000 op-ed, a sensible policy to combat the ill effects of underage drinking needs to acknowledge that underage people will drink. I was definitely not a heavy drinker, but I drank in 5 states and four foreign countries before I turned 21. As long as enforcement policies push teenagers to drink in unregulated, unsupervised environments, we will continue to have a "problem" with underage drinking.

The Post tells an illustrates how ridiculous the law enforcement position is:

The Post reported a while back on a party in Bethesda in which there was no underage drinking at all. Police approached the parents at a backyard graduation party and asked if they could administer breath tests to underage guests. The mother refused. So the cops cordoned off the block and administered breath tests to each kid as he or she left the party. Not a single underage guest had been drinking. The police then began writing traffic tickets for all of the cars around the house hosting the party. The mother told The Post, "It almost seemed like they were angry that they didn't find anything."

Surely there are more pressing concerns for the Washington area criminal justice system to address than parents who throw supervised parties for high school kids. These parents are at least involved enough in their kids' lives to know that underage drinking goes on and to take steps to prevent that reality from becoming harmful. We ought to be encouraging that kind of thing, not arresting people for it.

[via]

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Burning down the council estate

Tucker Carlson is among the more moronic talking-heads, and here is an equally moronic debate over whether half of NYC housing project units should be smoke-free. The panel completely misses the point: if one is living in a home that is paid for by taxpayers like me, he does not have a right to do whatever he wants to that home. In fact, I think the bill doesn't go far enough; all housing projects should be smoke-free. If one wants to burn tobacco, let him buy his own house and do it there. Besides, anyone so poor that they are living in public housing ought not to be spending their public assistance money (again provided by me the taxpayer) on cigarettes.

generalgranthouses.jpg
The General Grant Houses, one of many NYCHA properties in Harlem.

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August 08, 2005

The Thirty Years' War

Powerline's Big Trunk has posted his Weekly Standard column on the "ACLU's 30 Years War" against the Boy Scouts of America. The ACLU's 30 year war has been pretensed on the notion that the Scouts are a religious organization and therefore cannot be supported by the government. Although I don't subscribe to one particular religion, I was a Scout for about 3 years. I quit when I got sick of being disciplined by being struck with a section of hard pipe.

Despite the physical abuse, the Scouts are generally an honorable organization that turns boys away from the societal ills we face today--a lack of trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfullness, friendliness, etc. It is not a religious organization anymore than the penny is a religious item (the penny bears the words, "in God we trust"). I don't know whether I love or hate the ACLU, but I surely won't be supporting them if they intend to turn the Thirty Years' War into the Hundred Years War. Getting a few gays eligible to earn merit badges in woodworking and stamp collecting is not reason to destroy an honorable organization.

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August 03, 2005

Trial lawyers lose a fight; everyone else wins

When I hired a car to go to Providence last month, obtaining the car proved a challenge. I rode two trains, boarded a bus, and took another train before I arrived at Hertz in Newark, New Jersey. Why? Because a Volvo in New Jersey cost $69/day, vs $129/day in New York. Why the difference? Because back in the horse-and-buggy days, unscrupulous carriage operators leased their carriages to operators who drove uninsured. Hence New York's "vicarious liability" law, which held car hire agencies responsible for the acts of people who hired the car. The cost incurred because of the bad drivers gets bourne by everyone who hires a car in New York.

Once laws get made, it's hard to un-make them, even if they double the cost of something like car hire. The law remained on the books until the passage of the pork-laden highway bill last week. Trial lawyers here screamed that the law "puts corporate profits over the people's well being." That sort of populism is usually a canard, especially when the benefit to "people's well-being" means having to leave the state to rent a car or paying twice what one should. If trial lawyers support a law, it's probably best for the rest of us to oppose it, unless we like going to Jersey.

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July 25, 2005

Vote in this straw poll

An old friend from college, Patrick J. Ruffini, has a straw poll of 2008 Republican Presidential candidates running on his popular blog.

Personally, I support My Man Mitt, though this is purely for selfish reasons. A number of people in my professional network are close, long-term friends of Mitt (the current governor of Taxachusetts), so a Romney presidency would be desireable. Mitt has proven himself a very capable businessman and a tough-nosed politician in a state that is generally considered to be allergic to common sense.

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June 28, 2005

This restaurant gets a 30-30-30 from Zagat

I renew my call to treat the dirty terrorists at Gitmo less like spoiled Saudi princes and more like dirty terrorists. Here is their menu. I guess Gitmo guards think that the way to a terrorist's heart is through his stomach. I said earlier that perhaps the problem in Gitmo is lack of coercive methods (i.e. sleep deprivation, death threats, hooding with feces-stained bags, etc). Perhaps the liberals are right: we should close Gitmo. Then we ship all the detainees to San Quinten to mix with the general population. Then they might actually want to go back to Afghanistan. And then stories like this would be true.

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June 27, 2005

Judge Judy gets a star; Judge Hatchett ruling overturned

The Hollywood Reporter notes:

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has selected Judge Judy Scheindlin to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for 2006.

Judge Mills Lane can't be far behind.

In other news, The Onion reported recently that a ruling made by Judge Glenda Hatchett was overturned by Judge Joe Brown.

HOLLYWOOD—Nationally syndicated justice Judge Joe Brown reversed Judge Glenda Hatchett's ruling in the TV-court case Amanda Robinson v. Maria Bristow Monday, stating that the lower-rated judge flagrantly disregarded pertinent testimony.

In proceedings that originally aired April 12 at 1 p.m. EST, Hatchett ordered Bristow to pay Robinson $2,000 in damages for faulty services provided at the Headliners Hair Salon in Compton. The defendant appealed the decision, claiming that Hatchett made a rash judgment in order to break for a commercial.

Judge Joe Brown presides over one of the nation's Syndicated-Television Courts of Appeals. These appellate courts stand between less-watched Cable-Television District Courts, such as Hatchett's, the Divorce Court, and Judge Larry Joe's Texas Justice courtroom, and higher-Nielsen-rated courts. The nation's highest courts, such as Judge Judith Sheindlin's family court, will only hear cases that appellate TV judges have determined raise questions of importance to a network audience.

In the 22-minute retrial, Brown openly criticized Hatchett's courtroom methodology.

"It is my feeling that Judge Hatchett failed to adequately explore the facts in the case of Hair Dye Gone Awry," Brown said from his studio chambers. "I do not always agree with Hatchett's common-sense approach to the law. She is a well-respected TV-court judge, but she always seems to side with the nicer person. That's not how our televised legal system is supposed to work."

In other news, SCOTUS blog has a nice roundup of today's decisions on the Court's final Monday of the term. The nation's courts get far too little attention from people who watch government, especially since few judges are elected. It's worth reviewing today's decisions.

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June 20, 2005

The Terrorists' Rights Party

It's a sad day for the Democrats when their patriarch joins their looniest fringe (Amnesty, Durbin, et al) in condemning the facility at Guantanamo Bay. Says Slick Willy:

It's time that there are no more stories coming out of there about people being abused. [via]

In fact, there is no conclusive evidence of any "abuse" at Gitmo, although the line is hard to define. Like pr0n vs. mere obscenity, one knows torture it when he sees it, and Gitmo is hardly tortorous, or even abusive. The Qur'ans that are now handled with white gloves were given by the US Military; one wonders why the prisoners are even given such literature to begin with. They eat three square meals a day, and they have an excercise yard, health care, and lots of things that even poor Americans don't have, much less the average Afghan.

Anyone who has been to a real KGB torture facility, to a Nazi death camp, to Thailand's Death Railway Bridge (a Japanese death camp), or even a run-of-the-mill medieval toture chamber, knows that Gitmo is more like a tropical paradise than anything remotely abusive. In fact, many pundits are calling for Gitmo to become more abusive, if only half in jest. From an interrogation effectiveness perspective, US soldiers need to be feared, according to an Atlantic cover story. A detainee should expect that he might be killed if he does not tell everything he knows. Otherwise, he might actually start to like living free in the Cuban sunshine, complete with a Qur'an delivered to his lounge chair by white-gloved butlers, er, interrogators. "Can I get a pina colada with that? With a little umbrella? And easy on the rum, soldier, don't forget that I am a Muslim!"

For a party that lost the last election in part for being weak on national defense, becoming the party of Terrorists' Rights is not the way to win.

UPDATE: Oh dear, I wasn't exaggerating... no pina coladas, but Saddam is eating quite nicely. And he advised an unmarried soldier on what sort of woman to look for, according to the soldier's account of Saddam's rather deranged advice:

“He was like, ‘you gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean.”’

Then he smiled, made what [the soldier] interpreted as a “spanking” gesture, laughed and went back to washing his clothes in the sink.

One might further question the advice given how Uday and Qusay turned out, but their problem was less the mami than the papi.

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June 11, 2005

The "D" in political science stands for "Democrat," huh?

When I lived in Europe last year, I heard no end to how John Kerry was so much smarter and more intellectual than W. "How could you vote for Bush? He's so stupid, and he flunked his way through Yale."

Well, if Bush flunked his way through Yale, so did Kerry. Recently-released transcripts show that both Bush and Kerry had similar marks at Yale. In fact, Kerry had four times as many D's as Bush. Kerry even got a D in freshman political science. That makes me feel not-so-bad about getting a B in strategy class and then becoming a strategy consultant.

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June 08, 2005

Why I love Howard Dean

Far-left Democrats and all Republicans where thrilled when them Dems made Howard Dean their Chairman, and thereby, their spokesman. Dean's latest allegations are that the Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party ... it's pretty much a white, Christian party." GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman replied, "a lot of folks who attended my Bar Mitzvah would be surprised" to hear that he leads a Christian party. It's worth remembering that the US is almost 90% Christian, and only 50% +1 wins an election. I hope that Dean reminds the monolitically-Catholic Hispanic bloc that Republicans are a Christian party, not to mention the socially-conservative black Christians in places like Harlem who seem increasingly distant from the Democrats' social leftism. I hope Dean keeps on going; he will be great for the 2006 elections.

Then there's another one: "This is a diversion from the issues that really matter: Social Security, and adequate job opportunity, strong public schools, a strong defense." A strong defense? Republicans are distracting people somehow and therefore not creating a strong defense? Really? And what have Democrats done for Social Security, job creation, or schools? They've opposed any talk of Social Security reform, they've opposed job-creating free trade, and they've opposed vouchers and No Child Left Behind.

Here is an audio file of the remarks. Thanks again, Howard.

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June 01, 2005

"Hi, I'm Joe Trippi"

One of the best things about New York City is that it's hard not to meet really interesting people who can talk about really interesting stuff. This can sometimes be stressful, like a few years ago when I was introduced to Jack Welch's predecessor, the late Reg Jones, by a mutual friend. Having no idea who the guy was, I asked some inane question that clearly communicated my naïveté. Today I went to a discussion at the Overseas Press Club, and as I sat in the clubhouse lounge, a stream of people came to the desk to sign-in, saying things like, "Hi, I'm Joe Trippi" or "Yes, I'm Paul Mirengoff." Given Trippi's hero status to Deaniacs everywhere, it seemed strange to see the guy at the bar chatting nonchalantly with a few people. For some reason tonight, he looked like Fat Tony from the Simpsons.

Another fellow present was the former NY Times beat reporter for Harlem, whose book today got a terrible review in the NY Sun. Lucky for him, I pointed out, that nobody who reads books reads the Sun. I don't know why, but NY Times people seem to be everywhere in this city, far more than Tribune people in Chicago or Inquirer people in Philadelphia.

Tomorrow I will try to post more on what was said at the panel discussion.

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May 29, 2005

C'est non!

Guess those jungle tribes didn't make the difference after all.

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May 27, 2005

Bruxelles' chicken-and-egg game

Amid reports that Jacques Chirac is counting on illiterate jungle tribesmen in South America to swing France into the "yes" column in Sunday's referendum on the European Constitution, pundits are already wondering the future of Europe's grand experiment. I think the European project is destined to progress if only because of its inertia and even if France causes the 300-page constitution to be scrapped. The document is so objectionable that both French Socialists and I agree that it should be scrapped. We disagree on why: the French left would prefer to see stronger social protections for workers, while I don't think that economic policy belongs in a constitution. The American constitution is perhaps the best ever written (having only been amended 28 times in 225 years), and its terse articles are is entirely silent on economic issues except for four items that empower Congress:

The American constitutional convention was more concerned with debating what fraction of a person each slave counted as than dictating how an economy should be run; the Europeans should be so fortunate. Compare the US Constitution's four mentions of economic issues to the lengthy Part III, Chapter III, Section 2, Article III, Paragraph 209 et seq of the EU Constitution, which establishes no fewer than five committees and discusses such things as "the combating of social exclusion", "developing exchanges of information and best practices," promoting "the consultation of management and labour at Union level," and (my personal favorite) promoting "hygeine." Is it any wonder that the left distrusts the constitution and the right thinks it enshrines the stifling economic policies that have stagnated Europe?


A cloudy day at EU headquarters in Bruxelles

While overpaid EU bureaucrats in Bruxelles debate social exclusion and hygeine, the economies of member states continue to suffer, as Times columnist Anatole Kaletsky points out:

The people of France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands may be angry about globalisation or ultra-liberalism or immigration, but this reflects a deeper malaise. Their living standards are falling, their pensions are in danger, their children are jobless and their national pride is turning into embarrassment and even shame. In sum, they feel that their countries, which numbered among the world’s richest and most powerful nations as recently as the middle of the last decade, have gone to the dogs under the leadership of the present generation of politicians. And, at least in the economic sense, they are absolutely right.

The relative economic decline of “old” Europe since the early 1990s — especially of Germany and Italy, but also of the Netherlands and France — has been a disaster almost unparalleled in modern history. While Britain and Japan certainly suffered some massive economic dislocations, in the early 1980s and the mid-1990s respectively, they never experienced the same sort of permanent transformation from thriving full-employment economies to stagnant societies where mass unemployment and falling living standards are accepted as permanent facts of life.

Kaletsky goes on to blame the European Central Bank for Europe's malaise because the ECB didn't follow the American prescription for economic stagnation:

European policymakers could kick-start growth and break the spiral of economic and political pessimism by doing exactly what America did in similar circumstances in 2001. They could reduce interest rates drastically and devalue their currency. As in Japan, interest rates could be reduced all the way to zero and the euro could be pushed down through intervention in currency markets. Such an aggressive policy of monetary stimulation could be guaranteed to revive economic growth, whether or not voters could be persuaded to endorse the labour market and pension reforms that Europe certainly needs in the long run but which can actually aggravate economic stagnation in the short term, as Herr Schröder has learnt [after losing North-Rhine-Westphalia elections].

How easily our European friends like Kaletsky forget that US monetary policy was only half the way President Bush lifted America out of the recession that started in Clinton's final month. Cutting taxes and reducing regulation played a substantial role in economic stimulation and in expanding money supply. In Europe, Ireland went from backwater to economic dynamo by keeping taxes low and resisting the Sirens of social protectionism and economic interventionalism. European leaders are caught in a chicken-egg game: the economic "protections" the EU constitution promises are depressing the economies where such protections originated and causing the rash of worker discontent that will derail the grand experiment. Although Kaletsky points out that some of the current pain is due to reforms introduced so far, Europe's economic stagnation is primarily due to the ultra-liberal principles enshrined in its not-to-be Constitution

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May 16, 2005

The 9 Old Men say, "pop that bubbly!"

One of my favourite times of the year is June, when SCOTUS (the Supreme Court) releases its decisions. Unlike, say, Congress, it's hard to disagree with most of SCOTUS's decisions. Perhaps if the job of the Supreme Court were to pass highway bills, create incompetent agencies like the TSA, and make idiotic laws like Sarbanes-Oxley, it would be easier to dislike the Court. But the job of the nine old men is to strike down excessive jury verdicts (such as in State Farm), overturn everything done by the activists in the Ninth Circuit, and clear away pointlessly restrictive laws, like they did today.

At issue in today's ruling was the shipment of wine across state lines. Some 24 states have Prohibition-era laws that prohibit wine from being shipped from out-of-state into the state. SCOTUS struck down these laws, saying that the constitution prohibits discrimination against out-of-state firms. It's not a total victory; there is a danger that the liquor distributors (a bunch of useless leeches) will pressure legislatures to get around the ruling by prohibiting any sort of mail-order wines.

The Court's dissent argues that states should be able to regulate wine shipments in order to control underage drinking. We're lucky that only four of the nine old men are so naive. Underage people get their hooch from older friends, their parents, and legitimate bars that don't card. And they drink the cheapest stuff they can get, which isn't wine bought online. The least of our concerns should be the 20-year-olds who calls their favorite winery to have themselves sent their favorite bottle.

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April 20, 2005

Send out the clowns

Quick, name a black leader! Jesse Jackson? Al Sharpton? Cynthia McKinney? Or my own congressman, Chuck Rangel?

Why not Alphonso Jackson? Sure nobody knows who the HUD secretary is. But at least he talks some sense, unlike the rest of those clowns. Or so it seems from 122nd St. in Harlem.

In 1925, when Alain Locke edited The New Negro, he wrote, "I believe that the Negro's advantages and opportunities are greater [in Harlem] than in in any other place in the country, and that Harlem will become the intellectual, cultural, and the financial center for Negro peoples."

He was right on the "intellectual" and "cultural center" claims. But financial center? Hardly. Less than 20% of Harlem today is actually owned by blacks. My landlady is one of few blacks who own their houses in Harlem. She bought the place 40 years ago (presumably quite inexpensively) and now has retired in financial security with a $1.5M house with two white guys paying her rent. Had she not became an owner in the 1960s, she likely never would have joined the black upper class. Locke expected that there would be more of her. So does Alphonso Jackson.

While the benefits of improving black homeownership has been discussed in many forums, the benefits of social security reform for blacks have not been publicized. Jackson makes a good case in yesterday's Wall St Journal:

But blacks receive far less in return for their Social Security contributions. One in three will get no benefit at all because he will die before he is eligible to collect benefits. After a lifetime of paying into Social Security, nearly 30% of black seniors are left in poverty, compared to 7% of white seniors. And while the average black male lives to age 67.8 -- after collecting less than one year of Social Security -- the average white male will collect seven years of benefits. In effect, black workers are subsidizing the retirement of whites. The inevitable results of not reforming Social Security -- raising payroll taxes or reducing benefits -- would only worsen the situation for blacks.

...

An individual can work for 20, 30 or 40 years, but if he dies without children under 18 or a spouse over 65, none of that Social Security money is passed on.

...

Since the creation of Social Security 70 years ago, our nation has made great strides in closing the gaps of racial equality.... But to remove the final obstacles to equality, black Americans need to start building the equity -- through ownership that their white counterparts have been accumulating for generations. The homeownership gap is closing. If we allow black Americans to build wealth through personal retirement accounts, another gap will close.

While it is abysmal that less than 20% of Harlem is owned by blacks, 0% of blacks own their social security, like 0% of whites. Forget clowns like Jesse Jackson. The black leaders who should be followed and supported are out pushing to give blacks (and whites) ownership: homeownership, ownership of retirement funds, ownership of one's financial future. My landlady shouldn't be such an exception.

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April 16, 2005

Maturity sucks

Inevitably all technology matures, but that doesn't always mean that it improves. For instance, gopher was a perfectly good way of finding documents easily, and it had no problems with spyware, cookies, and the other maladies that infect today's WWW. E-mail used to be simple text and spam was almost unheard of. Napster 2.0 had all the songs I needed but has been supplanted by the fancier ITunes that still won't let me download my favorite French pop songs.

Now blogging is growing up. Recently my favorite blog, Powerline, recreated its site, added ads, and eliminated trackbacks. Worst of all, the lawyers who write it have eliminated their nicknames: Deacon, The Big Trunk, and Hindrocket. Frankly, I'd much rather read the writings of a mysterious owl named "Deacon" than a boring "Paul Mirengoff." It's understandable: Paul, Scott, and John deserve to benefit from the name recongition that their 40,000 daily visitors earn them. Still, give me the fun old days of Deacon, Trunk, and Rocketman.

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April 06, 2005

It's not easy being a Republican in this ivory tower

The folks next door in the Journalism School, which is in a brick building and not really an ivory tower, have awarded the Pulitzer Prizes for 2005. From looking at the winners, the nominations must have made for slim pickings. Consider the winner of the prize for cartooning, which Powerline dissects here.

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April 04, 2005

Precipitating humanity's golden age

One of George Will's most brilliant columns ran in today's WSJ. Gracefully avoiding the cliches on which barrels of ink have been spilled since the Pope's death, Will touches on the importance of the 1978-1981 period in changing world history and the role of John Paul II, Solidarity, Reagan, and the Polish nation in advancing the cause of human freedom:

WASHINGTON -- In Eastern Europe, where both world wars began, the end of the Cold War began on Oct. 16, 1978, with a puff of white smoke, in Western Europe. It wafted over one of Europe's grandest public spaces, over Michelangelo's dome of St. Peter's, over statues of the saints atop Bernini's curving colonnade that embraces visitors to Vatican City. Ten years later, when the fuse that Polish workers had lit in a Gdansk shipyard had ignited the explosion that leveled the Berlin Wall, it was clear that one of the most consequential people of the 20th century's second half was a Pole who lived in Rome, governing a city-state of 109 acres.

Science teaches that reality is strange -- solid objects are mostly space; the experience of time is a function of speed; gravity bends light. History, too, teaches strange truths: John Paul II occupied the world's oldest office, which traces its authority to history's most potent figure, a Palestinian who never traveled a hundred miles from his birthplace, who never wrote a book and who died at 33. And religion, once a legitimizer of political regimes, became in John Paul II's deft hands a delegitimizer of communism's ersatz religion.

In an amazingly fecund 27-month period, the cause of freedom was strengthened by the coming to high offices of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and John Paul II who, like the president, had been an actor and was gifted at the presentational dimension of his office. This peripatetic pope was seen by more people than anyone in history and his most important trip came early. It was a visit to Poland that began on June 2, 1979.

In nine days a quarter of that nation's population saw him. Marx called religion the opiate of the masses, but it did not have a sedative effect on the Poles. The pope's visit was the nation's epiphany, a thunderous realization that the nation was of one mind, mocking the futility of communism's 35-year attempt to conquer Poland's consciousness. Between 1795 and 1918 Poland had been erased from the map of Europe, partitioned between Austria, Prussia and Russia. This gave Poles an acute sense of the distinction between the state and the real nation.

Igor Stravinsky, speaking with a Russian's stoicism about Poland's sufferings, said that if you pitch your tent in the middle of New York's Fifth Avenue, you are going to be hit by a bus. The Poland where John Paul II grew to sturdy, athletic manhood was hit first by Nazism, then communism. Then, benignly, by John Paul II.

It was said that the fin de siecle Vienna of Freud and Wittgenstein was the little world in which the larger world had its rehearsals. In the late 1970s, the Poland of John Paul II and Lech Walesa was like that. The 20th century's worst political invention was totalitarianism, a tenet of which is that the masses must not be allowed to mass: Totalitarianism is a mortar and pestle for grinding society into a dust of individuals. Small wonder, then, that Poland's ruler, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, visibly trembled in the presence of the priest who brought Poland to its feet in the face of tyranny by first bringing Poland to its knees in his presence.

John Paul II almost did not live to see this glorious consummation. In 1981 three of the world's largest figures -- Ronald Reagan, Anwar Sadat and John Paul II -- were shot. History would have taken an altered course if Sadat had not been the only one killed.

Our age celebrates the watery toleration preached by people for whom "judgmental" is an epithet denoting an intolerable moral confidence. John Paul II bristled with judgments, including this: The inevitability of progress is a myth, hence the certainty that mankind is wiser today than yesterday is chimeric.

Secular Europe is, however, wiser because of a man who worked at an altar. Europeans have been plied and belabored by various historicisms purporting to show that individuals are nullities governed by vast impersonal forces. Beginning in 1978, Europeans saw one man seize history by the lapels and shake it.

One of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown detective stories includes this passage: "'I'm afraid I'm a practical man,' said the doctor with gruff humor, 'and I don't bother much about religion and philosophy.' 'You'll never be a practical man till you do,' said Father Brown."

A poet made the same point: "A flame rescued from dry wood has no weight in its luminous flight yet lifts the heavy lid of night." The poet became John Paul II.

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March 30, 2005

Don't confuse El Papa with La Papa

With the Pope's health failing, I've put together a few pics of El Papa's life in Krakow and Rome.

Karol Wojytla was born in 1920 in Wadowice, a city just outside Krakow. At age 18, he moved to Krakow and enrolled at Jagiellonian University, the large building shown below:

While enrolled at Jagiellonian, Karol lived in the house on the right in this photo. His apartment has been converted to a small museum, which contains his desk and skis (he apparently preferred Head brand.)

Karol's apartment was immediately below the Wawel Cathedral, a 14th century cathedral on a hill inhabited by people for 15,000 years. Several of Poland's kings are buried there, as is Thaddeusz Kosciuszko, the hero of the War for American Independence. It was in the crypt of this cathedral that the young Karol said his first mass. The picture is of the bones of prehistoric animals that hang at the doorway. As long as the bones remain, the cathedral is protected.

Here is a crowd on a Sunday in October last year gathering at San Pietro's Square in the Vatican City to hear the Pope bless the crowd. I took the picture from the top of St. Peter's Basillica.

Karol's light is still on (top center)...

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March 26, 2005

Of fruits and vegetables

The lawyers at Powerline have an interesting discussion of the Schiavo case, arguing that Michael Schiavo had $1.1M to spend at the trail court level gaining a determination of "fact" that Terry Schiavo wanted to die if she became a vegetable. In short, Michael Schiavo essentially out-lawyered the Schindlers at the trail court, and this became very tough to reverse. In general, it's a good point about the law: when the trail court decides something as fact, it's nearly impossible to overturn it.

The parents obviously had no idea what they were up against until it was too late. It was only after the trial that they started going around to religious and right-to-life groups to tell their story. These organizations were very supportive, but by that point their options were already limited because the trial judge had entered a judgment finding that Terri Schiavo would not have wanted to live.

On the specifics of the Schiavo case, however, I diverge with Powerline. Michael Schiavo is a bit of a fruit, living with another woman and even having kids with her. Even so, it's hard to make a case to anyone without their head buried in the Bible that a braindead person would want to live. (When my grandmother ended up in a similar situation in 1988, we said our goodbyes and made the compassionate choice before the law could get involved.) It's entirely possible, perhaps likely, that even with the best lawyers, the Schindlers would still have lost.

Unrelated matter: As I write this, I find another annoying commercial. This one is for Wm Wrigley Jr's Big Red chewing gum, showing a car getting lifted by an electromagnet. In the commercial, coins and a watch are attracted to the magnet. In fact, only ferrous (iron-based) metals are attacted to magnets, and US coins contain no ferrous metals. Watches are rarely made of ferrous metals, which rust. Typically they are nickel, silver, or other non-iron metals. In fact, both watches and coins will pass airport metal detectors, but not hand wands.

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March 19, 2005

I'll still be able to vote Republican

If I end up like this, just let me die.

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March 01, 2005

The middle east grows up

The news out of the Middle East has been surprising to everyone, myself included. Democrats, in particular, have been caught with their pants down as the Bush Doctrine grows increasingly effective. And, of course, they have yet to propose a better way of defeating terrorism. Consider what has happened since the war in Iraq:

With all this happening, it's hard to deny that the war in Iraq hasn't proven beneficial for the stability of the middle east. No wonder Democrats are in a funk.

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February 19, 2005

No wonder companies off-shore to India

If you're up for a bit of masochism this sunny afternoon, try taking last year's entrance exams to the Indian Institute of Technology. You can choose from:

At the end, you'll understand why companies offshore their R&D, engineering, and basic order-taking to India.

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February 18, 2005

The New New York Times?

I paid a visit to the 14th floor of the New York Times today with the Columbia Media Management Association. Media has always been an interesting industry area to me, perhaps since I wrote my first letter to the editor when I was in middle school. (Thank goodness they didn't publish it!) Later, of course, I wrote for the Post-Tribune, and today I read at least five newspapers a day (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and sometimes 6 and 7.)

It was an auspicious day to visit, as the Times this morning announced a $490M all-cash deal to buy about.com, an annoying content website that somehow pops up highly in many google searches, traps users with frames and redirects, and is loaded with so much advertising that it's hard to find the content, if there is any. Alas, I must just be out-of-date, as I still mourn the demise of gopher and the Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index of Computerized Archives.

The Times is the only local newspaper to expand significantly beyond its home market and perhaps the best-recognized newspaper name in the world. Over 90% of most papers' circulation occurs within a one-county radius of the paper's big city, vs. only 50% for the Times. And the Times's 18M unique website users compares to only 700K for the WSJ.

Yet the core business is losing the battle for subscribership in Manhattan and vicinity. With a weakening core in New York City, The Times is forced into substantially more risky businesses where it is currently a weak follower: Television, International, Search (about.com), Local Papers, etc. While it's swell to deliver content to consumers in whatever platform it is desired, expanding into new platforms also carries substantial risk involved in getting into businesses with only low-moderate cost and customer sharing and entrenched competitors. (These being, e.g., Time Warner, the FT, Google, and Gannett.)

It will be interesting to watch the Times's strategy going forward, as the Times attempts to master both broad content and distribution. Edgar Bronfman, Jr., head of Warner Music, came to campus recently to explain how he believes that content and distribution are inherently in conflict, with content wanting to be as broadly distributed as possible and distribution wanting to be exclusive. If I write something, I want everyone to see it, but if I am distributing writings I need something exclusive to draw viewers. The Times is expanding its distribution substantially while continuing to invest in content at a time when other mainstream media are hacking the newsroom and replacing real journalism with talking-heads and their print equivalent--a noble but risky strategy. I tip my hat to the folks in the Times strategy group if they pull it off.

In other news, the Hollywood Reporter writes that Paris Hilton (blog entry) held a big party at Duvet (pictures) a few days ago. I can't believe I missed it.

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February 03, 2005

A fish by any other anchor would smell as foul

Since I know nothing about Hollywood aside from turning up for the Cannes Film Festival last year, I now have a daily subscription to Hollywood Reporter, who notes today that Bob Schieffer will replace Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News while CBS execs "decide on an evening-news format that would bring CBS News out of third place."

While the format is important (and desperately needs to be overhauled), Rathergate did long-term damage to CBS's attempt to be taken seriously as a news source. The question isn't how to jack-up the ratings, but whether or not there should even be network news, whether it should be at 18h30 when nobody is home, and whether network news should attempt to keep its false veneer of "impartiality."

Continues Hollywood Reporter: "Of all things, CBS is worried about the label ‘liberal bias.’ There’s never been a hint of that against him, and with the Texas accent, he’s very easy on the (ears of the) red states.”

It's amazing how little CBS understands of why it is accused of liberal bias--it has little to do with a down-home accent. CBS exhibited a pattern of shoddy reporting in Rathergate and a culture that completely ignored journalistic standards. A fish rots from the head, but replacing the head doesn't make the fish any less rotten.

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February 02, 2005

State of the Union watching

Rumor has it that the Columbia College Republicans have rented a large hall for tomorrow's State of the Union speech, whereas the College Democrats have reserved a 5-person study room in an out-of-the-way building. So far, they have yet to take me up on my generous offer to provide free sour grape juice.

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February 01, 2005

Why Americans don't elect Massachusetts liberals

Analyses of media coverage of the Iraqi election have shown that Arab news outlets were much more favorable and optimistic about the election than European news outlets. Consider this al-jazeera article, which sounds more like it was written by Reuters (maybe it was). But still, it's remarkable that Al-Jazeera puts this story front-and-center and relegates the conspiracy theories to the bottom side of its homepage.

Leave it to America's Democrats to throw cold water on the hopes not just of Iraqis, but apparently a broader swath of Arabs.

"It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Ex-Presidential candidate, said on NBC's "Meet The Press."

Whole portions? As opposed to partial portions? Just what is a portion? Typical Kerry double-speak--either its a portion or it's a whole, but not both. Geez, you'd think the guy would learn.

In a statement, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, said Bush "must look beyond the election" and start withdrawing the American troops from Iraq.

"The best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the administration to withdraw some troops now" and negotiate further withdrawals, Kennedy added.

If Democrats want any hope of turing red to blue, they need to support America abroad rather than provide ammunition to those who oppose us, our troops, and our democracy. Democrats complain that they aren't perceived as patriotic, but do either Kerry or Kennedy seem even a bit patriotic in Al-Jazeera?

UPDATE 2/2: Wow, that was short-lived. Al-jazeera is back to its old slime-ball reporting, declaring the elections "illegitimate." Of course the losers will declare the elections illegitimate, just like John Kerry said of Ohio.

Update 2/3: I neglected to put Hillary's intelligent and credible statement on Transatlantic Zeppelin. Hillary's move to the center has been a breath of fresh air... too bad Hillary showed her true colors when she tried to communize health care:

We have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote. They are facing terrorists who have declared war on democracy itself and made voting a life-and-death process.

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January 30, 2005

The biggest defeat for terrorists this century

The mainstream media don't often pause to reflect on America's victories--the civilized world's victories--against terrorism, dictatorships, and evil. Although perennial moron Ted Kennedy is already asking to "look beyond" the recently concluded Iraqi elections, it would be quite unfortunate to overlook the importance of millions of Iraqis turning up to choose their own government for the first time in a half-century. The terrorists have put their all into stopping or at least delaying today's vote, and 72% of Iraqis told them that they failed:

Some came on crutches, others walked for miles then struggled to read the ballot, but across most of Iraq (news - web sites) millions turned out to vote Sunday, defying insurgent threats of a bloodbath.

Suicide bombs and mortars killed at least 35 people, but Iraqis still came out in force for the first multi-party poll in 50 years. While turnout was scant in some areas, such as the Sunni city of Samarra, elsewhere it exceeded expectations.

Many cheered with joy at their first chance to cast a free vote, while others shared chocolates with fellow voters.

(source: Reuters)

Meanwhile, here is the about-to-win-a-Pulitzer photo of a teary Iraqi woman with a stained finger indicating she voted. Click to enlarge:

More photos on powerline.

This is why we have 150,000 soldiers fighting every day to expand the self-evident truth that it is the right of the people to select their own government.

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January 29, 2005

Reports from behind enemy lines

There is a new Ivy League Republican weblog, describing itself as follows: "Students from one of the oldest sports conferences in the country discuss politics and everyday happenings from a Republican point of view." The academy, and particularly the old Ivy-covered buildings in the East, is a bastion of liberalism. (Witness the reaction to Larry Summers arguing that there might be inate differences between men and women's brains.) Read reports from behind enemy lines. I might contribute from time to time...

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January 21, 2005

Whatever happened to Corzine's Goldman sensibilities?

lincoln.gifIt's a good thing that the first Republican president, Abe Lincoln, didn't have today's Democrats (such as Jon "How much for that governor's mansion?" Corzine) questioning everything he did. Here is Jon Corzine's response to Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, unearthed by Powerline:

We join the president in seeking charity for all. Charity is a fundamental American value, and we look forward to working with the president in handing it out. The president failed, however, to present the details of his charitable program.

Indeed, his speech was an exercise in evasion. The president opened his remarks by seizing upon the alleged "progress of our arms" as an excuse for an abbreviated address in which he declined to discuss the crucial issues to which Americans demand answers -- the repeated failure of our military for the first several years of the war, the suspension of our constitutional rights, and the balance of trade deficit. Most importantly, even assuming that we win the war, the president failed to explain how we will win the peace. "Malice towards none [and] charity for all" is a nice slogan. But it is not an exit strategy. Nor did the president say how long our troops will remain in the South, how many of them will make the ultimate sacrifice, and what it will cost.

The president's speech was also an exercise in deception. He claimed to have done everything in his power to avoid war. His failure to use the Europeans as mediators, or even to consult with them, went unmentioned. Americans also will be saddened to learn of the president's denigration of the attempts by the South at pre-war negotiations. In his eagerness to slay dragons, this president has plainly failed the global test.

The president harped on the "colored slaves." He claimed that "this interest was somehow the cause of the war." But the president well knows that ending slavery was never part of the original justification for fighting this war. It is simply an after-the-fact rationalization, developed after it became clear that we had no plan to defeat the South. Nor can the president honestly claim that the slaves are better off in their current, parlous state than they were prior to the war when they lived in peace and tranquility.

The American people will also be disappointed by the president's unwillingness to admit his mistakes. The closest he came was when he acknowledged that "neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained." It is unfortunate that the president deflected attention from his own errors by attributing them to the South as well.

Most disturbing of all was the president's constant invocation of God. The Democrats worship God just as much as the Republicans do. I myself was a choir boy. But religion is a private matter, and thus not a fit subject for an inaugural address. Americans will be particularly shocked by the president's attempts to ascribe the suffering brought about by his administration's recklessness and incompetence to "God's will." The president may shrug his shoulders and call it "the judgment of the Lord" that "all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil be sunk." We Democrats see this for what it is -- the outsourcing of responsibility for our economic well-being.

Posted by adrianjo at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 18, 2005

Someone in Turtle Bay has a brain

There is an encouraging article in the Financial Times today discussing the predicament the UN finds itself in following (1) overseeing the biggest fraud in history, oil-for-food, (2) punting its moral responsbility in Darfur and Rwanda, (3) resisting bringing democracy to Iraq, (4) allowing the massacre at Srebrenica... and the list goes on. The man appointed to reform the UN, Mr. Mark Malloch Brown, actually seems to get it, judging from his comments to the FT:

It was possible to see the first wave of the crisis as inspired by the US critics of the UN, but as a clearly neutral voice like Volcker starts to opine as he did in the commentary of the audit, it's a lot harder to shrug this off as a rightwing conspiracy.

The FT writes:

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mark Malloch Brown warned the UN that there could be worse to come and that its management would feel the consequences from an investigation into allegations of corruption in the "oil-for-food" programme, which the UN administered for Iraq.

"The crisis is still building," Mr Malloch Brown said. "It's very hard after [last] week's revelations to believe there isn't going to be some pretty tough stuff on management."

Reforming Turtle Bay has proven an extremely difficult job, from the fecklessness of the Security Council to the cushy low-level bureaucrats. It is encouraging, however, to see that the current UN reformer seems to understand the magnitude of disappointment with the UN. Let's see if he can make anything of it.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 17, 2005

Don't mess with Tibet

tibetan_photo_project.jpgTova's website has a link to a new Tibetan photography exhibit in California. As frequent readers of Transatlantic Zeppelin know, I follow the news out of neighboring Bhutan quite closely, and it is always quite tragic to see what the Chinese occupiers have done over 50 years of systematically destroying Tibet, physically and culturally. For example, of Tibet's 6000 monasteries, just 13 remain. All the bleeding-heart liberals who think America is unjustly occupying Iraq need to see a bit of the world beyond the Upper East Side and central Paris. They might go to Bhutan, see a culture similar to the one being destroyed by China, and realize that real injustice does exist in the world, just not in Iraq.

Posted by adrianjo at 12:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2005

George Soros doubles down on $27M

The Democrats lost the 2004 elections for many reasons. For one, the "party of the working people" that claims to want to get big money out of politics has increasingly come to be funded by wealthy billionaires rather than a grassroots base of $50 to $5000 donors. (Howard Dean notwithstanding.) Republicans thus get some credibility in claiming to represent the middle class.

George Soros, who made his billions breaking the backs of small countries, has decided to double down on the $27M bet he lost in 2004, the Financial Times reports. If at first you don't succeed...

A group of billionaire philanthropists is to donate tens of millions more dollars to develop progressive political ideas in the US in an effort to counter the conservative ascendancy.

...

Far from being disillusioned by the defeat of John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, the billionaires have resolved to invest further in the intellectual future of the left, said one person involved. Their commitment to provide new money comes amid criticism of the efforts of high-profile donors such as the Hungarian-born Mr Soros to sway US politics, as well as doubts about the effectiveness of record funding in helping the Democrat cause in 2004.

When Jon was running for Mayor in 2003, the committee forbade him from investing his own funds in the race. The reason is simple: raising small amounts from many people invests many people in the race's outcome. The Democrats may have plenty of funds, but at the end of the day money helps but motivated voters decide the election.

I agree with criticism that John Kerry wasn't a flawed candidate so much as he was running on a flawed or incoherent platform. To that end, Soros may be making a wise investment if the left can build its intellectual capital. But that requires a Clinton-like move towards the right, something many Democrats object to. Soros may just be doubling-down in the Democrats' civil war.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack