PHOTOBLOG UPDATE: Here’s a lovely gallery of photos from Northeast Massachusetts. I’m astounded at the quantity of excellent photography I’m finding on the Web.
Archive for 2004
April 17, 2004
THE “UNSCAM” OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL makes the New York Times today, with a story that provides a pretty good overview even if, as reader Chris Fountain notes, most of it is old news to blog-readers.
Russia is dragging its feet, which I think it’s fair to take as an admission of guilt up front. And as the Times notes, 46 of those named in Iraqi documents as receiving illicit oil allocations are Russian.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO someone asked me if there were any Egyptian blogs in English. Not as far as I knew, I said — but there’s a new one now and it looks pretty interesting.
ASK AN IMAM . . . to leave:
France has expelled an Algerian fundamentalist imam who invited his congregation to “rejoice in the Madrid bombings”.
France is enforcing “hate speech” laws against mullahs.
April 16, 2004
NO, I’M NOT GOING TO MAKE FRIDAY CATBLOGGING A REGULAR ITEM, but here’s a picture of my cat Nicholas (better known as “Nickers”) stalking a bird.
I realize that this will once again send ripples of shock through the cat-hating segments of the blogosphere, but there’s nothing to be done about that. I hope that, in time, they’ll learn to rise above their ailurophobia and accept our furry feline friends.
SOME INTERESTING QUESTIONS about new Democratic co-chair Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. But I think I have the answer, from an article (unfortunately not on the Web) in the Cleveland Plain Dealer dated August 25, 2002:
Despite the entry on her financial disclosure forms that list her stake in “Jihad Filmworks” – an investment worth between $1,001 and $15,000 – her investment was actually in a company called Jihaad Film Works Inc., which was incorporated in 1994 in Cleveland, according to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.
Tubbs Jones’ office misspelled the name when filing its disclosures.
The company was started by Rakim Jihaad, 31, an aspiring film maker now living in Chicago. A convert to Islam, Jihaad is the son of Eric Mumford, a Cleveland accountant who incorporated the film company. Mumford’s wife is former Cleveland Heights Municipal Judge Lynn Toler.
A number of family friends invested in Jihaad Film Works, which first made “Murder Roulette,” a mystery, as a low-budget production and whose partners now are trying to interest a major motion picture studio in remaking it with big-name actors.
“It’s a friend, and it’s no more than that,” Tubbs Jones spokeswoman Sheila Harvey said of the congresswoman’s Jihad/Jihaad connection.
“He is American,” said Rakim Jihaad’s father, whose politics lean toward the GOP. “In fact, I’m pretty sure soon he will become a Republican.”
Of course, this could be a damaging connection for Ms. Jones, too, in her new position. . . .
HIV IS REPORTEDLY SPREADING IN THE PORN INDUSTRY, as the result of changes in favored practices. This is a tragedy that needs addressing, and, I suspect, also a source of useful epidemiological information. Filmmaker (no, not that kind of film) Brian Flemming has some thoughts.
SMOKYBLOG is on a roll — just keep scrolling past one amazing photograph after another.
GOOD NEWS: Successful elections in Algeria.
A FINAL SOLUTION TO THE REPUBLICAN PROBLEM? Quick, somebody photoshop John Kerry as Voldemort!
UPDATE: Boy, that didn’t take long.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, maybe Kerry’s got crossover appeal in this incarnation!
A KOREAN BLOGGER says that American commentators are misunderstanding the Korean elections. Believe it or not, it’s not always about us!
RYAN BOOTS has a roundup of Iraqi blog posts that’s well worth your time.
MARY ROBINSON IS BEING DENOUNCED FOR ANTI-SEMITISM AT EMORY:
Nearly 500 people have signed an online petition protesting the selection of Mary Robinson as keynote speaker for this year’s Commencement.
Robinson, former President of Ireland and former high commissioner for human rights for the United Nations, has been described as anti-Semitic for her involvement in the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa.
Critics have also alleged that she has advocated suicide bombers as a legitimate method of pursuing Palestinian statehood. As of press time Wednesday, 460 students, as well as friends and family of students, lent their names to the petition, which calls “for Mary Robinson to be replaced as one of our Commencement speakers.”
Nice to see college kids standing up to the racist Establishment. William Sjostrom has more, including a link to a radio interview that casts doubt on her fitness as an inspirational speaker.
DANIEL HENNINGER has a column on Spirit of America, the charitable group to which I donate ad space. (And money).
ONE OF MY FORMER STUDENTS EMAILS:
I am one of your former students (class of 91) and just returned from duty in Iraq on an anti-terror team. I have seen, and agree with, the types of things described in “The Letter from a Contractor in Iraq.” The thing that can’t really be described about Iraq is the look of new found freedom that you see in the eyes of the men (and the women that dare look at you). It’s impossible to describe (a bit like the Supreme Court’s definition of porn – I know it when I see it), but forms my most lasting impression of my duty there.
I have attached some of the pictures you don’t see on the news: a picture of some Iraqi kids yukking it up with the GI’s and me and a Dominican SEAL – who was really proud to serve in Iraq with the Americans.
Here’s the letter he’s talking about.
HEY, MAYBE THE INTERNET IS making a difference. (Via Roger Simon).
NEAL BOORTZ is Fisking Howard Dean, and tweaking Air America. A fish, a barrel, a smoking gun. (Hey, that’s a good motto. . . .)
MY DELL is a couple of years old, and although it’s reasonably capable in terms of video editing and image processing the new stuff’s a lot better. I’m thinking of demoting it to a backup computer or a server and replacing it with something newer and faster. If you’ve got experience with the upscale Sony Vaio or the Dell XPS I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me a line.
MORE THINGS TO ASK JAMIE GORELICK:
One of the appendices to Rowan Scarborough’s book, Rumsfeld’s War, is a previously classified study of why Clinton never used special ops troops to attack bin Laden. That study says that when the Clintons considered employing special operations forces against bin Laden, questions arose whether the Defense Department had the legal authority to engage in such covert operations. Part of it says, “Pentagon lawyers in the 1990s argued that DoD did not have the legal authority.…Only the CIA…had the license to conduct covert action…”
But, as the study found, the Pentagon lawyers’ objection is wrong, and specific authority exists for the president to assign covert missions to the armed services. And who was the chief lawyer in the Pentagon in 1993 and 1994? None other than our gal Jamie. She left DoD for the Justice Department before bin Laden became a household word. But DoD top lawyers would have consulted with Gorelick on an issue that would be — as that one was — briefed to the Secretary of Defense, and probably to the president as well. Did Gorelick participate in the decision to nix spec ops? What advice did the DoD ask for and receive from her and the Justice Department on that subject? The Commission needs to find out. Under oath.
I don’t think that Gorelick has done anything wrong. But it does appear that she should be a witness, not a Commissioner, on a number of important issues.
THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:
Despite a rising tide of combat deaths and the prospect of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come, Americans continue to volunteer for duty and are re-enlisting at record rates.
The services believe a combination of patriotism and the economy is driving people to the military and keeping them there.
“The war is not only not having a negative effect, but it is helping to reinforce the number of people who want to join,” said Cmdr. John Kirby, a spokesman for the Navy’s Bureau of Personnel.
Even the Army National Guard, which has had 150,000 citizen soldiers mobilized for up to a year, has seen retention rates “going through the roof,” said Guard spokesman Maj. Robert Howell.
Nonetheless, I suspect that it’s a good time to be looking at enlarging the military and adjusting the force structure.
UPDATE: A reader — an Ordnance Corps Major in Afghanistan — emails:
I can offer a small bit of evidence that the story you cited/linked to is correct. The 25th Infantry Division, which recently took commander here in Afghanistan, brought 50% more retention personnel than the outgoing 10th Mountain Division.
Nice that people feel that way — but I do think that we should be working to ease the strain of extended deployments, etc., as much as possible. We should appreciate people’s patriotism and dedication, but we shouldn’t take it for granted.
UPDATE: Hmm. This article says that retention is down. Who’s right? Beats me. The article quoted above seems to give more specifics, for whatever that’s worth.
In a way, it doesn’t matter — at least, as I say above, we should be doing more to make service tolerable for those serving, and attractive to potential recruits.
And maybe we need a big push in programs like JROTC, etc. Perhaps high schools should be required to offer JROTC as a condition of receiving federal funding.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s another story saying that re-enlistment rates, and initial recruitment rates, are doing quite well. But obviously longer deployments may impact that next time around. Bonuses seem to make a difference.
As with other war-related topics, we shouldn’t let good news make us complacent, and I hope that this issue is getting the attention it deserves.
THE YIPPIES ARE COMING OUT OF RETIREMENT — more or less literally in some cases — thus supporting my theory that much of the anti-war / anti-Bush protest is a sort of generational last hurrah for the Boomers. Over at Inclination to Criticize, Robert McNamara (no, not that Robert McNamara, but it just makes the whole time-warp thing even worse) is unimpressed:
Don’t you think Karl Rove, in his moments of sublime fantasy, pictures bearded forty-year-olds camped out in Central Park, burning things and chanting “Out of Iraq Now?” If the Democratic Party has any sense, they’ll lure away all the protestors with “magic” brownies and keep them in a lockbox until November.
Yes. But I don’t think they’ll be able to.
UPDATE: Geitner Simmons emails:
In New York City, many of the old ’60s and ’70s antiwar types didn’t fade into irrelevance. On the contrary, they eventually moved into the nonprofit activist community that exerts enormous force on how that city operates. City Journal examined their influence in an article last fall.
Here’s the link to the article, which may provide useful background reading for anyone gearing up to cover the conventions this summer.
April 15, 2004
AIR AMERICA IS RESPONDING TO ITS CRITICS — in a not-terribly-surprising manner.
UPDATE: Er, the site above is a parody, and isn’t really from Air America. But I can see how some people would have trouble telling the difference — I delayed linking to Air America’s “Sludge Report” post (which they now seem to have taken down) because it seemed so bizarre that I had trouble believing that it wasn’t a cleverly-concealed parody.
I UPLOADED SOME PICTURES to the Suburban Wilderness gallery over at the Exposure Manager site. Check ’em out if you’re so inclined.
It was a beautiful day, but I didn’t have time to get out of town. I managed to take these (the new ones, that is) on the way home from work today.
OSAMA — or his audio impersonator — is having a bad war. Today his offer of truce blew up in his face:
“It is completely unthinkable that we could start negotiations with bin Laden. Everyone understands that,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters.
European Commission President Romano Prodi said there could be no negotiating under a “terrorist threat.” (Analysis)
Leaders in France and Germany also rejected any such offer.
“One has to treat such claims by al Qaeda with contempt, which they deserve,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said. “This is a murderous organization which seeks impossible objectives by the most violent means.”
In Spain, where al Qaeda terrorists killed 190 people in train bombings last month, the prime-minister elect did not mention the tape in an address to parliament, but vowed to fight terrorism.
“There is no sense to terrorism. There is no policy in terrorism. There is just terror, death, blackmail,” said incoming Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell called the European reaction “very direct and clear.”
Indeed it is.