PREDICTION: The N.I.E. release will cause Iran to go full steam ahead. Thanks, “intelligence community!”
I understand that Israeli representatives will be meeting with the Joint chiefs in a couple of days, to present evidence that the NIE is wrong.
Archive for 2007
December 7, 2007
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: “In the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror. . . . But where are the moderates?” Scared, or tacitly approving, I guess.
UPDATE: Here are some: 6,000 Iranians Attend Funeral of Executed Gay Youth.
Too bad so many in the West are ready to betray them. Otherwise, one might be forced to take a stand . . . .
Meanwhile, C.J. Burch emails: “If the MSM made a hundredth of the effort on behalf of moderate mulsims that they made on African-American rights in the sixties (and they were right in doing that and God Bless them for it) we would have a much better world, and a much more noble MSM. Today I would argue they are doing the opposite of what they did in the sixties… empowering powerful jihadis at the expense of weak moderates all over the world.”
But see the link just above . . . .
DON SURBER is celebrating the new media age. Not bad for a guy who can say: “not only do I work for a newspaper but for an afternoon newspaper in a 2-newspaper town.”
Reminder: Back in January, the courageously incoherent Sen. Chuck Hagel called the “surge”
“the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it’s carried out.”
He got lots of glowing coverage. But whatever the surge is, it isn’t that. … Why mention this? In case anyone feels an urge to draft MSM favorite Hagel for president on the Unity’08 ticket.
I’m guessing that urge is pretty weak, except in a few newsrooms. And even there, it’s probably resistable.
THAT TIVO makes you look younger. Some people will want to buy two!
LEE HARRIS thinks Romney bombed. But this editorial from The Examiner is fairly positive.
OUCH: “Hollywood gets shown up by pro-war YouTube videos and a didactic antiwar cat.”
MY EARLIER POST ON liability for places that ban guns led to some objections: Malls are private property, so why can’t the owners exclude guns if they like?
Well, malls are only sort of private property. You can, for example, exclude people from your home because you don’t like their race or religion; mall owners can’t do that because it’s against public policy, and a mall is a place of public accommodation. In addition, business owners generally take on a higher duty of care for customers on their premises, including a duty to protect them from the violent acts of third parties if those acts are reasonably foreseeable. The question is, given the tendency of mass shootings to occur in places where guns are banned, and given that gun bans take away customers’ ability to defend themselves — and other customers — does this result in liability of shopping malls when such shootings occur? Or, at least, produce a duty to have more armed security than they otherwise would have (the Omaha mall appears to have had very little) in order to make up for the increased insecurity created by the gun ban? The question isn’t open and shut, but it seems to me to be ripe for litigation.
MOJAVE SPACEPORT UPDATE: Earlier I noted a report noted by Rand Simberg and several other space bloggers that the Mojave Space Port was in danger of closure by the FAA. I also emailed Patricia Smith, the FAA’s Associate Adminstrator for Commercial Space Transportation. She responds: “The report is totally inaccurate.”
I’m very happy to hear that, and very grateful for the swift reply.
SNAPPY ANSWERS TO SILLY QUESTIONS ABOUT GUNS: (1) We don’t allow felons or the mentally ill to carry guns. Iran seems to fit in to this category . . .
(2) Suits against gun manufacturers are an attempt by government officials to circumvent the political process, using tort law to do what they can’t do via legislation because the voters oppose it. I don’t think that applies to my example at all.
I’ll add that I’m pretty sure that nobody in the Omaha mall was thinking, “Good thing the crazy guy is the only one here with a gun.”
MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT: They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected, religious zealots, with cooperation from the state, would be crushing the speech of freethinkers. And they were right!
NBC IS REFUSING TO RUN PRO-TROOPS ADS from Freedom’s Watch, but you can see them at the link. They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we’d see a sort of soft fascism in which corporate media would freeze out views that were politically uncongenial. And they were right! “Freedom of speech: at some of our networks, you can’t even buy it!”
UPDATE: Indeed: “Watch the ads on the Powerline blog linked to. Are they perhaps offensive in their very innocuousness? Do they paper over the complexities by using such simple phrases as ‘Thank you’? Perhaps it is too controversial to say ‘We think you’re heros!’ Is NBC’s position that they support our troops, but they find anybody saying ‘thank you’ to them offensive?” The ads seem completely unobjectionable to me.
PERRY DE HAVILLAND REPORTS from the Golden Umbrella Awards.
HOW TO BE A ROLE MODEL: “Betty Friedan ruined a Super Bowl party in my very own home by wearing a black leather miniskirt and swinging her (not bad) legs clad in fishnet stockings back and forth in front of the TV screen so that nobody could see the plays. She radicalized a sizable bunch of neutral men into committed anti-feminists that day.”
POSTGLOBAL: “Does Hugo Chavez’s defeat in Venezuela’s constitutional referendum mean the beginning of the end for Latin American leftism?”
THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: Iraq Bonds Rally on U.S. Troop Surge, Oil Earnings.
IN TEACHING, IT’S CALLED “DOING A FADE” when you step back and let the students deal with a problem mostly on their own. This story from the New York Times had me thinking of that in connection with Iran:
The leaders of France and Germany said Thursday that Iran remained a danger and that other nations needed to keep up the pressure over its nuclear program despite a United States intelligence report’s conclusion that Tehran was no longer building a bomb.
Speaking at a joint news conference at the Élysée Palace, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they had not changed their minds despite the findings of the American intelligence estimate released Monday, which some believed would have eroded support for tougher new sanctions.
I don’t believe that the Administration, or the “intelligence community,” is smart enough to be doing this on purpose, but it may have the same effect. And now that France and Germany are led by non-idiots, it may even work out.
THOUGHTS ON THE FAILURE OF GUN CONTROL, from Roger Kimball.
REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR with five survivors.
ANOTHER DEMOCRAT ON IRAQ: “The security situation in Iraq has improved dramatically in the past few months. That’s the assessment of North Dakota Congressman Earl Pomeroy, who just returned from a visit to Iraq. . . . The congressman says his visit proved to him that General David Patraeus, who is in charge of American forces in Iraq, has done an extraordinary job.” First Murtha, now this. This will make the troop-defunding effort a bit more difficult, I imagine.
UPDATE: Similar thoughts.
DON’T TELL ANN ALTHOUSE: Squirrel armor.
FORGET WAR OR POLITICS — if you want lots of reader email, blog about free shipping!
CONGRESS — creating a legal obligation to report your horny kids?
TONY KRONMAN’S NEW BOOK on values and higher education gets a thoughtful review over at Gay Patriot.