Friday, February 28, 2003
Strange Days - We're teetering on the brink of war - according to some pundits, it could happen next week. Some of the "smart money" says the week after. I recall how wrong everyone was in '91, and figure I'll wait to see what happens.
I just finished...gaa, has it really been eight weeks of job hunting? Oy. I haven't been on the beach this long since 1987. It feels like the local high tech economy is building up tension, almost like a bow that's been quietly pulled back...something's going to let it go, one of these days. But for right now, everyone's sitting on their hands.
I have a morning of appointments coming up - but I'll post some stuff this afternoon. Hang in there.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/28/2003 09:46:25 AM
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Governor Rice? - The talk about Condi Rice running for governor of California has been flitting about the periphery of GOP circles for a few months.
It's going more mainstream now:Rice, the former Stanford provost who rates highly with California voters in opinion polls, is "very much open" to a future gubernatorial run in the nation's most populous state, according to those high-level Republicans.
Very interesting.
Though they admitted much depends on the outcome of the expected U.S. war in Iraq, Republicans at the state's recent party convention openly speculated that a Rice campaign could instantly recharge a party still reeling from losses in every statewide office this past November.
"She's said no on the Senate race, but is very much open on '06," said a Republican insider who asked not to be identified. The Republican said Rice sees herself as more compatible with an executive position such as governor than a legislative office.
Mark Baldassare, pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California, said Rice is "a very visible figure in the Bush administration, very articulate, has roots at Stanford -- and would be taken very seriously."
"In a state where you have to look long and hard for elected officials outside the white male category on the Republican side, Condi Rice would certainly add a new dimension to GOP politics in California," Baldassare said. "It would help (Republicans) deal with what is becoming a stereotype -- that they don't have women and people of color."
I maintain that, if she manages to win California (and there are many potential clinkers in that scenario) and succeeds at it, she stands a great chance of being America's first black and female president.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/27/2003 03:56:28 PM
Indoctrination - My daughter came home from school yesterday and told me that her class had been given a presentation by a number of Hamline University students that had recently been involved in anti-war protests in Washington.
According to my daughter, the students went to great lengths to repeat the standard A.N.S.W.E.R. mantra to the kids; the Iraqis have no weapons of mass destruction; the war is wrong; the President is doing this to finish his father's job, ad nauseum.
My daughter, bless her spunky little heart, claims to have pushed back. She's definitely my little girl - her classroom teacher is a rather avowed far-lefty (Nader, Wellstone, yadda yadda) who earlier in the school year amused the students with derogatory George Bush jokes, until my daughter pushed back.
School can be a terrible place - kids can be so awful. But apparently if you or your parents flout the beliefs of some teachers, the kids are the least of your problems:Members of the Maine National Guard, called up to prepare for an attack on Iraq, have asserted that their children are being harassed at school by teachers who oppose the war. Top Stories
Kids may not know any better. But teachers?
Guard members say their children are "coming home upset, depressed, crying," said Maj. Peter Rogers, a spokesman for the Maine National Guard. "This was based on some incidents that were happening in school, both in the classroom and on the playground."
In an e-mail sent to the parents of one child who had complained of harassment at school, National Guard officials said they had "over 30 complaints that name schools and individual principals, teachers and guidance counselors."Mr. [J. Duke Albanese, state commissioner of education] told the Bangor Daily News that only one complaint involved classroom remarks, after the child of a Guard member became upset during a discussion of Iraq when a teaching assistant "took up the anti-war" argument.
We don't know the details - but if it's true, how much gall does it take to attack something a kid's parent is doing, to his/her face?
I plan on asking my daughter's teacher if she plans on bringing in any of St. Paul's Kurdish population to talk about what a harmless fella Hussein is.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/27/2003 08:31:47 AM
Pollcats, Part II - Hot on the heels of Tuesday's spinfest, the Strib released another Minnesota Poll yesterday, measuring Tim Pawlenty's first month or so in office.
Despite the furor over cuts to Local Government Aid, Pawlenty's numbers are pretty strong:Although 60 percent of the 845 adults interviewed Feb. 20 to 23 said that they approved of his handling of the job...
According to those two political scientists, Minnesotans seem to think Pawlenty's a likeable enough guy - especially compared with his predecessor:
In general, Minnesotans find Pawlenty likeable and credible and are giving him the benefit of the doubt despite the harshness of some of his proposals to balance a $4.2 billion projected budget shortfall, two state political scientists said."This guy is affable, there's no question about it," said Steven Schier, a professor at Carleton College in Northfield. "He has strong convictions and can be tart, but he's basically polite and nice, and Minnesotans like that compared to what they've seen over the past four years."
The administration has its two cents worth:
Said Lilly Goren, a professor at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul: "There are some legitimate concerns because people are losing jobs and benefits and bus routes. But people liked him better than the other candidates [in November], and they're still feeling warmly toward him."Pawlenty's chief of staff, Charlie Weaver, said that the results were a "ringing endorsement of him personally" and evidence "that we can fix our problems without raising taxes," a centerpiece of Pawlenty's campaign and budget strategy.
It may be a ringing endorsement, or it may be that Pawlenty's still enjoying a honeymoon period.
But evidence in favor of "ringing endorsement" includes this bit:...approval of his handling of the projected budget deficit for fiscal years 2004 and '05 was slightly lower, at 56 percent.
"Slightly" lower being the operative word. Pawlenty's approval numbers are predictably lower on some of the issues where the budget problem impacts Minnesotans on a less abstract level: 43 percent for cuts to Local Government Aid that might lead to property tax hikes (49 percent opposed), and 31 percent on his K-12 education spending freeze and the cuts to higher education. This isn't much of a surprise - these sorts of issues are analogous to unfavorable polls about legislators; people consistently give poor marks to legislators in general, but rate their own legislators much higher. In this case, the budget cuts that are most visible to people are the ones that cause the least favorable impressions.
But it would seem Pawlenty has done a decent job of selling his program:Support for Pawlenty appeared to be tied to self-perceived knowledge about the issues. More than half the respondents, 55 percent, said they knew "a fair amount" or "quite a lot" about the budget, while 44 percent said they knew "only a little" or "not much at all."
Support was highest in the Twin Cities area, and among males and Republicans.
Among those who said they knew a lot or a fair amount, support for Pawlenty's proposals was higher on all of the major budget issues: use of tobacco money, local government aid and education spending.
Here may be the best news for Pawlenty - his key message, that government should tighten its belt as Minnesotans are doing the same, seems to be selling, at least on the abstract level: Tad Engstrom, 27, a carpenter from Stillwater, said he likes Pawlenty because he agrees with his message that, like families, governments can't just raise taxes and must reduce spending to survive. "We have to make cuts in our budget, and it's always worked for us," Engstrom said. "I don't agree with raising because they're way too . . . high the way they are. A lot of us are getting to the point where enough is enough."
While there's still a long way to go on this budget process, and the economy is still soft (and the poll may predate reactions to many budget cuts), it is in some ways an indicator of a watershed in Minnesota politics. For generations, Minnesotans were willing to swallow ever-higher spending, and near-endless tax increases. Now, though, after twelve years of unprecedented increases and the squandering of years of massive, tax-funded surpluses on program increases, the message of the state's right is finally getting through; enough is enough. There's no reason state government should be living any larger than its citizens.
This next few months are going to be interesing for the Administration. I'd suspect the Pawlenty administration is banking on the same thing many of us are; that the economy is going to pick up through the spring and summer, which will erase a fair chunk of the deficit. Like many households - mine included - the Pawlenty adminstration is hunkering down to get through the downturn, in a fashion to which Minnesotans are unaccustomed to seeing in their government.
If this poll is an indication, Minnesotans appreciate it.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/27/2003 03:47:33 AM
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Take the Deal - Fred Thompson, former Senator from Tennessee and current District Attorney on Law and Order, is providing a welcome antidote to Martin Sheen, according to Drudge:
"Thank goodness we have a President with the courage to protect our country," LAW AND ORDER's Thompson says in the commercial. "What should we do with the inevitable prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of a murderous and aggressive enemy? Can we afford to appease Saddam?"
And here's the coolest possibility of all:In an interview with a local Memphis newspaper, Thompson did not hide his disdain for what he considers WEST WING's preachy liberalism. "I've been thinking about the possibility of having my character run against Martin Sheen (Bartlet) for president," Thompson declared.
If he does, I'll make my own line of bumper stickers: "Fred Thompson Is My Real Make-Believe President".
posted by Mitch Berg 2/26/2003 10:23:10 PM
Cogent - Neil Pollack of the Stranger has perhaps one of the most cogent comments about the media and the blogosphere as we count down to war:
Just Shut Up. Nobody gives a shit what anti-war or pro-war writers think. Really. So shut up. That goes double for poets. Shut the hell up, poets. Everybody just shut up.
The article goes downhill from there, of course - how could it not? But I figured with a lede like that, I had to give it a nod.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/26/2003 05:11:38 PM
Word Processing - After all these years, I finally saw a picture of Molly Ivins. She looks like Lambchop's alcoholic aunt.
Which might explain some of her "logic" in this column.
I almost hate to bother fisking Molly Ivins. I won't take the cheap shot route - the woman's neither retarded nor senile. She's just an idiot. An idiot with a way with a faux-homespun yarn, but an idiot nonetheless. Edward Monks, a lawyer in Eugene, Ore., did a report for the newspaper there last year on the prevalence of right-wing hosts on radio talk shows. "The spectrum of opinion on national political commercial talk radio shows ranges from extreme right wing to very extreme right wing -- there is virtually nothing else." Monks notes the irony that many of these right-wing hosts spend much of their time complaining about "the liberal media."
Isn't this like complaining about how everyone in a bowling alley is talking about bowling instead of baseball? Talk radio is the only niche within the media - really, within public, non-military society - where the dominant culture is conservative. That is as compared to the networks, most newspapers, academia, the public school system, all unions, the non-profit community, Public Broadcasting, and on, and on...
Ivins continues:On the two Eugene talk stations, Monks found: "There are 80 hours per week, more than 4,000 hours per year, programmed for Republican and conservative talk shows, without a single second programmed for a Democratic or liberal perspective. ... Political opinions expressed on talk radio are approaching the level of uniformity that would normally be achieved only in a totalitarian society. There is nothing fair, balanced or democratic about it."
It's sort of like taking a little kid to a store ten times. The first nine times, you buy the kid a pack of gum. The tenth time, you say "no", and the kid scrunches up her face and pouts "you NEVER buy me gum!".
Yes, Molly and Edwin, talk radio is a conservative preserve. It is not "the media", though, just a medium. One medium, among the long list of news, info and entertainment media.
Commercial talk radio is conservative. Against that:
As always, the same challenge; show me a single medium other than talk radio that's even balanced, to say nothing of "conservative".
Indeed, it's the only intellectual competition there is among American media. Competition - a concept for which Ivins cries crocodile tears:To point out the obvious, broadcasters and their national advertisers have a clear stake in promoting the views of those who advocate lower taxes on the rich and on big corporations. What is so perfectly loony about the FCC's proposal to unleash yet another round of media concentration is that it is being done in the name of "the free market."
So the US is ranked 17th by "Reporters Without Borders"? Whoah - where did they come in?
Is the free market not supposed to encourage competition rather than lead to its disappearance? The U.S. now ranks 17th, below Costa Rica and Slovenia, on the worldwide index of press freedom established by the Reporters Without Borders.
We're Number 17! - Who is this "Reporters Without Borders" group that Molly Ivins has so favored?
They're a French organization, for starters.
How did they end up ranking us 17th?
Look at this map - RW/oB ranks the US equal to the likes of Peru and France - and worse than Canada, whose trends on censorship would make any genuine American reporter or libertarian blanche in horror.
No, indeed, the only criticism RW/oB seems to have is that we're in the midst of a war on terrorism - and the poll, being compiled from reports sent in by journalists in the countries themselves, reflects the rather exacting standards of journalist/activists in the US, who would seem to regard any hint of restriction of information as censorship.
Not that it's not justifiable - a free press is vital to a free society. But RW/oB's poll, as quoted by Ivins, is an incredibly misleading piece of work.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/26/2003 11:29:16 AM
Why Is It... - ...that so many of the stars I instinctively like the least, end up being the ones with the political views I appreciate the most?
First, Ted Nugent. Now; Kid Rock:Kid Rock won't be joining the music industry's anti-war movement.
Side note - he made this statement the day after he shared the stage with Sheryl "War is Bad Karma" Crow, at the Grammys. Bummer.
"Why is everybody trying to stop the war? George Bush ain't been saying, 'You all, make s-y records.' Politicians and music don't mix. It's like whisky and wine. [Musicians] ought to stay out of it."
But it doesn't take much nudging to hear the Kid's policy analysis. "We got to kill that mother-[bleeper] Saddam," he says. "Slit his throat. Kill him and the guy in North Korea."
Are some women and children going to die? "Yeah. But is doing the right thing. You got money, you sit around talking about peace. People who don't have money need some help."
(Via Jay Reding)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/26/2003 07:47:55 AM
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Drastic Oversight - So this fall, it'll be ten years since I moved into my house.
And in all that time, I still haven't had a housewarming party. I may have to fix that.
Part of it was that it was just impossible; my then-wife and I had a newborn, a toddler and a teenager to deal with. Then two toddlers and a teenagerier teenager. Then two school-age kids and the teenageriest teen I've seen, and a divorce. And since then - oy, gevalt, so busy I've been.
But it occurs to me that I need to do this. It's time to start planning my party, for this October. And I may just make it the first blog-centric decade-late housewarming in history - an occasion to meet the Twin Cities' small but pretty darn high-quality band of bloggers, among many others.
Of course, it's all dependent on finding a job (and there've been some positive developments in the past week, although obviously one development short of where I'd like it to be) by then. And a girlfriend would be nice to have by that point, too, although I'm not going to set my sights too high...
It also occurs to me that I haven't thrown a genuine party since the last time I was on unemployment, back in 1987. In celebration of my last UI check on getting a job, I threw a bender that had it all; sick-to-puking drunkenness, food-poisoning-til-puking eating (someone made a hamburger from meat that'd been sitting out for eight hours on a hot July evening), at least one brawl, one breakup, one new and fabulous relationship (for someone else, of course) that lasted at least through the next weekend (and lots of other flirtation and dalliance...), and the worst hangover I've had in my life.
The next one will probably be a bit more restrained.
Anyway, finger-food for thought. Stay tuned - more to come in this space as events warrant.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/25/2003 02:35:56 PM
Poll Cats - Is it just me, or is the Strib spinning like mad?
Today' Strib Minnesota Poll headline reads "Support for Bush slipping". And then proceeds to tell us that things are basically...normal.As he steers the nation to the brink of war with Iraq, President Bush faces a continuing slide in his approval ratings and a majority that disagrees with his determination to proceed against Iraq even without a new U.N. resolution, according to the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll.
So they start off claiming a "majority" opposes Bush on Iraq. Then, a few grafs down, the story says:A slim but steady majority continues to back the idea of using force to remove Saddam Hussein, when the question is asked without reference to the United Nations. But when the Minnesota Poll asked respondents to consider the possibility that the Security Council might reject a resolution authorizing force, only 38 percent agreed with Bush's intention of beginning military action with the help of countries that are willing.
...assuming the UN spikes the idea!
Fifty-six percent would prefer that war be postponed while inspections proceed and multilateral discussions continue...
So in other words, the Strib is taking "A majority favors force (depending on the conditions)" and turning it into "A majority opposes force".
Strikes me as either clumsy spin or biased reporting. OK - what am I missing here?
The article goes on: Fifty percent of Minnesotans said they approve of Bush's overall job performance -- down 12 percentage points since December, and down 37 points from the stratospheric levels his ratings reached just after the Sept. 11 attacks.
It says this without mentioning that the numbers, in any case, are still almost unprecedently high, even as they inevitably erode over time, especially given the state of the economy!
In general, the poll showed declining support for Bush's performance and his policies. A majority of Minnesotans still approve of Bush's handling of the campaign against terrorism, but that majority is down from 64 percent in December to 57 percent now. A plurality of Minnesotans -- 47 percent -- now disapproves of Bush's handling of the economy, while 42 percent approve.
I need to dig through the raw data (assuming I can find it), but I have to wonder, when nearly 2/3 approve of the way he's handling terrorism and a slim plurality disagree with the Administration on economic issues, where that figure comes from.
And 58 percent of Minnesotans -- the highest level since 1996 -- say the nation is off on the wrong track.
Here's the part I have to wonder about: "Everything you are finding indicates a presidency on the precipice," said University of Minneota political scientist Larry Jacobs. "He's put the country's prestige on the line and appears to be on a glide path to war, yet the country appears to be more divided than at any time during his presidency. An approval rating of 50 percent is an alarming vital sign for any presidency."
Reagan pushed through his agenda with lower numbers. I have to wonder where Professor Jacobs gets this.
So after the Strib's - and Jacobs' - gloom and doom predictions, the poll gets down to brass tacks:The 55 percent majority that supports military action to remove Saddam is virtually unchanged since December and last August. Thirty-eight percent opposed military action. Men, Republicans, and those with higher incomes were more likely to support the use of force. Recent national polls have shown similar results.
Get that? The real number supporting Bush is 55-38! That's three points shy of a twenty point lead, and it hasn't changed since August!
So re-read the headline, and tell me how this makes sense? Although national polls have shown support for removing Saddam, they have also shown a preference for a multilateral, U.N.-sanctioned approach, in contrast with Bush's determination to proceed with or without a new U.N. resolution.
I've seen no poll yet ask the question "do you think Hussein is playing the UN for a bunch of patsies"? Anyone?
Safe Home - the Minnesota Poll also measures how safe we feel, here in Minnesota. A large majority (68 percent) of Minnesotans believes another terrorist attack against the United States is at least somewhat likely within the next few months. But only 10 percent said such an attack was likely to hit in the area where they live or work.
Interesting, given the little burst of warnings about "soft targets" a few weeks ago, coming from everyone this side of the agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office on down.
The number of Minnesotans describing themselves as very or somewhat fearful for their own safety -- which was never high -- has continued to drift down slowly. In October 2001 -- immediately after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks -- 26 percent of Minnesotans expressed a personal fear. By August 2002, it was 23 percent, and in the latest poll, 19 percent.
Just 9 percent said they had taken steps to prepare for a terrorist attack.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/25/2003 01:58:33 PM
Peace Rally - Jay Manifold talks about a genuine peace rally he visited - an interfaith observation at a Baptist church.
The whole article is very much worth reading - it's great - but here's the payoff section as far as I'm concerned:The church sanctuary, built in the style of an immense amphitheater, was full. Musicians, singers, clergy, and congregants from six evangelical churches and five synagogues were there; American and Israeli flags stood on the dais, with more Israeli flags draped from the balcony, and banners hanging above the choir loft behind the dais, on either side of the 10' x 15' video screen; Isaiah 56:7 was prominent. The pastor's first word to the congregation was "shalom," and he spoke of the gathering in terms of a "family reunion." The closing remarks were delivered by a rabbi, who spoke on Genesis 22:6, which ends (in the JPS TaNaKh) with: "And the two of them walked on together." Then the video screen showed the words to the Israeli national anthem so that we could all sing it.
A few lights, here and there.
One of J.R.R. Tolkien's letters contains an astonishing vignette. He tells the story of a Jewish friend glancing meaningfully at a clock by way of subtly reminding Tolkien that he will miss a church service if he does not depart immediately, and of the feeling this gave him: "A glimpse of an unfallen world." Just about any American evangelical baby boomer with Jewish friends has gotten many such glimpses. Of course, this service was in many ways a reminder of our all-too-fallen world; we were, after all, praying for the peace of Jerusalem -- thus the readings of Psalm 122 (in Hebrew, with English translation printed in the program), and Psalms 116, 125, and 128.
But it left me in awe, with a sense that after centuries of wretchedness, I was born into the first generation to get it right, the fruit of emergent behavior in the freest society on Earth. The lights may be going out in Europe, but in America, in this year 2003 of our Common Era, the lights are coming on.
Outside, things are still pretty dark. But here in America, for all the naysaying and the emotional hinkiness that attends times like these, we're not doing all that badly.
(Via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/25/2003 09:25:34 AM
The Times, They Are A-Bleating - I love this email to Sullivan on The Dish today:
"At the end of the 3rd quarter in the "Is the NYT biased bowl?", let's review some relevant stats:
Via, obviously, Sullivan.
Score: Sullivan, Kaus et al: 52, NYT: 3
1st downs: Sullivan, et al: 28, NYT: 1
Passing Yards: Sullivan, et al: 320, NYT: 15
Rushing Yards: Sullivan, et al: 225, NYT: -5
So yes, while it may be true that the 4th quarter belongs to you, Mr. Raines, the rest of the world has turned the game off. It's over."
posted by Mitch Berg 2/25/2003 07:25:21 AM
Monday, February 24, 2003
Nahm - I remember reading, back in 1995, reading about how Republicans, let by Vin Weber, were courting Norm Coleman for national office - there was even speculation he was on the long list for the 2000 GOP race. That talk receded a bit after the '98 gubernatorial campaign.
It seems the talk is back. Coleman's making a pretty big splash for a freshman senator:. Dinerstein [Sid - chair of the Palm Beach GOP] predicted that Republicans in 2008 are likely to face a presidential contest between Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He said that having Coleman as a running mate could help in states such as Florida, New York and California.
Given that Jeb and Rudy'll be the front-runners, the Vice Presidential race could be really interesting in '08; Norm is obviously an attractive candidate for the GOP - young, capable, a very adept politician, and able to help the continuing swing to the right among younger Jewish voters.
Erich Mische, Coleman's state director, said that "it's always very gratifying to be the topic of speculation about your next job" but that Coleman is focused on his two subcommittee chairmanships and Minnesota issues.
I see him pitted against Condi Rice, whom some analysts see being able to win the California governorship in the near future. Depending on how the Iraq situation turns out, she could be a real superstar, soon.
So which is more important to crack - the Jewish vote or the Black Female vote? Which can be more easily cracked?
It's fun to be a Republican these days...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/24/2003 08:42:39 AM
Democrat Problems - Jay Reding has an excellent analysis, I think, of the Democrats' current problem:
The Democrats are doing exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. They're copying the GOP playbook of 1998 by creating a demon figure on the opposition.
There really doesn't seem to be a Democrat with a coherent vision. Not that that's a bad thing. Or for that matter, not that the current Democrat vision would necessarily sell.
Except the problem isn't with the hardcore DNC partisans that this strategy would motivate. The problem is that swing voters are moving towards the GOP. This strategy does nothing to correct that movement. In fact, it will only make it worse.
The Democrats are coming off as a shrill and partisan party with an obssession with the President. In other words, they're coming off as the GOP of the Clinton years. We all know how effective that strategy was back then.
Reding continutes:If the Democrats want to have a chance in 2004, they need to start becoming an effective minority party. That doesn't merely entail attacking the plans of the majority, it means coming up with better alternatives. However, even if the Dems do come up with viable public policies, their message is going to be lost to the attacks they make on Bush.
That's the thing that many of us railed about in '96 - and hope nobody in the DNC's railing about now; Reagan never had to attack anyone. He articulated a vision that Americans wanted to share.
Political attacks are only viable when you are confident that you have the ability to gain an edge. This strategy is only going to compound the Democrats problems with swing voters and reduce their viability. Then again, looking at the current makeup of the Democratic Party, having them out of office is probably a good thing for the country.
Do the Dems have any such vision?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/24/2003 07:34:54 AM
What The.... - Norah Jones sweeps the big awards?
I mean, it's great intimate-fifth-date music (which is why I've only heard the album on the car radio and on the kiosks at the record store), but Album of the Year, during a year with The Rising and The Eminem Show came out?
Can anyone say "Christopher Cross"? Sarah Vaughn or Cassandra Wilson are to Norah Jones as Django Reinhardt is to Pat Metheny.
On the other hand, the "All Star Tribute to the Clash", by Elvis Costello, Springsteen, Miami Steve Van Zandt and Dave Grohl, was really, really great. Even my 11 year old daughter went "Wow. That was cool. Wish we could get that on CD".
UPDATE: A correspondent writes: "Django was a genius, yes, but don't sell Metheny short - he's hardly a lite-jazz fret caresser."
Fair enough. Metheny is good, although I haven't listened to him much since the late eighties. I just needed something a little less obvious than "Billie Holiday is to Norah Jones as Charlie Parker is to Kenny G". Point taken.
Here's the real question: Am I wrong? Am I selling Jones short?
I'm willing to be convinced.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/24/2003 07:16:26 AM
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Grammy Whaaa??? - Jesse Harris beats Springsteen for Songwriter of the Year? Granted, Norah Jones is very good. But...what?
The E Street Band; the TV sound mix was just plain wierd. Live is still the only way to fly.
Can't wait to see the all star salute to the Clash. Also can't wait to see why the Academy figures they had to honor the Clash this long after they broke up, unhonored by the Academy in the first place. I mean, should they also honor Stiff Little Fingers?
More to come.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/23/2003 09:12:47 PM
Taking a Page from the Sullivan Songbook - I am now running two awards for the end of 2003:
Each has one nominee so far.
More are sought!
posted by Mitch Berg 2/23/2003 07:10:03 PM
Baldwin Award Nominee - George Clooney, famed military historian and thinker, has favored a German news program with his keen, cutting and qualified observations about a potential war with Iraq:
Clooney, 41, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was making a mistake to think a war against Iraq would be an easy win for the United States.
One wonders two things:
"I believe he thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore," said Clooney, who starred in a film about the 1991 Gulf War "Three Kings" that took a dark look at the war to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.
"We can't beat anyone anymore," added Clooney
Has anyone informed Laura Billings yet?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/23/2003 07:08:32 PM
Single Payer Healthcare - Advocates of Single Payer Heathcare - and the Twin Cities are crawling with them - say we couldn't possibly have any worse-quality healthcare than we do now, and point to the British system as an example of how to do it right.
Not that years of other evidence to the contrary has had any effect, of course. But this story is the cherry on the sludge sundae:BRITISH hospital managers gave a surgeon a dessert spoon to use in a hip replacement operation, prompting him to spend £150 ($405) of his own money to buy the proper instrument, a tribunal has heard.
Just a fluke?
Dr Godfrey Charnley later quit his job and is suing the public agency that runs Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, south-western England, for allegedly forcing him out.He said assistants had given him a sterilised metal dessert spoon instead of a curette, a sharp-edged, spoon-shaped tool he should have had to scrape cartilage and damaged bone from the hip socket...He held up a household spoon similar to the one he said he was given.
The system, threatened, is striking back:
He said the hospital's cost-cutting managers had previously tried to persuade him to use a dessert spoon, but he refused.Julian Hoskins, lawyer for the Plymouth Hospitals National Health Service Trust, accused Charnley of threatening Sister Helen Wood, a nun present in the operating room, over a report on the incident "by telling her what you would do or not do unless she tore up that piece of paper".
What? A bureaucracy, cheating?
Charnley replied that he had only asked to see the page to check that it fairly described what had happened.
The surgeon, who now practices at another hospital, also claims managers pressured him to manipulate waiting lists so they would not be fined for making patients wait too long.
Never.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/23/2003 10:18:19 AM
Many Times Bitten, Twice Shy - I'm not shocked we've had such a rash of club disasters in the past week - shocked, perhaps, only that it's taken this long to have a serious disaster.
As the death toll in the Rhode Island Concert Fire climbs toward 100, the word is leaking out that the band had no permission to use pyrotechnics.Great White used pyrotechnics during three other shows - Feb. 7 at the Pinellas Park Expo Center near Tampa, Fla.; Feb. 13 in Allentown, Pa.; and Tuesday in Bangor, Maine - without discussing it with promoters or the venue, according to concert organizers or their spokesmen.
The motto among a lot of rock and roll people is "it's easier to get forgiveness than permission". The Chicago and Rhode Island disasters greatly - and justifiably - overshadowed our own near miss, when the Fine Line in Minneapolis suffered $100,000 in damage from another band that not only used pyrotechnics, but apparently made it a habit:
Domenic Santana, the owner of the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, N.J., said Great White failed to tell him they were using pyrotechnics during a Valentine's Day show.
"Our stage manager didn't even know it until it was done," said Santana. "My sound man freaked out because of the heat and everything, and they jeopardized the health and the safety of our patrons."
Officials at other clubs said Great White asked before using pyrotechnics and complied when they were turned down. One of those venues was the Oxygen Nightclub in Evansville, Ind., where the band played Feb. 3.Members of the The Jet City Fix never told club owner Dario Anselmo that they would be shooting anything off during their set, Anselmo said. The band played a show at Luther's Blues bar in Madison, Wis., on Sunday and was yelled at by the owner after it did the same thing, Anselmo said.
I'm amazed that we haven't seen more of these sorts of things. Bands and their roadies (those that have roadies) are incredibly casual about these thing - usually from ignorance. I've seen lots of bands fire off pyros in bars. I'd be amazed if more than a few of them had permits.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/23/2003 08:02:25 AM
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Open Question for NPR Staff - When National Public Radio's news reporters and anchors read the names of the capitals of France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Hungary, Romania and Russia, respectively - really, any first-world or first-world-allied nation - they say PAIR-iss, Bur-LINN, WAR-sah, AM-stir-dam, OSS-lo, Joe-HAN-es-burg, BOO-da-pest, BUU-ca-rest and MOSS-cow. They never use the native pronunciations: pair-EE, bear-LEEN, var-SHA-va, OMM-shter-dom, OO-slow, Yo-HON-esh-boork, boo-da-PESHT, bu-koo-REST-ee or MOS-kva.
But whenever the topic turns to Latin America, the Middle East or the Third World, suddenly the entire NPR news staff wraps their tongues floridly and tortuously around the most elaborate native (or pseudo-native) pronunciations. Away with Nicaragua, Pakistan, Tehran, Guatamala, Tijuana, Havana, Chile - in with Nee-ka-RRRAH-wha, Pock-ee-STON, Tay-hay-RRRRRON, Hwat-a-MAAA-la, Tee-WHAAA-na, Ha-BAAA-na, CHEEEE-lay. Combine the florid, pretentious and selective attempts at native pronunciation with the standard-issue, round-syllabled, college-professor NPR accent, and everyone sounds like Jimmy Carter on Quaaludes.
So why do NPR staffers throw themselves at Spanish and Arabic pronunciations with the determination of a pack of third-graders on a stack of Pokemon cards, but sluff through the rest of the world's place names with the gringo aplomb of a bunch of Indiana Kiwanians?
Anyone?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/22/2003 08:04:33 PM
Laughs in Danger's Face - Kevin Pollack in the NYTimes writes about why this may be our last chance to deal with Hussein on favorable terms.
The whole article is worth a read - but I want to call your attention to this bit here:America has never encountered a country that saw nuclear weapons as a tool for aggression. During the cold war we feared that the Russians thought this way, but we eventually learned that they were far more conservative. Our experts may be split on how to handle North Korea, but they agree that the Pyongyang regime wants nuclear weapons for defensive purposes — to stave off the perceived threat of an American attack. The worst that anyone can suggest is that North Korea might blackmail us for economic aid or sell such weapons to someone else (with Iraq being near the top of that list). Only Saddam Hussein sees these weapons as offensive — as enabling aggression.
That's why I keep saying the Korean "crisis" is a diversion (very probably staged in collusion with Hussein himself, given his close relationship with Pyongyang; when all is said and done, Kim Jong-Il is at least rational (in a very aggressive way) about what force represents. It's a tool - a very overused tool, in his case, a tool he trots out with amazing freqency, but a tool nonetheless.
With Hussein, it's different. Why? Pollack continues:Finally, we cannot forget that all evidence has shown Saddam Hussein to be an incorrigible optimist who willfully ignores signs of danger. Consider that on at least five occasions over the last three decades, he has embarked on foreign policy adventures that nearly destroyed him: his attack on Iraq's Kurds in 1974 (which might have ended in an Iranian assault on Baghdad if the shah of Iran had not unexpectedly decided to double-cross the Kurds instead); his invasion of Iran in 1980; his invasion of Kuwait in 1990; his assassination attempt against former President Bush in 1993; and his threatened attack on Kuwait in 1994. In each case, he took a course of action that we know even his closest advisers considered extremely dangerous.
Democrats - show this article to your friends.
This is the problem with Saddam Hussein. The assertion that he is not intentionally suicidal may be true, but it is irrelevant. In the end, he has frequently proven inadvertently suicidal.
And he seems to be doing it again. With more than 150,000 American soldiers taking positions on his borders he continues to run the international inspectors in circles, foolishly confident that his minor concessions will stave off an invasion. Is there any other person on earth who wouldn't turn his country inside out to prove that he did not have more weapons of mass destruction? Once again, he seems to be betting his life that the game is not as dangerous as everyone else thinks it is.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/22/2003 07:59:52 AM
Friday, February 21, 2003
Human Shields, Day One - Reports indicate that western "human shields" are starting to dribble into Iraq.
"We will try everything to get peace instead of war and to protect civil societies," said Ingrid Ternert, a Swedish member of the group.
Nice to know they've picked the right place.
The volunteers planned to spend only one night at the station, but said others would rotate in to protect the infrastructure installation, which wasn't bombed during the 1991 Gulf War. Workers at the station were happy with their unusual visitors.
The WaPo didn't mention if Mr. Alwan had a gun to his head or not.
"We welcomed them. I feel happy and it is nice because they want peace for our country," said Hussein Alwan, a 32-year-old supervisor.Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday that any Iraqi officials who help in the deployment of the human shields could be punished as war criminals.
I can't wait - can not wait - to see how the average Iraqi citizen reacts to these people when liberation finally happens.
Asked about Rumsfeld's remarks, Ternert, a high school teacher, said: "He doesn't know that this is protecting the society."Some of the human shields weren't exposing themselves to much danger. Cano said the United States would be to blame if anyone is hurt - but conceded that likely wouldn't be him.
Indeed, all of them - and, regrettably, Sean Penn as well - will probably live to tell the tale of their superhuman courage.
"I will be leaving Iraq in two days," he said. "So I personally think I will be all right."
The real thing is almost wierder than Unfossilized's inside scoop.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 10:46:54 PM
My Favorite New Toy - I could stare at it for hours.
(Via Coyote at the Dog Show)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 10:28:44 PM
Pearl - Today's the anniversary of Daniel Pearl's murder.
Lileks has a great Bleat on the subject. Here's one of two money clips:Playwright Harold Pinter, speaking at last weekend’s rally, said "The US is a nation out of control," and “unless we stop it, it will bring barbarism to the entire world." He said America was "a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug."
The other:
When Blair shows up in the pulpit cleaving the air with a scimitar, let me know. When US television broadcasts a speech with Billy Graham hosting an Excalibur replica from the Franklin Mint Collection, demanding the decapitation of Muslims, let me know. When George Bush grips the podium and beseeches American rock formations to give up the location of non-Christians so we can slit their throats, and it’s carried live on national TV by presidential order, drop me a line.
It takes a particularly rarified variety of idiot to look at a Jew-hating fascist with a small mustache - and decide that his opponent is the Nazi.every so often - say, when you’re standing in the aisle of Target, woolgathering, recalling something you heard on the radio on the way over, or read on the web that morning, and you see headlines: Israel retaliates; Syrian forces push south or Smallpox appears contained, for now and you wonder whether this simple trivial moment will seem unutterably precious in six months, or three - and then you shake it off, and buy Tupperware. Another normal February day.
It is, indeed, interesting to read things written before 9/11; my own diary, magazines, even peoples' weblogs. I often wonder - what will these days look like in a year? Like looking at peoples' diaries in 1938? The uncertainty, the political maneuvering, the thundering jeremiads from left and right...
March is named after which Roman god? Yes, yes. Of course.
I need to bookmark some of these things.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 07:31:24 PM
Les Monquiez Surrendeurellement aux Consommez du Fromage - The French have been getting a lousy rap lately.
Much of it's deserved.
Yesterday's edition of Fraters Libertas did an able fisking of the execrable Molly Ivins' latest take on the French.
In her latest piece, Ivins proves that those who decry others' knowlege of history had best be up on it themselves. Ivins is not up to the challenge.
This is going to be just a tad redundant - the Fraters did a fine job - but I have no problem piling on Molly Ivins:George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried."
Ivins gets part of it right - and some of the critics of France get it partly wrong.
That was certainly amusing.
One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Adolf Hitler.
Germany and Russia both lost greater numbers of men in action than did France. But France had a smaller population than Germany or Russia. Roughly 65% of all Frenchmen of military age were killed, wounded, captured or declared missing in World War I. That's nearly 2/3. The other combatants suffered grievously as well - Germany nearly 50%, Britain 35% and the US roughly 8%.
The gutting of an entire generation affected all Western societies - but the French worst of all. Although they remained a world power, they suffered from a malaise from which, in some ways, they never recovered. Picture America's post-Vietnam hangover, only 100 times worse.
This is the last part where Ivins is even close to the truth, though.On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny.
Wrong on most counts. In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly.
Simplistic in the extreme. The French held out just fine in quite a number of areas - but it was irrelevent. The German Blitzkrieg was built around, as Nathan Bedford Forrest put it, "hitting 'em where they ain't". The Germans would force a breakthrough ( in the Ardennes mountains in Belgium), then force all their tanks through the hole. The French spread their tanks evenly over their entire front. Where the French held, with or without tanks, it was in a place the Germans weren't attacking.
And as the Fraters mention, there were a few armored counterattacks by British and French troops. They managed to win some localized successes (as the British did at Arras) that were overwhelmed by the German advance everywhere else.Relying on the Maginot Line was one of the great military follies of modern history, but it does not reflect on the courage of those who died for France in 1940. For 18 months after that execrable defeat, the United States of America continued to have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.
As irrelevant an observation as it is stupid.
Not as stupid as what follows: For those of you who have not read Paris 1919, I recommend it highly. Roosevelt was anti-colonialist. That system was a great evil, a greater horror even than Nazism or Stalinism.
And with this, Ivins proves her own gaping cretinism. Naziism, Stalinism, and their offshoots, as well as the wars they started between them devoured as many as 150 million people in the last century.
Ivins is again raving.
If you have read Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, you have some idea. The French were in it up to their necks.
Instead of insisting on freedom for the colonies of Europe, we let our allies carry on with the system, leaving the British in India and Africa, and the French in Vietnam and Algeria, to everyone's eventual regret.
Roosevelt in 1919 was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He had no power over colonial policy, to say nothing of that of other sovereign nations.
Or does Ivins mean after 1945? When the British began divesting their colonies almost immediately? Let's look into this:Surrender monkeys? Try Dien Bien Phu. Yes, the French did surrender, didn't they? After 6,000 French died in a no-hope position. Ever heard of the Foreign Legion? Of the paratroopers, called "paras"? The trouble we could have saved ourselves if we had only paid attention to Dien Bien Phu.
So, which is it? Is colonialism worse than Naziism, or is the French defense of their colonies, and DeGaulle's foot-dragging and horribly bloody disengagement from Algeria proof that they're a tough, pugnacious people? I'm confused.
Then came Algeria. As nasty a war as has ever been fought. If you have seen the film Battle of Algiers, you have some idea. Five generations of pieds noirs, French colonialists, thought it was their country Charles de Gaulle came back into power in 1958, specifically elected to keep Algeria French. I consider de Gaulle's long, slow, delicate, elephantine withdrawal (de Gaulle even looked like an elephant) one of the single greatest acts of statesmanship in history. Only de Gaulle could have done that.. The other night on 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney, who fought in France and certainly has a right to be critical, chided the French for forgetting all that sacrifice. But I think he got it backward: The French remember too well.
Apparently not. They learned in the fifties and sixties that appeasement of terrorists was a one-way trip to a fiery death. I was in Paris on Sept. 11, 2001. The reaction was so immediate, so generous, so overwhelming.
Nobody doubts that many, maybe most, French people have their hearts in the right place. Their government is where the problems come in.
Not just the government, but the people kept bringing flowers to the American embassy. They covered the American Cathedral, the American Church, anything they could find that was American.
They didn't just leave flowers -- they wrote notes with them. I read more than 100 of them. Not only did they refer, again and again, to Normandy, to never forgetting, but there were even some in ancient, spidery handwriting referring to WWI: "Lafayette is still with you." This is where I think the real difference is. We Americans are famously ahistorical. We can barely be bothered to remember what happened last week, or last month, much less last year.
Nor should Ivins "go there". Any putative French "historicism" is based on a collective national dogma - the same as Russian "paranoia" and Japanese "isolationism" and German "Volk". The French "knowledge of history" is neither particularly objective (not that Ivins is fit to comment) nor necessarily healthy.
The French are really stuck on history. (Some might claim this is because the French are better educated than we are. I won't go there.)
Yes, it does.
Does it not occur to anyone that these are very old friends of ours, trying to tell us what they think they know about being hated by weak enemies in the Third World?
France gets a bum rap in the US, in some respects. The Germans swept them aside in 1940, largely because they were a demoralized people, many of whom felt more sympathy for authoritarian Vichy than their own republic. Their military is the butt of jokes, even though many of their special forces are among the best in the world. They have experience being hated in the Third World, largely because they were among the most brutal and autocratic colonizers.
The French story is neither as craven as the likes of Jay Leno would tell you - nor as monochromatically courageous as Molly Ivins would have you believe.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 12:26:52 PM
Biting the Hand that Blogs Me - Blogger.com, the site with which I publish Shot in the Dark, has revolutionized web publishing.
For example, it's made instant web publishing possible for people who neither know nor care to know HTML code or how to FTP files to servers.
It also has bad habits, like losing archives - I have no idea where the archives for the last year have gone. Very irritating.
I'll be updating to a better system as soon as I get a job.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 02:37:00 AM
The Pope of Bruce - It's no secret; I'm one of the small, misbegotten, misunderstood troupe of conservatives that are huge Bruce Springsteen fans.
I don't know who gives us more grief - conservatives like Jason Lewis, who mistake his marketing savvy and relentless blue-collar mien for socialistic diddling, or liberals who see his relentless blue-collar mien and often-dour lyrics about the dark side of American life as an indictment of capitalism and America itself.
Both are wrong, of course.
The most galling thing about Bruce, of course, is that some ultra-left demigog always manages to appoint himself the Pope of Bruce. During the first half of Bruce's career, Dave Marsh filled the role. Marsh was the most galling of rock critics - an able critic with impeccable musical taste (he wrote the definitive bios of the Who and Bruce, among many other great rock tomes), who nonetheless couldn't write a shopping list without slipping in a paeon to Castro or a condemnation of Ronald Reagan.
Eric Alterman has taken over the papacy of Bruce recently. The far-left pundit - most famous for the preposterous What Liberal Media? - also wrote Aint' No Sin to Be Glad You're Alive, a capable dissection of Springsteen's music as literature and social criticism which, despite being a fair set of opinions, is no less dogmatic than any of Marsh's neo-Maoist screeds.
Dexter Van Zile has written an interesting piece on Springsteen-via-Alterman in the Washington Dispatch.In his recent piece in The Nation (“USA OUI! BUSH NON!” Feb. 10, 2003), Eric Alterman returns to a familiar trope – Bruce Springsteen’s moral and artistic superiority. It's an important theme in Alterman's writings and for good reason. Springsteen's body of work, shot through as it is with depictions of wounded manhood, mournful ambivalence and longing for redemption, provides convenient fodder for Alterman's proclamations of America's inherent greatness, the failure of Democratic leadership to live up to that greatness and the malign intent of Republicans to undermine it. But while mournful ambivalence and all that accompanies it may make for good artistry, it doesn't make for good foreign policy, which is why unlike Alterman, most Americans can embrace both Springsteen and George W. Bush in their respective realms. Americans may tolerate, even enjoy, watching artists grapple with self-doubt, but they realize that when it comes to responding to the challenges in the international arena, there are times when politicians must struggle with something aside from their own failings and face evil for what it is. In the cultural realm, Springsteen is the Boss; in the political realm, Bush is their man.
This is a fascinating point.
Alterman seems to feel that people must be consistent in all things; to favor action against terrorism, one must listen to Toby Keith and presumably eat steak twice a day and drive an SUV, while Springsteen fans must perforce be anti-war, vegetarian, and so on.
And yet hasn't art always been a vehicle by which people explore and soothe their self-doubts? An entry point into the insecure parts of the psyche to which one must tend before being able to put on one's war face?
Van Zile continues:The main thrust of Alterman's piece, which discusses Europe's feelings toward the U.S., is that the people of Europe are disgusted by Bush’s alleged unilateralism, but love America, its people and its culture. To redeem its relationship with Europe, Alterman argues, America must fully embrace its values, adopt multilateralism and embark on a foreign policy that “protects and defends our values as well as our people.” Exactly what such a policy would look like in concrete terms, Alterman doesn’t say, but it appears we have three tasks before us. First, we must dump Bush as president, then give Europe veto power over the American use of force and lastly, appease Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq who has gassed his own people, invaded Kuwait and has lied to UN arms inspectors. Do these things, Alterman suggests, and all will be well between the U.S. and Europe.
Oddly, it seems that Zacarias Moussaoui was a bit of a Bruce fan.
The first proof Alterman offers to demonstrate Europe really, really does love us is the positive reaction of the crowd at a Bruce Springsteen concert Alterman attended at Paris' Bercy Stadium while reporting his piece. It seems that the crowd of 15,000 screamed the lyrics to “Born in the USA” at the “top of their lungs” and “with their fists in the air.” The scene inspired Alterman to write “You can't be anti-American if you love Bruce Springsteen.”
But that's a side issue. Whether one can be an anti-American Springsteen fan is as irrelevant as whether one can support the war and also admire Springsteen's music.
No, the real issue as far as I'm concerned is that people can simultaneously believe things that, to the overly-rigid mind, may seem contradictory, but for reasons that are thorougly consistent.
Even Springsteen himself.
Last summer, when The Rising was released, he did a series of interviews in which he said "The war in Afghanistan was handled well. It was deliberative, which I wasn't counting on. I expected a lot less from this administration." The muted praise of the President was more than some leftists could handle.
And after that, we saw the most amazing of phenomenae - the rock critic from the ultraliberal Village Voice lambasting the album and the artist, while a music critic from the conservative National Review lionized it.
It was an absolute gut-shot for many on the left. But many on the left have memories just as short as many on the right. Because while many leftist commentators still praise Springsteen for slamming Ronald Reagan for alluding to Born in the USA during the '84 campaign, many on both sides forget that he was equally quick to cut off Walter Mondale's attempt to exploit the incident for his own advantage as well.
Iraq is more complicated. Springsteen has taken some conservative heat during his current tour for asking people to be sure to stay on top of the situation, not to give to blind patriotism or revenge, to keep the Administration accountable. Fairly mild stuff, compared to the vast majority of the Hollywood "peace" movement, really. Some chalk it up to his being a lefty - and there's something to it. More importantly, there's an element of moral consistency to this stance; Springsteen is pretty forthright about the fact that he dodged the draft during the Vietnam war. According to the stories he's told in concert over the years, he managed to flunk the physical, on purpose. It's not something he's advertised, but neither is it something he's covered up (unlike a certain former president). He's said in previous interviews he doesn't believe it appropriate for someone who dodged the draft to be a hawk.
What's the point?
Demigogues of both sides (but especially the left) are quick to jam people into convenient, monochromatic containers. Dave Marsh and Eric Alterman may live, breathe and exude red to the cores of their beings - more power to them.
Most people aren't like that. I'm a conservative who still loves punk rock, Jersey-shore soul, and the date with the occasional Green.
Springsteen is a liberal who supported a war that the left roundly, and wrongly, condemned.
Life is complicated. More complicated than the likes of Alterman can usually gather.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2003 02:29:38 AM
Thursday, February 20, 2003
The Bad Guys...- "Move On", an organization that was born to defend the rights of middle-aged white male philanderers, has moved on to "anti-war" actities (as has been noted in this space). It's behind Martin Sheen's upcoming ad campaign.
They're carrying out a "Virtual March on Washington", via their website.
The good folks at Instapundit, as well as many other blogs of conscience, are asking you to register your opinions. I second this.
When you register, the website assigns you times to call your senators. I plan on joining in.
Here's what I wrote:I completely support the actions of our President and our military, and those of our allies (UK, Australia, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic States, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria) to end the dictatorial and repressive regime of Saddam Hussein. Inspections have not, and will not, work to disarm Saddam - indeed, by design, they can not. He has played the US and the UN for fools and patsies for 12 years. It is time to return the country of Iraq to a free and unoppressed Iraqi people.
Sign up. Let us know.
I repudiate the actions of Martin Sheen, who truly does not act "in my name".
And the only "move on" we need is into Iraq. The only way home is through Baghdad.
More to come.
...and the Good Guys - Adam Yoshida is responding with his Virtual March to Victory. Various ‘anti-war’ groups have declared that February 26, 2003 will be the day on which they will launch a so-called “Virtual March on Washington.” These groups, such as “Win Without War”, claim to represent the real will of the American people and the people of the world. For far too long that mainstream media has been allowed to represent the views of the protestors as the views of the average American. It’s high time for the great silent majority, that majority who polls show support President Bush and his efforts to defend America, to speak out against the tyranny of this vocal minority which is seeking to use their Hollywood connections, and the complicity of the mainstream media, to impose their views upon the American people.
I signed. Hope to see you there.
Therefore, I am calling for a counter-demonstration, a twin virtual march to show that not all of the people of the world are fooled by the lies of Saddam Hussein. It’s time for the great silent majority of the world- that majority which recognizes the mortal threat posed by the alliance between terrorists and outlaw states- to tell the world that we stand with President George W. Bush...
...On February 26th let us flood the internet with messages of support for the brave forces deployed all across the world as part of the global war on terrorism and messages declaring our support for a war to disarm Iraq and remove the dictator Saddam Hussein from power.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 08:53:43 PM
Old Diplomacy, New Diplomacy - The left is fond on decrying the Administration's diplomatic skills. I read one pundit, last week, who said "Europe is so far ahead of us in every way..."
According to Charles Paul Freund in Reason, the Chirac incident belies all that:Chirac's performance in Brussels this week was so clumsy that it surprised even the French. Members of the European Union were meeting to iron out a common position on Iraq, and were joined by applicants to the EU from central and eastern Europe. These included a group of nations that had recently expressed support for the U.S. hard line against Saddam Hussein. At a press conference, Chirac lectured these nations in an astonishing manner. He called their pro-American letter "irresponsible," and evidence that they had been "badly brought up." "They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet," Chirac said.
After forty years of being talked down to as "members" of the "Warsaw Pact", it seems the eastern natives are restless. The upshot?
"Badly brought up"? What kind of an international showdown is this? The French regard the American global presence as that of a wild and trigger-happy cowboy. To face off against him, Paris is assuming the stance of a supercilious French governess ready to tongue-lash the whole of Europe into submission.
French TV showed a succession of eastern European foreign ministers attempting to maintain their dignity while responding to Chirac. One Czech representative tried to smile as he termed the French attitude "undemocratic." The Hungarian minister said icily that he hoped his refusal to respond would be evidence of his decent upbringing.
"We thought we were preparing for war with Saddam Hussein and not Jacques Chirac," the Czech deputy foreign minister told The New York Times. Eastern Europe "definitely cannot remain silent" about Iraq, he said. Compared to Parisian diplomatic contempt, American efforts begin to look remarkably deft. No sooner had France and Germany established their common opposition to American aims, for example, than the U.S. characterized them as "Old Europe" even as it worked to bring a "New Europe" into plain view. Now that Chirac has made his countermove—telling upstart Europe it should be seen and not heard—the American and British governments look like a pair of pretty smooth operators.
Read the rest of the article .
The New York Times' account takes a stab at interpreting Chirac's behavior. Support for the U.S., writes reporter Craig S. Smith, "reinforced widespread suspicion in France that the poorer European countries are primarily attracted to European Union membership for economic reasons while their political allegiance will remain with Washington." Smith added that French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin had noted testily last weekend that "Europe is not a cash register."
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 11:52:02 AM
Shot and Goal - Tim Pawlenty is fighting for his budget plan against a full-court press from the media, the non-profit community, and the DFL.
And he's getting in some good points.
DFL House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, said: The governor can't have it both ways. He can't say he's balancing the budget solely through cuts and then claiming the cuts don't have an impact," Entenza said. "The reality is they're going to have real significant impact. The impact is on law enforcement.
Pawlenty retorted:In a hastily called news conference at the State Capitol, a visibly irritated Pawlenty said local officials who could not handle the magnitude of the reductions without cutting police and fire services should be fired. The reductions would be limited to 5 percent of a city's total revenue the first year and at 9.5 percent the second year.
As an aside - perhaps Entenza's remarks are actually a good sign for Republicans. That Entenza would protest the potential loss of cops and law enforcement - as opposed to traditional DFL bases like welfare and social programs - is a sign that the DFL knows which voters are really in charge in this state.
"If you can't manage your city with a 3 percent drop in revenue without having the first thing you do is run before the cameras and say you're going to lay off cops, then you shouldn't be in that position," Pawlenty said.
Genocide Afoot in Minnesota- This also came from the Strib article:"It [the LGA cuts] hits the inner cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and rural communities extremely hard, and it doesn't touch the wealthy suburban districts at all," said Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia. "To me, the attack on rural Minnesota is almost like geographic genocide. The social fabric of the state of Minnesota is going to be severely damaged."
Geographic Genocide.
A cut in funding...is equal to genocide (the destruction of an entire people). I'll cut Rukavina a certain amount of slack - I've heard him speak, and let's just say the problems of having an overly-keen intellect are not ones he needs to worry about.
But "Geographic Genocide"? That's not just dumb - that's Maxine Waters/Carole Mosely-Braun-level stupid. And the worst part? Someone out there is going to take this seriously, and vote based on that kind of idiocy.
Seriously - the debasement of our language by such tripe is absolutely galling.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 11:25:01 AM
Liberal Talk Watch - Ann Coulter touches on the same topic I did a few days ago - the putative "liberal talk radio network" that a group of big-dollar lefties are supposedly going to try to launch.
Here's the big point - one I sorta buried in Tuesday's screed:Liberal persuasion consists of the highbrow sneer from self-satisfied snobs ladled out for people with a 40 IQ. This is not an ideology that can withstand several hours a day of caller scrutiny where their goofball notions can be shot down by any truck driver with a cell phone
If I were a liberal thinking about trying to float a talk radio network, the last thing I'd do would be to trot out another batch of liberal "big names" like Cuomo or Al Franken. "Big names" have one huge problem - they know they're "big names". Even if they can affect a "just plain folks" attitude long enough to avoid turning listeners off in droves (and that's difficult), the very fact that they're a "big name" exerts a chilling effect on reaction. People who have no compunctions about calling to rag on Bob Davis, Schlemiel Without Portfolio, will be just a tad intimidated at the notion of calling an ex-Big Wheel.
Which, as a conservative, sounds just fine to me. Bring on the Big Names! Put Barbra Streisand on afternoon drive!
As to Al Franken; bitter and snide don't sell on the radio. Well - they can, but it's rare. And nobody in the public eye comes across as more bitter and snide than your average comedian. Having never met Franken, I don't know if he fits the pattern, but I wouldn't bet against it. And if so - well, it doesn't bode well for an "Al Franken Show"s chances.
So bring 'em on!
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 09:39:41 AM
Whew - I was sicker than I thought yesterday. I'll try to make up for lost time today.
One word: Theraflu.
Premier Chirac - Most of Eastern Europe is overtly backing the Administration on Iraq. Virtually the entire former Warsaw Pact - Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic States, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria - are backing us. It must have something to do with having been subjects to a far-away dictatorship.
Last week, French prez Chirac attacked the Eastern European nations that had broken ranks with France, Germany and Belgium. At one point, Chirac said the nations had "missed a great opportunity to shut up".
Today: They're talking back:Romanian President Ion Iliescu led the attack on France, describing the President's "outdated" views as an affront to democracy and free speech.
Chirac has be be nervous.
"Such reproaches are totally unjustified, unwise and undemocratic," he told reporters in Brussels, after a meeting for candidate nations on Iraq.
"It is unwise to separate countries into pro-American and anti-American. I thought it was outdated to say, 'He who is not with us is against us'."
"In the European family there are no mummies, no daddies and no kids - it is a family of equals," said Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz
The EU is an offshoot of fifty-year-old efforts to reconcile France and Germany, after two world wars. Of course, the effort always saw France and Germany as the leaders of the effort.
But today, with their economies moribund, the French and Germans see some of their power shifting eastward, to countries that have largely adapted freer markets, that detest authoritarianism....
...and that are often staunch US allies. Poland and the Czechs are among the best allies we have in the world, these days. And unlike France and Germany, the economies of Eastern Europe have nowhere to go but up.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2003 08:09:18 AM
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou? - Blogger.com, the site I use to edit and publish Shot in the Dark, has been down most of the day.
As luck'd have it, so have I - I caught my first nasty cold in quite some time, and actually spent much of the day in bed. Let's look at the half-full glass and say that it's one nice thing about being unemployed; I can take a sick day when I want one. Unfortunately, my son was also home sick, so it wasn't the most restful day off I've had...
Anyway, more posts to come.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2003 04:45:48 PM
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Franken See, Franken Do - Jay Reding beat me to one story I've been chewing on for a few weeks here; efforts to kick off a liberal talk radio network.
Says the Times The plan faces several business and content challenges, from finding a network of radio stations to buy the program to overcoming the poor track record of liberal radio shows. But it is the most ambitious undertaking yet to come from liberal Democrats who believe they are overshadowed in the political propaganda wars by conservative radio and television personalities.
My response should be obvious, but Reding said it first, so I'll defer to Jay: "They believe that since there's a such a lack of left-wing partisans in the media (other than Dan Rather, James Carville, Ted Turner, the Times own editorial staff, etc...) that there needs to be a left-wing alternative. The major problem with that logic is that there is a glut of liberal voices in the media, and even on the airwaves. One wonders if these people haven't heard of National Public Radio before..." Indeed.
But in terms of a muckraking presence among blue and white-collar breadwinners, the left really doesn't have much going on. There's a reason for that.
When I worked in talk radio, is was segregated into a ghetto on the AM band. In the eighties, it was widely agreed that AM radio was doomed to go the way of the steam-powered car; Talk radio was the province of blue-hairs and dyspeptic third-shifters. Larry King was the biggest name in the business - and he was no more astringent than he is today.
Then came Limbaugh - a sad sack schlemiel turned "pompous blowhard" who reveled in and excelled at pushing liberal buttons. Then as now, he mixed analysis - often glib, frequently brilliant - with pointed irreverence and fairly sophisticated humor (by radio standards) into something that appealed to "angry white men" and not a few women nationwide in numbers that radio had never seen.
Suddenly, between 1987 and 1989, all those AM radios that had been sitting unused at construction sites, in long-haul trucks, homes, and really anywhere that people with mal-educated kids and beleaguered families and big tax burdens gathered, suddenly sprang back into use.
Within two years of going nationwide, Limbaugh became the biggest thing in radio history. Today, the tables have turned; many AM talk stations will carry their FM and TV sister-properties, financially. Talk radio has boomed in a way that we in the racket couldn't have imagined in 1986.
And it's all conservative. All of it. The shows that are getting any numbers at all are conservative. There are few - very few - surviving liberal talk show hosts, and the number is dwindling.
And the left's not happy about it:The concern has been around for years: Hillary Rodham Clinton first mentioned a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" in 1998. But the sentiment has taken on new urgency with the rise to the top of the cable news ratings of the Fox News Channel, considered by many to have a conservative slant, and the Republicans' gaining control of the Senate in November. Such events have spurred many wealthy Democrats to explore investments in possible, liberal-skewing media ventures. New campaign finance rules that restrict giving opportunities also gave them further incentive.
The article's last paragraph is an interesting one, and flirts with the point without actually hitting it. What the left calls "Fire and Brimstone" is something much deeper.
The new liberal radio network is initially being financed by the Paradigm Group, of which the Drobnys are the principal partners. Ms. Drobny is the chairwoman of the venture, which is being called AnShell Media L.L.C. Jon Sinton, a longtime, Atlanta-based radio executive, will be its chief executive. He helped start the nationally syndicated radio program of Jim Hightower, the former Texas agriculture commissioner. Liberals had hoped that would be their answer to Mr. Limbaugh, but it was canceled shortly after its start in the mid-1990's.
The failure of Mr. Hightower's show supported the notion of many in radio that liberal hosts do not have what it takes to become successful and entertaining hosts: the fire-and-brimstone manner and a ready-made audience alienated by the mainstream news media it perceives to be full of liberal bias.
The vast majority of people are conservative. No, I don't mean they're members of the Republican Party. Far from it. But when the beginning of the month rears its ugly head and the phone bill is arguing the with the mortgage about whom Daddy loves more, an awful lot of Americans that only Roger Moe would consider "rich" are fiscal conservatives at least in spirit.
The conservative hosts that have succeeded did it because they gave a voice - a passionate one - to those workadaddy, hugamommy concerns. Then, they connected those concerns (and that passion) to the larger politics involved.
And then they opened the phone lines. The rubes and schmucks sweating over their property tax payments not only had a voice, they could add theirs to the fray. And that voice was accepted on its own merits (within the context of being entertainment).
And when you call a conservative talk host, you know you're calling someone who's not too different from you.
And the results?The list of successful conservative radio hosts is, in fact, fairly long Rush Limbaugh; Sean Hannity; Michael Savage; Michael Reagan. And there is no equivalent list of liberals. Past attempts, such as the programs of Mr. Hightower and Mario Cuomo, have failed.
And it's no wonder.
There's the nub of the gist - look at the past roster of liberal talk radio stars: former government figures like the insufferable Hightower and the narcotic Cuomo; the hopelessly eggheaded Michael Jackson and the vapidly tedious Owen Span; regional stars like Tom Leykis and Alan Berg (murdered by neo-Nazis in 1984) known for being nastier than Morton Downey Junior; locally, the rote cackling of Katherine Lanpher, Turi Ryder's snide hiss, the repetitive wonkery of KSTP's various Morning Spins (not overtly liberal in many cases, but you could and can read between the lines), the condescension Jim Klobuchar's grating rasp...
What do they all have in common? They're all Big Names. Experts. High Priests of Enlightenment.
Conservative hosts - especially the bigger names - are usually more like the kind of people you meet in bars and talk politics with. Only the bars are different; Rush Limbaugh's St. Paul Grill, Jason Lewis at the Monte Carlo, Joe Soucheray at Fern's, Mike Savage at Irv's on Broadway...only Michael Medved sounds like the kind of person you'd meet in a capitol conference room or a grad school seminar.
Now, what is the left going to throw up against the conservative phalanx?Mr. Sinton [proposes] a full slate of liberally skewing programming with morning, afternoon and early evening shows featuring hosts with as many big names in entertainment as possible.
Pow! Exactly!
"Big Names!".
The success of talk radio is not about "Big Names". Who ever heard of Rush Limbaugh or Laura Schlesinger before they hit the big time? Nobody!
It's not about big names. It's about focusing the passions of a huge group that feels disposessed by the current culture!
Current talk centers around Al Franken:A deal with Mr. Franken, the comedian, would help greatly in luring other big names, as well as in gaining distribution. He said he envisioned a daily program featuring Mr. Franken perhaps in the early afternoons (around the same time as "The Rush Limbaugh Show").
Al "Big Fat Idiot" Franken isn't a demigogue?
A representative for Mr. Franken, Henry Reisch of the William Morris Agency, said Mr. Franken was seriously considering the offer, and was mostly focusing on whether he could handle the commitment of a daily radio program. Judging from his comments as a guest last month on Phil Donahue's program on MSNBC, Mr. Franken would probably take a far different approach from that of Mr. Limbaugh. "I think the audience isn't there for a liberal Rush," he said. "Because I think liberals don't want to hear that kind of demagoguery."
But I digress - there's my point exactly. I can see Frank the Mechanic from Biloxi calling Rush Limbaugh and getting a relatively sympathetic hearing, even if Frank's a Democrat. Can you see anyone not of Franken's social circle doing as well calling in to Franken's show?
No! Because an Al Franken show would be about Al Franken's politics! Rush Limbaugh, as ego-driven as the show is, is about the audience.
As is all conservative talk radio that actually works!
But Wait! - One conservative radio wonk arouse my ire:Some radio executives said they simply did not believe liberal radio could become good business. Among them was Kraig T. Kitchen, chief executive of Premiere Radio Networks, one of the nation's largest radio syndication arms with the programs of Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Reagan and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, among others. Though Mr. Kitchin said he was a conservative, he also said he would have pursued liberal programs had he thought there was money in them. He ascribes to the popular view in the industry that liberal hosts present issues in too much complexity to be very entertaining — while addressing a diffuse audience that has varying views.
If you're talking about dittoheads, perhaps. But conservatism is much harder - and takes much more mental effort - than liberalism, to do it well at any rate. Liberalism may be "hard to define", but it's easy to do - just use the government to express your compassion for you. Conservatism is much harder; it's tough love, which is never easy. Much harder to justify to oneself, without a lot of thought.
"Individuals who are liberal in their viewpoints can be all-encompassing," he said. "It's very hard to define liberalism, unlike how easy it is to define conservatism.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/18/2003 12:22:27 PM
Monday, February 17, 2003
Saddam Dead Pool - Guessing the date of a potential invasion is a fool's game.
And fool's games are usually the most fun.
I've been guessing (and it's only a marginally educated guess) March 21 for some time now. It seems to add up - the troops we just sent to the Gulf (the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions) will have their heavy equipment in place and ready to go by then; the troops already there (Marines, the 3rd Infantry Division and many others) will have had that much more time to acclimate themselves to the desert. And winter will be drawing to a close in the Gulf around that time.
But the real driver, of course, is politics, especially Tony Blair's need to placate the UK's strong anti-war movement (especially among his own party's strong left wing).
Sullivan says:Here's one option: take Villepin's date of March 14 and make it a final deadline. Say that by that date, Saddam must provide an accounting for the anthrax, nerve gas and other missing and unaccounted for materials cited by Blix; and also by that date, Iraq must destroy all its al Samoud missiles, which are banned under existing resolutions. We need a deadline. We had one - "immediate compliance" - I know. But we lose nothing by giving the world a final one. It would put the onus back on Saddam, help Blair, show a little flexibility on the part of the U.S., maybe bring around a few more Security Council members and not lose any significant time. Again, this isn't logical from the point of view of 1441. But it is a reflection of the political pressures on a key U.S. ally. Recognizing that political pressure is not surrendering to it. But ignoring it when we can still offer an alternative would be foolish. We can afford to be a little flexible. So let's be.
It's such a fine line, the one between flexibility and enablement.
But for all the left's yapping about Bush's "diplomatic disaster", I think they can do it. In fact, I think taking a month (roughly) for one last round of futility at the UN would play nicely into the Administration's hands. Our troops can use the time to train in the desert, and (in the case of the recent arrivals) unscramble their equipment as it's unloaded from the cargo ships. And if it sews up the public opinion, especially of that part of the public that would support the war "as long as it's not unilateral", then the delay would serve both military and political ends.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2003 11:49:41 AM
Sunday, February 16, 2003
New Europe Speaks Up - Solomon Pasi is Bulgaria's foreign minister. The London Telegraph quotes his response to French pressure to toe the "European" line:
In the meantime, Bulgaria has vowed to resist French attempts to bully it into withdrawing support for America's plans to disarm Iraq. Last week the French ambassador to Sofia warned Bulgaria that its pro-American stance could jeopardise its efforts to join the European Union.
In peripherally-related news - could this be a sign that the Franco-German-Belgian anti-invasion bloc is fracturing?
"Bulgaria has to consider carefully where its long-term interests lie," Jean Loup Kuhn-Delforge said last week. "When people live in Europe they should express solidarity and think European-style."
Solomon Pasi, Bulgaria's foreign minister, condemned the French as neo-appeasers. "We all remember the hesitancy of the Allies, who weren't sure whether to attack Hitler. They could have prevented so much," he said.
"We're in a situation where we have a moral imperative to act and act now."France, Germany and Belgium have blocked Nato's plans to send Awacs surveillance aircraft, Patriot missile batteries and specialist equipment to protect Turkey against chemical, biological and nuclear attack. They argue that this would wrongly signal that war with Iraq was inevitable. The row over the Turkish request has further poisoned relations between Paris, Berlin and Washington.
All of this is happening, as the left continues to pick at the Administration's diplomatic record. A leftist friend of mine said the other day: "The Administration's diplomacy is a disaster! We're still going it alone!". I rattled off all the nations that are currently supporting us, and added in the ones that support defending Turkey (Norway, the Netherlands - neither of them militarily trivial), and asked where precisely the diplomatic failure was. Toss in the possible split of Germany and France, and you're talking a pretty serious diplomatic win, in my book.
While diplomats said that there was now no prospect of ending French opposition to military support from Nato for Turkey's defences, they believe that Germany and Belgium, which have so far backed France, may be wavering.
The countries have faced fierce criticism from Nato's 16 other members and have also come under fire from the seven nations recently invited to join the alliance, who accuse them of a "breach of faith" for refusing to grant Turkey's request for help.
"If Germany can be won over," said a senior Nato diplomat, "it's unlikely that Belgium will want to be isolated as the only one of 18 full military members holding out against aid to Turkey."
(Link via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 12:28:36 PM
Someone Notify WAMM - Something for all those MacAlester College peaceniks to get into.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 08:50:27 AM
Protest Report, With Twist - John from Blogs of War has an excellent report, with photos, from yesterday's pro-dictatorship, pro-Israeli-extinction rally in Houston.
But this story has a fun twist:Things really got interesting around 2:00 when two guys ran up to our vantage point overlooking the protesters, held up a sign, and started making more noise than the entire crowd of protesters with a wicked airhorn [ Listen to Rhett.wav ]. Turns out Rhett Boren and his friend left the U.S. Marines three weeks ago and were there to stand up for George Bush, America, our troops, and common sense. [ Image 5 ]
You know, I almost hope someone tries to throw another protest here in the Twin Cities on some weekday before I find another job.
Rhett had five or six different signs and was rapidly switching between them to counter specific protesters across the street from us. Things almost got ugly when some young punk got pissed and screamed "If you're pro-war why don't you go?" to Rhett. In what was easily the best moment of the day Rhett screamed "I just got back", held up his sign, and started blasting on his airhorn again.
It was totally sweet.
The protesters then moved to a nearby park while Rhett and his friend moved on to confront them. Police (very amused police) kept him a few feet away at all times but he continued to get up close and personal. [ Image 6 ] I couldn't help laughing each time he managed to drown out the entire crowd with blasts of his airhorn.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 08:40:06 AM
Big Words - I love great speech. British politics breeds great speakers - much more so than American politics. In the rough-and-tumble world of Parliament, one has to be a good, convincing, literate speaker, or one is booed from the lectern - a great difference from the US Congress, where most congresspeople exhibit the type of oratorical skills that would get them fired for a telemarketing job.
Andrew Sullivan compares Blair with Gladstone, even Churchill (the greatest orator of modern times) due especially to this speech to Parliament (read the whole thing here): The time needed is not the time it takes the inspectors to discover the weapons. They are not a detective agency. We played that game for years in the 1990s. The time is the time necessary to make a judgment: is Saddam prepared to co-operate fully or not. If he is, the inspectors can take as much time as they want. If he is not, if this is a repeat of the 1990s - and I believe it is - then let us be under no doubt what is at stake.
Finally! I'm so glad to see a government leader put that comparison on record.
By going down the UN route we gave the UN an extraordinary opportunity and a heavy responsibility. The opportunity is to show that we can meet the menace to our world today together, collectively and as a united international community. What a mighty achievement that would be. The responsibility, however, is indeed to deal with it.
The League of Nations also had that opportunity and responsibility back in the 1930s. In the early days of the fascist menace, it had the duty to protect Abyssinia from invasion. But when it came to a decision to enforce that guarantee, the horror of war deterred it. We know the rest. The menace grew; the League of Nations collapsed; war came. Remember: the UN inspectors would not be within a thousand miles of Baghdad without the threat of force. Saddam would not be making a single concession without the knowledge that forces were gathering against him. I hope, even now, Iraq can be disarmed peacefully, with or without Saddam. But if we show weakness now, if we allow the plea for more time to become just an excuse for prevarication until the moment for action passes, then it will not only be Saddam who is repeating history. The menace, and not just from Saddam, will grow; the authority of the UN will be lost; and the conflict when it comes will be more bloody. Yes, let the United Nations be the way to deal with Saddam. But let the United Nations mean what it says; and do what it means.
Which is, of course, a loaded request; the UN is institutionally unable to do much of anything.
Hey, wait - wasn't Saddam elected?
These states developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, proliferating them, importing or exporting the scientific expertise, the ballistic missile technology; the companies and individuals helping them: they don't operate within any international treaties. They don't conform to any rules. North Korea is a country whose people are starving and yet can spend billions of dollars trying to perfect a nuclear bomb. Iraq, under Saddam became the first country to use chemical weapons against its own people. Are we sure that if we let him keep and develop such weapons, he would not use them again against his neighbours, against Israel perhaps? Saddam the man who killed a million people in an eight year war with Iran, and then, having lost it, invaded Kuwait? Or the other nations scrabbling to get a foot on the nuclear ladder, are we happy that they do so?
It's a sad, sad world when legitimate leaders need to pound, constantly, on the illegitimacy of a Saddam Hussein to try to get through to some parts of their population. Every time I have asked us to go to war, I have hated it. I spent months trying to get Milosevic to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, delaying action while we negotiated endlessly. I agreed with President Bush not to strike Afghanistan after September 11th but instead to offer the Taliban, loathsome though they were, an ultimatum: yield up Al Qaida and we will let you stay. We used force in the end, but in Kosovo only as a last resort, and though I rejoiced with his people at the fall of Milosevic, as I rejoiced with the Afghan people at the fall of the Taliban, I know that amid the necessary military victory there was pain and suffering that brought no joy at all.
Amid the left's caterwauling about the "rush to war", I think it's fascinating how restrained we've been.
Remember in the first Gulf War? We went five months from the invasion of Kuwait until the air war began, and another month before the four-day ground war.
We've been waiting over a year with Iraq. At every stage, we should seek to avoid war. But if the threat cannot be removed peacefully, please let us not fall for the delusion that it can be safely ignored. If we do not confront these twin menaces of rogue states with Weapons of Mass Destruction and terrorism, they will not disappear. They will just feed and grow on our weakness.
Churchillian. When people say if you act, you will provoke these people; when they say now: take a lower profile and these people will leave us alone, remember: Al Qaida attacked the US, not the other way round. Were the people of Bali in the forefront of the anti-terror campaign? Did Indonesia 'make itself a target'? The terrorists won't be nice to us if we're nice to them. When Saddam drew us into the Gulf War, he wasn't provoked. He invaded Kuwait.
Too bad this is too big to fit on a bumper sticker. Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones.
It's also a regime that will have no problem using a nuke or VX bomb to hold the world's oil, or Israel, hostage. Or using Al Quaeda, or any of several other terrorist groups - as a long-range delivery system.
But there are also consequences of "stop the war".
If I took that advice, and did not insist on disarmament, yes, there would be no war. But there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is that he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people. A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. A country where today, 135 out of every 1000 Iraqi children die before the age of five - 70% of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition.
Where 60% of the people depend on Food Aid.
Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water.
Where every year and now, as we speak, tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in appalling conditions in Saddam's jails and are routinely executed.
Where in the past 15 years over 150,000 Shia Moslems in Southern Iraq and Moslem Kurds in Northern Iraq have been butchered; with up to four million Iraqis in exile round the world, including 350,000 now in Britain.
This isn't a regime with Weapons of Mass Destruction that is otherwise benign. This is a regime that contravenes every single principle or value anyone of our politics believes in. There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chambers which if he is left in power, will be left in being.
Yeah - has anyone asked ANSWER about this?I rejoice that we live in a country where peaceful protest is a natural part of our democratic process.
Again - it's a shame it won't fit on a sticker.
But I ask the marchers to understand this.
I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership. And the cost of conviction.
But as you watch your TV pictures of the march, ponder this:
If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for.
If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.
So many responses to this speech. I wish our system put such a premium on speech - although when we do get a good speaker (as Reagan and Clinton were), he or she certainly stands out from the crowd.
Let me read from an e-mail that was sent by a member of the family of one of those four million Iraqi exiles. It is interesting because she is fiercely and I think wrongly critical of America. But in a sense for that reason, it is worth reading.
She addresses it to the anti-war movement.
In one part, she says:
"You may feel that America is trying to blind you from seeing the truth about their real reasons for an invasion. I must argue that in fact, you are still blind to the bigger truths in Iraq.
Saddam has murdered more than a million Iraqis over the past 30 years, are you willing to allow him to kill another million Iraqis?
Saddam rules Iraq using fear - he regularly imprisons, executes and tortures the mass population for no reason whatsoever - this may be hard to believe and you may not even appreciate the extent of such barbaric acts, but believe me you will be hard pressed to find a family in Iraq who have not had a son, father, brother killed, imprisoned, tortured and/or "disappeared" due to Saddam's regime.
Why it is now that you deem it appropriate to voice your disillusions with America's policy in Iraq, when it is right now that the Iraqi people are being given real hope, however slight and however precarious, that they can live in an Iraq that is free of its horrors?"
But Blair ticks off a very concise checklist of justifications for the upcoming war. Read the whole thing - it's worth it.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 06:59:52 AM
Domino Effect - I've been saying for months - take Iraq, and we will force change in the terror-supporting regimes in Teheran and Damascus. I think this is as important as eliminating Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. It also make clear the context of the Iraq operation - as the second phase of the war on terror.
Fouad Afami on Iran:Iran and Iraq are different, and the Bush administration knows the difference. Iran has the elements of change within it; Iraq will have to be changed by force. U.S. policy has been more subtle on Iran than its critics would have us believe. No credible American scenario envisages a war against Iran once the dust of battle settles in Iraq. The Iranians must know this, even as their clerical rulers protest their inclusion in the "axis of evil." Patience, deadly and dangerous in dealing with Iraq (in my view), could work in Iran's case. In this regard, the policy of the Bush administration has been on the mark. There has been no urge to court Iran. The zeal with which the Clinton administration pursued an accommodation with Iran's rulers has been cast aside. This has been one of the lessons of Sept. 11: Why court hated rulers if this only gets you the enmity of their resentful populations? It was in this vein that President Bush pitched his policy on Iran in his State of the Union address. A distinction was made between the Iranian theocracy and Iraq: "Different threats require different strategies." The regime in Iran was put on notice for its support of terror and its pursuit of weapons of destruction. But the people of Iran and their "aspirations to live in freedom" were embraced.
What does it all mean in the long run?
A silent revolution is under way in Iran; it lacks the fury of what played out in 1978-79. It is the imploding of the theocratic edifice, the aging of a revolution that has lost the consent of its children. A young Iranian-American author, Afshin Molavi, in a compelling new book, "Persian Pilgrimages," has just brought us fragments of that burdened land. It is of green cards and visas to foreign lands that the young of Iran now dream; in the year 2000, some 200,000 Iranian professionals quit their native land for Western shores. In a recent public-opinion survey, three out of four Iranians said they favored restoring relations with Washington. Iran is at the crossroads. In one vision of things, Tehran would barter the influence it has in Lebanon, through its sponsorship of Hezbollah, for a deal with Israel and a return to that covert understanding that once bound the Jewish state to Iran. In this vision, there would be a gradual accommodation with the U.S., an acceptance of America's primacy in the Persian Gulf. In the rival vision, Iran would continue to muddle through, alternating terror and diplomacy, hinting at moderation and then pulling back, offering its betrayed people more sterility, and a diet of anti-Americanism at odds with the fixation of young Iranians. It is in the nature of things today, in an Iranian society deeply divided between those who would bury the revolution and join the world, and others hell-bent on keeping the theocracy, and their own dominion, intact, that the American drive against Iraq would be defined by that chasm. For those who want to normalize Iran, the thunder of war against Iraq is the coming of a blessed rain. The Americans would be nearby, but what of it? Liberty is rarely a foreigner's gift, and no American war in Iran's neighborhood will settle the fight between theocratic zealots and those in Iran who have twice, in presidential elections, cast their votes for a reform that never came. But the "contagion effect" of a liberated Iraq will no doubt have a role to play in the fight for Iran's future. In Persia, there will be multitudes hoping that the foreigner's storm will be mighty enough to clear their foul sky.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2003 06:32:27 AM
Saturday, February 15, 2003
A Blogger Valentine Poem - From Kieran Healey:
More than Dubya hates Saddam
(via Jacob Levy at Volokh)
Or an Idiotarian hates a clue
Or Reynolds hates the A.N.S.W.E.R. icks
That's how much I love you.
I love you more than a Max can Speak
And more than a DenBeste bores
I love you more than Denton smirks
And more than Caruso roars.
As a Freeper hates a Camembert slice
And an OxBlogger hates a dove
As CalPundit hates a rainy day
That's how much you I love.
I love you more than a Volokh lurks
And more than a Skippy jumps
More than Mickey likes the inside dope
And more than a Kos daily stumps.
I swear to you by the stars above,
And below if such there be,
As Lott is loved by Mary Rosh
That's how you're loved by me.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/15/2003 07:49:59 PM
Second Stage - I was talking with a friend of mine earlier tonight. He wondered; "Why isn't the administration spinning Iraq as Stage Two in the War on Terrorism? I'd make more sense, and probably be more salable that way..."
And lo and behold, I flip over to Fraters Libertas (which is on a bit of a roll lately) - and Elder is asking the same thing.Afghanistan was the beginning. Iraq is another stage. All the while we're also going after Al Qaeda wherever and whenever we can. But after the situation in Iraq is resolved the war will not be over. Next on the agenda could be a push for regime change in Iran by supporting dissident groups there or it could be a move against Syria to get them to stop supporting Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups that regularly attack Israel. North Korea will likewise be dealt with either through diplomatic and economic efforts to contain them or if necessary with the use of military force. Libya? Saudi Arabia? Possibilities as well. There won't be a "one size fits all" approach and each situation will be analyzed and handled differently. One hopes that once the ball gets rolling and a few more examples are made the process will move be hastened along and open conflict limited as much as possible.
In any case, Iraq will situate us to lean on ALL the big terrorist regimes. It'll take pressure off Israel - Iran and Syria will be justifiably nervous.
It all just makes sense - militarily.
There's just the matter of selling all the people who don't know or give a damn about the military side of things.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/15/2003 07:36:07 PM
The Years Pile Up - Reading the various accounts of the sentencing of Sarah Jane Olson/Katheen Soliah yesterday was jaw-droppingly depressing as well.
The only words spoken by the gaunt and graying Olson — who in earlier court appearances was demonstrative and chatty with her attorneys — came when asked if she would like to comment.
I can't blame Olson/Soliah for not being too talkative - it's gotten her into trouble in the past.
"No, I do not," the 56-year-old former St. Paul resident said before being sentenced to six years for second-degree murder.
The past year in prison has been a struggle for Olson, an inmate at the women's prison in Chowchilla, Calif., after her 2001 guilty plea to charges of attempting to blow up Los Angeles police cars in August 1975. She told probation officials she was exposed to tuberculosis. Olson also told probation officials she had been tested for breast cancer.
But I remember the furor her arrest caused here in the Twin Cities almost four years ago. The local left acted like Olson/Soliah's arrest was a gross imposition on her and their spaces. Their mellows were harshed, like, majorly.
The Pioneer Press article on the subject interviewed people at the Barnes and Noble on Ford Parkway - deep in the heart of ultra-liberal Highland Park. Said one customer:"She has to make a resolution,'' said Thomas Hanson, who lives across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. "It's not the one she may have wanted, but it's time for her to resolve it by doing time."
"Not what she might have wanted?" This is a woman who, according to Jon Opsahl (the victim's son):...kicked a pregnant teller who was lying on the floor of that bank, not far from where my mother was bleeding out. Ms. Soliah would have us believe that it never happened, and if it did, it wasn't her fault the woman miscarried."
I don't think I can remember two words of concern from any Highland Park DFLer in the past three and a half years on behalf of the cops Soliah tried to immolate, or for Myrna Opsahl, or for the child who never came into the world due to Soliah's "foolishness".
That so many of my neighbors ever lionized this woman disgusts me. That so many still claim nodding understanding of her motivations depresses me.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/15/2003 11:56:03 AM
The Orange Life - In the past week, various government figures suggested that people start taking simple, prudent measures to protect themselves and their families from potential terrorist attack.
The response has been depressing.
A couple of friends of mine, otherwise intelligent people, have responded with some of the same clinkers I'm reading and hearing elsewhere.
Can you imagine anyone saying:
Sometimes my fellow citizens depress me.
And yet now that the government has followed Israel's lead in telling people how to build "safe rooms" in their houses to give the short window of protection against chemical weapons and biological aerosols, suddenly everyone is:
a) An expert on what chemical weapons can and can't do, and
b) A fatalist.
These are people, of course, who two years ago would have needed three tries to spell "VX Gas" correctly. They don't know what chemical weapons are, how they work, what their properties are...but they sure know that a "safe room" won't work.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/15/2003 11:37:39 AM
Friday, February 14, 2003
Valentines' Mood Music - Will the Thrill of Fraters Libertas has the almost-perfect Val's day music list:
1. Hanoi Rocks - "Self-Destruction Blues"
It's not a bad effort. Kudos, Will.
2. Social Distortion - "Making Believe"
3. Sex Pistols - "No Feelings"
4. Grandpa Boy - "Let's Not Belong Together"
5. Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Someday Never Comes"
6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - "A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)"
7. The Rolling Stones - "Love In Vain" (live 1969 version)
8. Merle Haggard - "The Bottle Let Me Down"
9. Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction"
10. The Stooges - "Not Right"
11. Motorhead - "Love Me Like a Reptile"
12. J. Geils Band - "Love Stinks"
But to that I'd need to add a few:
13. Aimee Mann, "Calling It Quits"
14. Springsteen, "Tunnel of Love" (or "Point Blank", or "Sandy"...)
15. The Clash, "The Card Cheat"
Suggestions eagerly sought. I'm going to need them.
Yep. Dateless.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/14/2003 11:02:02 AM
Faith, Interrupted - In these Oprahfied times, I found the Clara "Mercedes Killer" Harris verdict reassuring.
His 17 year old daughter spoke:Lindsey Harris -- who lives with her mother and stepfather in Ohio -- told jurors she had a "great" relationship with her father.
Justice served, right?
"I talked to him on the phone every other day," she said. "We were the same person. We finished each other's sentences."
The teen testified that they shared interests, including music, athletics and dentistry.
"I planned to come to college down here and spend the rest of my life down here," she said. "Everything was planned. It was just perfect. And then it was ruined."
She told jurors of the harrowing minutes when, as a passenger in her stepmother's car, she recognized that her father would die.
"I saw his eyes," she said of the incident in the parking lot of the Nassau Bay Hilton. "I felt so bad that I couldn't help him. He couldn't get away. He was so scared and I couldn't do anything.
"It was terrifying. She was killing him. I would never see him again. I never got to say goodbye. I only got to spend 16 1/2 years with him. I had plans. It just wasn't fair."
Once she returned to the family's Friendswood home, she testified, she found her father's clothing in a garbage can -- placed there by a nanny on the instructions of Clara Harris.
The daughter said she brought the clothes upstairs and put them on her bed, then got her father's possessions from his bathroom and closet and brought them to her room.
"I felt like he was there with me," she said.
Maybe not. Attorney Dan Abrams on the Today show, reports that under Texas law, the jury can give any sentence from life without parole to probation - and while he figured probation was unlikely, he didn't figure it was impossible, given the jury's emotional state; jurors were reportedly crying as they delivered the verdict.
I wonder if probation would be on the table if the husband had did the driving?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/14/2003 07:56:26 AM
Anti-War Protester, Protests - This, via Instapundit, is an anti-war protester from Prague catalogueing his objections to the current anti-war movement:
On the one hand the left espouses equal rights for women, minorities and homosexuals; it lauds free speech and a vibrant independent press as essentials of civil society. The left is a guardian of the separation of church and state and a watchdog of the judicial process. So it finds itself in diametrical opposition to the nature of most Arab societies. But in the wake of this opposition, the left simply sticks its head in the sand rather than confront the reality that as globalization integrates the world order ever closer, we are hurtling toward a clash of civilizations unless the world comes to some sort of agreement on universal values. The left has failed to say that it will not stand for the oppression of women, the vicious repression of human rights and suppression of democratic principles. The only thing it can articulate is a naive and dangerous blame-America-first rhetoric as the root of all problems in the world today
Just another dittohead warblogger, right?
Wrong:It's not simply that I'm against the peaceniks and for invading Iraq. My ambivalence is based on a strong distrust of President George W. Bush's administration, a distrust so profound that I find it hard to support any policy coming out of the White House. I find its cynical exploitation of the Iraqi use of unconventional weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds self-serving in light of the U.S. government's having been far from critical when those war crimes took place. The hubris of the Bush administration and its unilateral tendencies are counterproductive and ugly. Its case that the Iraqi regime is linked to al-Qaida is dubious, and having the Bush administration filled with former oil executives makes people justifiably suspicious about its intentions in the oil-rich Middle East.
And for all that, he gets it:But those who claim that the question of invading is solely one of oil interest are mistaken. If the only thing America is interested in is oil in the Middle East, it would have sold out Israel many years ago. Instead, America's policy on Israel is one of principle in supporting the only democratic nation in the Middle East, particularly as it suffers from a wave of homicidal fanatics blowing themselves up and taking with them as many innocent civilians as possible.
Maybe it's being overseas that gives Mr. Hurewitz the perspective from which he can make a rational judgement. Maybe he's just smarter than some protesters.
Or maybe it's just not that hard a case for a rational person to make.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/14/2003 07:39:46 AM
Code Gray - Dave Barry asks "What if, for the past year or so, terrorists, working in U.S. factories, have been putting lethal biochemical agents on... duct tape?"
posted by Mitch Berg 2/14/2003 07:20:38 AM
Unilateralist Cowboys - The Japanese "go it alone".
Japan has warned it would launch a pre-emptive military action against North Korea if it had firm evidence Pyongyang was planning a missile attack.
And then - get this - the unilateralist cowboy Ishiba said:
Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it would be "a self-defence measure" if North Korea was going to "resort to arms against Japan". ...it would be too late if a North Korean missile was already on its way.
Don't these people know they're destabilizing the world? They're worse than the terrorists, aren't they?
Has anyone notified ANSWER? Start printing "No Blood For Rice" signs! Let slip the dogs of sanctimony!
C'mon, loony left! Get out there! Protest this! You can do it!
Left?
Left?
Birthday Shopping Suggestions - Just a hint.
UPDATE: Expect the "Violence Policy Center" to put out a paper shortly.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/14/2003 07:12:37 AM
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Begorrah - Music's been the one common thread through the last thirty years of my life. Learning new instruments and new types of music have been my recreation, my mission, even my drug of choice.
I'm a very good guitarist. I play cello quite well, thank you. I have a rather unique but effective style on bass. I'm good on harmonica. I'm a capable drummer in the Charlie Watts sense of the term - I keep the beat just fine, and what else really matters? I don't embarass myself on mandolin. I'm pretty stinky on pennywhistle (I can play a couple of Pogues tunes), and can crank out a couple dozen songs on keyboards (I suck the least at Organ - years of following Danny Federici and Benmont Tench licks have shown me a few flashy little tricks that cover my incompetence. And I can do a couple things on the curan, a turkish folk instrument that's halfway between a balalaika and a sitar.
By any rational measure, I should be happy with what I can do, musically.
But there's always been something missing. Ahab had Moby Dick. I had the bagpipes.
Well, Tuesday night I started bagpipe lessons - free lessons, through the Minnesota Pipes and Drums. It's basically bagpipe boot camp; lessons are in four-month trimesters, with a test after each trimester. Flunk the test, and you have to take private lessons to catch up - no mulligans (which'd be Irish, anyway, and therefore trayf). Attrition is rumored to be high - worse than Green Beret training, by some estimates. And it's a 1-2 year program before I get to touch actual bagpipes (which are $800 on up, when I get to that point). I feel like I'm training to be a heart surgeon - and when you see the finger dexterity involved, it's probably not that bad a comparison.
But I'm on a mission. I want to sit on my porch and serenade my neighbors.
Heh heh.
No, seriously - this is going to be fun.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 06:06:45 PM
Awada Good It'll Do Ya - When I'm not writing Shot in the Dark, or job-hunting, I contribute to the "Political State Report". It's a group blog, run by überblogger The Daily Kos, and includes contributors from all political orientations from just about every state in the Union.
There's a bit of a discussion going on about Pat Awada's proposed cuts to Local Government Assistance between Lakeville moderate blogger Jeff Fecke and I.
In the Comments section, Fecke notes:And I just don't see Thatcher in Awada. I watched her debating on KTCA last night, and the Mayor of St. Cloud was eating her for lunch. She just doesn't have it. And more to the point, Minnesota is trending red, but we're not quite ready for the Quist wing of the GOP. If you doubt that, ask Brian Sullivan how his term in office is going. Or for that matter, Allen Quist.
I responded more or less like this:
I've met Allen Quist. Pat Awada is no Allen Quist.
For those of you from out of state - "Allen Quist" is a bedtime story Minnesota liberals tell their kids to scare them straight - a Christian Conservative who had a brief vogue in the early nineties; the GOP endorsed him for governor in 1992, and moderate extremist Arne Carlson ran and won the election as an unendorsed, independent Republican.
No, Pat Awada has aroused the ire of Minnesota's liberal elites; she's a woman, yet she's a conservative! She's not only a conservative - but she's been an extremely successful politician; she was elected mayor of Eagan in her late twenties, at a time when the DFL believed that it owned that demographic.
The DFL is spinning all the usual boogeymen against Awada - out-of-context recalls of remarks she made as mayor, painful race-baiting about her use of her maiden name during the election. (And the debate? Pfft. I've seen her tear liberals into long thin strips. Everyone has a bad night).
Here's what I think; Awada's the "bad cop", hoisting the trial balloon, running interference with her 41% LGA cut proposal. Pawlenty will seem "moderate" in turn, proposing a lower (but significant) cut.
By '06, with a rebounding economy, the budget crisis will be over, Pawlenty will be a hero, Awada will look like a visionary - the driver behind the winning strategery...
Is this blue-sky, wonky cloudbusting? Duh. I get to do that.
But I don't think it's that far-fetched - no more so than the notion that in 2003, 2/3 of Minnesota's government apparatus would be controlled by the GOP...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 04:56:16 PM
My Kids' College Fund - Irish firms offering futures on Hussein's survival.
March futures are trading at $4.30, April contracts are at $7.40, those for May are at $8.20 and June futures are at $8.40, according to TradeSports Chief Executive John Delaney. That means traders see a 43 percent chance Hussein won't be in power by the end of March and an 84 percent chance he'll be gone by June 30.
Mind you, these aren't Vega$ odds - these are futures conracts, like those sold for orange juice or wheat or coffee.
About 42,000 Hussein futures have traded, Delaney said.
TradeSports settles the contracts based on information from the United Nations or U.S. government and checks that against three independent media sources. Delaney said TradeSports is considering offering futures on events in North Korea and the Middle East.
So who's going to be the first to call Josh Arnold's "Money Talk" to ask about this as an investment? Huh?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 04:22:38 PM
Do the Math - So CNN has saturation coverage today of the 101st "Airborne" Division - the "Screaming Eagles" of WWII fame - shipping out for the Gulf. Correspondents are on the scene as Chinook helicopters, tarped to shield them from salt spume a sea, and Humvees and every other vehicle that the huge 101st uses, are loaded onto immense cargo ships for the trip.
During the last Gulf War, the 101st jumped via helicopter across the entire Iraqi army, to cut the road from Baghdad to Basra. The action cut off a huge chunk of Hussein's army along the northern coast of Iraq. One might expect the division, with its unparalleled airmobility, will have a fairly key role in any war that might break out.
So let's do the math:
So what does that make? Three weeks, perhaps?
Second week of March?
What do you think?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 04:05:58 PM
Much Ado - The Democrats are playing Rebecca Otto's victory like VE Day.
"What we saw last night was a political earthquake," said House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul, evoking the memory of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone and the sweeping DFL defeats last November.
I think this is good news in disguise for Republicans.
Accompanied by Tuesday's victorious candidate, Rebecca Otto, and smiling colleagues, Entenza argued that Minnesotans now are not only engaged with the mammoth state government budget deficit, but also are fearful of Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's resolve to balance it with cuts only and no tax increases.
Think about it - Otto won (with 22 percent turnout, no less) in a suburban, "soccer-mom"-heavy district where the GOP is deeply split between conservatives and RINOs. It was dicey for the GOP going into the special election.
Otto, aided by a wad of out-of-district DFL money and a dirty campaign, won. We know this.
But I think it shows how far the DFL needs to go to find something it can spin as good news. The only other material it has - budget cuts, unallotment, Auditor Awada's cutting of aid to local governments - is negative, and (it has to know) transient; a good economic upturn and it will all be forgotten, as the deficit most likely will be by 2006. Otto's victory is the only bit of positive news the DFL has to lean on - and the DFL has to be nervous about that.
My prediction; by 2006, Tim Pawlenty will be able to brag about the turnaround on his watch. Minnesotans will be better off; it'll be nearly unavoidable, the recession will be over no matter who is in office.
My predictions are notoriously inaccurate. But I have a good feeling about this one.
By the way - the other special election, to replace Dan MacElroy in Burnsville, went almost un-covered by the local media. Duke Powell - a long-time friend of Shot in the Dark - won. Congrats, Duke!
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 10:34:37 AM
The Good Democrat - Tom Lantos, Democrat from California, had this to say yesterday about our ally/frequent beneficiary, France:
Rep. Tom Lantos of California, said he was "particularly disgusted by the blind intransigence and utter ingratitude" of France, Germany and Belgium, which have blocked a U.S.-backed plan to improve Turkey's defenses against any attack from neighboring Iraq. The three countries, which favor giving U.N. weapons inspectors more time in Iraq, see the plan as making war more likely.
It's worth noting that Lantos was born in Hungary, and still speaks with a thick Magyar accent that seems incongruous coming from a Californian.
"If it were not for the heroic efforts of America's military, France, Germany and Belgium today would be Soviet socialist republics," Lantos said. "The failure of these three states to honor their commitments is beneath contempt."
I don't think it's a stretch to note that the European nations that have been most forthright in supporting the US on Iraq have been nations like Lantos' native Hungary - former Warsaw Pact subjects like Poland, the Czechs, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania and the rest.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 09:01:26 AM
Garage Tragic - Joe Soucheray is one of the more original personalities on the radio today. If you're from the Twin Cities, you're probably heard, or at least heard of, "Garage Logic" on KSTP-AM.
At it's best, it's wonderful. Soucheray, the mayor of the fictional town and anti-PC colony after which the show is named, lampoons pomposity and overweening PC in government, the schools, and society. His producer, "Rookie" (so dubbed by former KSTP morning guy Jesse Ventura) used to grate on me - I don't think ignorance about math or current events is entirely a "bit", and sometimes it leaves me gritting my teeth on the rare occasions I get to listen. But he's a talented impressionist and a great foil for the acerbic but crusty Soucheray.
At its worst, it's like sitting in the back lot at Garrison Keillor's studio. Guys calling in to describe their new garages at length. Old fellas calling in to start their cars on the air, revving them up over the phone (note to all of you: Chevettes and F15s sounds pretty much the same through a phone line). Simplistic snap judgements about complex issues of the type that'd make Dr. Laura blanche in horror. Old guys calling in to declare "I think [fill in subject] is a bunch of crap...", or to re-iterate Soucheray's own conclusions for an hour at a pop.
Such was Tuesday's show. Soucheray joined a crowd of pundits questioning the government's advice to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting, against a potential nerve gas attack. One caller asked "where the hell does this come from", a question Soucheray jumped on himself, ridiculing the whole notion of building a safe room against chemical attack.
I had to ask - do they also make fun of keeping blankets, candles, matches and Snickers in the trunk when going on a winter trip? Of keeping candles and flashlights around the house in case an ice storm knocks out power? Of course not.
It's the notion that it's the government giving the advice that stuck in Soucheray's craw, from what I heard. Which in many areas is a perfectly OK reaction. But this one...
Where did it come from? I'll anwer that - the idea came from Israel. There, where terrorist attacks have been a way of life for 35 years, safe rooms are pretty much a fact of life.
Many pundits have attacked the whole idea - the Chicago Tribune article quotes Presdiential hopeful Gary Hart, of all people (carrying his criticisms of the administration without noting he wants the job, incidentally):Hart said. "So that's why they're down to duct tape . . . It's almost back to the duck-and-cover days of the nuclear exchange in the '50s, kids ducking under desks," he said, referring to the civil defense rehearsals that were common in schools during the Eisenhower administration.
Hart is an idiot, as are most of the people who criticized Civil Defense in the fifties - and many of those criticizing the "Duct Tape" suggestions. In each case, the recommendations, from "Duck and Cover" to "Safe Rooms" were prudent response to an immediate threat, similar to telling people to get into a ditch or basement in the event of a tornado; the advice doesn't, and can't, answer "what if there's a propane tank next to the ditch, or if the tornado is sooooo huge it sucks out out of there anyway? Or if the house collapses in onto the basement? Or there's a big box of scorpions that get blown into the basement with you? Huh? HUH?"
"We look back on that now and think it was a joke," Hart said. "I think 10 or 20 years from now, we'll look back on the duct tape as a joke." He acknowledged, however, that it was important for people to make an emergency checklist for themselves, including keeping some cash on hand as well as important papers.
First things first; A duct tape and plastic "safe room" doesn' have to protect you indefinitely. Chemical weapons generally disperse fairly quickly - if you're more than a few miles from the source of the gas, it can be a matter of minutes to hours. Your plastic sheeting only has to hold the gas off for a little while.
Biological attack? Even more so. If you're not at the epicenter of the aerosol distribution, the odds are much better that you'll be exposed by an infected person.
Nuclear attack? If it's a ground burst, and if you're beyond the range of the thermal pulse and immediate blast effects (which, with a small nuke of the type most likely to be used by terrorists, is a matter of much less than a mile, sometimes hundreds of yards), the plastic sheeting will keep out the particles of fallout, while being in a basement itself shields you from ambient radiation.
Will rolls of plastic and duct tape guarantee your safety against every eventuality? Obviously not. The only thing that will do that is complete victory over all terrorists and nations that'd do us ill, and putting all domestic wackoes in jail.
But while we're waiting, it's the simple, prudent measures that'll protect most of the people, most of the time - if they need protection at all.
Soucheray's skepticism is usually on target. But it can also be misguided - and in this case, just a little bit complacent. You'd think he, among everyone, would know better.
It Ain't Easy Being Green - Joschka Fischer is Germany's foreign minister. He's also a longtime leader of Germany's Green party, helping to lead it to the electoral surge that put him in the governing coalition.
But it's his past that's the most interesting part, according to Mike Kelly:In 2001, Stern magazine published five photographs of you in action that day. What these pictures depicted was described by Berman, in a deeply informed 25,000-word article, ``The Passion of Joschka Fischer'' (The New Republic, Sept. 3, 2001). The photos showed you, Mr. Fischer, inflicting a ``gruesome beating'' on a young policeman named Rainer Marx: ``Fischer and other people on the attack, the white-helmeted cop going into a crouch; Fischer's black-gloved fist raised as if to punch the crouching cop on the back; Fischer's comrades crowding around; the cop huddled on the ground, Fischer and his comrades appearing to kick him ...''
Kathleen Soliah was hardly alone in having a dirty, violent past. I suspect there's some skeletons in the closets of a lot of leftist leaders that are wearing Che Guevara t-shirts...
As Berman reported, Mr. Fischer, you rose in public life as an important figure in the anti-American, anti-liberal, neo-Marxist, revolution-minded German radical left of the generation of 1968. This was the left that produced and supported the Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Red Army Faction), which, as Berman wrote, ``refrained from nothing,'' including ``kidnappings, bank holdups, murders.'' You were not a terrorist yourself, but you were a good and active friend to terrorists, weren't you, Mr. Fischer?
In 1976, to protest the death in prison of Baader-Meinhof founder Ulrike Meinhof, you planned and participated in a Frankfurt demonstration in which, Berman wrote, ``somebody tossed a Molotov cocktail at a policeman and burned him nearly to death.'' You were arrested, but not charged. In 2001, Meinhof's daughter, Bettina Rohl (who gave those damning photos to Stern) told the press that you were responsible for the throwing of that firebomb. Other contemporary witnesses, Berman reported, said that you ``had never ruled out the use of Molotovs and may even have favored it.'' You denied it, for the record.
In 2001, the German government put on trial your old friend Hans-Joachim Klein, who had been an underground ``soldier'' in the Revolutionary Cells, an ally of the Red Army Faction and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Revolutionary Cells helped in the murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972, and Klein himself took part in a 1975 joint assassination operation with Carlos the Jackal in which three were killed.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/13/2003 07:46:37 AM
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Merch - I love this stuff...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/12/2003 11:28:43 PM
Merch - I love this stuff...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/12/2003 11:28:43 PM
You Otto Know Better - Stillwater-area DFLer Rebecca Otto bucked recent trends in winning the special election in the Stillwater area. She won a majority of votes in an election that drew less than a quarter of elegible voters.
According to Laura McCallum's MPR story on the subject:Republican Matt Dean, a Dellwood architect, says he thinks Otto won partly because of negative campaign ads. "My opponent said in literature that I don't care about the public schools because I send my children to private schools. Well I don't; I send them to the public school. It's a very verifiable fact, and it's obviously a disregard for the truth."
On the Jason Lewis show a few minutes ago, Dean added that he (and House Majority Leader Steve Swiggum) filed a protest against the Otto campaign for that claim. Apparently, says Dean, the damage was done.Another campaign brochure showed a man wearing a tutu and ballet slippers, and accused Dean of "toeing the party line" and being a puppet of Republican extremists. Dean disputes the extremist label; he says polls show most Minnesotans want the Legislature to cut spending instead of raising taxes. He also says it's not extreme to want to repeal the Profile of Learning show-what-you know graduation standards. Otto also supports repealing the Profile.
A man in a tutu?
The DFL are portraying a man in a tutu as a negative image?
Hmmmm.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/12/2003 06:07:55 PM
Starbucks Patrons Scribble for Peace - In about 1815, Ludwig Van Beethoven, commenting about the role of artists, said that artists should be elevated above the rest of society - even paid from the public treasury. Their role, he felt, was that important, and their views that vital.
Some artists still feel that way.
Poets Against The War is a group of artists that seek to oppose their war through...er, poetry. They believe that via poetry will come international understanding, and a better worl...
...oh, who are we kidding. It's about politics:Only the day before I had read a lengthy report on George Bush's proposed "Shock and Awe" attack on Iraq, calling for saturation bombing that would be like the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo, killing countless innocent civilians. Nor has Bush ruled out the use of nuclear weapons.
The site is full of amazing garbage - and that's even before you get to the poetry.
I believe the only legitimate response to such a morally bankrupt and unconscionable idea is to reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam.
By the way, the site is educational, in that it highlights the incredibly sorry state of modern poetry.
The far left is calling in all its markers.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/12/2003 05:01:48 PM
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Billings - In this space in the past, I have expressed less than complete disagreement with Laura Billings of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.
It's time I fixed that.
The reporter's dictum is to cover the who, what, when, where and why of a story. Today's Billings editorial covers the who, and some what - while ignoring a lot of inconvenient wheres, whats and whys. Jessica Lange is against it. So is Susan Sarandon.
Ever read Jackie Harvey? He's a fictional columnist in "the Onion", a humor 'zine from New York (nee Madison). The fictional Harvey's schtick is that he quotes - and mis-quotes - stars and starlets completely disingenuously, with a wide-eyed joy at the wonder of the whole entertainment industry; it's like reading a column on Pokemon written by a third grade boy.
Bonnie Raitt's not in favor of bombing Baghdad. Neither are Michael Stipe, Madonna and Martin Sheen, who plays a president on television but thinks the real one is a "moron.''
When it comes to the impending war on Iraq, a phalanx of famous faces is speaking out against it
Billings' column reminds me of Harvey - the same uncritical, ingenuous acceptance of the word of a "star" as the word of gospel, against the benighted dissidents - like giving credence to a psychiatric diagnosis given by Martin Sheen.
Let's pursue this: Which means that everything they say is being blasted by pro-war pundits, who believe celebrities should confine their opinions to the Zone diet and stay out of demilitarized zones.
Three points here:
To wit: Take for instance the shellacking that singer Sheryl Crow recently got after appearing at the American Music Awards in a T-shirt sequined with the message "War is not the answer.'' As she told reporters, "I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."
Had Moonbeam Birkenstock (St. Catherines, Class of '73) spoken about "Karmic Disturbances" ensuing from bombing Iraq, she'd have been laughed off the set by any sentient reader - or, for that matter, any Pioneer Press columnist. But since it's Sheryl Crow...suddenly, it's credible? Though Jesus Christ, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. all expressed similar thoughts, they didn't have the misfortune of living in a world with FOX News. Conservative critics were worse to her than music critics, referring to her as a "noted geopolitical strategist" who "probably thinks Saddam Hussein is a New York City cabdriver.''
Two points:
Seeing a pattern here?It's true, she might not have been especially eloquent on the subject, but neither is our own president. Just a few days after the Crow flap, Bush was quoted saying the United States had to go to war against Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's "willingness to terrorize himself [see Update, below].'' It's a safe bet no one on FOX News made fun of him.
Because the President's slips of the lip are well-known, quite possibly a type of Attention Deficit Disorder, and amply documented by the likes of Ms. Billings to boot. Now - does anyone honestly think Ms. Crow was the victim of a brain-to-tongue disconnect? Sean Penn, who seems to have replaced Barbra Streisand as the most hated liberal on talk radio, was in for worse ridicule after the actor placed an anti-war ad in the Washington Post in October. "Bombing answered by bombing, mutilation by mutilation, killing by killing, is a pattern that only a great country like ours can stop,'' Penn wrote in an open letter to the president. He followed up in December with a trip to Baghdad, an attempt to educate himself about the real causes and consequences of a war in that region.
While Mr. Penn has every right to educate himself in any way he wants, and to travel wherever he will (so far), I also retain the right to call his conclusions simplistic and, I believe, the result of being an inadequately educated man who is capable of being easily manipulated.
For his troubles — his earnest intention of finding a peaceful solution, rather than a war that will surely lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis — he has been called a "traitor." No doubt his ex-wife, Madonna, can expect the same treatment when she releases a new single this week with a strong anti-war message.
Madonna's upcoming effort promises to be...treason? No. Merely a noxious, intellectually-bereft effort to regain lost currency - her stock in trade. Taking it seriously as political speech is a long walk off a very short intellectual dock. The conservative "Drudge Report" says the video shows her dressed in fatigues and throwing grenades in a landscape of limbless men and women.
We don't! There are intelligent celebrities! One of them became the greatest president of the last half of the 20th century!
The question I have is, why do we so easily dismiss the opinions of famous people, as if they're nothing but "limousine liberals"? (Itself a laughable epithet, as if conservatives are all driving around in Corollas, or being ridiculously rich discounts your opinion on political issues.)Streisand is continually derided for mixing up Iran and Iraq, and yet no one complains when the president says Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Does anyone remember al-Qaida?
Does Ms. Billings remember the Secretary of State's speech last week? Though there is a strong anti-war movement in this country, it is also strangely muted. And no wonder.
Pundit, blame thyselves. If you find it a cynical, benighted exercise...well, the right learned the lessons of the Clinton Administration well - for better or worse.
The way the administration has framed the argument, as good against evil, simply asking why (Why us? Why now? Why them? Why not North Korea?) casts the questioner on the wrong side.
Yesterday: Opposing President Clinton equalled a desire to throw children out in the cold, and evict old people into the street.
Today: Disagreement with the President "casts the questioner on the wrong side". Ms. Billings, meet the Carville/Begala Petard. Would you like your hoisting now, or after the ten o'clock news? Standing up against this march to war takes a big voice, a big ego and maybe even big box office. No wonder Hollywood seems perfect for this casting call.
I urge Ms. Billings to juxtapose that sentence against her previous invocation of Martin Luther King, Christ and Gandhi. Think about it. After getting a lifetime achievement award in London, actor Dustin Hoffman said, "I believe — though I may be wrong because I am no expert — that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil.…
Yep. "Wag the Dog" concerned a completely fictional war. I have 3,000 reasons this isn't the same.
"I believe that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible.''
Critics say a guy like him has no right to weigh in on the issues of the day; as he says, he's "no expert.''
But when it comes to understanding the spin doctoring and cynical manipulations that go on in D.C., Hoffman may have more expert standing than he lets on.
Did you ever see him in "Wag the Dog"?
And Colin Powell is linking those 3,000 dead with Saddam Hussein.
No dog. No wag.
By the way - I know this blog gets read in the Pioneer Press newsroom. Feel free to forward this to Ms. Billings: I welcome the chance to debate this issue with her, via email or any other interactive means. And say "Hi" to Nick Coleman from his favorite blogger, while you're at it.
)I also welcome the Easter Bunny, a free lunch, and Marisa Tomei on my doorstep in a black teddy for all the good it'll do me, but hope springs eternal...)
UPDATE: A correspondent writes about Bush's alleged slip:The following is more likely a mistake on the part of the person writing down the pres's words than an error on the part of the president. Add a comma after "terrorize" and the clause makes perfect sense. So, either the transcriber/journalist was an idiot when it comes to grammar, or he heard what he wanted to hear and slandered the pres.". Billings said" "Bush was quoted saying the United States had to go to war against Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's "willingness to terrorize COMMA himself..
This makes sense to me.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/11/2003 04:45:35 PM
Musical Observation - I loved The Donnas the first time I heard them...
...when they were called The Clams, in 1986.
Jeez - I wonder what Karen Cusack's doing these days?
You've Got To Learn To Learn To Do As You Are Told - So almost three weeks ago, I filled in for Bob Davis at KSTP-AM. Today, the program director and I are meeting to go over the tape of the show.
On the one hand, I have to figure that if I was really truly horrible, he wouldn't waste the time.
On the other hand, maybe I violated some FCC regulation, and they're going to haul me downtown on the spot.
On the other other hand, maybe he hates listening to tapes of me just as much as I do (ask anyone in radio - giving yourself a rectal exam with an icicle is pure joy compared to listening to your own "airchecks", or show tapes), and just feels the need to vent.
On the other, other other hand, maybe I'll just relax and see what happens.
On the job front - still no offers from any software companies - so if you're a CIO whose products are dedevilled by user acceptance and requirements analysis issues, drop me a line.
Y'know - while you stil can!
More real politics/current events this afternoon.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/11/2003 10:38:53 AM
Monday, February 10, 2003
Tartakovsky - I have a couple of shameful admissions to make here.
First - I have almost no nostalgia for the Saturday Morning Cartoons - the stuff people my age (and not much younger) used to watch every weekend morning. (Or, for that matter, almost any other TV from the seventies). The nadir, of course, was the endless parade of wretched Hannah-Barbera cartoons of the sixties through the eighties - artless, witless, pointless drivel that can be summed up by saying that "Scooby Doo" was the best of the lot, and I even hated that with a passion by age ten or so. Flat, hackneyed animation, interchangeable story lines and shrill, dull characters that made Barney the Dinosaur seem relatively engaging (then and now) - by the time they inflicted Hong Kong Phooey and Wacky Races and Scrappy Doo on us, I'd learned the joy of playing outside on Saturday mornings, never to return.
Perhaps it was the style of animation; a lot of the old Tex Avery Warner Brothers' animated shorts weren't a whole lot better in terms of story, but their animation was relatively glorious, and forgave a lot of writing sins (and sometimes the writing wasn't bad, either). But after about the age of eight, I pretty much hated every single cartoon.
The new wave of cartoons hasn't done much more for me, either. I love The Simpsons, of course - and I've seen maybe twenty episodes in all the years the show's been on. As to most of the others; I hated, Hated, HATed Ren and Stimpy, and the occasional clever moment in Spongebob Squarepants can't quite get over the show's lousy animation and twenty-something fratboy mien. Still, they're all works of art compared to the rest of the dreck you find on the Cartoon Network - garbage like the execrable Hey Arnold, the putrid filler like Cow and Chicken or CatDog, and the vile Ed, Edd and Eddie, all of which vie for space with the endless bilge-scrapings of from the Hannah-Barbera vault (and, Good Lord, they've even exhumed Captain Caveman, heaven help us).
And yet, just when I'm about to block the Cartoon Network from my TV, along comes Genndy Tartakovsky.
Dexter's Laboratory and The PowerPuff Girls, are nearly alone among recent cartoons in that they don't fill me with a desire to find those responsible and have them hewn down on the street - they're actually clever enough that they don't make me bitterly regret the time I waste watching them. They're clever, full of in-jokes that keep me laughing along with (and even ahead of) the kids, and genuinely fun to watch.
Perhaps best of all, though, is Samurai Jack. It's drawn in the same flat, headache-inducing style that all cartoons of the last 40 years have shared (except the Disney film epics and their video spinoffs), but there's a cleverness about all three of them that make me ignore it. And Samurai Jack is best of all; they mix very clever action and some fascinating post-Matrix-style animation style with some incredibly literate, engrossing story lines. Last night, for example, was a futurized telling of the story of the Battle of Thermopylae (Spartan king Leonidas and his 300 heroes who died to a man holding off the Persians in antiquity). Simultaneously wierd, styllized, funny and literate, it's the first time I've sat still for a half hour of cartoon since...
...well, since I was eight, watching the Saturday morning cartoons.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/10/2003 09:39:58 PM
City Aid Cut - Pat Awada, the new State Auditor, is getting busy. As a lot of us knew she would.
Today, she's proposed a 42% cut in state aid to cities. And a lot of city government stakeholders aren't at all happy about it. But the real story is, why they're unhappy.Republican State Auditor Pat Awada is recommending a 42 percent cut in local government aid to cities, arguing that the program has subsidized excessive spending and lower taxes for certain cities at the expense of others.
Awada, a conservative Republican who was a lightning rod for the fiscal right wing of the GOP when she ran Eagan, is keenly aware of one immutable rule from Economics 101, something a lot of local government figures and pundits have forgotten - subsidize something, and the subsidy will get spent. Fast. And people will ask for more.
In a special report released by her office Monday, Awada divided all spending by cities between essential and nonessential services. She found higher levels of spending on nonessential services, which include such things as parks, libraries and anti-poverty efforts, among those that receive more state aid.
She defined essential services as general government, public safety and roads.
``Simply put, it's pretty clear that the more local government aid you get, the more you spend,'' said Awada, a former mayor of Eagan [a middle-to-upper-middle class suburb of St. Paul], which receives almost no LGA [Local Government Aid]. ``It has rewarded and encouraged spending.''
She said her office considered recommending eliminating the program entirely, but decided it was politically unfeasible. The proposal would cut aid to 103 cities.
Local Government Aid, of course, enables cities to spend more money, while hiding the taxation within the state's overall tax structure. In other words, the local government gets to have its spending cake, while eating it by shunting the dirty work of collecting the actual money involved off onto taxpayers statewide.
The usual suspects aren't happy about this:John Sundvor, a lobbyist for the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, said if enacted, such cuts would be mean a combination of service reductions and property tax increases for most cities outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
In other words; governments of cities that are highly dependant on LGA to support their own spending will have to be accountable to their voters for the money they spend - because they'll have to raise it directly, rather than hiding the taxation. That may not go over so well in Greater Minnesota, where the traditional dictum has always been "make high taxes as painless as possible".
``It would mean a major devastation to the regional centers in Minnesota,'' he said, noting that cities such as Austin, Worthington, St. Cloud and Rochester fund services including libraries, airports and hospitals that surrounding communities depend on.
I predicted this last year, around election time, and I'll reiterate it; Pat Awada will be Minnesota's first female governor. She has been the figurehead of Minnesota's swing to the right - and the Auditor position is a traditional springboard to higher office in Minnesota.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/10/2003 08:20:59 PM
The Anti-War Left - This is from the San Francisco Indymedia site, citing a Reuters report about a CIA counterterrorism agent being killed in a live-fire training accident in Afghanistan. Indymedia is a large, far-left extremist umbrella site.
Good News:CIA Officer Killed in Afghanistan Grenade Accident
Many of the "Anti War" left take umbrage at suggestions they "hate America". I can appreciate that.
by :) Friday February 07, 2003 at 03:26 AM
Ok, only two CIA agents dead, but its something. With so much bad news in the headlines its nice to read some good news like this every once and awhile.
So when will the left acknowledge that people like this not only exist, but drive a good chunk of the anti-war movement?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/10/2003 10:27:09 AM
Sunday, February 09, 2003
The Military Girl - Stand aside, Cheryl Crow. Move over, Matthews.
Madonna's on the scene.
The mercurial diva, whose latest efforts at reinvention haven't exactly kept her on the front page of "Variety" or the top of the charts (anyone remember "Swept Away"? Anyone out there who can name any of her last three albums? Me either), seems to see the upcoming war as her latest vehicle:"She's taking it all the way this time," one source said over the weekend, "pushing all of the buttons... It is a sweeping political commentary on the modern 'American Dream' and how 'nothing is what is seems.'"
I love that. "Nothing is as it seems" - in other words, everything you know is wrong. You need to be a star, you see. Then, everything is as it seems. Got that?Dressed in commando fatigues, Madonna throws grenades as the disco beat pounds, claims a source. Limb-less men and women are reportedly shown, with bloody babies.
I'm going to take a guess and assume they're not the children of murdered dissidents...
One disturbing clip features Iraqi children. Fashion models are mixed with soldiers; sex, violence and war in new century sentiment.
Here's what I'm looking forward to; I once knew a Ukrainian guy who came to the US during the eighties. I remember his reaction to some of the anti-Reagan, anti-Western music and videos that were current at the time - stuff that ragged on Reagan and Thatcher, and pretended the Cold War was an evil sham. In particular, he reacted to the old Depeche Mode song "People are People", including it's video. There's a line in there, "Different people have different needs", which is meant to imply that some peoples around the world need dictatorships, and it's really not our job to change that. Sasha - a deeply philosophical person - heard this, and swore under his breath: "Eeez Booosheet. Noooboddy chooses Deeektaytor!. Zeez people? Dey fool of sheet!"
Ask the man who's been there, I guess. At any rate, I can hardly wait to see how Iraqis react, someday when they're free enough to see all the tripe that's being produced "on their behalf" by our perpetually concerned artistic community. Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
Or at least carefully selected parts of it.
"AMERICAN LIFE is about freedom of speech," claims and insider. "It examines not only war, greed and ego, but it's self-reflective also. Madonna rejects her 'Material Girl' image once and for all, and warns of life in a material world."
posted by Mitch Berg 2/9/2003 02:53:16 PM
The "Secular" Hussein - One of the anti-war left's most facile tropes is the notion that Al-Quaeda detests Hussein because he's "secular".
Mark Steyn trashes that, among many other strawmen, in today's piece on the subject:The surprise was Powell's confident assertion of Saddam's links to terrorism and the presence in Baghdad for eight months of key al-Qaida personnel with links to the recently arrested ricin terrorists in Britain. The secretary of state was at pains to emphasize that these agents' recent schemes have been principally against European targets. In other words, nations that put their investment in interminable UN proceduralism do so at their own peril. If you accept what he says, then it moves the debate beyond Resolution 1441: If al-Qaida's in Baghdad, then that's not a UN discussion topic but a threat to U.S. security.
It's almost too absurd to have to remind people - dictators are motivated by survival, not ideology. Hitler and Stalin were allies for a time - against all conventional ideological wisdom. To say that Al-Quaeda and Hussein couldn't align together is Pollyannaish to an absurd extreme.
You can choose not to believe that, if you wish. The evidence is circumstantial, and as an unending torrent of alleged experts assure us nightly, the ''fundamentalist'' Islamists like al-Qaida revile ''secular'' Baathists like Saddam. That's a lot of bunk. For one thing, Iraq has recently produced a collector's item edition of the Koran written entirely in Saddam's donated blood. That makes him rather less ''secular'' a leader than, say, Hillary Clinton or Gerhard Schroeder. Anyone who regards Saddam's behavior these last two decades as a reliable indicator of the scale of his ambition will understand that he would have no ideological objection to making common cause with al-Qaida and several compelling reasons to keep them a going concern, if only as a distraction.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/9/2003 02:37:01 PM
Act Locally - This week - more on R.T. Rybak's attempt to hijack the MPD's communications, as well as some impressions of Minneapolis as a whole.
I wanted to write about it last week - but the job hunt has taken on a harder, more stressful edge lately. Hopefully this coming week will be better, in both the blogging and job departments.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/9/2003 10:52:43 AM
Vive L'Indie - Why is France still a diplomatic power? Because they were a significant nation on the winning side of World War Two, of course, back at the very end of their significance as a world power.
Today, they're an anachronism - an embarassing one.
Many pundits have asked - why is France a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but not India?
Thomas Friedman has an excellent article on the subject today:Throughout the cold war, France sought to differentiate itself by playing between the Soviet and American blocs. France could get away with this entertaining little game for two reasons: first, it knew that Uncle Sam, in the end, would always protect it from the Soviet bear. So France could tweak America's beak, do business with Iraq and enjoy America's military protection. And second, the cold war world was, we now realize, a much more stable place. Although it was divided between two nuclear superpowers, both were status quo powers in their own way. They represented different orders, but they both represented order.
And I love the closing graph:
That is now gone. Today's world is also divided, but it is increasingly divided between the "World of Order" — anchored by America, the E.U., Russia, India, China and Japan, and joined by scores of smaller nations — and the "World of Disorder." The World of Disorder is dominated by rogue regimes like Iraq's and North Korea's and the various global terrorist networks that feed off the troubled string of states stretching from the Middle East to Indonesia.If France were serious about its own position, it would join the U.S. in setting a deadline for Iraq to comply, and backing it up with a second U.N. resolution authorizing force if Iraq does not. And France would send its prime minister to Iraq to tell that directly to Saddam. Oh, France's prime minister was on the road last week. He was out drumming up business for French companies in the world's biggest emerging computer society. He was in India.
There's a thesis going around - Chirac and Schröder are opposing us in Iraq because they have something dreadful to hide.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/9/2003 10:51:07 AM
Political Talk - One of the better experiements in local electronic political discussion is PoliTalk. It's produced by Tim Erickson, a St. Paul guy who has a long-standing involvement in political communication.
PoliTalk is different from some of your typical political chat lists or email discussion groups: rather than serving as an open forum, Erickson serves up a topic at a time, a couple times a year, for a closed-ended discussion; discussions last a few weeks at the most. It's very structured in format - which means the discussion is a lot less free-wheeling than a Usenet group. But the signal-to-noise ratio is very high - as opposed to Usenet or, say, the rapidly-sclerosing chain of E-Democracy email listserves.
The next topic: Transatlantic Perspectives on Invading Iraq. Politalk discussions are worth the time, and I urge "Shot" readers to check it out, when things kick off this week.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/9/2003 09:29:27 AM
What Would You Say? - Dave Matthews has always bored me stiff. His music is the type of dull, formulaic, Cities 97 fodder that sends me for the preset button every time. It's as if someone created genetically-modifed music product designed to appeal to the widest, blandest possible market segment.
So natch, he's all about foreign policy, too:I hope this letter finds you all well and that in these uncertain times you find moments to be joyful.
That's right, Dave. Let the people of Iraq vote for a new president.
I want to speak my mind about this war with Iraq, or I will choke on my conscience.
What is the motivation? Regime change? Shouldn't that be up to the people of the region and the people of Iraq?
Right?The only real threat from Saddam Hussein is to his neighbors and none of them support a U.S. invasion.
Kuwait? Oman? Turkey? Is it to stabilize the Middle-East? Wouldn't it only do the opposite by causing further death and suffering in a country that has had more than its share?
Is it to weaken Al Qaeda? Saddam Hussein is a genocidal maniac but he is not Al Qaeda.
No. But he's a terrorist, a terror supporter, and has the means to use weapons of mass destruction to commit terror attacks. He is certainly more visible though. Is he our target because he is easier to identify than the illusive terrorist network? Surely it is more likely that an attack on Iraq would only strengthen Al Qaeda by feeding Anti-American sentiment. Putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. It is certainly not to liberate the people of Iraq who suffer under Hussein's rule, unless we call killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis liberation.
And "Hundreds of Thousands" is certainly not how many will die, unless we call "lying" "truth". Saddam Hussein is a barbaric murderous dictator. I wish the world were free of him. But the answer is not to bomb this great culture of Iraq out of existence to stop him.
Out of existence? Your hyperbole is as overwrought as your music. Why must the children of Iraq die by the thousands to stop a tyrant? It is not justice. And if we kill him what will we achieve? We will have taken the most unpopular leader in the Middle East and turned him into the greatest martyr radical Islam has ever had.
Just like we did with Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. The U.N. weapons inspectors must be allowed to do their job thoroughly and any military action should be internationally agreed upon.
Every nation that matters already does agree I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.
So many strawmen, so little time.
And will it be any less criminal in five years, when Hussein can use Al Quaeda as the long-range delivery system for his first nuke? Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American.
If anything Mr. Matthews said had any bearing on reality, it WOULD be a pretty dicey war.
Unfortunately, it didn't. Peacefully submitted,
I have a list of things I could suggest Mr. Matthews could do, rather than write catalogs of strawmen about the war:
Dave Matthews
Here's the part I'm looking forward to - the part where history proves us all right, and the detractors - especially the celebrity ones - have to face their utter wrongness.
Then I remember how they've fessed up to how wrong they were in Afghanistan, and I come back to earth.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/9/2003 01:49:11 AM
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Will the Real Ronald Reagan Please Stand Up - The Claremont Institute's Steven Hayward on Ronald Reagan's "Intellectual Rehabilitation" - from the left:
More comical is the way liberals now acknowledge Reagan as a deep thinker as a back door way of attacking George W. Bush. The Times' Keller wrote: "Reagan has been enjoying an intellectual rehabilitation. The publication in 2001 of Reagan's original, handwritten scripts for radio homilies he delivered caused many skeptics to concede that he was a better writer and thinker than most had generally imagined." Unlike you-know-who in the White House now. Keller adds: "Reagan's principles were developed over decades and fortified by a selective but extensive reading of history. [Reagan had] studied, lifelong convictions [and] arrived at the Oval Office pretty much a finished product." What happened to the charge that Reagan's only reading was Human Events and Reader's Digest? That he was helpless without his three-by-five cards, and was a creation of his handlers? It has been a cliche for almost three decades now that Reagan has exceeded expectations, and his becoming the oldest living ex-president in our history is another such occasion.
You know the world's changed when the left tries to claim a piece of Reagan.
The article is short, fascinating, and will lead me to much more reading.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/8/2003 07:50:14 PM
Antsy Days - Things feel wierd these days.
Let's think locally, then globally.
I just finished my fifth week of job hunting. I'm always close to getting something or another - heartbreakingly close, in some cases. And there are a lot of potential jobs out there. I say again - potential. There is a lot of work that needs doing - a lot of companies deferred a lot of project work last year, as the bubble burst, and most of that work still needs doing. But everyone, and I do mean everyone, is waiting to pull the trigger on any actual spending.
And all of that spending - and hiring - is waiting on either:
...whichever comes last.
I heard from a friend last night that 3M, a Saint Paul employment staple, is sitting on something like 2,000 open positions, many of which need filling yesterday if not sooner. But nothing's going to happen until something breaks, war-wise. And when it does - assuming it doesn't turn into another Battle of Passchendaele, a lot of companies may just go on an orgy of hiring that will make the dotcom boom look like the Ford Administration - at least for a few weeks. I hope.
I read the other day that the US economy would be growing at a respectable annualized 3% rate today, if it weren't for the war worries. But now we're limping along at an annualized .7% growth rate - not a recession, but not a stomin', screamin' recovery.
So - for week five, the Berg index of consumer confidence is still hovering around a 0 on a scale of 0 to 100 - but could take off as soon as some of our local business luminaries get over their war skittishness.
We'll keep you posted.
And if you're an IT director who wants a good Usability person...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/8/2003 07:10:52 PM
Friday, February 07, 2003
Light Day - I was busy today, plus Blogger was having trouble (still seems to be, in fact), and I'm going to allow myself a rare night of debauchery.
OK, not exactly debauchery - a buddy and I are going to kill a sixpack.
Yaaagh. On a night like this, fifteen years ago, I was shooting pool with half of the Twin Cities punk rock scene at the CC or Liquor Lyles. Tonight - Michelob and Chips.
More blogging this weekend!
posted by Mitch Berg 2/7/2003 07:38:44 PM
North Korea - the plot continually thickens.
I'm seeing two big possibilities here:
The Guardian says: The Stalinist regime could have triggered the crisis principally to force concessions from Washington. It certainly made no effort to disguise the lorries that pulled up to the nuclear storage area at Yongbyon and were spotted by US satellites. In that case, its nuclear brinksmanship has succeeded. The Bush administration broke off contacts with North Korea soon after coming to office and then in January 2002, the president famously labelled Pyongyang as part of the "axis of evil". This week it climbed down, and Mr Armitage confirmed that Washington was ready for direct talks.
Nukes would certainly give Kim a type of strength that, even with his masses of obsolete conventional forces, he lacks.
However, some analysts, like David Albright, a physicist and the head of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, believe that the North Korean government is determined to build itself a significant arsenal of nuclear warheads. "The reason we see those trucks at the storage facility might be that they just don't care whether we see them doing it or not," Mr Albright said. Kim Jong-il may have come to the conclusion that his regime may be next on the Pentagon's to-do list, whatever he does. In that case, it may make sense from his point of view to accelerate his efforts to build up his nuclear deterrent at a time when Washington is fixated on Iraq.
The big difference being that North Korea is surrounded, either by US allies and bases, or by countries either friendly with us (Russia) or who may not be friends but who may hold Kim at arm's length, too (China). Iraq, on the other hand, is in missile range of half the world's economy - a Sarin bomb over Dahran, Saudi Arabia would send the western economy into freefall.
Once he moves the fuel rods into Yongbyon's reprocessing plant, it immediately raises the risk involved, should the US try to carry out its long-standing contingency plan of bombing the plant. An airstrike would send a plume of highly radioactive dust into the atmostphere. The North Korean leader is almost certainly right in believing that the Bush administration's current conciliatory approach will not last. Mr Bush has expressed his personal loathing for Kim Jong-il, and North Korea is far more suitable as a target for the Bush doctrine than Iraq. It almost certainly already has nuclear weapons, and it is far more starved of cash, making it more likely to sell its warheads abroad. The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, warned Pyongyang against assuming he had taken his eye off the Korean peninsula. "To the extent the world thinks the United States is focused on problems in Iraq, it's conceivable someone could make a mistake and believe that's an opportunity for them to take an action which they otherwise would have avoided," he said, confirming that he was putting the B-1 and B-52 bombers on alert for deployment to the Pacific.
Here's my biggest worry.
But Mr Rumsfeld is well aware that the post-cold war US forces - already stretched by policing work in Afghanistan and the deployment for Iraq - are not necessarily capable of fighting and decisively winning two major conflicts at the same time. Instead, the US is likely to wait for the dust to settle in Iraq, before turning on North Korea, and Pyongyang is readying itself for that moment.
In Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, World War III begins when the Soviet (at the time) leadership, facing a crushing internal economic crisis (caused by Moslem terrorism, ironically), lashes out at the West to prevent their own extinction, at the hands of their own people.
Not to transfer too much pulp literature to reality, but this seems all too plausible at the moment.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/7/2003 12:53:20 PM
Thursday, February 06, 2003
The Haggard Masses - JB Doubtless of Fraters Libertas weighs in with some cogent analysis - via Merle Haggard.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/6/2003 10:52:03 PM
Warped Priorites - PETA is at it again; this time, it's asking Yassir Arafat to take it easy on animals:
Your Excellency:
Riddling Israeli children with shrapnel? No problem. A donkey?
I am writing from an organization dedicated to fighting animal abuse around the world. We have received many calls and letters from people shocked at the bombing in Jerusalem on January 26 in which a donkey, laden with explosives, was intentionally blown up.
All nations behave abominably in many ways when they are fighting their enemies, and animals are always caught in the crossfire. The U.S. Army abandoned thousands of loyal service dogs in Vietnam. Al-Qaeda and the British government have both used animals in hideously cruel biological weaponry tests. We watched on television as stray cats in your own compound fled as best they could from the Israeli bulldozers.
Animals claim no nation. They are in perpetual involuntary servitude to all humankind, and although they pose no threat and own no weapons, human beings always win in the undeclared war against them. For animals, there is no Geneva Convention and no peace treaty—just our mercy.
If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?
We send you sincere wishes of peace.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid Newkirk
President, PETA
As Volokh (where I found this piece) says:Now wait a sec: Palestinian terrorists are willing to kill innocent men, women, and children, and Arafat hasn't been willing or able to stop them. And the point of asking Arafat not to kill innocent donkeys is . . .?
The speciousness of these people never fails to astound.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/6/2003 09:25:29 PM
Reactions - So much to say about the Powell speech.
I'll try to write a more detailed synopsis of my point of view (we know how important that is, don't we?), but for now I'm just going to list some of my favorites:
Much more to come. The speech was dynamite on many levels.
(Via Powerline)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/6/2003 05:24:05 PM
Broad Support - So now Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have joined the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the UK, Italy, Denmark, Spain and Portugal in supporting the war on Iraq.
So the score looks like this:
Given those numbers, I have exactly one question for the New York Times, for the "Peace" movement, and for Ted Kennedy: Who's going it alone, here?
Sure, Robert Scheer calls them "Nations you can guy on E-Bay". But it's much more significant to note that most of them are nations with recent experience with tyranny - and, like the Baltic States, Poland and the Czechs, nations who know who to thank for their own newfound freedom.
Sullivan has a great take on that today.in a way, the coalition to disarm Saddam is a sign of a changing world. Terrorism tends to threaten societies that value freedom more powerfully than those who don't. Citizens of free societies have more to lose from terror - more civil liberties, more personal freedom of movement and thought. A fatwa on an author is not as keenly felt in countries with a weak tradition of freedom of thought; but in countries like Britain and especially America, threatening free thinkers with death is a horrifying assault on a deeply shared value. Religious terrorism is also particularly anathema to free societies, because it threatens freedom of religion by equating it with violence and intolerance. So I don't think it's surprising that, say, China and Russia are more ambivalent about disarming Saddam than, say, America or Australia. And it's equally unsurprising that the European Eight keenest on ridding the world of Saddam's weaponry are those most sympathetic to an Anglospheric worldview.
As always, the whole thing is worth a read.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/6/2003 10:17:59 AM
Happy Reaganmas - Today is Ronald Reagan's 92nd birthday.
Last year, I took cupcakes to the office. Since I'm not working...well, it's cheaper this way.
Here's why you need to care about it in the first place. It's an Andrew Sullivan piece from the Times of London from two years ago. And I, living in the Twin Cities, controlled by a Democrat party that is mired in relentless groupthink, particularly like this Reagan quote from the article:"Our system freed the individual genius of man. Released him to fly as high & as far as his own talent & energy would take him. We allocate resources not by govt. decision but by the mil's. of decisions customers make when they go into the mkt. place to buy. If something seems too high-priced we buy something else. Thus resources are steered toward those things the people want most at the price they are willing to pay. It may not be a perfect system but it's better than any other that's ever been tried."
And as a Minnesotan, I hope Tim Pawlenty takes this lesson (via Sullivan) to heart:The contrast with Clinton couldn't be clearer. Clinton was a group-hugger, a man in command of every detail of government, a sex-addict, even to being fellated by a staffer in the White House itself, obsessed with the press, fixated on spin, devoted to polls. Reagan was aloof, distant even from his own family, focussed on a few important themes and a delegator of everything else. He was devoted to his second wife with a romantic zeal that even now impresses, a man who wore a coat and tie at all times in the Oval Office, a room he considered something close to sacred. He was also pricelessly funny. It is not apocryphal that, as he was wheeled into the operating room after a bullet almost took his life, he looked at the solemn, green-suited doctors and said, "Please tell me you're Republicans." The morning after, respiratory tubes stuck down his throat, he could only scribble jokes.On a pink piece of paper, he wrote to his wife, "I'd like to do this scene again - starting at the hotel." The other week, in preparation for Clinton's farewell address, the television networks included a snippet from one of Reagan's last speeches as president. He said of his impending retirement, "I'm looking forward to going home at last, putting my feet up and taking a good long nap." Pause. "I guess it won't be that much different after all."
As Pawlenty goes into what may be the biggest crisis of his administration - the budget crisis and his possibly-impending unallotment of state budget funds - it'd be worth it for Governor Pawlenty to remember Reagan's lesson.
Reagan cared about public opinion, but only so he knew best how to challenge and shape it. It never shaped him. He didn't need spin. He had faith.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/6/2003 08:30:22 AM
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Happy Birthday... - to Shot in the Dark!
I had no idea - but I flipped through the archives today, and today is, in fact, the first anniversary of this blog!
And indeed, it's been an interesting year - although it's hard to think of it as a full year, honestly. I look at the traffic records, and see that I was averaging maybe eight hits a day until September, then maybe 20 or so up until the elections...
...when things took off, with a couple of cites from Instapundit that really put me over the edge.
So thanks to all of you! I would still do it if I had no readers - I did, for a long time! - but it's a lot more fun this way.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 06:32:12 PM
Kennedy - Ted Kennedy is bloviating now about how our bombing campaign would cause civilian casualties. "No bunker in Baghdad is safe!".
Nice of Chappaquiddick Teddy to be so concerned about Hussein's well-being.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 01:56:27 PM
Gag - The Syrian Ambassador is speaking. "How can we threaten the innocent of Iraq?"
This is the same Syria that is supporting suicide bombers in Israel, of course...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 12:37:08 PM
The French - Ever watch a cat after it's fallen off the banister? It gets up, looks around, licks its fur as if to say "I planned that. What are you looking at?". Then it walks on to its next agenda item.
The French representative to the UN seems to be setting the stage for more or less the same thing - allowing the French government to recant its opposition to war without making it look like they're giving way on anything. "We will not rule out any option, including the use of the rule of force - as we've said all along...". Indeed.
As I type this, the French are revealing knowledge of chemical, biological, and long-range missile construction and acquisition efforts - and speaking up for the UN role, playing both sides of the fence.
More to come.
UPDATE: The CNN analyst has it right; the French are playing "Good Gendarme/Bad Gendarme", and trying to buy more time for the Inspection plan and their middle-ground approach.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 11:39:45 AM
Our Next Conflict? - This is chilling:
"Satellite photos confirm that the North Dakotans have been quietly harboring an extensive nuclear-weapons program," said Blix, presenting his findings in a speech to the U.N. Security Council. "Alarmingly, this barely developed hinterland possesses the world's most technologically advanced weapons of mass destruction, capable of reaching targets all over the world."
Of course, there's a strongman involved:
After initially offering no comment on the report, North Dakota officials admitted to having a stockpile of 1,710 warheads at two military sites and confirmed that the state has been home to an active nuclear-weapons-development program for decades.
Blix called the revelation a "terrifying prospect for the world at large."The man at the center of the controversy is North Dakota's leader, Gov. John Hoeven. Having risen to power in 2000 after amassing tremendous wealth in the private sector, Hoeven lives a life of comfort and excess inside the heavily patrolled North Dakota governor's mansion, a lavish dwelling paid for entirely by the state, while many of his people engage in subsistence farming.
It's a dangerous world.
Some suspect that Hoeven is using the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to gain badly needed economic benefits for his state. Hardly at the forefront of technology in other aspects, North Dakota has a largely rural population and a child-poverty rate of 14 percent—a fact critics have been quick to point out.
"North Dakotans live a horrible life of isolation and deprivation, struggling to grow crops in a hostile, sub-zero climate while their indifferent government routinely prioritizes bolstering the state's military might," BBC World correspondent Caroline Eagan said. "There are people starving there, and yet high-tech weapons laboratories and military bases abound. It's deplorable."
Added Eagan: "And, no big surprise, the U.S. played a major role in arming this place. I hear most of the missiles are American-made."
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 11:20:57 AM
The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back - "The League of Nations, like the United Nations, was built on great ideas. It failed because it couldn't support those ideals with force...Mr. Secretary, we owe it to posterity not to repeat the same mistake" - Jack Straw, just a few moments ago.
Exactly.
The Russians and French are coming up soon. They've been on the fence; this should be interesting.
The Terror Link - I think the link to Al Quaeda has been made. You?
"The Evil Isn't Big Enough..." - ...until the Evil is too big.
Powell's linking of Hussein to Hitler was manipulative - and apt, and deft.
Speaking of Manipulative - North Korea sent word, just as Powell took the stage, that they're reactivating their nuclear program.
Their diplomatic brinksmanship is amazing, and a little intimidating. But I suspect that's all it is. While we're occupied in Iraq, they'll play for every economic and political concession they can get.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 11:09:59 AM
The Weapons - Although Iraq was tied to tens of thousands of liters of biological weapons, they "have not accounted for one teaspoon" of it. Powell cites Blix in noting that Hussein has not provided any documentation of this material's destruction.
Powell is now talking about Iraq's mobile - truck and rail - biowar production laboratories. While UNSCOM was in Iraq in the nineties, production facilities would begin work on Thursday nights - certain that UNSCOM wouldn't stage inspections on a Moslem holy day.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 10:09:06 AM
Damning - "False statements, or failure to cooperate fully shall constitute further material breach of Iraq's obligation" is a statement from Resolution 1441. Powell has spent the last ten minutes documenting Iraq's failure to comply.
This is amazing - Powell is showing before and after shots of chemical storage facilities. Before the inspections, the bunkers in the satellite photos showed definite signs of chemical purposes - decontamination equipment and monitoring gear.
After: all the evidence of chemical purposes was gone, just in time for the UN inspection team. Powell says "it seems the Iraqis were being tipped off".
He's now showing a truck caravan at a suspected Bioweapons site, explaining a pattern of such activity at 30-odd other sites. "why would Iraq suddenly move this equipment if they were interested in showing what they had?" Indeed.
Powell's now talking about Iraqi's intransigence in the face of the UN's demand that Iraq allow its scientists to talk with inspectors, even outside Iraq. Iraq declared only about 1/7 of the number of scientists that western intelligence knew of - and the threats against scientists who cooperated. Scientists were also specifically trained in counterintelligence tactics - or in some cases, replaced with Iraqi intelligence officers. The laundry list of evasions relating to the scientists goes on and on...
"The question is...how much longer before we say enough".
Powell's now talking about the weapons themselves.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 09:57:45 AM
Inspectors, Not Detectives - I'm listening to Powell's speech to the UN right now. That was one point the French seem to keep missing - Blix is not Sherlock Holmes (although the Hercule Poirot resemblance is amazing).
Now, they're playing the tape of the Republican Guards talking about hiding material from the inspectors. One tape refers to attempts to conceal material. The other - tapes last week, according to Powell - is a discussion of instructions to clean up signs of forbidden materials, and destroy the order message.
I can hear the "peace movement" already: "So what? They're hiding things! We do it all the time!", or "It's all out of context!".
Still, so far Powell's speech seems to be building the legal case - the one the UN is most concerned with - that Iraq has flouted the UN's resolutions, and actively hindered the inspection process. Powell claims evidence that senior members of the Iraqi regime, including Saddam's son Qusay - were actively involved in hiding WMDs, including on their own private property. Powell asks "Are inspectors expected to inspect the property of every single government official?" Indeed.
UPDATE: Powell is now getting ready to show satellite imagery of Iraqi military units actively involved in dispersing WMDs.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/5/2003 09:51:50 AM
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Full Court Press - The local "welfare rights" and galloping entitlement crowds are circling the wagons against Governor Pawlenty.
From today's Strib:Lee Pao Xiong, president of the Urban Coalition, said the pilot project in Dakota County is in a demographic area not representative of urban and rural Minnesota. It has a relatively small number of families on welfare, relatively easy access to transportation, and better job prospects, he said.
Unanswered - and presumably unasked: could anyone get away with such a project in the core area, given the opposition to be expected from the "Welfare Rights" crowd?Likewise, the coalition criticized the governor's plan to completely cut welfare benefits from families not complying with the rules. Families that are sanctioned typically are those with the most problems, studies have shown, they said.
What a hopelessly broad statement! "More help?" Is there a focus to this?
"For us, the sanction is a red flag that the person needs more help to get them on track," said Kingsley.
Mr. Kingsley no doubt knows that the number of exceptions to his rule are dizzying - and that, in any case, there is no mechanism for separating "Those who need more help" from those who are simply coasting, knowing the state will do nothing about them.Coalition members voiced concerns about a proposal to beef up work requirements for parents who are studying. The governor's plan would require that welfare recipients who go to school also work at least 25 hours a week.
Now, I'm just plain mad. What does Mr. Gladue think working a regular job, off the system, and raising kids is like? I wish my week, between work (or, currently, job-hunting) and parenting were only 60-70 hours a week - and that I could squeeze more school in in any case.
But working, training and parenting can take a toll, said Matt Gladue, public policy manager for the office for social justice of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul. "You're putting in 25 hours a week at work, going to school for 20 hours a week, and then taking care of the kids," Gladue said. "That's a strain to put a 60-to 70-hour week on families."
Powerline says:The inevitable failure of Pawlenty's proposal was announced yesterday by "a coalition of social service, labor and religious groups." Why? Because it is based on "a failed experiment in welfare reform in Wisconsin." The groups attacking Pawlenty were particularly incensed by his proposal that people who refuse to follow the State's work rules should have their welfare benefits cut off. (At present, the worst that can happen if someone repeatedly refuses to work or to participate in training is a 30% cut in benefits, and that sanction is rarely applied.) Yesterday's "coalition" explained that "For us, the sanction is a red flag that the person needs more help to get them on track." So that consistently flouting the State's rules results in "more help," not a loss of benefits. As to Wisconsin's "failed experiment," that state's "W-2" program reduced welfare rolls by 90%. We call that success; the fact that the welfare "rights" lobby calls it failure speaks volumes about their real agenda. These "anti-poverty" groups are in fact pro-poverty.
In the meantime, the trusty tool of the far left, the City Pages, is wheeling its own arguments into position against Pawlenty.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/4/2003 06:03:43 PM
New Europe/Old Europe - Instapundit is wondering - did Rumsfeld's "New Europe/Old Europe" comment start something overseas? "Reader Ted Nolan quotes Robert Heinlein: "It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired."
At any rate - Rumsfeld's meme seems to have given voice to a movement on the continent among those who are resisting Europe's sclerotic bureaucracy. European blogger Wax Tadpole says:The sputtering outrage from the establishment and the chattering classes serves only to highlight the difference between the dynamic and forward-looking "new" Europeans and stodgy, reactionary old Europe. I'm sure the "age is wisdom" tack seemed clever in the heat of battle, but by using it they've endorsed the notion that there really is a "new" Europe and placed themselves firmly in opposition to it. Once tempers have cooled, they'll find themselves on the wrong side of a real and growing divide.
It makes sense to me.
The self-satisfied tone of the old European response is out of touch with the reality of Europe today - it probably wasn't, um, wise to smugly defend the policies and policy makers that gave us the massacre at Srebenica (not to mention widespread unemployment, dissatisfaction and economic stagnation in the West). Most Europeans understand the serious problems facing Europe and the failure to date of European diplomatic efforts, even if many are uncomfortable with the "American" prescription for addressing those problems. We just might discover that the necessary bitter medicine is easier to swallow if the label reads "New Europe" instead.
I'm starting to wonder if we'll look back on this as a turning point similar to Reagan's "Evil Empire" - a statement so simple, stark and true that it ends up changing the world.
This was what Barcelona lawyer Miguel Roca said in an article in Vanguardia (Translation provided by Spanish blog Iberian Notes): Old Europe must learn that in the new Europe, the anti-Americanism that, more or less covered up, has characterized its policy for decades, can no longer inspire the Union's common policy.
Regarding the Heinlein quote: The various states of Europe seem to exhibit personalities that remind me of people I've known over the years:
It isn't Bush's fault, it's all of our fault, the Europeans' fault. We have been more capable of criticizing the United States than of formulating alternative, functional, and efficient policies. We don't trust American military power, but we disarmed because we trust the US to protect us or substitute for us internationally. We debated about Kosovo but we sent the Americans to pacify it; we lament what is happening in Palestine and we accuse the United States of not guaranteeing peace with its own military intervention.
New Europe has suffered the oppression of both totalitarianisms, the Nazi and the Soviet. It would be difficult for it to be anti-American, too. We're not talking about right and left; Havel's signature is right there to ally with Bush. We can't extend Europe and think that nothing is going to change. On the contrary, New Europe gives Old Europe hope for a better understanding of the world.
Europe cannot be, simply, a suburb of Paris or Berlin.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/4/2003 05:30:31 PM
La Mode Francaise - Despite the mewling of the anti-Bush...er, anti-war left, the only significant "allies" currently opposing invasion of Iraq are France and Germany.
And it's possible that the French may, at the worst, abstain when the time comes to vote at the UN. Tony Blair is negotiating with them now.
Middle case - to preserve the illusion of strength and independence, France may abstain from the final UN resolution vote. In effect, they won't vote with us, but won't oppose us either. This may lead quite a number of other states that are squishy on Iraq to follow suit.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/4/2003 07:45:35 AM
Bills Introduced - The Minnesota Personal Protection Act was introduced last last week into both houses of the Minnesota state legislature:
This bill would require county sheriffs to issue concealed-carry permits to any Minnesotan who:
Read the bills for the details. I need to read both bills in greater depth. But I'll be covering the debate on these bills as it develops.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/4/2003 07:17:08 AM
Monday, February 03, 2003
View from Europe - If international understanding has a problem in this country, it's that it tends to be seen as a binary, black or white thing.
And yet, just as with our own stances on issues, the truth is like an iceberg - much less visible than you think.
France and Germany are both squabbling with the US over the course of action to take in Iraq.
And yet - says Doug Bandow in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, all is not visible on the surface:Chancellor Gerhard Schröder says Germany “will not take part in a military intervention in Iraq,“ although it is less clear whether his government will oppose war when the UN Security Council votes. France also offers resolute ambiguity, threatening, but not promising, a veto.
Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and would seem to oppose the "rush to war". But there are some interesting insights in the piece, as there are indeed throughout the Allgemeine, a relatively conservative paper.
Yet Washington remains skeptical that its critics are serious, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that he expects Paris to give in - as it always does. It is noted that Schröder won reelection by running against the Bush administration's plan for war in Iraq but later promised to send German troops to Turkey to crew AWACS planes sent by NATO. Even the refusal of NATO to approve America's request for assistance is seen as only temporary.
Over the years, Washington has learned that it can browbeat most any nation into submission on most any issue, but the coming showdown over Iraq offers Europe another chance.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 02:51:24 PM
Whither Minnesota? - Yeah, I haven't been covering a lot of Minnesota stuff this last week or two. Perhaps it's being out of work - in the moments I spend blogging, I want to think about stuff far from where I am...
But I'll be making up for lost time shortly.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 01:31:23 PM
The Hero Returns - Ilan Ramon, Colonel in the Cheyl Ha'Avir (Israeli Air Force) and Israel's first astronaut, has a long history of heroism.
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz writes about it - and what it means to us in America, as well as in Israel.Ramon himself exuded tremendous national, local, and Jewish pride. He brought with him into space symbols of his state, his people, and his history, including a miniature Torah scroll, which, he said, "60 years ago a little boy in Bergen-Belsen [concentration camp] received from the rabbi of Amsterdam...." During a press conference from space just last week, Ramon related to a rapt Israel, "That boy, Yehoyachin Yosef, survived the Holocaust, arrived in Israel, fought in the country's wars and then went on to become a distinguished professor of planetary physics." The Torah scroll that survived the European inferno, the Israeli air-force colonel said, "symbolizes more than anything the ability of the Jewish people to survive everything, including horrible periods, and go from the darkest days to days of hope and faith in the future."...
As the Middle East heads through perhaps its most difficult time in 30 years, the real status of the Israeli/US relationship will be under stern scrutiny. This incident sets it off.
...Ilan Ramon is more than a local Israeli hero, however. If justice is to be done to his legacy, he should be memorialized by all peoples of the free world, but especially by the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. For were it not for Ilan Ramon, and other still-anonymous fighter pilots, the U.S. military would today be facing an Iraq armed with nuclear weapons.
In 1981, Col. Ilan Ramon was one of the eight Israeli pilots who bombed and destroyed the French-built Iraqi nuclear reactor, at Osirak. It was a shocking blow, as brave as it was audacious, and it set back Iraqi plans to acquire nuclear-missile capability by decades. While it provoked the wrath of the world at the time — with the U.S. State Department even condemning the strike as endangering peace in the region — ten years later, the Israeli incursion into Iraqi airspace was a bit better appreciated. Dick Cheney, U.S. secretary of defense during the first Gulf War, wrote to David Ivry, the commander of Israel's air force at the time of the Osirak mission, "For Gen. David Ivry, with thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job he did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981 — which made our job much easier in Desert Storm."
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 01:30:00 PM
Due to Gun Control, Part II - The Saga of Ronald Dixon continues.
Dixon - a Navy veteran from Brooklyn who worked two jobs to try to support his family - shot a burglar in his home.
His crime? He didn't complete New York City's niggling paperwork required to own the firearm. Not carry, mind you - own.
The New York Daily News - which seems to support Dixon - takes up the story:Dixon, a Navy veteran who holds two computer jobs, was charged with misdemeanor gun possession. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes offered him a plea bargain that would require four weekends on Rikers Island, a deal Dixon and his lawyer flatly rejected.
Earlier stories on this subject mentioned that Brooklyn had over 450 shootings last year. Dodge City wasn't that bad.
Hynes' office has been besieged by hundreds of E-mails from angry gun activists as far away as Texas and California, and from people in Brooklyn who are ready to elect Dixon mayor.
Standing firm
But Hynes will not budge from his tough anti-gun policy.
"If you get caught with a gun in Brooklyn, you're going to do jail time," said Hynes, who has held that stance since taking office in 1990, when, he says, "Brooklyn was like Dodge City."
The DA doesn't mention how many of those "Dodge City" shootings were the fault of law-abiding, employed fathers of two kids. Nor does he illuminate how Brooklyn became "Dodge City" after sixty-odd years of some of America's most suffocating gun controls.
I'm sure we'll get to that."Depending on the circumstances, at the very least you're going to do some weekends, but no one is going to be able to take a bye," added Hynes.
Just so we're clear on this: Dixon is not being charged for the shooting. This is about failing to fill out paperwork. Call it "Felony Flaking on Paper", perhaps?
Hynes said he questions parts of Dixon's account.
"He did not apply for a gun permit in New York," the district attorney said. "I don't know where exactly he got the gun." Dixon's lawyer will move to have the charge thrown out in a hearing Tuesday. Dixon will bring his girlfriend, Tricia Best, and their two children to court.
If this were an episode of "Law and Order" (and you can bet that it will be, next season!), you could hear the Chief District Attorney bellowing "Take the Deal" right about here.
"I'm just hoping we get something positive," Best said.
"If the judge denies the motion to dismiss, we will ask for a trial," said lawyer Andrew Friedman. "They're insisting on criminalizing him. A criminal record would be ruinous for his career."
Hynes said he would consider reducing Dixon's jail time to two weekends.
The ADA handling the case probably knows what Dixon's lawyer knows - that a jury of Brooklyn residents is not going to give a felony record to a neighbor who defended his children - over more niggling government paperwork. To prevent such a jury, the ADA would have to challenge to exclude all jurors that had ever stood in line at the In fact, Dixon's story may foreshadow the ADA's task:
The ADA is doing his best to spin this: "Clearly he was justified in shooting this burglar, and the burglar is going to get as much jail time as we can get him," said Hynes.
Note the qualifier. What do you suppose the Brooklyn ADA's record is for locking up burglars?
If Thompson hadn't been shot, it's for sure he'd never have been caught. Had he been caught, the chances of him being prosecuted are minimal. Thompson was indicted for burglary and criminal trespass and is being held on $75,000 bail. He allegedly broke into Dixon's house about 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday and was rifling dresser drawers in 23-month-old Kyle's bedroom.
Thompson lunged at a man with a gun. Indeed, there is no telling what he'd have done.
Dixon took his pistol, which he bought in Florida and says he was in the process of registering here, and confronted Thompson, who allegedly lunged at him.
Dixon said he fired two shots because, "The only thing I could think about was my family - there was no telling what he would do to my children or girlfriend." Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes saw the story in The News and had Dixon and Friedman on their Fox News show. Dixon said the TV news magazine "2-0/20" called to profile him. He was the subject of an article in the National Review.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 09:38:34 AM
Time To Yank the Shuttle? - Gregg Easterbrook, in Time Magazine, writes that the Shuttle is essentially a make-work program, for which safer and vastly more efficient replacements have existed for years - and have been ignored, to the benefit of politicians and the prime contractors.
An exerpt:Switching to unmanned rockets for payload launching and a small space plane for those rare times humans are really needed would cut costs, which is why aerospace contractors have lobbied against such reform. Boeing and Lockheed Martin split roughly half the shuttle business through an Orwellian-named consortium called the United Space Alliance. It's a source of significant profit for both companies; United Space Alliance employs 6,400 contractor personnel for shuttle launches alone. Many other aerospace contractors also benefit from the space-shuttle program.
The politics behind the extension of the Shuttle and Space Station programs are also amazing.
Any new space system that reduced costs would be, to the contractors, killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Just a few weeks ago, NASA canceled a program called the Space Launch Initiative, whose goal was to design a much cheaper and more reliable replacement for the shuttle. Along with the cancellation, NASA announced that the shuttle fleet would remain in operation until 2020, meaning that Columbia was supposed to continue flying into outer space even when its airframe was more than 40 years old! True, B-52s have flown as long. But they don't endure three times the force of gravity on takeoff and 2000 degrees on re-entry.
A rational person might have laughed out loud at the thought that although school buses are replaced every decade, a spaceship was expected to remain in service for 40 years.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 07:58:27 AM
Rice and Affirmative Action - Brent Staples has an excellent, provocative article in this morning's NYT on Condoleeza Rice's angle on Affirmative Action.
Sample:There were several points at which her blackness (and her gender) doubtless helped to open doors that might well have remained closed to brilliance alone. To put it another way, her blackness and her gender added to her appeal, especially in the context of the white, mainly male foreign-policy boys' club.
The whole thing is interesting. I don't agree with it all - but read it anyway.
Like Ms. Rice, I have spent my professional life in jobs where I was the only black person in the room. Nestled snugly among the powerful, many of us are tempted to assert that the best always rise to the top — and that those who do not reach the apex themselves are held back by lack of merit alone.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 07:47:32 AM
Moyers - Some of this is a bit redundant to things I've posted in the last few days. Some isn't.
But I received this piece is from Bill Moyers' latest newsletter, and I thought it deserved some comment:GOING IT ALONE?
Let's look at this:
President Bush made his case for war this week, and the first scores are in on how he did. The Gallup poll shows that by a two-to-one margin Americans who watched the speech say he made a convincing case for military action against Iraq. But the President must also bring around two other important audiences - America's old allies in Europe, and the rough and tumble Middle East. NOW reports on foreign reactions to the State of the Union and what the President is saying to win support around the world. Georgetown University professor Charles Kupchan says, "The real peril ahead is that [Bush] will do so much damage to the international system in attacking Iraq that the gains to American security achieved through the fall of Saddam Hussein will be quite small compared to the fact that the United States wakes up in a very lonely world."
Interesting.
In the past two weeks, the leaders of the UK, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Portugal signed on with the President's vision for the war with Iraq. (Prediction: look for the Dutch and Norwegians to follow suit soon enough). These eight nations represent over 240 million people within NATO, while Germany and France together comprise something like 140 million. Each of these nations' economies are doing relatively well (in some cases because they had noplace to go but up from Communism), each has a growing population and a dynamic political system.
Germany and France are both declining nations. France is important today only because of its vote in the UN, an artifact of it's position in the world in 1945.
Our erstwhile allies in the Middle East, predictably, are stepping very lightly at the moment. It's understandable. But while each puts on a very neutral face to stave off unnecessary problems with Moslem fundamentalists, they are helping in ways that truly matter far beyond the symbolic; Turkey is contributing bases and, sub rosa, their very capable troops; Jordan's well-regarded special forces are already reportedly involved in southern Iraq, alongside US, British and Australian troops.
In short, the President already HAS the support that matters; some of our "old allies" (UK, Australia), our traditional NATO allies, both overt (Denmark, Italy, Spain and Portugal) and covert (Turkey), our newer and if anything stronger NATO but former Warpac allies (the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians), and traditional but quiet friends in the region (Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait). We are opposed by a sclerotic France whose importance is only vestigial, and a Germany whose opposition is ideological (and, judging by its latest round of Länder elections in Niedersachsen, short-lived).
I predict that not only will the Dutch and Norwegians sign on - so will the Russians (they owe us, but they have to delay for diplomatic reasons - they'll come on board when Powell releases the smoking gun info at the UN), and, eventually, the French and Germans (when it becomes time to have a place at the table - probably after the bombs start falling).
So we have nine nations overtly on board now, six more that support us covertly...opposed to two that oppose us.
Who's "going it alone"?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/3/2003 07:18:33 AM
Sunday, February 02, 2003
What It Means - Iraq, and the Anti-American "Arab Street", haven't had much to cheer about lately. The Iraqi administration's doom is creeping up on them like liver cancer about to metastatize to the brain - they can rant, they can fight, they can give up, but there's not much they can do.
But the Columbia disaster has given them something to cheer about.
Still, hidden in this disaster are the roots of our greatness - and the reasons they hate us. The crew included a black man, two women (one an Indian immigrant, both highly-educated professionals), and an Israeli Jewish war hero, the son of a Holocaust survivor. They were, like most American endeavors, a cross-section of humanity. But unlike some PC-leftist "diversity" lesson, they were seven people working toward the same, greater goal. Their strength was their goal, their training, their belief in their mission. Their diversity was merely a byproduct of living in the only society in the world (I'm talking Western Civilization, here - although we and the UK created and led that civilization as we know it today) that could even try to put such different people into a room together, much less the nation's pre-eminent technological symbol.
Let the "Arab Street" cheer while they can.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/2/2003 11:44:21 AM
Empty Reality - "Reality" TV is the latest sign that civilization is doomed. Of course, it's the latest in a string of signs going back to roughly the invention of fire.
Still, as this article by the NY Daily News' Wayne Robins describes it, it's disturbing watching "He-men and she-women from the Health Club from Hell eat near-raw duck embyos and crispy silkworm cereal, and wash it down with liquefied pig liver. For money..." on "Fear Factor".
I've never really watched much "Reality" TV. I saw the "reindeer testicle" episode of "Fear Factor", and the first episode of "Survivor II", and I'll confess a brief fascination with reruns of the first season of "Road Rules".
Robins' piece puts the craze in historical perspective:In 1973, the PBS series "An American Family" showed reality as documentary filmmakers dreamed it could be: Put cameras and audio equipment in a family home and let them roll for a few months. The Louds, an upper-middle-class family from Santa Barbara, Calif., agreed to be guinea pigs for this experiment. The nation watched with rapt ambivalence as the Loud marriage began to fray. And son Lance became a lightning rod as his homosexuality emerged in public. The program was immensely popular and controversial, though, oddly, spawned no imitators.
Not so much aghast as depressed. I couldn't quite put my finger on why I found it depressing. Fortunately (!), Robins puts his on it:
"At the time, there was more ethical concern for [television's] subjects," says Susan Murray, an assistant professor of communications at New York University and co-editor (with Laurie Ouellette) of "Startling! Heartbreaking! Real! Reality TV and the Remaking of Television Culture," which will be published this year by NYU Press. "It was sold as a documentary, an anthropological study. People wondered if this was exploitive — would the Louds have gotten a divorce if cameras weren't in their house? It was more of a cautionary tale."
Now, anything goes, leaving many mature viewers aghast."I think the loss of authentic heroes — people who devoted their lives to improving the world — is notable," [Harvard professor and expert Dr. Howard] Gardner says. "People who take Gandhi or Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. seriously are less likely to spend their time playing video games or watching video junk. Life is so short when you have goals, so long when you are just a couch potato."
Perhaps that's part of the problem.
What sort of heroes does our age have?
What are the models for heroes? I'm no social historian, but I'm seeing three archetypes:
American society was designed to downplay the latter of the categories - and it's largely a good thing. And we're so heterodox, it's difficult to get a big enough number of people to get a King or Gandhi-like leader to gather behind anyone that can be broadly considered a "hero". Ronald Reagan is a hero to the right, and Paul Wellstone to the left - but never shall the twain meet.
As to the second category - this sort of "heroism" has become commonplace. Athletic ability like that of a Satchel Paige (whose race precluded him being a "hero" to the culture of the day, as richly as he deserved it) or Lou Gehrig or Jim Thorpe was freakish in its day. Professional sports have created a mass market (albeit an exclusive one) for people who are born with or develop that level of talent - and the marketing apparatus has made it too commonplace for true heroism.
So it's the first category that really matters in this country. Right?
Perhaps. And in the days after 9/11, commentators thought that perhaps the time was again becoming right for that sort of heroism, that the speciousness of post-ironic society would give way to a society that respected this sort of thing on a more concrete level.
But can it happen? The last two years' events have given us ample opporunities for heroism of the most genuine sort, and Americans (and others) have stepped up to the plate.
But hundreds of them - Todd Beamer and Tom Burnett and the rest of Flight 93, the NYC firemen and cops) are dead, now - and Americans prefer to emulate living heroes, which isn't a bad thing; when we start creating a nation of kamikazes and Suicide Bomber martyrs, we're in trouble. Hundreds of others - the special forces troops that overthrew the Taliban against immense odds - are professionally anonymous; their stories will come out in years, if at all. Current military practice is to de-emphasize such things for security reasons. Quick - name a military hero from the first Gulf War. Can you? Probably not. There were acts of incredible heroism during the war - who were they? The biggest popular, non-command American military hero of the last twenty years is Scott O'Grady, the Air Force pilot shot down over Yugoslavia - and his actions were those of self-preservation and training, not inspiration. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But I wonder this discussion isn't happening as the debate is already decided? Think about it - the nascence of the "Reality TV" business was before 9/11. The imitators are on the air today, but the originals were in place before. Perhaps - maybe? - our western-media-addled attention spans don't allow us to be patient enough to notice that the ennui that makes "Reality" TV so popular is waning.
Or perhaps the recent growth (and, possibly, current collapse) of Reality TV is a symptom of peoples' need for heroes to fill that vacuum. If they're the only ones available...
What do you think? I'll be writing more about this in coming weeks. It'll be an issue, with a war coming on.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/2/2003 10:55:30 AM
Ritter Turned? - Democrats.com, a hate site run by a number of Democrat party insiders, is carrying this quote by Scott Ritter:
"This [war with Iraq] is not about the security of the United States, this is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation."
Now, here's my question. Given that:
I have to wonder if there isn't a connection between Ritter's hobbies and his sudden, prominent, and self-contradictory reversal of course on Iraq?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/2/2003 09:52:00 AM
The Allies - Two weeks ago, the leaders of eight European nations signed on with President Bush's views on Iraq. A correspondent on a discussion list to which I subscribe - a fellow who ridicules Bush at most turns - asked "So what next? Vanuatu will sign on, too?", implying that the eight nations were penny-ante banana (or borscht) republics.
They were the UK, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Italy. As to their commitment to fighting terror - sorry, Ann Coulter - several of them have troops or ships in the Gulf and Afghanistan. (Trivia note: Believe it or not, Danish special forces not only participated, but have a very good reputation in these things).
Says George Will:What is the pedigree of the idea that France, more than, say, the United Kingdom or Italy -- whose leaders visited the White House last week -- speaks for "Europe," more than do the eight nations whose leaders on Wednesday endorsed U.S. policy? (The combined population of Britain, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is 232 million. The combined population of France and Germany is 143 million.) France has a population significantly smaller than, and shrinking relative to, the populations of, among many other nations, Vietnam and Egypt. France has a per capita GDP smaller than that of Denmark or Japan, among others. So why should France referee the game of nations?
Other things the media (and my friend on the other discussion group) ignored: while the media and the left obsess over French and German intransigence, both countries are shrinking - in population, economic clout within the EU and the world at large, militarily (although it's worth noting that German special forces were also in Afghanistan) and economic and political influence, while many of the newer countries - the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians - are dynamic, growing (admittedly from post-communist lows) and largely pro-US. I think it's also signficant that Hungary, Denmark, the Czechs, Italy and Spain, along with the UK, have governments that are farther to the right than Germany or France, led by parties that aggressively question the European Union's cant.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/2/2003 09:09:16 AM
Incredibly Sad - Once the adrenaline of the immediacy of disaster passes, the depressing constant of the cleanup begins.
As it does in East Texas today.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/2/2003 08:32:53 AM
Intolerance - One of this blog's big themes since nearly the beginning has been discussing examples of intolerance - mainly from the left, naturally (Everyone from the New York Times to the Minnetonka Sun-Sailor is busy illuminating conservative intolerance).
One example we've looked at: a Texas Tech professor who refuses to write recommendations for Biology students who don't profess a belief in Darwinism. This conceit seems to be a strange throwback to the pre-Scopes Trial era, when Darwinism was seen to be a path through a wilderness of superstition.
But today, Darwin's theories face mountains of legitimate scientific skepticism, while even the most empirically acceptable theory of the origin of our species can't begin to speculate how life on Earth, and the wondrous process of its evolution, began (which, of course, is perfectly acceptable to people of faith who regard their Bibles, Torahs and Qurans as allegories rather than literal pre-history). A few scientists furtively admit that nobody can empirically refute the existence of God - which horrifies a lot of scientific fundamentalists.
Nonetheless, the battle lines on this issue, as many others (abortion, social issues, politics of many stripes) are drawn around a very fundamental split - faith in God versus faith in Institutions. Institutions include government, academia, whatever.
The guys at Powerline have a great piece on this split - as reflected in the TexTech flap - today: The great fault line in our society is not economic. It is cultural, and specifically, religious. What motivates liberals to launch their increasingly wild and intemperate assaults on conservatives is, in most cases, their fear and hatred of the "religious right." (This is, I think, what principally motivates the Bush-haters, whose venom is so puzzling to those of us who see the President as--whether one agrees with his policies or not--an obviously good man.) It is an article of faith (and I mean the word "faith" very literally) that religious people are dumb, irrational, retrograde, and doomed to extinction.
The article - and the pieces they link to - are all worth a read.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/2/2003 08:13:58 AM
Saturday, February 01, 2003
Why We Fight - As war with Iraq draws closer, commentators, journalists, and policymakers frequently question whether the Iraqi people would really support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But that question has already been answered. Although Americans remember the Gulf war, many do not realize that, for a few momentous days immediately after it, much of Iraq rose up in open rebellion against Saddam's regime. In fact, 15 out of 18 Iraqi provinces rebelled. I was one of the rebels.
For over a decade, I have stayed silent about what I saw. But now, as the world considers freeing Iraq from Saddam's rule, I feel compelled to bear witness to the last time Iraqis tried to liberate their country.
This is the beginning of a harrowingly intense article from the New Republic, by Zainab Al-Suwaij, executive director of the American Islamic Congress and veteran of the 1991 uprising that the US shamefully abandoned to its fate.
Please read it. Like the accounts of US and British ignorance of the unmistakeable evidence of the Holocaust, this is a barometer of the dark side of our nation's character.
Sidebar - Now that North Korea and the un-found Bin Laden have failed as Democrat diversions against the war effort, I have to wonder - will the Columbia tragedy be used to the same end? "We can't attack Iraq while we're still in mourning..."
posted by Mitch Berg 2/1/2003 05:47:33 PM
Character - It occurs to me that when the history books are written, someone needs to note this: Bill Clinton served during eight of the most placid years in US history. George W Bush, in the first two years of his first term, has on the other hand presided over one of the most amazingly turbulent periods in recent memory - certainly since the end of the Cold War. September 11, plus a mild but stubborn recession, and now another Shuttle accident...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/1/2003 09:39:39 AM
Grim News - NASA's website - which, understandably, is loading slowly due to heavy trafic - is passing on the news in typical grim officialese.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/1/2003 09:34:28 AM
Columbia MIA - Space Shuttle missing over Texas.
Fox adds this chilling comment:Ilan Ramon, a colonel in Israel's air force and former fighter pilot, became the first man from his country to fly in space, and his presence resulted in an increase in security, not only for Columbia's Jan. 16 launch, but also for its landing. Space agency officials feared his presence might make the shuttle more of a terrorist target.
More likely, I'd suspect; Columbia's an old shuttle - twenty years of heavy use, now.
"We've taken all reasonable measures, and all of our landings so far since 9-11 have gone perfectly," said Lt. Col. Michael Rein, an Air Force spokesman.
Ugh.
UPDATE: Instapundit has seen video: MORE: Why it's probably not terrorism: (1) if you planted a bomb, you'd want it to go off on takeoff -- that's when everyone is watching, and there's less time for stuff to go wrong; (2) it's basically impossible to shoot down a reentering space shuttle because of its speed and altitude; (3) there are so many things that can go wrong with shuttles, especially Columbia, which is the oldest, without invoking terrorism. I suppose it's conceivable that a saboteur did some sort of subtle structural damage calculated to cause this sort of a failure while remaining unnoticed during ground checks, but that strikes me as unlikely for a variety of reasons.
From the video it looks like structural failure, followed by an explosion as the spacecraft disintegrated. That's unlikely to be the result of sabotage. Most likely it was failure in a wing spar or some other component, probably brought on by age and fatigue, though possibly caused by tile zippering and burn-through, or damage on launch. We'll see. No point getting ahead of things here, but plenty of reason to think it's not terrorism.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/1/2003 08:51:29 AM
No Blood for Antimatter - The brewing war?
It's all about capturing a crashed UFO, says Pravda.Jack Sarfatti reported that Friday evening, December 6, 2002 “someone called the Art Bell radio show, claimed his connection with the military and informed that a UFO crashed in Iraq several years ago. The USA is currently searching for any pretext to invade Iraq. In fact, the USA is motivated by the greatest fear that Saddam will reverse-engineer the crashed alien spacecraft.”
Well, as long as someone connected "with the military" calls in to say so on Art Bell's show...
It is allegedly said that the craft crashed during the Gulf War (1990-1991), or more recently (probably in December 1998). This became some kind of Iraq’s Rosewell. The USA is currently reverse-engineering the Rosewell craft and fears that Saddam’s scientists may become even more successful than Americans in this or that sphere. It was said that these researches may give Iraq a considerable advance and even make it a leading super power.
(Via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/1/2003 08:27:25 AM
In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive
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