Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
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Thursday, December 30, 2004
Happy New Year -- I'll be back in a few days Before going on vacation I suggested that I might blog a little bit while away. Probably not. I have poor connection, I'm not really on the internet, not reading the papers. Excuses, excuses, I know, but I'm really enjoying my holidays. Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Holidays Blogging will be intermittent over the next ten days. If you get the chance, take a peak back here occasionally. If you can't, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. When is a fetus a baby and the difference it makes And, how abortion justifies killing women Reagarding the first question: when the mother says it is. In the Claremont Institute's blog The Remedy, Richard Reeb has some thoughts on recent news of a "fetus" snatching following the murder of its mother (and how the murder of a pregnant woman is hardly an isolated incident): An eight-month-old unborn child described as a 'fetus' when the news was first reported that a mother had had her baby hacked out of her, is now described as a 'baby girl,' having survived the violent ordeal that is not permitted by the laws--in contrast to the violent ordeal called abortion that IS permitted by the laws. Does an unborn child have a right to life only when the mother says it does? It is a distintion that the media and politicans make that is worth noting, I guess, but it is hardly original. The law has long treated the unborn as worthy of protection only if the mother, too, deems so. Relatedly, a Washington Post article that Reeb links to quotes Northeastern University's Jack Levin: "It seems to me that these guys hope against hope for a miscarriage or an abortion, but when everything else fails, they take the life of the woman to avoid having the baby." Consider such cases (although not the attention-grabbing one in Missouri) a matter of men taking abortion into their own hands. Several years ago, (1997 to be exact) George F. Will noted the story of Melissa Drexler, the high school student who left her baby to die in the girl's washroom during her prom. Will sardonically commented that perhaps Miss Drexler be charged with "conducting a partial-birth abortion at a prom without a license." Really, by what right does society get to complain about what Miss Drexler did? -- tossing her unwanted baby into the trash bin before returning to the dance floor. She obviously did not want the child; why are doctors the only one who have the right to snuff out innocent life? It seems so discriminatory. If doctors can do it, why not the mother. And if the mother, why not the father. Abortion says that if one parent wants to shuck the responsibility of parenthood she can do so by killing her offspring, so it is unsurprising that the other parent assumes he can, too. As the headline on Reeb's post nicely encapsulates, "Legalized abortion and murdered mothers: Roe's vile legacy?" Just remove the question mark. For once it wasn't the French who surrendered Great news -- after 124 days of being held hostage in Iraq, French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were let go by their militant Islamic captors let them go after months of fruitless negotiation with the French government. The hostage takers say they were satisfied that the journalists were not spies. Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Right to carry states Blogostuff has a list of the percentage of citizens in each state with right to carry permits. Note that half of the top eight states (Pennsylvania (which has more NRA members than any other state), Connecticut, Washington, Oregon) are Blue States. (Hat tip to Instapundit) Because 'an "ownership society" must surely involve ownership of one’s health care' On NRO today, healthcare reform expert Dr. David Gratzer said President George W. Bush should focus more on healthcare. Gratzer advocates health savings account, a reform that would force healthcare consumers (that's everyone) to take more responsibility for their own health. Until that happens, bad economics will continue to plague any healthcare system that has third parties (the state, insurance companies) cover the vast majority of the cost of health coverage: "The economics are clear. Consumers pay little directly — and demand expensive and inefficient service. With a third party paying the bills, key decisions are left to payers, not patients. It’s a prescription for universal dissatisfaction." And bad health. For more information about HSAs, read Gratzer's fantastic, intelligible, Donner Prize-winning book Code Blue: Reviving Canada's Healthcare System. Steyn on expunding Christmas Mark Steyn was in fine form yesterday in his Daily Telegraph column on efforts to rid Christmas of not just Christ but ... well, Christmas: "Jesus, Mary and Joseph long ago got the heave-ho from the schoolhouse, but the great secular trinity of Santa, Rudolph and Frosty aren't faring much better. Frosty The Snowman and Jingle Bells are offensive to those of a non-Frosty or non-jingly persuasion: they're code for traditional notions of Christmas. The basic rule of thumb is: anything you enjoy singing will probably get you sued. At my little girl's school, the holiday concert is a mélange of multicultural dirges that are parcelled out entirely randomly: she seems to have got stuck with the H's - last year she wound up with a Hannukah song, this year she's landed some Hispanic thing; next year, no doubt, a traditional Hutu disembowelling chant. It would be offensive to inflict Deck the Halls or God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen on any hypothetical Hutu in attendance, but it's not offensive to inflict hot Hutu hits on bewildered moppets." As usual, Steyn gets past the controversy and to the heart of the matter. What the war against Christmas (which Steyn says he will not rail against despite railing against it) is really about is what's wrong with dogmatic tolerance: "In Italy this Christmas, towns and schools have banned public displays of the Nativity on the grounds that they "may" offend Muslims. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But who cares? The elevation of the right not to be offended into the bedrock principle of democratic society will, in the end, tear it apart." Required reading George F. Will's end-of-the-year Newsweek column is among one of the highlights of opinion journalism each year. I especially liked this part: "This year some paleoanthropologists reported that our cousins the Neanderthals, who disappeared 30,000 years ago, had better minds than has been thought: on a plain in Spain there is a mass grave containing evidence of funeral ritual, which means that Neanderthals had a capacity for symbolism. This year Democrats stressed their superior brains. (Bumper stickers: SOME VILLAGE IN TEXAS IS MISSING THEIR [SIC] IDIOT; JOHN KERRY—BRINGING COMPLETE SENTENCES BACK TO THE WHITE HOUSE.) A campaign flier in Tennessee pictured George W. Bush's face superimposed over that of a runner in the Special Olympics, and proclaimed this message: 'Voting for Bush is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded'." There are also oddities noted and wonderful tributes paid to those who passed earlier this year, including Reagan and Charles: "Two great musical instruments fell forever silent—the voices of Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles. But their melodies linger on." Christmas books The American Spectator (dead tree) has its annual Books for Christmas lists featuring conservatives (for the most part) advising excellent books to give to this Christmas season. Here is my list. Michael Howard's War and the Liberal Conscience (Oxford, 1978). This short, excellent volume examines the delusions under which liberals operate when it comes to their thinking about war. The Liberty Fund's three-volume set of Edmund Burke's work (1999). If you can't purchase the complete works of Burke, this will do nicely. (Vol. 1 - "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents" and "The Two Speeches", Vol. 2 - "Reflections on the Revolution in France", Vol. 3 - "Letters on the Regicide Peace.") Liberty Fund also has a nice edition of "A Vindication of Natural Society" (1982) which every true conservative should read. I return every couple of years to Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot (1953 and six editions since), a splendid intellecutal history of conservatism that demonstrates that there is more to conservatism than tax cuts. Another fine book, which Robert Novak commends in TAS is Whittacker Chambers' Witness: An Autobiography (1952) which Novak describes as "a memoir, a spy story, and account of the epochal struggle between communism and freedom, between those who accept and those who reject God." I could not agree more with Novak who concludes that "Reading this book is an essential act for young people unfamiliar with the most important conflict in history." Only two books from the past year come to mind that really stand out: William F. Buckley's literary autobiography Miles Gone By (which Milton Friedman said in TAS was "resurrection of pieces published during more than half a century" -- I like that: resurrection) and John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge's The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America. Despite minor flaws, it is the most comprehensive history of the conservative movement and conservative politics by anyone outside the movement and it benefits from the disinterest of its authors. It also recognizes that conservatives had to win the battle of ideas before winning office was meaningful. And I would be remiss if I did not include my own Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal. (Americans can order it through Barnes and Noble.) (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Not necessarily the bad news The American Film Institute has a list of nine Moments of Significance for 2004, including the release of The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 911. Among the moments is "The Changing Landscape of Television News" about which Hollywood Reporter said: "Observing that Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters and Bill Moyers all stepped down from their TV berths in 2004, that '60 Minutes' creator Don Hewitt retired and that Dan Rather is soon to leave his anchor seat, the AFI said: 'The loss of this generation of journalists raises questions about the long-term viability of evening news broadcasts, which have been suffering from declining ratings for years due to 24-hour news channels and immediate access to news via the Internet'." Now some would say that the retirements of Brokaw, Walters, Moyers, Hewitt and soon Rather is the shot in the arm that the evening news broadcasts need. If the medium has suffered with these dinosaurs holding their spots for at least a quarter-century each, the time during which the evening news had its supremacy challenged, then why is it a bad thing that they leave? Podhoretz on why Rummy's job is safe The New York Post's John Podhoretz says the attempts by the media and Donald Rumsfeld's political opponents to rid the adminstration of the Defense Secretary have backfired. What conservatives/Conservatives are up against The Globe and Mail has a story on the rumours that a Toronto paper might go tabloid. This comment about the supposed necessity for the National Post to become a tabloid from John Miller, a professor of newspaper journalism at Ryerson University, however, is important because it captures a media and academic mentality, or at least story line, that limits the appeal of conservatism in Canada: "They've tried the right-wing thing, and I think it is starting to alienate people [because] its just contrary to what Canadians believe anyway, so they're never going to get a wide audience for that." The idea that to be Canadian is to be a small-l and sometimes Big-L liberal is pervasive and as that concept or narrative is repeated, how likely is it to be repudiated. In other words, as journalists and university professors repeat it, does it become prohibitively true because Canadians will perceive themselves as liberal? (Hat tip to Adam Daifallah for the story) Russia less free The New York Sun reports that Vlad Putin's Russia is less free according to the normally respected Freedom House survey of global freedom. Russia scored a 6.5 on a 1 to 7 scale with one being most free. Historian Richard Pipes disagreed with the harsh assessment saying that Russia may be bad but is hardly Cuba. But Pipes also offers hope for the future: "You may see some stirring in Russia because Russians may learn from Ukrainians that they don't have to take things lying down, that they can stand up to the government." Furthermore, AEI Russia expert Raymond Aron said the rating reflected the inadequacy of the Freedom Press rating system: "The downgrading declaring Russia 'not free' shows that we really need more categories to define the absence or the presence of liberty." True. As Aron says, there is a new brand of authoritarian politics in Russia lately, "But at the same time, it lands Russia - where the press is free, where demonstrations are possible, where one can say anything, where dissidents simply don't exist ... it puts Russia in the same category as Libya, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Belarus, where none of those things are possible." While the specific rating (6.5) may be harsh, can anyone really doubt, though, that Russia is more "Not Free" than "Partly Free"? Levant defends Christmas and Christianity In his Calgary Sun column yesterday, Ezra Levant said the attack on Christmas (Happy Holidays and all that) was part of the "war deracinate anything Christian in society" which, Levant says, is being led by government. He reminds readers of the various attacks on Christianity and double standards practiced by Ottawa and recent leaders of the Liberal Party and it is worth reading because we must remind ourselves of the frontal assaults and subtle underminings of Christianity and moral values. Levant concludes with advice on how to turn things around: "Those principles are being attacked. Sometimes frontally, as with the latest assault from the Supreme Court. Sometimes subtly, as with the advent of 'seasons greetings' and 'winter holidays.' There are many solutions needed. But the simplest is to start saying 'Merry Christmas,' and correcting those who don't." Kofi Annan must go Kenneth L. Cain, who has worked in peacekeeping missions at the various global hotspots of the last decade, wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, "A debate currently rages about whether Kofi Annan enjoys the moral authority to lead the United Nations because the Oil for Food scandal happened under his command. That debate is 10 years too late and addresses the wrong subject." So why should Annan leave? (Oh, let us count the ways.) Cain says "The salient indictment of Mr. Annan's leadership is lethal cowardice, not corruption; the evidence is genocide, not oil." Genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda where the UN was ineffective and perhaps even complicit in genocide. Cain describes finding some the 800,000 Tutsi bodies left strewn across Rwanda before indicting Annan and the UN: "But it isn't just the stench of death I remember so vividly; the odor of betrayal also hung heavily in the Rwandan air. This was not a genocide in which the U.N. failed to intervene; most of the U.N.'s armed troops evacuated after the first two weeks of massacres, abandoning vulnerable civilians to their fate, which included, literally, the worst things in the world a human being can do to another human being." So how is the UN responsible? Cain continues: "The outline of this story is well known, but its most important detail is not: Tutsis often gathered in compounds (large church complexes, schools and even stadiums) where they had assumed they would be safe based on implicit, and sometimes explicit, promises of protection by Blue Helmeted peacekeepers. The U.N.'s withdrawal was, therefore, not a passive failure to protect but an active, and lethal, perfidy." Then there is Bosnia. Cain recalls that thousands of Muslim civilians came to Srebrenica "seeking shelter at a U.N. base." But it was not shelter they found but rather a gateway to their death. "Serb militias separated the men and boys from their women and put them on buses. Armed Blue Helmeted U.N. Peacekeepers--tasked under Mr. Annan's leadership to protect Srebrenica's civilians in this U.N.-declared 'Safe Area' -- watched passively. The women of Srebrenica never saw their men again." Apparently, the "safe" meant safe for Serbians to practice their genocidal war on the Bosnian Muslims. Now there is a cemetary and memorial for 8,000 dead in the city that was once a "safe area." Cain returned there and reports: "The most arresting elements of this memorial are inscribed on its small, uniform, green headstones bedecked in Muslim prayer beads: All the names of the dead are men, and, though the birthdates span three generations, the death dates are all the same: 1995. Whole families of men lay clustered together." Annan's UN allowed this to happen. Annan must go. Monday, December 20, 2004
Most annoying pols I recently urged Sobering Thoughts readers to email the NCC's Gerry Nicholls their nominees for Most Annoying Politician. Here is Gerry's final list. 10. Ralph Klein 9. Joe Clark 8. Paul Martin 7. Sheila Copps 6. Alfonso Gagliano 5. Jack Layton 4. Svend Robinson 3. Andre Bellavance 2. Dalton McGuinty 1. Carolyn Parrish Parrish and McGuinty were my top two, too, and I also had Layton, Robinson and Copps on my list. For the reasons, check out Gerry's blog. Sunday, December 19, 2004
More wretched that usual It's a Wonderful Life starring Donald Rumsfeld. Maureen Dowd is simply not funny, entertaining or informative. Is it too much to ask that a New York Times columnist be at least one of them? Whiny liberals According to The Guardian a friend of David Blunkett says the recently forced-to-resign Home Secretary claims he is the victim of the rich. Will promotes Warner for '08 Washington Post columnist George F. Will says that with changing demographics and genuine moderate credentials, Virginia's Democratic Governor Mark Warner might be exactly what the Democrats need in 2008. Saturday, December 18, 2004
Light blogging 'til Monday No blogging today -- Christmas shopping, spending time with the fam, reading for the bunch of reviews I'm writing for the Halifax Herald and final edits for the January edition of The Interim. I might have a post or two Sunday but I'll be back with a vengeance after the weekend. Friday, December 17, 2004
For once I disagree with a NY Sun editorial The New York Sun editorializes about Cuban opposition to the American Interests Section displaying Christmas lights and they miss two important points. The first is that the Christmas lights also honour 75 jailed dissidents, so the Castro regime's criticism of the American consulate-lite is about much more than Christmas. The Sun is also too charitable toward America's domestic secularist opponents of Christmas displays. The editorial concludes: "It is one thing to respect atheists and to protect their rights, as America's Constitution and tradition do. It is another to found one's ideology in opposition to the idea of God, as communism does. What Cuba is afraid of is different from what the ACLU and Mr. Foxman are concerned about. Castro's regime truly trembles before religion. It could not survive if religion were free to prosper. So in the darkness of Communist Cuba the regime quails before the lights that are up at the American Interests Section." The ACLU and American secularist liberals also tremble before religion. Modern, political American liberalism (as opposed to classical liberalism), too, quails before the lights of Christmas; aware that it cannot prosper alongside the vigorous practise of religion it seeks to eliminate any vestige of religious practice. Further evidence of the impotence of the UN From the UN's daily briefing: "The Secretary-General is seriously concerned to learn that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s personal security detail has been withdrawn, and the already limited access to her by her physician that currently exists has been further restricted. He reminds the Myanmar authorities of their responsibility to ensure Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s security and well-being. The Secretary-General also reiterates strongly his calls on the authorities to honour their expressed commitments to the United Nations and to ASEAN by lifting all the restrictions on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement and activities as soon as possible; and by taking the requisite steps to ensure that the process of democratisation and national reconciliation in Myanmar is fully inclusive." Note those specific actions: Kofi Annan is "seriously concerned" so he "reminds" Myanmar of its responsiblity to the only captive Nobel Peace Prize winner in the world and "reiterates strongly" previous unheeded calls to lift the country's restrictions on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi "as soon as possible." Ah, he must be serious -- he "strongly" reiterated, instead of the the plain old reiterated. Of course, "as soon as possible" means whenever Myanmar wants because there is nothing the United Nations will do about it. Thursday, December 16, 2004
No political future for Rudy Over in The Corner, Peter Robinson sums up my feelings about the political future of Rudy Giuliani: "Will Kerik damage Rudy’s hopes for the presidency? Or for the governorship? What difference does it make? Mayors of New York City do not achieve higher office. Period. As best I can recall, not a single mayor of New York went on to higher office in the entire 20th century, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that none of them managed the trick in the 19th century, either ... Why should serving as mayor of Gotham doom any politician? There are two theories. The first: that serving as mayor of New York associates any politician so intimately with the city that he becomes flatly unacceptable to the rest of the state, let alone to the rest of the nation ... In Rudy’s case, just stop and think: He’s loud and obnoxious (not without a certain charm, I grant you, but loud and obnoxious all the same); he’s an insistent supporter of gay rights and abortion on demand; and he’s on his third marriage, his second having collapsed in colorful acrimony. Is this the man to win a presidential primary in, let us say, South Carolina? The second theory: that, like the Hope Diamond, the mayor’s office is cursed. One way or the other, Rudy’s career in politics is already over." Big French bridge Brian Micklethwait has good things to say about it over at Samizdata. To wit, it was paid for by a private company (the same one that built the Eiffel Tower). Micklethwait has some thoughts on what it means to the changing face of ground transportation. Great news for Yankees It appears the New York Yankees are about to acquire Randy Johnson in a three-way deal and will only have to give up right-handed starter Javier Vazquez, and a pair of prospects. Earlier reports were that it could have been Vazquez, five prospects and close to $18 million. I didn't want Johnson at that cost but if the reports are true, Javier and two prospects are reasonable. Blogging will be light as partying for the Yankees' 2005 World Series victory will begin early at the Tuns household. Alas it is just a dream From The Man Who Fell Asleep: "Imagine a world without France... Is it possible? For centuries scholars have pondered the problem of France - trying to balance their hatred of France with their natural reluctance to destroy a whole country and all of its inhabitants." Worth checking out for the illustration alone. (Hat tip to The Corner) Cuba against Christmas (lights) Earlier this week I noted that James Cason, the American mission chief in Havana, put up Christmas lights commemorating the 75 dissidents arrested and locked up in Spring 2003. (Cason explains: "The '75' is important because Cubans are very much family-oriented people. And for us, especially with all of the darkness of this place, we wanted to remind people symbolically that there are 75 political prisoners.") The New York Sun reports that Cason is facing pressure from Cuban officials to take down the lights but the American mission chief remains defiant. The Sun also reports Cason "held a Christmas party at his house for children of the political prisoners. He said 10 Cuban security officers stood outside his house in an attempt to 'intimidate' people coming to the party." Not surprisingly the European Union may prohibit their Cuban diplomats from holding Christmas parties as not to offend Fidel Castro and his thugs and the European Council for Latin America recommended "that the diplomats exclude dissidents from diplomatic cocktail parties on the island." Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Great gift for the Liberal-hater on your Christmas list Actually anyone interested in Canadian politics or the recent financial mismanagement and concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office would enjoy and benefit from reading Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal (introduction by Ezra Levant). Act now and you can still recieve it for Christmas. Order it directly from Freedom Press (Canada) Inc or through Barnes and Nobles. Sentenced to death row The Boston Globe has some interesting figures on how the death penalty is (not) utilized in California. Consider: * There are 641 people on death row in the Golden State; In other words, more than twice as many heinous criminals who have been sentenced to death have died of natural causes than have been executed. Perhaps that is one reason why capital punishment does not deter. And why there is widespread disillusionment with the criminal justice system. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Liberals hate Walmart unless they have something to sell To be fair, President Carter and Clinton think Sam's Club (not Walmart) is the cat's meow when they have book to sell. Here is U.S. News and World Report's Washington Whispers column: "As one of the most prolific authors ever to sit in the Oval Office, former President Jimmy Carter knows how to sell books. As he hawks his 19th, Sharing Good Times, Carter reveals his secret to reaching the bestseller list: Pitch buyers at discount warehouses. 'Sam's Club and Costco,' he says, 'have a vast array of customers. So they're very valuable assets.' Carter, who favors Costco for West Coast book signings and Sam's in the East, says the warehouses draw a different audience than do bookstores. 'Barnes & Noble people go there almost by definition to buy books,' he says, 'where at Sam's they come in to buy different items . . . and as an aside a lot of them just come by and buy one of my books because they announce on the loudspeaker system that I'm there signing books.' The customers are 'not sophisticates,' though he adds, 'Anybody who buys my books is a good person.' Ditto from former President Bill Clinton, who sold My Life at the stores. 'I loved the book signings at Sam's Club and Costco,' he tells us. 'I met thousands of people from all walks of life. I hope to do more'." What is the price of justice? The Los Angeles Times editorial on Scott Peterson's death row sentence: "Notwithstanding the whooping cheers from the Redwood City crowd at the news of his death sentence, Scott Peterson is unlikely to die by lethal injection soon, if ever. Meanwhile, Monday's feel-good moment will cost Californians millions more than the price of locking Peterson away for life with no possibility of parole." I hate this line of argument; what price do you put on justice? Aren't liberals the ones who say that you can't put a price on certain programs because of the good that comes from it. It seems to me that providing the appropriate punishment for murderers would fall under the category of a program or policy in which price should not be a major concern. Huh? In his Impromtpus column today, Jay Nordlinger points to some silly illogic in a New York Times article on Oregon re-naming any place with "Squaw" in the name. The Times reports: "'Squaw' originated in a branch of the Algonquin language, where it meant simply 'woman,' but it turned into a slur on the tongues of white settlers, who used it to refer derisively to Indian women in general or a part of their anatomy in particular. The settlers liked the word so much that there are now more than 170 springs, gulches, bluffs, valleys, and gaps in this state called "squaw." All must be renamed under a 2001 law ..." Nordlinger gives his reaction: "Okay, my confusion: Why would people use a word they regarded as a slur to name so much around them: their springs, their valleys, etc.? It doesn't make any sense." Sure it does: it liberalism at its finest -- the contradictions don't matter; if you notice it, you're a bigot. Sun suggests possible Danforth replacements This New York Sun editorial offers some great nominees to replace John Danforth as the United States' ambassador to the UN although all are too excellent and have no chance to be nominated. They include Rudy Giuliani (whom, the paper says, now owes Bush), Norman Podhoretz ("who grasps as well as anyone President Bush's strategy and tactics in what Mr. Podhoretz calls World War IV"), Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol. Each of them, the Sun says, would be in the mould of the best UN ambassadors: Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Keep the state out of the football arenas of the country The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Senator Barbara Boxer (D, CA) [CORRECTION: It was not Boxer but Rep. Nancy Pelosi] "said congressional oversight may also be needed to get answers from college football's Bowl Championship Series after the failure of UC Berkeley's team to be selected to the Rose Bowl despite a 10-1 record and a No. 4 ranking." Really! But there is a reason for her interventionalist madness: "In a letter to Kevin Weiberg, the coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series, Boxer suggested that the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees interstate commerce and sports, might require more information about the process regarding the way teams were picked for bowl games. These are decisions in which there are "millions of dollars at stake" for universities, she said. Cal's failure to land a Rose Bowl bid and its invitation to play in the Holiday Bowl is estimated to have cost the university $2.5 million, according to the Pacific 10 conference." Granite State against the Empire State This is an extremely interesting Boston Globe article that illustrates that the New Hampshire primary often ends the presidential ambitions of New York politicians because Granite State voters favour their fellow New Englanders (Dems in '60 (JFK), '72 (Muskie), '88 (Dukakis), '92 (Tsongas) and '04 (Kerry) and GOP in 64 (Lodge) and '88 and '92 (Bush I). Furthermore, only two (adopted) New Yorkers won their party's nomination (Eisenhower and Nixon) since 1952. I have often said that Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton are unlikley to become their party's nominees and this is just another reason to be skeptical of their ordinations. Great gift ideas Cafe Press has some neat t-shirts, hats and mugs featuring conservative, or at least politically incorrect sayings such as Islam: It's a blast, I (heart) Haliburton, Gun Control is a tight five-point shot group, and I (heart) capitalism. Until earlier this year, I strongly opposed wearing one's politics on one's chest or bumper but now I'm all for ticking off liberals. It'll be interesting to see what Pat Buchanan says about this Weekly Standard editor William Kristol writes in the Washington Post that Donald Rumsfeld is the wrong man for Defense. LA Times discovers Democrats do poorly in the South The Los Angeles Times has a fascinating article with lots of numbers about the extent to which the the Democrats are getting routed in the South. Here are some key figures and quotes: "President Bush dominated the South so completely in last month's presidential election that he carried nearly 85% of all the counties across the region — and more than 90% of counties where whites are a majority of the population, a Times analysis of the election results and census data show." And: "In Southern counties without a substantial number of African-American or Latino voters, Bush virtually obliterated Kerry. Across the 11 states of the old Confederacy, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma, whites constitute a majority of the population in 1,154 counties. Kerry won just 90 of them." J. W. Brannen, the Democratic Party chairman in Russell County, Alabama said, "We are out of business in the South." Brannen lives in the only white-majority Alabama county Senator John Kerry won on November 2. Being out of business in the south is bad news for the Democrats. As the Times reports, "Politically, the South includes 13 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Together they now cast 168 Electoral College votes, just over three-fifths of the 270 required for election." That is, the GOP has a lock on 60% of the Electoral College Votes necessary to win the presidency. How far do Democrats have to go to reclaim the region, or at least become competitive? "Kerry won fewer than one-fifth as many majority-white Southern counties as Clinton did. In all, Kerry carried fewer than 8% of Southern counties with a white majority. Kerry won only one majority-white county in each of Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi; in Texas he carried just two of 196." A question for Democrats looking to 2008: will Hillary Clinton do anything to reverse this trend? Required reading I'm sure you regularly read GlobalJihadWatch which provides briefs and links to many successes in the War on Terror. Quote of the Day "[Liberal senators] don't have core beliefs, they have positions." -- Rush Limbaugh on his radio show today. Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Last word on David Brudnoy W. James Antle III pays tribute to the late Boston talkshow host. Antle says he began listening to Brudnoy about the time it became public that the gay conservative had AIDS -- about the same time (1994) that I began listening. The essence of Antle's Spectator article is that Brudnoy was intelligent and considerate. Indeed, these are the attributes of radio's finest, liberal perceptions of Rush et al, notwithstanding. It's the herd stupid In the current The American Enterprise, Karl Zinsmeister offers an explanation for media bias: "Humans are pack animals. And the media that feed us our mental images are even more herd-like than other parts of our society. So a trendy consensus will often evolve without solid foundation." That's why fashionable political causes become if not Gospel truth, at least New York Times/CNN/NPR truth. Changing of the guard at Bombardier Norman Spector's take: "Paul Tellier is out and Laurent Beaudoin in at Bombardier ... Ottawa and Québec insist this changes nothing on the subsidy front. I can't wait to hear David Emerson’s explain it to his Vancouver constituents and Stephen Harper’s me-too." Of course, what is needed to end Bombardier's suckling at mother Ottawa is not a changing of the leadership at the company but a change of thinking by the federal government. About Peterson's punishment Rush Limbaugh said this afternoon apropos of the Scott Peterson sentencing verdict, that in California convicted murderers are given either life or life on death row (the same thing), but not death. Nice distinction without a difference. Good of Rush to notice and note it. Paging Stephen Harper: British Tories commit to conservative policy Saturday's Daily Telegraph reported that Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin vowed his party will come up with a plan for cutting taxes before the next election campaign and that if elected they would act on them within a month of winning power: "We will make commitments about tax before the next election. They will be cast iron because they will be about what we do a month after the election in our first Budget and I will resign if we do not do them." Nice to see such bold leadership and a moderately conservative direction from the moderately conservative party. UN not Kofi the problem Patrick J. Buchanan wrote last week that the problem is not Kofi Annan but the United Nations itself: "The enemy is not Kofi, who will become a Third World martyr if forced out in the absence of proof of personal corruption. Let him stay seated atop his compost heap until the aroma grows so great Americans demand it all be bulldozed into the East River as a public nuisance." Interestingly, as Buchanan himself alludes to in his column, Buchanan is part of the growing anti-UN coalition that includes Jews. It is nice to see the UN finally bring long-time opponents together. Who cares about people, save the krill Mark Steyn writes in the Daily Telegraph on the now tired global warming scaremongering and the threat that this supposed phenomenon will have on numerous species, including whales, while noting the hypocrisy of liberals who care nothing about the extinction of certain ethnicities (Italians, Japanese). Two money quotes. The first is on the liberal (using The Guardian as a stand in for the ideology) inconsistency on evolution and global warming: "A month ago, for example, it was mocking the kind of folks who'd re-elected George W Bush men of faith, not science, many of them from jurisdictions where the school boards are packed with creationists who look askance at Darwin, evolution and the like. Evolution posits that species will come and go: some die out, some survive and evolve. I don't regard myself as anything terribly special but in a typical year I'm exposed to temperatures from around 98 degrees to 45 below freezing, in the lower part of which range I evolve into my long underwear. Maybe if the Antarctic food chain is incapable of evolving to cope with a two-degree increase in temperature across many decades, it isn't meant to survive. Science tells us that extinction is a fact of life, and that nature is never still: long before the Industrial Revolution ... there were dramatic fluctuations in climate wiping out a ton of stuff." Steyn outlines the doomsday scenario in which temperatures might increase, algae might be reduced, and consequently the number of krill (the food of many Antartica animals) might decline by several billion. Krill, oooooh. People, who gives a shit. As Steyn says: "What we do know for certain is that the krill's chances of survival are a lot greater than, say, those of the Italians, or the Germans, or the Japanese, Russians, Greeks and Spaniards, all of whom will be in steep population decline long before the Antarctic krill. By 2025, one in every three Japanese will be over 65, and that statistic depends on the two out of three who aren't over 65 sticking around to pay the tax bills required to support the biggest geriatric population in history. Does the impending extinction of the Japanese and Russians not distress anyone? How about the Italians? They gave us the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Gina Lollobrigida, linguine, tagliatelle, fusilli. If you're in your scuba suit down on the ice shelf dining with the krill and you say you'd like your algae al dente in a carbonara sauce, they'll give you a blank look. Billions of years on Earth and all they've got is the same set menu they started out with. But try and rouse the progressive mind to a 'Save the Italians' campaign and you'll get nowhere. Luigi isn't as important as algae, even though he, too, is a victim of profound environmental changes: globally warmed by Euro-welfare, he no longer feels the need to breed." Small but significant step toward lasting peace in Middle East Ha'aretz reports that Egypt and Israel took a step toward 'normalization' of relations by agreeing to a limited but important free trade agreement. Peace is sustainable when neighbours depend upon each other for their mutual economic benefit. This is a fantastic development. Islam, Religion of Peace The Independent reports on the peaceful religious teachings as practised in the Muslim paradise of Iran: "A teenage girl with a mental age of eight is facing the death penalty for prostitution in Iran. The trial comes only four months after the hanging of another mentally ill girl for sex before marriage..." Once you read the story of this girl, you realize that instead of being one of the worst criminal offenders in Iran, "Leyla M." needs a lot of help. "The girl, known as Leyla M, is in prison while the Supreme Court decides on her 'acts contrary to chastity', among the most serious charges under Iranian law. Under the penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed. In an interview on a Persian-language website, the 19-year-old says she was forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of eight. Amnesty International refers to reports that say she was repeatedly raped, bore her first child aged nine and was passed from pimp to pimp before having another three children." Monday, December 13, 2004
Can't have their 'out' lives and intellectual cake, too John Derbyshire Derb examines America's intellectuals and concludes that the intellectual heavyweights are conservative, heterosexual white males. He has a point. The Derb on the dearth of homosexuals among his candidates for intellectual heavy- and middleweights: "There has also been a drop-off in what I suppose is called 'orientational diversity' — due, I think, to the fact that homosexuals are now free to talk about their homosexuality, as a result of which they speak of little else, to the deep uninterest of the rest of us. Perhaps the closet really is a creative place." No homosexuals make the heavyweight classification but two make the second tier: lesbian social critic Camille Paglia and gay author/essayist Gore Vidal, although i think in the case of Vidal, Derbyshire was being extremely charitable. Is that a threat? The Guardian reported today: "The Daily Telegraph columnist Charles Moore was criticised by Muslim organisations yesterday for an article which began by asking if the prophet Muhammad was a paedophile. He went on to argue that people were entitled to pose the question, because of the story that Muhammad married one of his wives, Aisha, when she was nine. He said such a right would be lost under plans to introduce laws banning incitement to religious hatred. The Muslim Association of Britain called for his sacking and said the paper should have known better, in the light of the Salman Rushdie affair." What does the MAB mean by "in the light of the Salman Rushdie affair"? Could it be anything other than the fatwa? Progress in Cuba No, this is not about Fidel Castro loosening his grip on his island prison but the United States getting tougher on the Cuban communists. From Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column: "Some good news on the Cuban front: James Cason, our man in Havana — the American mission chief there — is still knocking 'em dead. To draw attention to Communist persecution, he constructed a mock isolation cell in his (our) backyard — this was some months ago. And now he has done this: He has decked the roof with Christmas decorations, including a huge lit sign reading '75' (for the 75 democrats and dissidents Castro locked up in the spring of '03). To see this inspiring display, go here. At last, our government standing for something, showing some cojones in the face of brutes. Could this have happened under Kerry?" Hey guys, try getting a job outside of government Politics1.com reports on the impending musical chairs California politicians are set to play: "Term limits are causing lots of musical chairs here for the 2006 statewide races. State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi (D) is running for Lieutenant Governor, as incumbent Cruz Bustamante (D) is term-limited. Bustamante, in turn, is leaning towards running for Garamendi's open job. So is former State Assembly Speaker and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (D), who was previously term-limited out of both of those posts. Former Governor and three-time Presidential candidate Jerry Brown (D), who is currently the Mayor of Oakland, is running for Attorney General. Incumbent Attorney General Bill Lockyer (D) and State Treasurer Phil Angelides (D) are both term-limited and are each considering runs for Governor. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley (D) isn't term limited, but most pundits expect this controversial incumbent likely to lose his primary. Retiring Congressman Doug Ose (R) is also contemplating a run against Shelley." Justice served The Los Angeles Times reports: "A jury today recommended that 32-year-old Scott Peterson be executed for the murder of his wife when she was eight months pregnant with their first child. After more than 11 hours of deliberations over three days, the jury cast aside defense pleas that Peterson's life was worth sparing, and that, as his mother said, he could still do good things from prison." Regardless of the "good" he could do from prison, the blood of Laci and Connor cried out for the blood of Scott Peterson. File this under 'Progress that ain't' The Washington Times reports that "Internal Army documents advocate changing Pentagon rules on mixed-sex units in a way that critics say will risk placing female soldiers in ground-combat situations." It must be noted that this in only a trial balloon that would require the okay of the Secretary of Defense but what kind of forward-thinking puts the lives of women at risk? Grassroots against the UN WorldNetDaily reports that the "non-profit group Move America Forward has collected over 50,000 signatures on petitions calling for the 'U.N. to Get Out of the U.S.'" in just more than two weeks. Move America Forward certainly moves faster than the United Nations; if the UN were to get a petition started, they would be at the deliberation stage for six months before finally settling on some wording that warned that action might be taken if that warning was not heeded. Electoral College vote today Here's my fearless prediction: President George W. Bush will win the Electoral College vote today. The Los Angeles Times editorial on the topic runs a typical but erroneous media story line: "We have often been highly critical of the Bush administration, but because of his decisive win in the popular vote, we surely are glad that he is the certified Ohio winner. Even die-hard supporters of Kerry should thank their unlucky stars that he lost Ohio, to spare the country such an undemocratic outcome. Not to mention an outbreak of flip-flopping. Imagine how unseemly it would have been — had Ohio gone for Kerry — to see all those Democrats singing the virtues of the electoral college, while Republicans extolled the virtues of the popular vote." Actually, I doubt many conservative Republicans would have "extolled the virtues of the popular vote," as the Times says, if Ohio had narrowly gone for Kerry. Unlike the liberal Democrats who whined about Al Gore losing the ECV in 2000 despite winning the popular vote, conservatives tend to respect and uphold (and in many cases, love) the U.S. Constitution. While no doubt some partisans would have complained about Bush winning the popular vote (by more than 3 million votes) while losing the Electoral College, conservatives generally don't complain about having to abide the rules. The New York Times doesn't have to justify their statements But as long as it doesn't it will be preaching to its Manhatten choir. The Washington Times has a scathing editorial on the NYT's liberalism which concludes: "What is most striking about the comments Mr. [Harry] Reid made about Justice [Clarence] Thomas and the NYT made about Justice [Antonin] Scalia is how glibly they describe their targets as an 'embarassment,' or 'retrogressive' or 'ultraextreme' without providing any evidence to substantiate their attacks. Their attitude is one of supreme arrogance: Mr. Reid and the NYT are liberals, they are smarter than the rest of us, they are morally superior to the rest of us, and they don't have to lower themselves to explain why conservatives are inferior and backward. Is it any wonder that people who behave this way lose election after election?" Martin on the importance of Parliament The CBC reports "Prime Minister Paul Martin said Sunday that Parliament should decide the issue." And that, of course, is why he went ahead with Jean Chretien's three reference questions to the SCOC (and adding another of his own). Senate 2006 Robert Novak is already looking at the 2006 mid-term elections and reports this potentially good news for conservatives: "The appointment of Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns as secretary of agriculture does not take Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson off the hook for re-election in 2006. Although Johanns would have been an overwhelming favorite in the Senate race, Nelson is in trouble in the heavily Republican state no matter who opposes him. Nelson has begun reaching out to conservative groups. A likely Republican candidate is state Attorney General Jon Bruning." BoSox begin journey for World Series repeat And they didn't get off to a great start. The Boston Red Sox signed 41-year-old left-handed starter David Wells who last year, "missed three starts in late May and early June after tripping over a bar stool at home, knocking a bottle of wine onto the floor and landing on it and a glass he was holding. He severed a tendon in his right wrist, requiring surgery, and cut his left palm." Meanwhile, the New York Yankees have all but officially signed Florida Marlin's ace Carl Pavano (18-8, 3.00 ERA) and may also sign right-handed starter Jaret Wright. They are also still talking to Philadelphia Phillies lefty Eric Milton now that what the Arizona Diamondbacks are asking for Randy Johnson has become astronomical. Sunday, December 12, 2004
Will on the brand of liberalism that plagues the Democrats The Washington Post's George F. Will has an excellent column on the need for American liberals to get serious about foreign policy. The challenge, Will diagnoses, is this: "how do you begin reforming a base polluted by the Michael Moore-MoveOn.org faction?" Good question. The goal is easily recognized by Will and liberals such as The New Republic's Peter Beinart whom, Will says, "aspires to change the Democratic base so that it will accept a presidential candidate who espouses 1947 liberalism -- someone for whom anti-totalitarianism is the organizing imperative of politics." I pray that Democrats find that seriousness, but until it does, the GOP will have Moore victories as the Democrats Move On right to irrelevancy. Thursday, December 09, 2004
More on the UN Max Boot has a wonderful column in the Los Angeles Times on the UN's defects which begins by outlining the prosecution's case against the world body: "Imagine if U.S. troops were accused of sexually exploiting children in impoverished nations. Imagine if a U.S. Cabinet secretary were accused of groping a female subordinate, whose complaint was then swatted aside by the president. Imagine if the head of a U.S. government agency and the president's own offspring stood accused of complicity in the biggest embezzlement racket in history. Those would be pretty big stories, no? Above-the-fold, top-of-the-newscast stories. Yet the United Nations has been mired in all these scandals and until just recently hardly anybody outside the right-wing blogosphere has noticed." Boot says that even Kofi Annan knows that the UN needs fixing which is why he has had "umpteen" reports on UN reform since 1997. As Boot notes: "In 1997, the secretary-general issued a report on 'Renewing the United Nations: A Program for Reform.' In 1999, he issued reports on the U.N.'s failures in Rwanda and Bosnia. In 2000, a commission chaired by Lakhdar Brahimi issued a report on how to overhaul U.N. peacekeeping. In 2002, Annan issued another report on 'Strengthening of the United Nations: an Agenda for Further Change.' Last week came the umpteenth report on reform, this one from the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change." Boot continues: "All of the reformistas' efforts founder on the rocks of apathy and inertia. The reality is that most of the U.N.'s 191-member states, to say nothing of its 49,000 employees, aren't terribly interested in making it work better." There is no impetus for fixing what ails the UN because many of the thugocracies that have a seat in the General Assembly know that they will never have it as nice as they do now if they change anything. President George W. Bush, Boot says, isn't making much of a stink over the oil-for-food scandal but that might be because Bush is realistic enough to know that a reformed UN is impossible and a neutered UN is better than what they've got. Most annoying politician Over at the NCC blog, Gerry Nicholls is soliciting nomination for the "Top Ten Most Annoying Politician List." I posted my top 10 over at The Shotgun. I am presuming that Gerry meant Canadian politicans although I would be hard pressed to find an American politican who is more annoying that even my number nine: Ontario Minister of Community Services and Minister Responsible for Women's Issues Sandra Pupatello. Send your list directly to Gerry at gnicholl[at]ncc-on.org. Chutzpah alert Today is UN World Anti-Corruption Day. The BBC reports: "Events are being held in several countries on Thursday to mark the first such day. It aims to highlight the scale of the problem and efforts to fight it. Nations including Bangladesh, Germany, Colombia and Morocco are marking the occasion with workshops, rallies, and the release of research. The World Bank estimates that more than $1 trillion is paid out in bribes every year around the globe. This particular date, 9 December, was picked as it marks the first anniversary of the launch of the UN convention against corruption at a conference in Mexico." The UN, of course, is mired in the biggest embezzlement racket in history. Apparently the world body figured it could highlight world corruption by giving Kofi Annan a standing ovation yesterday in front of the General Assembly. And consider this little tidbit as reported by Rush Limbaugh today: the last time there was a standing-O at the UN was for Bill Clinton the same year the Monica Lewinsky story broke. Preserving the land Victor Davis Hanson's must-read New York Times article on farmland security. His message is clear: farmland is a precious American commodity and it must be protected from both foreign terrorists and domestic anti-free traders. UN: Beyond repair? This New York Sun article examines the reaction to efforts to reform the United Nations. Historian Paul Johnson says that the UN is dysfunctional because there are entities that are barely countries being represented in the world body and too many dictatorships. Johnson said this violates the spirit in which the UN was created: "After all, the U.N. was originally formed from countries which had united together in order to oppose dictatorships and totalitarianism and aggression - they were the nations that were uniting to fight and destroy Hitler and Imperial Japan." Jeb Babbin criticizes the idea of extending Security Council membership to so-called regional powers such as Germany, Japan, India and Brazil. Babbin says, "All you're doing is taking a committee that can't make up its mind on anything and making it larger, to add more voices to make it harder to make up its mind. That's no fix." Why can't anyone see that. The Sun does summarize Johnson's proposal for reform which while possibly tongue-in-cheek is, I think, quite reasonable: "Delegates to the U.N. from 'tin-pot states' enjoy 'a very nice, cushy job,' meant 'for important, well-connected people in the ruling hierarchies,'" Mr. Johnson said. Since friends of dictators are rewarded with comfortable posts in Manhattan, he said, 'all of the most undesirable people go as ambassadors to the U.N.' Mr. Johnson recommended relocating the Secretariat to Dar es Salaam, which, in addition to being 'near all the problems of the Third World,' would help get 'more serious people applying for jobs at the U.N. and would turn it into a much more serious organization'." Selective caring about the plight of their Muslim brothers Amir Taheri has a column in the Jerusalem Post on the lack of concerns on the part of Muslims about the oppression of other Muslims when that oppression takes place outside of Israel. Taheri finds: "Right now there are 22 active conflicts across the globe in which Muslims are involved. Most Muslims have not even heard of most of them because those conflicts do not provide excuses for fomenting hatred against the United States." The column has numerous examples of what the Arab-Muslim leaders are ignoring. Brudnoy's last show The Boston Herald reports that Boston talk-radio legend David Brudnoy did his last show from a hospital bed. Brudnoy was an articulate and decent Boston conservative who had a low tolerance for BS. His voice will be greatly missed. (Hat tip to The Corner) Wednesday, December 08, 2004
A man's home is his dungeon Mark Steyn is back at the daily paper journalism grind. (Take time out to celebrate now -- go get an adult beverage or whatever props you need to party.) In the Daily Telegraph he writes about the lack of freedom for Britons to defend themselves: "One of the key measures of a society's health is how easily you can insulate yourself from its underclass. In America, unless one resides in a very small number of problematic inner-city quarters or wishes to make a career in the drug trade, one will live a life blessedly untouched by crime. In Britain, alas, it's the peculiar genius of Home Office policy to have turned the entire country into one big, rundown, inner-city, no-go slum estate, extending from prosperous suburbs to leafy villages, even unto Upper Cheyne Row. The murderers of John Monckton understood the logic of this policy better than the lethargic overpaid British constabulary. An Englishman's home is not his castle, but his dungeon and ever more so - window bars, window locks, dead bolts, laser security, and no doubt biometricrecognition garage doors, once the Blunkett national ID card goes into circulation." Telling fact Oxblog's Obscure Fact of the Day says a lot about Canada: "Canada is the only country that allows Americans to apply for refugee status." The next Phil Gramm and Jesse Helms Conservative Battleground has a neat piece on the rising conservative stars and stalwarts of the Republican party. Nothing new or exciting but a thorough look at the conservative leaders within the party and a warning to not shove them aside for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. Clinton as Spiderman It's easier than Spiderman as Bill Clinton (you know, with all that getting his tights off to expose himself to some unsuspecting state citizen or for a little Oval Office intern action). Anyway Jamal Simmons, a communications consultant, offers advice to the Democrats on the comment pages of the New York Times on the kind of person that should lead the party: "On Thanksgiving Day, I watched 'Spiderman,' in which the nerdy Peter Parker becomes an unlikely superhero. Most people never expect someone like Peter Parker to do great things, yet our history is filled with examples to the contrary. In 1991, Bill Clinton went looking for people to help guide his campaign. Declining the services of the top consultants of that time, he turned to two hungry hotshots named James Carville and Paul Begala. This time around, Democrats should gather the guts to look beyond the establishment heroes, and instead look for the next Peter Parker with the ideas, energy and enthusiasm to address today's problems and tomorrow's hopes." Strong and free What a great blog name for the postings of Laurie Hawn, former and Conservative candidate. Welcome to the Canadian blogosphere Mr. Hawn. He writes about politics and military affairs (including this one why the Liberal promise to increase the Canadian Forces by 5000 will take five years too long). Great stuff so far. (Hat tip to Trudeaupia) The injustice Headline on the Grammy Award nomination in the Arts and Life section of the National Post today: "Ray Charles gets 7, but Canada's Avril Lavigne is shut out." Tuesday, December 07, 2004
The good news from Iraq Arthur Chrenkoff has another excellent and indispensable good news from Iraq blog, part 16 if you're counting. He begins by quoting Louis Sako, the Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk, who complains of the relentless negative coverage of the liberation of Iraq: "Much is positive in Iraq today... Universities are operating, schools are open, people go out onto the streets normally... Where there's a kidnapping or a homicide the news gets out immediately, and this causes fear among the people... Those who commit such violence are resisting against Iraqis who want to build their country... "[January] will be a starting point for a new Iraq... [Yet] Western newspapers and broadcasters are simply peddling propaganda and misinformation... Iraqis are happy to be having elections and are looking forward to them because they will be useful for national unity... Perhaps not everything will go exactly to plan, but, with time, things will improve. Finally Iraqis will be given the chance to choose. Why is there so much noise and debate coming out from the West when before, under Saddam, there were no free elections, but no one said a thing?" So what is the good news? Preparations for elections are proceeding, the insurgents are being arrested, infrastructure is being re-built, the rudiments of an economy are being created, schools and hospitals are being modernized and the lives of people are generally improving. To highlight just a few that I found interesting. * One of the 156 parties running in the January election is the Iraqi Nation Democratic Party led by Mithal al-Alusi, the first Iraqi politician to ever visit Israel. * "And in an effort to strengthen the integrity of government and administration, the Commission on Public Integrity has set up a phone hotline where citizens can lodge complaints about the public corruption." Can you imagine that happening under Saddam? * "The authorities are also trying to deal with the human rights legacy of the Saddam years." Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's human rights minister, said, "Iraq has 1.5 million people handicapped by war wounds, or crippled physically or mentally by Saddam's forces. Another 1.5 million are internally displaced. And a million have simply disappeared off the face of the earth." If you read Chrenkoff's link to this AFP story, you'll find that many of them will be found in the 283 mass graves discovered since America liberated the nation. * The economy is improving and the stock exchange is functional: "More than 70 companies are now listed on the exchange. By now these firms have issued more than 100 billion shares, and anywhere from 100 million to 500 million shares are traded in a session (in comparison, volume on the New York Stock Exchange was a little less than 2 billion shares on Friday)." * There are numerous stories on the coalition troops connecting with the locals. Chrenkoff notes this story from Tikrit in which Bravo Company, 411th Civil Affairs Battalion cooperated with local authorities to establish an "On the Job" training school: "Here, students receive job-specific training in one of several fields including masonry, carpentry, ceramics and casting, electrical and sewing. The courses last 30 days and are taught by members of the trade who are already established in the local community." The school recently graduated its first class composed 110 men and women. Each one received a $50 voucher towards starting their own business." * And lastly, something you would not have read in the New York Times or Toronto Star: "Tikrit, Saddam's home town and once very hostile to the Coalition is now relatively peaceful and quiet." (All links are from Chrenkoff's blog) Becker/Posner blog Economist and Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner have started a weekly blog on issues of interest that will be required reading. The first post is on preventive war (Becker here, Posner here). Becker's concluding sentence is something that no liberal has yet to comprehend: "Democratic governments have to recognize that they no longer have the luxury of waiting to respond until they are attacked." Nicely put. Becker also says that sometimes it is necessary to punish a transgressor (in society or on the international stage) because he is impervious to deterrence. Posner says that preventive war is permissible when the benefits of war exceed the costs. That's not a very useful guide and I would guess that every war is decided upon such judgments. I moment ago, I said that their first post was on preventive war but actually the first post is on why they began blogging which begins with a description of the phenomenon and its benefits: "Blogging is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge. The powerful mechanism that was the focus of Hayek’s work, as as of economists generally, is the price system (the market). The newest mechanism is the 'blogosphere.' There are 4 million blogs. The internet enables the instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers." (Hat tip to Maderblog) Liberal double standards In The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru has some thoughts Kofi Annan/Tom DeLay: "Note that the standard liberal line is that DeLay has to step down the moment he's suspected of something, but we have to have actual proof in the case of Annan." Aha, says the liberal, but aren't conservatives guilty of the same double standard. Not quite. Ponnuru again: "Is there a mirror-image double standard among conservatives? I don't think so: DeLay hasn't presided over an institution that is enmeshed in possibly the largest political-financial scandal ever, and then stonewalled the investigation. (Which is not to say that Annan is the only party responsible here.) While I am not enthusiastic about the U.N., it does not seem obvious to me that Annan's staying is the way to salvage it." Monday, December 06, 2004
NYC pols vs. the UN and Michael Bloomberg The New York Sun reports: "City Council Member Simcha Felder told The New York Sun yesterday that he will introduce legislation December 15 'asking that the city not do anything to help the U.N. expand, since it's really been the core of hate against democracy, hate against America, and against anyone who stands for freedom'." Not surprisingly, Michael Bloomberg is on the side of the UN. Felder, a Democrat, said "I'm in favor of Kofi Annan's resigning, and I'm in favor of closing the shop down." Now there's a Democrat I could support. Harper's worst than third rate communications staff Adam Daifallah often returns to the idea that Canadian conservatives lack professionalism (especially compared to how the Republicans do things south of the border). Today Daifallah skewers Conservative leader Stephen Harper for an amateurish letter to the editor attacking the National Post, the closest thing the Conservatives have to an ally in the world of newspapers. Centre-left gets behind the ditch Kofi campaign Even the Democratic Leadership Council, the ostensibly moderate Democrat outfit that launched Governor Bill Clinton into the presidency, says that Kofi Annan must go: "The secretary general should place this critical mission ahead of his personal interests, and step aside. Given his own lack of credibility on the oil-for-food program, this step is the price Annan must pay to help restore the U.N.'s credibility, and to salvage his legacy as secretary general." (Via The Corner) Sunday, December 05, 2004
The Derb on Hillary Clinton I have long thought that Hillary Clinton's desire to become the 2008 presidential candidate for the Democrats could be thwarted. John Derbyshire seems to agree: "I have been telling anyone who'll listen that Hillary will be the Edward M. Kennedy of 2008, if she runs. That is, she will crash and burn early, and people will be left wondering why on earth anyone ever thought she was competitive. This is based on considerable TV exposure to her (she's one of my senators). She is over-groomed, over-prepped, just too focus-grouped faultlessly perfect. I hear people -- friends & neighbors, including liberals -- say this all the time. 'Robotic... phony warmth... too rehearsed...' There is no humanity there, none of the little foibles that make us like a person. And then, of course, there are the Arkansas days: the shady land deals, the felonious friends, the billing recrods, the cattle futures... If Hill runs, she will crash and burn early. You heard it here first." And here, too. Remarkable liberal candor New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd begins today's piece thusly: "It's a scientific fact, or should be, that Christmas music can turn you into a fruitcake." Usually liberals just pretend that their wishes are facts. It is refreshing to see Dowd acknowledge that something that does not align with her worldview is, indeed, not a fact but merely something that should be. That's progress. We also learn -- and I don't think that I've ever used that word in conjunction with a Dowd column before -- that her family, including her own mother, considers her "weird." I'm pathetic but typical male I am supposed to be reading seven books that I have to review in the next few weeks which is the good reason that I have not been blogging much recently. But the real reason is that I've been playing EA Sports' fantastic baseball simulation on the Game Cube. This morning I read Patrick Welsh's Washington Post piece on boys being boys when it comes to video games: "Jake Stephens, a senior in my AP English class at T.C. Williams High School, is hooked. 'The narrative is so exciting you lose all track of time,' he said to me last week. 'Three hours can go by and it seems like 15 minutes. Once I'm into it, it's hard to think of anything else; all my focus is on finishing the story line'." Last night, I played baseball for more than six hours although I thought I had been playing for only two hours. The good news is that in the second season of managing the team (I don't play the games, I only manage them), I'm in first in the division, coming off a World Series win. Saturday, December 04, 2004
Politics like porn? I always thought voters were whores but I don't buy Right Wing Duck's comparison of what it's like being a spectator to what happens politically (Washington gubernatorial recount, Democrats preparing for 2008) to what it is like to watch porn with other men. That said, RWD's account of how men in the military watched pornography together (a "reasonable distance" apart) is quite funny. Friday, December 03, 2004
Govenrment can't buy better education, it can only get out of the way Earlier this week, New York city schools were presented two ways to improve the schools: more money or less regulations. I blogged about the latter here. Today, Philip K. Howard writes in the New York Times that money is not the solution: "Before throwing good money after bad, it is perhaps wise to try to learn why school reforms almost always seem to fail." He then presents the findings of Common Good, the organization whose report (and the organization founded by Howard) I wrote about earlier this week. Politicians need to remember the lessons of kindergarten and use a little imagination instead of accepting the idea that a couple billion more dollars is always the answer. It's time to get those scissors and start cutting regulations. Bush gets a little tougher with the UN President George W. Bush called for the United Nations to cooperate fully with the investigations into the oil-for-food scandal. Yesterday Bush said: "When an organization says there's going to be serious consequences if something doesn't happen, it better mean what it says. The United States participates in multilateral organizations, and we expect those organizations to be effective." Now Bush needs to back that up with an explicit threat to not participate in the UN unless the mess is cleaned up. The good that Giambi could do Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell says that steroid-using New York Yankee first baseman Jason Giambi could move baseball to a better and desperately needed drug policy. In his column today he describes seeing Giambi last spring training after hulking homerun hitter was rumoured to have given up steroids to bulk up (an act of "integrity" no doubt inspired by a baseball investigation into steroid use): "For me, the sight of the honest version of Jason Giambi brought home again, in graphic terms, just how enormous an advantage steroid cheaters have in sports. It's not a few pounds. In many cases, it's a whole new body. To Giambi, steroids meant a fake physique that brought him a $120 million contract." Boswell concludes: "This issue is obvious. Every player, agent and union executive should realize it. Baseball is in the midst of a glorious renaissance on the field. But if this popularity is bought at the price of the honor of the sport and the health of its players, then it is not worth a fraction of the grim price that is being paid. Jason Giambi has sacrificed his reputation, his place in sports history and perhaps even the $80 million that remains on his contract if the Yankees can find a way to void it. At least his humiliation can come in a good cause if his physical deterioration and endangered career become a rallying point for the radically improved drug program that baseball desperately needs." Curbing the UN New York state legislators do what the Bush administration and Congress have thus far been unable (or refused) to do: curb the UN. In this case, its the international organization's building expansion plans. Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind said, "I'm so delighted, on behalf of my community and New Yorkers, to tell the U.N. to go to hell, plain and simple. They want to expand? Forget it! ... Let them move to Mozambique, or Paris, or God knows where." Ever the man of principle, Governor George Pataki he wants to keep the UN in New York for, according to his spokesman, "for the economic benefit." This despite the fact that the UN has, as state Senator Martin Golden says, "evolved into an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic group of petty, sniping bigots who are pursuing an anti-freedom, anti-democratic, anti-American agenda." The New York Sun has the story. Thursday, December 02, 2004
Blogging will be light for next few days I'm speaking at a marriage rally Friday evening at St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in Brampton, Ont., tomorrow evening (7:30-10:30 pm) about how Jean Chretien and Paul Martin used the courts to impose SSM on Canada. Basically it's an adaptation of my chapter from my book Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal on Jean Chretien going legacy hunting. Also, I have to get some reviews to get done for the Halifax Herald, including The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky, Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France by John J. Miller and Mark Molesky and How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) by Ann Coulter. So I have a lot of reading to do in the next week or so. But stop by; I intend to blog, just less frequently. Quote of the Day Marvin Olasky writes in his column: "Whittaker Chambers a half-century ago wrote that, 'Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is most intelligent about his beastliness,' but part of [Peter] Singer's effectiveness in teaching 'Practical Ethics' to Princeton undergraduates is that he does not come across personally as beastly." Hayward's conversion Steven Hayward in The Corner: "...perhaps this is the moment to mention that 36 hours from now, I say goodbye to the Episcopal Church and will be received into the Antiochian Orthodox Church. How's that for a conversation-stopper? But I could no longer stand being a member of a church that can't tell right from Spong." And I'm thinking, why not come all the way home to the Catholic Church when I read the next sentence: "Please, no e-mails on how I could get to Rome on a non-stop flight..." Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Nicholls on the greatest Canadian Part of this post on the National Citizens Coalition blog appeared in the National Post today as a letter to the editor. NCC vice president Gerry Nicholls said of the Greatest Canadian contest winner: "Well it's official. According to the CBC Tommy Douglas is the 'Greatest Canadian' of all time. This raises a couple of questions. First, I wonder if you did a poll how many Canadians would even know who Tommy Douglas was? Second, if Douglas should get the credit for being the 'Father of Medicare' should he also get the blame for being the 'Uncle of 15 week waiting lists for surgery'? Well, anyway now that the CBC 'Greatest Canadian Show' is over I can spend some quality time watching something really important and culturally significant: The Reality Gilligan's Island Show." Some letter writer to the Globe and Mail said the designation of Greatest Canadian shouldn't go to Douglas, the creator of medicare, but to whoever can fix it. My vote would then go to Dr. David Gratzer, Canada's foremost popularizer of Medical Savings Accounts. My book at Barnes and Noble My Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal is within the 500,000 best-selling books at Barnes and Noble. People who bought my book have also purchased: • Living History - Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nan Graham (Editor) • Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation - Joseph J. Ellis • Faith of My Fathers - John McCain, Mark Salter • Ten Minutes from Normal - Karen Hughes • Rewriting History - Dick Morris Living History? Bush's speech Small Dead Animals live-blogged President George W. Bush's Halifax speech. She concluded: "Good, good speech. I'll put up a transcript if and when I can find one. I wonder how many Canadians are surprised at how different he is than his critics would have us believe." That supposes an open-mindedness about Bush that I doubt many Canadians would grant the president. Still, Kate McMillan's comments are worth reading. Working with Iran The Washington Times editorializes about how Iran has toyed with Europe, Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency with the watered-down agreement Tehran has finally accepted: "Iran has successfully been buying time while advancing its weapons research and development. Appeasement has had the predictable effect of emboldening Tehran to take a much more aggressive posture in the region, which includes financing Hezbollah and Hamas terrorism in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza and the terrorist insurgency in Iraq. The current situation is probably a picnic compared to what will happen should Iran develop nuclear weapons." Not that the diplomatic corps or liberals will see it this way; to them, it is just the latest multilateralist success. Importantly, as the New York Sun reports, President George W. Bush recognized the truth of the deal with Iran: "The Iranians agreed to suspend, but not terminate, their nuclear weapons program." In other words, this is not a solution to the problem of Iran acquiring WMD (nuclear ones!) but a short coffee break in their development of such weapons. According to the New York Times Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the IAEA, indicated that the coffee break (also known as having the West look elsewhere while Iran continues to develop weapons) will last two years. He said, "We are following every credible piece of information ... We still have work to do, a lot of work." The paper reports that "He estimated that even with full Iranian cooperation, it would take at least two years to resolve all of the outstanding questions surrounding the country's nuclear program." Again, ElBaradei: ""We're not rushing. It takes time." The New York Sun also reports that: "In the last year Iran has stepped up its funding, recruitment, and direction of Palestinian terrorist attacks, filling the void left by Israel's decimation of Hamas's leadership, according to Israeli officials in Washington. The latest Israeli intelligence statistics disclose that the terrorist wing of Hezbollah, an organization funded and trained by Iran, is responsible for 70% of Palestinian Arab terrorism in the last year." How the West can trust one of the largest sponsors of terror is beyond me. There are some things, apparently, that only diplomats are allowed to mess up, er, I mean understand. Today's FT Today's Financial Times (dead tree version) is full of great reading. Not only does it provide its usual extensive coverage of international events in its front section (including a story on the OECD's warning that current deficits combined with the ageing population will harm the economic well-being of our children and a feature on a Texas businessman who profited by the UN's oil-for-food scandal). But there are also three interesting special reports on South Korea, the Defense Industry and IT. Most interesting is the article on the true state of outsourcing in the IT secion. The FT makes a fascinating observation: that most jobs are outsourced to countries that speak the same language -- "It's not necessarily true that you can find Italian language skills in Bratislava". American and British companies use India (and to a lesser extent Canada -- what does that say about us?) and Spanish companies, with increasing labour costs at home, are looking at sending jobs to Latin America. Some Finnish companies use Estonia. But there are obvious limits to outsourcing. In the same IT section, Alan Cane writes about blogs and says there is room enough for Big Media and blogs and how they can live side-by-side. He quotes San Jose Mercury columnist Dan Gillmor: "What I hope will prevail is a kind of symbiosis where the new folks push us to do better journalistically at what we do and tell us things we might not have know." You hear that Antonia Zerbisias? Giuliani's future The Wall Street Journal reports today that former New York City mayor Rudi Giuliani is focusing on business rather than politics for the time being. His Giuliani Partners LLC consulting firm has bought Ernst & Young Corporate Finance LLC from Ernst and Young LLP so that it (Giuliani's firm) would have a presence in investment banking. Giuliani's consulting firm advised companies and governments on security and corporate governance issues. The WSJ reports that Giuliani's firm can now "compete with ... high powered investment banks and smaller firms that fiercely compete to advise companies on their deals." The gist of all this is ... what? The paper says that it may signal that he has little future interest in politics. Maybe. It definitely takes him out of the running for chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission or to replace Tom Ridge in the Department of Homeland Security, and should end speculation of a dream Senate race between him and Hillary Clinton in 2006. But the 2008 presidential race, including the one-year lead-in, is far away. And the business connections he will make over the next few years certainly won't hurt his fundraising ability. Far from signalling a disinterest in politics, it may be a brilliant political move. |