Hillary Clinton's move to join the anti-Alito filibuster is a dumb political move, as is this accompanying bit of bloviation:
"History will show that Judge Alito's nomination is the tipping point against constitutionally-based freedoms and protections we cherish as individuals and as a nation," Clinton wrote in a statement during a fundraising stop in Seattle.
Good thing she just wrote it down because saying something that inane out loud would provide a perfect soundbite for Republican commercials in years to come. Clinton does not nearly have the sophisticated political ear of her husband. There's a time to hold 'em and a time to fold 'em. The time to fold 'em came a long time ago on the Alito nomination. Only big time losers like Kerry don't seem to know better. By aligning herself with the likes of Prince John the Hairful, she's heading in the opposite direction from the Oval Office. I thought she and Bill were talking to each other again. Maybe they're not.
Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
The poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran's Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
It seems the man with the unpronounceable name has managed to convince American he's for real. He certainly has me.
Hundreds of Tehran's Collective Bus drivers, technicians and workers have been arrested, since yesterday, following the issuance of a notice of strike. The protest action is to start from Saturday early morning and should affect most of the ten transit areas of the Greater Tehran.
From Reuters, Al Aqsa promises to "liquidate" any Fatah members who join Hamas. Meanwhile, Haaretz is reporting only five wounded in demonstrations so far. [Are those fatah-lities?-ed. I knew you had potential as a comedy writer.]
Iran's mission to the UN says "more study" is needed to prove the Nazi Holocaust. [Yes, they saw "Schindler's List," but then they saw "Munich" and changed their minds.-ed.]
Among all those wondering what to make of the Hamas victory, Jordan's Abdullah may be the least happy about the possible developments. Follow any or all of these scenarios: Hamas supporters attack Israel, Fatah supporters attack Israel, Fatah and Hamas supporters attack each other and Israel... what happens? Israel is dealing with some kind of violent state on its eastern flank and acts in self-defense, pushing out to the most natural of all security walls, the Jordan River. The normally sane and reasonable Abdullah has several million crazed refugees on his hands. Jordan is a mad house. That's what he woke up with the other morning.
Old media rules at the World Economic Forum, according to Fortune:
Justin Fox reports: For members of the Old Media, Davos remains stuck in a blissful time warp where they still matter and there's no Matt Drudge or Instapundit or Daily Kos around to cause trouble. Genius that he is, World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab long ago swept the people who run the world's newspapers, magazines and TV networks into a tight embrace, and he's not letting go, at least not yet.
Not to put too fine a point on it -- who cares? [You do. There's good skiing.-ed. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.]
A mind is a difficult thing to change... Is it ever?!
Neo-neocon, continuing her groundbreaking serious on political change, begins installment six with a quote from Trotsky: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. (PS: You may enjoy the photo over on PJ.)
This AP coverage says it all: Hours after unofficial results indicated Hamas' clear victory in the Palestinian elections, Hamas supporters poured into the Palestinian parliament amid clashes with Fatah loyalists.
The Hamas supporters then raised the Hamas flag over the building.
The two camps threw stones at each other, breaking windows in the building, as Fatah supporters briefly tried to lower the green Hamas banners. The crowd of about 3,000 Hamas backers cheered and whistled as activists on the roof of the parliament raised the Hamas banner again.
Actually, on ten minutes reflection (it's pretty early here in LA), I am glad Hamas won. Elections should reflect the will of the people and this one reflects the will of the Palestinians. Now we know. The big winners: stockholders in the various companies building the wall. The big losers: the people of the Middle East. [But they always lose.-ed. Yes, that's true.]
UPDATE: I respectfully disagree with my Pajama partner Wretchard at Belmont Club. I do not think this will necessarily make Netanyahu the next Israeli prime minister. I imagine Olmert knows how to behave under the circumstances.
Iran has accused Britain of involvement in the bombing in the Iranian city of Avhaz, which killed nine.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said British soldiers equipped and directed the perpetrators of the two bombings, according to a report by the IRNA news agency. He said British forces had provided "safe haven'" and "practical and extensive facilities" for the attacks.
Tony says no!
"The Iranian government's suggestion that we somehow had a hand in yesterday's bomb explosions in southern Iran is obviously ludicrous and deserves to be treated with scorn by the international community,'' Blair's office said today in a statement read over the telephone.
What's interesting is why the Iranians would want to up the ante with the British in this way. The mullahs seem to be pushing, pushing, pushing for some reason.
From the AP: Iran's top nuclear negotiator said a Russian proposal to enrich uranium for the Islamic republic needs more work and renewed a threat that Tehran will forge ahead with the technology that can make nuclear arms if the issue is referred to the U.N. Security Council.
As if they haven't... Meanwhile, the sabers rattle: "Zionists should know that if they do anything evil against Iran, the response of Iran's armed forces will be so firm that it will send them into eternal coma, like Sharon," Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said.
I'm talking about Yahoo, Microsoft and Google, of course, those three Internet mega-corporations who are actively cooperating with totalitarianism in China.
Google is the latest to prostrate itself before the new emperors. Timesonline sums it up:
Google today caved in to pressure from the Chinese Government by launching a localised version of its website that self-censors information deemed "subversive" by the Communist authorities.
The company, whose motto is "Don't be evil", has engineered its search facilities to restrict Chinese people from searching for information such as Tibetan independence or the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy," the internet company said in a statement issued yesterday.
Okay, instead of boring everyone discussing the corporation's probable rationale ... we're working from within their system, etc., etc., as if they were an automobile or ball-bearing firm and not a media company involved with the dissemination (or in this case non-dissemination) of information and ideas ... I will cut to the proverbial chase. Since this is obviously a manifestation of corporate greed at its most unbridled, not to say cynically exploitive of (even, in a way, racist towards) the people of the most populace country on Earth, it's time to deal with Google in a manner that could actually affect the retrograde policy of the company. In other word, it's time for...
... a Google stock divestment campaign.
Everyone who cares about the free-flow of information, about democracy in China, in fact about democracy anywhere, should start selling their Google stock. This should begin most especially with those vast university endowments because academic institutions, of all places, should be most concerned with the censorship of ideas and information. Union pension plans as well should seek to divest as their members should be particularly appalled by the company's restrictive behavior. I could go on, but you certainly get the point. I welcome suggestions for how to mount this campaign in the comments below.
(Full disclosure: I do not own any Google stock, but would, I'm assuming, have the courage of my convictions, if I did.)
When I read Kofi Annan's oped on the human tragedy in the Sudan (Darfur) in tomorrow's Washington Post, all I could think of was this report on that same Sudan from yesterday 's Fox News site.
In another section of the report, however, OIOS [Office of Internal Oversight Services] auditors recommend that the U.N. investigate possible collusion among U.N. officials to award Skylink an $85.9 million fuel contract for peacekeeping in Sudan. According to the report, one of the officials who was directly responsible for overseeing implementation of the Skylink contract abruptly resigned in December, 2005-about the time the OIOS investigation entered its final stages. No reason was given for the departure.
It goes on with numerous other UN scandals. It's hard to keep up. The United Nations, as we all realize now, is one of the greatest economic rackets of all time, if not the greatest. And yet institutions like the WaPo continue to give Annan a forum to bemoan the state of places like Darfur as if the UN were its salvation, not one of the causes of that country's misery. If the UN is serious about doing something for the people of the Sudan, it can start by cleaning itself up in a serious way. That begins with total fiscal transparency for all United Nations transactions. Otherwise the idea that we would trust this klepto-bureaucracy with another dime is ludicrous.
The purchase of Pixar, even at seven plus billion, modernizes the aging Mouse House. I wish we could now get Steve Jobs working on our moribund auto industry. On my recent trip to the LA Auto Show, I didn't see a single American car that didn't put me to sleep. What happened to the creativity? I didn't see any on the stylistic or the technological sides. Hint to Detroit - the 1950s are over.
Like most of us, Christopher Hitchens has his bad days. Sometimes he goes off with odd, tasteless screeds, such as his attack on Bob Hope for never being funny the day after the comedian died. Not only did this reveal the journalist's ignorance of film history (didn't he see The Cat and the Canary?), it also showed his almost compulsive need to shock.
But the good Hitch is as good as it gets and today, while not at top-top form, he is clearly on target with Al-Qaida is Losing:
The conditions for this latest truce are of course impossible as well. All one needs, in order to earn Bin Laden's mercy, is to give up Afghanistan and Iraq. But this raises a more intriguing question. Why are formerly triumphalist jihadists using the language of "truce" at all? Not very long ago, God was claimed to be on their side and victory certain.
This development, while fairly obvious, is virtually overlooked by our mainstream media.
Yesterday, while working out at the gym like a good boy, I witnessed this same interview between Harry Belafonte and Wolf Blitzer on the screen above my treadmill. Like so many of my generation, I grew up on Belafonte and loved him. And, an extraordinarily handsome man, he looks amazing at seventy-eight. But I can't say I was surprised by his idiotic blather comparing Homeland Security to the Gestapo. Alas, we've been hearing a lot of that kind of nonsense from Harry over the years, which, I wouldn't doubt, only hurts the causes he thinks he's espousing much more than he helps them. It's all a pathetic game. I blame the press in this [What again?-ed. Yes, again] more than I blame Dotty Harry. Why should this septuagenarian going on octogenarian be more interesting than any other? Because he sang "Day-O"? Now that's a qualification.
Reuel Marc Gerecht thinks we're lucky to have Ahmadinejad
In his new Weekly Standard piece Coming Soon: Nuclear Theocrats, the AEI scholar also has tough things to say about the State Department (where many assume a democratic Iran to be impossible), the CIA (its ineptitude in covert and overt operations regarding Iran) and waffling about the Mullahcracy within the Bush administration itself. But he concludes:
Remember: Ahmadinejad is heaven sent. Unfortunately, things in Iran are probably going to have to get a lot worse before they can get better. He and his supporters may ruin the economy and galvanize a much broader and braver base of internal opposition to the regime. He may add jet fuel to internal clerical dissent and open up lethal fissures in the ruling elite. No doubt, he will do all that he can to convulse and purify his society. Will we be ready to handle the challenge and the opportunity?
Ahmadinejad is the world's wake-up call. Are we ready for it?
Claudia Rosett and her partner in crime (stopping) George Russell say it could:
How bad is the still expanding scandal in the United Nations' multi-billion-dollar procurement division? Based on a still-secret internal investigation, the answer is: for the U.N., it is just as bad as the gigantic Oil-for-Food debacle - or maybe worse.
The Palestinians, never long on their own self-interest, seem to be headed toward electing a fair number of Hamas candidates. But not to worry, Hamas itself is "changing" and might even negotiate with a "non-existent" state or is it "entity," at least according to this AP report:
"Negotiation is not a taboo," said Mahmoud Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader in Gaza and a top candidate for the group. He said Hamas would be willing to talk to Israel through a third party, similar to past negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Touching, that.... Tony Blair is evidently not impressed.
You may not like him but... this was phenomenal. From the front page coverage in the LAT:
Jackson, who coached Jordan and played against Chamberlain, called Bryant's performance "something to behold."
"I wasn't keeping track on what he had, and when I turned to [assistant Frank Hamblen] and said, 'I think I better take him out now,' ... he said, 'I don't think you can. He has 77 points,' " Jackson said. "So we stayed with it until he hit 80."
Joyce Howard Price has another of those opeds in the Washington Times today - Academic underachievers - filled with more stats on the growing scholastic gender gap between girls and boys. Every time I blog about this, I get a plethora of comments (almost always from men) that there are no women Einsteins, that what you learn in school isn't ultimately that important, etc., etc.
Well, I'm not so sure it's that simple. I think we may be seeing massive changes in our society in the next twenty years that Gloria Steinem couldn't have predicted in her wildest dreams. (Indeed, people like Steinem ... and, say, Jesse Jackson ... depend on there not being real change. But that's a different argument.) A comparison between the gap between boys and girls in math (small in favor of boys) and in reading (large in favor of girls) may only be a minor indication of what's going in. We may be witnessing a tectonic shift in all technically advanced societies.
Hugh Hewitt concludes his excellent piece on the Columbia Journalism School (where tuition and expenses have mounted to 59K per annum) this way:
In the past, almost every bit of information was difficult and expensive to acquire and was therefore mediated by journalists whom readers and viewers were usually in no position to second-guess. Authority has drained from journalism for a reason. Too many of its practitioners have been easily exposed as poseurs.
[CSJ dean Nicholas] Lemann understands completely what has happened. I think he regrets it. He is certainly trying to salvage the situation. And there is simply no way he can succeed.
Jad Mouawad, writing in Friday's NYT, expresses the CW on the current standoff with the mullahs:
As world leaders and diplomats debate how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions, the worry among analysts these days is the fate of the country's oil sector. The prospect of sanctions against Iran might have been easily shrugged off a few years ago, when the world sat comfortably on millions of barrels of untapped oil capacity. But the picture today is quite different. Iran exports more oil than the world's current spare capacity.
Conventional as that thinking is, I would have been prepared to believe it had I not received an email today from Roger Stern of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. Stern was calling my attention to an article he had just published that he thought might be of interest to readers of this blog. I think he's right - at least it was of interest to me. Science News Daily describes the article:
In a peer-reviewed journal article, Roger J. Stern argues that the decades-old belief that petroleum-rich Persian Gulf nations must be appeased to keep oil flowing is imaginary, and the threat of deployment of an "oil weapon" is toothless. His review of economic and historical data also shows that untapped oil supplies are abundant, not scarce.
Stern's analysis, titled "Oil market power and United States national security," appears in the Jan. 16-20 online Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the article Stern argues that the longstanding U.S. security concern that our oil supply could be threatened is wrong.
I had read this argument before, about the actual abundance (not scarcity) of oil, but I had never seen them fleshed out to the degree they have been in Stern's article. Of course, if true, the implications of this are many on the global war on terror. Although a scientist and writing, presumably, for his colleagues, Stern does not stint on these observations, pointing out how OPEC is a consortium generating wt (wealth transfer) to states like Saudi Arabia and Iran that export terrorism and may soon turn into nuclear-armed regional super powers. By believing falsely in the scarcity of their product, we have in a sense been suckered into their game.
The article is here. If there was ever a case of "read the whole thing," this is it. (Warning: Pdf... plus your algebra skills may be tested, if they are, like mine, a little rusty)
A couple of days ago, ABC's Alexis Debat had a column on the series of anonymous runners (evidently even to each other) Al Qaeda uses to bring Bin Laden audiotapes from their leader's hiding place to the offices of Al Jazeera. As usual, Al Qaeda prefers personal private communications to public. Years ago they abjured satellite phones. They knew we were listening.
This is another reason the brouhaha over NSA wiretaps (recently encouraged by Al Gore) strikes me as a charade. When terrorists take to the cell phones, for the most part they do it as quickly as possible. If we don't react just as quickly, the terrorists (and their plans) have vanished. Everyone knows this, including, I would assume, Mr. Gore, who was close to the helm himself for eight years, though one wonders these days if he and Clinton were talking for much of that time.
Of course, Gore, who is increasingly acting like a candidate for anger management training, is not the point. More important are those in serious positions of power spending endless government time and money on hearings about covert activities, which only succeed by being covert. This would still be a valid, indeed crucial, enterprise if it could be shown that innocent US citizens were indeed having their privacy rights violated in a substantial manner. Such a person, however, has thus far not been produced. Does he or she exist? Given the present rancorous climate, I am skeptical that we wouldn't have heard from them already. But I am willing to be convinced. Until then, in the brave new world of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I would prefer the NSA do its work unabated.
Seattle Post-Intellligencer has a (probably unconsciously) hilarious article about Sen. Patty Murray's refusal to return money donated to her campaign via disgraced lobbyist Jack Abrahamoff:
The donations, from 1999 to 2005, placed Murray second among Senate Democrats and ninth overall in the Senate, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C., organization that tracks money in politics.
Abramoff has pleaded guilty to fraud, corruption and tax evasion.
The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe in Michigan gave Murray $14,980. She received $12,000 from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in California; $9,000 from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians; and $5,000 from the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, the report said.
But wait, there's more (actually it comes earlier in the article, but why blow the punch line?):
Sen. Patty Murray said Friday that returning contributions from Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff would "taint" the tribes.
[How could she say that with a straight face?-ed. That wasn't a straight face. That was a poker face. Yuk-yuk. Listen, wisenheimer, Senator Murray has sympathy for the downtrodden. Don't you remember she ... Don't say it!"]
According to Reuters: Russia is unlikely to support a draft resolution that refers Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear programme unless it is softened, a European diplomat said on Saturday.
So what's the problem here - other than that Russia hasn't changed its self-destructive political stripes (except superficially) since the tsars? The answer comes a couple of graphs later:
... the EU3 diplomat said the Russians objected to language in the draft that suggests Iran is a threat to world peace and paves the way for a so-called Chapter Seven resolution at the Security Council.
"In order to get the Russians on board we need to get a new draft of the resolution," the diplomat said.
Chapter Seven resolutions are binding under international law and enforceable with sanctions and in some circumstances military action. Non Chapter Seven resolutions are widely viewed as rhetorical.
Ah, that's just what we need - a few rhetorical flourishes slapping the wrists of the mullahs. Not to worry. Putin may be a second-rate KGB hack, but he's no Ivan the Terrible.
Given the organization's track record, it's hard not to be skeptical of the AP report that "A delegation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations flew to Baghdad from neighboring Jordan in a bid to drum up momentum for [journalist Jill] Carroll's release. The 28-year-old was abducted Jan. 7 in a tough west Baghdad neighborhood." But I think this is a good thing overall. Just getting a group like this to take concrete action in any way against terror puts them on record as being against the tactics of the so-called insurgents. If the insurgents behave as they normally do (as murdering psychopaths), this only enhances the isolation of the terrorists.
Some things are confusing and some are not in Iran's continued standoff with the West. No one seems to know what to do. Rep. Tom Lantos suggests:
The Bush Administration must be more assertive with our friends and allies, and Russia and China, to convince them that continued trade and investment will lure the Ayatollahs of Terror away from their multi-year quest for nuclear weapons. If persuasion fails, then the United States must finally use the sanctions authority in U.S. law to punish and deter those who continue to invest in, and thereby aid and abet, a state bent on adding nuclear weapons to its arsenal of terror.
This campaign to stop a nuclear Iran must begin on February 2nd, when all responsible Member States of the IAEA must vote in the affirmative to send Iran to the Security Council. Anything less will give fresh hope to the Ayatollahs of Terror that the world will remain tremulous and divided in the face of their threats. We in the Congress will watch carefully who among our friends will stand up and be counted.
They may watch, but what does that mean? Only a few paragraphs earlier, Lantos himself put the calculus this way:
Ahmadinejad, in a rare moment of lucidity, revealed Tehran's view in this regard: "The West needs us more than we need them." With billions of dollars of Western investment in its oil and gas fields off the table, why would the offer of some lesser additional trade be tempting enough to convince Tehran to forego its 18-year quest for The Bomb? In other words, when you already own the carrot patch, where's the incentive in a few more carrots - especially if you expect them to be offered from an acquiescent West after you do "go nuclear?"
Not to mention China, whose interests in Iranian oil trump everbody's. Scary times, indeed. Frances Fukuyama, where are you? [Don't look for your stocks to go up on Monday.-ed. I'm not.]
"Roger L. Simon is a
gifted writer. I think the most brilliant new writer of private
detective fiction who has emerged in some years. His vision of
Los Angeles--fresh, new, kaleidoscopic--gives up perhaps the best
recent portrait we have had of the great multi-cultured city where
the future is continually being born--halfway between a love-lyric
and an earthquake. The Big Fix, like The Big Sleep, should become
something of a landmark in its field." --Ross Macdonald
"Moses Wine is back with all his wit and
wisdom exposing crime and
the movie industry to the respect it deserves and proving that Roger
Simon is better than ever.”
-- Tony Hillerman
"A terrific read! What a pleasure
to have Moses Wine walking
down these
mean streets again."
-- Sue Grafton, author of Q is for Quarry
"As irresistible as movie popcorn. Moses Wine is the slyest, most entertaining
gumshoe anywhere."
-- Martin Cruz Smith
"Where was Moses when the lights went
out? Up to his schnoz in an anthrax bath--but as might be expected from
Roger Simon, the tawdry Tinseltown toxins
pour like
vintage Wine."
-- Tom Robbins
"Mordantly funny... Simon's satiric humor thrives on absurdity; and once Moses is
in the director's chair, trying to salvage a project that will eventually (by hook and by crook) make it to Sundance,
this sendup of Hollywood greed and bad taste wins the jury prize."
-- Marilyn Stasio, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"…realistic and amusing. I read the whole thing in two sittings and enjoyed it very much. He
offers insight into the world of filmmaking that readers will find hilarious."
-- Glenn Reynolds, MSNBC.com
"The initial boos from the left—for whom Wine has been a hero since his first appearance
as the one radical detective in the 1973 The Big Fix—and tentative cheers from the right will have faded by the end of the
book, when both are laughing too hard to care. Moses hasn't changed his political stripes all that much, and the main target
of his creator's satire is one everybody enjoys ridiculing: the motion picture industry."
-- Jon L. Breen, THE WEEKLY STANDARD
"On his first day as head of security for a movie being shot in Prague, Moses
Wine (making believe he's a Variety reporter for reasons too complicated to summarize here) meets the city's Grand Rabbi, who
asks him, 'Perhaps you would like an exclusive interview with the only screenwriter in Eastern Europe who gives kabala
classes to foreigners on a riverboat cruise ship with catered kosher dinners in the style of the Vilna ghetto?' That lovely
snatch of tossed cultural salad sums up the wacky pleasures of Roger L. Simon's eighth book about Wine -- the Berkeley
radical who literally changed the face of mystery fiction in 1978's 'The Big Fix.'"
--Dick Adler, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"'Director's Cut,' with its footloose plot and its wisecracking lead, is about
as serious as a Marx Brothers movie--which means that Moses Wine gets to do his patriotic bit after all. In the darkest
days, they also serve who make us laugh."
-- Tom Nolan, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"A particularly relevant plot, then, filled with action and suspense and
set against arresting Czech backgrounds. Recommended."
-- Library Journal
"Simon's savvy Hollywood satire raises troubling questions about our B-grade
domestic preparedness efforts."
-- Booklist
"Director's Cut is a timely thriller, loaded with absorbing insider snippets about
the film industry, humorous jabs at governmental bureaucracy and a general disregard for icons of any sort."
-- Bruce Tierney, BookPage
"Roger L. Simon is a talented writer who can always be counted on to deliver
a chilling thriller."
-- Harriet Klausner, Allreaders.com
"Like a fine wine, Moses just keeps getting better and better. It's one heck of a surreal roller coaster
ride full of the sophisticated satire and wry wit Roger L. Simon is famous for."
-- Anne Barringer, Old Book Barn Gazette
"A quarter of a century after he first appeared in the
now-classic The Big Fix, Moses Wine remains a private investigator par excellence."
-- In Other Words, Mystery
January 27, 2006
