The Islamic States of America?

Good article. Many people want to remake the US, however. How is this any different?

Post Holiday Musings

Four days of riotous drinking, eating and socializing have now given way to a calm post-holiday reminiscing. Thanksgiving dinner at the NR HQ was full of so many people from so many countries that our after dinner game teams were jokingly labeled the Americans and Everyone Else.

Yesterday Windrem, myself and some B-school friends visited a place in DC that offers old fashioned hot lather shaves. Wow. If you haven't tried one (assuming you are a man), you should. After the shave, we went out for drinks in one of DC's grandest hotel bars, enjoying the holiday weekend in the wood-paneled ambiance of the Old World.

Sigh.

Anyway, I watched a movie called Paycheck this weekend that was comical because of the way it betrays the paranoid beliefs of the Left. Watch it, if only to see how some among the left still equate in a stupidly simplistic way the march of technological progress with a capitalistic world that has at its end only war until armageddon.

If the lefties ever call us simpletons harboring paranoid delusions of evil around every corner, I'll refer them to this Uma Thurman and Matt Damon classic about evil corporations, paranoid science and the hero who refuses to shoot anyone (even while being shot at, (presumably because peace is the only way...)).

As for other news, Windrem will probably write something soon about the time just after Sept 11th that Harvard University strong-armed him into taking down his American flag from his dormitory hallway because some people in the dorm thought it represented a symbol of oppression.

Chirac : still mad

Chirac urges fairer world order

Speaking in London, Mr Chirac said a world based on "the logic of power" would lead to conflict.

He said the West could not impose its values on the world and confuse democratisation and Westernisation.

As opposed to imposing France's image on the world? Or giving a strategically and militarily weak country undue world influence?

Funny. Fair seems to be defined as that which maximizes French power. Nietzsche would have something to say here about the weak attempting to subdue the strong through appeals to metaphysically limiting beliefs.

Most Understated Headline This Month

Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find

One of the studies, a national survey of more than 1,000 academics, shows that Democratic professors outnumber Republicans by at least seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. That ratio is more than twice as lopsided as it was three decades ago, and it seems quite likely to keep increasing, because the younger faculty members are more consistently Democratic than the ones nearing retirement, said Daniel Klein, an associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University and a co-author of the study.

In a separate study of voter registration records, Professor Klein found a nine-to-one ratio of Democrats to Republicans on the faculties of Berkeley and Stanford. That study, which included professors from the hard sciences, engineering and professional schools as well as the humanities and social sciences, also found the ratio especially lopsided among the younger professors of assistant or associate rank: 183 Democrats versus 6 Republicans.

Duh. Keep pushing students into radical liberalism, isolate dissenters and ba-da-bing: increasing numbers of ever-more angry lefties. Does anyone wonder how this process can be so pronounced without some degree of social norming at the university level?

Vely intelesting

N. Korea May Be Reducing Reverence for Leader

I doubt the cult of personality can fall without the leader falling too.

Military Believes Zarqawi Headquarters Found

Read this.

Iranian Duplicity

Exiles Add to Claims on Iran Nuclear Arms, claims the NY Times.

I would put it more forcefully: Iran is lying.

Again I pose the question, what is the world's response to be? If Iraq was not a valid/just war, then is this?

For peaceniks (also typically committed anti-nuke proliferation activists), I wonder what the proper answer to Iran's provocation is: war or more hand-wringing? Is a nuclear Iran really a problem for the world?

Righty Stupidity

I'm mad about this. Not in the way you would think, though. I'm angry that our side is broadly representative of this kind of lunacy.

How is the towel dropping intro to Monday Night Football a moral offense? I feel like sending a naked picture of an ugly woman to every household in America that was offended by that intro. I'll show them what a true moral offense is -- an assault on the senses.

For this New Republican's money, naked women are a blessing from that same Lord whom many would invoke to banish them. I say the only banishings needed are for the Moral Majority types...

"It's like a red light saying stay away," says Norton

DC Delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton has been on a crusade to stop the Capitol Police barriers and checkpoints that surround the U.S. Capitol since they appeared last August. The checkpoints, that have been blamed for traffic congestion on and around Capitol Hill, were implemented by the US Capitol Police to screen for potential car bombers.

The way the system works, cars pass by armed Police Officers who perform a cursory exterior search of all vehicles. Vehicles that have large areas that are not visible from the exterior receive a more detailed search e.g. opening the trunk or a sliding door in a van. The idea is not to stop small explosives that could fit in a backpack, but to stop large scale explosives that could fill the trunk area and back seat of a vehicle. Tinted windows are as effective as metal at hiding the contents of a vehicle. In a van, SUV, or full size sedan, the amount of possible material hidden could be considerable from an ordinance perspective.

Believing the checkpoints worthless against a terrorist attack and worried about the inconvenience for tourists and DC drivers, Norton said:

"It's like a red light saying stay away"

You got it right, Congresswoman. That's the point.


ABC 7 News - Barricades Return on Capitol Hill:

Again?

Iran made a deal:: "In a bid to ease international concern about its nuclear ambitions, Iran said it would stop converting uranium from Nov. 22. Tehran promised the IAEA it would suspend all uranium enrichment and processing activities as part of a deal with the European Union to avert any U.N. Security Council sanctions. "

I have deep skepticism about this deal. Doesn't it seem that the Iranians have waxed and waned regarding their openness to surprise inspections, the point of the nuclear facilities (and their shady placement inside bunkers and caves in some cases), and the solutions to which they would be amenable?

For more than 12 years, Saddam pursued much the same deflect/dodge strategy with the UN that Iran is pursuing now. Even after 12 years of UN containment and threats against his regime, Saddam was able to split the US with some of the most fractious political debate in 30 years. Remember, the anti-war sentiment was in support of a tyrant who had demonstrated his willingness to use unconventional weapons.

The Iranians haven't used such weapons (to my knowledge), and threaten only via proxy (Hamas and Hizbullah are both Iranian creations largely). And although al-Qaeda has a strange relationship with the Iranian rulers, with it being alternatively pursued and encouraged, Iran has never yet openly embraced it.

Given the difficulty of building support for toppling Saddam -- a known killer -- how strong will world support be against such an amorphous threat?

Powell Quits

This resignation may have been the most widely expected event in the Bush 2.2 administration's second hundred days. I'm not going to speculate right now on motives, fallout or anything else until I think about it more.

Your thoughts are welcome here. Speculate at will...

Disruption

Hostage houses found in Falljua.

I hope that this find signals the beginning of the end for hostage-taking in Iraq. Apparently, CDs full of hostage data and black clothing were also found inside these locations.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Blast wounds Dutch police in raid

Another attack. In the Netherlands, the heat is on...

My last posting about this brewing battle was intentionally over the top (hoping to spark debate that never came. sigh). There I argued that sometimes fighting against violence is the best means to protect a liberal society.

Is there a limit to how far tolerance can go before it erodes into nothingness? I have a strong suspicision that people who immediately criticized the bombing of the muslim school in the Netherlands are correct in generally repudiating violence to solve problems. Yet, I have a nagging voice in my head that wonders if that feeling is not somehow masking a cowardice to act that comes from too many years of peace -- an inability to face the difficult choices ahead.

Poison

Is he or isn't he dead? Although I called it last week, Arafat has remained at least notionally alive. Today's reports (unconfirmed) are the first that he has indeed died.

I wonder if this mystery illness isn't a poisoning? No one knows what's wrong with Arafat. We do know that he went from a state of not perfect health to a state of near liver failure in a very short time. We also know that his bloodtests didn't show anything out of sorts -- just the way a person would appear after a successfully executed poisoning.

He was known to be a thorn in many people's sides, Palestinian and non-Palestinian. So in the spirit of wild-eyed, fanatical and absolutely irresponsible rumour-mongering, I throw out the notion that Mossad (or Hamas, Palestinian Jihad, etc) poisoned him. Obviously the reasons for poisoning him will vary with the group who would have done the poisoning, but nevertheless, dead he is (think Yoda).

Nonsense, you say?

Hizbullah's First Spy Drone

Where did this come from? Homemade or purchased? If so, from whom?

Syria? Iran?

Dutch Tolerance

A bomb at a Muslim school is the latest sign that Europe too has problems with assimilation. In this case, last week's particularly angry murder of Van Gogh spawned a retaliation, this bombing. So far, there is no indication that a larger war between Muslims and everyone else is brewing in the Netherlands. But a good argument can be made that when such instances of violence flare, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a tolerant society.

Whither Dutch culture? It's too soon to say definitively, but I wouldn't be surprised if the famed Dutch tolerance for social deviation morphs into an intolerance for those disrespectful of their ways of live. The interesting point of this observation? The Dutch damn well better do that if they hope to preserve their culture. No liberal society can long withstand a concerted attempt by outsiders to use the liberal system as a cover under which they can change (sometimes violently) their new found culture.

Lets hope the Dutch win, even if that means using a less tolerant attitude to maintain tolerance in the long term.

Good Current Analysis of Iraqi Insurrection

Healing Iraq writes this about the current unrest there.

I find it [ the beheadings and whatnot] dubious because the tactics are not those of Zarqawi or foreign terrorists. I have reason to believe that this was the work of former Iraqi security forces. These remain the only organised groups in Iraq today with the required experience and precision to carry out such an operation. This was completely planned beforehand. We know that there have been infiltrations in the current Iraqi police and NG, not only by criminals and former prison inmates, but by informers, Ba'athists, Fedayeen and Mukhabarat members. I do not doubt for a moment, unlike many Iraqis, that Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi indeed exists or that he is behind much of the turmoil in the country. His family and comrades have been interviewed on several documentaries made on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya and his activities and movements have been traced in Jordan, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past. However, I am more inclined to assume that the present strategy of the underground Ba'ath party (and there is such an organisation) is not to claim direct responsibility for its actions, and for obvious reasons. It may operate under the guise of Zarqawi's group to give an impression of a holy war in Iraq and to cloak its activities.

There have been rumours and tidbits here and there over the last year and a half that the Ba'ath and its security apparatus is still at large in most of the country and that it remains the most organised political and military entity in Iraq. Its leadership has been purported to be in Syria. Its methods are familiar to Iraqis and they can be easily recognised and singled out. Intimidation, extortion, sabotage, executions, kidnappings, beheadings and coordination with the Arab media have all been employed in the past by the Ba'athist regime, and the same methods largely apply today to the resistance. While Iraqi Salafi groups and foreign terrorists are also active, they remain restricted to certain areas and their operations are limited in scope.

The Arab media persists in labelling these criminal elements as freedom fighters in a legitimate conflict with an occupying force, and that this resistance is nationwide, spontaneous and widely supported by the Iraqi people as an immediate result of US actions in postwar Iraq. The media chooses to ignore the fact that the main victim of this resistance is the Iraqi people itself, and that only a tiny fraction of attacks are now directed at occupation forces. This resistance realises that if free elections supervised by the UN and the international community take place in January 2005 and if a legitimate representative government assumes power in the country then the resistance would have to cease to exist.

I'm calling it

Almost. Conflicting reports about Arafat's condition. I'm calling it, though. Whether alive, but brain dead or in a coma, the Palestinians are leaderless.

I'm doubtful that Sharon will negotiate with any new leader, however qualified or well-intentioned. Let's hope that Bush will push the peace process (what a terrible name for a negotiated settlement) with the new PA leadership.

Arafat's health 'suffers setback'

Arafat's health is worsening.

Succession ideas? I think Mohammed Dahlan might be chosen as a successor. Others?

Bush Wins!

I'm calling it. It's not official, but as of 8:13PM EST it is highly likely. Can I say, "nah=nah-na-nah-nah" Oh, sorry, that's rude -- but damned enjoyable.

We had a New Republican party to view the election results last night. Since the Presidential results rolled in glacially, we were more focused on the congressional results that could be determined last night. The gods must have smiled on us because Dashcle went down. Even when it looked like Arlen Specter was a loser, we were willing to make the sacrifice to see Dashcle gone.

The popular vote for Bush is, according to Drudge (he doesn't link anywhere with the factoid), the highest in history. Decisive?

What do you think Kerry will say for his swansong?

Increasing the penalty for voter fraud

Greetings. The news that there is voter fraud running rampant - 2,000 votes programmed into the machines in PA, "white powder" anthrax scare in NJ - outrages me. I take the right to vote very seriously and don't mind losing if the election is run honestly.

However, once we lose faith in the system, we lose the Republic. Seriously. The concept that a very few people would be so presumptuous as to use fraud to put their guy in office overriding the most free people in the history of the world is sickening.

I'm rarely in favor of more government. Hell, this may be the first time I've EVER proposed the government take on more responsibility. But the FBI or some other alphabet bureau needs to investigate and prosecute election fraud. Hell, they could start a Voter Fraud Bureau that was bi-partisan by design.

I think a minimum of 10 years in federal "pound you in the rump" prison would be a good start.

My preferred solution would be viewed as drastic by many, but not those who gave their lives for the right to vote. I think they'd be right by my side in saying that tampering with elections should lead to exile at a minimum. I'll leave open for speculation what the maximum penalty should be.

Monday. Again.

Any New Republican's care to start a pool on the life expectancies of Arafat? How about Mubarak? Castro (did you see his recent fall)? Others, like Mugabe?

Bonus points if you can point to other sites listing known health problems (obviously state secrets for these guys, so rumors are ok in this context).

Oh, and actuarial tables for life expectancies would be helpful, too.

BTW, I'm in training for the next four months for a large project with a Fortune 50 company, so my postings will be erratic.

The "People's Republic" of China: Is the end near?

The NY Times is reporting unrest and the declaration of martial law near Zhengzhou in Henan Province, in the heart of the country, southwest of Beijing (see map). Some 148 people are estimated to have died, including 18 police officers, in the Han Chinese and Hui Muslim violence that erupted over a compensation dispute, after a Hui taxi driver hit and killed a 6-year-old Han girl.

Most people think of Han Chinese when they think of China: this group is the ethnic majority. However, China is made up of over 91% of Han Chinese (see the CIA's World Factbook). Tensions often flare between the ethnic majority group and the dozens of ethnic minority groups throughout the PRC (e.g., the Tibetans or the Muslim Uighurs in Autonomous Region of Xinjiang). The PRC typically imports Han "immigrants" into these areas to try to assert dominance. We are seeing a variation of this activity much closer to the heartland of China now--primarily related to economic conditions of these populations and the disparities that result from PRC's domination by Han Chinese.

What's interesting is that this comes after a riot of nearly 10,000 (maybe up to 50,000) on October 18th that, even after pretty regular news reading and watching, I missed. I'm guessing most of you did as well. This riot occurred in Chongqing municipality (in the province of the same name, just southwest of Henan Province) after a worker accidentally hit a female passerby in the head with a pole. By midnight, all hell had broken loose.

The point is that there is obvious discontent being expressed in the heartland of China. I would keep my eyes peeled to the internet for news (since the mainstream Western press and most certainly the official Communist mouthpiece of the PRC will unlikely feature the news).