Housing

The housing bubble is on everyone's lips these days (more specifically, the imminent bursting thereof). So, it is not unnatural that the Washington Post today is running a story about a woman named Gwendolyn Halford who makes $60k p.a., but who hasn't been able to buy a home that meets her standards (2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, Parking and washer/dryer in the unit) at her price range -- and she has been looking for more than 5 years...

A few choice quotes: "You are allowing developers to come in to build condo units and homes at prices that a large percentage of the population can't afford," she said. "So what is going on here?"

It's called capitalism. Someone takes a risk to build something so that they can make money if it sells. If it doesn't sell, then they lose money. If you can't afford to buy it, that is not the developer's concern. Using your logic, should new buildings be built only if a large majority of the population can afford them? If so, how is the population measured? What about slum areas? Under this logic, once a neighborhood becomes poor, it will remain poor. You can build new homes for the poor residents at artificial prices, but those poor neighborhoods would remain more or less in their current state: with the same residents paying the same taxes to support the same infrastructure that clearly was not conducive to income generation in the first place.

People such as Halford say they are priced out of something that by rights should be theirs.
By rights? What right is this? The right to housing? The right to housing at a certain price? What is a housing right? The right to purchase or rent? Has someone denied her the ability to purchase or rent something? Does a housing right have an inflation element inherent in it? How would a housing right measured monetarily be calculated? Can rights be calculated? The author slips this opinion about rights into the story as if it comes from the ostensible human interest element, but by not explicitly countering that claim with an opposing opinion, tacitly allows it to be recorded as fact. This sentence is an example of disgraceful journalism.

Last year, nearly half of the $21 million in disbursements from Montgomery's Housing Initiative Fund went to buy and renovate apartment buildings that officials considered "threatened." In many cases, the threat came from an owner who intended to convert affordable apartments into luxury units.
Is this paragraph written positively (i.e. that it is a good and noble use of taxpayer dollars to fight gentrification)? Artificially limiting the use of a building by its owner in the name of a poorly defined social good is not a particularly useful means of either taxpayer dollars or governmental energy. At what point does an asset that you own become threatened? By whom, by the way? Who decides that a building is a threatened? This article treats the building as the property of the government (acting in the name of society) first, and the actual owner second.

Leggett [a MD politician] proposed that the county develop entire projects of price-controlled housing.
Great. Projects worked so well in the past, I don't know why they ever fell out of favour...

Looking past the tired brown carpet, the dated appliances, the "little bug" crawling in a kitchen drawer, she [Halford] saw some potential. But for $199,000, she said, "I would want it to be in better condition than that."

My immediate reaction to the article is that maybe the woman who is its subject will never be satisfied with what she can afford -- and that attitude makes her just like everyone else. If you look for something with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, parking, a washer and dryer in a good neighborhood in the DC area for 200K and think that you will suddenly find it if you just wait (!), then maybe you are the problem and not the housing market.

And as for the broader housing market's problem of affordability and the relevant solutions to that problem, I do not find the article pursuasive. In both economic and social terms, most attempts to use a fuzzy notion of justice to shape the law are bound to end in painful, unintended consequences.

Shame on the Washington Post for such an overtly lefty political piece posing as a human interest story.

More Chavez

This guy would be comical were he not the commander of a nation's armed forces. In his latest intelligent dissection of geo-political trends, the enlightened Herr Chavez says:

"The planet's most serious danger is the government of the United States. ... The people of the United States are being governed by a killer, a genocidal murderer and a madman," Chavez said at a meeting of Venezuelan and Brazilian business executives in Caracas.

My gut instinct is to ignore this kind of silly hyperbole. But I have the gnawing feeling that this is exactly the type of drivel that is being fed (by various groups) to foreign populations the world over -- an obvious problem when the US is attempting to use its moral suasion on the world stage.

I know that political hyperbole has existed since the dawn of the first politician (and is well attested to in Roman political oratories even during the time of the Republic), but to equate Bush with the sorts of leaders who did actually order mass killings (i.e. Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, et al) displays poor judgement to a staggering degree.

Wisdom

Obviously Hugo Chavez is a man of deep insight.

President Hugo Chavez cautioned Venezuelan parents to protect their children from Halloween with a spooky warning that the US tradition is rooted in "terrorism."

"What they have implanted here, which is really a 'gringo' custom, is terrorism," Chavez said, quoted in the local press. "They disguise children as witches and wizards, that is contrary to our culture."

If he wants to see real US cultural terrorism, we'll send Rosanne Barr, Madonna and a maybe Susan Sarandon to him.

The Back

 


This is my family's house from the backyard. The slant that you see in the foreground building comes from the floodwaters lifting the bulding off of its foundation. Some combination of factors probably caused the 30 degree list: weeks spent soaking in the water; the pressure of the initial surge; and, potentially, wind. In any case, it gets worse inside in the house. 

Katrina Cleanup

I'll try to post some pictures this weekend from the cleanup at my family's house in the Big Wheezy (when you see the dust, you'll understand the pun). When I post them, I'll describe the eerie scene throughout much of the city.

A Very Washington Funeral

A death is almost always shocking, not least when no signs of illness are visible and no warnings manifest themselves in other ways. It was under these circumstances that I was informed of David Wimer's death early this week. The funeral was yesterday afternoon in a small, simple church that was packed to capacity. A number of people were standing in the back of the church for lack of space, among whom were Alexander Haig and Jerry (L. Paul for the non-personal) Bremer. As someone at the funeral commented afterwards, it's a tribute to the kind of guy that David was that the pallbearers have to squeeze between Al Haig and Jerry Bremer to get out of the door! Indeed. Later, at David's house, a number of fairly influencial Washingtonians held forth on various matters that merely reminded me how close David was to the centers of power in the world. He wouldn't have thought anything of the gathering -- these were his friends, after all. But for a poor cajun from a now defunct homeland, it was an impressive testament to a life well-lived.

Goodbye, David. We miss you already.

Iran's President is a Lunatic

During his 25 minutes Saturday, Ahmadinejad delivered what began as a sermon praising the prophets of Islam, Christianity and Judaism and then descended into anti-American vitriol, conspiracy theories and threats.

He expressed doubt that the deadly attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were really carried out by terrorists. He said Americans had brought the devastation of Hurricane Katrina upon themselves and that the U.S. military was purposely poisoning its own troops in Iraq.

There were quotes from the Koran, angry finger pointing and attacks on Israel interlaced with talk of justice and tranquility. There was a staunch defense of Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and to enrich uranium to fuel that program. There were no new proposals and little detail about old ones that were reoffered.

Read all about it.

9-11 Memorials

Protesters marched through the canyons of Midtown, shoveling leaflets at bewildered shoppers as they chanted things like "Figure it out. It's not hard. Nine-11 was an inside job!" and even "Remember New Orleans!"—as if anyone could forget. They passed by the headquarters of FOX, NBC, Time Warner, and CNN, pausing to shout at the media for ignoring them as a few police officers looked on.

The police seemed virtually nonexistent as Choking Victims' myriad fans sang along to lyrics like "Kill the cops," "Fuck America," and "Fuck world trade."

Onstage, lead singer "Stza Crack" preached more conspiracies. "George Bush's brother Marvin Bush was head of security at the World Trade Center up until 9-11, and they were doing nefarious things," Crack told his drunken fans. "They wanted another Pearl Harbor to install the Patriot Act and take us to war. Don't listen to the media; the media is there for maximum security—to tell you lies!"

As the band broke into their hit anthem of alienation, "Born to Die," a young punk in bleached hair and mod sunglasses dashed to the mike and shouted: "Kill George Bush! Or we're all going to die!"

Unlike at Ground Zero, the folks here seemed not to mind such giddy provocation. Josh Copeland, a 21-year-old Rutgers student sporting a heavy chain and padlock around his neck, said he didn't buy the conspiracy angles voiced onstage but supported more dissent about the "social and economic" causes of 9-11. "This is really for the sake of acting out. You see there's a huge turnout for this. People are really very angry and they don't know what to do. Protest is losing its power."

Do I need to comment on this crap?

AQ Khan's Latest

Here's an interesting set of stories to appear on the same day. In the first story, Khan is trailed by US intelligence.

In a major disclosure, former Dutch Premier Ruud Lubbers has said the Netherlands government in 1975 and in 1986 had refrained from acting against disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadir Khan following requests from the US Central Intelligence Agency, media reports said.

And on the same day, another report in an unrelated publication says that his court papers have now disappeared and our intelligence services are suspected (but when are they not? If it rains in Saudi, the CIA did it).

A court in Amsterdam which sentenced Pakistan's father of nuclear programme DR AQ Khan to four years in prison in 1983, has lost Dr Khan's legal files. The court's vice-president suspects US intelligence agency CIA to be behind the documents disappearance.

Rebuilding New Orleans

David Brooks writes in today's NYT about rebuilding New Orleans. His suggestions are practical and should be implementable without too much Sturm und Drang. Read it here.

The first rule of the rebuilding effort should be: Nothing Like Before. Most of the ambitious and organized people abandoned the inner-city areas of New Orleans long ago, leaving neighborhoods where roughly three-quarters of the people were poor.

...the second rule of rebuilding should be: Culturally Integrate. Culturally Integrate. Culturally Integrate. The only chance we have to break the cycle of poverty is to integrate people who lack middle-class skills into neighborhoods with people who possess these skills and who insist on certain standards of behavior.

Looting in New Orleans

Read what this guy says.

Black people in New Orleans should be made to understand that the whole world is watching. Any racism people may have is being justified every time they turn on their televisions. If you thought turning around the situation in the black community was tough then, wait until the Democrats you know and love so well, have to explain to their white constituents why they'll need to provide additional tax money to help. And when the plea is balked at, don't blame racism. Don't blame Republicans. Don't blame black conservatives who have moved on. Blame yourselves.

As a native New Orleanian I am sick when I see what is happening to my poor city. But poverty did not impel these people to steal anything beyond water and food. Justifying the theft as a proper reaction to poverty and racism only encourages the "it's not my fault and I'm not responsible for anything that I do" attitude that will keep many poor blacks locked in a cycle of poverty.

Last week Jesse Jackson took the time to stroke a neo-communist strongman's ego in Venezuala, something that has nothing to do with the US Civil Rights struggle. This week, in face of story after story showing laughing, smiling blacks looting at will, he is nowhere to be seen.

Leadership means standing up when times are tough and decisions are unpopular. It's time for the black community's leadership (self-proclaimed, by the way, and claiming to stand for a mythical single black America) to demonstate leadership and condemn theft, robbery and murder in the strongest possible terms and not hide behind the same tired slogans.

Negotiation Point

Iraq's Sunnis reejct the constitution, eh?

The Sunni negotiators subsequently issued a joint statement rejecting the draft and asking the United Nations and Arab League to intervene.

By ignoring, in the end, the objections of the country's former Sunni elite, Iraq could face a further spike in the violent insurgency. That insurgency draws fighters from the now-disaffected Sunni minority that lost power with Saddam Hussein's ouster.

How about a trade? U.S. support for the Sunni position (i.e. a unitary state) for an end to the insurgency?

Jesse and Ceasar, Cindy and Al

Ever wonder what old style civil rights leaders do in an increasingly less race conscious America? Well, Jeese went to Venezuela to show support for a neo-communist strongman and to argue for civility (hold your laughter).

"Jackson urged U.S. authorities to take action, and said the U.S. government must choose 'diplomacy over any threats of sabotage or isolation or assassination.'

'We must choose a civilized policy of rational conversation,' he said at a news conference."

While Sharpton joined Sheehan and pronounced her our nation's moral compass.

"I feel that it is our moral obligation to stand and to be courageous with these families, and particularly Cindy, that have become the conscience of this nation," said Sharpton, a former Democratic presidential candidate.

Would someone whose son died in the war and who still supports the war count as a moral conscience? Or is that a priviledge reserved for the anti-war bunch?

Cops -- In Iraq

This is real: Cops, Iraqi Style. Halalalalalalaa- BOOOM! Goodbye high speed chases with drunken white trash, hello exploding Sunnis.

Shattered glass, body parts, a blood-splattered blue sedan: the grainy video pans over the scene as Iraqi officers comb the site of a drive-by assassination.

It's "Cops" Iraqi-style, minus the "Bad Boys" soundtrack but otherwise roughly modeled after the American TV show.

America, the Uncomfortable

This is just plain dumb.

In a nutshell:

Congress passed a law in 1997 barring those convicted of capital crimes from being buried in a national cemetery. The law was designed to block the possibility of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a veteran, being buried at Arlington.

But some now wonder whether the restriction should cover a broader range of criminals.

...Towers said his office received calls this week from veterans uncomfortable with the idea of a convicted murderer being laid to rest at Arlington, with some saying they would not like to be near such a person in death.

In death. Death.

Get over yourself.

Liberal American Leaders

If these are the type of comments that liberal Americans leaders think will be the formula for electoral success in the future, then they may as well quit politics.

"They all [Republicans -- ed] need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves," said Judge Greg Mathis, the star of the syndicated television program "The Judge Mathis Show."

'They shot and missed when they enslaved, segregated and oppressed our people. They shot and missed when they stole the past two presidential elections. They shot and missed when they denied our right to vote,' Mathis said. "

And then there's Pelosi, a liberal's liberal, arguing that blacks were probably disenfranchised to some degree during the last two elections.


Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California appeared at the march and noted that minorities may not have had full voting rights in the last two presidential elections.

"Some changes have to be made so we don't have a repeat of 2000 and 2004 where there was intimidation and discrepancies at the polls," Pelosi told Cybercast News Service during the voting rights march.

Well, duh. If Bush won two elections, the only possible explanation is that he won it by disenfranchising blacks, and probably some women too. It's simply not possible that Bush won fair and square. Not when I hate him so much. Right, Mrs. Pelosi? Judge Mathis?

"In the state of Ohio, where they had fewer voting booths and long lines in minority neighborhoods and no lines and many voting booths in white neighborhoods, that the balance is not what it should have been," she added.

But, wait, there's more.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) echoed the accusation of many at the march that Bush was an illegitimate president.

"The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about," Lee told the crowd gathered.

Not to be outdone, Rep. Maxine Waters had her say, too.


"We are here to take on President Bush, [Vice President] Dick Cheney. We are here to take on [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay. We are here to take on the new appointee to the Supreme Court, John Roberts," Waters said from the podium to cheers from the crowd."

So did Charles Rangel "who declared that the president's "record against human rights, civil rights, economic rights, is absolutely terrible."

And finally (you knew he was coming) the very Reverend Jackson, before whom no Republican walks guiltless, says "the same old enemies of civil rights and voting rights will always keep up their ugly activities. Race baiters and discriminators may go underground, but they never move out of town."

Funny. Race baiters. From Jesse "white people don't like you" Jackson.

Is this the Democratic Party under Dean? Is this the group that hopes to retake the White House? C'mon. With falsehoods, half-truths and a condescending anger towards the current administration, these politicos only make themselves look silly and in thrawl to left wing kooks. After all, isn't their collective indictment against Bush, et al. merely an accusatory finger in the face of the majority of Americans who voted for Bush?

How can the left be simultaneously for America, but against everything that the majority voted to support? They alienate their potential voters with every speech from these liberal hotheads.

Toilet Required

No toilet, no seat, says minister

Village council candidates in India should be allowed to stand for election only if they have a toilet at home, the rural development minister says.

Good News

From the Washington Post today.

An organization of top American Muslim religious scholars plans to issue a formal ruling today condemning terrorism and forbidding Muslims to cooperate with anyone involved in a terrorist act, according to officials of two leading Islamic organizations.

Safi, who heads the society's Leadership Development Center, said yesterday that "the statement prohibits Muslims from giving any support to terrorist groups who have carried out attacks against unarmed civilians. Groups like al Qaeda have misused and abused Islam to fit their own radical and criminal agenda, and I feel the statement is an important step to repudiating such groups."

Although the fatwa is important, Safi added, "there is a need to become more proactive in addressing the issue of terrorism by American Muslims."

Good news, indeed.

Muslim leader says U.S. behind Sept. 11

Were we also behind the singing and dancing in the streets of some Arab neighborhoods when the towers fell? Was that also part of our Grand Plan?


"We believe they are willing to sometimes sacrifice their own people for the objective to control the whole world," Abu Hamza, president of the Islamic Information and Services Network, told the Melbourne Herald Sun.

Read it here.

Presidential Election Protests

Radical Lefties are shocked, shocked and outraged. Why, how dare the FBI track them during the Presidential election. After all, what American in his right mind would find it justifiable to allow people to threaten violence and disruptions against a political party? Don't we still have the First Amendment? Can't I threaten to shut down a city, scare the hell out of delegates, burn a Presidential contender in effigy, agitate for violent protests and all in the name of Peace and Justice? Isn't that my right?

Turns out, no (and for the better, by the way).

article here

Blair's Words

On Islamic extremism...

"What was Sept. 11 the reprisal for? Why even after the first Madrid bomb and the election of a new Spanish government were they planning another atrocity when caught? Why if it is the cause of Muslims that concerns them do they kill so many with such callous indifference?"

"Their cause is not founded on an injustice," he said. "It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such it can't be moderated. It can't be remedied. It has to be stood up to."

Here

Chinese Saber Rattling

An article in todays NY Times, Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs if U.S. Intrudes, mentions the comment from a Major General from the so-called People's Army. He openly advocates the PRC's nuclear first-strike capability against the US in a Sino-US struggle over Taiwan. He wants to change the PRC's official policy against using nukes first. Keep in mind that it is generally believed that the PRC has nuclear-tipped ICBM's that could reach Western coastal cities of the US.

I would note that the Party leadership and their cronies in the military (or is it the other way around?) are good at beating their swords against their shields, especially in the face of mounting domestic unrest and international pressure. "When in doubt, threaten Taiwan" seems to be the mantra of the PRC for more than fifty years now. So we must take this rationally while also realizing that China is a nuclear power with a sizeable pool of citizens to draw into a traditional military draft if they so choose.

It's all games with the Communist Party, but we should up the ante and nip this talk in the bud. There will be no quarter for talk--veiled or not--of annihilating our cities as we defend their brethren across the Taiwan Strait. And we are quite vocal in an all-options military policy when it comes to threats to our security. The general seemed to offer up all the cities east of Xian (the first Imperial capital of China), which is basically all of China's cities! Interesting.

MEMO TO BEIJING: We're not willing to offer up any of our cities nor the democratic and free city of Taipei!

A Message from the New World Order

China and Russia, those happy bastions of freedom and democracy, non-interference and human rights, have issued a joint communique today that implicitly sticks a big middle finger in the direction of their overbearing western neighbour (no, not Japan).

In it, they maintain

Differences and disputes must be solved through peaceful means rather than through unilateralism or coercion. There should be no use or threatened use of force, says the joint statement.

Only on the basis of universally recognized tenents and norms of international law, and under an impartial and rational world order, can problems facing mankind be solved, says the document.

All countries should strictly observe the principles of mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence, it says.

Unless, of course, you are Taiwan. Or Tibet. Or part of the Korean peninsula. Or a Japanese island grouping near lots of oil. But everyone else is probably ok. Unless we get mad at you. Or you get in our way. Or we find you to be an inconvenience to our plans for peaceful reunification of a never-existant homeland. Or you criticize our government.

More China News

From today's Washington Post:

In China, the divide between rich and poor is greater than before the peasant-led revolution that brought the Communist Party to power in 1949. Last month, China's government announced that the income gap had widened in the first three months of the year, with the richest 10 percent of the population controlling 45 percent of the country's wealth and the poorest 10th holding little more than 1 percent, according to the official New China News Agency.

In Beijing, concern mounts that the rural poor are falling so far behind as to challenge the legitimacy of the party. Demonstrations have become near-daily occurrences as farmers protest loss of land to development and excessive taxation. In response, the central government has rolled back taxes on peasants.

China's response to this internal problem will be the driver for its relationship with the US. The more torn the Communist leadership becomes over  the pros and cons of its integration into a capitalist global economic order, the more likely it is that they will engage in erratic and potentially self-destructive behaviour.

Think about the various groups in China (military, economic, peasants, coastal elite, party supporters) acting in opposition to one another, largely so that each can secure a future for its own interests. This infighting may see an economic elite offering concessions to US businesses, attempting to calm ruffled feathers. The military, meanwhile, would continue to increase its spending exponentially in the belief that a war is on the horizon. Peasants would demand a change in the political and economic order, something that liberals would interpret as a move away from Communist orthodoxy, while the military and party would see as a clear signal for a re-invigorated Maoist nation.

Continue to add tension, maybe a provocative claim from a Taiwanese leader, for example, and China explode with the passions of 1 billion souls. The US is an easy scapegoat in this scenario. After all, who brought these problems into China in the first place? Who brought factories and marketing, and exporting, and social alienation and and and...

You read it here first.

Bombings in London

Looks like al-Qeada's M.O. Watch the European Left blame us.

Link

Radical Muslim News

Attackers attempt to take Ayodha, a central flash-point of inter-religious conflict in India between Hindus and Muslims.

Militants [thought to be Pakistan-based Muslims -Ed] blew up a security wall with a car bomb and stormed a Hindu shrine at the heart of India's biggest religious controversy Tuesday, triggering a gunbattle in which security forces killed five attackers.


Meanwhile teachers in southern Thailand will soon be allowed to carry guns to keep from being sent on unanticipated (and undesired) early retirement by Muslim radicals.

More than 700 people, including at least 24 teachers, have been killed since January 2004 in unrest which the government blames on Islamic militants. Teachers are often targeted as they are seen as symbols of Thailand's Buddhist authorities.


In Iraq, acid attacks are increasing against immodest women.

A month ago I was walking from my college to my house when I was abducted in the street by three men. They dropped acid in my face and on my legs. They cut all my hair off while hitting me in the face many times telling me it’s the price for not obeying God’s wish in using the veil," Hania Abdul-Jabbar, a 23-year-old university student, recounted.

"Today I cannot see out of one eye because the acid made me lose my vision. I am afraid to leave my house. Now I am permanently disfigured with a monster face," she added with tears rolling down her swollen and scarred cheeks.

Also in Iraq, insurgents are killing barbers for shaving beards or removing facial hair from their customers.


These stories were pulled from only two Google news searches this morning. Here we have attacks by Muslims against other Muslims for not being religious enough, against Hindus and Buddhists for not being Muslims, and generally against anything that does not have a Wahhabist seal of approval.

Does anyone else see these incidents as a religious fad that will eventually bring most Muslims into disrepute, no matter how loudly they complain about misrepresentation in the media? How about some forceful opposition to these radical acts by responsible Islamic leaders? I

Syrian Firefight

Militants engaged in shoot-out with Syrian security forces.

Sana reported that security officers had been on the trail of the men for several days, and that some of the men who fought the security services were believed to have been former bodyguards of Saddam Hussein.

Minor note to the overall Islamic Insurgeny, but interesting nonetheless.

Happy 4th of July, New Republicans!
Bourgeois

The Sleeping Dragon

I am always cautious of predictions, particularly when they come to the Middle Kingdom. Such an ancient place has a resilient tendency to amaze.

However, I am not so reticent to make predictions about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Their days have been and are numbered. Theirs is a discredited and forgotten ideology that is in many ways being daily chipped away by Western liberalism (little "l"). What concerns me, as it has since 1989, is what happens when the CCP starts to crumble. We have seen a slow, painful decline of the party with a simultaneous rise in world affairs.

There will be a power grab, a desperate act to divert attention from the true plight of the people (all of the people, not just the elite and the wealthy in the halls of power). This is evident from 6 June 1989 (Tianenmen Square) onward. When threatened the party leadership responds unflinchingly with violence. They have never had any problem massacring their own people in the name of Communism (always the problem with Communist ideologies). Mao did it. Deng did it. Hu will likely do it too.

I'm reminded of the stories in 1996, while I was living in the Middle Kingdom, of the massacre of Buddhist monks in Western China and of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province. Today one only has to do a simple internet search to find the many reports out of China, on a nearly daily basis, of some type of social unrest that is spreading like the bird flu throughout the countryside.

Don't get me wrong. I think the CCP leadership is bumbling and naive. They discount the power of their own people to counter the selfishness and vulgar disregard the Party has for "the people".

And the countryside is where the CCP has to worry most. While peasants flood into the cities of China's prosperous coasts, they are putting pressure on the CCP to provide opportunities (and minor freedoms) given to citizens of the cities. Normally Beijing throws them a bone of say democratic control over their locality or of an old party-owned factory. It's all a game though, a waiting game, an end game by which the party leadership is coldly calculating how to get out on top.

The CCP has been lobbing missiles and "accidentally" entering the Taiwan Straits (outside the territorial waters of the the PRC) for years now. The frequency and brashness of these incursions has been increasing though. Now with the Washington Times report (entry below) that the CCP's gotten the attention of the Pentagon comes cause for new concern. Add this to the very real machinations on the world stage with CNOOC's bid this week for Unocal oil and we've got serious problems at hand. Add into this already volatile mix the tinder-box that is North Korea and the abyss that is Russia and we should have a serious concern about future Sino-US relations. Combine all of these tell-tale signs and we see the classic set-up of a regime that is about to make a move.

In short, what we need is a bold foreign policy about China and not just a Bush family mantra of killing the party with capitalism (read: buying the Party off with economic concessions while the people suffer). We need a foreign policy that addresses the real threats of a potential war to protect Taiwan and the many unstable players (North Korea, Russia, et al) that could play into that nightmarish equation. The Bush Administration could start by outright blocking the CNOOC offer for national security reasons.

In a new strategic policy shift, I'm not talking about an Iraq-style regime change: that would be suicidal. But we can return to efforts to encourage democracy and undermine the CCP's efforts to stave it off. We can start by reversing the Bush Sr. deceivingly-benign policy of ignoring their human rights abuses. (They make Abu Graib look like a picnic in Central Park.) Turn up the heat and watch the CCP leadership sweat. Make efforts to force transparency and accountability for their actions. When the CCP says they have religious freedom, hold them accountable. When they say they have freedom of speech, make them prove it.

One subversive strategy might be pulled from the pages of the Cold War playbook, the Reagan chapter: ally ourselves with the Vatican to foment change through the illegal and underground Church in China that has a very vibrant and secret presence there. Continue by strengthening old alliances with the Dalai Lama and the Free Tibet movement (alliances Nixon broke off when he "normalized" relations with the PRC). Forge new alliances with the Western Muslim sects that have long been oppressed by Beijing and with new groups such as the brutalized Falun Gong (a very large, vocal, and powerful force in China today).

My point is there are many ways to go about avoiding what we are currently doing, which is plainly nothing. We can do something, and we should. I truly believe in the ability of the Chinese people to stand up for themselves and to make the right choice towards the democracy they were promised, at the end of imperial rule, and never received. But they are not likely to get such a democracy or avert war if we sit idly by. We either get our hands dirty now, or we see them bloodied later.

Chinese Plans

According to a defector, China is merely biding its time until the day it is strong enough to attack Taiwan (and by extension the US), an event probably precipitated by large-scale social unrest that can be defused by the war. The same defector reiterates how much the US is China's primary enemy (specifically the Chinese Communist Party), and how obsessed they are with eventually "striking back".

Worry. Talk like this makes Iraq's problems look silly in comparison. The only nation in the world that I am aware of that is spending money as fast as we are to improve our armed forces is China -- and they have approximately 700M more souls to throw into the line of fire than we do.

 "The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival," Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.
    All Chinese government officials are ordered to gather information about the United States, "no matter how trivial," he said. "The United States occupies a unique place in China's diplomacy," Mr. Chen said.

...On China's military buildup, Mr. Chen said Beijing is following the strategy of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged China to "bide our time, build our capabilities" -- military as well as economic and political. "What that means is that when the day is mature, the Chinese government will strike back," he said. Mr. Chen said the danger of a war over Taiwan is growing.
    "That is possible as Chinese society is getting more unstable," he said. "Once any serious civil disobedience occurs, the government may call for a war across the Taiwan Strait to gather [political] strength from people."

Chinese Spies

In Australia, two former members of the Chinese intelligence network have applied for asylum. They say that the Chinese government has at least 1000 spies in Australia alone, many of whom work outside of diplomatic cover to infiltrate dissident anti-Communist Chinese groups. If Australia has 1000 spies, how many more, prey tell, does the US have?

Education Demands

Among Muslims in southern Thailand, there is a belief that the central government ignores them, mistreats them and generally doesn't like them. Thus the best hope for the beleagured Muslims is to succceed from Thailand and form a country governed by the righteous justice of the Koran and Sunna: a southern Thai-style Taliban, but with more curry and less facial hair.

While this feeling may not be wholly accurate, the central government there has hardly inspired confidence in its ability to get its message across to the Muslims there (witness the government's ill-fated attempt to drop 100,000 paper birds of peace on its southern-most province, a paper-cut nightmare for anyone unlucky enough to be under the C-130 when it flew overhead). In any case, it is strange that now, presumably for the world-wide attention such acts bring, some Muslim fanatics (crazy sons a'bitches in the vernacular of my youth) are cutting off people's heads to protest the lack of the Thai government's attention on the Muslims' education demands.

In the latest attack, a clothes salesman from northern Thailand was sitting in a coffee shop in the south of the country when some disgruntled Muslims (who probably have low self-esteem, according to Oprah and the latest CNN-USA TODAY-GALLUP poll of adults who give a damn about these things) came in, shot him twice, then cut off his head in front of the other coffee imbibers [Check please! -- ed]. They drove off on a motorcycle -- still clutching the head -- before chucking it on the side of the road some distance away from the crime scene.

If cutting off the heads of innocent people doesn't show the government that you are serious about education reform, that no child should be left behind, then I don't know what does. 

Oh, and last week in Brazil, during a prison riot, some inmates cut off the heads of five of their erstwhile brethren, before hiking them up on pikes over the wall for the onlookers to see. What in the name of Zawahiri is going on here? Is decapitation the new Black?

Syria's Role in Iraq's Insurgency

Great article from the Washington Post today.

A few good quotes (and a nice piece of investigative journalism):

Their goal [the Syrian Jihadis], he said, is restoration of the Islamic caliphate, the system that governed Muslims before the rise of nation states. Abu Ibrahim said he regarded Afghanistan during the Taliban rule as one of the few true Islamic governments since the time of Muhammad.

"The Koran is a constitution, a law to govern the world," he said.

...Jihad was being allowed into the open. Abu Ibrahim said Syrian security officials and presidential advisers attended festivals, one of which was called "The People of Sham Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All." Money poured in from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

..."Young men are fighting with zeal and passion," Abu Ibrahim said. "There are Saudi officers, Syrians, Iraqis. But not those who fought for Saddam. The man who is leading it for the most part is Zarqawi."

Bolivian Protests

Does anyone else find it odd that Bolivian peasants, miners and union activists are willing to strike (violently and repeatedly) over the rate of taxation that foreign firms must pay on extracted natural gas? What about the nationalization of the entire Bolivian oil and gas industry?

I find it very strange that people would leave their jobs, villages, towns and families to go to the capital city (La Paz) for the second time in as many years, defy police, and violently agitate to overthrow the government without some external force being the primary cause of the unrest.

It seems more likely that external nations or organizations (Cuba and Columbia's FARC, for examples of each type) would organize such unrest than that the somewhat wonkish topic of taxation rates on gas would rouse peasants from their farms to bring down the government -- twice.

The brewing civil war in Bolivia may be an externally-driven affair. If so, the winner of the spoils may be the group that can either seize control of the government or take advantage of the instability for long enough to maximize its time in the country. Remnants of Peru's Shining Path? I don't really have a feel for the trends among the radical groups active there, but I can forsee a potentially failed state on the horizon.

Any New Republicans wish to speculate?

Not Forgotten

The blog, that is. I had a death in the family that required flying back to the Cajun land of my birth. That was followed by a ton of personal affairs, including helping my neighbours pack their U-Haul for the move to the Big H.

We at NR wish them well. The Commies (real ones) there are a bit frightening.

Anyway, I'm not linking to anything right now, just letting you know that all is well.

Yesterday I bought Freakonomics and First In, a story about the first CIA team into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. I dove into First In and am roughly half way through. Updates to follow.

Oh, and sorry to Tigerhawk's beloved state..

Harvard's Guilt

Harvard is spending $50 million bucks to make its faculty more diverse.

Sigh.

Why is it that my alma mater just doesn't fire everyone who isn't on a diversity list to really stand head and shoulders above other universities in the diversity rankings? I know that I am being absurd, but the fact that the Big H feels compelled to spend $50 million dollars to hire people based on their secondary characteristics of being bothers me.

The reports paint a picture of a campus where women in science feel a lack of respect, if not outright hostility. "In some departments, women graduate students and postdoctoral fellows report hearing disrespectful criticisms of their abilities from male colleagues and a lack of a supportive environment," one report said.

At Harvard? C'mon. As a paractical matter, a more PC school is hard to imagine

Among the initiatives cited with approval by professors were recommendations for helping female and minority faculty members with their professional and personal lives, including giving financial aid for research and day care and helping the spouses of professors being recruited by Harvard to find jobs.

Wouldn't current professors be ticked off that they are left out of this feel-good festival of cash for the university's guilt? To be fair, though, the concrete details sound less ominous than the univeristy's conceptual commitment to discriminate against you if you are male.

Remember that Harvard is not saying that they will choose the female or minority candidate, all things being otherwise equal. No, the university is maintaining upfront that the intial screen will be for your estrogen or melatonin count.

Fair Harvard? I think not.

Study Results

A new Pew Study makes a surprisingly accurate analysis of the political coalitions of the Right and Left. Both groups come across are far more heteronomous than they are often portrayed (a conclusion that fits with my experience). Here are some highlights.

"The Pew study found that, in terms of personal income, the Republican Enterprisers and the Democratic Liberals look almost identical. About four in 10 in each group said they have household incomes of $75,000 or more. The same held for one of the groups in the middle, the Upbeats. Enterprisers are the most likely to own or trade stocks (53 percent), followed by the Upbeats (42 percent), Liberals (38 percent) and Social Conservatives (35 percent).

Looked at from the other end of the income scale, nearly half of Pro-Government Conservatives have incomes of $30,000 or below, about the same as the Disadvantaged Democrats.

A similar pattern occurs when the groups are measured by years of educational achievement. Enterprisers and Liberals look very much alike: 49 percent of Liberals and 46 percent of Enterprisers are college graduates.

At the other end, 13 percent of Disadvantaged Democrats graduated from college, while in the Republican coalition, 15 percent of Pro-Government Conservatives graduated from college. In the cluster of groups that form the middle of the electorate, 11 percent of Disaffecteds finished college, while 37 percent of Upbeats are college graduates."

Crap

Today's Washington Post has an article that made me laugh. Such archetypical leftist cant is rarely found anymore in its pure form. To wit:

Speaking at the Washington Convention Center, [Donald, ed.] Kagan's subject was right in line with the usual topics taken up in previous Jefferson lectures (a $10,000 honor sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities). He gave a stout talk, "In Defense of History," with lots of sideswipes at the old boogeymen of conservative academics. He got laughs for little digs at the relativists (who believe that other societies may have equally legitimate values and truths) and the multiculturalists (who think the traditional canon is not so weak as to bear with a little expansion). He saved especial scorn for poor deluded literary theorists and misguided historians who stray from the usual, worthy subjects: "high politics, constitutions, diplomacy, war, great books and ideas." Perhaps he was having a little argument with the Harvard poetry scholar, Helen Vendler, who argued in last year's Jefferson Lecture that poetry should be placed first among the various disciplines in the humanities. Nonsense, says Kagan.

[more from the article, ed.]...Kagan's book, and his life's work, have contributed to an environment in which fear of vague potential threats often overwhelms sane evaluation of real threats (Kagan went on and on about potential WMDs in Iraq in his book, though they were never found).

The author, Phillip Kennicott, makes absolutely no attempt to hide his views and by my lights calls Kagan a curmudgeonly old fool who hasn't learned anything about the world, is a typical neo-con/racist with no respect for other cultures or values, and is getting kicked in the arse by fate, as religion, and not history, becomes again the dominant mode of moral certainty in this country (in opposition to Kagan's stance).

Jeez, man. I'm going to write an op-ed to the Post. This smug little article really sucks.

Posada

Mention that someone was a CIA agent and polar opposite feelings erupt in most people, typically depending on the person's feelings for the agency.

The question here for the great and good people of conscience everywhere (exempting myself as a person with little conscience) is can the US fight a war against terrorism while possibly having someone responsible for loss of life in the cause of defeating communism (paid for by the agency) loose in the country?

From this morning's BBC Online
"The US would have to reconcile its traditional sympathy for the politically influential Cuban exiles in Miami and its firm stand against suspected terrorists in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, our correspondent says.
"

...and my answer: realpolitik -- I don't feel in the least threatened by this guy's existence on our country's soil, nor is his presence on US soil a moral quandry for our terror war. The US is fighting people who want to kill us. The war on terror is not a war for all things good in all times and places (despite Bush's rhetoric). Posada (the guy in question) does not want to kill us; in fact, he wants to kill our enemy.

I hope the agency put him up somewhere nice, gave him a funny name and a few dollars to spend on his retirement...

Zarqawi. Again

We almost had him. Again.

"The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is reported to have been seen on Wednesday at the hospital in Ramadi, which was later searched by US forces. The director of the hospital, Munam Aftan, told the Iraq-based newspaper Al-Zaman that US troops surrounded and raided the entire hospital, searching for al-Zarqawi, who is believed to be al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq."

Soon.

Unemployment Relief for the Gulfies

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!

"The counterterrorism source, a former top CIA official, said that the laptop also revealed that Zarqawi is actively recruiting most of his suicide bombers from Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

'He was doing that in Europe, within the Muslim communities, but the European countries are now watching closely,' he said. 'There are hundreds and hundreds of Saudis who are trying to be recruited for suicide missions. The Saudis are trying to stop them, but they can't get them all. And Zarqawi's got his people now in Yemen recruiting.'"

Wanted: Men desiring great pay, few hours, and a place in heaven surrounded by virgins.

Insugency diminishing

Maybe Zarqawi's 15 minutes of fame are about up.

The letter, dated April 27, was signed by Abu Asim al-Qusaymi al-Yemeni, who Whitman said was an Al Qaeda member and veteran of fighting last year in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. The letter was seized during an April 28 raid in Baghdad, the military said.

The writer condemns some middle-rank Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq -- the ''emirs," Arabic for ''princes" -- and asks the sheik to ''test those who are below you. Some of them are . . . oppressors."

''Morale is weakening, and there is [exhaustion or confusion] among the ranks on the mujahideen," the writer says, according to an Associated Press translation of the copy provided by the military. ''We have found emirs who are not fit for leadership."

From Drudge

THE TEXAN reports: Shouts became so pervasive during the question-and-answer session that Coulter informed the organizers she would no longer take questions if the hecklers were not silenced. For a time, the shouts were considerably lessened, until the issue of gay marriage was broached.

Coulter said she supported the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman on the basis that a good woman civilizes and inspires a man to strive for something better, leading to a question that was met with a stunned silence.

"You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage," said Ajai Raj, an English sophomore. "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f*@k his wife up the ass?"

UT Police officers approached Raj to arrest him, resulting in a mass exodus of protesters chanting, "Let him go."

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2005®

These are civilized university students who believe in tolerance and respect for people with diverse views? Ha! If I hadn't had experiences like this myself, I probably would write this off as an isolated incident. But it isn't. And it's shameful. Long live diversity...

Guantanamo Interrogations

Part of this might be true, but I strongly doubt that most of it is true. Although I admit that I want to believe the allegations, if only to watch Elanor Holmes-Norton (DC's Congresswoman) get fired up with righteous indignation.

Heh.

Wait for the Rebuttal

Data From Space, Oceans Validate Global Warming Timeline

Zarqawi

the new Bin Laden

His recently found computer is a trove of info, including global recruitment attempts and recent contact with Zawahiri.

Zarqawi's gotten away from us at least three times now. Who will get whom first?

Syrian Intelligence

Still in Lebanon

U.N. member states and the Lebanese opposition have told the United Nations that Syrian military intelligence has taken up new positions "in the south of Beirut and elsewhere, and has been using headquarters of parties affiliated with the government of Syria as well as privately rented apartments for their purposes," said a report Annan made to the Security Council and released yesterday.

Syrian intelligence is also deployed in Palestinian refugee camps and communities, some of which have suddenly grown larger, U.S. officials and Western diplomats said.

Syria's intelligence network has been its chief means of influencing Lebanese political and economic life for almost three decades. About 5,000 Syrian intelligence operatives were deployed in Lebanon, U.S. and European officials said.

The Lebanese government told the United Nations that the withdrawal is complicated by family ties and a network of informers among Lebanese citizens, the U.N. report notes.

"In the many years the Syrians have been there, they've inserted themselves pretty deeply in Lebanon, including in intermarriage," said a senior State Department official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject. "They've abandoned their headquarters, but they're still integrated in Lebanese society in a way that can be difficult to detect. So even though their formal presence is over, there is still a significant residual presence we need to look at."

I don't believe for a minute that Syria would give up its hard won influence in a country that it believes [and was, historically,] to be part of itself. Almost 30 years of cultivating assets will not disappear overnight.

Dean's Message of Hope

Howard Dean, the paragon of lefty optimism, is on the stump to get the Democrats back in the White House. Here are some of his comments.


Dean has suggested that they [Republicans] are "evil." That they are "corrupt." He called them "brain-dead" during a stop in Toronto -- and while the Terri Schiavo case was still in the news. He has tagged Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a "liar." Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that he mimicked a "drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh" at
an event there.

Bolton

I'm not certain where I stand on this guy. It's not that the allegations that he intimidates his subordinates into following whatever he says -- even when they know better -- don't bother me. But is this behaviour constant or are we dealing with an isolated incident? If he really is a royal ass to his staff, would that necessarily make him a bad appointee to the UN? Crappy bosses exist in most industries. Do we implement 360 degree reviews before high profile jobs can be filled?

On a bad day with some bosses I would agree with that assertion, but on most days that standard seems too high. More on this later.

Fake Protests

The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > China Is Pushing and Scripting Anti-Japanese Protests:

"Enraged about Japan's tendentious textbooks and territorial disputes in the East China Sea, Sun Wei, a college junior, joined thousands of Chinese in a rare legal protest march on the streets of Beijing last weekend.

Yet the police herded protesters into tight groups, let them take turns throwing rocks, then told them they had 'vented their anger' long enough and bused them back to campus.

'It was partly a real protest and partly a political show,' Mr. Sun said in an interview this week. 'I felt a little like a puppet.'"

Well, Mr. Sun, you should feel like a puppet. You are being used. It's fairly common across the globe (even in the US, but normally restricted to anti-war protests put together by the US arm of Commie International for easily swayed college students), but especially in the Mid-East. Remember the pro and anti-Syrian rallies in Beirut? Same dog.

Anyway, this article is worth reading, if only to get a sense of how deep the anti-Japanese feelings are in Asia. What this feeling means to US policy is a related matter, but one which must be discussed later because I'm running out the door now...

Thursday's Stories

ZANU-PF Joy
Mugabe, that fun-loving white supremist, is going to il Vaticano for the Pope's funeral. Since he is technically banned from visiting the EU (but not from visiting the Vatican), he can mingle among the boring heads of state who sought to contain him in his African Nirvana, regaling them with stories of his electoral success, his people's great love for him, and the 1200 pound crocodile he caught once with his bare hands. Really. What? You don't believe him? Are you a racist? A contemptable colonist sympathizer?!

Religious Studies Professors
In other news, CNN Headline news this morning had an interview with a religious studies professor from Hofstra university, whose name is Phyllis, I think, and is a specialist in Vatican history. Anyway, the show's host asked her innocently what the next steps in the Conclave will be and how PJP II's last testament will affect it, and the woman answers (no kidding): "well, there won't be any women there, that's for sure." The host, struggling to comprehend where that comment came from and also trying to steer the conversation on live TV back to the topic at hand says, "I know that you are also a women's studies professor. Thank you for your insight there. But I really want to get back to ...[now Phyllis interrupts again] As I said, there are no women there. In the early church women were deacons. They handled money. They were included in the Church's operations. Not now. Not anymore. [Back to Robin Meade]. Thanks so much, Phyllis."

The moral of this story: never bring a fem-bot religious studies professor on national TV without ascertaining her tendency to launchinto totally irrelevant political commentary.

C.I.A. Detentions

According to the NYT this morning,

The White House is maintaining extraordinary restrictions on information about the detention of high-level terror suspects, permitting only a small number of members of Congress to be briefed on how and where the prisoners are being held and interrogated, senior government officials say.

Some Democratic members of Congress say the restrictions are impeding effective oversight of the secret program, which is run by the Central Intelligence Agency and is believed to involve the detention of about three dozen senior Qaeda leaders at secret sites around the world.

Surely secrecy is precisely what is called for, no? Expanding knowledge of who is held where strikes me as silly, given the single-minded determination of his compatriots to free him, of the loonly Left to make a human-rights martyr out of him (and make sure that the temperature in his cell is between 75 and 80, that he not offended by any interregation techniques that are being used on him, etc), and of kooky righties to kill 'em all.

With CIA, it is an unfortunate fact that our lawmakers either don't believe that they will leak the information sooner, rather than later, or that they don't trust the CIA to do its job. In both cases, our nation is worse off. Good job, Democrats.

Astounding

This article is wild. It is the logical end to so many lefty complaints about corporations and big business -- which is precisely the point of this guy's actions. Yet now lefties are running away from this guy (well, most of them). Odd that they do, given that he merely made manifest the rage inside so many misguided souls.

Read the article. It's worth it.

Rest in Peace

BBC NEWS | Africa | Israeli envoy dies of head wound

I knew Doron from my time living in Ethiopia. We lived in the same hotel. May he rest in peace.

USA will not exist in 2007: Qu'ran

The Holy Qu'ran apparently describes the end of the USA from multiple tsunami waves sometime in 2007.

The sad thing is that some people will honestly believe this. For the rest of us, this is just funny.

Not a good week

For god's emissaries on Earth. First, Schiavo dies, then the Pope moves in the same direction and finally the Rev Falwell is taken to the hospital in critical condition.

And if you consider him to be an emissary, then you could add that Buchanan had salad dressing chucked on him at some school in Michigan.

Sheesh.

Polarization

No, not the kind found on sunglasses. Another article has been written about yet another survey -- this one is the largest to date -- identifiying how very lefty are America's institutions of higher learning.

College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

Nope. No, self-reinforcing bias there. Well, I guess we can all go home now...

I beat on this drum a lot because of what I and my friends experienced in university and because I want to expose the fundamental lie about diversity that lies at the heart of the enterprise.

While the schools maintain that their mission is to teach each individual to think for themselves by exposing them to the nebulous world of diversity, my experience taught me that most schools (Hampden-Sydney excepted) want to graduate diverse people, and by that they mean highly liberal people in gay, straight, brown, white and black wrappers.

Is it any wonder then that the Post also has a second, unrelated,article that partisan polarization is increasing geographically too?

They didn't make the connection, but I will: keep turning out ever more liberal people from your institutions of higher education and you will have ever more polarized individuals, families, work places, neighborhoods, states and regions.

As much as the eco-commies annoy me with their relentless pessimism and silly utopian wonderlands, I have to appreciate their sense of beauty. This is the Muir woods, just across the bay from San Francisco on an intensely beautiful day.
Bourgeois

See the afterburner? Some poor guy has to hold the fabric surrounding the flame away from it. That's another argument for a college education.
Bourgeois

From my recent trip to California's wine country and San Francisco. No one told me that a hot air balloon is a wicker basket with a small afterburner attached to it.
Bourgeois

Hizbullah, Bankruptcy and Michael Jackson

Recognizing Hizbullah as a force in Lebanese politics is a statement of the obvious. But to state as obvious, as the Washington Post Express did yesterday, that the 500k people who came out in Beirut to support Hizbullah and Syria's presence in Lebanon were there without any prodding from the Syrian intelligence services, local imams connected with such and (probably) imported thugs who intimidated people into attending the rally is to miss the obvious.

Bankruptcy
I may be one of the few Righties to find the bankruptcy law terrible, but I do. It is not that I think that people should be able to shirk their duties toward creditors, but that in reality very, very few people file bankruptcy, and of those who do, even fewer do it as a first resort. Further, credit card companies and hospitals are both responsible for some of the credit problems of their customers.

For credit card companies, it is their policy of charging late fees and crzy interest rates on deliquent accounts (accounts that, btw, are more easily cleared by not paying the credit card companies and dealing with the debt collection agencies to whom the accounts are sold once payment stops) that pushes some people into bankruptcy. Remember, credit card companies borrow money to fund their credit portfolios at rates substantially below their lending rates. Do you really think that someone with a balance of $5000 is a larger credit risk (from the point of view of capital at risk) than someone with a mortgage of $300,000? Even granting that the former debt has no collateral and the latter does, the investor has more money at risk in the latter example for a longer period of time. Yet the credit card might charge 14.99%, while the mortgage might be between 6-8%, depending on credit. Is the credit risk between the two debtors really 6% (600 basis points!)? No, not by a mile.

For hospitals, it is their policy of charging different rates to the insured and uninsured for the same procedures and the general lack of financial saavy at the payment departments that make me cold towards their "poor, poor, pitiful me" attitudes.

I doubt that bankruptcy of customers is a substantial contributing factor to the operational performance of almost all hospitals and credit card companies. Simplifying insurance reimbursement procedures would free more operating capital than pursuing deadbeats.

Michael Jackson
He didn't do it. He's weird, but that doesn't make him guilty. I changed my mind after reading that Leno called the cops on the kid well before Michael became his mark because Leno believed that the kid was on the hunt for someone famous to bilk for money. Also, after the kid's brother went on record admitting that he lied in another trial in which the family was trying to get money from a department store and that he contradicted his own account of the alleged molestations, it is hard for me to put any credence in the kid's account.

Vindication?

Is Bush Right?

In countries where President George Bush and his policies are deeply unpopular, online commentators are starting to think the unthinkable.

"Could George W. Bush Be Right?" asked Claus Christian Malzahn in the German newsweekly Der Spiegel. Essayist Guy Sorman asked last month in the Paris daily Le Figaro (by subscription), "And If Bush Was Right?" In Canada, anti-war columnist Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star answered: "It is time to set down in type the most difficult sentence in the English language. That sentence is short and simple. It is this: Bush was right."

The tipping point came last week when Lebanon's pro-Syrian government fell. The international online media, much of which had been critical of Bush during his first term, had to acknowledge democratic developments on the American president's watch. Many commentators also cited free elections in Afghanistan last fall, Palestinian elections in early January followed by the Jan. 30 Iraq elections. Then came local elections in Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement of constitutional changes allowing his opposition to challenge him electorally.

I think it's too early to write the obit on Middle Eastern autocracy, but the old man is clearly not in good health. Is Bush for the Mid-East what Reagan was for the Eastern Bloc?

Radical

More Muslims like this are needed to challenge the Orthodox interpretation of Islamic tenants. For at least a century, the West has critically engaged in this practice without losing Christianity or Judaism to godless atheism. In some communities the collective questioning and challenging of dogma led to schisms, but in other places it deepened the faith. Islam needs this activity too.

Here is what the brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood thinks...

In another book, "The Veil," Banna argued that head coverings were simply a continuation of tribal traditions that existed before the birth of Islam 1,400 years ago and were not mandated by the Koran.

Banna's reference to Koranic verses underscores the foundation of his approach to Islamic reform. He believes that much of the commentary attributed to the prophet Muhammad, which became the basis for Islamic teaching, known collectively as the Sunnah, was invented and even falsified in the earliest centuries of Islam by self-styled jurists. The jurists served the caliphs who ruled in the Middle East and were interested in maintaining the status quo. These teachings stray from the Koran, Banna asserts.

Taxing Consumption

This article does not explain the benefits of a consumption tax, but is worth reading to get a feel for the coming battle lines.

Why is it that Lefties can't see new possibilities with open eyes, rather than through class warfare lenses?

He's Great! Really!

Vatican upbeat on Pope's health

Like the PA's assertion that Arafat was fine, when he went to Paris the last time?

Boys, Girls Are Faring Equally, Study Finds

Take this, you gender mongers!

If you're on one side or the other of the gender-wars debate, you could pick a specific indicator to buttress your case," said Kenneth C. Land, a professor of demographic studies and sociology at Duke University, senior author of the study. "But if we take a step back a little and look at what the data say overall, we find that the two genders have tracked pretty closely.

Just try, try, saying this at Harvard. How far would you get? Not very. The cult of the victim women is strong enough to blow your house down, little piggy.

Taiwan

Japan will announce on Saturday

a joint agreement [with the US] that Taiwan is a mutual security concern, according to a draft of the document. Analysts called the move a demonstration of Japan's willingness to confront the rapidly growing might of China...

...Japanese officials said that the official position advocating a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue has not changed. They said the constitution limits the level of assistance that Japan could offer in the event of a U.S. confrontation with China over Taiwan. But the joint statement on Saturday could help lay the groundwork for the Japanese to extend as much cooperation as they legally can, including logistical support such as transportation and medical rescue operations behind the lines of combat, officials said.

"We consider China a friendly country, but it is also unpredictable," a senior Japanese government official said. "If it takes aggressive action, Japan cannot just stand by and watch."

I know a few people who fear China like an ugly girl fears a mirror. But should be care if Taiwan goes back to China? Why? Another way to ask the question is, shouldn't everyone have the joy of a Chinese jail open to them at some point in their life?

Robot Army

Military planners say robot soldiers will think, see and react increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their intelligence grows, so will their autonomy.

The robot soldier has been a dream at the Pentagon for 30 years. And some involved in the work say it may take at least 30 more years to realize in full. Well before then, they say, the military will have to answer tough questions if it intends to trust robots with the responsibility of distinguishing friend from foe, combatant from bystander [your daughter from the enemy's daughter, ed].

Cool.

Syria

I was wrong yesterday when I said it was anti-Syrian forces angry that Hariri didn't stand up to Syria strongly enough. Apparently Syria thought that Hariri stood up to them too much, and represented the strongest domestic proponent of Lebanese independence. Obviously, if the strongest proponent of independence is silenced, then the probability of such declines.

So, does this mean that Syria killed Hariri? Not necessarily, but it increasingly looks likely (although I wouldn't be surprised if the assasination was carried out by proxy since Syria knows of and has relationships with almost all local militias there).

BTW, have you seen the size of the bomb crater?

Saudi Arabia -- Even Holier

'Islamist win' in key Saudi poll


Islamist-backed candidates have taken a commanding lead in Saudi Arabia's first municipal election, in Riyadh, according to preliminary results.

In case you missed it.

Boom

Car bomb kills former Lebanese PM

Wow. No one in modern Lebanese politics has done as much as Hariri to rebuild Beirut. Let the speculation about motives begin.

I can think of three:

1) under Hariri, Lebanon regained its status as the liberal playground of the middle east that it had porior to the civil war. Fundamentalist Sunnis might object to this.

2) Elections are coming. Nothing says "I hate you, your party and everthing you stand for" like a car bomb.

3) Anti-Syrian forces who were unhappy that Hariri was not more forceful about asserting its independence during his tenure.

I am leaning to explanation number two.

Architecture becomes political

For some people architecture has always been political (see Soviet Realism). As a person with a strong affinity for modern architecture but with roots in an ueber-classical collegiate environment, I do sometimes struggle with pinning down my taste precisely. I don't know how many New Repub's think abou this at all, so I'll keep this brief...

The NYT has an article that discusses how the re-emergence of classicism is drawing interest -- and some of the interest is coming from committed lefties who believe it signals a return to a class dominated society that is anathema to the Great and the Good.

He [the director of this new classical movement] is not, he said, a fan of many modern houses. 'They are much better photographed than lived in,' he said. 'I get mad at architects who overemphasize how something looks rather than how something works as a home.'

But others are quick to point out that nostalgia for 18th-century buildings may have more to do with unspoken nostalgia for the 18th century than for the building. 'Reviving the classical forms is not the same thing as reviving the culture,' said Terence Riley, the chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A 2000 Georgian mansion might be impossible to differentiate from an 1800 one, but the social climates that created the two are two centuries apart.

Thoughts?

The Dems May be Right Here

and that hurts...

But the fact is that you can't submit a budget that is missing some of the largest spending in the whole document. For me though, unlike the Dems, it makes more sense to cut government spending even further, rather than scream about what has been cut.

Like it or not, the US will continue to exist without corn subsidies, but not without its military. Logical conclusion: social programs will lose to military programs in almost all cases.

Bush and the French

The French have to wonder if the next four years will be anything like the last four.

Ms. Rice is now America's top diplomat, and American-organized elections have taken place in Iraq. So for France, a new era of political realism is beginning.

Let me add that Rummy is still SecDef, the US's assertions about French involvement in the UN Oil for Food scandal have some basis in fact and, as of now, no amount of chummy diplomacy with the Iranians or the North Koreans have dislodged their nuclear ambitions.

I don't have to conclude that the US is correct about everything always to notice that we are correct enough times that the French may have to deal with us as (at least) more correct in our foreign policy actions than the world, led by France, seems willing to admit.

Bad Apples

The only reason that I'm blogging this is that it is a rare day (in my experience) when evil is used to describe people these days. Well, from moderates and not crazy righties and lefties about each other. For the rest of us, what do you call someone who commits acts of violence so heinous that words fail? Is it evil?

The U.N. and Oil

I don't know how many righties have speculated about this, but I distinctly remember it being an old story. Well, now it is out again -- but with a different author: the UN. In this version, the UN's oil for food program with Iraq was not systematically breaking laws, though abuses did occur [passive voice used by me intentionally, ed].

First Iraq's successful elections and now this. All we righties need now is OBL's head on a stick and we can return to talking taxes, no?

North Korea -- the end is nigh...

Read!

The death of Kim’s favourite mistress last summer, a security clampdown on foreign aid workers and a reported assassination attempt in Austria last November against the leader’s eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, have all heightened the sense of disintegration.

The Japanese intelligence agency, in an unclassified report issued on December 24, referred to “signs of instability” inside the political establishment and predicted a feud among the elite as they strive to seize power from Kim.

Needed Changes

I advocated this at various times to various people -- and now this article restates it. To really fight the Islamic militants, it is likely that the best means of doing this is to create and fund Islamic charities and pseudo-organizations that appeal to exactly the kind of people who want to blow us up.

Read the article and let me know what you think.

Some lefty's loving this...

Newsflash: CIA admits no chemical weapons in Iraq

If it ticked off the NYT this much...

It might just be good.

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'State of Fear': Not So Hot

Guess who's the substitute teacher?

Marion Barry teaches chemistry::

"With bachelor's and master's degrees and some doctoral credit in chemistry, Barry clearly has the science chops to teach the class. "

Now I ask you, would you want Marion "bitch set me up" Barry to teach your children chemistry? "Hey, kids. Is that a bunsun burner? Anyone got a spoon?"

Sigh. Why is it that this guy is the grand old man of local DC politics? I understand that he knows something about chemistry (and not only about smoking crack in hotel rooms with prostitutes and then lying about it), but for the love of our future, is he really the best role model we have? Really? No wonder DC is screwed up.

It's Logical

If Reuters can do it...

[Italy's] Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the decision gave him the shivers. Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said the judgement was incredible.

Yet it happened: five Islamic extremists were released by an Italian judge who ruled that they are resistance fighters and not terrorists, so cannot be held liable for recruiting fighters to go to Iraq to fight against the coalition there.

The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

This little news item wasn't front page, second page or even tertiary page filler, but it is interesting, nevertheless. Everytime some calamity strikes an infidel nation (such as when the space shuttle broke apart over the US, with pieces coming down in Palestine, Texas), the Musilim media attempt to pole-vault over each ever-more-radical cleric to see god's hand in the disaster. Yet, when, on the last day of Hajj, the holiest activity that a Musilm can undertake, the rains become so great that a flood forms and takes the lives of 29 members of the faithful, well, we hear precisely...nothing. No Hand of God. No Spiteful Wrath. It was just a flood, they say. Did anyone tell the Commanders of the Faithful in Aceh that sometimes floods happen?

Another thing that has been on my mind recently is directly relevant to my own experience as an alumnus of the Big H. When the President of the Big H said that maybe women were underrepresented in the sciences because of biological differences, it created a firestorm (but you knew that). Some women were so angry that they left his off the record presentation (but you knew that too). What you might not have known is how pervasive this attitude is at Harvard. The motto could become "ridicule first, understand later" -- but only for perceived threats to the status quo. It's interesting that at Harvard, history is alive in a way that it is not in the wider culture. In a way, the place is almost the logical (bastard) extension of the claim that to forget history is to repeat it. There, history is constantly thrown against present reality to justify speech codes, tolerance codes, informal clique affiliations. I don't know if people there really fear a return of slavery or Joe McCarthy, but I know that they do fear a return of the 50's. Maybe that's the real reason that women were so scared of Summer's remarks, they fear that under Bush the country may once again become a place right out of Leave it to Beaver.

I don't believe it, but they do.

Saudi Suicide Bomber Claims Zarqawi was Captured, Then Released

Damn.

I don't know if I want this to be true. Remember, he was also imprisoned by the Ethiopians. This latest release would be numero deux [mixed language intentional, ed].

Looks like I choose a good week to start blogging

Spies! Say the word and watch the reaction among America's newspapers. In this case, the question is whether the Pentagon ought to have their own cadre of men in grey. The principle argument against Pentaspooks is that they are not subject to the same oversight rules that limit the CIA's covert activities.

Exactly -- but that is a suitable justification when oversight all too often means rejection of anything remotely risky. The CIA is in its current state because people like Nancy Pelosi hold their moral values above the safety and security of America (remember her plan to let Iran essentially take over Iraq's election by blocking any covert assistance to pro-US Iraqi candidates? Still think every hostile intelligence service in the world wasn't sending her flowers for taking away US influence there?)

The real lesson here is that spying is sometimes not a pleasant business. Since the Church commission threw a wet blanket on the company's operations, they have operated bravely with one arm tied behind their back. Let Rumsfeld free the spies if only to show what he can do, unemcumbered. If he fails to show any benefit from unrestricted spying without the oversight that Congress requires of CIA, then I will stand corrected. If, however, he shows that war (and by extension, the art of tasking agents) is a game that favours the bold, I hope to hear calls in Congress for a new relationship with our intelligence services, one built on respect and trust.

Stoning Bush at the Hajj

According to Reuters, some muslims are using the stoning of the devil ritual of the annual Hajj as a means of stoning Bush, Sharon and Blair (as proxies of the Dark Lord, apparently).

After reading that, I began to wonder if we played Bush's inauguration speech backwards, would it sound just like Slayer? I wonder then if being a righty is some form of twisted Satanism? And how does that square with the Christian righties? Is it a causus belli for religious war?

Sometimes I think too much.

Oh, and my #%^$^%$^& project is finished. After decompression (read: a couple of lager-type refreshments), I should right back to bloggin' the night away.

The Return

I'm almost done with this #$%#%&^ project. Friday is the day of blessed freedom. I'll give you all the lowdown on the last two weeks of life on a project in a Fortune 20.

Oh, and watch this video for comic relief.

Jib Jab's Second Term

Stupid

Fear Factor sued.

What stupidity. The plaintiff should be forced to watch the episode 100 times more to learn that he has the power to change the channel.

Grow up, dude. Oh, and I doubt that this complaint is about morals (see his comment below).

Aitken said, "I am not at liberty to discuss the complaint unless it is a paid-interview situation."

In Angry Waves, the Devout See an Angry God

I said this last week. Now it is coming to pass. Everytime a calamity strikes, it is interpreted by the faithful as an assault on their religiosity. Why, I wonder, was the most thoroughly Muslim area in Indonesia hit by a tsunami, but the most godless, Jakarta, escaped the destruction entirely? Is the logical interpretation that the Muslims in Aceh were being punished because they were not Islamic enough -- or because they were too Islamic? O, Members of the Faithful, what is most likely?

"'God is angry with Aceh people, because most of them do not do what is written in the Koran and the Hadith,' the collected sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad, explained Cut Bukhaini, 35, an imam. 'I hope this will lead all Muslims in Aceh to do what is in the Koran and its teachings. If we do so, God will be merciful and compassionate.'"