Can’t fight City Hall ...2:37 pm
So, following up on his announcement yesterday that he is no longer in the Republican party, today the mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg, says that he plans to finish his current term of office, which runs through the end of 2009. However, it seems just about certain that his attention-getting dance with the idea of an independent run for president will continue. Why not? It gives him a national platform for his blathering. And someone who can drop 500 million dollars — or more — of his own money to finance a campaign cannot ever be ignored.
This New Yorker has the following to say about a potential President Bloomberg: I’ve never been one to threaten to leave the country if so and so gets elected — since the country is certainly much more than the current occupant of the White House — but, if Bloomberg were elected I would at least consider a hiatus, so long as I could find some sunny Pacific island nation where it’s possible to smoke, own a gun, and cook french fries in the oil of one’s choosing.
Bloomberg has competencies, and has surely been a far better mayor of NYC than the alternatives the Democrats were offering, but he is afflicted with an authoritarian streak of smug nannyism that would be intolerable in a president. He’s also just plain wrong on a number of basic issues.
Of-course, he’s not going to be president — there is virtually no scenario in which he could be elected, no matter how slick his campaign. The question is how he would affect the race. Many are speculating that if he were to run, he would draw more from the Democrat contender than the Republican, due to his very liberal positions on social issues. However, I don’t believe that this can be scientifically determined in advance. It depends on the kind of campaign he would run, and the content of that 500 million dollars’ worth of TV ads. And it also depends on how the other campaigns tackle him. Would he present himself as a super-competent, common-sense and non-partisan doer and fixer of problems? Presumably. Would the criticisms of him as an overreaching, arrogant and highly liberal executive who has no hesitation in strangling people with new laws stick? Of the voters-in-the-middle that he draws, how many would have –when push came to shove — voted for the Republican over the Democrat? It’s all speculative at this point.
Although the local New York papers (even the “conservative” ones) are cheering him on — no doubt due to how much importance and attention would attach to these local outlets in such a scenario — RWB would most definitely prefer not to see Bloomberg run. I prefer a clean contest, and, frankly, I’m sick of super-rich ego maniacs inserting themselves — through sheer force of cash — into the political process. Naturally, it’s their right to spend their money as they see fit, and to take part in politics. The problem, however, is that others do not have the same right, thanks to campaign finance regulations which restrict the size of the donations that individuals can make to their favored candidates. So, the super-rich — spending their own unregulated money on their own campaigns — have a built-in advantage. From Ross Perot to Jon Corzine to John Kerry, we’ve seen the results, and they’ve rarely been pretty (Hillary and Bill look set to benefit from the same factor, by the way, and they’re certainly not pretty either).
Lift all the restrictions on what American citizens can spend or donate to express themselves politically (in keeping with that obscure text known as the First Amendment), and require total and real-time transparency — that’s RWB’s prescription. Then, maybe, people like Mike Bloomberg won’t be in such a great position to turn a presidential race into their own self-glorifying pantomime.
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Mind thoroughly boggled ...9:33 am
According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper: Rushdie furore stuns honours committee.
The committee that recommended Salman Rushdie for a knighthood did not discuss any possible political ramifications and never imagined that the award would provoke the furious response that it has done in parts of the Muslim world, the Guardian has learnt.
It also emerged yesterday that the writers’ organisation that led the lobbying for the author of Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses to be knighted had originally hoped that the honour would lead to better relations between Britain and Asia.
It’s an “Alice in Wonderland” moment. If the above story is true, you genuinely have to wonder how the people on this committee could possibly have been living in the same world as you and I during these last several years. Did they think that those fatwas demanding Rushdie’s murder had simply blown over? Did they somehow convince themselves that Rushdie was now proudly looked upon by the Islamic world as a great literary talent, and that there would be rejoicing in Islamabad at the announcement of his knighthood? A world view so completely blinkered — and belonging to supposedly educated people — is terrifying in its implications. Although it also would explain a great deal.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Blair’s remarks ...10:21 am
Tony Blair’s remarks yesterday to the Liaison Committee of the British House of Commons contained some very to-the-point passages. I saw some brief quotes yesterday, but today found the full transcript. Here’s the key passage on the war in Iraq and beyond (all bolding is mine):
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On the offensive ...9:38 am
Task Force Lightning in Baquoba, Iraq:
Task Force Lightning commenced Operation Arrowhead Ripper today in a large-scale effort to eliminate al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists operating in Baqouba and its surrounding areas.
The 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, launched the offensive with a quick-strike nighttime air assault earlier today.
By daylight, attack helicopters and ground forces had engaged and killed 22 anti-Iraqi forces in and around Baqouba.
“The end state is to destroy the al-Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people,” said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding general, operations, 25th Infantry Division. “That is the number one, bottom-line, up-front, in-your-face, task and purpose.”
Michael Yon has an early dispatch; actually something he wrote immediately prior to going in embedded with the troops: Be Not Afraid.
Northeast of Baghdad, innocent civilians are being asked to leave Baquba. More than 1,000 AQI fighters are there, with perhaps another thousand adjuncts. Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004. They are ready for us. Giant bombs are buried in the roads. Snipers — real snipers — have chiseled holes in walls so that they can shoot not from roofs or windows, but from deep inside buildings, where we cannot see the flash or hear the shots. They will shoot for our faces and necks. Car bombs are already assembled. Suicide vests are prepared.
The enemy will try to herd us into their traps, and likely many of us will be killed before it ends. Already, they have been blowing up bridges, apparently to restrict our movements. Entire buildings are rigged with explosives. They have rockets, mortars, and bombs hidden in places they know we are likely to cross, or places we might seek cover. They will use human shields and force people to drive bombs at us. They will use cameras and make it look like we are ravaging the city and that they are defeating us. By the time you read this, we will be inside Baquba, and we will be killing them. No secrets are spilling here.
Our jets will drop bombs and we will use rockets. Helicopters will cover us, and medevac our wounded and killed. By the time you read this, our artillery will be firing, and our tanks moving in. And Humvees. And Strykers. And other vehicles. Our people will capture key terrain and cutoff escape routes. The idea this time is not to chase al Qaeda out, but to trap and kill them head-on, or in ambushes, or while they sleep.
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Monday, June 18, 2007
Ying and yang ...10:12 pm
From The Brisbane Times (Australia): Three-legged dog saves family from fire.
A three-legged dog has saved the lives of a family of three, waking them in just enough time to escape a fire that destroyed their home last night.
The fire broke out above a wood heater shortly after 11pm last night at the family’s property on the outskirts of Dalby, west of Brisbane.
The family dog Jack - a blue heeler cross who lost his front left leg when he fell from the back of a ute five years ago - began to bark loudly shortly after the fire broke out.
It was enough to wake mother Samantha Simmich, who in turn was able to get herself, her four-year-old daughter, two-year-old son and Jack safely out of the house.
[...]
Husband Michael Simmich, who had been working in Bowen when the fire broke out, was awoken in the early hours of this morning with the devastating news.
After driving most of the night, he was expected to arrive back in Dalby this afternoon.
Speaking to brisbanetimes.com.au on his mobile phone as he drove to be with his family, Mr Simmich said he was happy his family escaped unharmed - and proud that his faithful dog, who had been his companion for 10 years, had saved their lives.
And on the other hand, from Fox News: Woman Killed by Her Own Pet Dog.
A one-year-old chow mix apparently turned on its owner, killing her with bites to her throat and arm, authorities said.
Phyllis G. Carroll, 63, was mauled by one of her two black chow mix dogs around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, said Fayette County Coroner Joe Todd.
Both dogs were seized and will be destroyed at the request of the victim’s family, he said.
Carroll kept the dogs, a male and female from the same litter, in a yard behind her home in Connersville. There were no witnesses, but Todd said authorities believed the male dog, which was the larger of the two, attacked Carroll.
The dog bit Carroll in the arm as she carried treats out from the house, then bit her throat after she fell to the ground. Eight sets of bite marks were found on Carroll, Todd said.
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Jihad etc. ...4:34 pm
Robert Spencer continues his methodical exploration of the Qur’an and its significance to non-Muslims, drawing on authoritative commentary by Muslim thinkers, over at the Hot Air blog: Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 2, “The Cow,” verses 40-75. This week’s episode gets to grips with the origin of the “apes and pigs” designation for Jews.
Also, if you missed it, see Spencer’s video on the subject of “Immigration & Jihad,” where he deals with some of the security issues not being addressed by current U.S. immigration policy.
When 26% of Muslims in the United States who are under the age of 30 approve of suicide attacks in some circumstances, and two such attacks are uncovered in the last month, this is not an abstract problem.
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Another number one ...12:10 pm
So, the re-released set of the Traveling Wilburys material has entered the UK and Australian album charts at number one, giving Dylan — in a certain way — his second number one hit in less than twelve months.
The last time I posted about this collection, I didn’t have it in my hands, but that’s now changed. As far as the bonus DVD is concerned, it’s about 24 minutes of the story of how the band came to be, with some “home movie” type footage of the guys working on the first record. Dylan-obsessive-types will be pleased to see some lingering focus on Bob while working on Tweeter and the Monkey-Man, and Congratulations. The DVD also includes the videos that the Wilburys made.
Altogether, I’m surprised at how well the music has stood up. If anything, I think some of the songs sound better now than when they first came out — when the novelty of the project may have overwhelmed the lighter-than-air charm of the material. It’s easy to dismiss Dylan’s contributions as doodling on his part, but he’s always liked to work spontaneously and in this way the situation suited him to a tee, and got some genuinely good stuff out of him. I think Congratulations is one of the most charming and irresistable things Bob ever came up with, and the second album has some really worthwhile Dylan-centered numbers too, like Where Were You Last Night?, If You Belonged to Me and 7 Deadly Sins. I was struck, too, by one of the bonus tracks: Nobody’s Child: a song recorded in 1990 to raise money for Romanian orphans. Dylan’s vocal contributions on that track are nothing short of a knockout. He just comes in at the end of each refrain to sing a variation on these lines:
Got no mommy’s kisses, no daddy’s smile
Nobody wants me, I’m nobody’s child
His voice, singing these words, sounds just so utterly bereft, while at the same time being fantastically musical, and incarnating pure Americana.
Anyhow, I think it’s fun stuff.
…
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Sunday, June 17, 2007
I hear you knockin’ ...10:03 am
I posted before about Dylan’s 2001 rewrite of the chords and melody of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. Changing a chord sequence that was so well known as to be — in and of itself — a kind of cultural touchstone requires some kind of cahones, but the odds are that for Bob it needed less thought than how he wanted his eggs cooked that day.
Anyway, there’s a version of that great 2001 arrangement up on YouTube, from Liverpool on July 12th of that year. Click here to go directly to YouTube or play below.
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Friday, June 15, 2007
The times: a-changin’ again ...8:39 pm
Tom Tancredo (R- Colo) gets an interesting amendment passed by the U.S. House of Representatives — an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. (H/t: Hot Air)
The U.S. House of Representatives this morning voted to withhold federal emergency services funding for “sanctuary cities” that protect illegal immigrants.
Anti-illegal immigration champion Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., sponsored the measure, which he says would apply to cities such as Denver and Boulder. He was elated by its passage, which stunned critics and supporters alike.
[...]
Tancredo has introduced similar amendments at least seven other times since 2004, but each has failed — often by wide margins.
[...]
The amendment comes as the Senate is poised to take up debate again next week on an immigration reform plan that some opponents criticize as giving amnesty to illegal immigrants.
President Bush, who supports the Senate’s reform plan, sweetened the deal this week by agreeing to include $4.4 billion for border security. The Senate had put the reform bill on ice because it lacked enough support to bring to a vote.
Tancredo said he thinks his amendment is an indicator that the House would crush the reform plan if it passes in the Senate.
“If I were (Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi, I’d be asking if she could pass a vote on amnesty on the House side,” Tancredo said. “If she lost 50 Democrats on this one, and she says she needs 70 Republicans to pass the immigration plan, this is an interesting indicator of things coming down the pike, and that the times, they are a-changing.”
(Send that one to Expecting Rain.)
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Progress? ...1:36 pm
Little Green Footballs yesterday hailed the arrival of an “Islamic utopia” to the Gaza strip, and also noted that the “fortress-like ‘Preventive Security’ building in Gaza that was stormed and overtaken by Hamas today, amid a hail of gunfire and horrific murder, is apparently going to be converted into a mosque.” Perfect.
The NY Post reacts today to the establishment of what it calls “Hamas-istan.”
It’s apparently all over in Gaza save for the mopping up: Hamas has won a substantial victory over the forces of Fatah, and while the outcome shifts the regional security balance in a dangerous direction, it also brings clarity to the picture in that blood-soaked corner of the Middle East.
This could be a good thing.
With Hamas in control of Gaza and the official breakup of the Hamas-Fatah unity government, it’s no longer possible to pretend that Israel has a reasonable partner with which to negotiate.
That was never anything but a fiction, of course, but now that Hamas has promised to set up an Islamist rump-state (doubtless with the aid of its Iranian masters), it’s clear that war-war has won out over jaw-jaw.
So be it.
The confrontation between the old guard PLO type thugs and murderers and the new guard of Islamist thugs and murderers was a long time building, and its inevitability was clear enough. No doubt it is best to get the inevitable out of the way, in order to clear the way for the possible — whatever that might be. Perhaps the next time the Palestinian people get a chance to vote in an election — if there is a next time in the forseeable future — they will think twice about giving first preference to the candidates promising the most blood, murder and mayhem. Of-course Hamas was promising to deliver more of those things to the Jews, rather than their own people, but it was a famous Jew who once said:
Oh, baby, that god you been prayin’ to
Is gonna give ya back what you’re wishin’ on someone else
The Palestinian people may only have had bad choices in the last election, but that doesn’t justify their making the worst possible choice.
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The final frontier ...11:18 am
While the shuttle astronauts get ready to make a monumental effort to sew a torn blanket, the International Space Station is struggling with potentially fatal computer breakdowns. Time magazine asks: Is the Space Station a Money Pit?
There are bad ideas, and then there are true historic stinkers. Put the International Space Station in that second category.
Today, the most underachieving machine NASA ever dreamed up got into trouble again, when computers that control the station’s oxygen, water supply and orientation failed. With the three-man station crew just joined by the seven visiting astronauts of the space shuttle Atlantis, the specter of Apollo 13 on a grand scale — with 10 astronauts in danger this time instead of merely three — immediately arose. The good news is, the shuttle and station astronauts are in nowhere near the danger the 1970 lunar crew was; in fact, they’re not in much danger at all. The bad news is, the station has once again proven itself unworthy of all of the time, money and attention that has been lavished on it over the last two decades.
[...]
These days, as critics rightly point out, the space shuttles exist principally to build and service the station, and the station exists merely to give the shuttles a place to go. The shuttles, meantime, which have already claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, continue to accumulate wear as they limp toward the 2010 deadline when the station is set to be completed and they’ll be allowed to retire. In the next several days, Atlantis astronauts will undertake a risky spacewalk to repair a thermal blanket that pulled up from a small section of one of the shuttle’s engines — possibly exposing it to damage during reentry. Their first-line tools for this important work? Staples scrounged from the shuttle’s medical kit. If ever a pair of government programs cried out to be mothballed, it’s these.
When was the last time ordinary people were excited about the space program? It does seem that it only gets exciting these days when things go wrong, and that’s not exactly a great business plan.
A few pictures of Jupiter and its moons, taken by an unmanned probe, it seems to me, are worth more than ten years of tinkering around by cosmonauts and astronauts up there where no one sees them or cares about their activities. Doubtless they are doing research that is intended to achieve something or other, but, since we’re not hearing about all the spectacular discoveries they’re making regarding the behavior of ants in zero gravity, I must assume that the discoveries are not so spectacular.
Space exploration costs big money, and it ought to be thrilling and inspiring for the taxpayers to witness. There’s a lot to explore. This shuttle/space station situation is equivalent to parking your Rolls Royce at the curb and making a big deal of walking back and forth to it every few weeks, and getting in and out, but never actually driving it anywhere. That’s not to denigrate the bravery and skill of the astronauts in any way — the risks they take are just as serious as the ones they would take in exploring further afield. And that’s the point: there should be something great being earned through their risk-taking.
Of-course this is why President Bush gave NASA the objectives of returning men to the moon, and using it as a launching point to “Mars and to worlds beyond.” It was a good idea, three and a half years ago. It would be nice to get on with it already.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007
Reiding and weeping ...5:25 pm
Senate majority leader Harry Reid, in a conference call with liberal bloggers, called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs “incompetent,” and likewise denigrated General David Petraeus. This, obviously, in a time of war, with both men currently exercising command (Pace is not leaving his position until September, assuming there’s a replacement). He now wants everyone to just stop discussing his remarks.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed Thursday that he told liberal bloggers last week that he thinks outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace is “incompetent.”
Reid acknowledged similarly disparaging Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of Multinational Forces in Iraq.
But Reid, whose comments to bloggers first appeared in The Politico, also told reporters: “I think we should just drop it.”
Senator John McCain responded earlier to Reid’s comments:
It’s incredibly disappointing that Harry Reid would make such disparaging remarks about both the highest ranking officer in the U.S military and the commander of our troops in Iraq. Generals Pace and Petraeus are two leaders who have spent their entire lives in service to their country and Senator Reid needs to clarify his criticisms, which can only be described as highly inappropriate and regrettable.
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Bleak ...1:52 pm
Ralph Peters wrote his column before today’s news of all out war between Hamas and Fatah, but it only amplifies his points. In Gaza’s shadow: Iraq and the Arab suicide cult.
Wonder what Iraq would look like if we left to morrow? Take a look at Gaza today. Then imagine a situation a thousand times worse.
We need to stop making politically correct excuses. Arab civilization is in collapse. Extremes dominate, either through dictatorship or anarchy. Thanks to their dysfunctional values and antique social structures, Arab states can’t govern themselves decently.
We gave them a chance in Iraq. Israel “gave back” the Gaza Strip to let the Palestinians build a model state. Arabs seized those opportunities to butcher each other.
The barbarity in Gaza has become so grotesque that not even the media’s apologists for terror can ignore it (especially since Islamist fanatics began to target journalists).
Over the weekend, Hamas gangbangers-for-Allah grabbed a Fatah functionary and dropped him from the roof of a high-rise to check out the law of gravity (the only law that still obtains in Gaza). Tit-for-tat, Fatah gunmen grabbed a Hamas capo and gave him the same treatment.
Thereafter, cooler heads prevailed and both sides returned to their everyday routines of kidnapping, torturing and assassinating each other’s leaders, gunning down teachers and doctors and, of course, murdering women, children and stray pedestrians.
Educated Palestinians flee, if they can. Civilians cower, wondering where the next rocket-propelled grenade will hit. And, amid the carnage, students risk death to take their final exams so they can qualify to study abroad - and get out. The indiscriminate violence is the Palestinian version of democracy: Every citizen gets a chance to be killed.
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Turn that thing off ...1:43 pm
Or else. I’m not fan of cell phones, but this seems excessive even for me: North Korea ups public executions against cell phone users. (H/t: Rush Limbaugh.)
North Korea has increased its public executions against cell phone users and those who circulate outside information in the communist country, a South Korean government think tank said Thursday.
The phenomenon of executions of those who circulate South Korean leaflets and sell videos and use cell phones are on the rise, the South’s government-affiliated Korea Institute for National Unification think tank said in a white paper on the North’s human rights conditions. No exact figures were given.
North Koreans are officially banned from communicating with the outside world but some of them listen to foreign news and use cell phones through Chinese communication networks, according to North Korean defectors in South Korea. The use of cell phones in North Korea is banned though some are smuggled into the North by Chinese who have links with South Koreans.
The North has been struggling to prevent outside information from seeping into the country and believes the influx of information could possibly lead to the overthrow of the reclusive regime.
The North carries out public executions regularly to maintain social order by creating an atmosphere of fear, said the institute.
Oddly enough, there’s no news about this on the offical North Korean News website. There is, however, this story, noting a commemoration by North Korean teachers and students of an accident which took place in South Korea some years ago, in which two South Korean girls were killed by a U.S. military vehicle.
Speakers at the meeting bitterly denounced the shocking murder committed in broad daylight as an extra-large crime which could be perpetrated only by bloodthirsty beasts and wolves rabid in man-killing.
They extended warm compatriotic support and encouragement to the south Korean people, school youth and children in their struggle to settle account with the murderers and wreak vengeance rankling in their hearts and bring a new world of independence and reunification.
They called upon the south Koreans to decisively oppose the war moves of the U.S. and pro-U.S. conservative forces and turn out as one in the anti-U.S. resistance to put an end to the U.S. imperialists’ military occupation and colonial domination, holding high the banner of attaching importance to the nation, defending peace and achieving unity.
Getting with the hip new age of Web 2.0, you can also now download an mp3 file of the North Korean national anthem.
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Another award ...10:26 am
An award for a NYC firefighter; story from the NY Post:
It made news last week when Julianne Powers, with her sons Nicholas and Sam, went up to the podium to accept the Commissioner Edward Thompson Medal for bravery and valor on behalf of her husband, Firefighter Wally Powers.
He couldn’t be there because he’s now serving overseas as Marine Lt.-Col. Walter Powers.
The medal was one of those handed out at the 138th Annual FDNY Medal Day celebration, which recognizes some of the thousands of rescues and other meritorious work by New York’s Bravest. Powers, of Ladder 58, was cited for his valor last August, when he and FDNY Lt. Daniel Crowe rescued an unconscious victim from a fire on the 12th floor of a Bronx high-rise.
But now he’s in Fallujah, serving his second tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He’s also a veteran of Operation Desert Storm and Desert Hope.
Of the 11,000 non-EMS members of the FDNY, 279 have been activated for military service since the start of the war in Afghanistan. Many have done multiple tours of duty.
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