Too Bad Lieberman Changed His Mind
An article in the New York Sun today mentions a 1995 statement by Sen. Joe Lieberman in which he opposed affirmative action (found online at the New York Times' site):Affirmative action is dividing us in ways its creators could never have intended because most Americans who do support equal opportunity and are not biased don't think it is fair to discriminate against some Americans as a way to make up for historic discrimination against other Americans. For after all, if you discriminate in favor of one group on the basis of race, you thereby discriminate against another group on the basis of race. [New York Times, 2/8/00]Sounds good. But then, by August 2000 Lieberman was running for vice president and was quoted by CNN as saying "I have supported affirmative action, I do support affirmative action and I will support affirmative action." [Issues2000.org]
Making Spammers Pay
From ZDNet News, [2/20/03]:An Australian entrepreneur has created what may be the first antispam service that lets its users charge for the privilege of sending them e-mail....To make it work, the service needs to make it easy to add a list of people who will not be charged. The article has a lame comment by the chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation saying it would have a "chilling effect on speech"--which makes it clear he has no understanding of the First Amendment whatsoever.
"Spammers aren't going to be sending many spams to you if you charge them 50 cents," [Bernard] Palmer said. "A spam would cost them $2 million."
... At least in its current form, CashRamSpam is more of a "proof of concept" than it is a robust antispam solution. Anyone who wishes to contact a CashRamSpam customer must purchase an account themselves first, there is no provision to permit friends or colleagues, and the system does not permit legitimate mailing lists to which users voluntarily subscribe to bypass the payment process. CashRamSpam keeps 10 percent of a user's contact fee as its payment.
When someone tries to contact a CashRamSpam customer, a message is automatically returned saying: "We regret your message cannot be delivered using ordinary e-mail because the receiver has a CashRamSpam account...If you want to succeed in reaching this receiver please register at www.cashramspam.com and resend the message from there."
How Low Did Gore’s Team Go?
Here's one I've been holding onto for awhile. Here's a campaign tactic of the "count every vote" Gore team in the New Hampshire primary:As late as 3 p.m. that day, Gore operatives had access to exit polls showing the vice-president being defeated by Bradley. They also learned that while Democratic voters were voting in large numbers for Gore, independents, many of them upscale suburban voters, were voting for Bradley's sophisticated brand of liberalism. Knowing that Bradley's strength came from tony tech havens such as Bedford, the Gore team organized a caravan to clog highway I-93 with traffic so as to discourage potential Bradley voters from getting to the polls. (Michael Whouley, a chief Gore strategist, recounted the Gore team's Election Day field efforts at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics symposium, and his comments are included in a book compiled by the Institute titled Campaign for President: The Managers Look at 2000. He knocked down the rumor that they considered overturning an 18-wheeler to clog up traffic.) The caravan--spoken of with awe by operatives who worked on the campaign--had the desired effect. It was harder for Bradley voters to get the polls. [Boston Phoenix, 2/6/03]How's that for cynical?
The Anti-War Farce in Europe
The following letter was sent to the The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk> by Dr B Khalafand. It was published on Friday February 14, 2003:I write this to protest against all those people who oppose the war against Saddam Hussein, or as they call it, the "war against Iraq". I am an Iraqi doctor, I worked in the Iraqi army for six years during Iraq-Iran war and four months during Gulf war. All my family still live in Iraq. I am an Arab Sunni, not Kurdish or Shia. I am an ordinary Iraqi not involved with the Iraqi opposition outside Iraq.
I am so frustrated by the appalling views of most of the British people, media and politicians. I want to say to all these people who are against the possible war, that if you think by doing so you are serving the interests of Iraqi people or saving them, you are not. You are effectively saving Saddam. You are depriving the Iraqi people of probably their last real chance get rid of him and to get out of this dark era in their history.
My family and almost all Iraqi families will feel hurt and anger when Saddam's media shows on the TV, with great happiness, parts of Saturday's demonstration in London. But where were you when thousands of Iraqi people were killed by Saddam's forces at the end of the Gulf war to crush the uprising? Only now when the war is to reach Saddam has everybody become so concerned about the human life in Iraq.
Where were you while Saddam has been killing thousands of Iraqis since the early 70s? And where are you are now, given that every week he executes people through the "court of revolution", a summary secret court run by the secret security office. Most of its sentences are executions which Saddam himself signs.
I could argue one by one against your reasons for opposing this war. But just ask yourselves why, out of about 500,000 Iraqis in Britain, you will not find even 1,000 of them participating tomorrow? Your anti-war campaign has become mass hysteria and you are no longer able to see things properly.
Locum consultant neurologist, London
Leonardo vs. the Unthinking Hordes
By now you probably have heard that thousands of people across the world have been demonstrating against war in Iraq today. Here in Manhattan, the number 100,000 keeps getting tossed around, but I have no idea how reliable it is. In general, the protestors have nothing to offer but cliched slogans and stale altruism; at best they are guilty of intellectual sloth, but the leaders are dishonest. The whole thing fills me with contempt and disgust.For my part, I went to see the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (something else that would be lost if a nuclear bomb went off here--but then, the protesters don't take that threat seriously, and if it happens, they'll blame it on our belligerence). I didn't like having to compete with crowds at the exhibit, but it did remind me that there still are civilized people in the world.
According to the AP,
Other demonstrators supported the possibility of U.S. military action. About 1,000 demonstrators gathered on Manhattan's West Side, where 41-year-old George Sarris held a sign reading "Bomb Iraq." [Associated Press, 2/15/03]I wish I'd known; I would have stood with them.
Sanctions Against Zimbabwe Continue to Crumble
From the Daily Telegraph, 2/13/03:President Robert Mugabe was given permission yesterday to visit France in violation of a European Union travel ban, delivering a further blow to the crumbling sanctions policy against his regime in Zimbabwe....
In exchange, France agreed to renew sanctions against Zimbabwe's political elite for a second year. These include a freeze on assets, a travel ban and a weapons boycott.
Paris, which regards tensions between Britain and Zimbabwe as a post-colonial family spat, feared that other African leaders would boycott the summit unless Mr Mugabe was included....
Critics say the sanctions policy has already been rendered worthless because of waivers allowing banned Zimbabwe ministers to make almost weekly shopping trips to Brussels under the pretext of attending EU events.
Richard Perle Rules
This evening I attended a debate in Manhattan on the question "USA vs. Europe: Who's Right About the War on Terror?" The debate, hosted by the Donald & Paula Smith Family Foundation, featured Dieter Dettke, executive director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (a foundation run by the German Social Democratic Party), Michael Howard, a Tory member of the British Parliament, and Richard Perle, chairman of the Department of Defense's Defense Policy Board. The debate was quite civilized, especially for such a contentious issue.Dettke started by addressing the question directly: Who's right about the war on terror? His first answer was that nobody knows. His second answer was that in both Europe and the US, some are right and some are wrong, so the answer is both and neither. After that cognitively valueless introduction, he proceeded to explain the position of the German government by noting that Germany had started World War II; after the war the German constitution legally prohibits it from starting a war of aggression. He urged that we refrain from an unprovoked pre-emptive attack on Iraq, accepting the "power of law" instead of the "law of power." He did agree that Saddam Hussein must be disarmed, but proposed "coercive inspections" with more inspectors, combined with bringing Saddam before a war crimes tribunal. He said he believed Saddam could be "contained." Dettke came off as a pleasant, jovial fellow.
Michael Howard, a Cambridge man, was very good--clear and to the point--though too willing to accept the UN and humanitarian foreign policy. He noted that international law respects the right to pre-emptive self-defense: It has to, he said, because it has to recognize reality. He asked the audience to imagine a situation in which a world leader addressed his people after millions had died in an attack, saying: "I knew they had weapons of mass destruction; I knew they were likely to use them. And I could have done something to prevent this attack before it happened. But international law prohibited me from doing so."
Perle was magnificent. He was calm, sober, penetrating, clear, forceful, and had complete mastery of his subject. As far as I could tell, there wasn't even a whiff of altruism in anything he said. He pointed out that saying an attack on Iraq would be "unprovoked" depends on what you mean by "provoked"--that the Gulf War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace and that Saddam has violated the conditions of that cease-fire. He forcefully defended the appropriateness of pre-emptive action against Iraq, and exposed the absurdity of a UN "multilateralism" that subjects American security to the veto of France, Russia and China. He pointed out that, following the logic of the idea that Saddam could be contained, there would be no reason even to disarm him. The proposal of more inspections and a war crimes tribunal was exposed as empty and designed only to delay action. By the end of it all, he had Dettke drawing a largely incoherent distinction between "prevention" (e.g., what Israel did against the Iraqi reactor, which Dettke accepted) and "pre-emption," which Dettke did not accept. Perle is definitely someone to watch for.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Muslims!
Tehran--To celebrate Valentine's Day this year, Iranian police have been confiscating Valentine's cards and forcing businesses to remove the "Western" influenced heart-shaped decorations.
"They are opposed to love and affection," one infatuated Iranian teenager complained. "They don't want us to be happy because Valentine's Day promotes happiness." No, no, you silly girl. Shoving the barrel of an AK-47 into the face of a Hallmark vendor is just part of your charming, peaceful culture.
Just ask your friends on America's left coast.
Today, peace Nazis kicked-off a week of "resistance against war and racism" in shameless approval of oppressive Islamic regimes everywhere. The festivities began with a "Make Love Not War" benefit in San Francisco, where I'm sure your Iranian police pals would have been welcomed with open arms.
With any luck, they'll hold the next rally in downtown Tehran, where they can "feel the love" firsthand.
US-Based Dissident Grabbed by China
Reports the Daily Telegraph, [2/11/03]:A Chinese dissident who has lived in America for 20 years has been jailed for life in China, accused of terrorism and spying for Taiwan.
Wang Bingzhang, 55, a father of four, all of whom have American citizenship, was arrested in mysterious circumstances last summer while on a trip ostensibly to meet Chinese labour activists in Vietnam.
The Chinese authorities say he was kidnapped by a local gang and that police found him bound and gagged in a Buddhist temple in the southern Chinese province of Guanxi last July after he could not pay a £6.5 million ransom demand.
The Free China Movement, which represents Dr Wang's China Democracy and Justice Party in addition to other opposition groups abroad, says Chinese security agents kidnapped him in Vietnam and smuggled him across the border. Official media confirmed his arrest only in December, announcing that he was accused of selling defence secrets to Taiwan in the 1980s and of plotting terrorist attacks.
The charges were condemned as "trumped up" by the FCM.
Food Aid for North Korea
ROME (Reuters) - The United States is receiving reports that United Nations food aid for desperately hungry North Korean women and children is being eaten by the military instead, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.
Of course it is, you "humanitarian" idiots.
Honor the U.S. Armed Forces
At the Department of Defense website, you can give your thanks online to all of the members of the U.S. Armed Forces for defending our rights. Here's the link: www.defendamerica.mil/nmam.html. I think it's a great idea, and I added my name to the list, which is already over 4.2 million names long.
Considering how the protesters of the anti-America left always get their time on the news despite their numbers, I think it would mean a lot to our men and women in uniform to know, as they rise to the defense of our freedom yet again, that the people of America and the world understand what they do for us, and that we honor them for it.
Ostrich
South Korean Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo told parliament Monday there is no proof the North has produced nuclear weapons despite U.S. assertions that Pyongyang has one or two atomic bombs.It's true that if there's no evidence for something, there's no warrant for saying it exists, even possibly exists. But with regard to North Korea we're way past that stage.
"North Korea is believed to have extracted enough plutonium to make one or two bombs before 1994," Kim said. "Since there has been no confirmation that it actually has produced nuclear weapons, we believe that they do not have any." [Associated Press, 2/10/03]
What the Germans Know
An eye-opening article in Asia Times Online claims that Germany has made up the bulk of suppliers for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, even after the Gulf War. Furthermore, German national intelligence is well-informed of these programs. As just the most recent example,In April 2001, [intelligence chief August] Hanning told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Iraq was developing a new class of chemical weapons, reiterated his alert on Iraq's missile and nuclear programs, and said that several German companies had continued to deliver to Baghdad components needed for the production of poison gas. In March 2002, he told the New Yorker magazine that, "It is our estimate that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years." [Asia Times Online, 2/5/03]The entire article is worth reading, if you want to see just how much they know--and how much Schroeder is trying to evade.
Here We Go Again
Reports the Associated Press,The U.N. chief weapons inspectors emerged from key talks with Iraq officials Sunday, saying they saw signs of a "change of heart" from Baghdad over disarmament demands and that further U.N. inspections were preferable to a quick U.S.-led military strike.To such mentalities, a threat isn't real unless it has already been carried out, and effects can be obtained without addressing the causes. It's as if the police were arguing about apprehending a known criminal because "there wasn't enough evidence" that he would use his cache of automatic weapons--with the Russian position being tantamount to saying that at the utmost we might disarm the criminal, but on no account arrest him.
In two days of meetings with Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, Iraq officials handed over documents on anthrax, VX nerve gas and missile development....
Both Blix and ElBaradei avoided saying they were convinced Iraq now was ready to cooperate fully with the inspection program. Blix quipped that the "proof is in the pudding...."
And Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country holds veto powers on the council--reiterated his strong opposition to military action against Baghdad.
"We are convinced that efforts for a peaceful resolution of the situation regarding Iraq should be persistently continued," Putin told journalists after talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin.
Putin also rejected U.S. goals of a "regime change" in Iraq. "The task of reckoning with Saddam Hussein does not stand before us," Putin said in an interview with France-3 television, part of which was aired on Russian television Sunday. "There is nothing in the U.N. Charter that would allow the U.N. Security Council to make a decision to change the political regime of one country or another -- whether we like that regime or not."
The agent's criminal nature is all the evidence that is needed to establish a threat and to warrant action. For those who say, "What evidence do you have that Saddam will use these weapons or pass them on to terrorism?" The response is: Such evidence is unnecessary and irrelevant. We had enough evidence long ago to prove he posed a threat. The only thing delay does is encourage this kind of irresponsible temporizing.
The “Civil Disobedience” Scam
From the Daily Tar Heel, [1/22/03]:Protesters settled in front of Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards' Raleigh office Tuesday awaiting arrest for their efforts to make a statement that the senator has not gone far enough to oppose war with Iraq. But despite the fact that protesters were breaking the law by blocking an entrance into a government building, the police on site chose not to intervene. Three participating UNC students, Anna Carson-Dewitt and Sascha Bollag, both freshmen, and senior Scott O'Day, said they were disappointed when the police refused to arrest them. All three have prior arrests for civil disobedience. O'Day said the police response undermined the protest. "I am disappointed that the police de-escalated the situation to the point that we were not able to continue with the protest," he said. "We were more or less sure that we would be arrested, but the police weren't cooperating...." "If one action does not provoke arrest, we will step it up and step it up until we provoke arrest."Civil disobedience means disobeying an unjust law to protest its injustice, and being willing to go to jail for it. But there is nothing unjust about laws against blocking entrance into buildings. These little thugs want to violate people's rights and then dress themselves up in the mantle of martyrdom by getting themselves arrested. But since the nature of this con is now clear to everyone, their arrests would gain them no moral respect from anyone who isn't stupid or dishonest. The police should just go ahead, and the law should impose punishment that would actually discourage such behavior.
So Who’s Confused?
I sent the following letter to the New York Sun last weekend, in response to Michael Kinsley's column (from Slate.com) accusing George Bush of being "morally unserious" and confused in his State of the Union address. The Sun did not print the letter.To the Editor:
As much as Michael Kinsley wants to show off how clever he is at George Bush's expense, it is Kinsley who is confused. That Saddam Hussein's regime is evil, maintaining itself by terror and repression, means that it has no claim to represent its people, no legitimacy, and no right to exist. Ethically, Saddam's "sovereignty" means nothing; it is morally permissible for any free country to topple him by force.
But we are not obliged to go to war merely because it is morally permissible to do so. Morality, properly conceived, is not a means of sacrificing our interests but a system of principles for upholding them. The need for us to take out Saddam Hussein arises not out of altruistic concern for Iraqis but out of the threat he poses to us. In this regard the president's position is moral, coherent and correct.
Iran: The Mullahs’ Legacy of Destruction
From the New York Sun, 2/5/03:The five top men in power in Iran today--Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei; the president of the assembly on the discretion of the state, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; the head of the judiciary, Mohammad Hashemi Shahroudi; the secretary of the guardians council, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, and President Mohammad Khatami--[have] occupied the highest positions in government for the past 24 years.The author of the column, Monouchehr Ganji, is founder and secretary-general of the Flag of Freedom Organization of Iran and author of Defying the Iranian Revolution.
They held high positions when the American Embassy was taken over in Tehran in 1979 and 52 Americans were held hostage for 400 days; they held high positions when the American and French Embassies were attacked in Kuwait City in 1983, killing and wounding 91; they held high positions when a suicide bomb attack killed 49 and injured 120 at the American Embassy in Beirut that same year; they held high positions when 241 Americans and 56 French were killed at the American Marine base and French military barracks in Beirut in 1983; they held high positions when 16 Americans and seven others were killed as a result of a car bomb explosion next to the American Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984; they held high positions when in 1985 and 1986 a Kuwait Air flight, two TWA flights, and a Pan Am flight were hijacked in the Middle East, resulting in the death of 28 people, and they held high positions when the truck bomb explosion took place at the Khobar Towers, killing 19 American servicemen in 1996.
All of the above terrorist attacks were carried out at the instigation of Tehran's ruling mullahs....
Since the 1980s the mullah regime has sought to acquire long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction. These include chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.... Today, North Koreans, Russians, and nuclear scientists and aeronautic engineers from other Eastern European and Central Asian countries are hard at work in Iran to make this dream come true....
The clerics are known to have executed over 120,000. According to Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, they executed 3,000 people in one night in 1988....
Today, more than 60% of Iranians live below the poverty line. Annual per capita income stands at $1,200.00. In 1978 it stood at $2,400.