Don Singleton

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Top Zarqawi aide

Yahoo! News reported A top aide to Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been captured in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, the US military revealed. Mohammed Khalaf Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, is "Zarqawi's most trusted operations agent in all of Iraq," a military statement said Thursday. "This is a major defeat for the Al-Qaeda's terrorist organisation in Iraq. Zarqawi's leader in Mosul is out of business," said US Air Force Brigadier General Donald Alston. According to the military statement, he surrendered to US and Iraqi forces on Tuesday without a fight

He was said to always wear a homicide vest, and claimed he would never be taken alive, but when it came time to push the button, apparently he decided life in prison was better than where he would have gone.

in "a quiet neighbourhood in Mosul" after they were led to his whereabouts by "multiple intelligence sources."

Jan Haugland: blogged If I am allowed to be cynical, I seem to recall a lot of "top aides" to Zarqawi being captured earlier. There is little chance of anyone actually knowing the poisition and importance of these people, and the coalition and Iraqi government have every incentive to speak up their importance. However, a bit of searching reveals that Abu Talha is in fact earlier described as Zarqawi's most important aide. Let's hope this pressure makes the anti-Iraqi forces run out of steam, sooner rather than later.

John @PowerLine blogged I hope he's being questioned by the Iraqis, and that they're not just playing pop music for him.

Charles Johnson blogged Got a Big Fish in Iraq

Iraqi Charter Panel

NYT reported Iraqi political leaders broke weeks of deadlock today, as Sunni Arabs accepted a compromise made by senior members of a Shiite-led parliamentary committee to include Sunnis in the drafting of Iraq's new constitution. The agreement marked a turnaround in Iraqi politics and opened a way for the Iraqi National Assembly to meet its Aug. 15 deadline for drafting the document.

This is very good news. Democracy is something new to the Middle East, but I think they are going to like it.

Legislators had been haggling with Sunni Arabs for weeks over the number of seats the Sunnis would be given on the 55-member Constitutional Committee. The compromise offer to Sunnis - 15 additional seats and 10 adviser positions - was made last week, but at the time it was rejected by many Sunnis, who said they wanted more seats with full voting powers.

Then they should have participated in the Elections rather than boycotting them.

Since then, Shiite committee members offered a sweetener, saying the committee would approve the new constitution by consensus and not by vote, making the precise number of seats less important. The offer was final, said a senior member of the Shiite-led committee, Bahaa al-Aaraji. "We told them, if you are late it's not good for you, because we start to work and we won't wait for you," he said in a telephone interview this evening.

Smart move

So on Tuesday night, a team of Sunni Arab negotiators met in one negotiator's house to discuss the offer. They decided, some with reservation, that it was one they must accept. Turning it down, they said, would mean permanent isolation from the political process. Today, they made their agreement public. "We've been squeezed, we had to agree," said Saleh Mutlak, a member of the National Dialogue Council, a Sunni Arab group that has pressed for a greater Sunni role in politics. "There was no other alternative. Either we'd be in the political process or we'd be out of it." In many ways, today's agreement marked a new political beginning for Sunni Arabs, who make up about a fifth of this country's population.

If they are 1/5, then the most they should have expected is 1/5 or 55, or 11 positions, so 15 plus 10 advisor seats means they got more than their percentage of the population would have entitled them.

The Sunni Arabs had grown increasingly isolated in recent months since a majority of them refused to vote in national elections in January. Shiites, who account for about 60 percent of all Iraqis, swept to power in those elections and Sunni Arabs, the former ruling class, have chafed under that new rule. That tension was most stark in discussions on the makeup of the constitutional committee, with Sunni Arabs contending that they represented more than a fifth of the population and that they should be given more seats than Shiites were willing to offer. The argument threatened to further disrupt the political process, as Iraqi political leaders face tight deadlines for writing the constitution by Aug. 15, holding a nationwide referendum to approve it by October and staging new elections in December.

Gregory Djerejian blogged Some good Iraq news today with a deal struck so that the Sunni are on board (at least for now) on the Iraqi constitution-drafting exercise. This will be a hugely complex endeavour, and we're just at the very beginning of it, but let's at least be thankful that total stalemate (again, at least for now) has been averted.

Firearm Deaths

There have been an average of 160,000 troops in theater (IRAQ) during the last 22 months, which has a firearm death rate of *60* per *100,000*.

The rate in Washington D.C. is *80.6* per *100,000*.

That means that you are 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

*Conclusion*: We should immediately pull out of Washington, D.C.

Hat tip to rec.humor.funny

School Voucher Program

Clint Bolick wrote in OpinionJournal Gov. Bush's voucher program is improving public schools, but Florida's Supreme Court may strike it down. Historically, American courts have played a leading role in ensuring educational equality and opportunity. But the Florida Supreme Court may reject that tradition by denying the constitutionality of, and thereby ending, the most promising educational progress for minority schoolchildren in the U.S. The saga began in 1999, when Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law the first money-back guarantee in the history of public education: the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Under the program, whenever a public school receives two failing grades on Florida's academic performance standards, state educational officials come into the school with a remedial program, and the students are allowed to transfer to better performing public schools or to use a share of their public funds as full payment of private-school tuition.

This makes a lot of sense.

Six years later, only 750 children are attending private schools using opportunity scholarships. But their footsteps have reverberated across the state, prompting failing public schools to reform. Steps taken by failing schools have included spending more money in the classroom and less on administration, hiring tutors for poor performing teachers, and providing year-round instruction to pupils.

That is one of the main concepts behind voucher programs. Not removing all of the kids from public schools, but giving the public schools an incentive to imporve so that kids won't be removed and sent to private schools.

Defenders of the status quo insist that such reforms were already under way.

Then they should not mind if the program remains, to encourage them to continue with the reforms.

But a freedom of information request by the Institute for Justice from school districts that lifted schools off the failing list revealed ubiquitous reference to the dreaded V-word: Without such measures, school officials warned, we wind up with vouchers. The rules of economics, it seems, do not stop at the schoolhouse doors. The results have been stunning. Even with tougher state standards, nearly half of Florida's public schools now earn "A" grades, while a similar percentage scored "C's" when the program started. A 2003 study by Jay Greene found that gains were most concentrated among schools under threat of vouchers.

Completely understandable. Why improve if they don't have to.

Most remarkable has been minority student progress. While the percentage of white third-graders reading at or above grade level has increased to 78% from 70% in 2001, the percentage among Hispanic third-graders has climbed from 46% to 61%, and among blacks from 36% to 52%. Graduation rates for Hispanic students have increased from 52.8% before the program started to 64% today; and for black students from 48.7% to 57.3%. Minority schoolchildren are not making such academic strides anywhere else.

US Soldiers No Different from Nazis?

The Sundries Shack blogged From James Taranto, here’s an excerpt from the Congressional Record given my Senator Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat. Be very sure of what you read here. Dick Durbin, a US Senator, just compared our soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Communist butchers, and the man who killed millions in Cambodia. Watch carefully who defends his statements and who criticizes then (and the qualifiers they use when they do). Watch them and remember what they’re defending. Do you know any soldiers? This Senator - one of your elected officials - just compared them to three of the most amoral and muderous regimes that have ever existed. Remember that next time Senator Durbin, or any member of his party, tells us how they support the troops or cry when someone questions their patriotism. I’ll tell you this right now - and you can quote me on it tomorrow or in a hundred years. If any American compares our soldiers to those who committed mass slaughter, they are unpatriotic. Period. Dick Durbin ought to be ashamed to call himself an American right now. No American who had any desire to see this country strong and great would have made this accusation.

The Anchoress blogged I always feel like I am not paying enough attention to Jimmie Bise’s Sundries Shack. He’s got a really good blog, full of news and thoughtful commentary. Yesterday’s piece on Dick Durbin’s offensive stupidity is exceptionarlly fine, but may I recommend that you start at the top and move downward? Everything he puts up there is worth reading. Much of it is provocative. Some of it is funny! Speaking of Durbin, Ed Morrissey is scathing in his disdain. And justifiably so. Durbin is a disgrace.

Ed Morrissey blogged If Durbin intended on embarrassing the Bush administration into changing its detention policy, all he wound up accomplishing was embarrassing the voters in Illinois who sent him to the Senate for that ill-educated harangue. The total number of prisoners who have died at Gitmo through neglect or murder comes to zero. Prisoners at Gitmo get there through capture on the battlefield or through intelligence work and go through an identification process to determine their involvement in terrorism against the US and the West. The purpose of Gitmo is to determine what they know about the structure of our enemy -- not a gang of street hoodlums, but a well-armed, well-financed terrorist structure that receives support from nations as well as private financiers. Their intent before capture was to kill us in our homes and businesses, preferably by the thousands if not greater. The same people who sent them succeeded in doing so on 9/11.

They are not criminals, and they do not have a right to access the American court system. Their status under the Geneva Convention is that of an unlawful combatant -- which technically means that the US could have them shot after a military tribunal. Instead, we have chosen to keep them alive and house them humanely while interrogating them thoroughly in order to save American lives. If that means they get cold, or hot, or have little accidents on the floor, then so be it. That isn't torture or even abuse.

And Durbin, who should know better, has the nerve to compare American soldiers to Nazis and Gitmo to the extermination camps they ran. If Durbin can't recall that the Nazis exterminated millions of people, deliberately, in those camps, I'm certain that Holocaust survivors in Illinois and elsewhere can remind him of that fact. If the Senator doesn't know about the estimated 2 million people who died in the gulag system, a system that was used primarily on internal political dissidents to suppress opposition to Stalin, then he should read his Solzhenitsyn. If he thinks that American soldiers operate on the same basis as Cambodia and the killing fields, he's out of his mind.

Finally, the analogy to the Japanese internment camps simply boggles the mind. The Japanese survivors of Manzanar and other camps must be shaking their heads this morning. On what basis does Durbin think that Islamofascist terrorists equate to American citizens detained on the basis of their ethnicity? That statement is so far off the mark as to call Durbin's mental health into question. Gitmo is not a camp of Muslims rounded up out of their American homes and detained for no reason other than their religion; the Gitmo detainees have plotted to kill Americans. They are the enemy. Durbin obviously has lost the capacity to understand that basic concept, a dangerous failing in a time of war.

Millions of people died in the Nazi Death Camps, the Russian Gulags, and under Pol Pot. No one died at Gitmo. And unless they don't like Honey Glazed Chicken and Rice Pilaf, the internees at Gitmo are living better than they did at home.

Evangelical Republicans Trust States on Social Issues

WaPo reported Evangelical Protestant Republicans are far more likely than other groupsto want courts to stay out of controversial social questions, suggesting that GOP criticism of "activist judges" resonates with the party's core constituency, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll has found. Asked whether they trusted their state legislatures or state courts more to address the question of same-sex marriage, 69 percent of self-identified evangelical Protestant Republicans chose lawmakers. Nineteen percent backed the courts, and 11 percent said neither. In contrast, a slim plurality of 45 percent nationwide preferred that legislatures deal with same-sex marriage, 40 percent favored the courts, and 11 percent said neither. On the question of abortion, the country split evenly, 44 percent each for courts and state legislatures. But 66 percent of evangelical Protestant Republicans believed the issue should be left up to their state legislators, and 26 percent preferred the courts. Separately, a poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that discontent among conservative Republicans and evangelical Protestants has fueled a significant drop in public support for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sam Rosenfeld blogged Clearly the right has succeeded in mobilizing its own members around opposition to the judiciary, and has had at least some small success in instigating a broader questioning of the courts' legitimacy. I have an article in the upcoming print issue of the Prospect that goes into this in a bit more detail, but basically the next phase in the campaign will be a lengthy series of House Judiciary Committee hearings in the next few months, analyzing our "runaway courts" and touching on all the major right-wing complaints. The hearings will provide an oppurtunity to further stoke and sustain the outrage of the Christian right while giving lawmakers a chance to try to chip away at the broader public’s faith in the legitimacy of the modern judiciary. The hope is that sustaining the debate will shift popular sentiments and lay the groundwork for future action.

Legislation is the job of the legislature; both state and federal. It is the court's job to apply the laws passed bu the Legislative Branch. They may decide that a Federal Law superceeds a State Law, or that a Federal Law or a State Law is unconstitutional, but other wise their job is to apply existing law, not to create new laws. A judge that wants to make new law should resign and run for the Legislature.

Archbishop Attacks Bloggers

Times Online reports Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the new web-based media for “paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry”. He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was “close to that of unpoliced conversation”. In a lecture to media professionals, politicians and church leaders at Lambeth Palace in London last night, Dr Williams wondered whether a balance could be struck between the professionalism of the classical media and the relative disorder of online communication. Dr Williams also extended his wide-ranging critique of journalistic practice to the traditional media, arguing that there are “embarrassingly low levels of trust” in the profession and that claims about what is in the public interest need closer scrutiny. He called for a “more realistic, less fevered” approach to stories by journalists and added: “There is a difference between exposing deceptions that sustain injustice and attacking confidentialities or privacies that in some sense protect the vulnerable.”

Marcus @HarrysPlace blogged The senior cleric of a state-approved religious sect has been reviewing the blogosphere: He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was “close to that of unpoliced conversation”. And chose these adjectives to describe what he'd discovered: “paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry”. There is plenty of the latter on the web - how could there not be considering the 'conversation' is open to anyone who has internet accesss - but I think I'd rather put up with or ignore the internet loonies if the alternative is having a bearded figure in flowing robes with any measure of power blithely using the word 'police' in the same sentence as 'conversation'.

Marc @USSNeverdock blogged What a twit! Dr. Williams needs to read my Case against the BBC and refresh his memory with all the fake stories put out by MSM.

Natalie blogged Archbishop warns against "unpoliced conversation" peril. Peter Glover of Wires from the Bunker writes. In a moment of madness I had an unpoliced conversation with my husband only yesterday. It was about strawberries. The horror lives with me yet.

The Anchoress blogged It is kind of interesting that Williams’ remarks grabbed headlines and even made it to Drudge, while last weeks remarkable commentaries on Europe, by Archbishop Chaput (which also touched on pop culture and press), went virtually unreported. Note, I said it was interesting…but not surprising. Meanwhile, perhaps Rowan Williams could stop worrying about “unpoliced conversations” and look into this very weird story.

I have not read that many British blogs, but I find it difficult to believe they are any more wrong than most BBC articles.

Christian right groups set sights on '08

USATODAY reported Leaders of conservative Christian organizations plan to jointly interview Republican contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination, perhaps even endorsing one of them — steps that could expand their already considerable political influence. "We'd like to try to stay together," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said at a breakfast with reporters Wednesday. The ad hoc group includes "free thinkers" and "strong personalities," he says, but they might unite behind a candidate who "unquestionably" best represented their views and priorities. Gary Bauer, president of American Values, said in an interview that the sit-down sessions, likely to begin after the 2006 elections, would be "a very effective way to nail down where people are on cultural issues." He said candidates have become "very astute" at answering written questionnaires in ways that avoid making firm commitments. Those who plan to participate include leading figures of the Christian right: James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, Perkins and Bauer. Others also would join them.

Joe Gandelman blogged One of the arguments people have used in the past who noted that these groups did not really exercise as much influence over the GOP as some have charged is that Christian conservatives comprised a loose collection of groups, and didn't reall have monolithic command structure. If USA Today's report is correct, conservative Christian groups more than ever will resemble a pillar of power in the GOP akin to unions in old Democratic party's New Deal heyday.

Some may scream violation of Separation of Church and State, but it would be a foolish claim. There is nothing wrong with this. If their chosen candidate does not get the nomination, I just hope they will support whoever does get it.

Significant Wealth

Yahoo! News reports They're on the government payroll, but some of President Bush's top aides have millions of dollars in stocks, real estate and other investments, according to financial disclosure forms released Wednesday. Senior adviser Karl Rove, White House chief of staff Andrew Card, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, Allan Hubbard, Bush's top economic adviser, National security adviser Stephen Hadley were listed.

Dr. Steven Taylor blogged And this should be a shock to no one, nor is it unusual. Typically, if one is intelligent and successful enough to be tapped to serve at the upper levels of the executive branch, one likely has already been monetarily successful in life, to one degree or another. Indeed, this underscores that in many cases, those serving in government take a pay cut to take the jobs in any given administration. The ones who worry me are those who come into government sans assets and leave wealthy.

And they earned their money honestly, and did not have to get huge 8 Million or 12 Million advances on book deals.

Thursday, June 16

This Day In History

1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland.
1858 Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said in a speech in Springfield, Ill., "a house divided against itself cannot stand."
1897 The United States signed a treaty of annexation with Hawaii.
1903 Ford Motor Co. was incorporated.
1932 President Herbert Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis were renominated at the Republican national convention in Chicago.
1955 Pope Pius XII excommunicated Argentine President Juan Peron, a ban that was lifted eight years later.
1961 Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West while his troupe was in Paris.
1963 The first female space traveler, Valentina Tereshkova, was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union aboard Vostok 6.
1977 Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev was named president, becoming the first person to hold both posts simultaneously.
1978 President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos exchanged the instruments of ratification for the Panama Canal treaties.
1987 A jury in New York acquitted Bernhard Goetz of attempted murder in the subway shooting of four young blacks he said were going to rob him; he was convicted of illegal weapons possession.
1992 Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted on felony charges in the Iran-Contra affair. (He was later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.)
1996 Russian voters went to the polls in their first independent presidential election; the result was a runoff between President Boris Yeltsin, the eventual winner, and Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov.
1996 Sportscaster Mel Allen died at age 83.
1999 Vice President Al Gore announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
2000 Federal regulators approved the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp., creating the nation's largest local phone company.
2000 Empress dowager Nagako, widow of Japan's Emperor Hirohito, died in Tokyo at age 97.

Happy Birthday To

1890 Stan Laurel (Arthur Stanley Jefferson) (actor, comedian: Laurel & Hardy)
1917 Katharine Graham (publisher: The Washington Post; won Pulitzer Prize for her memoir, Personal History [1998]; died July 17, 2001)
1943 Joan Van Ark (actress: Knots Landing)

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Nondeferential minorities

Ruben Navarrette wrote in the The Seattle Times In the minds of many liberal Democrats, Hispanics and African Americans must seem to come in only two varieties: deferential or defective. And according to one angry caller — who was, from the sound of it, perfectly at home in a blue state — I fall into the second category. "I think you're deluded," he said, "and maybe insane." I'm just guessing, but something tells me the caller would probably say the same thing about Janice Rogers Brown, who two years ago was nominated by President Bush to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Last week, Brown was finally confirmed but not before Senate Democrats and their accomplices in left-leaning advocacy groups such as People for the American Way did their best to try to paint this black conservative and California Supreme Court chief justice as an "extremist" whose views are outside the mainstream. Translation: Brown doesn't defer to liberals. So she must be defective.

Democrats feel that minorities owe their votes blindly to the Democratic party as if they are entitled to them, even though the main thing they ever did was try to keep them in poverty the 40 years they controlled the Conress.

By the way, here's something I've noticed: When conservatives criticize a person of color, they often insult you. But liberals usually are condescending. They don't say they're upset as much as "disappointed" in you. And so it was that the caller was disappointed in me. What fired him up was a column I'd written about Alberto Gonzales, the nation's first Latino attorney general. In it, I argued that liberal Democrats weren't really interested in promoting diversity unless they get the credit for it, and that this explained their lukewarm reaction to Gonzales — an American success story whose nomination by President Bush they can't claim credit for. It's not that the Democrats are suddenly anti-minority. I just think they're skittish and insecure when it comes to their own minority outreach efforts, such as they are. And so each time Bush or another prominent Republican tries to make minorities feel at home in the GOP, Democrats worry that the hold that they have on these groups may weaken and they won't be able to do much about it. Just as they can't do much to stop Bush from appointing Hispanics and African Americans to top positions in the Cabinet and in the federal courts, something that further frightens and frustrates liberal Democrats. And when Democrats oppose these nominees, it's usually not because of who these nominees are or even because of what they believe. Rather, it's because of what they represent and what it means in the grand scheme. Just look at the line that was being advanced by Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. "Her life story is amazing. It is remarkable," Boxer said of the California jurist as the Senate was debating Brown's nomination. "What I don't like is what she is doing to other people's lives. Her story is amazing, but for whatever reason, she is hurting the people of this country, particularly, right now, in my state." So this is the Democrats' dilemma. How are they supposed to market themselves to minorities as the one-and-only party of opportunity when Bush is putting nonwhite faces in high places? Better to try to paint the Republican Party as a restricted club, as Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean did recently when he described the GOP as "pretty much a white Christian party." And minority Republicans as aberrations. I bet all this would come as news to Janice Rogers Brown, who attends church regularly. Just as I bet it would come as news to Miguel Estrada, the Hispanic gentleman who, at one point, seemed headed for the D.C. appeals court for which Brown is now confirmed — until his nomination was unfairly derailed by rank racial politics. Estrada is a top-shelf Washington lawyer who had, after coming to the United States from Honduras and graduating with honors from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, worked as an assistant U.S. attorney and an assistant solicitor general. Yet none of that prepared Estrada for the meat grinder of the judicial confirmation process.

They were afraid that Bush would nominate him to the Supreme Court.

Before long, Estrada was — in an experience that must have seemed surreal to him at the time — fending off accusations from white Democrats that he "wasn't Hispanic enough." That was Estrada's defect. It was also complete nonsense. I don't see why liberals won't say what they really mean. It's obvious that what concerns them is not that these nominees aren't real minorities, but rather that they aren't their kind of minority. You know, the kind that asks for permission before they speak and makes sure that what they say falls in line with the views of their liberal benefactors.

TheAnchoress blogged Non-deferential minorities. It sounds so…lawyerish and yet…it almost sounds like Stephen Sondheim could make an Act One Showstopper from it. “Non-deferential minoiteeeees! These folks don’t know who to pleeeeese! If they strike out on their own and make up their own miiiiinds. They are destined to be reviled as hating their own kiiiiiiiinds. Oh, what can we do with these dis-loyal, oh-boy-al, right-wingish, votes-hinge-ish-don’t-they-know-they-not-supposed-to-stray-thing-ish non-deferential miiiinoriteeeeeeeees!

La Shawn Barber: blogged Ruben Navarrette, who writes for the San Diego Union Tribune, has a column in the Seattle Times that hits the proverbial nail on the head in “Liberals don’t know what to do with nondeferential minorities”. Ruben and I should meet for a cup of coffee. We could trade stories all day long.

I got an e-mail the other day from someone who says he’s a white liberal. He was writing to alert me that some of his conservative family and friends make “condescending remarks” about black people. Knowing human nature as I do (because I know my own so well), I have no doubt that his white conservative family and friends say negative things about blacks. And white liberals. And each other. And him. So what was his point? That I’m being used by white conservatives. In what way, you ask? Well, trying to follow his line of reasoning was difficult. From what I gathered, the mere fact that he’s heard white conservatives say nasty things about blacks means that since I hold views similar to theirs, I’m being used by the entire group. Used in what way? Perhaps as a patsy or a lapdog, playing the fall girl and delivering coded messages to the white nation. How should I know!? I’m only guessing. Don’t think about it too much, or you’ll get a brain cramp like did. And please don’t ask me to post the entire e-mail. It won’t help you. I could make a similar argument, a stronger one at that, about black liberals, but what’s the point? fist Such correspondence used to raise my blood pressure, but now I let it roll off like water on a duck’s back. That’s just the way white liberals think. When they’re not calling me an ignorant bigot (sniveling behind aliases, of course), they’re giving me the “heads up” that I’m playing the House Negro for their conservative counterparts. I explained to the e-mailer, as I do with others, that God gave me a brain, and I manage to use it fairly well. My opinions, which I stand behind publicly, every day on this blog, are mine. For all I care, neo-Nazis (white power!) can agree with every single word I write. They keep forgetting to sign the checks, though. Hmmm…what’s up with that?

Florence Aubenas

The Bad Hair Blog blogged Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi are free after 157 days as hostages during which

* She was held in a cellar that was 13' x 6', and only 5' high, along with as many as a dozen other hostages.
The cellar was totally dark. There was no light in the cellar. There was no window, and the cellar had no ventilation.
She was bound and blindfolded all the time she was there
The hostages were not allowed to speak.
If they spoke, they were beaten. Ms Aubenas states she was beaten twice for having been accused of speaking.
Other punishments included having their hands painfully bound behind their back, and the withholding of meals and water.
Aubenas said that her captors imposed a daily limit of 80 spoken words and 24 paces to go to the bathroom.
She realised only towards the end of her captivity that she had been kept in the same basement as Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, her Iraqi guide.
Which brings me to my next point: imagine being a woman, held in a cell with men, during your menses. For five months.
She spent her days sitting cross-legged on her mattress. She ate with her hands bound.
Several times she was beaten by her guards because she had moved or because they thought that she had whispered to another hostage taken into the basement.

Compare that to the outrage over Guantánamo, where Mohammed al Qahtani, who is widely believed to be the so-called 20th hijacker, a compatriot of Osama bin Laden and a man who had tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001 to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks, is held. Mr. al Qahtani, held in an air-conditioned cell with ceilings high enough he can stand up and move, gets three square meals a day, is not bound all the time, and is allowed exercise daily. When things got rough, "interrogators poured bottles of water on al-Qahtani’s head when he refused to drink", and made him listen to Christina Aguilera's music, or watch a puppet show. When he became dehydrated because of refusing to drink water, he given an IV drip, given an EKG, transferred to a hospital, a CT scan is performed, and hooked up to a heart monitor.

Last Sunday, for example, Mohammed al Qahtani's meal was orange-glazed chicken, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf. See this for the recipe

Hat tip to The Anchoress

McCain May Be Bush's Ticket

E.J. Dionne editorializes in WaPo McCain-Bush in 2008? That would be John and Jeb, the most logical Republican ticket if the party remains in the polling doldrums. If President Bush and his political maestro, Karl Rove, decide that the only way to create a political legacy is to nod toward the Arizona senator with whom they have battled and feuded, they will go for the guy who can win. This scenario was outlined to me recently by a shrewd and loyally Democratic political operative

a shrewd and loyal Democrat; that is just where I would go for the inside scoop on what the Republicans will do

with personal ties to the McCain camp

what is a shrewd and loyal Democrat doing with personal ties to the McCain Camp?

before Mark McKinnon, one of the president's top media advisers, publicly confirmed that he would help a McCain presidential run if it materialized. Times change and politicians do what they have to do. For years, McCain and the president couldn't stand each other. The surest way not to get a job in the early Bush administration was to have supported McCain over Bush in the 2000 primaries. But McCain made a crucial decision to alter the relationship in 2004. Courted hard by John Kerry as a potential running mate, McCain said no. He decided he wanted to be president and that it was unlikely he would ever get a Democratic nomination -- and implausible that he could win as an independent. His one shot was as a Republican. Once this choice was made, everything else fell into place. McCain joined the Bush crowd. He gave a powerful speech endorsing the president at last year's Republican National Convention in New York. The address was perfect for both McCain and Bush. Unlike the speeches bashing Kerry and the Democrats by Zell Miller, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, McCain's stuck to policy and praised Bush for his decision to go to war in Iraq. This allowed McCain to keep his reputation for clinging to the high ground, but it was also important for Bush, whose central policy legacy, for better or worse, will be Iraq. The standard view of McCain's choice, especially among Democrats, is that he sold out to Bush for nothing. This assumes that McCain can't win the 2008 Republican nomination because of the intense opposition he will face from the Republican right, especially from Christian conservatives. It also assumes that Bush will never lift a finger to help McCain. In Bush's ideal world, that would probably be true. But the current moment is not ideal for Bush, and the economy, Iraq and the political situation may be even less ideal two and three years from now. If the Republicans' ethics problems worsen, McCain's Mr. Clean image will look ever more attractive to Republican members of Congress desperate to hold power. If things get really bad, many Republicans will be happy to dump House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and embrace McCain....And here is where Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, could be the deal-closer. Jeb Bush has said he will not run in 2008. But that does not rule him out as a vice presidential candidate. If McCain won, Jeb would be the No. 2 to a president who will turn 72 on Aug. 29, 2008, and might well serve only a single term.

The Gitmo Cookbook

The Gitmo Cookbook will be shipped in about 10 weeks. The normal price is $8.95, but you can pre-order your copy now for $6.95! According to the authors If you're tired of all the torture allegations, of hearing the media imply that handling a Quran without gloves on is the moral equivalent of beheading someone, and of all the hysteria about enemy combatants, you'll enjoy the Gitmo Cookbook.

It contains the actual recipes and menus for the food served to the Gitmo detainees, along with interesting facts about how American soldiers are working every day to treat prisoners humanely while still getting the information we need to protect ourselves.

Baked Tandouri Chicken Breast, Mustard-Dill Baked Fish, Lyonnaise Rice, and Fish Amandine are just a few of the recipes you'll find in the Gitmo Cookbook. We've tested them, and they are inexpensive, easy to make, and delicious.

Hat Tip to Michelle Malkin

Schiavo's Brain Was Severely Deteriorated

NYT reported An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused. But what caused her collapse 15 years ago remained a mystery. The autopsy and post-mortem investigation found no proof that she had an eating disorder, as was suspected at the time, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin said.... He also said she was blind, because the ''vision centers of her brain were dead,'' and that her brain was about half of its expected size when she died 13 days following the feeding tube's removal.... ''The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain,'' he said. ''This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons.''

I said at the time that it was right to allow Terri to die, that passing special legislation was a mistake, the courts were right in rejecting the appeal, but I wish that if they felt it was unconstitutional that they should have determined that, and not just ignored the law, and that regardless of what you might have thought should have or should not have happened regarding Terri Schiavo, the most important thing we have to learn about this sad situation is that everyone needs to have a written Living Will

Your clever little blog could get you fired

USATODAY reported Like a growing number of employees, Peter Whitney decided to launch a blog on the Internet to chronicle his life, his friends and his job at a division of Wells Fargo. His blog, gravityspike.blogspot.com, did find an audience: his bosses. In August 2004, the 27-year-old was fired from his job handling mail and the front desk, he says, after managers learned of his Web log, or blog.

If he was fired for merely having a blog, and there was no corporate policy against it, he got a raw deal. But if he publically bad mouthed his employer, he was a fool.

His story is more than a cautionary tale. Delta Air Lines, Google and other major companies are firing and disciplining employees for what they say about work on their blogs, which are personal sites that often contain a mix of frank commentary, freewheeling opinions and journaling. And it's hardly just an issue for employees: Some major employers such as IBM are now passing first-of-their-kind employee blogging guidelines designed to prevent problems, such as the online publishing of trade secrets, without stifling the kinds of blogs that can also create valuable buzz about a company.

That is a very good idea.

"Right now, it's too gray. There needs to be clearer guidelines," says Whitney, who has found another job. "Some people go to a bar and complain about workers, I decided to do it online. Some people say I deserve what happened, but it was really harsh. It was unfair." Wells Fargo declined to comment, but a spokeswoman said in an e-mail that the company doesn't have a blogging policy. Blogs are proliferating as fast as a computer virus. According to a report this year by public relations firm Edelman and Intelliseek, a provider of business-intelligence solutions, about 20,000 new blogs are created daily, and an estimated 10 million U.S. blogs will exist by the end of 2005. Together, these blogs link up to create what is known as a blogosphere, a collective Internet conversation that is one of the fastest-growing areas of new content on the Web. More than 8 million adults in the USA have created blogs, according to two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit research center studying the Internet's social effects. And 32 million Americans are blog readers — a 58% jump in 2004.

Robert Co blogged Among our many agenda items, the Media Bloggers Association is sorting through various "safe blogging" issues. Stephanie Armour of USA Today has a comprehensive review of the "dangers of workplace blogging" issue. Armour interviewed me three weeks ago and I am quoted: "Companies probably need separate policies," says Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. The context of this quote is not given so let me provide it here. What she asked was whether existing company policies were sufficient to deal with this issue. My answer was "No. Companies typically have HR policies regarding the use of company emails, the use of company computers for personal use, giving statements to the media and so on. Since the typical blogger is self-published and can produce their blog from a computer at home, companies probably need separate policies."

Damian Penny blogged USA Today notes that several people have been fired or disciplined by their employers because of what they wrote on their weblogs. I'd love to be able to come out wholeheartedly against this kind of thing, but certainly there are situations - say, revealing company secrets or actively warning people against using your employer's services - where firing would likely be justified. Each case must be decided on its merits. At the very least, if you're blogging under your real name, it's wise to post a blurb noting that your views do not represent those of your company. (On a completely unrelated note, my employer is the best darned law firm in Newfoundland, if not the country.)

History of teaching math

StarkTruth blogged
Teaching Math In 1950
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees. (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005
El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de productiones....

Muslim Target

FrontPage reports Oriana Fallaci is 75 years old. The renowned Italian journalist lives in hiding because of death threats she received after the publication in 2001 of her book The Rage and the Pride. She is dying of cancer. And now she is going to go on trial for “defaming Islam.”

Islam deserves as much respect as it gives other religions.

The complaint comes from Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, who was never charged with defaming Christianity after he referred to a crucifix as a “miniature cadaver” during his 2003 efforts to have depictions of Christ on the Cross removed from Italian schools. He has amassed a reputation as something of a crank after demanding that Christians deny aspects of their faith that offended his Islamic sensibilities: he has called for the destruction of Giovanni da Modena’s fresco The Last Judgment in the 14th-century cathedral of San Petronio in Bologna, Italy, because that priceless expression of Medieval Christianity depicts the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in hell. And in the mother of all frivolous lawsuits, Smith in February 2004 brought suit against Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for offending Islam by expressing in various writings their opinion, utterly unremarkable from two Christian leaders, that Christianity is unique and superior to other religions, including Islam.

Charles Johnson blogged Italian author Oriana Fallaci will be put on trial for the thoughtcrime of “defaming Islam,” and Robert Spencer takes an in-depth look at the charges against her: Muslim Target.

Michelle Malkin blogged Does freedom of speech include the freedom to criticize Islam? Not in Italy, apparently.

Retirement Age 69

WaPo reported Under current law, the retirement age for full Social Security benefits is 65 1/2 and is scheduled to reach 67 for those born in 1960 or later. The possible increase to 69 over two decades or more was among the suggestions that Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, presented to fellow Republicans on the panel last week as part of an attempt to give the program greater financial solvency, the officials said....

This seems like a very good idea. People are living much longer, and if they increase this number it will make it harder for companies to force people to retire at 65.

"Rural Americans tend to be older and more likely to depend on Social Security.

The reason for that is the young find better job opportunities in the cities.

In fact, more than 90 percent of counties in America with high senior populations are rural counties. In 2001, 20 percent of rural Americans were 60 years old or older, significantly higher than the 15 percent of seniors living in metropolitan communities," Reps. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., and Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., said in a joint statement. The two co-chair the Democratic House Rural Working Group.

Dr. Steven Taylor blogged Given that the law already has already started to phase in a retirement age of 67, I can’t see anything wrong with slowly adding (over two decades, according to the story) another two years. There is nothing speifically sacrosanct about 65. It isn’t as if the body automatically shuts down at 65 and so that number was chosen for reasons of biological imperative. Not to mention that at the rate we are going, by the time such a proposal was put into place that the life expectancy will probably have creeped higher a tad. It is certainly worth consideration.

Leopold Stotch blogged I'm looking for a little help/perspective on this one: when I started working at age 16, I was told that the federal government was going to take a portion of my earnings for my own good, but that there was nothing to worry about because I'd get it back -- plus interest -- when I turned 65. Now they want to back out on what at the time seemed like a contractual agreement. If they extend the retirement age, aren't they essentially reneging on a contract because they can't stop spending money on superfluous things?

For one thing they lied to you. There is NO guarantee that you will get anything, and if you are still young, you better hope that Bush gets the personal accounts approved, because at least then you will be guaranteed you will have that money, since the government won't be able to spend it like they spend your FICA money in the year they take it. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that is quickly getting close to collapse, as fewer and fewer workers must support more and more retired people.

Spoons blogged In 1940, when the retirement age was set at 65, the average life expectancy for Americans who made it into adulthood was... 65. Today it's about 75. Raising the retirement age is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, this issue has been so relentlessly demagogued by the Democrats that I doubt very much that this change will ever happen.

Let's Talk About Iraq

Extreme Left Wing columnist Thomas Friedman editorializes in the NYT Ever since Iraq's remarkable election, the country has been descending deeper and deeper into violence. But no one in Washington wants to talk about it. Conservatives don't want to talk about it because, with a few exceptions, they think their job is just to applaud whatever the Bush team does.

I think he is doing a very good job, so yes I applaud him.

Liberals don't want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed.

Besides they have the MSM blocking good news from Iraq.

As a result, Iraq is drifting sideways and the whole burden is being carried by our military. The rest of the country has gone shopping, which seems to suit Karl Rove just fine. Well, we need to talk about Iraq. This is no time to give up - this is still winnable - but it is time to ask: What is our strategy?

What business is it of an NYT columnist what our strategy is? That is of interest to the President and the Secretary of Defense, and I am sure if they think they need Tom Friedman's help they will ask him.

This question is urgent because Iraq is inching toward a dangerous tipping point - the point where the key communities begin to invest more energy in preparing their own militias for a scramble for power - when everything falls apart, rather than investing their energies in making the hard compromises within and between their communities to build a unified, democratizing Iraq.

Actually they are making good progress but the MSM won't report it.

Our core problem in Iraq remains Donald Rumsfeld's disastrous decision - endorsed by President Bush - to invade Iraq on the cheap. From the day the looting started, it has been obvious that we did not have enough troops there. We have never fully controlled the terrain. Almost every problem we face in Iraq today - the rise of ethnic militias, the weakness of the economy, the shortages of gas and electricity, the kidnappings, the flight of middle-class professionals - flows from not having gone into Iraq with the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force.

Let me think. That is the doctrine from the first Iraq War, which left Saddam in control, and shooting at our airplanes enforcing the North and South No Fly Zones.

Yes, yes, I know we are training Iraqi soldiers by the battalions, but I don't think this is the key.

You are an idiot. Certainly it is the key.

Who is training the insurgent-fascists? Nobody.

Actually it does not take that much training to blow yourself up or plant an IED, but they certainly have financial support both from Iran and Syria.

And yet they are doing daily damage to U.S. and Iraqi forces. Training is overrated, in my book. Where you have motivated officers and soldiers, you have an army punching above its weight. Where you don't have motivated officers and soldiers, you have an army punching a clock. Where do you get motivated officers and soldiers? That can come only from an Iraqi leader and government that are seen as representing all the country's main factions. So far the Iraqi political class has been a disappointment. The Kurds have been great. But the Sunni leaders have been shortsighted at best and malicious at worst, fantasizing that they are going to make a comeback to power through terror. As for the Shiites, their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been a positive force on the religious side, but he has no political analog. No Shiite Hamid Karzai has emerged. "We have no galvanizing figure right now," observed Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi historian who heads the Iraq Memory Foundation. "Sistani's counterpart on the democratic front has not emerged.

That is probably good. If a galvanizing Shiite figure arose, he would certainly be opposed by the Kurds and the Sunnis, but without one, they have to work together.

Certainly, the Americans made many mistakes, but at this stage less and less can be blamed on them. The burden is on Iraqis. And we still have not risen to the magnitude of the opportunity before us." I still don't know if a self-sustaining, united and democratizing Iraq is possible. I still believe it is a vital U.S. interest to find out. But the only way to find out is to create a secure environment. It is very hard for moderate, unifying, national leaders to emerge in a cauldron of violence. Maybe it is too late, but before we give up on Iraq, why not actually try to do it right? Double the American boots on the ground

That would be stupid. It would just give the impression we intended to occupy the country, rather than having a democratically elected government run the country.

and redouble the diplomatic effort to bring in those Sunnis who want to be part of the process and fight to the death those who don't. As Stanford's Larry Diamond, author of an important new book on the Iraq war, "Squandered Victory," puts it, we need "a bold mobilizing strategy" right now. That means the new Iraqi government, the U.S. and the U.N. teaming up to widen the political arena in Iraq, energizing the constitution-writing process and developing a communications-diplomatic strategy that puts our bloodthirsty enemies on the defensive rather than us. The Bush team has been weak in all these areas. For weeks now, we haven't even had ambassadors in Iraq, Afghanistan or Jordan. We've already paid a huge price for the Rumsfeld Doctrine - "Just enough troops to lose." Calling for more troops now, I know, is the last thing anyone wants to hear. But we are fooling ourselves to think that a decent, normal, forward-looking Iraqi politics or army is going to emerge from a totally insecure environment, where you can feel safe only with your own tribe.

James Joyner blogged Tom Friedman thinks the continued violence in Iraq is a result of the administration's early decision to rely on a relatively small force and thinks there's still time to reverse that decision. Motivation is primarily a function of training, though, combined with good leadership. The terrorists can get by with little training because they're not a military force. They're not fighting as a unit but rather using suicide bombers and IEDs against soft targets of opportunity. The Shiites and Kurds, representing eighty percent of the Iraqi population, have been responsible. It's only the minority Sunnis, ousted from their former predominance, who are operating outside the system. While an Iraqi Karzai may well be desirable, it's difficult to see how more American troops will create one. But American boots on the ground is a dual-edged sword. They both stand up against violence and inspire it. Getting Iraqi troops trained and making them responsible for their own security is simply essential. If it's motivation Friedman is after, there's nothing like having to sink or swim on your own to provide it.

Cori Dauber blogged What Part of Assymetric Are You Not Getting? I'm not sure why it's so hard to understand that a force that relies primarily on a tactic of blowing itself up, and a force we hope to have performing up to certain standards of professionalim -- including on such measures as human rights and civil-military relations -- have different burdens on them, most particularly in terms of training.

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