Don Singleton

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

ID Cards for Britons Advance

NYT reported The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair faced down its opposition on Monday in a politically charged vote in the House of Commons on a plan to introduce mandatory national identification cards...

Good for them. We need ID cards with biometric data that are impossible to forge, and people from other countries entering legally need similar, with biometric data but different colored, id cards.

The government argues that the biometric information in both the new passports and the ID's, like fingerprints and iris scans, will help the police fight terrorism, organized crime and identity fraud.

Chinese Official Defends Internet Controls

NYT reports Chinese authorities are determined to stop "harmful information" from spreading through the Internet, but the controls it places on Web sites and Internet service providers in mainland China do not differ much from those employed by the United States and European countries, a senior Chinese official responsible for managing the Internet said today.

The controls may be technically similar but what is determined "harmful" is very different.

The official, Liu Zhengrong, who supervises Internet affairs for the information office of the Chinese State Council, or cabinet, did not dispute charges that China operates a technologically sophisticated firewall to protect the ruling Communist Party against what it treats as Web-based challenges from people inside China and abroad. But he sought to place the massive Chinese efforts to control the Web in the best possible light, stressing repeatedly that Chinese Internet minders abide strictly by laws and regulations that in some cases have been modeled on American and European statutes. "If you study the main international practices in this regard you will find that China is basically in compliance with the international norm," he said.

If by international norm they are counting all of the small dictatorships, they may be right.

"The main purposes and methods of implementing our laws are basically the same."

We just want to control what our people see and think.

Saddam Says He's on a Hunger Strike

Yahoo! News reported
Saddam Hussein and three former officials in his regime on Tuesday told the court handling their trial that they were on a hunger strike in protest of the judge overseeing the proceedings. Saddam said he had not eaten in three days, while his former intelligence chief, Ibrahim Barzan, said he had been on strike for two days.

Please don't force feed them. Just prepare some food that smells delicious, and place it outside their cells, just outside of their reach.

Their claims of a hunger strike could not be independently confirmed. The defendants are being held in U.S. detention, and U.S. officials could not immediately be reached to comment.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Bill would keep servers out of China

USAToday reported Free-speech advocates have blasted Google and other Internet companies for bowing to China's demands that they censor or fork over information the communist government deemed objectionable. Now, Congress is stepping in with proposed legislation that could hobble the companies as they plunge deeper into one of the world's hottest economies.

Trust Congress to step in and make things worse.

This is Round 2 for Congress. Last year, it scrutinized and slowed other business deals with ties to China's government among oil companies and computer makers. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights.

That is stupid. It just means that China will build their own servers or buy them from other countries.

Moving servers would keep personal data they house from government reach. But that also could weaken the firms' crucial Internet search engines.

Governor Nobody sneaks up on Hillary

Sunday Times reported Hillary Clinton would make an excellent president, according to Meg Hirschberg, whose husband runs a hugely successful organic yoghurt company in New Hampshire: “She’s amazing and brilliant and smart and lovely.”

There must be two Hillary Clintons.

So that’s a vote for Clinton in 2008, then? Not at all. Hirschberg is thinking of backing Mark Warner, the former governor of Virginia, a likable, low-key, moderate Democrat who won a traditionally Republican state and, by all accounts, ran it competently. At this stage, it is enough of a recommendation.

Actually the American Public much prefers to see former Governors or former Vice Presidents in the White House than it does former Senators, because they have demonstrated the ability to run an Executive Branch. JFK was the last Senator elected President. All 100 senators think they know enough to run the country, but the voters do not agree.

“I don’t know a thing about him and I don’t care,” Hirschberg said last week as Warner listened to her husband explaining the finer points of organic farming. “I just want somebody with decent values who can win. It’s nothing to do with Hillary personally. It’s irrational and unfair, but she is polarising.”

Report: U.S. Is Abusing Captives

Los Angeles Times reports A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law. The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners,

who certainly told the truth

detainees' lawyers and families,

who probably do not even know the truth

and U.S. officials,

whose statements were probably disregarded.

is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

They probably should have been given access.

Nonetheless, its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison....

The draft report, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, has not been officially released. U.N. officials are in the process of incorporating comments and clarifications from the U.S. government.

But rather than wait for the official report, the Times is printing the draft, since it contains items that may not be in the final report.

In November, the Bush administration offered the U.N. team the same tour of the prison given to journalists and members of Congress, but refused the envoys access to prisoners. Because of that, the U.N. group declined the visit.

So they were not denied access to Gitmo, they just declined to see for themselves because they were not going to be able to interact with prisoners, and possibly pass on information from them.

.... Nowak said that the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting. "It remains a current phenomenon," Nowak said. International Red Cross guidelines state: "Doctors should never be party to actual coercive feeding. Such actions can be considered a form of torture and under no circumstances should doctors participate in them on the pretext of saving the hunger striker's life."

Would they prefer that we
Let them die? As I understand it, suicide is prohibited in the Koran
Should the medical procedure of inserting a feeding tube be performed by non-medically trained people

More Questions Raised About Delay in Reporting Cheney Misfire

Editor & Publisher reported
The more than 18-hour delay in news emerging that the Vice President of the United States had shot a man, sending him to an intensive care unit with his wounds, grew even more curious late Sunday. E&P has learned that the official confirmation of the shooting came about only after a local reporter in Corpus Christi, Texas, received a tip from the owner of the property where the shooting occured and called Vice President Cheney's office for confirmation. The confirmation was made but it is not known for certain that Cheney's office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting if the reporter, Jaime Powell of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, had not received word from the ranch owner.

I doubt very seriously if they had any intention of "announcing" the shooting. It was an accident. Does the editor of E&P "announce" it when he has an accident? Cheney did what needed to be done. He made sure the man got prompt medical attention, and he visited him in the hospital. He did not attempt to cover it up, but he certainly did not "announce" it.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Why Not Publish These Cartoons?

Deborah Howell wrote in WaPo Hundreds of readers have asked why The Post hasn't reprinted the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that inflamed Muslims around the world, leading to deadly protests and the burning of embassies.

Because they are frightened.

Some readers questioned the Post's journalistic courage. Martin Lawton of Arlington wrote: "Certainly, given the uproar, it seems incumbent to publish them now so readers can take a look for themselves and make their own decisions. The cartoons have become The Story. How can The Post not show these images and keep a straight face?" Executive Editor Len Downie made the decision, consulting with other top editors. The issue, he said, is one of journalistic judgment, not courage.

The cartoons do not disparage the Bush administration, and that is WaPo's primary purpose. As a secondary reason, they don't want their presses firebombed.

Downie said, "This newspaper vigorously exercises its freedom of expression every day. In doing so, we have standards for accuracy, fairness and taste that our readers have come to expect from The Post. We decided that publishing these cartoons would violate our standards. This has not prevented us from reporting about them and the controversy in great detail in many stories over several days."

But we don't think those stories will cause the Muslims to attack us.

Most good newspapers don't set out to offend readers. But newspapers shouldn't avoid controversy, and if they don't occasionally offend readers, they're probably not doing their job. The Post is edited for accuracy, clarity, fairness and taste. That involves hundreds of decisions a day about which stories, pictures and drawings get into the paper and which don't. The Post's news standards include a prohibition on gratuitous nudity, obscenity and violence. "Defamatory or prejudicial words and phrases that perpetuate racial, religious or ethnic stereotypes are impermissible,"

Unless they are directed at Republicans or Christians.

the paper's stylebook says. This also applies to photos and drawings.

British imam praises London Tube bombers

Sunday Times reported A leading imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a “good” act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter. Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact. He also praised the bombers as the “children” of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003.

Will Ali be deported???

Ali revealed that the leader of the London suicide bombers had attended sermons in Yorkshire by al-Faisal and tapes of al-Faisal’s teachings were still circulating within his mosque. Al-Faisal, who has branded non-Muslims as “cockroaches” ripe for extermination, is serving a seven-year prison sentence but is eligible for early release next week.

Hopefully the British will be smart enough to keep him in prison, unless they intend to deport him immediately.

Evidence of continuing extremism and terrorist sympathisers in the bombers’ community has been exposed by a six-week investigation by The Sunday Times. It contrasts with the public statements of condemnation by community leaders — including Ali — in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks.

Saudi Cleric Demands Trial Over Drawings

Forbes reports Saudi Arabia's top cleric called on the world's Muslims to reject apologies for the "slanderous" caricatures of Islam's Prophet Mohammed and demanded the authors and publishers of the cartoons be tried and punished, Saudi newspapers reported Saturday.

To provide an illustration of what these trials should consist of, why doesn't Saudia Arabia begin holding trials for cartoonists whose cartoons mocking Jews appear almost daily in Saudia Arabia newspapers. Then to show how Saudia Arabia respects all religions, they should stop taking Bibles away from Christians, and allow Jews and Christians to practice their religions with no interference from the government, and in fact with government protection. After all, Surat al-Baqara, 136 (Qur'an 2:136) says Say ye: "We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) prophets from their Lord: We make no difference between one and another of them:

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Air Force Eases Rules on Religion

WaPo reported
The Air Force, under pressure from evangelical Christian groups and members of Congress, softened its guidelines on religious expression yesterday to emphasize that superior officers may discuss their faith with subordinates and that chaplains will not be required to offer nonsectarian prayers.

This is good.

"This does affirm every airman's right, even the commanders' right, to free exercise of religion, and that means sharing your faith," said Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, the Air Force's chief of chaplains....

They should not be allowed to proselitize, especially from a position of power, but the previous regulations, especially those constraining what a Chaplin could say, were too restrictive.

The revised guidelines are considerably shorter than the original, filling one page instead of four. They place more emphasis on the Constitution's free exercise clause, which is mentioned four times, than on its prohibition on any government establishment of religion, which is mentioned twice.

The guidelines still warn superior officers to be "sensitive to the potential" that personal expressions of faith may appear to be official statements. But they say that, "subject to these sensitivities, superiors enjoy the same free exercise rights as all other airmen." They now add that there are no restrictions in situations "where it is reasonably clear that the discussions are personal, not official, and they can be reasonably free of the potential for, or appearance of, coercion."

Dutch people united

Zacht Ei reported Dutch people united in their defense of freedom of speech

According to a survey by Dutch tv channel RTL a staggering number of 84 percent feels that Ayaan Hirsi Ali should film Submission part II. Yes, that's staggering. The same survey concluded that only 36 percent of the Dutch have positive feelings towards the film (43 percent neutral, 20 percent negative). 88 percent of those questioned think the film should be allowed under the principle of freedom of the press (so there's apparently at least 4 percent of the Dutch population that feels the film should not be made, but think it should be allowed anyway. Odd.).

Andrew Stuttaford blogged on The Corner at NRO That’s right: they don’t particularly like the idea of the film, but they think that it should be made. That’s called freedom, or, as a number of EU governments prefer to call it, “provocation”.

Or maybe it is just a matter of the Dutch thinking the Muslims have gone too far with their reaction to the 12 cartoons, and they now favor seeing a movie made that they have no intention of seeing, just because it will tick off the Muslims, and why they have decided to start serving pork in school lunches, despite what the Muslims think.

Denmark

Denmark is a Christian country, and the official religion is the Evangelical Lutheran Church, established in their Constitution as the established Church of Denmark. 85.4% of the population in 1998 were members of that church. Alongside the established church various other Christian churches are represented in Denmark and have been accorded the status of officially recognised religious communities. These are (in order of size)

Roman Catholic Church with c. 35,000 members
Danish Baptist Church with c. 5500 adult members
Pentecostal churches with c. 5000 members
Jehovah's Witnesses with ca. 15,000 members
Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) with c. 4500 members....

During the last decades of the 20th century, the largest of the non-Christian communities has been dominated by Muslim immigrants; on the basis of the number of immigrants from Muslim countries now resident in Denmark, the number is estimated to be c. 119,000 (1998), made up of a number of mutually independent Islamic communities.

Despite being definitely a minority religion, NeanderNews revealed that Copenhagen kids only [used to] get Halal prepared meats in their school hot lunchs(!). The ‘Committee for Education and Youth’ (very scary) decided in 2001 to only use the halal meat for the hot lunch dishes.

Apparently now this will be changing. Below are excerpts from a translated Jyllands-Posten article dated February 7, 2006 (link in Danish):

Showdown about halal-meat in schoolchildren’s lunch

By LAURITS NANSEN and MARIA LÜTZEN (Jyllands-Posten Copenhagen)

Students in the Copenhagen council schools shall no longer be denied the choice of pork when they buy their daily hot lunch in the school’s canteen. Out of consideration to pupils with a moslem background there is presently only halal-butchered meat - and no pork at all - in the daily hot meals which are offered at a price of 15 kroner (appr. 2,35 US $) in the canteens of the 49 schools run by the council of Copenhagen.
I am shocked that they used to restrict meals for all children just to accomodate the desires of a small minority. This shows what cowards the Europeans are; they probably caved in to Muslim demands for fear of violence, but seeing the world wide violence because of a few cartoons, the Danish seem to be growing a backbone.
A political majority in the council’s committee for children and youngsters now demand that porkchops and meatballs be introduced on the menu.
How about a nice Danish Ham
“We need to see more freedom of choice in the canteens. It’s fine with me that the ethnic minorities can have halal-meat but those who want pork should find it available.
That is very reasonable. According to our State Department10% of Danish exports are in agricultural products (of which pork and pork products cover 48%)
When it comes to food there are many minorities and they should all be accomodated”, says Jan Andreasen, spokesman on educational issues for the [ruling] Social Democrats. He suggests that some days of the week there will be dishes of pork, vegetarian meals or fish. He makes it clear that he is not opposed to halal butchering which means that the throat of the animal is slit while it is still alive but unconscious.
I wonder what PETA would think about that.
Liberal and conservative politicians are in favor of pork and other non-halal dishes being on offer in the canteens every day. “We suggest two or three different meals to choose among in order that both Christians, Jews and Moslems are accomodated,” says Pia Allerslev, council member from Venstre, the liberal party of Denmark.
That only sounds reasonable.
Conservative council leader Majbritt Mamsen would rather that no halal-meat at all was served. “It just is not right that my own and other children should eat food which has been processed in accordance with the rituals of a foreign religion.
Good point.
As a minimum we ought to be able to offer pork or other sorts of non-halal meat to the children of non-moslem background”, Majbritt Mamsen says.
Absolutely

Judith Apter Klinghoffer reported Some of today's (2-9 2006) articles and debate in Jyllands Posten are about food served in all public schools in Copenhagen, by far the largest city in Denmark. And why would that be interesting ? Its interesting because its a fact, that all food served is "halal" (that is "food allowed" in Islam).

Why is that so ? Well, approximately 30% of all the children in the public schools of Copenhagen have a "foreign background", most of them Muslim.

That still means that a 70% majority is caving to the demands of a 30% minority.

So in a country that is one of the worlds leading producers and exporters of high quality pork-meat - we don't serve pork chops to any of the children, just out of good will towards the Muslim parents. . . .

The reason why so many of the children have a Muslim background, is that Denmark received many immigrants from the mid-80s till now. The Muslim immigrants concentrate in the large cities and they have a birth rate much higher than Danes. Before that, there weren't many Muslims in Denmark compared with today. So the presence of this new group in our society has raised some questions.

Some examples of the previous debate in Denmark:

In my town Muslims suggested to close the cafeteria of the local swimming-bath for men, at times when Muslim women were bathing - because the cafeteria has windows to the swimming-bath...
A Muslim woman took a company to court because she was fired for insisting on wearing a Muslim head scarf at work, which was not company policy.
Some teachers say they have problems with parents, that wont allow their children to draw, go to camp, participating in birthday-celebrations and so on.

Danish Imams have said things like: Women that are not "covered" - can blame themselves for being raped. Quite disturbing in the context, that there has been some cases of young Muslim men group raping young Danish women.
I hope they were prosecuted by Danish law, and not Sharia law
Some public schools have made special bathing-facilities at the gym for Muslim children, since they "cant" take a bath together with the other children.

So the issue here in Denmark, from my point of view, is about setting limits for, how far a religious minority can set the agenda on everything it comes into contact with - in a country that is highly secular and where freedom of religion, speech, sex and other subjects is practically total.

The drawings were just part of the whole background and debate. Most Danes are not very religious (if at all) and I am sure that half the Danish population are wondering why anyone could get offended - at all.

Moderate Muslim

The Jawa Report has a very funny piece entitled Moderate Muslim Speak Out Against Intolerance Across Globe which shows a huge number of photos of Muslims around the world protesting the Danish cartoons (and a few other things), with tongue in cheek captions saying they are moderate muslims. One example is this photo, with the caption Muslim tolerance crusadors in the moderate Muslim country of Malaysia where all religions are equally respected. These moderates are protesting the notion held by extremists that the Denmark should be boycotted for the government's failure to suppress speech.. But you must see all of them

Friday, February 10, 2006

Patriot Act Compromise Clears Way for Senate Vote

WaPo Efforts to extend the USA Patriot Act cleared a major hurdle yesterday when the White House and key senators agreed to revisions that are virtually certain to secure Senate passage and likely to win House approval, congressional leaders said.

I think they gave too much, and hope the House agrees.

Several Democrats said the compromise announced yesterday lacks important civil liberties safeguards, and even the Republican negotiators said they had to yield to the administration on several points. But with virtually all 55 GOP senators now on board, and Democrats joining them, the plan appears to have enough support to overcome the Senate filibuster that has thwarted a four-year renewal of the statute for months. Senators said they think the White House will be able to coax the Republican-controlled House to agree as well, even though House leaders have complained that senators' demands had weakened the measure.

The Senate has too many weak kneed RINOs.

The proposal would restrict federal agents' access to library records, one of the Patriot Act's most contentious provisions. A form of secret subpoena known as a National Security Letter could no longer be used to obtain records from libraries that function "in their traditional capacity, including providing basic Internet access," Sununu and others said in a statement. But libraries that are "Internet service providers" would remain subject to the letters, Durbin said.

So terrorists wanting to use the library's internet connection to get their instructions need to be sure the library does not also sell Internet Access (what libraries do act as an ISP???)

The Senate proposal would no longer require National Security Letter recipients to tell the FBI the identity of their lawyers.

As long as they get the information the National Security Letter asks for, why do they need to know the identity of their lawyers.

The compromise bill also addresses "Section 215 subpoenas," which are granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Recipients of such subpoenas originally were forbidden to tell anyone about the action. The proposed Senate measure would allow them to challenge the "gag order" after one year, rather than the 90-day wait in earlier legislation.

That is no too bad, since in a year they hopefully will have the info necessary to arrest.

Sununu said the administration insisted on the longer waiting period. "You now have a process to challenge the gag order," he said, defending the concession. "That didn't exist before."

The main bad thing, IMHO, is on the library internet connection. Why should terrorists be able to use the library internet computers to get their instructions.

Loose Lips Sink Spies

NYT reported At the Central Intelligence Agency, we are more than holding our own in the global war on terrorism, but we are at risk of losing a key battle: the battle to protect our classified information.

In earlier times the press would not print classified information leaked to it without clearing it first with the government. but papers like the NYT hate Bush so much they will print anything they can to hurt him, even if it hurts the country more.

Judge Laurence Silberman, a chairman of President Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said he was "stunned" by the damage done to our critical intelligence assets by leaked information. The commission reported last March that in monetary terms, unauthorized disclosures have cost America hundreds of millions of dollars; in security terms, of course, the cost has been much higher. Part of the problem is that the term "whistleblower" has been misappropriated. The sharp distinction between a whistleblower and someone who breaks the law by willfully compromising classified information has been muddied.

The latter should be tried and executed as the traitor they are.

As a member of Congress in 1998, I sponsored the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information.

But it says nothing about leaking the information to a newspaper that hates the President.

Loose Lips Sink Spies

NYT reported At the Central Intelligence Agency, we are more than holding our own in the global war on terrorism, but we are at risk of losing a key battle: the battle to protect our classified information.

In earlier times the press would not print classified information leaked to it without clearing it first with the government. but papers like the NYT hate Bush so much they will print anything they can to hurt him, even if it hurts the country more.

Judge Laurence Silberman, a chairman of President Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said he was "stunned" by the damage done to our critical intelligence assets by leaked information. The commission reported last March that in monetary terms, unauthorized disclosures have cost America hundreds of millions of dollars; in security terms, of course, the cost has been much higher. Part of the problem is that the term "whistleblower" has been misappropriated. The sharp distinction between a whistleblower and someone who breaks the law by willfully compromising classified information has been muddied.

The latter should be tried and executed as the traitor they are.

As a member of Congress in 1998, I sponsored the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information.

But it says nothing about leaking the information to a newspaper that hates the President.

White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm

NYT In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans. But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight. The Federal Emergency Management Agency official, Marty Bahamonde, first heard of a major levee breach Monday morning. By late Monday afternoon, Mr. Bahamonde had hitched a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter over the breach at the 17th Street Canal to confirm the extensive flooding.

And Brown said during the hearings that Marty frequently exagerated things.

He then telephoned his report to FEMA headquarters in Washington, which notified the Homeland Security Department. "FYI from FEMA," said an e-mail message from the agency's public affairs staff describing the helicopter flight, sent Monday night at 9:27 to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and recently unearthed by investigators. Conditions, the message said, "are far more serious than media reports are currently reflecting. Finding extensive flooding and more stranded people than they had thought — also a number of fires." Michael D. Brown, who was the director of FEMA until he resigned under pressure on Sept. 12, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he personally notified the White House of this news that night, though he declined to identify the official he spoke to. White House officials have confirmed to Congressional investigators that the report of the levee break arrived there at midnight, and Trent Duffy, the White House spokesman, acknowledged as much in an interview this week, though he said it was surrounded with conflicting reports. But the alert did not seem to register. Even the next morning, President Bush was feeling relieved that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet," he later recalled. Mr. Chertoff, similarly confident, flew Tuesday to Atlanta for a briefing on avian flu. With power out from the high winds and movement limited, even news reporters in New Orleans remained unaware of the full extent of the levee breaches until Tuesday. The federal government let out a sigh of relief when in fact it should have been sounding an "all hands on deck" alarm, the investigators have found.

They got one "FYI" email from someone known to exagerate, and they had a lot of conflicting reports, including news reports from reporters in New Orleans. Why should that be a signal to sound an "all hands on deck" alarm. Besides that, the Feds are not First Responders. That job falls to locals, and the state government should be their backup. Did they follow either the New Orleans Disaster Plan or the State of Louisiana Disaster Plan?

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Pondering a second act for Kerry

Boston Globe reported Is John Kerry's future behind him? Put another way, is the 2008 presidential campaign that Kerry hopes to wage merely a political pipe dream given his 2004 loss, or could he actually be a serious candidate?

I wonder what he is smoking in that political pipe.

Kerry obviously thinks he's viable.

Run Kerry Run!!!

Queried recently on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" about a Gentlemen's Quarterly story portraying him as a skunk at a Democratic garden party, the senator all but dropped the pretense that the prospect of a second presidential campaign lies too far off to contemplate, and instead made it clear that the derision of Democratic insiders wouldn't affect his decision.

When Stephanopoulos noted that the Democrats haven't nominated a previous loser since Adlai Stevenson in 1956, Kerry cited the second-time-around victories for Richard Nixon and, after a fashion, Ronald Reagan. "Maybe the Republicans know something we don't," he said.

Republicans know a LOT of things Democrats don't. In fact they are too numerous to list.

Still, if one is to believe GQ, the party's Washington establishment wishes the 2004 nominee would simply wander off into that lonely wilderness where Democratic losers usually go.

If you need directions, ask Al Gore.

One sorry mess of a party

LA Times prints And for another week, the Democrats managed to hold themselves hostage to, well, themselves.

Item 1: Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the wunderkind of the Democratic Party who, we've been told, not only transcends race, partisanship and personal ambition but actually sails above such concerns like the Winged Victory of Samothrace, received his first shellacking this week by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain says Obama promised to join in a bipartisan lobbying reform effort but reneged in favor of backing the Democrats' more partisan effort. So McCain — the dashboard saint of bipartisan reform efforts — turned Obama into epistolary roadkill. In an archly sarcastic letter, McCain apologized for not realizing that Obama was more interested in "self-interested partisan posturing," adding that "I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics, I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical gloss."

In other words, just what is to be expected from Democrats.

Item 2: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) returned a campaign contribution from Wal-Mart while gladly pocketing cash from Paul Newman, Reese Witherspoon and other Hollywood liberals. She even took a wad of dough from Jerry Springer, who made his fortune proving that nothing is too vile to broadcast. Clinton served on Wal-Mart's board from 1986 until 1992, and in that time the company was hardly any more "worker-friendly" — to borrow a liberal term — than it is today.

it certainly spent a lot less on employee benefits then than it does now.

It's just a bigger company now, with the same policies she oversaw. When asked if she ever fought for "progressive" policies when she was a director of the company, she replied, "Well, you know, I, that was a long time ago, I have to remember…. "

Her memory keeps failing, just as it did many times when she was in the White House. And she thinks we will elect someone President with such a poor memory.

Item 3: The New York Times ran a state-of-the-art Democratic self-recrimination story,

covered here

highlighting the party's inability to make political hay from such supposedly obvious Republican vulnerabilities as Hurricane Katrina and the National Security Agency wiretapping. The article was festooned like a Christmas tree with baubles of self-doubt and ornaments of denial hanging from every branch: the Democrats are "frustrated" by the party's "tangled" problems and their inability to exploit this "pivotal moment," etc. Some Democrats are furious that their party doesn't have its own ideas. Other say they do have ideas, they're just keeping them secret for now.

Or maybe no one knows what they are.

That sounds a lot like the high school geek who insists that his girlfriend is really hot but lives in an undisclosed location in Canada. Others say agendas aren't that useful anyway. "People said, 'You can't beat something with nothing,' " House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told the Times, even though Democrats did exactly that on Social Security. "I feel very confident about where we are," she assured the paper. And all this happened by Wednesday — and leaves out Jimmy Carter's shabby and even mildly ghoulish exploitation of Coretta Scott King's funeral.

"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks," George Orwell once observed. This seems to capture nicely the dynamic of the Democrats' shame spiral. Success in politics is measured by winning elections. On this score, Democrats have been failures for a while now. In response, they're getting drunk on a brew of partisanship and Bush-hating.

Their only idea is if the Republicans propose it, oppose it.

It is amazing how obvious — OK, even trite — is the Democratic plight. Democrats need the money and energy of their "progressive," blog-addicted base, but in order to get it, they turn off mainstream voters. In other words, they can't get escape velocity.... In the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid has infuriated Republican moderates such as Arlen Specter more than GOP conservatives by obstructing legislation and hurling partisan insults. This is exactly the opposite strategy required for clawing out of the hole the Democrats are in. But anti-Republicanism trumps everything. And that's a roadmap for the Democrats to go ever deeper into the wilderness.

That is good. They need to dig themselves in a little deeper to make sure the Democratic party will never arise again, at which time the Republican party can split into two parties, one that will go back to the policy of smaller government.

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