More of the Same: Israel is taking public heat for bombing a building full of civilians. The U.N. expresses shock, other leaders are stunned, and even the U.S. is trying to finagle an appropriate response.
Barely a word is mentioned about where the blame truly belongs -- on the terrorists who hide their personnel and weaponry among civilians, using them as human shields. No one is shocked by this action, partly because we're so used to it as typical terrorist activity. But it's not even condemned. Instead, Israel reaps the blame.
That's part of the difficulty in combating terrorism. The terrorists aren't fighting a conventional battle. It's a PR campaign set through violence. When they attack, they target civilians to scare the general public. They then expect a reprisal, so they hide among civilians so when the counter-attack happens, they use the collateral damage to make propaganda images and videos. And it's impossible to tell how many terrorists are ever killed in a strike, because all the terrorists dress as civilians.
The terrorists seem to get a break because they are regarded as the underdog, outmuscled by the United States and Israel. But it's the terrorists that instigate the violence and put the civilians at risk. They do it because they want to create a fascist state of Islam extremism throughout the Middle East, and the rest of the world. Their goals are wrong, their tactics are wrong, and their message is wrong. That's where the U.N. and the rest of the world should focus their scorn.
Evacuate: I'm out for another week. Don't bring peace to the Middle East until I get back.
Second Front, Stabbed in the Back: While there has been much condemnation from the Arab Street about Israel's military response to Hezbollah and Hamas, many Muslims are critical of the terrorists who instigated the new bloodshed. And not just moderate Muslims. In addition to the editor-in-chief of the Arab Times, the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia have spoken against Hezbollah, going so far to issue a Fatwa against them. (Hat tip, Stubborn Facts)
Granted, this stems partly from the Sunni/Shiite rivalry. But I think Hezbollah miscalculated the reaction to their deeds. They probably only expected a "proportional response" from Israel, which Israel wisely avoided. And I'm sure they anticipated more support from their fellow Muslims.
We're in the process of tearing down Middle East politics so we can put it back together again. What this will look like in the end, no one knows. But we couldn't let things remain as they were.
Fighting Side of Me: Critics are mad at Bush for not doing enough to end the hostilities between Israel and her enemies. I say Bush is interfering too much. According to this article, Israel only gets one more week before the U.S. will pressure for a ceasefire. That's not enough time to cripple Hezbollah and other terrorists Israel is facing.
The war underway now is unfortunate. But Hezbollah and Hamas instigated it and have been antagonizing Israel for years. The carnage we're witnessing is nothing compared to the death and destruction Muslim terrorists cause in Israel day after day.
If we want to win the War on Terrorism, we need Israel's help. The Israelis have the tactical intelligence and experience to defeat our common enemies. Instead of holding Israelis back, we should unleash their military. We've tried diplomacy and concessions for too long. Now let Israel kick some ass.
Dig on the Big Dig: The Onion, funny again.
Listen, when the government spends $14 billion on anything, you are going to have to accept that an innocent person will die under a concrete slab.
Coat Hanger in the Congressional Womb: Well, everyone who criticized Bush for never vetoing a bill, I hope you're happy. He's about to kill a bill that would allow federal funding for stem-cell research.
This is where I join the chorus of other critics who are counting down the days until Bush leaves office. He'll only be in power for two more years. I predict that the next president will sign such a bill into law.
But I never understood the criticism against Bush for not vetoing legislation. He's a Republican president with a Republican Congress. If they were constantly vetoing and overriding vetoes, it would be a mess. They're supposed to be on the same side. If partisans can't get along, how can we even hope for bipartisanship.
The fact that Bush and Congress were able to come to agreement on legislative issues shows a great deal of leadership and compromise. Unfortunately, much of that leadership led to overspending and record deficits. But Bush has been proposing unnecessary expenditures, so I'd have no expectation for him to veto such spending. Now Republicans in Congress have softened their opposition to stem-cell research and decided it is a good place to spend taxpayer money. Too bad we'll have to wait before that can finally happen.
As If There Ain't Enough News Goin' On: Everybody seems shocked, shocked, that President Bush said the word "shit". He said it not in a public speech, but in a private conversation that happened to be picked up by a microphone.
Some people are praising him for his tough, nuance-free speech. Others criticize him for being unpresidential.
It really shouldn't matter. The problem is, by drawing so much attention to this, we're reinforcing the idea that politicians cannot speak like normal human beings. This is why every word they utter is poll tested, filtered, and canned. Plain-spokenness carries too high of a risk factor. So we end up with the same old regurgitated speeches time after time.
Case in point, Kevin Drum expresses shock, shock, that Bush said "I think" Condi is going to the Middle East. The Political Animal seems to believe this implies that Bush doesn't know. No, he does know, but some details are still in flux, so he is speaking tentatively. Don't you know, Kevin, that this was not a prepared speech and that you're wasting your time trying to analyze every little word that's spoken off the cuff?
Not Anti-War. Just For the Other Side: This tops the "Screw them" comment from before. Someone named 'qrswave' at Daily Kos waxes poetically in a post titled, Imagine a world without Israel.
Muslims, Jews, and Christians could live in peace without fear of mutual destruction.The obvious retort is, "Imagine a world without Islam." Or more to the point, "Imagine a world without insane Muslim terrorists." The best response is from a commenter at LGF who says, "Imagine a world without Daily Kos."
There would be no more need for US AID or justification for Dimona.
We could bring down the Wall, send prisoners home, and families could be reunited.
We could dismantle checkpoints, open crossings, and pull down barbed wire fences.
...
I'm willing to accept that certain nutcases will remain apologists for the world's evil. But when blogs like Kos become influential political forces and have a say what's going on in one of our major parties, it scares me.
News Break: This was the Reuters headline today.
Israel calls Hizbollah capture of soldiers act of war
I'm sorry, but Israel, the Palestinians, terrorist groups -- the entire Middle East has been at war for years. This is just more of the same.
Pourquoi? I broke down and decided to watch the World Cup championship game yesterday. I never felt more American than when I found myself bored to tears. Now I have respect for soccer players -- it's a grueling sport that takes a lifetime of practice and talent to excel -- but it ranks just above golf in terms of excitement as a spectator sport.
From what I observed yesterday and from snippets I've seen in other games, nothing really happens outside of penalty kicks and corner kicks. And the ridiculous rules only encourage this. If you brush up against a player in the "box", that results in a penalty kick, which is essentially a free goal. That's no biggie, except that a 1-0 match is a high-scoring game.
Nothing else is allowed to happen during regular play. If at any point a player gets the ball with a clear shot on the goal, he'll be called offsides. This has got to be the dumbest rule in sports. To prevent a player from scoring, all the defense has to do is stop running and let the player continue offsides.
And while I would never say this to any soccer player face-to-face, the constant diving, whining, and crying in attempts to draw fouls gets tiresome. I'll hand it to the players, though. They are better actors than those in the NBA. But they looked like a bunch of princesses out there. Be a man, for God's sake.
Hell, the coolest part of the game was when that French guy head-butted that Italian guy. Looks like instant replay is alive and well in soccer, despite what the official rules say. Oh well, at least the Italians won the game, although we could have saved two hours and just decided the game through penalty kicks.
But now what's really sad is I realize that we're in the summer doldrums when the only sport on TV is baseball, our national pastime, which I can't bother paying attention to until it gets close to the playoffs. The games just aren't meaningful this early in the season.
We have to wait a few months until we'll be able to watch real football again. There, head-butting is not only legal, it's necessary.
Mail Bag: Someone e-mailed me asking me to explain my point of view on affirmative action. Since I have nothing else to blog about, I'll make a post out of it.
My belief is that race can be used as a factor in hiring and admissions decisions. This does not mean instituting any sort of quota or choosing someone with poor qualifications because of his or her race. Among the qualified applicants, if one of them is a member of a minority group that is underrepresented, employers should take that into consideration when making the final decision.
The argument against affirmative action generally is that the most qualified person should get the job. I absolutely agree with that. But rarely in any hiring decision is there only one good candidate. Employers use all sorts of subjective criteria to make hiring decisions (posture, speaking voice, handshake). That's the entire point of an interview, to get a feel for a job candidate and to help the employer make a gut decision on who to hire. Otherwise, all hiring could be done by scanning résumés and checking references.
You're always taking a risk when hiring someone. You don't know how that person will perform on the job until several months have passed. So to say there's always one best candidate is a fallacy.
Diversity generally helps in a workplace, no matter what the field. If everyone looks the same, chances are many of them are going to think the same. Getting people with different backgrounds also brings in people with different points of view and experiences. Granted, some professions need that more than others do, but it's no secret that hiring people of different races and ethnicities has a positive effect on society, and that's reason enough.
If you don't get any qualified minority applicants, go find them. They're out there. Groups, from the National Association of Black Journalists to the Houston Hispanic Architects & Engineers, make for an excellent starting point when looking for qualified professionals of color. Instead of fishing from the same pond all the time and catching the same fish, diversify your search.
A little bit of effort goes a long way. You don't need to set quotas or discriminate against qualified white people. Everyone you hire, no matter what color, should be qualified to do the job. You just have to make a small concerted effort, or an affirmative action, to find a diverse workforce.
Team America: Ah, another Fourth o' July. Fireworks, flags, and patriotism. After I got back from the beach trip, I went to the Independence Day celebration on the National Mall. There I got to hear country star Jo Dee Messina declare that the United States of America was "one of the best countries in the world".
Apparently she's missing part of the concept of patriotism. When honoring your country, go ahead and say we're the best, not just one of the best. Objectively, this is pretty well verifiable. But even if it weren't, nobody would fault you for loving your country.
Or so you would think. I can forgive Jo Dee for misspeaking, perhaps, but now people are questioning Germans for cheering on their World Cup team (before the team got eliminated). NPR mentioned it this morning, and The Washington Post ran a sports piece about the guilt associated with German nationalism.
Why, you ask? Because of the Nazis, of course. You see, Germans love their country. And Hitler loved his country. Plus, it was the same country. Germany. Understand? Very dangerous!
Not to downplay Nazi atrocities, but just because someone associated with your country did something bad doesn't mean you can't have a little pride in where you're from. You can root for your country to win, whether the game be soccer or war, and honestly it's not jingoistic.
And despite the dangers of an incoming flag epidemic you can show your patriotism more than one day a year.
Light 'Em Up! I'm off with some friends to spend Fourth of July weekend camping on the beach. Hope y'all have a safe and fun Independence Day.
See ya Wednesday.
Water Logged: The floods here in Washington, DC, seem to be receding. Thank goodness, too. I had to work Sunday (I'm a volunteer firefighter), and we got slammed all night. I'm amazed at how many drivers, when confronted with a large body of rapidly rising water, choose to drive through it rather than around. We also had to respond to a bunch of downed power lines and a couple house fires caused by lightning strikes.
A hellish night, indeed. But now whenever I hear people talk about the recent rainstorms, everybody has to mention global warming, as if we never had a heavy shower before the invention of the H2. I appreciate everyone's concern for the environment, but let's not start blaming every downpour on the Republicans.
We've Suffered Enough: On the lighter side, here's a video about a group of guys circulating a petition to end women's suffrage. And students are signing away.
I don't care who you are. That's funny.
Duck and Cover: Americans have officially formed themselves into a circular firing squad over the War on Terrorism. Sure there were squabbles before about Iraq, Gitmo, and the like. But now we're going ballistic over the nitty gritty details of catching terrorists.
The New York Times (along with The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post) reported about a secret government program used to track the international financial transactions made by terrorists. It involved an organization nobody had ever heard of (Swift), was limited to international dealings that didn't concern most Americans, and it seemed to reside within the law. To top it all off, it was successful in nabbing terrorists.
Should journalists have exposed this program? Unlike the revelation of the NSA-wiretap program, this one doesn't seem to break any laws, require Congressional oversight, or even delve into the creepy world of invasion of privacy. That makes it hard to come up with a compelling reason to cover this program. But with the large controversy over the other secret terrorist-surveillance programs, how could a self-respecting newspaper sit on such a story?
Let's see what the different parties have to say.
For the conservatives, you've got Powerline once again calling for The New York Times to be thrown in jail. The program was classified, and publishing classified information is against the law. Case closed.
That's nice, except I don't think a dramatic lockup of journalists who report on the goings on in government will really quell the controversy about whether the Bush administration is trampling on the rights of ordinary Americans. In fact, it kind of plays into the liberal caricature of conservatives' ruling with an iron fist. Just because something is classified, doesn't mean it can't be exposed. The government classifies documents and programs to cover up embarrassing situations all the time. And while federal law does forbid exposing classified material, the U.S. Constitution forbids the government from restricting freedom of the press.
The media responds through Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times. I thought Howell Raines was the biggest asshole to grace the halls of the Gray Lady. Mr. Keller is quickly trying to overshadow him.
Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.)This line has been ridiculed all over the blogosphere, best by Instapundit. The arrogance of Mr. Keller is overwhelming, asserting essentially that because he can do something, he will, while only playing lip service to the consequences. And nobody can stop him. While he's trying to accuse President Bush overusing his power, Mr. Keller has shown that the news media can't be trusted with its power. Somehow this debate has been completely turned around, taking the spotlight off the missteps of the government and on the corruption of the news media.
Mr. Keller continues to argue that the press shouldn't take its orders from the president. This is the most ludicrous straw man I have ever heard. Nobody is saying that the media should become a government pawn. We're just asking whether the newspapers even thought about what they were doing, or bothered to use a little common sense. Just goes to show how journalists make for lousy politicians.
The liberals. They are strangely quiet. Kevin Drum asked whether the revelation of this program will have some positive benefits because now that terrorists know that they can't use this method to finance attacks, they will have to come up with other ways that may be more difficult. Um, yeah, but it will also make it more difficult to catch them. And we want to catch as many of them as easily and as quickly as we can.
I thought The New York Times provided us with some top-notch journalism when it exposed the NSA-wiretap program. Even if the program is legitimate and hasn't been abused, it comes dangerously close to encroaching on civil liberties. The news coverage will help create safeguards to allow the program to continue but with necessary oversight.
The news coverage on the Swift program doesn't seem to do any such good. But worse than exposing a legitimate program, it exposed the depravity of the politics surrounding the War on Terrorism.
Hyper Active: Today I'm mad at everyone. That's right, every single one of you. It's because all y'all always overuse hyperbole. Constantly.
Every time I read anything in the paper or hear something on the news, everyone is overexaggerating everything they say. Instapundit highlighted a good one today.
The world's least free place for making movies is the US, because it has a fixed model.So sayeth Ang Lee. Yeah, that guy who just made a controversial multi-million dollar movie that won him an Academy Award. It seems The Man is holding him down.
We hear these exaggerations every single day. The United States is the biggest terrorist threat in the world. America is the least free place in the world. America is the least tolerant place in the world. Nobody believes any of this is true, but it's still offensive to hear.
Republicans are warmongers. Democrats hate America. Hyperbole is everywhere you look.
Apparently nobody can get their views publicized unless they say something so abhorrent that it strains conventional sanity let alone credibility. That's why both conservative Ann Coulter and liberal Ted Rall accused 9/11 widows of enjoying their husbands' deaths. No one would listen to them otherwise. But, in truth, nobody should listen to them because of such nonsense.
Tim Robbins complained of the "chill wind" of censorship that was sweeping the nation. He said it at a public press conference at the National Press Club.
Gitmo is the "Gulag of our time". And everyone is a Nazi, or Al Qaeda.
People are more likely to be quoted if they say something stupid than something rational. And the media savvy are well aware of this. It's time the news media ignored these efforts instead of rewarding them with publicity.
Together Again: It's worth pointing out that the United States and Europe are working closely together on confronting Iran. For the longest time, there was great concern that our rift on Iraq was going to create irreparable harm in our relationship. But as each big issue comes up, we will keep cooperating when it comes to protecting our own self-interests.
What comes of these talks with Iran is another matter. It's easy to see that the United States is taking a harder-line approach than Europe. But we recognize that we can accomplish more working together than separately.
And I like the U.S. and E.U. rebuke of the reporter who implied that the United States was a bigger threat to world peace than Iran or Al Qaeda. People express their frustration through polls. But few people mean that sort of thing.
The Empire Strikes Back: If North Korea goes through with testing its ICBM, we may try to shoot it down with our missile defense technology.
That sounds like a great plan, if it works. But if I recall, we have only had limited success "hitting a bullet with a bullet". We have done it before, but usually we miss. Striking Korea's missile would be a perfect response. But trying and missing would be rather embarrassing.
Korea's recent threats give some credence to President Bush's insistence that we need a missile-defense shield. I don't know whether that technology is worth the money or not. But I'm tired of critics who condemn the program on the fact that it doesn't work. That's the entire reason of experimenting with the program -- to make it work. I'm glad these people weren't in charge of the American space program early on. A couple failures, and they would have called it quits.
Even if we never need our missile-defense technology, national defense innovations often lead to amazing inventions for the average consumer. Just take a look at the Internet. The question now is how much we are willing to spend on this technology.
P.S. Fox News linked to the Washington Times article. I guess the conservative-leaning press is trying to band together against the liberal-leaning media.
Know What I'm Sayin'? Professor Volokh ruminates on the superfluous use of the word, "like".
I hate that word, yet I can't stop using it. I hear myself talk aloud, and it just keeps coming out of my mouth.
And I was like, "That can't be true." And he was like, "Oh, it's true."I could easily replace each "was like" with the old staple, "said". But I would have to think ahead of time to actually accomplish that.
I guess we can blame that stupid 80s movie Valley Girl for ruining the English language. Thing is, "like" and "y'know" are so ingrained in the speech of just about everyone under the age of 40 that I don't think it will ever go away. Some day, 90-year-old men will be sitting on a porch complaining aloud.
And I was like, "Quit driving so fast around here, boy!" And he was like, "I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request." Damn smartass kids! Y'know? Whatever!
Inflammable Rhetoric: The Senate seems to be one vote away from passing a constitutional amendment banning the desecration of the American flag.
Apparently the Senate has no qualms about desecrating the U.S. Constitution and our liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
The Republicans must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to pull out this golden oldie. The amendment has failed repeatedly in the past, but recent GOP gains make passage more likely. If passed, it would represent the only time that the Congress amended the Constitution to restrict our freedoms, instead of expanding them, other than Prohibition. And we all know how well that turned out.
As I've said before, people who burn the American flag aren't very smart. And that's partly why we need to keep our First Amendment rights intact: It makes it easier to spot the stupid people. Anyone who lights a flag on fire (and, by extension, his hand and arm and clothes, and possibly his hair) doesn't have anything intelligent to say. We can safely ignore them.
But any government that needlessly tramples on our rights to free expression does more to dishonor our country than any pyromaniac protestors do. It's more patriotic to exercise your rights as an American than to brutally suppress them.
Dodging Bullets: President Bush makes a surprise visit to Baghdad. For five hours.
I look forward to the day when the President of the United States can make an announced visit to Baghdad, and spend the night in peace.
A is for AAAAAHHHH! Alberto is gliding through the Caribbean with whopping 50 mph winds. This isn't even a Category One hurricane yet, merely a tropical storm, yet it's getting round-the-clock media attention. Are we going to fall into panic mode for every storm this hurricane season?
God is Great: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead. We finally got the bastard.
News reports are rightfully tempering the announcement by saying that this in no way ends the insurgency or terrorist attacks in Iraq. While he was the operational leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, his death is largely symbolic.
But symbols are important in this war. Al Qaeda picks its targets largely on their symbolic value, and replays the images of the deaths and beheadings over the Internet to amplify their effects. People in the Arab world respond to symbols. And they also respond to might.
This was a show of force on our part, a representation of dominance. And Muslims in the Arab world reacted with cheers and celebratory gunfire.
As well they should. Zarqawi didn't care about Iraqis, or even Muslims. He was a psychopath bent on turning Sunnis against Shiites to ignite a bloody civil war. He was a foreign presence in that country who wanted to bring down the democratically elected Iraqi government to create chaos in the Middle East, leaving Arabs desperate so Al Qaeda could prey on their weakness.
Now he's dead. Although previous news reports said that other Al Qaeda members were taking over the helm in Iraq, nobody had the media presence and the symbolic value of Zarqawi, and nobody will for some time. And although the terrorists will likely lash out and continue their deadly attacks, their operational infrastructure and financial resources have been weakened, making it harder to conduct the attacks in the long run.
This is a wonderful day for Iraqis and for all of Al Qaeda's enemies.
Now it's time to get Osama Bin Laden.
Empty Spaces: No posts for awhile. Sure I've been busy, but I really can't think of a damn thing to blog about. I was going to write about how Bush's renewed drive to (not) pass a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage was purely political to rally the base for the mid-terms, but I see that 100 other people have already said that. If this is so obvious to so many people, why isn't it obvious to Republicans?
Ann Coulter has a new book out. Okay, let's change the subject.
Yesterday was 6/6/06, or 06/06/2006, or something that gave marketing people hard-ons.
Muslim terrorists plotted to attack the Canadian parliament. Liberals are blaming American policies. Sigh.
Hell with it. Check out this video of a dancing model airplane!