Saturday, December 06, 2003 The Right Christian Rides Again
Just a reminder: The witty Reverend Al Sharpton, spiritual leader of the upcoming Dem primary, will be hosting SNL tonight. This will be a fine learning experience for the regular cast -- he'll easily be the best entertainer on the show.
I'll be watching. Will you?
Posted by Nick,
9:53 PM
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Why hasn't Saddam Hussein been indicted for war crimes?
AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Hitchens. Let me ask a question since you wrote "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," talking about him guilty of war crimes. Would you say that Saddam Hussein should be tried for war crimes, George Bush senior should also for working to support Saddam Hussein through a number of the atrocities that you say he did commit?
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I do think that would bear direct indictment on him, but I do think it's the reason why there's a foot-dragging about the indictment. I will cut short what I was going to say before. The reason why it hasn't been done is so. The best-documented atrocities, mass murder with genocidal intent, torture, aggression, and so forth were committed when Saddam Hussein was the recipient of Western favor and protection. That's the dead silence that surrounds that subject. (Democracy Now)
Posted by Timothy,
1:49 PM
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First National Airport. . .
Why is this even a priority of the Republican leadership? Don't we have enough problems to solve? Enough debates to resolve? Is this really necessary? Maybe so we can spend millions of dollars promoting the new coin in hopes that people go spend all their dimes and boost up the economy or something?
And since when is Reagan the "freedom president"? Do folks actually refer to him as such?
Note: Thanks to Linsalata for pointing my wacked out typo.
Posted by Greg Klein,
1:12 PM
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Dean on "Right to Work" Laws
DEAN: I hate right-to-work laws. And let me tell you why it's OK to be forced to join a union. The union is out there negotiating for your wage increases. Why should you get a free ride? Why should you should be able to go to work for that company, get the same benefits as everybody else who paid their union dues and you paid nothing? That's why I'm against right-to-work laws... MATTHEWS: You understand why a libertarian would disagree with you, right? A libertarian would think they had a right, he or she, to work where they can do the job. DEAN: Yes, but why should they-but why should they get the benefits of everybody else who is paying dues and get a free ride?
"The Libertarian Party opposes "right to work" laws for a very good reason-- they are government interference with private contracts. Libertarians don't like most labor laws but they also support "compulsory unionism" if that's what workers and employers negotiate in a contract.... Given how bad labor laws are at this point, I'd pretty much support the Libertarian position on complete repeal of national labor laws, from right-to-work to the ban on sympathy strikes to Presidential interference with strikes. If we could hold onto a basic right to free speech in the workplace, the rest of the apparatus of the labor laws could be thrown in the trash with little loss and a lot of gain for workers rights."
I might mention that a certain Mr. Hogan seems to oppose compulsary unionism, while not caring a wit about free speech for union organizing (judging by our talk about free speech last time). If you're concerned about 'moral rights to free speech' as he is, this seems inconsistent.
P.S. Emmett says: "Whoa. I just heard Sean Hannity say that Dean claimed the Saudis warned Bush ahead of time about the September 11 attacks. Does anyone have any corroboration of this? If so, Dean is a true nutcase, as bad even as Wesley Clark." I have no idea what Dean said, but Sean Hannity is a proven liar and propagandist. Emmett thinks it is 'ridiculous' that the left would say Bush is waging a war on civil liberties and is outraged when their truthfulness is challenged, and then Emmett gives credence to rumors like this. Dean somes some stupid stuff, but Clark didn't even say anything 'nutty' about it either. And the right wonders why they look crazy.
His remarks came a week after Paul Martin, the incoming prime minister, spoke strongly about the need to respect Canadian passports to prevent a recurrence of the incident in which Arar was arrested in New York and deported to his Syrian birthplace, rather than to Canada. Arar, a Canadian citizen, spent a year in a Syrian jail, where he says he was tortured. He was released without charges in October. The Americans said he was an Al Qaeda terrorist suspect, although he was never charged with a crime in any country. Martin took issue with the American action and said it might threaten security co-operation.
He responded that he didn’t have a mother and father; instead he has two mothers. When the other child asked why, Marcus told him that it was because his mother is gay. The other child then asked what that meant, and Marcus explained, “Gay is when a girl likes another girl.” Upon hearing this, Marcus’s teacher scolded him in front of his classmates, telling him that “gay” is a bad word and he should never say it at school, then sent him to the principal’s office instead of letting him go to recess. The following week the school required Marcus to attend a special behavioral clinic at 6:45 in the morning, where he was forced to repeatedly write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again.” “To tell a 7-year-old boy that he can’t talk about his family not only makes that child feel confused and hurt – it violates his Constitutional right to free speech and equal treatment,” said Ken Choe, a staff attorney from the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project who is handling the matter. “At the ACLU we often deal with schools that mistreat treat gay children and children who have gay parents, but this is beyond the pale.” On a student behavior contract form that Marcus had to fill out and give to his mother about the incident, Marcus wrote that the thing he did wrong was that he “sed bad wurds.” A handwritten note at the top of the form from Marcus’s teacher further explains: “He explained to another child that you are gay and what being gay means.” On a behavior report form signed by the assistant principal, the teacher wrote, “Marcus decided to explain to another child in his group that his mom is gay. He told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room. I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way.” (link)
The worst thing is that the school is lying and pretending the child was disciplined for something else.
Posted by Timothy,
10:33 PM
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Andrew Sullivan seems to have read a different article than me Sullivan says:
I was disturbed by the idea that Dan Bartlett had seemingly invented out of thin, atmospheric air the notion that Air Force One had had some contact with a BA airplane en route to Afghanistan. It seemed to confirm for a while the notion that this White House is as stupidly and trivially as duplicitous as the last one. So it's a relief to hear that's not the case. When Dana Milbank concedes the issue, I think it's basically over.
Yes, Milbank used to work at TNR, and is not known to be soft on Bush like other reporters. But here's how Milbank ends the article:
The White House released a statement from Britain's air traffic service confirming that a "non-UK operator" radioed the control center in Swanwick, England, at "0930 Zulu" time to ask if the aircraft behind it was Air Force One. That seems to check out, but mysteries remain. Who was this "non-UK operator"? And how is it that a British Airways plane could have been with Air Force One "for a good portion" of the flight if the president's plane was averaging 665 mph -- far beyond the speed of commercial aircraft?
Whatever you think of this, it is utterly silly read that article ending with a question like that and conclude, "When Dana Milbank concedes the issue, I think it's basically over." Where does Sullivan come up with this stuff?
Posted by Timothy,
9:45 PM
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I wonder why.... I never liked the 'Dowd' Award given out by Andrew Sullivan. Columnists played fast and loose with the facts long before her. But if anyone deserves it, surely Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post does as well. Conservatives jumped all over Dowd for using ellipses to omit crucial words changing the meaning of something Bush said. Well, Krauthammer did the same thing with Dean. I await the blogosphere's furious response, but I don't expect right-wingers to show consistency here by attacking and pillorying one of their own. Makes you wonder what right-wing media critics are really up to.
Posted by Timothy,
8:49 PM
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How Not To Win the "War on Terror"
Discharge a man from the US Army for observing Yom Kippur (man formerly served in the IDF and speaks fluent Hebrew and Arabic). Discharge his wife, who holds a masters degree from the Sorbonne and also speaks several languages, as well.
Posted by Jonathan,
7:06 PM
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Not a Joke: I Just Live Under a Rock
No need to worry about anti-Semitism lurking in the dark corners of the Free Press office. I came up with the headline 'The Finals Solution' for Shpeen's piece on Red Bull and exam period at Dartmouth. As it was late in the copyedit session, no one else caught my error. As for my ignorance, blame my dope of a high school Social Studies teacher, Mr. Durbin, for not teaching our class the phrase's horrific historical referrent.
Posted by Karsten Barde,
6:09 PM
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Left Coast City I hope everyone has their eyes on San Francisco's December 9th mayoral run-off election between Green Matt Gonzalez and Democrat Gavin Newsom.
San Francisco politics are a lot of fun to follow, although I'm not sure I'd want to practice them. There are hundreds of local Democratic clubs for every constituency (gay, Latino, Black, Asian, neighborhood based, etc) whose endorsements really matter, as they bring in voters, volunteers and funding. Technically city races are non-partisan, and run offs usually pit a moderate (read "machine") Democrat against a progressive Democrat. The back room deal making is astounding, as die hard progressives routinely team up with conservative dems--and vice versa--for the barest of political gain. And elections are dirty--slanderous flyers are hung without proper attribution, and the vote counting authorities are usually challenged for some suspicious incompetence after the fact. Campaigns are conducted trilingually.
So to date: Matt Gonzalez was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (equivalent to a city council) in 2000. Gonzalez's time on the board was notable both for his accomplishments and his ambition. In an incredibly complex and Machiavellian set of deals, Gonzalez managed to secede Tom Ammiano as Chair, all while crafting decent progressive legislation, and successful ballot referendums that raised the minimum wage and brought instant runoff voting to municipal elections, meaning that Tuesday’s mayoral election will be the last December election in San Francisco.
Ammiano had used the Chair position as a springboard for a stunning 1999 write-in near victory campaign that would have made him the first openly Gay mayor of a major American city. In 2003 Ammiano, Gonzalez, and a progressive lawyer ran in the primary. These three formed the well-split-on-the-left progressive opposition to Newsom--there was a scarcely worth mentioning Republican in the race too. Gonzalez edged the other progressives to be the General challenger to Newsom.
Most commentators said that it was an impressive victory for a Green, but there was no chance that Gonzalez could pull off the general--he'd be lucky to break 35%. But now, the polls show the lead flip flopping back and forth between the men.
Newsom got the endorsement of the third progressive primary candidate in a deal that was widely decried as brazen backscratching. Ammiano finally came around and endorsed his former mentee Gonzalez. But Newsom, despite his ten to one funding advantage (and with his "D" Sierra Club rating, DLC endorsement, and a $500 contribution to the Republican Party during the 2000 elections on the record) is clearly sweating it, and is calling in the big democratic guns to help him out. Gephardt and Kerry (and Lieberman, which is no real surprise) have endorsed Newsom. Al Gore hosted a rally with Newsom on Tuesday.
And there's the best story to date. The Newsom campaign, whose best chance to stop Gonzalez is to keep reminding people that he's a Green, and hope that party affiliation puts voters off him, attempted to stage a Green protest of Gore's visit in hopes of drawing a confrontation that would make Gonzalez look bad. The Newsom Campaign sent an email calling on Greens to meet and march on Gore's appearance. According to The San Francisco Examiner "the originating Internet protocol address on the e-mail belongs to an organization called GavinNewsomFor and carries the same address -- 216.100.140.9 -- as e-mails sent from Newsom's campaign office."
I don't know if Gonzalez is going to win this one, but he's got the big-mo, and SF voters sick of dirty machine pols might turn against the increasingly less squeaky clean Newsom. The election is on Tuesday. A lot of things can happen. It is San Francisco after all.
UPDATE: More on Newsom's $500 donation to the Republicans in the comments thread.
Posted by Clint,
10:40 AM
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Thursday, December 04, 2003 Idle Thoughts and Speculation Calpundit says: "As I learned when I was a technical writer, the reason so many instruction manuals are so hard to follow is that the writer never really understood the material in the first place. Frankly, it's a miracle most tech writing turns out as well as it does." Usually when I hear people complain about manuals, they say technies and geeks just do not know how to put it in language the rest of us can understand. But this alternate explanation me an interesting thought: if the person writing the manual didn't build or design it, then how do they understand it? They are trying to write a manual without a manual. And I'd posit that most people who really were good techies would not be writing the manuals but would be making it.
Posted by Timothy,
7:25 PM
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"Easiest 20 percent" of detainees at Gauntanamo released Boy, this is comforting. From ABC News:
According to Time, activities leading toward release of the 140 prisoners have accelerated since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. It said U.S. officials had concluded some detainees were kidnapped for reward money offered for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. [...] Slated for release were "the easiest 20 percent" of detainees, a military official told the magazine. It did not identify its source, who said the military was waiting for "a politically propitious time to release them." (via Hit and Run)
The government cannot tell on a foreign battlefield who is and who is not a terrorist... but I'm sure we can trust them to get it right in only identifying the right U.S. citizens here at home. After all, there is no analogy to criminals, because criminals have enforceable rights.
Posted by Timothy,
6:44 PM
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This is the Power of Joe?
Despite a rousing a capella performance, I was pretty underwhelmed by Lieberman’s performance at Rocky yesterday. His intro was just weak, though he gets some personality points for being casual, chatting about his clothing that day, and trying to tie in the “Henry Rockefeller” in Rocky. Though, I was hoping he’d pull a Freudian slip and admit that he, too, is a “liberal Republican.”
And I almost laughed out loud when he got a question about domestic violence, and he responded to the effect of: violence against women is one of my highest priorities, and that’s why we need to limit violent movies and video games, and now I’m going to spend 2/3 of my response describing the game Grand Theft Auto. Not withstanding that the pre-18 kids playing Grand Theft Auto have absolutely NO influence on domestic violence now (and won’t until this generation grows up a bit). But it’s a pet peeve of mine when politicians’ bend issues ass over teakettle to match their own agendas.
So I stepped out right then to catch the overwhelming and awesome Thelma and Louise – which, as far as positions on domestic violence go, strikes straight to the heart and rocks Lieberman’s world. Go Ridley Scott!
But I only heard Joe out to the second response, so I’m curious about reactions from anyone who stayed to the end.
A German man accused of killing, dismembering and eating the flesh of another man who he met through the internet went on trial for murder today. Armin Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer technician, admits stabbing Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, 43, to death and partially eating him at his home in Rothenburg, Germany. Meiwes is alleged to have advertised on the internet for a well-built male prepared to be slaughtered and then consumed. He told a German newspaper that Brandes answered the advert and went voluntarily to Meiwes' home, where he agreed to let Meiwes cut his penis off. Meiwes then cooked it and served it up for them to eat together. He says he then stabbed Brandes through the neck, chopped his body into pieces, deep-froze parts of it and buried the rest. He captured the whole process on a videotape that is forming a key part of the prosecution's evidence.
Robert Nozick, the primary philosophical advocate of rights-based libertarianism, says individuals could sell themselves into slavery. Would libertarians object to a law forbidding one consenting adult to allow the other to eat them? Or how might other libertarians say such a law was fine?
One of the commenters notes that Leo Strauss (not a libertarian) once said: “If everything is relative, then cannibalism is just a matter of taste.”
Posted by Timothy,
1:11 PM
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Wednesday, December 03, 2003 Fair Faith Based Initiative?
Jim Towey, a recent Dartmouth visitor, had on online Q&A session on November 26th about Faith Based Initiatives (of course). But one part I find disturbing:
Colby, from Centralia MO writes: Do you feel that Pagan faith based groups should be given the same considerations as any other group that seeks aid?
Jim Towey I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor! Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it.
I think this article puts it better than I can, but I'm pretty pissed. I mean, the only way Faith Based Initiatives could possibly be ok is if all religious groups, whether "fringe" or not, have the same access to government funding if they're trying to accomplish the same goals. This guy just looks like a complete idiot saying pagans only want to promote their beliefs and don't have "loving hearts"... Thoughts?
Google "miserable failure" and hit I'm Feeling Lucky.
Posted by Neha,
12:21 PM
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The Anti-Rap Music Candidate
Try to guess which one of the Democratic Presidential candidates wrote this statement about rap and hip-hop in his (or her) book (you may be surprised):
"Unfortunately, much of what they're selling is a fraud. They spew hedonism, misogyny, and self-hate. They glorify the prison culture, the pimp culture, and drug culture. They tell the young that they're not worthy unless they're 'rocking' Chanel, Gucci, or wearing platinum and diamonds. Not only is this message immoral, but it is also flawed. It's a lie." -- ????
Posted by Dan,
2:45 AM
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003 The Grand Ayatollah's Q&A on oral sex Matt Yglesias blogs:
Question: I am really sorry that I have to ask this type of Question. But Since I grew up in a western country; I rally don't much about our religion. And I can't ask this Question to my parents due to subject matter. Brother my question is, can we have an oral sex before or after the sexual intercourse or can we have oral sex at all? Is it haram? Answer: Oral sex act is permissible with the consent of both husband and wife provided that no liquid gets into the mouth.
I bet God put a lot of thought into striking that particular compromise.
Posted by Timothy,
6:58 PM
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Even the 'author' of the Patriot Act thinks the Padilla case is extreme and unjustified
Viet Dinh, who until May headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, said in a series of recent speeches and in an interview with The Times that he thought the government's detention of Padilla was flawed and unlikely to survive court review.
The principal intellectual force behind the Patriot Act, the terror-fighting law enacted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Dinh has steadfastly defended the Justice Department's anti-terrorism efforts against charges that they have led to civil-rights abuses of immigrants and others....
The trouble with the Padilla case, Dinh said, is that the government hasn't established any framework for permitting Padilla to respond, and that it seems to think it has no legal duty to do so.
"The president is owed significant deference as to when and how and what kind of process the person designated an enemy combatant is entitled to," Dinh said. "But I do not think the Supreme Court would defer to the president when there is nothing to defer to. There must be an actual process or discernible set of procedures to determine how they will be treated." (LA Times, via volokh)
But I suppose Dinh is just perpetuating the ridiculous canard that the Bush administration is out to destroy civil liberties.
Posted by Timothy,
11:23 AM
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Emmett in the Elementary Schools Where is he when you need him? Out of Louisiana, a boy is punished for using the word "gay". In reference to his mother. Who is gay. What planet do these school administrators come from? Jebus.
Posted by Jonathan,
9:21 AM
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Monday, December 01, 2003 Now that's Racism
You read it. Not unlike those aboriginal kids who kicked the crap out of some white-anglo students in Edmonton. Canada's becoming more and more like the US every day. This sucks.
Posted by Anthony,
6:14 PM
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Survivor! I haven't watched Survivor in a loooong time, but this move by 'Jonnie Fairplay' sounds horribly devious: prearrange to have your girlfriend say your grandmother died so you gain sympathy and no wants to heatlessly vote you off the island on national T.V.
Posted by Timothy,
10:49 AM
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Those who give up liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither. The Statue of Liberty has been closed to visitors since September 11, 2001. Symbolically, this is really damn depressing.
Posted by Clint,
6:27 AM
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Why this is not a big deal AP reports that US forces have captured three Al-Qaida members in Iraq. If confirmed, and true, this will be the first time Al-Qaida has been found in Iraq.
But all three are Iraqi citizens. There are Al-Qaida members in Saudi Arabia, France, the United States, Britian, Pakistan, Yemen, etc, etc. So it's no surprise that US forces could turn up three in Iraq.
Posted by Clint,
6:06 AM
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Sunday, November 30, 2003 Further proof that many vegetarians care very little about their personal health From The New York Daily News:
PAY UP OR GET OUT! My spy in the House gymnasium in Washington tells me that there's an embarrassing letter for nonpayment of dues taped to Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's locker. "Final Notice," warns the official letter from Kucinich's fellow Ohioan, Republican Rep. Mike Oxley, chairman of the gym committee. Kucinich's press secretary Doug Gordon told me: "Congressman Kucinich didn't know anything about this until we just discussed it. He has used the gym once in the past six years. Instead of running on a treadmill, he is running around the country."
Posted by Clint,
2:55 PM
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If anyone ever tells you... ...they read The Times cover to cover everyday, they're probably lying.
