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May 31, 2006
Rock and roll and politics?
Ted Nugent, interviewed by a Brit journalist who can scarcely conceal his disdain for the gonzo rocker, is simply hilarious.
Nugent's fondness for firearms mystifies the reporter -- who notes that the singer shows up for the interview with a Glock "revolver" tucked into his belt.
In response to a riff on the stupidity of British cops supposedly not carrying guns, the reporter gets in Nugent's face.
"For an unarmed force," I suggest, "the British police have shot quite a few people. Did you hear about Jean Charles de Menezes?"
"That was horrible. An American cop would have just beat the shit out of him."
They have several contentious exchanges, but I particularly like this one.
"What do these deer think when they see you coming?" I ask him. "Here comes the nice guy who puts out our dinner? Or, there's the man that shot my brother?"
"I don't think they're capable of either of those thoughts, you Limey asshole. They're only interested in three things: the best place to eat, having sex and how quickly they can run away. Much like the French."
"You wrote a song called 'Dog Eat Dog'. You see the world like that. But we're not dogs - that's the trouble."
"Remember the movie Old Yeller? Everybody loved him. He brought us our slippers. We gave him cookies. But when Old Yeller gets rabies, you shoot him in the fucking head. It's that simple."
"Just like Saddam Hussein used to be our friend, and the Taliban used to be freedom fighters?"
"Politics, man. I don't have to placate some Arab numb-nut because he holds all our fuel."
Their conversation end on a philosophical note, debating the merits of "peace, love and understanding."
Ted's agin' it.
"When I drove up to the truck stop in Crawford this morning," I tell him, "the CD playing in my car was the Steve Earle live album Just an American Boy [the Texan songwriter's definitive statement against the Iraq war]. When I turned off the ignition, he was just about to go into the encore - his version of Nick Lowe's '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding'."
"Well Steve Earle, you know... he did a lot of dope."
"But since we're on the subject, what is so funny about peace, love and understanding?"
"You want to know how to get peace, love and understanding?" he replies. "Who doesn't know this? The Ku-Klux-Klan? The Black Panthers? Child rapists? How do you get peace, love and understanding? First of all you have to find all the bad people. Then," Nugent adds, "you kill them."
I can almost see the Brit recoil in disgust.
Heh.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Unimaginable culture of cruelty
Every so often, it's helpful to reacquaint yourself with the players in the Middle East's central conflict; i.e., Israel versus everyone else.
What's going on in the territories controlled by the Palestinians?
Let's just say Arabs might prefer taking their chances of survival in areas under Israeli control.
Masked Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades gunmen on Tuesday publicly executed a Palestinian man and woman they suspected of having spied for Israel.
The man was shot dead in the main street of a refugee camp, with a large crowd looking on. The woman was later shot to death by her relatives in the courtyard of the West Bank's largest hospital.
The Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, accused Jafal Abu Tzrur, 24, of having informed the IDF where to find three of its members. The three were killed by IDF troops during a raid on the Balata refugee camp near Nablus earlier this year.
Al Aksa gunmen interrogated Abu Tzrur, claimed he confessed and then dragged him into Balata's main street. As a large crowd looked on, the gunmen threw Abu Tzrur to the ground, witnesses said. When he tried to get up, the gunmen killed him with several shots, the witnesses said.
The movement said it also killed Odad Abu Mustafa, 27, a Nablus woman. Abu Mustafa was married to one of the Aksa men slain by Israel, and was reportedly having an affair with Abu Tzrur.
Abu Mustafa, a mother of four, was shot by gunmen and male relatives on grounds that she shamed her clan. More than 15 people took part in the execution, witnesses said. It took place in the courtyard of Raffidiyeh Hospital, the West Bank's largest.
The mob originally planned to kill her in the street but were swayed by a man who pleaded with them not to carry out the killing in the view of little children could. She was then taken into the courtyard of the hospital, said Yousef Mahmoud, 18, who witnessed the killing.
"One of the gunmen said 'where is her brother?' and when he stepped forward they said to him 'you know what you need to do,"' he said. "The brother took out a gun and shot her in the head with one bullet."
Mahmoud said the brother then emptied the entire clip into the body of his sister, while the surrounding gunmen fired into the air. He said that the woman remained silent throughout and did not resist her captors.
Neighbors of the woman said she had four children; two boys and two girls, ranging in age from 11 to three and a half.
Nope, no difference between the Israelis and the Palis, not at all.
And how do the Palestinians feel about America?
That's right: pissing on Liberty herself, as she holds the tablet, "Democracy."
The cartoon is from the May 25th issue of Al-Risala, a Hamas weekly newspaper. Another newspaper, Al Hayat Al Jadida, covering a rally in the Palestinian-controlled territories, reported in March that the United States was dangerous because it had been trying "for many years of trying to penetrate Islamic youth with dubious things such as the ideas of democracy."
And the reason why we're in favor of aid to people who despise us is . . . what? The very act of trying to force more money, of freedom and democracy on these people engenders neither love nor respect, but deep, undying contempt, with a dash of shame and humiliation.
Mark Twain said, "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
It seems clear that the modern metaphor still involves a dog, and we're the hydrant.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 30, 2006
Mmmmmm, beer
The folks at Fraters Libertas have used the current heatwave in Minnesota as an excuse to post their latest updated rankings of more than 250 beers, after much quaffing rigorous scientific research. Many of the beers are regional American brews, not well known on the coasts.
Back when I managed the pub at Drew University, we began carrying more than 100 varieties of imported bottled beer, retailing for $1.25, if my memory is accurate. While the rugby squad and its fan-club preferred the Bud on tap (50 cents for a plastic cup of the pale suds), alumni were stopping by from as far away as Manhattan for our smorgasbord of foreign beer, many of which cost more than $7 a bottle in Gotham.
Of particular note were the brews from the U.K., rich, thick stouts bearing names like "Ram Rod" and "Old Nick" with labels boasting of constant production since the 1700s.
Every time the beer rep came across something new, he'd ask if we wanted to try a case of it. "Why not?" I'd tell him, and we'd find room in the walk-in cooler. On delivery day, Mike Fariello and I would try a bottle of the new stuff -- to ensure our fellow Drewids were protected from inferior brew, of course!
Ah, college days.
In any event, browsing through the ratings has given me a powerful thirst, which can be slaked only with Michelob Ultra.
Curse you, low carb diet!
Homer Simpson's thoughts on beer after the jump.
Homer no function beer well without.
You've been rubbing my nose in it since I got here! Your family is better than my family, your beer comes from farther away than my beer, you and your son like each other, your wife's butt is higher than my wife's butt! You make me sick!
Beer... Now there's a temporary solution.
I like my beer cold... my TV loud... and my homosexuals flaming.
Ah, the college road trip. What better way to spread beer-fueled mayhem?
You must love this country more than I love a cold beer on a hot Christmas morning.
I've figured out an alternative to giving up my beer. Basically, we become a family of traveling acrobats.
Bart, a woman is like beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one!
Aw, there's only one can of beer left and it's Bart's.
Now son, you don't want to drink beer. That's for Daddies, and kids with fake IDs.
All right, brain. You don't like me and I don't like you, but let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Star Wars: Super Duper Special Edition
This is the scene that George Lucas will never let you see: when Darth Vader notifies the Emperor that the Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Death Star.
For those of you who don't like sci-fi, I realize the preceeding sentence means nothing. But, like "wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-bop-bam-boom," for pop-culture junkies it's a direct connection to the fun of our long-gone youth, so please bear with us.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Worst stuff ever
PC World delves into its archives to compile a list of the 25 worst computer products ever.
Surprising no one, the all time worst, number one in sheer soul-crushing badness is . . . .
AOL!
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I had an AOL account. When I tried canceling the service (note "tried"), they continued taking my money, until I noticed the small charge appearing every month on my bank statement. What can I say, I was more lackadaisical about finances back then.
During the ensuing more-than-thirty-minute conversation with AOL "customer service," I was berated for wanting to leave, called an idiot, and ultimately suspected I was on Candid Camera, so ridiculous was the level of abuse being directed at me.
The entire list is a funny (in retrospect) walk down memory lane, reminding me yet again why I left behind the wonderful world of Windows -- although Apple does make the list for a few eggs it's laid over the years.
Take a look; I'm certain you'll find something that will have you nodding in agreement.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Southern California living
Courtesy of The Little Coach comes this chestnut about life in my neck of the woods.
A highway patrolman pulled a car over and told the driver that because he had been wearing his seat belt he had won $5,000 in the statewide safety competition.
"What are you going to do with the money?" asked the policeman.
"Well, I guess I'm going to get a driver's license," he answered.
"Oh, don't listen to him!" yelled a woman in the passenger seat, "He's a smart aleck when he's drunk."
This woke up the guy in the back seat who took one look at the cop and moaned, "I knew we wouldn't get far in a stolen car."
At that moment, there was a knock from the trunk and a voice said in Spanish, "Are we over the border yet?"
I keep looking for the AP byline . . . .
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 29, 2006
Remembering our heroes
For those inclined to decorate their Volvos with "War Is Never the Answer" bumperstickers, a reminder: it is because of men far more worthy than you, buried in cemeteries from Normandy to Arlington, that you enjoy the right to be pathetic, ignorant cowards.
I salute the fallen, and the men who answered the call, including my father, 
Petty Officer Second Class Gerald Lief, who served at sea in the Korean War; his father,
Cpl. Harry Wiener Lief, Troop E, 3rd Cavalry, USA, who went to France and fought in the War to End All Wars; and my uncle,
Sgt. Bernard Solomon, USMC, who fought at the Frozen Chosin and never forgot his pals who didn't come home. Semper Fi, Mac!
Posted by Mike Lief at 03:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Boycott Canada
Anti-Semitism is sweeping the globe, masked behind the socially acceptable veneer of anti-Zionism. The latest group to succumb is the Canadian public employees' union.
The Ontario divison of Canada's largest union has voted to support an international campaign that is boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
Delegates to the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario convention in Ottawa voted overwhelmingly Saturday to support the campaign until it sees Israel recognizing the Palestinians' right to self-determination. The Ontario group represents more than 200,000 workers.
The global campaign started last July and has been supported by many North American churches, 20 Quebec organizations, and others, Canadian Press said.
CUPE also condemned what they called Israel's "apartheid wall," saying it is illegal under international law.
"Boycott, divestment and sanction worked to end apartheid in South Africa," said Katherine Nastovski, chairwoman of the CUPE Ontario international solidarity committee.
"We believe the same strategy will work to enforce the rights of Palestinian people, including the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties."
Note the disgusting moral equivalence at work, the apartheid rhetoric directed at the only Western-style democracy in the Middle East. Do you, Dear Reader, understand the last paragraph? "[T]he right of refugees to return to their homes and properties" would mean the destruction of the Jewish State, created in the aftermath of the Holocaust as a refuge for a people who had been abandoned by the world community.
Not one word of the Arab denial of Jewish rights -- the illegality under international law of Hamas' and Fatah's attacks on Jewish civilians -- exemplified by blowing up discos, pizza parlors and public buses. While the Canadian union's spokeshole blithely blathers about Israel's wall as a symbol of apartheid, she somehow can't be troubled to mention that suicide bombings have declined more than 90 percent since the wall went up.
Contact the Canadian government, let them know what you think about this boycott.
Canadian Embassy
501 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20001
202-682-1740; Fax: 202-682-7701
canada@canadianembassy.org
Ambassador Michael Wilson
Fax: (202) 682-7678
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 28, 2006
Am I wrong for asking?
Why is it when I see the headline Michael Jackson visits orphanage in Tokyo, the first thing that comes to mind is, "I wonder if that could be considered a shopping trip?"
Posted by Mike Lief at 02:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Mark Steyn on Memorial Day
Her Majesty's best foreign correspondent reposted his two-year-old take on Memorial Day, and it's as worthwhile a read today as it was in 2004.
These passages struck particularly hard.
Lincoln's "mystic chords of memory" are difficult to hear in the din of the modern world, and one of the best ways to do it is to stand before an old headstone, read the name, and wonder at the young life compressed into those brute dates: 1840-1862. 1843-1864.
In my local cemetery, there's a monument over three graves, forebears of my hardworking assistant, though I didn't know that the time I first came across them. Turner Grant, his cousin John Gilbert and his sister's fiance Charles Lovejoy had been friends since boyhood and all three enlisted on the same day. Charles died on March 5, 1863, Turner on March 6, and John on March 11. Nothing splendid or heroic. They were tentmates in Virginia, and there was an outbreak of measles in the camp.
For some reason, there was a bureaucratic mixup and the army neglected to inform the families. Then, on their final journey home, the bodies were taken off the train at the wrong town. It was a Saturday afternoon and the stationmaster didn't want the caskets sitting there all weekend. So a man who knew where the Grants lived offered to take them up to the next town and drop them off on Sunday morning.
When he arrived, the family was at church, so he unloaded the coffins from his buggy and left without a word or a note to anyone. Imagine coming home from Sunday worship and finding three caskets waiting on the porch. Imagine being young Caroline Grant, and those caskets contain the bodies of your brother, your cousin and the man to whom you're betrothed.
That's a hell of a story behind the bald dates on three tombstones. If it happened today, maybe Caroline would be on Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric demanding proper compensation, and the truth about what happened, and why the politicians were covering it up. Maybe she'd form a group of victims' families. Maybe she'd call for a special commission to establish whether the government did everything it could to prevent disease outbreaks at army camps. Maybe, when they got around to forming the commission, she'd be booing and chanting during the officials' testimony, as several of the 9/11 families did during Mayor Rudy Giuliani's testimony.
[...]
New York . . . resisted the Civil War my small town's menfolk were so eager to enlist in. The big city was racked by bloody riots against the draft. And you can sort of see the rioters' point. More than 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War -- or about 1.8 percent of the population. Today, if 1.8 percent of the population were killed in war, there would be 5.4 million graves to decorate on Decoration Day.
But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screw-ups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.
There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites -- from the deranged former vice president down -- want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky-clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.
Playing by Gore-Kennedy rules, the Union would have lost the Civil War, the rebels the Revolutionary War, and the colonists the French and Indian Wars. There would, in other words, be no America. Even in its grief, my part of New Hampshire understood that 141 years ago. We should, too.
It's hard to imagine that this nation of hyper-sensitive would-be victims was once willing to fight and die in numbers staggering to the modern reader, for things as ephemeral as freedom -- freedom from colonial rule, freedom from the moral scourge of slavery.
In a material sense, we're a much richer nation now than we were then, but we're morally, spiritually and patriotically impoverished, when measured against our 19th-century forebearers.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Your elected representatives, hard at work (for illegal aliens)
"We've got to do what's right for the American people."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is on Fox News Sunday, and host Chris Wallace is hammering him on the legislation granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
First has said, "We've got to do what's right for the American people," about half a dozen times, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what the hell he's talking about.
"Best for the American people?" Really?
I'm hard pressed to see how granting amnesty to illegal aliens is what's best for me or my fellow Americans. I suppose if I were someone who had overstayed my visa, snuck across the border, was breaking the law everyday I was in the United States, I'd have done a Mexican hat dance when First and his Senate sob sisters passed this bill.
But how does this amnesty help me? Frist says people are dying, walking through the desert to get here. So what? They've chosen to embark on a dangerous -- and illegal -- path; why should I give a rip if a series of bad choices ends up costing them their lives? It's a shame, but it ain't my problem.
Wallace airs footage from this past Fall of Frist condemning the idea of an amnesty, saying he's against giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship, then reminds Frist that he repeated his opposition in March, too.
Frist responds by pointing out what he says are provisions in the bill that prevent it from being an amnesty:
• Illegal aliens have to pay back taxes (but he doesn't say only for three of the last five years).
• Illegal aliens have to pay a fine (but he doesn't tell viewers that it's only a couple of thousand dollars, a pittance).
• They have to have jobs (forcing down wages for blue collar occupations, and allowing them to continue draining money from our economy and sending the greenbacks south).
• And most ridiculous of all, Frist talks about how, "If they've been here two years or less, they have to go home," adding that if they've been here two to five years, or more than five years, there are less onerous requirements placed upon them before they get U.S. citizenship.
Hello? How exactly are they going to prove any of this? With forged documents, perhaps? They didn't come here legally; if they've been "living in the shadows," how can they possibly prove they've been here for X number of years? Can anyone living outside the Beltway explain how these time-based demarcations do anything other than provide an overwhelming incentive to lie?
Madness.
Stupidity.
Infuriating.
Next up, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin defending the provision in the bill requiring us to "consult" with Mexico before building a fence.
I can't believe I actually typed the previous sentence. Your elected representatives in the United States Senate think we can't protect our borders without getting a "Si, se puede!" from Mexico.
"We have to deal with the millions of people living here in the shadows," says Durbin. What the hell is he talking about? Shadows? Did he see the marches? Who were those people, protesting in the streets? The only shadows I saw were the ones cast by the thousands of Mexican flags and posters urging reconquista.
Feh.
The only thing standing between us and this legislative mess -- loved only in El Casa de Blanco and the Senate -- is the august body known as the U.S. House of Representatives.
Oy vey.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 26, 2006
Mac versus Microsoft: Shelf presence
This is a very witty reimagining of Apple's iPod packaging, if Microsoft was marketing it. Let's just say the two corporations have very different ideas about what makes a product stand out from the crowd.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A fair and unbiased media
The folks at Little Green Footballs got an interesting e-mail in response to something they posted.
I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut....
The sender's e-mail address was zionistpig@hotmail.com -- as Charles drily notes, probably not a legit one.
So, he looks up the IP address of their dear correspondent.
Well I'll be durned! It's an account from a Reuters server.
The wire service has no comment on the jihadis on staff demonstrating an impartial curiosity about current affairs.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
That's going to leave a mark!
The antics of the self-obsessed Hollywood elite get a scathing comment via What Would Tyler Durden Do.
Some people say no one in Hollywood has the courage to stand up for themselves. Some people don’t know Teri Hatcher. Page Six says:
"The actress left her longtime manager Eli Selden (a woman) last year during Selden's fight with breast cancer. One source said: 'Eli got her the role in 'Desperate Housewives,' and soon after that was diagnosed with breast cancer and fought it valiantly.' One source says Hatcher 'left Eli because she told her, 'You can't focus on me right now during this important time in my life...' "
It's about time someone stood up to those pricks with cancer. It's always me, me, me with those people. I need chemo, I want to live, MY bone marrow is low. I don't know if they're just fishin for compliments or what, but it's really unattractive. And Teri Hatcher doesn't have time for such selfish antics. If they didn't want to die so bad, they should have become a leather mummy. Like Teri.
Heh.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Why is a broken leg often curtains for a horse?
Slate has an explainer on why Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro is fighting to avoid the glue factory, when he has what is a minor injury to humans.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2006
#$!#$#@%&* Spambots!
I've been slammed by comment spambots, hundreds every hour, so I'm working on implementing a TypeKey comment authentication protocol.
The people running these spambots should have a flaming porcupine inserted with great vigor into their nether regions.
Sideways.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Moonbats and the War on Terror
Belmont Club on the implications of the Moonbats' pathologies on the body politic.
The treatment given Lieberman and McCain raises the question of whether it is possible to build a consensus policy on the war against terror. Is there any political figure willing to fight terrorism in a minimally effective way who will not be targeted and vilified by a substantial percentage of one of America's major political parties -- and perhaps by its press and "intelligentsia"? That is probably what Hillary Clinton is trying to figure out.
One unintended effect of the September 11 attacks is that it put a defining question to different modes of American political consciousness. Until then it was possible to treat many ideologies respectable since the 1960s as harmless forms of iconoclasm, posing "provocative" but fundamentally hypothetical views. But when attacks on the US homeland made it categorically necessary to answer the question: 'are you willing to fight our assailants', many sincere ideologues paused, shook their heads and said: 'No. In fact I am morally obligated to help our assailants'.
Wretchard mentions sedition, and I think it -- and its cousin, treason -- are the only way to describe the behavior of those who actively support our enemies, those who would kill us all. The vast majority of Americans, who neither march in protest parades with paper-mache puppets, nor in counter-protests because, well, they have jobs, are filled with revulsion by the cynical, soulless posturing of the patchouli-scented pierced-and-tatooed marchers, the syncophants, voluptuaries and starry-eyed fans of cold-blooded terrorists and killers.
This drumbeat of "America bad! Bush is worse than Bin Laden! The U.S. faked 9-11!" will lead to an inevitible backlash, one with dire consequences. It's a comin'. Anyone who knows dogs will tell you the one you need to watch is the dog who's not barking; red-state Americans are watching intently, silently, but their tails aren't wagging, and I'd sure think twice about provoking them.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:42 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 23, 2006
What's good for the goose
As Pres. Bush and the Senate rush to reward illegal aliens, the AP carries this story.
MEXICO CITY - If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force.
Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory.
In the United States, only two posts — the presidency and vice presidency — are reserved for the native born.
In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.
Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."
Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.
Interesting, isn't it? The U.S. House of Representatives talks about enforcing our borders and the Mexican government screams bloody murder. Can you imagine the uproar if we banned non-native born Americans from the job market?
The bloody nerve.
The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million.
J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, was more blunt. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution," he said in a recent article on immigration.
[...]
Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs."
Some say progress is being made. Mexico's president no longer is required to be at least a second-generation native-born. That law was changed in 1999 to clear the way for candidates who have one foreign-born parent, like President Vicente Fox, whose mother is from Spain.
But the pace of change is slow. The state of Baja California still requires candidates for the state legislature to prove both their parents were native born.
As you mull over Mexico's anti-immigration bias, its aggressive defense of its borders, sovereignty and job market, consider these facts:
• Ten percent of Mexicans now live in the United States.
• Fifteen percent of the Mexican workforce lives in the U.S.
• One in every 7 Mexican workers "migrates" to the U.S.
• Mexicans make up 56% of what the Chronicle refers to as the "unauthorized U.S. migrant population."
• There are some Mexican communities that have almost no workers left. They've gone to the U.S.
• Mexicans in the U.S. send about $20 billion a year back to their homes in Mexico. This amount exceeds Mexico's income from all oil exports and is much higher than Mexico's revenue from tourism.
• The $20 billion that Mexicans send back home exceeds the entire foreign aid budget of the United States.
• In five Mexican states the money sent home by those who have invaded the United States exceeds total locally generated income.
Nice, huh?
And just where did I get these inflammatory numbers?
That right-wing rag, The San Francisco Chronicle.
No one has a "right" to come to the U.S., and the U.S. has no obligation to guarantee access to our job market to anyone who break our laws to get here.
Hat tip to Wild Bill for the AP story.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:53 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 22, 2006
Dear Mrs. Fairfax . . .
The Wall Street journal had a article today by Cynthia Crossen, "Deja Vu," about the first advice columnist, Marie Manning. A 20-year-old writer on the women's pages of the New York Evening Journal, she was asked by her editor if she thought three letters from readers could be used in the section.
It was 1898, and William Randolph Hearst's Journal was battling with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World for Gotham's readers; an advice column was unique -- why not give it a try?
Writing under the pseudonym "Beatrice Fairfax," Manning was soon getting more than a thousand letters a day, begging for help from a neutral listener.
What's so striking about them is the ageless quality of the passions, problems, the scandals festering behind the scenes.
We often sanitize the past, think of our grandparents, our great-grandparents living in some sort of desexualized world, prim and proper, certainly never consumed with life-changing decisions and the obsessions prompting the choices.
One young women wrote of her struggle to resist the urge to be with her boyfriend.
Tell me, please, how far a girl can go and still be good. My body cries out to be loved, but my parents believe it is a sin for a girl to even kiss a boy unless he is engaged to her at least. I want to do the things that cry out to be done from within me. But I do not want to be cheap, promiscuous or foolish. How far shall I go?
Aside from the amazing delicacy with which the reader phrases her question, what impresses the modern reader is the insight into the great passions at play -- and how love and sex (or is that love and marriage?) were inextricably connected in the late 19th century.
The mercenary aspects of marriage is nothing new. One women wrote during the Spanish-American War, wanting information on whether she'd get her man's death benefits if he was killed in Cuba. If so, she'd marry him; if not, why bother?
Manning left the newspaper business in 1905 to raise a family, but the Stock Market crash of 1929 forced her to return to work -- and to her readers.
I've never read Manning's column, but I'm hard pressed to believe there was ever a more moving letter than the one she received from a GI in France during the Second World War.
We're fighting at sunrise. All the boys are writing home, and I haven't anyone to write to. My girl is married, and I haven't any folks. I'm ashamed to let the boys see I haven't got a friend, so you won't mind if I write to you -- I've often read your column.
I wonder if that GI lived long enough to read her response. Are there any columnists today that inspire that kind of affection?
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 21, 2006
Nope, the speech still stinks
Well, it's been almost a week since the president's speech on what he'd like to do about illegal immigrants, and -- having slept on it for six nights -- I'm still not satisfied. If anything, it's even less impressive now.
Like Peggy Noonan, I remain mystified by the brain cloud that seems to have enveloped the White House and the Senate; the "Greatest Debating Society" in the world rejected commonsense amendments, one after another, in an unseemly rush to embrace illegal aliens in a warm hug and slip them the tongue.
Noonan offers some possible reasons.
The disinterest in the White House and among congressional Republicans in establishing authority on America's borders is so amazing--the people want it, the age of terror demands it--that great histories will be written about it. Thinking about this has left me contemplating a question that admittedly seems farfetched: Is it possible our flinty president is so committed to protecting the Republican Party from losing, forever, the Hispanic vote, that he's decided to take a blurred and unsatisfying stand on immigration, and sacrifice all personal popularity, in order to keep the party of the future electorally competitive with a growing ethnic group?
This would, I admit, be rather unlike an American political professional. And it speaks of a long-term thinking that has not been the hallmark of this administration. But at least it would render explicable the president's moves.
The other possibility is that the administration's slow and ambivalent action is the result of being lost in some geopolitical-globalist abstract-athon that has left them puffed with the rightness of their superior knowledge, sure in their membership in a higher brotherhood, and looking down on the low concerns of normal Americans living in America.
I find this hard to believe, that an administration that has shown little long-term vision on anything other than attempting to bring democracy to the Muslim world would have the intellectual heft and ideological fervor to attempt such a radical and unpopular move -- and attempt to cloak it in deceptive right-is-wrong, up-is-down language.
But Noonan stumbles upon what I think might really be going on.
I continue to believe the administration's problem is not that the base lately doesn't like it, but that the White House has decided it actually doesn't like the base. That's a worse problem. It's hard to fire a base. Hard to get a new one.
Mickey Kaus, a middle-of-the-road Democrat who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid (at least, not lately), thinks there's some -- hmm, how do you say it -- prevaricatin' going on, in the post Bush Lies, Base Dies!
WaPo's Weisman and VandeHei recount the successful attempt of Senator Hagel and others to get the Bush White House to scuttle conservatives' attempt to amend the immigration bill
to stipulate that the 200,000 low-skilled immigrants allowed to enter the country under a new temporary-worker visa would have to leave when the visa expired.
According to WaPo, the conservative senators argued, ineffectively, that
Bush has always said he backs a "temporary worker program," not a permanent funnel of immigrants to the United States.
Actually, it's worse than that. In Bush's big May 15 speech, he said flatly:
And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.
Now it's been made clear that--according to the White House--temporary workers need not return to their home countries after all. Was Bush's speech statement just a lie? Was it a Clintonian weasel (technically accurate in the zen-tautological sense that their "stay" doesn't conclude until it concludes). ...
P.S.: I happen to favor a path to citizenship for legal temporary workers from outside the country. (It's the illegal workers already inside the country I have problems with rewarding.) But if Bush didn't mean what he said, maybe he shouldn't have said it. Or does he have so much contempt for his own base--what Sen. Hagel, in a revealingly snotty outburst, called "the political lowest common denominator"--that he thinks he can con them with impunity?
Well, does he? It's as good an explanation as I've heard.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Carson's Copper Clapper Caper
The discussion in the comments on the Johnny Carson interview with Jim Henson and his alter ego mentioned another classic moment: Jack Webb's deadpan participation in the investigation of a crime involving all-too-many hard consonants.
The humor doesn't seem particularly dated to me -- funny is funny -- and it's clear from whence Letterman draws much of his inspiration. Too bad he can't seem to master Carson's affability, his class.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 20, 2006
Day By Day
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Nice Tatas
Consumers will soon be sniggering over the opportunity to compliment the neighbors on their nice Tatas, five-passenger cars to be priced under $2,200 for Indian drivers.
Rumor has it that the automaker will be offering two high-end models; the bodacious set of Tatas should prove irresistable to bargain seekers, should they ever export them to the U.S.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
World's biggest vending machine
The Cool Hunter, via Autoblog.
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Greatest non-sequitur ever
Cathy Seipp -- her memory jogged by the . . . not-ready-for-primetime U.S.C. professor who has posted nude self-portraits on the web -- writes of her memories of gym class.
My personal problem with those pictures is they bring back bad memories of junior high gym, when I encountered for the first time that particular floppy style and was so alarmed I wrote about it in detail for a "What I Don't Like About School" assignment for Health class.
What I didn't realize then is this is just a common genetic variation, apparent even in teenage girls in suburban Orange County, and not confined (as I'd previously assumed) to nursing tribeswomen in National Geographic specials.
Well, to each his own, and I hear some men actually like that floppy giant nipple thing. But I'd never seen it before, and was so shocked that my paper -- which had vivid descriptions of damp floppy breasts and moist flabby buttocks shoving themselves around the smelly locker area -- got me called into the counselor's office.
It took her a while to get to the point, but finally she said, "You're not thinking of committing suicide are you?"
"Why would I want to do that?"
"Well...you don't seem to like your body very much."
"I like my body just fine! My paper was about how I don't like their bodies." (This is still my problem with gyms, by the way. And also still my problem with readers who refuse to pay attention.)
The counselor seemed annoyed by that and sent me back to class, but did not (as I'd actually hoped for a few minutes) decide I was too delicate for P.E. and write me an excuse. People were less sensitive then. Probably now I could have convinced them I had a disability called floppybreastaphobia or something.
The man-hating U.S.C. prof is a piece of work. Cardinal Martini, the student who first brought her to national attention, has collected his posts about her in one covenient link.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:04 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 19, 2006
Never Again: Mad Mullah-Iranian edition
In 1941, Nazi SS and Police General Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Nazi Security Service), issued an order requiring Jews to wear a yellow 6-pointed “Star of David.” A portion of the document, above, is translated below.
Here are my guidelines for the enforcement of the Police Decree Regarding The Identifying Emblem for Jews dated 1 September 1941. In those cases where the use of the emblem is related to transportation I have the agreement of the Reichsminister of Traffic, Reichsminister of Mail and the Reichsminister of Aviation.
I) Identifying Emblems for Jews.
a) the Emblem for Jews must be worn by all Jews sewed to the garment on the left chest at heart level so it is obvious. In addition to being worn in public it must also be worn in places like private air raid shelters where problems might occur if Jews were not identified. Jews are required to care for these emblems and keep them clean. This Central Agency for Jewish Emigration is charged with the distribution of Jewish Emblems. The State Union of Jews in Germany and the Jewish Cultural Community in Wien (Vienna) and Prag (Prague) will be involved in those cities.
The penalty for refusing to wear the star was death.
The yellow Star of David patch has become a symbol of the horror of the Nazi's systematic attempt to eliminate the entire Jewish people, a crime that began by visually marking the Jews as the dreaded "Other," someone -- something -- to be avoided.
"Never again!" cried the world after the liberation of the death camps.
This morning I read this.
Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.
[...]
Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."
The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.
Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.
[...]
It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.
A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the measures. "This is nothing to do with anything here," said a press secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.
"We are not here to answer such questions."
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the measure.
[...]
Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the history of the Nazis' "Final Solution."
He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
I won't hold my breath, waiting for the U.N. to respond to the 21st-Century resurrection of Heydrich's order.
But who is prepared to deny that we ought to take the Iranians at their word, when they say that Israel must be wiped off the map?
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 18, 2006
A reminder of kinder, gentler days
Politics has me down (see Michelle Malkin for the 411), but I found myself smiling none-the-less as I watched Johnny Carson just being nice, chatting with Kermit the Frog in an utterly unaffected way, as the late, great Jim Henson gave voice to the muppet while in plain view of the audience.
It's a pleasure to see again why staying up late to watch Johnny was such a treat -- and how Leno (obsequious) and Letterman (snarky) suffer by comparison to Carson.
Even better is the glimpse of Jack Benny at the end of the clip.
Perhaps tomorrow will be better, but at least I can end Thursday with Johnny and friends, just like I did when the world was young and my beloved grandparents were still alive.
Jeez, that sounds awfully maudlin, but that's just the mood tonight, so you're stuck with it.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:23 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Taking the president to the woodshed
Ann Coulter is in rare form, unloading both barrels at Pres. Bush's speech on immigration.
At least Bush has dropped his infernal references to slacker Americans when talking about illegal immigrants. In his speech Monday night, instead of 47 mentions of "jobs Americans won't do," Bush referred only once to "jobs Americans are not doing" -- which I take it means other than border enforcement and intelligence-gathering at the CIA.
[...]
Bush has also apparently learned that the word "amnesty" does not poll well. On Monday night, he angrily denounced the idea of amnesty just before proposing his own amnesty program. The difference between Bush's amnesty program and "amnesty" is: He'd give amnesty only to people who have been breaking our laws for many years -- not just a few months. (It's the same program that allows Ted Kennedy to stay in the Senate.)
Bush calls this the "rational middle ground" because it recognizes the difference between "an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years." Yes, the difference is: One of them has been breaking the law longer. If our criminal justice system used that logic, a single murder would get you the death penalty, while serial killers would get probation.
No matter how you slice it, "a path to citizenship" that doesn't begin in the would-be American's home country just rewards breaking our laws. And all that does is breed contempt for our entire legal system -- and encourage more law breaking.
I'm not clear on why Senators believe there's a pressing need for "comprehensive immigration reform," why they're so opposed to securing the borders first, then -- and only then -- addressing the problem of what to do with our illegal aliens. What's the rush? Why now? Both parties have been turning a blind eye to the damage done by illegal immigration for years. . . .
I just don't get it.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:17 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
May 17, 2006
Ten Commandments Confidential
John Podhoretz called this the greatest re-cut movie coming attraction ever, and he's absolutely right.
For those of tender sensibilities, beware the one profanity at the end.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Day By Day
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Oh happy (diesel) day!
Good news, for those of us who've been hankering for some of the hi-tech diesels only available overseas.
In anticipation of the upcoming diesel boom in the U.S. after the E.P.A. switches us over to Ultra Low Sulfur Fuel in October of this year, Honda will also be introducing a new four-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine in North America that's based on its offerings in Europe.
Great mileage and performance to match, too.
Hybrids? Heh.
Previous posts on hot diesel love:
Diesels picking up steam support
Diesels: Boring, noisy slow, right? Nein!
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Definition of "Chutzpah"
(KHOOT-spuh, HOOT-spuh) Yiddish term for courage bordering on arrogance, roughly equivalent to “nerve” (in the slang sense): “It took a lot of chutzpah to make such a controversial statement.”
Alternate definition:
Mexico Threatens Suits Over Guard Patrols.
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The worst ex-president ever
Jimmah Carter, voluptuary of tyrants, has penned another anti-Israel screed, this time planting his lips firmly on the backside of "Moderate" Palestinian President Abbas.
Unlike St. Jimmah, who believes that the only solution to disputes between Western democracies and tyrants and terrorists is to surrender, I've always thought that peace is never possible until there is a clear-cut winner and a undisputed loser.
World War I sowed the poisoned seeds that bore the bitter fruit of World War II, in large measure because the Armistice of 1918 came about without a decisive military defeat of the Wehrmacht on the battlefield. This, combined with the fact that no major combat operations took place on German soil, allowed the myth of the "stab in the back" to take hold; the Nazis used this alleged betrayal by Jews and Communists to great effect, harnessing the electorate's anger over a defeat it believed was unearned and undeserved.
By the time the Japanese signed the surrender documents aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay in the Fall of 1945, Berlin and Tokyo had been devastated, vast regions of both nations reduced to rubble, their soldiers killed by the bushel, civilians dying city blocks at a time.
There was no question in 1945 -- unlike 27 years earlier -- that this defeat was well deserved.
Today, the defeated nations, formerly dictatorships all, are democracies, no threat to the world -- or their neighbors. One could say that the fires of Dresden and Hiroshima cauterized the wounds inflicted by Hitler, Tojo and their cronies.
Today, all evidence seems to indicate that Hamas thinks it's winning the fight to destroy Israel -- a goal endorsed by the Mad Mullahs of Iran, too.
I'm less than convinced by the arguments of Jimmah and Pres. Clinton, who have insisted that all it take for peace to break out in the Middle East is more concessions from the Israelis. I think peace will only come when the Palestinians suffer a complete and absolute defeat.
As Hamas sees things, Israel is on the political, military, and PR defensive. The mighty Israel Army has not defeated Hamas. It has not deterred Hamas. It has not intimidated Hamas. It has not frightened Hamas. And despite targeted assassinations and artillery barrages, Israel hasn't prevented Hamas from lobbing rockets and missiles into Israel almost daily.
[...]
If it is true that in war there is no substitute for victory, it is truer that victory comes only when the victor breaks the will of the vanquished. One vanquishes an enemy not by winning his heart and mind, but by crushing him militarily.
[...]
Israel need not use carpet bombing to prevail over its foes. It can use less Draconian measures, such as destroying terrorists' homes after each and every terrorist act, and ending all economic ties with the Palestinians. It is absolutely absurd that the Israelis hire Palestinians for day labor in their country. It is equally absurd that they supply electricity every day to the very people who pray, and wish, and work for their destruction.
[...]
Hamas has no qualms about killing innocent Israelis - that's what Arab terrorists are supposed to do - and then waiting for Israel's inevitable response. When that response results in the unavoidable death of innocents, not only is Hamas delighted, but there are the inevitable anti-Israel letters to foreign newspapers, such as this one in The Oregonian of March 9, 2006: "Does the World War II atrocity [of the Holocaust] give the Jewish state the right to murder an 8-year-old [Palestinian] boy?"
The only way for the Israelis to end the Palestine-Israel conflict, and also to end the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides, is to employ effective force. They must kill the terrorists in their very beds. And if their beds happen to be next to the beds of Palestinian civilians, that is sad. But the deaths of innocents is the price the Palestinians decided to pay when they vote for Hamas and when they support its terrorist and rejectionist agenda. Israel has nothing to apologize for if the Arabs deny the truth that every action has a consequence.
After a successful commando raid in Beirut in the spring of 1973, during which a seventy-year-old Italian woman was unfortunately killed, the then Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General David Elazar, said: "Israel won't play by the rules of partial war; wars are not won with a strong defense."
If despite Elazar's dictum, contemporary Israelis keep playing by the rules of partial war, and refuse to fight their enemies by the rules of the region in which they live, both the conflict and the innocent civilian casualties will continue until the end of time.
A nation that refuses to fight to win is doomed to defeat -- and a nation unwilling to admit defeat will never win peace.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 16, 2006
If you build it, they'll still come
Apparently, nothing will really stop law-breaking migrants from coming to America, not even a wall. That's the message I'm taking away from the immigration debate -- at least if I believe the people supporting the "rights" of the illegal aliens.
I took part in a panel discussion following Pres. Bush's speech last night. His five-point plan left me underwhelmed, as did the discussion. One participant, a Democratic Party activist, seemed fixated on the war in Iraq, repeatedly asserting that the GOP was using the immigration issue to demagogue and distract the nation from it's miserable record and enormous deficit.
I responded that the mainstream GOP was pushing hard for allowing illegal aliens to stay in the country -- that hardly seemed like "demagoguing."
"Hurricane Katrina!" she responded.
"Okaaaay," said I.
The fellow from Ojai said he cringed every time he heard the phrase "illegal alien;" that must explain why he was writhing in his seat every time I spoke, 'cause he heard it a lot.
I'll provide more details later.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
City of Darkness, Street of Shame
This is Daniel Faulkner. He was a twenty-five-year-old cop, murdered in December 1981, by every liberal's favorite death-row inmate, Wesley Cook, AKA Mumia Abu Jamal. If you click on his picture, you'll go to a website debunking all the lies spread by his killer's defenders.
The only thing you need to know is that the coward shot Daniel Faulkner in the back. Officer Faulkner spun around, managing to fire one shot, wounding his attacker, then fell to the street. As Daniel lay on his back, unarmed and bleeding, his attacker stood over him and fired a series of shots. Officer Faulkner desperately moved from side to side, trying to avoid the coup de grace, but his attacker would not be denied.
Frustrated by his would-be victim's struggle to live, Cook/Abu Jamal knelt, placing the barrel of the gun in Daniel's face, and pulled the trigger. The final shot entered Daniel's head just above his eye and tore a bloody path through his brain, killing him.
Tried by a jury of his Philadelphia peers and sentenced to death, Officer Faulkner's killer has seen his conviction affirmed by every appellate court forced to review the sordid details of the murder.
So, who do you think the French city of St. Denis has chosen to honor by re-naming a street?
A revolting tribute, from a deeply perverse society.
Happy National Police Week.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:31 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 15, 2006
Iranian negotiating strategy
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Dems: Connect the dots, but not too aggressively
The Democrats and other assorted Bush Haters have been in a tizzy ever since the press released more classified information about how we're protecting Americans, information that'll help our enemies better plan how to kill us.
The NSA's data-mining project, looking for patterns and connections amongst the billions of phone calls placed every day, does not involve listening to what's being said, thank goodness; I've been forced to eavesdrop on just a few hundred of those conversations -- people yakking into cellphones at privacy-defying volumes -- and the sheer inanity makes me pray for sweet, sweet release (via aneurism, myocardial infarction, or asteroid hitting the Starbucks) from the problems of my fellow Americans.
Mark Steyn, as usual, has some thoughts on the press coverage of the NSA program -- as well as the anti-War Dems -- that I think are rather well put.
Template A (note to editors: to be used after every terrorist atrocity): "Angry family members, experts and opposition politicians demand to know why complacent government didn't connect the dots."
Template B (note to editors: to be used in the run-up to the next terrorist atrocity): "Shocking new report leaked to New York Times for Pulitzer Prize Leak Of The Year Award nomination reveals that paranoid government officials are trying to connect the dots! See pages 3,4,6,7,8, 13-37."
[...]
"Look at this headline," huffed [Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.)] the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. Now, are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaida?"
No. But next time he's flying from D.C. to Burlington, Vt., on a Friday afternoon he might look at the security line: Tens of millions of Americans are having to take their coats and shoes off! Are you telling me that tens of millions of ordinary shoe-wearing Americans are involved with al-Qaida?
Of course not. Fifteen out of 19 of the 9/11 killers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. So let's scrap the tens of millions of law-abiding phone records, and say we only want to examine the long-distance phone bills of, say, young men of Saudi origin living in the United States.
Can you imagine what Leahy ... would say to that? Oh, no! Racial profiling! The government's snooping on people whose only crime is "dialing while Arab." In a country whose Transportation Security Administration personnel recently pulled Daniel Brown off the plane as a security threat because he had traces of gunpowder on his boots -- he was a uniformed U.S. Marine on his way home from Iraq -- in such a culture any security measure will involve "tens of millions of Americans": again by definition, if one can't profile on the basis of religion or national origin or any other identifying mark with identity-group grievance potential, every program will have to be at least nominally universal.
Last week, apropos the Moussaoui case, I remarked on the absurdity of victims of the London Blitz demanding the German perpetrators be brought before a British court. Melanie Phillips, a columnist with the Daily Mail in London and author of the alarming new book Londonistan, responded dryly, "Ah, but if we were fighting World War Two now, we'd lose."
The ever-present bleating by the Dems about protecting our privacy -- even if it kills us -- is the only thing that'll ensure that The Stupid Party (aka GOP) retains control of Congress. If you didn't know better, you'd think Karl Rove had Leahy, Kennedy, Schumer, Pelosi, Reid and all the rest of the Democratic Moonbat Brigade on his payroll.
They're not, are they?
Read the rest
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2006
Saying "good-bye" to Pres. Bartlett
The West Wing wraps up it's seven-year run tomorrow night. Reliably chock-full of liberal cant, I've watched it periodically over the years, usually enjoying its fast-paced dialogue, good acting, and its wonkish delight in ideas -- even if the show's take on the issues was usually wrong.
Very, very, wrong.
Anyhow, it has had moments of such stupendously stupid left-wing cant that I've changed channels, not tuning back in for months at a time.
For instance, a couple of weeks ago, the incoming president, played by Jimmy Smits, was checking out schools with the future first lady for their kids. After looking at a series of ritzy prep schools, they decide to check out a Washington, D.C., public school.
Naturally, they decide that this will be the perfect place for the president's kids to get a good education.
I turned to my wife and said, "This is possibly the single-most idiotic thing I've ever seen on a TV show," the idea that any big league Democratic politician would send his kids to a public school, especially one in the Capitol.
Please.
Despite paying lip service to the important -- nay, indespensible! -- role public schools play in our nation, most politicians (and educators) send their kids to private schools.
Anyhow, the folks at the Media Research Center have compiled a series of clips of the Top Ten Most Left Wing Scenes from the series, nine liberal rants and one atypical exchange, wherein the conservative point of view seems to come out on top.
Donna: We have a $32 billion budget surplus for the first time in three decades. The Republicans in Congress want to use this money for tax relief, right?
Josh: Yes.
Donna: Essentially what they're saying is we want to give back the money. Why don't we want to give back the money?
Josh: Because we're Democrats.
Donna: But it's not the government's money.
Josh: Sure it is. It's right there in our bank accounts.
Donna: That's only because we collected more money than we ended up needing.
Josh: Isn't it great?
Donna: I want my money back.
Josh: Sorry.
Later, they pick up the argument:
Donna: What's wrong with me getting my money back?
Josh: You won't spend it right.
Donna: What do you mean?
Josh: Let's say your cut of the surplus is $700. I want to take your money, combine it with everybody else's money, and use it to pay down the debt and further endow Social Security. What do you want to do with it?
Donna: Buy a DVD player.
Josh: See.
Donna: But my $700 is helping employ the people who manufacture and sell DVD players, not to mention the people who manufacture and sell DVDs. It's the natural evolution of the market economy.
Josh: The problem is the DVD player you buy might be manufactured in Japan.
Donna: I'll buy an American one.
Josh: We don't trust you.
Donna: Why not?
Josh: We're Democrats.
Donna, exasperated: I want my money back.
Josh, snickering: You shouldn't have voted for us.
Seems as good a way as any to bid adieu to Hollywood's fantasy White House.
Posted by Mike Lief at 05:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Am Yisroel Chai!
On April 15, 1945, the British Royal Artillery 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment liberated Bergen-Belsen, the first major concentration camp to be captured by the Allies.
While not a death camp like Auschwitz, more than 35,000 Jews died in Bergen-Belsen, the victims of starvation, disease, sadistic medical experiments and being worked to death. Among the dead were Anne Frank and her sister, Margot; they died less than a month before the Brits arrived.
Conditions in the camp were appalling. More than 60,000 inmates were present on April 15; 500 inmates died every day after the British sent the Nazis packing -- more than 14,000 dying after their liberation.
A recording was discovered of the newly-freed inmates singing "Hatikvah" -- the Zionist anthem, which would become the Israeli National Anthem -- on April 20, 1945, at the first Shabbat service by free Jews in Germany since before the war.
It is perhaps the most moving thing I've ever heard.
The first five lines the survivors sing are:
As long as in the heart, within,
A Jewish soul still yearns,
And onward toward the East,
An eye still watches toward Zion --
Our hope has not yet been lost
You can listen to it here, or download a copy of it on this page.
A transcript of the recording is below.
This is London Calling North America.The day I reached the Belsen concentration camp, the fifth day of liberation, was a Friday, the day before the Jewish Sabbath.
Something like half the surviving prisoners at Belsen were Jews, and the Jewish chaplain to the British Second Army, the Reverend L.H. Hartman, held an eve of the Sabbath service in the open air, in the midst of the camp. It was the first Jewish service that many of the men and women present had taken part in for six years. It was probably the first Jewish service held on German soil, in absolute security and without fear, for a decade.
Around us lay the corpses that there had not been time to clear away even after five days– 40,000 or more had been cleared, but there was still one or two thousand around. People were still lying down and dying, in broad daylight, in front of our eyes. This was the background to this open air Jewish service. During the service, the few hundred people gathered together were sobbing openly with joy of their liberation and with sorrow at the memory of their parents - and brother - and sisters, that had been taken from them and gassed and burned
These people knew they were being recorded. They wanted the world to hear their voice. They made a tremendous effort, which quite exhausted them. Listen…
Singing Ha Tikvah.
Am Yisroel Chai! The children of Israel still liveth.
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May 12, 2006
Day By Day
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Geneva Convention: Still relevant?
Wretchard has an interesting post that begins by detailing a naval attack by a terrorist group on the Sri Lankan navy, then moves into a discussion of the relevance of the Geneva Convention to asymetrical wars, where only one side is interested in "playing by the rules."
It's doubtful whether either the warlords or the Islamists have much regard for the Laws of War and one wonders what exactly the "U.N.-backed transitional government" actually does.
British Defense Secretary John Reid created a stir by suggesting that the Geneva Convention be updated to reflect the realities of terrorism. "The legal constraints upon us have to be set against an enemy that adheres to no constraints whatsoever." It is probably fortunate that a European has posed this question because this ball really belongs in the court of the transnationalists. Any attempts to obtain realistic rules of engagement against terrorists by a US administration will be branded as fascistic.
So lets pose the question: how should one deal with combatants who have no regard for ceasefires, women, children, flags of truce, churches, mosques or the Rules of War?
It's an important question; the resulting discussion in the comments section is well worth reading.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:45 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
He-Man: The first gay superhero
At least so says a Slate writer, re-watching a cartoon from his childhood through post-modern eyes.
The best part about rewatching He-Man, after the initial nostalgia-burst, was tracking the show's hilarious accidental homo-eroticism—an aspect I missed completely as a first-grader.
In the ever-growing lineup of "outed" classic superheroes, He-Man might be the easiest target of all. It's almost too easy: Prince Adam, He-Man's alter ego, is a ripped Nordic pageboy with blinding teeth and sharply waxed eyebrows who spends lazy afternoons pampering his timid pet cat; he wears lavender stretch pants, furry purple Ugg boots, and a sleeveless pink blouse that clings like saran wrap to his pecs.
To become He-Man, Adam harnesses what he calls "fabulous secret powers": His clothes fall off, his voice drops a full octave, his skin turns from vanilla to nut brown, his giant sword starts gushing energy, and he adopts a name so absurdly masculine it's redundant. Next, he typically runs around seizing space-wands with glowing knobs and fabulously straddling giant rockets.
He hangs out with people called Fisto and Ram Man, and they all exchange wink-wink nudge-nudge dialogue: "I'd like to hear more about this hooded seed-man of yours!" "I feel the bony finger of Skeletor!" "Your assistance is required on Snake Mountain!"
Once you start thinking along these lines, it's impossible to stop. (Clearly, others have had the same idea.) It's a prime example of how easily an extreme fantasy of masculinity can circle back to become its opposite.
Yikes.
Nothing has been worth watching on Saturday mornings since Warner Bros. closed up shop on Bugs, Daffy and Elmer.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
More proof that exercise kills
Well, a combination of exercise and exposure to Mother Nature is often a toxic mix.
An alligator that killed a woman jogger in Broward County, Fla., likely stalked her on land before the attack, according to a Local 6 News report Friday.
The Broward County medical examiner said the alligator attacked Yovy Suarez Jimenez, 28, of Davie, on land and then dragged her dismembered body into a nearby lake.
Her body was found by construction workers after she didn't return from a jog the previous night.
"It is my professional opinion that the alligator attacked the woman while she was on land," said Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County's medical examiner. "She died of traumatic injuries sustained by an alligator attack, a mixture of blood loss and shock, and in my opinion died very fast."
Perper ruled out drowning because little water was found in her stomach and lungs, according to on story on The Miami Herald's Web site.
[...]
Trappers will try to catch and kill the animal, believed to be eight to 10-feet long, and the contents of its stomach will be examined, Pino said.
Perper said the alligator appeared to have crawled on to land and killed Jimenez and then dragged her body into the water.
He said alligators generally pull their prey into the water.
"When they are hungry they can be very very aggressive and attack for food purposes," he said.
I blame Disney for our continuing blindness to the threat posed by non-human members of the Earth First! terror movement.
I'll be on my couch.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 11, 2006
Happy Birthday, Trooper Rex!
When Robley Rex was a young man, he got on a boat heading for France to fight in the War to End All Wars. It was a world unimagineably different from the one in which the veteran celebrated his 105th birthday this past week.
Mr. Rex represents living history, a connection with a cataclysmic conflict that destroyed an entire generation of men, ruined economies, and sowed the blood-soaked battlefields with the malignant seeds that would give rise to the poisonous ideologies of Stalinism and Nazism.
Now, almost 90 years after the guns fell silent on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, fewer than 25 veterans of that conflict remain amongst the living in the United States.
It's amazing how close we are to history -- and how rapidly our first-hand participants are leaving us.
Alistair Cooke -- the erudite chap hosting Masterpiece Theater on PBS in the '70s and '80s -- was fond of telling people who shook his hand that, "You've just shaken the hand that shook the hand that shook hands with Abraham Lincoln."
It seems that when the Brit was a young correspondent, he was introduced to Oliver Wendell Homes. Holmes, a Civil War officer in the Union Army before he was a Supreme Court Justice, shook the Great Emancipator's hand, a few years before he gripped the Englishman's hand in greeting.
My grandfather, who lived from 1896 to 1977, experienced tremendous social and technological changes, and was my living history lesson. A veteran of WWI, he talked often of his years in the cavalry before and after the War, but not of his combat in France.
I knew him only as an old man, crippled by arthritis and a damaged heart, but I prefer to remember him as a Doughboy, striding across fields with a grin on his face and his trusty Springfield slung over his shoulder.
More can be found on Mr. Rex via links on Solomonia's site.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What's irony?
Irony is not what you use to get the wrinkles out of a shirty.
Sorry.
Anyhow, this is a pretty good example of irony: an air purifier/cleaner that puts a smog alert in your house.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Does the ABA suck or blow?
I guess it depends on where you're standing.
People's exhibit 4,382, Your Honor: Yet another reason why I quit paying for a membership in the American Bar Association.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2006
Diplomatic dispatch from Tehran
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What's the best way to kill a killer?
The life sentence imposed on the soon-to-be-forgotten terrorist last week in Federal Court made moot the question of how best to execute him, especially in light of recent moves by appellate courts to rule that nearly every method in the modern arsenal is unconstitutional, a violation of the 8th Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishments.
Most recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that California's lethal injection was an impermissible violation of the 8th Amendment, because the lethal cocktail might cause the condemned man some pain before it killed him.
Let's take a moment to reflect on the profound wisdom of the Ninth Circuit.
You go ahead; I'm going to have a drink and a smoke -- let me know when you're done.
. . . .
That was quick.
Anyhow, the idea that we mustn't inflict any pain or discomfort in the course of an execution is risible, but then, most of the Ninth Circuit's views on the law tend to be laughable. A similar decision out of Florida is being considered by the Supreme Court, and I expect lethal injection will soon have the High Court's seal of approval.
That fact notwithstanding, there are other, more . . . traditional methods that are swift, sure, and relatively painless. Hanny Hindi has an interesting roundup over at Slate.
Dr. Joseph Guillotin's "simple mechanism" for decapitation always worked as intended. The prisoner facing the guillotine was placed face-down on a large wooden plank, their head secured in a brace and steadied by an executioner's assistant known as "the Photographer," who held onto their hair (or, in the case of bald prisoners, their ears). When everything was in place, a 120-pound blade was dropped from 7 feet in the air, immediately severing the prisoner's head.
The guillotine was extremely bloody, but, unlike the garrote—or modern lethal injections—it never missed.
The "extremely bloody" results of the guillotine's use don't usually bother the condemned; it's the witnesses that are presumably disturbed by the crimson fountain, brief though its gouting display may be. That's a common criticism of other relatively quick, painless methods of providing a quick transition from this world to the next: they're too . . . gross, too likely to upset the crowd's digestion.
Which is really the problem with the death penalty. As I've stated before, I'm not a huge fan of state-sanctioned executions. But if we, as a society, favor the imposition of the ultimate punishment, we ought to have the decency to watch with unblinking eyes and witness what we have sought, required and imposed.
To try and make an execution approximate a medical procedure, with all the trappings of the healing profession is -- to be frank -- cowardly.
The pursuit of less "cruel" methods of execution is not new; it was Dr. Guillotin's inspiration for designing the lethal machine that bears his name.
The Slate article discusses a search by an American blue-ribbon panel from the late 19th Century for a more modern, enlightened way to execute prisoners.
Precisely such a method can be found in the 1888 report of the "Gerry Commission." The governor of New York formed this commission to find a "humane and efficient" alternative to hanging. Their final report suggested electrocution, but not before reviewing every method used in the past, from "Auto da fè," to "Wild beasts." For a method that instantly destroys all the body's pain receptors, consider the fourth item in their exhaustive and pedantic list. A paraphrase wouldn't do it justice:
4) Blowing from a cannon ... "The insurgent Sepoy, lashed to the cannon's mouth, within two seconds of pulling the trigger, is blown into 10,000 atoms." "Here," [the witness] adds, "is no interval for suffering, as no sooner has the peripheral sensation reached the central perceptive organ than that organ is dissipated to the four winds of heaven."
The report dismissed such "barbarisms" as unworthy of consideration, and it's hard to disagree. But then the commission also objected to the garrote, the guillotine, and the firing squad as "needlessly shocking to the necessary witnesses." It was a short step from here to the needless complexity and fallibility of the electric chair, and simple and effective methods have been passed over ever since in favor of self-serving displays of "humanity."
There's something guffaw-inducing about the idea that we mustn't strap a man to the muzzle of a cannon -- guaranteeing him an completely painless death -- because of the mess it'll make.
So, you see, it's not really about minimizing the condemned man's pain.
It's all about minimizing our guilt and nausea.
There are other, less extreme variations on the Sepoy Mutineers' fate; as detailed in the Slate article, the Chinese are experts at the application of a pistol round into the back of the head, causing near-instantaneous brain death.
The bottom line is -- as usual -- that the courts have gotten it all wrong. What's really cruel and unusual about the way we've chosen to impose the death penalty is how much effort we've put into making it seem like a clinical, antiseptic procedure.
Death should come with fall through a trapdoor and a twitching dance at the end of a rope; with a target pinned to the chest as riflemen take careful aim; as the blade races down the guides towards the waiting neck.
And we should watch, in a public setting, and think about what we've done, remember the victims, avenging their loss, that criminals who might contemplate inflicting a violent death on innocents will not enjoy the painless death they would deny their prey.
*****
A final (macabre) thought. Did you ever wonder how long consciousness remains after the blade falls? The answer is deeply disturbing.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 09, 2006
Day By Day
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What's the big deal?
I've been hearing pols and pundits decrying the fact that Pres. Bush has nominated Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to head up the C.I.A., claiming that it's somehow troubling to have a military man running the Agency.
Let's see who's made the same "mistake."
Rear Adm. Sidney W. Souers, 23 January 1946 —10 June 1946
Lt. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, 10 June 1946 —1 May 1947
Rear Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, 1 May 1947 — 7 October 1950
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, 7 October 1950 — 9 February 1953
Vice Adm. William F. Raborn, Jr., 28 April 1965 — 30 June 1966
Adm. Stansfield Turner, 9 March 1977— 20 January 1981
Pres. Truman appointed the first four flag-rank officers to head the CIA; Pres. Johnson put an admiral into the top spot at the Agency; and Voluptuary to Tyrants Jimmah Carter did so, too.
I can't recall reading about anyone being troubled by these military men having been chosen to run the C.I.A.; can you? Of course, many will point to Hayden's role in the NSA terrorist surveillance program, the one the Democrats and the ACLU hate.
Pres. Bush and Rove would love to have a fight about this program, as most Americans see nothing wrong with monitoring conversations with terrorists, even if the other party on the line is in the U.S.A.
Hayden seems like a solid choice. It'll be interesting to see what the confirmation hearings reveal -- more so about the questioners than the nominee, I think.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:07 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
I'm worried
Things that worry me.
How to destroy the Earth.
Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.
You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.
Fools.
[...]
This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I (Sam Hughes) can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems.
If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.
This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.
Via the WSJ's Avian Flu Tracker comes this disturbing news.
A leading bird-flu expert says H5N1 is the worst flu virus he's ever encountered, and that far too many gaps in planning and knowledge persist for the world to handle it in the event of a pandemic.
The virus is a virulent killer in poultry, moving into the brain and destroying the respiratory tract, said Robert G. Webster, a virologist at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. "I've worked with flu all my life, and this is the worst influenza virus that I have ever seen," said Mr. Webster, who has studied bird flu for decades. "If that happens in humans, God help us."
Can you use chicken soup to combat avian flu? I'm just asking. Seriously, it seems prudent to stock up on food and water; if this thing becomes human-to-human transmissible, quarantine may be the best shot we have at limiting its spread -- and the risk to our families.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, this made-for-TV movie does a decent job showing us what a worst-case scenario will look like.
This chilling made-for-TV pic that's designed to look and feel like a contemporary nightmare docudrama a la "The Day After" delivers the goods with a wallop to the gut . . .
It's almost immediately clear that the folks behind the film did their homework to make for a wrenchingly credible scenario. They also smartly utilized as a consultant a fellow named John M. Barry, author of the New York Times best-seller "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History" (about the 1918 Spanish flu that wiped out tens of millions).
[...]
Playing like a page-turning thriller, "Fatal Contact" opens with a depiction of Patient Zero in the depicted outbreak: an American businessman who flies to Hong Kong to meet with his Asian manufacturers and winds up falling violently ill. It's traced to a new strain of avian flu virus discovered by the World Health Organization in a Hong Kong marketplace. More than a million birds suspected of infection are destroyed to eradicate the strain, to no avail. The virus leaps from its bird hosts and is suddenly communicable via human-to-human contact.
This is pretty much the ultimate health catastrophe, a virulent disease that's so contagious and spreads with frightening speed via microbes that take to permeating the atmosphere.
[...]
Balancing the gloomy prognosis in the meticulously researched "Fatal Contact" is the single encouraging, if ironic, footnote: that even if this actually came to pass and the country was woefully short of adequate vaccine for four to five months, that could wind up as a blessing in disguise. Why? Because the longer the virus is around, the less lethal the strain becomes. But the film doesn't exist to reassure us. The actual H5N1 virus is working its way through the wild bird and poultry populations of 48 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. And while properly cooked poultry kills the virus, the capacity for mutation is no long shot. Thus, we minimize vivid and intelligent movies like this one at our peril.
It airs Tuesday night at 9 on ABC.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2006
More things to worry about
Did you hear about the robot helicopter armed with a shotgun?
Law enforcement and the military will put it to good use, I'm sure, much to the dismay of bad guys everywhere. It's the more lethal NEW! IMPROVED! version that's got security experts worried.
The android whirlygig carrying a big bomb could prove to be the perfect, near-unstoppable suicide bomber.
If you thought the 12-gauge shotgun-wielding AutoCopter was bad news, imagine one of the little menaces in the hands of a terrorist and strapped with several pounds of explosives -- or worse, biological, chemical, or radiological payloads. Several experts are warning that we are nearly defenseless against such attacks, even though terrorists have already shown a propensity for using such tactics in the Middle East and South America, and are known to have purchased so-called "drone" airplanes capable of high-precision navigation even over long distances.
One scenario that is particularly disturbing involves a fleet of drones or robotic helicopters launched from an off-shore freighter, sent en masse to attack a large gathering like a sporting event where stampeding from panic would likely cause more deaths than the bombs themselves.
The Pentagon is supposedly working on an drone-killing drone of its own, called Peregrine, that would patrol the skies and intercept any hostile aircraft -- but the main problem seems to be finding, not destroying these things, and you'd need a whole lot of Peregrines to cover every potential target in the US.
The reality is that it's impossible to prevent all attacks; the best we can do is carry the fight to our enemies, hunt them down and kill them on foreign soil, far away from our shores. That's why it's so important to secure our borders and improve the intelligence gathering capabilites of the C.I.A., which seems more dedicated to fighting the Bush Administration then it is in finding and killing the bad guys.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 05, 2006
Why Moussaoui and his ilk should die
Gerard Van Der Leun begins an open letter to the terrorists with this photo. Go ahead and click on it, look at the full-sized version, study those men and women who were forced to decide between incineration in the fires raging at their backs, or taking that last step off the ledge and falling -- falling, flying for the last seconds of their lives, before the combined effects of gravity and terminal velocity ensured their families would have nothing to remember them by, nothing but panicked phone calls to say "I love you," and these photos.
It made me realize how long it's been since we've seen these pictures. The MSM pulled them down, off, out by 9-12, afraid our tender 21st Century Psyches couldn't handle the terrible images.
Of course, I suspect the real reason was that these images inspire a reaction in the Great Unwashed Masses that makes the Solons of the Media recoil in horror, for righteous anger is an appropriate response to the murder of our fellow Americans, and white-hot retribution must -- must! -- be visited upon those who forced these men and women to make such a terrible choice.
Van Der Leun's letter is a direct response, not only to the jihadis who would put us all to the sword, but the jurors who decided that death was not appropriate for the conspirators -- and to the politicians who insisted that the terrorists are criminals, entitled to the protections of our courts.
DEAR ISLAM,
Yes, it's true. We thirst for death. We would like you, at your earliest opportunity, to expunge our guilt by slaughtering us wholesale. We have so much while you, the petulant children of a whacked-out god, oppressed by your own ratty cultures and fascist governments and unable to contribute anything to civilization for over 500 years, have so little except your "trauma" that it is only fair that you get to incinerate more of us at will.
We have a problem with our self-esteem in this country, and that problem is that you are not killing enough of us quickly enough.
We don't ask for much in this regard. We only ask that next time you plan more carefully and thoroughly. We note that, during the unfortunate events of the 11th, only a few of our children were killed by you. They died because they just happened to be on our airplanes that you borrowed for the day.
This is unacceptable to a nation like America that believes in including children in all our important events. After all, they're citizens too. Therefore, please make sure to be more inclusive in the future. If you could please manage a mass hostage taking at, say, The Mall of America that replicates Beslan Massacre where 344 innocent civilians were killed, 186 of them children, we'd turn out for it in droves.
[...]
Don't forget, before you touch off the explosives that incinerate ten thousand or more of us here and there across the land, to get Katie Couric and Maureen Dowd to visit so they can interview you about your abusive fathers and traumatic childhoods. If possible, could you answer their questions while slitting the throats of our children for the cameras. It makes for much more interesting reality-TV than the dull screeching-mullah clips you've been releasing of late. Ratings will soar when this stuff is shown in heavy rotation on Fox, CNN and MTV. If you could start with the smallest and cutest and cut throats upward until you reach our teenage daughters, you can keep this thing rolling for days. Don't worry about our police or even the National Guard, they'll spend days "assessing" the situation, and pausing for interviews and reactions from the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy.
Don't rush it. You'll have plenty of time. With any luck, our President (whomever he or she may be) will reconvene the 9/11 Commission to examine the motivations for your throat slittings in real-time. It is for this reason that you should confine your terrorism to the week-ends in America so you can be sure of having enough of our children on hand. It wouldn't do to run out of throats to slit or heads to cut off while you have the nation's attention. You don't want people clicking away to watch "The Sopranos," do you?
The whole letter is worth reading; take a moment and cruise over to Gerard's site.
Posted by Mike Lief at 03:49 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Why the Moussaoui trial was a disaster
John Derbyshire unleashes on the mockery that was the Zacharias Moussaoui trial.
Thank God the Moussaoui trial is over. I have never been so embarrassed for my country.
The low point of the thing — and a low point for our nation in its accelerating slide to oblivion — was when that U.S. Navy Lieutenenat sniveled and blubbed on the witness stand while Moussaoui jeered at her — quite rightly, in my opinion. I expected Jimmy Carter or Oprah to show up at any minute. An American officer, in uniform, weeping IN THE FACE OF THE ENEMY! She should be court-martialed. Instead, I feel sure she will get promoted. ("If you emote, we must promote.") The trial transcripts must have been translated into Arabic, Farsi & Pushtu by now, and are being passed around among the terrorists as morale boosters, with much hilarity and Moussaoui-style jeering.
Judge Brinkema's closing remarks were typical of the whole sorry performance, and gave Moussaoui yet another opportunity to play the man — the only man in the courtroom. Does anyone, DOES ANYONE, think we're going to defeat Islamofascism by squirting clouds of this multicultural mush at it? The terrorists sure as hell don't. Does anyone think the enemy gives a fig for our determination not to "focus on hatred, bigotry, and irrationality" (Judge Brinkema). I wonder if you can win a war without deploying hatred. Homer didn't think so.
The New York Post described Judge Brinkema's closing remarks as "a tongue lashing." I would say that's about right. They have suicide bombers — and, any day now, nukes which they will use. We have wet tongues.
"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, naturally they will favor the strong horse."—-Osama bin Laden. Yes, they will. We are doomed, doomed.
I couldn't agree more. At a time when we need to steel ourselves for battle, we engage in endless discussions about the root causes of terrorism, "Why do they hate us?" and other feel-good time-wasters.
Let me leave you with an example of wartime leadership, a man who preferred preparing for naval battle -- rather than navel gazing -- Adm. William "Bull" Halsey. Look into his eyes; is there any doubt that this man would pursue the enemy relentlessly?
Repellent as it may be to ever-so-delicate modern sensibilities, I find his fighting philosophy to be remarkably direct.
Edit in "Terrorists" and we've got a slogan for the 21st Century War we're fighting -- a message that will strike fear in the hearts of our enemies.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 04, 2006
Tony Snow on John McCain
Via Cathy Seipp comes an interesting take on Tony Snow, and this tidbit on the NYTimes' favorite GOP presidential candidate.
Snow also departed from the general, bipartisan media adulation of John McCain - which he attributed to a dazzled and somewhat shamefaced respect among draft-dodging baby-boomers for the Arizona senator's military service: "You look at these guys on the press bus and they haven't been this close to a uniform since their dads made 'em throw out their G.I. Joe dolls."
Snow wasn't so dazzled, partly because he found himself on the wrong side of McCain's famous temper when the then Republican presidential candidate was a guest on "Fox News Sunday." At the time McCain, asked about his taste in music, had been quoted as saying that he liked the band Nine Inch Nails. Snow put up the lyrics to a Nine Inch Nails song on the show and asked, "Are you sure?"
The result, Snow said, is that McCain refused to speak to him for four months.
"Here's the thing about McCain: He's crazy," Snow added. "Another thing is, you cannot be a successful Republican candidate if you spend all your time bashing Republicans."
No -- and I do mean NO! -- conservatives with whom I talk politics support the idea of a McCain presidency. From judges to illegal aliens to not understanding (read: opposing) the First Amendment, Johnny Mac is a Moonbat in Mufti.
He's got zip-point-crap-minus-three chance of winning the GOP nomination.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Day By Day
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
They should have killed him
So says Peggy Noonan about the jury that lost its nerve. I share her ambivalence when it comes to the State taking a man's life, but I also share her belief that if there was ever a man deserving of a date with the hangman, it was Moussaoui.
Moussaoui said as he was led from the courtroom: "America, you lost." He clapped his hands.
Excuse me, I'm sorry, and I beg your pardon, but the jury's decision on Moussaoui gives me a very bad feeling. What we witnessed here was not the higher compassion but a dizzy failure of nerve.
[...]
How removed from our base passions we've become. Or hope to seem.
It is as if we've become sophisticated beyond our intelligence, savvy beyond wisdom. Some might say we are showing a great and careful generosity, as befits a great nation. But maybe we're just, or also, rolling in our high-mindedness like a puppy in the grass. Maybe we are losing some crude old grit. Maybe it's not good we lose it.
No one wants to say, "They should have killed him." This is understandable, for no one wants to be called vengeful, angry or, far worse, unenlightened. But we should have put him to death, and for one big reason.
This is what Moussaoui did: He was in jail on a visa violation in August 2001. He knew of the upcoming attacks. In fact, he had taken flight lessons to take part in them. He told no one what was coming. He lied to the FBI so the attacks could go forward. He pled guilty last year to conspiring with al Qaeda; at his trial he bragged to the court that he had intended to be on the fifth aircraft, which was supposed to destroy the White House.
He knew the trigger was about to be pulled. He knew innocent people had been targeted, and were about to meet gruesome, unjust deaths.
He could have stopped it. He did nothing. And so 2,700 people died.
This is what the jury announced yesterday. They did not doubt Moussaoui was guilty of conspiracy. They did not doubt his own testimony as to his guilt. They did not think he was incapable of telling right from wrong. They did not find him insane. They did believe, however, that he had had an unstable childhood, that his father was abusive and then abandoning, and that as a child, in his native France, he'd suffered the trauma of being exposed to racial slurs.
As I listened to the court officer read the jury's conclusions yesterday I thought: This isn't a decision, it's a non sequitur.
Of course he had a bad childhood; of course he was abused. You don't become a killer because you started out with love and sweetness. Of course he came from unhappiness. So, chances are, did the nice man sitting on the train the other day who rose to give you his seat. Life is hard and sometimes terrible, and that is a tragedy. It explains much, but it is not a free pass.
[...]
I'm not sure this is progress. It feels not like the higher compassion but the lower evasion. It feels dainty in a way that speaks not of gentleness but fear. I happen, as most adults do, to feel a general ambivalence toward the death penalty. But I know why it exists. It is the expression of a certitude, of a shared national conviction, about the value of a human life. It says the deliberate and planned taking of a human life is so serious, such a wound to justice, such a tearing at the human fabric, that there is only one price that is justly paid for it, and that is the forfeiting of the life of the perpetrator. It is society's way of saying that murder is serious, dreadfully serious, the most serious of all human transgressions.
It is not a matter of vengeance. Murder can never be avenged, it can only be answered.
If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did?
And if he didn't receive it, do we still have it?
As with so much in this clash of cultures, what many Americans perceive as the triumph of the U.S. legal system and proof of our dedication to justice and mercy will be seen by our enemies as merely weakness, proof of the West's decadence.
Noonan ends by stating her hope that this ambulatory sack of offal will not have the rest of his life to preach jihad to other prisoners, to gain more killer converts to the cause.
She's not hopeful, and neither am I.
Allah Pundit had a scathing roundup of reaction to the verdict, punctuated by his scornful refrain, "But at least we didn't make him a martyr."
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The coming Democratic meltdown
It seems like just yesterday that I was saying to a member of my family that the pro-illegal alien rallies were going to highlight rising tensions between blacks and latinos. Here comes the NY Times to provide proof that it has come to pass.
WASHINGTON, May 3 — In their demonstrations across the country, some Hispanic immigrants have compared the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle to their own, singing "We Shall Overcome" and declaring a new civil rights movement to win citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.
[...]
But despite some sympathy for the nation's illegal immigrants, many black professionals, academics and blue-collar workers feel increasingly uneasy as they watch Hispanics flex their political muscle while assuming the mantle of a seminal black struggle for justice.
Some blacks bristle at the comparison between the civil rights movement and the immigrant demonstrations, pointing out that black protesters in the 1960's were American citizens and had endured centuries of enslavement, rapes, lynchings and discrimination before they started marching.
Others worry about the plight of low-skilled black workers, who sometimes compete with immigrants for entry-level jobs.
And some fear the unfinished business of the civil rights movement will fall to the wayside as America turns its attention to a newly energized Hispanic minority with growing political and economic clout.
"All of this has made me start thinking, 'What's going to happen to African-Americans?' " said Brendon L. Laster, 32, a black fund-raiser at Howard University here, who has been watching the marches. "What's going to happen to our unfinished agenda?"
Mr. Laster is dapper and cosmopolitan, a part-time professor and Democratic activist who drinks and dines with a wide circle of black, white and Hispanic friends. He said he marveled at first as the images of cheering, flag-waving immigrants flickered across his television screen. But as some demonstrators proclaimed a new civil rights movement, he grew uncomfortable.
He says that immigrant protesters who claim the legacy of Dr. King and Rosa Parks are going too far. And he has begun to worry about the impact that the emerging immigrant activism will have on black Americans, many of whom still face poverty, high rates of unemployment and discrimination in the workplace.
[...]
This painful debate is bubbling up in church halls and classrooms, on call-in radio programs and across dining room tables. Some blacks prefer to discuss the issue privately for fear of alienating their Hispanic allies. But others are publicly airing their misgivings, saying they are too worried to stay silent.
"We will have no power, no clout," warned Linda Carter-Lewis, 62, a human resources manager and the branch president of the N.A.A.C.P. in Des Moines. "That's where I see this immigrant movement going. Even though so many thousands and thousands of them have no legal status and no right to vote right now, that day is coming."
[...]
But blacks and immigrants have long had a history of uneasy relations in the United States.
W.E.B. DuBois, a founder of the N.A.A.C.P., and other prominent black leaders worried that immigrants would displace blacks in the workplace. Ronald Walters, director of the African-American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland, said blacks cheered when the government restricted Asian immigration to the United States after World War I. And many Europeans who came to this country discriminated against blacks.
[...]
A recent poll conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center captured the ambivalence among blacks over immigration. Nearly 80 percent said immigrants from Latin American work very hard and have strong family values.
But nearly twice as many blacks as whites said that they or a family member had lost a job, or not gotten a job, because an employer hired an immigrant worker. Blacks were also more likely than whites to feel that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens.
What happens when blacks begin feeling like they're being abandoned by the Democrats? They don't have to vote for the GOP; all they have to do is stay home on election day.
Interesting times, my friends.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
That's gotta hurt!
Hugh Hewitt conducted a knockout interview with Christopher Hitchens about the self-proclaimed maven of all things Arab, Juan Cole.
CH: Well, some of your listeners may know of Professor Cole of the University of Michigan. He is acclaimed, at least by himself, expert on matters Shiia, particularly, and he also says he's fluent in Arabic, Persian and Urdu. And for all I know, he is.
But he's 10th rate, and he's a sordid apologist for Islamist terrorism, and for Islamist terrorist regimes. And I've been on his case for a while.
But he recently wrote ... that Ahmadinejead had never said that about wiping Israel off the face of the Earth, and neither had his role model, Ayatollah Khomeini. They'd never said it. It was a sort of slander.
So I thought well, this isn't going to take me very long. And I have a lot of Iranian friends who, alas for them, can't live in their own country anymore, because of the hideous tyranny there, and who hate people who make excuses for their regime, as they should. And with their help, I was able to show very easily what I had long known, that Khomeini's statement that Israel must be completely destroyed has been a canonical statement in Iran for a long time. Ahmadinejead was only repeating it. He probably was a bit surprised at how much attention it got, given how commonplace the thought is to him.
But that it is nothing but a lie to say that this is not a statement from the Iranian theocrats, and it also suggests very strongly, which is the fun bit, that Professor Juan Cole does not know what he is talking about, in any language.
HH: (laughing)
CH: His English is, by the way, very poor. I can't believe his Persian is excellent, because his English is lousy ... He knows no history, he has no policies. He is a complete dim bulb, and well, I must say, I took pleasure in pointing this out.
[...]
I mean, he writes as if he's drunk, because you have to, the sentences are made up of syntactical train wrecks. But I don't think it's alcohol in his case. I think it's illiteracy, simply.
Then Hitchens gets mean.
Read the whole interview -- but listen to it to get the full effect of the contempt dripping from every syllable Hitch utters.
Oh, did I mention Yale University is considering making Cole the head of their Middle East Studies Department? Why aren't you surprised?
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2006
I just don't get it
I've bumped this entry to the top because of a series of comments from an extremely knowledgeable guy, who thinks I'm out to lunch when it comes to my take on Anime.
The novelist Roger L. Simon has a post on his blog discussing the end of hand-drawn animation at Disney, and his appreciation for the Japanese animated film, Spirited Away.
Simon mentions that he had an opportunity to visit a store in Japan that had stacks of cells from the film, which he found beautiful.
Let's discuss Miyazaki's work; while I'm willing to concede that individual cells may be stunning, I've never understood the acclaim he receives for his "animation."
I'm a life-long fan of the art, with a strong preference for the work coming from the boys on the Termite Terrace over at Warner Bros. While Disney's cartoons might have had a subtle edge when it came to the "art" component of the artwork, the men behind Bugs and Daffy had it in spades when it came to the writing and directing. Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and the rest of the fellas at Warner were light years beyond the more wholesome crew at Walt's studio.
Apart from the stellar writing and direction, what remains mesmerizing about the cartoons of the era is the fluidity of the movement, the way the animators were able to capture how things, people, shadows, move and interact with each other in two dimensions, creating the illusion of 3-D, without the benefit of computers.
Disney and MGM demonstrated the same flair thru the 40s, with eye-popping colors and incredible background work.
Anime, while boasting interesting and unfamiliar settings and themes, has some of the choppiest, awful animation this side of Speed Racer!
Seriously, to my eyes, Spirited Away looks little better than the flip-book animations we used to draw in fifth grade.
Yeah, yeah; great story, wonderful visuals, music, yadda yadda.
But the animation sucks. It would work much better as a graphic novel -- Manga -- at 0 fps, rather than the 8-12 fps they use to approximate the look and feel of a Wang Chung music video.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:28 AM | Comments (11)
Day By Day
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A day without illegals is like a day without traffic
Captain Ed has a great piece on the aftermath of the illegal alien boycott-the-gringos day.
The real irony of this situation is that prior to the series of protests, with their demands and rejection of American sovereignty, the immigration hardliners did not have the momentum to get their program passed. President Bush had enough juice left to get a moderate reform program passed, one which granted earned citizenship and only superficially addressed border security. Now that the protestors have rammed their strident demands down the throats of Americans, the hardliners have won new support from a broadening group of voters. When they remained "in the shadows", they had a cachet of victimhood that lent sympathy to their plight. With them teaming up with the last and largest group of communist apologists and demanding that America stop enforcing its borders altogether, they no longer have the patina of waifs but as ungrateful and separatist activists.
Patterico was giddy the morning after the protests. In a post titled "Let's Do It Again!" he had a proposal.
Traffic was dreamy today.
Can we try this “Day Without [Illegal] Immigrants” thing again tomorrow?
P.S. I’m even willing to try a “Week Without [Illegal] Immigrants.”
P.P.S. Or a “Month Without [Illegal] Immigrants.”
P.P.P.S. Do I hear a year?
And Instapundit had this to say: If a day without an immigrant means a day without traffic, Angelenos will build a fence on their own.
For a good sampling of the photos you didn't see in the MSM, click here, here and here.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Latest boating tech
Leave it to the Japanese to market a flaregun designed to appeal to the San Francisco Yacht and Judy Garland Fan Club.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 01, 2006
Planning for the inevitable and the unimaginable
You do know that the experts say it's not a matter of if terrorists will detonate a nuke in a major population center; it's only a question as to when a mushroom cloud will soar over an American city.
The risk is real enough that the Department of Homeland Security has a handout available online explaining what a nuclear attack will be like.
Most conversations rarely go any further beyond a lot of tut-tutting about how awful it'll be afterwards.
Some practical implications -- and what you can and should do to prepare for what is coming -- can be found here.
For a gut-wrenching depiction of how it may happen -- and our appalling lack of readiness -- check this out.
Happy Monday.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:26 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack