Friday, May 02, 2003
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
I've got a post up on EuroPundits on the May 25 municipal and regional elections here in Spain. I did my best to make it kind of interesting. It's one of those pieces like spinach--it's good for you. I tried to make it sort of interesting. If you're a regular reader of Iberian Notes you've already seen most of the stuff I put up over there in one form or another here. So check it out, or not, as the case may be.
Here's a link to a red-meat story from FrontPage on "Peace Studies" courses of study at American universities. The article's pretty much what you'd expect, a lambasting of the university Socialist cadres. What I would like to know is what employer would hire someone with a degree in Peace Studies as opposed to, say, something useful like business administration or engineering or computer science, or a solid liberal arts degree in something like philosophy or history or English lit. Probably Greenpeace.
Here's a piece from the Weekly Standard by a reporter who's gone out with the Yanks on a peacekeeping patrol. I like the part where they get a call over the radio asking for advice because the lions at the zoo have gotten out and one of them ate a horse and the zookeeper has fled and won't come back while the lions are still loose. The guys at the zoo don't want to shoot the lions but this horse incident has got them a bit shaken up, it seems. Well, horses are valuable in a country like Iraq, and we can't have a bunch of huge pussycats going around eating them, much less snacking on the citizenry. I bet there's somebody among the troops who knows how to use a lasso--got to be at least one amateur rodeo cowboy among that lot--and I'd get him and tell him to throw at the lions' back legs. We'd be ready to shoot if he missed and the lion attacked, of course. If you've got their back legs tied up you ought to be able to drag them back into their cages.
Here's a piece from the Weekly Standard by a reporter who's gone out with the Yanks on a peacekeeping patrol. I like the part where they get a call over the radio asking for advice because the lions at the zoo have gotten out and one of them ate a horse and the zookeeper has fled and won't come back while the lions are still loose. The guys at the zoo don't want to shoot the lions but this horse incident has got them a bit shaken up, it seems. Well, horses are valuable in a country like Iraq, and we can't have a bunch of huge pussycats going around eating them, much less snacking on the citizenry. I bet there's somebody among the troops who knows how to use a lasso--got to be at least one amateur rodeo cowboy among that lot--and I'd get him and tell him to throw at the lions' back legs. We'd be ready to shoot if he missed and the lion attacked, of course. If you've got their back legs tied up you ought to be able to drag them back into their cages.
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Here's one I've been saving up to do one of these days. It's Maruja Torres from El País's Sunday magazine.
The Only Certainty
I don't want to forget that today my eyes and my conscience are overflowing with horror and I know that I am not alone in my impotence. And although the day that you are reading me, things have changed, or even improved, I want to remember, and remind you with me, that there were days of ignominy of which we were faraway, distressed witnesses. The torn-apart victims; the children murdered one atop another, as if they were sleeping in the middle of a nightmare of the evil of others; the blood soaking badly-bandaged stumps, the mutilated bodies, the entrails. The blank stares, above all the blank stares. In the atrocious hours, long hours of the battle of Baghdad, they are coming to my house, to my country, governed by one of the most obsequious representatives of this century's moral misery, those blank stares of pain and surprise, of infinite sadness, of the loss of all hope, are coming. Of fear, of panic. Of anger, of rage. Of offended dignity, of defended dignity. Barely armed men who resist in the trenches, others who have survived in pieces and in hospital beds who barely have the strength to send to the world, through the camera, the only thing they can bomb us with: their recently discovered hate toward an enemy they do not even know. And those operations performed without anesthesia, and that rice that keeps arriving to the port when what is needed is water, and that marine who gives a demonstration of rap to the defeated children. A dark boy, surely enlisted for a hot meal, surely from a vile building in a miserable slum: you, who are like the conquered ones but without knowing it.
And the cries of the mutilated babies when a camera focuses on them and takes shots of them, as if they already knew that they are not only cannon fodder but TV news fodder.
And bombs and more bombs, and fire and more fire, and destruction and more destruction. And invading soldiers swaggering around, blinded with disdain and indifference as much as by their military superiority, leveling what were streets, houses, small shops, and whispering avenues.
Against forgetting everything we have seen, from far away with our hearts in flames. I don't know what is happening in this world today, that other cadavers have been swallowed up by the crater opened up in Mesopotamia, besides the innocence, the tranquil existence of the poor and the oppressed, legality, decency, and justice. I also don't know how many of my journalistic comrades will have died in the war that should never happened, and we know who is responsible.
If today, while you are reading, is a day in which death does not fill the headlines and we are already being invaded by the fever of what they call reconstruction, and we're busy with the ups and downs of the market, don't let them fool you. Remember what is happening while I am writing and which I am pallidly trying to write on this page, on this inscription against forgetting. And think that behind all the big words there is only one, as vile as the men which it represents: greed. We have seen what we didn't want to see, but we have seen it. And this is our only certainty.
I have several certainties. One is that Maruja is extremely self-absorbed, since she goes on and on about how she herself feels about the situation. My guess is that she is bipolar and has a narcissistic personality disorder. Trust me on this one. I'm good at this stuff. I'm the only one of you who's ever been committed to a mental hospital.
The second is that this is an atrocity piece, of which there have been so many about this and every other war. For atrocities, those perpetrated by Saddam and his international terrorist co-conspirators--and that perpetrated on September 11, 2001 (remember that one? There weren't too many bodies left after that one to pierce anybody with their blank stares)--are infinitely worse than the admittedly tragic deaths of some 800-1200 Iraqi civilians in the War on Saddam. Some of these deaths were admittedly perpetrated by the Americans and the British, zero of them intentionally, unlike Saddam placing military targets within populated areas, the Fedayeen forcing the ordinary civilians to be suicide bombers, and the explosions in the Baghdad markets that we didn't cause. And saying "Who cares whether you meant to kill them, they're dead anyway, just like Saddam's victims" is flat-out relativism, the idea that the morality of an act is not in its intention but in its effect.
A third certainty is that this here tantrum Maruja spit out onto paper is caused by a deep, deep anti-Americanism, since she never criticizes anybody else anyway and since she goes on about dignity and rage and the invaders and the like. She's what Orwell would call a transferred nationalist, someone who stakes her psychological identity on a profound feeling akin to nationalism but not directed towards a nation. Maruja is a Stalinist, a hardcore Red. She bet on the wrong side, and she bet on the wrong side big-time. She lost everything when the Berlin Wall came down, and that's why her dignity is injured and she is full of rage; every time the Americans, the sworn enemy of her chosen faith, do anything that demonstrates their power, influence, and prestige, which her own Stalinism has completely lost. That's how she feels, psychologically destroyed by the failure of the godhood of Communism and especially by its rejection by most other people, and she's projecting the crash of her world all around her upon the suffering Iraqi civilians, imagining that they must feel the same way she does.
A fourth is that she's an ignorant racist. She obviously knows nothing about American black people and especially nothing about American Marines who are black.
The Only Certainty
I don't want to forget that today my eyes and my conscience are overflowing with horror and I know that I am not alone in my impotence. And although the day that you are reading me, things have changed, or even improved, I want to remember, and remind you with me, that there were days of ignominy of which we were faraway, distressed witnesses. The torn-apart victims; the children murdered one atop another, as if they were sleeping in the middle of a nightmare of the evil of others; the blood soaking badly-bandaged stumps, the mutilated bodies, the entrails. The blank stares, above all the blank stares. In the atrocious hours, long hours of the battle of Baghdad, they are coming to my house, to my country, governed by one of the most obsequious representatives of this century's moral misery, those blank stares of pain and surprise, of infinite sadness, of the loss of all hope, are coming. Of fear, of panic. Of anger, of rage. Of offended dignity, of defended dignity. Barely armed men who resist in the trenches, others who have survived in pieces and in hospital beds who barely have the strength to send to the world, through the camera, the only thing they can bomb us with: their recently discovered hate toward an enemy they do not even know. And those operations performed without anesthesia, and that rice that keeps arriving to the port when what is needed is water, and that marine who gives a demonstration of rap to the defeated children. A dark boy, surely enlisted for a hot meal, surely from a vile building in a miserable slum: you, who are like the conquered ones but without knowing it.
And the cries of the mutilated babies when a camera focuses on them and takes shots of them, as if they already knew that they are not only cannon fodder but TV news fodder.
And bombs and more bombs, and fire and more fire, and destruction and more destruction. And invading soldiers swaggering around, blinded with disdain and indifference as much as by their military superiority, leveling what were streets, houses, small shops, and whispering avenues.
Against forgetting everything we have seen, from far away with our hearts in flames. I don't know what is happening in this world today, that other cadavers have been swallowed up by the crater opened up in Mesopotamia, besides the innocence, the tranquil existence of the poor and the oppressed, legality, decency, and justice. I also don't know how many of my journalistic comrades will have died in the war that should never happened, and we know who is responsible.
If today, while you are reading, is a day in which death does not fill the headlines and we are already being invaded by the fever of what they call reconstruction, and we're busy with the ups and downs of the market, don't let them fool you. Remember what is happening while I am writing and which I am pallidly trying to write on this page, on this inscription against forgetting. And think that behind all the big words there is only one, as vile as the men which it represents: greed. We have seen what we didn't want to see, but we have seen it. And this is our only certainty.
I have several certainties. One is that Maruja is extremely self-absorbed, since she goes on and on about how she herself feels about the situation. My guess is that she is bipolar and has a narcissistic personality disorder. Trust me on this one. I'm good at this stuff. I'm the only one of you who's ever been committed to a mental hospital.
The second is that this is an atrocity piece, of which there have been so many about this and every other war. For atrocities, those perpetrated by Saddam and his international terrorist co-conspirators--and that perpetrated on September 11, 2001 (remember that one? There weren't too many bodies left after that one to pierce anybody with their blank stares)--are infinitely worse than the admittedly tragic deaths of some 800-1200 Iraqi civilians in the War on Saddam. Some of these deaths were admittedly perpetrated by the Americans and the British, zero of them intentionally, unlike Saddam placing military targets within populated areas, the Fedayeen forcing the ordinary civilians to be suicide bombers, and the explosions in the Baghdad markets that we didn't cause. And saying "Who cares whether you meant to kill them, they're dead anyway, just like Saddam's victims" is flat-out relativism, the idea that the morality of an act is not in its intention but in its effect.
A third certainty is that this here tantrum Maruja spit out onto paper is caused by a deep, deep anti-Americanism, since she never criticizes anybody else anyway and since she goes on about dignity and rage and the invaders and the like. She's what Orwell would call a transferred nationalist, someone who stakes her psychological identity on a profound feeling akin to nationalism but not directed towards a nation. Maruja is a Stalinist, a hardcore Red. She bet on the wrong side, and she bet on the wrong side big-time. She lost everything when the Berlin Wall came down, and that's why her dignity is injured and she is full of rage; every time the Americans, the sworn enemy of her chosen faith, do anything that demonstrates their power, influence, and prestige, which her own Stalinism has completely lost. That's how she feels, psychologically destroyed by the failure of the godhood of Communism and especially by its rejection by most other people, and she's projecting the crash of her world all around her upon the suffering Iraqi civilians, imagining that they must feel the same way she does.
A fourth is that she's an ignorant racist. She obviously knows nothing about American black people and especially nothing about American Marines who are black.
Here's one for you foodies that I found through Slate, a review of a visit to El Bulli, the Michelin Guide Three-Star Super Mega Famous Restaurant up in the Empordà. It's food-porn, basically. The diners involved in this meal thought it was excellent, especially given the prices, which, according to them are very reasonable--135 euros for the thirty-course meal, wine not included. You would apparently pay double or triple in Paris. Don't bother if you don't book, like, a year in advance or whatever.
Since I am an amateur eater, I would not waste my money on such a meal since I'd never appreciate it. As I've said before, though, there are many very good restaurants in Barcelona where you can eat very well for less than thirty bucks, wine included. For fresh seafood at unbeatable prices, the places to go are the Puerto Pesquero in Santander and the Viejas Calles in Bilbao.
Coincidentally, here's a story from the Telegraph that says El Bulli is the second best restaurant in the world, down one spot from last year.
Since I am an amateur eater, I would not waste my money on such a meal since I'd never appreciate it. As I've said before, though, there are many very good restaurants in Barcelona where you can eat very well for less than thirty bucks, wine included. For fresh seafood at unbeatable prices, the places to go are the Puerto Pesquero in Santander and the Viejas Calles in Bilbao.
Coincidentally, here's a story from the Telegraph that says El Bulli is the second best restaurant in the world, down one spot from last year.
Here's an interesting article from the Weekly Standard about geopolitics and OPEC and oil production and the like. It is illuminating for those who, like me, don't really know anything about the oil industry.
Methinks InstaPundit has fallen for an urban legend--note the lack of specifics and the two different versions. So--since the story is BS, let's not worry too much.
DON'T SNIFF THE MYSTERIOUS WHITE POWDER: Well, this story isn't really that funny:
An Egyptian merchant-marine sailor met "someone" in Cairo and was given a suitcase. He traveled to Brazil to join his ship, which was loading bauxite intended for Canada. He was supposed to deliver the suitcase to "someone" in Canada, but being curious about the suitcase he opened it while in Brazil, and shortly thereafter died from anthrax. Like as not, having found the legendary white powder he suspected it was drugs, and took a sniff to see.
I don't know if he really sniffed it -- another account I saw suggested that he died of intestinal anthrax -- but this is a rather serious worry.
UPDATE: Here's more, suggesting that worry is appropriate.
posted at 10:35 PM by Glenn Reynolds
DON'T SNIFF THE MYSTERIOUS WHITE POWDER: Well, this story isn't really that funny:
An Egyptian merchant-marine sailor met "someone" in Cairo and was given a suitcase. He traveled to Brazil to join his ship, which was loading bauxite intended for Canada. He was supposed to deliver the suitcase to "someone" in Canada, but being curious about the suitcase he opened it while in Brazil, and shortly thereafter died from anthrax. Like as not, having found the legendary white powder he suspected it was drugs, and took a sniff to see.
I don't know if he really sniffed it -- another account I saw suggested that he died of intestinal anthrax -- but this is a rather serious worry.
UPDATE: Here's more, suggesting that worry is appropriate.
posted at 10:35 PM by Glenn Reynolds
Monday, April 28, 2003
Well, somebody out there thinks we're right: Andrew Sullivan is on board with us (that's fun to say; we finally beat him to this one) as saying that the Times and Telegraph reports on Saddam's ties with Al Qaeda and France's leaking secret information to Saddam are a big deal and are not getting nearly enough media attention.
We agree with Andrew's Sunday Times (of London) column, now up on his site, about idjit hard-right Reps like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum shooting off their mouths and blowing all the political capital Bush has saved up. Both Newt and Rick missed good chances to shut up, and Sullivan is right to worry about the various strands of the Republican party unraveling (though they're a lot less likely to unravel than the Dems' unstable minorities-labor-feminist-university-Socialist-cadres coalition; let's not panic yet, people). However, we're not with Andrew on Bush's tax plan, which he slams as being "supply-side" economics. This article from the National Review adds a little bit of light to the extremely confusing subject of the federal budget. Check it out.
We agree with Andrew's Sunday Times (of London) column, now up on his site, about idjit hard-right Reps like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum shooting off their mouths and blowing all the political capital Bush has saved up. Both Newt and Rick missed good chances to shut up, and Sullivan is right to worry about the various strands of the Republican party unraveling (though they're a lot less likely to unravel than the Dems' unstable minorities-labor-feminist-university-Socialist-cadres coalition; let's not panic yet, people). However, we're not with Andrew on Bush's tax plan, which he slams as being "supply-side" economics. This article from the National Review adds a little bit of light to the extremely confusing subject of the federal budget. Check it out.
The best baseball blog out there is Rob and Rany on the Royals, written by two thirty-fiveish baseball columnists. One of them is Rob Neyer, whom I actually sort of know; we lived in the same college dorm. He probably wouldn't remember who I am. Anyway, though, Neyer is now a daily columnist with ESPN, and if you like baseball a lot, you ought to read him; he's one of Bill James's disciples. Warning: Neyer is a major idiotarian regarding politics, but he almost always keeps it out of the blog and his columns. We shouldn't judge his baseball writing by his political ideas.
Neyer is into a couple of offbeat stats which he and the other "sabermetric" (i.e. statisticics-interpreting) baseball writers have been talking about for a while. One is the OPS, which is simply the player's on-base percentage (better indicator than the traditional batting average of how often a guy gets on rather than making an out) plus the player's slugging average (indicator weighting how many bases the guy gets per plate appearance). It's a rough stat but really does distinguish between a guy who looks good but really doesn't do much and a guy who is better than he's normally considered to be. A pretty good major leaguer will have an OPS above 800, and a guy whose OPS is above 1000 is a damn good player. Guys like Neifi Perez whose OPS is under 500 should be playing in, like, Omaha.
Another rough stat Neyer uses to measure the overall quality of an entire team is to look at the team's position in its league in two hitting categories, home runs and walks, and two pitching categories, home runs allowed and walks allowed. A team gets one point for its league position in these four categories.This is the Beane Count, named for Oakland executive Billy Beane. The top score is of course 4, meaning you are the best in the league in all four categories. A good playoff team would be in the 20s or low 30s. The Yankees so far this year have a Beane Count of four. That's how good they are. The Royals are still in the twenties.
He also uses this thing Bill James made up called the Pythagorean Standings: looking at what a team's ratio of runs scored to runs allowed is and using that to forecast what a team's record "should be according to the stats". It's pretty accurate, usually never off by more than about 3-4 games either way at the end of the season.
Let's try that with soccer. Specifically, with teams' ratios of goals scored to goals allowed. Here's the ratios for the Spanish first division in the order of their league standings.
Real Madrid 2.12
Real Sociedad 1.45
Deportivo 1.44
Valencia 1.92
Celta 1.50
Málaga 1.11
Sevilla 1.04
Betis 0.95
Atlético Madrid 1.08
Athletic Bilbao 0.92
Mallorca 0.81
Barcelona 1.17
Racing Santander 0.83
Español 0.90
Valladolid 0.85
Villarreal 0.74
Recreativo Huelva 0.66
Osasuna Pamplona 0.74
Alavés Vitoria 0.56
Rayo Vallecano 0.50
That pans out. The five teams at the bottom are all below 0.75. The three teams that descend to Second will come from these five. The ten teams in the middle, between 0.80 and 1.20, are mediocre. Then there are three teams that are good, at around 1.50, then Valencia at 1.92, and then Madrid at 2.12. The two real anomalies are Valencia, who ought by all rights to be in second place rather than fourth, and Barcelona, which should be in sixth place rather than twelfth as the best of the mediocre crew.
So what factors are causing Barcelona's and Valencia's poor actual performance compared to their goal ratios? Well, Valencia is still fighting for a Champions' league spot, so they're not doing that lousy, and they played this year's Champions League all the way to the quarterfinals, which neither Deportivo, Real Sociedad, and Celta had to do, so their guys are a lot fresher since they've seen fewer games. Particularly interestingly, second-place Real Sociedad, who I thought would wilt under pressure, is having a terrific season and are a legitimately fine squad. It may help that their foreign stars, Nihat, Kovacevic, and Karpin, are from such non-charismatic football countries as Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Russia and don't go to big-time Nike exhibition games in, like, Japan the way the Brazilians and Argentines do.
As for Barcelona, they also played in the Champions' League through the quarterfinals, and their foreign "stars" are Brazilian and Argentinian, so being tired might have something to do with it, too, though first-place Madrid has made it all the way to the Champions' semis and their guys ought to be just as tired. But Madrid has a deep bench with Guti and Morientes and McManaman and Solari and Flavio, all of whom can pick up the slack when they need to. Barcelona's bench is crappy.
But most importantly, Barcelona is demoralized. Their players have no confidence and can't usually hold a lead. It's already been made clear that a lot of them are going to be looking for new jobs come June 30, and the coach knows he's gone at the end of the year, and the interim club president has already resigned. Nobody's running the team and everybody knows it.
Good. I hope they descend to Second.
Neyer is into a couple of offbeat stats which he and the other "sabermetric" (i.e. statisticics-interpreting) baseball writers have been talking about for a while. One is the OPS, which is simply the player's on-base percentage (better indicator than the traditional batting average of how often a guy gets on rather than making an out) plus the player's slugging average (indicator weighting how many bases the guy gets per plate appearance). It's a rough stat but really does distinguish between a guy who looks good but really doesn't do much and a guy who is better than he's normally considered to be. A pretty good major leaguer will have an OPS above 800, and a guy whose OPS is above 1000 is a damn good player. Guys like Neifi Perez whose OPS is under 500 should be playing in, like, Omaha.
Another rough stat Neyer uses to measure the overall quality of an entire team is to look at the team's position in its league in two hitting categories, home runs and walks, and two pitching categories, home runs allowed and walks allowed. A team gets one point for its league position in these four categories.This is the Beane Count, named for Oakland executive Billy Beane. The top score is of course 4, meaning you are the best in the league in all four categories. A good playoff team would be in the 20s or low 30s. The Yankees so far this year have a Beane Count of four. That's how good they are. The Royals are still in the twenties.
He also uses this thing Bill James made up called the Pythagorean Standings: looking at what a team's ratio of runs scored to runs allowed is and using that to forecast what a team's record "should be according to the stats". It's pretty accurate, usually never off by more than about 3-4 games either way at the end of the season.
Let's try that with soccer. Specifically, with teams' ratios of goals scored to goals allowed. Here's the ratios for the Spanish first division in the order of their league standings.
Real Madrid 2.12
Real Sociedad 1.45
Deportivo 1.44
Valencia 1.92
Celta 1.50
Málaga 1.11
Sevilla 1.04
Betis 0.95
Atlético Madrid 1.08
Athletic Bilbao 0.92
Mallorca 0.81
Barcelona 1.17
Racing Santander 0.83
Español 0.90
Valladolid 0.85
Villarreal 0.74
Recreativo Huelva 0.66
Osasuna Pamplona 0.74
Alavés Vitoria 0.56
Rayo Vallecano 0.50
That pans out. The five teams at the bottom are all below 0.75. The three teams that descend to Second will come from these five. The ten teams in the middle, between 0.80 and 1.20, are mediocre. Then there are three teams that are good, at around 1.50, then Valencia at 1.92, and then Madrid at 2.12. The two real anomalies are Valencia, who ought by all rights to be in second place rather than fourth, and Barcelona, which should be in sixth place rather than twelfth as the best of the mediocre crew.
So what factors are causing Barcelona's and Valencia's poor actual performance compared to their goal ratios? Well, Valencia is still fighting for a Champions' league spot, so they're not doing that lousy, and they played this year's Champions League all the way to the quarterfinals, which neither Deportivo, Real Sociedad, and Celta had to do, so their guys are a lot fresher since they've seen fewer games. Particularly interestingly, second-place Real Sociedad, who I thought would wilt under pressure, is having a terrific season and are a legitimately fine squad. It may help that their foreign stars, Nihat, Kovacevic, and Karpin, are from such non-charismatic football countries as Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Russia and don't go to big-time Nike exhibition games in, like, Japan the way the Brazilians and Argentines do.
As for Barcelona, they also played in the Champions' League through the quarterfinals, and their foreign "stars" are Brazilian and Argentinian, so being tired might have something to do with it, too, though first-place Madrid has made it all the way to the Champions' semis and their guys ought to be just as tired. But Madrid has a deep bench with Guti and Morientes and McManaman and Solari and Flavio, all of whom can pick up the slack when they need to. Barcelona's bench is crappy.
But most importantly, Barcelona is demoralized. Their players have no confidence and can't usually hold a lead. It's already been made clear that a lot of them are going to be looking for new jobs come June 30, and the coach knows he's gone at the end of the year, and the interim club president has already resigned. Nobody's running the team and everybody knows it.
Good. I hope they descend to Second.
Sunday, April 27, 2003
I'm pretty sure that the next big wave of stories coming out of Iraq will be full of lots of neato information from Saddam's files. So far we've got George Galloway's corruption, the records of the meetings between Iraqi government officials and Al Qaeda, and France's passing on diplomatically-obtained American information to Saddam.
Here's a piece from the Weekly Standard about the theme; check it out. The question everybody's asking is what's going to come out next.
My guesses: much more evidence of French and Russian collaboration with Saddam, much more evidence of Iraqi ties to international terrorists in general, and much more evidence of corruption in the international press. Not real difficult guesses to make, mind you, but how much you want to bet that half the French press is on the take and a good bit of the Spanish press as well? The only name I'll mention as a for-sure suspect is Scott Ritter, and I think we know very well what Saddam had on him: photos of the guy having sex with children.
Here's a piece from the Weekly Standard about the theme; check it out. The question everybody's asking is what's going to come out next.
My guesses: much more evidence of French and Russian collaboration with Saddam, much more evidence of Iraqi ties to international terrorists in general, and much more evidence of corruption in the international press. Not real difficult guesses to make, mind you, but how much you want to bet that half the French press is on the take and a good bit of the Spanish press as well? The only name I'll mention as a for-sure suspect is Scott Ritter, and I think we know very well what Saddam had on him: photos of the guy having sex with children.
If you go to National Review Online's site right now, you'll see nothing but this message on a white background:
Hacked by DarkHunter ... Freedom for palestian and Iraq ... gr33tz to #USG and #teso channels
Hacked by DarkHunter ... Freedom for palestian and Iraq ... gr33tz to #USG and #teso channels
Looks to me like the documents showing French intelligence cooperation with Saddam and Saddam's contacts with Al Qaeda are going to be today's big story, so here is a paragraph-by-paragraph quick-hitter from today's interview with Baghdad Bob Fisk--well, now he's Beirut Bob because he states that his home city is Beirut and that's where the interview took place--in the Vanguardia just to show how wrong about everything Tikrit Tommy's best buddy usually is. You name the event, Fisk will figure out how to completely miss it in his forecast while beating the Allies over the head with last week's story. Anyway, the Roman numeral corresponds with the paragraph.
I) The Shiites are going to pull an uprising against the Yanks and the Brits.
II) The looting of the museum and library in Baghdad was the Yanks' fault.
III) There's some nasty conspiracy behind the looting in Baghdad.
IV) The robbery of valuable items from said museum was planned.
V) Some bad people must have given the Iraqis maps of where the valuable stuff was.
VI) The looting was obviously an American plot.
VII) Bob warned an American marine that a ministry was being torched; said marine refused to do anything on the grounds he was guarding a hospital.
VIII) The Americans did nothing to stop the looting.
IX) The Americans shouldn't have attacked Saddam's military establishments near civilian areas.
X) Doing that may have killed 14 civilians.
XI) The Yanks are evil because they used cluster bombs. They are as much war criminals as the Saddamites.
XII) Thousands of Iraqis must have been killed.
XIII) The Yanks are bad because they fired on cars that didn't stop when ordered to.
XIV) The Yanks murdered journalists.
XV) The Yanks attacked Al Jazeera TV in Baghdad on purpose.
XVI) The Yanks lied about why they fired at the Palestine Hotel.
XVII) The Yanks really lied a lot about why they fired at the Palestine Hotel.
XVIII) The Yanks are big liars in general.
XIX) The Yanks should have known there were journalists in the hotel, and they are big liars.
XXX) The Yanks are war criminals and they lie a lot, but some of the ordinary grunts are OK guys.
XXXI) Saddam is alive and is hiding out in either Baghdad or Bielorussia.
XXXII) The Sunnis and Shiites will unite and expel the American troops.
XXXIII) Judith Miller's stories in the NYT are Pentagon / CIA propaganda.
XXXIV) The Yanks won't attack Syria because it has no oil.
XXXV) The Yanks are occupying an Arab capital city.
XXXVI) "We have entered a new imperialist era".
XXXVII) The Yanks invaded Iraq for the oil.
XXXVIII) We, as journalists, must demand that those who rule over the people tell us why they are doing things and stop lying.
See how fast and easy it is to compress Beirut Bob's thought into easily digestible--well, totally indigestable, but you know what I mean--little nuggets. Thank God I took care of that or you'd never have read through the whole thing. It's two whole pages in today's Vangua.
I) The Shiites are going to pull an uprising against the Yanks and the Brits.
II) The looting of the museum and library in Baghdad was the Yanks' fault.
III) There's some nasty conspiracy behind the looting in Baghdad.
IV) The robbery of valuable items from said museum was planned.
V) Some bad people must have given the Iraqis maps of where the valuable stuff was.
VI) The looting was obviously an American plot.
VII) Bob warned an American marine that a ministry was being torched; said marine refused to do anything on the grounds he was guarding a hospital.
VIII) The Americans did nothing to stop the looting.
IX) The Americans shouldn't have attacked Saddam's military establishments near civilian areas.
X) Doing that may have killed 14 civilians.
XI) The Yanks are evil because they used cluster bombs. They are as much war criminals as the Saddamites.
XII) Thousands of Iraqis must have been killed.
XIII) The Yanks are bad because they fired on cars that didn't stop when ordered to.
XIV) The Yanks murdered journalists.
XV) The Yanks attacked Al Jazeera TV in Baghdad on purpose.
XVI) The Yanks lied about why they fired at the Palestine Hotel.
XVII) The Yanks really lied a lot about why they fired at the Palestine Hotel.
XVIII) The Yanks are big liars in general.
XIX) The Yanks should have known there were journalists in the hotel, and they are big liars.
XXX) The Yanks are war criminals and they lie a lot, but some of the ordinary grunts are OK guys.
XXXI) Saddam is alive and is hiding out in either Baghdad or Bielorussia.
XXXII) The Sunnis and Shiites will unite and expel the American troops.
XXXIII) Judith Miller's stories in the NYT are Pentagon / CIA propaganda.
XXXIV) The Yanks won't attack Syria because it has no oil.
XXXV) The Yanks are occupying an Arab capital city.
XXXVI) "We have entered a new imperialist era".
XXXVII) The Yanks invaded Iraq for the oil.
XXXVIII) We, as journalists, must demand that those who rule over the people tell us why they are doing things and stop lying.
See how fast and easy it is to compress Beirut Bob's thought into easily digestible--well, totally indigestable, but you know what I mean--little nuggets. Thank God I took care of that or you'd never have read through the whole thing. It's two whole pages in today's Vangua.
BREAKING NEWS
This article from Libertad Digital says, first, that the Sunday Times of London is reporting this morning that documents found among the ruins of Baghdad show that France was informing Iraq about the progress of Franco-American diplomatic discussions. If this is true, French perfidy is much greater than I had thought it was.
Second, the Sunday Telegraph of London is reporting that they have documents demonstrating contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda dating back to 1998. If this is true, that's the smoking gun. There's the justification for the war: they collaborated with terrorism.
Now you have to wonder what else is going to turn up in those files. I bet plenty more incriminating stuff is yet to come out. This is going to be even more fun than the overthrow of Mr. Squalid Dictator Hussein itself was: the implication of the Axis of Weasels in Saddam's international racketeering ring. Baghdad Bob Fisk, as usual, just got dreadfully wrong-footed.
Here's the story from the Telegraph. Here's the little summary of the story from the Times--you need to live in the UK to get in to the whole thing for free.
Dossier reveals France briefed Iraq on US plans
Matthew Campbell, Baghdad
France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials, documents unearthed in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry have revealed.
This article from Libertad Digital says, first, that the Sunday Times of London is reporting this morning that documents found among the ruins of Baghdad show that France was informing Iraq about the progress of Franco-American diplomatic discussions. If this is true, French perfidy is much greater than I had thought it was.
Second, the Sunday Telegraph of London is reporting that they have documents demonstrating contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda dating back to 1998. If this is true, that's the smoking gun. There's the justification for the war: they collaborated with terrorism.
Now you have to wonder what else is going to turn up in those files. I bet plenty more incriminating stuff is yet to come out. This is going to be even more fun than the overthrow of Mr. Squalid Dictator Hussein itself was: the implication of the Axis of Weasels in Saddam's international racketeering ring. Baghdad Bob Fisk, as usual, just got dreadfully wrong-footed.
Here's the story from the Telegraph. Here's the little summary of the story from the Times--you need to live in the UK to get in to the whole thing for free.
Dossier reveals France briefed Iraq on US plans
Matthew Campbell, Baghdad
France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials, documents unearthed in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry have revealed.
Saturday, April 26, 2003
I swear this just happened to me. I went down to the Dia discount supermarket (it's a big no-frills chain) to pick up a few things before they close at 8:30 and don't reopen until 9 on Monday. Got some skim milk, muesli, a chocolate bar with almonds, some frozen eggrolls, some of those spinach linguine-like substances, tuna for the cats, cat litter, OJ, and Fanta lemon. Perfectly normal Saturday evening shopping experience, don't you figure? Nope.
A few other people were in line, too, and directly in front of me was a longhair dude and a local progressive-looking university chick who was about 19. I'd seen him hanging around the squat down on the plaza a few times, so I twigged them for squatters. Very ungenerously, the whole time I was waiting in line, they were bickering in wonderful communalist style about who was going to pay for the twelve one-liter bottles of beer they had in their shopping cart.
(By the way, I've heard the two checkout girls, one's Polish and one's from the Philippines, complain that the squatters "borrow" the shopping carts without asking and only infrequently bring them back. When somebody says, "Hey, you can't take those outside the store", they whiningly wheedle, "Come on, be cool." [Venga, tía, enróllate])
So, anyway, the guy, who is Argentinian, says that he's going to pay for one and that some dude named Alejandro gave him five euros to pay for six liters. The hippie-looking girl says you can't buy six liters of beer for five euros and gets out her cellphone and tries to figure it out on the calculator. The guy has to hold back some of his dough, like everything more than the price of a liter, it seems, and repeats that he has Alejandro's five euros several times. Bingo, twigged him, he's a counterculture scam artist.
Then, get this, the girl turns to him and within my hearing, not to mention that of everybody else in line and the checkout girl, and says, "Let the guiri go first while I figure this out." "Guiri" is the fairly mild Spanish ethnic slur, along the lines of "mick" or "kraut" or "wop" in American English, used to refer to people of Northern European ancestry, and the guiri is me. I am a little annoyed, anyway, and plan the devastating comeback line I would use should they actually offer to allow me to jump the queue: "No, no, que las charnegas pasen por delante de los guiris." (No, let the charnegas go before the guiris.) A charnego is "a person of Spanish ancestry" here in Catalonia and is quite an insult--and almost certainly the girl is a charnega, because there are very few Catalans who are "of pure roots".
Unfortunately, they don't let me cut in front of them and I can't use the devastating comeback line. Damn. Just when I had one all ready.
Anyway, they continue to bicker and the hippie girl calls up someone on her cellphone while the longhair dude is trying to scam the checkout girl--he's divided the bottles up into three groups and he's going to pay for his one separately from the ones that Alejandro's fiver is going to take care of, which will be separate from the rest, which the girl is going to pay for. He's trying to confuse her and slip past a couple of the bottles while she's making change from the one he bought and then the ones Alejandro's fiver bought, if you follow me. The checkout girl doesn't let him. She is no dummy. The girl talking on the cellphone is shafted because she winds up having to pay for like eight of their twelve bottles herself.
Anyway, I take care of all my business, the Philippine girl checks me out, I pay with exact change, and get out of there while the squatters still haven't bagged up their stuff and are arguing because the girl had to come up with like twelve euros for whatever the amount of beer she had to pay for was.
A few other people were in line, too, and directly in front of me was a longhair dude and a local progressive-looking university chick who was about 19. I'd seen him hanging around the squat down on the plaza a few times, so I twigged them for squatters. Very ungenerously, the whole time I was waiting in line, they were bickering in wonderful communalist style about who was going to pay for the twelve one-liter bottles of beer they had in their shopping cart.
(By the way, I've heard the two checkout girls, one's Polish and one's from the Philippines, complain that the squatters "borrow" the shopping carts without asking and only infrequently bring them back. When somebody says, "Hey, you can't take those outside the store", they whiningly wheedle, "Come on, be cool." [Venga, tía, enróllate])
So, anyway, the guy, who is Argentinian, says that he's going to pay for one and that some dude named Alejandro gave him five euros to pay for six liters. The hippie-looking girl says you can't buy six liters of beer for five euros and gets out her cellphone and tries to figure it out on the calculator. The guy has to hold back some of his dough, like everything more than the price of a liter, it seems, and repeats that he has Alejandro's five euros several times. Bingo, twigged him, he's a counterculture scam artist.
Then, get this, the girl turns to him and within my hearing, not to mention that of everybody else in line and the checkout girl, and says, "Let the guiri go first while I figure this out." "Guiri" is the fairly mild Spanish ethnic slur, along the lines of "mick" or "kraut" or "wop" in American English, used to refer to people of Northern European ancestry, and the guiri is me. I am a little annoyed, anyway, and plan the devastating comeback line I would use should they actually offer to allow me to jump the queue: "No, no, que las charnegas pasen por delante de los guiris." (No, let the charnegas go before the guiris.) A charnego is "a person of Spanish ancestry" here in Catalonia and is quite an insult--and almost certainly the girl is a charnega, because there are very few Catalans who are "of pure roots".
Unfortunately, they don't let me cut in front of them and I can't use the devastating comeback line. Damn. Just when I had one all ready.
Anyway, they continue to bicker and the hippie girl calls up someone on her cellphone while the longhair dude is trying to scam the checkout girl--he's divided the bottles up into three groups and he's going to pay for his one separately from the ones that Alejandro's fiver is going to take care of, which will be separate from the rest, which the girl is going to pay for. He's trying to confuse her and slip past a couple of the bottles while she's making change from the one he bought and then the ones Alejandro's fiver bought, if you follow me. The checkout girl doesn't let him. She is no dummy. The girl talking on the cellphone is shafted because she winds up having to pay for like eight of their twelve bottles herself.
Anyway, I take care of all my business, the Philippine girl checks me out, I pay with exact change, and get out of there while the squatters still haven't bagged up their stuff and are arguing because the girl had to come up with like twelve euros for whatever the amount of beer she had to pay for was.
Here' s a well-researched piece from the National Review from a couple of days ago. It explains why George Bush is going to get reelected in 2004. Bush, obviously, will be the candidate of the Republican Party in November 2004. His running mate will probably be Cheney, who's apparently done a good job as one of the President's top advisors; there's no good reason to change veeps unless 1) Cheney wants to do something else or b) we get all concerned about Cheney's health. In that case, Powell or Rice would be electable, as would Bill Frist or Hank Thompson.
The Democrats have a wide-open field with eight months to go before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries. John Kerry, the favorite, currently senator from Massachusetts, if there can be said to be a favorite--he's sort of good-looking, but not too smart and never did much in the Senate, and he reminds a lot of people much too much of Bill Clinton--has raised about $7 million in the last three months, according to the article by Jim Geraghty. John Edwards, another blow-dried airhead who's a senator from North Carolina, is the other Clinton clone in this election, and he's also raised a $7 million war chest in the last trimester. Dick Gephardt is the solid, dull candidate he's always been; he's the House Minority Leader, a representative from St. Louis, Missouri, and in the unions' pocket. Gep is always the union man. At least he stands for something, though. Howard Dean also stands for something; he's the ex-governor of Vermont and is running way off to the left, and he's got $2.6 million, pretty good for an obscure regional politician from a joke state. He's reminiscent of Martin Sheen on The West Wing--charismatic guy. Watch out for him. Dennis Kucinich, a representative from Cleveland, Ohio, who would be the nerdiest presidential candidate since Michael Dukakis, is also running way out to the left; we don't have figures on how much he's raised, but I bet not much. No figures either on Carol Moseley-Braun, ex-senator from Illinois; she's unelectable not so much because she's a black woman but because she's so notorious for playing the double victim card, for alleged financial corruption, and for her extreme left-wing views. Her goal is likely to be unifying the black Democratic vote, probably 20% of the Dems who vote in the primaries, in order to wield it decisively at the convention.
One of the great things is that the article links to the official websites of all the candidates mentioned here, plus Al Sharpton, whose link isn't working. Kerry's and Edwards's are both completely vacuous of thought, except that Edwards's tries to appeal to the lawyers and jumps all over the Social Security bandwagon; he's going for the trial lawyers' and the old folks' interest groups, both of which are powerful and spend a lot of money. Moseley-Braun's is equally dim-witted. Howard Dean is blatantly establishing himself as a lefty, and Dennis Kucinich is doing the same but in a really dorky sort of way. Gep's includes a lot of typical policy wonk wank about his alleged enviro plan, which he believes in about as much as I believe my cat can fly, and the most recent union to give him their support. God only knows what Al Sharpton's site might contain.
OK. Either Kerry or Edwards will run very well early but they're appealing to the Clintonites among the Dems and I just don't think there are that many Clintonites any more. Whichever makes it through has a very good chance of winning the whole thing, though, more likely Kerry, who's been in the Senate for years, than Edwards, who just got elected for the first time two years ago. One of the two will likely bomb out very early since they're both appealing to the same audience. Gep will be second or third in every non-Southern state and will be one of the guys who drops out midway unless no one has cleaned up the South. If Kerry and Edwards should split their vote and the Midwest becomes decisive, Gep could do well. If not, not. He may be looking for the vice-presidential nomination. Carol Moseley-Braun will get a big piece of the black vote and will stay in the race all the way to June. She'd like a cabinet post, I imagine. Denny the K will get stomped by Dean for the NPR vote; Kucinich will be the first candidate to drop out of the race. He might do something wacky like run with Nader. Dean is likely to do well in New England, and there'll be a boomlet for him early on in the race. If both Kerry and Edwards cancel one another out for the blow-dried airhead vote in the South, Dean may do very well when things get to the industrial states.
As for any other candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton is apparently not going to run. She just made it to the Senate and she knows as well as anyone else she needs some experience in her own name to be viable for the Presidency. She won't run in 2004 unless the party gets so desperate they draft her, among other things because she promised not to run for President in this upcoming election. She will run in 2008 or 2012.
And, of course, there is not-officially-in-the-race-yet former Vice President Al Gore. Here's his--well, some "grassroots supporters" of his--website. Al's site is putting it about that he'd be running first in New Hampshire if he were running. If this is still semi-true in a couple of months and Al can pick up some big, greasy contributions, something he's always been good at, Al will run in 2004 and will win the Democrat nomination for President.
Should Al not run--if he loses again, he'll never get a third chance, and he might want to wait for 2008--it's Kerry, Dean, or Edwards for the Democrat nomination, in that order of probability.
This is wonderful news. If you're a Republican.
Bush can mop the floor with any of those guys, and we all know it, unless there's a stock-market crash or a nuclear war between now or then. Both are pretty unlikely, much more unlikely than a year ago. Bush knows there's only one Democrat with the national prominence, the willingness to run, the generally moderate record, and the solid pro-war position that will all appeal to the swing voters whose support means victory in every election. And, just maybe, give him some real trouble.
That somebody is Joe Lieberman, Senator from Connecticut.
But Joe will probably not make it through the Democrat primaries. He's only fifth in fundraising, with some $3 million, behind (presumably) Gore, Kerry, Edwards, and Gep, and he's not much ahead of Howard Dean. If the Gore campaign is telling the truth, Joe is in fourth place behind (presumably) Gore, Kerry, and Dean in the New Hampshire primary.
Things don't look good for Joe. Gore, Kerry, and Dean split the early primaries. Kooch drops, and maybe Edwards too. Then Gore sweeps the South, with Moseley-Braun second. Everyone else drops out but Dean, and maybe Joe. Gore gets at least half of the vote in the Midwest and that puts him over to win at the convention on the first ballot. Joe comes in second or third or fourth overall. We could even see a replay of the Al-and-Joe ticket in 2004.
That's fine with me. Bush and Cheney or Powell or Rice or Thompson will whomp Al and Joe, or Al and whoever else, 54-44 at best, with 2% for Nader or Kooch, come November 2004.
What I'd hate to see is an Joe-and-Hillary ticket. Hillary didn't promise not to run for vice-president. That combination would give Bush a tough race. And if Joe and Hillary lose, they both stay in the Senate with Hillary as the Democrat front-runner for 2008. But the odds against a Joe-and-Hillary ticket are at least a couple of hundred to one.
Which means that y'all kin start gittin' ready fer four more years o' writin' "Here I sit, cheeks a-flexin', just squeezed out another Texan" on bathroom walls all 'round this here world in order to work out all y'all's frustrations 'bout them Tixas politicians.
The Democrats have a wide-open field with eight months to go before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries. John Kerry, the favorite, currently senator from Massachusetts, if there can be said to be a favorite--he's sort of good-looking, but not too smart and never did much in the Senate, and he reminds a lot of people much too much of Bill Clinton--has raised about $7 million in the last three months, according to the article by Jim Geraghty. John Edwards, another blow-dried airhead who's a senator from North Carolina, is the other Clinton clone in this election, and he's also raised a $7 million war chest in the last trimester. Dick Gephardt is the solid, dull candidate he's always been; he's the House Minority Leader, a representative from St. Louis, Missouri, and in the unions' pocket. Gep is always the union man. At least he stands for something, though. Howard Dean also stands for something; he's the ex-governor of Vermont and is running way off to the left, and he's got $2.6 million, pretty good for an obscure regional politician from a joke state. He's reminiscent of Martin Sheen on The West Wing--charismatic guy. Watch out for him. Dennis Kucinich, a representative from Cleveland, Ohio, who would be the nerdiest presidential candidate since Michael Dukakis, is also running way out to the left; we don't have figures on how much he's raised, but I bet not much. No figures either on Carol Moseley-Braun, ex-senator from Illinois; she's unelectable not so much because she's a black woman but because she's so notorious for playing the double victim card, for alleged financial corruption, and for her extreme left-wing views. Her goal is likely to be unifying the black Democratic vote, probably 20% of the Dems who vote in the primaries, in order to wield it decisively at the convention.
One of the great things is that the article links to the official websites of all the candidates mentioned here, plus Al Sharpton, whose link isn't working. Kerry's and Edwards's are both completely vacuous of thought, except that Edwards's tries to appeal to the lawyers and jumps all over the Social Security bandwagon; he's going for the trial lawyers' and the old folks' interest groups, both of which are powerful and spend a lot of money. Moseley-Braun's is equally dim-witted. Howard Dean is blatantly establishing himself as a lefty, and Dennis Kucinich is doing the same but in a really dorky sort of way. Gep's includes a lot of typical policy wonk wank about his alleged enviro plan, which he believes in about as much as I believe my cat can fly, and the most recent union to give him their support. God only knows what Al Sharpton's site might contain.
OK. Either Kerry or Edwards will run very well early but they're appealing to the Clintonites among the Dems and I just don't think there are that many Clintonites any more. Whichever makes it through has a very good chance of winning the whole thing, though, more likely Kerry, who's been in the Senate for years, than Edwards, who just got elected for the first time two years ago. One of the two will likely bomb out very early since they're both appealing to the same audience. Gep will be second or third in every non-Southern state and will be one of the guys who drops out midway unless no one has cleaned up the South. If Kerry and Edwards should split their vote and the Midwest becomes decisive, Gep could do well. If not, not. He may be looking for the vice-presidential nomination. Carol Moseley-Braun will get a big piece of the black vote and will stay in the race all the way to June. She'd like a cabinet post, I imagine. Denny the K will get stomped by Dean for the NPR vote; Kucinich will be the first candidate to drop out of the race. He might do something wacky like run with Nader. Dean is likely to do well in New England, and there'll be a boomlet for him early on in the race. If both Kerry and Edwards cancel one another out for the blow-dried airhead vote in the South, Dean may do very well when things get to the industrial states.
As for any other candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton is apparently not going to run. She just made it to the Senate and she knows as well as anyone else she needs some experience in her own name to be viable for the Presidency. She won't run in 2004 unless the party gets so desperate they draft her, among other things because she promised not to run for President in this upcoming election. She will run in 2008 or 2012.
And, of course, there is not-officially-in-the-race-yet former Vice President Al Gore. Here's his--well, some "grassroots supporters" of his--website. Al's site is putting it about that he'd be running first in New Hampshire if he were running. If this is still semi-true in a couple of months and Al can pick up some big, greasy contributions, something he's always been good at, Al will run in 2004 and will win the Democrat nomination for President.
Should Al not run--if he loses again, he'll never get a third chance, and he might want to wait for 2008--it's Kerry, Dean, or Edwards for the Democrat nomination, in that order of probability.
This is wonderful news. If you're a Republican.
Bush can mop the floor with any of those guys, and we all know it, unless there's a stock-market crash or a nuclear war between now or then. Both are pretty unlikely, much more unlikely than a year ago. Bush knows there's only one Democrat with the national prominence, the willingness to run, the generally moderate record, and the solid pro-war position that will all appeal to the swing voters whose support means victory in every election. And, just maybe, give him some real trouble.
That somebody is Joe Lieberman, Senator from Connecticut.
But Joe will probably not make it through the Democrat primaries. He's only fifth in fundraising, with some $3 million, behind (presumably) Gore, Kerry, Edwards, and Gep, and he's not much ahead of Howard Dean. If the Gore campaign is telling the truth, Joe is in fourth place behind (presumably) Gore, Kerry, and Dean in the New Hampshire primary.
Things don't look good for Joe. Gore, Kerry, and Dean split the early primaries. Kooch drops, and maybe Edwards too. Then Gore sweeps the South, with Moseley-Braun second. Everyone else drops out but Dean, and maybe Joe. Gore gets at least half of the vote in the Midwest and that puts him over to win at the convention on the first ballot. Joe comes in second or third or fourth overall. We could even see a replay of the Al-and-Joe ticket in 2004.
That's fine with me. Bush and Cheney or Powell or Rice or Thompson will whomp Al and Joe, or Al and whoever else, 54-44 at best, with 2% for Nader or Kooch, come November 2004.
What I'd hate to see is an Joe-and-Hillary ticket. Hillary didn't promise not to run for vice-president. That combination would give Bush a tough race. And if Joe and Hillary lose, they both stay in the Senate with Hillary as the Democrat front-runner for 2008. But the odds against a Joe-and-Hillary ticket are at least a couple of hundred to one.
Which means that y'all kin start gittin' ready fer four more years o' writin' "Here I sit, cheeks a-flexin', just squeezed out another Texan" on bathroom walls all 'round this here world in order to work out all y'all's frustrations 'bout them Tixas politicians.
Friday, April 25, 2003
Andrew Sullivan links to this Christian Science Monitor story, which nails the bought-and-paid-for-by-Saddam left-wing British MP George Galloway to the wall. That's two completely separate accounts, the Monitor's and the Daily Telegraph's, saying that Galloway was taking millions in bribes from Saddam Hussein. Scratch one libel suit. When do they open the prosecution? And can we--well, you--try him for treason, or just for accepting bribes?
I've got a post up over on EuroPundits; it's a translation of a news report from Iraq written by a Spanish journalist that is, actually, like, good. Check it out. Andrew Dodge has a post up and so does Nelson Ascher, so check that stuff out too. C'mon, guys, we're getting behind on the EuroPundits duties, myself not excepted. Murph and I should have put that long bit on Zap that we did (don't blame me for too many of the rhetorical flourishes) up on EuroPundits, but we didn't think to until it was already up here.
Hey, Sasha, could you check the HTML of EuroPundits again? Nelson seems to have been having posting problems.
Hey, Sasha, could you check the HTML of EuroPundits again? Nelson seems to have been having posting problems.
I found this groovy site called the Sourcebook for Ancient History at Fordham University. It totally rocks. It's got connections to a lot of complete texts by the big guns of the times. I've been going through Julius Caesar and Augustus by Suetonius, who was sort of the Kitty Kelley of ancient Rome. Fascinating stuff. Skip over all the bits about which obscure dude was tribune in the fourteenth year of Augustus' mandate and all the tributes that were offered to Jupiter Biggusdickus at his temple on the Crapitoline, the little-known eighth hill the Eternal City was built on. There's all sorts of conspiracy and murder and massive dirty dealing. Read all of that. Robert Graves cribbed most of I, Claudius from Suetonius.
I looked into this because of that Italian nutcase below who compared George Bush to Julius Caesar, negatively. Lemme tell ya, every single American president, even JFK, has been like a saint in heaven, St. Francis of freakin' Assisi, compared to either Julius or Augustus Caesar. Hell, every senator we've ever had has been Mr. Upright Probity compared to any of the weasels Suetonius describes in the Roman Senate, and we've had senators even worse than Ted Kennedy. Jeez, even Aaron Burr seems comparatively honorable. I bet I find something similar to be true when I go through the other ten guys in Suetonius' scandal sheet. I sure found that to be true when I read the abridged version of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire a few months ago. My favorite was this one guy who seized power, in the period of full decline and total military dictatorship, along about 292 AD. Gibbon says about him, "He was an Arab, and so by nature a robber." Some other guy cut his head off a couple of years later and took over himself.
I looked into this because of that Italian nutcase below who compared George Bush to Julius Caesar, negatively. Lemme tell ya, every single American president, even JFK, has been like a saint in heaven, St. Francis of freakin' Assisi, compared to either Julius or Augustus Caesar. Hell, every senator we've ever had has been Mr. Upright Probity compared to any of the weasels Suetonius describes in the Roman Senate, and we've had senators even worse than Ted Kennedy. Jeez, even Aaron Burr seems comparatively honorable. I bet I find something similar to be true when I go through the other ten guys in Suetonius' scandal sheet. I sure found that to be true when I read the abridged version of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire a few months ago. My favorite was this one guy who seized power, in the period of full decline and total military dictatorship, along about 292 AD. Gibbon says about him, "He was an Arab, and so by nature a robber." Some other guy cut his head off a couple of years later and took over himself.
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Here's an article from FrontPage taking Amnesty International to pieces as the leftist propaganda machine it is. Check it out. Fred Kaplan in Slate has a good piece on why the Apache helicopter is way overrated and why the A-10 is the best damn weapon we've got if we have air superiority, which we bloody well ought to have.
This is from James Taranto's column today at the Wall Street Journal online.
If you really believe that all sexual activity between consenting adults should be legally permitted, you ought to object to laws against incest (when no child is involved) and polygamy too. (The adultery example doesn't really fit, since adultery involves a usually nonconsenting third party, the betrayed spouse.)
Well, Jim, yeah, that is exactly what I believe. As far as I'm concerned, if everybody involved is eighteen and is acting on his and / or her own free will, what's the problem? Remember the bit about "the pursuit of happiness"? If my neighbor wants to get it on with his grandma and a billy goat on roller skates with a gallon of Crisco, that's only my business if they make so much noise they keep me awake at night. And don't give me any animal rights crap about the billy goat.
If you really believe that all sexual activity between consenting adults should be legally permitted, you ought to object to laws against incest (when no child is involved) and polygamy too. (The adultery example doesn't really fit, since adultery involves a usually nonconsenting third party, the betrayed spouse.)
Well, Jim, yeah, that is exactly what I believe. As far as I'm concerned, if everybody involved is eighteen and is acting on his and / or her own free will, what's the problem? Remember the bit about "the pursuit of happiness"? If my neighbor wants to get it on with his grandma and a billy goat on roller skates with a gallon of Crisco, that's only my business if they make so much noise they keep me awake at night. And don't give me any animal rights crap about the billy goat.
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