Foreign Affairs Magazine

The case for invading Iraq.

I think we're probably going to have to do it. It's not part of the anti-terror war, but it's clear that Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction, which we simply can't allow. Patience is not an option under those circumstances. We could wait out most foes, but not one whose warmaking capabilities are on the verge of a major upgrade. It is so frustrating to me that the Europeans don't see this. I understand why Iraq's neighbors might not want a war, but Europe is acting -- I know no better word -- cowardly.

The war will be very bloody, I'm afraid; not so much for us, but a lot of (essentially innocent) Iraqis, both soldiers and civilians, are going to get killed. There's no way to avoid it. But if we don't strike now, something far worse will happen. Maybe in two years, or five, or ten, but someday.

That's cold comfort to the people who will be killed, and to their families, I know. War isn't a good thing, but it's often a necessary thing. The knee-jerk pacifists of Europe and elsewhere don't seem to realize that when you are dealing with people who are only interested in their own power (or complete madmen such as Hitler) force is often the only answer.

(Via Kyle Still.)

What Would Jesus Eat?

Well, not shellfish.

U.S. Said to Be Ready to Indict Audit Firm Over Enron Papers

Andersengate enters another phase. At this stage, Andersen probably just wants to protect its consulting arm (Accenture) from the inevitable downfall of the accounting arm.

If Andersen were your corporate accountant, wouldn't you have a fair amount of protection now from prosecution? Everyone knows that Andersen was corrupt/incompetent. If a corporation's accounting were messed up somehow, the officers could just blame Andersen, no matter whose fault it really was.

Zimbabwe Vote Heralds a Shift in Southern Africa

Oh, come on. Either Mugabe will win or he'll steal the election. I don't see how that qualifies as a shift.

Bloomberg Is Content to Avoid Spotlight

Except, you know, slapping his name all over the place on his news service.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS

Matthew wonders why TNR leaves out Gray Davis on its list of Democratic fundraisers for the 2004 election. I have to guess it's because everybody in his own state hates him, and he's probably too far to the right on everything but abortion for the Democratic primary electorate.

Fire Destroys Prominent Sikh Temple

This is in New York, not India. Six visiting preachers were injured, two critically, and a 15,000-book library was destroyed.

Oh, God, please let this be an accident. I don't think I can take a hate crime right now.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

Jesse Helms reads The New Republic?!?

Another new link, Sneaking Suspicions. That brings the total on the left to fifty. I think I'm going to take it to 65 then seed them like the NCAA tournament.

Senate Sends Recession Relief Bill to Bush

Today's paranoid Democrat moment:

There was never technically a recession. There was an economic slowdown, but there was only one quarter of negative growth. But at any rate the economy has recovered. And now the recession-fighting measures get out of Congress.

The Republican plan, of course, was stupid, and never had a chance of passing. It was mostly their usual supply-side stuff, and not suited to short-term recession fighting. But maybe that was their plan all along! They never wanted a real recession fighting measure, because they don't believe in that stuff. (I do, I'm a Keynesian.) So they came up with something that had no chance in order to delay but still look concerned.

Senator Thompson Won't Seek Re-Election

This is Al Gore's old seat, but he immediately said he won't try to get it back. Which is probably a good call, since he couldn't even beat a Texan in the state in 2000.

I'm a Democrat, but I'm a fan of Thompson's. He's one of the good ones, and the Senate will miss him.

Kmart to Close 284 Stores and Cut 22,000 Jobs

That's more than one in ten Kmarts... I have to ask if there's any point to Kmart. It doesn't seem to have a market of its own. I shop there fairly frequently, but that's only because there's a store five minutes from my house and the Wal-Marts are more like 15 minutes. Since a Target just opened nearby, I don't think I'd be shopping at Kmart anymore either.

Bush to Send Envoy Back to Middle East (washingtonpost.com)

One definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results.

I've also gotten around to adding Amygdala to the links; this is one I kept meaning to put over there but kept forgetting. I really need some way to order things over there.

Spinsters.com

PETA Revealed

I'd heard about the Spinsters but hadn't gotten around to checking them out until now. I finally made it over there today, and I'm glad I did, and they're definitely going on the list to the left. I especially like this piece, which sums up my feelings on animal welfare very nicely.

And Lee Ann Morawski is in Alabama, too. We're taking over -- watch out, Tennessee.

You're watching TV Barn

Hey, great news, Kansas City — Michael Moore's coming to town after all.

Wait... That's not great news at all.

Blue-Chips Slide as Greenspan Testimony Raises Rate Fears

The stock market never ceases to amaze me.

GREENSPAN: Good news! The economy is in recovery!

WALL STREET: Good god! SELL!!!!!!!

Mystery man

One of the things that don't really matter that really anger me: People who insist that Marlowe (or Earl Edward de Vere, or, most laughably, Sir Francis Bacon) was the real author of the plays of Shakespeare. What this comes down to -- really -- is snobbery. Willy Shakespeare, the hick from Warwickshire turned actor, couldn't possibly be the greatest author in history. It must have been someone more prominent, more important, classier.

Fondue Sets Recalled

I think if you buy a fondue set, you probably deserve to get a defective product.

McDonald's May Settle Fries Case

Vegetarians annoy me. But I suppose if you're a Hindu, you've got the right to be upset when you find out you've been eating cow for a decade. McDonald's fries its fries in vegetable oil, but uses a little beef tallow for flavoring.

Mmmmm... french fries.

Anyway, McD's is going to pay about $10 million to vegetarian charities (no bets as to if they'll accept the check earned by the sale of animal flesh) and, of course, $2.4 million to plaintiffs' attorneys.

My brother has a friend who is Muslim. One day, the three of us are eating breakfast in a restaurant. Said Muslim friend orders biscuits and gravy, and starts eating. I look over, and I see that it's white gravy, and say, "You know, I think that has pork in it." We asked, and sure enough... This guy, he smokes and drinks, but he'd never (knowingly) eat a slice of ham. Teaching that something's disgusting works a whole lot better than teaching that it's immoral or bad for you.

Mmmmm, ham...

Delta dumps Arthur Andersen

When even airlines are embarrassed to do business with you, it's time to close up shop.

G.O.P. Forces Delay in Showdown Over Judicial Nomination

This is kind of unusual, isn't it? Normally, the President's party wants to get the vote over with, while the opposition tries to stall.

Pickering is in real trouble. I don't know enough about the facts of the case to have a settled opinion. I have seen the reports of local African-Americans supportive of Pickering, but I won't say that's the silver bullet to kill charges of racism that many people seem to think it is.

Fun bit from MC Ari:

``If actions taken by people 40 years ago were the criteria, there'd be some senators who are voting on this nomination whose very history would come into play,'' Fleischer said.

Hee. To be fair, the President's Daddy was against the Civil Rights Act too.

"M&M's"®

They want to add a new M&M color. Unfortunately, they've run out of normal colors, so they are asking people to choose between purple, pink, and aqua. Aqua?

Bush Plan Puts CEOs On Notice (washingtonpost.com)

If the punishments are significant enough, this would be great. There are already lots of penalties in place. But (it seems to me, and take into account I'm a radical pinko leftist bleeding heart anti-capitalist member of the Democrat party) what happens too often is that they get punished and still come out of things filthy rich.

For example, let's take a guy, we'll call him something neutral like "Michael Milken". And he violates all the securities laws and lies and acts like he's the embodiment of the invisible hand, and, I dunno, holds up a bank or something. So he gets caught, and is punished. But all he gets is 18 months in a minimum-security federal prison and a fine that comes to ten percent of his net worth. I mean, that's not a walk in the park, but "Michael" still winds up filthy rich and can buy or sell several congressional candidates from his pocket change.

This proposal says that executives would have to "give up their riches" if accounting fraud were uncovered. If that's not softened, it might be the needed hammer.

Saudi Surgeons Perform First Uterus Transplant

Trust the Saudis to come up with the world's stupidest medical marvel.

Books win over teacher raises

The teacher's union, of course, is continuing to show that it's interested only in its members' short-term well-being. And that's fine! That's its job. But the budget wasn't there to both give the teachers the pay raises they wanted and to make it possible for them to do their jobs. The legislature made the decision to spend money on books, supplies, and maintenance rather than teacher salaries. It was the correct decision.

Latest curfew idea: just for teens

Mobile demonstrates one of the cardinal rules of authorities everywhere: "We Hate Teenagers".

Feng Shui Defeats Calif. Building

From the "Only in California" file.... Voters rejected a proposal to build a new police and fire station in Sausalito. (The police are working out of waterfront trailers.) Because it was too expensive? No. Because it was going to destroy an historic site? No again.

Because it would violate Sausalito's Feng Shui? Yes.

Linder vs. Barr | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

I love redistricting. Bob Barr, one of the nation's pre-eminent right-wing wackos, finds himself battling another incumbent Republican, John Linder, in the Georgia 7th. Neither are native Georgians, by the way -- Barr is from Iowa, Linder from Minnesota.

Barry to Heed 'Calling' With Bid for D.C. Council (washingtonpost.com)

Marion wants another crack at politics.

Drew: Whose Show Is It Anyway?

Un-flippin-believable.

The Drew Carey Show -- which is opposite The West Wing, so it gets terrible ratings and is on its last legs -- was going to do a typical plot: Lewis and Oswald get jobs as airport security, and are incompetent. This is basically what's gone on in this country for the last few months anyway, so they're not exactly going out on a limb here.

And ABC -- which is only a network because of inertia these days, anyway -- got upset. Because nobody "competent" was being shown as working on airport security. They were suprised at this, so I assume they don't fly much. The censors (who "were concerned it might be irresponsible to make all airport security look incompetent") threatened to scrap the whole episode if changes weren't made. Carey -- who, by the way, was one of the relatively few celebrities to work for the Bush campaign, though that's not particularly relevant and I don't know why I bring it up -- is predictably upset.

Another new BamaBlogger, Will Hester's Little Sanity, has been added to the links.

Rumsfeld Denies 'Black Hawk Down' Comparison (washingtonpost.com)

You know, one of the things that annoys me about the press is how they make it necessary to lie. Obviously, there are certain similarities between the recent incident and what happened in Mogadishu; they are far outweighed by the significant differences. (Perhaps most importantly, widespread public approval for the operation.)

However, Secretary Rumsfeld can't come out and say, "Of course, there are similarities." Because if he did, the media would go bonkers about how we were repeating mistakes and start using the "Q" word. Because reporters are simple folk and they can't handle the idea of a story that isn't like a story they already reported.

Powell Calls for Sharon to Soften His Stance (washingtonpost.com)

Powell's the "good cop" -- unless you're the Israelis, of course. He still doesn't like Arafat.

Libertarian Samizdata
US income tax is illegal


I don't normally link Samizdata, because they drive me nuts, but if Europeans are going to comment on the US Constitution they should at least be familiar with the document in question.

The 16th Amendment reads, in full:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

By definition, if the Constitution says that something can be done, and it hasn't been revoked by a later amendment, it's constitutional. Period.

ESPN.com - SOCCER - Violence halts games in Israel

[OFFENSIVE]Hey, who says that there's nothing good about the Indifada? At least it means less soccer.[/OFFENSIVE]

This sounds like the usual stupid Euro tricks to me; didn't the Asian soccer organization allow a match in flipping Afghanistan a few weeks ago?

Let's not even bring up the irony of an international soccer match being cancelled out of fear of violence.

Amazon.com: buying info: Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters

MST3K's head writer/star has a new book out, but not movie-related this time. It appears he's going into Dave Barry territory, the "hassles of ordinary life".

Why Are Bush's Steel Tariffs Legal? By Chris Suellentrop

"Section 201" sounds like some secret government agency. Instead, it's a happy funtime clause that lets Superpresident swoop in and save the US steel industry! Whee!

My hometown used to be a major steel center. Birmingham used to call itself "The Pittsburgh of the South". (Apparently, that was a good thing.) My mother, who lived a few miles from the big US Steel plant in Fairfield, would tell a story about how when she was a child, she'd wear her white clothes for Sunday, and by the end of the day they'd be dark grey. That's over now; the Alabama segment of the steel industry collapsed in the seventies and early eighties. There's a little production left, and US Pipe has a plant, but the big dislocation was 20 years ago or more.

The northern cities like Pittsburgh already felt a lot of that back in the seventies, but it's going to come again. I have a lot of sympathy for their position. It's easy for those of us who don't have ties to the American steel industry to sit back and say that it's best for everybody to let it die. After all, in the long term, that's true. ("In the long term, we are all dead." -- Keynes) But that death is going to cause a lot of pain for a lot of people. It's easy to be cynical and say that President Bush is only doing this to try to win Pennsylvania and shore up Ohio, but you can make an argument that he's still doing what's best, that it's better for a lot of people to have a little pain than a few people have a lot of pain.

That being said, it is best to let the steel industry go the way of the dodo. It's not something we do well, and putting it off for four years isn't going to soften the blow. It's one thing to say that the areas afflicted can use the time to retool, but we all know what will really happen. They'll use the respite up and then in four years, or eight, they'll get slammed. And there are all sorts of reasons why this will cause problems. Not only will it raise prices for everybody, it hurts our global standing, and it hurts the economies of countries that need help a lot more than ours. I think it's best to get this over with now. Then, my natural bias is for free trade.

Slate Gets Duped - This week's Diary by an "automotive CEO" proves to be a hoax. By Jack Shafer

What is the deal with Slate, anyway? This is hardly the first time this sort of thing has happened. Remember "Monkeyfishing"?

This wouldn't happen if the Unablogger were in charge.

Hey, maybe "Klingler" is the Unablogger!

Syria Backs Saudi Peace Proposal

If there were any doubt that the Saud-Friedman Plan was unworkable, this should do it. The Syrians like it!

Cartoon controversy | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This is about Ted Rall's latest piece of crap, which was quickly pulled from the NYT's site (which still freaks out when I try to visit). While some have tried to credit the blogosphere for this, it appears that in this case it was the power of old media -- the New York 1 TV channel -- that got Rall excised.

In a statement, Rall and the syndicate acknowledged the cartoon's sensitive subject matter, but did not apologize.

"Pushing the envelope of polite criticism is what editorial cartoonists do," the statement said. "Rall represents a point of view that will not be everyone's opinion. He is looking at a recent news events with the cynical eye of a satirist."

No, he represents a point of view that is so small as to seem a statistical error. He looks at recent news events with the jaundiced eye of a congenital moron.

There's a fungus among us

I'm particularly looking forward to the hamburger substitute called "grounds". Nothing as appetizing as a food stuff that reminds you of dirt.

(Via Happy Fungus Pundit.)

"Hi, I'm Alan Hunter, one of MTV's five original VJs. I used to be famous. Now, I'm a substitute morning guy on Birmingham's 106.9 FM, the Point, the best of the eighties and more!"

"Please kill me."

Coalition Forces Press on With Attacks (washingtonpost.com)

I certainly hope we aren't going to turn this into the body-count game. Remember last time when we tried that?

Anyway, I would guess that Tal-Qaeda (I think that's the way to refer to enemy forces) is trying to consolidate now for a simple reason; they're almost out of supplies, and they won't be able to keep up a guerrilla war for long. So they hope to go out in a blaze of glory with an outside shot of causing a lot of casualties -- enough to make a repeat of Mogadishu.

But that's not going to happen -- even if some elements of the press seem to want it to. Few Americans knew what we were doing in Somalia. We all know why we're in Afghanistan, and almost all of us favor it. And most of us knew there would be casualties. We'll mourn our dead, but we won't abandon the cause.

A complete tangent, feel free to page down if you get bored.

Is it just me? Am I crazy? Because this really bugs me.

A previous holder of my position (cataloguing librarian) was apparently lazy. Or stupid. Or crazy. Whatever. Anyway, she (I think all the previous cataloguers were women) messed up a whole lot of the labels in Literature back in the benighted, pre-computer days, when all the cataloguing was done on those little cards. The spine label for Beulah Land by Lonnie Coleman should read, in Library of Congress style, something like:

PS3505
O2826
B48

A short breakdown of this gibberish: P means literature, the S after it means American literature. The numbers on the first line mean that it's a late 20th century author with a name beginning with "C"; the next line breaks down the rest of the name (-oleman). The last line, and the last line only, refers to the book.

The thing is, the previous cataloguer, for whatever reason, cut the last line! The one that says what book it is. And I keep going into the collection and trying to fix it, and I will never ever finish because there are too many of them. There's other stuff. There's a fairly large collection of books from the Dominican Republic, all of which are catalogued as being from Spain. And there are some real bloopers, like one copy of Moby Dick that has Herman Melville as an early 20th Century author, and a number of Australians and Europeans labeled as Americans.

My question is, again, is it me? Should I care about this? I mean, even if the books are mislabeled, as long as they're shelved where people can find them (another problem, but I'll leave that aside) is it a big deal?

Bodies found at Ga. crematory | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Prosecutor: Pornography, pictures of corpses found in Marsh office, computer

Oh, gross!

I've tried to ignore this story, but they've pulled me in. Investigators say that the crematory operator was lying about his equipment being broken and was in fact in working order. Also, the bodies now appear to all date to the last four years.

What we have here is [judgemental]a pervert[/judgemental].

Condit makes last-ditch appeal to keep his seat
"Hi, I'm Gary Condit. How you doin'?"

I also just noticed that "keep his seat" and "save his ass" are almost synonyms.

The Blogs Roll On

I'd like to thank the Vodkapundit for the link, and say I should have thought of Tom Ridge when discussing the need for smart people in some government roles.

I think that you can usually tell how President Bush and his people feel about a government program by the people appointed to run it. At the cabinet level, that shows in the very high quality of the foreign policy people, and the very uneven quality in domestic policy. Ridge came in late, of course, but he's a great example. President Clinton, on the other hand, had some top-notch people in economics but a lot of iffy appointments elsewhere.

'Tabletop' Fusion Report Elicits Mixed Reaction (washingtonpost.com)

I hope it's true, but it's hard to believe. This isn't Pons and Fleishmann here, but (apparently) respectable researchers. But I can't believe that they actually fused hydrogen in a tabletop device.

CNN.com - Operation Anaconda costs 8 U.S. lives - March 4, 2002

I was working last night, so didn't see, but a friend tells me that at the briefing Gen. Franks called Afghanistan "Vietnam", and didn't correct himself. Uh-oh.

Bush Settles On Tariff For Steel Imports (washingtonpost.com)

As has been noted, this is a stupid idea. The best we can hope for (assuming that the tariff actually goes into effect) is that prices for steel goods go up, causing small but noticeable pains all over the country. The worst case is that it sparks a trade war, or undercuts America's position as the prophets of free trade.

The world's flags given letter grades

Really. Glad to see I'm not the only one with time on his hands.

Glenn Kinen

I keep meaning to not blogroll (it's so cliche) but Glenn's got a point here. I'll take it one step up... The Republicans, especially their Libertarian wing, like this situation. They don't want the "Best and the Brightest" working for the state, but for Wall Street and Silicon Valley. That's probably a positive for the economy, if nothing else, but I figure the real reason is that they don't want people who make the government look good. But they should realize that we need smart people in some roles.

Defense comes before Affluence.

The Breakfast Table
By Anne Applebaum and Alexander Chancellor

Applebaum says (I'm simplifying here) that the root cause of terrorism is less poverty than boredom; that young men like the 9-11 terrorists have nothing to do and turn to terror out of frustration. If they were really poor, they'd have to work to survive.

A couple of points here... First, this fits in with Mickey Kaus' "Welfare causes terrorism" campaign rather well.

Second, and if I'm stealing from someone I'm sorry. I'm sure I've seen this elsewhere, I'm just pointing it out... People wonder why Islamic countries in particular seem breeding grounds for terrorists. I mean, there are terrorists in Christian countries (Ireland, Northern Spain, Columbia) but they're all over in Islamic countries. They're not restricted to only Arabs, either; we've fought them now in southeast Asia, and are looking at Somalia, and the Chinese have trouble with them.

Now, one of the features of Islam that most differs from Christianity is its attitude towards women. (How's that for an insight? Man, I should be on one of them panel shows.) This impacts young, unattached, and unconnected males in two ways. First, they have little chance of getting married, because older, wealthier men are monopolizing the women the young men normally would marry. Second, in our society young men spend a lot of time and energy trying to... uh... "woo" young women. (Another brilliant insight!) That's not going to happen in a society where that could get you killed, at least not that often.

I'm not unbiased here. I'm male, but I consider myself a feminist, and I believe that polygamy is one of the major problems women have faced throughout history. In my opinion, women won't -- can't -- get equal treatment where that sort of marriage is condoned. But it's bad for most men, as well. The only people it's good for are the powerful members of society, older rich men.

One Lifetime Is Not Enough for a Trip to Distant Stars

In other science news, physicists announced that atoms are really really small. Jeez, what did I expect from the NYT? This is the same publication that ridiculed Robert Goddard because "You can't fly a rocket to the moon, there's no air to push off of!"

Eight Killed as U.S. Helicopters Hit by Enemy Fire (washingtonpost.com)

A bit of confirmation: The first helicopter -- which was not downed, but took damage -- was in fact hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The second, which took seven of the eight fatalities, was hit by either another grenade or by machine gun fire.

This was going to happen, eventually; you can't fight a war and expect not to lose anybody. The deaths of these servicemen are a tragedy, but if anyone thinks that this is a major setback they are being foolish.

As Riordan Implodes, Ex-Pal Vaults to Lead (washingtonpost.com)

Yeah, but I'm still going to vote for Riordan... Wait, I don't live in California, and I'm not a Republican! Then why did that other candidate send me an email?

I'm sorry, I'm going to let this go soon. It's not like I don't get a lot of Spam anyway. I had 16 emails this morning and 14 were spam.

Ex-intern explains, defends herself in HBO special

A positive review of the Monica Lewinsky special. And you thought it couldn't be done.

Latest Attacks Stun Israelis and Dampen Hopes for Peace

"We look like the what? The Klan? Who's that? Oh. Well, they hate Jews, too, right? Then that's OK."

U.S. Chopper Shot Down Over Afghanistan (washingtonpost.com)

No details as yet... I wonder how this happened. The Taliban had Stinger missiles, but they were leftover from the war with the Soviets and everyone thought they were nonfunctional. Otherwise, they would have used them before. The other possibilities are that somebody smuggled anti-helicopter weapons in, or that someone had a lucky shot with a rifle.

Update 11:00 PM: Elizabeth Spiers tells me something I probably should have thought of myself; the Taliban/al-Qaeda forces could have used Soviet era rocket-powered grenades, such as were used to shoot down the helicopter in Mogadishu.