OK, he did it. Torricelli dropped out. According to Stephen Green, this was done at the urging of Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe. Of course, according to Scrappleface, The Big Me has changed his legal residence to the corner table at the Paramus Starbucks. (It figures. Two hours after I mention him, he comes up with an absolutely hilarious take on the whole mess and gets yet another Instalink.)

Still no word on who the sacrificial lamb (replacement candidate! I meant to say replacement candidate) will be. This article assumes that McGreevey gets to appoint someone to run in Torricelli's place. That seems unreasonable. Why would the Governor of New Jersey get to appoint someone to run under the rubric of the Democratic Party?

Does anyone out there really know?

 
More names being floated (on CNN) as replacements for Torricelli in the NJ Senate race (without Torricelli having stepped down yet, as far as I know):

Frank Pallone (Congressman from NJ's 6th district) and Bob Menendez (Congressman from the 13th district)

I guess Bradley and Lautenberg turned them down.

Since each of these potential candidates is already in the House of Representatives, they are each running for reelection and are each likely to achieve that. But if one or the other steps into the Senate race, isn't the Democratic party admitting that they've given up on getting control of the House by risking an otherwise safe seat on a high risk gamble to retain a razor thin margin in the Senate? There can be no real answer to that question without knowing who will replace Torricelli's replacement, but it seems to me that the Democrats would simply be compounding their problems by changing an almost certain winner out of a House race and into a probable loser in the Senate race.

 
Via Drudge:

NBC is reporting that Torricelli is going to drop out of the race for the New Jersey Senate seat if a "suitable replacement" can be found before the election. The story is based on anonymous Democratic sources, so it might be someone's idea of a trial balloon.

If the story is true, it does not bode well for the New Jersey Democrats. Some kind of miracle would have to happen for a candidate to be found, gather a campaign staff and make himself known to the electorate in the remaining month or so before the election. Some of that can be sort of prepackaged by selecting a candidate already known by the electorate, which is why the anonymous sources are floating Bill Bradley's name, along with Frank Lautenberg's.

On the other hand, if the story is false, then it does not bode well for New Jersey Democrats in general and Torricelli in particular. As to Democrats in general, the mere existence of the story gives the distinct impression that the party believes Torricelli can't win. And from Torricelli's point of view, try to imagine running for the Senate for months (spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars) and spending the last leg of the campaign answering questions about whether or not you're going to drop out of the race..

Does anyone out there know what kind of legal hurdles would have to be surmounted to replace Torricelli on the ballot? NBC says "The deadline for candidates to file for the race has passed, although the party presumably would seek permission, from the courts if necessary, to fill a vacancy on the ballot." That's not very enlightening.

 
A while back I added people to the list of blogs appearing on your left. I just realized that I made no note of having added them. Susanna Cornett, of Cut on the Bias is a fellow Jerseyan (and even though she is unfortunate enough to live in Jersey City, she never complains about it). She just changed the design on her site, and now lacks any outbound permalinks. That will be remedied shortly, I assume.

Scott Ott, aka Scrappleface, and I were the subject of a simutaneous Instalink a few days ago. Scott went on to fame and fortune by being linked three times in a single day by the Perfesser. There was a reason (besides making me insanely envious). He has a decidedly wicked sense of humor.

Go see them both. Often.

 
What's wrong with this picture?



The picture is displayed on the main page of CNN.com with the caption "Residents in Kingston, Jamaica, form a human chain as they cross a flooded road."

Question: Have you ever seen a group of people form a human chain to walk through water that is calf deep? Have you ever seen a group of people form a human chain while holding umbrellas? Have you ever seen a group of people form a human chain without touching one another?

I wonder if the caption writer and the photo editor have ever seen anyone form a human chain, or even pretend to form a human chain.

 
Cap'n Clueless is bemoaning the poor allocation of university resources. Alas, spake the Cap'n, "It may be that there is good work going on in those departments [African American Studies, American Studies and Ethnicity, Asian American Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies, and Gender Studies]. But I cannot believe that there is anything like as much as we would get if those professorial seats and money were invested in more practical subjects. And I emphatically believe that those departments are a waste of good students, who would not only benefit this nation more but also benefit themselves more if they actually studied something that helped them get ahead in life with a real career."

I swear, the internet is pure magic. Literally within hours of Den Beste's crie de coeur, the inestimable Moira Breen has come to the rescue. Asks Moira, "Has anyone ever explored the mathematics of cord tangling, that most fascinating of household phenomena?"

A very good question, indeed. One with all the practicality needed to keep the Captain interested and happy, and one with nearly universal application in the information society. And if anyone can ever figure out how to prevent the rat's nest of cables perpetually residing under desks and behind VCRs throughout this fair land, it would be a boon of significant proportions to mankind.

Studying the tau of cord tangling: there's a career.

Now who's going to tell Cornell West that there's been a small change in plan?

 
About three weeks ago, I emailed Senators Torricelli and Corzine and Congressman Pascrell concerning their positions on Iraq. Not having heard back from any of them, I have written again. This time, I also wrote to Douglas Forrester with the same question. All of the letters looked essentially like this, adjusted to reflect the fact that the other addressees were already in office:

Dear Candidate Forrester:

Knowing what you know today, if you were a member of the Senate and if a vote were held today on a resolution authorizing the US to wage a war on Iraq, would you vote in favor of or against that resolution?

Would it make a difference to your vote that the resolution did not require the consent of the UN Security Council before the US could initiate a war?

I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Carey Gage

http://www.cognocentric.blogspot.com

Based on the comments of another blogger (who shall remain nameless because I can't remember his or her name), I included a hint that I maintain a blog, such as it is. Maybe that will help generate a response.

 
Go see this. No kidding. Just go see it.

Via Instantman (of course).

 
Are we watching the same program?

I discovered via The Cutlery Channel that the Chicago Tribune has an article on The West Wing. (Registration required to view article.) Now, mind you, I like West Wing. I don't watch it because I am thrilled to see a liberal President in action. I watch it because it is a well written soap opera. But I don't think I am watching the same program as the Tribune.

The Trib:

Sorkin says that this season, generally, will be lighter than last, and that he feels more comfortable writing the show again after a year in which the terrorist attacks left him a little at sea.

In any event, the two-hour opener (8 p.m., WMAQ-Ch. 5) sees President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) on the campaign trail, trying to win re-election against his canny, Reagan-like opponent (James Brolin).

Reality:

Because Sorkin's statement is about the season as a whole, and only the season opener has aired so far, Sorkin could be correct that the season generally will be lighter than last. But not so far. The opener included the terror bombing of a swim meet in the midwest, with something like 50 dead. Also, from a propaganda perspective, given that this season will undoubtedly focus on the fictional reelection campaign, Sorkin will surely use his soapbox to strenuously push his own particular brand of liberal politics, especially in the run up to the real elections in November.

And the comment (not attributed to Sorkin) about Bartlett's opponent in that campaign, a Republican governor (of Florida!) is just a tad off. Governor Ritchie is portrayed as having both the brains and the political instinct of a particularly stupid chimpanzee. I am willing to admit that Reagan may not have been the brightest bulb in the bunch. I don't think he was stupid, I just don't think that he was in any danger of being saddled with the Nobel prize for economics (unlike Bartlett of West Wing). But whatever you believe about Reagan's intellect, his political instincts were, without a doubt, first rate.

 
Via Drudge.

Does this sound familiar?:

Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin announced Thursday night that his re-election campaign had hired a lawyer to investigate what the attorney considered the legal but "unacceptable" conduct of Harkin's campaign staff.

To me, it bears a striking resemblance to the Catholic Church trying to head off state run investigations of the child abuse scandals. Granted that the activity being investigated is nowhere near as blatantly illegal or as politically explosive as child abuse, but the concept is the same. The Harkin campaign is investigating itself for possible criminal violations of the law, and it is doing so for the purpose of heading off a criminal investigation by state and/or federal authorities. "No need for you to trouble yourself, officer. We're looking into that ourselves. We'll be sure to keep you posted." Uh huh.

I have some questions. What previous connection does David Wiggins (the attorney hired by Harkin to investigate) have with Harkin and/or the Harkin campaign? Is there any reason at all to believe the results of an investigation of Harkin's campaign by his own attorney? Isn't that exactly the same as Harkin "investigating" the matter himself? Will anyone give me odds on the "investigation" resulting in a clean bill of health for Harkin? How effective is this investigation going to be without the ability to issue subpoenas (the story notes that at least some of the people Wiggins wants to talk to have retained lawyers and those lawyers are not permitting Wiggins to interview their clients)? Would Harkin be dumb enough to attempt to cloak the "results" of said "investigation" in the attorney client privilege if, by some miracle, Wiggins actually reports bad news? Is that why he hired a lawyer to do a job that a private investigator or a reporter or even his own campaign staff could do?

For that matter, how could Wiggins report bad news? He has an obligation not to harm his own client and (except in one case: where there really is no bad news to report) that obligation seems to create a conflict of interest.

 
A plan for complete and immediate energy independence.

Captain Den Beste posts about something called biodiesel:

It represents a process whereby things like waste cooking oil and excess animal fat from slaughterhouses can be converted into a fuel which can be burned in existing diesel engines. It evidently works now.

It doesn't help. The problem here is scale. There isn't a sufficiently large source from which to make this stuff so that it could actually produce a total quantity of energy per year large enough to even begin to offset our petroleum use.

Scale? Foolish Captain, which country on this earth has the greatest amount of animal fat on the planet? We do,by a longshot. This new technology is a godsend. It will solve many many problems all at once.

The plan: Americans not only continue their bad eating habits which have led over the years to an obesity epidemic, they increase their overconsumption and continue to add pounds and pounds of fat on every man, woman and child in the country. Do we exercise that fat away? Certainly not. That fat is a national treasure. It should be collected at a nationwide network of lyposuction clinics and converted for immediate use in today's diesel engines.

To say that storage of animal fat is inefficient is absolutely terrible. I personally know one specific animal (me) whose wife says he consumes large amounts of plant products and converts all of it to fat. I am sure that there are literally millions of animals just like me willing and even anxious to do their patriotic duty.

It is also extremely misleading to state that there are only limited sources of animal fat. By God, patriotic Americans will flock to the lyposuction clinics by the millions to do their duty to attain energy independence from the vile regimes of the middle east. With the appropriate tax incentives (the fat credit) the government can provide even more incentive to get Americans to do what they already love doing anyway.

Not only will this result in energy independence, but other serious problems faced by the nation will literally melt away. High medical insurance premiums due to complications arising from obesity? As Americans attend lyposuction clinics in droves, the cost of other medical care will be reduced because the obesity epidemic will disappear.

Couch potatoes of the world, unite. Stay in front of the boobtoob. Exercise not, for, verily, your sloth is good. You might even be able to convince your wife that your patriotic sacrifice entitles you to control of the remote.

 
Uh oh. Daschle is no longer "concerned". He has moved all the way to "chagrined". Sorry, make that very chagrined.

From CNN:

"I must say that I was very chagrined that the vice president would go to a congressional district yesterday and make the assertion that somebody ought to vote for this particular Republican candidate because he was a war supporter and that he was bringing more support to the president than his opponent," Daschle said Tuesday. "If that doesn't politicize this war, I don't know what does."

Well, let's bear that statement in mind: If Cheney's statements don't politicize the war, Daschle doesn't know what does.

Let's see what Cheney said. A little googling music, please.

Well, Google has failed to locate a transcript of the speech. So we'll just have to go with the news reports for now.

From the Topeka Capital Journal:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday repeated the Bush administration's commitment to stopping Iraq's alleged stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons and winning the war on terrorism.

Is restating the Bush administration's commitment to stopping Iraq's alleged stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction and winning the war on terrorism "politicizing" the war? I don't think that stating some of the goals of the war is politicizing it, but if Daschle disagrees, he can simply refuse to bring a war resolution to the floor of the Senate for a vote. And by the way, wouldn't this new definition of "politicizing the war" make every statement that Daschle has ever uttered on the subject "politicizing the war" also?Back to the Capital Journal:

During a ... fund-raising luncheon for 3rd District congressional candidate Adam Taff, Cheney said the administration doubts Saddam Hussein's claim that he isn't stockpiling chemical and nuclear weapons...

The letter "was another attempt by Hussein to avoid weapons inspections," Cheney said. "We have seen this tactic before. It is beyond dispute that Saddam has large quantities of these weapons."

How about that one? Politicizing the war? Does Daschle believe Saddam's claim? Is the determination of whether or not one believes Saddam's claim a matter of one's political persuasion? No? Then we have to go back to the Capital Journal.

Cheney said the administration's efforts would be helped by sending Taff to Congress. Taff is a Navy veteran running against two-term incumbent Democrat Dennis Moore, and Cheney said Taff's military experience would be an asset.

Since it came up, let's look at the military experience of both candidates. From Moore's official biography:

Moore was born ... in 1945. In 1967, he graduated from the University of Kansas, and received his law degree from Washburn University School of Law in 1970. After service in the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Reserve, Moore started his legal career as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Kansas. He entered private legal practice in Johnson County in 1973.

Graduated from college 1967 at age 21 or 22. Three years later, graduated from law school (law school takes three years, so there was no military service in between). Served in the Army and the reserve for an undisclosed period of time performing undisclosed services. Then worked as an AAG for an undisclosed period of time. And three years after graduation from law school, having squeezed in service in both the Army and the reserve and working as an AAG, he started in the private practice of law. So with his time in the Army and the reserve combined, there was less than three years of service. That's not a whole lot of time to develop experience.

And Taff's experience? From his campaign website:

Fourteen years experience as a Naval officer and aviator. Maintains a Top Secret Clearance and continues to fly the F/A-18 as an instructor in the Naval Reserve.

Is this it? Is Daschle so mad because Cheney thinks that having someone with more (and probably more appropriate) military experience in a position of leadership during a military operation might be helpful? What is the military experience of each of the candidates? Well, no, Daschle couldn't possibly be complaining that a legislator with three years experience between the Army, the reserve and the Attorney General's office would be in a better position to evaluate matters pertaining to the war which come before Congress than a person with fourteen years experience in precisely the type of military operations that are going to play a large part in the war. Could he? So that can't be it. Back again to the Capital Journal:

Cheney said Taff would be an "effective voice for Kansas and a fine addition to your state delegation, which is already one of the best in the country."

Maybe that's what set Daschle off: One politician endorsing another. Right. That must be it. The Capital Journal again:

Cheney said the administration has "kept first things first. The most important responsibility we have is to protect the American people against future attacks and win the war that began on Sept. 11, 2001." ... Cheney said the United States wants to work with the United Nations to enforce resolutions against Saddam, but if the U.N. doesn't strongly enforce those resolutions, the United States "must -- and will -- take whatever action is necessary to secure our freedoms."

Nothing "politicizing" there that wasn't in Bush's UN speech, which Daschle cautiously praised.

Somehow, I don't think that anything Cheney said set Daschle off. Instead, I think Daschle saw this poll:

Nearly half of those polled, 46 percent, said they viewed Saddam as a greater threat to the United States now than Osama bin Laden.

51 percent of Americans said U.S. President George W. Bush had clearly explained the U.S. position on Iraq. That was up from 35 percent two weeks ago, before Bush addressed the issue in a speech to the United Nations.

In other words, there has been a large and rapid increase in the number of people who reject Daschle's position that he doesn't "think that the case for preemptive attack has been made conclusively yet." Put another way, Daschle is losing the PR campaign on the war and needs to mount an offensive in order to keep his majority in the Senate and try for a majority in the House.

Exactly who did you say was politicizing the war, Mr. Majority Leader? You might want to spend some time listening to your own rank and file:

Several Democrats pointedly suggested that Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and Gephardt (D-Mo.) are putting politics over policy by rushing to back a unilateral strike against Iraq."

Remember Daschle's statement that if Cheney's statements don't politicize the war, Daschle doesn't know what does? Maybe Daschle doesn't know what does.

And as an unrelated aside, Congressman Moore is reported by the Capital Journal to have responded to Cheney's remarks by saying (among other things), "I have 20-plus years of service." Twenty plus years of service doing what? His own biography says that he spent less than three years in the Army, the reserve and his position as Assistant Attorney General position. And he has four years in Congress. Where are the other thirteen plus years, Mr. Moore?

 
This Molly Ivins prediction from Insta-Reader Donald Burton:

Now that we're sending troops into the Ivory Coast on a rescue mission, is Molly Ivins going to write a column claiming it's really about the cocoa?

Well, you'll notice that Bush's decision to invade the Ivory Coast (using the pretext of "stranded" and "endangered" "children") was only a few days after the board of directors at Hershey were prevented from making their billions in the stock market.

Bush cannot point to a single American "child" who was "harmed". We only have scattered news reports (and the Bush administration's "allegations") on which to rely for the fact that there were any "children" "stranded" at a "school" in need of "rescue". Bush hasn't produced one iota of evidence that anyone in the Ivory Coast is "linked" to al Qaeda or bin Laden, whom the administration "suspects" in the "attacks" on the "World Trade Center" and the "Pentagon".

Hmmm. Hershey, Ivory Coast, cocoa, no terrorist link ... Coincidence? I think not.

UPDATE: Homer Simpson comments: "Mmmmm, cocoa."

 
Glenn Reynolds says very few lawyers inspire the kind of devotion shown by Aimee Deep in this letter to David Boies. Comments Reynolds, "God knows that my clients never wrote anything like this about me."

Glenn, every once in a while some of my clients actually do show that kind of devotion, but I'm holding out for a client who can wear this kind of dress.

 
On another matter, does anyone know why I get "Error 503: Unable to load template file. We're working on this. Please try back later" when I hit "publish"? The posts are eventually published without further machinations on my part after receiving that error message. I suspect that they are not really "working on this" because it has been going on for about a week. The problem may be with my template, but I have no clue as to what it might be.

If there is a genius out there who can give me a magic bullet, I would appreciate it.

 
Many thanks to the benificent (and undoubtedly beautiful) Moira for the link. Both of my readers may also find Inappropriate Response to your left.

 
The Washington Post brings us the facts:

For now, the Bush administration does not anticipate inoculating the nation's 288 million residents -- partly because the threat of an attack is unknown and partly because the vaccine can cause severe, sometimes fatal, side effects.

Except there is one other minor detail that I would be interested in hearing: How often is the vaccine likely to cause severe or fatal side effects?

A little Googling music please ...

Well, that didn't take long. The BBC reports:

Scientists from the University of Michigan have calculated that targeting young people - those under the age of 30 - would mean the vaccination of approximately 82.5m Americans.

Of these, say the researchers, approximately 190 people might be expected to die from vaccine complications.

An even more comprehensive campaign, covering almost 180m people, would cause 285 deaths, they say.

In addition, serious but survivable side effects would occur in 1,600 people in the smaller campaign - and 4,600 in the larger one.

Reaching for the trusty calculator, 190 deaths divided by 82.5 million innoculations equals 2.3 deaths for each million innoculations. Put another way, 2.3 ten thousandths of one percent of all the people innoculated will die. The wider campaign to innoculate 180 million people will result in a little less than 1.6 deaths per million innoculations. The difference in death rates is not explained.

To paraphrase Aaron Sorkin making a Republican governor (of Florida, no less) look real stupid: Gee, death, I don't know.

Come on guys. How is 2.3 deaths per million innoculations "a high incidence of adverse side-effects" (World Health Organization, October 2, 2001)?

The Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question is high compared to what? Certainly it can't be high compared to the deaths which would occur in the absence of the innoculations. Because if it were, the additional statement that "existing vaccines have proven efficacy" (Same WHO link) would be entirely false. If the vaccine is efficacious, then it will certainly kill fewer people than the disease it prevents. High compared to other vaccines? Could be, but is that a rational comparison? What exactly does it mean when you tell me that a mass smallpox vaccination will kill more of the people taking it than, say, a mass tetanus vaccination? Nothing whatsoever.

WaPo closes the linked article with this delightful little tidbit:

Last month, [HHS Secretary Tommy] Thompson sent recommendations to the White House on how many people should be inoculated in advance. Although a CDC advisory panel has recommended vaccinating about 20,000 medical personnel, several administration sources said President Bush is weighing a proposal on the order of 500,000 people.

"Until a decision is made on pre-vaccination," Hauer said, "our efforts continue to focus on bioterrorism detection and response."

Detection and response. Whatever happened to deterrence? Question: Do you think that terrorist X is (a) more likely or (b) less likely to attempt a smallpox attack on the US if the entire nation has been vaccinated?

Newsflash for WaPo: Me and mine will be as close to first in line for this dangerous vaccine as we can get at the first hint of an outbreak. And the only reason we will wait for an outbreak of smallpox is that we apparently won't be able to get vaccinated prior to that time. I recommend the same to you and yours, not to mention them and theirs.

However, if WaPo wants to await the development of an entirely harmless (ie: perfect) vaccine, they are welcome to do so, since that will make the line shorter for the rest of us.

It may take awhile, though.

And in the meantime, should WaPo really be trying to scare the living hell out of their readers with Luddite crap like this?

 
The FEC has imposed a record set of fines in connection with the campaign finance scandals of the Clinton Gore 1996 campaign.

The Clinton Gore campaign itself agreed to pay $115,000 and to fork over an additional $128K in illegal contributions which it had not previously returned to the donors. Remember the Buddhist monks who were suddenly flush with enough cash to make a contribution of 100 large to the campaign when Gore appeared at the temple?

I guess this means the Iced Tea Defense didn't work.

 
There is a campaign afoot in Canada to suggest to the National Post that they hire James Lileks (or at least take his column on a syndicated basis). I agree that Lileks is a terrific writer. There are none better in the blogosphere, in my opinion. The problem is that any editor or publisher who doesn't already know that he should be running Lileks and paying him major bucks is probably beyond help and would not profit from the suggestion.

 
Lileks:

In the past if you wished for fish, you spent half the day getting it. Now it’s not only netted for you, it’s gutted, chopped, formed into a pleasing portion, coated with one of several dozen sauces or breadings, frozen, shipped across the continent to a location six blocks from your home, and offered in a variety of quantities that fit your particular needs.

And half it ends up on the floor, eaten by the Dog.

One of my mother's favorite stories about me is the reaction she used to get when the family went out to dinner when I was one or two. She would order two hot dogs for me. When the waitress stared questioningly, my mother would politely explain that one hot dog was to drop and the other was to eat.

That was in the mid fifties. Plus ça change .....

 
My plan for world domination continues apace. CognoCentric is NUMBER ONE on Google for the following words:

opinion on invasion of Iraq

Umm, not really. But it is number one on Google for opinon on invasion of Iraq. Even typographical errors fit neatly into my evil plan. BWA HA HA HA HA.

What's that? You say you want proof? Here's proof.

 
Rope-a-dope goes mainstream.

Congratulations to Stephen Green of VodkaPundit. He was the first (as far as I know) to characterize Bush's actions (and inaction) as a rope-a-dope strategy. Now the Bush administration itself has picked up the term:

"He has a history of playing 'rope-a-dope' with the world -- all the while he develops a more powerful punch," Fleischer said.

 
It was there all along, staring me in the face. Naturally, Den Beste saw it and I did not.

To this end, the Government of the Republic of Iraq is ready to discuss the practical arrangements necessary for the immediate resumption of inspections.

How nice of them. They are ready to sit down at a table to discuss the practical arrangements necessary, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. Of course, first, we must decide on the shape of the table (and perhaps the color of the carpet). Having gotten that issue out of the way, we can then discuss how many inspectors there will be, what their nationality will be, what equipment they will have, who will accompany them on their journeys, where they will be able to go, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

 
Iraq's letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

Dear Secretary-General,

I have the honor to refer to the series of discussions held between Your Excellency and the Government of the Republic of Iraq on the implementation of relevant Security Council resolutions on the question of Iraq which took place in New York on 7 March and 2 May and in Vienna on 4 July 2002, as well as the talks which were held in your office in New York on 14 and 15 September 2002, with the participation of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States.

I am pleased to inform you of the decision of the Government of the Republic of Iraq to allow the return of the United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq without conditions.

If he had ended the letter there, I would say, okay, now we have inspections. But he didn't end the letter there. He continues:

The Government of the Republic of Iraq has responded, by this decision, to your appeal, to the appeal of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, as well as those of Arab, Islamic and other friendly countries.

The Government of the Republic of Iraq has based its decision concerning the return of inspectors on its desire to complete the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and to remove any doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction. This decision is also based on your statement to the General Assembly on 12 September 2002 that the decision by the Government of the Republic of Iraq is the indispensable first step towards an assurance that Iraq no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction and, equally importantly, towards a comprehensive solution that includes the lifting of sanctions imposed in Iraq and the timely implementation of other provisions of the relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 687(1991). T this end, the Government of the Republic of Iraq is ready to discuss the practical arrangements necessary for the immediate resumption of inspections.

No problem yet.

In this context, the Government of the Republic of Iraq reiterates the importance of the commitment of all Member States of the Security Council and the United Nations to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq, as stipulated in the relevant Security Council resolutions and article (II) of the Charter of the United Nations.

Oops. What commitment to Iraq's sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence would that be? Did the US make a commitment to respect Iraq's sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence? Weren't any such commitments waived when Iraq executed the various commitments it undertook to end the Gulf War? What does respect for Iraq's sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence have to do with weapons inspection? Nothing whatsoever. But the fact is that this was the basis Saddam used to throw the inspectors out in 1998: They were supposedly violating Iraq's sovereignty.

I would be grateful if you would bring this letter to the attention of the Security Council members.

Please accept, Mr. Secretary-General the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Naji Sabri
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Republic of Iraq

So the Arab League went to Saddam and told him in no uncertain terms that Bush meant what he said and there would be an invasion unless the inspectors were let back into Iraq without precondition. I have absolutely no doubt that, if ever the inspectors show up, there will be the same dog and pony show that we witnessed for the six or so years between the end of the war and the time the inspectors were tossed out of the country. Does this mean, as Steven Den Beste (capital D, I have been told) says that Saddam thinks he is within a few months of making his bomb? I hope not.

Bush has established to my satisfaction that he is no bumpkin. He is not flying by the seat of his pants. This has been planned out with all of the foreseeable permutations accounted for. Certainly this is one of the foreseeable permutations. So now we sit back and watch how Bush responds.

 
Damian Penny has some insight into the effect of separating twins at birth.

 
The hit counter is whirling dervishly. I stand both Instapunditted and corrected. I am (reliably?) informed, twice, no less, that Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic, the common language of the day and region. Okay. I am also informed that the Civil War Amendments were Thirteen through Fifteen, not Twelve through Fourteen. That one I should have known (or at least looked up). Thanks to all who wrote.

 
Note to Dawn: If you say you had a dream about Glenn, he will link to you. No need to complain.

 
Oh, sorry. I forgot to say that I got that Jesse Jackson speech via Drudge.

 
Jesse Jackson speaks.
Surgeons called to remove foot from mouth.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday told about 600 Michigan State University students that America's democracy was 37 years old, not 200-plus, and that "democracy as we know it did not begin in Philadelphia, where a bunch of white men wrote the laws."

These men's wives were not allowed [to vote], these laws were made at a time when only white men had the right to vote," Mr. Jackson said, noting that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the commencement of "true democracy."

Shall I point out that we've never had a true democracy in the United States? It's a republic, doofus. And which of those dead white mens' laws do you object to? The one that says "All men are created equal"? Or maybe the one about not restricting speech, which allows you to pass off your verbal vomitus as somehow profound or well thought out? Or maybe the Civil War Amendments (Twelve through Fourteen) that those dead white men adopted after our bloodiest war led by a white man, fought almost entirely by white men? Or did history really begin only after more white men lived up to to those earlier pronouncements by passing the Civil Rights Act (which was signed into law by a TEXAN, also a white man)? The fact that white men passed the laws means that they must be bad, so which ones are bad, Jesse? Tell me, please. I want to know.

Speaking at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center, Mr. Jackson also used his platform at what organizers called a "Rally for Peace" to continue his criticism of Republican leaders, focusing on President Bush.

Courtesy of VodkaPundit, may I recommend Masturbate for Peace? Their motto (as proposed by Brian in VodkaMan's comments and applied to Jackson): It's sex with someone you love.

Any military action in Iraq, [Jackson] said, at this point would violate U.N. and international law.

Oh, you mean that "law" that no one except the US is supposed to pay any attention to?

But Mr. Bush says, 'All right, I'll go to the U.N.,' then he tells them that unless you follow me, I'll call off trade with your country," said Mr. Jackson, a frequent critic of the administration.

No, he said "Stand up and do what you said you'd do when you passed those sixteen resolutions, and if you don't, the US will, because the alternative (doing nothing) is too dangerous."

America is a great nation," Mr. Jackson continued.

Well, that's progress, of a sort.

But we only represent 6 percent of the world.

What percentage of the world's population lives in Iraq? I know there's a point in here somewhere. I'm sure I'll find it eventually. Looking ... looking... Well maybe later.

English is a great language but it is a minority language. Jesus didn't speak it.

That's right! He got one right! Way to go Jesse. Jesus spoke Hebrew (I assume) or Latin (unlikely). Does that mean that any idea initially expressed by someone using something other than Hebrew or Latin is automatically a bad idea? Hmmm. Jackson's speech was in (wait for it) English! Well, sort of. Jackson has been challenged by English for some time now. God knows, I find it difficult to understand his words. Maybe he means that the ideas of anyone who doesn't speak Jacksonian English are bad. Is Jacksonian English like Hebrew?

We are a great nation, but we have to be of service, we do not have to be superior.

Come again? We are a great nation. So far, so good. I'm with you, Jesse.

From Dictionary.com: great

Very large in size. No, he can't mean this one. After all, 6% isn't too large.

Larger in size than others of the same kind. See above.

Large in quantity or number. See above.

Extensive in time or distance. Maybe this one makes sense in Jacksonspeak, but not in English. Oops, I forgot, English = bad.

Remarkable or outstanding in magnitude, degree, or extent. This is it!

Of outstanding significance or importance. Or maybe this.

Chief or principal: the great house on the estate. Jackson can't mean we are the nation among all nations. This one's out.

Superior in quality or character; noble. Another good candidate. Oh, I forgot. We are great, but we can't be superior. Sorry.

Powerful; influential. And another.

Eminent; distinguished. And yet another.

Grand; aristocratic. I don't think this is what he meant.

Did anyone see "serve" or "service" in there? Did I miss something? Did anyone see anything in any of those definitions that might possibly be applicable that did not include the concept of superiority?

Most people on this globe are yellow, black or brown, non-Christian, female, young, poor and don't speak English."

That, of course, means that the opinions of anyone who is not yellow, black, brown, non-Christian, female, young, and poor or who speaks English are not worthy of consideration. This is supposed to be from a man opposed to racism and sexism? The quality of one's thoughts are derived directly from the color of your skin, your native language or your sex chromosomes? If he didn't mean that, what did he mean? He's not leaving much wiggle room.

Mr. Jackson made the stop here as he returned home to Chicago from a Friday rally in Washington to protest the Bush administration's policy of investigating and detaining people. He accused Mr. Bush of wanting to "rule the world."

As opposed to Jesse, who merely wants to rule American businesses, and then only to the extent of causing them to pony up some bucks to avoid a very public charge of racism followed months later by a very private withdrawal of the charge. Thanks, I'll stick with Dubya. At least I can vote him out of office if I need to.

The event here was poorly attended after student organizers predicted a crowd of 6,000. The group provided 2,000 free tickets to students and booked the arena area of the center, which has a capacity of 15,000.

Hey, maybe there is hope, after all.

Mr. Jackson was also targeted by a group of protesters, who said that Mr. Jackson is not the person on whom to spend university funds. About a half-dozen students stood outside the Breslin Center under a hand-carried sign that read "Jesse Jackson Protest Squad."

"To bring Jesse Jackson, a left-wing extremist, to this campus to talk about peace, is not what we need," said Craig Burgers, who chairs the Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. "He represents political corruption at its finest."

He noted that Mr. Jackson's speech was supposed to be about peace.

I don't know much about YAF. I'll have to check them out later, since this post is too long already. For the time being, I'll take what solace I can in the fact that the speech was poorly attended despite the availability of 2000 free tickets.

Mr. Jackson holds an honorary doctorate from the university, where he spoke at graduation commencement in 1988.

I wonder if MSU has ever regretted that award over the last 14 or 15 years.

In his hourlong speech yesterday, Mr. Jackson also noted that the United States has a history of supporting political despots.

"We supported the shah of Iran, and we drove the Islamic revolution into being," Mr. Jackson said. "They saw us as allies of oppression. We supported the Taliban we gave $6 million to the Taliban.

Six mill? Wow. Mostly food aid, I would imagine. I wonder how that compares to what we've given to to Afghanistan since the Taliban got the boot.

The Taliban was our ally until September 11."

Hardly. And in any event, what is your conclusion, Jesse? That 9/11 was our fault? Of course. We deserved it, since we are white and speak English. And don't forget that Kosovo and Kuwait both begin with "K." You know what that means. We only supported the muslims there because their countries had the same initials as the KKK.

Mr. Jackson also disparaged the nation's economic order, using the university's labor force as an example.

Would that be the same economic order that has provided Jackson with a fine living for the past 40 years based entirely on his relatively short term association with a man (Martin Luther King) for whom I have a great deal of respect?

You see them out there every day, planting flowers, keeping the place clean," he said. "But they are the working poor. And the cost of a loaf of bread is the same for them as it is for anyone else."

To each according to his needs, from each according to his means, eh Jesse? Sorry, I thought the economic implosion of the USSR established pretty conclusively that this particular economic model doesn't work. Oh, and if they really are the working poor and have food stamps, Jesse, the cost of a loaf of bread is lower for them than is it for me.

If you feel so bad for them, why not go outside and give them a hand? As much as I dislike Jimmy Carter, at least he does that. Or better yet, go outside and tell them you've got them covered and they should take the day off. Or even better than that, stay away from MSU and avoid making a mess for them to clean up in the first place.

Then they can lose those awful jobs.

 
Quote of the Day (and maybe the week) on Cinderfellerblogger via Spleenville:

Taking away a postmodernist's scare quotes is like stealing the white stick from a blind man.

 
Ozblogger Tim Bleyahh reports that Australia has been invaded. Let us all rally to the side of one of America's closest friends in the world. I've done my part. The following letter has been sent to the Royal Palace in Oslo:


Their Royal Highnesses King Harald and Queen Sonya
Oslo, Norway

Dear Harry and SonyaBaby:

It has come to my attention that the Kingdom of Norway has mounted an invasion of the Commonwealth of Australia. I must protest this action in the strongest terms.

Norway has violated every precept of international law by sending blonde, blue eyed nursing students to invade Australia. Bubbelahs, what were you thinking?! Absolutely NO ONE in Australia will appreciate them. I mean, just take a look at Margo Kingston, for God's sake. All right, maybe the odd ozblogger or two would take note, but even if they did, THEY WOULD NOT PROVIDE ANY CHEESECAKE (uh, ART, yeah, that's what I meant, ART) to accompany the announcement.

Take some advice from an American who knows: Task Force NorgeNurse would be much more effectively deployed on the northeast coast of the United States, say in the proximity of that well known center of culture, military power and finance, West Orange, New Jersey.

Think of the possibilities! If your invasion is successful in establishing a beachhead, you will lay claim to the most heavily developed, most productive area in the United States, itself the premier industrial center of the world. Using the just Garden State Parkway, Task Force NorgeNurse will have easy access to New York City, Atlantic City (shitty beaches, but they have casinos), Asbury Park (maybe you can arrange to take Bruce Springsteen as a POW), Wildwood (nice beaches, no casinos) and the Tappan Zee Bridge. The New Jersey Turnpike gives NorgeNurse access to Philadelphia, Delaware and beyond that, Baltimore and Washington. (Stay away from Washington for now, though. Trust me, this is not a good time to march a regiment of nurses armed with hypodermic needles and enema bags down Pennsylvania Avenue. You'd scare the hell out of Congress. Maybe in a month or so, when Congress adjourns. You can spend that time to your advantage consolidating your hold on West Orange.)

I will grant you there are drawbacks: You would inherit some minor problems, like whether to build the New Jersey Nets a new basketball arena and skyrocketing health and auto insurance rates. And I would be remiss if I didn't point out that North Jersey probably has more lawyers per capita than anywhere else on the face of the earth. (Full disclosure: I am one of them.) But no great adventure is entirely free from risk.

But the real beauty of the proposed deployment of Task Force NorgeNurse to West Orange is that, even if you later decide that West Orange (and everything else that comes with it, like the McDonald's franchise and the summer home of the former world champions of ice hockey, the New Jersey Devils) was not worth the trouble, all you have to do is withdraw, announce that you are defeated and apply for (and receive!) massive amounts of foreign aid. You guys have seen The Mouse that Roared, no?

Awaiting the opening of hostilities, I remain

Yours in anticipated Nordic bliss,

Carey Gage

 
From CNN:
Just the kind of doctor I wanted: The kind that shows great judgment.

Law enforcement sources told CNN Friday the three medical students who were stopped as a result of a possible terrorist threat may have been playing a prank on a restaurant patron, who overheard them talking and laughing about September 11.

A federal law enforcement source said investigators were considering that theory strongly, and that he would "be very surprised" if it were not true...

The three medical students were pulled over in the early hours Friday following an alert issued for one of their vehicles after Eunice Stone said she overheard the three men making the suspicious comments in a Shoney's restaurant in north Georgia.

Stone, who was eating with her 18-year-old son, said the men were laughing about the terrorist attacks on the United States and even made a comment that if Americans "were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13."

 
From MSNBC:

Americans are living longer than ever before, but they are overweight and physically lazy and spend far more on health care than any other country in the world, the government said on Thursday in its annual review of the nation’s health.

What do you mean "but"?

Americans are living longer than ever precisely because they spend far more on health care. And, since I am overweight and lazy, I devoutly hope that Americans are living longer than ever because they are overweight and physically lazy.

Too much to ask for? Yeah, you're probably right.

The headline to the story says that the gains in life expectancy might be endangered by obesity. What the CDC is reported as actually saying is:

"Death rates for diabetes, along with the number of cases, are climbing, largely the result of a sharp increase in obesity.

As Americans make gains in health areas, they are endangering their health by become overweight and by failing to exercise, the report said. This is especially worrying when it comes to children and teen-agers."

But the "obesity epidemic" has been around for quite some time, and life expectancy is still rising to new records.

I think MSNBC ought to reconsider that headline.

 
In the Washington Times:

In Ohio, a state office building was evacuated after a man told an employee he was there to install a bomb...

In Columbus, Ohio, a 41-story state office tower that houses the Ohio Supreme Court was evacuated for about two hours yesterday after dogs detected a scent of explosives and a man told a state worker, "I'm here to install a bomb," the State Highway Patrol said.

No explosives were found, and Oscar Sesmas, 35, of Columbus was taken into custody and charged with inducing panic.

More from the Columbus Dispatch (registration required):

He looked straight at me and said: 'Yes. I'm looking for a place to hide a bomb.' ''

"I just froze. I must have turned white because he looked back at me and then, in very broken English, said he was there to put up some vinyl blinds. But I couldn't answer.''

"Vinyl blinds"/"Hide a bomb". Broken English (meaning heavily accented).

Unless the man was carrying an al Qaeda business card, I'm not at all convinced that he said "hide a bomb".

Assuming that he did say it, I will grant you that it was a dumb (not to mention insensitive) thing to say, especially on September 11. But announcing that you are there to hide a bomb constituting "causing panic" and resulting in an evacuation of a 40 plus story building?

Someone needs to get a grip.

 
Drudge relays a report in the Washington Post:

Iraqi newspapers marked the anniversary of Sept. 11 with banner headlines describing the terrorist attack as "God's Punishment" against America, and ordinary Iraqis also voiced anger at a country they fear might be preparing an invasion of their country.

I don't know whether this was a punishment from God, and neither do they. But some of them will have the opportunity to ask God about it in person. Soon, I hope.

Damian Penny reminded me of the 1991 incident in which Saddam took civilians as hostages:

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, troops seized about 1,200 expatriate Britons. On Saddam's orders they were placed at key installations as "human shields". Their presence, Saddam reasoned, would deter allied air strikes.

The tactic prompted worldwide revulsion, especially when Saddam was filmed trying to create favourable propaganda by urging a five-year-old boy, Stuart Lockwood, from Worcester, to sit on his knee. The terrified boy refused.

For that alone, the man deserves to die.

 
This is why its called a special relationship.

Via Instapundit

Also through the professor, a reminder from September 16, 2001:

When Jeremy Glick called his wife, his first question was an attempt to confirm something another passenger had heard on his spousal call: was the World Trade Center story true?

Lizzy Glick paused, thought for a minute, swallowed hard, and told him the truth. Yes, they had. Moments later, still on the line with her husband, Lizzy Glick saw that another plane had run into the Pentagon. She passed that information on as well to her husband, who relayed it to the other passengers.

Jeremy Glick then told her that the passengers were about to take a vote and decide if they should rush the hijackers and attempt to foul up whatever evil plans they had.

He put down the phone and a commotion was heard by those on the other end of the line. Then nothing. A dead line. An aborted missile launch against the town where I live.

That was 10:37 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11... just 109 minutes after Mohammed Atta rammed the first plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Just 109 minutes after a new form of terrorism -- the most deadly yet invented -- came into use, it was rendered, if not obsolete, at least decidedly less effective.

Deconstructed, unengineered, thwarted, and put into the dust bin of history. By Americans. In 109 minutes.

And in retrospect, they did it in the most American of ways. They used a credit card to rent a fancy cell phone to get information just minutes old, courtesy of the ubiquitous 24-hour news phenomenon. Then they took a vote. When the vote called for sacrifice to protect country and others, there apparently wasn't a shortage of volunteers. Their action was swift. It was decisive. And it was effective.

United Flight 93 did not hit a building. It did not kill anyone on the ground. It did not terrorize a city, despite the best drawn plans of the world's most innovative madmen. Why? Because it had informed Americans on board who'd had 109 minutes to come up with a counteraction.

And the next time a hijacker full of hate pulls the same stunt with a single knife, he'll get the same treatment and meet the same result as those on United Flight 93. Dead, yes. Murderous, yes. But successful? No.

So I think the answer I come to is "yes, but at least not for long."

They did whip us. And maybe those of us who've demanded to be let on airplanes at the last minute fed a culture of convenience that made it possible.

But they only had us on the mat for 109 minutes.

By Brad Todd.

 
Via Jonah Goldberg and NRO.

Tom Daschle is annoying. He is annoying me. I think he's doing it on purpose. The man must get into the office in the morning and, right there, at the top of his to do list is "find something to say to annoy Carey Gage." Or maybe his wife gives him a note with his morning newspaper and coffee.

First he says (or at least is quoted as saying in the Washington Times):

"Most Democrats believe that the president has yet to make the case for taking action in Iraq. We were thinking about having a debate among those within the administration so that we might get both sides."

A Congressional debate about the war? I have no problem there. If there is to be a declared war, Congress must issue the declaration. Short of a declared war, it gets a bit murky, what with the War Powers Act. Every administration since LBJ (I think) has disputed the constitutionality of that law, but no one has had the guts to take it to the Supreme Court to actually figure it out (most likely because both sides fear they would lose). Instead, every President that has wanted to use force abroad has come to Congress for authorization for that force while simultaneously declaring that there is no requirement that he do so. But, legal requirements aside, even if the Bush administration wanted to effect a "regime change" (our euphemism du jour) in Iraq without formally declaring war, it would be politically unpalatable to do so without a Congressional vote on the matter. So either way, a Congressional debate about war in Iraq is not only a good thing, its inevitable.

Then, the very next day, there is this colloquy during the daily briefing:

QUESTION: How quickly, Senator, will you get to the question of Iraq? Assuming the president spells out something in greater detail next week, can you get something done before the elections? And what's your priority? Would you like to get it done in a couple of weeks, or do you see this taking months? And do you have any details from the president as to what his timetable is to actually put something in writing?

DASCHLE: Well, I'm more concerned about getting this done right than getting it done quickly. And getting it done right means that we have to ensure that we have the answers to questions that you've heard many of us ask now for the last several days.

I think getting it done right means involving the international community. And of course that will involve a major test when the president goes to the United Nations on the 12th of September. I would hope he would get a Security Council vote of approval, like his father did. I would hope that he could get the kind of support from the U.N. that his father did. And that, too, will be a central factor in how quickly the Congress acts. If the international community supports it, if we can get the information we've been seeking, then I think we can move to a resolution. But short of that, I think it would be difficult for us to move until that information is provided and some indication of the level of international support is also evident.

In other words, Bush should not go to Congress to have a debate, he should go to the UN (first). Specifically the Security Council. Now, Daschle specifically denied that he would refuse to support a war if the UN refused to support it. He hinted that that's what he would do, but he denied that's what he meant.

DASCHLE: ... What I said was that it would be in everyone's best interest -- it would certainly be in the president's best interest, our country's best interest, for him to go to the Security Council, to the United Nations, to solicit their support and to encourage and to acquire their active engagement in this effort, just as his father did. That would be the ideal that I believe would be very advantageous. If he does that and fails, I don't think that necessarily precludes the U.S. or this government from acting without their unqualified endorsement or their support in some manner, but I think it makes it harder for us as a country.

Sure, having the UN Security Council behind us would be great. But it clearly is not going to happen any time soon, and time, as they say in real estate contracts, is of the essence. So what does Daschle propose to do in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution in favor of ousting Saddam? He won't say. It doesn't "necessarily preclude ... the US from acting ..." Strong words, huh?

Leaving that aside, however, the current members of the Security Council are US, UK, France, China, Russia, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, Guinea, Ireland, Columbia, Cameroon, Bulgaria and Syria. Does anyone think that Syria should be given the same sensitive information (intelligence estimates, orders of battle, etc.) that, say, members of Congress would get in a briefing by administration officials? I didn't think so. So what Daschle is proposing is to have a debate about the war with less than all of the facts available.

Next, Daschle seems to have figured out that talking about a potential war just before an election isn't as good for Congressional Democrats as talking about Enron and WorldCom, or social security or drug benefits for seniors or any of the gazillion ways Democrats have to spend my money. So, as reported in a Wall Street Journal editorial that I haven't read (because I no longer subscribe), Daschle wants to put off a Congressional debate on the war (where presumably all of the known facts and intelligence estimates would be available) until after the election.

Give Saddam another four to six months to build his bomb? Who cares, if another seat or two goes (or stays) Democratic.

And other Democratic operatives are criticizing the administration for "suspicious timing" (Jim Jordan, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) and "changing the subject" (Joe Lockhart, former Clinton spokesman).

Bush isn't changing the subject, he is responding to the reasonable requests of the Democratic leaders of Congress that there be a debate and/or consultation about a war in Iraq. The timing isn't suspicious (except for Daschle's attempt to postpone the debate). This has been going on all year.

The daily daschle annoyance has a very simple cure, this time, however. Whether or not the formal Kabuki dance that is a Congressional debate takes place before or after election day, simply ask the candidates what their position is on the war. Accept no evasions. Get an answer.

Do you want to know how? Well, you can start here for your Representative and here for your Senator. As to their opponents, look in your local dead tree paper to see who is running against them.

I used the site to write to Bill Pascrell, my representative.

Here is the entire letter. His response will be posted when received.
Dear Congressman Pascrell:
If a vote on going to war in Iraq were held in the House of Representatives today, would you vote in favor of the war or against it?
Thank you in advance for your response.
The same letter is going to Pascrell's opponent.

Uh, that is as soon as I figure out who it is.

 
Captain Clueless meets Captain Bizarro. There are no words. Go read it for yourself.

 
Can I be reader number four, please?

Via Moira (again):

The Machinery of Night claims to have readers in the high twos or low threes.

Low class lout or not, she deserves more.

 
The dreaded Berkeley Bozo virus strikes again, this time with near fatal results:

The Sept. 11 Day of Remembrance, sponsored by the Chancellor's office, the student body government and the Graduate Assembly, will also feature student leaders distributing white ribbons, instead of the red, white and blue ones they had originally planned.

"We thought that may be just too political, too patriotic," said Hazel Wong, chief organizer for the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). "We didn't want anything too centered on nationalism-anything that is 'Go U.S.A.'"

Wong said the event organizers are "trying to steer away" from anything political, and that, she said, includes singing the National Anthem and displaying the red, white, and blue. She said they don't want politics disrupting mourning and grieving.

What are they going to do with the white ribbons, surrender?

Recently identified by research scientists from the Directmail Institute Program To Study Hopeless Idotartarian Types (DIPSHIT), the Berkeley Bozo virus outbreak was initially limited to city administrators and school officials in the California city whose name it bears by the relentless and widespread application of fact checking to the derrieres of a cross section of the city's population last fall. Institute researchers say that a new outbreak has been identified, however, which threatens to consume Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Developing.

 
This time I knew it was coming. It wasn't like reading Terry Oglesby's post about the engineer who wished he could have made the WTC stand up. I saw it coming and I still read on. Is that progress? I doubt it.

Anyway, I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I came downstairs, made coffee and went to the computer to read Lileks, as I do every morning. And there it was:

Tonight I was googling around looking for a picture of Christine Hanson, the daughter of Kim Ji-Soo and Peter Hanson. She was two. The family was flying to Disneyland when the terrorists slaughtered the flight attendants, stabbed the pilots to death, and drove the plane into the building...

Little Christine was Gnat’s age, give or take a month; bin Laden’s lackeys killed her - and did so to ensure that other fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters died as well, preferably by the tens of thousands. This little girl’s death wasn’t even a comma in the manifesto they hoped to write. They made sure that her last moments alive were filled with horror and blood, screams and fear; they made sure that the last thing she saw was the desperate faces of her parents, insisting that everything was okay, we’re going to see Mickey, holding out a favorite toy with numb hands, making up a happy lie. And then she was fire and then she was ash.

I've already told you that I am pretty much without religion. I don't know whether God (or the gods) exists and if He does (or they do), I don't know which God of the many who are worshipped actually exists. Given that, I can't really dispute anyone else's beliefs. As far as I am concerned, they have as much chance of being right as I do, and, in any place I'ver ever been, it hasn't really mattered all that much. Certainly it was not a matter of life and death.

But the God in whose name that act was supposedly perpetrated is a God that I refuse to acknowledge. The particular faith professed by the 9/11 hijackers will never, under any circumstances, be acceptable to me. It is beyond my ability to understand or accept. It will always be. According to the perpetrators and their fellows in faith, that makes my life forfeit. My life is less than nothing to both them and their God, and they, in their wisdom, can and will chose the moment and the means of my death for their own purposes. Someone is going to die, either them or me. They have made of their religion a matter of life and death. Mine or theirs.

I vote for them.

And if that makes me an intolerant ignoramus, that is just too damn bad. For tolerance and understanding to be anything other than slow motion suicide, it must be reciprocal.

 
In this post, I asserted that the word "niggardly" had absolutly no connotations associated with race, and that the word had been in the English language for centuries. Yup, I was right (pats self on back). From Take Our Word For It:

Niggardly, of course, means "miserly" or "stingy". The first written record we have of its use is from 1530 but the noun niggard, "miser", has been around much longer, having been used by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1374. Middle English also used nig for a miser or stingy person. All these words have their venerable, if unpronounceable, origin in the Old Norse hnøggr, "stingy", "niggardly" although there was a related Old English word hneaw, "stingy".

Etymologically nigger is a doublet with negro as they both ultimately derive from niger, the Latin word for "black". Note that it does not necessarily mean "a black person", just "black" the color. On the other hand, Africa's Niger river and the country of Nigeria were given those names because of the color of the people there. Nigger entered Middle English as neger, a form of the Old French negre, itself borrowed from the Spanish negro, "black". Never in its history has it ever been connected with the word niggardly. Well, not until now, that is.

 
Steven den Beste has repeatedly pointed out (one example is here) that "diplomacy always succeeds". There is never a failure. Simply put, there never can be a "failure" because "success" is defined up or down to coincide with the outcome of any particular diplomatic initiative. Well, boys and girls, it happened again, this time in connection with the International Criminal Court.

The EU strongly favors both establishing the court and granting it universal jurisdiction. The US just as strongly opposes both of those objectives. The US appears to be on the losing end of things, so it has sought bilateral agreements which seek to exempt its soldiers and citizens from the jurisdiction of the court. The EU issued a warning to all nations attempting to gain membership in the EU that they if they entered into such an agreement with the US before the EU established a "common policy" (read that, "before we formalize our opposition to such bilateral agreements"), their application for membership in the EU would be jeopardized. The US countered that we couldn't believe that the EU would do such a thing (and, oh, by the way, if you want into NATO, or if you want continued military aid from the US, you should seriously consider entering into such an agreement).

And the EU just blinked. The Washington Times reports:

"Most states looking at the advisory [the EU warning noted above -CG] coolly and rationally think it's at least partly wrong," said one European diplomat. "We are trying for a common EU position, but that may just be that each country makes its own decisions."

In other words, our common position will be that there is no common position. But, by God, we reached an agreement!

Via Drudge

 
We have yet another incident in which someone's ignorance combines with ridiculous racial politics and results in complete idiocy.

Stuart Buck links to an article in the Wilmington Star in which it is reported that one Akwana Walker is offended by the word "niggardly". Akwana Walker is black. Her daughter attends fourth grade in a public school. The daughter's class was going over a story in which a boy was described as "stingy". As part of a vocabulary building exercise, the teacher, who is reported to be white, asked her students for other words meaning stingy. The children's dictionary provided "self-centered", which, of course, is not a particularly good synonym for stingy, since it could also mean a lot of other things. So the teacher kept looking and came up with "niggard". She added the "ly" suffix to make the word an adverb (which the class was studying).

From Dictionary.com:
nig·gard·ly Pronunciation Key (ngrd-l)
adj.
Grudging and petty in giving or spending.
Meanly small; scanty or meager: left the waiter a niggardly tip.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
niggard·li·ness n.
niggard·ly adv.

I seem to have missed the racial component of the word. Oh, you mean there is no racial connotation?

But Akwana Walker doesn't care what the word means. She cares what the word sounds like. She has so little faith in her daughter's ability to learn the very subject that the class is studying that she thinks her daughter is incapable of telling the difference between niggardly and the word she finds so offensive that no one should be allowed to use words with similar sounds. So she complained to the administration.

Now, I don't think there was a problem here. "Niggardly" is not offensive, has no racial connotations at all, and is perfectly acceptable, even in polite company. But when bureaucrats are confronted with an angry mother, they have a problem, and they tried to solve it. They transferred Ms. Walker's daughter to another class. The teacher wrote a note of apology and agreed never to use the offending word in her class again. The newpaper doesn't report whether the teacher was ordered to apologize and promise not to use the word.

Way to go bureaucrats! That's a sure fire way to endear yourselves to the teachers you want to attract and retain: Dump on them in order to get an angry mother off your back, when the mother has absolutely no cause for complaint. And what about the other students in the class? Why are they being denied the opportunity to learn about word which has been a part of the English language for centuries just because one parent doesn't like what it sounds like?

The situation never should have progressed as far as it did. But there's more: the transfer and the apology are not enough for the vocabulary challenged Ms. Walker. She wants the teacher fired.

Where does this stop? Think of George Carlin's list of the seven words you can never use on TV. "There are some people that aren't into all the words. There are some people who would have you not use certain words. Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television... And words, you know the seven don't you? Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits."

OK, class, let's think of words that sound like those seven, so as to be able to instruct whatever teacher is lucky enough to have Ms. Walker's daughter in her class what not to say.

Shit: Mit, Lit, Kit, Sit, Bit, Fit, Hit, Pit, Rit(alin), Tit (oh, sorry, that one's already covered elsewhere), Wit.

Piss: Abyss, Apes (might be mispronounced), Diss, Discover, Disdain, Dismount, Discord (alright, that's enough disses, we can't go on all day), Disk, Fist, Gist, Hissed, List, Miss, Mist, Psst (not really a word, but ...), Quist, Wrist, Risk, Fisk, Tsk (again, not a word), Whisk.

Fuck: Buck, Cluck, Duck, Huckster, Luck, Muck, Puck, Pucker, Ruckus, Suck, Succubus, Tuck, Yuck.

Cunt: Bunt, Shunt, Font (close enough to offend? I don't know, but le'ts be good little bureaucrats and be safe), Gun, Bun, Dun, Fun, Hun (Attilla the WHAT!!!!!!!!!! How dare you!), Lunge, Nun, Pun, Run (there goes Dick and Jane, but then Dick's name was always a little, you know, edgy), Runt, Sun (I guess astronomy is out as a fourth grade subject), Ton, Won (well, the "can't allow our children to lose their self esteem" crowd doesn't want that word used anyway), Yum.

Cocksucker: This one's a little harder because of the complexity of the word. The only one I can come up with is Muckraker. Oh, all right, Lockpicker. Back to Carlin: There are double-meaning words. Remember the ones your giggled at in sixth grade? 'And the cock crowed three times.''Hey, the cock the cock crowed three times. It's in the bible.' No giggling allowed in whatever class Akwana Walker's daughter is in.

Motherfucker: Another tough one. How about Mother? That requires the repeal of Mother's day for fear of offending the Wilmington Word Police. Do you think Hallmark might object?

Tits: This is too easy. Bits, Flits, Flips, Glitz, Hits, Lit (the singular form of Lits), Mits, Pits, Sits, Wits, Zits.

Note to young Ms. Walker's new teacher: Use any of the foregoing words at your own risk.