Update on Russian autocracy

Someone passed me this rather large piece in the Weekly Standard discussing just what President Putin has been doing lately and what that means to us.

IN RETROSPECT, we now recognize that the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky on October 25, 2003 by heavily armed, special forces troops was the watershed event in the deterioration of democracy in Russia. Prior to this arrest, the soft suppression of democratic forces appeared to some as a manifestation of Moscow's historic political insecurity and an understandable effort to "manage' democracy and ameliorate the excesses of, and societal stress from, the Yeltsin era. Subsequent to October 2003, it became apparent that what President Putin had undertaken was a comprehensive crackdown on each and every perceived rival to state power and the re-imposition of the traditional Russian state, autocratic at home and imperial abroad.

and...

If the conditions which supported democratic change and reform in Georgia and Ukraine are any guide, President Putin has orchestrated a sustained and methodical campaign to eliminate not only democratic forces in civil and political life, but also the possibility of such forces arising again in the future. I do not think that it is accurate to say that democracy is in retreat in Russia. Democracy has been assassinated in Russia.

and...

The policies of Russia and the conduct of President Putin are growing increasingly eccentric and seem to be motivated more by an angry romanticism, than by a rational calculation of national interest.

Read the whole thing. GW Bush said once of Putin that he could see into his soul and thought he was an alright guy with the interests of his nation in mind. What do ya think now, GW?

Blogs in their opinion

Volokh has a look into the opinions of the Plame/Wilson case, and they mention bloggers and blogging. They actually use an article by Eugene Volokh (who happens to be a Constitutional Law professor in LA) where he states:

"[T]he rules should be the same for old media and new, professional and amateur. Any journalist's privilege should extend to every journalist."

Including bloggers. The opinion mentions blogging several times.

Update: Robin Burk notes that a day later, now it's Senators talking about blogs. Senators Cornyn (R) and Leahy (D) note:

Protect access to FOIA fee waivers for legitimate journalists, regardless of institutional association – including bloggers and other Internet-based journalists

Wow.

Speaking of Syria and others

That last post I got from Winds of Change (I should have given a hat-tip, but forgot). They also have their Winds of War, which talks about our fight against terrorism in the middle east and beyond, and Africa regional briefing, a summation of news and events in Africa.
I got the stuff on Syria and Lebanon there. The Lebanese state of revolt over the suicide bombing and death of Rafik Hariri should be interesting to watch.

Free the terrorists

OK, just when I thought that the peace talks between the PLO and Israel were going smashingly...
SCREEEEEECH. It seems that the PLO will not take the peace process any further unless:

The Executive Committee of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Sunday demanded the immediate release of all jailed “Palestinian” terrorists, without restrictions or preconditions, if Israel wants the peace process to continue.

Whaaaaaat? Your kidding right? Israel has taken some steps of faith lately, like releasing some Palestinian prisoners now and then. Their step of faith deserves a step of faith from the PLO, and then another from Israel. But asking them to release them all might be a stretch. I'm betting this is just a move to accept something less from Israel, but more than they were going to give in the first place.
I would be highly surprised if Israel agreed to anything close to this, though.

And once the terrorists are free, PA police officers indicated they either would not or could not do anything to prevent them from planning and executing further atrocities against Jewish men, women and children.

What a great comfort!

Washington seeks to remedy the situation by training the PA security forces to be a lean, organized terror-fighting machine. But the Clinton Administration’s attempt to do the same backfired when CIA-trained “Palestinian” troops turned their guns on Israelis.

Yeah, they don't inspire much confidence do they? I don't think that the PLO is in a moral position yet to make such a request. And the threat to stall the peace process if they don't is probably something that Israel is getting used to by now. Whatever. Abbas is failing to impress me.
Israel is not in a really good mood to be toying with, as Abbas seems to be doing. They just found out that the Russians are planning to stock Syria's back yard with all sorts of ballistic lawn equipment. Big thanks to the Ruskies there for helping out in all this Middle-east instability. Much abliged fellows, now go away!

Model UN

The Univ. of Chicago hosted a simulation where students model the United Nations:

This past weekend, Model United Nations of the University of Chicago (MUNUC) hosted one of the premier high school United Nations simulations in the country for the 17th year. Some 150 Chicago students sacrificed time and sleep to teach thousands of high school delegates that, unlike the Bush administration’s policies, diplomacy and debate can work.

Oxblog responds:

But is a "model" UN supposed to be effective and decisive? Or are students expected to behave like actual UN delegates? For that matter, does the Chicago Model UN program teach high school students how to embezzle like actual UN bureaucrats?

Why can't we all just get along?

Well, in some circumstances we still can. Part of Bush's budget calls for federally subsidized power companies to start charging customers market value for power. Local officials are maintaining that this will raise the cost of power for local residents something like 20% per year.

The plan also would affect three other regional agencies that supply power to dozens of states: the Colorado-based Western Area Power Administration; Georgia-based Southeastern Power Administration; and Oklahoma-based Southwestern Power Administration. Overall, the plan could save as much as $12 billion during 10 years by removing subsidies and other federal assistance, officials said.

Ordinarily, I am in favor of market conditions and privatization, but this smells of something different. This feels more like an additional tax to raise money for the feds. Currently, the BPA charges to cover the cost of producing power. Makes it kind of like a non-profit. Is this fair?

"There are plenty of sources of power out there. They can't compete with the BPA because they are charging a discounted price based on cost and subsidy," Carnes said.
The administration plan "levels the playing field" with nonfederal providers that are being undercut by as much as 30 percent, Carnes said.

But RoguePundit points out that:

Carnes is engaging in a wee bit of hyperbole. There is very little spare power in the West during hot summers...so "plenty" is certainly an exaggeration. The plants that have excess capacity also produce greenhouse gasses, whereas dams do not. We subsidize wind and solar power to help make these cleaner power sources more affordable, so why would we want to potentially make fossil fuel power cheaper than hydropower?

Again, I say that since this is a government power company, where is the extra income that would come from charging market value going to? Federal coffers?
The interesting part about this is who is supporting it and who is opposing it. You would expect that NW congress persons would be against it. Count DeFazio (D-OR), Cantwell (D-WA), Inslee (D-WA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR)

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., also opposed the plan, which he said could cost Northwest ratepayers as much as $2 billion during three years.
"BPA's customers are still recovering from the West Coast energy crisis and a sluggish economy. They've already been hit with rate hikes, and they can't afford any more. I am going to exhaust every right and privilege I have as a senator to kill this proposal," Smith said.

On a national level you have a mix as well. California Senators Fienstein and Boxer (both D) and Representatives Miller (D) and Bilbray (R) all are in favor of stopping the BPA from providing subsidized or at-cost power to their customers.
The chairman of the Senate Energy and NR committee, Pete Domenici (R-NM) opposes it.

The proposal immediately faced trouble in Congress. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called it "politically untenable."
"Every once in a while, administrations of either party come up with this idea, and I won't support it," Domenici said.

This is all getting pretty surreal, watching Democrast demand a market solution and Repubs demanding subsidized power. But like I said before, since these are government agencies, the profits are just new government funds, which would be just like a new tax, so there's why Democrats would not have a problem with it.
I wonder if this is more of a regional thing than a Democrat-Republican thing. It seems like the winers in California are pissed that we up here in the NW have all this nice cheep power when they can't seem to restrain themselves when creating water and power for millions in southern California strains the system.

Map of Iraq Elections

Great map from Patrick Ruffini showing election results in all the regions of Iraq.

We hate love!

Happy Valentines Day! In case you are wondering why the cynical post title, just read stories about cultures in other nations that seem to hate this rather secular holiday, which is pretty harmless in it's essence.
Radicalists in India gather and burn Valentine's day cards. Nice. How does this not make them look foolish and petty? Next they'll be burning elmo dolls in effigy.

Nearly 50 Hindu hardliners burned Valentine's Day cards and posters in the Indian capital on Monday, protesting the international day of love that they say imposes Western values on India's youth.

Let's just say I feel no cultural shame in spreading the "Western" value of love. They need to get a life.
And even though it's not real, this kind of mocks that attitude (from the Onion).

WASHINGTON, DC-A new videotape of Osama bin Laden broadcast on the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera Monday beseeched Allah to grant all Americans a "crappy Valentine's Day." . . .

"Allah willing, embarrassment and tearful rejection shall rule this day," bin Laden said. "Paper hearts shall be rent and trod upon, and dreams of love delivered stillborn. Body language shall be misinterpreted, crushes unrequited, and sincere expressions of affection mocked. Invitations to dinner will be rejected, just as Americans have rejected Allah, the one true God."

During a speech before the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, President Bush condemned the al-Qaeda leader's remarks.

UN moves ahead.....Slowly

OK, so the UN finally acted on something. Only it's the conflict in the Sudan that ended last year. They are, like, so last year. Whatever. Like totally.
Via Winds of Change comes this report that the UN has sent in troops to monitor the cease fire between the Sudan government and the SPLM. The SPLM is the southern resistance that Sudan was trying to wipe out for the past few years. Well, due to US pressure, the government decided to stop slaughtering those pesky southerners. But the Darfur residents, while also being black, are Muslims, so of course no-one will have any objections if we just quietly clear them out with vicious militant attacks and the like.

The UN also notified Western powers that a peace-keeping force will be required a few years from now to monitor the ceasefire between murdered blacks in Darfur, and marauding Arab militias and Sudanese bombers. Or maybe not. I'm just sick of the Nations United in Ignoring Genocide.

Yeah, me too. But at least having UN troops in place will be good for the people of southern Sudan. Oh, wait a minute...

Eason Jordan

I haven't been posting on this, but have been following it on Instapundit and Powerline. Instapundit today has a big roundup of commentary from Jordan's resignation.
I agree with what Jeff Jarvis and others are saying about this. It's not about the whacko conspiricy theory that Jordan was accused of making at the Davos summit.
It's about the fact that he tried to cover it up. It's just like the Rather-gate last year. If Rather had just admited mistake from the start and not tried to cover the mistake with transparent fabrications, he would still be reading the news to us nightly and still have some measure of respect.
That says something about Americans, that we treat lies and cover ups with such distain. It's a good lesson for the new democracies of the world, that transparency is important in government and the watchdog press.

Where liberalism leads

Unchecked anyway. There is a brand of liberalism (which I'm warm to) which follows the more classical vein. Limited government intervention, democratic, free and capitalist.
Then there is the vein that seems to dislike freedom in favor of some sort of perverse equality. It's this idiom that seems to embrace the terrorist movements, like for instance, the civil rights lawyer Lynn Stewart. Ms. Stewart, 65, was convicted of conspiring with her client, a terrorist leader, and lying to authorities.

"It's a dark day for civil liberties and for civil liberties lawyers in this country," attorney Ron Kuby

Yeah, perhaps. Or maybe we're just drawing the line here.

A tearful Stewart insisted she did nothing wrong after taking over Abdel-Rahman's case and representing him until her arrest in 2002. The blind cleric was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt's president.

"I hope this is a wake up call to all the citizens of this country," she said outside court. "You can't lock up the lawyers."

Whaaaat? Isn't that every American's secret fantasy?

"I think lawyers need to be advocates but they don't need to be accomplices," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University

Absolutely. Amen.
No, really, this isn't that surprising. After all Robert Conquest makes a good case in his book, "Dragons of Expectation," which I picked up recently, that western liberalism creates these types of extreme ideologies. So maybe she believes that she and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman are on the same team.

Gospel Spot

It turns out that the fantastic salvation add during the Super Bowl was financed by GospelSpot, an organization local to the Portland, Oregon area. On their website they announce that their spot was seen by over 1 million people in this area during the bowl.
Not to put a damper on that, but I highly doubt that. There are only about 2 million people, perhaps more than that by an order of thousands, that are in the Portland TV market. Kids and many wives were probably not glued to the set. And this spot was during halftime, in a set of local adds that you commonly get during the game. How many people do you think tuned out the local adds during halftime?
However, this is not to take away from the possible impact of the add. Just think if these guys had the money to make the add nation wide.
You can view the commercial here (wmv) or here (mp3).

Extraordinary Rendition

Is the US torturing people? Should we be having a discussion about where to draw the line on interrogations? I think yes, and so does Obsidian Wings, although I think they are a bit over the edge in the opposite direction as myself.
They point to this New Yorker article that talks about extraordinary rendition, which is the practice of handing over suspected terrorists, or other military captures, over to other nations for interrogation. Nations that don't hold back when trying to extract information. This stuff needs to be looked into. I don't believe everything I read these days, but upon reading the New Yorker article, if any of that stuff is true we need to stop it. I voted for GW, but not because I thought that anything we do to terrorists is OK if only becuase the information might save some of our troops.
There is a fine line, but we have to make sure that line is not crossed. Sebastian Halsclaw over at RedState.org agrees, and says that

Torture is wrong. The practice of extraordinary rendition began as a classic Clintonian hairsplitting exercise in the mid 1990s to avoid the clear letter of the laws which prohibit America from using torture. This is the kind of avoidance of the law and ridiculous semantics that we decried when employed by the Clinton adminstration. It has gotten no more attractive just because Bush has decided to continue the program.

Dobson redeemed

The LA Times recently printed an editorial that ridiculed James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family and an Evangelical figurehead, for making comments that the cartoon character Sponge Bob was gay.
Apparently the Times has recanted and produced this correction:

SpongeBob — An editorial Saturday about children’s literature and cartoons erroneously stated that James Dobson of Focus on the Family declared that SpongeBob SquarePants is a homosexual sponge. Instead, in a speech last month, Dobson criticized as pro-homosexual a tolerance video featuring SpongeBob, Big Bird and others.

This was probably due to complaints, like this one from Patterico, that the Times was taking the Dobson quotes out of context, and they were. This might seem like a trivial complaint, but I think it's significant and systematic of the main stream media. We cannot seem to trust them to get facts straight and be faithful to quotations without the blogosphere raising a fuss.
The correction might be enough, but might not. It could be argued that the damage has already been done.

New-gen Nukes

This story is not all together welcome.

US scientists are quietly starting work on a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be more rugged and reliable than warheads in the existing arsenal.

The story goes on to say that the US has about 10,000 existing warheads, and that sturdier more reliable nukes could stay on the shelf longer and ultimately reduce the number that we keep. I'm usually one to say that if anyone should have nukes it's the US. But do we really need to have 10,000 sitting around anyway? This isn't the cold world anymore. Why not send a positive message to the world, at a time when we are getting our tights in a bunge about N.Korea and Iran having them, by reducing the stockpile ANYWAY, and then consider replacing the balance with more reliable versions. As a step of good faith.

Bush's new Budget

The budget is out, and draws much criticism. I can understand much of the concern from Democrats (after all they are losing some pet programs, and Bush is answering their call to restrain spending, which they didn't want to happen). Bush is proving once again that he can take the heat, indicating that he is excited to explain each and every one of the cuts. Once again, he taunts, "Bring it on." (Paraphrasing there).
The reason that I linked the AP article as "Concern from Democrats" is that the first half of the article is criticism of the budget from Dems and from the author himself. Waaaaaaa!
Come on. I think that some of the cuts the Pres has called for take some real balls. Cuting funding for Farm subsidies?

Of 23 major government agencies, 12 would see their budget authority reduced next year, including cuts of 9.6 percent at Agriculture, 5.6 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency, 6.7 percent at Transportation and 11.5 percent at Housing and Urban Development.

When was the last time cuts like this were proposed? What is the likelyhood that it'll happen? Democrats, like Pelosi and Ried, fresh off their post State of the Union rebuttals, are whining that the budget makes no mention of any extra funds for the Iraq conflict (although Bush has made it plain that he will ask for $80 billion more this year) or for Social Security reform. And they are right to ask those questions.
However, how they deal with the rest of the budget will show how they REALLY feel about Bush's deficit.

Super Bowl add

I enjoyed many of the adds during the Super Bowl this year (as well as the game too, yes that part was fun). They definitely were less offensive and boorish than last year. Some were actually even funny.
There was one during halftime, though, that really caught our attention. I watch the Bowl at church, where many of us get together and project the game onto a big screen in the lower auditorium. Anyway, during halftime there was an add that started out with something about a guy who was going to die that day and started to ramble on about how much insurance he had and how well he was going to leave his family off when he passed.
But then it got interesting. After all that was done the announcer said something to the effect of (I'm doing this off memory) , "But Mr. so and so forgot to insure himself." The commercial then relates that the guy didn't know Jesus Christ, implying that he should have insured himself against eternal damnation.
Nice. The whole auditorium stood cheering, as did I. I mean that was totally unexpected in a barrage of Bud Light and Ameriquest commercials. But we never found out who sponsored the add, or whether it was a national or local spot. Anyone out there know?

Cats and Dogs living together...

Gay activists may be joining up with the National Rifle Assoc against.....
are you ready for this?
... the City of San Francisco.

The right to own guns may be even more important than the right to marry, Thomas said during the monthly shooting practice organized by the gay gun group the Pink Pistols.

"I want to be liberated as a gay man, but I'm not willing to give up the rights I have," he said. "If they can take that away from you, what more can they do?"

As the debate over the handgun ban proposal sharpens, the Pink Pistols, a national group with 38 chapters, is determinedly stepping into the fray. Organizers have posted their hearty objections to the proposed law on the group's Web site -- along with contact information for the five supervisors who voted for the ban -- and are weighing whether to join a lawsuit challenging the ordinance that the National Rifle Association is expected to file, said spokeswoman Gwen Patton.

Somebody pinch me.

Update: Someone from the Pink Pistols wrote me in the comments and gave me the link to thier site. From the site it looks like a group of libertarian minded gays. Definitely not playing the victim. Quite the opposite. Thanks for writing, Maggie.

Central Asia and the USA

The Argus has a discussion on why we don't actively go after all the dictatorships in the world, even politically. At least on the surface. He uses Uzbekistan as the focus of the discussion, as we have a base there, and Karimov is a pretty nasty dictator. We appear to be using the country as a base of operations in that region in our war on terror. Karimov allows this and backs us as long as we don't criticize him.
This makes it look like we are encouraging the oppressive regime solely for our strategic interests, but the Argus reminds us that not all political pressure is visible.

...we are attempting some small things to try to further democracy in Uzbekistan. They aren’t particularly sexy, high-profile projects, but IREX (and their IATP and Freenet), IWPR, and my beloved Peace Corps (among many others I’m forgetting) are supported by the US government and laying the ground in Uzbekistan. After all, nobody but close watchers of post-Soviet societies had heard of the years of work supported by the US government that went into preparing for the Rose and Orange Revolutions until after the fact.

He also argues that democracy is sometimes harder to get started in some places than others, and trying to push for democracy in Uzbekistan might not work right now. But the quiet effort goes on.
This is the whole idea behind the Peace Corps when it was started with the full blessing of the Kennedy administration. Kennedy was a liberal in the sense of wanting to project American power (in this case economic) to promote democracy throughout the world. Bush's retoric is not all that different, and the Peace Corps has been operating with government support all these decades.

Reclaiming the word "Martyr"

I use the same title as the M. Totten post, because I can't think of a better one. Michael posts a link to a Jeremy Brown article about those who died while waiting in line to vote on Sunday in Iraq, and the sentiments of those Iraqis who knew and loved them.

"It's not the man who exploded himself who's a martyr," Mr. Jasim said as the body washer wiped away dried blood. "He wasn't a true Muslim. This is the martyr. What religion asks people to blow themselves up? It's not written in the Koran."

Amen.

What to call it.

If it's not genocide, then what would you call it? Protein Wisdom has some suggestions:

"9 names the UN would PREFER we give to the "not genocide" in Darfur"

1. "Refugee Bingo"
2. "The Sudenese government presents, Darfur on Ice!"
3. "Just a few silly Arab militia men sowing their oats"
4. "David Blaine’s The Incredible Disappearing Civilians of Displeasing Ethnicity"
5. "People Pruning"
6. "Mulching the Desert"
7. "No Chocolate Wednesdays"
8. "That little African misunderstanding"
9. “‘Extreme Makeover’: The Dark Continent edition"

Oh my.

Darfur update

Canada Free Press:

Canada Free Press has obtained a copy of the 176 page Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General, released on Monday.

According to the report, "The Commission does recognize that in some instances individuals, including Government officials, may commit acts with genocidal intent. [Emphasis added] Whether this was the case in Darfur, however, is a determination that only a competent court can make on a case by case basis." Cited under the Commission's "Accountability Mechanism" section, the International Commission "strongly recommends that the Security Council immediately refer the situation of Darfur to the International Criminal Court."

The "competent" court cited by the International Commission, the International Criminal Court, was established in part "to prosecute crimes such as genocide."

They put the scare quotes around "competent." Declaring genocide would mean that the UN would actually have to do something, so they declare that there is no genocide, just individuals who are "probably" committing "acts with genocidal intent." Problem solved! We don't have to do anything!
What a bunch of Weasles.
The US is still calling it genocide. Senators Sam Brownback and Frank Wolf are again calling for Kofi Annan to do something or resign.

"If the UN Security Council cannot deal with genocide ... I believe it's fair to ask what purpose is the UN serving in the 21st century."

Squeeze every last drop...

Lawmakers like to wax that Oregon's tax burden is light compared to other states, and that since certain programs are suffering right now, we should bring taxes up to the levels of other comparable states.
Oregonians have proven time and time again that they won't stand for that, and have voted down nearly every tax measure that has come before them in the past few years.
But, as this article in the Oregonian points out, there is more than one way to tax the citizens. One thing lawmakers don't tell you is that the burden on Oregonians to fund the state government is much higher than you think it is. Fees take up a large part (not a majority, but a large part) of the income of the state, and congress can raise those fees without taxpayer approval.
Note that Oregon ranks about 41st in the nation in general taxes, but 11th in state spending per capita.
The state has a spending problem.

World Environment stuff

As always, Rogue Pundit has some great geographical musings.
The water courses of the Amazon and the Orinoco in South America, and the Colorado River in North America show that water does not always hold it's course.

Darfur update

Yes, the massacre in Darfur is still going on. Don't take your eye off the ball.

It is claimed African Union observers are being prevented from investigating bombing in Sudan's Darfur region that is believed to have been carried out by government planes.

African Union officials say government troops told observers it was too dangerous to enter the area where yesterday's bombing took place.

Of course it's too dangerous. You mean like some bomb falling from the sky or something? Now why would we have to be afraid of something like that?

About 100 people are believed to have been killed in the air raids near the border between north and south Darfur.

The attacks mark a serious escalation in conflict in the region which has been operating under a shaky ceasefire since last April.

African Union troops are also investigating whether rebel groups are responsible for burning villages earlier this week.

United Nations monitors say around 10,000 people have fled from the area.

I kind of wish the UN would do something other than count people fleeing from the area, like sitting at the fish ramp on Bonneville Dam counting salmon. DO SOMETHING!
This is getting rediculous. The AU continues to investigate burning villages. But it's obvious at this point that there is a terrible attrocity going on and the local government, at the very least, is doing nothing to stop it. The government is probably involved, considering the cultural divide, and everything I've read up until now.
So keep investigating, boys. I'm sure you'll find something eventually.
What a world we live in.

Hamas does well in Elections

The terrist group Hamas has a political wing, it seems, and that wing did really well in local elections in Gaza.
While the US can't be happy about this, the state dept is saying they don't care because the real action is at the higher level of the Palestinian Authority, currently headed by Abbas. Really there is nothing the US can say about this, as this was a pretty clean election and the will of the people spoke in this way.
The reasons might be that local Palestinians don't feel that the PLO has handled local issues well, and were sloppy in their administration.
I can't help but wonder if Hamas, being in the political process now, will realize that it can win by popular will through the political process instead of a militant process. If that's the case then Democracy wins again.
It's funny that we had to wait for someone to die in order to be hopeful about a region and it's seemingly never ending bloody conflict.
Which brings to mind a large island off the coast of Florida.

Iraqi voting

Instapundit has several posts on the Iraqi elections, and continues to add more.
Just keep scrolling and checking back with his site.

Iraq on the election

If you read Michael Totten you will note that he is filing daily reports on the Spirit of America's Friends of Democracy site during the week before the Iraqi elections. They describe it this way:

We have more than a dozen local Iraqi correspondents, at least one in each province, filing daily reports. These reports include news, interviews, quotes, photos, whatever they can get in a day. They aren’t professional journalists. They are more or less ordinary Iraqis.
The site is called Friends of Democracy: Ground level election news from the people of Iraq. To the best of my knowledge there is nothing else like it anywhere out there, at least not in English. (We also have a site in Arabic here.)

I'll be reading this for the rest of the week.

Election problems

Instapundit has been following all the cases of election fraud that have been alleged in the past couple of weeks. Here is one in Wisconsin.
Here is one in East St. Louis.
For the election issues in the Washington Governor's race, go to Sound Politics.

The push for election reform must begin now in order for it to be up and running for the next elections in 2006 (and 2008). Arizona has started the challenge by passing a law (and getting it federally confirmed) that in order to be registered to vote you must show proof of citizenship.
Unsurprisingly, the Democrats there oppose the bill.

The legal defense fund, in objections filed with the Department of Justice, said the proof of citizenship requirement will do away with registration drives, where volunteer party workers sign people up to vote.

They cited figures saying that these drives are one of the main methods of getting minorities registered.

They also argued that minorities are less likely to have various forms of identification required to register and vote than others.

Waaaaaaaa! We can't get lots of extra Democratic-leaning voters on the ballot. I think this change is welcome, and it doesn't descriminate. ALL CITIZENS have to show their IDs at the voter booth, not just minorities. Minorities who are citizens should be able to identify themselves with the proper identification. If they can't what's the chance that they aren't citizens.
Besides, as an Oregonian (who opposed the vote by mail initiative), I am dis-heartened that we have to resort to voting by mail and having registration drives in order to get people to actually vote. Voting is a privilage, and part of what makes this country great. Get off your butts!

Racism in the Senate

Power and Control points out the stunning decision to choose Sen Robert Byrd as the spokesman against Condi Rice for the Sec. of State.
Check that again. An ex. KKK member opposes a black woman from a high political office.
This was probably not the wisest choice of speakers by the Dems.
P&C also pulls out a few facts that make it look like Sen Byrd may not have completely left the beliefs of the organization he was once a part of.

The Grich's GIS Page

I have a new blog, which for many of my millions of readers (that was a joke) will not be interesting. It is devoted to Geographic information Systems (GIS), which is what I do for a living. I am going to post GIS related stuff over there. Mostly thoughts about software (primarily ESRI stuff, which is what I use), cool industry news, sites with interesting data (I just posted on the FAO site's GIS data for the Tsunami affected areas), and event blogging (when I'm at conferences and seminars).
For those of you in the GIS world, check it out.

Feinstein economics

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed an alternative to Bush's Social Security privatization bill. Bush's idea is that taxpayers divert some of the money they currently would be paying to Social Security in the way of payroll taxes, and put it into their own private accounts. The private accounts would have to be 401k-like. No risking your social security on commodities and such.

Problem is, here is Feinstein's plan. She want's privatization, she says "The only thing I would consider -- and it needs to be thought out -- is private accounts in addition to Social Security."
That's interesting. So she wants the same payout in taxes, but wants people to put additional money into some sort of private account.
You mean like a 401k or something like that, Dianne? Like we already do now?
How do you reconcile these two things the article above states:

Economists say it's harder for low-income workers to save more in part because 12.4 percent of their wages goes to pay for Social Security, which taxes all wage income up to $90,000.

Feinstein's idea points to a middle ground between Bush's plan and leaving the system as it stands now -- so-called add-on accounts, where workers would contribute money for their own accounts in addition to their payroll taxes, rather than using part of their payroll taxes.

Think about that. If low-income people are having a tough time putting money away because they are taxed 12.4 percent, how in the name of all that's holy are they going to be able to have some sort of "add-on account" in addition to that 12.4 percent?

Social Security taxes now take just over 2 working stiffs to pay for one benificiary. What people commonly don't know or recall is that the working stiffs only pay about half of the actual funding for Social Security. The funding comes from other sources too, mostly from employers themselves. Even if employees were allowed to take ALL of their payroll taxes and divert them to private accounts, there would still be money in there to pay for current retirees. Sure, the system would go into the red faster, but by the time the bonds finished paying out, a lot of the people retiring would not need as much help, as they had the opportunity to fund their own accounts for a couple of decades.

The senator cited reports that show of the 4 million Californians who now receive Social Security, about one- fifth have no other source of income and about half would be in poverty without Social Security.

Ok, at some point we have to, as a society, realize that providing for the welfare of the people in our nation does not mean handing out money and allowing them to be lazy and ignore their own welfare. But with 12.4 percent of their income being extracted to provide for their retirement, they can't very well do it now, and 12.4 percent isn't much, but I'd be willing to bet that putting that money in an interest bearing account, starting at 20 years of age, would produce much better returns than waiting to see what Uncle Sam has planned for you.
People also forget what Social Security was designed to do, and in what type of environment it was created in. Social Security was created when most people did not live to the ripe age of 65. Therefore SS was more of a life insurance that only paid out if you happened to be lucky enough to make it that far. With a larger percentage of the population making it past that point, a restructuring of the program is indeed necessary and vital.

David Adesnik at Oxblog has a post on this, where his concerns mostly mirror my own. He has some good links to essays on the subject of SS, including links to essays by Jeffery Brown, Economist at Univ of Illinois, arguing for private accounts replacing some SS taxes and benefits, and Laura Tyson, former Clinton advisor, arguing Sen. Feinstein's platform.
I agree with him that Bush's idea has some strong short term funding problems, and unless Bush can remedy that (or point out where the money is supposed to come from) I don't see how the Democrats or any moderates are going to go along with it.
Still I don't think Feinstein's idea is an appropriate compromise to Bush's plan. Compromise is OK sometimes when you need to get things done, but it's not good to compromise on an idea that obviously didn't take a lot of thought.

Update: Adesnik as his own update, with some interesting bits about SS that I didn't know. That trust fund that will keep solvent SS through 2042 is made up of government bonds. So the federal government has to come up with 11 trillion dollars between 2018 and 2042 in order to keep SS solvent. That's almost 1/2 trillion dollars a year added to the federal budget.

Comparing Chile

I find Marc Cooper, who is anti-war left, a bit refreshing in that he doesn't pander to the left, but for what I've read so far keeps it real. I disagree with many of his posts, but he is not frothing at the mouth, and it sounds like he will actually argue his points with sanity, and will also hold the left accountable when they act like idiots.
GM Roper, who is a conservative, wrote a piece on Cooper that's worth reading, calling him the "Last honest Progressive in America." He puts it much better than I just did.

I have to make a comment about something Marc posted though. In one post he compares the tourturous regeme of Pinochet of Chile, where people were regularly tourtured for political reasons with the US's current scandal.
That's a bad analogy. It's true that some of the same methods of coersion (mild tourture; the harsh methods US agents are accused of have not been proven yet as far as I know) have been utilized by Americans on terrorists and other militants over the last couple of years. You might find equivilant if you believe that all coersive treatment should be banned. But there is a problem with comparing us to Chile. The problem is that we are not doing this to otherwise innocent people in order to terrorize the general public, or hold down resistance to your dictatorship. We are using coersive tactics to get information from terrorists that will aid us in the war and prevent the deaths of some of our soldiers (and Iraqi citizens).
I think that difference is significant.

For Iraqi political junkies

Chrenkoff has a list of all the major political parties participating in the Iraqi elections next week. Included are origins and major members and candidates.

UN comes out against genocide!

OK, really, they're just repeating the retoric the UN was speaking 50 years ago after we all found out about the Holocaust after WWII. I guess today is Holocaust Memorial Day, and the UN had a general assembly Special Session on the Holocaust of WWII. Some great things were said, but when you think of genocide prevention do you think of the UN?
Me neither.

The article doesn't make it clear if anything was actually decided at this special session, or if they just had a plethora of speaches about how genocide is bad and we should all hate it.
By the way, it's interesting to note that it was the US ambasador, John Danforth, that called for this session.

Rogue Pundit on the loose

I always enjoy RoguePundit for his insights into the workings of rural (and small city) Oregon, and Oregon as a whole. I've just caught up with some of his investigative musings, and they are very worth reading.
He examins one of the latest laws to hit our state, the speed limit changes in school zones.

The following is an editorial from today's Grants Pass Daily Courier (dead tree only).

During breaks in their session in Salem, legislators might do well to drive around neighboring communities and see what confusion Senate Bill 179 from the 2003 session has wrought.

The bill was intended to simplify the speed limits around schools, so drivers would know better what speed to drive.

Previously, the rule was 20 mph "when children are present.

Driving the right speed through school zones in Oregon today is anything but simple, thanks to the 35 pages of rules produced by the School Zone Task Force for the new law.

He talks about the Caspian Tern. That variety of Tern occurs in most parts of the world, but the largest colony is in the Columbia River. And boy do they loooove salmon. Which presents a conundrum for environmentalists.

He looks at how school systems (specifically incidences in Oregon and Washington) protect teachers to the detrement of students when sexual molestation accusations are made.

A common theme in enabling predatory teachers to molest again is excessive secrecy. One can understand the need for secrecy, both to protect the victims and the potential harm false allegations can do to teachers. But, closed settlements can easily conceal guilt.

Lastly I liked this post on the League of Women Votors' statement about the "Ins and Outs of State Finance." The LoWV sometimes suffers from a pro-tax agenda and fiddles with the numbers.

...credit to the LWV for putting a lot of good tax and government spending information in one place. It's too bad they had to dent their credibility with some obvious errors, bias, etc.

I suppose it's hard to get funding to write such pamphlets if you don't pander to your supporters.

Iran with Nukes

This post from Done With Mirrors is a sensible take on why we don't want Iran to possess nukes, and why that doesn't make sense to some in Europe and the rest of the world.

Israel has nukes, that's an open secret. Do Europeans really fret over that? Do they think Israel's going to lob one into Damascus someday, just for the hell of it? Do they not think, as I do, that Israel wants this ultimate deterrent because they live in a, what is it?, 19-mile wide strip of hillside beset by enemies on all sides who perpetually vow to drive Israel into the sea and kill or enslave all the Jews?

We're talking about the ultimate weapons here. Better off if they never existed, but they do. The genie doesn't go back in the bottle. Yet there seems to be a view at work in Europe that regards possession of nukes as a natural right, at least of every nation that claims to feel threatened by Uncle Sam.

Seriously, now, isn't that like arguing that all your neighbors have a right to own automatic sub-machine guns? Doesn't matter if they're decent folk or hallucinating drug addicts or hardened criminals or decent folk who have the bad habit of leaving their doors unlocked and getting robbed by psychopaths.

Even in the U.S., where gun ownership is a constitutional right (and the Europeans think we're dingbats for that), not everyone can own one. Hell, you can't even drive a car without taking a test and getting an official certification that you know how to drive a car. But they seem to seriously want to hand out nukes to everyone who's afraid of Israel.

If I have to, I can accept these ultimate weapons in the hands of the Soviet Union, the U.S., Britain, India, modern China, France: more or less stable, conservative, secular, self-interested states. The dreadful balance of power implied in "mutually assured destruction" was sufficient to restrain the Cold War powers when simple human sanity was not. Even without the threat of retaliation, they operate with sufficient restraint. In 1982, a nuclear power, Great Britain, went to war. Nobody worried that Thatcher would nuke Buenos Aires.

But we're talking about Iran. We're talking about a nations whose leadership class considers suicide attacks not just an acceptable tactic but a religious duty. A county whose quasi-independent military openly recruits its citizens to be car-bombers to kill foreign construction workers building sewage plants in Iraq, or blow up Israeli buses full of school children.

He also reminded us that the Iranian parliament stood up in unison last year and chanted "Death to America" repeatedly during one session. No I don't want them to have nukes. Yes, I hope reports that the US is secretly inspecting suspected nuclear sites whithin Iran as we speak are true.

Inside Ukraine

Here's a great inside look at some of the power struggles that proceeded the 2nd election and protests in the Ukraine in November. It was the choice between crackdown and backing off.
Daniel Drezner blogged about this in November and said

When a government facing a popular uprising, there is a moment when all of Burke's "pleasing illusions" about power fade away, and the rulers face a choice between using raw coercion or backing down. At this juncture, there is one of three possibilities:

1) The leadership backs down;
2) The leadership cracks down;
3) The leadership tries to crack down but the coercive apparatus splits.

Read the NYT article. Very interesting.

Peace Protestors

I couldn't ignore this one. Washington Post has set up an inauguration blog posting comments and pictures of the event and related events in Washington DC. There are several references to various protestors who got out of line and had to be subdued. There's one where people stood outside a Metro (subway) station and protested Forks for some reason:

One protester asked, "Were forks mentioned in the Constitution? No!" A sign read, "Jesus hates forks."
The young men identified themselves only as members of the anti-fork movement.

But the one that I really thought stood out was this one.

Hundreds of people gathered at both ends of Meridian Hill Park in Northwest Washington for a peace rally sponsored by the D.C Antiwar Network.

But there were interlopers: Thirteen members of ProtestWarror, supporting the Bush administration and its policies in Iraq. When the Bush supporters arrived, about 20 black-clad, self-described anarchists emerged from the crowd, shouting profanity and epithets and demanding that they leave the peace rally.

When the Bush supporters refused to leave, the anarchists tore the signs out of the Bush supporters' hands and stomped on them. When ProtestWarrior leader Gil Kobrin objected, several male anarchists knocked him to the ground, kicking him in the back and punching him. Other anarchists punched and shoved Kobrin's 12 colleagues.

After D.C. Antiwar Network members broke up the fight, the Bush supporters heeded their order to leave the park. Kobrin then called D.C. police, who are now guarding them at the entrance of the park as they hold up their pro-war signs. "We're going to hang tight," Kobrin said. "We're expressing our freedom of speech just as they are expressing theirs." --Robert MacMillan

Peace protestors?

Dirty Posting

In honor of the dirty bomb scare in Boston, here are some posts from Winds of Change looking at all the fuss and investigations. They also have a link to an article on what would happen if a dirty bomb hit London (short answer: not as much as you would think).
And also a nice discussion about how US cities that are most likely to be targets are probably to secure to be easy targets. This story should illustrate it.

"Take, for example, an incident involving a Washington lawyer of a certain age who went to his doctor a few months ago for a routine heart checkup. (No, no, despite his profession, a heart was indeed located.)
The exam included a stress test with injection of a radioactive isotope -- most likely technetium or thallium -- which helps illuminate the heart muscle during exercise. The doctor told him he passed.
The elated lawyer says he left work several hours later and was driving along I Street NW between 16th and 17th when a police car with lights flashing zipped up behind him. An officer on a bicycle pulled alongside.
What could this be? Couldn't be speeding, a red light or a stop sign.

"Sir," the officer explained, "you were not pulled over because of a traffic violation. You were pulled over because you are radioactive."

Islam non-violent

I've heard this before. It's hard to tell for an infidel like myself, what exactly the Koran says about violence and how Muslums are to treat others who do not hold the same faith. Al-Qaida and hardliners preach death to the infidel.
However there are many high ranking religeous figures that preach non-violence, and that violence is a misguided interpretation. Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudeis, the state appointed preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, is one of them.

More Washington Election

Powerline has been singing the praises of Stefan Sharkansky for a while now. This blogger makes his name with the governor's race in Washington, by highlighting voting problems in King County (Seattle) and calling for a new election because of them.
Note that the link is to an article he wrote for the Seattle Times.
I don't really agree with the Shark man. I do think that King county, and probably Washington needs to review it's election procedures and find a better way to count votes, but I don't think a re-election would be healthy for the public.
Think about this, Sharkansky found about 2,000 (at the outside) over votes in the city of Seattle. However, Gregoire (D) won by only about 129 votes. The previous tally had Rossi (R) winning by something finer, like 30 votes. That means that there is a good spread of Republican and Democratic votes in that pile of overvotes.
When you are talking about 30, or 100, or 200 votes in a state with over 2 million voters, you are talking statistical tie. Every time you count the votes (remember, these votes are going to be counted by human beings) you are probably going to get a different tally. Either of these candidates has 50% of the vote and either is qualified to be there.
Now, if there was some sort of conspiracy to get those 2000 votes counted, then yes, have it out. But I'll bet that there are always about 2000 votes or more that needed to be thrown out in any election. The only reason we noticed is because it was so close.

Justice Debate

I would like to make a little post regarding all the banter about the Scalia/Breyer debate that was had earlier today. Here's a link to the debate (hat tip to Powerline and Howard Bashman).
I read some of it and what Powerline had to say, and I'm appalled that a justice like Breyer is making pivotal decisions for the USA right now. What's all this malarky about conforming to the "enlightened opinion" as it exists in the world community?
Hindrocket makes it sould like Scalia wiped the floor with Breyer on this topic, and of Breyer, Michael Hertzberg wrote:

Breyer offered no coherent framework for making decisions on constitutionality, so his only justification was that it was generally educational to read what other smart people had to say.� He reminded me of a labor arbitrator I once appeared before, who, asked to interpret a collective bargaining agreement, pleaded, "Can't I just decide what's fair?"� Pathetic, really.

For those of you who are curious, here is a list of all current justices on the court and who appointed them. This should further prove that just because a Republican nominates a justice doesn't mean they are going to be heavy conservative, or even all think alike, as many decisions end up being 5-4.
Rehnquist (Nixon)
Stevens (Ford)
Scalia (Reagan)
O'Connor (Reagan)
Kennedy (Reagan)
Thomas (Bush Sr.)
Souter (Bush Sr.)
Ginsburg (Clinton)
Breyer (Clinton)

Bush admits mistake!

That's my AP variety freak out headline. So Bush makes a concession (Bush admitted that some phrases he used in press conferences had unintended consequences) and everyone acts like they are shocked and surprised that he finally has. This isn't so crazy really. I've always found that Bush is straight forward and honest about things. He just doesn't want to admit mistake when the facts still might suggest he might still be right. Bush's version of what is correct and what the media think is correct have often been two different things. And the media is definitely not always correct.
But leave it to the AP to spin the story like this:

During a round-table interview with reporters from 14 newspapers, the president, who not long ago declined to identify any mistakes he'd made during his first term, expressed misgivings for two of his most famous expressions: "Bring 'em on," in reference to Iraqis attacking U.S. troops, and his vow to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

That reference that Bush "Declined to identify any mistakes" comes from the debate with Kerry where Bush was asked what three mistakes he had made during his time in office. Now, while this was unfair by itself because Kerry was not asked the same question and then just attacked Bush about the same question, saying that Bush declined to identify any mistakes he'd made during his first term is shallow. He said that the big decisions, going to Iraq and Afghanistan, were not mistakes, but left room for history to judge him, not the Democrats:

And in a war, there's a lot of -- there's a lot of tactical decisions that historians will look back and say: He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have made that decision. And I'll take responsibility for them. I'm human.
But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in Iraq, I'll stand by those decisions, because I think they're right.

Here's the text of the 2nd debate.
Like I said, it was an extremely unfair question during an election. Candidates aren't going to outright say that things they did were mistakes during a campaign. Why give the opposition a gift? So the press' treatment of Bush on the "admit your mistakes" issue is dispicable.
I don't even think Bush really needed to appologize for those phrases he used that he is regretting now. But he does, and the statements were taken wrong by the press from the beginning. It just goes to show you what a razor's edge the President has to walk, verbally, all the time.

Enviro-friendly Tsunami

James Glassman of Tech Central Station puts environmentalist doom sayers, who claim that the tsunami was caused by human's corruption of the Earth, in their place. There is little effect humans can have on something as massive as a 9.0 earthquake.

The truth is that terrible, terrible things happen that can't be blamed on George Bush or any other human. The only way to mitigate them is through wealth and technological progress. As Glenn Reynolds wrote recently on TechCentralStation.com: "The best protection against catastrophes is a society that is rich enough, and diverse enough, to be well-prepared for all sorts of contingencies. Which means that economic growth, and the freedom that produces it, may be the best guarantor of safety for us all."

Government Unions

Roguepundit looks at the tendency of government unions to thrive when private industry unions are flailing, and how that might explain the budget crises we experience here in Oregon. Oregon state employees make much better than the average oregon income.

Latin Update

From Winds of Change we get a briefing on current events in Latin America. Just in case, with Iraq and Tsunami news, you forgot that region even existed.
Things of important note:
1. Left leaning leaders are getting elected all over the place down there. Bush could be critisized for letting this region go a bit while being consumed with Iraq and the war on terror.
2. One interesting fact is that the front runner in Chile's elections this year is former defense minister Michelle Bachelet. So the most conservative country in latin America might just elect a woman president for the first time.

Eminem values

Oxblog has an interesting take on family values expressed by rappers, such as Eminem, and modern rock stars. Conservatives often profess distain for these performers because of explicit lyrics. Oxblog, along with Mary Eberstadt in Policy Review, offer another perspective.

Eberstadt never apologizes for the violence, misogyny, drug abuse and casual sex glorified by the lyrics of Eminem and others. But she points out that the rappers and heavy metal bands who revel in such behavior constantly insist that there is one reason and one reason alone why they are so maladjusted: because they didn't grow up in stable, two-parent homes.

OK, I'll buy that there is something to learn from all of this. However, I still don't want my kids listening to it until they can open up the lyrics and understand where these guys are coming from. I also don't want to have to repress the cussing and attitudes that come with teenage idol worship. Teens from two parent households don't understand that the reason these rappers talk and act the way they do is because of how they grew up, not because they are just being rebelious. The teens might pick up on the later part, but not the former.
The reference to the grunge movement of the 90s is also very instructive. Although I think that many kids, like myself (although I wasn't a kid) picked up on the music just because we liked the riffs, not because we identified with the singers (although it seems many did).
I don't know, I'm just ranting. I can't blame the rappers themselves. I can't even blame the record companies (ok, maybe I can a little), for this type of expression has a cause, and an audience. The real culpret is our loss of family values in this country.
My friend told me a story about his time in Germany recently. It seems there is a growing industry there: paternity testing. Studies show that 1 in 5 children in Germany don't have the biological father that they think they do.
Some German legislators have introduced bills to limit or eradicate these facilities saying that they are ruining German families (by resulting in divorces I would presume), but my friend rightly pointed out that it's not the paternity tests that are ruining German families.
It's not the rap music that's screwing up the lives of America's youth.

Abbas wins!

Mahmoud Abbas won the Palestinian elections in a landslide. Israel and Sharon express intent to work with the new Abbas administration toward peace.
Turning point?

Take the Torture Test

Mudville Gazette has an Abu Ghraib torture test. See how many actual facts you know about what really happened.

Penalty for killing a pregnant mother

The Oregon Senate Democrats have come up with an alternative to the growing push by conservatives to treat crimes involving the murder of a pregnant woman as two crimes: one for the mother and one for the unborn child.
Their response is to make the penalty for attacking or killing a pregnant woman more serious instead. Try death penalty for killing mom. Most likely inspired by and a reaction to the Peterson case.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland, has scheduled a news conference at 1:30 p.m. today to unveil her bill, which enhances penalties for all violence against pregnant women, from assault to murder.
"I think what we would like to do is keep the focus on domestic violence," Brown said.

Or off the abortion issue.
But this isn't just about domestic violence.

Still, Gayle A. Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, says her organization, an important Republican ally, opposes the Democratic bill. She said it does not address the real issue.
"If you've killed two people, you've killed two people," Atteberry said. "We're talking about a baby that the mother is wanting."
If the two sides stick to their positions, the House could pass one bill and the Senate another. A spokeswoman for Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, said he prefers Brown's approach, but it is not clear that either bill can get through both chambers.

I generally side with the republicans on this issue, but I wonder if fighting what the Democrats are trying to do is worth while. Gees, this is a big step for Democrats actually proposing a bill that advocates the death penalty for any crime.
Anyway, say the Republican House can't get the bill through the Senate that equates the crime with two counts, one for mom and one for baby (which is the likely outcome). Why strike down the one that creates larger penalties for attacking pregnant women. Does it really set up that difficult a precident that the Republican issue could not be taken up again at a later date when political waters are more favorable?

Limiting Police Car Chases

Decided to blog about local events today.
Apparently there is some controversy regarding a technique that police use to prevent suspects from fleeing by car. The technique is called the "PIT maneuver" (Precision Immobilization Technique) and involves deliberately bumping the getaway car on a rear corner, causing the vehicle to spin out of control.
There are obviously limits to this method, and the police have restrictions as to when they can use it, like not after the chace gets high-speed.
But according to the attorney general of Oregon, the crash should go on the officer's personal driving record.
However, the DMV does not agree.

That wasn't exactly the answer cops around the state, or even DMV officials, expected. At this point, the DMV is choosing not to follow the state's legal advice. Instead, it plans to lobby alongside police officers to change the law this year.

The Multnomah County sheriff's office says that the maneuver is "the best way to end pursuits quickly and safely before they reach high speeds." Considering how dangerous chases are, I'm surprised that the state is making their job more difficult in this matter.
This maneuver is used in most states. Here's a better perspective from policedriving.com, explaining why training is necessary to execute the maneuver correctly and that restrictions must be followed. Doing this at high speeds to cars with higher centers of gravity can cause the car to roll and kill the passengers.

Evangelicals and Liberals

I for one have been thinking that, over this last election year, the lines between liberals and conservatives have grown pretty fuzzy. Democrats are saying things that have long been tenets of conservatives and Republicans are saying and doing things that I used to chide Democrats for. What's a poor boy to do?
Well now, via Powerline, here comes William Stuntz to tell us that he believes that intellectual liberals and evangelicals will soon come together in an odd political coalition. He explains that the things that will bring us together, in the end, are 1. Abortion (yes you heard that right), 2. Poverty at home, 3. Poverty abroad and 4. Spreading freedom and nation building.
Read it. I think it's totally interesting and worth pondering.

Update: Powerline responds, and doesn't necessarily agree.

Country of the week: Siberia

Series returns. After this post I will no longer call this series the country of the week, as I was never really posting every week. That had been my intent, but is hardly practical for my lifestyle.
During the past few months, with the election and then being severely busy during the holiday season I didn’t spend any extra time doing any reading up on countries or anything else.

I have recently picked up a book on Siberia. Specifically it is called “In Siberia” by Colin Thubron. Colin makes a living traveling the world and writing about his travels. Specifically he describes the places he goes, the people he meets, and conversations he has with those people. It’s a great book and is a deeper look into this remote region of the world, at least from one man’s point of view.
And yes, I'm aware the Siberia is not a country, but a region of present day Russia. The area is so geographically distinct from European Russia that I wanted to treat it as such just for this post.

One thing about the book that I felt was missing was the several year gap since it was written. Colin appears to have taken this journey just after the Soviet Union dissolved. So things could be dramatically different over there after 5-10 years.

First the geography.
Siberia is thought to originate from the word Sibir, ancient Mongolian for “the calm land.”

Siberia, if it were it’s own country, would still be the largest country in the world. It’s 9.6 million square km and 32 million people is comparable to Canada. It occupies 9 time zones, spanning almost 1/3 of the circumference of the earth at that latitude.

Siberia may be divided into either it’s four distinct zones of vegetation (tundra, taiga forests, mixed forest belt and steppe) or geomorphologic areas (west Siberian lowland, Central plateaus, southern mountains and northeast mountain systems). It’s main drainages, the Ob, Yenisei and the Lena, all drain from south to north and all empty into the Artic Ocean. Except for small aircraft the rivers are the primary north/south transportation system. The primary east/west system is the Trans-Siberian railway.

About 60% of the population of Siberia is contained in the Southwest lowlands. This area contains much of the industrial complexes of the region as well as agriculture. The largest city in Siberia is here, Novosibirsk, and is generally thought of as the capital of Siberia.

Then the history.
Siberia has been populated by nomadic peoples for thousands of years. Some say that it extends back more than 30,000 years. The native peoples west of the River Yenisei are thought to originate from eastern Europe and the peoples east of the Yenisei from Mongol and Turkic peoples.

The Mongols invaded in the 13^th century and the region became a Khanate, operated autonomously for centuries until the growing power of Russia started to move slowly across the land. By the mid 17^th century Russia controlled territory all the way to the Pacific.

One thing to note here is that although these powers invaded and conquered, they didn’t actively subjugate the peoples all the time. Siberia is a harsh environment, and most of the activity of ruling powers operated in the southern parts near Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan.

Russia’s domination of the region is a history of conquest. Except for some disputes with China, Russia has ruled over this area for the last 400 years. They created ports on the Pacific: Vladivostok, Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and used those ports to continue on to Alaska, which was just an extension of Siberia until the US bought it in the 19^th century.

During the 19^th century, and then the 20^th century the czars and the communists used Siberia as a place for exiling those that they didn’t want interfering in the politics of the day. Criminals and Political prisoners were sent here. Some to colonize and work the mines. Some, like the Jews, to get out of the mainstream of Russian life in the west. Eventually exile meant the Gulag, sending prisoners to places barely livable by human beings. Read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago for a detailed explanation of what that was like under communism during Stalin’s time.

Siberia is still recovering from the fall of Communism. Things are hard there as people had to stop relying on Moscow for needs and realize grabbing the reigns of capitalism and re-creating the economy. Many people moved elsewhere or are living in poverty because of the adjustment.

But generally things are looking up. Here is a great series done by Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post after he took a month long journey through Siberia in 2001. He describes optimistic prospects, as well as outdated infrastructure and corruption that still inhabit all of Russia.

Here’s a great page on DNA and tracking the migration of the various native populations of Siberia over history (Smithsonian). The page itself doesn’t have concrete conclusions, but there is a great intro to some of the major ethnic groups and where they might have originated.

There’s been a lot of talk about a pipeline transporting oil from Taichet, in Siberia, to the Pacific ocean for export to the US and Japan. It’s unknown when the construction will take place, or how it will affect oil markets. It will be built by the state oil monopoly.

The UN and aid

Mark Stein has an article in the Washington Times lambasting the UN for critisizing the US on generosity and "unilateral" aid to tsunami victims, while doing close to nothing themselves.

Yet, even though Mr. Egeland's office has a permanent bureaucracy dedicated solely to humanitarian relief work, a week after the disaster it didn't seem to have actually done anything other than fly in some experts to assess the situation. Reporters on the ground have noted the lack of activity in Colombo and Sumatra. But the U.S. government already had ships and troops and water and medicine on the way.

Ouch.

Palestine redux.

OK, just when I thought that Abbas was our guy. That he was a moderate leader, sure to be elected by the Palestinians this year and lead them to peaceful relations with Israel, he says this:

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that he wants to shield Palestinian militants from Israel and indicated he has no plans to crack down on gunmen after upcoming presidential elections.
"When we see them, when we meet them, and when they welcome us, we owe them," Abbas said. "This debt always is to protect them from assassination, to protect them from killing, and all these things they are subject to by the Israelis."

Have I stepped into some alternate universe? He's even saying that he is against the Israeli pullout of the occupied territories. What next?
Hat tip to Michael Totten.

Iraqi responds

Powerline points out an interesting article by an Iraqi in Front Page Magazine online. Naseer Flayih Hasan has been mystified by the left and peaceniks in Iraq since the beginning of the war.

I asked her how long she’d been in Iraq and, through a translator, she answered, “Three months.”

“So you were here during the war?”

“Yes!” she said. “To see the crimes of the Americans!”

I was stunned. After a moment, I replied, “What about the crimes of the regime? It killed millions of Iraqis. Do you know that if the regime was still in power, the conversation we’re having now would result in our torture or death?”

Her face turned red and she angrily responded, “Soon will come the day that the Americans will do worse.” She then went on to accuse me of not knowing what the true facts were in Iraq—and that she could see the situation better than me!

Perhaps this is the answer:

It’s worth noting, as well, that the general attitude of peace activists I met was tension and anger. They were impossible to reason with. This was because, on one hand, the sometimes considerable risks they took to oppose the war made them unable to accept the fact that their cause was not as noble as they believed. Then, too, their dogmatic anti-American attitudes naturally drew them to guides, translators, drivers and Iraqi acquaintances who were themselves supporters of the regime. These Iraqis, in turn, affected the peace activists until they came to share almost the same judgments and opinions as the terrorists and defenders of Saddam.

Update: I hate the way that copying some text fiddles with my fonts. Sorry about that.

Al Yanukovych

If we aren't careful we might end up feeling like soul mates with the Ukrainians, when one of them feels that when the election doesn't go his way that a nice lawsuit is a morally OK option.

Iraqi Blogger

Totten is asking us to link to this new Iraqi Blogger. So I will. His name is Ali, he lives in Bagdad, and he desperately wants the freedoms he is enjoying now to remain long term.

SE Asia coastline change

At the Tsunami News and Help website I noticed a reference to an article telling about how satellite photos are showing massive coastline damage and change due to the tsunami. I wish I could find some of those pics, but the article only mentions them.

Update: Totten noted in the LA Times that the earthquake moved the entire island of Sumatra about 100 feet to the southwest.
Mike said: Whoa!
I say: Yikes!
Bart says: Eye Carumba!

Local voices on Earthquake

Via Instapundit, visit these sites to get information on what's happening from people who are there.

Malaysian blogger Rajan Rishyakaran is posting numerous updates, with links to bloggers from around the region. And here's more from Indian blogger Nitin Pai.

UPDATE: Historical perspective, from Amit Varma, who remembers the Maharashtra quake of 1993. And Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi has more, and a huge roundup of links to other bloggers in the region. Fellow Malaysian blogger Peter Tan is posting regularly, too, with reports from the affected areas.

World events

Many of you are following the Ukrainian elections, and it seems that, unlike the past couple of U.S. elections, Victor Yushchenko has overwhelmingly won the election. Like the past couple of U.S. elections, the spectre of lawsuits looms over Yushchenko's victory.
The Russian reaction is mixed. Here are the Russians:

One communist newspaper, Pravda, says the result means "the complete loss of our gas and oil export routes to the USA or the European Union". It also voices the fear that Mr Yushchenko's election means "Russia no longer exists as a world-class power". Pravda blames Washington for this.

However, other Russian Centrists ponder the effects of this election on Russia itself.

A writer for business publication Kommersant claims the outcome of Ukraine's political crisis means "the Orange Revolution virus will now spread to Russia".
He writes: "It will not take long to dismantle the new Russian totalitarianism".

Hat tip to Instapundit on the quotes, which are from the BBC.

A giant 9.0 earthquake hit the southeast asian countries this weekend, sending 33 foot tidal waves into many surrounding countries. If any of you don't know what 33 foot tidal waves can do just look at some of the pictures. Tidal waves are not just like bigger versions of the waves you see surfers cruising over. They are longer and the wave might be 33 feet high (think three story building) but also can be thousands of feed wide, so that they just keep coming after the initial hit. I'll try and find some good maps of the devistated area.
Update: Glenn Reynolds has some perspective on Catastrophes, including possible asteroids colliding with the earth. He also has this link-fest for more on the Tsunami and it's after affects. He includes links to agencies that are accepting donations.

Israel released 159 Palestinian Prisoners in an effort of good faith toward the elections that the Palestinians are about to have. Sharon is putting his eggs on an Abbas presidency and possible future peace in that region. They also released some Egyptians in an agreement designed to ease tension with Egypt as well.
This could all fall down like a house of cards if we get into another round of Terrorist bombings and Israel return strikes, so lets hope it doesn't happen and the Abbas can truly lead his people in the creation of a true Palestinian nation. With borders.
There has been some critisizm that the prisoners who have been released are only short timers and would have been released within a year or two anyway as their sentences finished out. That leaves all the long term prisoners, whom Israel fears may be a threat to them, still in prison indefinitely. I am skeptical that Israel needs to release any of these prisoners in order to commute good faith. Those guys ARE a threat to cause violence and derail the whole process. If Abbas is elected and the Palestinians form something of a stable government, then there will be room to talk about releasing other prisoners.

Pakistan and India are moving as slowly as ever on talks about the region of Kashmir. It seems that, although Pakistan has made a lot of talk about compromise, that India is steadfast in it's insistance that it controls the whole of Kashmir and will not change it's mind. I would welcome some perspective that would indicate that India is not the obstinate brat in the room this time.

And, hey, it's just over a month until Iraqi elections. Put your seatbelts on. Trays in locked and upright position. Seatbacks up. Here we go.

Out for Christmas

Sorry about the lack of posting to this blog. I have been reading blogs and the news, but haven't had the time to create anything. Christmas is always a busy time, and this year was no exception. In fact it was one of the busier runs up to Christmas I can remember. It was the actual week before the big day that we finally started to calm down.
Anyway, there is too much in the news for me not to link some and make some comments. Peace be with you all.

In California

Once again the bloggin has been light. I am on business in Fort Bragg, California. If you have never been to this part of the coast I recommend it. The shoreline is rocky and the water breaks hard against the shoreline. This is a part of the coast where the Great Redwoods grow. If you want to see giant redwoods, you need to be a little further north. Fort Bragg is timber country. Georgia Pacific and Menocino Redwood Co have operated here for years, and Fort Bragg was the home to a large GP saw mill for decades. The saw mill is now closed and the land is owned by the Hawthorne Timber co, but the timber culture remains. It is mixed together with a young environmentalist (almost hippy, but that's just because there are still some comunes in the hills) culture that moved up from San Francisco in the 60s. The bars are tucked up next to the health food stores. It's interesting.
But the coast line is some of the most beautiful I know.